Sitting of 24 November 1966

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

  Aberystwyth-Carmarthen Railway Line (Closure)
  Mr. Elystan Morgan: With your permission, Mr. Speaker, and that of the House, I should like to present a Petition which has been signed by nearly 10,000 of my constituents in Cardiganshire. It is a Petition which calls for legislation to be introduced to enable the railway line between Aberystwyth and Carmarthen to be reopened. The Petition shows that this railway, which was closed over two years ago, served a substantial part of the population of East and South Cardiganshire.
  The Petitioners assert that the closure had the general effect of severing a vital link of communication between North-West and South-West Wales. Furthermore, it is claimed that it detrimentally affected the economic development of the area, with regard both to industry and to tourism, in addition to diverting to an already inadequate road system the burdens of traffic formerly borne by the railway in question. The Petitioners submit that the reopening of this railway line will reverse the harm suffered and revitalise the areas concerned. It concludes in the customary way:
  "And your Petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray."
  To lie upon the Table.

ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS
  OVERSEAS DEVELOPMENT

    Lesotho (Aid)
    Mr. Wallasked the Minister of Overseas Development to what degree aid given to Lesotho during the past years has corresponded with the recommendations of the Morse Commission; and whether agreement has been reached with the Government of Lesotho on current aid programmes.
    The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Overseas Development (Mr. Albert E. Oram): Her Majesty's Government's aid has been related to the approved development plans of the former Basutoland Government, who took full account of the Morse Report's recommendations. Over the past seven years, Britain has committed more than £15½ million budgetary and development aid to Lesotho and, as my right hon. Friend informed my hon. Friend the Member for York (Mr. Alexander W. Lyon) on the 24th October [Vol. 734, c. 118], we have offered a further £11 million for the three-year period beginning in April, 1967.
    Mr. Wall: Is it not a fact that this £11 million is mainly for budgetary aid? Will the hon. Gentleman give careful consideration to the request for an additional £1 million a year for development aid, and give particular attention to increasing the amount for the first year?
    Mr. Oram: Two million pounds of the £11 million is for development aid. We are considering representations which have been made by the Lesotho Prime Minister, but I cannot anticipate our reply.

    World Experimental Literacy Programme
    Mr. Juddasked the Minister of Overseas Development what is the extent of British financial assistance to the United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organisation World Literacy Campaign.
    Mr. Oram: I would refer my hon. Friend to the reply I gave to my right

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    hon. Friend the Member for Derby, South (Mr. Philip Noel-Baker) on 19th May—[Vol. 723: c. 296.]. Her Majesty's Government's contribution towards the cost of the World Experimental Literacy Programme in the biennium 1967/68 will be approximately £155,000. In the previous biennium it was £85,000.
    Mr. Judd: Would my hon. Friend not agree that the development of world purchasing powers, which is so essential to our economy, depends on literacy and that we should therefore give all encouragement to this campaign, with, if possible, a special grant, following Persia's example?
    Mr. Oram: I agree about the great importance of this subject, but manpower is as important as money, and we are doing a great deal in the provision of experts. On the question of following Iran's example, my right hon. Friend the present Minister of Housing and Local Government replied to my hon. Friend the Member for Salford, East (Mr. Allaun) on this subject on 14th June.

    Overseas Aid
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenterasked the Minister of Overseas Development (1) how many countries in receipt of aid from this country are still in default in their obligations to British citizens; and which are these countries;
    (2) what steps he is taking to ensure that aid is not given to countries which are in default in their obligations to British citizens; and what steps he has taken to draw to the attention of such countries that it is in their own inerests to honour their obligations.
    Mr. Oram: As regards the countries involved, I have nothing to add to the answer given by my right hon. Friend's predecessor to a Question by the right hon. Gentleman on 9th August.—[Vol. 733: cols. 1361–62.]
    In general, I do not think it profitable to use aid in the way suggested. Of course, in negotiating aid agreements we take into account all relevant factors of which that mentioned in these Questions is one. My right hon. Friends the Foreign Secretary and the Commonwealth Secretary are generally concerned to ensure that obligations to this country are honoured.
    Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: Does the first part of that Answer mean that the hon. Gentleman accepts that it is satisfactory that British taxpayers' money should go to people who have repudiated their obligations to British citizens? Does the hon. Gentleman not accept that it is in the interests of the developing countries that they should build up their credit standing and that we would encourage them more effectively by giving aid to countries such as Malawi, which have scrupulously carried out their obligations, and not to countries which have cynically repudiated them?
    Mr. Oram: The first part of my reply concerned the list of countries involved, and that is all. To answer the second part of the right hon. Gentleman's supplementary question, as I have said, this is one factor that we take into account, but we would not regard it as an absolute rule to withhold aid from such countries.
    Sir F. Bennett: While not laying down absolutely specific rules in this matter of aid, must not the moral obligations of donor countries, if they are to be widely respected, be matched by moral obligations of recipient countries; and is it not only unfair to British taxpayers when this does not happen, but also to those recipient countries who do meet their obligations if they are treated in precisely the same way as those who fail to do so.
    Mr. Oram: I accept a great deal of what the hon. Gentleman says, and my right hon. Friends, in their respective spheres of responsibility, make representations on these matters.
    Mr. Bittenasked the Minister of Overseas Development what revisions of forward expenditure proposals on overseas Government to Government aid are now being undertaken consequential on the abandonment of the National Plan.
    Mr. Goodhartasked the Minister of Overseas Development whether he will make a statement about revisions in the estimates for overseas aid which have now been made following the economic measures of 20th July, 1966.
    Mr. Oram: On changes in the aid programme I would refer to my reply of the 22nd November to the hon. Member

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    for Woking (Mr. Onslow).—[Vol. 736, c. 270.] On the National Plan, I would refer to the Reply of the 10th November by my right hon. Friend the First Secretary to a Question by the hon. Member for Bebington (Mr. Brooks).—[Vol. 735, c. 341–2.]
    Mr. Biffen: These Answers do not contribute very much to our existing knowledge; is the Minister suggesting that aid programmes are related to our expected gross domestic product, and, if so, ought they not now to be revised in the knowledge that the National Plan has been discarded?
    Mr. Oram: The National Plan has not been discarded, and I would again refer the hon. Gentleman to the statement of the First Secretary.
    Mr. Goodhart: Does the Minister recall that, on 20th July, the Prime Minister said that the Government had decided on a firm programme of reducing Government foreign expenditure, military and civil, by £100 million? Does his reply not indicate that in regard to civil expenditure the statement of 20th July was typical and totally misleading?
    Mr. Oram: No, I do not agree at all. As far as aid programmes are concerned, a great number of detailed negotiations are going on with a number of countries, and it is not possible to disclose them at this stage. That is the reason for my answer.
    Mr. Alfred Morris: is there not another important aspect to this question? Would not my hon. Friend agree that the emphasis on the help we give in the future should be much less on bilateral aid and much more on multilateral aid, with special regard to the United Nations Development Fund?
    Mr. Oram: We are entirely with my hon. Friend in principle, but in practice bilateral aid is a more rapid form of aid in many circumstances. Although we want to move as fast as we can to a greater quota of international aid, I foresee that for a considerable time yet bilateral aid will be a major part of our aid programme.

    India (Food Shortage)
    Sir C. Osborneasked the Minister of Overseas Development if he is aware that because of drought, India's food
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    production this year has reached its lowest point, and that the surplus on the 1964–65 crop has become a deficiency; what steps he is taking to assist in overcoming the imminent Indian food crisis; and how much he proposes to spend on such assistance.
    Mr. Onslowasked the Minister of Overseas Development whether he will ensure that any offers of official British aid to India are in future directly linked to the increase of food production in that country.
    Mr. Tilneyasked the Minister of Overseas Development what action he is taking to help India over her lack of foodstuffs, particularly protein.
    Mr. Oram: I have heard with distress of the shortage of food in certain areas of India. I hope shortly to be able to announce further aid to India to complete our pledge for this year. Like that already afforded earlier this year, this aid will be available in a flexible form, best adapted to India's needs, as determined in consultation with the Government of India.
    Sir C. Osborne: That Answer tells us nothing and is worthless. Is the Minister aware that I am asking him what the Government intend to send to these millions of Indians who are on the verge of starvation, what requests have been made by the Indian Government to us and what reply we have given? Will something be done urgently?
    Mr. Oram: We are, of course, in discussion with the Indian Government about our future aid. As I said, we are not in a position to announce what that is at the moment. We have not received specific requests from India in relation to the present food situation.
    Mr. Onslow: Would the hon. Gentleman not agree that the present state of affairs is unsatisfactory, particularly since India has received enormous grants of aid for industrial purposes which have brought no discernible benefit to the vast majority of the population of that country? Will he not make representations to the Indian Government in an effort to see that the money is used to benefit the people of that country?
    Mr. Oram: We are very ready to see that our aid is used for agricultural projects, if the Government of India wish

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    this. However, apart from technical assistance, the Government of India have so far preferred that priority be given to projects of an industrial nature.
    Mr. Tilney: Is it not fair to say that the food position in India would be greatly improved if modern conditions of farming were employed and if new strains of grain were used? Will he look once again into the protein-producing plant which is a British patent but which may be taken over by America?
    Mr. Oram: In answer to the first part of that question, we provide technical assistance for agriculture which takes account of the sort of point the hon. Gentleman has in mind. With regard to the protein-producing plant, the hon. Gentleman has a later Question down on this subject.
    Mr. James Johnson: Will my hon. Friend repudiate what the parsimonious Pecksniffians have said and remind them of the population explosion which has been taking place in South-East Asia, not least in India?

    U.N.E.S.C.O. (Anniversary Celebrations)
    Mr. Maddanasked the Minister of Overseas Development what was the total cost to public funds of the celebration organised by his Department in connection with the twentieth anniversary of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation.
    Mr. Oram: About £3,400, Sir.
    Mr. Maddan: Would the hon. Gentleman explain how that squares with the reports that emanated from his Department, carried in the Sunday Mirror, stating that the sum involved was much more than that amount?
    Mr. Oram: I have no responsibility for inaccuracies in the Press.

    Abu Dhabi (Director of Health)
    Sir Charles Taylorasked the Minister of Overseas Development what request he has received from Sheik Zaid of Abu Dhabi for a director of health for the purpose of establishing a modern medical service in the sheikdom; and what reply he has sent.
    Mr. Oram: The Ruler has asked us to find a director of health. We have made a selection and proposed the candidate to the Ruler.

    Motor Vehicles and Tractors
    Mr. Dalyellasked the Minister of Overseas Development how many motor vehicles and tractors have been given to developing countries as a result of the British aid programme; and what was the value of such equipment.
    Mr. Oram: We can identify at least £11 million in the last three years from grants or loans. There are further cases which cannot be readily identified where, for example, the aid was given for budgetary support.
    Mr. Dalyell: In view of the fact that some of the most desperate needs of India, and for that matter Indonesia, relate to transport, and while acknowledging that the flexible form of aid to which my hon. Friend referred in certain cases is a valid argument, would he give special consideration to the possibility of giving aid from the motor industry?
    Mr. Oram: We have this point very much in mind, but I am sure my hon. Friend appreciates that it is not always an easy matter to match needs with surplus supplies in this country. It is quite a long process between receiving orders from overseas and matching them here, and it is not easy quickly to switch.
    Mr. Dalyellasked the Minister of Overseas Development what study he has made of plans to relate existing British assistance to developing countries to under-used capacity in Great Britain, such as the British Motor Corporation at Bathgate.
    Mr. Oram: The Ministry tries to take account of surplus capacity when planning aid, but, as my right hon. Friend's predecessor informed the House on 8th February in reply to a Question from my hon. Friend the Member for Fife, West (Mr. William Hamilton), [Vol. 724, c. 180–81.] it is not usually practicable to relate credits specifically to surplus capacity.
    Mr. Dalyell: Would my hon. Friend bear in mind the action, to his credit, of the right hon. Member for Barnet (Mr. Maudling) in this matter in 1963? Are

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    we clear that there can be a link between tied aid and under-utilised capacity here? Does he accept the proposition that it may not be a question of tied aid or free aid, which is obviously the more desirable, but aid in the form of products which might come from under-used capacity in this country, or no aid at all?
    Mr. Oram: On the general question of tied aid, a great deal of it is necessarily tied because this is the way in which comparable donors operate. We have tried to bring to their attention the desirability of untying a good deal of it, but this is a matter on which international action is required.
    Rear-Admiral Morgan Giles: In view of that reply, will the Minister give reconsideration to an application for the purchase of buses and mobile training agricultural units required by Rhodesia, and offer them to that country?
    Mr. Oram: If the hon. and gallant Gentleman will give me the particulars of this, I will take it into account.

    "Overseas Development"
    Mr. Onslowasked the Minister of Overseas Development how many of the staff of his Department are directly concerned with the compilation of the bi-monthly journal, "Overseas Development."
    Mr. Oram: Two, Sir, under the general supervision of the Head of Information Department.
    Mr. Onslow: If the Minister must waste public time and money on this form of propaganda, will he make sure that contributions to this magazine are assigned so that their intellectual value can be assessed?
    Mr. Oram: The hon. Gentleman has received Answers to other Questions about this publication. I entirely repudiate his suggestion that this is in any way a wasteful occupation. It is an entirely good publication of which we are proud and for which there is great need.

    Mauritius (Family Planning)
    Mr. James Johnsonasked the Minister of Overseas Development what technical assistance he is giving the
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    Mauritius Government in the field of family planning.
    Mr. Oram: An expert adviser was sent out by the Ministry in 1965 at the request of the Government of Mauritius to survey the problem. A family planning programme has now been introduced and we are trying to recruit an administrator for this programme and two gynaecologists to work under it.
    Mr. Johnson: Will the Minister agree that a population explosion is now imminent in South-East Asia? Will he also agree that the Government of Japan has, in the last decade, changed this by conscious family planning, and will he keep on with his efforts in Mauritius where the population density has reached 1,100 or 1,200 per square mile?
    Mr. Oram: I agree with my hon. Friend about the seriousness of the population explosion, and the Ministry is concerned about this problem. My right hon. Friend is due in a few days' time to attend a Colombo Plan Conference in Karachi on Population Growth and Economic Development.

    Asian Development Bank
    Sir C. Taylorasked the Minister of Overseas Development whom he proposes to nominate, under Article 27 of the Articles of Agreement, to serve as a member of the Board of Governors of the Asian Development Bank; who will be proposed as his alternate; whether the governors nominated by Her Majesty's Government will be instructed how to vote on the appointment of directors, to whom certain wide powers are to be delegated; and what instructions are being given to him.
    Mr. Oram: My right hon. Friend has been designated as British Governor of the Asian Development Bank. His alternate will be a senior official in the Ministry of Overseas Development. The British Governor will, of course, exercise his right to help elect the Directors of the Bank, but it is not the practice of Her Majesty's Government to reveal in advance the way their representatives are instructed to vote in elections in bodies such as this.
    Sir C. Taylor: But has the right hon. Gentleman got the time or, if I may be so bold as to say, the experience to be a

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    Governor of this Bank? Secondly, if he is to be a Governor of the Bank, will he see that the management is divided into small groups so that neighbouring countries can collaborate one with the other? Thirdly, as the total capital of the Bank has now been subscribed, as I understand it has, is the Bank now closed, or can other countries still make application for membership.
    Mr. Speaker: Order. We cannot have a question as long as this.
    Mr. Oram: The second two points raised by the hon. Gentleman are rather different from the Question on the Order Paper, and I would ask him to put a Question down. On the first point, I am sure the whole House has full confidence in my right hon. Friend's capacity to fill this post. Regarding his point about time, I made the point in my original Answer that there is an alternate: a senior official in my Department.

    South Vietnam
    Mr. Goodhartasked the Minister of Overseas Development what assistance the United Kingdom will be giving to South Vietnam in 1967.
    Mr. Oram: Probably between £200,000–£225,000 in value.
    Mr. Goodhart: While welcoming this small increase that is being made this year, is the Minister aware that this is still totally inadequate compared with the need of that particular country? If the administrative difficulties that face our medical team out there can be cleared up, will he press ahead for plans for a teacher-training college in view of the great need for teachers, as so many have been murdered by the Viet Cong?
    Mr. Oram: Funds available for overseas aid next year will necessarily be limited, and South Vietnam has not been a traditional recipient of our aid. We are anxious to concentrate the amount that we do provide on such projects as the children's hospital at Saigon. I assure the hon. Gentleman that the difficulties to which he referred are being cleared up. Indeed, I saw a letter only this morning from Dr. Evans in which he strikes a much happier note.

    Pakistan (Protein)
    Mr. Tilneyasked the Minister of Overseas Development what requests he has had from the Government of Pakistan for provision of a protein producing plant utilising indigenous organic materials such as groundnuts, pulses, and coconuts which have been proven in Great Britain and the products of which are in daily use in Great Britain.
    Mr. Oram: None, Sir.
    Mr. Tilney: Is the Minister aware that negotiations are in progress for this British patented technique to be licensed to a United States contractor with the backing of United States A.I.D. funds? Would it not be possible for us to make an offer of a project of this kind as part of our portion of consortium aid?
    Mr. Oram: It is our practice in matters of this kind to expect the initiative to come from the recipient country; but I will take note of what the hon. Gentleman has said to see what can be done. In principle, we would be willing to help in this.

  ECONOMIC AFFAIRS

    Prices and Incomes
    Mr. St. John-Stevasasked the First Secretary of State and Secretary of State for Economic Affairs whether he will make a statement on the progress of his talks with the Confederation of British Industries and the Trades Union Congress on the criteria for prices and incomes determination during the period of severe restraint.
    The First Secretary of State and Secretary of State for Economic Affairs (Mr. Michael Stewart): The Government published on 22nd November the White Paper on the Period of Severe Restraint (Cmnd. 3150), following full discussion with the Confederation of British Industry and the Trades Union Congress.
    Mr. St. John-Stevas: In view of the White Paper which the Government published on 22nd November, would the First Secretary take the opportunity of finding out what is meant by the phrase in the White Paper "excessive growth in aggregate profits"? Would he not agree

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    that in the present economic situation, a firm, which makes any profit, let alone an excessive one, is more worthy of commendation for its enterprise than censure for its misdemeanours?
    Mr. Stewart: I dealt with this in answer to a question after my statement yesterday. What one must ask oneself about profits is whether this is a genuine reward for enterprise, risk-taking and management. If so, it would not be described as excessive; but where profits are due to charging prices that could not be justified and is not a genuine reward in the way I describe, it would be excessive.
    Mr. A. J. Irvine: Are these talks purely concerned with long-term objectives, including an acceptable method to ensure that the Government's views about the state of the economy are made known and given due weight in the course of wage negotiations between parties?
    Mr. Stewart: The discussions I referred to in the Question were those that led up to the White Paper; but I shall be continuing discussions with both parties of the kind my hon. and learned Friend has in mind.

    Motor Industry
    Mr. Hattersleyasked the First Secretary of State and Secretary of State for Economic Affairs what progress has been made towards the setting up of a National Economic Development Council for the motor industry.
    Mr. M. Stewart: This matter is still under consideration, but the Economic Development Council for motor distribution and repair has now held its first meeting.
    Mr. Hattersley: Does not the First Secretary recall that over six months ago his predecessor agreed that the setting up of a specific National Economic Development Council for the motor manufacturing industry was a matter of some urgency? Can he say whether the delay is a result of the reluctance of motor manufacturers to co-operate with the Government?
    Mr. Stewart: No. My predecessor also said on that occasion, and on other occasions, that there are a good many complicated factors which make it necessary
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    to take great care in this matter, but progress is being made.
    Mr. Christopher Price: Would my right hon. Friend agree that the National Advisory Council for the motor manufacturing industry simply has not got the resources, and has not, through the history we have seen of it, played the part that it could play? Also, the failure of this body makes it more necessary to get a "Little Neddy" going for the manufacturing plant as soon as possible.
    Mr. Stewart: One must recognise that the National Advisory Council has done valuable work, but it would be desirable to have a body which, for example, could concentrate more closely on industrial efficiency, economic planning and contacts with other sectors of industry, and that makes the case for what we are now trying to do.

    Price Increases (Complaints)
    Mr. Winnickasked the First Secretary of State and Secretary of State for Economic Affairs whether he is satisfied that complaints to his Department about price rises are being satisfactorily dealt with; and if he will make a statement.
    The Under-Secretary of State for Economic Affairs (Mr. William Rodgers): Yes, Sir. As I explained in reply to the hon. Member for Belfast, North (Mr. Stratton Mills) on 7th November—[Vol. 735; Col. 230]—specific complaints are dealt with by the Government Department with knowledge of the trade or industry concerned. All letters are acknowledged, and in cases where the increase complained of does not seem justified it is taken up with the trader concerned.
    Mr. Winnick: Would the Under-Secretary consider working more closely with local consumer groups, so that in the constituencies and regions those groups could become a sort of main local complaint bureau for workers and housewives?
    Mr. Rodgers: I entirely agree that local consumer groups have a very important part to play. My hon. Friend may know that my right hon. Friend the First Secretary recently had discussions with the Consumers Association.
    Mrs. Thatcher: Will the hon. Gentleman give a few more facts? Will he

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    say approximately how many complaints have been received; how many have been investigated and found justified, and how many have been investigated and found unjustified?
    Mr. Rodgers: As I said in reply to the hon. Member for Belfast, North, we have received about 6,000 complaints since the First Secretary's statement on 12th September. Many of these complaints are still being followed up, but it would give a quite false impression of the way the process is working and the success we are achieving to give any detailed figures.

    Wages and Salaries
    Mr. Winnickasked the First Secretary of State and Secretary of State for Economic Affairs what sections of employees will be allowed some increases in pay during the period of severe restraint.
    Mr. Marquandasked the First Secretary of State and Secretary of State for Economic Affairs whether he will ensure that, when the present standstill on income and price increases ends in January next year, the incomes policy will be operated in such a way as to narrow the gap between higher- and lower-paid workers.
    Mr. McNamaraasked the First Secretary of State and Secretary of State for Economic Affairs, when he proposes to publish the criteria by which increases in pay will be permitted during the period of severe restraint.
    Mr. M. Stewart: The White Paper Prices and Incomes Policy: Period of Severe Restraint (Cmnd. 3150), published on 22nd November, sets out the criteria for increases in incomes in exceptional cases and on a severely limited scale, including the incomes of lowest-paid workers.
    Mr. Winnick: Would the Minister make quite plain the position of workers in the public services? Will workers in the public services be able to receive increases prior to July, 1967? Will my right hon. Friend agree that there are so many workers in the public services whose pay is so poor that it is only elementary justice that they should be able to receive some increase before the end of severe restraint?
    Mr. Stewart: That is a matter that perhaps merits a separate Question, but I would say that any commitment entered into before 20th July where there is both a fixed operative date and a fixed amount is subject only to six months' deferment. After that, payment begins, and it is payment from that date. That applies equally throughout the public and private services.
    It would also be true to say that, where-ever one finds genuinely comparable situations, they are treated alike in the private and the public sectors. There are, however, instances where, in the public sector, we might get a situation to which there was not a parallel in the private sector and for which we should like to make special provision. It is also open to workers in either the private or the public sector to put forward claims under any of the criteria in the White Paper.
    Mr. Speaker: Order. I hope that we can have reasonably short answers.
    Mr. Marquand: Will my right hon. Friend agree that many of the deferred increases due to come into force in the period of severe restraint concern well and medium-paid workers, and that the productivity agreements which are to be let through also do not give very much help to the lower-paid worker? Will he agree that unless he makes a determined effort to lean over backwards in the interests of the lower-paid workers, the net effect of the period of severe restraint may be to widen the gap between the higher-paid and the lower-paid workers?
    Mr. Stewart: It was with this consideration in mind that it was thought right to put in the criterion concerning lowest-paid workers, but it must be clear that, if the proposal is to be justified on this account, its benefits must be confined to lowest-paid workers.
    Mr. A. Royle: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the working to rule by limb-fitters at Roehampton, due to the Government's policy, is causing great distress to many disabled people, and will he tell the House whether these fitters will be allowed their pay increase under the White Paper which was tabled yesterday?
    Mr. Stewart: That really is a separate Question. That the dispute is causing

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    distress is not in question; the responsibility for it does not lie with the Government.
    Mr. Marquandasked the First Secretary of State and Secretary of State for Economic Affairs what steps he is taking to ensure that no increases take place in the salaries and other emoluments received by top management in the private sector of industry during the current prices and incomes standstill and the period of severe restraint which is to follow, and that thereafter such increases do not exceed whatever norm is then in force for income and price increases.
    Mr. M. Stewart: Both the White Paper on Prices and Incomes Standstill, Cmnd. 3073, and that on Severe Restraint, Cmnd. 3150 published on 22nd November, make it clear that the principles of the standstill and of severe restraint apply equally to all forms of income. Further guidance will be given in due course about the period following that of severe restraint.
    Mr. Marquand: Will my right hon. Friend explain how this sector of industry will be controlled? Further, will he agree that the whole problem of very high rewards in the private sector of industry has repercussions on the public sector, with damaging consequences to the incomes policy, and will he refer the whole question to the Prices and Incomes Board as a matter of long-term consequence to the incomes policy?
    Mr. Stewart: I will consider that last point. As to the earlier part of my hon. Friend's supplementary question, we should notice both the existence of these statutory powers and the fact of the wide measure of voluntary co-operation that has so far been achieved.
    Mr. David Howell: How should the incomes policy be controlled for those workers who do not have the bad luck to be in unions?
    Hon. Members: Don't be silly.
    Mr. Stewart: I do not accept, and I do not think that anyone would accept, the implications of that question—[interruption.]—but, of course, both the enforcement through voluntary cooperation and the use of statutory powers
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    could apply whether workers are in unions or not.
    Mr. Michael Foot: In pursuit of the principle enshrined in the Question, has my right hon. Friend been able to inquire whether the members of the Board of Governors of the Bank of England, who have been lecturing the rest of us about keeping wages down, have had any increase in their wages for the past six or eight months?
    Mr. Stewart: That supplementary question does go a bit wider than the Question on the Order Paper.
    Mrs. Thatcher: Will not the right hon. Gentleman agree that if extra merit, skill and responsibility are not linked with increases, the long-term prospects of British industry will be very precarious indeed?
    Mr. Stewart: That is so general a proposition that no one could dispute it, but during the period of severe restraint I think that everyone has to ask himself not what income he thinks he deserves but whether he is keeping in mind the restraints that are being applied to others as well as himself.

    National Plan
    Mr. Bittenasked the First Secretary of State and Secretary of State for Economic Affairs by what method the statistical data of the revised National Plan will be collected and evaluated; and when the plan will be published.
    Mr. M. Stewart: I have at present nothing to add to the Answer I gave on 10th November to my hon. Friend the Member for Bebington (Mr. Brooks).—[Vol. 735; c. 341–2.]
    Mr. Biffen: But would not the First Secretary agree that experience indicates that the preparation of the National Plan is a time-consuming and not obviously successful enterprise, and would the Government, therefore, think long and hard before embarking on any such further plans?
    Mr. Stewart: When the hon. Gentleman asks that question he shows himself to be very much out of touch with opinion in industry. It was made clear at the last meeting of the National

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    Economic Development Council that the members firmly believed in the principle of planning, and it is after consultations with the N.E.D.C. that we shall be able to decide how to proceed from now on.
    Mr. Macleod: Can the right hon. Gentleman yet tell us, however, whether he intends to proceed once more by the questionnaire method when the time comes to produce a new version?
    Mr. Stewart: That is one of the things on which I want discussions in the N.E.D.C.

    National Productivity Conference
    Mr. Archerasked the First Secretary of State and Secretary of State for Economic Affairs whether he will now state the date of the National Productivity Conference.
    Mr. M. Stewart: The National Economic Development Council will be advising about reconvening the Conference held in September. The House will be informed when a decision has been reached.
    Mr. Archer: Does my right hon. Friend recollect that the Prime Minister told the House on 1st November that the Conference recommended in September that it should be re-convened in three or four months' time? Would he agree that the time to exchange ideas on productivity is not at the end of the period of severe restraint but now?
    Mr. Stewart: The Conference held in September agreed that the National Economic Development Council should advise on the re-convening. We shall await the Council's advice.

    European Economic Community
    Mr. Bruce-Gardyneasked the First Secretary of State and Secretary of State for Economic Affairs what discussions he has had or intends to have with Common Market Ministers concerned with planning regarding the freedom of individual member countries within the Common Market to plan their own economies.
    Mr. M. Stewart: None, Sir, but this is one of the aspects of our membership of the Community which my right hon. Friends will have in mind in their forthcoming
    1578
    discussions with the European Economic Community Governments.
    Mr. Bruce-Gardyne: Would the First Secretary of State agree that, in view of the virtual collapse of the Governments own planning policies signified by the interment of the National Plan, it might be better to drop this as one of the Labour Party's conditions for entry to the Common Market altogether?
    Mr. Stewart: No. As I said to one of the hon. Member's hon. Friends just now, he has got it all wrong. This is an important condition.

    Montreal Conference
    Mr. Martenasked the First Secretary of State and Secretary of State for Economic Affairs if he will make a statement on the Montreal Conference in mid-November, attended by representatives of his Department, on a North Atlantic Free Trade Area.
    Mr. William Rodgers: At the invitation of the Private Planning Association of Canada, I attended part of the Conference which was on "Canada and the Atlantic Economic Community" and gave an address on the Government's policy on international trading arrangements and on European economic relations.
    Mr. Marten: Can the Minister say whether this North Atlantic Free Trade Area is a starter? What effect would our entry into the Common Market have on any such proposal? Is there to be another meeting?
    Mr. Rodgers: The Government's view on the whole question of international trading relations and on our relations with the Common Market and on prospects, if such there are, for a North Atlantic Free Trade Area were made very clear in the debate last week.

    Regional Planning Councils
    Dr. Grayasked the First Secretary of State and Secretary of State for Economic Affairs whether he will now bear the territorial factor in mind when nominating replacements to regional planning councils so that some constituencies do not remain unrepresented.
    Mr. William Rodgers: We are satisfied that the present arrangement by which

    1579
    members are appointed as individuals, not as representatives of particular places or territorial interests, is the best.
    Dr. Gray: Is my hon. Friend aware that the constituency of Yarmouth is not represented on the East Anglia Planning Council? Does he not agree that the proposals made for physical planning would be greatly improved if the planners could receive advice from individuals who know the area at first hand?
    Mr. Rodgers: The Economic Planning Council was set up precisely for this purpose. It is composed of people from East Anglia who know the region very well and they are always very happy to receive representations from anybody who cares to get in touch with them.

  BOARD OF TRADE

    Stink Bombs
    Mr. Miscampbellasked the President of the Board of Trade what conclusions he has reached as the result of the consideration he has given to the manufacture and sale of stink bombs in Great Britain; and what proposals he has to restrict their use.
    The Minister of State, Board of Trade (Mr. George Darling): I share the hon. Member's views on this matter but I think he is aware that we have no powers under which the manufacture or sale of these things could be prohibited. I am however considering with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Home Affairs, whether any measures should be taken to deal with this nuisance.
    Mr. Miscampbell: While grateful for the information that the right hon. Gentleman is considering the matter, may I ask if he will now urgently take powers to stop the unmitigated nuisance of these things being let off in public places?
    Mr. Darling: I think the hon. Member might leave this to the discussions we are having with my right hon. Friend.

    Cutlery
    Mr. Currieasked the President of the Board of Trade what steps have been taken with a view to limiting the import of cutlery into the United Kingdom from Hong Kong; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Darling: None, Sir; I am acutely aware that the cutlery industry in the United Kingdom is concerned about this matter. A good proportion of the manufacturers are located in my constituency and I am shortly to meet representatives of the industry to hear their views.
    Mr. Currie: Knowing his constituency interest in this matter—and I also have such an interest—will the right hon. Gentleman try to assist in arriving with the industry—manufacturers and importers in Hong Kong—at agreement aimed at some limitation? Is he aware that the agreement reached with Japan has worked very well for the industry? Will he try to get a similar agreement here?
    Mr. Darling: Yes, this will be one of the matters we shall be discussing, but it should be borne in mind that imports of cutlery from all sources are increasing. Therefore, the talks I hope will go wider than merely talking about Hong Kong.
    Mr. Biffen: Does the hon. Gentleman expect these imports to rise on account of the removal of the import surcharge?
    Mr. Darling: I do not think so.

  RHODESIA
  Mr. Wallasked the Prime Minister what further correspondence he has had with Commonwealth and United Nations authorities about the Rhodesian situation.
  The Prime Minister (Mr. Harold Wilson): We are in constant touch with our Commonwealth colleagues and our representative at the United Nations, Sir
  Mr. Wall: Will not reference to the United Nations involve us in economic war with South Africa? Will the Prime Minister say what effect this would have on the British economy? What advice has he received from the Governor about the effect of United Nations intervention?
  The Prime Minister: The hon. Member had better wait to see what happens, because my right hon. Friend is on his way this afternoon to Rhodesia. Anxieties about the South African position are one of the things we fully discussed with Commonwealth colleagues at the

  1581
  Commonwealth Prime Minister's Conference and I think that on this question they showed a high degree of responsibility and understanding, as on the whole question of the Rhodesian issue, which I wish hon. Members opposite would also show.
  Mr. Sandysasked the Prime Minister whether he will make a statement on Rhodesia.
  The Prime Minister: I have, as yet, nothing to add to the statement I made to the House yesterday. [Vol. 736, c. 1401.]
  Mr. Sandys: As this may be the last opportunity, may I ask the Prime Minister whether he does not feel that the time has now come to make a compromise settlement based on the realities of the situation?
  The Prime Minister: Any suggestion that we could support will take full account of the realities of the situation, and has done so. What I am not prepared to do—nor was the right hon. Gentleman until October, 1964—is to compromise with principles.
  Mr. Winnick: Is the Prime Minister aware that many people in this country feel that the illegal régime are spinning out the process as long as possible in order to avoid a final decision being taken by Britain to take the matter to the United Nations? Will my right hon. Friend confirm quite clearly today that under no circumstances shall we adopt the cowardly and despicable line of the Tories on this issue?
  The Prime Minister: I do not think that we shall solve this problem with epithets. It is much too serious a problem. In any case, I do not know what the line of the Tories is on it—whether it is cowardice, whether it is despicable behaviour or any other epithet—because they have not condescended to tell us, though they will soon have to do so. I am aware that many people in this country feel, obviously including my hon. Friend, that the régime there are trying to postpone coming to a decision. I think that we have given them a very great deal of time to make up their minds, because they had the first chance to talk in January. My right hon. Friend was there
  1582
  late in September. They know perfectly that neither we, nor world opinion, nor the Commonwealth, can wait indefinitely. On the time-table, I confirm what I said yesterday, that we stand by the communiqué issued after the Commonwealth Prime Ministers' Conference.

  VIETNAM
  Mr. Dribergasked the Prime Minister what exchanges he has had with the President of the United States of America since the President's Asian tour; and if, in view of the risk of the escalation of the war in Vietnam, he will urge the President once more to suspend the bombing of North Vietnam and at the same time renew his invitation to the Soviet Government to join with Her Majesty's Government in reconvening the Geneva Conference.
  The Prime Minister: Her Majesty's Government are in frequent touch with both the American and Soviet authorities about the situation in Vietnam, but I have no specific report to make to the House at present.
  Mr. Driberg: While all of us wish the Foreign Secretary well in his mission to Moscow, may I ask if the Prime Minister would not agree that peace offers may seem rather less plausible to Hanoi if simultaneously more and more American troops are poured into South Vietnam?
  The Prime Minister: I welcome what my hon. Friend said about the Foreign Secretary. The House will know that the Foreign Secretary is now staying a little longer in Moscow for further meetings tomorrow morning. I do not think I had better add to what I have said, but of course my hon. Friend will recognise that last year there was a very extensive bombing pause which unfortunately did not receive reciprocation in any form either in terms of a willingness to attend the conference table or to stop infiltration from North Vietnam to South Vietnam and, for this reason, did not produce the results which many of us hoped that it might.
  Lord Balniel: As the Prime Minister knows, Britain was not represented at the Manila Conference. Can he say whether, in view of this country's interest in this part of the world, it is his

  1583
  intention to press for British representation at any future Asian summit meeting? If so, how is he setting about achieving this?
  The Prime Minister: We were represented in Canberra at the meeting of S.E.A.T.O. in discussions with Australia, New Zealand and the United States. The reason why we were not represented at Manila was that we have not got troops in Vietnam. This is considered Government policy, but if the noble Lord thinks we should have troops there perhaps one day he will say so.
  Mr. Bob Brown: Does not my right hon. Friend agree that there must be a better chance of a bombing pause in Vietnam, or anywhere else, if the atmosphere is cool? If so, would it not be a good thing to try to prevail on the American Government at least to have a Christmas truce?
  The Prime Minister: We were successful, with others, in prevailing on the American Government for a Christmas truce last year and as a result partly of our representations and my discussions with the President last December this was extended for very many weeks, because we thought it right that it should go on long enough for the parties in Vietnam to realise what was at issue. The reaction was disappointing, but I think there has been a suggestion already from the American Government that they are willing to agree to a Christmas truce this year.

  EUROPEAN ECONOMIC COMMUNITY
  Mr. Sandysasked the Prime Minister whether he will make a statement on the question of Great Britain's entry into the Common Market.
  Sir G. de Freitasasked the Prime Minister whether he will now make a statement on United Kingdom relations with the European Economic Community and with the other countries of the European Free Trade Association.
  The Prime Minister: I would refer the right hon. Gentleman and my hon. Friend to my statement of 10th November [Vol. 735, c. 1539] and to my speech in the debate on 17th November [Vol. 736, c. 759].
  Mr. Sandys: If I may strike a less controversial note, may I ask the Prime Minister whether he realises that, although it perhaps was not as positive as some would have liked, nevertheless his statement last week has been well received on the Continent, and there is a general readiness to accept his statement that he means business?
  The Prime Minister: Yes, Sir. I should like to thank the right hon. Gentleman for what he said and how he said it, as I did for his first off-the-cuff reaction, which was very similar, when I made the original statement. On my usual principle of answering every question that is put to me in the spirit in which it is put, I should very much like to thank the right hon. Gentleman for what he said.
  Sir G. de Freitas: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the Standing Committee of the Assembly of the Council of Europe is very pleased indeed that he will be speaking to it in January? Is he aware further that he will be the first British Prime Minister who has done so?
  The Prime Minister: Since my hon. Friend is the second Member of the House who has been President of the Assembly, I am grateful for his invitation. I hope that he will be satisfied with what I say when I get there. I hope that, in order to keep up the momentum to which the right hon. Member for Streatham (Mr. Sandys) referred a fortnight ago, we shall have made some progress with our consultations, in addition to the E.F.T.A. talks, before I reach Strasbourg.
  Mr. Biggs-Davison: While welcoming all business the Prime Minister means to do in the interests of Britain, may I ask him whether it is not his personal view, and whether he has not expressed this view in the House, that the Nassau Agreement had something to do with the failure of the Brussels negotiations? Will he therefore reconsider what he has said about not wishing to bring the question of the future defence of Europe into his discussions with France and with other members of the European Economic Community?
  The Prime Minister: I explained at least three times in the debate last week

  1585
  —I think that the hon. Gentleman misunderstood what I said in answer to a question; it might have been my fault just as much as his—that joining the European Economic Community does not carry with it the implication that we should join a defence community. I did not say that we should not be talking about defence. In the bilateral talks this question will come up.
  With regard to the re-negotiation of Nassau, I thought that it was implicit in the speech of the Leader of the Opposition last week, since he now recognises the effect Nassau had on the previous negotiations, that it is his policy now to de-negotiate Nassau, which I seem to remember was one of the big issues in the 1964 election.

  UNOFFICIAL STRIKES AND TRADE DISPUTES
  Sir C. Osborneasked the Prime Minister if he will appoint an additional Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Labour to deal specifically with unofficial strikes and trade disputes.
  The Prime Minister: No, Sir.
  Sir C. Osborne: How does the Prime Minister propose to strengthen the authority of responsible trade union leaders against the shop stewards, who seem to be mostly responsible for the wildcat strikes which are doing so much harm to British industry?
  The Prime Minister: The hon. Gentleman is right that many of the recent disputes, which have been deplored in all parts of the House, have been against the advice of the responsible trade union leaders, but I think that he is wrong in his general slur on shop stewards, because by far the greater proportion of shop stewards in this country are as responsible as the trade union leaders—[Interruption.]—even some of the Tory ones, yes. The position has been, I think, that some of these very costly unofficial strikes have been led neither by trade union leaders, nor by shop stewards, but by unofficial elements. I agree with the hon. Gentleman that we cannot afford any of them.

  EUROPEAN ECONOMIC COMMUNITY AND EUROPEAN FREE TRADE ASSOCIATION
  Mr. Hefferasked the Prime Minister whether, in view of the fact that the European Economic Community countries have not replied to an approach by the European Free Trade Association governments for joint talks, Her Majesty's Government will now abandon the proposal, or whether they will make renewed efforts.
  The Prime Minister: Her Majesty's Government are not the only Government concerned in this question, which is of the kind which European Free Trade Association Heads of Government will have before them when they meet on 5th December.
  Mr. Heffer: Would my right hon. Friend make it quite clear that in fact our Government are trying to get an agreement between the two sets of Governments so that we can have a basis for a much wider Europe than is envisaged by the present Community?
  The Prime Minister: That was the purpose of the initiative we took at Vienna in May, 1965, with the full support of our E.F.T.A. colleagues. I myself would not be too greatly disheartened by the fact that that initiative did not receive any warm response from the E.E.C. countries, because, as is well known, the E.E.C. was going through a very difficult, and indeed dangerous, period for several months from then on. I think all of us have noted with satisfaction that those particular difficulties of the E.E.C. have now been overcome. The purpose of the Conference a week on Monday here in London is to see how far we can co-ordinate our activities on the question of our individual approaches to Europe.

  TRIBUNALS OF INQUIRY (REPORT)
  Mr. Martenasked the Prime Minister what action he proposes to take on the report of the Royal Commission on Tribunals of Inquiry.
  The Prime Minister: I have as yet nothing to add to the Answer I gave

  1587
  on 10th November to a similar Question by my hon. Friend the Member for Brixton (Mr. Lipton).—[Vol. 735, c. 353.]
  Mr. Marten: I recognise that the Government must have time to consider these recommendations, but would the Prime Minister consider whether he might not expedite those recommendations which relate to the production of witnesses at these tribunals, particularly in relation to the Mountbatten Inquiry on the escape of George Blake, because this arose in the Bossard case?
  The Prime Minister: As the hon. Member recalls, hon. Members in all parts of the House had some anxieties about the way in which these tribunals were run. That was why the Government appointed the Royal Commission. It is a very valuable Report. We are considering it. I certainly agree that, in view of what is currently going on, urgency should be given to looking at the question of witnesses, though the hon. Gentleman will be aware that the Mount-batten Inquiry is not a tribunal under the 1921 Act.
  Mr. Lipton: In view of the very important issues involved, which affect the liberty of the subject, will the Prime Minister do everything in his power to expedite some kind of decision by the Government on the findings of this Inquiry?
  The Prime Minister: Yes; I will certainly do it as quickly as possible. It may be that we could reach a conclusion on some of these ahead of others. For example, in the case of the Aberfan Inquiry, the Government announced in advance, instead of waiting for a report by the tribunal after the tribunal ended, that we were prepared to provide public money to ensure that relatives of those who had been killed could be collectively represented. This was a big change from previous practice. We have studied the Report in the light of the Aberfan Inquiry which is now sitting. As I explained to the House when I moved the Resolution setting up the Aberfan Inquiry, we must take the law as it is and not as it might be when the House has had time to digest the Royal Commission's Report.

  WORLD FOOD SHORTAGE
  Mr. Dodds-Parkerasked the Prime Minister whether, in view of the growing world food shortage, he will take the initiative to call a Commonwealth Agricultural and Food Conference.
  The Prime Minister: The whole House, I know, shares the hon. Member's concern about the world food problem but, since the problem is already being vigorously tackled on a fully international basis by the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations and by a number of other international bodies, I do not think that a special conference, whether on a Commonwealth or world basis, would help.

  LORD PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL (SPEECH)
  Sir G. Nabarroasked the Prime Minister whether the public speech made by the Lord President of the Council at Sheffield on Saturday 19th November, 1966, about the Government's economic measures of 20th July, 1966, represents Government policy.
  Mr. William Hamiltonasked the Prime Minister if the public speech made by the Lord President of the Council at Sheffield on 19th November concerning the effects of the current economic policies on production represents Government policy.
  The Prime Minister: Yes, Sir.
  Sir G. Nabarro: As I cannot have two supplementary Questions, I address myself only to Question No. 11. Is it not the fact that the Lord President said in Sheffield that the Prime Minister's statement of 20th July contained economic and financial measures which were too drastic? Is that the Prime Minister's view today, and, if so, how does he reconcile it with this morning's publication of a figure of 541,000 unemployed, before we have even entered the winter season?
  The Prime Minister: The hon. Gentleman can have, under the rules, only one supplementary, and perhaps it is as well, because obviously in framing the supplementary he had not read the speech of my right hon. Friend.
  Sir G. Nabarro: I read every word of it.
  The Prime Minister: I happened to read every word of it through the courtesy of my right hon. Friend, which I mentioned on Tuesday, in showing it to me in advance. I read and agreed with every word of it. I cannot teach the hon. Gentleman how to react politically to any situation. Still less, apparently, can I teach him to read.
  Mr. Hamilton: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the speech of my right hon. Friend the Lord President was a very excellent contribution to the current difficulties in which the country finds itself? [Interruption.] Nevertheless, can he give an assurance that the deflation will not get as deep as it did in the winter of 1962–63 when the unemployed in Scotland alone totalled 136,000?
  The Prime Minister: I think that my hon. Friend will not mind my saying that what he really meant was that my right hem. Friend's speech was a contribution not to our economic difficulties but to the solution of those difficulties. Her Majesty's Government's position has been stated by my right hon. Friends and myself both in relation to the date at which there could be any easing up on the general situation and as to the measures which can be taken now in the matter of encouragement of investment. As regards the position in Scotland, which we are watching, as the whole House will, with great care and concern, the unemployment figure there is still a good deal less than it was in November, 1963, as well as in November, 1962.
  Mr. Gresham Cooke: As the Prime Minister has previously stated that he takes full responsibility for the effects of his measures of 20th July, and as unemployment has now reached, as my hon. Friend said, 541,000, at what figure of unemployment does he now intend to reintroduce inflation?
  The Prime Minister: Of course, I take full responsibility. My difficulty this afternoon is not in giving answers but in trying to tell hon. Members what supplementary questions they wanted to put.
  Mr. Speaker: Ambiguity is not out of order.
  The Prime Minister: I did not think that there was any ambiguity, Mr. Speaker. Certainly the hon. Gentleman is on a much more serious point. Of course, I take full responsibility for the measures which I announced on 20th July. I said on that occasion that after redeployment we regarded the figure which I then gave as a figure which would be acceptable and should not be exceeded until we were able to start a position of reflation, once we are paying our way. But I believe that, while there is a great deal of redeployment still going on, we are certainly not in a period of post-redeployment and, while these figures today are heavily inflated by the effect of the unofficial strike in North Oxford—very heavily inflated—we shall watch the figures very carefully indeed. But it would be inimical to everything we are trying to do, including the fight against inflation, if we now rushed precipitately to put into reverse the measures which I think the country as a whole recognised were necessary in July.
  Mr. Buchan: Is not my right hon. Friend aware that very many of us on this side of the House approve entirely of what my right hon. Friend the Lord President said, and furthermore would like to see the kind of action indicated in that speech? The time has now surely come to introduce selective and far-reaching measures of reflation.
  The Prime Minister: Since my hon. Friend agrees with my right hon. Friend and I agree with my right hon. Friend, obviously my hon. Friend and I are in agreement. What was said by my right hon. Friend about selective reflation in terms of encouragement of investment is what I said at the meeting of the Productivity Conference two months ago, and this is the basis on which we should be concentrating our endeavours at this stage.
  Mr. Lubbock: Is the Prime Minister aware that, while we welcome any measures the Government take to encourage investment, we also think—and this view is generally held by economists, trade unions and managers throughout the country—that the measures taken so far, including those of 20th July, have gone much too far and that there should

  1591
  be some relaxation, for example of hire-purchase regulations, Bank Rate and credit restrictions generally?
  The Prime Minister: It is not usual to discuss movements of Bank Rate in the House. On the hon. Gentleman's other question about hire purchase, when he reflects I think that he will feel that to take precipitate action to restimulate consumer expenditure at this stage would be the wrong way, and would simply be a telescoping of the old stop-go policy of waiting two or three years and then putting back the same measures. I think that it would be very defeatist to assume that British industry, knowing that it can now get investment goods much more easily because of the freeing of labour and capacity, will take the craven line about the future and will not this time try to increase its investment.
  Several Hon. Members—
  Mr. Speaker: Mr. Heath—Business Question.
  Mr. Heath: The Lord President of the Council said in his speech—
  Mr. Speaker: Order. I thought that the Leader of the Opposition was going to ask the Business Question. I call him now to ask a supplementary question.
  Sir G. Nabarro: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I beg leave—[HON. MEMBERS: "No."]
  Mr. Speaker: Mr. Heath—supplementary question.
  Mr. Heath: The Lord President said in his speech, which both the Prime Minister and I have read, that the level of unemployment was being shaped by the measures the Government took on 20th July and was being planned in this way. What the House and country want to know in this serious situation is exactly what the Government have shaped and planned for unemployment in the future. That is the first thing they want to know. Secondly, will the Prime Minister put before the House the evidence he has of the redeployment going into manufacturing industry, because all the evidence the Press has produced shows that it is redeployment into the service industries and not into the manufacturing industries which produces exports?
  The Prime Minister: On the first question, I have nothing to add to the figures and estimates I gave and the policy laid down in answer to supplementary questions on 20th July. With regard to the second question, I am sure that in the forthcoming economic debate for which the right hon. Member for Enfield, West (Mr. Iain Macleod) asked earlier this week, it will be possible to speak more fully about the redeployment. B.M.C. is the firm that is far worse hit than any other motor car firm, and there may be lessons to be drawn from that about the employment practices and other practices of different firms. In the case of B.M.C.—which is a bit surprising in all that has happened—the studies I have made of the 12,000-odd which it was intended to put off, show that something like 4,000 are not yet redeployed—[Interruption.]—They are not yet redeployed. I want to come to that next. I am talking globally at the moment. These are early days for getting the redeployment into work of one kind or another. With regard to the actual places in which redeployment occurs, we do not know about those who have found their own work, many of whom have gone into manufacturing. To our knowledge—I am drawing on my memory here and I can correct this next week if I am wrong—I would say that something like 60 or 70 per cent.—I think that it is in fact 55 per cent.—have gone into manufacturing industry and 30 per cent. have gone into services, but those services include basic services such as transport and public transport.
  Several Hon. Members—
  Mr. Speaker: Order. We are well past Question Time. Mr. Heath—Business Question.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
Mr. Heath: May I ask the Leader of the House to state the business of the House for next week?
The Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. Richard Crossman): Yes, Sir. The business for next week will be as follows:
MONDAY, 28TH NOVEMBER—Debate on a Motion to take note of the First and

1593
Second Reports from the Committee of Public Accounts, 1966–67.
TUESDAY, 29TH NOVEMBER—Progress on the remaining stages of the London Government Bill.
WEDNESDAY, 30TH NOVEMBER—Debate on Economic Affairs.
THURSDAY, 1ST DECEMBER—Supply [5th Allotted day]: Committee, when the debate on Economic Affairs will be concluded.
Second Reading of the Bus Fuel Grants Bill.
FRIDAY, 2ND DECEMBER—Private Members' Bills.
MONDAY, 5TH DECEMBER—The proposed business will be: Supply [6th Allotted day]: Committee.
Mr. Heath: First, can the Leader of the House give us any more information yet about the possible timing of a statement on Rhodesia and the debate to follow it which has been promised?
Second, on the London Government Bill, set down for Tuesday, as a good many Amendments have been tabled, I do not see how it can be completed in the one day which the Leader of the House has allotted to it.
Third, on Orders under the Prices and Incomes Act, the right hon. Gentleman will remember that we put to him that we attached great importance to these and we asked that they should come as the first Order of the Day. The Leader of the House said that he would discuss this through the usual channels, which he has done, but he has not been able to meet us on the question of the particular Order regarding laundry prices. There are other very important Orders on the Order Paper. Will he reconsider this matter and give an assurance that those to which we attach great importance will be taken as the first Order of the Day?
Mr. Crossman: On Rhodesia, all I can say is that we expect a statement by the Prime Minister early next week. I think that we ought to consult through the usual channels the moment we have that statement to see when the debate should take place.
On the London Government Bill, we are, perhaps, a little more optimistic
1594
than the Leader of the Opposition is. We had better see how we go, and we might discuss it afterwards.
On the Orders, I recognise the difficulty. There are really two groups, and there might be some other Orders as well coming along. On the Prices and Incomes Orders, we have to bear in mind that next week we are to have a two-day debate on economic affairs, when the issue can be discussed all over again. I think that we ought to see the Orders more in proportion in relation to that debate and the two days to be devoted to it, and we can, I think, regard them as normal business for after 10 o'clock.
Mr. Heath: We cannot take a general debate on economic affairs as being a substitute for a debate on particular Orders laid by the Government. We must press the Leader of the House that, when these Orders are of importance, the Government should give time for them to be taken as the first Order of the Day and not late at night, after other business.
Mr. Crossman: This is a matter which we ought to consider, and I shall certainly discuss it through the usual channels, but my present view is that the issues involved in the Orders will undoubtedly be in order during those two days. This seems to me to be the point we ought to bear in mind.
Sir B. Janner: Has my right hon. Friend's attention been drawn to Motion No. 269, put down by my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, North-East (Mrs. Renée Short) and signed by many other hon. Members, including myself? In view of the very serious situation which has arisen in Germany, in spite of the denials of the neo-Nazi party there that it has no sinister intents, will my right hon. Friend see that we have an early debate, because precisely the same kind of statement was put out by the Nazis when they came into power, with disastrous results for civilisation?
[That this House, gravely concerned at the evidence of the rise of neo-Nazism in West Germany in the recent elections in Hesse and Bavaria, calls upon Her Majesty's Government to seek urgent discussions with the Governments of France, the Soviet Union and the United States of America with a view to making

1595
joint representations to the West German Government about ways and means of dealing with the Nazi threat.]
Mr. Crossman: I agree with my hon. Friend that anyone who remembers the events of the 1920s, when the Nazis were a negligible party in precisely that part of Bavaria, has a very macabre feeling of seeing what looks like history repeating itself. But I do not think that one should jump to that conclusion.
We are to have, I believe, a two-day debate on foreign affairs, and this would seem to me to be a suitable subject for that occasion. On the particular proposal which is made in the Motion for dealing with this problem, it does not seem that that is the only or the right way of solving it.
Sir G. Nabarro: Has the Leader of the House observed that he has carefully and calculatedly arranged the debate on economic affairs on next Wednesday and Thursday at times to coincide precisely with the immersion of 12 Tories upstairs in Standing Committee D, each one of whom would wish to take part in this important debate but who will be tied in that Committee from 4 p.m. till 10 p.m., or later, on each of those days? Is not this a deliberate and undemocratic attempt to muzzle my hon. Friends and myself?
Mr. Crossman: If it were deliberate, it would be a deliberate act of co-operation between the usual channels, because one of the days, the second day, belongs to the Opposition.
Mr. Orme: Many of us on this side welcome the announcement of the economic debate next week because we shall then be able to discuss the seriously deteriorating economic situation, but will the debate also cover the new White Paper on severe restraint, or when are we to have that discussed?
Mr. Crossman: That will be in order. The debate will range wide because we shall not have a Motion on the first day. I do not yet know how the Opposition will use their time, but I would suggest, with your consent, Mr. Speaker, that the debate will certainly cover the White Paper.
Sir T. Beamish: Will the right hon. Gentleman give an assurance that the
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House will not be rushed into a debate on Rhodesia until the White Paper has been available for study for at least three or four days, and also give an assurance that there will be no reference of any aspect of this situation to the United Nations until the White Paper has been debated in both Houses?
Mr. Crossman: We had better wait until we have the statement next week, and we had better discuss through the usual channels what is the best way of reconciling all the interests concerned in getting the right time for the debate. I am not absolutely sure that the Opposition have made up their mind when would be the most favourable moment for a debate. I think that we could find that out more easily next week when we have heard the statement.
Mr. Heath: The Leader of the House has given very specific undertakings to the House on this matter already, and I am sure that there cannot be any question of moving away from those undertakings. We made our position quite clear in previous exchanges across the Floor. Of course, we want to hear the Prime Minister's statement and see the White Paper before we can actually settle the time of a debate.
Mr. Crossman: If we can fix a debate, we shall certainly fix it at a time in accordance with all the pledges I have made. I have said that perfectly clearly.
Mr. Alfred Morris: Can my right hon. Friend tell us what has happened to the censure debate on the Government's attitude to free enterprise which the Opposition were talking about with so much huff and puff about a fortnight ago.
Mr. Crossman: It was a debate which both sides of the House were looking forward to. No doubt, the Opposition will choose another day to put it down and once more give us the opportunity.
Mr. Webster: On the subject of huff and puff, will the Leader of the House give greater facilities for the Minister of Transport to answer Questions, as there were 85 Oral Questions down to her yesterday which remained unanswered orally and she has a preference for making statements outside the House rather than in it?
Mr. Crossman: If the hon. Gentleman is serious about that, I can assure him that the question of the order and arrangement of Questions is one which we settle for the convenience of the House. I am prepared to consider this through the usual channels.
Mr. Rose: Will my right hon. Friend bear in mind that there has been no debate in the House on sporting and recreational facilities since December. 1964, and will he provide time—at least one full day—for a debate on the last annual Report of the National Sports Council?
Mr. Crossman: This is a subject on which there is some demand in the House, but I suggest that it is also a subject on which private Members might well use their enterprise and initiative to get some time for themselves on it.
Mr. G. Campbell: Will the Leader of House consider moving from Wednesday to Monday Questions either to himself or the Attorney-General, because both Ministers are receiving a great many at present, thus seriously reducing the number answered by Ministers at the top of the list? Will he keep in mind particularly the fact that Ministers answering at No. 35 on a Monday are receiving few Questions and one of them, the Paymaster-General, gives a very short answer?
Mr. Crossman: I am always prepared to consider the organisation of Question Time in order to improve it for the convenience of hon. Members.
Mr. Hugh Jenkins: Will my right hon. Friend answer two questions? First, when may we expect to see the Bill on leasehold reform? Second, will he consider Motion No. 244 on the Order Paper, on the Report of the Monopolies Commission on Films, and give time for a debate on this important subject?
[That this House, having considered the report of the Monopolies Commission on Films, notes the findings that a monopoly exists and that it operates against the public interest, and urges the Government to follow the logic of these findings which the Commission itself has failed to do and to serve the public interest by taking sufficent powers of control and/or share of ownership in the industry to free it from domination by the Rank/ABC monopoly.]
Mr. Crossman: On the second point, the Report of the Monopolies Commission
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on Films, I do not see an immediate prospect of a debate. On leasehold reform, the Bill is advancing very nicely and it will be published in due course.
Mr. Ridsdale: Will the Leader of the House—
Mr. Hugh Jenkins: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I do not recall my right hon. Friend giving me an answer to my last question. "In due course" is not an answer.
Mr. Crossman: I repeat what I said, that preparation of the Bill is going very well and that in due course it will be published. I cannot give my hon. Friend a specific date for its publication.
Mr. Ridsdale: Can we have an early debate on local government administration? The Treasury stated on Tuesday that local government employees had increased in number by 159,047 since the right hon. Gentleman became a Minister.
Mr. Crossman: If the hon. Gentleman had wanted to make that point, there was an opportunity on the Second Reading of the Local Government Bill, 10 days ago. We have had quite a number of local government debates. Hon Members should seize opportunities to speak in them.
Mr. Brian Parkyn: In view of the expansion of the responsibilities of the Ministry of Technology and the proposed further expansion, can we have an early debate on science and technology?
Mr. Crossman: I am prepared to consider this as a possibility, but I cannot offer any prospects of an early debate—not, indeed, before Christmas.
Rear Admiral Morgan Giles: Will the right hon. Gentleman answer the point put by my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Lewes (Sir T. Beamish) about the assurance that the Rhodesian problem will not be referred to the United Nations before it is debated in both Houses?
Mr. Crossman: I want to make perfectly clear what I said. I said that immediately the Prime Minister has made his statement we shall seek, if the Opposition wish, to arrange a debate at the earliest possible moment. We shall

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arrange a debate if we are able to do it before any question of the reference to the United Nations comes.
Mr. Lubbock: Approximately, when does the right hon. Gentleman expect to make a statement on the establishment of the new specialist Committees?
Mr. Crossman: I had hoped to make the statement in the debate on procedure, which would have come earlier had it not been for certain other pressing debates, but I hope that it will come as soon as possible.
Mr. Dalyell: Has my right hon. Friend considered Motion No. 264, concerning Black Rod? What action does he propose to take?
[That this House, mindful of the limited opportunities for hon. Members to speak in major debates, calls on the Leader of the House to request the Leader of the Other Place to make arrangements to present Her Majesty's Commission to the Commons at times previously agreed to suit the convenience of hon. Members.]
Mr. Crossman: I am hoping to make a statement on that subject in the debate on procedure.
Mr. Maudling: May I return to the subject of Rhodesia? Would not the right hon. Gentleman agree that whatever other considerations arise, the primary consideration must be a debate in this House after proper consideration of the statement and the White Paper before any decision is taken by the Government?
Mr. Crossman: I will make my statement again. If we can do it in our time, I think I can give the assurance that we will have it as early as possible before a decision is taken. But it will be an occasion of our doing it in the time we want to do it.
Mr. Maudling: Does that over-ride the requirements of the House of Commons.
Mr. Crossman: No. It is a question of time-tabling. If the Opposition are to require a later time period more difficult for us, and insist on postponement of the
1600
debate, it will be difficult to fit it in, but if they will have it as early as we would like it I can keep the assurance; it would however depend on having it in the time we would wish for it.
Mr. Heath: The right hon. Gentleman has always said that it will be possible for the House to debate the matter before action is taken in the United Nations. But, at the same time, the debate, as far as the House is concerned, must take place after the House has had time for proper consideration of the Prime Minister's statement and the White Paper. Provided that the right hon. Gentleman accepts both of these, there need be no difficulty.
Mr. Crossman: I do not see what we are bickering about. I have made it clear that, if that is so, there is no difficulty.
Mr. Heffer: Since there is growing monopolisation of the Press, and danger of its becoming concentrated in the hands of one person, can we have an assurance that there will be an early debate on the subject?
Mr. Crossman: I do not think that I can give an assurance of an early debate. We had better see what happens before we decide whether we want to debate it.
Mr. Biggs-Davison: Having regard to the requests for a future debate on Rhodesia, and appreciating what the right hon. Gentleman has said, may I ask whether the Prime Minister did not say yesterday that he supposed, or expected, or hoped that there will be some finality in the exchanges with Salisbury by the end of this week? Therefore, in view of the undertakings that have been given, are we to suppose that no further action in the matter will be taken by the Government in anticipation of the debate? That is the problem that is worrying many of us on both sides. Could the right hon. Gentleman clarify the position?
Mr. Crossman: I do not think that there is need of clarification. The position is clear. I have given an assurance that, if we can fix it in our time, we will fix it as soon as possible and do it before the debate. This assurance stands. Provided that the Opposition are prepared to debate it in a reasonably short time after the statement, there is no difficulty.
Mr. Heath: We must be quite clear on this, because it is a matter of the utmost importance. What the House must have is full and proper time for consideration of the Prime Minister's statement after it is made and consideration of the White Paper after it is published before there is a debate. It is not a question of just being prepared to have it in the Government's time without that proper consideration. This is essential.
Mr. Crossman: There will be a statement and there will be time for consideration of the White Paper and the debate will take place as soon as possible after the statement has been made. If, despite this, the Opposition want a longer time, that is something I will not accept.
Mr. Archer: Bearing in mind the publication of the Church report on putting asunder and the Royal Commission recommendations, will the right hon. Gentleman give an opportunity to debate divorce and family law, or time for the Bill introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Pontypool (Mr. Abse)?
Mr. Crossman: We had better wait and see what happens to that Bill.
Sir Harmar Nicholls: The right hon. Gentleman has caused confusion on the question of the Rhodesian debate. The normal practice, as I understand it, in such matters, is to prepare a White Paper, issue it and have a statement and then a normal discussion between the usual channels to agree on the appropriate time that should elapse before the debate. The way that the right hon. Gentleman has presented his case gives the impression that something rather different from that normal practice is to take place. He gives the impression that he has a keen idea of the subject of the debate before we debate it.
Mr. Speaker: Order. We must have questions, not statements.
Mr. Crossman: I have a keen idea of the subject of the debate and of its importance, but I also get the impression that there are really divided views opposite. I thought that I had made it absolutely clear that, if he were to have a statement, as soon as possible after the statement, with due time to consider the White Paper, we would have a debate. If that is what
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the Opposition want, that is what they can have next week. We will rearrange business for them and have a debate.
Mr. Heath: The right hon. Gentleman says that he is to have the debate next week, whether or not there is time—[Interruption.] The right hon. Gentleman has said clearly that he can rearrange the business for next week and that can only mean that, regardless of whether the House regards that as being a proper time for consideration, he is determined to have the debate next week. That is what has emerged from the exchanges.
I put it to the right hon. Gentleman clearly that we must await publication of the White Paper to see its scale and the documents, and that right hon. and hon. Members should have proper time to consider it and, if necessary, discuss it among themselves before there is a debate.
Mr. Crossman: The right hon. Gentleman can put that to me, but I put this to him: what the Opposition cannot do is to dictate that what we have to do is to wait as long as they wish for a debate. That is totally unreasonable, and I reject it.
Mr. Heath: No one takes up the position that the Opposition can dictate, but there are well-established traditions about what is a reasonable time for consideration of a Government White Paper in an instance such as this. The whole House has been extraordinarily cooperative with the right hon. Gentleman in not pressing for a debate while these vital talks are going on. If the Government are to publish conclusions in the White Paper, it is only reasonable that the House should have proper time to consider them before the debate.
Mr. Crossman: Proper time will be given, but what the Opposition cannot do is to dictate the Government's policy or the timing of its actions.
Several Hon. Members Several Hon. Members rose—
Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Member for Chigwell (Mr. Biggs-Davison) will not be called for a second business question.
Sir F. Bennett: To set our minds at rest on the matter, would the right hon. Gentleman state what, in his view,

1603
judging by precedents, would be a reasonable time for consideration of a White Paper?
Mr. Crossman: If that is what I have been asked specifically, on the afternoon of the statement, I shall discuss it.
Mr. Michael Foot: Will my right hon. Friend take into account that both sides of the House have been extremely patient on this subject and that what some of us would regard as quite improper and injurious to the interests of this country is that, following a breakdown—if there is a breakdown—of the talks, and the publication of the White Paper, there should be a long interval in which the country's policy was unknown? This could be most damaging. It appears to many of us that that is what the Opposition desire.
Mr. Crossman: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for putting the matter so clearly.
Mr. Heath: As the right hon. Gentleman has endorsed the view of the hon. Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Michael Foot), I flatly deny that what the hon. Gentleman said is the case. The impression we are getting from the right hon. Gentleman is that he is trying to bounce the House into a debate without even 48 hours in which to consider a White Paper of the utmost importance. If the Prime Minister is to make a statement, presumably he will indicate the Government's policy in any case. It would not be unusual for him to do so. We must have proper time to consider it. The Opposition will be perfectly reasonable about the amount of that time, but we are not going to be stampeded into a rush debate without proper time to consider it.
Mr. Biffen: In view of the recent correspondence between the National Executive of the Labour Party and the Union of Shop Distributive and Allied Workers concerning the control of the investment policies of insurance companies, might we expect next week either a White Paper or a statement from the Government on their proposals to secure greater control over the investment policies of the pension funds of private insurance companies?
Mr. Crossman: I should think it unlikely that any statement would be issued next week.
Mr. Whitaker: Will my right hon. Friend bear in mind that the overwhelming majority of the House has perfectly clear principles on the Rhodesian issue, that any normally educated person can read a White Paper in 24 hours, and that we on this side of the House do not need three days in which to paper over cracks in a complete chaos of principle on this important issue?
Mr. Gresham Cooke: Has the right hon. Gentleman seen item No. 19 in the Orders of the Day published this morning, in which my hon. Friends and I ask that it be an Instruction to Standing Committee E to have power to make provision in the Road Safety Bill for any matter with respect to road safety?
Is he aware that the Long Title of the Bill is so tightly drawn that only subjects relating to drink and driving and heavy vehicles can be discussed and that subjects of general road safety are being ruled out of order, and—
Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman can ask questions only about the business of the House.
Mr. Gresham Cooke: I was asking the right hon. Gentleman to provide time to discuss that Motion, Sir.
Mr. Crossman: This is a subject which it would be easier for the hon. Gentleman to discuss with me not across the Floor of the House. I shall certainly listen to what he has to say to see whether I can find a way out of the difficulty.
Mr. Channon: If we are to debate a series of important Government Orders can the Leader of the House vary his practice and tell us during the business statement each Thursday what Orders we are to discuss in the following week and on what days they will be debated?
Mr. Crossman: I always give the business for each day. We did not have any Orders this week. There is no Order down for debate on Monday. There is to be a Prayer, but not an Order.
Mr. Temple: Recognising the extreme complexity of the rate support grant Order which will be brought before the House very shortly, will the right hon. Gentleman give an undertaking that there will be at least 10 days between the publication of that Order and the debate on it?
Mr. Crossman: I would like notice of that question. It is a reasonable request to have adequate time and I will certainly look into it.

BILL PRESENTED
  BUS FUEL GRANTS
  Bill to extend section 92 of the Finance Act 1965 so as to enable grants to be made under that section in respect of surcharges under section 9 of the Finance Act 1961 on customs and excise duties charged on fuel used in operating stage carriage services and to enable provision to be made in Northern Ireland for similar purposes, presented by Mrs. Barbara Castle; supported by Mr. William Ross, Mr. Cledwyn Hughes, Mr. John Diamond and Mr. Stephen Swingler; read the First time; to be read a Second time tomorrow and to be printed. [Bill 140.]

HOUSE OF COMMONS PROCEEDINGS (BROADCASTING)
First Report from the Select Committee on Broadcasting, &c., of Proceedings in the House of Commons, to be considered forthwith.—[Mr. Crossman.]
Considered accordingly.
4.4 p.m.
The Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. Richard Crossman): I beg to move,
That this House, taking note of the Report from the Select Committee on Broadcasting, &c., of Proceedings in the House of Commons, approves for an experimental period the broadcasting of its proceedings on closed circuits, subject to any recommendations which the Select Committee on House of Commons (Services) may make thereon.
In opening the debate I should like, first, to express what is much more than a formal sense of thanks to the Select Committee which has prepared this Report. It has given us a sound and substantial basis upon which to decide this very important question. It is very significant that it was only because one or two hon. Members of the Select Committee on Publications and Debates Reports conceived the ingenious idea that that Committee's terms of reference would allow it to conduct an inquiry that the House is now able to consider the full and comprehensive Report which we are now debating.
In a speech on 28th May, 1965, my predecessor commended the proposed inquiry and asked the Committee to
"make the most detailed examination of the problem in its technical aspects, its likely effect on Parliament itself, and the need that there is for televising Parliament from the consumer end, the viewer's point of view …"—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 28th May, 1965; Vol. 713, c. 1075.]
An inquiry was put in hand, but it was interrupted by the end of the Session. However, the Government intervened the next Session and moved that a separate Select Committee should begin an inquiry, seven Members of the old "Pub and Deb" Committee being on the new Committee. The new Committee, admittedly with changing membership, took the work through to the end.
The Report shows that the evidence collected by the Committees was exhaustive. I am sure that that is important

1607
for us, because I want to emphasise that the decision which we are taking now, and even the decision, which, I hope, we will take, to have an experiment, is of the greatest importance to the House.
I think that the most useful thing I can do to start with is to summarise, as consistently and as objectively as I can, the findings of the Report and to do so under five headings. First, the Committee's findings on the technical side of the problem are quite straightforward. It is a great relief that there is no disagreement among the experts. There is no doubt that, given the order to proceed with the permanent installation of television equipment, it will be possible to instal highly sensitive, remote-controlled cameras which would be built into the panelling of the Chamber and be completely unobtrusive. This is the permanent long-term solution. For these cameras, lighting levels would need to be raised only very slightly above existing levels and there would be no question of increasing the light to the levels needed for making a colour film of the State Opening of Parliament.
Secondly, the Committee tackled the legal and privilege questions which arise from the proposal for television. It was with relief that I read that the Committee did not expect any difficulty, although it recommended that the new Select Committee on Parliamentary Privilege should keep in mind the possibility of Parliamentary broadcasting in any recommendations which it made. It is possible that there would need to be a short Bill before public Parliamentary broadcasts were made, as in Australia.
Thirdly, the Committee's main recommendation is that there should be a special House of Commons Broadcasting Unit which would provide the broadcasting authorities with full television and sound "feed". After the proceedings of the House had been transmitted to the broadcasting authorities, the Committee assumes that it should be left to the broadcasting authorities to make free use of the material in any way they though fit, always provided that it was not used in any way calculated to bring the House into ridicule or contempt.
Fourthly, the Select Committee made a substantial point of emphasising that
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the proceedings of some Committees should be made available for broadcasting and suggested that some Standing Committee should be covered during the experiment.
Fifthly, the Committee felt that, before the House was asked to decide whether to allow permanent arrangements to be made, there should be closed circuit experiments including not merely the closed circuit itself, but finished programmes. The Committee would have preferred an experiment lasting for three months and the broadcasting authorities favoured an experiment of one month. The Report comes down in favour of a period of eight weeks at a season of the year when pressure would not be most intense. Those seem to be the five essential things which we have to consider.
Having assured itself that televising our proceedings is technically feasible, the Committee went on to consider all the other issues involved in grafting this new medium of mass-communication on to our proceedings. It put forward this solution—the provision by the House of Commons itself to the broadcasting authorities of a complete television record for use in their programmes. I shall express my own doubts in a few minutes about this proposal for a permanent solution. At the moment, I will merely say that it is not the only solution which is technically feasible, but is only one among a number of possibilities.
Hence my suggestion that the House today should be content to take note of the Report as a whole, thereby coming to no decision on the Committee's long-term proposals, while agreeing to conduct an experiment as the Select Committee recommends.
I am sure that the Committee is right in urging that before we make up our minds we should discover how it feels to conduct our proceedings beneath television cameras, and that we should also have prepared for private viewing the kind of final programmes we will be likely to see in a permanent system. What I am urging is that we should suspend judgment on whether the proceedings will be televised until after the experiment has been completed and then consider the situation.
If we are to have an experiment, what kind of experiment? I agree with the

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Committee that there should be a period of closed circuit coverage of all our proceedings on the Floor and of some in Committee. I agree with the Select Committee that the programme companies shall share in conducting this experiment and should also produce the experimental programmes such as a television "Day at Westminster" by which we can judge the final product. So far, so good. In view of its cost and disturbance I cannot help feeling that the experiment should be as short as possible. I do not think that I can recommend to the House that an eight-week closed circuit simultaneous coverage of all the proceedings on the Floor of the House is essential. I suggest that we should consider something considerably less ambitious in time, but somewhat more ambitious in content than is proposed by the Select Committee.
In my view, any experiment which did not tackle the problem of simultaneously televising the proceedings in the other place would be unrealistic. Their Lordships have already decided in principle that they would welcome the televising of some of their proceedings for an experimental period. They have set up a select Committee to see how best this can be done. Our Select Committee was not competent to make recommendations for another place, but the Report leaves us in no doubt that it, too, felt that a joint experiment was essential. So I hope that the House will agree that it is sensible that the experiment should be an integrated one, involving at some stage at least simultaneous recording of the proceedings in both Houses. I cannot speak for the other place, but I am told that their Lordships are not unsympathetic to the suggestion I am now making.
These factors, taken together, suggest a number of changes in the type of experiment which I feel able to recommend to the House, though they are no more than a development of the valuable proposals contained in the Select Committee Report. I should tell the House that I have had informal discussions with the broadcasting authorities to see whether they would see any difficulties in arranging the kind of experiment which I now envisage. They told me that they are able to conduct a joint experiment, provided that it is of a limited duration, and that, as part of the experiment, it is accepted that it will be necessary to record
1610
the proceedings on one day and present an edited version on the following day.
The experiment which they and I have in mind would be as follows. It would last for five weeks, not eight. During the first four weeks it would involve the House of Commons alone on the lines recommended in the Report. The two broadcasting authorities would operate during alternate weeks. For most of the days they would produce not only closed-circuit transmission of our proceedings on the Floor, but also specimen edited programmes. Because of shortage of staff and equipment it would be necessary, on one or two days devoted to Committee coverage, to suspend coverage of the main proceedings on the Floor of the House. During the fifth week, both Houses would be covered and an attempt made to produce integrated programmes which would enable Members to see how proceedings in both Houses would be fitted together.
During this week a more detailed experiment would be conducted in another place, but I need not trouble the House with the arrangements for that. In addition, the B.B.C. are making sound recordings of proceedings of both Houses for the purpose of providing specimen edited programme on radio as well as television, which could be played back at times to suit the convenience of Members of both House.
In this way it would be possible to compare the quality of the present daily sound programme, "Today in Parliament" which is based on the limited extracts from our proceedings, taken from the P.A. tape, and read aloud by an announcer, with the new sound programme based on the full text and including live extracts. In this way we could see what advantage or disadvantage there was and would have some standard of comparison between the live broadcast with excerpts and the present programme.
Mr. T. G. D. Galbraith: One of the things which has caused me a great deal of difficulty is that at the moment the sound programme is a précis of the speeches made, and they can be relatively short. Since we are now to see Members actually speaking, that will take much longer. Can the right hon. Gentleman say how long these excerpts from the debate will take

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and how long each Member will be shown in operation?
Mr. Crossman: I intended to come to this later. This is a serious problem and I have had some talks with the B.B.C. about it. On this point, one can reckon that to get the equivalent of about a quarter of an hour of sound one would need nearly half an hour of television. Of that, half hour, over half, would be editorial. If one took Question Time there would be even more editorial because of the need for reading the Questions aloud as they are not read by the Member.
There might be up to 60 per cent. of Question Time being editorial and only 40 per cent. extracts from speeches, unless the House was prepared to completely reorganise its Question Time in order to be televised. This is a serious problem to which I shall return, because it is an unsolved difficulty in the way of the proposal.
Mr. T. L. Iremonger: May I raise a small point upon which we could easily go astray? It was made quite clear in the Report that captions can be put on to the screen. This would surely solve the problem at Question Time. One would not have to read out the Question.
Mr. Crossman: I have reflected on that since I read the Report, but I know that there are Questions which are so long that they would stretch for a very long way across the bottom of the screen. If one had to leave the Question on the screen long enough for it to be read, it would mean that very few Questions would be selected, even for a quarter of an hour's version of Question Time. These are the serious technical problems which the House will have to discuss. Even if we do as I hope, and agree to this experiment, there is a lot to be done in the working out of these details.
The final point is the way in which the experiments should be managed. Here, I entirely agree with the Select Committee that the supervision should be undertaken by a new Sub-Committee answerable to the House of Commons Services Committee and I would hope that the cadre of this would be the hon. Member for Barking (Mr. Driberg) and
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the hon. Member for Ealing, South (Mr. Batsford), together with other Members. This is the House's own Committee and through it, and the new Sub-Committee, the House can make known its views on the arrangement for the experiment and of the experiment.
I wonder, too, whether we ought not to consider the possibility if, as I will be proposing to the House, a joint experiment with another place should be arranged, of making arrangements for representatives of the other place to be closely associated with that sub-Committee.
Mr. Charles Pannell: Before my right hon. Friend gets on to the question of joint Committees he ought to bear in mind that, by protocol, when we have a joint Committee we must have one of their Lordships in the Chair, and we do not want that.
Mr. Crossman: These are some of the difficulties we are likely to encounter.
I now turn to the question of when the experiment should take place. The Select Committee had no doubt about this. It wanted the experiment to take place in January or February next year, after the House had had time to consider its Report, and before the resumption of flat racing summoned the programme experts back to the O.B. programmes which are, I gather, the main purpose of their lives.
When I first considered this Report, last August, I was captured by this argument and jumped to the conclusion that if the House were to agree on the need for an experiment it should agree on the timing recommended by the Select Committee. Since then I must admit that the case for delaying the experiment for a full year has presented itself to my mind with ever greater cogency. It is grounded on three arguments, economic, technical, and an argument about the basic way in which the televising of the House might be done.
I will deal, first, with the economic argument, because, although it is powerful, it does not need a great deal of discussion. In considering the experiment we cannot disregard its cost, which, by the way, has escalated sharply since the broadcasting authorities first gave their testimony to the Select Committee. At that time it was said that a sum of £90,000 would be

1613
sufficient for an eight-week experiment. When I checked with the authorities recently I was told, in a letter dated 25th October, that for a five-week period, as contrasted with an eight-week experiment, I should now reckon on the sum of £150,000 for the Commons and another £18,000 for the Lords.
When we compare this with the estimate of £4½ million which we vote for the expenses of our House, £150,000 is not exorbitant. Nevertheless, the Government are of the opinion that in a period when we are demanding great sacrifices of the country, it would not be right to ask for a House of Commons Supplementary Estimate on this scale, particularly when it will be spent during what we have described as a period of severe restraint. What the Motion which I am putting forward proposes is that we should firmly decide on the experiment, that it should take place in January, 1968, and that the cost, therefore, should be included in next year's Estimates.
To this economic argument for holding the experiment in 1968 there are added technical arguments which the Select Committee felt that it had overcome, but which I find difficult to evade. The one which worries me is the presence of cameras and cameramen on the Floor of the House. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear".] In the permanent system all the cameras would be of a new miniaturised, unmanned type operated by remote control and almost entirely concealed behind the panelling. By January, 1967, the new Plumbicon cameras would not be ready and two at least of the old style cameras, one with cameramen on the Floor would have to be inside the Chamber manually operated.
One of them would be at the end of the Official Gallery to your right, Mr. Speaker. The technician behind it would be able to enter and leave at the cost merely of gross disturbance to senior members of the Civil Service. But the other camera would have to be placed in the cross bench on your left, Mr. Speaker, where Members now sit, and the technician who manned it would, therefore, have to be inside the Chamber.
On this, I am bound to quote the report of the Serjeant at Arms who wrote to you, Sir, saying that this would involve
"…not only having a stranger continuously in a 'part of the House or Gallery appropriated
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to the Members of the House'… but will also lead to considerable coming and going as and when the cameraman on duty has to be relieved. Apart from going against present principles this may cause difficulties in Divisions.
The alternative which I have suggested is that the second manned camera should be installed in under the Gallery, that is, behind the Serjeant's Chair. This, however, conflicts with the television companies' desire to have complete parity of treatment between the two sides of the House, and which they say they can only obtain if they have a manned camera in both the Official Gallery and on the cross bench to your left. There is, of course, no technical problem in operating a camera from under the Gallery. The House, therefore, may well have to weigh up the conflicting advantages of having complete parity during the experiments—which will not be seen by the public—and the absence of strangers on the Floor of the House."
I should like to conclude the Serjeant at Arms' letter, because it deals with other proposals:
"There is a requirement for a producer's box in under the Gallery at the south end of the Chamber. This will necessitate the taking over of the row in front for the normal occupants of under the Gallery (thereby removing a bench normally used by Members) and although this row is not within the Bar of the House it will, presumably, be necessary to obtain the formal approval of the House for this."
So much for the Serjeant at Arms' letter.
The Select Committee assumed that for the period of the experiment, which it thought would be eight weeks, the House would not resent such interruptions, including the continuous presence of strangers on the Floor, but judging from my own feeling when I studied the letter from the Serjeant at Arms on this matter I am not so sure that it was right. Certainly, one reason which made me, in the end, positively welcome the postponement of the experiment was the letter which I received on 18th November, signed jointly by the broadcasting authorities, which told me:
"… By January, 1968, it may almost certainly be guaranteed that six … of the new miniaturised, unmanned Plumbicon cameras can be developed by the manufacturers."
Personally, I do not find it difficult to choose between an experiment conducted in what will certainly be awkward, and might be embarrassing, circumstances next January and an experiment a year later with no temporary cameras taking up space, no strangers on the Floor of

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the House and under the technical conditions of what could become a permanent system.
There are, however, more arguments for the later date. The first concerns the other place. I have already explained why I think it necessary to have a joint integrated experiment, but it is clear that we should have to take quite a long time, for reasons which my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, West (Mr. C. Pannell) gave, before we work out the full details of co-operation with the other place.
There is one other problem which I have to mention and which I hope hon. Members will discuss, and that is the problem of how the Press should be treated throughout such an experiment. As I understand, the Select Committee Report recommends that the whole experiment shall be conducted in private and the Press completely excluded from it. Of course, I understand the reasons for proposing this, but the House should not under-estimate the practical difficulties in making this total exclusion of the Press a reality. After all, some Members will be sitting in a Committee Room each day watching the closed circuit and the next evening viewing the experimental programme based upon it.
Unless it is made a matter of privilege, I find it difficult to see how we can prevent any individual Member from retailing his experiences to the Press; and, anyway, it seems to me that the fact of our conducting an experiment of this kind is a news story which the journalists who specialise in covering the House's proceedings would feel they had some right to cover.
I am not pre-judging the issue. I am merely saying that before we conduct the experiment we should, I think, enter into consultations with the Press Gallery and work out a protocol of procedure which can be observed by both sides. It will not be easy, but I am sure that if we have time we can do it.
So much for the technical difficulties. That leaves me with what I feel to be the basic problem which we should discuss today which I do not think was resolved by the Select Committee. The Select Committee's Report is a very well-knit document which assumes throughout a
1616
particular solution to the problem which it was asked to solve. Having dismissed for reasons of cost and practicability the concept of a separate television channel on which our proceedings could be continuously viewed live, the Committee opted for a system which relies on recording every syllable we speak, every gesture we make and then letting others outside make what use of it they like.
The Committee recommends that a complete full-length video-tape should be produced and edited by a special House of Commons broadcasting unit. I think that there were two reasons for making that proposal. First, it would be impracticable to have two sets of cameras in in the Chamber, one for B.B.C. and one for I.T.N. But the Committee was greatly impressed by the sensitive question of what type of reaction shots would be suitable for transmission. As hon. Members who have read the Report realise, reaction shots are taken when the camera switches away from the person speaking and catches one of the audience or covers the whole House. Anybody who has been to a party conference will know what I am talking about.
Since there will be six cameras functioning simultaneously there will have to be television editors to select which of the six pictures, direct or reaction shots, shall go on the single video-tape. That is what makes a television HANSARD a misnomer, for in the case of HANSARD the editorial discretion is limited to points of grammar and punctuation. The videotape, in contrast, is already an edited piece of visual journalism and those in charge can make or mar reputations of Members by the selection which they make in their takes.
It was because it recognised this fact to the full that the Select Committee agreed that no outside broadcasting unit could be entrusted with the production of the initial video-tape recording, so it concluded that only by having the record made by our own staff and by paying the full cost of it would we be able to ensure the control required to satisfy Members that the editing was being done with complete fairness and impartiality.
Now observe the second stage. Having insisted on a House of Commons staff and complete House of Commons control for the production of the original video-tape, it proposes that the use to be made of

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the tape shall be left to the discretion of the broadcasting authorities and anyone else who cares to buy it. In fact, the House of Commons pays to have a complete and faithful record made of its proceedings and then leaves it to outside bodies to use that record at their discretion, provided they do not bring the House into contempt. They would use it perhaps in news programmes, in a "Westminster Day by Day" on the same evening, in a regional programme, in a women's magazine, or perhaps in the David Frost Show or the B.B.C. Saturday evening "Late Night Show".
This is the proposal—that the outside broadcasting authorities should make use of the tape, not only on such programmes as "Today in Parliament", but in magazine programmes as well.
Sir Tatton Brinton: Does not this amount to the same editing which we have discounted in the first stage?
Mr. Crossman: No. The hon. Gentleman should read the Select Committee's Report. It is an extremely intelligent and well-thought-out document.
This is a second process of selection. Everything will have been genuinely selected in a certain way, but the authorities would be able to select passages for reproduction. They would be selecting from eight or nine hours' proceedings and using sometimes a few minutes or a few seconds. This is a fair account of what they will be doing.
Mr. J. T. Price: Since my right hon. Friend now comes to what he describes as "genuine" selection, how will he escape the criticism that might be levelled at him during the debate today that all selection involves some kind of censorship? The person who chooses exercises an act of censorship. Goodness knows, we have had enough argument about censorship in this House, and I want to avoid a dilemma of that kind.
Mr. Crossman: I do not want to avoid it. I think that it is necessary for the House to concentrate on this issue, because it is the most difficult issue that we shall have to face together—before plunging into an experiment, to see what we are experimenting in.
One proposal is to experiment in this way, and to say that we will conceive the
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permanent system as a day-by-day recording of everything on sound and on tape, sending out the tape like a P.A. tape goes out, to be used by the B.B.C. in its programmes, and the view of the Select Committee is that the B.B.C. and I.T.V. shall be entitled, when they have bought it, to use it as they like, provided that they do not bring the House into contempt. There is to be no limitation and no censorship. In the view of the Select Committee they should be free in that sense to edit the programmes
Dr. M. P. Winstanley: Would the right hon. Gentleman confirm that some degree of selection is inevitable if regional programmes are to be permitted to select the bits of the total signal which are relevant to their areas?
Mr. Crossman: That is the whole point. They would get hours and hours of tape, from which they would select a small fraction.
If the hon. Member for Cheadle (Dr. Winstanley) will permit me to continue, I was going on to say that I have had some calculations made about the kinds of quantities likely to be used. The amount of the original video-tape which the B.B.C. is likely to use, if it has a half-hour televised "Today in Westminster" every evening in addition to using brief extracts in their normal news programmes, is roughly 2 per cent. The B.B.C. agrees with me that 2 per cent. of the tape is the maximum that it is likely to use on any day. The other 98 per cent. would either go to waste or be used in other B.B.C. programmes.
If hon. Members are surprised at this small amount, I would remind them that, of a half-hour "Today in Westminster" programme, at most, 14 minutes would be live reproduction, and the rest would be editorial explanation. In other words, out of a half-hour programme, 14 minutes would be hon. Members speaking, and the rest would have to be explanation by an editor, because of the complexity of our proceedings. The same would be even more true if an attempt were made to televise Question Time. Unless Question Time were completely reorganised so that each hon. Member had to read aloud the full text of his Question, the television version would be likely to

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consist of up to 60 per cent. of editorial explanation.
These figures become even more remarkable when we consider televising another place. At present, in the sound and radio programme, "Today in Westminster", on an average, two minutes is devoted to the House of Lords and the rest to the Commons. In a half-hour television programme, their Lordships could expect that, after the whole of their proceedings had been recorded, about four minutes at most might appear on the television screens.
I have quoted those figures because the cost of a permanent television service, employing a permanent staff, is something which we have to bear in mind if we accept the Select Committee's proposed system. It cannot be denied that the cost of producing the total tape will be enormous compared with the amount actually used. But what worries me even more than the cost is the possible use to which the tape can be put by the companies which have acquired it. If I am told, "You give the newspapers complete freedom to report Parliament. Why not give the same freedom to television reporting?", my answer is that there is not a parallel between the two cases. The House of Commons does not provide the Press with a special edited version of its proceedings and leave it to treat that record as it likes. Anyway, surely we know enough about this new medium already to realise the danger of suggesting that we can treat it exactly like the Press.
If I were asked to judge today, I would say that the permanent system of television which the Select Committee proposes might not only prove very expensive in money and staff, but might also bring us into constant collision with the television companies about the selection which they were making of the material and the use to which they were putting it in their magazine programmes.
Having stated my doubts about the method which the Committee has selected, let me remind the House again of the information which the Committee collected from other countries. It indicates that there are other methods of using television inside Parliament. In the United States, where legislators are not averse to
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publicity, neither House has ever permitted television on the floor. In the Committees, on the other hand, it plays a very important rôle. It is used in Sweden and in West Germany, but only selectively and for big debates. When it is used, I gather that it is broadcast live, much like our party conferences are broadcast today, and extracts are given at the end of the day.
I believe that the experience of other countries has something to teach us. We should at least consider the possibility of dispensing with the complex apparatus of a House of Commons Broadcasting Unit with its permanent coverage and its 90 per cent. wastage, and content ourselves with permitting the broadcasting authorities to install apparatus which could be used from time to time on stated occasions, when it could be seen live in the first instance and in extracts later in the evening.
During the months before the experiment, I should like to see the Select Committee's proposals compared carefully with other possibilities, including the one which I have just outlined. Frankly, we have not thought through all the alternatives, and I should like us to do that before we make the experiment so that we are quite clear what we are experimenting about. If we use the months in that way, I think that we shall be able to make an experiment far more useful and practical when January, 1968, comes.
What we are being asked to decide this evening is not on a permanent system of television. The House is being asked, first, to take note of the Select Committee's Report, and I would hope that our vote would be unanimous on that. Secondly, the House is asked to approve an experiment in January, 1968. By voting for the second part of the Motion, as I hope the majority of hon. Members will, we shall not be committing ourselves to the view that our proceedings should be televised, even less to the particular system which the Select Committee recommends in its Report, about which I have outlined my own reservations.
What we shall be doing is to indicate our conviction that, in this era of mass-communications, the House of Commons is ready to submit its proceedings to a brief but thorough experiment, in the

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course of which the merits of live coverage in sound radio can be tested, as well as in television programmes.
I am sure that to look in at ourselves on the closed-circuit will be good for our souls, but it will not be the important part of the experiment which I am recommending. The important part will be the finished product which is shown. The experimental programme, both sound and television, which the companies will be showing to us, probably in the Grand Committee Room in Westminster Hall 24 hours after the debate takes place, are the things which we ought to look at and consider. I am convinced that only after seeing and hearing such experimental programmes shall we be able to decide whether we want ourselves presented to the British people in programmes which include sound and television extracts from our live proceedings, and, if so, whether those programmes should be done regularly every day, as the Committee recommends, selecting from a total coverage, or only on certain limited occasions, as I myself believe would be preferable.
Dame Joan Vickers: If the right hon. Gentleman allows the experiment to go forward, shall we be allowed to vote again before it is put into operation?
Mr. Crossman: I have reflected on that. I should have thought that, without question, we must have a second vote. This experiment does not commit the House to permanent television. It commits the House to an experiment. On the basis of that experiment, we can decide between permanent television and no television, permanent television plus sound, or sound without television, and between various types.
All those things need to be discussed much more than they have been already, and we ought to get our minds clear on them before the experiment. But, even after the experiment, we must reflect on the experiment and, on the basis of it, come to our permanent conclusions and, clearly, have another vote on the matter.
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Eric Fletcher): Mr. Paul Bryan.
Mr. Crossman: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker, is there to be one vote, or two? I hope two, because I
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hope that we will have a unanimous vote to take note, and then a separate vote on the Motion.
Mr. Selwyn Lloyd: I think that the first Motion has been put and carried.
Mr. Deputy Speaker: There can only be one vote, and that is on the Motion, unless there are any Amendments, which there are not.
4.40 p.m.
Mr. Paul Bryan: As the Leader of the House is aware, the Opposition are treating the broadcasting of the proceedings of the House as a non-party matter, and right hon. and hon. Members on this side of the House will be voting without the advice of the Whips. The speech which I shall make, therefore, is entirely my own personal view. The Leader of the House, in his position, was undoubtedy right to warn, and over-warn, the House of the dangers of the adventure on which we are embarking. I shall take a slightly more adventurous line.
I should like to start by quoting three lines of the memorandum submitted by Lord Hill, the Chairman of I.T.A., to the Select Committee. He said:
"The televising of Parliament makes no more hard news available than is available today. It adds, in terms of record, the two dimensions of sight and sound to the printed word. It is an amplification of the present methods of reporting …"
Today's debate is not a repetition of the debate of a hundred years ago, as is often rather suggested, on whether Parliament should or should not be reported. It is to discuss whether we wish our proceedings to be picked out by the arclight of television, or whether we wish the public to continue to see us in the more comfortable glow of candlelight. For many years the majority of hon. Members have concluded, or wishfully thought, that we look better, and work better, in a subdued and preferably mysterious light, but according to the evidence to the Select Committee of the two Chief Whips, a majority, or a possible majority, of hon. Members now may like to see television and radio in the House in one form or another.
I think that we have all sensed, over the last 10 years—those who have been

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here that long—a certain change in opinion in this House, possibly because of the change in the composition of the House, possibly because we think that the technical problems have been overcome, possibly also because, consciously or unconsciously, knowledge of television has made us rather less frightened of it. But even if the Chief Whips are right, and there is a majority in favour of broadcasting, there is nevertheless a substantial minority against it, including many highly respected and experienced Members, and their arguments must be seriously answered.
May I first try to answer some of the arguments which the right hon. Gentleman put forward and end with some comments on the experiment itself.
To me the most significant opponent of broadcasting in the House is my right hon. Friend the Member for Ashford (Mr. Deedes), not only because of his experience as a distinguished journalist, and as a Cabinet Minister with special responsibilities in communications, but also because until recently he was a strong backer of television in the House.
What is it that has made my right hon. Friend hesitate to dive in after leading us all to the water's edge? He said in a recent article in the Parliamentarian:
"There are many lesser but still weighty doubts on television in Parliament which have been treated too lightly, certainly by the Select Committee which has just reported. How will the editing be done? Will the public really want 30 minutes or so every day from Parliament occupying a main channel? Will Members speak to the invisible audience instead of to the House? … Just how far will the camera go with reaction shots? But these are not the big questions. The big one is the impact of this powerful, determined, ambitious, and still-expanding medium on the place where the main decisions have still to be made."
That is a fair summary of the main objections.
I think that my right hon. Friend is right to put editing high on the list of problems. The longer one listened to the witnesses before the Select Committee, the more did this emerge as the heart of the matter. Conversely one, or I at any rate, became less concerned about the production of the full television record which will have to be edited, and which appeared to fill the right hon. Gentleman with fear.
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The Select Committee recommends that this full record should be produced by a House of Commons broadcasting unit under the control of the House. I have come to the conclusion that whether this recommendation is adopted, or whether the task is entrusted to a joint unit of the B.B.C. and I.T.V., it will be responsibly done. This is a purely professional job, and every conceivable pressure on the personality in charge will be in the direction of his doing the job with skill and responsibility. I can imagine no director whose work will be more exposed to the criticism of the public and of his own profession, and I think that the right hon. Gentleman over-painted the dangers of this part. I am not talking about editing in general, but about the making of the picture, because the normal making of a picture is not really editing at all. The director has six images before him, and he picks one or other of them. It is not possible to do the job with one camera. There must be half a dozen to cover the place. So there is, inevitably, this situation, but I regard that not as his job, but as a professional television job.
Mr. Crossman: I did not say that there was a danger there. I am convinced that whether it is done by the companies separately or jointly it can be done relatively without disturbing the House. My doubts were about the second part.
Mr. Bryan: I agree with the right hon. Gentleman. The editing of a full television and sound transmission which would be piped from the House presents an altogether more difficult and serious problem.
Let us assume for the moment, for the sake of argument, that a feed of all the proceedings of the House, a broadcast HANSARD, would go out as recommended to the broadcasting organisations, to other interested parties at home or overseas, such as universities, newspapers, agencies, and so on. One may say that this is a rash assumption, but could all these varying bodies be trusted to use the record to the credit of Parliament?
Mr. C. Pannell: No.
Mr. Bryan: But if one did not make it available to all, if Parliament were to take the responsibility of selecting what the

1625
public should see, then, to quote Lord Hill again,
"I believe that would not redound to the credit of Parliament."
The moment the public realised that there was a conspiracy between the politicians and the broadcasters to show only the snippets of Parliamentary life which we thought showed us at our best, the televising of Parliament would have all the dire effects on the prestige of this institution which its opponents fear.
Mr. J. T. Price: I am glad that the hon. Gentleman has made the point about showing what might give us a perfect image in the public mind, but surely what is more important is that what is shown may be affected by pressure on the people who do the editing? Even the usual channels may be used by the Executive, or by the Opposition, or by others who have vested interests to ensure that only those shots which suited the line current at the time went out to the country. This is a fair point, and one which ought to be answered.
Mr. Bryan: I am not clear to which part of this the hon. Gentleman is referring. I assume that he is referring to the picture which I described as being taken out of six images.
Mr. J. T. Price: Yes.
Mr. Bryan: That is the part which I do not fear. This is a professional job. I see a danger in the second part. But, having said that, the question is whether or not we should take the risk, and I think that we have to. How big would the risk be? It would, of course, be big, but not as big as some people fear.
Perhaps I might deal first with editing by both the B.B.C. and I.T.V. We understand that it is technically possible to produce an edited half-hour programme at 10.45 p.m. after the day's Parliamentary programme. Both the B.B.C. and the I.T.V. would use excerpts of the Parliamentary record in current affairs programmes, and so on. The regional programmes present a more difficult problem. One thinks that the regional companies, being less well equipped with personnel, might not be able to do it, but from what we heard on the Select Committee, I understand that in the case of I.T.V., I.T.N. would prepare it from the centre and send out edited
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portions suitable for the various regions, and no doubt the B.B.C. would do much the same.
We then come to the question of balance. What about the avoidance of bias, for instance? In this connection, the experiment would take place at a good time in the history of television, in that, by now, the broadcasting organisations have acquired a good deal of experience in this direction. They have now functioned under two complexions of Government for a long time, and whatever we may think of the rest of their programmes, most of us would agree now, I believe, that, taken over a period, current affairs programmes are reasonably well balanced.
I see no reason why their Parliamentary programmes should not be equally so. At the end of considering the question of editing, my feeling is that the B.B.C. and I.T.V. will be so keen to make a really responsible job of editing that the danger, at any rate to start with, will not be sensationalism or over-entertainment but of a programme so carefully balanced that the public will doubt that they are seeing a true picture.
The second question put by my right hon. Friend the Member for Ashford was, will the public really want 30 minutes or so every day from Parliament, occupying a main channel—
Mr. Quintin Hogg: The answer is "No."
Mr. Bryan: I do not think that this is what they will be asked to enjoy or suffer—
Mr. Hogg: Or endure.
Mr. Bryan: We have heard from the professionals about the tremendous flexibility of journalism. If the Parliamentary news of the day is interesting not only can it be featured in the half hour "Today in Parliament" but it could appear on any current affairs programme such as "Panorama", "Twenty-four Hours", "This Week" or "Scene" and, of course, in the news as well, and this from 14 different stations.
If the news is not interesting, the coverage will be divided by many. The flexibility would include the time as well. There is a great opening for a current affairs programme in the morning. We

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may not favour it, but there would be a big audience for it.
But even with this flexibility, will the broadcasting of Parliament be interesting to the public or will it be a deadly anticlimax? Of course, no Gallup Poll can give us the answer, because no one knows what he wants until he knows what he is being offered, but the most reassuring answer to the question lies in the fact that, in the evidence which we received, such highly professional witnesses as Donald Edwards of the B.B.C., Sir Geoffrey Cox, Barry Heads, Jeremy Isaacs and John Grist, all leading and responsible practitioners in the production of current affairs programmes on television, were unanimous in thinking not only that it would be of intense interest to the public, but that public interest would be further stimulated. Television producers themselves are thus stimulated by the challenge and the responsibility of presenting Parliament on television.
So far, one forgets the extent to which they have been bogged down in a synthetic debate, deprived of actuality, with an almost impossible task of casting, for which we regularly curse them. But when one reflects on the extent to which we restrict broadcasting, it is a wonder that it has assumed such an influential place in politics. In the words of Norman Collins in an article 18 months ago:
"The B.B.C., which has led the world in the matter of outside broadcasting, is still not allowed to record a syllable, let alone a live word, of what goes on within either Chamber. It is compelled to behave precisely as if it were a newspaper to be read aloud to the family, not a radio service at all. And television, the raw material of which is the picture, is forced to behave like the lame cousin of sound broadcasting. Denied access to the essential picture, it has still inherited all the early restrictions on the use of sound."
Now, for the first time, producers will present the real thing. They believe that what they produce will be creditable and interesting as well.
Those who think that it would be a bore for the public undervalue the televisual qualities of this House—[Laughter.]—I am not talking about our photogenic qualities or personally, but about the smallness of the Chamber, the fact that we have no set places or desks, that we do not read our speeches—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."]—except from here, the conversational nature of our debates—all
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these are unlike any legislature that any of us have seen in any other part of the world. This less formal sitting makes the whole thing far more digestible to the family in front of a television set than the more formal sitting of, for example, the United Nations or a Parliament in which every speaker goes to a rostrum.
It is important also in the case of young people, among whom there is a good deal of political apathy and who get almost all their political information from the television. But nowadays, of course, they find Government too big and too remote to be of any personal interest to them. Televising of the House could get almost a small town intimacy to politics and give them a relevance which has so far been missing.
One must realise the possible advantages of this in the effect or power already of television in imparting this information. Even now, 2 million people listen to the two programmes "Yesterday in Parliament" and "Today in Parliament", and 20 million people listen to the two main news bulletins from the I.T.N. and the B.B.C. "Today in Parliament" is the equivalent of two columns in the Daily Telegraph, yet a recent survey of readers of the Daily Telegraph shows that only 15 per cent. read the Parliamentary columns.
Some critics fear that the broadcasters would not use the material which was provided and that therefore some compulsory minimum should be laid down. This would be a grave error. Anything in the nature of obligatory politics would frustrate its own purpose, rather as it has done, we would all agree, in the party political broadcast, which is poor politics and worse television. Possibly, this will even get rid of the Ministerial broadcast, which would be quite a blessing.
I will now speculate—that is all we can do—on the impact of broadcasting on our procedings. Will it enhance our reputation? Will it present a caricature? Will the forum be turned into a stage? Will it take us over? The Lord President produced a few examples of the efforts of other nations on this. In fact, there is very little to go on. The Australians broadcast all their proceedings on radio and none on television—[An HON. MEMBER: "Not all."]—This is what I hear. It seems that they have deserved the worst of both worlds.

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The whole of every Parliamentary sitting is broadcast. So, at least, one is told; the evidence which we had was in that direction. The Whips appear to be in a position to put the "stars" on to speak at peak periods. If there were a possibility of anything like that happening here, of not only Parliamentary behaviour but Parliamentary business being affected by television, there is little doubt about how the vote would go tonight.
In Germany according to The Times:
"Party managers arrange speakers' lists so that only the most photogenic and effective M.P.s speak during televised periods."
Here, Mr. Deputy Speaker, you and Mr. Speaker choose the order of speeches. As the practice of editing would mean that no one would know exactly what was to be broadcast, we could presumably avoid that pitfall.
Some people say that one side or the other would get the advantage. Would it be the Government or the Opposition? Some say the Government, because they make the news. Others say the Opposition, because to attack is more entertaining.
My opinion is that television will do what it always has done in politics. It does not convert, it illuminates, it magnifies, and so it increases in political tendency what is already there. Debates in this Chamber would have more effect on public opinion, purely because people would be more informed about them. Television would not turn a bad speaker or a bad case into good ones. It would merely expose, for many more eyes and ears to see and hear.
But all this is secondary, beside the main contention of my right hon. Friend the Member for Ashford, in his article in the Daily Telegraph yesterday, that television would dominate and change the whole nature of the House—
Mr. Hogg: Hear, hear.
Mr. Bryan: His supporting evidence had some substance but, in my view, nothing like the weight he gave it. He instanced the Prime Minister's speech at the Labour Party conference in Brighton and alleged that it was addressed to the television audience rather than to the audience in the hall. I suggest that one might get away with
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that sort of thing at a party conference, but one would not get away with it for long in this House.
Do we not frequently make constituency speeches in Parliament? I do not doubt that if and when television comes, we will blame television for that. Nevertheless, we must see ourselves as we really are now and in my view T.V. has vastly improved the party conferences, the extent of interest in them and the proceedings at those conferences because the platform cannot get away with quite as much as it used to.
Mr. R. Gresham Cooke: When considering the question of whether T.V. would dominate Parliamentary proceedings, would my hon. Friend say, from his experience on the Committee and from listening to evidence received from other countries, whether it would be desirable to let out the whole volume, the 98 per cent. not used, of televised proceedings in an unedited version?
Mr. Bryan: I referred to that earlier when I wondered whether we should put it out as a sort of T.V. Hansard. That was recommended and I support that view, risk or no risk.
I was speaking of the effect of T.V. on party conferences and I wanted to relate that to what might happen here. We must not spurn the idea that broadcasting may provoke improvements, even here. Take, for example, Question Time. The public are under the illusion that Question Time is the great opportunity for the back bench hon. Member to tackle and, may be, bring down the great Minister. When constituents realise that hon. Members are normally allowed only one supplementary question, which the Minister can side-step with the ease of one who knows he cannot be chased, the electorate may begin to think that Question Time is largely a charade. We may begin to think that, too.
Those who fear the domination of the House are really restating the old dilemma of all politicians in a democracy; that we like to be reported but frequently we do not like the way in which we are reported. We already take a lot of trouble organising ourselves and making arrangements to get an optimum Press. I agree with the Lord President that, when considering this point from the T.V. angle, the two are

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not the same because the Press does not dominate us. I have no doubt that we shall alter our arrangements to a slight extent, but I do not believe that that will have the large effect that some people fear.
Mr. Tam Dalyell: With regard to the individual hon. Member and his constituency, while I would certainly, if Parliament is to be televised, be in favour of televising it all, is the hon. Gentleman concerned about the possibility of there being an empty House? The hon. Gentleman must understand—as an hon. Member who may have an important job in his party and who, timewise, is up to his neck in politics doing the various jobs that he must undertake—that the electors of Howden may conclude that their hon. Member is not doing his job because he is rarely in the House.
Mr. Bryan: I have not the slightest doubt that that will be so. Lots of awkward questions will be asked in the early days of televising our proceedings. My hope and belief is that, on balance—and we can only refer to this on balance because everything will not be in our favour—it will be to our advantage in the end. That is all I can say in reply to the hon. Gentleman, although I agree that this is a real problem, one of many which we will be up against.
Dr. Winstanley: Would not the hon. Gentleman add that the proposal includes the televising of Committees and that this would demonstrate that many other things are going on elsewhere in this building?
Mr. Bryan: That is an important consideration, although we will have to consider how far we can go. We cannot do the lot.
Most hon. Members agree that the status of Parliament has declined over the years. We have relied too much and for too long on the mysteries of the altar to fascinate people, while in this T.V. age people are fascinated only by what they can see and by what they think they can, in the end, understand. We must consider, like it or not, whether the public has a moral right to know, as far as is practicably possible, what goes on in both Houses.
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There would certainly be loud protests if any newspaper were restrained from publishing Parliamentary debates or if the B.B.C. were not allowed to broadcast "Today in Parliament". Yet all we are discussing now is a more modern and effective way of communicating this same news to the public. There would be an uproar if the Government denied the use of the Strangers Gallery to the public. Yet what we are discussing is merely a method by which in one week the voters will see their Members actually perform more than has been seen in 50 years by those who have watched from the Strangers Gallery.
So far on television we have chosen to show our electors only the pageantry and symbolism of the Opening of Parliament, but we have excluded them from its working life. It is hard to claim that this is modern democracy. In the early days of universal suffrage the vote was the acknowledged brand mark of democracy. Today the vote means little, for it is taken for granted. Democracy in a modern, educated society must mean more than that. It must mean the intelligent participation—or at least the opportunity for intelligent participation—by all citizens in their Government.
We should try to introduce the broadcasting of our proceedings. The Lord President said enough to show that the difficulties and the variety of possibilities are sufficient to make a preliminary experiment absolutely essential. The more one sat in the Committee, the more one came to this conclusion. In the early days of the Committee the phrases "no technical difficulty "and" no appreciable extra cost" occurred with comforting frequency. As time went on and as the technicians began to realise the complication of our requirements, and we of theirs, these phrases became rarer. Now, as we are considering the simultaneous recording and editing of the proceedings of this House, in another place, and an upstairs Committee, we have progressed to the point when things are still technically possible, but clearly very difficult indeed.
I regard this experiment as extremely important—no mere formal prelude to permanent broadcasting. It is a great pity that the experiment will have to be postponed. The cost is not a great problem, particularly when one considers that

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it will be about the sum that British Railways lose in an afternoon. This, in relation to such a large reform of Parliament, is laughable.
Mr. Iremonger: Has my hon. Friend made a calculation of the relationship which this cost bears to the cost which the Greater London Council is incurring, in this period of economic difficulty, by installing a huge propaganda system in election year?
Mr. C. Pannell: The hon. Gentleman's wife is not interested in that now.
Mr. Bryan: I have not been calculating that sum. The cost is really beside the point. The technical difficulties are considerable, but I believe that by now, having put the experiment off for as long as we have, there might be considerable difficulty involved in conducting the experiment by February.
Mr. Eldon Griffiths (Bury St. Edmunds): While accepting what my hon Friend is saying about the possible delay of conducting the T.V. experiment, may I ask whether he believes that it is necessary to delay at least a radio experiment, which could be made at much less expense, with considerably less trouble and with no problems caused on the Floor of the House?
Mr. Bryan: I do not believe that we would get a lot from that. I recall that in the early days of the Committee the B.B.C. recommended that that should be the first step. However, such an experiment would not teach us a great amount.
I was a rather late-comer to the Select Committee and I therefore did not bear the full burden and heat of the day. Therefore, I should like to pay tribute to its work, to its members—especially its long-service members—to the many distinguished witnesses who put a tremendous amount of work and preparation into their evidence, and, most of all, to the chairman, the hon. Member for Barking (Mr. Driberg) who led us with great competence and tact. This is obviously an extremely important venture. It has been well launched, and I wish it bon voyage.
5.11 p.m.
Mr. Charles Pannell: The hon. Member for Howden (Mr. Bryan) betrayed himself when he referred to
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hon. Members "performing". I do not look upon hon. Members in this place as performing. [Interruption.] I do not know. Do other hon. Members consider that hon. Members perform? The more that the Leader of the House spoke about this, the more apprehensive I became. I thought that with just a little slant he could have made a case against the Motion. My father always said never struggle after a liability, and we are doing just that here. What we are proposing to do will commit us. I understand the enthusiasm of the Chairman of the Committee. The one thing that in politics we must never do, is to deceive ourselves, and we must not deceive ourselves about what will happen if we take this thing on. After all, we will have conditioned the B.B.C. and the I.T.V. that other things will follow. The pressures will build up to an extent which they have not built up before. Those people who have as many doubts as I have had better go into the "No" Lobby.
We must ask ourselves what is the purpose of this exercise—what do we want to get at the end of it? If it is merely to provide television entertainment, then that is better done by others. It is not the purpose of Parliament to have performers or to have television. Ninety per cent. of the life of a Member of Parliament in this House is often boredom. Much of the hard stint of the work of hon. Members will be away from the limelight and it would seem that only a microcosm of the work of this House will occasionally come into the limelight.
Mr. Iremonger: One can say that about life.
Mr. Pannell: The hon. Gentleman is not televised 24 hours a day. We are speaking about the proceedings of the House being televised. If it is entertainment or drama that we want, then why stop here? Why not televise the courts of justice—a murder trial, or something like that?
The United States has maintained its dignity by saying that when in full session neither House will be televised. I would not myself bother so much about the Committees upstairs. I merely speak about the proceedings of the House. Let us look at the state of the House now and count the number of hon. Members here. We should ask ourselves whether this is a

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true reflection of what our colleagues are doing in this building. The fact that there are few hon. Members present is no reflection on other hon. Members. We will not get a true reflection of the House of Commons from this exercise about which we are talking.
The object of the exercise, as a colleague said over lunch, is that Parliament should be better understood. I am sorry to say that at the end of the day we shall not be so well understood and there will be all sorts of people, of the kind who make snap judgments, who will judge us in the way that we should not be judged.
Directly we start this exercise, we hand over to the technicians. The enthusiasm of the Select Committee has already got us to the stage that we could have had strangers on the Floor of the House, coming in and out of the Chamber, and the intrusion of cameras. Is there any hon. Member here today who would suggest that there are no extroverts here who would not be conscious of that? After all, Parliament has 630 Members, 620 of whom are extroverts. Ten of us may be introverts, and some of the majority of the 620 may be megalomaniacs; but fundamentally a Member of Parliament believes that he can do for others better than others can do for themselves. We should be handing over to the technicians. We should have a camera man saying, "Can we have a little more light on Mr. Speaker's wig?" and before we were finished Mr. Speaker would have a halo. We might be asked, "Can we shift the Serjeant at Arms' chair 18 inches that way?" We will have a gradual adjustment not to suit ourselves but to suit the television camera men.
Mr. Gerry Fowler: In view of what the right hon. Gentleman said, about technicians, in the context of conducting an experiment, is he arguing that either we should not have television in this House or, if at some later date we decide that we should do it, that that would not be as an experiment, but that we should plunge in at the deep end?
Mr. Pannell: I can only use my imagination. We had some experience of this at the State Opening. I was Minister of Works at the time. The lighting was less
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than was necessary. I certainly was not consulted. The previous Leader of the House pleaded not guilty. The Serjeant at Arms never owned up to it. Mr. Speaker was not guilty. I wondered whether the shadow of the Great Lord Chamberlain had fallen over us.
The sort of picture we will get will depend on where we sit. Also, in spite of what the Select Committee has said, I believe we will get a dual standard in speeches. There will be the tabloid speech—to use the hon. Gentleman's elegant phrase—and then the badly read essay in a turgid monotone, for the rest of us. I believe this will become the rule rather than the exception.
There is, after all, no end to the impertinence of this medium. We had an example this week, at a time of great Commonwealth difficulty—the idea in the Frost programme of introducing Mr. Smith. I merely say that, whatever hon. Members on both sides of the House may think about the programme—and it has nothing to do with this Government—the impertinence shown can go no further. If any hon. Member thinks that impertinence can go further than that, then his standards are different from mine. If we wish to see the effect of television I could mention as an example, the right hon. Member for Wallasey (Mr. Marples). The Guardian said that he surfaced at Blackpool after two years. He went on the Frost programme to complain that there were only 15 Members in the House and he was going to bring in an idea for reform. I have only to mention the right hon. Gentleman's name and his attendance in this place to show what can be done with one spotlight on television. Nothing is said about the long hours of service on the part of Members in the Committees of the House, where Members slog it out on several important matters. The people advantaged will be the extroverts and the photogenics.
Mr. David Winnick: May I ask the hon. Gentleman whether he has read page 56 of the Report which deals with whether or not certain people, extroverts and exhibitionists, will get more television than other hon. Members? It deals very thoroughly with this point.
Mr. Pannell: The hon. Gentleman should consider one important thing, even if he disagrees with me—I always do my

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homework. The hon. Member need not point out what appears on page 56. Everything that has been written in the Report was written in good faith, but whether I like to believe it is another thing altogether. We had a fair saturation of television during the last election.
The Committee has not faced the question of the law of privilege, which is almost esoteric—
Mr. John Fraser: My right hon. Friend has spoken of television spots occupied, I believe, by the right hon. Member for Wallasey (Mr. Marples). Would he not agree that this illustrates that not televising the House gives undue prominence to people outside it, and puts the wrong type of emphasis on those who are active inside it?
Mr. Pannell: I will only say that if we have this experiment a lot of worthy Members will be disappointed. I will leave it there.
The law of privilege has not been properly looked at. One can think of the occasion when something has to be replied to several speeches later. I know what the Law Officers have said, and what the Clerk of the House has said, but anyone who has looked at the law of privilege must feel some degree of disquiet.
The nails were driven into the coffin this afternoon when we heard of a sum of £150,000. And what rubbish it is in this context to try to compare that amount with the great expenditure of the railways, and services like that. That is not a fair comparison. It is probably far better to consider all the other things that might be done with £150,000.
Mr. Bryan: I could not have derided the figure enough. We might say that it represented a one-tenth part of one of the American bombers that the Government are buying.
Mr. Pannell: The hon. Gentleman considers £150,000 to be a very derisory sum, but I can recall that some of the greatest debates we have had in this House have been on the principles enshrined in comparatively small sums. We know full well that had it been a question of £1,000 extra on the Prime Minister's salary, hon. Members opposite would have pulled the place down—[Interruption.] As for hon. Members' salaries, although the
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whole House was agreed, enough mischief was made of it. There is a figure of £18,000 for the Lords—where is the hon. Member for Fife, West (Mr. William Hamilton)?
Another thing that has come out of the debate which has shaken me is this question of the editing of the tapes—passing out a tape and letting outside agencies do what they like with it. Did any hon. Member see John Bird's treatment of Anthony Eden the other week, and the way that tape was edited? The imagination boggles at what someone might do here if that could be done with Anthony Eden. It would seem to be almost an obscene exercise to take words out, and string them out, and be selective in this way.
These doubts arise when one reads the Report, and though I attempt to rationalise my feelings in the face of that Report, I yet feel deep down, with all the conviction of which I am capable, that this project is not a good thing for the House of Commons, and it is not a good thing for the democratic process. In the end, what we do tonight will condition the Government, and give them encouragement in what they propose to do next year. I think that we had better stop it.
5.25 p.m.
Mr. Selwyn Lloyd: Those who have listened to my hon. Friend the Member for Howden (Mr. Bryan) will agree that we have had a good speech from him in favour of this suggestion, and we have had a very good speech from the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Leeds, West (Mr. C. Pannell) against it. I shall seek to tread a little more of the tightrope as walked by the Leader of the House.
It will probably be agreed by all that this is a very important Parliamentary occasion, and it is to be hoped that before the final decision is taken rather more hon. Members will be present to listen to the arguments. It is a decision that could change the character of the House and affect its efficiency. I believe that our procedures can be improved, but although the Select Committee on Procedure works away at that painstakingly, item by item, I believe that the decision to be taken today is more important than anything we do there.

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I repeat what I said on 28th May to the House, that this is a House of Commons matter; that those who think in terms of advantage for the Opposition, for the Government or for individual Members will probably be wrong in any event. It is accepted that it must be a matter for a free vote.
Further than that—and I am not now talking about the decision to experiment—I do not think that the final decision should be taken by a simple majority. In this matter there should be a broad consensus in the House. I will not be happy if a decision is taken unless it commands the support of the large majority of hon. Members. The right hon. Gentleman's predecessor accepted that proposition on behalf of the Government in May of last year, and I very much hope that the right hon. Gentleman himself will do the same when he replies tonight.
I congratulate the Select Committee on its very careful Report, and it is no criticism to say that many questions still remain to be answered. I shall confine myself to the three main items on the first page. First of all, there is the decision against continuous broadcasting or televising—I agree wholeheartedly with that decision. The continuous service would not only be incredibly boring and a misuse of a channel, but it would completely alter the atmosphere of the House. Therefore, as I say, I wecome that decision.
I accept the second decision, that it is technically possible to televise the House unobtrusively and without the discomfort of glaring lights and extra heat, and the presence of the sort of monsters one meets in the ordinary studios—I refer to to the cameras, not to the interviewers. If those two points are accepted, one asks: is it desirable to have an edited summary on the lines of "Today in Parliament"? What are the pros and cons? Would the taking of the complete tape alter the atmosphere of the Chamber?
It might improve our manners and attendances—not necessarily bad things in themselves—but I suspect that the effect would soon wear off. In the United Nations one speaks from a podium in the General Assembly and one is conscious of the television, but in the Security Council,
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and in Committees, speaking from one's seat, one soon forgets that the proceedings are being televised at all. Here, if the cameras were unobtrusive and there were not extra heat and light, Members would soon cease to be conscious that the proceedings were being televised.
Would the photography be fairly done? I think that it would be. I do not think that it would be technically difficult, with six cameras, to get a picture that would be fair, and I rather like the idea of the work being handled by a unit responsible to the House of Commons.
Would it be possible to edit it. That, for me, is the crux of the matter. On radio, "Today in Parliament" is very well edited indeed. Is the same thing possible with television? I do not think that the precedents of party conference or General Election campaigns are precedents at all. I do not know the answer, although I am inclined to say, "Let us try it and judge". To say, "Try it and judge" sounds very simple, but a whole lot of very difficult matters come in at this stage. I agree that it should be on a closed circuit, and that it would be wise to televise both Houses. I strongly support the right hon. Gentleman in wishing to postpone the experiment until 1968. There are a lot of things we have to think out during the intervening period.
There is the question of the length of the experiment. If one could get round the question of cost, four weeks would be too short. I would rather have an experiment for a longer period. Whether that could be done by staggering the experiment, I do not know. Four weeks is only 16 full working days, with Fridays in addition. It is much better to have modern up to date cameras for the experiment, but that follows from the delay.
How would we see the results of the experiment? I should not be satisfied with only one run-through next day. Every hon. Member should have a chance, at a time convenient to himself or herself, to see the televising of the proceedings the day before. Who would have access to the tapes of the experiment? Would the experiment include a weekly summary? If it were decided not to have a daily summary, there might be a longer weekly summary. Will the arrangements be approved by the Services Committee and put to the House before the experiment takes place?
Mr. Crossman: I think it essential that they should be. There is so much uncertainty. We would have to give the details and present them to the House.
Mr. Selwyn Lloyd: I am grateful for that. I hope that it would be possible for the Services Committee to produce its ideas in the first half of next year so that there would be time for every hon. Member to think about them. Some of my doubts about the experiment have been met by the fact that it is to be postponed until 1968.
We come to the question of what is to happen if the experiment is deemed successful. There is the question of the control of the editing if it is decided to go on. I think it would not be right to have a Select Committee of this House which censored in any way. But there would have to be a body to advise Mr. Speaker on possible complaints.
We come to the main point in the final decision, which we must think about now: what use will be made of the tape? I gather that there is not to be compulsory showing on all channels. I think that I am right in saying that "Today in Parliament" is compulsory—this is written into the Charter—and it appears on every sound programme. I do not think that it is suggested that one programme should go out everywhere.
What about regional uses? I do not like the idea of people having the tape and being able to do what they like, to pick out bits and give them a slant. That would be very difficult to control, but if it were only one half hour programme devoted to the affairs of the House it would be simpler. It would be difficult if we taped the proceedings and then allowed people to do what they liked with the tapes. What the right hon. Member for Leeds, West said on this was very apposite.
We should try to consider those things but not decide them before taking a decision on the experiment. On balance, I am prepared to vote for the experiment on the clear understanding that it is far from being a formality and a prelude to an inevitable decision. If the result is unfair as between Government and Opposition, or as between Front and back benchers, or to the House as a whole, or if it is thoroughly boring—as it
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may well be—I should certainly have no hesitation in voting against the general principle when the time comes.
5.34 p.m.
Mr. Michael English: I entirely agree with the basis which the right hon. and learned Member for Wirral (Mr. Selwyn Lloyd) has stated as the one upon which he would vote on this Motion. I entirely agree because that is the basis on which I will vote. I think that I may lay some claim to having been one of the causes of the Motion which we are discussing.
My right hon. Friend the Leader of the House referred to the history whereby some of us discovered the then existing order of reference of the old Publications and Debates Committee. I think that I should put right one thing which we then thought. Its wording was:
"to advise Mr. Speaker upon the publication and reporting of debates"
—there were no limiting words "in writing".
We thought that this was because the order of reference was very old. I find—and here I should pay tribute to one who was for a long time an hon. Member of this House—that the order of reference of the old Committee at one time did have much more restrictive wording than the one we found. It was as a result of pressure by Commander Stephen King-Hall, who used to be an hon. Member of this House, that the terms were widened with the deliberate intention that the Committee should be able to consider other means of communication. Perhaps, were he still here, he would be as interested in this debate as are hon. Members here now.
What is the object of this experiment? It seems that hon. Members who have spoken, even my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, West (Mr. C. Pannell), have clearly given the object. We as a Committee found it quite impossible to say in advance what the answer to all the problems ought to be. We did not find it possible to advise the House to agree or to disagree with the idea of television unless hon. Members had seen it in operation for themselves.
We tend as a society in these days virtually to allow experiment to rule the world. Certainly, in many scientific fields we govern the whole of our domestic

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policy, and the policy of every country, by the man in his laboratory experimenting. We do not always apply the same principle to society. In many respects we cannot apply it to society because we cannot divide society into two and say, "We shall experiment with this half and leave the other half as a control upon it".
Inasmuch as we can, we should see how we can solve the problems, it seems to the Committee, by means that do not commit the House to the ultimate solution. That is the precise object of this Report. My right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, West said that one should not spend £150,000—or whatever the figure might be—upon such an experiment. The hon. Member for Howden (Mr. Bryan) said that it was one-tenth of the cost of an American bomber. It is approximately one-tenth of the cost of a General Election. I rather think it is worth one-tenth of the cost of an election that people should be able to see what they are voting about.
I do not know how much my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, West is prepared to spend on democracy, but this seems to be a very small sum to spend on finding whether televising our proceedings would be a great advantage to the democracy we have already or a danger to it. Rather than adopting the attitude of preconception of my right hon. Friend, I sincerely hope that hon. Members will take the view of the right hon. and learned Member for Wirral that we ought to look at this matter for ourselves and see what we individually think can be done with the medium.
Turning to the remarks of my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House, in view of things which have happened since the Committee reported I am a convert to deferring the experiment, but not for the reasons he stated. I can see that this may weigh with the Government in view of the economic circumstances of the day, but I am a convert to it because I and several hon. Members—in fact, I think the whole Committee—were somewhat perturbed to find that the cost of the experiment had somewhat increased.
This arose from two circumstances. The first was because more was included than the Committee suggested, which is a reasonable cause of increase. The second
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—this can be said without being unfair to the broadcasting organisations—is that they have found the complexities greater than they realised at the time they gave evidence to the Committee. If that is so, it is only reasonable to say that there should be as much time as possible to consider the details of the experiment. This is what has converted me to deferment.
It having been said that we want to defer the experiment, there were certain reasons for choosing the period of the year we did. For example, if it was merely desired to defer the experiment on the ground that we did not want a Supplementary Estimate this year, it could be done in November. I think that I can say that the majority of the Committee would be against that, because in November there are many Second Readings but very few Bills in Standing Committee, and it would not necessarily be an average period in the House. We thought that January/February was about the right period, bearing this and other factors in mind, including the convenience of the broadcasting organisations. So, in the circumstances, I would agree that the experiment should be conducted in January, 1968.
My right hon. Friend the Leader of the House mentioned other advantages, which I will not repeat. However, the House should note that, if this experiment is proceeded with, we shall be sparking off a piece of purely technical development, since the miniature Plumbicon cameras which might be ready if we deferred the experiment to January, 1968, would be manufactured in the first place for that purpose. I am not suggesting that they have not been designed now. I say that this would spark off the turning of that design into a useful piece of equipment.
The question of what should happen next is very important, but not as important as the right hon. and learned Member for Wirral and my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House have said. The question of what should happen after the experiment is not of the greatest importance at this stage. The Committee reported upon it in some detail, partly because evidence was being given and it is desirable that one should get an idea of where one is going, and partly so that the House could be as fully informed as

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possible. The whole object of the experiment is to enable us to have a period after the results of the experiment are known, even if the House decides to go in for television permanently, in which we should determine how we should do it. So, at this stage, the question of how to do it permanently is not as important as has been asserted.
However, there are factors which we will need to determine if we decide to broadcast permanently, and here I join issue very strongly with my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House. I am strongly in favour of the basic idea contained in the Report. My right hon. Friend implied that it was possibly a waste of time and money to telerecord the whole of the proceedings of the House and then to use perhaps only half an hour at the end of the day, with a few minutes in news broadcasts and a few minutes in regional programmes elsewhere. My right hon. Friend said that, according to the B.B.C.'s estimate, we should use only 2 per cent. of the tape on the national programme which eventually went out.
What my right hon. Friend did not say was that the annual running cost, as estimated to us, of permanently telerecording the House and some of its Committees for a whole year would be just about the same as the total cost of the experiment which we now propose to make; because, once something is undertaken on a permanent basis, the cost falls sharply. My right hon. Friend did not mention that even the cost of the experiment is one-quarter of the cost of the average outside broadcast now. My right hon. Friend did not mention that only the most minute proportion of all that is filmed in almost any outside broadcast now is broadcast. The House would show extreme ignorance if it took the view that any very high percentage of the time spent on outside broadcasts at present goes out, and broadcasting of the House of Commons, even on a permanent basis would, in effect, be outside broadcasting.
That aspect is only relatively minor compared to the deeper danger which I foresee in my right hon. Friend's proposal. Everyone who has spoken so far has expressed dislike of the practice of continuous broadcasting, partly because it would require a new television channel, and partly because it might have
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other dangers. However, the practice of continuous broadcasting does not necessarily mean continuous broadcasting at every hour of every day from Monday to Friday. The dangers in continuous broadcasting exist if one does only every hour on a single day once in three months.
I believe that the hon. Member for Howden slightly distorted—I think accidentally—the Australian picture. He correctly stated that in Australia there has been continuous broadcasting. What he did not say was that the way that they do it—or did it—there is to broadcast each House on alternate days. As a regular practice, a given House falls to be broadcast on the same day. Therefore, one House knows full well that it will be broadcast on Mondays and Wednesdays.
Without my elaborating on this, the House will see the likely effects on the business of our House if this were done. I do not think that it is necessary for me to say any more on this subject, except that my right hon. Friend said that we should select what is to be broadcast. Who is to do the selection? Back bench Members would have some degree of suspicion that the selection would fall into the usual places—the usual channels, in fact—where selection of most things in the House takes place.
However that might be, once the selection was made, people would know what portions of the business of the House would be broadcast. There is a great difference between knowing that there is to be a broadcast at a particular time and knowing that the whole of the proceedings are being telerecorded and an edited programme will be produced at the end of the day containing the reasonable highlights of the day's discussion. For that reason, I should be very concerned to think that we were, on a permanent basis, to televise the House in the way my right hon. Friend mentioned.
The United States' practice has been quoted, but hon. Members should be careful when quoting the practice of other Parliaments in relation to television. There is no doubt in the minds of most of those who have seen both that the Floor procedure of this House is far more interesting than the Floor procedure of the United States Congress, where the Members sit in a semi-circle at their desks and those wishing to speak stand,

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read a speech which they have already given to the Press in the Gallery upstairs, and then disappear.
But the Committee procedure of Congress is probably more interesting than ours. Anyone who saw their Vietnam debates on television, for example, would realise that it is because of the nature of the American Congress that the Senate allows its Committees to be televised, but has not hitherto allowed the Floor to be televised. I do not think that one can say that the practice of Congress as regards television is exactly applicable to this House, where the procedure and practice, particularly on the Floor of the House, are very different. There is a vast difference between the dramatic but conversational atmosphere of this House and the much more formal atmosphere of an American Congressional House.
There is only one small further point on which I should correct my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House. He said, and I think that it was a slip of the tongue, that the lighting level of the Chamber would be very slightly above what it is now. He is correct as regards the night time. It would not be above what it is at daylight level and would not, strangely enough be above the level of lighting recommended for offices, including Government offices. In this respect, Government offices have better lighting than we have now at night.
I plead with the House to consider carefully the principal issue. The issue is not whether we should televise the House to the public at large, or whether we should not. It is not whether we should do it in a particular way; I agree with the right hon. and learned Member for Wirral upon that. The issue is not even whether we should have an experiment exactly in the terms of the Report, because I think that we all agree that many details will still have to be worked out, which is why the House of Commons Services Committee is being asked to do that.
The issue is simply and solely, "Do we, as Members of this House, wish to see on closed circuit television, without the public at large looking in, what can be done with a modern medium of communication to communicate what goes on in
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the House to members of the public?" It seems to me that in an age of science we would be wrong if we did not say that we should allow that experiment to take place and then consider what it has shown us.
5.53 p.m.
Dame Joan Vickers: I am very glad to have the chance to take part in the debate, as I am very strongly against any form of experiment, or of televising the House at all. The trial period will prove nothing of importance. I understand that we shall have only 16 working days, and, therefore, Parliament will change to conform with the technician. I am not against change, but I do not want to change to conform with our so-called technical masters in the future, because the 16 days will be a very special period, and we shall all tend to behave in an artificial way.
I am sure that the hon. Member for Croydon, South (Mr. Winnick) will not sit with his feet up on the bench as he has been doing. He will conform to polite custom. When I have guests in the Gallery they very often complain, if they bring small children, of the inelegant way in which Members of the Front Bench sit, but I do not see why we should have to behave in an artificial manner just because we are to go on television.
My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Wirral (Mr. Selwyn Lloyd) mentioned the United Nations. That is completely different, because there one goes up to a rostrum and one is, therefore, not debating, but making a speech. This happens in a great many other Parliaments, particularly the Belgian Parliament. Members do not really debate as we do. When they are at their desks they are reading their papers or concentrating on speech and are not thinking of the television. We cannot really act in the same way in this House.
Quite a lot has been said about editing, and naturally, the editors will have their favourites, hon. Members who, they think, will be able to put over points better than others. We know this from the point of view of "Any Questions", some hon. Members are never asked to go on that programme. After 11 years in the House I have, for the first time, been asked to broadcast "The Week in Westminster". Editing will create a difficult

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problem, for editors will obviously want to put over hon. Members who they think will do most justice to the House itself, and that will be very limiting. Constituencies will want to adopt dominant M.P.s with particular personalities. We all know who they are in the House at present, and they may not necessarily be the best Parliamentarians.
There will also be a great difficulty in regard to the tape. We have been told that proceedings will all be taped. Will the edited tape be kept forever, and will it be produced later?
Mr. English: It is said in the Report that it would cost too much to keep the whole tape, because it must be converted to film. It is suggested that the House might wish to keep a proportion of it in the archives.
Dame Joan Vickers: That would be a very bad idea, or expensive. I am sure that no one will want to see us in time to come.
Mr. C. Pannell: I do not think that my hon. Friend really had the answer. The point is that the tape can be sold to people who in 10 years, will alter my hon. Friend's speeches, and then his speech will not be distinguishable from the one we had from the Opposition Front Bench this afternoon.
Mr. English: The point is that any sale take place under conditions of contract.
Dame Joan Vickers: We have no idea as far as I understand from the Report, what the contract will be, how long it will last, and what will be its use in the future. If we are to have this, one would not like to appear in the middle of advertisements. For instance, I hope there will not be an hon. Member talking and then a few minutes' break and an advert for the treatment of B.O., or something, coming on. That would be absolutely frightful.
Mr. John Fraser: I would draw the hon. Lady's attention to the part of the Report which comes out exactly against what she suggests.
Dame Joan Vickers: I know about that and I am delighted. But it is no safeguard. The Select Committee only comes out against it and there is no legislation
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to say that it cannot be done. That is exactly what I was worried about.
I may be considered a complete "square" on this, but I think that televising will ruin the whole atmosphere of the House. Paragraph 72 of the Report says:
"Having considered the evidence available, Your Committee believe that the introduction of broadcasting in the form they have suggested would lead to few changes in the procedure and atmosphere of the House."
Why should we have our changes in procedure dictated by television? I am sure that it will lead to a completely different atmosphere in the House.
If we are to show how the House works, why should there not be a television camera in the Smoking Room or the Ladies' Room because not all hon. Members are sitting in the House? Many sit in the Smoking Room for a considerable time discussing problems, and I presume that that is some of their work.
It will be very difficult for hon. Members who are possibly very good constituency Members of Parliament, but who are not forceful debaters. They do excellent work for their constituencies, taking a great deal of trouble with the problems of constituents, and a lot of work for Committees which will not be shown on television.
Paragraph 73 of the Report states:
"Your Committee believe that it is also important to try to assess whether the general public would be interested in the prospect of seeing and hearing a record of the House actually at work."
I do not think that its opinion in paragraph 74 is at all conclusive. It says:
"Your Committee agree with the Research Unit that this indicates a 'moderately impressive' public demand for some form of Parliamentary broadcasting. Except perhaps at times of acute political crisis,…"
I should have thought that there was little demand for this.
At the end of paragraph 74, the Select Committee tells us:
"Your Committee also believe—and some replies to the second part of the question confirm this—that many members of the public would rather see and hear Members of Parliament actually at work in the House instead of (as at present) mainly in interview and discussion programmes or party political broadcasts".
I think that most people—I can certainly say this for most women—prefer

1651
just listening to the radio because they can listen and do something else at the same time. Looking at television means that one has to sit down, one has the family circle there, and it does waste a good deal of time. At least, that is my view, and I do not believe that there will be any real demand for this sort of viewing of Parliament.
Paragraph 75 is interesting:
"Your Committee were impressed by the evidence given by the present editor of 'Panorama', who stated that the public appetite for politics properly presented 'grows with feeding' "—
what kind of feeding will it have?—
"and that a daily summary programme of proceedings in the House 'might acquire … a regular, interested audience which made a point of watching'."
I cannot see that there is any particular demand. The people mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Howden (Mr. Bryan) as being in favour are all people who have some technical interest, who are interested in their job and in putting forward ideas for televising proceedings of one kind and another, so they are prejudiced people.
Mr. Bryan: They have an interest inasmuch as they are experts, people technically or in other ways qualified as exponents of a particular art.
Dame Joan Vickers: Yes, but my hon. Friend spoke of them as though they were people whose opinions we should accept and whose advice we should follow. I do not regard them as people whose opinions we should take up in that way. Their views can be quoted, but it does not help us to say that they are the people whom we should regard as having the right approach.
In paragraph 79, the Select Committee gives the reasons for having a closed-circuit experiment, as I have already said, I am not in favour of any kind of experiment. It will be very expensive in any case, and if put off till 1968 it will be even more expensive as prices rise. A closed-circuit experiment will be of little value unless we are really determined to go ahead and have the House fully televised in the future, so I was glad to hear what the Leader of the House had to say about this experiment today and having another vote on the matter before our final decision.
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The Committee speaks in paragraph 80 of what the programmes should include. On editing, the first point made is that there should be
"balance between liveliness and informative-ness".
This will be extremely difficult. We have some very lively Members of Parliament. Will they be put on purely because they are lively and amusing? I have always thought of the House as the place where we came to consider seriously our country's legislation and well-being, not just to take part in some form of comic opera.
Difficult problems are raised also by item (iii):
"Balance between proceedings on the Floor of the House and proceedings in Standing Committees".
A great many Members who sit on Standing Committees do not speak. This is particularly so on the Government side; in fact, they are pressed by their Whips not to speak, so they do their personal work at their benches. If we televised our proceedings in Standing Committee, we should prolong Committee stages interminably, because every Member, naturally, would have to make some points during the sittings. Not only would this add to the difficulty of work in Standing Committees, but it would give the Government a lot of trouble in getting their business through.
It is my experience that people generally vote against something and not for something. I give the example of my experience in Devonport. I have told the hon. Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Michael Foot) that I should mention him today in this connection. I did not win Devonport on my own merits. I did not beat the hon. Gentleman the present Member for Ebbw Vale on my own merits. I won because of television. I know this because I have canvassed 10,200 houses. Before the election, the present hon. Member for Ebbw Vale was on a very controversial television programme, and it was astonishing to find the number of people who said to me, "We will vote for you. We want to get that chap off television". Later, it was really rather sad for me. I got tremendous applause when it was said that I had beaten the hon. Gentleman, but, again, it was not on my own merits, people did it because they said that I had got him

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off television. We must realise that this can happen and so ruin a career.
Mr. Eldon Griffiths: I am not sure that I follow my hon. Friend's argument. Surely, the best way to keep the hon. Gentleman off television would have been to elect him to the House.
Dame Joan Vickers: Not at all. My hon. Friend must know that many hon. Members, including himself, are invited time and time again to put their views on the police and other matters on television. We have seen my hon. Friend on television many times, probably more times than he will be televised from the Chamber. The number of opportunities one has to speak in the House in a year is very limited, and my hon. Friend has far more chances in his present position than he would have in Parliament.
What about the Opening of Parliament? Again, I can only speak from my own experience, and I do not know whether others have had the same experience. On the last occasion, I had a ticket to be in the House of Lords, and afterwards I had innumerable letters from constituents telling me that they had not seen me in the House of Commons. It cost me quite a lot to answer everyone and explain that I was in attendance, but I happened to be in the House of Lords, having for the first time won a ticket in the ballot.
I am glad to see the hon. Member for Ebbw Vale now in his place. I did tell him that I intended to refer to him, and he graciously agreed, though he said that he might not be back in time. I have already said what I told him I would say.
What about our experience at party conferences? Quite by chance, I happened to be the first person ever to speak when television was first introduced at the Conservative Party conference. I have noticed that, since that time, our conferences are run quite differently. People behave themselves far too well nowadays, they speak mostly to an outside audience. There are extraordinary ovations for speakers, whether they deserve them or not, because people want to show party unity. I am talking about Conservative Party conferences now, but the same thing happens at Socialist Party conferences. I remember, for example, that the present Prime Minister made at least one speech not for
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people in the conference hall, but for the wider audience outside. I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman understands the use of television probably better than anyone else in the House, and that this is very likely the reason why he may be keen on having the House televised.
There have been references to what is done in other countries. Austria has not so far been mentioned, and, although the experience there may be a good example for us on these benches, I should like to tell the House that, although it is said that only about 4 per cent. of people in Austria are interested, television tends to help the Opposition there because people like fighting speeches and not complacent speeches from back benchers on the Government side.
It would be very difficult to apportion the time properly. I am glad that we have one hon. Member here from the Liberal Party, the hon. Member for Cheadle (Dr. Winstanley). I come from the West Country, where there are quite a number of Liberals. I have noticed that in practically every debate, although the number of Liberal Members is small, a Liberal Member is asked to speak. The Liberal Party, therefore, would be likely to get far more than its share of time on television. No doubt, this would be very nice for the hon. Members concerned, but it would create difficult questions of balance and publicity.
I shall not take up the technical points which have already been discussed. I have read the Report of the Select Committee very thoroughly. Although, in answer to my question during his speech, the right hon. Gentleman said that our debate today would not commit us to a final decision, I must repeat that I am averse to any experiment because I do not consider that it would prove anything at all and, what is more, I do not want further consideration to be given at present to any suggestion that our proceedings here should be televised.
6.10 p.m.
Mr. Tom Driberg: The hon. Lady the Member for Plymouth, Devonport (Dame Joan Vickers) spoke very severely about people who, she said, were "prejudiced" in favour of this project. I cannot say that I thought her speech entirely judicial in tone or content,

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but there is no reason why we should not be prejudiced one way or another—although I venture to suggest that it is better that one should be able to base one's prejudice on some regard for the facts.
In addition, it is also, if I may say so, perhaps desirable, when one is contributing to this debate, at least to have glanced at the Report of the three Select Committees, which held a great many meetings and went into the matter thoroughly. I know that the hon. Lady said that she had read the Report, but she was forgetting one point, of which she was reminded: I do not complain about that.
The hon. Lady gave her experience of party conferences and perhaps I may therefore refer to this subject now. I was going to deal with it later. The hon. Lady said the result of televising party conferences is that the delegates "behave far too well". This may be the case with the Conservative Party conference, but I assure her that it is not the case with the Labour Party conference. It need not be the case at all. Indeed, I do not believe that it has anything whatever to do with television.
I have myself in the past attended the Conservative Party conference, as a journalist and broadcasting commentator, and have always noted the dramatic contrast between the extremely smooth, well-groomed and well-drilled atmosphere of the Conservative Party conference and the turbulence of ours. So I do not think that that is really relevant.
The serious point about the experience we derive from the party conferences is this—
Mr. Hogg: My own experience of the Labour Party conference was that it was almost exactly the same as ours. Indeed, I suspected that the ladies were the same ladies, wearing red hats.
Mr. Driberg: I agree with the right hon. and learned Gentleman that our ladies' hats are somewhat plainer and less flowery than those of his own ladies, although in my experience very few of our women delegates wear hats at all. However, that is perhaps not a very material point.
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The serious point about party conference experience, in so far as it is relevant—and I agree that there is no exact analogy—is precisely the point made by the right hon. and learned Member for Wirral (Mr. Selwyn Lloyd) about the United Nations. That is to say, it is my experience, certainly of party conferences, that the delegates very soon forget that the cameras are there. The cameras are nowadays unobtrusive, as they would be in this House if the experiment were approved. The delegates are much more interested in the live audience around them and in persuading their colleagues, some of whom may be highly and audibly critical of the speech they are making.
This is much more interesting than a remote, glassy lens, which they simply forget about. So that is the only point at which the experience of party conferences seems to me to be relevant to what might happen in this House, and, therefore, it surely answers, to some extent, the fears of those hon. Members who have spoken of television coming to dominate our proceedings and so on.
Dame Joan Vickers: At party conferences, the main interest to viewers, surely, is when people are interviewed by Robin Day and others. These are the things which attract people and not the conference itself. Will that go on if once this place is televised?
Mr. Driberg: That may or may not still go on, but I think that one of the good effects of televising Parliament might be that the main focus of political controversy would come back to Westminster, where it belongs, from the television studios. I do not believe that the television studios ought to be the main centre or forum of political debate. This House ought to be, and those who say that they do not want this House broadcast in any way mean that they do not want their constituents to see or hear Parliament at work. This is a complete contradiction of the spirit of democracy as we know it.
After all, as has been said, hundreds of thousands of our constituents have been to this House and have watched its proceedings from the Gallery. One hon. Member has expressed a commonly held apprehension about the effect of the empty benches on the viewers. This does,

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indeed, seem to disturb some hon. Members. But it's true, isn't it? There often are empty benches. If Members are afraid of that being seen, it means that they are afraid of the public knowing what is going on in this House.
The experience of broadcasting Parliament in Sweden has been that precisely the same criticism was made in the early days of the experiment, but that the public soon learned—it was explained to them—what was happening, that Members had many other duties, in committees, and so on. They soon learned to accept this, just as the people who come to our public Gallery learn in time.
When we have brought our constituents and friends here—and surely this is the experience of many hon. Members—the first time they come they are slightly shocked by the empty benches, by the casual behaviour of some right hon. Members on the Front Benches, and so on. But they soon learn what it all means. The test of the success of this experiment would be if we felt that it might somehow convey to the viewers something of the unique and intimate atmosphere of this House without spoiling or destroying that atmosphere for us in any way.
Mr. Christopher Rowland: Has my hon. Friend any idea of what proportion of the public has ever been to the public Gallery? I suspect that it is very small. If they are shocked, have we any evidence that they are not shocked after the explanations my hon. Friend says are given for them?
Mr. Driberg: We have no evidence, In the legal sense. I am relying on my own experience with many constituents and friends whom I have brought here, and I should have thought that the experience of most hon. Members confirms that. But I do not know. This is not a matter on which scientific evidence can be taken. I do not know what percentage of the British public over the years and centuries have been to the Gallery. How can anyone tell?
Nor do I know what percentage of the viewers would watch the programmes. Perhaps only a small percentage, since, in the nature of things, the programme most likely to take place, if authorised by this House, would be the nightly programme,
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which would inevitably come on fairly late at night, probably at 10.45 or so. But this does not seem to me to be the main point.
The main point is that we constantly hear expressions of cynicisms and mistrust about political parties and about Parliament as an institution. The people who oppose this experiment are saying, "This may lead to cynicism about Parliament if the viewers see empty benches and see us actually at work". But then they are already cynical and indifferent, without its being televised, so on that argument it might, at least, do no harm. [An HON. MEMBER: "They might become more so."] I do not think that they would become more so. Indeed, I do not think that they could become more so, especially many of the young people.
The real point is that this is a vital new medium of communication and if hon. Members honestly feel that there should be communication between Parliament and the people whom we represent here, and that we should try to let them understand and see even a little of our work, I think that we should support this experiment.
My right hon. Friend the Leader of the House said that only about 2 per cent. of the total output of Parliament could be included in the average programmes, and that is probably so. I have not worked it out, but what percentage of Parliamentary proceedings is included in the average Press reports of Parliament? A very small percentage—inevitably, because of the limitations of space. I do not blame the Press for that. Even the more serious and massive newspapers do not carry more than a tiny percentage of what appears in HANSARD next morning. I do not think that that in itself is any argument against the experiment.
It was said that it might bore the public. That is as may be. I think that party political broadcasts bore the public, but the chief irritation about that is their compulsory nature. If one's television is switched on at all, party political broadcasts are on simultaneously on both channels: that is the real mischief of party politicals from the viewer's point of view.
When the Select Committee referred to this aspect of the subject, as we did with some candour, it was not quite like that that we meant it. We were afraid that

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when the thing first started, if it did, the various broadcasting organisations would be so enamoured of access to this place for the first time that they might tend to overload their programmes with Parliamentary material. That would be a mistake on their part and, of course, the public would no doubt soon let them know in the usual way if it was bored with it. I do not see that that is a serious criticism of the experiment, if we think that it can be used as a means of educative communication between the House and the public.
There have been some speeches about extroverts and exhibitionists, and the hon. Lady the Member for Devonport spoke about "only dominant candidates" being selected by constituency associations and parties in future—only people with striking and vital personalities—and how bad that would be for Parliament. I do not think that, in that case, she need have any fear of not being re-selected. She is one of the most striking personalities in the House, as is my hon. Friend the Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Michael Foot), as most of us would agree, and the anecdote which the hon. Lady told about my hon. Friend was in complete contradiction to what she said on the same subject earlier. However, I let that pass.
I do not think that there is much risk of that danger. Incidentally, I do not see why it should be necessarily considered more desirable or virtuous for Members of Parliament to be practically dumb, dull, illiterate, or what-not. Parliament is a talking shop and we are sent here partly to make speeches. I do not see any harm in being able to stand up and speak. However, this danger is completely mythical, if our proposals are accepted. It would have been a real danger, for the reasons which have been given, if we had come down in favour of the totally impracticable alternative of a continuous live broadcast to the public of all our proceedings, because undoubtedly there would then be a certain amount of camera-hogging at peak hours by people who thought that they could catch Mr. Speaker's eye. But as that is not what we propose and as we propose simply a continuous "feed" to the broadcasting organisations, from which the edited
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extracts would be taken, no hon. Member who happened to be a bit extrovert would know that, if he were called to speak, his speech would be chosen for that particular evening's programme.
I must not detain the House much longer. I am extremely grateful for the few kind things which have been said about the Select Committee and its Report by some hon. Members, especially by those who have made it clear that they have actually read the Report. I suppose that there are three attitudes to this experiment. I emphasise that it is an experiment and that no permanent structures will be erected, or anything of that kind, and that no arrangements will be made for permanent broadcasts until the House has had time to consider the experiment—which, incidentally, will last for slightly longer than the hon. Lady suggested.
Mr. John Hall: Would not the hon. Gentleman agree that we are deceiving ourselves if we believe that if we agree tonight to this experiment we shall not have agreed to the televising of our proceedings as a permanent part of our proceedings?
Mr. Driberg: I do not agree at all. Otherwise, I would not have been party to the Report of the Select Committee which recommended this experiment explicitly, in terms, so that the House could decide after seeing the experiment.
Mr. G. R. Strauss: Would my hon. Friend agree that the experiment will not prove one important thing? Many of us here fear that if our proceedings were televised the character of the speeches in the House on all occasions would be materially changed and, therefore, the character of debates and the whole atmosphere of the House changed. During the experimental period, nothing will go outside to the public and so that will not happen. It will only be when hon. Members know that debates are being broadcast outside that this danger might develop. Therefore, in this respect the experiment will be of no interest whatever.
Mr. Driberg: No, I disagree with my right hon. Friend. Here I can only fall back on the deliberations of the Select Committee. It consisted of hon. Members who at first had various views on this subject. As individuals, we were not particularly prejudiced in favour of

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it, but, after hearing dozens of witnesses and having dozens of sittings, we came to the conclusion that it was possible to avoid those dangers.
However, ultimately, of course, power resides in Parliament itself, even supposing that after the experiment Parliament decided to make television a permanent feature. It might be decided to have it for one Session and then to consider it again. Parliament could always squash the whole thing at any moment, if my right hon. Friend's apprehensions were justified. But I think that the experiment can show us roughly what the Chamber looks like when the cameras are on it. It can show us the types of programme—and this is a very important part of the experiment—which the B.B.C. and I.T.N. would be putting out, nightly, or weekly, or as documentaries about Parliament: the various kinds of programme, including the very important regional programmes. This could be quite important to Scotland and the North-East and Wales: viewers there may very well like to have quite long programmes about debates on Scottish or regional affairs.
I am sorry that I have been diverted by several interruptions. That always lengthens speeches, as the Chair is always reminding us. There are, as I was saying, three possible attitudes to the experiment. Those who are in favour of the whole idea of broadcasting Parliament, with suitable safeguards, will no doubt vote for the experiment. Those who are uncertain, I should have thought, would vote for the experiment, as the right hon. and learned Member for Wirral said that he would, with the very strict conditions which he quite properly laid down at the end of his speech.
But those who are against the whole idea of broadcasting Parliament are, I suggest, those who, most of all, ought to vote for the experiment [Laughter.]
Mr. J. T. Price: How naïve can you get?
Mr. Driberg: I am not being funny and I am not being naïve. I am being paradoxical, which is not at all the same thing. The right hon. and learned Member for St. Marylebone (Mr. Hogg) is a master of paradox himself, so I hope that he will appreciate that. I mean this quite
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seriously, because if the idea is as bad as some have said and would ruin the atmosphere of Parliament, and if everyone were to try to hog the cameras and behave quite unnaturally, all that would be exposed during the experiment. We shall see it.
Mr. Nigel Birch: Of course we will not. People will not be televised live outside.
Mr. Driberg: The right hon. Gentleman has not understood the nature of the experiment. It will give specimens of every sort of television programme on Parliament which the B.B.C. and I.T.N. are proposing to do, if the experiment is approved. I am perfectly serious in suggesting that if these apprehensions are well-founded, most of these supposed evils, mischiefs or distortions of Parliament will inevitably be visible in the experimental programmes.
That is why I say that hon. Members, even if they are doubtful about the idea, or oppose it, should at least give the experiment a chance—on the absolute understanding that after the experiment all of us, including myself if I do not like it, have the right to vote against its going any further.
Mr. Speaker: I hope that hon. and right hon. Gentlemen who intervene in the debate will remember that we want to hear as many opinions as we can tonight and that they will keep their speeches reasonably short.
Mr. Driberg: I apologise for the length of my speech, Mr. Speaker.
6.30 p.m.
Mr. Quintin Hogg: I will try to obey your Ruling, Mr. Speaker. I admit that it is an ungracious thing to say that one does not want to experiment, but this is what I feel bound to say, very shortly. I accept, of course, that the hon. Member for Barking (Mr. Driberg) was entirely sincere when he said that he did not believe that the experiment would commit us to an irrevocable step. I happen to agree with the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Leeds, West (Mr. C. Pannell), who said that it probably will.
The reason why I am disposed to vote against the experiment is precisely that which was put forward by the right hon.

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Gentleman a moment ago. Of course, the experiment would have a certain limited value: it will tell us whether the lights are correct, and whether a programme can be properly balanced. But it will not tell us the one thing that those of us who are afraid of the experiment want to know. It will not tell us what the ultimate effects upon the nature of our Assembly will be, because this, of its nature, will never show within five or eight weeks. Moreover, it will never show until there has worked through this whole Assembly the effect of the television programmes, viewed cumulatively, upon the public, and the effect of that public reaction upon Members, probably over years.
That the experiment, by its very nature, cannot do, and it is for that reason that I would be slow to make an experiment which has on the essential point, no scientific value at all, and which I believe, with the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Leeds, West, would only too lightly commit us to a step from which it would be difficult to withdraw.
That brings me to the ultimate point as to whether it would affect the nature of our Assembly. I hope that the hon. Gentleman the Member for Barking will believe me when I say that I am not afraid of people seeing our Assembly. If all that was to be done was to open a window upon Parliament so that the whole nation could see what we were really like, as someone said, with warts, and all, I would not be afraid. I love Parliament, I love this House, and I think that we all do. I am not afraid of the public seeing what it is really like; I am not afraid of the feet on the table, the empty benches, or the noisy interludes.
Parliament is a wonderful and unique institution and I want to keep it as it is. If all that was being proposed was to show it to the world, then I would welcome this, but if it is to be altered in its intimate and fundamental character, then I would oppose this experiment, and it is precisely because I am afraid of that that I am not disposed to vote for the Report. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will not think for a moment that because I disagree with the Report I do not admire it. It sets out the argument very well. It just happens that some of us do not accept its conclusions. Will it
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affect the ultimate character of our Assembly?
The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Leeds, West made an admirable point when he said that no one as yet has suggested that we should televise the courts of law. The courts are not a bit like Parliament and never will be. The idea of a reaction shot of an accused person being sentenced has only to be mentioned for it to be seen to be out of focus in relation to the debates of this House.
The point is only used to establish that it by no means follows that what one wishes to be reported in the Press ought necessarily to be shown on television. Everyone wants the sentence in a court of criminal jurisdiction to be reported in the Press as widely as possible. So far as I know, no one wants it to be televised. Would this affect our debates?
Mr. Driberg: With great respect to both right hon. Members, those who are present in a court of law, judge, jury, counsel, and so on, are not democratically elected by the public. There is not the same relation between them and the public generally as there is or should be between us and our constituents.
Mr. Hogg: No one pretends that this is so. The point I am making is that it does not follow that because public policy requires publicity for a court, as most certainly it does, it necessarily requires the use of television. Therefore, it does not follow that because we want this House to be reported, we want it televised.
We have experience of televising both party conferences and public meetings at elections. Again, the results are very largely unpredictable and they are certainly not analogous. There is one thing of which I am absolutely certain, having seen both and taken part in both, and it is that the character of the public election meeting which is televised and known in advance to be televised is quite different from that of the meeting which is not televised, or which is not known to be televised.
The difference does not reside in the speeches. It resides in the number of interventions and the degree of disorder. When things work through the system the extroversion does not take place in the speaker on the public platform; it takes

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place as a result of the number of people who go there because they know that if they make a noise and a scene the reaction camera comes round on to them and they are photographed being carried out by the police. That is what happens at a public meeting.
I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Devonport (Dame Joan Vickers) as to what happens at the party conferences. I have not seen a Labour Party conference in the hall since television was common, but I went to one in 1955, as the hon. Member for Barking has been to ours.
My impression of television in this connection is precisely that of my hon. Friend and not that of the hon. Gentleman the Member for Barking. Of course, there is a certain amount of noise. But other features are more important. The standing ovation is a post-television institution in both party conferences. Even in the absence of my right hon. Friend the Member for Bexley (Mr. Heath) I must say that I detest the standing ovation, even when I receive it. It is a lamentably undemocratic and sycophantic thing and if one does not take part in it people always ask, "Why didn't you get up and wave your paper?"
I am not saying that there will not be standing ovations in this House. I can remember the appalling beginnings of the 1945 Parliament, like the hon. Member for Barking, with one party singing the "Red Flag" and the other "For He's a Jolly Good Fellow". That did no one any good. The only point that I am making is that the thing is different in its character after the television camera is brought in. That is what I am afraid of.
I wonder whether the Chair would find it so easy to maintain its authority when the reaction camera was on the interrupter. Nobody has mentioned the Chair hitherto.
Mr. C. Pannell: I did.
Mr. Hogg: I beg the right hon. Gentleman's pardon; I must have missed it.
One thing of which I am quite certain is that the presence of a camera will alter the relationship between the Chair and the House; it will not be the same ever again. There will be a reaction camera on Mr. Speaker's face. There will be a reaction camera if he calls an hon. Member to order for disobeying the rules.
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Nobody can say that if we are to give a fair summary of what goes on in the House these things will not be recorded both on viedo-tape and, one hopes—because the thing will have to be done properly if it is done at all—in the edited versions which ultimately appear. If anybody thinks that this will not alter the behaviour of Front Bench spokesmen and back benchers, or the behaviour of the Chair, or the relationship between us, he is being very naïve indeed.
It might be that we would be vastly improved by this whole process. I do not in the least discount that possibility. But I happen to believe that we are very good as we are, both sides of the House. I think that this is one of the great institutions on this planet, of the human race, and I would not risk its being fundamentally altered for the world.
6.41 p.m.
Mr. J T. Price: We are all deeply obliged to the right hon. and learned Member for St. Marylebone (Mr. Hogg) for his characteristically vigorous criticism of the atmosphere of the Chamber if the television cameras were introduced. During the last hour or so speakers have drawn attention to the empty benches, to the naïvete of the Select Committee, and to other factors which I need not repeat.
My right hon. Friend the Lord President of the Council opened the debate in his usual characteristically bland fashion, walking the tightrope, tipping the pole this way, then tipping it the other way. He was a really good turn this afternoon, and I am sorry that the cameras were not on him, because at the end of his speech he nearly fell off the tightrope. He will forgive my bluntness.
The Report, which I have taken the trouble to read, is a competent piece of work, as a Report. The Select Committee was a diligent Committee, although not very experienced. Seven members of the Committee which has reported to us on this most important change in the procedure of the House have been Members for less than two years. I do not hold that against them. I know that many reforms are needed in the House. I am not one to stand in the way of necessary reform of the procedures of this House when I am convinced that there is a case for it.

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We have come almost accidentally on the question of televising our proceedings. It was an afterthought to the original purposes and terms of reference of the first Committee. I am not convinced that there is a case for such a reform as this. Speaking as an individual Member and only for myself and no group or cabal or interest, vested or otherwise, I believe that the test is, if we submitted to this novelty being introduced into our debates, which would, in my opinion, change the whole atmosphere of the House, would it in the long run improve the status and respect of the House in the country and among the electors?
I am very deeply concerned about the respect in which the House is held. During recent years, it has not been held in as high respect as it used to be. There are very special reasons for that, and I do not want to increase the chances of our being brought into greater public disrespect. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, West (Mr. C. Pannell) said, there is among politicians a very high proportion of what the psychologists call extroverted types—people who, by nature, tend to be exhibitionists. I hope that I do not fall within that category, but I do not know.
We are all working politicians, trying to serve our people as faithfully as we can by our contributions to the House. But our contributions to the House are not primarily concerned with making speeches in this Chamber. They are concerned with rendering service to our constituents in a hundred and one different ways outside this Chamber, in the Committee Rooms upstairs, in the places where Parliamentary and political opinion is formed, and in the private conversations which we have sometimes across the Floor of the House with those who hold opposite views.
That is where politics is made, not in this Chamber, which may be a very important sounding board but, nevertheless, a place in which the extrovert who may consider himself to be photogenic will go to great pains to make himself very prominent if the television cameras are working in the House. I do not wish to say anything unfair or to exaggerate, but I am not so naïve as to suppose that televising the House would not have a
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profound effect on the behaviour of hon. Members.
If a constituent of mine visits me here, and, out of sheer goodness of heart and gracious spirit, wants to take a photograph of me on the Terrace as a souvenir of the visit, I have to get permission from the Serjeant at Arms or the Lord Great Chamberlain. You, Sir, suggest in your Report that we should have a period of experiment.
Mr. Speaker: Order. It is not my suggestion. It is the suggestion of the hon. Member for Barking (Mr. Driberg).
Mr. Price: I apologise to you, Mr. Speaker. I address my remarks to my hon. Friend the Member for Barking (Mr. Driberg), who was Chairman of the Committee.
We must recognise that if the television cameras are introduced there will be a profound change in the behaviour of hon. Members, who will not only be concerned to take advantage of every opportunity to get extra publicity. To politicians, publicity is the breath of life. Conscientious Members, of whom there are many on both sides, would be at a great disadvantage in relation to their constituents and the public at large if they did not compete on equal terms with those who, perhaps, have grown false beards, long moustaches and other things which are designed to attract the cameras. The hon. Member is not here at the moment. I do not wish to give him undue publicity, but hon. Members will know who I mean.
Let me say a word about another Freudian aspect of this Report. The question of exhibitionism was very much in the minds of those who served on the Committee. They have not answered the questions which have been put to them. They say, on page xx of their Report:
"It is possible, for instance, that some Members would tend to address listeners and viewers direct, in prepared statements of a demagogic nature, instead of debating in the traditional Parliamentary manner. If coverage were continuous, there might be undue pressure from Members to be called to speak at peak viewing hours; and this might lead, as has happened in Australia, to changes in the timetable for debates, in order to ensure that leading Ministers and Members of the Opposition could speak before the largest possible radio and television audiences."
If this is not a revelation of the state of mind of the Committee, a sort of guilt

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complex, at a late period in its deliberations, I am a Dutchman for drawing attention to that aspect of the Report.
Mr. Driberg Mr. Driberg rose—
Mr. Price: I shall lose the thread of my argument if my hon. Friend interrupts for too long.
Mr. Driberg: I do not want my hon. Friend to do that, but he has accused the Committee of Freudian naïvete in including things like this. We had to deal with this question because it is one of the arguments most often advanced against the whole idea. But my hon. Friend has omitted to notice that the passage which he has read is in the context of a passage in which, for that reason, we totally reject the idea of continuous live broadcasting of Parliament.
Mr. Price: I am obliged for that intervention. If I tried to deal with every aspect of the Report, I should be speaking until ten o'clock, and no one else would get a chance. I do not want to do that, so I had better leave that point.
I am obliged to my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, West for drawing attention to those passages in the Report which deal with Parliamentary privilege. The Attorney-General submitted a memorandum to the Committee, but he did not commit himself all that far. With his great legal knowledge and ability, having been asked if questions of Parliamentary privilege would be involved, he said that in respect of defamatory statements made in the House, he hesitated to make any prediction, though he expected that Members of Parliament would continue to enjoy absolute privilege.
My right hon. Friend was doubtful about the position of the broadcasting companies which represented matter which was collected in the House. He added that this was a point of some obscurity about which he would not express an opinion. However, those are important and technical matters which we shall have to debate on another occasion.
In the Select Committee's Report, which I have read conscientiously, I fail to see any reference to the great British public outside, except in two trifling instances. Public opinion is very important, and I should have thought that such
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a matter as this would be undesirable from the point of view of the good name and traditional worth of the House in the public esteem, and might even be disastrous if the television cameras were badly handled.
Mr. Driberg: There is a whole section of the Report devoted to it.
Mr. Price: I have been a Member of the House for approximately 16 years, which is as long as most hon. Members whom I see around me at the moment. I have never received a request from a constituent of mine pressing me to plead for the introduction of television cameras into the House. There is no public demand.
During the course of the last General Election, after the campaign had been going for some days, I was approached one morning in my Committee rooms by a number of genial Pressmen, including representatives of the national papers. They asked, "Can we have a word with you, Tom?" I invited them in, and they said, "We have noticed in reports of speeches which you have been delivering in your constituency that nowhere have you made any personal reference to the Prime Minister. Have you any grudge against him? After all, he is on the television every night and is the chief performer in this show."
I said, "No. I have not made any reference to him, and I do not intend to refer to him or to any others of my colleagues, however eminent they may be and however much I like and respect them, until the election is over. I strongly object to the intense personalisation of politics. Under representative government, I believe that I am the only person who is responsible to my constituents in Lancashire."
Perhaps I put that across a little forcefully, but the whole basis of representative government as evolved by some of our intellectual forefathers like John Stuart Mills seems to have been lost in the miasma of those who want to put everything on the basis of personal publicity.
I object to anything which attempts to turn this House from a legislative assembly into a place of entertainment, though our responsibility to our constituents does not prevent us doing our work in a lighthearted fashion sometimes. But

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if the day ever comes when the forces of modern publicity, whether they be Fleet Street, the television companies or the B.B.C., become a dominant feature in an attempt to turn this House into a place of entertainment and amusement, the House of Commons will be on the way out as a place of serious business.
The present situation reminds me of the words of the great German philosopher Spengler, who wrote "The Decline of the West", which has been translated into almost every modern language. In one of his more mordant passages he speaks about the mystique of churches. I know that I am on dangerous ground here, because the tradition of the House is bound up seriously with an element of mystique which we forget at our peril. He uses the aphorism that when a church starts to be a debating society it ceases to be a church. Following that trend of thought, I believe that when this ancient House, with all its noble traditions, begins to be regarded first and foremost as a place of entertainment and public amusement, it will lose caste and cease to be what it deserves to continue to be.
I oppose this Motion, and I hope that many other hon. Members will do the same.
6.56 p.m.
Dr. M. P. Winstanley: I am very glad to follow the hon. Member for Westhoughton (Mr. J. T. Price), if only to have the opportunity of following an hon. Member who has argued strongly against this case, since I am strongly in favour of it.
The hon. Gentleman has been a Member of the House for a very long time. I say straight away that I have not been here very long, but I have been involved for a very long time in the controversy about televising the House.
I realise that many hon. Members frequently take part in television programmes. My own television appearances have no special relevance, but I have spent 10 years or so working fairly closely with various companies presenting programmes, and much of this time has been spent, not merely appearing in programmes, but in assisting on the production side.
I want to bring forward some of my experiences which have been obtained
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from an exercise which has certain similarities to the matter which we are discussing. I have been involved in solving the production and technical difficulties of presenting television from hospitals, including live transmissions on television from operating theatres during the course of surgical operations. I realise that it is a very different type of exercise from the proceedings of this House, but it has given me an insight at first hand into what can be done by the television people from a technical point of view without upsetting the amenities of the people being televised. I am sure that most hon. Members will accept that, whilst our activities here are extremely important, it would be less desperate if they were disturbed than if those involved in a surgical operation were disturbed.
The arguments which have been advanced in the course of today's discussion against the introduction of television, against an experiment with television, or against wherever television may lead us fall into three main groups. First, many hon. Members have discussed the whole question of interfering with the amenities of Members, and the House ought to say straight away that it cannot and will not tolerate its amenities being disorganised. It is for that reason that I agree with the Lord President that we must postpone the experiment so that it can be conducted in the way that he suggests.
We cannot have a situation in which Members might trip over cables, and television personnel might wander about the House and possibly get in the way. We cannot have a situation in which hon. Members perhaps get overheated by the lamps which may be necessary. But none of these inconveniences is necessary for a moment. Provided that the House insists that whichever operators come in—and presumably a consortium will be formed between the B.B.C. and the independent companies—its amenities must not be disturbed, or its procedures disorganised, or its Members inconvenienced, there is not a shadow of doubt that the people responsible for carrying out the operation will be able to comply with those requirements.
Many advances have been made in techniques. There was a time when we would have had to use lighting with large, manually operated cameras which would have been visible. Members would have

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known where they were, and would have had their attention attracted by them. But that type of camera will not be used when the experiment is carried out. The people responsible for it will be able to conduct the exercise without inconveniencing Members for a moment.
The right hon. Member for Leeds, West (Mr. C. Pannell) made much of the fact that Members would be inconvenienced because those responsible for operating the cameras would wish to rearrange us in various ways. He said that it might be suggested that it would be better to have certain Members in one place, and others in another, that there might almost be stage management of the scenery of the place to suit television. In my opinion, probably the best television is the televising of Test Matches at cricket. It is good because the companies have to televise what is there, without interfering with it in any way. They cannot say, "We do not want that batsman to get out just yet; we want him to stay in a bit longer". Nor can they say, "We do not want a declaration just yet", or "Can certain players field in one spot and not in another, because we can get a better shot there". They have to accept what is there, without in any way influencing it, altering it, or attempting to alter it. This is precisely what they will be required to do here, and, in my opinion, they will make a good job of it.
Having said that, I come to the second main objection which has been advanced by various hon. Members, and this is the question of selection and representation and the maintenance of a fair political balance. This means maintaining a balance not only between the parties, but within the parties as well. I believe that over the years both the B.B.C. and the independent companies have discharged this duty extremely efficiently and fairly. Indeed, I think it is fair to say that the fact that we all complain about them from time to time is in itself evidence that they have discharged this duty. If we never complained, the chances are that they would not be doing their job properly.
I think that some of the fears about the kind of selection which will be carried out have arisen from a misunderstanding of the procedure which will have to be adopted. The right hon. Gentleman
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the Leader of the House explained what might have to be done. He said that there would have to be a selection from the pictures taken by the various cameras in order to compile the single videoscope. The very nature of all television is deciding which shot to take at any time. It is not the case, as many hon. Members seem to suggest, that the producers will have several pictures to look at, examine, and interchange. It is an instantaneous operation at the time when the videotape is recorded.
The videotape will be put out to various places, and a number of hon. Members have raised doubts about how selections will be made from the tape. I have gone on record on a number of occasions, and in a number of places, in connection with the editing of film for television purposes. In fact, I have published articles on the subject, and at one time I called for a code of practice with regard to film editing in an endeavour to preserve balance and to ensure that views were not distorted. Technically, the editing of film is very different from the editing of videotape. The operation which will take place in this House will not involve chopping the videotape, resorting it, and rejoining it so that what Members say at one time will be reported as having been said at some other time. This is not the kind of editing which will take place. This is the sort of thing that one gets with films, but it is not possible to do it with videotape.
With videotape there will be one complete master tape of the whole of the proceedings. People will be able to take parts of it, but they will not be able to mess about with it or rearrange it. It will not, as the right hon. Member for Leeds, West more or less suggested, be possible after a month or two to alter the tape to such an extent that the speech will be unrecognisable. This is not technically possible.
Mr. John Hall: Is it not a fact that with the videotape technique one can select speeches, and to that extent a great deal depends upon the editor?
Dr. Winstanley: I accept that one can select a part of the tape and show it, but one cannot, as is often done with films—and I think that this is what has led to most of the objections—take out

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a piece and join it in somewhere else and thus alter the original script.
The Leader of the House said that about 2 per cent. of the total tape would be transmitted. I believe that this is incorrect, or perhaps I should say incomplete. It may be that about 2 per cent. will be transmitted in any one area, but, as from area to area, it will be a different 2 per cent., and therefore the total amount of the recorded material which may be transmitted in various parts of the country may be much more than that figure.
Mr. Crossman: The B.B.C. said that if one were to try to calculate the regular needs of a daily programme, plus, say, a weekly programme, that would be 2 per cent. If it were then used for other programmes, the figure would be increased. The argument was that it would have to use more than 2 per cent. to make it worth while, and this is why it would have to allow it to go to many other magazines if possible.
My point is that one has less anxiety about standard programmes such as "Today in Parliament", but one gets alarmed when one hears that one should try to push it on to other programmes or magazines. These are beyond the 2 per cent. estimate given by the B.B.C.
Dr. Winstanley: I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman, but I, too, have discussed this with the B.B.C. and estimates vary widely. For instance, the Welsh Region may wish to transmit certain matters dealing with Welsh affairs which Scotland might not wish to transmit, and vice versa. It has also been suggested that large portions of the tape might be used in school programmes, and different schools might take different portions. This is not a very important point, but I think that the right hon. Gentleman's estimate of 2 per cent. is on the low side.
Mr. Crossman: I think that the hon. Gentleman has misunderstood me. I hope I made it clear that the B.B.C. was taking 2 per cent. as the regular requirement for a regular day in Westminster, plus, perhaps, one weekly programme, and over that it could be used for regional or other magazine programmes.
Dr. Winstanley: The right hon. Gentleman and I are really saying the same thing, though in a slightly different way.
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The hon. Member for Westhoughton made much of the fact that he was not aware of any public demand for the televising of the proceedings of the House. Whether or not he is aware of the public demand, he must be aware that, at the moment, about three and a quarter hours per week of television time—on each programme—emanate originally from this House. What is being offered is a possible opportunity of improving the quality of such material. In other words, the public have shown that there is a substantial demand for people talking about what goes on in the House of Commons and reporting speeches. This proposal, in a sense, would merely add additional methods and a further dimension. There is no doubt about the demand.
Selection and representation, about which many hon. Members are concerned, I still believe, is a matter for the people themselves. I have always found them trustworthy and responsible and think that they have done an excellent job over the years. The simple answer is, either we trust people, in which case we let them get on with the job, or we do not trust them, in which case we do not let them in at all.
I would say to hon. Gentlemen who feel that they cannot rely either on the B.B.C. or the independent television companies to present a fair and balanced extract of proceedings in the House that they should not let them in at all. It would be utterly impossible for the House to set up some small body of its own to try to do for the television companies what is a highly technical and professional job, which they have shown themselves able to do.
Many hon. Members have talked about the possible effect on the public attitude towards the House. Many have said how concerned they are that public respect for the House should be in no way reduced or impaired. But, surely, many people at the moment do misunderstand the House and perhaps lack a degree of respect and thought for it, which it would be better if they had.
I do not believe that we can improve the prestige of the House in the minds of the public by concealing it from them. If we want to improve the image of the House in public eyes, it is our duty to inform the public on how it works. We

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should show them how it works and help them to understand it.
It has been asked, how many people see our proceedings? The latest figures show that last year 108,000 people watched our proceedings in this Chamber from the public Gallery. They talk to other people and sometimes to hon Members, who explain to them what is going on. I and many other hon. Members think that it would be better for the House if the public as a whole were clearly informed on what is going on in these premises, came to understand it better and to feel more involved in it. Television is precisely a way of doing this. Certainly, the way in which it works will have to be looked at.
This is, of course, the purpose of the experiment, but I feel that some hon. Members have perhaps misunderstood the purpose of the experiment. There has been a good deal of discussion of it. Many hon. Members seem to think that the whole purpose of the experiment is for them to decide whether they, personally, like it. The real purpose is to decide whether it is technically possible—whether it can be done efficiently without causing inconvenience—and for the professional people involved in this exercise to decide which is the best way of doing it.
They will try various methods of presentation—edited versions of reports later in the day, continuous extracts, special types of programmes for schools. All this needs looking at. But the experiment is not really for hon. Members themselves to decide how they go on personally in watching the television. What it is to decide is how will this be for the public.
The future of this operation is not for us but for the people outside and its main job, surely, is to make them more interested in what goes on here, and to help them to understand it. I do not accept that to let them see empty benches is disastrous. It is important to explain to them that when hon. Members are not here, they are not necessarily walking in Green Park, but doing important and interesting things. The best way of teaching them is to allow this sort of programme, which would educate them to know what is going on on these premises.
There has been a good deal of discussion in the House since I came here about
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the powers of the House and I accept that the powers of the House may have become reduced in recent years. I would not know—I have not been here very long—but I have come to the view that much of the power which the House still holds rests almost entirely in the fact that the Press are allowed in. If the Press were not allowed in to report our proceedings, we might as well close down and all go home. I believe that television, in the same way, would be an additional arm at the command of the ordinary backbencher and might do something to restore the previous power of the House.
7.16 p.m.
Mr. John Forrester: I oppose this Motion, because I believe that the desire to install television cameras permanently in the Chamber is based on a number of false assumptions. The first is the implied one that this is a step on the road to modernisation. This is quite wrong. To embrace the "magic box" is not to step right out of the nineteenth century into the middle of the twentieth. In the short time that they have been in the House, many hon. Members may have thought that they could improve the procedure. I am sure that this is so, but, if things need improving, I am certain that this is one of the last things which we should think of doing—if it ever comes to pass.
If we install a television set in some humble cottage, this does not automatically turn it into a palace. To bring television cameras into this House will not change it overnight into a space-age automatised legislature. This is not a step on the road to modernisation, but, perhaps, a surrender to the small group of masochists who cannot satisfy themselves with the three and a quarter hours of Parliamentary proceedings which can be seen on television every week.
One might think that the capacity of the human frame for self-inflicted pain is truly astonishing, but there is a breaking point in the human body and the human mind. We must bear this in mind. The proceedings of the House are adequately reported on television, on the radio and in the Press, and we must be careful that we do not overstep the mark of what the public wants.
I cannot see the argument that televising our proceedings will not affect

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the attitudes of hon. Members. One must be conscious all the time that the cameras are turning. Whether we can see them or not does not matter: one must moderate one's comments and one must perfect one's performance, perhaps in the knowledge that one may be seen—or hopes to be seen—on television and that some pearl of wisdom or some great "clanger" which we drop may go over to the great British public.
Who could blame an hon. Member with a marginal seat if he wanted to project an image on the screen which he would not necessarily attempt to do as conditions are at the moment. The things which we remember most, I suggest, about the televising of the American Senate Committees is the "argy-bargy", the brawl of words from one to another, rather than the reasoned arguments which must have gone on at other times.
If one asks the mass of the general public what they remember most about the United Nations, the reply one generally gets is the memory of a gentleman banging on a table with a shoe. That incident is recalled, while the deep thought and discussion that goes on at the U.N. is forgotten. There is a real danger that edited television proceedings of this House could do great damage to the impression the general public has about Parliament.
It has been said that the cost involved would be small. Nevertheless, we must be concerned about the public purse, even when modest sums are involved. If we are convinced that this would not be a good thing for the country or if we have serious doubts about it, we should not go ahead with this experiment and spend even a small sum of money. That should particularly apply if we are 90 per cent. certain that our proceedings should not be televised, even if there is an experiment.
I could do some vote catching tonight by thinking in terms of the public. There is an illusion among politicians that the words we utter necessarily make good T.V.—that the general public cannot tear themselves away from their television sets when the politicians are haranguing them by their firesides. Because our friends and acquaintances eat, drink and sleep politics, we should not
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blind ourselves to the fact that what is meat for some is poison for others.
One of the greatest criticisms of the T.V. coverage of the last election was that there was too much for too long, and herein lies the danger. One cynic suggested that at the last election the public had made up its mind about which party was going to win and that the waverers cashed in so that they would not have to suffer that T.V. performance for another four and a half years.
The phrase "Familiarity breeds contempt" should be remembered when we discuss the televising of Parliament. Television has a great, perhaps unique, power to project and popularise, but it has an equal power to kill stone dead. One hon. Member mentioned cricket. Perhaps the fact that we have watched so much cricket on T.V. has gone a long way towards killing the image of cricket in this country. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] Whatever the views of some hon. Members, I am reminded that the road to hell was paved with good intentions. I am sure that this proposal is put forward with the best of misguided intentions, although the destination may be the same. The trouble is that instead of finding a warm, friendly atmosphere at the end of the road, we may find a chilly, unfriendly abode.
The road to "Ally Pally" is strewn with the bodies of over-exposed comedians, and over-exposure is one of the great dangers to which this House might subject itself. One might say that the way to Westminster is also paved with the bodies of over-exposed comedians, and many people concerned with T.V. have found out too late, to their cost, that they can appear too much and for too long. That is a danger we should bear in mind and we must not let it happen to us. If it did, this House would fall into disrepute.
I fear that televising the proceedings of the House of Commons would be a nine-day wonder and that our standing in the TAM ratings would gradually go down and down until, at the end of the day, only a very few people forming a small, select body would be watching us. There is genuine interest in special occasions like the State Opening of Parliament, Budget Day, and when special statements are made. Perhaps we could

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televise those occasions. However, I am convinced that there is no great clamour outside for the day-to-day televising of our affairs and that we are already covered by the various propaganda agencies.
7.26 p.m.
Mr. Airey Neave: If and when we televise our proceedings, many of us in five years' time will be astonished to look back at some of the objections that have been voiced today. I support the Morion because I do not believe that in 1966 anyone can reasonably object to conducting an experiment of the type suggested by the Leader of the House. We are talking about an experiment, although we are also considering the broader implications if, later, the House considers the experiment to have been a success.
Having said that, I hope that, if the experiment is a success, our proceedings will be televised in such a way that it is in keeping with the dignity of the House. I say that we will be astonished in five years' time because, if we were now speaking with the Plumbicon automatic cameras in operation, we would not be aware of their existence and I do not believe that their presence would change the atmosphere of our proceedings. Nor do I believe that the comments about party conferences are relevant to this discussion. Anyone who has spoken at a party conference will agree that one is not aware that the television cameras are rolling.
I believe that T.V. would have little, if any, effect on the speeches made in Parliament. However, it is important to remember that the hon. Gentleman the Member for Barking (Mr. Driberg), who was Chairman of the Committee which submitted such a well-thought-out Report, pointed to the need for better communications between the public and Parliament. That is the real issue of this debate.
The hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, North (Mr. Forrester) considers that the televising of Parliament will end up as a surrender to a small group of masochists who are mad keen to hear political discussion. I believe that the public is growing much more interested in Parliament and is extremely worried about its future. The hon. Gentleman also believes
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that our proceedings are already adequately reported. He cannot really mean that. I understand that only a few thousand copies of the OFFICIAL REPORT are published—and issued to institutions, libraries and private individuals—and the truth is that Parliamentary reports are not widely read. Only some of the quality newspapers publish them in full, while the mass of the population—millions of the voters who elect us—do not read Parliamentary reports in any serious sense, unless something spectacular or comic occurs.
People have got used to the mass medium of television. They are used to watching television debates of another character on political matters and T.V. is the best way of informing people about our proceedings here. It is important that they should know what is happening here. They do not know that the prestige of this House has been deflated by outside organs of publicity, and in some cases damaged. It is of the highest importance that the procedure, life and conditions of the House of Commons are more widely understood and, since T.V. is the biggest medium by which it can be understood, I support the Motion.
Like other hon. Members, I frequently take parties of people on tours of the Palace of Westminster. I am sometimes amazed, when accompanying parties of quite scholarly and scientific people, to learn their ignorance of the procedure and working of this House. That goes also for their knowledge of the history of this place. It is abysmal and they admit it. It is only by listening and watching our proceedings from the public Gallery, which is relatively small, that people can learn about us and the work we do, remembering that the House of Commons should be the main focus of political and public discussion.
If this place is to be more than an ancient monument, it must be a forum for public discussion, and that can happen only if a far wider section of the population understands what is happening here. It is for this reason that I feel bound to draw the attention of the House to an aspect which has not been mentioned. I refer to the question of educational programmes. This is a question of education as well as a question of information.
On page xxiii of its Report the Committee draws attention, under the heading

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of "Educational Programmes", to the fact that it is not possible at the moment to produce an educational programme of this House while it is actually in session. It is enormously important that young people, as well as older people who vote us here, should be able to see some sort of programme of instruction. When we are considering the question of having an experiment, could we not also consider whether, before the actual proceedings are broadcast, as they may eventually be, there should be a short series of informative programmes on the work of the House?
It is suggested that this should be on a national network. I do not think that this point has been mentioned before. It is a very good recommendation. This series would not necessarily be televised when the House is sitting. Presumably it would be a television programme on the House itself and the various parts that are open to the public, together with photographs taken in the Chamber to describe our procedure. Many people, both young and old, know very little about that, and it could be a good prelude to subsequent television of our actual proceedings.
I cannot see why we should be so coy about the proposition of an experiment. I cannot see why we should be so shy about the idea of having an edited programme. For a long time now we have been used to the B.B.C. and I.T.V. conducting political debates. Surely it would be better if they were conducted here and not in the studios? The professional interviewer no doubt does a fair-minded job, but he is also sometimes accused of bias. The fact remains that it would be better if hon. Members of the House were to be seen conducting their own debates than that the broadcasting institutions should select—instead of Mr. Speaker—hon. Members to take part in a political debate.
There is a very great danger of certain angles being adopted and certain slants given to debates on matters of fact. I mention Ministerial statements, in particular. Ministerial statements on matters of national importance should be seen and heard as they are actually said, and not as a political commentator thinks they ought to have been said, or described in
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the Press in terms of his personal reaction.
The public should see and hear a Minister of the Crown making a statement on important matters of policy. They should see and hear—and this is where television could do the job very much better than the Press—a Minister being cross-examined by the Opposition. The selection of these programmes will, I am sure, be fairly done. It is rather farfetched to say that it can be fairly done on sound, but that it cannot be fairly done on television.
I believe that the time will come—and I hope that it will not be too long in coming—when we shall find that these objections have been largely illusory. I do not want to see Parliament bypassed by other methods of publicity. I want to see the public fully instructed on what we are doing. I believe that the existence of Parliament as a forum of the nation, understood and respected, depends in the future on the fullest information being given about it. For that reason, I do not think that one can possibly object, in the year 1966, to holding an experiment on the most modern of mass media, and I therefore support the Motion.
7.35 p.m.
Mr. Christopher Rowland: When I first came to the House two years ago I had no doubt that I was in favour of Parliament being televised. By the time we debated the Motion introduced by the hon. Member for Ilford, North (Mr. Iremonger) in May, 1965, I had begun to have some doubts. I then reached the position where I was in favour of an experiment. I now remain to be convinced about the value of such an experiment, but I hope, that by the time the debate has finished, I will find myself voting for the experiment as recommended by my hon. Friend the Member for Barking (Mr. Driberg).
I should like to congratulate the Committee on its work. I do not think that sufficient congratulations have been conveyed to the Committee for its remarkably solid and detailed compilation on this subject. I should also like to congratulate the Leader of the House on the very cautious terms in which he approached the subject this afternoon.
I should particularly like to welcome two points to which he referred. First,

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he reminded us of the potential importance of radio in this matter. Radio presents fewer problems. Secondly, towards the end of his speech, he spoke about the possibility of occasionally televising some of the more important events which occur in the House, rather than committing ourselves to a continuous recording for daily, edited reports.
I should like to put to him a couple of considerations: first, is five weeks really sufficient for an experiment—not merely for us to judge it, but fair to the broadcasting authorities? I do not know if they think that five weeks is enough. If I were a television producer, having something like 25 days in which to learn to do a job, I should feel that I could do the job more adequately if I had more than 25 days in which to cut my teeth on it.
Secondly, I was rather alarmed by the Leader of the House underlining the Select Committee's suggestion that recordings should be made available to all programme producers. I thought it was not the most fortunate of examples, in this week of all weeks, to refer to Mr. David Frost's programme. I would find it a cause of some concern to have recordings going to the producers of a programme like the one suggested which has this week engaged in the most grossly irresponsible action of television journalism that I can recall for many years. The thought of this gives me cause for concern.
Mr. Crossman: In order to make the situation clear, the proposal was that they should go to all programmes, provided that no insult to the House was done. I thought that meant, on reflection, that one would be unlikely from here to discriminate once it had gone out. I said that this was a difficulty that we ought to measure, and I quoted that programme not on its attractiveness but on its difficulty.
Mr. Rowland: I would prefer that this material went solely to the B.B.C. news and current affairs departments to Independent Television News, and to the current affairs departments of the programme contracting companies. We should steer away from the "showbiz" departments of either channel.
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There are some non-problems, and I am glad that most hon. Members have taken this line. We are not very worried, subject to the point I have made, about the problem of impartiality or editing, because both channels have a very good record in this matter. I do not think we need worry too much about the effect of hon. Members' speeches. They may well gain from the concentration of our thoughts which television will impose upon us. We do not need to worry about the general behaviour of the House. On the whole, it is not bad, and, if it is bad, it will improve.
There is one major problem to which many hon. Members have alluded—and there is an insufficient sense of its importance. I refer to the question of the apparent absenteeism of hon. Members, and also the related subsidiary question of the reaction of individual hon. Members in the Chamber. Party conferences cannot be used as a parallel. They are attended by thousands of people. The reaction shots which are taken there are of what one may term anonymous delegates. They are not of people who are constantly in the public eye as are Members of Parliament to varying degrees. And even the most eminent of those who attend party conferences take that risk for only four days a year, but that risk would now become a risk for the bulk of one's time spent in the Chamber.
The problem has been foreseen by the Chairman of the Select Committee, who asked the Director-General of the B.B.C.:
"Would you agree, Sir Hugh, that you are likely to get a very unfavourable reaction from viewers in the first instance until they get used to seeing the benches in the Chamber largely empty for considerable portions of the debates…?"
It comes up in other parts of the evidence, but I think that the problem has been under-estimated.
I should like to cite two examples of what I think are under-estimates of the problem. Sir Geoffrey Cox, the head of Independent Television News said of this problem:
"I think that at first this would open the ground to serious misunderstanding so far as the public are concerned. The number of occasions when the benches are empty are not many but one must reckon that the adjournment debates would very often provide good controversial material, and they are very often debates in a very small House. I have a feeling

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that the public would in due course come to understand this and in any case the cameras to a large extent would be on the speakers and the emptiness of the House would not be noticeable but it is a difficulty which Parliament would have to face."
He, too, underplays the problem.
The other example is that of another eminent television journalist, Mr. Robin Day, who said:
"… I think television would accustom people to understanding how their Parliament worked. They would learn to understand that the House was not full all the time. They would learn to understand why there are good reasons that it should not be full."
With great respect to those people and to hon. Members who have underplayed the problem, everyone has been a little too euphoric about it. The only person who came down on the other side was the Speaker of the New Zealand House of Representatives, Sir Ronald Algie, who said that that was why their proceedings were on the radio but not on television.
We must not fall into the error of drawing an analogy with the Press here. The Press does one thing for us—it reports us, but it also protects us from the group statistic. The Press rarely, if ever, reports the number present in the Chamber. It may say that it was a thin Chamber, but it goes no further. I took a count during the front bench speeches this evening. During the speech of the Leader of the House, we had 40 hon. Members on the Government benches and 32 on the benches opposite—72 hon. Members out of 630. Present during the speech of the hon. Member for Howden (Mr. Bryan) were 26 hon. Members on this side and 20 on the benches opposite—only 46 hon. Members. The hon. Gentleman's rating went down a little by comparison with that of my right hon. Friend. This statistic is never reported in the Press, and there are very good reasons for it, but when we are televised the statistic will be manifest, unless certain things can be done which I want to suggest.
There is no clear reference in the Committee's Report to this problem. There is reference in the evidence, but not in the Report. Why do I think that this is a problem? Basically, it is because the public believe that we sit here most of the time. Most hon. Members will agree that the average person thinks this, and that during an all-night sitting we sit in the Chamber all night. We know that
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this is not true—and that it cannot be true if we are to do our other duties in this building.
But in many ways it is, if I may use a phrase which I hope will appeal to my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House, himself a philosopher—a necessary myth that people should believe this, because they do not realise how much else goes on in other parts of the building. What is more, I doubt very much whether it can be realised, except by hon. Members themselves, and the members of the Press, who follow us very closely, and the small number of people closely associated with politics.
Mr. Eric S. Heffer: Is my hon. Friend aware that many people who come to the House and sit in the public Gallery go away, as I did when I first visited the House, bitterly disappointed, and believing that hon. Members were not present at all? That impression is taken away by people who come just to the Gallery. If the proceedings were televised, it would be thoroughly explained exactly why the benches were empty and, if necessary, the cameras could be taken round to Committees in session, with the Committee Rooms full of hon. Members.
Mr. Rowland: If I may say so, my hon. Friend has in many ways made my point for me. We agree that people are puzzled about this, but where we differ is in his belief that it can be explained. I should be glad to be proved wrong, but I doubt whether it can be explained, day in and day out, why the Chamber does not appear to have many people in it. I do not think that this problem can be solved by taking cameras round the building, nor by the televising of Committees in session.
I did not myself realise, before I came here, how much went on outside the Chamber; the myriad activities in which we are variously involved officially—or unofficially, if we are allowed that these days. This is not realised by the public, and I doubt whether it can be realised. One reason why I say that is that, though a political animal myself, and interested in politicals all my life so far, I had not realised the position until I go here. If I did not realise it, how can I expect the average person, less interested in politics, to realise it?
Mr. Iremonger: What the hon. Gentleman says is all very well, but he and I know perfectly well that with only 2 per cent. of Parliamentary time likely to be shown on the television screen, in any case the speeches that he makes and I make, which cause the benches to be so empty, will not get much of that time, and it will be the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the House, when he is astounding the House with his wisdom, and when the House is absolutely full, who will be shown. Then everyone will say, "How assiduous all these M.P.s are—they are always sitting there. We saw them."
Mr. Rowland: I take the point that it is a self protecting phenomenon, and the hon. Member will rarely be carried by the camera, despite his telegenic qualities.
An instructive experience of public rection was referred to by the hon. Lady the Member for Plymouth, Devonport (Dame Joan Vickers), who attended the State Opening. She was not present in the Chamber but went to the actual State Opening, and got criticised because she was absent from here. I had the wit to stay where I am now standing, and many of my constituents said, "We saw your picture in the newspaper"—and I was profoundly glad they did!
I do not think that the comparison can be with the public Gallery at all. By definition—and I tried to indicate this when I interrupted my hon. Friend the Member for Barking—those who go to the public Gallery comprise only a minute proportion of the British people. They also have another characteristic—they tend to be more interested in this place and, once here, they actually listen to and concentrate on the debates. By contrast, a television audience is vast and capricious, and picks up just a general impression. That is where arguments that people can be persuaded into our ways fall down.
There are two possible solutions. The first is that I should be proved wrong—that my idea that a wrong impression of Parliament would be conveyed by our apparent absenteeism should be proved baseless, and that people do appreciate why we are not present. I should like to be able to find out what the public reaction is likely to be to our public performance before we commit ourselves
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to it. The Swedish experience has been cited, although it is a much more limited example than that to which we seem about to commit ourselves. I would take up a half-suggestion—a hint—of the Lord President of the Council, that the Press should be allowed to see the experiment as well as ourselves. The members of the Press are in a sense members of the public and, for myself, in default of having an average sample of the public in this experiment, which I do not think is possible, I should like to be able to have at least the Press to look at it, and say frankly, "You are about to commit a most grave mistake in allowing yourselves to be televised if that is what you are going to look like". I understand that the Lord President of the Council is to speak again. He may refer to this when he replies to the debate. That is one possible solution. I may be proved wrong and if we got Press reaction that may be a way of proving me wrong.
The second possibility would be a veto on any shots panning across the Chamber and showing the empty benches or to allow the cameras to pan across only when there is a full House and main debates are being televised. When I am being televised I want the cameras to take my head and shoulders and nothing else. There may be big difficulties about this; I should like to know more about whether this can be done.
Coming back to the point about the period of experimentation, another reason why five weeks is too short is that I should like there to be different styles of coverage during that period. It would be very useful for producers to be told that we want part of the experiment to do a "warts and all job", or even a Parliamentary verité job, and for us to see what Chat looks like. Let us also have part of the experiment which would observe the "Rowland rules" and not show the empty benches and see if it produces a stultifying end product. It would be useful if we could have a rather elastic quality of experiment with different television styles being used, but this would mean more than five weeks for the experiment.
My concern is not that I or anyone wishes to deceive the public but that from sheer innocence we might find the public are deceived just because they get the

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wrong idea about this Chamber. One of the ways around this problem would be to have an experiment with a daily radio report and televising of major events. They would not fall into the pitfalls which I have tried to indicate and have spoken about at some length. Because I believe that this experiment should be done and I am uncertain, I shall probably end by voting for it, but I must warn my hon. Friends that I am still listening.
7.52 p.m.
Mr. Patrick Wolrige-Gordon: I am grateful to you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, for calling me in this debate. I approach this subject from the general standpoint that publicity is an essential feature of democracy. I do not think it possible to have too much of it. I think that the example, for instance, of the Americans' space programme, when they deliberately took the decision to put their experiences on television and give them as wide coverage as possible, whatever the results and chances of success or failure might be, had a very good impact on the rest of the world. People then had a chance to see everything that was going on and not just the good parts. So my general approach to televising Parliament is that it is a good idea and I support this experiment.
One of my right hon. Friends said he thought that Parliament was one of the greatest human institutions in the world and that he would not support anything that threatened it. I gathered from his speech that he therefore would not support the Motion tonight. I entirely agree with his view of the House of Commons. I have a tremendous respect for the institution which we have evolved through the centuries. It is a tremendous development, but it seems to be an absolute misconception to think that the televising of and television in Parliament would threaten the House of Commons. The House of Commons has survived for centuries. It has survived kings and queens and Oliver Cromwell. It has survived the introduction of newspapers and the attention of the Germans in two world wars. It will even survive our present Prime Minister.
I think it nonsense to suggest that a small camera is going to succeed where these colossi have failed. The House of
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Commons is a far greater institution than that, a far greater institution than us, its Members, who work in it at the present time. I suspect that those who fear for the sanctity of the House of Commons through the introduction of television are not so much concerned about the House of Commons as about themselves as Members of the House of Commons.
They are concerned—we had a hint of this in the speech of the hon. Member for Meriden (Mr. Rowland)—about the vista of empty benches. They are worried about the image. Possibly, I do not know, but I may be almost unique in politics in this country at present, because I am not in the slightest interested in the image of anything. I am interested in the reality. If the reality is questionable and needs to be put right, that is the point that needs to be tackled.
What is the aim of televising Parliament anyway? If it is to give all our people an impression of something that is very good indeed and that the men who make it up are really phenomenal people who work all day and all night selflessly, tirelessly in their interests, we have to approach the question of televising Parliament very carefully indeed. But I do not think the British people are so stupid as to think that that is what Members of Parliament are like. I think that British people are very fair-minded, realistic people who observe and understand what they observe very well.
I should have thought the aim—I think the right aim—of televising Parliament is to give all our people who do not have the chance to come here and see for themselves, the opportunity of seeing something of what goes on and something of the work that is done here. That seems to be an entirely right and valuable aim. We, as the elected representatives and legislators of the people, when we get a chance like television should take it to keep them as much informed as possible about what we are doing. If some of it is not very good, if some of the speeches are like mine and not very good, that does not matter: for these are the elected representatives doing as much as they can to govern the country as fairly as possible.
If ever there may be anyone in this House whose motive is not that, it can do nothing but good that there should be as much publicity as possible giving

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the people themselves the chance to see that that is so.
The most important question, which has to be considered very carefully and about which I am not wholly satisfied yet from the Select Committee's Report and experience in the country is, who is to edit and control the actual broadcast of the proceedings of the House? That obviously is a point which will not be within the control of the House. It obviously will be a control which will have a very great influence on the presentation of the House, of individuals within the House, and of the political parties within the House. That will be a position of control which can be open to abuse.
If it is abused, it will defeat the whole object of televising Parliament. Naturally it will be an issue which is kept under close scrutiny by the House. The person concerned will have to be answerable to the House. If the House decides to televise Parliament and to carry forward this bold and dramatic new step, it will have to take care to ensure that the control of the programme which is put out to the country is scrupulous in its presentation and its content every day; and that, if the highest standards of professional journalism, accuracy and honesty are not applied, other arrangements will be made and others appointed to do the work.
8.1 p.m.
Mr. F. Blackburn: According to the hon. Member for Abingdon (Mr. Neave), I must be very unreasonable, because in the year 1966 I do object to the experiment. Things are very serious when the two Front Benches agree and both of them are wrong. We expected the hon. Member for Howden (Mr. Bryan) to adopt the attitude he did, because he is a member of the Committee and we therefore expected him to have a vested interest, as have the other members of the Committee. We knew beforehand exactly what their views would be.
I was interested in the speech of my right hon. Friend the Lord President of the Council. Although he asked us to support the experiment, most of his speech seemed to be devoted to showing the great difficulties involved in carrying out the experiment. I thought my right hon. Friend was hoping that we would
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vote against it. That is my hope, too. He also said that the experiment would not now take place until 1968. If that is so, why are we debating the matter now? Why could not things have gone on for some time and the debate have taken place later?
One of the questions I had intended to ask in any case was whether we as a Parliament had any right to spend money during this period of economic stringency. When we are asking everyone else to economise, why should we be insulated against unnecessary expenditure? I had intended to say that I should have been very surprised if the Chancellor of the Exchequer had not stepped in. Perhaps in the event the Chancellor has stepped in and said that it would be better to postpone the experiment until 1968.
I hope that hon. Members will not be misled into thinking that what we are debating is merely the question of an experiment. We are really debating whether the House shall be televised, because every Member who is in favour of the experiment knows that he is also in favour of televising the House. The hon. Member for Cheadle (Dr. Winstanley) was wrong when he said that the purpose of the experiment was to find whether it was technically possible. We know that it is technically possible. The purpose of the experiment is the thin end of the wedge. Festina lente—soften them up a little so that, when they get accustomed to it, it will not be a big step forward.
This reminds me of going to the dentist. After he has probed a little, he says, "That was not too bad, was it?" Then he gets down to the real business. That is the idea here. There will be an experiment and then it will be said, "It was not too bad." Then we shall be landed with the real thing.
I think that the experiment would prove very little. It would perhaps prove that some hon. Members derive greater enjoyment than others from seeing their colleagues on a television screen. It would prove that some hon. Members had less objection to cameras in the Chamber than others. Apart from that, I do not think that it would prove very much.
Apart from having cameras in the Chamber—during the experiment there would not be as many cameras as during

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the real televising of our proceedings—I cannot see that it will make a great deal of difference. My hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent, North (Mr. Forrester) rightly suggested that, if the proceedings of the House were televised, it would undoubtedly have an effect upon Members and their speeches. If we are having the exercise only internally, there is no danger of Members trying to talk to the public outside to obtain publicity. The hon. Member for Aberdeenshire, East (Mr. Wolrige-Gordon) is too concerned about publicity. Publicity is not the most important thing in politics. We come here to do a job.
There is always a danger of playing to the gallery. This was made clear by one of the witnesses, the Speaker of the New Zealand Parliament, Sir Ronald Algie. The proceedings are broadcast not televised in New Zealand. I want to quote some of Sir Ronald's evidence:
"We regard broadcasting as being so fundamentally different from televising that, where we could support strongly the one, we could not support the other."
Sir Ronald's evidence, in the main, was very valuable to the Committee. He referred to the danger that it would affect Members' speeches. He said this:
"You might say, what is the effect on Members? Mr. Chairman, we are human, and I suppose that there are times when we talk to our constituents over the air."
Of course that will happen. Of course hon. Members will try to catch Mr. Speaker's eye.
Mr. Driberg: The next sentence is relevant.
Mr. Blackburn: I am sorry that I omitted that. I have a note of that sentence, and I should have said that Sir Ronald does not think that it is detrimental to Parliament.
I want to use another quotation from the evidence of the Speaker of the New Zealand Parliament. What he refers to would not arise here, because the conditions are quite different, but it indicates that when our proceedings are televised it will have an effect upon Members. Sir Ronald said that in New Zealand they consider that 7.30 in the evening was the ideal time for broadcasting. He said this:
"Ministers love to grab the evening. They love to get the chance to make their ministrial
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statements and people like to make friends with the Whips and get a call for the evening hour, but that is the worst side of it."
It would seem that Whips have a little more power in New Zealand than they have here. They seem to have taken over your job, Mr. Deputy Speaker. By that, I merely meant to show that it does have an effect upon the Members of Parliament, and it is bound to have an effect.
I am told that we must have television in Parliament in order to be modern. If being modern means that I must submit to the televising of Parliament, then I am a "square". I have always suspected it, but I think that it is quite obvious. I am told that I am not with it. I have never known what it is I am supposed to be with, but I am still not with the televising of Parliament.
What is the purpose of the House? Is it to do a job or to court publicity? I remember that some years ago an hon. Member asked Mr. Macmillan, who was then the Prime Minister, to look into the question of televising the House. I asked in a supplementary question if the Prime Minister would remember that this was a place of work and not a place of entertainment. I think that that is one of the difficulties. If it is to be a popular programme outside, it will have to be a programme of entertainment.
Anyway, where does the demand for televising Parliament come from? It comes from the Members of the House, or some of them. It certainly does not come from the public. I cannot think of any constituent of mine who has approached me and pressed me that he wants to be able to see Parliament televised day after day, and other hon. Members tell me exactly the same thing.
The Committee refers in its Report to an inquiry that took place in Leeds and in Pudsey among 813 television owners. Thirty-four per cent. said that they would like the televising of Parliament very much; 18 per cent. said that they would like it somewhat. I do not think that those are overwhelming figures from an inquiry carried out by a university department. I wonder whether those figures would be the same when the people who were interviewed found that for half an hour per day they had no alternative,

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but to watch the proceedings of Parliament. Even of those who considered themselves to be very highly political, only 50 per cent. said that they would like it very much.
What conclusion does the Select Committee come to? It states, in paragraph 75 on page xxx of its Report:
"Your Committee believe that broadcasts of proceedings in the House might well meet with a favourable response from the public."
That is not a very strong argument to spend the very large sum of money which is estimated in the Report.
I am strongly of the opinion that until there is a strong public demand for the televising of Parliament we have no right to spend one penny of public money on this scheme. I hope that tonight hon. Members will go into the "No" Lobby and reject the Motion.
8.14 p.m.
Mr. T. L. Iremonger: I am glad to say that there are two points on which I wholeheartedly agree with the hon. Member for Stalybridge and Hyde (Mr. Blackburn). I absolutely agree with him in that the Lord President of the Council moved the Motion in a way that made me, as well as the hon. Member, feel that he really hoped that the House would vote against it. I also quite agree with the hon. Member when he says that we shall really vote tonight not about whether we should have an experiment, but whether we shall televise Parliament.
The hon. Member was absolutely right on both those points, but although I agree with him on them I am absolutely, diametrically opposed to him. I am, therefore, glad to follow him, because the line of battle in this debate does not run down the Floor of the Chamber. He was the most robust speaker we have had so far opposing the Motion, and I follow him equally robustly in its favour.
I shall vote for the Motion not just because I want to see how the experiment works. I am sure that there is a number of ways of televising Parliament. I have no doubt that some are better than others, and that the worst would be bad. For example, I think that it would be a disastrous error to think of trying to televise Standing Committees. But I am sure of two further things: first, that
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any televising of Parliament would be better than not doing it at all; and, secondly, that whatever method we eventually adopt, if we decide to do it at all, will be a method which is best adapted to the neds of the people and the true interests of the House, which are the same as the needs of our people.
I think that this thing will work itself out reasonably well. After all, the House is sovereign in this matter, as in other matters, and if we decide to do it, to do it in a certain way, and then do not like it, the remedy lies in our own hands. We shall be able to remedy the matter as we were able to set it in train.
I shall, therefore, vote for the Motion, because I want to vote for the televising of Parliament. I regard the experiment as only a step on the way. I dare say that it is a wise step, but I am not particularly interested in the intervening processes. If I were against televising Parliament I should not be against it because of any of the ways that it could be done, or might be done, or ought not to be done. I should be against it on fundamental grounds—and I think that there are fundamental arguments against televising Parliament—and I am primarily concerned with that fundamental question whether we should do it or not, whether it would be the best for the nation, for the House and the people that we should do this or best that we should not. It is with the pros and cons of the proposition that we should televise Parliament that I am concerned, and it is to them that I want to direct the House's attention.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Flint, West (Mr. Birch) who has been in and out of the Chamber during the debate, but is not present at the moment, said something which was very helpful in one of his profound and interesting speeches on the question whether we should enter the Common Market. He said that the House should decide that great issue by considering the real great questions at stake, and should not decide whether or not Britain should enter the European Community on an argument about the British tomato. That was good advice to the House then in that matter. My right hon. Friend recognised that there were people whose livelihood depended on horticulture and who might be very interested in it, but he said that the

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issue of Europe was greater than the issue of the English tomato.
I have heard all the "tomato" arguments which have been deployed so far in this debate. Hon. Members say that they will not want the cameras on them when they are scratching themselves, that it will not be a good thing if the cameras show all the empty benches. We have had trifling little arguments about how, for a few weeks, we might have to have a stranger on the Floor of the House, all the old arguments about how the exhibitionists will exhibit themselves—as though professional politicians were violets or primroses or daisies—arguments about the cost of the experiment, and all the rest. Someone even said that, if we televised Parliament we should have to televise the Smoking Room.
All these little excuses, moans and twitters of apprehension are not what the debate is about, and they are not worthy of the main argument. It would be more honest if the tea room lobby came our frankly and said, "We spend more time in the tea room than we spend in the Chamber, and we do not want our constituents to know". That would be much more honest, but it would still be an irrelevant and trifling argument in the context of what we, a sovereign body, are considering—an issue, I believe, of our survival, let alone our health.
The real issue was put in his article in the Daily Telegraph by my right hon. Friend the Member for Ashford (Mr. Deedes), who is not in the Chamber at the moment and has not spoken in the debate, and it was put also by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for St. Marylebone (Mr. Hogg). They said—and this is what the House must address its mind to—that we have to recognise that, if we violate the privacy of this debating chamber by something much more than the Gallery, by a totally new method of projection, and a selective and demanding one at that, we run the risk of fundamentally changing the nature and character of the House and the atmosphere in which we conduct our debates, and we may well turn this House of Commons into a different kind of institution. That is what they said, and that is the argument. It is to that that we must address our minds, and I do not shirk it.
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When, about 18 months ago, I moved a Motion that we should televise the House, I said that it might well be not a fair analogy to compare the argument which was conducted when the House had to decide whether its debates should be reported with the argument being conducted now, because the printed word is not of a different degree but is of a different kind from television, which is a vastly more potent medium and vastly more subject to the danger of monopoly. I said that we might well find ourselves in the position of the sorcerer's apprentice, having turned on the tap and trying to sweep the water away, not knowing the secret of how to turn it off. I recognise that, and I ask the House to recognise it.
Let us recognise that there may well be a fundamental change in the nature and the atmosphere of the House and in the way we conduct our debates. I ask the House to question whether that is necessarily bad, whether, perhaps, the result might be better when it had worked through the institution.
Mr. J. J. Mendelson: The hon. Gentleman will remember also the argument used against him on that point, that, if there is to be change, then let it come about by decision of Members in order to serve the public better, in order to have better Parliamentary government, and not by the introduction of a machine from outside.
Mr. Iremonger: The hon. Gentleman will find that my argument will meet that point. I am not concerned to get out of it. I am concerned to face all these questions and to consider our choice in what I regard as the real question.
I have said that I am not sure that such a change would necessarily be bad for the true interests of Parliament and the true interests of the people we serve. I accept that there is a risk. Of course there is a risk. But democratic institutions are very risky things. Democracy is a very risky business. Liberty is a very risky thing. When people's destiny is put into their own hands, no one can guarantee that they will use their privileges and their rights responsibly. There will always be a risk in these affairs. I think that there is a far worse risk in the alternative, but I shall come to that later.

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When it is said that there is danger and risk in changing our institution, is it not fair to say in reply that the only guarantee one ever has for the health and validity of any human institution consists in the quality of the men and women who man that institution, in the quality of the men and women whom that institution exists to serve, in the quality of the men and women who make the demands upon the institution as to what it shall do, in the quality of the people who judge the institution, and in the quality of the people who appoint it—the electorate in this case?
I am afraid that we must put ourselves at risk. The risk that we put ourselves to is the risk of what sort of people we are, what sort of people those who elect us are, what sort of relationship we have with them, and what sort of answer we give to them in the demands which they make upon us.
It may well demand changes, of course. Change was demanded in human nature and behaviour when man evolved the gift of speech. Change was demanded in human institutions when writing and printing were invented. Change will be demanded in our institutions if we let television in here. Change is demanded in the id when the ego and the superego supervene. But I am not at all sure that we need be frightened of this change.
I am not greatly impressed by those who say that we must preserve the House of Commons as it is, with its unique character, atmosphere and the rest. This is not an esoteric club. It is not a sort of Trappist order. It is not some kind of mandarin-privileged body with its little rituals which we all love and understand, thinking that if anyone comes in from outside and sees them their sacred character and atmosphere will be spoiled.
Mr. J. T. Price: These are Aunt Sallies.
Mr. Iremonger: I am sorry if the hon. Gentleman thinks that they are Aunt Sallies, but I have detected, I think, in the arguments of those who have been saying, "Let us be careful lest we change the atmosphere of this place", just a hint of the idea that Parliament is something rather precious of our own. I do not think that it is that at all. If we have any virtue in this place, we have it because our atmosphere and character are adapted to
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the needs of the people we serve. I would not seek to preserve any of our atmosphere or procedures if they did not keep us in contact with people. The House is not a museum which is too precious for the vulgar eye to be allowed to penetrate.
Mr. J. T. Price: I agree that it is not a museum, but neither is it a performing flea circus, which we are afraid it might degenerate into if the television boys and those who agree with them have their way. That is what worries me.
Mr. Iremonger: At the risk of repeating myself—
Mr. C. Pannell: The hon. Gentleman has already made the point enough.
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Sydney Irving): Order. The right hon. Member for Leeds, West (Mr. C. Pannell) must not make interventions from a sitting position.
Mr. Pannell: I was provoked, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I was asked a question and was civil enough to answer it.
Mr. Iremonger: I am obliged to the right hon. Gentleman for putting the issue so frankly and for having intervened now. He says that I have already covered the answer to the hon. Member for Westhoughton (Mr. J. T. Price).
There is a risk, of course. If those we serve want a flea circus, it will prove to be a mistake to televise. But I believe that those we serve have a more serious approach. I am not so worried about the risks which worry others. I am much more worried about the risk that this House may wither away in its reality if we cut off its relationship with the electorate, or it is reduced in relevance by not exploiting the means of communication with the people which television makes possible. I am worried about the sort of change that may come upon Parliament if we do not allow the people to see us as we are, to see us carrying out the duties they have put upon us. I reiterate one other point which I submitted on the last occasion. Television has enabled us to give to a great and unwieldy nation some of the cohesion and unity which only a small nation or tribe can have. Suppose this nation were a small tribe and that we

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subscribed to democratic ideas of government. Who would say, if it was possible to have the whole tribe to witness the deliberations of the sovereign body it had elected, that the rest of the tribe should be excluded from witnessing what went on? It would be difficult to justify cutting them out.
If, therefore, by a miracle we are transformed into a small tribe from the point of view of being able to communicate with the electorate, we should take advantage of it. I believe that it cannot be in the interests of this House to cut itself off from direct contact with the electorate through the medium of the greatest means of communication since the invention of the printing press.
Mr. J. T. Price: We are not cut off now.
Mr. Iremonger: Of course we are not absolutely cut off, but I submit that it is in our interest to have as close and direct contact as we can with our electorate.
I do not often go to the cinema, but occasionally do so when I am in my constituency and have appointments separated by two or three hours. The other day I saw a film called "The Battle of the Bulge". It was supposed to be about the battle of the Ardennes, but was nothing of the sort. It was an exercise in hypocritical indulgence of the appetite of people for cruelty and horror.
However, it had one extremely good part in it. This was when the American commander was about to issue an order to one of his officers to hold the line in a retreat. One of his staff asked, "Shall I take the message?". The commander replied, "No. This is the kind of order I prefer to give myself." I think that such an attitude is a very important lesson for those who exercise any kind of leadership. It really is better to have direct contact with the people one is speaking to, and when the Prime Minister or the Leader of the Opposition have important things to say about the government of the country in this House I see no virtue in denying the people the firsthand experience of seeing them do it.
Apart from that, I cannot help feeling that it is in the interest of history. I am sure that if any of us were to have the
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chance of seeing Pitt moving the abolition of the slave trade, or Gladstone moving the Third Reading of the third Reform Bill, we would not say, "We do not want it; this thing has no value."
Therefore, I think that the House would be very ill-advised to turn down this opportunity to enhance its reputation and increase its contact with the people. Its great virtue is its representative nature and I am convinced that that virtue would be strengthened if the communion between hon. Members and those whom they represented were enhanced by allowing people to have a closer insight into what actually happens in the House and into the way in which hon. Members actually address themselves to the duty of representing the people.
8.35 p.m.
Mr. Jack Ashley: Before I was elected to the House, I was for eight years a television producer, so I have listened to the debate with a certain personal and professional interest. I do not think that I have ever realised before to what extent television was misunderstood by hon. Members. Hon. Members from both sides of the House have said that they want to defend the integrity of the House, and those who oppose the experiment have assured us that they do so because they value the historic traditions of the House. Those hon. Members who have served the House for many years are afraid that those traditions will be destroyed by television.
The right hon. and learned Member for St. Marylebone (Mr. Hogg) said that he loved the House. Let me assure the Opposition that hon. Members who support the experiment love the House equally and are equally concerned with the valued and valuable historical traditions of the House. But that does not mean that we must inevitably retain the status quo. The strength of this Mother of Parliaments lies not in its rigid, brittle insistence on living in its great past, but on constantly adapting itself to the conditions and problems of this modern age.
The function of the House is to legislate, and any democratic legislature must communicate with public opinion and must carry public opinion with it. Few will deny that the communication between the House and the country is imperfect and inadequate. Whether we like it or

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not, today the main medium of communication in this country is television.
The House may reject the experiment tonight, but, if it does, it must recognise that the vacuum then created will be filled on television by other people, will be filled by the B.B.C. and the I.T.A. from elsewhere. That fundamental fact must be faced. The corollary to that is that public opinion has begun to look not to hon. Members, but to the very familiar and influential faces which it regularly sees on its television screens, faces backed by the other contributors whom these television personalities and television producers care to select.
For example, the House is shortly to debate the new criteria for prices and incomes, a vital issue to the Government, to the Opposition and to the nation. But the prime forum of debate on this issue for the general public has been a B.B.C. series which involved a distinguished chairman, Robin Day, and three distinguished speakers, my right hon. Friend the Member for Nuneaton (Mr. Cousins), Lord Robens and Mr. Aubrey Jones. I have nothing against those three men of distinction—and they are men of great distinction in their own fields—speaking on television. I have no objection to them debating this matter on television. It was an excellent programme. The point is that it was viewed by many millions of men and women and next week or the week after, when we get down to this issue, we all know what will happen.
Because of the composition of the House, the result is entirely predictable. A few speaking reputations may be made, a few may be marred. We all know that the impact of the debate upon the nation will not be as great as the debate by the three men selected by the B.B.C. to speak to millions of people. Any programme put on by the B.B.C. or the I.T.A. is no sustitute for the real thing in this House.
There is only one House of Commons. No one can simulate the words, the atmosphere and the subtle nuances of a debate on the Floor of the House. Our great debate will go unseen, and, instead, the British public will rely upon the debate concocted by the producers to supplement the second-hand versions of our debates which they receive in the Press. Despite this, we have heard the familiar arguments against the entry of television.
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I say familiar advisedly, because there are arguments which have been heard throughout the centuries.
The arguments which the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for St. Marylebone and my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, West (Mr. C. Pannell) have brought forward this afternoon are the selfsame arguments which were used in the 18th century and the 19th century against the entry of the Press and HANSARD.
Mr. C. Pannell: What my hon. Friend has said is fundamentally incorrect. If one takes the period from 1830 onwards there has been a widening franchise. Only 4 per cent. of the population was enfranchised in 1872, 75 per cent. in 1918 and only in 1950 did one have one vote, one value and full adult franchise. At the time there has been a rising level of education and there is now a far more mature electorate. It is quite ridiculous for my hon. Friend to say that in 1966 any modem Parliamentarian is relying upon the appeals made when the country was scarcely literate. These historical analogies are completely false.
Mr. Ashley: Irrespective of the fact that we did not have universal suffrage in that period, my right hon. Friend has failed to refute my argument that the arguments he has advanced against television were those advanced against the Press at that time. Therefore, they are old arguments, familiar and false.
The main fear expressed by my right hon. Friend and the right hon. and learned Gentleman was that they would be misrepresented. This was the same argument which was used against the Press and HANSARD in those early days. I do not believe that it is a crushing argument to say that we may be satirised. I am not afraid of this, and the House should not be afraid of it. It is no answer to say that the B.B.C. and I.T.A. have satirical programmes. In any case, even if this experiment is rejected the satirical programmes will still go on, and so they should.
Two hundred years ago this House forbade journalists to report its proceedings. During the last 200 years we have made massive progress, because today the quill is respectable. Today, the same attack has been transferred to the cathode

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tube. I want to offer a twofold answer to the fears of misrepresentation which have been put forward. The first is that the affairs of this House are sometimes misrepresented today in the Press, in some of less responsible newspapers. Sometimes high journalistic standards are undermined by powerful pressures. They are undermined by a loosely-knit group of politically motivated editors and proprietors. But, secondly, both the B.B.C. and the I.T.A. are bound to impartiality by their charter and by the law. The history of the B.B.C. and the I.T.A. shows that they can and will present programmes fairly and objectively. They not only respect the letter of the regulations; they also respect the spirit.
It is a fact that television is less diffuse than the Press. I know that this argument is often advanced. But it is also less prejudiced, and I believe that the fears of misrepresentation which have been voiced tonight are totally groundless because television not only will not misrepresent the House, but it will help to counter the misrepresentation of the House seen in the Press, in the imperfect media which we have today.
I wish to say something about the fear that television may lead to greater exhibitionism by hon. Members than we have already. Again, I believe that the reverse is the case. The very few hon. Members who like to clown occasionally will have second thoughts if they know that their antics will be seen not by a few hon. Members, but by millions of men and women throughout the country. It is a fact that one rarely sees politicians clowning on the television screen. The one hon. Member of the House who acted the fool and made an ass of himself on televison last week will realise by now that he cuts no ice with the public by fooling around in that manner. Television will have a very salutary effect on hon. Members when it comes here.
I believe that the intimate character of television is ideally suited to the intimate character of this House. We will not see a transformation of the traditions of the House. The support which we expect for this experiment is vital, because it is a tremendous step forward for the House. We have to make a choice between drifting, however slowly, and gently, into a backwater where our deliberations become quite remote from the public eye, and re-establishing
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the vital communication between this legislature and the electorate which in the present, as in the past, is the lifeblood of any truly democratic society.
8.48 p.m.
Mr. John Smith: I am in favour of televising the proceedings of this House because it will encourage reform of this House. It will shed a bright light on us, but it will also shed a bright light on our procedures; and we are too close to our procedures to judge how far they need modernising. But the public can judge, and the public will judge. Reform may be unnecessary, and Parliament may be bad or good, but Parliament must be seen to be believed. For that reason among others, I am against much editing. The Report speaks of making the programmes "interesting, informative and shapely" and of avoiding dullness, but we ought to be televised as we are. Of course, it is impossible, for the excellent reasons given in the Select Committee's Report, but what would do most good would be continuous television from a single fixed camera, in the best place in the Gallery, in the position of a privileged spectator, with no reaction shots and no zoom lenses. The best programme of all would be a continuous one on the principles of pay television, which could be turned off by means of a coin put in a slot.
Of course, television will have its disadvantages. It will either force hon. Members into the Chamber at times when they could be more usefully serving their constituents elsewhere. Or, if they are absent, it will give an even more false impression of what we do than that which many people have already. The Chamber is an important, but not the only part of Parliament, as many hon. Members have said. To be fair, our Standing Committees, our party committees and even our "surgeries" ought to be televised. We ought to be televised answering our constituents' letters, sitting in sofas with our secretaries in the basement, as we have to do. That might hasten some reform of our working conditions, at least.
Indeed, to televise only this Chamber may distort Parliament by overemphasising the Chamber still further. But if we cannot have total coverage, let us at least have no false glamour. Let us

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have the plainest of television, and let us accept it for what it will be—an instrument of Parliamentary reform.
8.53 p.m.
Mr. Victor Yates: The hon. Member for the Cities of London and Westminster (Mr. John Smith), like many other hon. Members, assumes that, if this experiment is accepted, Parliament will be seen, and he said that Parliament has to be seen to be believed. It is precisely because I believe that the country would not see Parliament in its true sense that I am opposed to the experiment, and I shall demonstrate the strength of my opposition to it by going into the Division Lobby against this proposal.
My hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent, South (Mr. Ashley) talked as though there is no substitute for the House of Commons, and that a form of television which will show half an hour's discussion in Parliament will present the House of Commons as it is. However, my principal objection to the proposal is that we have no control over the selection. My right hon. Friend the Leader of the House admitted in his speech that, if this experiment were accepted, there would be half an hour's television of which 16 minutes would be editorial and only 14 minutes would be live. In other words, we are to have television cameras here for the whole day, at the end of which there will be half an hour shown to the public, perhaps at 11 o'clock when many will have gone to bed, only 14 minutes of which will be live. I suspect that when that selection is made, the 14 minutes will not present Parliament in its real sense and will not be truthful. We shall not have the control.
It is all very well for my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent, South. He must be "well in" with the television authorities. The hon. Lady the Member for Plymouth, Devonport (Dame Joan Vickers) told us that she had been a Member of this House for 11 years, and only last week was asked to do the programme, "The Week in Westminster". Perhaps I might remind the House that Mr. Ellis Smith, the former Member for Stoke-on-Trent, South, was a Member of this House for 30 years and was never asked to do it. We have no control over
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what these broadcasting authorities do and whom they select, and we have been told that we shall not have control over them if our proceedings are televised.
Paragraph 65 of the Select Committee's Report says:
"As Your Committee have already noted, the broadcasting organisations are under an obligation to present political matters with accuracy and with due balance and impartiality."
I wonder whether, if we were to examine the present broadcasting arrangements, we would prove that to be correct. I have every sympathy for those who prepare "Today in Parliament". I listened to this programme last Thursday. During the week we had spent two days discussing the Common Market, and I wondered how the authorities would present this to the public. Eighteen hon. Members spoke on the first day and 15 on the second. I am not saying this because I want to criticise those responsible. I appreciate that they have a difficult job to do. As I said on Thursday last, 15 hon. Members took part in the debate. Of those, eight were mentioned in the programme, which meant that seven speeches were unreported. Of the eight speeches, seven were made by either Privy Councillors or Ministers, and one by a back bencher. Is that what is meant by fair and impartial presentation? I suppose it could be argued that all the other speeches were mere repetition, but I doubt whether that kind of reporting can be regarded as a fair presentation of the Parliamentary scene. The difficulty would be even greater if speeches in the House were to be televised.
Mr. Driberg: Would my hon. Friend regard it as a fair and impartial analysis of "Today in Parliament", about which there have been few complaints over the years, unless he analysed it over a good many days, weeks, or months, and not on the basis of one debate?
Mr. Yates: I do not seek to say that that example proves my point, but the problem last Thursday was that of trying to present a fair picture of the House discussing the Common Market.
In addition, there were 15 questions and answers on the tapping of Members' telephones, and it is probable that a further 50 Questions were asked on other matters. All that material had to be

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Condensed into a 15-minute programme. I have every sympathy with those who have to edit the material for the programme, but I maintain that if our proceedings are televised the problem will be increased considerably. Perhaps somebody can tell me how we can control this. Paragraph 65, under the heading of "Control of the Use of the Record of Proceedings", reads:
"Your Committee do not consider that the House should seek to impose editorial or other controls or conditions on the use made of broadcast material of its proceedings by those who receive the transmissions (except as suggested in paragraph 54)."
In spite of these views that we should not seek to impose any control whatsoever over these—
Mr. English: Has my hon Friend noted the next two sentences after the sentence which he quoted from paragraph 65, in which the control is mentioned?
Mr. Yates: My time is limited and I have just selected that paragraph.
I may mention that Lord Hill is quoted, as Chairman of I.T.A., as saying:
"it would be a mistake for Parliament to do other than to make the full record available, leaving the selection to those broadcasting bodies who seek to use the material."
He is quoted as saying, also, that for the House
"to adopt the responsibility of selecting what the public should see … would not redound to the credit of Parliament."
In other words, then, we are to have this televised and leave it to Lord Hill and others to decide how and in what circumstances they are to be presented on television. I think that—
Dr. Winstanley Dr. Winstanley rose—
Mr. Yates: I cannot give way to the hon. Gentleman. He has already spoken and I do not want to take up more time than is necessary. The hon. Gentleman talked about the technical aspects of this, which I accepted, but he was under a complete misapprehension in assuming that people will, without control, be able to see Parliament in a fair and impartial way—
Dr. Winstanley: The hon. Gentleman will surely accept that Parliament has the final control, in that it can, finally,
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eject these people if they do not select properly.
Mr. Yates: I admit that Parliament has the final sanction, but I am not prepared to agree that the Government should spend £168,000 of the taxpayers' money—however it may be minimised by some hon. Members—on an experiment which will not be undertaken until January, 1968. My right hon. Friend should have said to the House, "We think that this is a matter which ought to be examined further." I would say to my hon. Friend the Member for Barking (Mr. Driberg), the Chairman of the Committee, who has gone into this matter very fully, that I appreciate the work which has been put in, having served on a Select Committee myself, but that this proposition is premature.
In view of what the Lord President said, it would be much better to take note of the Committee's Report and ask for this other matter to be considered further in the light of the information which he gave, stating of course that it would be much more costly. That would have been a much better way of handling the matter.
I oppose this proposal because I am not prepared to accept an experiment when I am not told that I will be able to see at the end of that experiment the control which we are to exercise over the selection of the material to be presented to the public. Secondly, I do not take so lightly the view which some people dismiss, that televising Parliament will not encourage stunts and exhibitions. I believe that it will. I never thought that I would find myself in agreement with the right hon. and learned Member for St. Marylebone (Mr. Hogg).
I draw attention to a comment by Mr. Alan Segal in an appendix to Dr. Bernard Crick's book on the Reform of Parliament. It was, no doubt, taken into account by the Committee. It stated:
"No one would argue that the House would be reduced to a comic farce, but the temptation of a few to boost their public image by perhaps a little foolery now and again is not too hard to imagine."
It went on:
"Mr. Quintin Hogg's famous interview on the Profumo affair was talked about precisely because it caused a sensation. Notice is taken of George Brown on television because he has a tendency to become a little larger than life on occasion. The passive interview and the meek question in the House arouse no public

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comment. How much greater will be the urge for an M.P. to rise above the everyday 'humdrum' of questioners and burst into prominence with a well-timed tantrum?"
Meanwhile, the hon. Member for How-den (Mr. Bryan) talks about Parliament being better reported. That quotation shows what we will encourage.
Mr. Bryan: Why should Mr. Segal know any more than we do?
Mr. Yates: His view does not seem to have been noted by the hon. Gentleman. I speak with 21 years' experience of this place and I am sure that the televising of our proceedings will precipitate a larger number of constituency Questions and speeches. Normally an hon. Member who is doing his job properly deals with constituency matters at the appropriate time. When he realises that he must appeal to his constituents on the T.V. screen, he will know that, unless he appears regularly, his constituents will ask, "Why are you not on television? Why are you not asking more Questions?" The average back bencher will enter the: House determined to get on T.V., and I will not blame him. To run away with the Mace—it has been done before—will be one way of doing it, but it will not enhance the prestige of Parliament.
This is televising Parliament by the back door. It is the thin end of the wedge. Once the experiment has been conducted all sorts of manoeuvres will take place to get our proceedings televised as a regular feature. For that reason the central issue we must consider is whether we are prepared to allow this experiment to be conducted or whether we intend to continue to pursue our function of representing our constituents in the proper manner. Why must we make a decision now to have an experiment in January, 1968?
Mr. Crossman: Because we cannot otherwise have the experiment.
Mr. Yates: Why not?
Mr. Crossman: The decision which hon. Members will be taking, to have an experiment in a year's time, will enable us to work it out carefully and get it right. That is the answer to my hon. Friend's question. Some of us feel that we would like to find out whether or not it will work.
Mr. Yates: I should have thought it would be better, in view of the questions which the right hon. Gentleman himself raised—about his own doubts, the fact that he said that he would recommend only a five-week experiment instead of an eight-week experiment, and particularly on the ground of increasing cost—if this were left for another six months to allow the Select Committee to examine the position still further and to report to us again before we pass a direct resolution in the House.
I am opposed to it—not because I am opposed to change, because I should like to see the procedure of the House modernised. However, I do not believe this is the way to do it. I believe that this proposal will enable the cameras to switch from either side of the House, to get shots from all angles, and then produce a certain number of specially-favoured hon. Members. I am opposed to it, and I shall go into the Lobby to vote against the Motion.
9.8 p.m.
Miss J. M. Quennell: This has been one of the most interesting debates that we have had in this Chamber for a very long time. I was going to say that this has been one of the coolest debates we have had, but the hon. Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Mr. V. Yates), the right hon. and learned Member for St. Marylebone (Mr. Hogg), and the hon. Member for Westhoughton (Mr. J. T. Price) brought a warmth of feeling and compassion to the debates. All hon. Members have brought to the Floor of the House an interest and an informed concern which we have not had for a very long time.
Occasionally, there have been a few disconsolate figures in the shape of Whips who have drifted in and out because they have nothing to do, and I think that this has had some bearing on it. When this House quite freely sets about debating an issue which is of concern to all hon. Members, we have a very fine debate. Whether in fact, this debate could have been made televisually fascinating, or whther its peculiar ethos could have come over on the television screen, I very much doubt. This, I think, would have been one of the test cases.
If the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the House comes before us again and says that he has a large sum of money to

1715
spend, I can think of many ways of spending it before we introduce television into the House. We could use that money, if we had it to spend, on improving the facilities of the House, to make them better for hon. Members, better for their unfortunate secretaries who have to work in this place, and better for the Press Gallery—because this is essentially a place of work.
I think that it was the hon. Member for Stalybridge and Hyde (Mr. Blackburn) who commented that he had never had any spontaneous representations from his constituency that television should be introduced to the House. I, too, have never had any representations. I have not had one. In fact, when this project was first mooted, some time ago, I was, on any balance, in favour of it.
Let us face the fact that we have had rather more general elections during the last two years than is customary. The public have seen far too much of politicians on their television screens, more than they can properly digest, and most of my constituents, when they have commented about it, have said, "We don't want to have Parliament on television. We don't want to have our favourite programme disrupted." This, I think, may have something to do with it.
The hon. Member for Stalybridge and Hyde suggested that the real demand had come from a few hon. Members. That may be so; I do not know. In my opinion, it has come not from the public, but from the T.V. networks themselves, who have stimulated the demand fairly assiduously and subtly, and from the Press. It is of some importance to ask why this should be so. I believe that it was because the historical attitude of those engaged in swaying public opinion has always been to get into this place, as the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, South (Mr. Ashley) said.
My hon. Friend the Member for Howden (Mr. Bryan) spoke of the active participation of every citizen in Parliamentary affairs, but the fact is that no citizen has been able actively to participate in the legislature of his country since the ancient Greek city-state. It is quite impracticable for the citizen in the modern age to participate actively, and one of the weaknesses of television has been its failure to recognise that.
1716
When I first came to this House a television network organised a contest, for that is what it was, between the three candidates. This passed off, and shortly after I received a letter from a constituent. She had been in hospital for an operation, and wrote:
"Dear Miss Quennell,
I do hope that I shall see you on the television again soon. I had just recoverd from my operation. I woke up. You were on the television. I vomited and you disappeared."
Why I was on the television screen, what I said, meant nothing to her.
It is a curious feature of television that if one were to ask anyone in the street on one's way home tonight whether he had seen the Chancellor of the Exchequer on television last night, and what he had said, one would find that a great deal of the detail and all that he said had disappeared like mist.
If T.V. came into this Chamber, John Citizen would still not be an active participant in the legislature. That is a complete myth. He has not a hope of becoming a participant; he is simply a remotely-con trolled bystander. What he watched would not be the proceedings of this House at all, but someone else's version. That someone else would be one of those professionally engaged in the media of mass communication. What John Citizen would see would be someone who had a personal, professional and vested interest in televising this House; that is to say, a person whose professional personal interest was to produce "good" television. That includes the Press in Fleet Street, the networks, and everyone who has a vested interest in television. What we will be doing is to allow those with personal and professional and vested kinds of interest in the media to come into this place.
Despite all the cost, and the changes that would be inevitable, the actual working efficiency of the House as such will not be affected by one iota. It will not be improved by one iota. We shall not despatch our business one minute more quickly, or more efficiently or more effectively. It is possible, indeed, that our efficiency may be reduced—various hon. Members have expressed these fears.
The argument about public cynicism, that the public are getting cynical about

1717
Parliament, that the Parliamentary reputation is at the moment low and might be cured if television came in, appals me. I do not believe it. The reputation of Parliament has always been low throughout the history of the country and throughout Parliamentary history. I shall be very worried when John Citizen stops being cynical about this place. He ought to be cynical about it; it is quite right that he should be. The average citizen should take a jaundiced view of this place because it is a place of faction and friction, a place where there is argument and counter argument fought out across the Floor of this Chamber. This is the vitality of our democracy.
This is a passionate place. Men and women who come here ought to feel passionately about the issues which are debated on the Floor of the House. Of course it is a noisy place, it is a robust place, and, of course, it is rumbustious. This Chamber can make more noise than any public meeting I have ever heard, and I have been to some. I admit freely that I have contributed to that noise from time to time. This is right. We must not try to turn this place into a sort of drawing-room debating society which looks nice on television screens, with all its Members sitting with their ankles neatly crossed.
If this place ever becomes a venerated relic, like so many others which the right hon. Member for Leeds, West (Mr. C. Pannell) had in his care for a long time, it will no longer be the heart and pulse of democracy. That should not lead us to diminish or underestimate in any way the value of the Report which the Committe presided over by the hon. Member for Barking (Mr. Driberg) has produced, because, if nothing else, that Report has produced one of the most interesting and thoughtful debates that the House has heard for a long time.
9.23 p.m.
Mr. Raymond Fletcher: I have to make a very unusual confession at this late hour. I am still a floating voter and it may be that the future history of this House will depend on the remarks of my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House, because my vote may be the decisive one. One lives for these occasions in one's Parliamentary
1718
career and I face such an occasion tonight.
I also have to make a confession which perhaps is the most awful I shall ever have to make until I end in a court of law. I find myself in substantial agreement with the right hon. and learned Member for St. Marylebone (Mr. Hogg). This caused me such great spiritual turmoil that I had to leave the Chamber to recover myself. As you know, Mr. Speaker, truth often emanates from strange quarters. I have occasionally delivered myself of sound advice to the Government of the day, but what the right hon. and learned Gentleman said must not be dismissed with hilarity simply because it was the right hon. and learned Gentleman who said it.
The central strand of his argument was perfectly valid. It was that with all the ingenuity in the world, with all the cameras it is possible to deploy in this House, it is totally impossible to televise this House as we all know it and as we all love it. I recall that a couple of nights ago there was a television production of the novel, "Corridors of Power". Many of the details were accurate. Patrick Allen, who played the leading Minister, did it so exceptionally well that I am confident his name will be in the next reshuffle.
The technical details were absolutely correct, but there were two things missing. One was the fact that what brings most of us to the House are political motives, that we are inspired by political motives and that the drama in the House derives from the clash of political ideals and political interests. The other thing which was missing from the programme was a sense of the House as a whole and the limited, but nevertheless very important, rôle that the Chamber plays in the political process as a whole. Without in any way wishing to upset my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent, North (Mr. Forrester), when we ask any television authority to present the House as it is we ask of that authority a total impossibility.
Here I must challenge some of my hon. Friends. It is not true that those of us who have reservations about the proposal are scared of television cameras. Nobody like myself who spent several fruitful months in active association with Miss Joan Littlewood can possibly have

1719
any fear of cameras, footlights, audiences or anything else. When it comes to comedy, it may well be that those of us who are lukewarm about the proposal might occasionally hog the cameras if the proposal is accepted and the cameras actually move in. There are certain simple, tricks of the theatrical trade that I myself, in association with certain friends outside the House, am quite prepared to teach in Room 5 to any Member. There are certain tricks of the trade which require no verbal contribution. They require only a small manipulation of facial expressions and certain manipulations of the hands.
Having straddled both sides of the argument and having that capacity, rather rare in the House, to learn from one's own speeches, I am rather inclined at this moment to drift in the direction of my hon. Friend the Leader of the House, for one simple reason. I never deliver prepared speeches. I have never used a note in my life, except a banknote. I am conscious of the fact that, in so far as rational arguments have been presented here today, they have been presented by the proponents of this experiment. I have voiced what I hope are healthy prejudices, but I would never seek to disguise either from you, Sir, or from the rest of the House that they are anything more than prejudices, and I hope that they will be voted down in the Lobby tonight.
9.28 p.m.
Mr. Nigel Birch: I hope that the hon. Member for Ilkeston (Mr. Raymond Fletcher) may be convinced by his own argument and go into the "No" Lobby. If he is not, he may find himself on the National Steel Corporation at any moment. I have always been against the televising of Parliament. Some years ago when the question whether the State Opening of Parliament should be televised arose, I and a number of other Privy Councillors were consulted as to whether this televising should take place. We unanimously advised that it should not take place, on the ground that it would inevitably lead to the televising of proceedings in the Chamber. The next day the decision was announced that the State Opening of Parliament should be televised.
Those who endeavour to put forward the argument that this is only an experiment
1720
are being either disingenuous or rather simple. Quite clearly, if it is desired to get this thing through against a good deal of opposition it will not be got through at one go. Those who want to get it through have to go for the experiment; they have to say, "After all, this is only an experiment". It is the housemaid's baby argument in a way. One has to say that it is only an experiment.
Why do I say that those who take the experiment argument seriouslyaresimple?—because it is not really a relevant experiment. Clearly, one would want experiments with new cameras, but one can do that with anybody or nobody in the House. One could do that, but one would not have a real experiment, as my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for St. Marylebone (Mr. Hogg) and the right hon. Member for Vauxhall (Mr. Strauss) pointed out. What one will not get is the effect on Parliament of being televised, and one cannot get that without its being done live. It is something which would work only over a prolonged period.
Of course, the reporting of Parliament at present is not anything like as good as we should wish it. There is a nightly report on the B.B.C., there are the sketch writers and the reports, particularly in the more serious newspapers. The B.B.C. report is, in effect, the work of a sketch writer—an impartial one, and very good at it. The newspaper sketch writers vary in their honesty and competence, but they give some idea of what is going on. However, the important thing is that in the more serious papers, certainly on big debates and at any rate as far as the first Front Bench speakers go, the whole argument is set out.
Speaking in Parliament or anywhere else is really an exercise in the art of persuasion. As Aristotle pointed out in his "Rhetoric", which is, incidentally, the only good work on public speaking yet written, that a speech should proceed from exordium through the narrative and proofs to a peroration. One gradually builds up one's argument by adding piece after piece.
How can that conceivably be reproduced in a few snippets on television? One cannot possibly reproduce a big and convincing speech by taking two or three sentences, one from the exordium, one from the narrative and proofs and one

1721
from the peroration. One cannot give any idea of what has really been going on in that way.
I find distinctly odd that the idea expounded by one of my hon. Friends that televising Parliament would enable the public to assist us in revising our procedure. After all, we suffer pretty heavily in the House from a number of professors of politics who supposedly have studied our procedure for many years, but I do not think that they have been very helpful. I do not think that one can revise the procedure of Parliament unless one is a Member and knows something about it.
The plea for experiment is bogus because it is disingenuous or over-simplified. I think that this will do harm to Parliament and not add anything to it, and I very much hope that the House will throw it out.
9.33 p.m.
Mr. Frank Hooley: I find it rather extraordinary that so many right hon. and hon. Members who annually vote millions of pounds for the development of scientific and technological advance show so much pathetic and almost neurotic apprehension about the introduction of an advanced technological form of communication. Television and broadcasting are subtle and well-developed means of mass communication, and I do not see why we should fear them or be apprehensive about them when we are quite willing to accept other means of communication—printing, journalism, the Press—as a normal and natural means of communicating the work of the House to the general public.
The Select Committee's Report says that no issue of fundamental principle is involved, and it is quite right. The opponents of the proposition are in a difficulty, because they cannot deny that all our proceedings are made public and that what we do is public business in the strictest and most literal sense. Every word, every comment, every interjection is recorded in HANSARD, and any person in the world who can cope with the English language can at any time read what we do, and all our proceedings.
It is objected that this form of television will not be a complete record, that it will be edited. The reports of
1722
our proceedings in newspapers, journals and periodicals are, of course, edited. A great many citizens receive their views, opinions and ideas about what goes on in the House from an edited form of reporting, and we accept that as normal and natural.
It is said that the written word is in some way not as vivid or as immediate as seeing what is going on in the Chamber. But we admit this, too. We accept that the public has an absolute right to come into the Gallery to watch and hear directly what is done and said in the Chamber. So there can be no issue of principle, that we should, somehow, be allowing the public to see or hear our proceedings in a way which has not been possible hitherto.
The only difference will be that, through this advanced means of communication which has been given to us in the second half of the twentieth century, it will be possible not for the thousand or so who pass through the Galleries each year but for millions, for almost every ordinary citizen, to see and hear something of what goes on in the Chamber.
It has been suggested that the very presence of television will alter the behaviour of the House and the manner of our debates. This may be true. For my part, I would not seriously argue that we have achieved an immaculate, immutable peak of perfection on the conduct of business in the Chamber so that change must be change for the worse. It is my hope that the impact of television in the House would promote change.
Much play has been made of the possible effect of empty benches on viewers watching the broadcast. If this provoked public comment and debate on why the benches were empty, on whether the mode of our proceedings might, perhaps, be rearranged so that there was no necessity for the benches to be empty and whether our procedure and arrangement of business in the House and in Committee were not as well ordered as they might be, this could be a positive and valuable contribution as a result of the introduction of television, and I for one would not be afraid of it.
It has been suggested that the introduction of television would lead to

1723
exhibitionism and to the production of "personalities". If we are honest, we must admit that this has happened already. There is a magic circle, a closed circle, I fancy, of those who appear on television. They are not selected by the House, and I do not know who selects them, but there are the accepted television personalities who, although they do not speak from these benches, speak as Members of the House.
They appear as Members of Parliament, and they seem in a subtle way to have some sort of public prerogative in appearing on television. I believe that it would be valuable if the cameras were brought into the Chamber and focused, perhaps, on some who do not belong to the magic circle and who are not likely to break into it.
The right hon. and learned Member for St. Marylebone (Mr. Hogg) said that he wanted to keep the House as it is. I believe that to be neither desirable nor possible. I have a respect for the House, but it is a long way short of reverence. I regard this place as a growing and living organism. It must develop and must respond to social changes and social needs, and I view the proposed experiment as one way by which it could and should respond.
9.40 p.m.
Mr. Crossman: In winding up the debate, I would reiterate what the hon. Lady the Member for Petersfield (Miss Quennell) said. It has been one of the most interesting debates to listen to but I am tempted to add that, as is usual when one is listening to a good debate, one reflects that the decision is taken by those who are not present. As has been pointed out, never more than 70 or 80 hon. Members have been present during most of the debate and those who are absent may well stay absent and determine the issue.
I would have been a little pessimistic had it not been for the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Ilkeston (Mr. Fletcher), who assured me that there was one person at least still to be persuaded—although he made me nervous by adding that he was inclined to go my way. I wonder whether anything I say might deflect him from that purpose.
1724
I think that it will be useful to answer a number of specific questions. The right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Wirral (Mr. Selwyn Lloyd) asked me about the statement made by my right hon. Friend the present Secretary of State for Commonwealth Affairs in the previous debate concerning my right hon. Friend's view of the size of the majority required. I did not know about that statement but I have now read the passage and I agree with my right hon. Friend that this is the kind of issue on which a majority merely of one or two would be unwise. If we are to do this thing, it should be agreed to by a consensus of the House. It is because of this that some of us believe in the importance of having an experiment and doing it in such a way that we can secure genuine conviction about whether we are doing right or wrong.
Mr. Kenneth Lewis: Earlier, the right hon. Gentleman said that the experiment would not take place until 1968, so there might be another debate before then. That might affect the voting tonight, because it may mean that a lot of hon. Members have not yet made up their minds.
Mr. Crossman: I was about to come to that aspect. Several hon. Members have asked what the situation will be if the House votes for this project. It is a matter for the House to decide, but if we vote for the experiment I remind the House that it is still in vague terms. A whole series of matters remain to be decided about how we should conduct it. If we vote for it, it would only be proper that the Services Committee should present to the House a detailed report on how it should be conducted and on which, in due course, the House would want to decide.
This is a proper course, for many reasons. There has been an interesting discussion about the duration of the experiment. When I read the Report, I was persuaded—and I have talked to others about this—that shortening the period was right. But I have listened carefully to the debate and I am beginning to wonder whether those who think there should be an eight-week period were not right in saying that five weeks was too short. I should like more consideration given to this by the Services Committee.

1725
I wonder whether we should not go back to the idea of an eight-week period, because the arguments for it are a good deal stronger than I realised.
There are two other issues on which I believe we should have more thought and a further Report from the Services Committee. The first is whether we should cover the Standing Committees upstairs. My conviction is that it would be the gravest mistake merely to televise the Floor of the House and neglect the Standing Committees. It might be found, as they have found in the United States, that it is in the Committees where television, because the area is smaller and more intimate, can play a rôle. I would therefore say to the hon. Member for Howden (Mr. Bryan) that I entirely agree that, if we do a closed-circuit experiment, it should not be limited to the Floor of the House, where, as has been pointed out by many Hon. Members, there are special problems, and that we should also cover the Committees upstairs.
It might even be the case that a Select Committee, if it chooses to sit in public, will agree to have closed-circuit television. Since these things are to be done privately, I would like them to be done with our Committees. But all these things need further thought in order to work out the precise plan the House should consider before finally deciding.
The other point, which was mentioned by the right hon. and learned Member for St. Marylebone (Mr. Hogg) and others and to which I attach great importance, concerns sound. It should be remembered that there are two quite different issues involved—sound and television—but most of the debate has concentrated on television. I should have thought, for instance, that a sound radio version of what we do is worth keeping and recording. Videotape costs a fortune and cannot be kept, but sound recording can be kept as a permanent record of the House and its Committees.
I hope that we can look at this on its merits. We have to take the two together and study them both, but I hope that we can experiment with sound recording both in Committees upstairs and on the Floor of the House, and consider the merits of sound live and extract and television live and extract.
Sir George Sinclair: Does the right hon. Gentleman equate our Committee system with that of the United States Congress?
Mr. Crossman: The hon. Gentleman is anticipating the debate on procedure when I shall hope to show that I by no means equate the two. What I said was that in the United States, where proceedings on the Floor had not been televised, it had been found on occasions that television cameras had been of value in Committees. The Committees there are not the same as ours, but they are not much bigger or smaller, and the atmospheres of the two are not unlike.
The second thing with which I should like to deal in the time at my disposal is the argument of many of the opponents that the test could teach us nothing. It is true that it would teach the right hon. and learned Member for St. Marylebone nothing, in the sense that he has made up his mind before the test. A good many hon. Members who have spoken today have said that they have made up their minds and therefore do not want a test, and I agree that in that sense one does not want a test. Those of us on the whole who are in favour of it, who have a general inclination towards the proposal, but who still have a respect for the arguments of the right hon. and learned Gentleman and who love the House as much as he does, still want to make sure that we take certain precautions before committing ourselves too much.
All the same there has been in the debate a considerable advance towards a consensus and I was relieved to find that although I appreciated that Members of the Select Committee would be very angry at the proposals for a postponement, there are now very few who have advocated a test who do not now see the wisdom of having time so that we can arrange the experiments in January, 1968, with the cameras totally out of the Chamber and in proper conditions and then have time, time for the House and time for the Committee, to work out the problems which I have mentioned and then to present a detailed and careful plan to the House about how we intend an experiment to be conducted.
Equally, there seems to be very little disagreement about a suggestion which I

1727
put rather experimentally in my first speech when I showed my anxiety to keep our proceedings out of show business. That is to say, there should not be any question of these things going to the outside world and being used in entertainment programmes by either the B.B.C. or the I.T.A. There seems to be no disagreement whatever that the freedom which we are giving to the broadcasting authorities would not be freedom to spatchcook pieces of the House of Commons into show business, that we are thinking of these as news programmes, as news bulletins or as educational programmes, and that these matters would have to be defined between us and the broadcasting authorities. About that I have found virtually no disagreement in the House of Commons.
Nevertheless, in addition there are at least three ways in which a test could teach us much, provided that our minds are open to being taught anything about this subject, and that excludes many hon. Members who have made speeches this evening and who do not want to be taught anything. They already know what is right and what is wrong about this place.
First, it would be useful to confirm the impression that the production of the original videotape by a joint or professional team is practical. I think we are pretty certain that it would be, but it would be useful to have it confirmed. But the second point is the real test, and this sums up a number of speeches from both sides. We do not yet know how extracts of debates broadcast in programmes would stand up to the debates which we ourselves already hold in B.B.C. studios. It is perfectly true that Members of Parliament can now go along to a B.B.C. studio after a debate in the House of Commons and have a debate in the studio. That is what happens now.
What we do not know is how far from the point of view of public education, if, instead of Members going to studios and debating there, people could see extracts of our debate in the record, those extracts would stand up in competition with the studio speech.
Some hon. Members shake their heads. They know. I do not pretend to know, but I should like to know. This is something which we could test because we
1728
would see the programme here and then turn on B.B.C. and be able to see the sort of studio programmes with which we are competing and we could see how the two techniques compare. My hon. Friend the Member for Meriden (Mr. Rowland) also mentioned the problem of the Press, which again is an unresolved problem. He made the very wise suggestion—he agreed with me—that it would be impossible to keep the Parliamentary Press outside this experiment, and not allow them to see it at all. As he rightly said, they would be very useful because they are good judges of these things and would be able to give their views upon it.
The third point which we can test is that raised in the very powerful speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent, North (Mr. Forrester) who spoke against the experiment. He spoke of over-exposure and said that we were all over-exposed. It is not my impression, speaking as one who was a back bencher for 17 years that I was over-exposed by the activities of the Press in reporting my speeches.
Indeed, I have made very many good speeches which were not reported at all, and I was a bit surprised by this description of back benchers basking in masses of publicity. It was not my impression that I was over-exposed, and I do not know where he got the idea from. Maybe there are special things in the Stoke Sentinel which they do for him, but which were not done for me in the Coventry Evening Telegraph.
The point that I make is one of the greatest issues here, namely, how far the undoubted balance in favour of the Front Bench, which is inevitable in the Press can be rectified if we have television. This is one of the issues. [Laughter.] It is a great thing to have the laughter of the unconverted, but let us take the facts.
They are that when the B.B.C. has its report on Parliament each night, the report is substantially fairer to back benchers than most of the Press. So is the weekly report on Parliament run by back benchers. Reports there give slightly less stardom to the Front Bench. It is worth looking at this to see whether this under-exposure of the House as a whole would or would not be affected by this experiment. This is something that we can actually test.

1729
I turn to the remarkable speech of the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for St. Marylebone which summed up the views, to their intense embarrassment, not only of himself and some of his hon. and right hon. Friends, but even of some of mine, who were deeply embarrassed at finding themselves in agreement with his innate conservatism about our Chamber. He said perfectly openly that he loved the Chamber and that it could not be a better place. He feared that any change might be for the worse. This was a passionate speech as were most of the speeches against this proposal, because they were full of conviction that nothing could be done and that this proposal could only bring harm.
If I felt that, I would be against the experiment, too. But there are a number of us who have not got this passionate dogmatism of conviction that the new leaders of mass communication can do nothing but harm. We feel that we should try an experiment. This is the real and basic issue. During the last two minutes before we vote I would only say that if we turn it down we shall turn it down in a defensive feeling, saying that any change is for the worse. I believe that it is fair what my hon. Friend said, that any change in this direction—[Interruption.] Yes, the argument was that we should not try this. I do not think that some hon. Gentlemen were here. The right hon. and learned Gentleman said that he feared this and he could see no possibility, no remote possibility of any improvement and that he would rather not take the risk. This was the argument.
The issue is whether that is a correct assessment. If there is a reasonable chance of finding a way of improving our

Division No. 209.]

AYES

[9.58 p.m.

Archer, Peter

Buchan, Norman

Edwards, Robert (Bilston)

Armstrong Ernest

Buck, Antony (Colchester)

Ennals, David

Ashley, Jack

Butler, Herbert (Hackney, C.)

Evans Gwynfor (Carmarthen)

Atkinson, Norman, (Tottenham)

Carlisle, Mark

Evans, Ioan L. (Birm'h'm, Yardley)

Barnes, Michael

Carmichael, Neil

Eyre, Reginald

Batsford, Brian

Coe, Denis

Fletcher, Raymond (Ilkeston)

Bishop, E. S.

Crossman, Rt, Hn. Richard

Fletcher-Cooke, Charles

Blaker, Peter

Dalyell, Tarn

Floud, Bernard

Booth, Albert

Davies, Ifor (Gower)

Foot, Michael (Ebbw Vale)

Bossom, Sir Clive

Davies, Robert (Cambridge)

Foster, Sir John

Boston, Terence

Dickens, James

Fowler, Gerry

Bray, Dr. Jeremy

Driberg, Tom

Fraser, John (Norwood)

Brooks, Edwin

Dunwoody, Mrs. Gwyneth (Exeter)

Fraser, Rt. Hn. Tom (Hamilton)

Brown, Hugh D. (G'gow, Provan)

Dunwoody, Dr. John (F'th & C'b'e)

Giles, Rear-Adm. Morgan

Brown, R W. (Shoreditch & F'bury)

Eadie, Alex

Goodhart, Philip

Bryan, Paul

Eden, Sir John

Grant, Anthony

relationship with and getting closer to the world outside by means of this great new medium, it will be worth trying it out. It is as well to remember that if we refuse to accept it tonight the other place will go on with its experiment. It will try it out. We shall have turned it down and their Lordships will have accepted the principle of trying it out.
Mr. Blackburn: Who would find the money for the experiment in the other place?
Mr. Crossman: Let us remind ourselves of the fact that the other place has favoured the experiment. I advise the House, therefore, to take its courage in its hands and to test it out.
I thought that the Committee summed up the issue extremely well in these two sentences:
"It may be"—
notice how cool it is compared with the passionate dogmatism of the opposition—
"that the House suffers by comparison with other public bodies simply because its proceedings are never directly included in news bulletins, which are heard and watched, at one time and another, by most people in Britain. The nation's most representative assembly is thus also the most remote from the public: this remoteness could be diminished without loss of dignity."
I am not saying that I know that that is right, but I know that it is a thought worth testing, and it is because it is worth testing that we should not be afraid of this experiment.
Question put:—
The House divided—
Mr. Speaker: Order. This is not being televised. [Laughter.] The Ayes to the right were 130. The Noes to the left were 131.

Gresham Cooke, R.

MacPherson, Malcolm

Rowland, Christopher (Meriden)

Griffiths, Will (Exchange)

Maddan, Martin

Rowlands, E. (Cardiff, N.)

Hamilton, William (Fife, W.)

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

Ryan, John

Harvey, Sir Arthur Vere

Marples, Rt. Hn. Ernest

Scott, Nicholas

Haseldine, Norman

Mathew, Robert

Sharples, Richard

Heffer, Eric S.

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

Sheldon, Robert

Hooley, Frank

Mayhew, Christopher

Shore, Peter (Stepney)

Hooson, Emlyn

Mikardo, Ian

Silkin, Rt. Hn. John (Deptford)

Hornby, Richard

Millan, Bruce

Smith, John

Howell, Denis (Small Heath)

Molloy, William

Swingler, Stephen

Iremonger, T. L.

Morris, John (Aberavon)

Taverne, Dick

Jackson, Colin (B'h'se & Spenb'gh)

Mott-Radclyffe, Sir Charles

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

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

Mulley, Rt. Hn. Frederick

Thorpe, Jeremy

Jenkins, Hugh (Putney)

Murray, Albert

Turton, Rt. Hn. R. H.

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

Neave, Airey

Watkins, David (Consett)

Johnston, Russell (Inverness)

Nott, John

Whitaker, Ben

Kerr, Russell (Feltham)

Page, Derek (King's Lynn)

Whitelaw, William

Kirk, Peter

Page, John (Harrow, W.)

Williams, Mrs. Shirley (Hitchin)

Lawson, George

Pardoe, John

Wills, Sir Gerald (Bridgwater)

Legge-Bourke, Sir Harry

Park, Trevor

Wilson, William (Coventry, S.)

Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland)

Pavitt, Laurence

Winnick, David

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

Pike, Miss Mervyn

Winstanley, Dr. M. P.

Lloyd, Rt. Hn. Selwyn (Wirral)

Prior, J. M. L.

Wolrige-Gordon, Patrick

Luard, Evan

Ramsden, Rt. Hn. James

Worsley, Marcus

Lubbock, Eric

Rees-Davies, W. R.

Lyons, Edward (Bradford, E.)

Rhodes, Geoffrey

TELLERS FOR THE AYES:

MacDermot, Niall

Richard, Ivor

Mr. Eldon Griffiths and

Macmilian, Maurice (Farnham)

Ridley, Hn. Nicholas

Mr. Michael English.

McNamara, J. Kevin

Rodgers, William (Stockton)

NOES

Abse, Leo

Hamilton, Michael (Salisbury)

Osborn, John (Hallam)

Alison, Michael (Barkston Ash)

Hannan, William

Oswald, Thomas

Allason, James (Hemel Hempstead)

Harrison, Brian (Maldon)

Page, Graham (Crosby)

Astor, John

Harrison, Walter (Wakefield)

Pannell, Rt. Hn. Charles

Atkins, Humphrey (M't'n & M'd'n)

Hawkins, Paul

Peart, Rt. Hn. Fred

Awdry, Daniel

Hazell, Bert

Peel, John

Balniel, Lord

Henig, Stanley

Percival, Ian

Barber, Rt. Hn. Anthony

Higgins, Terence L.

Perry, Ernest G. (Battersea, S.)

Barnett, Joel

Hill, J. E, B.

Perry, George H. (Nottingham, S.)

Bell, Ronald

Hirst, Geoffrey

Peyton, John

Berry, Hn. Anthony

Hogg, Rt. Hn. Quintin

Powell, Rt. Hn. J. Enoch

Biffen, John

Holland, Philip

Pym, Francis

Birch, Rt. Hn. Nigel

Howarth, Harry (Wellingborough)

Renton, Rt. Hn. Sir David

Blackburn, F.

Hughes, Roy (Newport)

Robertson, John (Paisley)

Brewis, John

Hunt, John

Robinson, W. O. J. (Walth'stow, E.)

Brinton, Sir Tatton

Hunter, Adam

Roebuck, Roy

Bullus, Sir Eric

Hutchison, Michael Clark

Rogers, George (Kensington, N.)

Chichester-Clark, R.

Irvine, A. J. (Edge Hill)

Russell, Sir Ronald

Conlan, Bernard

Irvine, Bryant Godman (Rye)

Shaw, Arnold (Ilford, S.)

Corbet, Mrs. Freda

Jennings, J. C. (Burton)

Shaw, Michael (Sc'b'gh & Whitby)

Corfield, F. V.

Johnson, Carol (Lewisham, S.)

Sinclair, Sir George

Costain, A. P.

Jones, Arthur (Northants, S.)

Snow, Julian

Craddock, Sir Beresford (Spelthorne)

Joseph, Rt. Hn. Sir Keith

Spriggs, Leslie

Crouch, David

Judd, Frank

Steele, Thomas (Dunbartonshire, W.)

Davidson, Arthur (Accrington)

Kershaw, Anthony

Strauss, Rt. Hn. G. R.

Davidson, James (Aberdeenshire, W.)

Kitson, Timothy

Summers, Sir Spencer

Deedes, Rt. Hn. W. F. (Ashford)

Lipton, Marcus

Taylor, Sir Charles (Eastbourne)

Diamond, Rt. Hn. John

Lomas, Kenneth

Thatcher, Mrs. Margaret

Digby, Simon Wingfield

Longden, Gilbert

van Straubenzee, W. R.

Dodds-Parker, Douglas

McAdden, Sir Stephen

vickers, Dame Joan

Edelman, Maurice

McCann, John

Wainwright, Edwin (Dearne Valley)

Ensor, David

McGuire, Michael

Wall, Patrick

Errington, Sir Eric

McKay, Mrs. Margaret

Wallace, George

Forrester, John

Mackenzie, Alasdair (Ross&Crom'ty)

Weitzman, David

Galbraith, Hn. T. G.

McMillan, Tom (Glasgow, C.)

Wellbeloved, James

Galpern, Sir Myer

Manuel, Archie

Wells, William (Walsall, N.)

Ginsburg, David

Mason, Roy

Whitlock, William

Goodhew, Victor

Mellish, Robert

Wigg, Rt. Hn. George

Gourlay, Harry

Mendelson, J. J.

Williams, Alan Lee (Hornchurch)

Grant-Ferris, R.

Mitchell, David (Basingstoke)

Wilson, Geoffrey (Truro)

Gray, Dr. Hugh (Yarmouth)

Nabarro, Sir Cerald

Yates, Victor

Gregory, Arnold

Ogden, Eric

Gurden, Harold

O'Malley, Brian

TELLERS FOR THE NOES:

Hall, John (Wycombe)

Onslow, Cranley

Mr. J. T. Price and Miss Quennell.

Hamilton, James (Bothwell)

Oram, Albert E.

SHIPBUILDING (INDUSTRIAL TRAINING LEVY)
10.10 p.m.
Mr. Nicholas Ridley: I beg to move,
That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying that the Industrial Training Levy (Shipbuilding) Order 1966 (S.I. 1966. No. 991), dated 8th August, 1966, a copy of which was laid before this House on 17th August, be annulled.
The Order proposes to raise the contribution from 0·55 per cent. to 1·25 per cent. of the emoluments of all those employed in shipbuilding in the coming year, the rate for the previous year being 0·55 per cent. I move this Motion in an inquisitory rather than a critical frame of mind, not knowing what is covered by the figures and wondering how far the training board intends to employ the money which it raises for the purposes with which it is charged.
I am glad that the levy is raised on total emoluments. This seems a useful precedent, when we have so many taxes on a poll tax basis. To have instead a levy based on total emoluments is a step in the right direction and I wish that we could move further in that direction with industrial levies of this sort.
There is a great need for the Shipbuilding Industry Training Board, as for all training boards, to eschew extravagance. Shipbuilding now is in the doldrums and any expense of the training board which was not strictly justified and applied to training trainees would be misplaced. If the Board is to have power to levy sums on the numbers of employees in the industry at a time when the industry is in financial difficulties, it is only right that these sums should be spent with the greatest of care and after great scrutiny.
How will the money so raised be spent, particularly in relation to the training of apprentices in the shipbuilding industry? The problem is a great one, because there are so many different trades and types even of metal worker that it is a vital function of the Board, through its training policies, to try to break down the demarcations between these many trades.
Many ideas are canvassed about amalgamating unions, which it would not be
1734
in order to discuss on this occasion, and which I believe are totally impractical, but I suggest that it is necessary to provide a combined training for welding, drilling, burning, caulking, riveting and all the different metal trades, so that we can get a metal workers' training rather than training based on each of the different trades.
I understand that the Board's plan is to have one year of basic training off the job, followed by three years' specialised training in different spheres of metal working. I congratulate the trade unions concerned, which, so far, have given progress in this direction their support, but this still leaves a four-year training period for metal working. Although we hope that the scheme will come about it is a pity that the length of the apprenticeship should still be so long. I know that it is a reduction from five years, but most countries can produce metal working tradesmen after a three-year apprenticeship.
Apart from the very specialised and expert skills which some tradesmen have to learn, it is clear that three years would probably be adequate for basic training in metal working. There are certain types of skill for which extra training would be necessary, but the greatest mistake would be for "he Board to use the money which it is raising to allow long periods of training which are not justified solely from the point of view of what the apprentices have to learn but from the agreement of unions and employers to keep the period of training long, so that the entry into the trade may be restricted on the one hand and, on the other, the employers do not have to pay full wages to trained men before they have been in training for four years.
To help the training boards in their work, there is need for an improver's rate of pay—a rate between that for apprentices and that for full-time skilled men. Are the Government satisfied with the progress that is being made towards the worthy objective of reducing the length of apprenticeship for ordinary-metal working tradesmen?
I come to the question of payment for courses of instruction in technical colleges and other training colleges which, hitherto, has fallen entirely on the rates. The industrial training boards—not least the

1735
shipbuilding Board—received an administrative memorandum from the Ministry of Education dated June, 1966, stating that from now on the cost of college education for apprentices would not be borne on the rates but would be reimbursed by the training boards. The shipbuilding industry must, presumably, take into account the extra expenditure when it fixes its levy rate at 1·25 per cent.
Was there any consultation with both sides of industry and the training boards before this change of policy was made? As far as I am aware, the House of Commons was not informed of the change. Why has the cost of this education been shifted from the rates to the industrial training boards? Are the Government possessed of authority to make this change, and, if so, under what Act or Order do they have power to direct that the boards shall pay the cost of these courses in public educational establishments?
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Eric Fletcher): Order. It is difficult to see how that sort of question arises on this Order, which, of course, is related to the imposition of a levy and the manner of collection.
Mr. Ridley: With respect, Mr. Deputy Speaker, the levy has been greatly increased, from 0·55 per cent. to 1·25 per cent. For every student at a technical college, the industrial training boards must now pay £264 a year, whereas previously they did not have to pay anything. Before agreeing to the increase, hon. Members should be told how this very large sum of money has been transferred to the debit of the boards.
I am not sure that the decision is a wise one because many forms of training—training for the professions, the Civil Service, the classics and all nontechnical subjects—is a direct charge on the rates, or the State in the case of universities. In this case training for a particular skill, notably shipbuilding, is being transferred from the rates to the industry itself. It would be analogous if training for the Civil Service were from henceforth to be paid for entirely by the Government. That reform would be
1736
necessary to bring it into line with what has been decided here.
There is a further point about the levy in connection with this switch of training costs which is even more odd. It is that industries which are members of an I.T.B.—an industrial training board; the shipbuilding industry, for example—are to pay the cost of these new courses to local education authorities straight away. Industries which do not yet have an industrial training board do not have to pay them. Apparently, the reason for this is that industries which have a board, such as the shipbuilding industry, can expect to get the money back from the I.T.B., whereas those which have not would have to put up their prices and would therefore be incited to breach the prices and incomes freeze.
If this is really the reason why the Government are extending their action over this, it would seem to be naive. In actual fact, the result of making those firms pay which have industrial training boards, such as shipbuilding firms, is that they have to pay a much greater levy, and in the end they have to put up their prices just like any other firm.
The levy is paid by the shipbuilding firms and they are being asked to pay more at this time. On the other hand, industries which do not have a training board are not being asked to contribute any more. The whole question is one which we should like the Minister to tell us about, because it represents a major change of policy which has not been discussed in this House.
There is one further point. I should again like to congratulate the unions in the shipbuilding industry on making progress towards amalgamation and shortening of the apprenticeship periods for young trainees. However, this method may take years or decades to succeed in overcoming the demarcations in the industry, and it is quite clear that we must do more than this. We must have a considerable amount of adult retraining. How much of this levy is allocated to cover adult retraining within the shipbuilding industry?
There is a wealth of stories about those who have been trained in skills in shipbuilding being refused entry by the trade unions. There is the story of the shortage of joiners at Burntisland Shipyard,

1737
which nevertheless was unable to take a large number of miners who had been retrained at the Dunfermline Government training centre, because of opposition from the local and the national branches of the woodworkers' union. This is one story which shocks us all, when skilled workers are short, when they are trained and made available to fill those jobs, and the union refuses them permission to be accepted into a firm. No doubt other examples can be given by hon. Members.
This is the sort of thing which is doing great damage to the Government's policy of redeployment and stopping the movement of people from those jobs where they ate not wanted into jobs where they are. What planning has the Board made for retraining men in this industry? The real shortage in the shipbuilding industry is of skilled men. Skilled men of all sorts are in short supply even now, when we read in tonight's Press that unemployment has risen to 541,000. There are still plenty of vacancies for skilled men in shipyards. What plans does the Board have for retraining these men, whatever may be their background in the industry, so that these gaps can be filled?
Some firms are, on their own account, retraining people who are already in their employ, upgrading them in the skills they possess or equipping them with a new skill. I think that Connells on the Clyde are pioneering in this direction.
I do not know whether an extension of that is planned by the Board. It is clearly not enough. What have the Government asked the Board to do? Is it to increase its levy for the current year by more than 100 per cent.? We want an assurance that the problem in the shipbuilding industry—which is one of shortage of skilled workers—will be tackled by the extra levy which is going to be placed on the industry. I understand that the Government have made some vague request to the Board that redundant motor car workers should be retrained for semi-skilled jobs at high speed, to ease the problem of the present unemployment situation. With respect, this is by no means sufficient, even if it would help the shipbuilding industry, which it will not because it is not semiskilled people who are in short supply but skilled men.
Again, therefore, we come back to the Government training centre. How many
1738
vacancies are there in shipbuilding for skilled men? How many are being produced by the Government training centres to fill those vacancies? Why have not the Government expanded the programme to take advantage of the large number of people who will spend a bleak winter looking for jobs, and who would be willing to be retrained as skilled men to work in shipbuilding? It is not only within the industry that this can be done, but because there is the resistance of the trade unions it must also be done by the Government training centres. This is vital.
One thing that makes it difficult for skilled training within the industry to take place is the employers' fear that if they do a lot of skilled training within their own firms the trade unions will continue to object to the dilutees, as they are called. This is a serious problem, and we must be told what the Government have in mind for solving it. There is no point at all in retraining large numbers of skilled men if they are not to be accepted into the industry.
We have a Board that is now beginning to gather momentum. We on this side wish it the very best of good fortune, but we also expect it to admit that it has to face as many serious problems as any training board in the country. I have tried to recount some of the problems tonight. I believe that the Shipbuilding Industry Training Board needs assistance from the Government, and the problems I have mentioned are certainly relevant to this.
It appears from what I can discover about the Shipbuilding Industry Training Board that the Government have not given it any help or guidance, or tried to use this valuable Board either to help their own redeployment policy or to deal with the shortage of skilled men in the shipyards or to do away with the barriers of demarcation. From all I can find out, I suspect that this is another failure of the Government's redeployment policy, and that they have not used the vital structure in the Industrial Training Act to increase the mobility and flexibility of labour.
10.28 p.m.
Mr. Norman Atkinson: I do not wish to delay the House, but I must speak because I am so astounded by

1739
the abysmal ignorance shown by the hon. Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury (Mr. Ridley) of retraining in industry and the rôle of the unions. I appreciate that he may not be very well informed on industrial questions, but if the Opposition are to permit official spokesmen to put their point of view on industrial training, they should at least provide them with a decent brief from which to speak. To talk as the hon. Gentleman has done of demarcation disputes without any knowledge at all of the trade union policy on dilution is an absolute insult to hon. Members—
Mr. Simon Wingfield Digby: What is the policy?
Mr. Atkinson: The policy is demonstrated every day of the week by trade unions in the metal-working industries—
Mr. Digby: Perhaps the hon. Gentleman would like to explain how the trade unions are adapting the new policy to dilution. I have not heard of it.
Mr. Atkinson: There is no new policy—we have had it for years. It has been going on since 1946, when the revised dilution agreement was signed. Throughout the whole of the engineering and shipbuilding industries shop stewards are ready every day of the week to agree to dilution in particular trades as long as it is in keeping with the general employment policy of the company by whom they are employed. The hon. Member for Dorset, West (Mr. Wingfield Digby) shakes his head, but the evidence is there for all to see. It is the official policy of the trade unions to accept and even to encourage dilution in some places. In very few well organised factories in the country where trade unions have a dominant view is there no dilution. The whole purpose of trade union structure today is designed exclusively to accommodate the question of diluting. This has been practised by my trade union, the Amalgamated Engineering Union, in all factories where it has any degree of influence. Anyone who disputes this should look at the figures which are there for all to see.
The trade unions have permanent committees to discuss the question of demarcation between one job and another.
1740
Because of their flexibility and willingness to co-operate with employers, this has solved many problems which existed a few years ago. It is the responsibility of the official spokesman of the party opposite to recognise the degree of cooperation and to pinpoint this as something which can be achieved. It is something which the party opposite should support.
The hon. Member talked about shortening the period of apprentice training and training in adult life, but does he believe that it is possible to produce skilled men in industry in four years?
Mr. Ridley: The hon. Member will be aware that all our competitors in shipbuilding do this in three or four years and that the majority, including our most successful competitors, have a three-year period of apprenticeship.
Mr. Atkinson: I take it that that is apprenticeship before 21 years of age. To adopt systems of that sort when a man must be paid the full rate when he comes out of his apprenticeship means that he must start at 18 and come out at 21. That is all right if there is adequate technical school training beforehand.
Mr. Kenneth Lewis: What is to prevent him coming out of school at 16 and finishing earlier, at 19 or 20? The hon. Member should not assume that hon. Members on this side of the House have no experience of the industry. I was in this industry and was concerned with training in it for a number of years in the north of England. The hon. Member should be careful when he says that we on this side have no knowledge of this matter. My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Cathcart (Mr. Edward M. Taylor) is in a similar position. Probably more hon. Members on these benches know about the industry than hon. Members opposite.
Mr. Atkinson: That may be so. I accept that, but the hon. Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury made a number of generalisations which were insulting to the industry. I have yet to hear of an employer who will pay a worker the full rate as a journeyman when he is under 21. I hope that it is recorded and that employers throughout

1741
the country will accept this advice—that they will be prepared to look at this matter and be flexible about it.
For adult trainees the period is often very much under three years. There are dilution agreements in existence where men have taken on partly skilled jobs or skilled jobs limited to a particular operation and trained to do that job in 18 months, or even a shorter period, and are then expected to do the skilled job for the rate with so little training.
It is necessary to set standards of the highest skilled men in industry. One cannot have various grades of skill, because that would complicate the wage structure to such an extent. It would be absolutely impossible to say, "Here is a series of grades in industry, and this is the sort of system we want to operate." We cannot do this, and we must therefore say that apprenticeship or training for skill is based on the highest denominator, which is the most highly skilled men in the factory. Invariably, they are the tool room operatives or people working highly complex machines needing a great deal of skill and technical "know-how". There are such machines today, and for many of the operations now taking place the operatives could not become fully skilled in less than six years or so.
Mr. Deputy Speaker: I must point out to the hon. Member that he is travelling very far outside the rather limited scope of the Order, which relates to the imposition of a levy.
Mr. Atkinson: I must apologise, Mr. Deputy Speaker, but I was encouraged by the sweeping statements of the hon. Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury. For the sake of getting the trade union case put right, let us have a reasonable attitude to these things. Therefore, I intervened in the debate for that reason. I shall not detain the House any longer, having, I hope, succeeded in pointing out that Opposition spokesmen must be much better informed if they are to lead debates of this sort.
10.37 p.m.
Mr. Simon Wingfield Digby: The hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr. Atkinson) spoke some very bold words about dilution agreements, and I hope that he will stick to those remarks about his general support for dilution
1742
agreements when he travels the country. When I was at the Admiralty, I was involved in discussion on dilution agreements and had great difficulty in getting the hon. Gentleman's union and the Boilermakers' Union to go any distance of the way with me. They may have changed their views since then, but I rather feel that if the hon. Gentleman had been with me yesterday, speaking to shop stewards in shipbuilding yards on the Clyde, he might have sung a somewhat different tune. It would be difficult to put over to many of those people the need for dilution agreements in the present circumstances.
Mr. Atkinson: Of course, that is so. If one had an industry or a particular factory where there was an excess of recognised skilled labour, the lads in factories of that kind will not willingly accept dilution agreements in those circumstances.
Mr. Digby: That brings me to my next point. It seems to me that the Order is extremely untimely, and I hope that the Parliamentary Secretary is ready to explain it to me. I find it difficult to understand why this extra imposition should be put on the shipbuilding industry at this moment. We read in the newspapers daily of the industry's difficulties. We read that a famous yard on the Clyde, Stephen's Yard, has made a serious loss and that Yarrow's Yard can hardly make a profit.
Yesterday, looking at the new "Queen" being built, we discovered that there is no order to follow her on the slipway. That is not very encouraging to the men to indulge in dilution, and it is not very encouraging to the management to be asked to pay a new impost. It is so strange about the Government that when it comes to the imposition of a new tax they are always there on time, but when it comes to what is necessary for the reorganisation of the industry, the implementation of Geddes, they are already slipping behind the timetable. I hope that the hon. Lady, in imposing this fresh levy on the industry, will have a word with the other Department, which seems to be changing from day to day, which is responsible for the shipbuilding industry, to try to persuade it to get a move on so that the industry is in a position to pay these new charges.

1743
I am sure that we are all agreed on the need for training in shipbuilding. We are all agreed that one of the reasons why profits are not higher is that our foreign competitors have much more interchangeability of labour and fewer unions. We all want to do something about that. But it is not an Order like this, putting a further charge on the industry, that will do it. That can only be done in other ways by co-operation of trade unions, by co-operation of managements who are already beginning to arrange a merger on the Clyde—and by co-operation of the Government in carrying out the task assigned to them and accepted by them in introducing the necessary legislation giving the powers to the new board under Geddes.
It is a little untimely that the hon. Lady comes along with this Order now. In the first place, I believe this needs quite a lot of justification. Only the other day we were reading of the difficulties with the boilermaker apprentices. Of course, we all recognise the difficulties of the various trades which have grown up in the shipbuilding industry, but this subject is fraught with difficulties. It is not simply and solely a question of training. I would yield to nobody in believing in the best training for apprentices. Just outside my constituency, at Winfrith Heath, is one of the finest apprentice schemes I have ever seen.
Certainly, that must be done, and certainly dilution and adult retraining for getting into new trades are needed, but this is a difficult moment to ask the industry to accept this in all honesty, when men can see perfectly clearly that the management is not making a profit and that no new orders are coming along as they used to do. Orders in the shipbuilding industry are down to 2½ million tons and not very well distributed, and the men know that, unless they are very careful, they will be working their way out of their jobs. We know of the difficulties in the finishing trades in John Brown's yard at the moment.
This is not an easy moment to ask leaders of the unions to put over to the rank and file this doctrine—although we are delighted that we have an apostle opposite prepared to do it. We all need courage in making such proposals, but I do wonder why the Government have
1744
chosen this difficult moment for them, when some firms are already suffering losses and others are having to get along on narrow profits.
10.42 p.m.
Mr. Edward M. Taylor: I came here this evening to do two things, first of all to make a brief speech, and secondly, to apologise to the Minister who would be replying to the debate for my having to leave perhaps rather earlier than the conclusion of the debate, because, unfortunately, I am one of that small group of people serving on the Standing Committee on the Iron and Steel Bill and lead a rather separate existence these days.
However, I must say, having heard the speech of the hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr. Atkinson), that I have been rather surprised by the trend this debate has taken, because, first of all, having worked for five years in the Clyde shipyards before I came to this House, and being particularly concerned with labour relations, every word my hon. Friend the Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury (Mr. Ridley) said made sense to me and appeared to have a kind of relevance to the situation in the shipyards while the two major points which the hon. Member for Tottenham made seemed to have very little relevance to the situation in the shipyards as it now is.
The question of demarcation was not related to it. When difficulties arise in the industry nowadays, there are joint committees of the various unions involved who are very ready and willing to deal with them. I must say that in my industry on the Clyde the kind of difficulties so often met between the parties involved could often take a very long time and there was no guarantee of the problem being ended.
On the question of interchangeability and retraining raised by the hon. Gentleman, there is great difficulty in getting adult people retrained for skilled jobs, and I must say that I know of only one case in one of the Clyde yards where we have had adults being retrained for a skilled job, and being accepted, in the old craft in the shipyard—and there are many unions in the shipyards today. All I can say, having heard the hon. Member make his speech, is that, apart from the A.E.U., I do not know of more than one

1745
case in the whole of the Clyde shipbuilding industry where this has happened. It may be otherwise in other yards, but on the information I have I honestly do not think the situation there is vastly different.
On the other hand, I do not want to give the impression that there has been no movement and no change of thought, because, obviously, this is not the case.
It is unfortunate that, under our rules of procedure, we cannot have, at the same time as the Order, a short statement of the progress made by the Board which is asking for this additional money. For the Government to ask us to accept such an Order with the industry in its present state, there need to be several arguments put to us to justify such a monstrous imposition on the industry.
Shipbuilding is facing a crisis. It is unfortunate that yards, like farmers, always seem to be talking about bad times and crying "wolf" so often that when a real crisis comes people do not perhaps pay as much attention as they should. It should be accepted now, however, that this industry is having a real crisis.
On the Clyde, seven major yards have been forced to close down in recent years. With one possible exception, every yard on the Clyde at present is not making money on its contracts. This cannot go on for ever and, as new capital is needed, clearly a real problem arises. I have spoken to many shipbuilders on the Clyde and I get the impression that they think good times are bound to come and that it is a question of who can survive. They think that if they can survive until the good times come it will be worth while. In the present situation we have to consider whether this is a fair imposition to make.
The second and perhaps more relevant question is whether the money will be well spent and whether it will serve a useful purpose. I was surprised that the industry was one of the first in which an industrial training board was set up. I was surprised because the record of the industry in training is exceptionally good. Not only does it give an excellent training to ail apprentices in the industry, but in many areas it also seems to do training for most of the local manufacturing industries as well.
It is a tragedy that for every apprentice who stays on in shipbuilding another leaves and gives the benefit of his expensive training to some other industry. This is not something that can be stopped or interfered with, but we must agree that, in shipbuilding, there was not an urgent problem of lack of training. It was already of a high standard.
What we want this organisation that is taking so much money from the industry to do is to solve some of the problems about apprenticeship training which are not basically questions of inadequate training. My right hon. Friend referred to the number of trades, but one can sometimes be misled about movements in the industry when one hears about union amalgamations. It is sometimes argued as though, with amalgamations, craft problems and demarcations no longer exist. That is not so. In the industry we have one steel work union at present—the Boilermakers' Society controls platers, caulkers, welders, burners, riveters, blacksmiths, shipwrights and drillers.
Almost all the steel work trades are in one union, but that does not mean that we have only one craft. All the crafts there before are still there. That is the kind of problem that the Board should overcome. If it did, the shipbuilders would be glad to give a substantial levy either next year or some other time in the future. But the problems have not been overcome.
In some ways, the union representatives—and some have shown themselves to be statesmanlike—have been considering the question of bringing the crafts together, and it is often believed that the employers are desirous of having just a single craft in the metal trades. That is not the case. No shipbuilders would want masters of all trades in their yards, but what is urgent is that various tradesmen should be able to do incidental work associated with their own work. Much time is wasted in the yards.
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Member is travelling very far from the scope of the Order, which is concerned with the imposition of a levy.
Mr. Taylor: I am sorry, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I was hoping to say briefly, in passing, that if this is the kind of

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problem that could be solved, or some progress made in that direction, I would be less reluctant to approve this levy, which will put a substantial burden on the industry, but in view of what you have said I shall not pursue the point.
I hope that the Minister will be able to tell us something about the progress which is being made. Within the yards themselves, some progress has been made on interchangeability agreements in the Boilermakers' Society, but this is not something stemming directly from the levy or from the Board's activities; it was taking place before the levy was imposed, and it is still continuing.
If we pass the Order, will money be spent on further steps forward in adult retraining? Demarcation in the shipyards is not just something to be deplored. Demarcation exists solely because there is a lack of security in the various trades. Even though there is full employment in shipbuilding and there is a desperate shortage of skilled men, if one small trade feels that there is insecurity, this is an example to all the others. In the Clyde shipyards, two or three years ago, we were desperately short of platers, welders, caulkers and burners, but we had only a very small number of riveters. The riveter used to be the king-pin of the industry. He used to get the highest wages, and he was in acute demand. Then we had the technical change to welding, with the result that only a small number of riveters was needed and there was very little work for them to do.
If there had been arrangements to transfer such men to other skilled trades, after a free period of retraining, not only would this have changed the attitude of the riveters themselves but it would have made a dramatic difference to the attitude of all the steelwork tradesmen towards interchangeability. Not only do we need a change in the attitude of the unions, but we need a change in retraining arrangements for adult workers in the industry. The present arrangements are woefully inadequate. Very occasionally—here I agree with the hon. Member for Tottenham—one finds cases of people being accepted from one trade to another, on a temporary basis, at very low rates of earnings, and with no job security at all. For example, we had
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some riveters transferred in two yards to do a job of tack welding. They did the job at 2s. an hour less than the time-served welder's rate. They had no security in the sense that, if anyone was to be redundant, they would be the first to go, and they had no long-term security in the sense of carrying their new trade from one yard to another. As tack welders in John Browns, they could not move to become tack welders in Connells, Yarrows or Stephens as time-served men could.
Men who are retrained to a new craft are not fully accepted in the new craft but become, so to speak, second-class craftsmen without the benefits normally available to someone who served his time in the craft.
These are problems which the yards would like solved, and they want the Government to make a real contribution to that end if they want this Order, with its attendant levy, passed by the House of Commons. The Minister is aware of most of the problems. Like everyone else in the House, she would like to play a real part in trying to solve them. But it must be said at this time that a burden is to be placed on the industry which in itself might not help much to solve the industry's problems. The problems must be solved if the industry is to be viable in the future.
The burden to be imposed, though unspecified in the Order, is expected to be substantial, particularly at this difficult time. If the Order is approved, the Minister should use every power available to her to advise the Board to be as sparing as possible in its expenditure. This money must be paid by the industry, and the industry simply has not the money to spare to be used in this way. Will she, please, make a point of advising the Board at all costs to restrict its spending and allow the industry to carry on and deal with its own problems, as effectively as, in some cases, it is now doing?
10.55 p.m.
Mr. Kenneth Lewis: I am sure that it is right that we should debate this Order and pray against it. Our decision to do so has been justified by the speeches made on this side of the House, particularly by my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow,

1749
Cathcart (Mr. Edward M, Taylor), who is on the record as being someone with a very great knowledge of this industry.
I presume that certain yards and certain companies in the industry will receive an advantage from this Order when there are good training facilities, while yards which do not have good training facilities will have to pay the levy. There is no doubt that the rationalisation taking place in the shipbuilding industry is long overdue and that this rationalisation will help the industry to put its house in order and make it competitive.
Nor do I think that the present time, when the industry is going through a difficult period, is such a bad time to spend extra money on training. I take the opposite view to some of my hon. Friends. When the industry is finding itself up against it and is facing foreign competition is the time when we ought to make sure that the training facilities are of the highest standard.
I also think that there is a good deal of merit in training people in the industry at apprentice level and at retraining level, so that if the industry finds that it cannot employ these people they will be able to get jobs in the engineering industries and some of the newer industries.
There is one important aspect of training which will obviously concern this levy in so far as facilities will be made available. It is that there should be a wider range of training given to the young aprentices. Until now they have been too restricted and there has been a lack of opportunity for them to gain skills in the crafts that run alongside their own. It is very important that the unions should give encouragement in this matter, so that when apprentices emerge as journeymen they can switch from one craft to another so much more easily.
When one thinks in terms of retraining for the older workers, I hope that the Minister will bear in mind those people in the older age group—the over 40s as we have come to refer to them in recent weeks. They will need looking after because they are at an age when it is difficult to change jobs. If the Minister will charge training boards who are to get the advantage of this levy to give special attention to them, he will do something that is worth while.
10.59 p.m.
The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Labour (Mrs. Shirley Williams): May I begin by thanking the hon. Gentleman the Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury (Mr. Ridley) for letting me know in advance some of the points which he has made this evening, because it has helped me to answer them in a little more detail than would otherwise have been the case.
The first point he made was in some ways the main introductory point. It dealt with the scope of the levy for the second year, which we are considering. The Order establishing the Shipbuilding Industry Training Board was made on 10th November, 1964, and it came into operation on 19th November, 1964. It has therefore been in operation for two years and, during this time, it has established itself as a working organisation and decided on its broad lines of policy. Through the implementation of the grant scheme for the year ended 31st July, 1966, it has already taken steps to influence the training of supervisors, managers, apprentices, training officers, craft instructors and safety officers in the industry. At the moment, the Board's register covers about 1,160 establishments and employs some 136,000 persons. About 600 establishments are in the boat building industry.
From the outset, the Shipbuilding Industry Training Board has followed the policy of consultation with trade union and employers' organisations as the means most likely to obtain co-operation and agreement with the industry in formulating methods and standards of training for the various occupations. The Board has established a number of working parties, and I shall describe their work in more detail in a few moments. The working parties, which are composed of representatives of both sides of the industry, were set up in order to consider training in different occupations.
It may be the case that this policy has resulted in rather slower progress in reaching decisions on training recommendations than would otherwise have been the case, but the Board feels strongly that by using this type of method, it gains the general assent of the industry for the training recommendations that it makes. It is fair to say that considerable progress has been made towards something

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to which the hon. Member for Rutland and Stamford (Mr. Kenneth Lewis) and the hon. Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury mentioned, which is the need for more basic training in the metal-using trades.
Because of the complex nature of the various trades engaged in shipbuilding, the Board felt that it was not possible to publish training recommendations in time for the beginning of the second training year on 1st August, 1966. Therefore, during the current year, to which the levy now under discussion applies, the Board's policy of paying training grants in respect of training activities will be made in respect of those for which there is a ready assessment, in the Board's view, of their effectiveness and cost. The grant scheme in the second year is considerably more comprehensive than in the first year.
It would be worth giving details of the courses which will be covered by grant. They include such matters as contributions towards the cost of on-the-job training of first-year apprentices. Both the hon. Member for Dorset, West (Mr. Wingfield Digby) and the hon. Member for Glasgow, Cathcart (Mr. Edward M. Taylor) referred to the shipbuilding industry as one which perhaps did not require a great deal of money to be spent on it at this time to improve its training. It is worth referring to the fact that only one in five first-year apprentices got full-time off the job training in this industry, which does not compare too well with a number of other industries.
Secondly, the Board intends to make a grant to cover 50 per cent. of the wages and salaries of managers and supervisors attending approved internal and external courses. Again, the result of the Board's survey in 1965 showed that only 9 per cent. of management level people had attended any type of formal course during the whole of 1965. That, again, is something which rather suggests that this is not an industry which has had exactly its fair share of training in the past. In addition, the Board is making available the full wages and salaries of training staff attending approved external training courses, and those hon. Members who know the industry will
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agree that there is a great need for more trained training staff.
The Board also intends to meet the wages and expenses of boys under the age of 21 and girls under the age of 18 who attend off the job courses for commercial and clerical training. It intends to meet the basic wages and expenses in respect of skilled workers receiving off the job conversion training. That is something which several hon. Members mentioned, and again it is something which is highly laudable.
The Board's survey in 1965 showed that there were a total of 105 adult craft trainees out of a skilled labour force of 78,601; so again it seems correct that the Board should be making a grant towards more off the job conversion training. The Board is also making a grant covering 50 per cent. of the running costs of all off the job training centres providing approved training. Again this is important, because I have already referred to the lack of facilities for off the job training. It will meet a percentage of the wages or salaries of all people engaged full or part time as training staff. It will make a contribution towards the costs incurred by employers in respect of the costs of full-time courses of higher education and further off the job training which will extend an employee's knowledge of the occupation for which he is already qualified. That, of course, is adult training.
I do not think that anyone would quarrel with the matters which the Board's grants are to cover for the second year for which we are discussing the levy tonight.
Mr. Wingfield Digby: The hon. Lady has referred to the money which is to be handed back to industry. Can she say how much money she estimates, in total, will be taken from the industry by this levy which she is asking us to pass?
Mrs. Williams: I shall come to that point later in my speech.
May I turn first to the other points made by the hon. Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury. He mentioned his concern about the need for more basic and flexible training in the metal using trades. The hon. Gentleman will appreciate that it is a little difficult to comment on this in great detail tonight because the Board has set up working parties dealing with training in metal

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working trades. These working parties have reported—and, incidentally, it is our understanding that they have reported in favour of shorter periods of apprenticeship, namely, a cut from the present 5 years to four years—but since their recommendations have been put neither to the training committee of the Board, nor to the Board, it would be presumptuous of me to suggest that these are recommendations which will be accepted by the Board.
I am sure, therefore, that the hon. Gentleman will appreciate that it is difficult to go into detail on the basis of recommendations which have not been before the full Board. However, I think that it is worth saying that the main objective of the Board in all the trades which they have been discussing is that there shall be a period of basic training and planned experience which could provide a general introduction to shipyard life and shipbuilding, and that this shall be the basis of further skills. I think, again, that most people concerned with the industry will agree that this is a long step in the right direction.
I turn now to the other point raised by the hon. Gentleman, and he will, I am sure, share my regret that my hon. Friend the Minister of State for Education and Science, who had very much hoped to be present, has, for serious family reasons, not been able to come here tonight. I shall therefore answer on behalf of my hon. Friend the point made by the hon. Gentleman about training courses in further education institutions.
In the first place, we should be clear what kind of training we are talking about. We are discussing industrial training provided by technical colleges, usually as part of integrated courses, that is to say, courses provided by agreement with an industry or industries employing students in which further education is combined with practical training, and again which would, in other circumstances, be provided in the industry itself.
Most of these courses take the form of one-year full time courses as combined further education and first-year apprenticeship training. Incidentally, training is also provided in some colleges by arrangement with one or more firms, and these specially designed courses consist of practical training
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which would otherwise be done wholly in the firms. While it is accepted that local education authorities are responsible for the provision of further education, but not for industrial training, it is also accepted that industry is expected to provide industrial training for itself. The distinctions between further education and training are made explicit in the Act.
Section 2(4, c) of the Act says that a board may
"pay fees to persons providing further education in respect of persons who receive it in association with their training in courses provided or approved by the Board",
and these costs, which are being met by industrial training boards, come primarily under that definition. Although it is true that before the Act came into operation these courses were provided at a cost to the ratepayers, the view now is that, because of the vast multiplication of the work of the boards, it would not be proper to leave this charge on the rates.
In answer to a further point made by the hon. Gentleman, may I say that a decision has been taken in principle that charges for similar integrated courses of training provided for those trades where there is not yet an industrial training board shall be similarly financed. The basic proportion which is being taken for costing purposes, which is the proportion of time spent on industrial training in an integrated course, is about 60 per cent. I should add that no charges are being made for pre-apprenticeship courses for students, nor, normally day or block release courses, and this is an evolution which has developed out of the Act itself.
Mr. Ridley: I am grateful to the hon. Lady for giving way. Her explanation is most helpful, but does not she feel that this important change of policy, which really amounts to a change of taxation policy, should have been made public and laid before the House for it to express its views about it when the decision was taken?
Mrs. Williams: The hon. Gentleman will appreciate that it is very difficult for me to answer for my hon. Friend. This is entirely within his responsibility, but I repeat that the original powers under which this is done were laid down in the 1964 Act.

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I think that I have dealt with most of the points made by the hon. Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury, and I turn now to the points made by other hon. Members who have taken part in the debate. I think that there must be a very widespread misunderstanding of what the Act is all about. The 1964 Act, which was not passed by our Administration, makes it clear that the obligations for training rest on industry. The boards are drawn from both sides of industry and have educational experts on them, and the Act very tightly limits the powers of the Minister; indeed if the Minister wishes to amend an order made by the industrial training board he has to take fairly Draconian action to do so. In certain cases he is obliged to dismiss the entire board in order to decide that he is not going to accept a recommendation by them. It is clear to anyone who studies the Act of 1964 that it is not an Act which was meant to allow profound or detailed interference by the Government of the day.
It is made clear that the industrial training boards are responsible for the financing, details and the type of courses they provide under this Act, and it is this Act which the Minister is trying with the greatest possible speed to implement. So I was rather surprised to hear the hon. Member for Dorset, West and the hon. Member for Cathcart sharply criticising this Act which passed by their own Administration.
Mr. Wingfield Digby: The hon. Lady must not twist my words. I never mentioned the Act. I criticised the hon. Lady's being so quick to impose a new charge, while her hon. Friends are slow to implement the levies.
Mrs. Williams: The Government do not impose this charge. The levy decision in the case of all industrial training boards, unless rejected by the Minister, is in fact made by the board itself. In the case of the levy we are discussing, the levy has the full support of both the employers' and the employees' side of the Board—indeed it is a unanimous recommendation to the Minister. So I was really quarrelling—and I do not want to be in any way discourteous to the hon. Gentleman—with his use of the phrase that the Government was imposing
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this levy. The Board imposes the levy, the Government only has power to approve or reject it, and this power is extremely Draconian.
The other point made by the hon. Member for Dorset, West, was his reference to what he called taxation being imposed at a very unfortunate time for the industry. I would draw his attention to the reference in the Geddes Report to the shortage of skilled labour in this industry. This has led in many cases to late deliveries and some loss of orders for the British shipbuilding industry. This is not an industry which can be described as being an industry exactly over-abundant with skilled labour. It would be difficult to sustain the argument that there is not a case for training more skilled labour in this industry. There is no question of taxation in the relationship between levy and grant. The bulk of the Board's income is paid out again in grant, and there is no reason why an employer should not gain more in grant than he pays out in levy.
To turn to the financial aspects of the Board's activities, in 1965–66 the amount collected under a levy at the rate of ·55 per cent. was £593,000, of which £408,000 has already been paid out or is about to be paid out in grants, and about £80,000 is being held awaiting claims by employers who are entitled to claim but who have not yet done so. In view of the amount unclaimed the Board have extended the period in which claims can be made up to 31st December this year. In 1966–67 the levy raised will be a total of approximately £1,500,000. The great bulk of this will be payable out in grants, minus only the administration expenses of the Board. This is not a form of taxation. The sums involved in the collection of the levy are, to a very great extent, but a small proportion of the amount available to be paid back to the industry, but paid back only to those employers who are undertaking training of a decent quality as laid down and indicated by the boards themselves.
I should like to make it clear that the Industrial Training Act is not a tax Act. Its purpose is to impose a levy upon industries in order to finance training and to make possible grants to those industrialists who fully share the responsibility

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for training their labour force. If a firm suffers a direct 100 per cent. loss of a levy, it is bound to be because it has relied on training done by other firms and has refused to take its share of the responsibility.
For these reasons, I suggest that this levy deserves to be accepted. There are serious shortages of adequately trained labour in the shipbuilding industry, and when the Board comes to consider the recommendations of its working parties, I hope it will bear in mind the views of hon. Members on both sides of the House.
Mr. Ridley: Would the hon. Lady make reference to what was said by the hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr. Atkinson), who was somewhat critical of myself—although I forgive him for his ignorance of the subject. Could the hon. Lady say whether she agrees with me that dilution and demarcation do not present problems in the actual shipyards of this country? The case which my hon. Friends and I have put is that to some extent there has been great difficulty through demarcation between trades, and dilution has been objected to on the part of new entrants. This problem is still with us. Although we welcome the fact that it is beginning to improve, does the hon. Lady agree with his views or with mine?
Mr. Atkinson: I was provoked into joining in this debate because the leader of the opposing party on this question started off by ignoring the Act completely and went into a dialogue on the behaviour of the trade unions. It was because of that, when the hon. Member started to say that he did not believe that amalgamation between unions was possible—those were his exact words—
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Member cannot make a second speech on this Order. This subject is really outside the scope of this Order.
Question put and negatived.

WALES (RAILWAYS AND ROADS)
Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Bishop.]
11.18 p.m.
Mr. Gwynfor Evans: I am grateful for the opportunity to bring before the House the question of roads and railways in Wales, a matter most important to my constituency and to every constituency in Wales. I am conscious of the grim background of the figures of employment and unemployment in Wales. We have heard this evening that the percentage of people unemployed in Wales has now reached 3·9 per cent. and there are only 7,600 vacancies, whereas there are 39,360 unemployed. I also bring this matter before the House against the background of long-term decline in Wales.
The population of the County of Carmarthen has dropped since 1921 by 10,000, and Wales as a whole has increased its population during that period by only 1 per cent., whereas England has increased its population by 35 per cent. The main cause of this decline is lack of balanced development, which in turn is due to the failure to develop road and rail communications. A high proportion of our railways has been closed and services on the surviving lines, both passenger and freight, are still being cruelly curtailed. The mileage of major roads built has been derisory.
Industrial development follows the motorway. This was the conclusion drawn from a series of articles on the regions some time ago by the Guardian. The Secretary of State for Wales knows how difficult it is to push industrialists westwards. This is why Carmarthenshire has had so few new factories in the two years 1964–66, and why they are so small, employing only 200 men in all. This field of communications is one where one cannot plan for one county alone. The urgent need is to implement an integrated road and rail policy for the whole of Wales. Up to now they have been dealt with separately, almost in isolation from each other.
Not only should road and rail policies be integrated each with the other; they should also be an integrated part of a social and economic policy for the Welsh

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nation. Regard should be had for the effect of every one activity on every other aspect of Welsh life, which must be considered as a seamless web. Otherwise the best-intentioned actions may do more harm than good. The transport plan must be part of a Welsh development plan which creates the conditions for balanced growth in our industrial, economic, social and cultural life. This requires a Welsh transport board. I see that even the Economist is pressing for 16 regional governments for Britain, although the Economist gives priority to economic values and, therefore, does not respect the national life of Wales and, apparently, would like to see Wales carved up and destroyed. If we had that kind of government in Wales—and why should not Wales pioneer in this field?—a Welsh transport board would of necessity be a part of it. Had such a board been established after the war, Welsh communications would be more efficient today. As a part of an integral system, for instance, we would have in our rural areas, as other countries have, a system of multi-purpose minibuses which would transport adults and school children, mail and parcels. Perhaps we shall learn something of such possibilities when the Clayton Report is published—if it is to be published. I should be glad to hear from the Minister whether the final Report, which was to be made in September, has now been considered by the Government.
A Welsh transport board would have embarked on the electrification of Welsh railways immediately after the war. As things are, the Government do not intend to electrify a mile of them. Compare this with Switzerland, where 99 per cent. of the federal railways are electrified, and with the situation in France. What a good use this would have been for Welsh coal. The main burden of responsibility for the destruction of our railway system falls on administration damage. It is the system of Welsh government which is at fault. A higher proportion of railways has been closed in Wales than in England although there is no evidence that railways in Wales are losing money. The most reasonable deduction to be drawn from such figures as have been published is that they make a profit. If the Government wish to dispute this, let them publish the detailed evidence. Unfortunately,
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the services of the British Railways in Wales are still being curtailed for both passengers and freight. Freight is the more important from the industrial and economic point of view but the curtailment of passenger services has most injurious social consequences.
When I met the Kidwelly Borough Council recently I was told by one member of the Council that to get to his work at Swansea by 9 a.m. he must leave Kidwelly by the 5.55 a.m. train or the 6.30 a.m. bus. In the nearby village of Ferryside there is no bus or train which will get people to work in Carmarthen by 9 a.m.
The basic reason for the failure of railways to provide a satisfactory service is that their criteria are too narrowly commercial. In their White Paper on transport a few months ago, the Government conceded this and said that commercial considerations may well now be secondary to the welfare of the society which they serve, which must be given priority. The Government have not yet legislated to secure this, but they intend doing so, and I appeal to them in the interim period to use their best offices to ensure that British Railways act according to the spirit of the White Paper and not the letter of the present law.
The Government must make up their mind to take Welsh roads seriously. We suffer doubly in Wales from neglect in this. Largely because of lack of adequate communications there is little industry in the greater part of the country, and now, because there is little industry, we are told that we do not need major roads. The truth is that they are needed throughout Wales precisely because of the lack of industry. Industry follows the road even more certainly than trade follows the flag. In addition, the increasingly chaotic state in the summer must restrict the tourist industry, which has become of such great economic value to us.
But we are told that the expense of building these roads is too great. This is a matter of priorities. For less than the cost of three nuclear submarines, a reconstructed trunk road could be built from Cardiff to Wrexham. For less than the cost of two submarines, highways with the status of reconstructed trunk roads could be built from Neath to Aberystwyth and from Carmarthen to Whitland.

1761
To come nearer home than submarines, the Government consultants said that the cost of a new town that might bring some 60,000 Birmingham people to Caersus would be some £137 million. For that sum we could have the major highways that I have mentioned from Merthyr to Caernarvon, from Swansea to Whitland, and from Neath to Aberystwyth. A set of highways of that kind, serving the nine Welsh counties, would transform the social and economic prospects of great areas of Wales and bring new vigour to the whole of Welsh life.
As things are, the Government seem to have no intention of doing anything else like that. In the six western counties they hope to build three miles of reconstructed trunk roads, less than three miles of dual carriageway and not a yard of motorway. In 1967–68 the proportion of United Kingdom expenditure on motorways that it is proposed to spend in the nine counties of Wales, except Monmouthshire, is nil.
Six years ago these words were spoken:
"The simple truth is that the Minister of Transport's programme for Wales is completely inadequate, and he has always failed to understand the real problem in Wales".—[OFFICIAL REPORT. Welsh Grand Committee, 14th December, 1960; c. 10.]
They were spoken in a Welsh Grand Committee debate on transport by the right hon. Member for Cardiff, South-East (Mr. Callaghan). They were no doubt true then, and they are equally true now. Whatever party is in power, the Government fail to understand the real problem of Wales.
It would not astonish me to learn that there is insufficient being done to justify the setting up in Wales of a unit corresponding to the six units the Minister of Transport announced yesterday, which are to prepare, design and supervise the construction of large trunk road and motorway schemes in England. Perhaps the Minister will make a statement on this in his reply.
The situation in Wales is unhappy and the outlook is bleak. But there is one redeeming feature in the situation. Because the Welsh people see how little is being done for Wales under the present order—we have the Government's own word for how little was done between 1951 and 1964—the House can expect
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them soon to insist on establishing a Welsh government as an urgent economic necessity.
11.30 p.m.
Mr. Emlyn Hooson: I do not intend to follow the hon. Member for Carmarthen (Mr. Gwynfor Evans) in everything he said, but would utterly support the point he made that the prosperity of Wales depends on a good communications system, and that the present system is completely inadequate. The fact that there is such a high unemployment rate in Wales is true also of the other peripheral areas of this country—Scotland and Northern Ireland—and is largely because they are away from the centre and need better communications. Because the centre of industry tends to go towards the south, because of the magnet of Europe, there will undoubtedly be a greater need for better communications in Wales if we are to keep our end up at all.
In the short time at my disposal there are two points I want to make to the Under-Secretary. The first is that I and many other Members have been dismayed by the fact that the Welsh Office has had to cut down on the road programme by £400,000. The road programme was inadequate as it was, and to cut down by this measure of expenditure, even if it is only a matter of a hold back for a few months—as we hope it will be, and no more—is a grave disappointment for Members on both sides who had hoped to see something better.
The second point I wish to make is that in my area of Wales, Mid-Wales, we are already very badly served by the rail communications system, and Shrewsbury is about to be cut off, virtually, by British Railways and the whole of the Cambrian coast service is in danger. There is a threat that for next year there will be only one through train a day from Shrewsbury, whereas there are 10 trains a day at present, and people are very concerned about the future of the main artery running from Shrewsbury to Aberystwyth up the Welsh coast. I hope the hon. Gentleman will be able to give an undertaking that this railway will not be closed, and that an adequate service will be run to and from the main communications centre at Shrewsbury.
11.31 p.m.
The Under-Secretary of State for Wales (Mr. Ifor Davies): May I commence by acknowledging that I agree with both the hon. Member for Carmarthen (Mr. Gwynfor Evans) and the hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. Hooson) about one thing, and that is the extreme and vital importance of the subject we are discussing tonight. I deeply regret that we have not much time, and I look forward to an opportunity on another occasion to discuss these matters, possibly in the Welsh Grand Committee. Having agreed on that point, may I now proceed to disagree with some of the things said.
I am obliged to the hon. Member for Carmarthen that in his opening remarks he indicated that he was not going to blame this Government for all the faults at the present time. He did, however, once again refer to the question of the profitability of the railways, and I am going to take this matter up first. He has said it many times. Indeed, he did it in the Welsh debate the other day when he said that
"all the evidence shows that the railways in Wales as a whole are paying their way."
There is no evidence whatsoever, neither has the hon. Member produced evidence in support of that statement. He went on further to say:
"… in my conversation with Mr. Hilton I took his words as confirming my standpoint in this matter and confirming the evidence which I put in articles …"—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 14th November, 1966; Vol. 736, c. 96.]
This is a serious matter, because Mr. Hilton has completely denied this, and I have his permission to quote his letter to me. He says this:
"I do not know why the Member for Carmarthen should take my words when he came to see me as confirming the evidence which he put in the article referred to During this conversation, he raised the question of the profitability and I am in no doubt that I made it quite clear to him that the figures he had quoted were only measures of performance of that part of the railway for which I am responsible. … The Cardiff Division of the Western Region is an 'originating traffic' Division. Whilst, therefore, the whole of the receipts are taken into account in this Division's books, there is no transfer of working expenses incurred by the other Divisions of British Railways in working the traffic to destinations east of the Severn Tunnel. It can, therefore, clearly be seen that the figures do not represent the profitability or otherwise of the Cardiff Division."
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I want to emphasise this point. I have no wish to be ungenerous or unkind to the hon. Member. I find him agreeable, and a different person when I speak to him from what he is when he writes his articles. He may believe all this, and innocently have misrepresented the position, but the evidence suggests that he has deliberately misunderstood—perhaps mischievously—the facts. For example, the figures he himself gave for profitability were not from a balance sheet or a profit and loss account but from a marketing and sales staff circular.
Circular No. 58, dated June, 1964, was marked "Private and not for publication". It was not a statement of account but, in accountancy language, was a measure of performance for staff guidance. But these were the figures published, without authority, by the hon. Member in his article of 28th July, 1964, in the Western Mail. To make matters worse, the hon. Member added a calculation of his own and called it "gross profit".
Those figures have been continually referred to to justify his case. They are being continually written and spoken about by other people. But I say frankly that they are completely misleading. The best way to prove my case is to quote the Report of the Select Committee on Nationalised Industries, paragraphs 47 and 48:
"Under the present system, the accounting returns for British Railways are compiled from regional returns of receipts and expenses. The gross receipts are those for traffic which originates in the Region, wherever it is subsequently carried; the working expenses are those which the Region is responsible for incurring … these figures will not of themselves enable any conclusion to be drawn about the efficiency or otherwise of a particular service."
Railway costing is an intricate and complex subject. Paragraph 50 of the Select Committee's Report says:
"The accounts as they now stand would, in other words, only give a complete picture of a Region's trading if"—
the operative word—
"no traffic ever crossed a regional boundary."
That is the point. It explains why the accounts are only partly regional and partly national. In view of this, I appeal to the hon. Member as a matter of intellectual honesty to stop misleading some Welsh people that the railways in Wales are making a profit. What we can say

1765
tonight is that British Railways as a whole have incurred a loss of over £132 million in 1965. That is the fact.
Now I turn to rail closures. I remind the hon. Member that most of these were consented to by the previous Government, and he has acknowledged that. As for railways in general, the Government White Paper outlines the proposals for a new basic railway network in order to restore stability to the industry. The general size and shape of the system must be determined soon and I agree with the hon. Member that integration of rail and road services is also important.
The identification and costing of the socially necessary services will be the task of a Joint Steering Group presided over by my hon. Friend the Member for Aberavon (Mr. John Morris) who is Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport. That is surely sufficient assurance that the Welsh interest will not be overlooked and I am pleased to see my hon. Friend here. I say with confidence that he will not let down the Principality.
The second matter emphasised by the hon. Member was roads. The planning of a worthwhile road programme must be undertaken at least four to five years ahead of construction. We are planning now for the early 1970s and we can do little to alter the programme we inherited for the late 1960s. We hear a great deal about motorways. The hon. Member instanced the fact that motorways are the things to bring industries to his constituency. The hon. Gentleman is very fond of quoting the example of Northern Ireland, where, he says, there will be 100 miles of motorway by 1970. According to the evidence I have, his information is misleading here also. I understand that the 100 miles of motorway programme in Northern Ireland was intended to be completed not by 1970 but during the early 1970s, and even that has now been substantially rephased so that the actual rate of construction will be a good deal slower.
I wish I had time to say a lot more about the comparisons with Northern Ireland which have played such a great part in the campaigns of publicity and propaganda carried on by the hon. Gentleman. The fact is that the motorways of Northern Ireland are not much
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different—this is the point—from the best of our new trunk roads which are dual-carriageway roads. The Cowbridge by-pass is a very good example, and so, too, is the new road being built from Monmouth through Raglan to Newport, which will be a splendid example of a modern all-purpose dual carriageway trunk road built to near motorway standards.
By 1970 we shall have over 80 miles of dual carriageways, about half of them either motorways or of motorway standard. It is wrong to consider motorways in isolation. We must not make the mistake of underestimating the advantaages which come from improvements to trunk roads which, in the busiest areas, may be built to near motorway standards.
We are planning an expanding road programme in Wales. When the Welsh Office took over responsibility for roads in April of last year, the value of major schemes, each estimated to cost more than £100,000, being prepared for starting in the four years 1965–69 was £27 million. The major schemes now being prepared—after our being in office for only two years—for the four years up to 1970 total nearly £40 million. In other words, the value of schemes in the pipeline during our period of responsibility has been increased by nearly 50 per cent.
The rate at which we can implement the programme must depend on the state of the economy, but, despite the present need for financial stringency, we have started well. The value of major trunk road contracts actually let so far in the financial year comes to £4 million, compared with £2·6 million worth of major contracts let last year. These figures show our progress conclusively, and we are moving just as fast as resources will allow.
I assure the House—I say this particularly to the hon. and learned Member for Montgomery—that we shall continue to improve the most important routes in rural Wales. I remind hon. Members of the recent announcement by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State on Welsh day of the trunking of the A.477 road from St. Clares down to Pembrokeshire. This is a major step forward and is further evidence of our determination in this direction. Over the

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years, there have been deputations and representations on the subject of this roadway. It has happened in our time, and we were very pleased on a Welsh day to have this acknowledged and to hear the tributes paid to the Welsh Office.
When the hon. Member for Carmarthen pours scorn on the efforts of this Government to improve the roads of Wales, which he does frequently—I remind him that we inherited in Wales years of neglect by successive Tory Governments. Yet I notice that he sits unashamedly on the Tory Opposition benches. But, more than that, our problems have been accentuated because they have coincided with a traffic expansion of explosive proportions.
I, too, can claim to speak for Wales in the House, both as a Member and as a Welsh-speaking Welshman.
I say with confidence that the Welsh people will applaud the efforts of this Government to improve railways and roads in Wales, despite the very serious economic difficulties of the country. The key to solving our communications problem lies in planning designed to reconcile our many-sided needs, regional, economic and social.
We need to put all of our resources to their best use, as part of a coherent and integrated plan. It was in the light of this principle that the Government took the essential step of setting up the Welsh Planning Board and the Welsh Economic Council. In the past the system of communications in the industrial parts of Wales was patterned by the needs of the areas basic industries of coal and tinplate. Both were largely exporting industries and the important requirement was to have good communications from the valleys to the ports.
The pattern is now changing as new industries are established, needing improved communications with the centres of population where the workers and markets are. So the need arises for better
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communication between west and east. This is what the new road systems being built are designed to do. I ask hon. Members not to under-estimate the great improvements which have been made and are being made on our roads, which carry 90 per cent. of our passenger traffic and 60 per cent. of our freight.
I know that the hon. and learned Gentleman for Montgomery is waiting for a reply to his question. We are giving attention to the problem of these roads. I saw for myself some of the very necessary improvements which we are undertaking. The problem of north-south links in Wales is a long-standing one and a direct consequence of the geographical and historical development of the principality.
Nevertheless there is a good deal of scope for improvement of north-south links and we are exploring every possibility. Some improvements are being carried out and others are being considered. I can tell the hon. and learned Gentleman that we are giving all possible attention to this problem.
I can say confidently that the people of Wales will give us credit for what we have done. We are not responsible for the present situation but we shall be held responsible for the position later and we are looking forward to the time when our record shall stand proudly and we can look back and say that we have run the course and fought a good fight. I look forward to discussing this vitally important matter on future occasions, possibly in Welsh Grand Committee. It is perhaps more important than anything else in its relationship to the economy of our country.
The Question having been proposed after Ten o'clock and the debate having continued for half an hour, Mr. Deputy Speaker adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.
Adjourned at eleven minutes to Twelve o'clock.

OVERSEAS DEVELOPMENT
  U.N.E.S.C.O. (General Conference)
  U.N.E.S.C.O. (General Conference)
  University College, Salisbury
  University College, Salisbury
  Kenya
  Kenya
  India (Aid)
  India (Aid)
  Colonel Harris (Tax Forms)
  Colonel Harris (Tax Forms)
ECONOMIC AFFAIRS
  Economic Planning Councils (Resignation of Chairmen)
  Economic Planning Councils (Resignation of Chairmen)
  National Economic Development Council (Report)
  National Economic Development Council (Report)
  Prices (Period of Severe Restraint)
  Prices (Period of Severe Restraint)
  Railway Freight Depots (Planning Councils)
  Railway Freight Depots (Planning Councils)
  Yorkshire and Humberside Review (Cost)
  Yorkshire and Humberside Review (Cost)
BOARD OF TRADE
  Unemployment (Dorset)
  Unemployment (Dorset)
  Motor Vehicle Repairs (Consumer Protection Legislation)
  Motor Vehicle Repairs (Consumer Protection Legislation)
  Rolls Razor Limited (Report)
  Rolls Razor Limited (Report)
  Doty-Free Airport Shops (Profit)
  Doty-Free Airport Shops (Profit)
  British European Airways (B.K.S. Air Transport Ltd.)
  British European Airways (B.K.S. Air Transport Ltd.)
  American Gramophone Record (Import)
  American Gramophone Record (Import)
  Association of British Travel Agents (Operation Stabiliser)
  Association of British Travel Agents (Operation Stabiliser)
  Hotel Industry (Loans Scheme)
  Hotel Industry (Loans Scheme)
  B.O.A.C./Cunard Limited
  B.O.A.C./Cunard Limited
WALES
  Roads
  Roads
EDUCATION AND SCIENCE
  School Building Programmes (London)
  School Building Programmes (London)
  Agricultural Buildings (Research)
  Agricultural Buildings (Research)
  Secondary and Middle Schools (Proposals)
  Secondary and Middle Schools (Proposals)
  Schoolchildren, London
  Schoolchildren, London
  Schoolchildren, Havering
  Schoolchildren, Havering
HOME DEPARTMENT
  Police Forces (Resignations)
  Police Forces (Resignations)
  Traffic Police (Report)
  Traffic Police (Report)
  Telephone Tapping
  Telephone Tapping
  EUROPEAN ECONOMIC COMMUNITY (ANGLO-FRENCH TALKS)
  EUROPEAN ECONOMIC COMMUNITY (ANGLO-FRENCH TALKS)
  ADEN (MR. BOWEN'S REPORT)
  ADEN (MR. BOWEN'S REPORT)
  SOUTH ARABIA (EGYPTIAN SABOTEURS)
  SOUTH ARABIA (EGYPTIAN SABOTEURS)
COMMONWEALTH AFFAIRS
  Zambia (Aid)
  Zambia (Aid)
MINISTRY OF AVIATION
  Egyptian Aircraft
  Egyptian Aircraft
MINISTRY OF HEALTH
  Food Hygiene (Paper Bags)
  Food Hygiene (Paper Bags)
  Drug Addiction (Brain Report)
  Drug Addiction (Brain Report)
MINISTRY OF POWER
  Coke Prices (Barnoldswick Co-operative Society)
  Coke Prices (Barnoldswick Co-operative Society)
MINISTRY OF LABOUR
  British Motor Corporation Longbridge (Strike)
  British Motor Corporation Longbridge (Strike)
  RHODESIA
  RHODESIA
  Unemployment (Northern Region)
  Unemployment (Northern Region)
AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES AND FOOD
  Retail Food Prices (Increase)
  Retail Food Prices (Increase)
  Bacon Industry
  Bacon Industry
LOCAL GOVERNMENT
  Footpath Manley 15 (Appeal Decision)
  Footpath Manley 15 (Appeal Decision)
LAND AND NATURAL RESOURCES
  Leasehold Enfranchisement
  Leasehold Enfranchisement
SCOTLAND
  Housing (Scotland) Act 1962 (Supplementary Subsidy)
  Housing (Scotland) Act 1962 (Supplementary Subsidy)
  Rivers (Fishing Rights)
  Rivers (Fishing Rights)
POST OFFICE
  Telecommunications (Capital Expenditure)
  Telecommunications (Capital Expenditure)
RAILWAYS
  British Railways Board (Investment and Trading Statistics)
  British Railways Board (Investment and Trading Statistics)
  Perth-Inverness Line
  Perth-Inverness Line
  Freightliner Terminals
  Freightliner Terminals
NATIONAL FINANCE
  Income Tax (Companies)
  Income Tax (Companies)
Preamble
The House met at three of the clock (Prayers having been read earlier at the Judicial Sitting by the Lord Bishop of Chichester), The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.

TAXATION REVENUE
LORD REDMAYNE: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what is the estimated total increase in revenue in a full year arising from changes in taxation since October, 1964, and what proportion of this total is estimated to fall directly on business undertakings; and whether they will publish a list of these changes, showing in each case—

(a) the estimated change in revenue in a full year, and

(b) the estimated change in tax charges falling directly on business undertakings.]

LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, I have looked into this matter very carefully, and I am afraid that it is not possible to give the noble Lord an aggregate of the sort for which he asks. Some tax changes have a fairly stable full-year yield which can be estimated, but for others the yield varies widely from year to year. The effect of some is short-lived, and is not concurrent with others introduced later. If the noble Lord will look at Table II in the Financial Statements published with each Budget, he will see that, although full-year yields are given for some tax changes, they are not given for others, and no total figure is given. It follows that I cannot give the noble Lord an answer to the second part of his Question. In addition to the problems of giving aggregates which I have mentioned, this is also because of the radical nature of the changes in the system of direct taxation, the effects of which, on the economy, have not yet been fully worked out.
I apologise to the noble Lord that I have not been able to help him further.
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There are considerable difficulties involved in this matter, but if the noble Lord would wish to have an explanation of those difficulties I am very ready either to see him or to write him a detailed letter.
LORD REDMAYNE: My Lords, may I thank the noble Lord for a most unsatisfactory Answer? May I ask him whether he is aware that in fact I can get nearly all that I want from the Financial Statements, and that those Statements show that, in fact, of these enormous increases in taxation industry and commerce have borne something like two-thirds, possibly more than two-thirds? I would ask the noble Lord how he reconciles this with the Chancellor of the Exchequer's Party political broadcast last night in which he said that private industry under a Labour Government can and should look for encouragement and will get it? Does this indicate a change of heart on the part of the Government and the Chancellor, or is it simply "double talk" for Party political purposes?
May I ask the noble Lord two specific questions?—and if he cannot answer them now I hope he will see that I get an answer later. What is the estimated out-turn in a full year of corporation tax at 40 per cent. and how does that compare with income tax paid by industry and commerce at the previous rates, allowing for the fact that it was increased by the Government in 1965 by no less a sum than £78 million? Secondly, what is the effect as a result of increased taxation paid of the reduced value of the investment incentives?
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, I will certainly see that the noble Lord is provided with an answer to those two questions. I think he will agree that we may well have to wait for the full twelve months in order to be able to provide the answer, particularly in regard to corporation tax. I did not have the advantage of seeing the television programme of my right honourable friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer, although my wife tells me that it was a most excellent one.
In regard to the comment the noble Lord made about the burden of taxation falling most heavily on industry, he will be aware that the old income tax rate on

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company profits and the profits tax and income tax was in the region of 56¼ per cent.; whereas, under the corporation tax there is a tax of 40 per cent. on the profits, although there is added tax on dividends when dividends are made. But, clearly, if a company ploughs back its profits into its own organisation, which is what the Government would wish to see, it is infinitely better off than it was under the old system of taxation. However, in regard to the selective employment tax—the noble Lord did not mention this, but I think it was one of the taxes which he has in mind—it is clear that certain industries, particularly the manufacturing industries, will be much better off under this tax than they were in the past.
LORD REDMAYNE: My Lords, may I ask whether the noble Lord is intentionally spurring me to draw his attention to the fact in respect of the selective employment tax that the distributive trades and service industries are paying no less than an increase of £373 million in tax arising out of S.E.T. alone? So far as the Chancellor of the Exchequer's broadcast is concerned, I was asking the noble Lord whether there was any advantage in listening to it.
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, I am quite sure that to the noble Lord, Lord Redmayne, there is a great advantage in listening not only to that particular broadcast but to many others; we can all learn. In regard to S.E.T., it is true that the service industries are severely affected by it, but it is the policy of the Government—and I should have thought it was accepted by most people who appreciate our economic difficulties—that assistance should be given to the manufacturing industries. Therefore, this is one of the problems when one starts to generalise. In this case the manufacturing businesses will be infinitely better off than they were in the past.
LORD CONESFORD: My Lords, did the Minister mean what he said, that the Government wish companies to plough back their profits in all cases, irrespective of the use the company can make of the profits ploughed back? If so, does he realise that his advice is the direct opposite of a unanimous conclusion of the Royal Commission on Taxation?
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, here again we must not generalise, and that is what the noble Lord is asking me to do.
LORD CONESFORD: That is what the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, did.
LORD SHEPHERD: No, my Lords, I do not intend to generalise here. But certainly in the case of manufacturing industries, and certain of the service industries, if profits are ploughed back to give increased efficiency by the use of machines then our whole economy will be infinitely better off.

UNITED NATIONS: BRITISH REPRESENTATION
3.8 p.m.
BARONESS EMMET OF AMBERLEY: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the first Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government—

(1) Whether it is their policy to replace the representation at the United Nations of Members of both Houses as full delegates by:

(a) Civil Servant representation on the various Committees with the exception of the Minister in charge; and

(b) A visit by an all-Party political delegation for one week during the autumn session;

(2) Whether they are aware that this will greatly weaken the standing of the United Kingdom representation at the United Nations in the eyes of other delegations.]

THE PARLIAMENTARY UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR COMMONWEALTH AFFAIRS (LORD BESWICX): My Lords, in addition to the Minister in Charge, Lord Caradon, and the Minister for Disarmament, Lord Chalfont, the United Kingdom delegation to the 21st Session of the General Assembly of the United Nations includes a Member of this House, Lady Gaitskell, who represents Her Majesty's Government in the Third Committee.
Representation at the General Assembly and other organs of the United Nations is undertaken by Ministers or senior officials as the circumstances may demand.

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In addition, an all-Party Parliamentary delegation has recently completed a most successful visit to United Nations Headquarters. Her Majesty's Government consider that this is the most effective way of demonstrating British Parliamentary support for the United Nations, and of emphasising, through the all-Party nature of the delegation, that the organisation has the support of the whole country.
A delegation to the Assembly led by a Minister, and a special Parliamentary delegation, seems to Her Majesty's Government to be the best way to represent Governmental and Parliamentary interests.
BARONESS EMMET OF AMBERLEY: My Lords, is the Minister aware that some of us think that to send out a Parliamentary delegation just for one week is nothing like as effective to maintain the status of the British delegation at United Nations as having Members of Parliament permanently there taking charge of the committees? Is the Minister aware that the Government have a majority of 100 in the House of Commons, and is it not a reflection on the capacity of the Labour Members in that House that three men, or three women, cannot be found to go out to represent this country properly at United Nations?
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, as one who was a Member of Parliament, and also a member of the first delegation to the first General Assembly, I naturally have some sympathy with what the noble Lady says. On the other hand, it is also a widely held view that the present combination of officials and Members of Parliament going out is probably the best way of securing an impact.
LORD BLYTON: My Lords, I have sympathy with the questions of the noble Baroness, because delegates are picked if they are "blue-eyed boys, or girls", in the hierarchy on the Front Benches. Nevertheless, I think it is important that the political representation in the United Nations, where we have to take a responsibility, should be by politicians and not by civil servants.
LORD BFSWICK: My Lords, the noble Lord probably did not hear that in my answer I referred to my noble friends
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Lord Caradon, Lord Chalfont and Lady Gaitskell, all of whom, probably, would not be too dissatisfied if we described them as politicians.
LORD HARLECH: My Lords, is thenoble Lord not aware that political experience in one of the Houses of Parliament is, in fact, of enormous benefit to these committees, and that it probably is to the advantage of Members of the House of Commons and of this House that they have served a term on one of the committees of the United Nations? Is the noble Lord also aware that we very much appreciate the efforts of the noble Baroness, Lady Gaitskell, on a particular committee? She has made an outstanding contribution, and I feel that it would be worthwhile for the Government to have another look at this matter to see whether they cannot man their delegation with more politicians.
LORD BESW1CK: Yes, my Lords. As I have said, when the occasion arises politicians do go to the U.N., including Ministers. But certainly I will see that the views which have been expressed from both sides, are conveyed to my right honourable friend.
LORD OGMORE: My Lords, can the noble Lord explain why one very distinguished and long-serving Member of your Lordships' House has been struck off the list? I refer to the noble Lord, Lord Crook. Why is he no longer a member of the delegation?
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, I think it would be invidious if I were to go into details of that kind—indeed, I have no idea. But may I call attention also to the other aspect of my reply—namely, that of the visiting delegation? Although I accept that membership of a delegation is not quite the same as serving upon a committee, nevertheless members of these delegations do sit in on the delegation meetings each morning. They are able to bring to bear the political insight which they acquire in the House, and I do not think their contribution should be overlooked.
LORD WADE: My Lords, as a matter of information, may I ask whether the all-Party delegation includes Members of this House?
LORD BESWICK: The answer to that is, "Yes", my Lords.
BARONESS ELLIOT OF HAR WOOD: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord whether sending out an all-Party delegation is not really treating the United Nations as a place for people to go and observe? Surely the object of having delegates—and I endorse every word which my noble friend Lord Harlech has said about the contribution of the noble Baroness, Lady Gaitskell—is to treat the United Nations as a world Parliament, in which Parliamentarians sit on committees and work every day. I did it myself at one period. That is the interest they have. Surely, to treat the United Nations as it seems to me the present Government are treating it, as a place where members of delegations go and observe, or take some rather vague part for one week, is to reduce the status of the United Nations and the status of the delegation which represents Her Majesty's Government.
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, I agree fully with what the noble Baroness has said about the contribution of my noble friend Lady Gaitskell. But I do not agree with what she says about the visiting delegation. The visit has had a two-way effect. First, there are more people in both Houses of Parliament here who know how the United Nations works. Secondly, they do take with them, not just a capacity to observe, but a good deal of Parliamentary experience which is available to the delegation when considering the business before the United Nations.
BARONESS ELLIOT OF HARWOOD: My Lords, may I ask this question? Do the members of a visiting delegation rank as delegates; do they go to committees: do they take part and vote during one week only and then disappear? What is their status as part of the United Kingdom delegation to the United Nations?
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, the answer is that they are not delegates—this, I agree, rather supports what the noble Baroness has said. They are observers.
BARONESS EMMET OF AMBERLEY: My Lords, would the noble Lord consider, if there is an advantage in having a delegation of this sort to go out, combining the two types of representation, because I really think that to be a full delegate is absolutely essential for a Parliamentary representative?
LORD BESWICK: Yes, my Lords. As I have already, said the visiting delegation which went out for the first time last year was most successful. And because everyone who has had any connection with the practice has said how successful it was, it is intended to continue it. But this afternoon there have been other expressions of opinion, and I shall certainly see that that opinion is considered by my right honourable friend.

WOMEN'S RIGHTS: UNITED NATIONS CONVENTION
3.16 p.m.
BARONESS EMMET OF AMBERLEY: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the second Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they have ratified the United Nations Convention for the political rights of women; and, if not, why not, since the colonial difficulties no longer arise.]
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, I am glad to announce that as a result of their review of this question in the past year. Her Majesty's Government have decided that, with some reservations, the United Kingdom should accede to this Convention. This will be done in the near future.
BARONESS EMMET OF AMBERLEY: My Lords. I am most grateful to the noble Lord for his reply. As I was involved in this matter in 1952, it is rather nice to think that it is coming finally to a proper ending.
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: My Lords, before the noble Lord gets up, may I ask him what are the reservations?
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, my noble friend may certainly ask, and I would refer her to the Statement on January 31 where they are mostly detailed. As I think the noble Lady knows, in the first place there were reservations about the position of certain dependent territories. Now most of those dependent territories are no longer dependent, and therefore the reservations relating to what remain of the dependent territories are fairly minor and we feel they can be accepted.

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In the case of the dependent territories another of the reservations will probably relate to the question of equal pay, but we have made some progress on this matter and also on the reservations relating to this country.
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: My Lords, could the noble Lord tell us when the Government are going to face up to equal pay.
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, I wish I could.

TEACHERS' SALARIES AND THE RATES
3.18 p.m.
LORD NAPIER AND ETTRICK: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what progress they are making with plans to fulfil their 1964 General Election pledge (given in their Manifesto The New Britain) "to transfer the larger part of the cost of teachers' salaries from the rates to the Exchequer"; and whether they will give an assurance that such plans as they may have will be laid before Parliament in time to become effective by 1st April, 1967.]
BARONESS PHILLIPS: My Lords, radical reform of local government finance must await the changes in structure which are expected to result from the work of the Royal Commission on Local Government. Meanwhile the Government have decided, through the Local Government Bill now before Parliament, to relieve the rates by steadily increasing the proportion of local authority expenditure met from the Exchequer.
LORD NAPIER AND ETTRICK: My Lords, while I thank the noble Baroness for that reply, may I ask her the following supplementaries? Do Her Majesty's Government still stand by the words that were used in public by Mr. Wilson over three years ago, when he said:
"We shall return progressively to a system of specific grants, with first priority for education, notably in the field of teachers'
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salaries, where the Government must assume a higher proportion."?
Secondly, since the total cost of teachers' salaries is now running at about £573 million a year—
LORD STRABOLGI: My Lords, I am sorry to interrupt the noble Lord, but may I ask him the context of the quotation he has given?
LORD NAPIER AND ETTRICK: My Lords, it came from the Socialist Manifesto on Education dated 1963. May I continue the second supplementary? Since the total cost of teachers' salaries is now running at about £573 million a year for England and Wales, with the rates meeting some 40 per cent. of that figure, how do the Government square their undertakings to give early relief and to transfer the larger part of teachers' salaries et cetera, with the actual announced figure of relief for ratepayers for 1967–68, which appears to be a mere £30 million?
BARONESS PHILLIPS: My Lords, in reply to the first part of the noble Lord's supplementary question, the Government, of course, are not in any way going back on the words in their Manifesto. As I think I indicated, it is simply that they are waiting on the results of this Royal Commission. They have never at any time repudiated this, and there is no change of heart. Actually, the noble Lord's figure was almost correct. It is £600 million; and already, of course, as the noble Lord knows, more than half the cost is met by the Exchequer through the grant system.
If I may also refer the noble Lord to the speech of the Minister when he introduced the Second Reading of the Local Government Bill, he there made reference to the change in the grant in relation to the number of child places. While this does not actually affect teachers' salaries, it does mean that there is a change in the amount of money which will be given by the Central Government to local government.
LORD NAPIER AND ETTRICK: My Lords, I am much obliged to the noble Lady for that reply. Arising out of the first part of her answer, did not the noble and learned Lord who sits upon the Woolsack and who speaks with all the authority that comes from that Woolsack

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tell your Lordships' House only yesterday that Royal Commissions were the classic method adopted by people who did not want any real reform?
BARONESS PHILLIPS: My Lords, I shall make no attempt to reply to that, but will merely say that the Royal Commission is expected to report in 1968.

FUTURE BUSINESS
3.22 p.m.
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, it is not the normal practice to make Business Statements, but it has sometimes been done in order to meet the convenience of the House. The House will be aware that we are faced with two very large Bills on which progress should be made between now and Christmas, and I thought it right, therefore, to indicate to the House the proposals we are making to deal with the Committee stages of the Land Commission Bill and the Companies Bill.
It is proposed that we should take the Land Commission Bill as main Business on Monday the 5th, Tuesday the 6th and Thursday the 8th December. In regard to Monday, November 28, it is suggested that we should start with the Land Commission Bill, then adjourn in order to take the Committee stage of the Armed Forces Bill and then, when that is completed, continue with the Land Commission Bill. It is proposed that we should take the Committee stage of the Companies Bill on Monday the 12th, Tuesday the 13th, Monday the 19th, Tuesday the 20th and Wednesday the 21st December. I hope the House will agree that these important measures should he adequately considered, and that the House will agree to sit on these particular days until 10 o'clock. The dining room will be fully open, and I hope that Peers and their guests will make good use of the accommodation. It is proposed to adjourn the Committee stages in order that noble Lords may enjoy their supper.
EARL ST. ALDWYN: My Lords, there are two points I should like to make. First, I hope that the noble Lord, when arranging Business for this House, will bear in mind that many Lords on both
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sides of the House have other work to do on Mondays, and that it would be of considerable convenience if major Bills were not taken on Mondays. Minor Bills, which do not require the attendance of large numbers of your Lordships, would be more suitable for Mondays. The noble Lord suggested that we should sit until 10 o'clock on these various nights. I would hope that he is not meaning that too literally, and that if the House makes reasonable progress it will be able to adjourn at a more suitable hour.
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, I seem to have heard the first part of the noble Earl's comments before. In fact, I think that when we were on the other side we repeatedly made the same comments to him. I appreciate the problems of Mondays, but one of the difficulties, as the noble Earl well knows, is that if I put Scottish Business down on a Monday then great trouble ensues for both of us. We are to a degree limited, particularly as the House does not like sitting on Fridays. But I certainly take the point of the noble Earl and will see if it can be met.
In regard to sitting until 10 o'clock, I think one has to weigh up the pros and cons of sitting, on average, till 8 or 9 o'clock in the evening, which is not very convenient to those taking part, and doing it pretty well every night. I have taken the view—and those whom I have approached seem also to take the view—that it is infinitely better that, when we must sit beyond the normal late hour, we should sit until later than that and make progress. These are two big Bills, and the Companies Bill particularly needs a great deal of examination, so I think we must provide adequate time.
I am quite sure the noble Earl is also aware that after Christmas we are going to have a whole series of major Bills coming from the other place which will need a great deal of examination; and I would hope that at this stage we could make good progress on these Bills, even if we have to suffer a little, and then later on in the year we may be able to relax a little. I think it would be best to make marked progress on these Bills at this stage, but as the noble Earl knows, I am always open to consultation.
LORD CARRINGTON: My Lords, all Chief Whips have great difficulty in fitting in Business, and the noble Lord,

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Lord Shepherd, has our sympathy—moderately, anyway. But would he please once again look at the point which we on this side of the House have made a good many times—that is, that there is quite a lot of the year when no legislation comes up from the other place at all and when we are dealing with nothing but Motions and debates? Then the legislation all comes up at once, and we have this difficulty. Would he please see that more legislation starts in this House, such as the Companies Bill, which I think is a very good new departure?
LORD WOLVERTON: My Lords, in the case of a major Bill of the importance of the Land Commission Bill I think it unsatisfactory that on Monday we are to start dealing with it and then adjourn its consideration in order to deal with the Armed Forces Bill. I cannot see why we cannot have two days for this important Bill. It is not even on the list of Business for Tuesday, but I am told that it is to come in at the end of Business on Thursday after a lot of other important Business. I think it is very unsatisfactory, and I fully agree with my noble Leader on that. In the case of an important Bill like the Land Commission Bill or the Companies Bill (although I think it has been arranged to take the Companies Bill on two consecutive days) I think that, having got your team together working on such a complicated Bill, we ought to go through it, and in any event not sit very late at night, which is very tiring. I hope better arrangements can be made so that we can adjourn at a reasonable time.
LORD SALTOUN: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord if he has taken into consideration one factor which is very important at this time of the year, and that is fog? If there is a lot of had fog and we have to sit very late at this time of year, noble Lords may not be able to get home at all. Some arrangements should be made to enable them to sleep.
LORD OGMORE: My Lords, we on these Benches have put down Amendments to the Armed Forces Bill and the Land Commission Bill. It would be of convenience if the noble Lord could indicate when he expects to adjourn con-
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sideration of the Land Commission Bill to take the Commitee stage of the Armed Forces Bill.
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, in reply to the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, we have tried to meet the wish of the House to have major Bills introduced in this House. We have done this in the case of the Companies Bill; and therefore this is one of the Bills on which we should make progress. Obviously, this Bill must be considered in another place, and therefore progress should be made. If we fail in that, it is going to make it infinitely more difficult in the future.
In reply to the noble Lord, Lord Wolverton, the reason we suggested the break-up of the Committee stage on Monday the 28th was not ony to provide some relief to Ministers—in our particular case we have a team of Ministers—but also to help the Opposition, because I know from my own experience, having been in opposition, that to provide opposition for six hours on a difficult Bill produces considerable difficulties. The last Conservative Government helped us by breaking up certain Committee stages, which is what we are suggesting should be done here. Therefore, I hope the noble Lord will reconsider his criticism. I will certainly see what can be done to notify the House on the first and subsequent days how far we should like to go with the Bill. Perhaps we could have discussions on this.
LORD GRIMSTON of WESTBURY: My Lords, as we are on Business, could the noble Lord say when he thinks it is likely that a debate on Rhodesia will be fitted in? I understand the Government are pledged to have a debate in both Houses before any vital decision is taken.
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, the Statement I have just made was related to two particular Bills and was made for the convenience of the House. I do not think it should be an opportunity to raise other matters which clearly come within the province, in the first instance, of the usual channels, the two Front Benches and the noble Lords of the Liberal Party. I have no information to give the noble Lord in regard to a debate on Rhodesia.

IRISH PEERS
3.32 p.m.
Order of the Day read for the consideration of the Report from the Committee for Privileges.
LORD REID: My Lords, I beg to move that the Report be now considered.
Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.
LORD REID: My Lords, I have now to move that the Report be agreed to. Your Lordships may remember that last December a Petition was presented by a number of Irish Peers and that Petition was remitted to the Committee for Privileges. Your Lordships will find the Prayer of the Petition on Page XX of the Report. I might read the first four lines. The petitioners pray:
"That your Lordships will declare that the peerage of Ireland has in accordance with the provisions of the Union with Ireland Act 1800 the right to be represented by 28 lords temporal of Ireland elected by the peers of Ireland for life to sit and vote in your Lordships' House with privilege of Parliament…".
Before the Committee met the Lord Chairman of Committees, the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, obtained leave of this House not to attend that Committe on the ground that he held an Irish peerage, and two other noble Lords, members of the Committee, did not attend our proceedings, I understand, for the same reason. When the Committee met they were good enough to invite me to take the Chair and I greatly appreciated the honour that was done to me. It is for that reason that I am now seeking approval of this Report.
In accordance with precedent, cases were lodged, and we heard counsel; and I may say that we heard very full and able arguments from Mr. Morris, for the petitioners, and from the Solicitor General. Your Lordships will find a full record of that argument on Pages 1 to 60 of the Committee's Report of the proceedings. May I, in parenthesis, say that I am sorry that we have a difference of pagination, Roman and Arabic, in the Report. It may be that the House will think that in future Reports it might be better to have the page numbers running consecutively. I am sure, however, that this is in accordance with precedent, and it would be only by the wish of the House that the matter should be changed.
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After the argument, and certain deliberations in private, again in accordance with precedent, speeches were prepared by those members of the Committee who sought to do so, and those speeches were circulated in writing. Speeches were, in fact, prepared and circulated by myself, by my noble and learned friend Lord Dilhorne and by my noble and learned friend Lord Wilberforce. Your Lordships will find those three speeches at the end of the volume, on pages 61 to 63. There was then deliberation, and your Lordships will find recorded on Page xliv the names and opinions of all the members who took part in the proceedings. Thereafter the Report to which I now ask the House to agree was approved by the Committee, nemine dissentiente, and that Report (which I think I should read, because it is very short) is to be found on Page vii.
After stating that the Committee had met and considered the petition, and heard counsel, the Report states:
"That the Committee have come to the following Resolution, nemine dissentiente:
"That it is the opinion of the Committee—
"That by virtue of the provisions of the Union with Ireland Act 1800 twenty-eight Irish Representative Peers sat in this House on the part of Ireland each being elected for life:
"That on the death of an Irish Representative Peer an election of a successor was held in the manner provided by the said Act:
"That no such election has been held since 1919:
"That those Irish Peers who had been so elected continued to sit as Members of the House until their respective deaths and that the last Irish Peer so elected died in 1961:
"That the provisions of the said Act relating to the election of Irish Representative Peers ceased to he effective on the passing of the Irish Free State Agreement Act 1922 and that the right to elect Irish Representative Peers no longer exists:
"That for the reasons stated in the opinions published herewith the Prayer of the Petition should he rejected."
When we came to consider the matter, of course we had to consider the reasons and authority for the sitting of Representative Peers in this House; and on Page 61 I set forth my view as to those reasons. I explained that it had been thought that the main reason was that the machinery for the election of Irish Peers had disappeared with the reorganisation which took place in 1922. But when we came to look into the Act of Union we

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found a different reason. We found that it is stated throughout the Act of Union—which was an Act passed by both the Parliament of Ireland, as it then existed, and the Parliament of Great Britain, as it then existed—the Irish Representative Lords Spiritual and Temporal were to sit "on the part of Ireland."
There were a number of Lords Spiritual who sat "on the part of Ireland" in this House until the Irish dis-establishment in the 'sixties of the last century. There was also provision that the existing members of the House of Lords of the Parliament of Great Britain were to sit in the House of Lords of the United Kingdom "on the part of Great Britain"; and there was not a word (and so far as we could find, not a suggestion) in the Act of Union that the Irish Representative Peers sat as representatives of the Peerage of Ireland, as the petitioners alleged.
But, my Lords, it is right that I should point out that in a further Act of the Irish Parliament, which was passed under authority given in the Act of Union to settle matters of procedure, there were references to Representative Peers sitting as representatives of the Irish Peerage. That Act spoke with two voices. It began by referring to Representative Peers sitting "on the part of Ireland" and then, on two or three occasions, it referred to them as sitting as representing the Peerage of Ireland, and then it reverted to the other view that they sat "on the part of Ireland".
So matters continued until, first, the Government of Ireland Act 1920, which really never came into operation, and then the Irish Free State legislation (there were several Acts) passed in the year 1922 following on the Treaty. Perhaps I may read one short paragraph from my speech on page 66 as explaining what the competing views were and what view I took about them:
"As a result of these changes it appears to me to be clear that Ireland as a whole no longer exists politically. On the other hand, there has been no statutory alteration of the position of the Irish Peerage or the rights of Irish Peers. So if the Irish Representative Peers were elected to represent Ireland I cannot see how there could be an election of a Peer to represent something which no longer exists politically."
I went on to say, a little later:
"On the other hand if I could hold that the Irish Representative Peers sat as representatives
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of the Irish Peerage, I would not find it possible to say that any right of the Irish Peerage to be represented in this House had lapsed or has been repealed."
So it was necessary to determine what was the basis—at least I thought it was; and the number of my colleagues agreed—on which the Representative Peers sat in this House; and I went on to explain why, in my view, it is clear that the basis really was that they sat "on the part of Ireland", and for that reason I myself supported the finding in the Report, which I now ask your Lordships to agree to, that the provisions of the Act relating to the election of Representative Peers ceased to be effective in 1922 and that the right to elect Irish Representative Peers no longer exists. If the House agree with that view, I think they will agree with the conclusion which the Committee drew, that the Petition should be rejected. My Lords, I beg to move.
Moved, That the Report be agreed to.—(Lord Reid.)
3.43 p.m.
VISCOUNT MASSEREENE AND FERRARD: My Lords, as the representative of the petitioners in your Lordships' House, may I say that we are very disappointed with the findings of the Committee for Privileges. We are also slightly mystified. When facing such distinguished Law Lords, and as I am not a lawyer, obviously I do not want to go into very great intricacies. But may I ask the noble and learned Lord, Lord Reid, one or two questions? The noble and learned Lord has based his findings on the fact, as he has told us, that the Irish Peers did not, in his opinion, sit as representatives of the Irish Peerage, because in the 1800 Act of Union and subsequent Acts there are numerous references to Lords Temporal and Spiritual sitting on the part of Ireland in the Parliament of the United Kingdom.
I think I am right in saying that if you study the summing-up of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wilberforce, who was a member of the Committee, you will find that he does not agree with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Reid, about that. As the noble and learned Lord, Lord Reid, said, the 1800 Act, in two places expressly—there may be more—refers to the Irish Representative Peers sitting as representatives of the Irish Peerage. It is on page 64, and I think it was quoted by

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the noble and learned Lord. This is also further confirmed by the Third Report in 1922 on The Dignity of a Peer; by Halsbury's Laws of England; by Jowitt's 1959 Dictionary of English Law; by Lord Maugham and by Lord Greene's Opinion in 1924, to which I intend to return in a moment, and also to a certain extent by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wilberforce, himself.
My Lords, regarding the meaning of the phrase, "on the part of Ireland", it has occurred to me that suppose instead of three-quarters of Ireland having broken off from the British Crown into a Free State and a subsequent Republic only one small part of Ireland like the County of Cork—always a rather troublesome county—had broken away and declared itself a Free State. According to the reasoning of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Reid, if that had happened the Irish Peerage would in that case have lost their right to sit in your Lordships' House. Even if County Kerry had been engulfed by a tidal wave they would have lost their right. It is very hard to understand that.
There is another point regarding this question of "on the part of Ireland". The noble Earl the Leader of the House is a very good Catholic, and I ask him to imagine the Irish Peers, the Lords Temporal and Spiritual, sitting here in the House of Lords in the early 19th century. I am quite sure that the early 19th century Catholics in Ireland did not agree that the Lords Spiritual sat "on the part of Ireland". They represented the Church of Ireland, but they did not represent Ireland. Here may I say, with the greatest respect, because I am not a lawyer, that I think the Committee have gone rather astray, in that they think that the Irish Peers sitting in your Lordships' House sat here to represent Ireland. The Act of Union of 1800 has never been repealed. It is true enough that three-quarters of Ireland broke away, but there is a quarter of Ireland which still acknowledges the British Crown.
May I quote the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wilberforce, with regard to the Act of Union? I understand that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Reid, thought that the Act of Union had become obsolescent owing to various political activities. But, on page 73, the
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noble and learned Lord, Lord Wilberforce, says:
"I confess to some reluctance to holding that an Act of such constitutional significance as the Union with Ireland Act is subject to the doctrine of implied repeal or of obsolescence."
Therefore, according to the noble and learned Lord's reasoning, the Act of Union is still in existence.
I do not wish to detain your Lordships too long, because I know there is a lot of other Business, but I should like to point out that in the opinion of the petitioners this finding of the Committee for Privileges must mean that Irish Peers are territorial. We have the Berkeley Peerage case of 1858–1862. I always thought that this settled once and for all that there is no such thing as a peerage of tenure. I have always thought that as a peerage is a personal inheritance it does not entitle its holder to represent any territory in Parliament. If that is so. I cannot understand how the Representative Peers of Ireland sat in your Lordships' House as representing any part of Ireland. If this is accepted, then it would appear to be a new departure in law.
Before I conclude, I should like to refer to the Maugham/Greene opinion of July 16, 1924. As your Lordships know, Lord Maugham was a distinguished Lord Chancellor, and Lord Greene a distinguished Master of the Rolls. Their Opinion runs completely contra to the opinion of the Committee for Privileges. Their Opinion holds that the Irish Peerage, notwithstanding the 1922 Free State Act and subsequent Acts, has the right to allocate 28 members of the Irish Peerage to your Lordships' House. If I may quote just three lines of that Opinion, they say:
"This conclusion is in accordance with the well-known principle that a statute is not to be construed as taking away or destroying rights or privileges save by express language or necessary implication."
I apologise to he Committee for Privileges on behalf of the petitioners that we did not lay this Opinion before them. How that happened, I really cannot say; I can only presume that it was due to an oversight on our part.
What I wish to ask—and I am completely in the hands of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Reid, the Lord Chancellor and the House—is whether it would be possible to refer this Opinion back to the Committee for them to study in due

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course. There is a precedent for this in the case of Lady Rhondda's peerage in 1922. This was then referred back for further consideration. But in the case of Lady Rhondda's peerage it was only one peerage, while here we have 70 Peers affected. Are your Lordships going to deny them what is perhaps a last opportunity of assistance?
The Irish Peerage has served the British Crown extremely well, and to-day it comprises many distinguished men. I am sure that the Committee for Privileges and your Lordships will wish to lean over backwards to be just and fair in this matter. I will just ask once again if the Maugham/Greene opinion, which I have here (copies can be made of it, of course), could be referred back to the Committee for Privileges for consideration.
3.58 p.m.
LORD MOWBRAY AND STOURTON: My Lords, I. had not intended to speak on this issue, but in listening to the noble Viscount, Lord Massereene and Ferrard, one point struck me, that is the geographic allocation of where the peerage is made from. I do not think the petitioners drew attention to this fact in the Petition, and the fact of 28 Peers being allowed is one that we all know. As long as the Six Counties are part of the Crown and this Kingdom, I think the point the noble Viscount has raised has some semblance. Speaking as somebody who lives in the Kingdom of England and Scotland, I think there are certain people whose ancestors' loyalty to the Crown is suspect, because the Act of Union 1801 was passed in the reign of George III, and earlier on, your Lordships will remember, Mr. Dunning moved a Motion that the power of the Crown was increasing, had increased, and should be reduced. One of the ways in which the King's Prime Minister, Lord North, did this was to promote people in another place to peerages, without having the trouble of fighting further elections, which were a very expensive business in those days, whether for a great territorial magnate or for the Crown.
I can think of people who allowed themselves to be promoted to Peerages in those days. I can think of one of the great Yorkshire families, the Saviles, the head of which allowed himself to be made the Earl of Mexborough in the Peerage of Ireland. The Saviles had nothing to do with Ireland. In Scotland,
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the Chief of the greatest clan family, Macdonald of Armadale, in Skye, Chief of all the Chiefs of that Clan, allowed himself to be made Lord Macdonald of Slate, in Antrim. We all know that Sleat, the castle he lived in, was in Skye. And let us go to Wales. The head of the great Welsh Border family, the Vaughans, territorial chiefs of long antiquity and power, allowed himself to be made Earl of Lisburne in the Kingdom of Ireland. None of these families had territorial connections with Ireland. I think that the point which the noble Viscount made, that these Peerages are not necessarily based on this, has some validity.
I do not want to detain your Lordships. We have heard a lot about this. The point is that there are these families—I have just cited three because they spring to my mind without any preparation at all. I think that if the noble and learned Lord's Committee had had these points put before them, possibly in a wider context, some injustice might be seen to have been done to the descendants of those noblemen who accepted this particular form of peerage out of consideration for the Crown.
4.3 p.m.
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, if I may speak, not as a Minister but as a member of the Committee, I would say that the Committee sat under the able chairmanship of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Reid. We had the benefit of having on the Committee the noble and learned Lords, Lord Wilberforce, Lord Hodson and Lord Morris of Borth-y-Gest; the noble and learned Viscount, Lord Dilhorne; the noble Marquess, Lord Salisbury and the noble Earl, Lord Swinton, and others. The Committee listened to the evidence of the petitioners and we had the opportunity of examining all the legislation relating to this matter.
I do not think that there is any doubt that this matter was gone into exhaustively by the Committee. If my memory is right, the Report of the Committee was unanimous. I do not believe that the point that the noble Viscount has just made, brought forward at this late hour, on the opinion of two respected members of the legal profession, would have changed our minds. That is certainly my view. I do not think that we should accept the suggestion of the noble

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Viscount that this matter should be referred again to the Committee. I cannot believe that, in all the circumstances, we should change our minds. I believe that all that has been done has been fair to the petitioners, and I hope that the House will now accept the Report of the Committee.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: My Lords, as a member of the Committee, I support what has just been said by the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd. The Committee really did go into all aspects of this question. Every single argument was deployed on both sides. We listened to them all, and we came definitely and unanimously to the conclusion that the Petition could not be accepted, for the simple reason that the entity that is the whole of Ireland, which Irish Representative Peers had been hitherto selected to represent, no longer existed. That was the result of our examination.
It was not merely that we took the view that the machinery for electing Peers had ceased to be operative: it was something much more fundamental than that. And I cannot but feel that if this matter were referred by your Lordships—as they have a perfect right to do—back to the Committee, we should only traverse exactly the same ground. Though I have the utmost sympathy with the noble Viscount and his co-petitioners, I hope that they will accept the verdict of the Committee and allow the matter to be regarded as decided by the House.
LORD REID: My Lords, I have been asked one or two questions. I shall not say any more about the proposal to remit the matter. That has been dealt with by the noble Marquess and the noble Lord. I would only say this: that we did go back to original sources, and we should have again to go back to original sources, because, after all, an opinion, no matter how distinguished may be the holder of the opinion, is only a gloss on the original source.
There was a question about the nature of the Irish Peerage. Your Lordships will remember that until 1782 the Irish Parliament was to some extent subject to the British Government, and I have no doubt that in those days a number of eminent persons in this country were given Irish Peerages when they had little
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connection with Ireland. But from 1782 until 1800 the Parliament of Ireland was entirely independent, and treated with the Parliament of Great Britain on an equal basis. At that time, the Peerage of Ireland was the Peerage of the Kingdom of Ireland. The Peerage of Great Britain and the Peerage of England and the Peerage of Scotland were Peerages of Great Britain. And when the Union came about, the Peerage of Ireland obtained all the privileges of Peers of the United Kingdom, with the single exception that they were not allowed to sit in this House, other than the 28 Representative Peers who were to sit on the part of Ireland. I hope that that explains that matter.
The only other matter is: why do we say that Ireland has ceased to exist as a political entity? Of course, if the County of Kerry had been submerged, or something like that, that would have made a great difference—but it would not have altered the political character of Ireland. I do not think that anybody can look back on the events and legislation of 1922 without saying that they made a fundamental difference, and to my mind these are the differences which make it clear that Ireland no longer exists as a political entity.
THE LORD PRIVY SEAL (THE EARL OF LONGFORD): My Lords, may I ask one question? Surely Ireland exists as a political entity to-day?
LORD REID: My Lords, the point surely is this: that it exists as a form of political entity which is not part of the Commonwealth—namely, as the Republic; and it also exists—in Northern Ireland—as a part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. There is no one entity to-day which comprises Ireland as Ireland.
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: My Lords, I intervened only in order to make the verbal point that Ireland can hardly be said to have come to an end.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR (LORD GARDINER): My Lords, it was on February 3 that the noble Viscount, Lord Massereene and Ferrard, moved that this Petition be referred to the Committee for Privileges. On that occasion I pointed out that this was no new claim. I said that the matter was fully considered by the

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Joint Committee on House of Lords Reform in 1962. That Committee had before it memoranda by the official group, by the noble Lord, Lord Dunboyne, and by other noble Lords interested. The Committee expressed themselves as
"not in favour of the revival of any form of representation for the Peerage of Ireland in the House of Lords."
I then said that on that footing they considered that they should be fully eligible to sit in the House of Commons. Accordingly, in the debate in your Lordships' House on the Peerage Bill, in 1963, an Amendment was moved in the sense contended for in the Petition, but was defeated by 90 votes to 8. It was on that footing, that the Irish Peers were not eligible to sit in your Lordships' House, that the Peerage Act made the Irish Peers fully eligible to sit in the House of Commons. Now the matter is raised again.
Later, I said this:
"The petitioners say that, while they have put their claim before, it has never been argued by counsel, as it would be before the Committee for Privileges; nor have their legal rights ever been fully inquired into.
"The Government feel that the claim of the petitioners is one which will probably continue to be raised from time to time unless a full inquiry into the claim is made, and that the Committee for Privileges is the proper body to make that inquiry."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Vol. 272, col. 574; 3/2/661
Then I said that the Government therefore advised the House to accept the Motion, which the House did.
There have been several lengthy hearings before the Committee for Privileges in which the petitioners were represented by learned counsel. As your Lordships can see, the Committee for Privileges which heard the matter included the noble and learned Lord, Lord Reid, the noble and learned Viscount, Lord Dilhorne, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wilberforce, the noble Marquess, Lord Salisbury, the noble Earl, Lord Dundee, the noble Earl, Lord St. Aldwyn, the noble Earl, Lord Swinton, the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, the noble Lord, Lord Rea, the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, the noble Lord, Lord Ogmore, the noble Lord, Lord Strang, the noble Lord, Lord Conesford, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Morris of Borth-y-Gest, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hodson. That is to say, it included five noble and learned Lords. I think the
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points which have been raised by the noble Viscount, Lord Massereene and Ferrard, have already been answered by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Reid. If I may so, I fully concur in the Opinions which were delivered, and the Government advise the House to agree to this Report.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

EXPIRING LAWS CONTINUANCE BILL
House in Committee (according to Order).
House resumed: Bill reported without amendment; Report received.

NEW TOWNS BILL
4.13 p.m.
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
THE PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY, MINISTRY OF HOUSING AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT (LORD KENNET): My Lords, this Bill is a great deal simpler and, I hope, less controversial than the last two Bills that I have had the pleasure of introducing in this House. Under the New Towns Act 1955, which was a consolidating measure, the limit of advances of capital from the Consolidated Fund was set out at £550 million. By the end of September of this year advances committed by the Ministers concerned totalled about £535 million, so there is not much left without Parliament's specific authority.
It has been the practice ever since the first New Towns Act 1946 to advance the total money available periodically, so that both Houses can have an opportunity to bring the Government of the day to account and to hear about the prospects and intentions for the future. The 1946 Act itself, it is interesting and, indeed, poignant to remember, provided for a limit of only £50 million. This was an adequate amount in the early days, but now even £550 million is inadequate. Our requirements now are greater because, among other things, of the rising birth rate, of the continuing very high rate of family formation, and all the other social factors of the last third of this century with which we are all so familiar. So

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the Government now ask for the tidy sum of £250 million. The present rate of commitment is about £60 million a year, and within three or four years we expect it to increase to £80 million a year or more. So with this increase the Government will no doubt be coming back to Parliament to raise the limit again in the next three or four years. That is all about Clause 1.
Clause 2 is designed to make the compensation provisions on compulsory purchase in extension areas of New Towns the same as they are in the original areas of New Towns. I will not go into too much detail about this now, because that we can do on Committee stage. The effect of this provision is to take out of compensation paid to landowners development value which has arisen from the initiation and participation of the Government in such a large project as a New Town. It is not designed to affect by a single penny the free market value of the land in question as that value would stand if there were no New Town. Putting it another way, public investment should not lead to the payment in compensation of any development value which it has itself created. A Conservative Government thought that this was true in 1959 when they passed the Town and Country Planning Act of that year, and again in 1961 when they re-enacted it in the Land Compensation Act. But because in those years they were not dealing with large extensions to New Towns, they applied the formula only to the original areas of New Towns. This clause simply carries over to new additions to New Towns the existing provisions which apply to the original areas of New Towns.
Now a word about the relationship between this clause and the proposed land levy. We must distinguish here between increases in the development value caused by the presence of a New Town extension, and increases in development value caused for any other reason. When this Bill and the Land Commission Bill are law, the owner of a site which is being taken for an addition to a New Town will receive full compensation for the existing use value of its site and for all development value not due to the New Town extension. He will pay levy on this development value. He will receive no compensation for development value
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due to the extension of the New Town, and therefore no levy can be charged in this respect. This may sound complicated, but I shall be willing to repeat it in greater detail at Committee stage if noble Lords desire; and I think noble Lords opposite will be hard put to it to find a more just arrangement.
Clause 3 is just a tidying-up clause. Under the original New Towns Act 1946, the Ministers had to submit the accounts of development corporations to the Comptroller and Auditor-General who, in turn, presented them to Parliament as an Appendix to the Minister's accounts of issues from the Consolidated Fund. But development corporations also included their accounts in their annual reports which were laid before Parliament by Ministers. Parliament thus saw the accounts twice, which, interesting though they are, was a waste of time and paper.
When one thinks of the procedure which has to be gone through in this day and age in the foundation of new towns and new cities it is instructive to compare it with what used to be the drill. The Emperor Constantine, when he decided to make the capital of his Empire at Byzantium, proceeded as follows—and I quote Gibbon:
"On foot, with a lance in his hand, the emperor himself led the solemn procession; and directed the line, which was traced as the boundary of the destined capital: till the growing circumference was observed with astonishment by the assistants, who, at length, ventured to observe, that he had already exceeded the most ample measure of a great city. 'I shall still advance', replied Constantine, till HI/C, the invisible guide who marches before me, thinks proper to stop.'"
EARL, FERRERS: He must have been a Socialist.
LORD KENNET: It is a far cry from the authoritarian and God-guided founders of an earlier day to our own network of democratic procedure, and I can assure the House that if country landowners, especially, think that successive Ministers of Housing and Local Government are sometimes going far beyond the imaginable bounds of a new town under Divine guidance, this is not the case; they are taking into account the fruits of every hearing, the expressions of every interest, and the needs of every social class. Many times and in many countries, since Byzantium, the odd new town has been founded from scratch and

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designed as a whole, but I think the first coordinated movement towards a whole series of new towns in one country began (and this House may be proud of it) when Lord Reith was appointed the Chairman of a Committee to examine the possibility of doing precisely what we are now doing.
Following quickly upon the deliberations of that Committee the New Towns Act 1946 was passed, which set up the means of planning and building New Towns which we are still using to this day. How much of the history of this exercise is connected with your Lordships' House! I am thinking also of my noble friend Lord Silkin, whose intervention I look forward to hearing in a few moments.
What have we done with the £550 million of Government money provided by that Act and successive Acts? Private enterprise, too, of course has provided quite substantial funds. There are 15 first-generation New Towns: 11 are in England, 3 in Scotland and 1 in Wales. In those towns nearly half a million people live in 130,000 new houses; 750 new factories give jobs to 130,000 people; 284 new schools educate 145,000 children, and 2,500 new shops are in trade. These are impressive figures, but we are moving on. As well as those 15 towns there are now 7 second-generation towns, as they are called, the last of which, Irvine, in Scotland, has been designated this month. Good progress is being made with these and very soon they will require advances from the £250 million which Parliament is now being asked to approve. There are more to come. The Government have approved in principle six large projects, and behind them there are more under consideration or study.
The problem, simply stated, is to provide homes for 20 million more people and to replace all our present and our impending slums by the end of the century. But it is not just a case of setting up a production line: we have to plan for people to he in the right place, to have jobs and shops and schools and hospitals; to have recreation in pleasant and healthy surroundings and, above all, to be able to move freely and safely, without being slaughtered by other people's means of locomotion. Therefore it seemed right to a previous Government to embark upon what are generally termed "regional
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studies". Subsequent Labour Governments have gone much further and have developed it by setting up regional planning councils and boards. Largely from these studies and their consideration have come the six proposals to which I have referred.
The Government announced in February last year that they proposed to go ahead with four New Town projects following upon the South-East Study—a very large New Town (actually more of a new city) in North Buckinghamshire, and large expansions, using the New Towns Act, of the county boroughs of Ipswich and Northampton, and of the City of Peterborough. Each of these four is intended to take 70,000 people from London by 1981—a total of 280,000. There have also been planning studies in South Hampshire and in the Newbury-Swindon area. I am glad to say that in the latter case the Greater London Council, the Berkshire County Council and the Swindon Borough Council are now pursuing the possibility of further expanding Swindon under the Town Development Act. Only last week you will have read that there is to be a study of the possibility of greatly expanding Ashford to take population from London. We told the consultants to take into account the Anglo-French agreement on a Cross-Channel Tunnel.
Let us now look North-West. A report by consultants on the large expansion under the New Towns Act of the county borough of Warrington is being considered by the Government and the local authorities. And there is also the possibility of setting up a very large town indeed (possibly half a million people)—another new city—in the Leyland-Chorley area. In the West Midlands, the Government are considering, and local authorities are being consulted, whether the area of Wellington and Oaken gates, next to Dawley New Town, should be developed as a New Town. No decision on this has yet been taken. In all these New Towns we are anxious that the architecture and planning should be as good as possible. The development corporations normally set up their own chief architect-planners to advise them and to undertake many of their development schemes, and they have large offices. The work they do is magnificent and I think will continue to be so; but there is a need also to bring in private architects to add variety to design

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and to help speed the process. Uniformity, however good, may become boring.
There are in this country architects who are working on the frontiers of design and who are trying to see the house, the street, the quarter, the city in a new way, a way conditioned as much by what we can foretell about the future as by what we know about the past and the present. These men are not "safe", or at least they do not always look it, and for that reason they are not usually to be found at the heart of, New Town construction. I think they should be. I think New Town corporations should increasingly give sectors of their towns to outside architects. They should not take risks with public money, of course, but many of the architects I have spoken of would be no risk in the practical sense. They are just new, unfamiliar. Sometimes they have bad manners: no matter; if they build well, hire them.
LORD HAWKE: My Lords, before the noble Lord continues I should like to ask whether he is referring to the architects who design the houses, because it is important to have a landscape architect in as well. When one sees a New Town which has been well laid out, like Crawley, it makes all the difference.
LORD KENNET: My Lords, I am urging, through the medium of this House, that new architects should be brought in on all aspects—planning, landscaping and building. So we propose to invest the £250 million almost entirely in the 22 existing New Towns and the six major projects which I have mentioned: North Buckinghamshire, Ipswich, Northampton, Peterborough, Warrington and Layland-Chorley. But there is just a chance that other schemes will firm up in time to draw some of this money. This would, of course, be announced to Parliament in the normal way.
That is where the money is to be spent. The House may wish to know more about how it is to be spent, and the returns. About 80 per cent. of the expenditure on the New Towns has been on housing, and this does not, and should not, produce a significant return. Development corporations can therefore only look to their commercial and industrial development to provide a surplus. They are expected to behave as prudent developers
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and let their properties on ordinary commercial terms. To get a town off the ground and attract essential industrial and commercial development may sometimes require special terms, but, once it is established, a corporation is expected to get current market rents. The average return on completed industrial and commercial development is about 3 per cent. after allowing for interest and depreciation. In a few cases the return is as high as 6 per cent. net. In this field it is fair to claim that the taxpayer is getting value for his money.
The overall position is this. Taking all the English corporations and the Commission for the New Towns together, there was a net surplus on general revenue account of three-quarters of a million pounds in the year ended March 31, 1966, and a cumulative surplus at that date of £3 million. Against this, on sewerage and sewage disposal, which is not a profitable service, the net revenue deficit in the year ended March 31, 1966, was £400,000 and there was a cumulative deficit of £4 million. This gives a net overall cumulative revenue deficit of £1 million. This is a big improvement on the total deficit of nearly £5 million six years ago. When one considers the substantial expenditure on land acquisition, the preparation of plans, the building of roads and the provision of services before any remunerative development can be undertaken, it is not an unsatisfactory position. All but three of the first generation New Towns made a surplus in 1965–66, though some had not by then overtaken past deficiencies.
We cannot, of course, expect surpluses from second generation New Towns for some time to come. They must get into their stride, and they have very heavy initial costs (on plans, staff, essential services) when profit-raising investment has hardly begun. And the third generation towns have yet to start. But we must take into account not only the balance sheets (which I believe will, in time, be healthy enough) but the enormous social, planning and architectural success of our New Towns in Britain. I need not remind the House that these New Towns are world famous. They are, in fact, among the list of achievements for which this country is now best known beyond our shores.

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So, on the report I have given of the past, and the prospectus I have presented for the future, I commend this New Towns Bill for your Lordships' approval. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(Lord Kennet.)
4.30 p.m.
LORD HASTINGS: My Lords, I know we are all most grateful to the noble Lord the Parliamentary Secretary for introducing this Bill and for giving us an opportunity of hearing of the progress being made by the New Towns. I remember that on the last occasion a similar Bill appeared, in February, 1964, the position was somewhat reversed, because I was standing at that Dispatch Box asking this House to give a Second Reading to a Bill which requested a mere £150 million, and this time the noble Lord is asking for £250 million. Both sums, however, were designed to last approximately three years.
It is now just about three months short of three years since that other occasion, and, as we have heard, there is only £15 million left in the kitty. Sometimes I wonder, in view of the fact that we are all agreed on the desirability of creating New Towns, and have no intention of stopping that progress, whether it is necessary to ask for the money for a period so short as three years. Of course it provides a special occasion on which we can discuss the progress of New Towns. At the same time, I do not suppose there is any thought in anybody's mind that a much larger sum would not be granted in due course, when and if asked for, for an even longer period. I remember that on that previous occasion the debate really revolved around the particular problem of the New Town of Steven age. This is no longer a controversial point, and I would say that the upshot of that previous debate was that all of us were satisfied, because I got my Bill, the New Towns got their money, and the unanimous opinion of this House meant that an increase of size to Steven age also was virtually granted by virtue of the fact that nothing more was heard about it. I think that is more or less the truth.
Now we see that the impetus of expenditure is increasing, and that is what we should expect. After all, originally
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we had only 15 New Towns; now there are 22. Expenditure has gone up from £60 million a year to £80 million a year, and next year it will be going up at a higher rate. There are a few comments that I should like to make about New Towns in general, and the first is about the size of these towns. We have heard of a new city to be created in North Buckinghamshire, and I believe it is the intention of the Government, if I have read aright what the Parliamentary Secretary said in another place, that New Towns in the future are very likely to be of a size of a quarter of a million, and even, in some cases, more. These are really cities, and not towns, in the ordinary sense of the word. It was originally thought that an ideal size for a New Town was from 50,000 to 70,000. That sort of size makes for a fairly rapid development and also a good community spirit which can be built up without very much difficulty or delay. Whether one will run into difficulties in that respect by trying to create vast new cities I do not know, but I think it is something that must be borne in mind.
This brings me also to make an inquiry about Government policy in regard to expanding towns, because now not only have we New Towns—and, of course, old towns that are developing under a town development scheme, which we are not discussing this afternoon—but we have towns designated for expansion under the New Towns Act; in other words, New Town corporations will be expanding existing towns, and there will be a difficult problem of co-operation and co-ordination between the expanding town new corporation and the existing town local authority.
One might perhaps ask the Government to say whether, on the whole, they favour the expansion of existing towns in the future rather than the creation of entirely new towns. It might be easier, where there are existing amenities, for example, to build a new town on the edge and bring it into the old town as one entity in the long run. The difficulties of coordination and co-operation obviously will be fairly considerable, but it may be that in the long run this would be found to be quicker and possibly less expensive form of development. I wonder whether the noble Lord has any views on that or

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whether his Government have any particular mind on this problem. It is, I think, of considerable interest.
That brings me to the very difficult subject of amenities in general which, very properly, held the main attention during the debate in another place. We know that New Town corporations are able to spend up to £4 per head of population on amenities, and the Parliamentary Secretary in another place said that the Government were considering extending that figure. I personally feel that they will find it necessary to allow the corporations to spend more than£4 per head. I wonder whether the corporations should not have an obligation to spend that money, instead of merely a discretionary permission to do so, because there have been difficulties in building up amenities in these New Towns; we all know that amenities have not appeared as quickly as the people have demanded them and as is desirable. This is something, I am sure, which must be watched in the future.
The Parliamentary Secretary in another place said that he hoped New Town corporations would not, in fact, do everything for the people in the way of amenities, and that the people would help themselves to a large extent. Of course this can be done in respect of community centres and the like, and that is to be encouraged. But there are certain essential amenities which clearly must be provided by either the New Town corporation or the local authority—things like bowling alleys, swimming pools, civic theatres and so on, not to mention the local authority schools. This is a very difficult problem, because it is the local authority which has to find the money for providing schools which are being built by the New Town corporation. Schools do not always appear with the rapidity they should, or in the numbers they should. These matters need a great deal of thought, and I hope the Government will give it to them.
LORD LINDGREN: My Lords, before the noble Lord finishes on that point, did I understand him to say that New Towns provide educational facilities in the new schools? Surely that is the responsibility of the local education authority, not the New Town development corporation.
LORD HASTINGS: My Lords, I think the noble Lord misunderstood me. What I said was that a local authority has the responsibility of providing schools in a town which a New Town corporation has built. From that stems a certain difficulty requiring thought and closer co-ordination than has been the case in the past. The noble Lord is quite right, of course. I am sorry if he did not understand me correctly.
The question of priorities in the building of New Towns is very important. I noticed (and I do not think it is out of order to quote what was said) that the Parliamentary Secretary said during the Second Reading debate in another place:
"It is the positive policy of the Government to exclude public authority housing from any restrictions. That policy will apply in the new towns, but as is the case with every local authority, individual schemes, such as town centre development and so on, will be looked at on their merits."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Commons, Vol. 734 (No. 84), col. 1644; 28/10/66.]
It that means anything, it means that the houses and factories will go up with priority, but that the provision of amenities may be allowed to drag, on the grounds of financial stringency. That is all very well in existing towns, as they already have the amenities and it is only a question of renewing what they already have. But a New Town has nothing; and it seems to me we should restrict this sort of development at our peril as well as at great inconvenience to people living in the New Town. I believe that a New Town is an entity which must grow whole, from the ground up, with its amenities, not only its houses and factories. I hope that in the future the New Town corporations and local authorities concerned will be encouraged to go ahead with the provision of amenities and facilities at the same time as the houses and factories go up; otherwise I am afraid that we may not get a satisfactory development or a happy community.
Could the noble Lord say something about the prospect, which I understand is in view, of ensuring that a far higher proportion of unskilled workers will go into the New Towns than is the case at the moment. I believe there is a scheme in view that something like 60 or 70 per cent. of the total population of a New Town should consist of unskilled workers, and that they should go in in this proportion at a fairly early stage. I

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do not know whether that is going to make for an easy or natural development, and perhaps the noble Lord will say something about it. I believe that the ground for this change of emphasis is that these people are among those who are most in need of housing, in London in particular, but if skilled workers are leaving London to start up the factories in the New Towns, as is usually the case, one would imagine that the houses which they vacate will become available for those who are left behind in London. I do not quite see why there is emphasis on the urgency for this, although in the long run it is a situation which we may expect to develop.
Another point I would mention relates to the question of old people's homes. What proportion of old people's homes are being built in the last half a dozen or so New Towns which have been designated, and what will be the figure in the future? During the period when I was in the noble Lord's place, the local authorities in the country as a whole were building something like one-third of their houses for old people. I suspect that the proportion in New Towns is nothing like as high, and I should like to know what the figure is at the moment, and also what it is planned to be in the future. As the New Towns develop, they require elderly people as well, to make a thoroughly balanced and happy community.
That brings me to the point of owner-occupation. I was interested to read in the debate in another place that in the last two years the amount of owner-occupation in the New Towns has gone up from 11 to 28 per cent. That is very satisfactory. I should like to know, if possible (I am afraid I have not given notice of this question), whether that is being done as a result of any regulation or advice given by the Minister, or whether it has come about as a result of the initiative of the New Town corporations themselves. I was also very pleased to read that it is the intention that the extent of owner-occupation in the New Towns should rise as high as 50 per cent.
I will say a word about the industrialised system of building these towns. This matter, again caused a certain stir in another place. One member of the Party opposite criticised the industrial
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system of building, and though he was not exactly called to order, he was somewhat "sat upon" by the Parliamentary Secretary, who said this:
"There will be those who cry out that factory built houses will mar the beauty of towns which are meant to set examples to the rest of the country. I will not waste the time of the House exploding that myth. Industrialised building in its appearance and variety, if it is good, stands second to none."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Commons, Vol. 734 (No. 84), col. 1581; 28/10/66.]
I think perhaps the Parliamentary Secretary was a little rash in describing this as a "myth". What really matters is his phrase "if it is good". But the fact is that not all industrialised building is good. I have been around sonic of these places, I pass by or through them occasionally, and I have noticed certain houses going up which, quite frankly, are not a credit to the manufacturer, or, to my mind, to the architect.
On the other hand, I admit that there are some fine examples of this type of building. The Parliamentary Secretary in the other place mentioned Peterlee, one of the lesser known New Towns (because perhaps it is rather far away from here), in the County of Durham. As I live in that part of the world, I know it well, and I agree with everything that has been said about Peterlee. But there are exceptions to the rule, and I do not want people to get into the frame of mind of believing that, because something is built by an industrialised system, it is necessarily the right thing or a good thing.
This rather accords with what the noble Lord, Lord Kennet, was saying about bringing in new blood to think about general design layout as a whole. I hope that the noble Lord's Ministry is able to check up on the various systems of industrial building. It is still in its early stages, and I have no doubt that it can produce fine New Towns; but we do not want to put up rather scrappy buildings which are not going to last long and which will very soon look quite horrible. It is worth adding the word of warning that one should not be too complacent about the situation. The House has been told about the increasingly satisfactory financial results which are accruing. I have no doubt that the situation will continue to produce a surplus in the future and that, in the long run, the public will

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get its money back, both in terms of social value and in economic terms.
I should like now to say a few words about the Commission for the New Towns. I understand from what was said in another place that it is the intention of Her Majesty's Government to abolish it in the fairly near future. I do not want to say much about that now, except to say that if legislation to that effect is envisaged, it will have to be examined very carefully. There are enormous assets to be considered, and we shall certainly have to watch very carefully how they are going to be disposed of.
On the question of the compensation set out in Clause 2 of the present Bill, I was very interested in what the noble Lord said and spelled out very clearly, because I was a little confused by what happened in another place. Here I would refer to the Parliamentary Secretary's words in another place where he said:
"Full account will, of course, still be taken of values attributable to the original new town because those values would have been established whether or not the area was extended."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Commons, Vol. 734 (No. 84), col. 1577; 28/10/66.]
Again, in the Committee stage, he said:
"The percentage levy would, under the proposals of the Land Commission Bill, be payable on the element of development value which the owner realised. Since the owner would realise no development value from development or prospects of development in the extension area, no levy would be payable on it."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Commons, Vol. 735 (No. 94), col. 1752; 11/11/66.1]
I am not quite sure whether that accords exactly with what the noble Lord himself said. In the other place, it was given out that the compensation would be based on the amount of the market value. The market value, presumably, would be the existing use value plus the value that came from the existence of a new town nearby—the willing buyer and the willing seller.
LORD KENNET: My Lords, it may save time if I come in at this moment. I hope we shall keep most of these complications till the Committee stage, which is the appropriate time. But I think, as the noble Lord has just outlined it, this is a situation which would apply close to a New Town but not in a designated extension. I believe this is right.
LORD HASTINGS: My Lords, we may have to deal with that later. I thought
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that if we did it now we should not have to spend too much time on it in the Committee stage. The noble Lord himself said that compensation would be based on existing use value, plus the development value resulting from the new town which was there—not in the extension area but in the new town nearby—and there would be development value to pay on the fact that there was an increase in value coming from the existence of a new town.
There would not be development value from the fact that it was going to be designated an extension area, because there would not be an increase in the price for it. There would be some levy, I take it, on the sale of that land, not as a result of the designation of an extension area but as a result of there being development value pertaining to that land already. This is the sole difference, I think, which seems to have arisen between the two Parliamentary Secretaries. I do not know whether I have explained the point sufficiently, but if not perhaps we shall have it out at Committee stage.
Finally, there is the very difficult problem of the compensation for tenant farmers. I believe that the Government are looking into that, and I am sure that this House, which has so many Members interested in the countryside and in agriculture, would welcome a statement and an assurance that there is a possibility that the tenant farmers may receive much more adequate compensation than they do at the moment, which certainly on all accounts is inadequate. With those comments, which I hope have not been too long, although we only discuss this once every three years, I welcome the Bill and ask my noble friends to give it a Second Reading.
4.55 p.m.
VISCOUNT BRENTFORD: My Lords, before the noble Lord the Parliamentary Secretary replies, I wonder whether I may ask him to elaborate some of the remarks which he made concerning the provision of roads in connection with these new towns. The noble Lord made some reference to the provision of roads, but roads are such a very important problem now in connection with all forms of transport and traffic, particularly in regard to conurbations and congregations of people, whosesoever they may be, to enable them to get from there to other parts of the country, that it is essential

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that we should know what provision the Government are proposing to make with regard to adequate road facilities leading into and out of and through these new towns. I would particularly ask the noble Lord whether it is proposed that there should be built into these new towns urban clearways, pedestrian precincts and the modern forms of development in traffic engineering and town planning.
4.56 p.m.
LORD KENNET: My Lords, it is a pleasure to speak to and answer one's predecessor but one in the same chair. It is a mingled pleasure and a source of alarm because, of course, one knows that he knows at least as much as, probably more than, one does oneself about the subject. I regret that my noble friend Lord Silkin has been called away. I am sorry to have missed his intervention on this Bill.
I should like to take up as many of the points raised by the noble Lord, Lord Hastings, as I can without further reference and consultation. First of all, there was the point about the populations of new towns and new cities. How big should they be? What is the Government's policy? As I outlined in my speech, we think they should probably be of all sizes; some small, some big. I would say this to those who are alarmed by the great size of the largest we propose. Within the next 33 years, within the next generation, we must house 20 million people more than there are now. Of course, they are not all going into new towns, or even into extensions of old towns, but a very large number of them must do. If we consider how many Londons, how many Birminghams, 20 million represents, and if we consider on the other side that a small town by definition takes up more space—it cuts down the amount of countryside more if we put all those people into towns of 50,000 or 70,000—we realise it would eat up far more countryside than if we put quite a large number of them into towns of 500,000. So our thinking, for the moment at any rate, is to go ahead with schemes of both sizes.
As regard co-operation between the corporation and the existing local authority, when we are dealing with a big
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town expansion of the Peterborough-Ipswich type, this is of course something which we keep a very close eye on. I think one has to admit—in fact, I know that my honourable friends in another place admitted it without mentioning names—that in one or two towns cooperation has been fairly bad. But this is not so with most of them. Most have been jolly good. The aspect which we want to examine most closely and improve most urgently is that the existing local authorities should not adopt a passive attitude to the powerful newcomer, but should tell it what they want and should make proposals to it, especially for the amenities. They should, if you like, take a lead about what amenities are going to be needed in the joint operation which is a big town expansion.
We are naturally also keeping a close eye on the £4 a head provision—whether it should be an obligation on anybody to spend a precise sum or a precise minimum on amenities. But for the moment, and provisionally, I would say that we are against imposing numerical obligations on new town set-ups, whether on the corporation or on the local authority, because we feel that they might hamper their initiatives in deciding together what it is they want to do in the special conditions of the new town. But, having said that, the Government agree fundamentally with the noble Lord that a new town has to grow "whole" from the beginning. I think everybody on all sides admits that the earliest new towns did not grow whole. The housing grew first and the amenities were left behind, and we got the famous "new town blues". But we think that the "new town blues" is a thing of the past, and we are not getting them in the later generations of new towns which are being made to grow more as a whole.
On the question of old people's homes, I would rather, if I may, give the noble Lord a precise answer after I have been able to obtain it. I would rather not give him a rough answer for the moment, because what is being done in this connection is continually changing. On the question of owner-occupation, there is little to add to what my honourable friend said about this in another place. He indicated the present situation, and stated the Government's overall intention about it. Once again, we want to avoid

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laying down the law about any proportion, but the general direction is as it was stated in the House of Commons.
On industrial building, I must, of course, agree with the noble Lord, Lord Hastings, that the key words are "if it is good", and remind the House that the National Building Agency is charged with finding and listing the systems which, in its opinion, are good. I must also say that whether an I.B. estate is good depends not only on the stuff as it conies from the factory but also on how it is screwed together by the architect; and, of course, the qualification "if it is good" applies to a traditional building just as much. We are up against the familiar problem of æsthetic standards in all new building. The noble Lord and I, if we were left in charge of this, could raise them, I am sure we are confident, 100 per cent. within a week, but we should without doubt be shot by an angry populace if we attempted to do that. So all Governments have to tread a difficult path between compulsion, on the one hand, and ugliness, on the other.
On the question of the complications arising on compensation, I would say that this is a matter on which I am not convinced by the noble Lord's speech that there is a discrepancy between what was said in another place and my own formulation just now of this very complex matter. But before confronting the difficult task of providing a formulation which will be yet more simple and yet more unmistakable than any yet provided, I should like to have a chance to tackle the categories again in my own mind, and will undertake either to give it to the noble Lord personally, whenever he likes, or to give it to the full House—and perhaps this would be best—on Third Reading, or on Committee stage if there is an opportunity. It is not realy too complicated. I would say that the degree of complication is nothing like that which the House will be facing in the case of the Land Commission Bill itself.
Then the noble Lord raised the problem of roads. It does not arise under this Bill, and I could not give him specific answers to his factual questions except to say that all the New Towns' roads have throughout been designed according to the best available theories and criteria, including clearways and pedestrian-ways, and
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that the best available criteria are getting better year by year. The New Towns are following the best pattern one can get at this moment, just as the old ones did, and this, in itself, is better.
On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

CRIMINAL LAW BILL [H.L.]
5.4 p.m.
Order of the Day for the House to be put into Committee read.
Moved, That the House do now resolve itself into Committee.—(Lord Stonham.)
On Queston, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly.
[The Lord ARCHIBALD in the Chair.]
Clause 1 [Abolition of distinction between felony and misdemeanour]:
On Question, Whether Clause 1 shall stand part of the Bill?
THE LORD BISHOP OF CHICHESTER: I wish to make one small comment on Clause 1. Under Section 55 of the Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction Measure 1963, provision is made for specific action in the case of a clergyman who is sentenced to imprisonment on conviction in a criminal court for a felony. This section will undoubtedly be affected by Clause 1 as it stands now, since I think, perhaps by an oversight, this particular Measure has been excluded from the Schedule. I hope, therefore, that the Church of England may consider the effect of this and take an early opportunity to discuss the point with the draftsmen of the Bill, to see how best this quite technical but important point can be dealt with.
THE JOINT PARLIAMENTARY UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE, HOME OFFICE (LORD STONHAM): I am most grateful to the right reverend Prelate for pointing this matter out. As he is aware, I have not had any opportunity of considering it, but, as I understand it, under the Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction Measure the question of a felony arises, and, if so, an automatic penalty. Clause 1 abolishes the distinction between felony and misdemeanour, and obviously a different situation is

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created. I am not at all sure that there has been an omission from the Schedule. That is something I shall have to go into. Nor am I sure from what the right reverend Prelate has said that the matter could be put right merely by the insertion of another line in the Schedule. It may well be that the Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction Measure itself will have to be amended. But I will certainly look into this particular point, and will write to the right reverend Prelate to let him know the position as we see it. That will put him in a position to take whatever action is necessary by the Report stage.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: I wonder whether the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, would consider whether a point of this kind might be dealt with by enlarging the words in Clause 12, subsection (5), which is the general substitution of the word "offence" for the word "felony" where it occurs in Acts of Parliament passed before this Bill. I am not quite sure whether this would cover Measures of the Church of England, but, if it does, it may be that it would be all right. If not, there may be other Measures which ought also to be dealt with under that general provision in Clause 12.
LORD STONHAM: It may well be, as the noble Viscount says, that subsection (5)(a) of Clause 12 will cover the point, but I have not had an opportunity to consider it. I am grat to the noble Viscount for the suggest and will certainly look into it when the question raised by the right reverend Prelate is considered.
Clause I agreed to.
Clause 2:
Arrest without warrant
2.—(1) The powers of summary arrest conferred by the following subsections shall apply to offences for which the sentence is fixed by law or for which a person (not previously convicted) may under or by virtue of any enactment be sentenced to imprisonment for a term of five years, and to attempts to commit any such offence; and in this Act, including any amendment made by this Act in any other enactment, "arrestable offence" means any such offence or attempt.
(2) Any person may arrest without warrant anyone who is, or whom he, with reasonable cause, suspects to be, in the act of committing an arrestable offence.
(5) A constable may arrest without warrant any person who is, or whom he, with reasonable cause, suspects to be, about to commit an arrestable offence.
5.8 p.m.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS moved, in subsection (1), after "years" to insert
"the offences of riot and of making an affray,".
The noble Viscount said: Clause 2 of this Bill institutes the new, more serious form of offence, and, pace my noble friend Lord Conesford, for the moment I will continue to call it an "arrestable" offence. May I say, as a preface to the Amendment, that I still think it a pity that the clause does not do something more comprehensive in trying to set out with precision more of the law on the question of arrest, because, quite apart from the matters which were originally dealt with under the heading "felony", there is a mass of obscure law about who can and who cannot arrest for a breach of the peace and other matters. Indeed, there is statutory provision as well. I think the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, mentioned one of the sections in point during the Second Reading debate. There is a section in the Act of 1851 which allows a constable to arrest without a warrant anybody who is committing an indictable offence by night; and here, of course, is yet another distinction, because indictable offences may or may not be arrestable, and so some of this power is covered by the isions of this Bill and some of it is . The whole thing is in a great muddle.
The most notable omission from Clause 2 is the serious Common Law misdemeanour. It is perfectly true that there has not previously been power to arrest without warrant for misdemeanour; it applied only to a felony. But by the very definition of "arrestable offence" in this clause some of the more serious statutory misdemeanours are being brought within a rule which previously applied only to felonies. I think, therefore, it raises the question of whether or not some of the more serious Common Law misdemeanours should also be brought in. I have chosen in this Amendment two of them. One of them, causing an affray, is a matter not dealt with by any Statute and therefore is of one category; the other that I have put down

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is riot, which is misdemeanour in Common Law and one which has no fixed penalty, so is not within the terminology of Clause 1(1) but is dealt with by Statute. At the moment, there is a statutory offence of rioting, with, I think, a penalty of life imprisonment, under the Riot Act 1714. In the Schedule to the Bill the Riot Act 1714 is repealed, so in future we shall be left with only the Common Law for riot. There are these two categories.
In both the cases I have mentioned I have no doubt that almost always the power to arrest for breach of peace—a constable may do this and so, in certain circumstances, may other citizens—will cover the arrest. That is the prime purpose of Clause 2. But the definition of "arrestable offence" does not end there, because it is also the criterion under Clauses 4 and 5 for the new substituted offence, first of all being an accessory after the fact of felony, and secondly, the combined offence which used to be misprision and compounding. Taking the two Common Law misdemeanours I have chosen simply as examples, is it not worth while to consider whether there may not be a Common Law offence here, and that it would be very useful to have powers to indict and to try, and, if necessary, if the case is proved, to convict people for assisting in the way set out in Clause 4, and. for all I know, sometimes for other Offences under Clause 5? This is not cover the Bill at all. Unless we deal with it at the beginning, the whole matter will go by default.
There are a number of other Common Law offences which could go into this list. I have chosen these two to raise the principle and to ask what is the policy of Her Majesty's Government about these matters. I hope the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, will be able to tell us about the policy and may also be able to go some way towards including the more serious of these misdemeanours expressly, if necessary, in the Bill. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 1, line 20, after ("years") insert ("the offences of riot and of making an affray,").—(Viscount Colville of Culross.)
5.13 p.m.
LORD STONHAM: The noble Viscount, in moving his Amendment, made
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it clear that two offences mentioned in the Amendment are merely selected as examples, but he will appreciate that I must deal with the Amendment as it stands. It would have the effect of making the offence of riot and of making an affray arrestable offences. In our view this is unnecessary, because the power to arrest without warrant for these two offences exists at Common Law, since they involve an act in breach of the peace. Anyone may arrest a person to stop a breach of the peace and this power is preserved in Clause 2(7) which, as the noble Viscount is aware, reads:
"This section shall not affect the operation of any enactment restricting the institution of proceedings for an offence, nor prejudice any power of arrest conferred by law apart from this section."
That is a preservation of existing powers. The fact that the operation of the statutory offence of riot under the Riot Act 1714 is proposed to be abolished by repeal under this Bill has no effect, in our submission, on the Common Law power of arrest in order to stop a breach of the peace.
If we agreed expressly to mention riot and affray in Clause 2 there are two respects in which it would widen the existing Common Law power of arrest. It would widen, first, the power under subsection (3) and subsection (4) to arrest after the event on suspicion of having taken part in it; secondly, the power of a constable under subsection (5) to arrest on reasonable suspicion that the person in question is to start or take part in a riot or affray. In our view, there is no need to widen the existing powers of arrest in relation to these two particular offences. It may be that we should also have that view about the other several offences which the noble Viscount had in mind. But we think the case of a person about to commit one of them is sufficiently provided for by the Common Law power to prevent a breach of the peace.
No doubt the noble Viscount is aware that the law as to both these offences is being considered by the Criminal Law Revision Committee in the tenth reference relating to Common Law misdemeanours generally. But the answer I have to give the noble Viscount's request for our views and for the Government's policy on this particular issue is that it does not appear to us that there is any gap

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in the power of arrest which has to be closed. I hope that the noble Viscount will accept that view, and so agree that his Amendment is unnecessary.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: The noble Lord has answered only half the point I made. Perhaps I could try again to explain what I have in mind. At the moment, if you commit an offence against the Riot Act and somebody afterwards assists you, hides you, or does something which is considered as being an accessory after the fact of felony, there can be a prosecution for it, because, under the Riot Act, it is a felony and therefore the ordinary rule about accessory applies. In this Bill the Riot Act is being repealed, and the only thing that is being left in its place to deal with riots, as the noble Lord has said, is the Common Law offence.
I am not worried about the power of arrest: I quite understand that this matter can be dealt with under the breach of the peace provision in Common Law. I am concerned about the effect on Clause 4, because hereafter, if this matter is not dealt with now, and we are left only with the Common Law, there will be no power to deal with cases that were hitherto covered by the charge of being an accessory and there will be no power to deal with people hitherto guilty of misprision or compounding, if such a thing could possibly arise. This is all being swept away. By refusing to redefine "arrestable offence" in Clause 2 you are not only affecting the power of arrest; you are affecting all the subsidiary matters. I think it is necessary, if we are to be left with only the Common Law to cover matters hitherto dealt with by Statute, that some of the subsidiary matters arising out of it should be followed through. The noble Lord has simply not answered my points. I hope that he will give me some satisfaction in this matter.
LORD STONHAM: The noble Viscount will accept that this Amendment does not of itself cover all the offences about which he is in doubt. These ancillary powers, if I may use that expression, apply, in his view, to other offences, quite apart from riot and making an affray. I had understood that this particular point was fully covered by the present Bill; but I will certainly look at what the noble Viscount has said, and if I find that his
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views on this point are correct, I will certainly so inform him, and see whether we can meet the point at the next stage of the Bill.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: I am very much obliged to the noble Lord, Lord Stonham. I will return to this matter briefly when we discuss the Schedules. There are at least two other offences which would come into this category, and I think that this is a very important matter. But in view of what the noble Lord has said, and the assurance which he has been so good as to give, I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
LORD CONESFORD LORD CONESFORD moved, in subsection (1), to leave out "arrestable" and insert "listed". The noble Lord said: I move the first of a series of Amendments in the name of myself and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Morris of Borth-y-Gest. I think that the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, and the Committee will probably think it convenient that we take with the present Amendment Nos. 4, 6, 8, 11, 17, 19, 21, 24, 30, 32 and 34.
LORD STONHAM: I agree that it would be most convenient to take the Amendments together, but I wonder whether I might suggest that we might, with the agreement of the noble Viscount, Lord Barrington, also include in the general discussion the Amendments down in his name on the same point, in which he suggests different words?
LORD CONESFORD: I had a word with the noble Viscount, Lord Barrington, as I thought it possible that the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, would make that suggestion, and we both entirely agreed with what he has just said, that we should take all these Amendments together.
During the Second Reading debate on November 1, I stated my objection to the expression, "arrestable offence". I objected to it on two quite independent grounds. The first was that it was illiterate, or nearly illiterate. That did not mean, of course, that I disputed the existence of the word, but I said that it could not bear the meaning that it was designed to bear in this Bill. My second objection to it was that it was clearly calculated to cause confusion. On both these grounds I was strongly supported

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by the noble and learned Law Lords who spoke on that occasion, Lord Denning and Lord Morris of Borth-y-Gest. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Morris of Borth-y-Gest, is associated with me in all these Amendments, but I understand there is a possibility that he may not be able to stay throughout this debate.
On the question of illiteracy, I do not think it necessary to add much to what I said on the last occasion, particularly in view of the sympathetic response to the points I made by the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor. He said:
"…I have as much love of the English language as anybody else, and I do not like arrestable offence'."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Vol. 277 (No. 61). col. 562; 1 /11 /66.]
I am quite sure that is true. May I quote, in support of what I am now saying, a couple of sentences from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Morris of Borth-y-Gest? These were his words (col. 550):
"Need we, in a Criminal Law Bill, murder the English language? I endorse to the full all that was said by the noble Lord, Lord Conesford, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning."
What was said by the noble and learned Lord. Lord Denning, I will refer to a little later in my argument.
The noble and learned Lord, the Lord Chancellor. having stated how much he himself objected to the expression, proceeded with his usual skill to say that, though he objected to it, and sympathised with my objection, there were some precedents which he could pray in aid. He gave the example of "indictable" and "bailable". I should perhaps therefore inform the Committee that the term "indictable offence" has been in use for two centuries. It is mentioned in Blackstone's Commentaries and is older than Blackstone. Although I do not wish to go into it, on linguistic grounds it is also less objectionable than "arrestable", wrongly used. I should perhaps mention, in passing. the excellent intervention on this matter by the noble Lord. Lord Airedale, who pointed out that an indictable offence was an offence which could be the subject of an indictment.
"Bailable" was also mentioned by the noble and learned Lord, the Lord Chancellor. "Bailable", in the sense of admitting of bail, is even older. It will be found in Selden's Laws of England in
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1649. So both the examples quoted by the noble and learned Lord, the Lord Chancellor, are very respectable precedents for those two words, but afford no precedent whatever for the use of"arrest-able"in the present connection, because "arrestable" itself is found as early as 1555, from which date it has always been used with the same meaning: "liable to be arrested." It is so used in a passage in Carlyle's French Revolution. So I withdraw nothing that I said before on the subject of the illiteracy of the word as used here, and I say that the two examples used as precedents by the noble and learned Lord, the Lord Chancellor, do not provide a very convincing "fig leaf"(if I may use the expression) for the nakedness of his defence.
Now I come to the further and separate point of the liability of the expression to cause confusion. This appears from a passage in paragraph 12 of the Criminal Law Revision Committee's own Report. I quoted it last time, and perhaps, in case any Member of the Committee has forgotten it, I should quote it again. The Committee said:
"The term will not of course cover offences which are punishable with less than five years' imprisonment but for which there is a statutory power of arrest; but we do not think this will cause any confusion."
I ask the Committee this simple question: What could cause more confusion than the existence of offences for which there is a right to arrest but which are not arrestable offences? I wait with interest to hear the answer to that simple question. For my own part I cannot improve on what the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, said about the expression "arrestable offence". He said:
"They are ugly words and they are most inaccurate and misleading."
And in the next column, he referred to them as "ugly, hideous and inaccurate". I think that I have said enough to show that "arrestable offence" simply will not do.
The question therefore is what we should put in their place. I have suggested the word "listed", which has the merit of being short and also the merit of avoiding any attempted description of some common characteristic in the offences in question. Frankly, I cannot discover any such common characteristic. The only way to discover what are the offences in question is to look at what is

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said in Clause 2(1), which the Criminal Law Revision Committee describe as containing the definition of the offence. If the public and any student are not to be misled, they must refer to the list contained in that subsection. There is no other way of finding out what are the offences in question.
Should my Amendment be incorporated, it may be desirable at a later stage of the Bill to add in a Schedule a full list of the offences covered, but that is not necessary to make the Amendment viable. The definition is already there, in the subsection to which I am now moving an Amendment. It would be wrong, I think, for me to express my view of the word"heinous "until we have heard the noble Lord, who thinks it a better expression, give his reasons. I can only say that it would not meet the objections of my noble and learned friend and myself. We are seeking to provide an accurate description of these offences, which will enable anybody who wishes to find out what they are to do so. The insertion of any general description such as "heinous" will lead a man to think that he knows which offences are covered. He will know nothing of the sort. It will be quite as misleading as "arrestable", though I agree not so illiterate. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page, 2, line 2, leave out ("arrestable") and insert ("listed").—(Lord Conesford.)
5.34 p.m.
VISCOUNT BARRTNGTON: I am extremely grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Conesford, for suggesting what I think will be for the assistance of your Lordships, that I should be allowed at this point to put my argument for my Amendment—which is to substitute "heinous" for "arrestable"—so that the two may be discussed together. It will probably make it less embarrassing for your Lordships as well as for myself, because never in my worst dreams did I imagine myself, I think, alone in this House attempting to defend, as I shall do, against such a redoubtable advocate—redoubtable?—yes, I think that is the correct word—as the noble Lord, Lord Conesford, the case on the literary side, which of course is only one side of his argument, for the expression "arrestable offence".
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I do not believe it is a waste of time to discuss these points on words. I think that the noble Lord has done a great service in raising this. Like him, I am not happy about the word "arrestable", but for different reasons. I think I should be right in saying that his linguistic objection is formal, and mine substantial; or, to put it less pedantically, I think that the noble Lord was not objecting in that part of his argument to what "arrestable" was trying to say, but was saying that, in his opinion it did not say it. I feel that a better case could be made out by somebody less inadequate than myself than so far has been made out, that it can quite clearly mean in English "an offence for which a person can be arrested".
We are going to take this unprecedented step—entirely rightly, as we have all agreed, but a very large step—of cutting out of English law a distinction to which the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, movingly referred in our last debate. He moved me, as he always does, when he said:
"…when I see that those two old 'lags', if I may so call them, of felonies and misdemeanours are up for sentence, and sentenced to be outlawed—
that is a beautifully chosen word, because though they may be revived, they are being put out of law—
"I cannot help feeling a passing tribute of a sigh."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Vol. 277 (No. 61), col. 545, 1/11/66.]
And he goes on to say:
"These words…are expressive words. They tell the people what they mean."
I am not suggesting that "listed" is not an expressive word. I think that it is a highly colourable word, if that means that it is "capable of being coloured"; but at the moment it is colourless. I am not at all against anything that would tell people, laymen like myself, what is listed and what is not.
But on the question of whether "arrestable" is a legitimate word in itself, I should like to question some of the things the noble Lord, Lord Cones-ford, said. He was, as he always is, an invaluable authority on many questions concerning the English language, but I think that in this case he was also a little authoritarian (if I may use that word) in some of his pronouncements. He produced to-night a new argument that

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it had been used in a different sense to—
LORD CONESFORD: I certainly did not use any new argument to-day. I said that adding "able" to a transitive verb means that it is capable of whatever the verb says in the passive. Thus, "teachable" means "capable of being taught", and "arrestable" means "capable of being arrested". The example I gave to-day is precisely the same as what I said last time. That is the only meaning of the word.
VISCOUNT BARRINGTON: I apologise to the noble Lord. I should have said that he gave to-night an additional reason: because he did not mention the other day that arrestable has existed in this sense since 1500. I was not querying that if "arrest" is a transitive verb, there is not something to be said for the noble Lord's argument, nor that, if it is here used as a verb, it is a transitive verb. No doubt the noble Lord has a good reason for assuming this; that is, assuming that it is a verb and not a noun. But he has not given us a reason. The only other legal words, like "actionable" and "treasonable", which he quoted out of Fowler the other day, are applications of "able" at the end of nouns. This suggests that this is a line worth looking into because it does not have to he a particularly erudite or literary mind which knows that "arrest" is a noun.
I can remember reading, when I was young, in an illiterate periodical, if I recall the words rightly, some statement like, "'Stand back! Technically speaking, you are in irons!' was the curt rejoinder, what time his ears were stunned by the hideous thought 'You are under arrest!' ". "Arrest" there is a noun. It is a common noun. The noble Lord would probably say that in that case it ought to be pronounced "arr'estable"; but I do not know that it ought not. I will not go into that point at greater length, but I think that if it is going to be refused a hearing on that ground, then it should be considered on another.
I would, on the noble Lord's historical view, ask him about the word "questionable", which clearly has two distinct meanings, one of which arose many years after the other. "Questionable", I understand from the dictionary originally
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meant "to question a person". It is also now used in the sense of questioning a point of view. I am, for instance, certainly not questioning the noble Lord, Lord Conesford; I am questioning his statement; and that is done in quite another sense, in that I do not expect an answer from a statement.
If I may expand that a little, when a trustee rather unexpectedly emigrates to South America with all the trust funds, I think most of us would say that his conduct was "questionable" and his motives were "questionable", but whether he is "questionable" himself—meaning by that, of course, whether he could be as well as whether he should be questioned—depends upon whether he can be got back out of the New World into the Old Bailey. I think those are two different senses of the word; and one came much later. The first, the sense in which a person can be questioned, appears, according to the Oxford Dictionary in 1500 or thereabouts; and the second, oddly enough, not until 1806, I believe I am right in saying. In between those dates the word was used for various things like a "questionable place", which did not mean a place of doubtful repute—what democrats might have thought your Lordships' House to be; what it meant was a place where questions could be answered.
I believe that that is the way that words develop in this country. If one wanted to make an artificial adjective out of "arrest", not making it mean "arrestable", no doubt Milton could have done so. I suppose it comes from the French word arrêter—to stop—and if the word "fête" can produce "festive", I suppose the word "arrest" can produce "arrestive". "Arrestive" is indeed in the dictionary, meaning "leading to arrest". I do not believe that "arrestive" however, would be any more acceptable to your Lordships, because I think it is an artificial word. Whereas "arrestable" is not used, I believe there are very few people who would not know at once what it means. I was interested that even the noble Lord, Lord Conesford, himself, perhaps out of courtesy, when he read out the word "punishable" just now did not make any comment on it to the effect that an offence cannot be punishable as well as a person. He may perhaps say that

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in fact you can punish an offence; but I do not think you can punish an offence by death, as is mentioned in this Bill, in Schedule 2 on page 13—
"An offence punishable with death."
It may be that Mark Antony was wrong and the noble Lord is right in saying that the offence dies with the offender, that the evil that men do does not live after them. But if this is so, you are still faced with "offences punishable with imprisonment". I think the noble Lord was quite right not to raise that point, because when he quoted again just now from his earlier speech he did not object to it. It is a hideous thought if what I might call the Conesfordian view is right and "punishable with imprisonment" means that the offence can be imprisoned; because it raises appalling problems for the noble Lord, Lord Stonham. Where are offences imprisoned? How many are imprisoned at present? Are male and female offences imprisoned in the same prison, or are all offences imprisoned in the same cells as these offenders? And, if so, what happens to an offender who has committed many offences? What is the position as to overcrowding? In view of a quite recent incident only two days ago, when luckily an attempt by a convict to escape with the aid of an arrow was foiled, what precautions are taken to see that sexual offenders do not get hold of Cupid's arrows? And so on.
I do not want to be frivolous, but I do not believe that this strict interpretation that "questionable" cannot mean what a man is questionable about, and that "punishable" cannot mean what a man is punishable for, will hold water if we look at it. I will not labour the point further, but I think those things are worth looking at closely. I think that "arrestable" is a useful word; I should say a serviceable word—and "serviceable" undoubtedly comes from the noun; I think it is preferable to a great many other alternatives.
My reason for moving the Amendment is not on grammatical grounds, because I do not think this word means that offences can be arrested and that very few people would suspect that it does. It seems to me—and this is the serious point I want to make—that if we are substituting for a word like "felony", which had rightly
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or wrongly the implication that some offences were more hateful, more dislikeable than others—apart from treason which is still existing—in the middle area, so to speak, between treason and misdemeanours, which are untouched, there ought to be a word which implies that some offences are more dislikeable, more hate able, than others, without the offender necessarily being so.
I suggested the word "heinous" only because no other word has yet been suggested. I do not for a moment suggest that a better one could not be found, but it seems to me to have certain advantages worth considering, even if one does not use it always. First of all, it is a ready-made word. In the Oxford Dictionary you will find it is defined as:
"Odious; highly criminal; infamous; used chiefly of offences and offenders; hence of the accusation or charge."
Secondly, I think it has certain advantages for lawyers, first of all in that it is elastic to some extent, and we must remember that we are here clothing ideas not in fig leaves but in words that we are intended to wear. We also want something that will be able to breed. I can imagine lawyers getting from "heinous" the expression "a hein", corresponding to a felony; but they would not, I think, succeed in getting a word equivalent to "felon" without making themselves ridiculous. If they tried the word"heiner" they would very rightly be pounced upon by the noble Lord, Lord Conesford, and, if I may say so, in a subsidiary capacity by myself, pointing out that they had got it the wrong way round, and that it ought to be a "heenee" or a "hinee" or a "haynee"; and I do not think that any of those commends itself to the British public on very good grounds.
It also has the advantage for lawyers that it can be pronounced in three different ways, so that there is a slight legal privilege which some lawyers like to have. Barristers of different views can impart a slightly different flavour by pronouncing it "heenous", as some of your Lordships do—and that is perhaps the high Tory pronunciation, and, I think, the one in the dictionary; or "haynous", as I should incline to do myself; or I can imagine an extreme Left-wing council calling it "hyenous", and raising all sorts of different implications. In this

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way it is a fertile word: it is a word, that everybody knows; it is a word that lawyers use.
I am not saying anything whatever against "listing" offences, because I entirely agree with the noble Lord, Lord Conesford, on the idea that it would be excellent if we all knew a bit more about which offences were arrestable and which were not. I think perhaps in the old days of Saxon monosyllables they might have been divided into "stops" and "stop-nots"—after all, "arrest" means "to stop". The noble Lord, Lord Conesford, suggested that you could not arrest an abstraction; but he may by now be thinking about the phrase "arrested development", of which I am perhaps a case. I notice, too, that only the other day a Hungarian farmer performed the surprising feat of arresting an express train by lying on the lines, and when it stopped, as it did, asking for a light for his cigarette. "Arrest" means "stop", and surely when the cry of "Stop thief" goes up it implies to some extent "stop the theft". To help in "arresting" an offence by preventing its going further is a perfectly legitimate sense of the word.
I have talked a good deal too long, and I do not want to press this Amendment. I am putting it up only as a suggestion that it may be dangerous, I think, to take away something which has good and bad points—namely, the idea, which I believe, perhaps old-fashionedly, that some offences are more dislikable than others—without putting something of the kind in its place.
I have been talking about "arrest" as a noun. I only noticed a few minutes before I came here that there is a word in the dictionary "arete", spelt oddly enough with a circumflex accent which has a technical meaning, not the one referring to "the small bones of fishes", but
"A sharp ascending ridge or edge of a mountain"
especially used in Switzerland, now technical with climbers. That seems to me to suggest a slippery slope. I believe we are on a slippery slope if we substitute for a word which, rightly or wrongly, means something we all hate or ought to hate—without hating a person—a word like "arrestable" which is a useful word
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but is something for the convenience of the public and their safety—very easily may become the convenience of the Government. And I do not mean only the present Socialist Government or a past Conservative Government, or the future Liberal Government; but simply a Government. Every Government wants to arrest without too much trouble. And I think that is a dangerous precedent. On these grounds, I suggest "heinous" for your Lordships' consideration.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: Before the noble Lord replies, I too would join in suggesting that the word "arrestable" is likely to cause confusion. If the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, is inclined to accept "listed", I might have an ulterior motive in supporting it, because I cannot find any other suitable definition of the Common Law misdemeanours which would group them together, the sort which ought to be put in the definition, and those which should not. At least if we had a list we could put on the list the ones we wanted to and not others, and therefore there might be a practical use for having a list in this case.
LORD AIREDALE: I entirely agree. If "arrestable offences" in this clause means any offence for which a person could be arrested, I should be prepared to swallow it, because even though it is illiterate it would be a serviceable expression which would mean something. But since it does not mean that and, as the noble Lord, Lord Conesford, has so ably explained, it adds confusion to illiteracy, I cannot swallow it. Therefore, I support the Amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Conesford.
5.56 p.m.
Loan STONHAM: When I listened to the Second Reading speeches of the noble Lord, Lord Conesford, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Morris of Borth-y-Gest, I knew that at Committee stage I was in for a difficult time on this subject. Now I am absolutely certain of it, because I am asked to contend on the question of literacy with the noble Lord, Lord Conesford, and at least by implication on questions of law with the noble Lord, Lord Morris of Borth-y-Gest. Both those things taken together, I should think, are certainly beyond the competence of any Member

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of your Lordships' House. I can therefore only do my best, taking comfort from the fact that though your Lordships are unanimous in agreeing that "arrestable" is wrong, you are by no means unanimous in agreeing what would be the right word.
The noble Lord, Lord Conesford, suggests "listed". The noble Viscount, Lord Barrington, suggests "heinous". It would not make it any more attractive to me if he called it "hi'nous" or pronounced it in any other way. What I have to be concerned about is whether, without addition, it covers what we have in mind and what we have in Clause 2 of the Bill. That is the important thing. I have had other suggestions, such as "specified" and "defined", and no doubt one could think of many other words. But what we have to try to find is a word which, without addition, using only Clause 2 of the Bill, will do the job we want it to do.
I do not claim now, and I did not claim on Second Reading, that "arrestable" is ideal. But I want to explain—and I hope your Lordships will bear with me while I do so—why I think that none of the other suggestions—"listed", "heinous", or others that have been suggested—are as good and do the job so well as "arrestable". The noble Lord, Lord Conesford—and I make no complaint about this—objected to "arrestable" and was proposing "listed". He objected to "arrestable" on the grounds, first, that it was illiterate, that it could not bear the meaning it was design to bear and, secondly, that in his view it was clearly calculated to create confusion. I am sure he will agree with me that the second of those two objections is the more important, but I hope he will bear with me if I deal first of all with the question of literacy. "Listed", despite the fact that the noble Lord, Lord Conesford, said he would rely on the clause, certainly conveys to me, and I think would convey to everyone else, that there is a list. There is no list.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: Hear, hear!
LORD STONHAM: The noble Viscount says, "Hear, hear!", but has he considered just what that list would be? He is far more familiar with Arch-
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bold than I am, and therefore he will know that Archbold lists no fewer than seventeen different offences of larceny alone, each carrying a maximum sentence of five years or more. Also listed in Archbold are 26 offences of malicious damage, carrying maximum sentences of five years or more. The list would be very long indeed, and it is not only a list. Many of those offences would require many words to describe them. You would not have to put down a list; you would have to describe them. I submit that most people, wanting to know whether a particular offence attracts the new summary powers of arrest in Clause 2, would find it simpler to look up the Statute creating the offence concerned, or an authoritative textbook.
We establish, first, the point that if you insist that there must be a list it has to be a long list and a very bulky list with a lot of explanations. I do not think it would be anything like as clear or convey anything like as much, to the person or the member of the public who would have to do the arresting as the term "arrestable offence".
LORD CONESFORD: May I put one point to the noble Lord? He will realise that a list in a Schedule, although it may be a possible sequel if somebody advocated it, is not part of the Amendment of my noble and learned friend and myself. We simply propose to introduce "listed" without providing any further list. There is already a list in the subsection to which I am moving this Amendment.
LORD STONHAM: It was perfectly clear—indeed, I acknowledged the fact, almost immediately I started speaking—that the noble Lord, Lord Conesford, was not accepting that a list was necessary.
LORD CONESFORD: A further list.
LORD STONHAM: I agree. And whatever I say I hope your Lordships will understand that I am not maintaining that this is an ideal solution. We want to get something better if we can, but something better has not yet turned up. What I am now doing is to make the case and say why I do not think it possible to accept either Lord Conesford's suggestion of "listed" or the noble Viscount's proposal for "heinous".

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Quite rightly, the noble Lord, Lord Conesford, has said that "arrestable" is illiterate because it is the offender and not the offence which is being arrested. I agree, and as he has reminded us, my noble and learned friend Lord Morris of Borth-y-Gest feared that the use of the expression would be to "murder the English language."
But it is not the case that adjectives consisting of a verb with the addition of "able" are so rare in English law. They are indeed regularly and correctly used with reference to something to be done to the offender and not to the offence. The noble Lord, Lord Conesford, has reminded us that my noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor, almost off the cuff, referred to "indictable" and "bailable" offences. The noble Lord, Lord Conesford, has dealt adequately with those two cases, and I do not want to say anything more about them, but there are other expressions.
Another expression in common use is "extraditable offence". One does not say "extradition crime". According to the New English Dictionary "transportable" means either "capable of being transported" or "involving or liable to transportation". The noble Lord, Lord Conesford, quoted Blackstone with approval, so he will not mind if I use him also, because Blackstone was always thought to write pretty tolerable English. He used the expression,
"…the statute makes it a felony transport" able for seven years".
In 1815, Miss Mitford wrote:
"It does not appear…that he ever committed any hangable or transportable offence".
I have an authority in 1726—Ayliffe, who wrote:
"legacies out of lands are properly suable in Chancery".
Your Lordships may regard these examples just from the 18th and 19th centuries as new-fangled, so I have one from the 15th century, from an Act of the first year of the reign of Henry VII, which provided that in certain circumstances an offence of unlawful hunting was to "be but….trespass finable".
I am beginning to come to the conclusion that Lord Conesford's objections to "arrestable" on pure linguistic,
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or even literary, grounds are unsustainable.
LORD CONESFORD: Before the noble Lord passes on from that point, he carefully explained that he talked about an "extraditable" but not an "extradition" crime. If he will look at Clause 4(6) of the present Bill he will find that"extradition" crime is exactly what he does say.
LORD STONHAM: I am quite aware that we do use the term "extradition crime" on occasion, but the noble Lord is also aware that far more frequently used, and certainly well understood, is the term "extraditable offence". That was the point I was making. We can be too conservative in resisting developments of the English language. One hundred years ago the word "reliable" was being denounced as "an ungrammatical Americanism"—and that was notwithstanding its respectable use by Coleridge. Indeed, the noble Lord, Lord Conesford, himself might have been in trouble in those days because during the course of the Second Reading debate he said that the Criminal Law Revision Committee "realised" that arrestable offences are not all the offences for which it is possible to arrest. This sense of "realise", as meaning to understand clearly, is referred to in the New English Dictionary as:
"In early use, chiefly American, and frequently condemned as such by English writers about the middle of the nineteenth century".
The only substantial objection to "arrestable offence" seems to be the second, as I ventured to suggest to the noble Lord—that "realised" by the Criminal Law Revision Committee—that there are other offences for which a person may be arrested.
The noble Lord, Lord Conesford, quoted with considerable effect two sentences from paragraph 12 of the Report of the Criminal Law Revision Committee. On that I would say that the position with regard to "listed", if his Amendment were accepted, would be exactly the same in that regard as under "arrestable". I say again, we should have liked to find a better expression if we could, but we consider that the use of the expression "arrestable" appears to be justified on the ground that the expression will denote those more serious

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offences which Parliament will have decided will make a person subject to the wide powers of arrest under Clause 2, and should have the other consequences specified in the Bill. In the case of other offences, particular powers of arrest may be given, but they will not usually be as full as those given for arrestable offences. Moreover, the term has already come to be accepted because of its use in the Criminal Law Revision Committee's Report and in the Bill; in the subsequent references to it in legal journals, and the attention which has been focused on it in debates in your Lordships' House. For this we are indeed indebted to the noble Lord, Lord Conesford, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Morris of Borth-y-Gest, for their public service.
I would say to the noble Viscount, Lord Barrington, that his proposal seems to have additional disadvantages to those which I have already mentioned in connection with "listed", because "heinous" would not by itself, just as a word, be understood to have the meaning given to it by Clause 2 of the Bill. To give it that meaning one would have to add other words—"a heinous whats-it", or whatever it is. It would need to have other words added to it, whereas we submit that the advantage of "arrestable" is that as it is not in general use for any other purpose, and as people know what "arrest" means, it is likely, in our view, in time to he accepted on its own as having the meaning given to it in Clause 2.
I have done my best to explain our reasons, and certainly I have not lightly rejected these words. We really should like to come to an agreement and even now, at a later stage, if a better proposal could be made, we should be pleased to consider it. We certainly have not at any time thought that this word was absolutely ideal, but it is the best we can suggest. I hope that the noble Lord will now feel able to withdraw his Amendment, and that the noble Viscount will not wish to move his.
LORD MORRIS OF BORTH-Y-GEST: May I be allowed to say just a word at this stage? I think that the Committee should be grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Conesford, for the way in which he has raised this matter, and, if I may respectfully say so, I thought that both grounds on which he advanced this Amendment or this series of Amendments had very
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great force. This, I recognise, is not an easy flatter and nobody has made a suggestion here lightheartedly or in any spirit of desiring to be obstructive. It was, I think, the spontaneous reaction of almost everyone, when reading the wording in this Bill, that the phrase "arrestable offence" was an undesirable phrase, and it was not only undesirable because it rather jarred on the ear but for the second reason given by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Conesford, which I still think has great force.
I fully appreciate all that the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, has said, and I am sure the Committee will be grateful to him for the trouble he has taken to look into this matter. He has cited certain instances of the use of other phrases in the past. I must say, speaking for myself, that as I heard those phrases they did not appeal very much to me. After all, this is a new Bill at the time of a new departure, saying farewell to the distinction between felonies and misdemeanours. Here is a Bill that in many ways is historic; and after all it is the Bill of the noble Lord, Lord Stonham. I think those who have made suggestions have made them in the hope that it would not be thought that the criticism was merely destructive criticism but that it was criticism that represented a serious point.
I wonder whether the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, will be able to give us some assurance that he will look into this matter again and think further, with all the resources at his disposal. As I say, it is the noble Lord's Bill, the words of the Bill are the words that he is sponsoring, and possibly even at this stage he may be able to hold out some hope of being able to offer a suggestion of a happier phrase. I am sure the Committee wishes to co-operate with the noble Lord to achieve progress in this matter. There is no desire to be in any way difficult or obstructive, and certainly I would not lend my support to anything of that nature. I agreed with what the noble and learned Lord, Lord Conesford, said were his reasons for bringing forward this Amendment, but it may be possible to get some further suggestion in the future.
6.14 p.m.
LORD CONESFORD: I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, for his reply to the case that has been made,

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and I say at once that I found it completely unconvincing as a defence of what is in the Bill. As my noble and learned friend points out, it is Lord Stonham's Bill or the Government's Bill. Before I deal with the more serious point, perhaps I might, in courtesy to the noble Viscount who spoke from the Liberal Benches, say that I was not unacquainted with many words ending in "able" where those letters do not follow a transitive verb, but in the case of "arrestable" they do. I had myself mentioned examples in my earlier speech—"actionable", "merchantable", and I think I also gave one that occurred to me not once but several times in the course of this debate, the not unknown word "laughable".
Now to come to the serious point, I think that the linguistic ground I put forward, or what my noble and learned friend referred to on the last occasion as the murder of the English language, is not unimportant. Belonging, as I do, to the legal profession. I hate the idea that a Bill that will universally be thought to mark a historic stage in the development of English law, and therefore to be a product eminently of lawyers, may also be a Bill which murders the English language. I consider that quite important. But the much more important point is the purely practical point, that this expression is misleading. To that there has been really no answer. It is misleading. "Listed" may not be ideal: "specified" is also possible; the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, on the last occasion gave another possible suggestion—I do not wish to adopt but it is a possible solution—"a five-year offence." The possibilities are very many. I think it does not much matter what you call it, provided it is something that refers all concerned to the subsection to find out what is meant. "Arrestable" does not. I agree absolutely with my noble and learned friend Lord Morris of Borth-y-Gest. I think this is so important that I shall certainly return to it, if necessary, at a later stage.
My suggestion to the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, is that he should respect the view, I think the widespread view in this House, that "arrestable offence" simply will not do, and that he should use the enormous resources of his office—I may say that I do not think there is anybody in either House of Parliament who has a
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higher opinion than I have of Parliamentary draftsmen—to consider this matter again; could he allow some of us to get together with his advisers to try to hammer out something better? I think it might be possible. I do not wish to delay the consideration of further Amendments by this Committee at this stage, but I should like to appeal for the co-operation of the Government in producing a better expression, and not leave it to such aged and rusty lawyers as myself to concoct.
LORD STONHAM: The noble and learned Lord, Lord Morris of Borth-y-Gest, mentioned destructive criticism. I am quite sure Lord Conesford does not think I regarded any criticism he made as destructive. That has not been my view at all. Certainly what he has now said has removed any possible doubt on that score. I am grateful to him for describing this in one sentence as "Lord Stonham's Bill" and in another sentence saying it marks a historic phase in English law. I must deny the first impeachment. As to the appeal the noble Lord has made, I cannot give any undertaking to produce a solution that would achieve something better, but I will give him an assurance that we will certainly try. I cannot at this stage say whether it will be convenient to foregather in the manner he suggested; I should have to consult other people about that. But certainly so far as I am concerned, speaking in my personal capacity, I should be very glad to have the privilege of discussing this with Lord Conesford or perhaps Lord Denning, and indeed, any others who feel that they can make a contribution on this matter. I hope that arising out of that we should be able together to find something which would meet the approval of the Committee.
LORD CONESFORD: Having regard to the friendly speech made by the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, and also the fact that I know that the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor has some sympathy with the desire that so many of us have expressed in this matter, I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment. Perhaps it may save the time of the Committee if I say that I shall not move the others on the same subject.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
VISCOUNT BARRINGTON VISCOUNT BARRINGTON had given Notice of his intention to move, in subsection (1), to leave out "arrestable" and insert "heinous". The noble Viscount said: I shall be very brief. I rise merely to say that I join with the noble Lord, Lord Conesford, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Morris of Borth-y-Gest, in thanking the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, for his great courtesy. He listened to all that was said, and I hope he did not think it a waste of time. I believed, rightly or wrongly, that I was raising issues which were worth raising. Having aired these matters, I think that we are all clearer in our minds as to the points involved. May I take the opportunity of apologising for the second time to the noble Lord, Lord Conesford, if I gave an entirely false impression as to what he intended in his Amendment? I did not for one moment dispute the fact that "arrest" is a transitive verb. I was merely expressing it as a noun. I do not move the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
6.23 p.m.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS moved to leave out subsection (5). The noble Viscount said: The provisions of subsection (5) of Clause 2 were, I think, the only part of the powers of arrest in this clause which were questioned on Second Reading. I should like to ask for a little more explanation as to how these matters came to be in the Bill and as to Her Majesty's Government's policy upon them. The Bill follows exactly the draft proposed by the Criminal Law Revision Committee, and they justify in paragraph 16 of their Report their reasons for putting these powers into the Bill. However the beginning of the paragraph looks a little ominous, for they say:
"There is some authority that any person may arrest without warrant anybody whom he reasonably suspects of being about to commit a felony."
Not for one moment would I question whether that is a correct statement of law, but when they say that there is some authority for it I wondered what the authority was. If one looks in Halsbury's Laws of England, one finds it is a rather obscure matter, and the reference to the second volume of Hale's Keys of the Crown does not help greatly in elucidating what the powers may be.
Then I find—and this is another of the sections which is to be repealed—that Section 104 of the Larceny Act 1861 says:
"Any Constable or Peace Officer may take into Custody, without warrant, any Person whom he shall find lying or loitering in any Highway, Yard, or other Place, during the night and whom he shall have good Cause to suspect of having committed, or being about to commit, any Felony against this Act…"
If it was necessary in 1861 to legislate to give power to a constable to arrest a person on the grounds of having good cause to suspect him of being about to commit a felony, it seems to me that again it causes some doubt about the previous existence of this offence at Common Law. Therefore, in the first place I should be grateful if the noble Lord could say a little about the origin of this matter. It would also be useful if the noble Lord could say whether or not the Government are satisfied that there is a need to preserve the old Common Law situation. In fact, do the police want to keep it? I do not believe that this was one of the matters on which the Criminal Law Revision Committee were assisted by their two chief constable advisers.
A further tricky question which was mentioned on Second Reading concerned what the police do with a person whom they have arrested on suspicion of being about to commit an arrestable offence. It is said in the Report that they can take him before the magistrate to bind him over. But bind him over for what? He has not committed any offence. They are only suspecting him of being about to commit one. Therefore, in what sense of justice can he be "bound over" for that? Alternatively, it is said that he can be kept in some sort of custody until the danger of his committing an offence has passed. Again, is this fair? In some instances I should think it most unfair to arrest somebody simply because it is suspected that he is going to commit an offence. I feel that the Government ought to state their policy quite clearly on the matter and say whether they are prepared to accept all that may flow from this revised power to arrest. I do not say that it necessarily is wrong, but I should like to hear what the noble Lord has to say, particularly on the point whether or not the police feel that they require the power.
Amendment moved—
Page 2, line 14, leave out subsection (5).—(Viscount Colville of Culross.)
LORD STONHAM: I am grateful to the noble Viscount for his explanation of the point which he has in mind. As I think he is aware, the Criminal Law Revision Committee deliberately confined themselves to considering the effect of the abolition of felony on powers of arrest, and suggested an appropriate way of replacing the existing powers. They said in paragraph 11 that:
"…consideration of powers of arrest in general falls outside our terms of reference".
That is why in subsection (7) of Clause 2 of the Bill we say that it does not necessarily affect any other power of arrest conferred by law. We think that because of the great complexity of the subject this is the right decision.
A work of reference published this year, Devlin's Police Procedure Administration and Organisation, lists 75 different statutory powers of arrest which are exercisable in various circumstances, according to the nature of the particular mischief with which they are intended to cope. This provision—and I know this is what concerns the noble Viscount—caters for circumstances which fall short of an attempt to commit an arrestable offence. We provide that a person in the act of attempting to commit an arrestable offence may be arrested under subsection (2) of this clause, because by subsection (1) an attempt to commit an arrestable offence is in itself an arrestable offence.
I hope that the noble Viscount has moved to leave out subsection (5) only to get the explanation which I am now giving him. The point is that if we omitted this subsection the police would lose a power which they probably already have in relation to felony; and, indeed, we think that the subsection may already narrow the existing law. There is authority for saying that at present any person may arrest without warrant anybody whom he reasonably suspects of being about to commit a felony. But the Criminal Law Revision Committee thought it enough to confer the new power in respect of arrestable offences on constables only, and I think that is right.
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Just before the end of his remarks the noble Viscount seemed to feel that it was not right to stop anyone who a constable thought was going to commit an offence. What is he to do with a man who he thinks is going to set fire to a haystack? He has seen him put the petrol on and the man has just lit a match. Is the constable to wait until the man has actually put the match to the petrol? I think not.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: That, surely, is an attempt. That is not just suspicion. Good gracious me! if you see a man with a can of petrol and a box of matches beside a haystack, that must surely be an attempt and not mere suspicion.
LORD STONHAM: Suppose a man is near a haystack and has not lit the petrol but is just going to light a match. The noble Viscount must accept that there are circumstances in which a police officer has reasonable grounds for suspecting that someone is about to commit or attempt a crime, and in such circumstances, if he has reasonable grounds for that suspicion, we want to give him the powers of arrest. If we accepted the Amendment and deleted this subsection, that would weaken the powers of arrest.
The noble Viscount asked me what would happen if the police arrested a suspect and took him before a court. Presumably the court would ask him to be bound over to be on good behaviour. That is one thing which the court could do with him because, according to the evidence that the police officer will give, he had reason to suspect that the man was about to commit or about to attempt to commit an offence. I think that is quite a reasonable power to give a police officer. and he should not have to wait until the crime has actually been committed. The noble Viscount asked me whether the police have been consulted on this matter. Of course they have been consulted, and we think it would be wrong to handicap the police by the deletion of this subsection, which would certainly happen if we accepted the Amendment. With that explanation, I hope the noble Viscount will agree to withdraw the Amendment.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: I am greatly obliged to the noble Lord for his explanation of this matter; and,

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indeed, as he thought, it was to get an explanation that I put down this Amendment. I wonder whether the noble Lord could just tell me this. He said that of course the police have been consulted, and that the Government thought it was right to have these powers. But did the police want the powers? Perhaps the Government think it is right, but do the police want them and; lave they, in fact, been using these Common Law powers in the past? Is it because they found that these powers were useful, and have been actually using them, that they now say that they want to go on having them, or is this merely a theoretical exercise in that they may have been there in Common Law and now, for the sake of safety, the Government think it right to keep them? I think this requires explanation.
LORD STONHAM: My explanation, as I endeavoured to convey in my speech, is that the police have the powers and are using the powers. The effect of the Bill as it stands without amendment would be not merely to define but, in our view, perhaps to narrow the powers as compared with existing practice.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: I am obliged to the noble Lord. Perhaps I may have a word with him afterwards about this matter, because if these powers have been used I think it would be valuable to see whether there are reported cases where the matter has been looked at by the magistrates and what they have done on those occasions. Perhaps, after some research, the noble Lord could tell me of one or two of these cases which I can look at. if he will be so good as to do that, I will certainly for the moment beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 2 agreed to.
Clause 3:
Use of force in making arrest, etc.
3. A person may use reasonable force in the prevention of crime, or in effecting or assisting in the lawful arrest of offenders.
6.36 p.m.
VISCOUNT BRENTFORD VISCOUNT BRENTFORD moved to leave out "reasonable force" and insert "such force as is reasonably necessary". The noble Viscount said: This may at first sight appear to be an insignificant or even trivial Amendment, but I can
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assure your Lordships that that really is not so and that this is a rather fundamental Amendment. Hitherto it has been the law, the practice, the custom and the tradition of this country that a constable or other person is not empower or entitled to use force unless it is necessary. The wording in this clause of the Bill denies that premise altogether and says that a person may use reasonable force.
If, for the moment, we suppose that the word "reasonable" is dispensed with and the clause reads,
"A person may use force in the prevention of crime",
that rather enforces the point which I am seeking to make; that this provision in the Bill introduces for the first time the novel precept that a person is entitled to use force. That would be entirely foreign to the tradition of this country, as it has always been the tradition that a person may use force only if and when force is necessary, and that tradition is what I am seeking to reinstitute by the Amendment which I am moving. If the Amendment were accepted the clause would read:
"A person may use such force as is reasonably necessary in the prevention of crime"
et cetera. I am sure that by this clause the Government do not intend any change in the present practice, but I believe there is a very real and essential change in the effect which it will have.
Equally, it will be beneficial for constables and others, in that if they are limited to the use of reasonable force they may have very great difficulty in arresting a criminal who is seeking to get away and who himself uses force. Under the wording of the clause as it is drawn they are entitled only to use reasonable force. Now what is reasonable force? Obviously, reasonable force can only be force of a moderate character. But, in the circumstances that I have described, it may be necessary, in order to effect an arrest, for the constable to use force of a major character, or to use the maximum degree of force. In the circumstances, that force would be "such force as is reasonably necessary". Therefore I maintain that this Amendment is not only in the tradition of the law in this country, but is also for the benefit of the constables and those others who are seeking to make an arrest. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 2, line 25, leave out ("reasonable force") and insert ("such force as is reasonably necessary").—(Viscount Brent ford.)
LORD STONHAM: The noble Viscount has clearly explained the purpose and effect of his Amendment. It would be to make the clause provide that a person may use such force as is reasonably necessary in the prevention of crime or in effecting or assisting in a lawful arrest, instead of providing, as the present clause does, that a person may use reasonable force for those purposes, which the noble Viscount, Lord Brentford, says implies that a person is entitled to use force. I think that sums up his objection, and is the real reason for suggesting an alternative form of words. Indeed, the Law Society made this suggestion last winter in correspondence with the Home Office after the Bill was first introduced in another place, but we advised them then that we preferred the clause to remain as it was drafted. Indeed, it is exactly as it is in the Criminal Law Revision Committee's draft.
In practice, of course, as the noble Viscount has said, the difference in substance between the two forms of words is not very great, but I agree with him that this is not a trivial point. He is quite right that it should be raised and should be carefully considered. I am bound to say at once that neither the noble Viscount's version nor our version would excuse a person who used force when it was not reasonable, or used an unreasonable degree of force. In neither case would that be so—and his Amendment does not get over either of those positions. But the point is that if we accepted the noble Viscount's Amendment then a person who used even reasonable and justifiable force would not be excused unless he could prove that the force was reasonably necessary. There are two things—reasonable and necessary. In the view of my Department, that would place too heavy a burden on a person who acted in a way reasonable in the circumstances at the time.
It is important to bear in mind the kind of case in which Clause 3 would be operating. There is a shout of, "Stop thief!"; you look up and see three men run from a bank and jump into a car and you pick up some heavy object and throw it at the windscreen. Or a man
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discovers a burglar in his house and tackles him by any means that occur to him. In neither case does he know of the existence of this particular provision; nor could he stop to think what his legal rights were. The important thing is that, in our view, the provision as we have it fulfils what is essential—that it should protect anyone who, on the spur of the moment, behaves in a common-sense and public-spirited way. In our view, it would not be right for the provision to give rise to nice, exact questions, argued with hindsight, after the event, in the sedate atmosphere of the law courts, as if whether the action taken was strictly necessary, or as to what alternatives there may have been.
In our opinion it is desirable to have a provision which is very short and simple, and we think that the clause as drafted, with the words as they are in the Bill, is the most suitable for the purpose. In our view—this is in contradiction to what the noble Viscount believes—it has the advantage over his form of words in that we use only one conception, reasonableness, whereas he, instead, uses two conceptions, reasonableness and necessity. For that reason we think it would be unwise to make the change which the noble Viscount suggests.
LORD CONESFORD: I am a little puzzled by the reply. I am afraid that I missed a few words of my noble friend's speech, but I understood the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, to say that even with his clause it would still be necessary, if this is to provide a defence, that it should be reasonably necessary. So the double qualification is there, admittedly, whichever form of words is used, if I have understood the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, correctly.
LORD STONHAM: What I said at that stage in my speech was that in neither case would a person be excused if he used force that was not reasonable, or used an unreasonable degree of force. In the Bill as it stands we are not using the word "necessary".
LORD AIREDALE: I am not at all happy about this. May I cite an imaginary example? Suppose there is a frail old woman who is a well-known shoplifter, and the store detective sees her shoplifting a loaf of bread. The detective knows her quite well: he knows her name, and

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knows where she lives. The only reasonable thing the store detective could do in the circumstances would be to say to her, "Leave the store", and if the old woman thereupon left the store there would be not the slightest reason for the store detective to lay a hand upon her. But suppose the store detective took hold of the old woman and led her out of the store. He could then say, "Under Section 3 of the Criminal Law Act 1966 I was entitled to do this because that section says that a person may use reasonable force in the prevention of crime, and that is what. I was doing". I do not believe that is intended, and I believe that we must still preserve the necessity for the use of force before it can be excused. I hope that that example will be considered, because I am not happy about this wording.
LORD STONHAM: If I may reply to that point directly, in the case of a frail old woman, or of any other individual, where, according to the noble Lord's description, no force is necessary, then no degree of force could be regarded as reasonable if in fact no force was necessary. I am putting this forward quite seriously. Indeed I think I said something of this kind with regard to this point on Second Reading; but certainly it has been in my mind all the time. In a situation such as the noble Lord has described, where by no stretch of the imagination did the detective have to use force, then he cannot argue, if he has used force, that it was reasonable.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: I understand the problem that arises by having a dual criteria—first of all, the reasonableness and, secondly, the necessity. I also understand the problem that has been raised by my noble friend Lord Brentford, that this clause as it now stands can be read in such a way that the reasonableness of the force is not related to the circumstances of the case but is merely an objective judgment of the amount of force in any circumstances.
LORD STONHAM: A reasonable thing to do.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: In order to avoid bringing in the word "necessity", could one say this—and I suggest the noble Lord might consider it:
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"A person may use such force as is in the circumstances reasonable in the prevention of crime".
et cetera. There is then no question of proving any necessity, but one does isolate the reasonableness and bring it to bear only on the circumstances of the case, rather than its being considered generally. I hope that may be a useful suggestion.
LORD STONHAM: I have written that down, and I was just reading it through again:
"A person may use such force as is in the circumstances reasonable…"
I do not think that form is as good as that which we now have in the Bill, although I appreciate the noble Viscount's point. Indeed, it is the whole basis of Lord Brentford's Amendment, and why he has raised it; and the noble Viscount, Lord Colville of Culross, has reiterated it. It is possible, they allege—and obviously it must be possible—to read it in that way. That, I think, would be the only justification for our looking at it again. Of course, I cannot give any undertaking that the form of words suggested by the noble Viscount—or, indeed, any other form of words, including of course, those of the noble Viscount, Lord Brentford—would be regarded as better.
VISCOUNT BRENTFORD: Might I just ask the noble Lord a further question on this? Can we get from the noble Lord an assurance that, under the words that appear in the Bill at the present time, if there is no necessity to use force, any force whatever is reasonable?
LORD STONHAM: That is directly contrary to the view that I have just expressed in answer to the noble Lord who raised that point. I expressed the view that in a case where no force is necessary, any force used would be unreasonable. That is certainly my view and I think that is what the Bill conveys.
There is one other point made by the noble Viscount, Lord Brentford, to which I did not reply. He said that he thought that the clause as it now stood would not protect a person who had to use extreme force because "reasonable" in his view means a moderate degree of force. This is not the case. In a crime of violence, particularly, it might be reasonable to use extreme force or even force leading to

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fatal consequences. For example, supposing a criminal shoots at a policeman. Then it is reasonable, if the policeman is armed, for him to shoot back. So that is another point I could not accept from the noble Viscount. I think we have had a reasonable discussion—
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: In the circumstances.
LORD STONHAM: Without giving any kind of undertaking, I will consider what has been said on this. I want to make it clear that I am not convinced; I still think we are right. I will also consider the words suggested by the noble Viscount, Lord Colville of Culross, and whatever the outcome I will write to noble Lords.
VISCOUNT BRENTFORD: On the strength of that understanding, for which I am grateful, and in the hope that the noble Lord will realise, in respect of the last reply that he was good enough to give me, that he automatically introduced the necessity element of the two alternatives—one of necessity and the other of reasonableness—and in the hope that, bearing that in mind, he will give favourable consideration to the proposal of my noble friend, I beg leave to withdraw my Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
6.54 p.m.
LORD STONHAM: I beg to move Amendment No. 14. I am quite sure that noble Lords will welcome the fact that I am giving a very short breather at this moment by moving this Amendment, and will also give a particular welcome to it because this implements a valuable suggestion made by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Morris of Borth-y-Gest, during the Second Reading debate which I then promised to consider. I can explain it quite shortly. Clause 3 allows the use of reasonable force in preventing crime or assisting in the lawful arrest of offenders, as we have already discussed. The Amendment makes it clear that the power to use reasonable force is available in the case of lawful arrest of a suspected offender. I hope that that is clear and that this is acceptable. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 2, line 27, at end insert ("or suspected offenders.")—(Lord Stonham.)
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: I am quite sure the noble and learned Lord, Lord Morris of Borth-y-Gest, will be grateful to the noble Lord for accepting his suggestion.
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD CONESFORD LORD CONESFORD moved to add to the clause "or in preventing their escape". The noble Lord said: I put down this Amendment, frankly, as an exploratory one. It may be that the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, has already looked at this sufficiently to know whether this is required; but perhaps I may give him some examples of what I had in mind so that, if he has not fully considered it, he may do so before the next stage.
One set of circumstances is not unconnected with what my noble friend Lord Brentford said on a previous Amendment or, rather, with an example given by the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, in the course of his replies. I was thinking of the case where a man discovers a burglar in his house who may perhaps be in the act of going through a window to escape. There might be evidence of a very serious crime committed, such as a serious assault on a person in the house or a person being bound up or something like that, and the burglar might be trying to escape. It may be that the words "effecting…the…arrest" (which are already in the clause) would, arguably, be sufficient; but I am not certain whether there are circumstances here where some further words might be required.
The noble Lord will, I think, be familiar—I gather he is so, from what he said in an intervention on the previous Amendment—with the cases where even the infliction of death has been considered excusable in the protection of person or property. A number of cases can be found in paragraphs 2512 and 2513 of Archbold. I think it is desirable that the Minister should carefully consider what, if any, effect this clause, as drafted, has on those decided cases and what effect is desired.
Here is another example, which perhaps leaps more obviously to the mind. Suppose you were passing Wormwood Scrubs on one of the days, or at an hour, when one of the customary escapes was taking place. I suppose on the whole

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the Government would desire the citizen to intervene in some manner. If he were entitled to intervene because he was preventing an escape, I think he might be encouraged to do so; but I rather doubt whether the words already in the clause will in all cases be sufficient to cover the man. I have put down these words provisionally. I have no desire whatever to press them if the noble Lord does not like them. I hope he will think they are worthy of some investigation. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 2, line 27, at end insert ("or in preventing their escape.")—(Lord Conesford.)
LORD STONHAM: I am sure that anything the noble Lord puts down is worthy of investigation. With regard to the "customary" escapes from Wormwood Scrubs, I will assure him that if he wants to prevent them he must be inside and not outside. That is from where we are preventing "customary escapes". It will be the exceptional one that is done from outside.
LORD CONESFORD: But if one were passing, what is one expected to do?
LORD STONHAM: We were not exactly sure of the whole of the noble Lord's mind on this. We thought of two examples. There is an offender fleeing from arrest. Then the words that the noble Lord suggests, "or in preventing their escape", are not necessary because the use of force will be for the purpose of effecting the arrest. That is all right.
If you were thinking of a bystander trying to stop a bank robber from making his getaway, the use of force again would be for that purpose and for the purpose of "the prevention of crime", or both, and therefore that is already covered. The case of the bystander or person walking by a prison who sees a chap getting over the wall and uses force to arrest him is again covered because the person would be using reasonable force
"in effecting or assisting in the lawful arrest"
of the offender; and he is an offender, and it is lawful to arrest a person who jumps over the prison wall because he is committing an offence. Therefore again it is covered by the clause. Frankly, I would have been prepared, had the noble Lord suggested things which were not covered, to ask whether he would
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withdraw the Amendment and say that we would look at it again; but in this immediate discussion the noble Lord has not suggested anything which is not covered and would therefore justify the Amendment, so that I shall have to leave it to his judgment.
7.1 p.m.
LORD CONESFORD: I have certainly no intention of pressing the Amendment, but I hope that the noble Lord will look into the class of cases that I have mentioned in Archbold to see whether he is satisfied with this clause, and the effect that this and other clauses in the Bill have on the authorities there quoted. I ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS moved to add to the clause:
"( ) Any rule of law which does not accord with the provisions of the last foregoing subsection shall cease to have effect."
The noble Viscount said: It is only necessary to say a few words about this Amendment. When on Second Reading I asked the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor whether the Common Law rules in this matter were superseded by this Bill, he said, as I understood his answer, that they were not. The Criminal Law Revision Committee describe this matter in Paragraphs 20 to 23, and they make the point that the authorities on the Common Law side are very obscure. The last thing we want is for somebody who has misused the powers, which we think are right, to seek to use, or resurrect from the dead, in order to protect himself some extraordinary Common Law rule which is of the greatest obscurity. If there are these immense obscurities I suggest that it is better to make quite sure that the Bill provides the only proper way to deal with the matter, and there should be no other rule still in existence.
Amendment moved—
Page 2, line 27, at end insert the said subsection.—(Viscount Colville of Culross.)
LORD STONHAM: The noble Viscount reminded us that he raised this point on Second Reading, and by his Amendment he wishes to make clear that Clause 3 supersedes the Common Law. It says no more, in effect, than that the clause overrides any rule inconsistent with it, and leaves open to argument that the present law remains operative on any

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point where it gives wider protection than the clause to a person using force. Our view is that the clause as it stands has the effect of replacing the existing law and that it would be unnecessary to add words saying so. But having said that, we have no objection in principle, if the Committee feel that it should be done, to considering before Report whether a suitable Amendment can be drafted; but in our view it would have the effect only of saying again what we believe the clause says already.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: As I understand it, the noble Lord thinks that the clause itself supersedes the Common Law and would like it to do so. My Amendment, as is usual with all Amendments drafted by myself, does not have the right effect, and for that I beg forgiveness. Nevertheless, when one looks at Clause 2(7) which expressly deals with and preserves Common Law rules I think there may be a distinction which might be drawn when Clause 3 is silent on the matter. I should therefore be very grateful if the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, would look at this point again and make sure that this argument cannot arise. It would be so easy to get the right form of words and the whole thing would then be settled. If the noble Lord will do that. I shall be very happy to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.
LORD STONHAM: I am quite willing to do that.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 3, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 4:
Penalties for assisting offenders
4.—
(3) A person committing an offence under subsection (1) above with intent to impede another person's apprehension or prosecution shall on conviction on indictment be liable to imprisonment according to the gravity of the other person's offence, as follows:—
(a) if that offence is one for which the sentence is fixed by law, he shall be liable to imprisonment for not more than ten years;
(7) For the purposes of section 33 of the Larceny Act 1916 and of any other enactment relating to receivers or receiving a person shall he treated as receiving property if he dishonestly undertakes or assists in its reten-
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tion, removal, disposal or realisation by or for the benefit of another person or if he arranges so to do.
VISCOUNT BRENTFORD VISCOUNT BRENTFORD moved, in subsection (3), to leave out "with intent to impede another person's apprehension or prosecution". The noble Viscount said: This is really a drafting Amendment. In Clause 4(3) we read:
"A person committing an offence under subsection (1)"—
of Clause 4—
"with intent to impede another person's apprehension or prosecution—."
and so on. If we turn to Clause 4(1) to see what is the offence to which subsection (3) refers, we see that the offence is that a person
"without lawful authority or reasonable excuse…with intent to impede his apprehension or prosecution…"
The necessity for the offence being with intent to impede the apprehension or prosecution is already in Clause 4(1). Therefore it is quite unnecessary for it to be repeated again in subsection (3). Purely on that drafting point I seek to delete those words.
Amendment moved—
Page 2, line 42, leave out ("with intent to impede another person's apprehension or prosecution").—[Viscount Brentford.]
LORI) STONHAM: As the noble Viscount has said this is a drafting Amendment, but unfortunately it is not an acceptable one. I remember that on Second Reading he referred to the words that he now seeks to leave out as "otiose and unnecessary". They are unnecessary only in the sense that to leave them out would not change the effect of subsection (3). But they are far from otiose because they make subsection (3) easier to follow, which is something usually welcome in Acts of Parliament.
If the words were omitted as the noble Viscount wishes, the subsection would read:
"A person committing an offence under subsection (1) above shall on conviction on indictment he liable to imprisonment according to the gravity of the other person's offence as follows…"
Then, as the noble Viscount says, to see who is the "other person" it is necessary to go back to the beginning of subsection (1). The point is that the words refer to "a person" in the first line of the subsection, and not to "any other person"

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in the second line, as it might seem at first sight, but for the words which we have put in and which the noble Viscount wants to leave out. The words we want to leave in show at once who the "other person" is. Therefore, with all respect to the point about drafting, we think that the words are necessary and not otiose; and unless the noble Viscount objects too strongly, which I hope that he will not, we should like to leave them in the clause.
VISCOUNT BRENTFORD: With that explanation, with which I do not agree from either the beginning, the middle or the end of it (I think, with all respect to the noble Lord, it is one of the weakest explanations I have ever had the privilege of listening to), I will, with the leave of the Committee withdraw my Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
7.10 p.m.
VISCOUNT BRENTFORD VISCOUNT BRENTFORD moved, in subsection (7), to leave out "receivers or receiving" and insert "the offence of receiving as therein defined". The noble Viscount said: This is a more serious Amendment than the last one. The difficulty about this clause is that it creates a specific offence under Section 33 of the Larceny Act 1916. It introduces these vague and undefined words "receivers or receiving". We are exceedingly anxious lest these words should be misconstrued, because they are not defined anywhere at all. The word"receiver" is not subject to legal definition. If one looks up the index of Halsbury, one finds that it is used in a number of contexts of a non-criminal character as well as contexts of a criminal character. Apart from that, it is a word which is commonly used in the English language in a non-legal context. We feel that it is desirable that this should be more clearly defined, and suggest that it can be adequately and simply defined by the proposal in the Amendment which I am now moving—namely, to delete the vague words "receivers or receiving" and to insert in lieu "the offence of receiving as therein defined", which means as defined in Section 33 of the Larceny Act 1916. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 3, line 35, leave out ("receivers or receiving") and insert ("the offence of receiving as therein defined").—(Viscount Brentford.)
LORD STONHAM: Clause 4(7) provides that the extended meaning of receiving is to apply for the purposes of Section 33 of the Larceny Act 1916 and also for those of "any other enactment relating to receivers or receiving". The noble Viscount's Amendment would substitute for the words "receivers or receiving" the words "the offence of receiving as therein defined". In our view, this would limit the subsection in a way which would take away part of its purpose. For Section 33 of the 1916 Act, although it contains the principal offence of receiving, does not create the only offence of this kind. It applies to receiving stolen property and property obtained in any other way amounting to a felony or misdemeanour with knowledge that the property was stolen or so obtained. The words "or any other enactment relating to receivers or receiving" will cover, first, enactments which create other offences of receiving and, secondly, enactments containing ancillary provisions relating to the offences.
The most important of the other offences of receiving is that created by Section 54 of the Post Office Act 1953, of receiving stolen mail bags and postal packets, but there is also a summary offence under Section 97 of the Larceny Act 1861, of receiving property got by a summary offence under that Act. An example of an enactment containing ancillary provisions relating to receiving ((ii) above) is the provision in Section 38 of the Pawnbrokers Act 1872 that, if a pawnbroker is convicted of receiving stolen goods knowing them to be stolen, the court may direct that his licence shall cease to have effect.
I appreciate that the noble Viscount may feel that the expression "other enactments relating to receivers or receiving" is too vague. The Law Society indeed expressed that view in correspondence they had with my Department, but, unfortunately, they did not respond to an invitation we addressed to them to mention any enactments in which they thought there can be any doubt whether the clause would apply.
It seems to the Government that although different words might have been used, the words that the noble Viscount wishes to change, since they stand in juxtaposition to the reference to the main

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offence of receiving contrary to Section 33 of the 1916 Act, show clearly that the reference is to offences consisting of receiving property stolen or come by otherwise unlawfully. If the language is to be altered, the Amendment would have to go wider than the noble Viscount proposes, because this Amendment would leave out of account the enactments creating other offences of receiving, although it would cover ancillary provisions, such as that in the Pawnbrokers Act so far as they apply to the offence under Section 33 of the 1916 Act. It appears to the Government that it would be a pity to complicate the Bill in order to define the offences in what would seem perhaps unnecessary detail, especially as the subsection is intended to be temporary only and to be repealed by the Theft Bill, annexed to the Criminal Law Revision Committee's Eighth Report, if that Bill is accepted by Parliament. That is my view. I can see the noble Viscount's intention, but it seems obvious to us that the Amendment does not go so far as he would wish it to go in doing what he seeks to achieve. For that reason, he might like to think about it again.
VISCOUNT BRENTFORD: I was interested in what the noble Lord said with regard to this being a temporary provision, subject to the revision of the law as a result of the Report of the Law Revision Committee. On Second Reading, the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor said that a complete revision of the law on theft was to take place and that the Committee said in their Report that these paragraphs—I understood him to be referring to the paragraphs in this Bill—were part of what is going to be the new code of law, if accepted by Parliament. If that is so, then there will not be any revision of this Bill by a subsequent Bill, and what we are doing is seeking to legislate in anticipation of what is going to be the law when another Bill is introduced. I think this is a dangerous line to pursue.
Having said that, I should like to have an opportunity of giving closer attention to what the noble Lord has said than was possible while he was actually talking; and in that anticipation, and with the possibility that I may come back to this
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on a later stage, I beg leave to withdraw this Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
VISCOUNT BRENTFORD VISCOUNT BRENTFORD moved, in subsection (7), after the first "if" to insert:
"knowing it to have been stolen or obtained in any way whatsoever in circumstances which prior to the enactment of this Act would have amounted to a felony and misdemeanour".
The noble Viscount said: I was tempted to put this Amendment down because of what the noble Lord in charge of the Bill said on Second Reading, when he was paraphrasing this particular clause and he came to the words in line 37:
"shall be treated as receiving property if he dishonestly undertakes or assists in its retention".
The noble Lord said:
"if knowing the property to be stolen he undertakes or assists in its retention…
That is exactly the purport of what I desire to see in the Bill: that instead of this rather vague and ambiguous word "dishonestly", we should have the words, "knowing that the property was stolen": because if the word "dishonestly" is retained, it is wide enough to include the disposition of property even though it was not stolen or was not unlawfully obtained. We therefore consider that the old and perhaps rather more traditional words, "knowing the property to have been stolen or unlawfully obtained", are better than the admittedly briefer but vaguer word "dishonestly". I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 3, line 36, after ("if") insert the said words.—(Viscount Brentford.)
LORD STONHAM: I am grateful to the noble Viscount for that explanation, but I am bound to tell him that in our view the Amendment is unnecessary and does not wholly fit the present law. We think it is unnecessary because the offence under subsection (1) of Section 33 of the Larceny Act depends on the receiver knowing that the property was stolen or obtained in one of the ways mentioned. Subsection (7) of Clause 4 in the present Bill merely extends the idea of receiving without altering the other ingredients of the offences, in particular, without altering the requirement as to the receiver's knowledge of the way in

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which the property was obtained. Further, the Amendment would not fit the important offence under subsection (4) of section 33,consisting of receiving in England property obtained abroad in circumstances which would have amounted to a felony or misdemeanour if the property had been obtained in England.
We do not think it would be an appropriate reform to make it necessary to consider whether an obtaining which took place after the commencement of the Act would have amounted to an offence under the present law. For this reason, I cannot accept the Amendment, and I hope that, with the explanation I have given, the noble Lord will feel able to withdraw it.
VISCOUNT BRENTFORD: Again, I think this is something that I should like to think about, because I still do not see why "dishonestly" is going to meet the point any better than the words which I recommend, and in my view it is wide and vague. Perhaps I may be permitted the opportunity of considering the matter and possibly coming back to it again at a later stage. But for the time being I will withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
On Question: Whether Clause 4 shall stand part of the Bill?
VISCOUNT BRENTFORD: May I call the attention of the noble Lord at this stage to a matter which I mentioned on Second Reading—namely, the marginal note to this particular clause. The marginal note says:
"Penalties for assisting offenders."
and the clause itself goes on to create all sorts of offences and, by so doing, to create offenders. I should like to draw the attention of the noble Lord in charge of the Bill to the fact that the marginal note is totally irrelevant, completely misleading and ought to be amended.
LORD STONHAM: I am grateful to the noble Viscount for that vigorous presentation, and I will certainly look at what he says.
Clause 4 agreed to.
Clause 5 [Penalties for concealing offences or giving false information]:
7.25 p.m.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS moved to leave out subsection (1) and insert—
"(1) Where a person has committed an arrestable offence, any other person who, knowing or believing that the offence or some other arrestable offence has been committed—

(a) conceals or procures the concealment of, or

(b) accepts or agrees to accept any consideration for not disclosing any information relating to

that offence, or that other offence, as the case may be, shall he liable on conviction on indictment to imprisonment for not more than two years:
Provided that, in a case falling within paragraph (b) of this subsection it shall not be an offence to accept or agree to accept such consideration as constitutes:—

(i) the making good of loss or injury caused by the offence, or

(ii) the making of reasonable compensation for that loss or injury."

The noble Viscount said: This is a most important Amendment and I am sorry it should have come up at this time of the evening, when the Committee is so thin and when none of the noble and learned Law Lords is here. It was, as your Lordships will probably remember, raised by both the noble and learned Lords, Lord Morris of Borth-y-Gest and Lord Denning, in the Second Reading debate. Clause 5 is a sort of omnibus substitute for two sorts of offences that at present exist in Common Law. The first is misprision, and the second compounding a felony. The Criminal Law Revision Committee's Report described misprision as:
"concealing or procuring the concealment of a felony known to have been committed",
and compounding as:
"an agreement not to prosecute a felony in consideration of the return of the goods or other award."
The Committee decided to do away with both those long standing offences and to replace them by a very narrow offence that is newly created by Clause 5(1). Various noble Lords asked whether this was acceptable policy.
I should like the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, to explain why it is that the Government are satisfied that the old offence of misprision of felony is no

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longer necessary. I know that it has had a chequered history, but the last time that it came before your Lordships' House sitting in its Judicial capacity was in the case of The Queen v.Sykes. This was referred to on Second Reading as well. This was a most serious case, where arms had been stolen from a United States Air Force base in Norfolk and were in process of transmission to the I.R.A. in Ireland. The accused in the case had had nothing to do with the original offence, but he knew that the arms had been stolen and he was, I believe, acting as a go-between between the people who had the arms and possibly the I.R.A. or their agents.
The interesting thing about that case, when you read it, is this: that the prosecution thought about and rejected the idea of charging Sykes with being an accessory after the fact of felony, because, I have no doubt, they felt that the facts would not justify such a charge. He was charged with a variety of other offences, but in the end the only one that stuck was the offence of misprision of felony, and it was upheld in your Lordships' House that this was an extant offence, and his conviction was also upheld. Here was a most serious crime which had been found out and on which the offender had been convicted; but apparently there was no other way of dealing with it.
The noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, also quoted other cases, one I think from Australia, and a recent one where this old crime of misprision of felony had been usefully employed. Now that it is to be abolished, there is nothing in Clause 5 to take its place. Clause 4 is no help in the type of case exemplified by Sykes, because there is little difference between the offence created by Clause 4 and the old offence of accessory after the fact. I do not think the facts of the Sykes case would have come within Clause 4 either. What is the Government's justification for abandoning this offence? Are they satisfied that there are already powers elsewhere to deal with these offenders? Are the police so satisfied? Can the noble Lord tell me that?
I have also in my Amendment, as well as trying to restore the old offence of misprision of felony, kept what the Criminal Law Revision Committee recommended
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for compounding. I believe that they can be put together quite well. But I would suggest, also, that the way in which I have drafted the Amendment—though I am sure it will be said to be defective—has at least one advantage: that by putting in the proviso that the acts there set out are not an offence it clarifies the position about what the civil law can do on these matters. This was another point raised by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning. I should have thought that it was a good idea to make it perfectly clear that not only was it a defence to be able to say what the Bill now says, but to set out quite clearly that that sort of knowledge is not an offence at all. I am perfectly certain that this is not a matter which can rest here to-day. I will not press this Amendment, for obvious reasons, but if the noble Lord. Lord Stonham, can explain the Government's position on this matter he will be doing a great service indeed.
Could I say one thing? So far as misprision of felony is concerned, there was some doubt in the Committee's mind about the effect that the retention of this crime would have upon the liability of relatives. Under my Amendment the matter is subject to the consent of the Director of Public Prosecutions, as indeed are offences under Clause 4, where the same problem arises. I do not believe, therefore, that there should be any greater difficulty here than under Clause 4. Furthermore, in case anybody should object that this would lead to petty and ridiculous prosecutions on occasions which are not at all justifiable, not only have we the Director of Public Prosecutions to prevent this, but we must remember what the noble and learned Lord, Lord Goddard, said on one of these cases, that nowadays the law is administered with dignity and common sense. I do not think it is a matter to be feared. I look forward to hearing what the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, has to say, and I am sure that what he says will be most carefully studied by noble and learned Lords who are most interested in this matter. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 3, line 39, leave out subsection (1) and insert the said new subsection.—(Viscount Colville of Culross.)
LORD STONHAM: I am grateful to the noble Viscount for his careful explanation of his Amendment and of its effects. So far as we can see—and no doubt he will agree—the only substantial effect of the Amendment would be to add to subsection (1) of Clause 5 an offence of knowingly concealing or procuring the concealment of an arrestable offence. As he made clear, this would be intended to cover the loss, as it were, of misprision of felony. As the noble Viscount knows, the exact extent of the offence of misprision is obscure, but it seems certain that it applies in some cases to mere disclosure. The Criminal Law Revision Committee reviewed the law on misprision in consequence of the abolition of felony. The elements of that offence, and of compounding, which they thought it desirable to retain, are covered by the existing subsection (1) of Clause 5, which makes it an offence to accept a consideration for concealing information about an arrestable offence. The conduct covered by the offence of misprision of felony might in some cases be covered by subsection (1) of Clause 4, which makes it an offence to do any act with intent to impede the apprehension or arrest of a person who has committed an arrestable offence, and it covers such conduct as hiding the offender or concealing evidence of the crime.
The noble Viscount mentioned the case of Sykes. In our view, Sykes would be caught on a charge of receiving under subsection (7) of Clause 4 in the Bill which says that:
"For purposes of section 33 of the Larceny Act 1916 and of any other enactment relating to receivers or receiving a person shall he treated as receiving property if he dishonestly undertakes or assists in its retention, removal, disposal or realisation by or for the benefit of another person or if he arranges so to do."
Therefore, had this Bill been law Sykes would have been in a different position. In our view the Amendment the noble Viscount has proposed to some extent duplicates subsection (1) of Clause 4, as well as subsection (1) of Clause 5 as it stands.
The aspect of the offence of misprision at which the noble Viscount's Amendment is aimed—that is, that part of it which is not being replaced by the Bill—seems to relate to the withholding of information from the police. I think that
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is what he is mainly concerned about. When the Criminal Law Revision Committee considered this, they thought there were not enough grounds to retain this as an offence. That is found in paragraphs 37 to 42 of their Report. They said there were obviously objections to making a person criminally liable for not reporting to the police any minor offence of which he may happen to know, and with that view the Government agree.
There is one point of drafting. Although, as the noble Viscount knows, I never make any point of drafting in objecting to an Amendment I think I should point it out. The new subsection which is proposed in the Amendment would give rise to difficulties of interpretation, because it is not clear how paragraphs (a) and (b) of subsection (1) of the Amendment would fit together. The proviso to the subsection provides a special defence for cases falling within paragraph (b): that is, cases where a person has accepted a consideration for not disclosing information relating to an offence. Yet an offence under paragraph (b) would apparently also be an offence under paragraph (a) to which the proviso does not apply.
This is a comparatively minor point, but because the noble Viscount is dealing with questions of principle and importance I thought he would want me to point it out. The answer is that we consider—and in this we agree with the Criminal Law Revision Committee—that in subsection (1) of Clause 4 and in subsection (1) of Clause 5 the points that the noble Viscount has in mind are covered, and the side case that he mentioned which caused concern would be caught by subsection (7) of Clause 4.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: I am very much obliged to the noble Lord for that answer, which I think is most constructive, and certainly adds in a helpful way a great deal to what has previously been said on this subject. I am particularly grateful for the explanation, which I had not thought of, of the way in which a Sykes type of case could now he dealt with. I hope the noble Lord has looked at the other cases which were referred to by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning—I fear that I have notmyself—and has made perfectly certain that, where misprision has hitherto

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filled a gap in the criminal law, there will equally be coverage of that gap under the provisions of the Bill. I will continue my researches into this subject, and if I am still not happy, or if other noble Lords are not happy, we will pursue it at the next stage of the Bill. Meanwhile, I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
LORD STONHAM: I can assure the noble Viscount that I have looked at these cases. I had a note to mention them, but I did not want to make my speech too long.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 5 agreed to.
Clause 6 [Trial of offences]:
7.38 p.m.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS moved to add to subsection (5):
"Provided that nothing in this subsection shall preclude the Court of Appeal from the exercise of its powers under section 5 of the Criminal Appeal Act 1907."
The noble Viscount said: This, again, is an Amendment to draw attention to a point rather than to achieve any precise wording. I think the point is probably all right, but I should like an assurance from the noble Lord, Lord Stonham. Under Section 5 of the Criminal Appeal Act 1907, the Court of Appeal has power to substitute the conviction on one count for a conviction which had been given on another count, and to sentence the offender accordingly. This probably applies only where there was a plea of not guilty, followed by trial. Therefore it is probably not concerned with the circumstances set out in subsection (5) of Clause 6, which I believe supposes that there has been no trial but a plea of guilty which was dealt with immediately by the court. If that is so, then I am sure that no Amendment is necessary, but I should be grateful if the noble Lord would confirm that there will be no prejudice to the powers of the Court of Appeal under subsection (5) of the 1907 Act, because I believe it is a useful safeguard when an offender might be in danger of getting away on a technicality. We do not wish to do anything in this Bill to stop that sort of remedy from being applied. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 5, line 26, at end insert the said proviso.—(Viscount Colville of Culross.)
LORD STONHAM: I think I can give the noble Viscount the assurance for which he asks, but I should like to do so in some detail and then he can come back if my reply is not sufficiently complete. The Amendment proposes that nothing in subsection (5) of Clause 6 should preclude the Court of Appeal from exercising any of its powers under Section 5 of the Criminal Appeal Act 1907. In our view the Amendment is unnecessary because nothing in Clause 6(5) could have this effect.
Clause 6(5) provides that, where a person charged with one offence pleads guilty to a lesser offence included in that charge, and his plea is accepted, so that he is not dealt with for the offence charged, his conviction of the lesser offence resulting from his plea of "guilty" shall operate as an acquittal of the offence charged. Section 5 of the 1907 Act, I am advised, deals with entirely different situations. Subsection (1) relates to a case where a person has been convicted on more than one count in an indictment and the Court of Appeal consider that he was wrongly convicted on one but rightly convicted on another. The subsection enables the Court to pass the appropriate sentence.
Subsections (2) and (3) relate to verdicts of the jury, whereas subsection (5) of Clause 6 is concerned only with cases where there is a plea of guilty and no question of a verdict of a jury arises. I hope that meets the point raised by the noble Viscount.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: Again I am grateful to the noble Lord. This appears to be a point which caused some disquiet in certain quarters where criminal law has some importance and is studied. Those fears appear to be allayed, and therefore I beg to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 6 agreed to.
Clauses 7 and 8 agreed to.
Clause 9 [Pardon]:
7.42 p.m.
LORD AIREDALE LORD AIREDALE moved after "but a pardon" to insert "or exoneration". The noble Lord said: I think the Minister will recognise in this Amendment an

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old hobby-horse of mine which I have smuggled into the Chamber not for the first time. This clause deals with the granting of a pardon under the Royal Prerogative, and I think it is quite accepted that the effect of a pardon under the Royal Prerogative is not of "pardon" in the sense in which we use that word normally nowadays, meaning "forgiveness", but rather "exoneration", whereby the person pardoned is put in the position of never having been accused of the offence at all.
Why do we therefore use this rather misleading expression "pardon" in this sense? I believe it is for an historical reason. I think I am right in saying that before the beginning of the last century our ancestors thought it unwise publicly to admit the possibility that there could be a miscarriage of justice, because they thought that such a public admission would undermine the authority of the courts and undermine the administration of justice, but of course they knew in their hearts that sometimes a miscarriage of justice had occurred and so they employed this fiction of granting the convicted person a pardon under the Royal Prerogative so that it could be said, "The decision of the court stands but the offender is pardoned".
We have grown up since those days. We now publicly admit that occasionally a miscarriage of justice occurs, and we do not think any less well of the courts for that. We recognise that the courts, being human institutions, can err, just as humanity in any field in which it operates can err. So why must we cling to this expression "pardon" when what we really mean is "exoneration"?
It may be said that most people understand that a pardon under the Royal Prerogative operates as exoneration. I daresay they do, but I am quite sure there are some people who do not understand this; perhaps humble people—the boy who delivers the milk to the offender who has been pardoned may not understand that this does not mean that the man has been convicted and forgiven. A person receiving a pardon is surely entitled to know that everybody who is acquainted with him—humble people in his village and so on—completely understands what has happened, and if exoneration is what has happened then exoneration should be published. Admittedly "exoneration" is rather a
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long word and the milkman's boy may not understand what it means, but he can look it up and find out. At least let him not be misled by the use of the word "pardon".
I believe this matter has been under consideration in the Home Office for about the last sixty years, but apparently no Home Secretary so far has plucked up enough courage to recommend to Her Majesty an exoneration under the Royal Prerogative rather than a pardon. It looks as though Home Secretaries are waiting for Parliamentary approval before they will take this step. If we introduce the word "exoneration" into this clause in the place that I have suggested, that will surely denote Parliamentary approval for the use of this word, and it will embolden Home Secretaries in the future to recommend exoneration where now they recommend pardon; and I believe this will be nothing but a good thing. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 7, line 17, after ("pardon") insert ("or exoneration").—(Lord Airedale.)
LORD STONHAM: I suspect if it be true that successive Home Secretaries for the last sixty years have had this problem put to them and have lacked the courage to enact the alteration their experience must be very much like mine, because as the noble Lord is aware he and I had discussions on this point outside the Chamber many months ago, before there was any possibility of this Bill coming into existence, and no doubt like the Home Secretaries in the last six decades I found the argument appealing, as indeed I have found it again now. However, when we look at the matter both historically and legally the proposal loses its appeal, unless of course the whole case, as perhaps the noble Lord will say, rests on a choice of words, or rather the meaning that most people attach to two different words. I think this is a case, as is said in Alice, of, "Words are going to mean what I say they will mean".
I want to put the position as we see it, and that is that strictly a pardon done under the Great Seal has the effect of wiping out the offence entirely, and in this Bill the purpose of Clause 9 is to provide that the grant of a pardon by the simpler method under the sign manual shall have the same full effect as a pardon under

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the Great Seal. In other words, it wipes out the offence entirely. Clause 9 replaces an existing provision in Section 13 of the Criminal Law Act 1827 which is to the like effect and relates to pardon in the case of felony.
I know that it is not an answer to the noble Lord's case, because, unless he is too polite, he can tell me I am merely repeating what has been said for a great many years. But I thought it right I should emphasise that the use of the Great Seal or the alternative method proposed in Clause9 does have the effect of wiping out the offence entirely. The word "pardon", as the noble Lord has said, in modern everyday use means forgiveness for a wrong done, and it is therefore inappropriate in cases where the person concerned is altogether cleared of all blame. But in Clause 9 we are using the term "pardon" in its existing legal sense which extends to any wiping out of a conviction under the Prerogative of Mercy, and we suggest it would be inappropriate to amend the clause by the addition of the words "or exoneration", which would suggest that a pardon did not amount to exoneration, and "exoneration" had a legal meaning where none exists.
The point I am making is that a pardon does amount to exoneration and to add the word "exoneration" would imply that a pardon does not. Although I am aware of the force of the arguments put forward by the noble Lord and the meaning attributed to words, it is the case that a pardon granted under the Great Seal is taken and accepted as, and is in fact, a complete exoneration, a complete wiping out. Therefore, it would certainly be unnecessary, and we think would weaken the present position, if we added the words "or exoneration".
LORD AIREDALE: I am grateful to the Minister for having taken so much trouble over this and answering me so fully, and it may well be that this clause of this Bill is not the place in which to effect this piece of law reform. But I think the Minister has sympathy with the view that this piece of reform needs carrying out some time somewhere. I will of course withdraw this Amendment now, but in view of the thinness of the Committee at the present time I will not undertake not to put the Amendment
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down again on Report, because this is a matter which I feel should command the attention of noble Lords. However, the hour is late, and I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 9 agreed to.
Clauses 10 to 14 agreed to.
Schedule 1 [Lists of Offences falling, or not falling, within jurisdiction of quarter sessions]:
LORD STONHAM: This is a drafting Amendment which leaves out an unnecessary reference to Section 16 of the Malicious Damage Act 1861. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 10, line 6, leave out ("sections 16 and") and insert ("section").—(Lord Stonham.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD STONHAM: This Amendment is consequential. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 10, line 7, leave out ("crops and stacks") and insert ("stacks of corn etc.").—(Lord Stonham.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS moved to leave out from the offences excluded from jurisdiction of all courts of quarter sessions: "Bigamy and offences against the marriage laws". The noble Viscount said: This is another absurdity which I hope the noble Lord will help to clear up. In paragraph 76 of their Report the Committee talk about the jurisdiction of Quarter Sessions and they say that the Quarter Sessions Act 1842, will require amendment. They say:
"Moreover, the law as to the jurisdiction of quarter sessions is complicated, in particular by the fact that courts when presided over by legally qualified chairmen have wider jurisdiction than other courts, and has to be sought in a good many Acts in addition to the 1842 Act."—
How right they are!—
"It will therefore be convenient to restate the law completely in the Bill. This will make it easier to find out quickly whether an offence is within the jurisdiction of quarter sessions."
Let us see how easy and quick it is. Let us see whether bigamy is within the jurisdiction of quarter sessions or not, and let us see whether an attempt to

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commit an offence under Section 6 of the Sexual Offences Act 1956 is within the jurisdiction of quarter sessions or not. You start off with List A, Division II, in Schedule 1, and you find, under paragraph 6(a), that bigamy is within the jurisdiction of quarter sessions; and so, under paragraph 6(b), is an attempt under Section 6 of the 1956 Act. So you think "Good; jurisdiction in quarter sessions is there." Then, if you turn over the page and look at List B, you find included under the heading "Offences excluded (subject to List A) from jurisdiction of all courts of quarter sessions" bigamy and attempts to commit offences under Section 6 of the 1956 Act. There are others. I chose those two at random.
Is the situation this: that List A, Division I, contains a list of offences which can be tried by all courts of quarter sessions whether or not they have legally qualified chairmen; that List A, Division II, contains some offences which can be tried by quarter sessions with legally qualified chairmen or by assizes, and List B some offences which can be tried only by assizes? If that is so, ought we not for the sake of clarity to have four lists: first of all, the ones for quarter sessions without qualified chairmen; secondly, the ones for quarter sessions with qualified chairmen but not also triable by assizes; thirdly, offences triable either by assizes or quarter sessions with qualified chairmen; and fourthly, offences which can be tried only by assizes? If that were done, I think it would provide clarity and quickness and ease. But I feel that the particular method adopted does not add to the clarity of the law. I should be obliged to the noble Lord if he would confirm whether I have got it right, and secondly, whether we might not improve it. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 12, line 20, leave out line 20.—(Viscount Colville of Culross.)
LORD STONHAM: The noble Viscount is absolutely right. Under the existing law only quarter sessions with legally qualified chairmen have power to try these offences. Clause 8 and Schedule I are intended to preserve the existing law, and we achieve this only if the offences are included both in List A and in List B. If we took them out of List B (which I know the noble Viscount does
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not wish to do), it would have the effect of enabling all courts of quarter sessions to try the offences under Clause 8 of the Bill as it now stands, and that would be a change in the law for which there is no justification—or, if there is, it has not been advanced. We certainly think it would be undesirable to make changes in jurisdiction pending the work of the new Royal Commission on Assizes and Quarter Sessions.
We have reached the point where we are in complete agreement. I now come to the point as to what to do about it. The noble Viscount almost said that this was a bit of a mess; that they are in both lists, and you have to look at one and see whether it is in the other, and then make up your mind. I confess that I myself had no difficulty, but I am a layman and a simple kind of fellow, and perhaps would not have found the same difficulty as would the more erudite. I confess that I did not find the noble Viscount's other suggestion very attractive, but he put it rather quickly. May I leave it that I will read it tomorrow and let him know if I see any value in it? So far, at least, it seems to me that the way we suggest here, with a List A and a List B and with some appearing in both, is the better way to do it and it does not take very long to find out which is which.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: I am grateful to the noble Lord. My defence in this case is that it was someone who was a great deal more erudite than I who drew this to my attention and who was finding enormous difficulty in following it. I suggested four lists. I am sure that the OFFICIAL REPORT will have taken down the contents I suggested for each, and I should like to leave it to the noble Lord to consider. I beg leave at this stage to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
LORD STONHAM: I beg to move Amendment No. 42, which is a drafting Amendment to preserve the present rule of the Sexual Offences Act 1956, that an attempt to procure the commission by a man of an act of gross indecency with another man is triable by a court of quarter sessions with a legally qualified chairman but not by other courts of quarter sessions. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 12, line 25, at end insert ("and attempts to procure the commission by a man of an act of gross indecency with another man.").—(Lord Stonham.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD STONHAM: Amendment No. 43 is a drafting Amendment to preserve the present rule that endeavouring to conceal the birth of a child is triable by a court of quarter sessions with a legally qualified chairman, but not by other courts of quarter sessions. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 13, line 6, at end insert—
("( ) Offences against section 60 of the Offences Against the Person Act 1861 (1861 c. 100) (endeavouring to conceal birth of child).").—(Lord Stonham.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Schedule 1, as amended, agreed to.
Schedule 2 [Supplementary Amendments]:
9. Section 4 of the Forfeiture Act 1870 (which allows a court on a person's conviction for felony to award compensation not exceeding £100 for loss of property occasioned by the felony) shall have effect as if the references to felony included any offence tried on indictment, as if the reference to loss of property included damage to property, and as if the reference to £100 were a reference to £400; and section 34 of the Magistrates' Courts Act 1952 (which confers the same powers on a magistrates' court) shall have effect accordingly, but with the substitution for the word "felony" of the words "an indictable offence".
8.3 p.m.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS moved, in paragraph 9, after "£400" to insert
"and the words 'upon the application of any person aggrieved' shall cease to have effect."
The noble Viscount said: This is a suggestion which was put forward on Second Reading by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Morris of Borth-y-Gest. The limit up to which the court can give compensation upon the conviction of any person under Section 4 of the Forfeiture Act 1870 has been amended, but the noble and learned Lord pointed out that the court can award this sum in compensation only upon the application of a person aggrieved. He suggested that there might be cases where the person aggrieved was not there or did not know that he had to
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apply or did not know that he could apply, and that thereby this extremely condign penalty was not being used. This may well be so, because many a person pleads guilty at quarter sessions and all that happens is that the prosecution presents the facts of the case, the policeman and/or the probation officer is called to tell the court what is known about the prisoner, and no witnesses, let alone the person aggrieved, are there at all. In those circumstances, which are very common, there will be nobody to make application for the award of the compensation. But, the person is being convicted and that would be the time to do it.
There may be cases where a person ought to come and apply, but if one leaves out these words in the Act, that does not mean to say that the court will inevitably and always give an award under this section, even if somebody does not apply. I think they would have sufficient sense to choose the right occasion and to exercise their power accordingly. There seems to be a restriction here, and I should like to know whether the noble Lord thinks that it now could be removed.
Amendment moved—
Page 15, line 17, after ("£400") insert the said words.—(Viscount Colville of Culross.)
LORD STONHAM: I recall the noble and learned Lord, Lord Morris of Borth-y-Gest, raising this matter on Second Reading, and I am grateful to the noble Viscount for bringing it forward again. As he made clear, the argument for the Amendment is the requirement that the person aggrieved should have made an application and that that is an unnecessary obstacle to the exercise of the court power as it may be inconvenient for that person to be present or represented in court. In simple cases I agree that it might sometimes be an advantage to do away with the requirement, but on the whole it seems to us better that we should not do so.
First, the person aggrieved may be unwilling that the criminal court should decide, in his absence and without his being able to argue the question, whether he is entitled to compensation as a result of the offence and the amount of the compensation which should be awarded. These may be quite difficult questions. Secondly, an order by a criminal court may have repercussions on the right of

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the person aggrieved to take proceedings for damages for the wrong. Whether a person who accepted an order in his favour in the sense of acquiescing in it or accepting payment would be held to have waived his civil rights may be a difficult question. In any event, he might be embarrassed in the civil proceedings by a decision by the criminal court as to the amount of compensation which should be ordered. He might also be embarrassed, in a case where the loss or damage was caused by joint offenders, by a decision that each should pay part of the compensation. In civil proceedings all could be made liable for the whole amount, and the victim could enforce a judgment against any of them to the full amount, provided that he was not compensated twice over.
If the requirement that the person aggrieved should have made application were to be abolished, it would seem necessary or at least desirable to include a provision as to the effect of an order on the civil rights of the person aggrieved. We feel that this would complicate the Bill. It is true that the exercise of the power under Section 11(2) of the Criminal Justice Act 1948 to make an order, in conjunction with a probation order or a discharge, that the offender should pay damages or compensation for loss, does not require an application by the person aggrieved. But the law as to compensation in criminal cases is in need of review, and it seems better to defer the question of going beyond the amendments to the 1870 Act which the Bill proposes until this review is undertaken. I hope that the noble Viscount will feel that we have gone carefully into this matter and that the advice which I have given is correct.
LORD AIREDALE: I feel sure that if the noble and learned Lord, Lord Morris of Borth-y-Gest, were here the first question he would now ask would be: when may we expect that the promised review will be forthcoming? If it is going to be forthcoming and something is to be done in what we call "the near future", no doubt the noble and learned Lord, the Lord Chancellor, may be satisfied about it, but unless by the next stage of the Bill we can have something fairly forthcoming from the Minister as to the
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timetable for this promised review, I hope that this matter will be raised again.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: I have another idea, which might be a halfway house. The section says:
"It shall be lawful for any such court, if it shall think fit, upon the application of any person aggrieved, and immediately after the conviction of any person for felony, to make an award…".
I see the difficulty the noble Lord has pointed out about the prejudice to the person's rights, but why cannot we take out the words "and immediately after the conviction…? This could be done by Amendment at a later stage. If at the stage of the conviction, the court sent a notice, if it felt like it, to the person who it knew had been harmed by the crime, saying, "If you apply we will give attention to the idea of giving you certain compensation in this matter", and, at the same time as the conviction was being given to the accused, told him that they had this in mind, then there would be a stop-gap measure until this review comes along. The immediacy would not then remain in the law, and I think we might have something which is at any rate saisfactory for the moment and would not involve anything very fundamental in the way of change. Would the noble Lord look at that before the next stage of the Bill?
LORD STONHAM: Most certainly; I shall be very glad to do so. With regard to the point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Airedale—a very pertinent point—I assure him that the Government recognise the need to review the question of compensation in the context of a wider review of the question of reparation by offenders generally. My right honourable friend the Home Secretary has been giving urgent consideration to how such a review might best be undertaken, and he hopes very shortly to be in a position to make an announcement on the subject.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
LORD STONHAM: This Amendment is consequential on the provisions in the Bill relating to alternative verdicts. I will deploy the case if noble Lords wish it, but if not I will move the Amendment formally.
Amendment moved—
Page 17, line 3, at end insert—
("(2) For section 241(5) of the Road Traffic Act 1960 (which provides in effect that the requirements of section 241(2) as to notice of intended prosecution shall not prevent a person's conviction of reckless or dangerous driving under the provision made by section 2 of the Act for alternative convictions of that offence or other charges) there shall be substituted:—
'(5) Where a person is prosecuted on indictment for an offence to which this section does not apply, subsection (2) of this section shall not be taken to prejudice any power of the jury on the charge for that offence, if they find him not guilty of it, to find him guilty of an offence against subsection (1) of section 2 of this Act.' ").—(Lord Stonham.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
LORD STONHAM: This is a technical Amendment concerning the choice of court to try an indictable offence committed outside England and Wales. It is quite a complicated affair, which I know the noble Viscount, Lord Colville of Culross, and I fully understand. I hope, therefore, that he will agree if I move this Amendment also formally.
Amendment moved—
Page 17, line 23, leave out ("the United Kingdom"), and insert ("England and Wales").—(Lord Stonham.)
On Question, Amendment agreed to.
Schedule 2, as amended, agreed to.
Schedule 3 [Repeals (General)]:
Part I: Repeals of Obsolete or Unnecessary Enactments.
8.13 p.m.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS moved to delete from the enactments to be repealed: Chapter 25 of the Statute of Westminster the First. The noble Viscount said: I am now in danger of becoming extremely unpopular, but I hope that the Committee will bear with me. I shall be as quick as I can on this collection of Amendments in Schedule 3, but, believe me, your Lordships will not have, listening to me, a third of the tedium that I had going through these matters and trying to find out what was involved. So at least I can plead that as some sort of mitigation.
I did not know, when I put down Amendments 47, 48, 50 and 51 that the Law Commission were going to report last Tuesday. But they did, and I also gather,
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from paragraph 8 of their Report, that these repeals which relate to champerty and maintenance were put in Part I of this Schedule on their own recommendation. This now appears to be the case, and of course the whole matter now makes sense, in that the Commission have also published a draft clause which abolishes the Common Law offences of champerty, and maintenance as well. That being so, the matter has some completeness. Before that was done, of course, it was ridiculous to abolish the statutory provisions which set out these two ancient offences while at the same time leaving the Common Law offence untouched.
I should like to ask the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, this question. If at the Report stage I put down an Amendment to put into the Bill the first subsection of the draft clause now suggested by the Law Commission, so that we may complete the criminal part of the repeal of maintenance and champerty, will he be in a position to give some consideration to that course? If so, we may then be able to give rather rapid implementation to the Law Commission's views. It may be necessary to think a little about it, but an Amendment at that stage would at any rate give us the opportunity. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 17, line 34, leave out ("25").—(Viscount Colville of Culross.)
LORD STONHAM: The noble Viscount is referring to subsection (1)(a) in the draft clause of the Report of the Law Commission. The position, as he is aware, is that the Report was published only on Tuesday. We have not had time fully to consider the matter, but we are giving immediate and urgent consideration to this Report, and certainly have in mind the possibility of implementing it in this Bill. It would therefore be our hope that we could make progress. I am not in a position—I hope the noble Viscount will understand this—to make a firm commitment on this to-night, but I hope it will be possible to do what he asks so that the implementing of this Report, or such part of it as the Government are prepared to accept, does not have to await separate legislation.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: I am obliged to the noble Lord. If that is the way in which we can try to deal

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with maintenance and champerty, I shall be quite content. I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS moved to delete from the proposed repeals: Article 14 of the Great Charter, and the whole of the Acts of Statutum de Conspirator bus; Champerty and Maintenance. The noble Viscount said: I am afraid that I have to say a word on this, because although three of the ancient Statutes to which this repeal refers deal with maintenance and champerty, one of them does not and that is Chapter 14 of Magna Carta. It is all very well for people to try to clear up ancient and probably obsolete law, but, at any rate on the first occasion when this Bill is discussed in Committee, we ought to know why the Government want to repeal a part of Magna Carta.
It is a perfectly harmless part of Magna Carta. I do not suppose it has any effect whatsoever, because it deals with amercements, which are not the same, I understand, as fines, but were somewhat similar when they were available. Incidentally, it says that
"Earls and Barons shall not be amerced by their Peers and after the manner of their offence",
and I feel that this is a matter which your Lordships should take very seriously indeed. If the noble Lord wants to repeal Chapter 14 of Magna Carta, will he tell us why? I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 17, line 36, leave out from beginning to end of line 43.—(Viscount Colville of Culross.)
LORD STONHAM: I think the noble Viscount is quite right. It would have been wrong for two reasons not to discuss this matter thoroughly and have a full explanation; first, for the obvious one of history, which he mentioned; and, secondly, because I have a perfectly good explanation, which is this. As the noble Viscount is aware, this repeal is not directly connected with the abolition of felony, but derives from the general review of existing enactments about punishment and the possible impact on them of the provisions of the Bill. In addition to the provisions mentioned in the earlier part of Schedule 3, we have the one deal-
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ing generally with the power to fine a person convicted on indictment.
Article 14 of Magna Carta is wholly concerned with the now wholly obsolete penalty called "amercement". The term "amercement" was sometimes loosely used to cover any pecuniary penalty including a fine, but the Article deals only with amercements in the strict sense. This was a pecuniary penalty exacted in mediæval times, and later on a variety of occasions when a person was for one reason or another "in mercy". That is the derivation of the term.
Whereas a fine was always discretionary and imposed by the court (perhaps originally by way of commutation of the liability to imprisonment), an amercement was in general automatic, but the amount was or ought to have been assessed by a jury or its equivalent, as provided for by this Article of Magna Carta, reaffirming the Common Law. But I understand the Article soon came to be disregarded in the case of Peers, for whom there appears to have been a fixed tariff of £100 for an Earl and 100 marks for a Baron—though different authorities gave different tariffs. Amercements were the appropriate penalty for a number of usually trivial offences, mostly dealt with in local courts now obsolete, such as the sheriff's tourn, as well as for things that do not now rank as offences. For instance, an unsuccessful plaintiff in a civil action was "in mercy for his false claim": and, in view of the fixed tariff for Peers, Coke in his Note on this Article of Magna Carta recommends that when a nobleman is plaintiff it is policy rather to discontinue the action than to be non-suited.
This, of course, is now of historical interest only, since amercements have entirely disappeared out of the law; and though the provisions of this Article of Magna Carta (that an amercement should be proportionate to the fault, and should leave a freeman with his freehold, a merchant with his merchandise and a villain with his wainage; and the amercement on a clergyman be based on his lay property and not on his ecclesiastical property) were no doubt wholesome in their time, it is pointless to keep them on the Statute Book as operative law. For that reason, we propose to delete Article 14.
LORD AIREDALE: May I ask the Minister just this question? What does he suppose the British people would say if his noble friend Lord Shackleton were to come before Parliament with a proposal to scrap Nelson's flagship on the ground that it is not a very satisfactory warship at the present time?
LORD STONHAM: I think they would be very annoyed and would defeat it; but, then, Nelson's flagship is a working model. This section of Magna Carta is not.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: I think we should consider the weighty words uttered by the noble Lord. It occurs to me that we have got on extremely well for a very long time with Article 14 of Magna Carta, and I really do not see why we should not go on getting on very well with it. I would suggest that the Home Office should have a heart and should leave out this repeal, because I honestly believe this is the sort of thing which really does not make any difference one way or the other. However, I will consider it, and I might put the Amendment down again. Meanwhile, I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
8.42 p.m.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS moved to leave out The Statute of Northampton. The noble Viscount said: This is a matter of another incredibly ancient Act, called the Statute of Northampton. The only reason I raise it is that, ancient though it may be, it was used in 1903 to effect the conviction of a gentleman who had had rather too much to drink in Bangor and went around the streets letting off a revolver to the peril of the populace. It appears that there was nothing else with which they could charge him, so they went back to the Statute of Northampton of 1328 and convicted him or riding in the street armed to the peril of the population. His counsel could say nothing in his defence except that it was a very old Statute; but, again, it shows the efficacy of these Statutes. I should like to know whether the noble Lord is perfectly satisfied that there is still not some life in it yet before we finally repeal it. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 17, line 44, leave out from beginning to end of line 45.—(Viscount Colville of Culross.)
LORD STONHAM: As the noble Viscount is aware, the Criminal Law Revision Committee looked at a number of ancient Statutes, and, as he will know—in fact his next following Amendment deals with it—they decided it would be advisable to repeal the Riot Act of 1714. Equally they saw no more reason to continue the Statute of Northampton, which, as I think the noble Viscount said, dates from 1328. As he said, though the case he mentioned was not quite that of a man riding about on the cobbles in armour, this Act makes it an offence punishable with life imprisonment to wear armour or display force except in the areas and at the times appointed for holding tournaments—that is, the medieval equivalent of military manæuvres. This proposed repeal is in part connected with the general consideration of the Statute Law about riots, but it also derives in part, like the repeals dealing with champerty and maintenance, from the effect on existing statutory misdemeanours of the provisions of the Bill about arrest in Clause 2, maximum punishment in subsection (1) of Clause 7 and jurisdiction of quarter sessions in subsection (1) of Clause 8.
The Act was used as recently as 1903—I thought that was a delightful touch, because 1903 was the year in which I was born, and to hear the year in which I was born now referred to as being recent gives me some pleasure—when it was decided to prosecute a man for firing a revolver in the street; but he was also charged and convicted, in respect of that same conduct, of an offence at Common Law; and the carrying of firearms and other weapons, of course, is now dealt with by more recent Acts. The Statute of Northampton can only be used for any modern purpose by stretching its terms, and then only for mischiefs that are covered by other provisions of the law. For that reason, we thought there was no case at all for retaining it.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: I am much obliged to the noble Lord. That is, I think, a very satisfactory explanation; but he will agree that when these old Statutes are revived and appear

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to be the only way of dealing with a matter then it is certainly worth while making quite sure they are redundant. I am grateful to him for his explanation. I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS moved in Part I to delete "The Treason Act 1543". The noble Viscount said: This is an important matter, I think, and it relates to the Treason Act 1543. Surprisingly enough, treason, when it is corn-mined overseas, is still tried under the Treason Act 1351. That was so in the cases of Lynch, Casement and Joyce. But the important matter is that in the report of the Casement trial (or, rather, in one of the appeals in that case)—and, whatever one may think of the case, that is not the point here—in Volume 1 of King's Bench Reports 1917, I found what the Attorney General and the Solicitor General said about the Treason Act 1543. They said that, according to the old authorities, until that Act was passed there was great doubt as to how and where high treason committed overseas could be tried, and that it was not until that Act was passed that the matter was clarified. I was more alarmed still to find that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Reading, the then Lord Chief Justice, said in his Judgment:
"It is by virtue of this Act",
and other Statutes that followed it,
"that this court has jurisdiction in the matter".
Now, it is all very well to repeal the Treason Act 1543, but are we certain that the Bill replaces it with something that gives the court jurisdiction? There is a provision in the Bill about treason which comes at the end, but it deals with procedure only and not with venue; and, as I understand it, what the court was saying was that the Treason Act 1543 gave jurisdiction as to venue. I should like an explanation of this point, because I believe that, rare though these dreadful cases are, we must be perfectly certain that the law is properly equipped to deal with them and that we are not repealing something which is essential to the whole of cur process. I beg to move
Amendment moved—
Page 18, line 24, leave out line 24.—(Viscount Colville of Culross.)
LORD STONHAM: I agree that this is an important matter which should be discussed, and again I recall that this is a matter which the noble Viscount referred to on Second Reading, when he mentioned the Lynch case. Of course, until 1925 we had to rely on the Treason Act; it was used in such cases. But Section 11 of the Criminal Justice Act 1925 gave us the general provision that a person charged with any indictable offence may be proceeded against, indicted, tried and punished in any county or place in which he has been apprehended or is in custody on a charge for the offence or has appeared in answer to a summons for the offence.
Many Acts besides the Treason Act 1543 deal with the trial of offences committed outside the country. They are mainly concerned with offences committed on the high seas but also with offences on land by persons in Crown Service, murder by British subjects, and other cases. They came under consideration in connection with the Bill because many are in terms of felony; and because of special difficulties in connection with piracy, which is often referred to as if it were a class of offence distinct from felonies or misdemeanours. It is all bound up with the question of whether offences committed within the jurisdiction of the Admiralty and originally triable according to the rules of the Civil Law and not the rules of the Common Law could, properly speaking, be felonies at all, a felony being a concept of the Common Law.
These difficulties are no longer material for any purpose, but they are reflected in the language of the old Acts. They make it virtually impossible to tidy them up. Unless, therefore, they are still genuinely needed, in our view the right course is to get rid of them. Any Act making things done abroad criminal under our law must be kept; but, since the passing of the Criminal Justice Act 1925, the Acts dealing specially with the place and manner of trial of these offences, beginning with the Admiralty Jurisdiction Act 1391 and including the Treason Act 1543, have had no substantial effect.
Such effect as they have is reproduced in subsection (2) of paragraph 15 of Schedule 2 to the Bill. As a result of

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this, some dozen Acts or more can be repealed in whole or part, instead of their having to be laboriously amended in a way which, for the reasons I have given, will be difficult if not impossible. I do not say that there is any special need to repeal the Treason Act; but equally there is no need to keep it. To make it the one exception from the general rule of the repeal of old Acts dealing with the trial of offences committed abroad would be pointless and would lead to confusion.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: It is a little alarming when one finds in the most up-to-date versions of Archbold that this is the Act which regulates all the procedure in treason trials when these acts were committed overseas and that this is going to be repealed. I should like to study what the noble Lord has said, particularly his complicated reference to Schedule 2 which I cannot take in at speed. For the moment, therefore, I beg leave to withdraw my Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS moved to delete from the enactments repealed The Prison (Escape) Act 1742. The noble Viscount said: I beg to move Amendment No. 53. This goes back to the point I was making earlier about Common Law offences. The reference here is to the Prison (Escape) Act 1742. Section 3 provides that it is an offence for any person to aid or assist any prisoner to attempt to make his escape from the custody of any constable or anybody else who has lawful charge of him in order to carry him off to gaol—in other words, for somebody to try to rescue a prisoner on his way to prison. There is another offence which is created by the Prison Act 1952, Section 39, as amended by the Criminal Justice Act of 1961 in the Fourth Schedule, about assisting somebody to escape, but I think that is only an escape from prison and not on the way there. If I am right about that, there is going to be repealed one of the statutory offences which would be, I think, either that of an accessory to an escape or something of that nature. I think we should then be left with the Common Law offence only. If that were so, then whereas the 1742 Act made a felony of this offence subject to seven
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years' imprisonment, we shall now have to deal with such cases by Common Law.
The effect of subsection (1) of Clause 2 will be that this will cease to be an arrestable offence and there will therefore no longer be any possibility of charging anybody under Clause 4 with being what was previously an accessory to this felony. This is one of the two or three most important cases where we are doing away with what previously was available to the police in the form of charging people with being accessories after the fact of felony. I want to know that the noble Lord and his Department have fully discussed this matter and are absolutely certain that in doing away with the statutory offence, which carried more than five years' imprisonment, they are not depriving the police of powers to deal with accessories under Clause 4; because this is the important matter I want to raise on this and a few other cases later on. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 18, line 56, leave out from beginning to end of line 57.—(Viscount Colville of Culross.)
LORD STONHAM: I confess I have not viewed this with anything like the seriousness which the noble Viscount attaches to it. I will certainly look carefully at what he has said. Section 3 of the 1742 Act is the only operative section now in force; it makes it a felony, punishable by seven years' imprisonment, to help a prisoner unsuccessfully attempting to escape when taken to gaol on a warrant of commitment for treason or felony. Apart from the 1742 Act, aiding and abetting an unsuccessful escape in these circumstances would be a Common Law misdemeanour, as I believe the noble Viscount appreciates. I am quite sure that the original purpose of the Act was to secure a sentence of transportation; but this has now become converted into a sentence of imprisonment.
In our view, the Act—or the section of it which still is left—is pointless and will become even more so with the abolition of felony, particularly if it were left to apply only to aiding unsuccessful escapes by those committed on a charge of treason. This is another of the cases where the Criminal Law Revision Committee preferred outright repeal of what they regarded as an unnecessary enactment rather than its adaptation to make

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it fit the abolition of felony. Having said that, and having been advised that that is right, I will certainly read what the noble Viscount has said to see if we can take that view and to see if it is necessary to do anything. If not, I will tell him so.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: I think there is a point here because, if I may say so, the matter with which the noble Lord was, I think, supplied as an answer to this Amendment does not in any way cover the point I was making. At the moment, I believe that the public are worried about escapes from prison and attempts to get people out of custody. Here we have what will, if left alone, be an arrestable offence; and, because of one of the provisions at the end of the Bill, it will not apply just to treason because felonies are converted to offences by an amendment by this to this Bill. There it would be; and there would be the possibility of getting accessories under it, which will not otherwise obtain if we simply leave it to Common Law. I believe that this point may have been overlooked. I should be grateful if the noble Lord would consider it. Meanwhile, I beg leave to withdraw my Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
8.40 p.m.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: This Amendment, to delete the repeal of what remains of the Rescue Act 1821, is on the same point, but in this case I think it is worse, because we are here dealing with rescue. The repeal proposed includes Section 1 of the Rescue Act 1821. That again, although it is a most unsatisfactory section, provides in some circumstances for a term of imprisonment for somebody who tries to rescue, or does rescue, a prisoner from prison, and a term which would in fact result in the need for an arrestable offence. If we repeal this, we have only the Common Law on which to fall back, so again it would no the possible to charge anybody with being an accessory after the fact of what is now a felony under this Act, because a Common Law offence would not be an arrestable offence. Clause 4 will not apply. I believe this to be another important matter which should be considered as a matter of policy, and I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 19, line 37, leave out from beginning to end of line 38.—(Viscount Colville of Calross.)
LORD STONHAM: Again, and even more on this occasion, my advice is quite other than that of the noble Viscount, Lord Colville of Culross. Section 1 of the Rescue Act (although I understand it is still referred to in some textbooks) has been inoperative since 1827. When it was operative it provided for a penalty of seven years' transportation for people guilty of rescuing from custody a person charged with, or committed for, felony.
As I understand it, the section had effect only where the rescuer, on being convicted of felony for the rescue, was entitled to benefit of clergy and therefore liable only to a year's imprisonment which could, under the Act of Elizabeth, be imposed on felons claiming the benefit of clergy. This was abolished generally in 1827 and the Act was repealed at the same time. Since then Section 1 of the Rescue Act of 1821 could not operate, except perhaps where the rescuer was a Peer. It is possible that Peers remained entitled to the benefit of clergy, at least for some purposes, as late as the year 1841. They were then deprived of it by the Felony Act 1841. So, unless my information is wrong, this section has been dead for virtually 140 years, and there would be no case against its repeal. I will certainly look at what the noble Viscount has said and let him know if I find that I am wrong.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: I thank the noble Lord. If he looks at the latest edition of Archbold, paragraphs 3443 and 3444, he will find the Statute set out there, and although I have the greatest confidence in the information given to the noble Lord, I also have confidence in the editors of that most notable book. If they say that under the heading of "Rescue" there are only this Act and the Common Law, I am inclined to pay some attention to it and think that the matter ought to be checked again. I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: This Amendment, to delete the repeal of Section 61 of the Juries Act 1825, goes with Amendment No. 57 and concerns the offence of embracery, which has been put

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in statutory form by Section 61 of the Juries Act 1825. It is intended to repeal the whole thing and leave it to the Common Law. This has a strange effect, because if the Juries Act were to remain in force another provision of this Bill would have the effect (since there is no set penalty for this offence in the Act) of imposing a penalty with a maximum of two years. If the offence under this Act is repealed, it reverts to Common Law and there is no limit whatever on the penalty. I do not know whether there is any great merit in having a penalty of more than two years, but at any rate that is the effect of the law as it now is under the Statute and under the Bill; and, so far as I know, the only reason why the repeal was included was because of the reference to criminal information which I propose to leave out by my Amendment No. 57. This is a matter which again I believe the Law Commission are going to look at, as they say in their latest Report. Would it not be better to take out this repeal and leave it for another occasion when the Law Commission have considered it? We could deal then with embracery as a whole. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 19, line 39, leave out line 39.—(Viscount Colville of Culross.)
LORD STONHAM: The noble Viscount is, I am sure, aware that his proposal would be out of keeping with the general line taken by the Committee at page 57 of their Report. They prefer to recommend a straight repeal, rather than an adaptation under the enactment, which in their view was unnecessary; and the reason why the Bill put forward by the Criminal Law Committee did nothing about Section 61 of the Juries Act 1825 is that the reference in it to criminal information was not drawn to their attention. The reference came to light in connection with the Law Commission's proposals to which effect is given by Part II of the Bill to repeal Section 3 of the Maintenance and Embracery Act 1540, both sections being concerned with the offence of embracery or the corruption of jurors.
But whereas Section 3 of the 1540 Act creates an offence which is not triable summarily, Section 61 of the 1825 Act is a mere saving for the prosecution of embracery at Common Law. This saving
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can have been wanted in the 1825 Act only out of an abundance of caution to make it clear that the Common Law offence was unaffected by the abolition in Section 60 of that Act of the old writ of attaint against jurors for the giving of a false verdict. The saving, strictly speaking, was always unnecessary, and in our view has become doubly pointless since the repeal of Section 60 of the Statute Law Revision Act in 1888. For the present Bill to make a partial repeal of Section 61 of the 1825 Act would suggest that this Parliament still thought that Section 61 had some value. In our view the only possible procedure is to repeal the section outright.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: It will, as I say, have the effect of taking off any limit of penalty; and so long as the noble Lord is satisfied with that situation, so be it. I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Schedule 3: Part III [Other General Repeals]:
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: This is the last Amendment I propose to move. It relates to the proposed repeal of the Riot Act 1714. Here, again, is one of those cases where we are proposing to repeal the only statutory offence dealing with this matter. The Riot Act lays down a penalty of life imprisonment, I believe as it now is, after amendments of the law. Therefore, as it stands it would be an arrestable offence under the provisions of Clause 2(1). Accordingly, if there is a riot and people assist the rioters afterwards, they could be accessories and charged as such. If this Act is repealed, we shall be left with the Common Law and there cannot be accessories, because under Common Law it is not an arrestable offence. This is another case which I hope the noble Lord will look at and make sure that it is satisfactory. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 22, line 18, leave out from beginning to end of line 19.—(Viscount Colville of Culross.)
LORD STONHAM: The noble Viscount mentioned this Act earlier when we were discussing another Amendment. Our view is that we have taken the right decision. The Riot Act makes it a felony,

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as the noble Viscount said, punishable by life imprisonment, for twelve or more persons to remain tumultuously assembled for an hour after the reading of the statutory proclamation under the Act—popularly called "Reading the Riot Act". Those who are guilty of an offence under this Act are already guilty, before the reading of the proclamation and before the expiration of the following hour, of a Common Law misdemeanour carrying the same maximum punishment. The only effect of preserving the Act is to preserve two identical offences, of which one can and the other—the offence under the Riot Act—cannot he prosecuted at quarter sessions, because it carries a statutory punishment of life imprisonment. The Act includes a provision to require everyone to assist in dispersing a riot and to indemnify those called upon to do so for injury caused by the use of force for the purpose.
This provision has proved more embarrassing than otherwise, since it only reproduces the Common Law, which led to the belief that steps cannot be taken to disperse a riot before the reading of the Riot Act. It is not thought that the Act is ever relied upon these days, but it places an obligation on justices of the peace, sheriffs and mayors to read the Riot Act whenever there is occasion to do so, and in theory they can be prosecuted for neglecting this obligation. Indeed, the Lord Mayor of London was prosecuted in 1781 for failing to read the Riot Act at the time of the Gordon Riots. The fact is that the Act ceased to be wanted with the establishment of modern police forces, and it has become doubly pointless with the abolition of felony. However affectionate and historical a regard we may have for the Riot Act, it has no point to-day and in our view serves no useful purpose. We should prefer it to remain a memory and that the only person to "read the Riot Act" would be a wrathful wife to a recalcitrant husband.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: I hear the Chief Whip murmuring that it should go into Standing Orders instead—that might be very suitable. I think the noble Lord has made one mistake. He suggested that the Common Law offence
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carries a penalty similar to that imposed by Statute. My information is that the Common Law offence carries only a penalty of an unlimited fine or imprisonment, and therefore it would not be an arrestable offence, as it would if the penalty had been life imprisonment. Therefore I think that what I am saying about accessories applies; and whatever other considerations may apply I think that we ought to look at it on the basis of whether we ought not to retain the offence in order to keep its arrestable character, so as to be able to deal, if necessary, with accessories afterwards. If the noble Lord would look at it again, I should be much obliged.
LORD STONHAM: I will look at it again, though it is unlikely that I will change my mind. I think the noble Viscount understandably misunderstood something I said. What I said was that those guilty of an offence under the Act are already guilty, before the reading of the proclamation and before the expiration of the following hour, of a Common Law misdemeanour, carrying the same maximum punishment. I think he interpreted that as punishable with life imprisonment. I was referring to the Riot Act and the subsequent Common Law misdemeanour.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: This is another complicated matter and I should like to study it again. Could I say at this stage how grateful I am to the noble Lord for his half of our dialogue for the last hour or so? He has been most helpful in clearing up these extremely obscure matters, and I am sure that I and anybody else interested in the Bill will be grateful for his assistance on it. I beg leave to withdraw my Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
On Question, Whether Schedule 3 shall be agreed to?
LORD AIREDALE: The noble Viscount has gone through this Schedule with a fine tooth comb, and if there are to be no fruits of his labour when we come to Report, then the Home Office will have done their whole work magnificently. But I have a puckish,

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secret hope that Homer will be found to have nodded just once or twice.
On Question, Schedule 3 agreed to. Schedule 4 agreed to.
House resumed. Bill reported with Amendments.

LAND REGISTRATION BILL [H.L.]
Returned from the Commons, agreed to, with an Amendment: the said Amendment considered, and agreed to.
BRIGHTON CORPORATION BILL
Reported from the Select Committee, with Amendments.

HOVE CORPORATION BILL
Reported from the Select Committee, with Amendments.
House adjourned at four minutes before nine o'clock