Sitting of 29 November 1972

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

    Postmen (Medical Retirement)
    Mr. Ewingasked the Minister of Posts and Telecommunications how many postmen have been retired on medical grounds in the last two years; and what was the average age of those retired.
    The Minister of Posts and Telecommunications (Sir John Eden): The Post Office tells me that in the two years ended on 31st March, 1972, 1,231 postmen were retired on medical grounds. The average age was 48·4 years.
    Mr. Ewing: Is the Minister aware that I am absolutely staggered by these figures? Does he agree that this is a serious problem? Will he further agree to set up a medical inquiry to investigate the causes of postmen retiring at such an early age? Surely this situation requires further investigation?
    Sir J. Eden: I do not minimise the seriousness of this matter, but it does represent 0·7 per cent. of the total postmen staff. There are special arrangements in the Post Office, which has its own occupational health service. It is conducting an investigation into some of these matters in conjunction with Guy's Hospital.
    Mr. Ewingasked the Minister of Posts and Telecommunications what medical condition was the cause of the largest number of medical retirements among postmen in the last two years.
    Sir J. Eden: The Post Office tells me that diseases of the bones and back and muscular troubles were the major causes of retirement.
    Mr. Ewing: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that evidence is now emerging to the effect that heart conditions and bronchitis as a result of work in the new mechanised sorting office are a further major element in the discharge of postmen at an early age? If this proves to be the case in the study now being conducted by Guy's Hospital, will the Minister ensure that interim measures are taken to do something about those two diseases?
    Sir J. Eden: The study, in conjunction with experts from Guy's Hospital, is being conducted into the widespread incidence of low back pain among postal workers. However, the hon. Gentleman is right in saying that coronary disease and angina are involved. Mental, psycho-neurotic and personality disorders and bronchitis are other major causes.
    Mr. Simon Mahon: Does the right hon. Gentleman appreciate the concern that is felt when 10 per cent. of the labour force is affected in this way? Will he ask the Post Office how many of these men, as well as being affected by their industrial work and activity, have served their country in peace and in war?
    Sir J. Eden: I am sure that a substantial proportion of them will fall into that last category. These are people to whom traditions of service seem to come very naturally. No one can be complacent about the situation and, as I hope is clear from my replies, the whole matter is now being examined very seriously.

    British Broadcasting Corporation (Chairman)
    Mr. William Hamiltonasked the Minister of Posts and Telecommunications what salary he intends to offer to the new Chairman of the British Broadcasting Corporation when he or she is appointed.
    Mr. Stratton Millsasked the Minister of Posts and Telecommunications when he expects to announce the appointment of a new Chairman of the British Broadcasting Corporation.
    Mr. Ashtonasked the Minister of Posts and Telecommunications when he

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    expects to announce the name of the new Chairman of the British Broadcasting Corporation.
    Mr. Arthur Lewisasked the Minister of Posts and Telecommunications whether he will now announce the name of the new Chairman of the British Broadcasting Corporation and give an assurance that in accordance with the Government's policy on the incomes freeze the salary paid will not be more than the present incumbent's £6,000 per annum.
    Sir J. Eden: The new chairman will be announced as soon as the choice has been made. I confirm that the standstill on incomes will apply in this case.
    Mr. Hamilton: Will the Minister give us some idea about the degree of urgency which he attaches to this problem? Is he aware that it is getting extremely near to the point where Lord Hill will be saying "Enough is enough"? Will he give an assurance that he is seriously considering the possibility of making this job a full-time rather than part-time appointment? Is there any reason why it should not be publicly advertised, rather than be subject to the patronage of the right hon. Gentleman or, worse still, of the Prime Minister?
    Sir J. Eden: We are not hanging about on this. The terms of the new appointment, when it is made, will be made clear.
    Mr. Stratton Mills: Is this not a matter of great urgency, since Lord Hill is retiring on 31st December and hon. Members have been asking questions about the appointment of a successor for the past eight months? Will my right hon. Friend bear in mind the importance of having a new mould of chairman—one who will see his role as being, in particular, to look after the public interest?
    Sir J. Eden: I agree that there is not a great deal of time left before the present chairman's retirement comes into effect. The nature of the job to be carried out by the new chairman will be evident at the time the appointment is announced.
    Mr. Arthur Lewis: I am pleased to hear that the salary is to be kept at the frozen level. Why has it taken so long to fill this appointment? Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that I could make
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    101 wonderful nominations, including that of my hon. Friend the Member for Fife, West (Mr. William Hamilton)? Why go on like this when there are plenty of people around?
    Sir J. Eden: I am sorry that I did not have the hon. Gentleman's helpful suggestion a little earlier.
    Sir R. Cary: Is it not sometimes customary for a vice-chairman to take over the responsibilities of a retiring chairman, particularly if the vice-chairman is a most competent and agreeable person?
    Sir J. Eden: As a general observation I am sure that that is quite right.
    Mr. Hugh Jenkins: Is it not the case that in the event that there is some further delay over the appointment of a new chairman there is no cause for concern or alarm? Does the right hon. Gentleman not agree that, as has been suggested, the vice-chairman could take over temporarily? Might this not give the director-general the chance of asserting his authority instead of being overpowered by an active chairman?
    Sir J. Eden: I do not think that this affects the position of the Director-General at all. This question is concerned with the new chairman.
    Mr. Gregor Mackenzie: Is the Minister aware that my hon. Friends and I feel that it is not good enough to have delayed this appointment for so long? Is he aware that we believe it is neither fair to the person who will be appointed nor to the BBC, since the new chairman will have have only a short time to work with the old chairman, until the end of December? Is the hon. Gentleman further aware that we believe he ought to have made the appointment some time ago, and that we are sure that there are plenty of competent people able to do the job?
    Sir J. Eden: I have no doubt about the last point. On the whole I agree about the importance of this question.

    USSR (Telephone Communications)
    Mr. Greville Jannerasked the Minister of Posts and Telecommunications whether he will now make representations to the Russian authorities concerning the disruption of telephone

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    communications between subscribers in the United Kingdom and Jewish scholars and scientists in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.
    Sir J. Eden: I understand the hon. and learned Gentleman's anxiety but I cannot add to my answers to his similar Questions on 10th May, 7th June and 9th August.—[Vol. 836, c. 1292; Vol. 838, c. 440; Vol. 842, c. 1700.]
    Mr. Janner: I appreciate that the Minister has great difficulties in this matter, but is he aware that there is a continual process of harassment and cutting-off of subscribers in the Soviet Union, so that people in this country cannot get through to them and our patient and excellent operators on the Continental exchange are put to entirely unnecessary difficulty and aggravation? Therefore, if evidence is provided to the right hon. Gentleman, will he consider how this matter might be approached in a different way?
    Sir J. Eden: In answer to previous Questions from the hon. and learned Gentleman I have encouraged him to produce as much detailed evidence as he can for the purposes of the Post Office. I should be grateful if he would proceed in that way.

    Future of Broadcasting
    Mr. Hugh Jenkinsasked the Minister of Posts and Telecommunications whether, having regard to the fact that the ownership of commercial television and radio and local and national newspapers is falling into a few hands and to the recommendations of the Prices and Incomes Board in this respect, he will give an assurance that any forthcoming survey of the future of broadcasting will have terms of reference covering the whole field of communications.
    Sir J. Eden: I prefer not to anticipate the terms of reference of any such survey.
    Mr. Jenkins: Will the Minister bear in mind that the Prices and Incomes Board's Report, Cmnd. 3435 of 1967, made a specific recommendation that it was high time that the communications of this country were considered as a whole? In making that recommendation it was thinking not only of radio and television but of the national Press.
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    Would it not be appropriate that the communications media should, for the first time, be considered as a whole in their relationship to each other, particularly as those relationships are now getting very close?
    Sir J. Eden: That is an extremely interesting suggestion, but the hon. Gentleman will recognise that it would take us very much wider than had been contemplated hitherto in the context of a survey.
    Mr. Whiteheadasked the Minister of Posts and Telecommunications if he will now announce his decision concerning the appointment of a committee of inquiry into the future of broadcasting after 1976.
    Mr. Russell Kerrasked the Minister of Posts and Telecommunications what representations he has now received to implement the recommendation in the Report of the Select Committee on Nationalised Industries, which investigated the Independent Broadcasting Authority, that there should be an urgent inquiry into the future of broadcasting.
    Sir J. Eden: I have nothing to add to the reply I gave on 8th November to the hon. Member for Derby, North (Mr. Whitehead) and others.—[Vol. 845, c. 977–8.]
    Mr. Whitehead: Is the Minister aware that that is an amazingly unsatisfactory answer? Will he give the House one reason for this continuing delay, over and above his own inability to make up his mind and what appears to be the inadequacy of his staff to brief him on the strength of public feeling on this issue?
    Sir J. Eden: As the hon. Gentleman will know, the Select Committee has recently issued its report. This is an extremely important report, which merits careful study. Although I am very much alive to the wishes of the House that a considered reply should not be unnecessarily delayed, I must take account of the important recommendations in that report.
    Mr. Robert Cooke: My right hon. Friend will be considering the question of the personnel of any committee of

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    inquiry, but he will realise that the question of its terms of reference is equally if not more important. I am sure that he has this very much in mind.
    Sir J. Eden: Yes. My hon. Friend will recollect that earlier this afternoon there was a Question on the terms of reference.
    Mr. Gregor Mackenzie: Does the Minister recollect that at last Post Office Question Time I asked him specifically, in relation to the inquiry, whether the charter for the BBC and the renewal of contracts for the companies operating under the IBA would come up for renewal in 1976 and would not be delayed. The Minister was not able to answer me then. Perhaps he will answer me today.
    Sir J. Eden: They come to an end in the normal course of events in 1976, and clearly something will have to be done by that time.
    Mr. Kerr: Can the Minister indicate whether we are to get an answer on this tremendously important matter before Christmas?
    Sir J. Eden: I agree that this matter is extremely important, and I well understand the interests of all hon. Members and their wish to have specific and clear-cut answers to these questions. I will do my best to ensure that this is done as quickly as possible.

    Telephones
    Mr. R. C. Mitchellasked the Minister of Posts and Telecommunications if he will give a general direction to the Post Office not to connect or reconnect telephones to properties occupied by illegal squatters.
    Sir J. Eden: No, Sir. A matter of this kind must be left to the Post Office.
    Mr. Mitchell: When the Post Office is asked to connect or reconnect a telephone, what precautions does it take to ensure that the person making the request is the legal owner-occupier or tenant of the premises?
    Sir J. Eden: The Post Office does not normally inquire into the circumstances of a person applying for a telephone: I do not think it would be right that it should do so. But if it were made clear
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    to it that the person occupying the property was occupying it illegally, it would make a point of consulting the legal owner about the provision of a telephone.
    Mr. Robert Cooke: Surely the Post Office inquires into the creditworthiness of some potential subscribers, even if it does not inquire into the legality of their occupation of the premises. Will my right hon. Friend comment on that?
    Sir J. Eden: The Post Office places considerable emphasis on the need to protect its revenues.
    Mr. Loveridgeasked the Minister of Posts and Telecommunications what changes in the waiting times for new telephone installations there have been over the past three years.
    Mr. Jesselasked the Minister of Posts and Telecommunications what is the latest figure for the average waiting time for the installation of telephones.
    Sir J. Eden: The Post Office tells me that the 20 per cent. of applicants who are placed on the waiting list for telephones have to wait, on average, just over five months. This time has not changed significantly over the last three years.
    Mr. Loveridge: I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for that answer. Is he aware that the report of the Post Office National Users' Council said that supply and demand were clearly out of step over the matter of telephones? As this is at a time when the telecommunications services are due to get £4,000 million of extra capital over the next five years, may I ask how long it will take to cut the average waiting time by half?
    Sir J. Eden: The reason for delay is not so much that there is a shortage of telephones as that there have been delays in the provision of exchange equipment and of buildings to house it. This is being energetically tackled by the Post Office, by industry, and by my Department. I hope that we shall be seeing increasing improvements in the coming months.
    Dr. Miller: Will the Minister confirm or deny that in some areas there is a reprehensible practice in respect of payment for the installation of a telephone, in

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    that some people are asked to make the payment in advance—sometimes as much as three or several months in advance—and others have the telephone installed before a bill is sent to them? This practice bears most heavily on working people, who may need a telephone just as much as middle-class people.
    Sir J. Eden: That is a matter for the corporation.
    Rev. Ian Paisley: What are the figures in regard to the installation of telephones in Northern Ireland? What priority is the Post Office giving to Northern Ireland for the many telephone subscribers who have been cut off because of terrorist activity? Is the priority to get them back on to the telephone system or to install new telephones?
    Sir J. Eden: I cannot answer the hon. Gentleman's question without notice, but I will certain inquire into the position as he has brought it to my attention.
    Mr. Edwin Wainwright: Is not a waiting period of even five months far too long? Something needs to be done quickly to reduce that period? Is the Minister aware that in the Dearne Valley constituency there is a long waiting list, especially in the Mexborough district, where at present no hope is held out that applicants can have telephones in two or three months?
    Sir J. Eden: Yes; I am aware that some areas are worse than others. Special steps are being taken by the Post Office, in direct consultation with industry—and by myself and my Department, in consultation with industry and the Post Office—to identify the black areas and speed up the delivery of equipment.

    Concessionary Television Licences
    Mr. O'Halloranasked the Minister of Posts and Telecommunications whether he will seek to meet representatives of the National Federation of Old Age Pensioners Associations as part of his examination of the question of concessionary television licences.
    Sir J. Eden: The views of the federation on the question of concessionary television licences for retirement pensioners are already well known to me.
    Mr. O'Halloran: In view of the injustices which still exist in our society, is the Minister aware of the desirability of granting concessionary television licences to pensioners in receipt of supplementary benefits?
    Sir J. Eden: I understand the hon. Gentleman's point. As he knows, I have said on a previous occasion that I am looking into the whole of this question.
    Sir G. Nabarro: Will my right hon. Friend concede that he and his predecessor have both given us the somewhat trite reply that the matter is being considered? Has it not been considered for the last 10 years and been found wanting with a large majority of hon. Members? Cannot he expedite the processes and listen once again to the old-age pensioners' recognised organisations?
    Sir J. Eden: I cannot speak about what has happened in the last 10 years in this connection. I have been in my present position only since April this year, and I am bringing a fresh mind to inquire into the problem.
    Mr. Lipton: At the beginning of this Session I presented a petition signed by 22,000 old-age pensioners in favour of concessionary rates. Has the Minister taken any notice of it?
    Sir J. Eden: I am sure that if any old-age pensioner—or any other person, for that matter—were asked if he was in favour of having something for nothing, the answer would be "Yes".
    Mr. Gregor Mackenzie: Has the Minister's attention been drawn to the fact that one of his hon. Friends intended to present a Private Member's Bill which would deal with this subject? It is reported in the newspapers this morning that the Government have decided to block the Bill and to refuse it a Second Reading. The Bill would have presented a useful opportunity to air an important problem which we want to discuss in the House. The Minister is doing all of us less than justice by not allowing us the opportunity.
    Sir J. Eden: I have not seen notice of any Private Member's Bill to this effect.
    Sir G. Nabarro: On a point of order. In view of the Minister's very unsatisfactory answers, I beg to give notice that I shall raise the matter on the Adjournment.
    Mr. Leslie Huckfieldasked the Minister of Posts and Telecommunications what further consideration he has given to the matter of concessionary television licences for pensioners; and whether he will make a statement.
    Sir J. Eden: As I told the hon. Member on 8th November, I am looking again at the whole question of television licence concessions for retirement pensioners.—[Vol. 845, c. 983–6.]
    Mr. Huckfield: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware of the early day Motion on the Order Paper which stands in the name of my right hon. Friend the Member for Deptford (Mr. John Silkin) and which has been signed by at least 100 of my hon. Friends? Will he give the House the total cost of giving all old-age pensioners a free television licence, and undertake to bring before the House as soon as possible the conclusions of his review?
    Sir J. Eden: I am aware of the existence of the Motion to which the hon. Gentleman refers and of the extent of support which it has received. The answer to the second part of the supplementary question is, about £25 million a year. In regard to the third part of the question, I shall do so.
    Sir J. Langford-Holt: Does not my right hon. Friend think that the proposal is a little odd, since it provides for concessions to be given to people over the age of 60 or 65 but does not include concessions for the blind and other disabled people?
    Sir J. Eden: This concession is designed to meet the needs of elderly people who live in certain types of old people's homes which would qualify as registered homes for this purpose. I know that this matter has given rise to considerable anomalies, and it is the existence of those anomalies which gives rise to this Question and to my inquiries.
    Mr. Heffer: Is the Minister aware that throughout the country young people in voluntary groups obtain old television sets, put them in working order, and give them to old-age pensioners and others, including the disabled? Is he further aware that in many cases proposed recipients are unable to take sets because they cannot afford licences with which to
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    operate them? Would it not be a great contribution by the Government if they could assist these young voluntary groups by providing free licences for those whom these voluntary groups seek to help?
    Sir J. Eden: I think that a matter of this kind is more properly a subject for my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Services. There are any number of questions as to the proper order of priority in the provision of welfare benefits and assistance of this kind.
    Mr. Moateasked the Minister of Posts and Telecommunications what is the estimated annual cost of the concession he announced on 19th July, 1972, whereby the families of people living in old people's homes could benefit from reduced television licence fees; and approximately how many families will so benefit.
    Sir J. Eden: No estimate of the cost is possible, but the number of people affected is unlikely to be large.
    Mr. Moate: Is it not a fact that the cost is likely to run into only a few thousand pounds? Will my right hon. Friend's next concession be a little more generous—for example, charging lower licence fees to pensioners or to those who are in receipt of supplementary benefits?
    Sir J. Eden: Generosity does not enter into the matter. This was a response to a particular case raised by the hon. Member for Bassetlaw (Mr. Ashton). I did my best to meet the case because I recognised that there was justification for taking some action. I hope that what I have done will be helpful even if only to a small number of people.

    Telephone Kiosks (Vandalism)
    Mr. Dempseyasked the Minister of Posts and Telecommunications what progress has been made in providing vandal-proof telephone kiosks; and if he will make a statement.
    Sir J. Eden: Out of a total of 76,000 kiosks, 52,000 have been fitted with strengthened equipment and nearly 3,700 are of the new, improved design.
    Mr. Dempsey: But is the Minister aware that whole areas, especially in the

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    west of Scotland, have been left bereft of the means of communication with the emergency services? How many of the vandal-proof kiosks have been provided in my part of Scotland?
    Sir J. Eden: I am sorry that I cannot answer the detailed question which the hon. Gentleman asks about Scotland. However, the kiosks which are being introduced are what I might describe as "vandal-resistant" rather than vandal-proof. The programme shows that there has been a welcome diminution in the number of incidents of destruction of these important pieces of property.
    Mr. Ian Lloyd: Does my right hon. Friend agree that however desirable it may be to make the kiosks both vandal-resistant and vandal-proof it is absurd to produce the type of kiosk now being installed at main British Railways termini, in which it is almost impossible to hear what is being said?
    Sir J. Eden: I am sure that the Post Office will note what my hon. Friend has said.

    Postal Services
    Mr. William Priceasked the Minister of Posts and Telecommunications what percentage of first class post is now being delivered the following day.
    Sir J. Eden: The latest Post Office figures show that about 92 per cent. of first class letters are delivered on the next working day after posting.
    Mr. Price: In view of all the problems facing the Post Office, particularly the continued closure of railway lines, is not that a remarkable figure, and does it not provide the answer to some of the neurotics on the benches opposite, who never have a good word to say about the Post Office? Will the Minister answer one question for the benefit of his hon. Friends? Does he know of any postal system in the world which is cheaper or more effective than the British system?
    Sir J. Eden: I do not think that any of us on this side of the House feels particularly neurotic. However, no one in the Post Office is complacent even about the figure that I have given.
    Mr. Waddington: Can my right hon. Friend say why such a large proportion
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    of the remaining 8 per cent. arrive at my home or other premises in North-East Lancashire?
    Sir J. Eden: It may have something to do with the time at which the letters were posted.
    Mr. Loughlin: I do not wish to criticise the Post Office, but will the Minister bear in mind that a problem is arising particularly in rural areas where there has been a reorganisation of the local post offices? May I quote the Forest of Dean as an example? Local letters are sent to Gloucester before they are sent back to the Forest of Dean. Consequently, a high percentage of first class mail is not being delivered the day after it is posted.
    Sir J. Eden: In May 1972 the Chairman of the Post Office announced a special action programme to make improvements in the reliability of all letter mail delivery. It included a special analysis of problem areas and reported difficulties. I am sure that the chairman will note what the hon. Gentleman has said.

    Post Office National Users' Council
    Mr. Dormandasked the Minister of Posts and Telecommunications whether he will take steps to improve the operation of the Post Office National Users' Council.
    Sir J. Eden: The Select Committee on Nationalised Industries reported favourably last year on the way the council now works, and I see no reason at present to make any changes.
    Mr. Dormand: Although I believe that the Post Office generally gives a good service to the public, there are bound to be some genuine complaints. Is there not a need to strengthen the users' council by making it more independent, and making it seem to be more independent, and a need also to strengthen the machinery at local level? The right hon. Gentleman must have misread the report of the Select Committee on Nationalised Industries not to reach that conclusion. Will he give an assurance that the Select Committee's recommendations will be implemented soon?
    Sir J. Eden: The Select Committee only recently examined the whole question of users' councils and in its report

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    it specifically singled out the Post Office Users' National Council for commendation and suggested that it should serve as the model for any new councils that come into being.
    Mr. Madel: My right hon. Friend will be aware of the regrettable decision of the Post Office to close the Downs sub-post office in Dunstable, in my constituency. Is he satisfied that those who have an interest in and are dependent on sub-post offices have an adequate opportunity through the users' council to make their representations and views known to the Post Office hierarchy in London?
    Sir J. Eden: My hon. Friend can make direct representations to the users' council on this very point.

    UHF Transmitter (Selkirk)
    Mr. David Steelasked the Minister of Posts and Telecommunications if he is now in a position to announce the date when the ultra high frequency transmitter at Selkirk will come into operation.
    Sir J. Eden: It has been transmitting the Independent Broadcasting Authority's service since 1st March, 1972. UHF transmissions of BBC1 and BBC2 are expected to start next spring.
    Mr. Steel: The transmitter the Minister referred to as already transmitting is the ITV one, not the still awaited one for BBC. Can he give an accurate date, because this transmitter was originally schedule for March 1972? We are now well past that date. I know that it was put back a year, but can the Minister give a specific date when it will come into operation, so that we can get BBC2 transmissions and colour television on BBC?
    Sir J. Eden: My right hon. Friend the former Minister of Posts and Telecommunications told the hon. Gentleman in October 1971 that BBC1 and BBC2 services were planned to begin during 1973. I have made this more specific today by saying that it will be in the spring. I cannot get closer than that at present.
    Dame Irene Ward: Why has the undertaking given by my right hon. Friend's predecessor that the North-East coast should have services available before the end of this year been put into limbo when the new arrangements are going
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    through for Carlisle and Scotland? Will my right hon. Friend please ensure that the North-East coast is not treated in this way? We are very angry. We do not want everything to go to Scotland to the exclusion of the North-East coast.
    Sir J. Eden: I am aware of my hon. Friend's concern. I will be answering the Question that she has on the Order Paper.
    Dame Irene Ward: It is a pledge.

    Television Reception (Scotland)
    Mr. Eadieasked the Minister of Posts and Telecommunications if he will list the areas in Scotland that are known to be bad television reception areas; and what proposals have been made to remedy the position.
    Sir J. Eden: This information is already provided in the publications of the two broadcasting authorities, both of which will send coverage maps to the hon. Gentleman. The 625-line services are still being developed.
    Mr. Eadie: But the right hon. Gentleman must be aware of the great disquiet, and, indeed, sometimes anger, in areas which suffer from bad television reception. Does he not appreciate that television reception at Penicuik, which is in my constituency and which borders on Edinburgh is absolutely deplorable? What assurance can he give to my constituents in this technological age that an improvement will be brought about with the utmost expedition?
    Sir J. Eden: I am aware that there is not universal coverage at present and that those who do not get the sort of reception they want are naturally disturbed. But this programme will take time to develop. The uhf coverage in Scotland will require a further 16 main stations compared with 38 in England. This means one station for every 340,000 people in Scotland and one for every 1·7 million people in England, or proportionately five times as many.
    Mr. Brewis: Will my right hon. Friend see that in deciding which areas should have improved reception the powers that be will take account not only of population but the number of people who come into Scotland, such as tourists, and who

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    often multiply the population? Will he agree that bad television reception can have a very bad influence on the tourist trade?
    Sir J. Eden: Yes; I take note of my hon. Friend's point about visitors for holiday and other purposes. The fact remains, however, that it will always be extremely difficult to get effective coverage in areas with widely dispersed populations.

    Sound Broadcasting Services (West Country)
    Mr. John Hannamasked the Minister of Posts and Telecommunications if, in view of the representations made to him concerning the loss of medium-wave regional broadcasts to the West Country, he will take steps to provide the necessary wavelength facilities at least until 1975.
    Mr. Hicksasked the Minister of Posts and Telecommunications if he will make a statement relating to the loss of medium-wave regional broadcasts to listeners in the West Country and the need for more wavelength facilities.
    Sir J. Eden: Following the BBC's proposals in "Broadcasting in the Seventies" and our decisions in "An Alternative Service of Radio Broadcasting" the medium frequencies have been reallocated.
    Mr. Hannam: My right hon. Friend has given an unsatisfactory answer. Does he not agree that, bearing in mind the fact that over 70 per cent. of listeners in Devon and Cornwall and the South West do not possess vhf sets, and the Government, in adopting "Broadcasting in the Seventies" and abandoning the BBC medium wave local broadcasting so early in the decade, have achieved a crisis in regional broadcasting? Will he investigate the matter and ask the BBC to use one or two hours daily on Scottish or Northern Ireland regional wavelengths to provide these valuable local broadcasts on medium wave to the West country region?
    Sir J. Eden: I am aware of the strength of feeling on this subject in the West Country and I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his suggestion, which I shall examine. However, I am sure that he will understand that once it was decided to create a new pattern of local stations,
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    as well as to improve the opportunities for external broadcasting from this country and to give medium wave back-up for BBC as well as commercial radio stations, there was bound to be a considerable change from the pattern that existed previously.
    Mr. Hicks: Is my right hon. Friend not aware that the South West is a very low-income area, with an above average number of people living on retirement and fixed incomes? Is he not even more aware of the fact that this decision has caused real disappointment throughout the region, and is regarded as a further reduction of public services in our area? Surely the Government have an obligation to try to influence the BBC on this topic.
    Sir J. Eden: It is not a case of trying to influence the BBC; it is a case of having to reallocate the medium frequency. We have comparatively limited frequency availability in this country, and once we start to make changes I am afraid that it is extremely difficult to keep to the pattern to which people have become used. I am very much aware of my hon. Friend's point about the circumstances of people who are losing the particular benefits of regional broadcasting from the BBC, but I am afraid that this is the direction in which radio broadcasting is clearly moving.
    Mr. Pardoe: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that these medium wavelengths have been removed from people in the rural areas to confer the inestimable advantage of commercial radio on the conurbations, some of which eminently deserve it. If he does not accept that, will he warn my constituents when they will be able to hear commercial radio?
    Sir J. Eden: It is caused by the fact that first of all there was a very wide ranging regional opt-out, which went all the way from Bexhill to Bodmin—not an identifiable area. Secondly, there was the need to give medium wave frequency back-up both for BBC local radio and commercial local radio stations; and, thirdly, there was the need to improve our external broadcasting. In due course the commercial radio stations will increasingly come forward, and Plymouth is one area that is identified for this operation.
    Mr. Loughlin: Will the Minister bear in mind that the transference of regional programmes to vhf will mean that an enormous number of people in my region will have to buy a new radio if they want to receive the local programmes? Does he appreciate that this will bear particularly hard on old-age pensioners and low-paid workers? Is this not all being carried out for the simple expedient of giving commercial radio a channel?
    Sir J. Eden: No, Sir. The future of local radio clearly lies with vhf. We must also face the fact that in 1974 the whole question of frequency allocation to this country comes up for renegotiation at international level. This is a factor which we must contemplate from this point of time.

    Postal Addresses
    Mr. Hardyasked the Minister of Posts and Telecommunications if he will give a general direction to the Post Office to ensure that the names of parishes and townships are included in the postal addresses which they recommend.
    Sir J. Eden: No, Sir. The form of postal addresses is a matter for the Post Office.
    Mr. Hardy: That is disappointing. Does not the right hon. Gentleman feel that local pride and regard for one's community should be encouraged? If he does, will he ask the Post Office to approve the inclusion in the postal address of the name of the village or parish, with particular reference to the village of Orgreave, which is near to, but not part of Sheffield?
    Sir J. Eden: There need be no difficulty about that. There is some misunderstanding, I think, in view of the guidance notes which have gone out from the Post Office. If people wish to include the name of their village or parish in the address there is no reason why they should not. The Post Office has made clear the minimum requirement for an efficient postal service. If people wish to put the name "Orgreave" in the address, they may do so provided that they also put "Woodhouse Mill, Sheffield".

    Television Licence Fees (Non- payment)
    Mr. Elystan Morganasked the Minister of Posts and Telecommunica-
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    tions how many persons within the last 12 months in Wales have given notice to the authorities of their intention not to pay television licence fees on the grounds of non-reception or limited or impaired television reception in their areas.
    Sir J. Eden: One such letter has been received in my Department.
    Mr. Morgan: Despite that, will the right hon. Gentleman appreciates that there are many people in Wales, of all shades of political opinion and not normally disposed to law-breaking, who believe that a serious injustice has been suffered in many communities embracing thousands of people who are unable to have any television reception at all? These people, who have been at the end of the queue for vhf transmissions over the years, will now find themselves with the lowest priority of all for uhf when it eventually comes. Will the right hon. Gentleman take swift and decisive action?
    Sir J. Eden: I am aware of people's feelings on this subject, as expressed by the hon. Gentleman. But the licence fee is not directly connected with the quality of reception; it is a payment for permission to use television.
    Mr. Gwynoro Jones: Will the Minister take steps to inform those in charge in BBC Wales that it would be advisable that people who advocate non-payment of the television licence fee should not appear as directors, producers or interviewers on BBC Wales programmes?
    Sir J Eden: That is a matter for those concerned to handle.

    Subscriber Trunk Dialling
    Mr. Peter Reesasked the Minister of Posts and Telecommunications when he expects the whole of England to be covered by the subscriber trunk dialling system.
    Sir J. Eden: The Post Office tells me that it hopes to complete the STD programme by about the end of 1974.
    Mr. Rees: I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for that answer, but I wonder whether he is aware that Dover, Deal and Sandwich are still not covered by STD, that the new Dover exchange pas been completed but is still not in operation, and that this is intensely frustrating for

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    those who have to telephone to and from that area, as well as for those who work in the present antiquated exchange at Dover?
    Sir J. Eden: I am aware of the special difficulties in the Dover exchange. I am hopeful that the work on it will be completed within a few months from now.

    BBC Wales (Reception)
    Mr. Gwynoro Jonesasked the Minister of Posts and Telecommunications what percentage of the people of Carmarthenshire can receive the British Broadcasting Corporation Wales channel.
    Sir J. Eden: Sixty-six per cent.
    Mr. Jones: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that there is great disquiet in my constituency because about 40 per cent. of the people do not receive BBC Wales programmes? Will he, before considering a fourth channel as a separate Welsh channel, take steps to ensure that the facilities already available elsewhere are made available to all my constituents?
    Sir J. Eden: I shall consider the points which the hon. Gentleman makes. Some people may well find improvements in reception if they make certain that they are using the right sort of outside aerial. I stress the importance of that, and any encouragement which the hon. Gentleman can give in making certain that people look to their aerial installation would be useful.

    Hospital Wards (Telephone Services)
    Mr. Whiteheadasked the Minister of Posts and Telecommunications if he will give a general direction to the Post Office to reduce the rental charged for hospital trolley telephone service points, bearing in mind that such costs are often met by outside charitable concerns.
    Sir J. Eden: No, Sir. This particular charge is a management matter for the Post Office.
    Mr. Whitehead: In the Derby area we have a league of hospital friends which is charged £13·80 per quarter per point for this service, so that if four wards were serviced with one point in each
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    the cost would be about £54 per quarter, or £220 per year. Will the right hon. Gentleman represent to the Post Office that it should lay on the facility not as a profiteering service but as a social and welfare service?
    Sir J. Eden: There is no question of profiteering. The Post Office has to cover its costs. The hon. Gentleman will recognise that a coin-box telephone service is usually available in hospitals, and the additional service to which he refers is not very frequently used during the course of a day. However, I shall certainly take note of what he has said.

    Television (Welsh Language)
    Mr. Elystan Morganasked the Minister of Posts and Telecommunications if he will request Sir Robert Cockburn's Committee on the future of television to consider specifically the needs of Wales in view of the fact that two languages are spoken there.
    Sir J. Eden: No, Sir. The Television Advisory Committee is concerned with the technical questions only and would not be expected to deal with the wider considerations which such a study would prompt.
    Mr. Morgan: But is not the right hon. Gentleman aware that for over 40 years broadcasting in Wales has been given special consideration, turning upon the distinctive position of Wales as a country and as a nation? Will he give an undertaking that when the new charters are considered in 1976, or earlier, and especially in the context of the allocation of a fourth television channel, the particular needs of Wales will be given fair and proper priority?
    Sir J. Eden: I assure the hon. Gentleman that the particular needs of Wales or of any other part of the United Kingdom will not be overlooked.
    Mr. Tom King: Has the committee considered a measure of protection from broadcasts from Wales for other parts of the country which have no wish to receive them? Many people in my constituency and neighbouring areas in the West Country would much like to have broadcasts in their own language.
    Sir J. Eden: I have an idea that the strength of signal from BBC Wales has something to do with international agreements, but I shall look closely into the point raised by my hon. Friend.

  CIVIL SERVICE

    Government Offices (Dispersal)
    Mr. Millanasked the Minister for the Civil Service what sites are being considered for the dispersal of Civil Service work from London.
    The Parliamentary Secretary to the Civil Service Department (Mr. Kenneth Baker): Several areas throughout the country are being considered as potential receiving locations to receive Civil Service work dispersed from London. These areas include Scotland.
    Mr. Millan: I am glad to hear that. Is the hon. Gentleman aware that he was widely reported in the Press as saying that no locations more than 180 miles from London would be considered for dispersal? That would be intolerable. Will he take this opportunity to deny it?
    Mr. Baker: I was widely misreported, and I willingly take this opportunity to say that there is no limit whatever. The whole purpose of having a review of headquarters work is to look at those areas where there are under-utilised resources, and we are looking at all the development areas and regions of the United Kingdom.
    Mr. Edward Taylor: Will my hon. Friend bear in mind that at present in Glasgow several modern new office blocks are available which would be suitable for Civil Service employment, and, moreover the average rentals charged in Glasgow are about one-quarter those of comparable offices in the centre of London?
    Mr. Baker: Both those factors will be borne in mind by Sir Henry Hardman and his Committee. I should point out that Scotland has 42,000 civil servants. Since May, 1963, the last major exercise, 11,000 jobs have been dispersed or created in Scotland.
    Mr. Millanasked the Minister for the Civil Service what discussions are taking place with the Civil Service trade
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    unions regarding the dispersal of Civil Service work from London.
    Mr. Kenneth Baker: As I told the hon. Member yesterday, there have been consultations with the national staff side throughout the dispersal exercise. These consultations are continuing. Individual departments have been keeping their own staff sides informed.
    Mr. Millan: It is obviously right that these discussions should take place with the trade unions, but is the Minister aware that there is a danger that the decision about location might be determined by national trade unions, which, since most civil servants are in London, will tend to be London-dominated? Should not the final decision be the responsibility of the Government, with regional policy considerations in mind? Will the hon. Gentleman tell us whether that is the position?
    Mr. Baker: The Government pride themselves on being good employers, and certainly, as good employers, we have already consulted and will continue to consult the national staff side. We have done this in dispersal exercises in the past and we shall certainly do so in this instance.
    Mr. Heffer: Is there not a very good case for the local branches of the Civil Service unions being consulted, particularly in areas of high unemployment such as Merseyside? While the hon. Gentleman is considering dispersal, may I ask him to bear in mind that there are large office blocks in the centre of Liverpool, which have now been empty for a number of years, which could take Civil Service departments?
    Mr. Baker: Yes. I assure the hon. Gentleman that we are looking at areas like Merseyside and the North-West generally. Obviously I shall not be able to satisfy everybody on the question of dispersal. The North-West, apart from the South-East, has the highest concentration of civil servants. None the less, these factors will be taken into account by the Hardman Committee.
    Mr. John Smithasked the Minister for the Civil Service if he will make a statement on the Government's policy for dispersal of Civil Service jobs to Glasgow and the West of Scotland.
    Mr. Kenneth Baker: When existing plans have been completed, some 7,000 Civil Service jobs will have been dispersed to Glasgow and the West of Scotland since 1963. In addition, some 2,500 jobs will have been established in the Glasgow area under the policy of setting up new offices away from London. Scotland is also being considered during the current review of the possibilities of dispersing further work from London.
    Mr. Smith: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the Government's intentions concerning effective regional development policy will he looked at very closely in the light of what they do regarding Civil Service dispersal. In view of the high number of school leavers still out of employment in Glasgow and the West of Scotland, is it not clear that the bringing in of a large number of Civil Service jobs will give them the new opportunities which they desperately need.
    Mr. Baker: Yes. As I said, these factors will be taken into consideration by the Hardman Committee. The whole purpose of having a dispersal exercise is the Government's belief that there is a great deal of good sense in taking jobs to people. That is the keystone of our regional policy.
    Mr. Bruce-Gardyne: Will my hon. Friend bear in mind that it might be of greater value to the economy of Scotland to reduce the burden of bureaucracy overall than to increase the burden of bureaucracy in Scotland?
    Mr. Baker: I certainly agree that one of my responsibilities is the burden of bureaucracy. There is a Question on the Order Paper about this matter, and I have some quite encouraging figures to announce.
    Mr. Gregor Mackenzieasked the Minister for the Civil Service if he will make a statement on progress made in the dispersal of Civil Service jobs from London.
    Mr. Kenneth Baker: Since May, 1963, which is the date of the last major dispersal initiative, just over 22,000 posts have been dispersed, while another 8,300 are due to be dispersed under existing plans. In addition, just over 7,000 posts have been set up in new headquarters
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    units outside London, and another 11,000 are awaiting establishment under current plans.
    Mr. Mackenzie: In his dispersal policy will the Minister take into account the need to appoint some senior people into Scotland and other areas of that kind? If there is to be any encouragement for young people to enter the Civil Service, is this not exceedingly important?
    Mr. Baker: Yes, indeed. We are conscious that in a programme of dispersal civil servants should be dispersed in sufficiently large numbers to provide a career base for those who are dispersed. I assure the hon. Gentleman, there having been several Questions on Scotland, that we are sympathetic. I hope that he will not take the view that the Government—or I, personally—are unsympathetic to Scotland's claims. The best thing I did in my life was to marry a Scot.
    Mr. McBride: Has the Minister considered the claims of Swansea and South Wales as a point of dispersal for Civil Service jobs on three brief counts: first, that it is approximately 200 miles from London; secondly, that this would help in the diversification of employment, and, thirdly, taking everything into consideration, that the city is an extremely pleasant place in which to live?
    Mr. Baker: Yes. I think that the Hardman Committee will take these factors into consideration. I should point out that Wales has been the lucky reception area of a substantial number of civil servants—particularly the Swansea area, which has the vehicle licensing centre.
    Mr. Edward Short: Will the hon. Gentleman consider the experience of the Department of Education and Science, from which two important and large branches were dispersed to Darlington during the Labour Administration? Is there any reason why virtually the whole of a Government Department of that kind should not be sent to one of the development areas?
    Mr. Baker: One problem about the dispersal of civil servants is that in the past we have tended to disperse executive blocks of work, and we are now looking at central policy units. They create considerable communications problems.

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    However, I assure the right hon. Gentleman that these are just the kind of problems at which Sir Henry Hardman and his Committee will be looking.

    Official Report (Printing)
    Mr. Bruce-Gardyneasked the Minister for the Civil Service if he will make a statement on the arrangements made in the Stationery Office for printing the OFFICIAL REPORT.
    Mr. Kenneth Baker: The OFFICIAL REPORT is produced by Her Majesty's Stationery Office in its St. Stephen's Parliamentary Press.
    Copy for typesetting is supplied by the Editor of Debates. Close liaison is maintained between his editorial staff and the Press. Production takes place overnight and the first copies are normally available to Members by 8 o'clock.
    Each day's OFFICIAL REPORT includes the proceedings in the House up to 10.30 p.m. Proceedings after 10.30 p.m. appear in the following day's edition.
    Mr. Bruce-Gardyne: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that reply. Does he agree that it is intolerable when, because of an industrial dispute at Her Majesty's Stationery Office, this House is expected to give Third Readings to Bills without having any text of part of what has been said in the Committee stage debates? If industrial relations at the Stationery Office are as bad as they appear to be today, is it not high time that the contract for the printing was taken away and put somewhere else?
    Mr. Baker: I regret the incident that led to the non-appearance of HANSARD on 15th November. As I have already explained, this was due to a technical failure in the heating equipment of the plant. I believe that industrial relations in the Press are improving, but I am conscious that their first duty is to provide the printed matter that this House requires.
    Mr. Kaufman: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the regular production of HANSARD day after day is a remarkable achievement and a great tribute to both the editorial and the printing staff, who get it out so quickly and on time, and that occasionally if we are to be deprived of the remarks in print of the hon. Mem-
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    ber for South Angus (Mr. BruceGardyne) an industrial dispute is a small price to pay for it?
    Mr. Baker: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his comments. I am sure he will not be one who jumps up to ask me questions when there is another breakdown—which I hope there will not be.

    Civil Servants
    Mr. Arthur Lewisasked the Minister for the Civil Service whether he will give, for 1st June, 1970, the total number of civil servants and their annual costs and similar details for the latest most convenient stated date.
    Mr. Kenneth Baker: The number of civil servants at 1st June, 1970, was 700,750 and at 1st October, 1972, was 690,985. The provision for Civil Service salaries and wages in the Supply Estimates was £937 million in 1970–71; the current provision in the 1972–73 Estimates is £1,086 million.
    Mr. Lewis: I shall be able to congratulate the Government and the Minister if he can assure me that this is comparing like with like. Is the hon. Gentleman aware that it is alleged that some of the 1971s have been transferred into other categories, and that therefore we are not comparing like with like? Can he assure me that if it were comparing like with like the figures which he has given would in fact apply?
    Mr. Baker: No. The hon. Gentleman will appreciate, from Questions that I have answered earlier this year, that a certain number of civil servants have been hived off. He must also appreciate that some have been hived in. We have taken in a large number of civil servants who were formerly employees of local authorities. If the hon. Gentleman wants to play the numbers game, he must do better than that.
    Mr. Rose: As the hon. Gentleman insists on giving us figures which are not seasonally adjusted, will he say how many additional civil servants will be needed to collect VAT in respect of professional fees which are paid from the State to recover 10 per cent. of those fees paid out by the State and bring them back to the State?
    Mr. Baker: That question is really for my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer, but he has said that the increased number of civil servants required to introduce VAT is about 6,000. I hope, however, that the hon. Gentleman will bear in mind that if the House approves the Government's tax credit scheme there will be a saving of between 10,000 and 15,000 civil servants.
    Mr. Rost: Can my hon. Friend say how many extra civil servants have to be used to deal with Questions tabled by the hon. Member for West Ham, North (Mr. Arthur Lewis)?
    Mr. Baker: The hon. Member for West Ham, North is equivalent to about 15 clerical officers.
    Mr. Sheldon: The answer to that question shows the application of my hon. Friend. Referring to the number of civil servants, is not the hon. Gentleman guilty of a little fiddle? Is not the figure that really matters that of non-industrial civil servants? Did not the Prime Minister mean, by his pledge, that he was going to reduce the number of non-industrial civil servants? Can the hon. Gentleman say just how those figures have changed in the last two-and-a-half years?
    Mr. Baker: The distinction between industrial and non-industrial civil servants—and I am not making a party point—is a very fine one in many jobs. For example, Ministers' drivers are industrial civil servants, which seems absurd. [Interruption.] Junior Ministers do not have drivers. Since 1970 we have consistently looked at the whole size of the Civil Service, industrial and non-industrial.

NORTHERN IRELAND (ROCKET ATTACKS)
Rev. Ian Paisley Rev. Ian Paisley (by Private Notice) asked the Minister of State for Defence if he will make a statement on the IRA rocket attacks on the Crown forces, RUC stations and installations in Northern Ireland yesterday.
The Minister of State for Defence (Mr. Ian Gilmour): In a series of rocket launcher attacks yesterday terrorists fired a total of 15 rockets at 10 different targets in Northern Ireland. I regret to inform
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the House that in one attack, on the police station at Belleek, one RUC constable was killed. Seven soldiers were injured in two of the incidents, fortunately none seriously. There was some structural damage, mainly of a minor nature, in eight of the incidents. Although all the attacks were undoubtedly vicious in their intent, the one made upon the Finniston School in Belfast was particularly contemptible. Mercifully no one was hurt. With permission, I will circulate full details in the OFFICIAL REPORT.
The House will also be interested to know that at 4.50 p.m. yesterday a car travelling down Osborne Street in Londonderry stopped on being confronted by a security force Land-Rover, and the occupants ran away. A rocket launcher and rocket of Warsaw Pact design were found in the car.
Investigations are continuing and no effort will be spared by the security forces to bring to account those responsible for these further despicable attacks on the community in Northern Ireland.
I have also just heard that there was a further rocket attack in Belfast earlier this afternoon. It was against the Army post at Flax Street Mill. Fortunately there were no casualties.
Rev. Ian Paisley: While expressing sympathy with the relatives of Constable Robert Keys and Gunner Paul Jackson who were victims of IRA attacks yesterday, may I ask the Minister whether he agrees that the concentration of such attacks adds a new dimension to the IRA terrorist campaign? Can the Minister confirm the first reports made by the Army authorities who were able to get one of these rocket launchers that the weapon was made in a Communist country in Eastern Europe?
Is it not a fact that an announcement has been made about the withdrawal of 1,000 troops from Northern Ireland? In view of the attacks made yesterday, will the Minister assure the people of Northern Ireland that there will be no rundown of the Army in Northern Ireland whilst the terrorist campaign is escalating in this way?
Can the Minister of State give the House an assurance that in future local intelligence will be employed by the Army so that the deplorable happening in Old

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Park, to which he referred, which took place from a vacant house in the Army control area, will never occur again? Will he assure the House that these houses will be put under surveillance by the Army authorities when they are vacant, and will he draw the attention of his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs to the fact that one attack was mounted from south of the border? Will he press his right hon. Friend to pursue the matter with Mr. Lynch's Government?
Mr. Gilmour: I am sure that the whole House will join the hon. Gentleman in expressing sympathy with the relatives of those who were killed and injured yesterday. I agree with him that the scale of these rocket attacks introduces a new dimension although, as he will be aware, rockets have been used in Northern Ireland before, notably in August and September 1971. I confirm what I said in my original answer, namely, that it is our belief that the rocket launcher that was found is of Warsaw Pact origin.
On the question of withdrawal, the level of our forces in Northern Ireland is kept under continuous review by the Government, and the right level of forces is determined. We do all in our power to improve local intelligence and, as the hon. Gentleman knows, this has greatly improved in recent months.
Mr. Hattersley: May I first associate the Opposition with the expressions of sympathy for the relatives of the men killed yesterday and the soldiers who were casualties in yesterday's outrage?
Next may I express the Opposition's concern at what must be described as a further escalation of hostilities in Northern Ireland and, in the light of what has happened, may I ask two specific questions. First, will the Minister look carefully at the outcome of the announcement made yesterday that a substantial number of British troops are to be withdrawn from Northern Ireland in the next few days? In the light of what has happened and, indeed, in the light of what may happen on both sides of the border, many people believe that this may not be the best time for withdrawing troops. If the Minister feels that he wants to alter the steps announced yesterday, may
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I tell him that he will receive no criticism from the Opposition for doing so?
The Minister described the rocket launcher that was found as being of Warsaw Pact design. Can its origin be more carefully and closely specified than that? If it can, may we have an assurance that the ambassadors of any countries which are demonstrably supplying arms to Northern Ireland will be summoned by the Foreign Secretary in the immediate future and told that they must take whatever steps they can to stop that from happening?
Mr. Gilmour: The answer to the hon. Gentleman's first question is that we keep the level of our forces under continuous review.
The answer to the hon. Gentleman's second question is that the fragments of the rockets used and the one recovered are being examined. It appears to be an RPG7, which is a rocket type anti-tank weapon manufactured in several Warsaw Pact countries and supplied to various forces outside the Warsaw Pact. As the hon. Gentleman and the House will realise, the country of origin of this weapon is not necessarily the country of supply.
Mr. Rose: Will the hon. Gentleman accept that all those on this side of the House who have been concerned with affairs in Northern Ireland deplore this further escalation of mindless violence? Will he accept that this ultimately must make reconciliation in that area far more difficult?
With regard to the border attacks, will the hon. Gentleman confirm that the IRA forces withdrew when forces of the Irish Republic appeared on the scene? Does the hon. Gentleman feel that there is adequate communication between this country and the Republic with regard to border incidents and incursions, from whichever side they may come?
Mr. Gilmour: I am sure that the House will agree with the hon. Gentleman's opening remarks. There is a good deal of co-operation with the Republic, and this has improved recently. Of course we should, in due course, wish for more.
Captain Orr: May I press my hon. Friend on the intelligence point? What I think disturbs public opinion at the

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moment is that people seem to have been taken by surprise by the scale of this new type of attack. What steps are being taken to strengthen intelligence, particularly to determine how these pretty substantial weapons got into the country, either north or south?
Mr. Gilmour: I do not accept the implication of my hon. and gallant Friend's question that there has been a failure of intelligence in this matter. As I said earlier, our intelligence has improved, but it obviously is not possible for us to be continuously aware of every development that takes place throughout Ireland.
Mr. Goodhart: Is it thought that many more of these rockets are still in terrorist hands?
Mr. Gilmour: We feel that that is probably so, but our information is not certain.
Mr. Stratton Mills: In relation to the attack on the Army post at Finniston School in the Old Park Road, are my hon. Friend and the House aware that a rocket head hit a wall, but fortunately did not explode, 30 yards from 200 schoolchildren? Would the House reflect what kind of human beings could do such a thing? Second, would my hon. Friend consider whether, in the border areas, it would be possible to develop some form of joint communication system with the Southern Irish Army, so as to enable them to get on the scene very promptly?
Mr. Gilmour: On the first question, what my hon. Friend says is perfectly true. It is extraordinarily lucky that many children were not killed in this contemptible attack. We have telephonic communication with the Garda and we are examining the possibility of improving our communications.
Several Hon. Members Several Hon. Members rose—
Mr. Speaker: Order. I understand the anxiety of hon. Members on this matter, but I must move on.
Following is the information:
1. 9.35 a.m.—Belleek RUC Station
One rocket passed through a ¾-inch armour plating in front of a window killing a RUC Constable. Two hundred small arms rounds were fired subsequently at the station from across the border. Security forces returned fire until the Irish Army arrived at 10 a.m.
2. 11 a.m.—Bunciana Road Vehicle Check Point
Two rockets were fired at the vehicle check point where troops were investigating a burning lorry. In a subsequent cross-border engagement over 1,000 rounds were exchanged. One hit was claimed by security forces.
3. 11.15 a.m.—Finniston School, Belfast
One rocket passed through the outer perimeter wire and hit the main building but caused minimal damage.
4. 11.30 a.m.—Strabane RUC Station
Two rockets passed through an outer wall, over the head of a policeman, and embedded themselves in an inside wall. Damage was considerable but was confined to the upper floor. Shots were also fired at the station. It is thought that the rockets were fired from inside the town.
5. 12.20 p.m.—Crossmaglen RUC Station
Two rockets were fired at the station from south of the border. Both struck the roof and shrapnel from one slightly injured an Army officer. Some 30 rounds were also fired.
6. 12.29 p.m.—Falls Road, Belfast
A practice rocket was fired at a Saracen from Peel Street. It missed and passed through a 12-inch thick wall.
7. 6.05 p.m.—HQ 3 Infantry Brigade, Lurgan
Two rockets were fired at the Lurgan factory, in which HQ 3 Brigade is situated. Two separate rocket launchers were used, one rocket travelling through a bus before hitting a four-ton vehicle and exploding. There were six casualties from shrapnel. The second rocket missed the building.
8. 6.10 p.m.—Albert Street Mill, Belfast
One rocket was fired at the mill from the area of a local factory. A hole 1 foot 6 inches in diameter was made in the roof near an observation post but there were no casualties.
9. 7.00 p.m.—Pomeroy RUC Station
A rocket was fired at the station but there were no casualties. Four sentries opened fire but no hits were claimed.
10. 7.45 p.m.—Lisnaskea RUC Station
Two rockets hit the front of the station and penetrated to a waiting room, causing minor damage. Twenty rounds were also fired into the station from a passing car. There were no casualties.

BALLOT FOR NOTICES OF MOTIONS FOR FRIDAY, 15th DECEMBER
Members successful in the Ballot were:

Mr. Nigel Spearing.

Mr. A. W. Stallard.

Mr. Clinton Davis.

BILLS PRESENTED
  PENALTIES FOR MURDER
  Mr. Edward Taylor, supported by Sir Bernard Braine, Mr. Ronald Bray, Mr. Patrick Cormack, Mr. Peter Doig, Mrs. Elaine Kellett-Bowman, Mr. Carol Mather, Mr. Idris Owen, Mr. John Page, Mr. James Scott-Hopkins, Mr. James White, and Mr. Patrick Wolrige-Gordon presented a Bill to amend the provisions of the Murder (Abolition of Death Penalty) Act 1965 relating to prison and detention sentences for murder; to make further provision for the composition of Parole Boards; and for puroses connected with those matters: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time upon Friday 26th January and to be printed. [Bill 16.]
  HEAVY COMMERCIAL VEHICLES (CONTROLS AND REGULATIONS)
  Mr. Hugh Dykes, supported by Mr. Sydney Chapman, Mr. George Cunningham, Mr. Deedes, Mr. Geoffrey Finsberg, Mr. John Horam, Mr. John Hunt, Mr. Neil Kinnock, Mr. Ernie Money, Mrs. Sally Oppenheim, Mr. J. T. Price, and Mr. David Steel presented a Bill to make new provisions governing the construction and use of heavy commercial vehicles, and to control the movement and parking of such vehicles: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time upon Friday 2nd February and to be printed. [Bill 17.]

  DANGEROUS DRUGS AND DISABLED CHILDREN
  Mr. Ron Lewis, supported by Mr. Jack Ashley, Mr. Lewis Carter-Jones, Mr. John Hannam, Mr. Alfred Morris, Mr. John Pardoe, Mr. Edward M. Taylor, and Mr. David Weitzman presented a Bill to
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  amend the law in relation to liability for personal injuries, and consequential loss arising from the manufacture, distribution, sale and use of medicinal products and drugs for human use; to amend the practice of the court in relation to the assessment of damages; to amend the Limitation Act 1963; to make further provision for the needs of disabled children; and for purposes connected with these matters: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time upon Friday 9th February and to be printed. [Bill 18.]

  DOMICILE AND MATRIMONIAL PROCEEDINGS
  Mr. Ian MacArthur, supported by Mr. Russell Johnston, Mrs. Jill Knight, Mr. Ronald King Murray, and Sir George Sinclair presented a Bill to amend the law relating to the domicile of married women and persons not of full age, to matters connected with domicile and to jurisdiction in matrimonial proceedings including actions for reduction of consistorial decrees; to make further provision about the recognition of divorces and legal separations; and for purposes connected therewith: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time upon Friday 16th February and to be printed. [Bill 19.]
  POLICE ACTS (AMENDMENT)
  Mr. Phillip Whitehead, supported by Mr. Leo Abse, Mr. Peter Archer, Mr. S. Clinton Davis, Mr. Deedes. Mr. Robert Hughes, Mr. David Madel, Mr. John Pardoe, and Dame Joan Vickers presented a Bill to make further provision for the investigation of complaints against the police and for the publication of police reports; to make other provisions relating to the police; and for purposes connected therewith: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time upon Friday, 23rd February and to be printed. [Bill 20.]

  PROTECTION OF WRECKS
  Mr. Iain Sproat, supported by Lieutenant-Colonel Colin Mitchell, Mr. Patrick Wolrige-Gordon, Mr. Bruce-Gardyne, Mr. Michael Clark Hutchison, Mr. Patrick Wall, Mr. Stratton Mills, Mr. Michael Noble, Mr. Robert Adley, Mr.

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  Donald Stewart, Mr. Ben Ford, and Mr. Frank Judd presented a Bill to secure the protection of wrecks in territorial waters, and the sites of such wrecks, from interference by unauthorised persons; and for connected purposes: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time upon Friday, 2nd March and to be printed. [Bill 21.]

  EMPLOYMENT AGENCIES
  Mr. Kenneth Lewis, supported by Mr. John Page, Sir Edward Brown, Mr. Philip Holland, Mr. David Waddington. Mr. Ronald Bray, and Mr. David Mitchell presented a Bill to regulate employment agencies and businesses; and for connected purposes: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time upon Friday, 16th February and to be printed. [Bill 22.]
  ANTI-DISCRIMINATION (No. 2)
  Mr. W. W. Hamilton, supported by Mrs. Joyce Butler, Mr. Edward Bishop, Miss Janet Fookes, Mr. Peter Archer, Mrs. Sally Oppenheim, Mr. Robert King, Murray, Dr. Shirley Summerskill, Miss Joan Lestor, Mr. Douglas Houghton, Mrs. Elaine Kellett-Bowman, and Mrs. Renee Short presented a Bill to make illegal, and provide for the prevention of. discrimination on grounds of sex; to establish an anti-discrimination board; and for connected purposes: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time upon Friday, 2nd February, and to be printed. [Bill 23.]
  NATIONAL LOTTERY
  Mr. James Tinn, supported by Mr. Peter Archer, Mr. Gordon A. T. Bagier, Mr. Bernard Conlan, Mr. Eddie Griffiths, Mr. W. H. Johnston, and Mr. Ray Mawby presented a Bill to authorise the creation of a National Lottery Board; to empower and require the Board to organise and operate a lottery scheme and to make grants in aid of charitable organisations, medical research and other social and welfare purposes; and for connected purposes: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time upon Friday, 6th April, and to be printed. [Bill 24.]
  HALLMARKING
  Mr. Jerry Wiggin, supported by Mr. John Osborn, Mr. Ronald King Murray, the Earl of Dalkeith, Mrs. Jill Knight, Mr. Brian Walden, Mr. Sydney Chapman, Mr. Tugendhat, Mr. Adam Butler, and Mr. David Watkins presented a Bill to make fresh provision for the composition, assaying, marking and description of articles of, or containing, precious metals, and as to agencies for the implementation and enforcement thereof; and for purposes connected with those matters: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time upon Friday, 26th January, and to be printed. [Bill 25.]
  LAW REFORM (DILIGENCE) (SCOTLAND)
  Mr. Gregor Mackenzie, supported by Mr. Hugh D. Brown, Mr. Bruce Millan, and Mr. John Smith, presented a Bill to amend the law of Scotland relating to diligence; to exempt from diligence certain household effects and furniture; and for purposes connected with the matters aforesaid: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time upon Friday, 2nd March and to be printed. [Bill 26.]
  GUARDIANSHIP OF MINORS
  Dame Irene Ward, supported by Dame Joan Vickers, presented a Bill to amend the law with respect to the guardianship and custody of minors: And the same was read the First time: and ordered to be read a Second time upon Friday, 23rd February and to be printed. [Bill 27.]
  ELDERLY AND DISABLED PERSONS (WARNING DEVICES)
  Mr. Greville Janner, supported by Mr. Frank Allaun, Mr. John Astor, Mr. Lewis Carter-Jones, Mr. Sydney Chapman, Mr. Reginald Freeson, Mr. Grimond, Mr. John Hannam, Mr. David Knox, Mr. Neil Marten, Mr. Robert McCrindle and Mr. John Cronin presented a Bill to require the provision of warning devices in or upon the homes of elderly or disabled persons or of other persons in need thereof; and for connected purposes: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time upon Friday, 9th February and to be printed. [Bill 28.]
  EXPORT OF ANIMALS (CONTROL)
  Sir Ronald Russell, supported by Mr. Burden, Mr. Michael Clark Hutchison, Mr. John Hall, Mr. Russell Johnston, Mr. Kenneth Lomas, Mr. Angus Maude, Mr. J. T. Price, Miss Joan Quennell, Mr. Ivor Richard, Dr. Shirley Summerskill, and Sir Robin Turton, presented a Bill to prohibit or restrict the export of certain animals; and for purposes connected therewith: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time upon Friday, 26th January and to be printed. [Bill 29.]
  HEATING FOR THE ELDERLY
  Mr. Frank Judd, on behalf of Mr. Alexander Lyon, supported by Mr. George Cunningham, Mr. Alfred Morris, and Mr. Michael Meacher presented a Bill to authorise local authorities to pay the cost of heating the homes of elderly persons where there is proven medical or financial need: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time upon Friday, 4th May and to be printed. [Bill 30.]
  CRUELTY TO ANIMALS ACT 1876 (AMENDMENT)
  Mr. Douglas Houghton, supported by Mr. Richard Body, Sir Bernard Braine, Miss Janet Fookes, Dr. Alan Glyn, Mr. Kenneth Lomas, Mr. Rafton Pounder, Mr. Ivor Richard, Dr. Shirley Summer-skill, Mr. Frederick Willey, and Mr. W. T. Williams presented a Bill to amend the Cruelty to Animals Act 1876: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time upon Friday, 11th May and to be printed. [Bill 31.]

  EMPLOYMENT OF CHILDREN
  Mr. Jeffrey Archer, supported by Mr. Jack Ashley, Mr. Nicholas Edwards, Mr. John Hannam, Mr. Barney Hayhoe, Mr. James Hill, Mr. Cledwyn Hughes, Mr. Ian MacArthur, Mr. Ernie Money, Mr.
  430
  Laurance Reed, and Mr. David Steel presented a Bill to make further provision with respect to restrictions on the employment of persons under the upper limit of school age and to the means of imposing and enforcing such restrictions; and for connected purposes: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time upon Friday, 2nd February and to be printed. [Bill 32.]

  PUBLIC INDECENCY
  Sir Gilbert Longden, supported by Mr. Rees-Davies, Mr. W. T. Williams, Mr. David Steel, Mr. Charles Morrison, Miss Joan Hall, Dame Patricia Hornsby-Smith, Mr. Norman Lamont, and Mr. Deedes presented a Bill to prevent the display in a public place of grossly offensive matter: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time upon Friday, 13th April and to be printed. [Bill 33.]
  TRANSPLANT OF HUMAN ORGANS
  Mr. Barney Hayhoe, supported by Mr. Tam Dalyell, Mr. Maurice Foley, Dr. J. Dickson Mabon, Mr. Robert Maclennan, Sir Gerald Nabarro, Mr. Charles Simons, Mr. Tugendhat, and Dr. Gerard Vaughan presented a Bill to facilitate the transplant of human organs: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time upon Friday, 6th April and to be printed. [Bill 34.]
  SUPPLEMENTARY ALLOWANCES (NON-PAYMENT TO STRIKERS)
  Mr. Ralph Howell, supported by Miss Joan Hall, Mr. Ernie Money, Mr. Peter Fry, Mr. Robert Adley, and Mr. Kenneth Warren presented a Bill to provide that supplementary allowances shall not be paid to persons on strike or to their dependants: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time upon Friday, 16th February and to be printed. [Bill 35.]
ORDERS OF THE DAY
  SUPPLY
  [1ST ALLOTTED DAY]—considered.
  SUPPLY

    CIVIL ESTIMATES 1973–74
    (Vote on Account)
    Resolved,
    That a sum, not exceeding £5,937,369,300, be granted to Her Majesty out of the Consolidated Fund, on account, for or towards defraying the charges for the Civil Departments, as set out in House of Commons Paper No. 11, for the year ending on 31st March 1974.

    CIVIL SUPPLEMENTARY ESTIMATES 1972–73
    Resolved,
    That a Supplementary sum, not exceeding £372,107,000, be granted to Her Majesty out of the Consolidated Fund, to defray the charge

    That this House, disturbed about the plight of thalidomide children, calls upon Distillers (Biochemicals) Limited, in dealing with these cases, to face up to their moral responsibilities; and calls for immediate legislation to deal with the problems of such children, including the establishment of a trust fund to provide for the thalidomide children, for State as well as private responsibility for provision on an actuarial basis for proved cases, and all other related questions.

    Mr. Speaker: I should like to inform the House that I have selected the amendment in the name of the Prime Minister and other right hon. Members, in line 1, leave out from 'children' to end and add:
    'and the delay in reaching a settlement between Distillers (Biochemicals) Limited and most of the children and their families recognises the initiatives taken by Her Majesty's Government to improve services for the handicapped and disabled; and welcomes the undertakings of Her Majesty's Government to investigate any case where the needs of a thalidomide child are thought not to be met by the services available, and to consider, as soon as the cases are no longer sub judice, whether a trust fund needs to be established for thalidomide children'.
    Mr. Ashley: If the House will forgive a personal note, perhaps I might say that I think it important that hon. Members should feel free to try to intervene while I am speaking, if they wish to do so. I shall try to lip read them, but if I cannot I will receive a note from one of my hon. Friends, a procedure which will take about five seconds—a small price to pay for the cut and thrust of debate in this Chamber. Having said that, I might
    which will come in course of payment during the year ending on 31st March 1973 for expenditure in respect of the Civil Supplementary Estimates set out in House of Commons Paper No. 12.
    Bill ordered to be brought in upon the foregoing Resolutions by the Chairman of Ways and Means, the Chancellor of the Exchequer and Mr. Higgins.

    CONSOLIDATED FUND
    Bill to apply certain sums out of the Consolidated Fund to the service of the years ending on 31st March 1973 and 1974 presented accordingly and read the First time; to be read a Second time tomorrow and to be printed. [Bill 15.]

  THALIDOMIDE CHILDREN
  3.49 p.m.
  Mr. Jack Ashley: I beg to move,
  add that it does not follow that I shall necessarily give way to every hon. Member who seeks to intervene.
  The whole House will be grateful to the Leader of the Opposition for providing time to debate this tragic problem. It will respect the call for a constructive debate. That does not mean, however, that criticism should be muted, because quite enough voices have been silenced in recent years. So criticism—and a demand for action—will be stressed as strongly as possible. To do otherwise would be to rig the record by default. To do otherwise would be to fail the children, and far too many people have failed them already. I am afraid that no hon. Member of this House has any reason to feel proud of what he has done for thalidomide children in recent years, and that includes myself.
  The Alf Morris Act helped all disabled children, but the problems of thalidomide children might have lain in a legal limbo for ever had it not been for a series of articles in The Sunday Times which was both brave and brilliant. The Distillers Company tried to gaol the editor of

  433
  The Sunday Times for his pains but I believe that the House would wish to take the opposite view and would want warmly to congratulate the editor and his fine staff.
  We are debating today a great national tragedy, none the less poignant because it happened 10 years ago. This is one tragedy in which the passage of time instead of healing the suffering actually heightens it, for children who were robbed of the magic of their childhood by a manmade disaster are now approaching the highly sensitive and emotional years of adolescence without arms, without legs and, in some cases, without organs. Adolescence is a time for living and laughing, for learning and loving. But what kind of adolescence will a 10-yearold boy look forward to when he has no arms, no legs, one eye, no pelvic girdle and is only two feet tall? That is the height of two whisky bottles placed one on top of the other. How can an 11-year-old girl look forward to laughing and loving when she has no hand to be held and no legs to dance on?
  I ask the House to look at the photographs I have in my hand of these two children. In my view, the photographs illustrate dramatically the kind of problem which is all too easily regarded under the umbrella phrase of "thalidomide children". These are the human tragedies which the House must debate today. Yet the powerful and wealthy Distillers Company, with assets of £421 million and profits of £64 million, has had no compunction in fighting these children for no less than 10 years. This is a shocking example of man's inhumanity to man, not to mention this firm's inhumanity to the children.
  The company aggressively marketed thalidomide from 1958 until 1961, despite two warning signals which were published in the British Medical Journal. One warning was heeded by the Americans, and they would not allow thalidomide into their country. But Distillers Company, undeterred, sold this drug with the following advertisement:
  "Distaval"—
  that is, thalidomide—
  "can be given with complete safety to pregnant women."
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  That advertisement was a cruel travesty of the truth and it resulted in unsuspecting women swallowing thalidomide. The result was 432 malformed and deformed babies in Great Britain. Yet after more than a decade the majority of these children have not received a penny from the Distillers Company. The children's living standards are falling as the profits of the company are rising. We are witnessing not only a shabby spectacle but a grave national scandal, a display of moral irresponsibility which has seldom if ever been surpassed.
  There are a thousand excuses why these children should receive no money, and every excuse has been scavenged by the company throughout the last decade. Twenty-four hours ago the company announced that it has increased its miserable offer of £3¼ million to £5 million. It is a remarkable coincidence that it should be announced only yesterday. But I do not expect many people to be taken in by what is palpably a gimmick, because it should be seen against a background of the settlement for thalidomide children which was made in 1968, which in itself was grossly inadequate.
  One of these children, a boy named David, with no arms or legs, was assessed by a responsible actuary, taking actuarial considerations and inflation into account, as needing £106,000 to provide for extra care and to compensate for loss of earnings. The House should note the figure of £106.000. But by the time that a judge, and the Distillers Company, had finished with that boy, he received £9,600 for this purpose. The judge refused to take account of actuarial considerations because, the learned judge said,
  "The time has not yet arrived".
  The judge also refused to take account of inflation. He regarded talk of inflation as inadmissible because—again I quote the learned judge—
  "inflation is based on speculation and hear-say"
  That is very good news indeed for the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. As a result of that judicial decision, however, this boy was left with a sum, apart from compensation for the loss of amenities of life, which will run out when he is 27 years old. But the Distillers reduced even that sum by 60 per cent. because it denied negligence.
  I ask the House to compare that figure with the amount awarded to an American thalidomide child, who received £321,000 for her injuries. It has been agreed in Britain that the other cases will be settled on the same basis as David's case. Thus, the company paid £1 million for 62 other children. That works out at a rough average of £16,000 per child. Yesterday's new offer of £5 million for the 370 children who have not yet received a penny will result in a rough average of only £13,500. So after allowing for inflation, as we must—the Government admit to inflation, although the judges do not—yesterday's figure, in real terms, will be only 66 per cent. of the previous deplorable level awarded to the other children. It is a scandalous offer which literally adds insult to appalling injury. These children need at least £20 million, on any realistic assessment. Many of us will look very hard to the company to make sure that the children get it.
  So much for the company. What of the Government? I do not wish to approach the Government's responsibility in any party-political sense, for three reasons. The first reason is that no one in the House has a monopoly of compassion. The second is that the Labour Government took no steps to establish a fund when they were invited to do so. That was just after the court settlement in 1968 when it was reasonable to assume that the Distillers Company would settle the remaining claims fairly quickly. Thirdly, the children's cause will suffer if the issue becomes a party political one, and such a development is quite out of the question. Party politics have no place in the debate. But the Government's attitude and that of its agencies has been, and is, quite extraordinary.
  In 1958 the task of classifying drugs fell to the Cohen Committee. I know that there have been lots of Cohen Committees but the one to which I refer was the Standing Joint Committee on the Classification of Proprietary Medicines. An impressive name, but did it do an impressive job? Its terms of reference stated that it had to consider and report on drugs and medicines of doubtful value. But it actually placed thalidomide in a category, the description of which included the words "New remedies of proved value".
  The Cohen Committee was a Government agency, and its disastrous decision encouraged doctors to prescribe thalidomide under the National Health Service. That establishes clear responsibility. Now, of course, the Prime Minister is disclaiming responsibility on behalf of the Government, but I believe that his position is untenable. It may be argued that the Cohen Committee had no powers at that time. But the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Mr. Powell), later Minister of Health, said in 1962 that the committee had powers to say that a particular drug had not been satisfactorily tested. The committee remained silent, however. If the Government were not satisfied with the powers they then had, they were quite able to bring forward new legislation to cover the full eventualities. The situation existed, therefore, where over 400 children were born maimed and deformed and yet the responsible committee apparently had no powers and took no steps to obtain those powers either for itself or for the Government.
  The Government's reaction today is equally remarkable because when I asked the Prime Minister to establish a special fund he said that we should await the outcome of negotiations. He says much the same in the amendment, and that is one of the reasons why the amendment is totally unacceptable. It is an astonishing situation. There is nothing to stop negotiations being dragged on by the company for another 10 years. There is no reason why the negotiations should not now be concluded. So the Prime Minister by his categorical statement and by the amendment is handing over to the company the right to veto the Government's actions—
  Mr. Anthony Fell: The hon. Member will know that I am completely behind him in his general views on the subject, as, I think, are my hon. and right hon. Friends. But I beg him not to say that the Prime Minister did not go as far as it was possible for the leader of a Government to go when he made his statement the other day in reply to another hon. Member.
  Mr. Ashley: I accept that comment in the spirit in which it was meant, and I do not refer to the Prime Minister in any vindictive sense. He has, however,

  437
  written me a number of letters and he has answered Questions at the Dispatch Box. His answers were that he could take no action on the fund until negotiations were concluded. I make no personal attack on the Prime Minister, but he is responsible. I submit that he must change his mind. He has expressed his sympathy and his sympathy is welcome, but sympathy simply will not pay the bills that have been incurred for these children in the last 10 years; sympathy will not pay for the necessities of life for the next 50 years. We must have action rather than an expression of sympathy.
  I hope that if the Prime Minister feels the need to bring legislation forward, he will say so. Hon. Members on both sides will willingly stay day and night to assist him in getting that legislation on to the Statute Book. I have no doubt that some measures will be brought forward which I hope will benefit the thalidomide children. I have no doubt also that after the terrible tribulations of these children, who have suffered for so long, new legislation which will benefit future generations of disabled people will be brought forward.
  I hope that the disabled of the future will be able to carry their burdens into a more just and fair society, a society which has looked deeply into its collective conscience and which has reassessed its attitude towards disabled people. If that day dawns, as I hope it will, I hope that we as Members of the House of Commons will be able to look back and say that we all faced up to our moral responsibilities for thalidomide children.
  4.7 p.m.
  The Secretary of State for Social Services (Sir Keith Joseph): I beg to move, to leave out from "children" in line 1 to the end of the Question and to add instead thereof
  "and the delay in reaching a settlement between Distillers (Biochemicals) Limited and most of the children and their families recognises the initiatives taken by Her Majesty's Government to improve services for the handicapped and disabled; and welcomes the undertakings of Her Majesty's Government to investigate any case where the needs of a thalidomide child are thought not to be mat by the services available, and to consider, as soon as the cases are no longer sub judice, whether a trust fund needs to be established for thalidomide children ".
  438
  Before I speak to the Motion there is an interest that I must declare. Through reinsurance effected in the early 1960s by a syndicate of which I was then a member I might be liable for a small percentage of a small share of the cost of any claim arising through legal action against Distillers. The amount for which I would be liable would be most unlikely to exceed several hundred pounds.
  I also have to explain that because my right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney-General has recently appeared in a case which is subject to appeal he did not think it right to take part in today's debate. I must explain, too, that I find myself as the Minister responsible over a wide range of services which thalidomide children need and, therefore, after listening to the debate, I shall seek the permission of the House to wind up at the end.
  I know that the House would wish me to compliment the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, South (Mr. Ashley) on his speech. The House will not be surprised to know that I do not feel the freedom that he felt to comment as he did, but on the other hand I feel the necessity to go a good bit wider than he did, and I may therefore take a little longer than he took.
  First, I should like to say a few words, in all humility, about the thalidomide families. They are not a homogeneous group. The parents came from a cross-section of the community and they endured a terrible shock. They carry a heavy burden under great strain. Under this burden some families seem in an astonishing way to have been actually strengthened, and some have been broken. Many of them did not know of the services available. How could they? They and their general practitioners had to find out what could be done.
  Coming fresh to this group, I have formed an enormous admiration for the parents and their children and for the voluntary services mainly concerned. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman did not mean to impugn the activities of the Lady Hoare Trust when he said that we all had to blame ourselves. The trust has been a magnificent help to the families. Lady Hoare herself is away at present, but I have met some of her medical-social workers, and today I saw a film

  439
  of what the parents and children, helped by all the other services, have been able to do. I saw a film of boys and girls without limbs, yet with a dignity, spontaneity and vitality that is wholly remarkable. I urge hon. Members to see the film as evidence of what can be done.
  It is a sober tribute to the achievement of the parents, children, voluntary services and all the other services concerned that no fewer than 90 per cent. of the children concerned are living in their own homes, and 75 per cent. of them are attending ordinary schools. This reflects credit also on the local authorities, the National Health Service, the limb-fitting service and the schools—[An HON. MEMBER: "And on the other children."] I agree with my hon. Friend.
  One benefit that has come from this tragedy is that there is now a scrutiny system for medicines. The Committee on the Safety of Medicines is in action, and while no human being can guarantee that there will never in any circumstances be such a disaster again, as a country we are now equipped as well as any in the world, and probably better than most.
  I must remind the House that despite the understandable tide of emotion about thalidomide children they are not the only very severely congenitally disabled people. We have to keep a balance in our minds, which are filled with those who are limbless because of the thalidomide drug. There are other children suffering from very severe congenital disabilities also, with great strain on their parents.
  I hope that the House will agree that I am not particularly unwilling to meet or listen to cases of need. I am quick to read, to meet, to listen and to visit, but the fact is that until very recently I was not aware of the circumstances in connection with thalidomide children. The Government have made a number of improvements in the benefits and service for the physically and mentally disabled. I shall not list them. There are never enough, but we have made a number of improvements, as is generally acknowledged. However, I was not aware in the front of my mind of this particular group of disabled.
  When I asked myself, "Why not?", I uncovered the fact that the group and
  440
  the voluntary service that particularly concerns itself with them—Lady Hoare's Trust—has not approached the Government in the past 2½years, except for one letter to me inquiring about the availability of attendance allowance for four children in particular. I am not making any excuse, but simply saying that as a matter of fact—whether because of despair, I do not know—the group, through the voluntary body particularly dedicated to them, have not approached the present Government.
  Mr. Eric S. Heffer Mr. Eric S. Heffer (Liverpool, Walton)rose—
  Sir K. Joseph: I should just like to finish this sentence before giving way to the hon. Gentleman.
  I am not trying to make too much of what I have just said, because if I had been made aware of the group earlier I should not have been able, any more than any of my predecessors, to intervene in the legal case or negotiations, but I might earlier have identified cases where services are not available.
  Mr. Heffer: I think the right hon. Gentleman has now clarified the point. During the days of the Labour Government I raised the matter time and time again with Ministers, urging that my own people should do something about it. I was therefore surprised that the right hon. Gentleman did not know from his own Department that such approaches had been made, not only by me but by many other hon. Members.
  Sir K. Joseph: No Government know anything about the private approaches to their predecessors. We know only the public approaches. I am well aware that hon. Members on both sides have pressed Governments, and I of course entirely accept that individual hon. Members have approached me on technical questions. The hon. Member for Eccles (Mr. Carter-Jones) has been very persistent about prosthetic arms, for instance. But the general question about thalidomide children has not been raised.
  I must state clearly that compensation is not for the Government to provide. There is no legal liability on the Government. There is no implication about a drug because it was prescribed under the National Health Service. There was

  441
  no scrutiny system until the Committee on the Safety of Drugs was set up as a result of the thalidomide tragedy. Compensation is a matter for the company.
  Mr. David Ginsborg: Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that there would be an obligation on the Government if there were a disaster currently as a result of the Medicines Commission's passing a drug after which there was a similar case? Surely, the Government would be legally and morally involved, with the manufacturer, if such an event occurred.
  Sir K. Joseph: It is still the responsibility of the manufacturer to answer for his manufacture, whether there is a scrutiny system or not. By a scrutiny system we provide the public with as much protection as we can, but the responsibility is still upon the manufacturer.
  Mr. Harold Wilson: Whether there is or is not a responsibility on the Government is a very arguable matter. There are no party differences here. I refer to successive Governments in this matter. Whether any Government should be setting up an actuarial fund to deal with all such risks is a very arguable matter, I agree. But if the right hon. Gentleman says so categorically that there is no responsibility on the Government in respect of prescribing under the National Health Service, he is underlining—doubly and trebly underlining—the moral responsibilities of the firm, and is therefore really accepting the main principle of our motion.
  Sir K. Joseph: I must protect myself from doing that which would be tantamount to intervening in current negotiations and litigation. But hon. Members on both sides have expressed themselves as very concerned about the responsibility of the firm. Those who were desperately worried about what appeared to be deadlock in the negotiations will have noted the new offer as evidence of active negotiations—[Interruption.] I ask hon. Members to recognise that at this delicate stage of the negotiations between the company and the parents nothing should be said that might discourage the efforts being made by both parties to reach a satisfactory settlement. Ministers cannot intervene in
  442
  the litigation or the negotiations, any more than our predecessors were able to.
  Mr Frank Tomney: Let us try to fix the responsibility a little earlier. Am I not right in suggesting that the British Medical Association's medical advisory panel cleared the drug in 1958?
  Sir K. Joseph: I cannot answer the hon. Gentleman. But the responsibility of the manufacturers seems to have been accepted by them inasmuch as they are now negotiating with the parents. I say again that we should be very wrong to prejudice the progress of those negotiations.
  Meanwhile, I must ask the House to allow me to deal with a wider range of needs in addition to compensation. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister and I invited parents who felt that they were lacking services to which they were entitled to write to us. We have had about a dozen letters complaining of various deficiencies, and we are informing ourselves urgently. The local authorities vary very much in the quality of their services, and they face a great many needs. The House will be glad to know that the 25 medical social workers working for the Lady Hoare Trust have offered to send to me a schedule of the services to which they think the thalidomide families are entitled and are not getting. As soon as I get that schedule I shall get in touch with the local authorities concerned. I shall pass the housing needs to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment.
  Mrs. Barbara Castle: The right hon. Gentleman has been arguing that the Government cannot intervene in litigation. Does he think that it would be so intervening if the Government were now to set up a trust to remove from the parents the financial pressure which is forcing some of them to accept unjust settlements? If the Government set up such a trust the parents would be free to litigate on equal terms.
  Sir K. Joseph: I am not prepared to make any imputation about the firm. But surely it would be said by some people, if we were ready to make such imputations, that if the Government accepted responsibility for compensation a firm that so wished could feel less

  443
  pressure than there is on the firm at the moment. I am not making such imputations, but the right hon. Lady will admit that some of her hon. Friends might say that.
  Apart from services which are primarily the responsibility of local authorities under the various statutes, the Government have introduced the attendance allowance. It was included in legislation by the previous Government but it fell at the General Election. The attendance allowance gives payment to the most severely disabled. However, there are some anomalies which have been brought to the Government's notice. I am asking the Attendance Allowance Board to look at the matter in connection with the very severely disabled thalidomide children who feel that they should get the allowance and are not. About 20,000 children are receiving a tax-free allowance of £5·40 a week. We reckon that from December next year, with the extension of the attendance allowance rules, possibly another 50,000 children, including, it is hoped, all those thalidomide households not now receiving the attendance allowance, will receive the lower rate of attendance allowance.
  The House may like to know that in 1974, compared with no expenditure on attendance allowance in 1970, there will be over £15 million in payment for children alone through the attendance allowance.
  Mr. William Hamilton: How many children?
  Sir K. Joseph: About 70,000 children. I cannot be sure.
  There will as the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, South indicated in due course be the question of jobs. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Employment will be much concerned with that matter, as he is generally with employment for the very severely disabled. I know that a number of hon. Members will have read with great sympathy the views of the Disablement Income Group about the need for some special source of income, other than means-tested benefits, for the congenitally disabled. That raises all sorts of difficulties about resources, priorities and techniques. People who are congenitally disabled are
  444
  entitled to means-tested benefits. The House can be sure that the Government are studying all the views of the Disablement Income Group and that they will be taken into account.
  I have told the House that compensation is for the company. The new offer is an indication of active—
  Mr. Harold Wilson: The whole House recognises the spirit in which the right hon. Gentleman is approaching the debate. Even if we may disagree with his conclusions, the House will pay tribute to the compassion and the spirit in which he is approaching these questions.
  The right hon. Gentleman has just repeated what he said earlier about compensation and the company. He is supporting an amendment which relates to a decision not to take action ahead of the litigation. Is he not aware that there are abundant precedents for this House to act by legislation, even when a matter is sub judicel The House will remember that both the Prime Minister and I commended that the House should act in a serious matter in Northern Ireland which was sub judice, being subject to appeal, about the role of the troops under the Special Powers Act. We legislated to put the matter beyond all doubt before the matter came to final appeal.
  Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that there have been many cases of tax avoidance where the courts have given a ruling contrary to the expectation of the Inland Revenue, and perhaps of Parliament, and where there has been legislation before others could cash in? Will he please put out of his mind the feeling that, whatever he may think about litigation, it is not within the competence of the House to legislate either to compel compensation or to set up a special fund, or some combination of the two?
  Sir K. Joseph: I accept all that. I am not taking a legalistic view. There are two reasons why legislation, as recommended by the Motion, is unsuitable. First, it might prejudice the negotiations—[HON. MEMBERS: "Why?"]—because hon. Members who choose to be rude about the company keep on saying—it is their words that I am using, and not mine—that a company that wishes to

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  avoid responsibility might welcome the responsibility being taken by the taxpayer. Secondly, desperate though the poignancy of the thalidomide children is, there are many other children equally disabled.
  Mr. Leo Abse: I appreciate the right hon. Gentleman's reluctance to intervene in the litigation. However, will he be prepared to consult the Lord Chancellor? Many people are concerned about engaging in litigation on equal terms. If the case goes to court it will involve hundreds of thousands of pounds. Will the right hon. Gentleman give an assurance to the House that he will be prepared to discuss the issue with the Lord Chancellor and ensure that no pressure will be brought upon any of these litigants through the Law Society and the Legal Aid Fund to compromise the claim, so that the company knows that if necessary every one of the legally aided parents can go into court. If the company knows that, and knows that the Government are prepared to go that far, it will be coerced into recognising its maximum liability to those affected.
  Sir K. Joseph: I know that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, in response to a letter from the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mrs. Castle) has already discussed the matter with the Lord Chancellor. He has been able to satisfy himself that there is no question of the legal aid facilities being withdrawn. I think that I can give the hon. Gentleman the categoric assurance that he wants. Discussions have already taken place between the Prime Minister and the Lord Chancellor.
  Dr. M. S. Miller (Glasgow, Kelvin-grove): The right hon. Gentleman has repeated that there is a comparison between the thalidomide children and other children who are also, because of genetic difficulty, born without limbs and so on. But does he agree that we are not comparing like with like? In one instance there is the kind of risk that can happen to any family, which is something for which human beings have no responsibility. In the other instance, there is the direct causal effect that the drug was known to cause these tremendous damages. Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that he is saying, in effect, that there
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  should be no legal obligation if somebody is injured by a motor car—
  Sir K. Joseph: No. The hon. Gentleman forgets that it is precisely for the reason that he is saying that the company is now accepting responsibility for making payments in compensation.
  Mr. William Price Mr. William Price (Rugby)rose—
  Sir K. Joseph: No, I will not give way. I have something to say which the House will want to hear before I sit down. I must say again, so that I do not lose the thread of the argument, that compensation is for the company and that the new offer indicates active negotiation.
  The Government must recognise that there are others born with desperate congenital disabilities which gravely burden their families and which are as severe as the loss of limbs due to thalidomide. Such families are inevitably involved in all manner of special needs. Many of these needs are the responsibility of statutory authorities but there are other forms of help outside these responsibilities which could improve the life of a child and reduce the burden on its family. The Government accept that more needs to be done for children with very severe congenital disability whether or not caused by the taking of thalidomide.
  In many cases the parents need more help in shouldering the various burdens which caring for these children entails. I have already paid tribute to the remarkable achievements of many of the parents concerned. The Government have therefore decided to make the sum of £3 million available for this purpose, virtually at once. It is not intended that this money should be by way of compensation for being disabled, but rather that it should serve to complement the services already being provided by statutory and voluntary bodies to help the families concerned.
  With this in mind the Government will begin at once to consider, in consultation with the statutory and voluntary bodies likely to be concerned, what arrangements they can set up so that the money can best be used for the benefit of the children and their parents. The House can be assured that this will be carried out as quickly as possible. Further, in the light of experience with this operation

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  and as soon as the cases are no longer sub judice the Government will consider whether to provide a similar further amount of money in trust.
  I must emphasise that I am talking about children congenitally disabled—and by that I mean with very severe congenital disabilities found to be present at birth or immediately after. What we have in mind are children suffering from the most severe conditions analagous to the lack of limbs, such as those suffering from the extremely damaging forms of, for instance, spina bifida. We have some difficulty, because we must make a definition. Because we have in mind the sort of children mentioned by the hon. Member, I have had to exclude from this undertaking those who are born blind or those who are very shortly after birth discovered to be totally deaf. There has to be some limitation.
  I come now to the motion and the amendment. Because we do not believe as the Opposition motion presses, that we should legislate at once, or that we should weaken the pressure on the parties to reach a satisfactory settlement, I ask the House not to approve the motion. The motion as amended, in the light of what I have been able to announce today, does meet the three tests which I believe all hon. Members should set. The amended motion does not prejudice the settlement; it does not wholly and in the light of what I have announced, leave out the other very severely congenitally disabled. It provides help now for thalidomide families, those who need help complementary to that provided by the local authorities in their noble effort to bring up these children. I hope that the House will not accept the motion. I hope that if it is pressed my hon. Friends will vote against it and support the amendment.
  4.34 p.m.
  Mrs. Barbara Castle: I feel sure that everyone will be grateful to the Opposition for having provided this half-day debate and will bitterly regret the fact that the Government have not been able to make it into a whole day. Because there are clearly so many hon. Members who wish to speak and so many points that we could pursue, I will try to be brief as possible. I believe, with my hon.
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  Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent, South (Mr. Ashley), in that superb and moving speech of his, that we all bear some history of responsibility. Looking back we can all be aware that we have shared in the national lethargy on this subject until it was brought vividly to our attention in recent months.
  Surely the fact that we accept our past misdemeanour heightens the need for action now? We cannot now say that we do not know. This is the division between us today. In our motion we call for immediate action, for immediate legislation, for the immediate establishment of a trust fund. The Government's only answer for that is to say, "No, we must wait".
  Mr. Fell: That is not so.
  Mrs. Castle: I listened to the right hon. Gentleman with great care. I do not know what it is we are supposed to be waiting for. We are told that we must wait and we cannot have the trust fund until the litigation is over, until the whole issue is settled.
  Mr. Fell: My right hon. Friend has just said that he is setting up a fund which may be drawn on when necessary.
  Mrs. Castle: I will come to the right hon. Gentleman's announcement in a moment. I am talking about the major issue that is set out in the motion and rejected in the amendment—whether we should have immediate legislation on the matters which have proved to be so urgent. One of the reasons why the Government have said "We can afford to wait, why should we set up a proper trust fund?" is that they are giving, they say, such massive help through the social services.
  We welcome the right hon. Gentleman's announcement about this £3 million which the Government are to find for all the congenitally disabled, for a general category of people. But this £3 million offer is not good enough—any more than is the Distillers' additional £2 million offer—to make our motion unnecessary.
  I want to concentrate on some points about which I have had correspondence with the Prime Minister but before doing so let me refer briefly to the social services. In his opening remarks the right hon. Gentleman admitted that in dealing

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  with this kind of desperately severely disabled case there are serious gaps in our social services and that the parents of a number of children are still being told that they have to wait.
  Sir K. Joseph Sir K. Joseph rose—
  Mrs. Castle: Let me give the right hon. Gentleman my examples before he intervenes. I am anxious not to take up too much time.
  Sir K. Joseph: I said that local authorities varied enormously in their services. I have had letters from parents who say that they have had all the help they could possibly ask for from their local authorities. In some cases that is not true; in others it is.
  Mrs. Castle: If the right hon. Gentleman had saved the time of the House by waiting, as I asked him, he would have heard of three examples which I am about to give. I will quote two, which he has mentioned. First of all there is the attendance allowance. He has admitted that a number of these thalidomide children do not qualify under the present definition of "constant attendance by day and by night". He has admitted that a number of them will have to wait until December, 1973, before qualifying. That has been a gap. Whoever may have been responsible, it is a gap.
  Then he talked about the arguments of the Disablement Income Group and its plea on behalf of all severely disabled people who cannot qualify under an insurance scheme. The Group argues that we should accept the need for a disablement income. It is not good enough for the right hon. Gentleman to say that he will consider very carefully what the group has said. We have at the moment a Social Security Bill going through the House which carefully omits to provide a disablement income for this category of persons. I have asked the right hon. Gentleman whether he will accept an amendment to include this provision in the Bill. If he had made an announcement today that he intended to do that, then that would have been a change of policy which would have had a fundamental effect.
  I refer to a third point because I have been asked to do so by the mother of a thalidomide child. It concerns the
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  question of transport. I know that a certain amount of help with transport has been given to the parents of these unhappy children. I propose to read from the letter sent to me by the mother of a 10-year-old boy who has no lower limbs and precious little of what we would call arms. She writes:
  "I have a small, second-hand car, bought solely for the purpose of transporting Anthony to limb fitting centres, shopping, visiting his school friends, etc., outings which with a normal healthy boy would raise no problems. All I want is help with the Road Tax for my car. Believe me, I have endeavoured to obtain this, but without success. The last letter received was a masterpiece—help could possibly be received when Anthony was 16 and able to hold a driving licence! The child will never be in a position to drive a car".
  We are all familiar with the problem of mobility for disabled people.
  No doubt the Secretary of State will say that he has set up the committee under the chairmanship of Lady Sharp. I am aware of that. All I am saying is that there are serious gaps in provision through the social services. I hope that when we get Lady Sharp's report the Government will announce that they are prepared to act on it. We must not be complacent about the adequacy of our social services in dealing with the victims of disablement. That is all the more reason why we should use the resources and authority of the State to help to secure a reasonable settlement of the tragic cases we are discussing.
  All that we have had from the Minister is a repetition of the Government's argument that they cannot intervene because the case is sub judice. But the Distillers Company has never accepted legal liability. All its offers have been made in discharge of what it calls its moral responsibility. When the Government say that they cannot even comment on the talks which are taking place, let alone do anything, such as setting up a trust fund, which might prejudice them, they are saying, in effect, that they refuse to comment on whether the Distillers Company has discharged its moral responsibility. That response is totally inadequate.
  There was incidentally a remarkable change of argument by the Government when the Secretary of State told us that the Government could not set up a trust fund now because it might prejudice,

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  not the position of the Distillers Company in the discussions, but the position of the parents of the thalidomide children.
  Mr. Fell: Are not they more important?
  Mrs. Castle: Of course they are. But has the Secretary of State asked the parents what they want the Government to do? Some of us have been in close contact with the parents, and carrying this motion would give them new heart and hope.
  Mr. Alexander W. Lyon: Is not the answer to the Minister's argument that, if the Government were to set up a trust fund by legislation and to take over, for the trustees of the fund, the rights of the parents and children against the Distillers Company, the legal proceedings could continue as long as was necessary without pressure being brought to bear on the parents to settle?
  Mrs. Castle: My hon. Friend is right, and it is on that point that I wish to concentrate.
  We are taking a ludicrously unrealistic attitude to the question of who is pressurising whom. The simple fact is that the parents of these children have been under financial and legal pressure and pressure by their solicitors—indeed, pressure on every front—to settle on terms which they bitterly resented as being inadequate. The question which we must ask is whether or not it is our duty to step in and insulate them against pressures which are leading to unjust settlements.
  Mr. Clinton Davis: What has been exercising my mind is how a distinction can be drawn in principle between a situation such as that which arose at Aberfan, where a disaster fund was immediately established yet litigation was contemplated and indeed ensued, and the matter we are considering. I fail to see the distinction.
  Mrs. Castle: I entirely agree. It is all the more essential that we should take the financial pressure off parents to settle hurriedly and inadequately because of all the other pressures to which they have been subjected. I maintain what I said at Question Time on another occasion: all the resources of the powerful Distillers Company are being used to pressurise the
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  parents into accepting a settlement which they feel is unjust.
  When I intervened at Question Time a few days ago I gave the Prime Minister examples of what I meant. I sent him a letter reiterating them and spelling them out. One of the examples I gave came directly within the Government's responsibility because public funds were involved. It concerned the question of legal aid about which the Prime Minister said the Lord Chancellor had given satisfactory assurances. He has not given them to me. I sent to the Prime Minister evidence showing that a number of parents have been threatened with the withdrawal of their legal aid certificates because they refused to accept the advice of their solicitors to accept the settlement.
  I offered to provide names and asked for an assurance that none of the parents would risk losing legal aid. I received a reply from the Lord Chancellor's office asking me to send particulars. I replied at once sending details of three cases in which the people concerned were prepared for all the details to come under scrutiny. I offered to supply more names, but I was told that that would not be necessary. Today I have had a reply from the Prime Minister telling me, quite correctly, that the decision to discharge a legal aid certificate rests with an area committee, and he explained that
  "…if as a result of the information it has received it considers that the assisted person has required the proceedings to be conducted unreasonably so as to put an unjustifiable expense on the Legal Aid Fund"
  the area committee might withdraw the certificate. The right hon. Gentleman went on to say:
  "I am told that in the present case no report has been made to the area committee which would enable it to act under this Regulation…".
  But the Prime Minister misses the point. He is tragically out of touch with what is happening to certain parents. The fact that no approach has been made to the area committee does not mean that parents have not been pressurised. The pressure lies in the threat of withdrawal made by their solicitors.
  I sent the right hon. Gentleman the details of three cases. Yet he has sent me this incredible reply:
  "I know of no justification for the suggestion that any of the parents have been threatened with the withdrawal of their certificates."

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  The Prime Minister knows of no cases. Does he not know, or does he not want to know? I have sent him the names of three parents who are willing to swear an affidavit that they have been so threatened by their solicitors.
  The Prime Minister (Mr. Edward Heath): It is the right hon. Lady who is missing the point. I told her the position. The Lord Chancellor has advised me that only the area committee can withdraw, or threaten to withdraw, a certificate. No cases have been raised in the area committees. Therefore, as the right hon. Lady is in touch with the parents concerned, it is right for her to reply to them that they cannot be threatened effectively with the withdrawal of a certificate unless it is done by the area committee, because the area committee is the only body which can withdraw a certificate The right hon. Lady can give a full assurance to those parents that, unless the area committee comes to the conclusion that the parents have behaved, in the accepted phrase, unreasonably, there is absolutely no danger of their having their certificates withdrawn.
  Naturally it is fully accepted in the House that when a Minister replies to an hon. Member the hon. Member then communicates that information to the person involved. It was not for me to communicate direct when the right hon. Lady had been so kind as to send me the details. She can tell the parents that nothing has been raised with an area committee and that area committees are the only bodies which can threaten—which they would not do—or actually withdraw a certificate, and no cases have been raised with them.
  Mrs. Castle: The whole argument whether parents need the moral and financial support of a trust fund rests on the sort of treatment they have had in trying to press their legitimate claims. The simple fact is that during the past 10 years pressure of this kind has been made, and made successfully. If the right hon. Gentleman wanted to know whether a fund were needed and whether the parents wanted it, he might, for instance, have arranged for the three parents whose names I sent him to be interviewed. I can give him details of a fourth case.
  The Prime Minister: The right hon. Lady is now completely changing her
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  ground. I am dealing with the specific case of the withdrawal of a legal aid certificate. The right hon. Lady has been given every assurance, which she can pass on to the parents, that it cannot be done except by an area committee which is satisfied that the parents have been themselves unreasonable. If any solicitor who is serving these parents makes a threat of that kind, the parents can tell the solicitor that it is unjustified and they can themselves take action with the area committee. Let the right hon. Lady stick to that point.
  Mrs. Castle: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that until we on this side of the House started to ventilate these cases even that assurance was not forthcoming and there was no public or moral support for these people in their one-sided battle?
  Let me give the Prime Minister a fourth example where his assurances have come too late. It is the case of a Mrs. Clark who is at this moment in the Public Gallery and who is one of the parents who was pressurised into accepting the 1968 settlement.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Robert Grant-Ferris): Order. The right hon. Lady should not refer to people in the public Gallery.
  Mrs. Castle: Very well, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I withdraw that. I will repeat that Mrs. Clark is just one of the cases that were pressurised into accepting the 1968 settlement. This is what Mrs. Clark wrote to me:
  "When, for reasons which are too complicated for this letter, we tried to go to the Press with the evidence that certain matters were being withheld we were told by our QC that if we persited we could have our legal aid certificates withdrawn, which obviously meant no case. Who could afford to fight? The Sunday Times and Telegraph in 1968 attempted to draw attention to several incidents, including those involving us personally. My daughter Heather was the first girl of the 62 to go into court. In other words, she set the precedent for the girls. We asked to see Mr. Ackner's pleadings for her"—
  Mr. Ackner was the QC—
  "and the replies. We even asked for a resume' to have an idea of what he had stated. This request and others were refused on the grounds that ' there was only one copy '. Naturally we informed our solicitors of the grand invention, the photostat machine, and offered to pay for copies but were refused. The 40 per cent.

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  settlement was done in a room with all parents of the 62 after much changing of dates and venue. At the end of three hours, Mr. Ackner doing his utmost to convince us that we were wrong to go further with the cases, he suggested we accept 40 per cent. of an unknown figure and at the end of the three hours we were given a paper to sign of acceptance. People signed like lambs. They were told there was no alternative ".
  Mr. David Waddington: I know that the right hon. Lady wishes to be fair. She commenced this part of her argument by saying that all the resources of the company had been used to pressurise the parents. Surely all she has said in the last few minutes is that the lawyers acting for the parents have pressurised. Where is the evidence that the company has pressurised the parents? Will the right hon. Lady, in the interests of historical accuracy, because this is a point that has not yet been made on the Floor of the House, acknowledge that any offer made by the company must have been an offer not so much coming from the company as coming from the company's insurers and the company cannot have made any offer unless the insurer had allowed it to make the offer?
  Mrs. Castle: In recent years attempts have been made by a number of newspapers to bring these matters to the public's attention. Tribute has been paid to The Sunday Times; it has certainly done an outstanding job. Other newspapers, uneasy and unhappy, have tried to raise these cases and have always come up against reactions from Distillers (Biochemicals) Ltd. which have tended to keep these facts dark.
  I come to another example of the Prime Minister's complacency. I gave him another example of the way in which parents were being pressurised, the way in which five parents who held out against acceptance of the proposed settlement were taken to court by their own solicitors as no longer acting in their children's best interests. These parents were actually replaced by the Official Solicitor as their children's next friend in law. If Lord Denning had not reversed this decision on appeal, those parents would not still be righting now.
  I put this in my letter to the Prime Minister just as I put it in my supple-
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  mentary question in the House. The Prime Minister's reply to me was:
  "… what happened was that the great majority of the parents felt it was wrong that a small minority should be able to prevent all the children from benefiting from the proposed trust fund. I think this feeling was readily understandable and it was a representative of the majority of the parents, and not, as you say, the solicitors acting for the minority, who took the initiative in seeking to bring in the Official Solicitor."
  This morning I read the extract from the Prime Minister's letter to the parent of one of these thalidomide children—Mr. Mason, who had taken the initiative, first in resisting the settlement and, secondly, in taking the matter to appeal. Mr. Mason's comment to me was very restrained in the circumstances; he told me that the Prime Minister was "totally incorrect".
  I will explain what Mr. Mason told me actually happened. It was Mr. Mason, a man of some resources and, therefore, greater freedom of action than most of these parents have had, who fought the ruling that the majority of these applications were out of time. The other parents had been told it was too late after the 1968 settlement. Mr. Mason fought it because he had funds. He won it. It was he who won leave to issue a writ. It was he who chose Messrs. Kimber Bull & Co. as solicitors because they handled the original 1968 offer.
  When in June of this year Distillers made its second offer, the one which worked out at an average payment of £8,000 per child, Mr. Mason took the initiative in rejecting it. He did not regard £8,000 as good enough for a child without arms or legs. It was Distillers who insisted on an all-or-nothing settlement. This is another piece of the pres-surisation which has taken place. Mr. Mason said, "If the others want to settle, then they can go ahead, I do not want to stand in their way. But, by heaven, my child has no arms or legs and I am going on to fight."
  It was Kimber Bull & Co. which threatened to make his daughter a ward of court because he was not taking the £8,000 offer lying down. It was Mr. Mason who fought the application for the appeal against the introduction of the Official Solicitor. He fought the matter with his own money and risked facing legal costs amounting to several thousand

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  pounds. Five parents backed him and they won and got their costs. They won overwhelmingly, and Lord Denning said that it was not unreasonable for those parents to want to continue to fight for their children's interests. But other parents have been in no position to take these financial risks
  Mr. Mason has now new solicitors, but he is still facing endless obstacles in pressing his claim. The new solicitors wrote to Kimber Bull & Co. asking it to transfer the existing papers relating to Mr. Mason's case in respect of his daughter. They were refused—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] Yes, they were refused. And we are talking about not pressurising Distillers! We have left these parents alone and helpless for years.
  The Prime Minister: I hope that the right hon. Lady will give way before she goes any further. Nothing she has said so far has in any way contradicted the information I gave on the best advice available in my reply to her—not one single thing. Of course, it is true that the case was taken to the court, that it was appealed against by the minority of the parents, and that they won. I said that myself and nothing she has said has contradicted that. But the point I wish to make is this. I hope that she is not suggesting that any of the lawyers—be they solicitors or members of the Bar who advised the parents, whether they be those who have settled, or the majority who have not yet been able to settle, or the minority who do not wish to settle, or the Official Solicitor—have in any way been influenced by the Government or a Government Department or any Minister. There is not one shred of evidence of that. Therefore, I hope the right hon. Lady will stop accusing me of being complacent about this matter, or will stop implying that the Government have a responsibility for legal advice which is given to parents, whoever they may be. If she is making that implication, it is a most disgraceful suggestion.
  Mrs. Castle: Really! The right hon. Gentleman is justifying my strictures on him this afternoon. Of course, I am not saying that I am holding the Government responsible for solicitors' advice. All I am saying is how right the parents were to resist. And let us remember that
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  because they rejected an average settlement of £8,000 they were threatened with having their children made wards of court and the Official Solicitor was wheeled in. Let us also remember that the very threat of a House of Commons debate has forced Distillers to increase its offer still further to £5 million. So who were right—the parents or the solicitors who brought pressure upon them?
  The point I wish to make to the right hon. Gentleman is this. This has been an unequal and unfair fight, and it is time we threw the authority of the House of Commons into the situation so that the parents are relieved of their financial anxieties and so that they are put into a position to fight. If an average payment of £8,000 in June is now admitted by Distillers to be inadequate, let us keep up the pressure, set up a fund and we may then see that £5 million offer turned into £15 million before long—certainly something far nearer to the human justice which we need to have.
  I want now to conclude because so many hon. Members want to take part in the debate. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] Of course hon. Members opposite want me to conclude but the parents know that these are the things they have asked me to put before the House.
  I conclude by outlining the final struggles of Mr. Mason on behalf of his daughter who, as I have said, is without arms and legs. I have already said that the transfer of the papers in her case was refused. Therefore in desperation the solicitors turned to the Chailey Heritage Hospital where Mr. Mason's daughter Louise has been since birth. I wish to say at this point that in talking to me about his daughter's case Mr. Mason expressed nothing but admiration for the Chailey Heritage Hospital. This is what he said to me about that hospital:
  "They are a fantastic body of people and I have nothing but admiration for them."
  But when his solicitors wrote to the medical administrator of the hospital asking for a complete medical report on his daughter and a history of the injuries which Louise had sustained from birth, he received the following reply from the medical administrator. Let us remember that the solicitor had not been able to get the papers from the former solicitor and that this was the only hope open

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  to Mr. Mason to obtain evidence about his daughter's case. The letter said:
  "Re Louise Mason. In reply to your letter of 3rd November, asking for a medical report on this child, I think it might be better if I passed this on to one of my colleagues here. I was in fact involved in the original case, and I was the paediatrician retained by the Distillers Company, and I think it might be rather invidious if I get involved at this juncture in this claim."
  Can we be surprised if these parents of thalidomide children feel that they live in a Kafka-like world where everywhere they turn for justice the tentacles of Distillers spread before them and when even the man in the hospital who is in charge of one of the victims has been retained by these people.
  Mr. Keith Stainton Mr. Keith Stainton (Sudbury and Woodbridge)rose—
  Mrs. Castle: No, I am sorry, I have not time to give way. I say that a policy of non-intervention by the House is not good enough. I say to the Government that to say that we must wait for a settlement before we can do anything is to condemn these unfortunate parents to impotence. Once the case is settled by this type of force majeure, can anyone doubt that the Distillers Company will lose interest? We shall have lost the lever of public opinion which we can bring to bear against the company and the burden on all our consciences will be "Too late, too late".
  5.8 p.m.
  Mr. John Astor: Following the speech made by the right hon. Lady the Member for Blackburn (Mrs. Castle), I hope to reintroduce a more conciliatory note into the debate. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] First I should like to say how fortunate I am to be the first backbencher to be called from the Conservative benches, because I am sure that I have the support of all my hon. Friends when I offer congratulations to the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, South (Mr. Ashley) on the way in which he introduced the motion at the Opposition Dispatch Box. We all greatly respect the work he does for disabled people and we fully recognise his sincerity.
  Everybody in the House shares the hon. Gentleman's concern expressed in the motion about thalidomide children.
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  Indeed, the official Opposition motion appears to have had its origin in an all-party early day motion which was tabled at the beginning of the Session and which has been signed by 265 hon. Members from all parts of the House. That figure shows how widespread is the concern for disabled people, and it also shows that the great majority of the hon. Members consider that these problems of disablement should be treated on a non-party, or perhaps I should say on an all-party, basis of responsibility.
  I hope that during the rest of the debate the rather conciliatory tone which prevailed in the opening speeches will be resumed, because I am certain from the experience I have had as a member of the all-party Disablement Group, in co-operation with Opposition Members and many of my hon. Friends, that the degree of co-operation and non-party feuding which we have achieved has been of great benefit to disabled people.
  Naturally, I sympathise with a great deal of the thought behind the motion, but I recognise, in practice, as a lot of fair-minded people will, how much my right hon. Friend has already done, not only in respect of thalidomide children but for disabled generally, and how much he is still doing, and will continue to do.
  I recognise that the thalidomide children are a very special group, struck by a terrible tragedy which affected their families as well as themselves. Unfortunately, such tragedies are not confined to the effects of thalidomide, and, as my right hon. Friend said, there are other groups of people and children who suffer from accident or congenital deformity whose cases are just as tragic. We should not lose sight of that. This is one reason, I believe, for not being impetuous about setting up a fund in the terms of the motion, so that all aspects of the matter may be properly and carefully considered, for the strains on these other families and the difficulties that they experience are just as great in their own way.
  Although Distillers (Biochemicals) Limited has been criticised, I at least welcome the fact that it has felt able to increase the value of the offer which it originally made, and also to relax the conditions of acceptance of its offer. I am pleased that this move has been made,

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  also, because it now looks as though, if the parents decide to accept the new offer, the end of this long drawn-out negotiation is at last in sight.
  Whether the present offer is fair and reasonable is a matter of opinion, and people will vary in their judgment as to whether it is generous or mean. But I think it difficult, without having detailed knowledge of each individual case, to make that judgment, just as it is extremely difficult to assess human tragedy in terms of cash. What is, perhaps, more significant is that no one, whatever figure he picks on at this stage, can accurately foretell whether that sum will be adequate to meet the needs of these children as they grow up and move through later life. We hope that they will have a normal span of life. But we do not know how far ahead we shall provide them with support. We do not know what technology will produce in the way of new sophisticated electrical equipment which could be of benefit to them, or what its development will be.
  There are so many uncertainties that I do not see how anyone could establish a figure which would be adequate for all time. This is why I feel that we must adopt a more flexible approach, and that is the main reason why I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for repeating the promise made by the Prime Minister that, as soon as the litigation is out of the way, he will give full consideration to the setting up of a national fund to provide the additional services, equipment and support which will be needed in future years.
  We all welcome my right hon. Friend's announcement this afternoon of the availability of £3 million very soon to meet the most immediate needs. He has undertaken, also, to investigate any individual cases in which it is claimed that these children are not receiving the support which they need.
  I am sure that the whole House, backed by public opinion, would wish all possible support to be given to these children during their education, in their job training and job opportunities, and in their general living conditions, to ensure that they may live as full and independent a life as they can and to ensure that we do all we can to overcome the handicaps with
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  which they were unfortunately born. I am sure, also, that we should seek to relieve the parents at least of the financial anxiety in so far as it is within our power to do so.
  I listened with care to my right hon. Friend's opening speech, and from the assurances which he gave I am entirely satisfied that he will do all in his power to see that the wishes of the House and of the country are fulfilled in giving full support to this group of children and, indeed, to the wider groups of disabled people generally.
  I hope that, in order to preserve the genuine feeling of mutual concern on a non-party basis, the Opposition may yet feel that the amendment, coupled with my right hon. Friend's opening speech, will satisfy them. If there is a Division, it will be a division of emphasis, I think, rather than a division of good will, for I believe that good will will continue to exist on both sides of the House. I certainly greatly hope that it will be in the interests—the primary interest with which we are concerned—of the welfare of disabled people, and the thalidomide children in particular.
  5.16 p.m.
  Mr. Frank Tomney: I wish to broaden one aspect of the matter which has not yet been touched upon. There are tragedies which have lain upon the conscience of the world like a scourge. One was the terrible sufferings of the Jews in the concentration camps. Another was the massacre at Katyn. Another was Stalin's deliberate murder of the peasants in the early years of the Russian Revolution. But it is a purely civilian tragedy with which the House is now concerned—the tragedy of thalidomide—and whether it could or should have been avoided is one of the questions which I shall consider.
  We are living in a complex scientific world—a world becoming more complex every day—in which life is becoming scientifically based, in which politicians and lawyers have very little knowledge of some of the influences and developments at work, yet one in which responsibility for the administration of the changes and problems brought about by science falls directly upon the legislative assemblies of the nations.

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  The knowledge which is forthcoming, and the pace at which it is forthcoming, is both disconcerting and dangerous. I am sure that the House will agree about that, with the present tragedy in mind.
  We cannot grasp the scale and range of drug manufacture now, totalling as it does about £7,000 million in turnover throughout the world. One company follows another in what is called molecular roulette. A company takes another's product and tries to add something to it or subtract something from it, just to corner the market and sell its own new product. The thalidomide tragedy was a tragedy of that kind.
  Medicine is a biological science and, as such, it is based on observation. A basic tenet of that principle of observation is the rejection of authority—a refusal to accept something just because someone said so, or reckoned it to be so. The true scientist wants confirmation of any statement by independent means of verification. I shall show that all the signals and all the danger flags were flying in this tragedy, yet, apparently, no one took much notice.
  I have in my private files details of the cases to which my right hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn (Mrs. Castle) referred. I was glad that she dealt with them so adequately, for it was necessary that these personal cases should be brought out.
  We have only to look at what happened in Germany where the federal tax laws on drug control were very slack. The Chemie Griinenthal company, which was the first to manufacture thalidomide, time and again refused to accept scientific critical papers for examination and investigation.
  A remarkable Penguin book has recently been published. If what is stated in it is untrue, it is actionable for libel. It is called "Thalidomide and the Power of the Drug Companies" and is written by two Swedes, Henning Sjostrom and Robert Nilsson. The story related in this book is frightening. This is why some of us are afraid now. We do not want this kind of legal manoeuvre repeated in this country by any company, no matter how powerful or what its base is. The Distillers base is well known—it is whisky.
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  There will have to be an action in the courts, and that action will have to be conclusive. No Statute of Limitations should debar anybody whose child has been crippled for life claiming damages. The parents themselves have to bear the burden.
  No man can really understand or conjecture the psychological change in a woman who is bearing a child when that child is born and suffers in these circumstances. No compensation can wipe out the memory of that first vital hour, which can destroy the mentality of any woman. So let us have no fiddling, no ducking, no legal arguments, no turning back. Let us say that if money is to be the answer in this case it must be as high an amount as possible to reduce the suffering which will come in later years.
  We know that as far back as 1952, according to the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, a drug called Aminopterim was used in 12 cases of therapeutic abortion. This drug is derived from glutamic acid, which is the main ingredient of thalidomide.
  There was an unknown, unobserved, scientific doctor attached to the Food and Drugs Administration of the United States Government—Dr. Frances Kelsey. The alarm bell started to ring in her mind when this drug was brought to the American market and she refused to give it clearance, despite fantastic pressures put upon her to break her will and to allow this drug on the American market. It reads like a horror story. However, she stuck out. She would not countenance it. It the end President Kennedy awarded her the highest American civilian decoration for saving countless numbers of American women from this tragedy.
  The warning flags were flying at that time. What really gets me is why we did not know. I have tried to get information about the responsibilities of the BMA, its clearance committee and advisory panel. I was not very successful.
  In 1961 the Distillers Company was advising medical men that Distaval, the trade name of this drug in Great Britain,
  "'can be given with complete safety to pregnant women and nursing mothers without adverse effect on mother or child'. Unfortunately in the event doctors relied upon these assurances given by the company."

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  In most scientific journals and branches of science knowledge is made readily available for examination and criticism. I believe that in this instance somebody should have been aware of this knowledge. Has the BMA no readers, analysts or examiners? I repeat the question which I put to the Minister earlier, which has not yet been answered: was this drug given clearance in 1961 when it was offered over the counter for sale, less purchase tax?
  Dr. Miller: Will my hon. Friend accept that, although the medical profession bears responsibility, there were doctors who did not prescribe Distaval? They watched the flags which were flying and obeyed the signals.
  Mr. Tomney: I am grateful to hear that from my hon. Friend, who is a respected member of the medical profession.
  Who made up the board of the BMA? Who are these eminent gentlemen? According to "Who's Who", the chairman of the board has a page of small italic print to himself. How any man can undertake so much I do not know. I know what we have to do within our compass and how busy we can become. So, whether it is neglect, whether the BMA did not know or had not sufficient researchers or advisers to find out, we will never know.
  Arising from this tragedy, the Medicines Act 1968 has now afforded us protection against an issue which concerns the whole world. It is no longer an issue concerning Germany, Great Britain or the United States; it is an issue concerning the whole world. There-ford somebody somewhere had better set up an authoritative international committee with geneticists, analysts and pharmacists who can say that so much of this kind of production is based on competition and has little medical or therapeutic value. Let us follow narrow defined channels strictly in the interests of the patient. This must be done, because this thing is so vast.
  Mr. David Crouch: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way, because what I am about to say is by way of helping him. I must declare an interest in the pharmaceutical industry. At the time that thalidomide
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  was put on the market, no tests were being carried out in the drug industry on the effect of drugs on a foetus. Today, as a result of this tragedy, such tests are required to be carried out before any drugs can be marketed.
  Mr. Tomney: I concede the point that the hon. Gentleman makes. However, it is bolting the door after the horse has gone.
  Dr. Kelsey was alerted because peripheral neuritis was associated with the conditions which have been produced in thalidomide children. So the warning flag was obvious at that early date.
  In order to make sure that this kind of tragedy is never foisted on the British public again, we must charge an international body with this responsibility.
  The Distillers Company, whose main occupation is marketing whisky with an annual turnover of £453 million and a net profit of £64 million, is now most intimately concerned with the question of damages, and damages in a case like this just cannot be assessed.
  I am amazed at the law history of this case. If I were a lawyer of the age at which men produce offspring, I should be chary about going into the courts to defend a case like this. At the back of my mind I should have the thought that it might have been my wife or my child. Instead of indulging in all the legal niceties and legal tenets, and addressing one another as "My lord "or" My learned friend', those concerned should look again at what should be done in a case like this. We have to think about Mr. Justice Hinchcliffe, the Lord Chancellor, the Statute of Limitations, the three year period, the difficulties to which my right hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn referred, the people who have missed the boat, those who have been pressurised into missing the boat and those who could not even afford to get on the boat.
  There is a responsibility on us in Parliament, but the law courts as such must have known that this was a case in a million. They should have known that this was something new and somebody, somewhere, should have come to the Lord Chancellor and to Parliament and said "There is existing law under which this case can be settled but we do not think, in all humanity, that the law

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  meets the situation", and of course it does not.
  But that was not done, and we have heard this afternoon of the misjudgments of some learned judges and of awards of £8,000 to £12,000 to children who have to suffer this penalty throughout their lives. These awards are ridiculous. There was no provision in British law to meet the situation. The matter should have come to this Chamber, and we should have made the necessary legislation available to deal with the issue.
  We should make sure now that if it can be proved and held that Distillers are responsible they are made to pay, and pay heavily. A man is responsible for the issue of his own folly, and the folly in this case was profit. Instead of advancing arguments about briefing counsel or anybody else, Distillers and the directors should say that this was a tragedy, that it was of their making and that they accept responsibility for it.
  5.33 p.m.
  Dr. Gerard Vaughan: I appreciated the wide-reaching and thoughtful way in which the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, South (Mr. Ashley) presented the motion.
  As a first step may I say that I appreciate not only the welcome money which my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has made available but also the humane and understanding way in which he has approached this problem. This is not a party political problem, and it is right that we should be discussing it today. It is a difficult problem to discuss, because it is easy for us to get carried away by the emotional issues—and this is a very emotional issue—and overlook some of the real problems that underlie them.
  I say that because, medically, I have had to examine all the 60 cases which have so far been before the courts. I think I ought to be open about that. I have been through this court procedure on behalf of the parents. The right hon. Lady the Member for Blackburn (Mrs. Castle) mentioned certain solicitors by name. My experience with them was that they could not have been more humane, painstaking and kindly in their approach, but the right hon. Lady may have examples of their actions which do
  468
  not fit in with what I have seen them doing.
  I am accustomed to seeing handicapped children, and it worries me a great deal when people say that thalidomide children are essentially the same as other handicapped children. I thought, when I went to examine them, that I should find them the same as other handicapped children, but I was shocked at the effect they had on me. They are different. I suggest to the House that it is a shock which we all share and there are various reasons for it and for their being essentially different.
  First, the cause is different. Several hon. Members have already referred to this. Knowing the cause, our attitudes are bound to be different. The attitudes of parents are also different, with the result that the stress for them has been greater than for parents of other handicapped children. As a society I feel sure that we have a moral and general responsibility for what has gone on.
  Another difference is that in these cases the parents themselves very often asked for the drug. For various reasons, which are too complicated to go into, they frequently demanded from their doctors that they should have what was called this safe drug. Later on, when the drug turned out to be anything but safe, they felt doubly guilty.
  Then there is the fact that at the time doctors themselves—and here I include myself—believed this to be not just a safe drug, but an outstandingly safe one, so that if patients were reluctant to take it I would put a bit of pressure on them because I felt it was so much safer than their favourite remedies—only to be proved tragically wrong.
  There is another side to the majority of these handicapped children and that is that they are of normal intelligence. With other handicappeds it is unusual to see a severely damaged child with normal or well above normal intelligence. Some of these thalidomide children are highly intelligent, and I assure hon. Members that it is a most distressing experience to hear these highly intelligent 8, 9 and 10-year old children talking about their handicaps, their hopes for the future and their awareness that their future will not be normal.

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  This degree of intelligence has been particularly upsetting for the parents. It has meant that these children have been very critical—and as a member of society I am ashamed to say rightly critical—of the appalling artificial limbs with which we have presented them. One sees a small child coming into a room looking like a deep-sea diver dressed up in a mechanical abortion, and at the first opportunity he throws the whole lot off because he says it is intolerable to him. Those who have feet have developed the most outstanding ability to feed themselves, to write, to unlock doors and to undertake a great range of activities to show how clever they are. All this is very disturbing to the parents who have to look after them.
  Lastly on that side, they need special educational equipment, much more freely than we have given them so far. Despite the efforts to provide equipment, for which my right hon. Friend rightly draws some credit, many of these children are still not getting the mechanical devices, let alone the other things, which they need.
  For some reason which nobody knows, thalidomide children sweat excessively. This does not sound very worrying but it is an appalling problem for someone who is tied up in a lot of equipment and makes him increasingly aware of his handicap and difficulties.
  We do not know what the future holds but the court accepted that puberty was likely to be a disturbing time for these children and they are now beginning to move into that age. The court also accepted that there would be difficulties when they arrived at their later teens, when they began to realise that they would never get married, or were unlikely to get married, that they would never have normal jobs, and that as most of them were sterile they would never have children. When these things start to come home to them it will be difficult to say what financial assistance they should have to offset that kind of disability.
  Some of the children are not only outwardly damaged to a major degree: they have some very subtle disturbances. For instance, of the 60 no fewer than four, and perhaps six, are autistic children, which is a very rare condition. We have spent a lot of time in the last two-and-a-half to three years discussing the prob-
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  lems of autistic children; here is a group of children with both handicaps.
  Then there is the aspect of schooling. As an individual in society I have been horrified to notice that the children who are doing best are those in rural areas and villages, where the local community takes them on and they go into normal schools without difficulty. Many of the children, far less severely damaged, who are doing worst are those in our cities and urban areas, where we have lots of special schooling for them. This is a reflection on all of us.
  I should like now to mention the families. My right hon. Friend said that some of the families had broken up, which is true, and that some of them have drawn together. It is relevant that we in this country have kept 90 per cent. of the children at home, whereas in Germany most of them have gone into institutions. But every one of the mothers of those 60 children is ill, taking tranquillisers for her nerves, and has done so virtually continuously since her thalidomide child was born. This is important to realise.
  We are dealing here not just with parents of handicapped children but with parents who are themselves under great stress and difficulty. This is a very powerful added reason why the cases should be concluded in the courts as soon as possible. One could speculate why so many of the mothers are disturbed like this, but I will leave it there for now.
  Many of the parents have given up work; many have had to change their houses and go into bungalows. The local authority provisions to help people to go into bungalows so that they can be on the ground floor are all available if one knows how to get at them, but many of the families have not known how to get the aid which is available.
  Lastly I would remind the House what is involved in the court procedure. The children are professionally examined. The court, without actuarial provision, assesses their minimum likely needs. It has then—we have then—turned this into a financial sum, as we would perhaps for a child involved in a car accident. The children will then get 40 per cent. of the minimum of what the court, on the most stringent lines, has decided is absolutely essential for their future. If this is

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  natural justice, it is a very strange quirk of the law. Those who do not come into this particular 60 will then get, I understand, 60 per cent, of the 40 per cent., so that they go even further down the scale.
  We should all recognise that there is a manifest social injustice here. In a recent case, a girl who was blinded at school—a very tragic thing—got a very large sum. Here, because of our legal procedures, somebody else who has been accidentally damaged is likely to get a pittance, a token of what he actually needs.
  I am absolutely delighted at what my right hon. Friend has already said. I hope that at the end of the day we will have four lines from the Government which we could pursue. First, I hope that more funds will be available immediately for the social and educational services so that they can operate a little more flexibly and rapidly for these children. Second, we have discovered through this case that the ordinary court procedure is not rapid enough. I hope we can set up an inquiry to examine our legal procedure in handicap cases of this kind.
  Third, I hope that when this court case is finished the Prime Minister's promise to consider setting up another fund will still stand. Fourth, because of what the families and the children themselves have said, I hope that my right hon. Friend will set up some procedure for increased research into the provision of equipment for handicapped children. We are in the Middle Ages in our provision in this respect.
  5.45 p.m.
  Mr. Lewis Carter-Jones: We lead the world in aids for disabled people and disabled children. What concerns me deeply is our slowness in applying them to the children. I appeal to the Secretary of State for Education and Science to see to it that the Fleming Fulton School in Belfast, where there are thalidomide children, gets some POSSUM equipment quickly, because those children are making rapid progress.
  We must try to compensate these children for their physical limitations by applying known technologies. It should not be the subject of charity but should
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  be something of right which comes from the State. I urge the right hon. Lady to look carefully at the problems of schools like Fleming Fulton, Chailey Heritage and Hephaistos.
  I welcome the fact that the right hon. Gentleman will make £3 million available now for equipment. However, he will find that it is not enough. I should be grateful to help him spend it, because I have a fair file on people who are desperately in need.
  As for the fund, I am not so happy. I know that people have said that these parents should not worry about solicitors telling them that they will lose legal aid, but let us forget the machinery involved; if one's solicitor says that legal aid will be withdrawn, one tends to believe him. The fund should be set up now, before the cases are over, so that help can be given now and the anxieties and the burden can be taken from these people now. If it is done after the cases are settled, the great problem will be that Distillers will have yet another excuse to lean on these people to get them to accept a low settlement.
  I have a reasonable suggestion to make. In Germany, where there is the same problem, Chemie Griinenthal went fiddling on in the legal jungle for 10 years, until everybody had had enough. It strikes me that we today in this House have had enough of all the legal wrangle. It is about time we stopped it. In the end, Chemie Grünenthal said that it would realise all its tangible assets and give its profits for the next 10 years to the children.
  In a first-class speech, my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent, South (Mr. Ashley) said he thought that £20 million would do it. It would not repair the damage, it would not take away the suffering, it would not relieve the anxieties and the weariness of the parents. But let Distillers, at this last late hour, say "We will do what Chemie Grünenthal did." The company would still survive, it would still have massive profits: it would not know a damned thing about it. Suppose we take my hon. Friend's figure of £20 million—although I would make it £50 million. Distillers' assets are £400 million, so the firm would not notice it there. By the same token, its profits over the past 10 years have

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  totalled £260 million. It could give a share of that.
  I would say to Distillers, "Act now. You really have been in this rat race far too long. Get the hell out of it and give these people justice by making an allocation outside the courts, and then leave them to fend for themselves."
  5.49 p.m.
  Mr. Anthony Fell: In briefly following the remarks of the hon. Member for Eccles (Mr. Carter-Jones), I would say that had the Distillers Company's offer been four times as much as it has been, I should have found it difficult to say that it was enough.
  As I promised you, Mr. Speaker, I have only three or four minutes to say what I have to say. Therefore, I ask hon. Members to forgive me for not following their remarks, except in saying how much admiration I have for the speech made by the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, South (Mr. Ashley) and for that of my hon. Friend the Member for Reading (Dr. Vaughan) from his deep knowledge of this subject.
  My qualifications for saying what I shall now say are slender. They are based on two simple facts. The first is that I have been a Member of the House for nearly 18 years. The second is that during those 18 years' service to the House of Commons I have come to love this place. I do not believe that at any stage—I hope that the Press will repeat nothing I say—I have either let myself down or let the House down.
  I simply want to appeal to the House on this enormously serious topic, on which there is basically no division between hon. Members in any part of the House. I make the appeal to Members of Parliament that they do not act tonight in a way which will so debase the currency of Parliament—let us face the fact that it is already debased enough—by turning these tragic children into a political shuttlecock by voting on the issue.
  I pray to hon. Members, with prayers which are directed not to my side of the House alone but also to the Opposition benches, that they will feel that the right way to treat this matter is for the House of Commons to act in the only sensible way that it can, and that is to do every-
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  thing it conceivably can towards the help of these poor, tragic kids.
  5.52 p.m.
  Mr. David Steel: I shall be equally as brief as the hon. Member for Yarmouth (Mr. Fell), who has set us a very good example.
  First, I echo something said by the hon. Member for Reading (Dr. Vaughan) and by the hon. Member for Hammersmith, North (Mr. Tomney). We have to remember that we are dealing with a drug which as well as bringing dire tragedy to a few brought at the time great comfort to many. That is true of many drugs which are in common use. Indeed, I am told that every day or two in Europe someone dies through taking penicillin. We are, however, well aware of the benefits that penicillin has brought.
  I start on a point of disagreement with the Secretary of State. We all agree that compensation must ultimately be a matter for the company, but it is my belief that because of the complex processes of the drug industry and the testing machinery we now have—we should remember that we have to look to the future as well as the past—and because of the contractual relationship between the National Health Service and patients today, it is no longer good enough in 1972 that we sit aside and say that this is a private matter between the person who takes the drug and the company which manufactures it. That is in no way to diminish their responsibility, but society and the National Health Service have a right and, therefore, the Government have a duty to intervene in a matter of this kind.
  Secondly, we must all be appalled and concerned for the parents and the cost of the litigation involved in this case. I am increasingly concerned, as an ordinary Member of Parliament dealing with constituents, about the growing number of complaints from ordinary people, in all manner of cases, about the complexities, costs and difficulties in the processes of the law. It is high time that the House held an inquiry into the methods of operation of the legal profession. Very often justice delayed—this is such a case—can be justice denied. That is a second reason why it is right that

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  the Government, on behalf of the public, should intervene in this case and seek at least a temporary remedy.
  Thirdly, I believe that one of the effects of this debate, and certainly of the whole issue being raised, is to highlight the totally inadequate facilities we provide in our Welfare State by the National Health Service for that small minority of our population who are either physically or mentally handicapped, a group in which we may include the thalidomide children. I am constantly concerned about the individual cases which are brought to me in a non-urban area. I agree with what the hon. Member for Reading said about schools in rural areas. I admire the work done by people who work with the handicapped. But as a society, under successive Governments, we have not been prepared to devote enough of our national resources to helping these people. I hope that this is one thing which will emerge. For that reason I welcome the start made by the Secretary of State in announcing the £3 million to help these people.
  The real point of difference that has emerged from the debate is that some of us believe that the Government ought to set up a trust fund to establish machinery for settling, in whatever way the judgment may be exercised, the claims of individuals and that the Government should take over the legal battle to recoup the money from Distillers Company. After this period of time, that is the least we are entitled to ask. Therefore, unless the Government are prepared to move in that direction, I have no alternative but to advise my hon. Friends to vote in support of the motion.
  5.57 p.m.
  Mr. William Shelton: I should like first to say how much I have admired the work done by the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, South (Mr. Ashley). I also mention the Sunday Times. The more that this matter is brought to the attention of the public, the better it will be for these unfortunate children. I welcome the debate although, like my hon. Friend the Member for Yarmouth (Mr. Fell), I hope that there will not be a vote.
  I draw the attention of the House to an article in the magazine Community
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  Medicine on 24th November, with the headline
  "Squalid wrangle over thalidomide issue makes people despair of party politics."
  The article goes on to say:
  "The thalidomide children have now become a party-political issue. That became certain last week."
  This is very much to be deplored. Anyone present at this debate will realise that that is not so. If we do not have a vote, this will become apparent to everyone.
  I was very pleased to be one of the six original sponsors of the hon. Gentleman's motion, which in some ways initiated discussion of the matter. I approached the debate with some misgivings because it seemed a difficult position for the Government and for my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State to say that however much sympathy we might have—indeed, we all have it—it would be difficult to do anything until the legal wrangles had ended, especially as those wrangles have been going on for 10 years.
  The situation has changed slightly since yesterday or the day before. I give the same sort of modified welcome as that of other hon. Members to the increase in the Distillers Company's offer. I do not know enough about it to know whether it is enough. Probably it is not enough. Its timing must be regarded as slightly suspect, being 24 hours before a debate in this Chamber. That seems to be too much of a coincidence.
  I warmly welcome the £3 million for all handicapped children announced by my right hon. Friend. This sum may well not be enough, but at least it is an earnest of good faith. My right hon. Friend was right to remind us that there are many other children with disabilities as grievous as those we are discussing. My right hon. Friend referred to the possibility of a trust fund. Should it become necessary, would that second £3 million in the trust fund be for thalidomide children only or for all handicapped children?
  My next question is of great importance to me. I accept the Government's arguments that the trust fund legislation should not be initiated while the legal argument continues as £3 million has

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  already been allocated. But if the legal argument were to continue for another six months, another year, two years or even 10 years, would this mean that the Government, whatever Government might be in office in 10 years' time, would still be waiting for the legal arguments to end before the matter was reviewed?
  Mr. Richard Crawshaw: I am following the hon. Member's argument with great sympathy, and what I wish to say does not reflect upon the Minister because I know that his heart is in this matter. Is the hon. Member suggesting, however, that all people are equal before the law? Speaking as a lawyer I know only too well of the pressures that are brought upon people to settle these issues. Is it right that people should be confronted by a barrister who says that he does not know whether they will win the case but that he would settle for a certain sum? In so doing people might settle for a ridiculous amount. Is it not right at this stage that the Government should set up a trust to safeguard those people while the test case goes before the House of Lords, if necessary?
  Mr. Shelton: I take the point entirely; that is a difficulty. While I understand the hon. Member's argument, however, there is a counter-argument that for legislation to be undertaken at this stage would in some way, perhaps, relieve the pressure on the company. It would relieve the liability on the company also. There are two points of view. It is a tragedy that this should happen but I believe that to undertake legislation now would reduce pressure on the company.
  I want to know how long we must be prepared to wait before we say that we can wait no longer and that we must do something, perhaps set up a trust fund even though that might prejudice the case and even though it might take pressure off the company.
  6.4 p.m.
  Mr. David Weitzman: My hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent, South (Mr. Ashley) moved the motion as a matter of urgency and in very strong terms. I am sure that the whole House is indebted to him and to the Sunday Times for their persistent efforts on
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  behalf of these unfortunate children. My hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith, North (Mr. Tomney) referred to a book which has been written by two Swedish scientists. I hope that if hon. Members have not read it they will do so. Those two men were engaged in research and dealt with many thalidomide cases and with the effect of many drugs, and they therefore had an intimate knowledge of the subject.
  The book emphasises by reference to actual cases the terrible results that may ensue from the use of medicinal products and drugs, and it emphasises the vital necessity for a long period of observation and testing before they are put on the market. I know that this has been recognised to some extent in this country by the Medicines Act 1968. We have a Committee on the Safety of Drugs; a licensing committee has been set up on the safety and efficiency of drugs. But the Medicines Act does not appear to provide a civil remedy. It prescribes penalties for offences in regard to the regulations that it specifies. Under Section 64 the appropriate Minister may prohibit the sale and supply of medicinal products or make conditions for their sale. The operative word is "may", not "shall".
  The motion calls for immediate legislation to deal with the problem of children, and I suggest that it is essential that that Act should be re-examined with a view to making it more effective, particularly the provisions dealing with advertising. The only effective remedy for injury resulting from the use of a medicinal product or drug appears to be by proving negligence. As was shown in the thalidomide cases that were settled, it is very often difficult to prove such negligence. The onus is upon the plaintiff, and the burden of proof is often a very difficult one to discharge. A criticism has been made by a number of people about the lawyers, and I suppose that, as a lawyer, it is a little dangerous for me to intervene in the debate. But the lawyers who are acting in this case can only advise and act on existing law, and I am sure that they have advised and are doing what they think is in the best interest of their clients. The moral obligation is upon the company; the lawyers can only give it legal advice. I know a case can be made out about the delays in the law, but that case has been

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  made again and again, and I hope and understand that something may have been done about it.
  The real need is for the law to be overhauled where it applies to the testing and marketing of drugs before they can be prescribed for human use. It should never be possible, as was done in the case of thalidomide, to have a drug of that kind put upon the market without the necessity of prescription.
  Dr. Tom Stuttaford: I believe that the hon. and learned Member is mistaken. Distaval always needed a prescription, and prescriptions may have been given too casually, but nevertheless a doctor's prescription was needed to obtain it.
  Mr. Weitzman: I understand that originally thalidomide could have been purchased without a prescription. [An HON. MEMBER: "Not in this country."] That should never be done with a drug of this kind. I see someone on the Opposition Front Bench nodding his head. My hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent, South raised this aspect in the Adjournment debate and made that clear. There is a vital need to see that when a medicinal product or drug is put upon the market for human use there is an express warranty that it is reasonably safe for the purposes for which it is intended to be used and that a person, including an unborn child, who suffers because of a breach of that warranty has a remedy in law. Moreover, when an action is brought the provisions of the Limitation Act 1963 have to be met. As is shown by the conflicting views of judges in the recent case of Central Asbestos Company Limited v. Dodd—(1972) 2A.E.R1135—the victims in cases dealing particularly with effects of diseases resulting from conditions of employment may be denied their remedy. The provisions should be looked at again.
  I am glad that my hon. Friend the Member for Carlisle (Mr. Ron Lewis) has used his luck in the ballot to present, appropriately today, a Bill entitled the Dangerous Drugs and Disabled Children Bill, dealing as far as a Private Member's Bill can with this very problem. I hope that as a non-party measure it will receive the support of all hon. Members. I know that my hon. Friend would dearly have liked to include a provision
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  that a fund should be created by the Government to help these unfortunate children, but he cannot do that in a Private Member's Bill. That can be done only by the Government. I am glad that the Amendment says that the Government will consider the establishment of a trust. But for the life of me I cannot understand why that trust cannot be created now. How would it prejudice the rights of litigants in the cases before the courts? They could proceed with their cases. Surely the Government should say today "We recognise the difficulties of these unfortunate children. We are prepared to establish a trust now so that they will not suffer in any way."
  I again beg the Secretary of State to see that that argument is considered a little more closely. Let him not stick to the idea that if a fund is established it will in some way prejudice the cases now in progress. If it is established in a certain way, there is no reason why it should. Of course, it might well be said that any damages obtained by the children can go to the fund eventually. But the fund should be there as a guarantee for their future.
  I hope that the strong feeling expressed today will result in speeded action to ameliorate, even if we cannot entirely resolve, these problems.
  6.12 p.m.
  Dr. Tom Stuttaford: I join other hon. Members in congratulating the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, South (Mr. Ashley) on moving the motion, and I also congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Reading (Dr. Vaughan). I had not heard such a brilliant medical exposition of the case before my hon. Friend's speech, and I do not think that we shall be privileged to hear such an exposition again. I shall not speak for very long, partly because I could not possibly better that.
  But I want to emphasise one or two points. The first is about the heterogeneous nature of the parents. They are not a tight group. When their children were born they did not know that they had anything in common with other parents in the country. They were not in a position to take immediate action, but now the Distillers Company says "It is not we who caused the delay, but the

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  parents who caused much of it." That is not true. There was delay initially because the medical profession did not realise why the children were affected as they are, and it took time for the parents to come together.
  When we look at the time the law has taken we see that it is not entirely blameless. When a trade union is fighting a case there is on one side a very powerful body and on the other usually a fairly powerful boss. A good example is to be seen in the case in which ICI rubber workers were found to develop a cancer of the bladder. In three years their trade union had the problem completely settled, because on the one side there was a united group of workers and on the other a well-established boss.
  The problem of thalidomide is completely different. The patients are scattered all over the country, and cannot get together. They should not be blamed for failing to make any form of group approach. They have done remarkably well with few funds to achieve a considerable degree of unanimity. If there has been a lack of pressure up till now it was partly because they are not a group and partly because they have been fighting various test cases. It was very difficult even to get the disclosures right initially. They have not had the assistance they might have had from the Distillers company.
  On the question of compensation, we must realise that the hurdles for the children are still to come. There is the hurdle of puberty, about which my hon. Friend the Member for Reading spoke. There is the hurdle of adult life. But, above all, there is the hurdle of isolation when the parents die. We have no concept of what the costs will be for the children if they have to live from the age of 40 to, say, 60 or 70 with no support from parents. They will certainly find the sums given to them by Distillers are totally inadequate.
  It would seem reasonable, perhaps, to persuade Distillers to make a proportion of the equity of the company over to a trust fund so that the children are protected to some extent against inflation. If it made over, say, £20 million to the trust fund that would dilute its capital only slightly, and there would be protec-
  482
  tion against inflation for the children for the whole of their life span.
  Thirdly, we must realise the climate in which the drug was prescribed. There has been a great revolution since the war. Before the war the pharmaceutical industry had little to offer patients, and doctors hummed and hawed uselessly by the bedside. But from 1935 onwards we were able to help patients. It was an era of euphoria in prescription. We handed out drugs far too readily and easily, and did not always understand the consequences.
  Many people in society benefited from these advances. The 400-odd children whom we are debating are the casualties, the price we have had to pay for the benefit that many families have enjoyed. In any adult audience, one in five of those present owes his or her life to a modern drug. The price we pay is the 400-odd children who are hopelessly and appallingly maimed. Society as a whole owes them a debt.
  It was not only doctors who were euphoric. A great deal of industry was euphoric and money was made very fast. Therefore, apart from the well-established large ethical companies, many other tried to jump on the bandwagon to diversify their interests. Thus we had a German company with an unpronounceable name, which was really a subsidiary of a lipstick manufacturing firm, manufacturing Distaval in Germany, and by all accounts doing so extraordinarily badly. Then we had in this country Distillers, which is really a distillery company, diversifying into drugs. Regrettably, it manufactured thalidomide extremely efficiently, so it was that much more dangerous than the German variety, which was so badly made that it did not always have the lethal effect that it might have had.
  Society has benefited from the pharmaceutical industry, and still does. At the top end of the spectrum the industry was even then testing very thoroughly, but at the bottom end the testing was pretty dicey. The companies involved were often subsidiaries of other companies. They are the people we should be condemning today, as well as admitting that we in society owe a debt to the children, a debt we must repay by saying that we must certainly sooner or later set up a trust fund for them.
  6.19 p.m.
  Dr. M. S. Miller (Glasgow, Kelvin-grove): I am constrained to enter this debate because I believe that the medical profession has a responsibility in the matter.
  I do not think that this is an occasion for a balanced argument. There is an outcry in the country, and if the House is not a place where we can shout about it when something appears to be hidden behind a smokescreen of legal procedure, God help the ordinary people when it comes to claiming their redress of grievance.
  I add my congratulations to my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent, South (Mr. Ashley) on the most eloquent plea he made. I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn (Mrs. Castle) on her powerful speech, and my hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith, North (Mr. Tomney). I add my high regard of the speech made by the hon. and qualified Member for Reading (Dr. Vaughan). It reminded me of the best traditions of the clinical lecture theatre; only the patients were absent. But I could conjure up very readily the horrifying scenes which were vividly depicted in the hon. Member's speech.
  I have said that the medical profession must bear some responsibility, and we do. We are the cause of a new disease, the iatrogenic illness caused by our own medicines. We have prescribed these medicines. We have given them to our patients, and our patients have every right to feel confident in what we say, in what we do and in what we give them. When a situation like this evolves we must bear a degree of responsibility.
  Perhaps there is a tendency on the part of some members of my profession not to be humble enough about the damage that they can do in addition to the good which they can often do. I remember the blandishments which were made upon me by the pharmaceutical industry when I was in practice as a family doctor. I was pushed by Distillers Ltd. in respect of Distaval. But I am one of those rather peculiar doctors who feel a little old-fashioned about succumbing to all the claims which are made for the more fashionable cures. I am not detracting from the claim made by the hon. and qualified Member for Norwich, South (Dr. Stuttaford), that we must try new methods
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  and new remedies because it is only in that way that we can make advances.
  However, I believe that it is also incumbent upon the medical profession to treat with extreme care the claims which are made for drugs, especially when there are flags flying of danger. There is a plethora of drugs on the market which are totally unnecessary. The hypnotics which were pushed at the time of Distaval fell into that category. They were pushed merely to increase the profits of some of the drug companies.
  If I may digress for a short time, this highlights the problem of the testing and the evaluation of drugs. We are perhaps shortly to debate vivisection and the care of animals. I advise my hon. Friends to be extremely careful about what they say in that respect.
  But the main responsibility lies with Distillers. There is clearly a cause and effect situation. Nobody disputes that. I do not believe that any of my hon. Friends are criticising the Government for lack of provisions in the National Health Service. I think the Secretary of State must be complimented in doing everything possible within the scope of the health service. But the Government are being criticised for not relieving the kind of pressure which is obviously being made upon many of the parents who are attempting to redress their grievance. I believe, as my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Toxteth (Mr. Crawshaw) said, that the Government could set up a trust fund without prejudice to the cases now proceeding.
  Everyone has sympathy for all sufferers of severe congenital abnormalities. However, we are not dealing now with that situation as a whole; we are dealing directly and specifically with a cause and effect situation. We are pinpointing an aspect of congenital abnormality which has been the direct cause, and it is something for which we bear some responsibility.
  The current issue of Community Medicine has been referred to, a copy of which I also happen to have. In the current issue the political writer says:
  "there has come the increasing realisation among MPs that the politicians have a direct responsibility too. This drug, after all, was prescribed on the National Health Service. It was tax exempted. These are matters of direct Parliamentary responsibility. But there

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  is a further political responsibility which has so far been the concern only of a minority. When Distaval came on the market there was no proper monitoring system for drugs."
  The article continues:
  "It is one of many examples of dangers and responsibilities whose significance continued to be overlooked until unmistakably signalled by a disaster. For that the politicians and the deficiencies of the system over which they preside, must take the blame."
  I plead with the right hon. Gentleman to try to bring some kind of pressure upon Distillers. The best type of pressure which could be brought would be the setting up of a trust fund for the victims. If some further action is taken as a result of this debate, my right hon. and hon. Friends deserve praise for having initiated it.
  6.27 p.m.
  Mrs. Jill Knight: The Economist of 25th August, 1962, when speaking about thalidomide, said:
  "This is a situation that requires a cool head to warm hearts."
  If the intervening 10 years has heated up some of the heads it has cooled none of the hearts. There is absolutely no doubt from everything that has been said that there is unanimity across the Floor of the House in concern for these children. That cannot in any way be questioned. But what worries me is that we are being asked in the motion in the name of the Leader of the Opposition to allocate funds to people who will be getting some provision on top of that.
  Much as I admire the splendid and tremendously informative speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Reading (Dr. Vaughan), I find it immensely difficult to be divisive in the help which I wish to make available for all handicapped people. That is the difficult point, not whether we shall upset the courts. I could not care less about upsetting the courts. What worries me is that there is not a bottomless pit of cash. There is, however, an unlimited number of people who need our help. That is the problem which the House faces.
  Can my right hon. Friend possibly announce, in view of all the things that have been said, the setting up of any research into foetal life or teratogenic effects. If nothing else can be done
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  tonight, something of that kind would be of immense help.
  I was appalled when I found the number of names which thalidomide goes under. Distaval has been mentioned. It is Softenon in Finland; Kevadon and Talimol in Canada; Noctosediv in Spain; and Neurosedyn in Sweden. There are 37 different names for various drugs containing thalidomide. Will the Medicines Act cover the whole world? It seems that this is a many-headed hydra with many names. How can we be sure that there is some central sifting of medicine information whereby something which has popped up and been condemned in one country cannot pop up in this country and not be recognised?
  6.30 p.m.
  Mr. Clinton Davis: There is, basically, only a difference of emphasis between us on this issue, but it is an important difference which was reflected in the speech of the hon. Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Mrs. Knight). She says that she cannot be divisive about the treatment of the handicapped and disabled, and there is obviously a great element of truth in that. But she misses the point of the speech by my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent, South (Mr. Ashley), which was that there is here an essential moral obligation which falls upon the nation—not upon political parties but upon the nation.
  On the legal case, I share the view of my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Stoke Newington and Hackney, North (Mr. Weitzman), who said that he cannot see—as I cannot see—how the Government would prejudice the negotiations by setting up a new disaster fund or subscribing more heavily to the Lady Hoare Fund. I can see no specific difference of principle between that position and the one that arises as a matter of everyday occurrence in legal practice, where, for example, an employer who values the services of an employee who has had the misfortune to suffer an accident—perhaps a road accident—decides to pay that man his ordinary salary, perhaps on the basis that it will be repaid as a result of the litigation. I can see no distinction in principle between that situation, which does not impair or prejudice negotiations, and

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  the present one. It can be made subject to terms.
  The Government have to meet that point. Why cannot they establish a fund on such a basis? Why should it impede the negotiations? Why has it been possible to do this elsewhere without having a disastrous effect on litigation? The Distillers company says that there is no legal liability, and this is not the place to argue that point, but it seems to accept a moral responsibility. I cannot believe that if it is honourable in conducting these negotiations it would seek to shuffle off its responsibilities if the Government were to establish a trust fund now. Another factor which I find rather extraordinary is that in this totally extraordinary case the Distillers company has not taken it upon itself to help the people in the interim before a final settlement is arrived at.
  This case demonstrates the absurdity of the equipment available to lawyers and the law generally to deal with such totally exceptional circumstances. This case cannot be dealt with along the customary lines, neither for the assessment of damages nor so far as the necessity to establish negligence in order to succeed in circumstances such as this is concerned—the point of burden of proof which my hon. and learned Friend made.
  On the question of damages, the Law Commissioners themselves have pointed out that the legal method of fixing damages in English law lacks any mathematical, actuarial, statistical or other scientific basis, and they recommend that in future such factors should play their full part. But, as The Times pointed out in a recent article, there is no sign of that suggestion being translated into law.
  Obviously, an enormous difficulty confronts legal advisers at present. We have a rule of thumb element which can be disastrous when dealing with a situation of this kind. There can be no doubt that many cases must have been settled at far below really acceptable figures, and this is because insufficient funds are available to some of the people. There may be an inadequacy in the legal aid system. There has been perhaps in some situations—I am not making any reflection on the legal advisers in this case—inadequate advice. There is also uppermost
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  in the minds of people the threat that costs might be incurred which they could not afford to bear even if legally aided, since in some cases they might have to make a substantial contribution. They must also bear in mind that they are facing an organisation with vast funds which can take the case to the uttermost limits, which the ordinary individual cannot face the prospect of doing.
  Mr. Leslie Spriggs: Is my hon. Friend aware that ordinary people very often are advised to take what is offered rather than allow their case to proceed through the courts and possibly lose everything thereby?
  Mr. Davis: Of course I am aware of that. Most people, lawyers and non-lawyers, in the House are aware of it.
  This terrible and tragic case illustrates how inadequate our present system of the law of negligence is in dealing with such appalling situations.
  6.36 p.m.
  Mr. Kenneth Lewis: This has been perhaps one of the most compelling debates any of us have listened to in the House for a very long time, beginning with the speech of the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, South (Mr. Ashley) and carried on by many other hon. Members on both sides. It can only be destroyed as a compelling House of Commons operation if the Opposition persist in a vote against the Government tonight. I hope that they will not do it.
  The Opposition motion is not basically critical of the Government and the Government amendment does not propose that the Government should escape responsibility. This House has, of course, no responsibility—although it may be critical of it—for the Distillers company as such. We can criticise—and certainly I do—the delay which has taken place. We may deplore the inadequacy of the offer. The fact remains that there is no actual responsibility in this House for the Distillers company, but there is a responsibility, of course, for these children, and we accept, and must accept, that responsibility.
  Hon. Members opposite must recognise that this case has gone on for 10 years, during part of which time there was a Labour Government. It has been said

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  that none of us has raised this matter in the House. The Labour Government did nothing about it.
  I appreciate very much the announcement by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State. My heart said to me a few weeks ago that I must sign the Motion which was put down by the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, South, but I did not do so. I want to tell the hon. Gentleman why. It was because I happen to have a sister who is matron of a unit for the handicapped and disabled—a hospital-come-workplace. We are pleading today for a particular group, and we are right to do so. But we must not forget that the House of Commons and the Government stemming from it have a responsibility for the disabled in the widest sense. We cannot legislate on the basis of a particular group. My right hon. Friend has provided extra money. It is not only for the thalidomide children but for others as well. He has to look at the whole situation of the disabled, as we have. This Government have done a great deal. The services provided are considerable. They are still not enough. If the debate draws attention to the fact that all Governments have failed to provide sufficiently for the disabled in every category in our community it will have done a valuable service.
  Whatever happens to these particular children, they will be financially a great deal better off than many who are disabled for other reasons. Money does not solve the problem, but money they must have, because it enables them at any rate to have the kinds of services that they require. Although they will get it in due course—and we hope that it will be soon and that the delay will be ended by some means or another—and although they will get additional finance, let us not forget that the House has a duty to all those who are disabled. If the debate draws attention to that, it also will have justified our not dividing the House.
  6.41 p.m.
  Mr. Alfred Morris: The House is always at its best when debating such deeply sensitive issues as the fate of severely disabled children. Unfailingly, the House shows its humanity on these occasions. There has, of course, been great pressure on time. Many hon. and right hon. Gentle-
  490
  men have spoken, and I know that many more wanted to speak.
  It is generally agreed that we had a superb and memorable opening from my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent, South (Mr. Ashley), and there have been many other distinguished speeches from both sides of the House. If I may make one other prefatory remark, it is that we should talk less of the thalidomide problem and more of the thalidomide children and their families. A drug prescribed for morning sickness for pregnant women has created the prospect of lifelong heart sickness for the thalidomide families. All of us must agree that, by definition of the word "family", if one member of the family is disabled the family as a whole is disabled.
  Many of us have heard in recent days from the families of thalidomide children. One of the most grievously disabled of all the thalidomide children was born in my constituency. I refer to young David Jones, who was born without arms and without legs. I have had a letter from his mother in recent days. It is a powerful, but deeply distressing, document. It is not my intention to read the letter to the House, but the Secretary of State said he would welcome information about the suffering of thalidomide families. I shall, therefore, pass the letter from David's mother to him, as I shall also pass a letter which has been handed to me by my hon. Friends the Members for Batley and Morley (Sir A. Broughton), and for Leeds, South-East (Mr. Cohen) from the father of a thalidomide child. This further distressing letter is from Mr. Ryan of 21, Harriwell Avenue, Sherwell, Morley, Yorkshire.
  I should like directly to quote the comments of two thalidomide children. The first is the daughter of Gordon Piller, of the Institute of Child Health. Many hon. Members on both sides of the House are familiar with his outstanding work among severely disabled children. He told me that what is so sad for his family is his daughter's question: "Mummy, will my stumps grow?"
  I should also like to quote words used by another thalidomide child, Patrick Pope of Dibden, Purlieu, Hampshire, who has had 42 operations in the last 10 years. He says to his mother: "Mummy, please do not let me have any more

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  operations". I am sure that we all appreciate the tremendous bravery of the thalidomide children and the great fortitude of their parents. We have been asked in the debate why we refer particularly to the problems of thalidomide children alone. My reply is that through their bravery and suffering the thalidomide children are a symbol of the very much larger number of severely disabled children. Even in the last 12 months there has been a deterioration in the condition of many of the thalidomide families. Let me quote what was said by Miss Jacqueline Wetter, a welfare consultant with Lady Mary Hoare's Thalidomide Trust. She says that there has been "a perceptible lowering of morale over the past year."
  Writing in the Sunday Times on 1st October, 1972, Brigadier George Chatter-ton, the Administrator of the Lady Hoare Trust, said:
  "We became convinced that the policy was to sweep these children under the carpet and for the whole episode to be forgotten as quickly as possible."
  The Secretary of State said that he had not heard much from the Lady Hoare Trust in the past two years. I must, therefore, quote what was said by Lady Hoare herself to the Daily Mail on 21st December, 1971:
  "These families are cracking under the strain. Distillers have kept these people waiting for ten years while they quibble over how much compensation they are prepared to pay."
  In the motion we make two main propositions. We say that Distillers (Biochemicals) Limited must face up to its moral responsibilities. Secondly, we urge that society as a whole—not just the Government of the day, but society as a whole—must face up to its responsibilities.
  The motion was drafted entirely without party animus. The hon. Member for Rutland and Stamford (Mr. Kenneth Lewis) strongly argued that the Motion was not critical of the present Government. He referred to his sister. I know her well through correspondence she has had with me. If I may say so, I deeply admire the work she does among severely disabled children. Her brother is eminently right to say, certainly I would say, that she is a distinguished person in this respect.
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  I say again that it has been none of our intention to inject party animus into the debate. We have tried very hard to keep to the spirit of the Early-Day Motion. We felt that it ought to be possible for both sides of the House to tell Distillers (Biochemicals) Limited that it must face its moral responsibilities. Further, we hoped that both sides of the House would recognise that society as a whole has responsibilities to these children.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent, South fully delineated the moral responsibilities of the company. If Distillers was prepared to make a profit out of thalidomide, it ought to be prepared to make a loss. Every hon. and right hon. Member must recognise that. There can be no question of the company's ability to discharge its financial responsibilities to the thalidomide children. My hon. Friend the Member for Eccles (Mr. Carter-Jones) referred to the capital assets of the company. He referred also to Chemie GrÜnenthal, the German makers of thalidomide. The German company agreed to give to the thalidomide families in West Germany the whole of its profits for the next 10 years. Here, we must note that the German company is much smaller than Distillers (Biochemicals) Limited.
  The West German company's profits over the next 10 years are expected to amount to about £12 million sterling. I remind hon. and right hon. Members that Distillers had net profits over the last 10 years of £261 million. It is not for a company of that size to say that it cannot meet its responsibilities to grievously disabled children in this country.
  I join my right hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn (Mrs. Castle) in saying that the House as a whole must now lend its weight in the uneven struggle between the authors and the victims of this tragedy. The Secretary of State and other hon. Members have referred to the new offer from Distillers that was announced, or leaked, yesterday. Making allowance for inflation, the new offer appears to be worth, in real terms, only about 66 per cent. of the 1968 offer. The earlier offer was itself grossly inadequate to meet the needs of such severely disabled children. The Sunday Times and many other newspapers have played

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  an important part in keeping the problems of the thalidomide families before the people of this country. I would like to refer not only to Harold Evans, the Editor of the Sunday Times, a friend of my schooldays, but also to Harry Longmuir, of the Daily Mail, who has constantly argued the case of those who have suffered from the making and distribution of thalidomide.
  There is also a responsibility upon central Government, because thalidomide was distributed under the National Health Service. Further than that, there was a purchase tax concession given to the drug. It was pointed out in the House on 16th November 1972 by my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent, South that exemption from purchase tax is highly prized by the drug manufacturers. If Whitehall was prepared to allow thalidomide to be distributed under the National Health Service, if it was also prepared to exempt thalidomide from purchase tax, then it has a direct involvement in this tragedy in the eyes of most people.
  It is much to the credit of the United States that thalidomide is not the problem there that it is here. The late President Kennedy decorated Dr. Francis Kelsey, of the United States Food and Drugs Administration, for preventing the distribution of thalidomide in the United States. Yet Dr. Kelsey says that he merely read a letter in the British Medical Journey in August 1960. There can be no question but that central Government is involved.
  I entirely agree with the Secretary of State that we must be concerned not just with one group of disabled children but with all severely disabled children. The Under-Secretary speaking in the Adjournment debate of 16th November said:
  "Alas, there are many other disabled children in our country with similar needs—children disabled in road accidents, fires in the home, and batterings from their parents, and children who have suffered deformities of all sorts and kinds."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 16th November, 1972; Vol. 846, c. 771.]
  We entirely agree with the hon. Gentleman. It is, however, a scandal that neither the hon. Gentleman nor anyone on this side of the House can say exactly how many severely disabled children there are in contemporary Britain. The Government's survey of the disabled
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  excluded everyone under the age of 16. It is wholly deplorable that none of us can say today just how many severely disabled children there are in our society.
  The Government say that they want to do everything possible to help such children. Let me quote from an advertisement in last weekend's Press. It deals with severely disabled people aged between 16 and 64 and is about the extension of the attendance allowance. It says:
  "Starting 4th June, 1973 an allowance of £3.60 a week will be paid for people born in any of the years from 1908 to 1956."
  In the Government's view, the priorities of severely disabled children are not, therefore, as high as the priority of other groups of severely disabled people. I would have hoped that the Secretary of State would now be willing to agree to advance the operative date for the extension of the attendance allowance for severely disabled children.
  As the Law Commissioners have said, the legal method of fixing damages lacks any mathematical, actuarial, statistical or other scientific basis. May I ask, therefore, what is stopping the Government now from immediately bringing in a measure to make evidence of this kind crucial? I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will come to that point in his reply.
  My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rowley Regis and Tipton (Mr. Peter Archer) and my hon. Friend the Member for Kensington, North (Mr. Douglas-Mann), in a wholly admirable article in the Sunday Times last weekend, made a compelling case for law reform in this field. I hope the Government will pay due attention to what my hon. Friends said in their article. I was advised, on very good legal authority, that if the argument should be adduced—it has been adduced by the Secretary of State—that the setting up of a Government fund would let Distillers off the hook, then it can be refuted as follows.
  Defendants are liable only for the damage that has been suffered, and, in view of this, it is possible that payments out of a Government fund would have to be taken into account. But an alternative arrangement could be made, one that is universally accepted, tested and upheld

  495
  in the courts. The fund could be set up to make the payment of a loan repayable only in the event of damages being awarded. I would like the Secretary of State and the Prime Minister, who has taken a personal interest in the legal aspects of this problem, to consider that suggestion.
  I should like also to know from the Secretary of State how the £3 million fund is to operate. Will there be regular payments to corporate or individual recipients, or a lump sum payment? How much is it estimated will go to the thalidomide children? As to the additional fund, to be made available by the Government after the settlement, what is the amount, the basis of calculation and the method of distribution of the fund? These are somewhat technical points, and I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will attempt to answer them, although he explained to me that he wished to speak only briefly in reply.
  It is not we on this side of the House who are seeking to arouse public opinion in favour of the thalidomide families. Large sections of the Press have said that justice must now be done. For justice to be done we require action by Distillers and by the Government.
  I say yet again that I hope that it will be recognised that we never had any intention of injecting party animus into this debate. We hope that right hon. and hon. Members opposite will recognise that there is very little in our motion which they can legitimately criticise. I trust that they will accept the motion and agree to the withdrawal of the amendment.
  7.2 p.m.
  Sir K. Joseph: With the permission of the House, I should like to reply to the debate.
  I must pay tribute to the self-control of hon. Members. We have had nearly 20 speeches in a half-day debate, and I seldom remember a range of speeches, from both sides of the House, so deeply informed with passion. However, I hope that others will forgive me if I pick out the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Reading (Dr. Vaughan) as being outstandingly perceptive and constructive.
  496
  Other Members, such as the hon. Members for Hammersmith, North (Mr. Tomney), Eccles (Mr. Carter-Jones), Stoke Newington and Hackney, North (Mr. Weitzman), Glasgow, Kelvingrove (Dr. Miller), Roxburgh, Selkirk and Peebles (Mr. David Steel) and my hon. Friends the Members for Newbury (Mr. Astor) and Yarmouth (Mr. Fell), all made very constructive speeches.
  I should like to refer, possibly slightly invidiously, to a comment made by my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich, South (Dr. Stuttaford) as being something which we should all bear in mind. He said—and it is perfectly true—that the poignant tragedy of thalidomide is the contrast between the damage done by that drug and the great blessing which new drugs, on the whole, have been to the people of this country and, indeed, to the population of the world. We must set this disaster against the massive benefits which innovation in drug firms and in the laboratories of universities and research institutes has achieved. As the House knows, locking the stable door after the horse had well and truly bolted, we now have a scrutinising system which, as I am advised—I am no expert—is as good as that which any country can possibly hope to have.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Mrs. Knight) asked whether the scrutinising system protected the people of this country against imported drugs. It seeks to do so. Imported drugs are within the remit of the Committee on Safety of Medicines. My hon. Friend also asked whether sufficient research into the various problems connected with thalidomide is being carried out. That is a question for my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Science, who has been on the Front Bench throughout the debate. She has told me that she will be discussing that question with the Medical Research Council and will write to my hon. Friend.
  The hon. Member for Hackney, Central (Mr. Clinton Davis) rightly drew attention to the arguments which had been put publicly recently for reconsideration of the law of damages. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has already told the House that the Government are studying the Robens Committee's recommendations. Therefore, the

  497
  hon. Gentleman can be assured that this question is under consideration.
  The hon. Member for Manchester, Wythenshawe (Mr. Alfred Morris) asked whether the Government would bring forward the date for the payment of the extended attendance allowance to children from December next year. He compared the year-long wait for children to qualify for the lower rate attendance allowance with the start of the lower-rate attendance allowance in June for those in the working age group. Which group to bring first into payment of the extended allowance was an invidious decision to make. The Government took the advice of the Attendance Allowance Board, which they thought was extremely sensible, and decided that the order for bringing the extended lower rate attendance allowance into payment should be, first, the working age group, then the children and then, in two stages, the elderly.
  One can defend or attack any priority decision in this field, but I think that the House will be comforted by the knowledge that within two years all the groups to be covered by the extended attendance allowance will be in payment. When in full payment, the attendance allowance will cost £70 million a year. The allowance did not exist when the present Government came into office.
  I repeat that on the major issue before the House the Government still believe, despite all the arguments adduced in this vivid debate, that the responsibility for compensation is on the manufacturers. However, the Government fully recognise the three worries which have dominated the speeches today. First, hon. Members on both sides of the House recognise that if the Government lift a finger or say a word to accept any commitment on compensation, then, as many of us believe, from that moment the pressure to reach a satisfactory settlement will be relaxed. Some right hon. and hon. Members may disagree, but that is a view which I believe commands widespread support.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Rutland and Stamford (Mr. Kenneth Lewis) put the second worry most clearly. He said—a number of hon. Members echoed it—that we should do all we can for the thalidomide cases but we should not for-
  498
  get the other equally disabled children. The hon. Member for Wythenshawe referred to the pathetic case of a child suffering from thalidomide damage who has had 42 operations. I expect that if I were to consult my medical advisers I would find spina bifida cases in which just as many operations were carried out.
  Can it be right for the House to concentrate on only one source of severe disability? I am not accusing the Opposition of so doing, but in the Motion the focus is entirely and understandably but not, I believe, completely wisely—
  Mr. Alfred Morris: The distinction which we draw is that, as far as we know, spina bifida is not man-made.
  Sir K. Joseph: But, as one of my hon. Friends pointed out, children suffering from it have no recourse against a manufacturer, as the thalidomide children have. Therefore, how can we forget them? The Government acknowledge that the services for the disabled, which we have improved and propose to go on improving, are not yet nearly good enough. We are not smug about that.
  We all accept the third worry which has come out loud and clear from the debate. In our anxiety not to prejudice a satisfactory settlement, let us bear in mind the strain on the parents. That is a formidable consideration which we must remember.
  The right hon. Lady questioned my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister or, rather, conducted a running discussion with him. I am not a practising lawyer. I should like to go into what was said and see with my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister whether we can set out the facts as we see them any more clearly after consultations again with my noble Friend the Lord Chancellor. One of us will write to be right hon. Lady.
  The House has generally welcomed the Government's decision to make available virtually at once, as soon as we can make the necessary arrangements, a fund of £3 million. I emphasise again that this is not compensation. Its purpose is to ease the burden of living on those households containing very severely congenitally disabled children.
  These children and these households look, above all, to the local authorities and the statutory services for the help

  499
  they need. We intend the help from this fund to complement the statutory services available.
  We have it in mind—this answers a question asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Clapham (Mr. William Shelton)—to try to find a set of trustees of an existing trust with responsibilities sufficiently wide to cover beyond thalidomide the other very severely congenitally disabled cases. We hope that we shall be able to put this into action very soon. We believe that the trustees should have power to spend income and, where they judge fit, capital.
  I do not wish to overstate this case, but I suggest that those households which are under particular strain and about which we are, above all, worried during the period of waiting for a satisfactory settlement will be able to be helped to some extent by the trustees of this new sum.
  Hon. Members asked me about the second £3 million to which I referred. I emphasise again that this also is not for compensation. It is intended to benefit, via the same channel, if our experience of handling the first £3 million is satisfactory, the same limited but rather wider than thalidomide group, by the same means; namely, the use of income plus capital as the trustees judge fit.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Clapham pressed me hard to give a time
  by which this second tranche of money would be paid. I only wish that I could satisfy my hon. Friend, but I must stand on the words of the amendment. This second tranche will be paid when the cases are no longer sub judice.
  I have sought to cover quickly the main issues in the debate. I still greatly hope, as I believe that a number of hon. Members on both sides hope, that there will not be a vote tonight, because the origin of the motion is to some extent the all-party motion.
  Mr. Ashley: Does the Secretary of State agree that, if the amendment is carried, the Government tie their hands behind their backs and deliver themselves into the custody of the firm, because the firm can continue negotiations ad infinitum and, therefore, the fund may never he established?
  Sir K. Joseph: No. The hon. Gentleman forgets that the House will be watching very carefully what goes on. I believe that if we act with emotion tonight we shall do damage to the very cause we all wish to serve. I hope that the Opposition will not press their motion to vote. If they do, I hope that my right hon. and hon. Friends will vote against the motion and for the amendment.
  Question put, That the amendment be made:—
  The House divided: Ayes 291, Noes 260.

  Division No. 27.]

  AYES

  [7.14 p.m.

  Adley, Robert

  Bray, Ronald

  Costain, A. P.

  Allason, James (Hemel Hempstead)

  Brewis, John

  Critchley, Julian

  Amery, Rt. Hn. Julian

  Brinton, Sir Tatton

  Crouch, David

  Archer, Jeffrey (Louth)

  Brocklebank-Fowler, Christopher

  Crowder, F. P.

  Astor, John

  Brown, Sir Edward (Bath)

  Dalkeith, Earl of

  Atkins, Humphrey

  Bruce-Gardyne, J.

  Davies, Rt. Hn. John (Knutsford)

  Awdry, Daniel

  Bryan, Sir Paul

  d'Avigdor-Goldsmid, Sir Henry

  Baker, Kenneth (St. Marylebone)

  Buchanan-Smith, Alick (Angus,N & M)

  Dean, Paul

  Baker, W. H. K. (Banff)

  Buck, Antony

  Deedes, Rt. Hn. W. F.

  Balniel, Rt Hn. Lord

  Bullus, Sir Eric

  Digby, Simon Wingfield

  Barber, Rt. Hn. Anthony

  Burden, F. A.

  Dixon, Piers

  Batsford, Brian

  Butler, Adam (Bosworth)

  Dodds-Parker, Douglas

  Bell, Ronald

  Campbell, Rt.Hn.G.(Moray & Nairn)

  Douglas-Home, Rt. Hn. Sir Alec

  Bennett, Sir Frederic (Torquay)

  Carlisle, Mark

  Drayson. G B.

  Bennett, Dr. Reginald (Gosport)

  Carr, Rt. Hn. Robert

  du Cann, Rt. Hn. Edward

  Benyon, W.

  Gary, Sir Robert

  Dykes, Hugh

  Berry, Hn. Anthony

  Channon, Paul

  Eden, Rt. Hn. Sir John

  Biffen, John

  Chapman, Sydney

  Edwards, Nicholas (Pembroke)

  Biggs-Davison John

  Chataway, Rt. Hn. Christopher

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

  Blaker, Peter

  Churchill, W. S.

  Emery, Peter

  Boardman, Tom (Leicester, S.W.)

  Clark William (Surrey, E.)

  Eyre, Reginald

  Body, Richard

  Clarke, Kenneth (Rushcliffe)

  Farr, John

  Boscawen, Hn. Robert

  Cockeram, Eric

  Fell, Anthony

  Bossom, Sir Clive

  Cooke, Robert

  Fenner, Mrs. Peggy

  Bowden, Andrew

  Coombs, Derek

  Fisher, Nigel (Surbiton)

  Braine, Sir Bernard

  Cormack, Patrick

  Fletcher-Cooke, Charles

  Fookes, Miss Janet

  Knox, David

  Ramsden, Rt. Hn. James

  Fortescue, Tim

  Lamont, Norman

  Rawlinson, Rt. Hn. Sir Peter

  Foster, Sir John

  Lane, David

  Redmond, Robert

  Fowler, Norman

  Langford-Holt, Sir John

  Reed, Laurance (Bolton, E.)

  Fox, Marcus

  Le Merchant, Spencer

  Rees, Peter (Dover)

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

  Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland)

  Rees-Davies, W. R.

  Fry, Peter

  Lloyd, Rt. Hn. Geoffrey (Sut'n C'field)

  Renton, Rt. Hn. Sir David

  Galbraith, Hn. T. G. D.

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

  Ridley, Hn. Nicholas

  Gardner, Edward

  Longden, Sir Gilbert

  Rippon, Rt. Hn. Geoffrey

  Gibson-Watt, David

  Loveridge, John

  Roberts, Michael (Cardiff, N.)

  Gilmour, Ian (Norfolk, C.)

  Luce, R. N.

  Roberts, Wyn (Conway)

  Gllmour, Sir John (Fife, E.)

  McAdden, Sir Stephen

  Rodgers, Sir John (Sevenoaks)

  Glyn, Dr. Alan

  MacArthur, Ian

  Rossi, Hugh (Hornsey)

  Godber, Rt. Hn. J. B.

  McCrindle, R. A.

  Rost, Peter

  Goodhart, Philip

  McLaren, Martin

  Royle, Anthony

  Goodhew, Victor

  Maclean, Sir Fitzroy

  Russell, Sir Ronald

  Gorst, John

  McMaster, Stanley

  St. John Stevas, Norman

  Gower, Raymond

  Macmillan, Rt. Hn. Maurice (Farnham)

  Scott-Hopkins, James

  Grant, Anthony (Harrow, C.)

  McNair-Wilson, Michael

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

  Gray, Hamish

  McNair-Wilson, Patrick (New Forest)

  Shelton, William (Clapham)

  Green, Alan

  Maddan, Martin

  Simeons, Charles

  Grieve, Percy

  Madel, David

  Sinclair, Sir George

  Grylls, Michael

  Maginnis, John E.

  Smith, Dudley (W'wick & L'mington)

  Gummer, J. Selwyn

  Marples, Rt. Hn. Ernest

  Soref, Harold

  Gurden, Harold

  Marten, Neil

  Speed, Keith

  Mather, Carol

  Spence, John

  Hall, Miss Joan (Keighley)

  Maude, Angus

  Sproat, Iain

  Hall, John (Wycombe)

  Maudling, Rt. Hn. Reginald

  Stainton, Keith

  Hall-Davis, A. G. F.

  Mawby, Ray

  Stanbrook, Ivor

  Hamilton, Michael (Salisbury)

  Maxwell-Hyslop, R. J.

  Stewart-Smith, Geoffrey (Belper)

  Hannam, John (Exeter)

  Meyer, Sir Anthony

  Stoddart-Scott, Col. Sir M.

  Harrison, Brian (Maldon)

  Mills, Peter (Torrington)

  Stokes, John

  Haselhurst, Alan

  Mills, Stratton (Belfast, N.)

  Stuttaford, Dr. Tom

  Hastings, Stephen

  Miscampbell, Norman

  Sutcliffe, John

  Havers, Sir Michael

  Mitchell, Lt. -Col. C. (Aberdeenshire,W)

  Tapsell, Peter

  Hawkins, Paul

  Mitchell, David (Basingstoke)

  Taylor, Sir Charles (Eastbourne)

  Hayhoe, Barney

  Moate, Roger

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

  Heath, Rt. Hn. Edward

  Molyneaux, James

  Taylor, Frank (Moss Side)

  Heseltine, Michael

  Money, Ernie

  Tebbit, Norman

  Hicks, Robert

  Monks, Mrs. Connie

  Temple, John M.

  Higgins, Terence L.

  Monro, Hector

  Thatcher, Rt. Hn. Mrs. Margaret

  Hiley, Joseph

  Montgomery, Fergus

  Thomas, John Stradling (Monmouth)

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

  More, Jasper

  Thomas, Rt. Hn. Peter (Hendon, S.)

  Hill, James (Southampton, Test)

  Morgan, Geraint (Denbigh)

  Thompson, Sir Richard (Croydon,S.)

  Holland, Philip

  Morgan-Giles, Rear-Adm.

  Trafford, Dr. Anthony

  Holt, Miss Mary

  Morrison, Charles

  Trew, Peter

  Hordern, Peter

  Mudd, David

  Tugendhat, Christopher

  Hornby, Richard

  Murton, Oscar

  Turton, Rt. Hn. Sir Robin

  Hornsby-Smith, Rt. Hn. Dame Patricia

  Nabarro, Sir Gerald

  Vaughan, Dr. Gerard

  Neave, Airey

  Vickers, Dame Joan

  Howe, Rt. Hn. Sir Geoffrey

  Nicholls, Sir Harmar

  Waddington, David

  Hunt, John

  Noble, Rt. Hn. Michael

  Walder, David (Clitheroe)

  Hutchison, Michael Clark

  Normanton, Tom

  Walker, Rt. Hn. Peter (Worcester)

  Irvine, Bryant Godman (Rye)

  Nott, John

  Wall, Patrick

  James, David

  Onslow, Cranley

  Walters, Dennis

  Jenkin, Patrick (Woodford)

  Oppenheim, Mrs. Sally

  Ward, Dame Irene

  Jennings, J. C. (Burton)

  Orr, Capt. L. P. S.

  Warren, Kenneth

  Johnson Smith, G. (E. Grinstead)

  Owen, Idris (Stockport, N.)

  Wells, John (Maidstone)

  Jones, Arthur (Northants, S.)

  Page, Rt. Hn. Graham (Crosby)

  White, Roger (Gravesend)

  Jopling, Michael

  Page, John (Harrow, W.)

  Whitelaw, Rt. Hn. William

  Joseph, Rt. Hn. Sir Keith

  Parkinson, Cecil

  Wiggin, Jerry

  Kaberry, Sir Donald

  Peel, John

  Wilkinson, John

  Kellett-Bowman, Mrs. Elaine

  Peyton, Rt. Hn. John

  Winterton, Nicholas

  Kelley, Richard

  Pike, Miss Mervyn

  Wolrige-Gordon, Patrick

  Kershaw, Anthony

  Pink, R. Bonner

  Wood, Rt. Hn. Richard

  Kilfedder, James

  Pounder, Rafton

  Woodnutt, Mark

  Kimball, Marcus

  Powell, Rt. Hn. J. Enoch

  Worsley, Marcus

  King, Evelyn (Dorset, S.)

  Price, David (Eastleigh)

  Wylie, Rt. Hn. N. R.

  King, Tom (Bridgwater)

  Prior, Rt. Hn. J. M. L.

  Younger, Hn. George

  Kinsey, J. R.

  Proudfoot, Wilfred

  Kirk, Peter

  Pym, Rt. Hn. Francis

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES:

  Kitson, Timothy

  Quennell, Miss J. M.

  Mr. Walter Clegg and

  Knight, Mrs. Jill

  Raison, Timothy

  Mr. Bernard Weatherill.

  NOES

  Abse, Leo

  Barnes, Michael

  Blenkinsop, Arthur

  Albu, Austen

  Barnett, Guy (Greenwich)

  Booth, Albert

  Allaun, Frank (Salford, E.)

  Barnett, Joel (Heywood and Royton)

  Bottomley, Rt. Hn. Arthur

  Allen, Scholefield

  Baxter, William

  Bradley, Tom

  Archer, Peter (Rowley Regis)

  Beaney, Alan

  Brown, Robert C. (N'c'tle-u-Tyne,W.)

  Ashley, Jack

  Benn, Rt. Hn. Anthony Wedgwood

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

  Ashton, Joe

  Bennett, James (Glasgow, Bridgeton)

  Brown, Ronald (Shoreditch & F'bury)

  Atkinson, Norman

  Bidwell, Sydney

  Buchan, Norman

  Bagier, Gordon A. T.

  Bishop, E. S.

  Buchanan, Richard (G'gow, Sp'burn)

  502

  503

  Butler, Mrs. Joyce (Wood Green)

  Hughes, Rt. Hn. Cledwyn (Anglesey)

  Padley, Walter

  Callaghan, Rt. Hn. James

  Hughes, Mark (Durham)

  Paget, R. T.

  Campbell, I. (Dunbartonshire, W.)

  Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen, N.)

  Paisley, Rev. Ian

  Cant, R. B.

  Hughes, Roy (Newport)

  Palmer, Arthur

  Carmichael, Neil

  Hunter, Adam

  Pannell, Rt. Hn. Charles

  Carter, Ray (Birmingh'm, Northfield)

  Irvine, Rt. Hn. Sir Arthur (Edge Hill)

  Parker, John (Dagenham)

  Carter-Jones, Lewis (Eccles)

  Janner, Greville

  Parry, Robert (Liverpool, Exchange)

  Castle, Rt. Hn. Barbara

  Jay, Rt. Hn. Douglas

  Pavitt, Laurie

  Clark, David (Colne Valley)

  Jeger, Mrs. Lena

  Peart, Rt. Hn. Fred

  Cocks, Michael (Bristol, S.)

  Jenkins, Hugh (Putney)

  Pendry, Tom

  Cohen, Stanley

  Jenkins, Rt. Hn. Roy (Stechford)

  Perry, Ernest G.

  Coleman, Donald

  John, Brynmor

  Prentice, Rt. Hn. Reg.

  Concannon, J. D.

  Johnson, Carol (Lewisham, S.)

  Price, William (Rugby)

  Corbet, Mrs. Freda

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

  Probert, Arthur

  Cox, Thomas (Wandsworth, C.)

  Johnson, Walter (Derby, S.)

  Reed, D. (Sedgefield)

  Crawshaw, Richard

  Johnston, Russell (Inverness)

  Rees, Merlyn (Leeds, S.)

  Cronin, John

  Jones, Barry (Flint, E.)

  Richard, Ivor

  Crosland, Rt. Hn. Anthony

  Jones, Dan (Burnley)

  Roberts, Albert (Normanton)

  Cunningham, G. (Islington, S.W.)

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

  Roberts,Rt. Hn. Goronwy (Caernarvon)

  Cunningham, Dr. J. A. (Whitehaven)

  Jones, Gwynoro (Carmarthen)

  Robertson, John (Paisley)

  Darling, Rt. Hn. George

  Jones, T. Alec (Rhondda, W.)

  Roderick, Caerwyn E. (Brc'n&R'dnor)

  Davidson, Arthur

  Judd, Frank

  Rodgers, William (Stockton-on-Tees)

  Davies, Denzil (Llanelly)

  Kaufman, Gerald

  Roper, John

  Davies, G. Elfed (Rhondda, E.)

  Kelley, Richard

  Rose, Paul B.

  Davies, Ifor (Gower)

  Kerr, Russell

  Sandelson, Neville

  Davis, Clinton (Hackney, C.)

  Kinnock, Nell

  Sheldon, Robert (Ashton-under-Lyne)

  Davis, Terry (Bromsgrove)

  Lambie, David

  Shore, Rt. Hn. Peter (Stepney)

  Deakins, Eric

  Lamond, James

  Short, Rt. Hn. Edward (N'c'tle-u-Tyne)

  de Freitas, Rt. Hn. Sir Geoffrey

  Latham, Arthur

  Short, Mrs. Renée (W'hampton, N.E.)

  Delargy, Hugh

  Lawson, George

  Silkin, Rt. Hn. John (Deptford)

  Dell, Rt. Hn. Edmund

  Lee, Rt. Hn. Frederick

  Silkin, Hn. S. C. (Dulwich)

  Dempsey, James

  Leonard, Dick

  Sillars, James

  Doig, Peter

  Lestor, Miss Joan

  Silverman, Julius

  Dormand, J. D.

  Lewis, Arthur (W. Ham, N.)

  Small, William

  Douglas, Dick (Stirlingshire, E.)

  Lewis, Ron (Carlisle)

  Smith, John (Lanarkshire, N.)

  Douglas Mann, Bruce

  Lipton, Marcus

  Spearing, Nigel

  Duffy, A. E. P.

  Lomas, Kenneth

  Spriggs, Leslie

  Dunnett, Jack

  Loughlin, Charles

  Stallard, A. W

  Eadie, Alex

  Lyon, Alexander W. (York)

  Steel, David

  Edelman, Maurice

  Lyons, Edward (Bradford, E.)

  Stewart, Donald (Western Isles)

  Edwards, Robert (Bilston)

  Mabon, Dr. J. Dickson

  Stoddart, David (Swindon)

  Edwards, William (Merioneth)

  McBride, Neil

  Stonehouse, Rt. Hn. John

  Ellis, Tom

  McCartney, Hugh

  Strang, Gavin

  English, Michael

  McElhone, Frank

  Strauss, Rt. Hn. G. R.

  Evans, Fred

  McGuire, Michael

  Summerskill, Hn. Dr. Shirley

  Ewing, Harry

  Mackenzie, Gregor

  Swain, Thomas

  Fernyhough, Rt. Hn. E.

  Mackle, John

  Thomas, Rt. Hn. George (Cardiff, W.)

  Fisher, Mrs. Doris (B'ham, Ladywood)

  Maclennan, Robert

  Thomas, Jeffrey (Abertillery)

  Fletcher, Raymond (Ilkeston)

  McMillan, Tom (Glasgow, C.)

  Thomson, Rt. Hn. G. (Dundee, E.)

  Fletcher, Ted (Darlington)

  McNamara, J. Kevin

  Thorpe, Rt. Hn. Jeremy

  Foley, Maurice

  Mahon, Simon (Bootle)

  Tinn, James

  Ford, Ben

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

  Tomney, Frank

  Forrester, John

  Marks, Kenneth

  Torney, Tom

  Fraser, John (Norwood)

  Marquand, David

  Tuck, Raphael

  Freeson, Reginald

  Marsden, F.

  Urwin, T. W.

  Galpern, Sir Myer

  Marshall, Dr. Edmund

  Varley, Eric G.

  Garrett, W. E.

  Mason, Rt. Hn. Roy

  Wainwright, Edwin

  Ginsburg, David (Dewsbury)

  Meacher, Michael

  Walden, Brian (B'm'ham, All Saints)

  Gourlay, Harry

  Mellish, Rt. Hn. Robert

  Walker, Harold (Doncaster)

  Grant, George (Morpeth)

  Mendelson, John

  Wallace, George

  Grant, John D. (Islington, E.)

  Mikardo, Ian

  Watkins, David

  Griffiths, Eddie (Brightside)

  Millan, Bruce

  Weitzman, David

  Griffiths, Will (Exchange)

  Miller, Dr. M. S.

  Wellbeloved, James

  Grimond, Rt. Hn. J.

  Milne, Edward

  Wells, William (Walsall, N.)

  Mitchell, R. C. (S'hampton, Itchen)

  White, James (Glasgow, Pollok)

  Hamilton, William (Fife, W.)

  Morgan, Elystan (Cardiganshire)

  Whitehead, Phillip

  Hamling, William

  Morris, Alfred (Wythenshawe)

  Whitlock, William

  Hannan, William (G'gow, Maryhill)

  Morris, Charles R. (Openshaw)

  Willey, Rt. Hn. Frederick

  Hardy, Peter

  Morris, Rt. Hn. John (Aberavon)

  Williams, Alan (Swansea, W.)

  Harper, Joseph

  Moyle, Roland

  Williams, Mrs. Shirley (Hitchin)

  Harrison, Walter (Wakefield)

  Mulley, Rt. Hn. Frederick

  Williams, W. T. (Warrington)

  Hart, Rt. Hn. Judith

  Murray, Ronald King

  Wilson, Alexander (Hamilton)

  Hattersley, Roy

  Oakes, Gordon

  Wilson, Rt. Hn. Harold (Huyton)

  Healey, Rt. Hn. Denis

  Ogden, Eric

  Wilson, William (Coventry, S.)

  Heffer, Eric S.

  O'Halloran, Michael

  Woof, Robert

  Hilton, W. S.

  O'Malley, Brian

  Horam, John

  Orbach, Maurice

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES:

  Houghton, Rt. Hn. Douglas

  Orme, Stanley

  Mr. James A. Dunn and

  Huckfield, Leslie

  Oswald, Thomas

  Mr. James Hamilton.

  Question accordingly agreed to.
  Main Question, as amended, put:—
  The House divided: Ayes 292, Noes 257.

  Division No. 28.]

  AYES

  [7.27 p.m.

  Adley, Robert

  Fookes, Miss Janet

  Loveridge, John

  Allason, James (Hemel Hempstead)

  Fortescue, Tim

  Luce, R. N.

  Amery, Rt. Hn. Julian

  Foster, Sir John

  McAdden, Sir Stephen

  Archer, Jeffrey (Louth)

  Fowler, Norman

  MacArthur, Ian

  Astor, John

  Fox, Marcus

  McCrindle, R. A.

  Atkins, Humphrey

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

  McLaren, Martin

  Baker, Kenneth (St. Marylebone)

  Fry, Peter

  Maclean, Sir Fitzroy

  Baker, W. H. K. (Banff)

  Galbraith, Hn. T. G. D.

  McMaster, Stanley

  Balniel, Rt. Hn. Lord

  Gardner, Edward

  Macmillan, Rt. Hn. Maurice (Farnham)

  Barber, Rt. Hn. Anthony

  Gibson-Watt, David

  McNair-Wilson, Michael

  Batsford, Brian

  Gilmour, Ian (Norfolk, C.)

  McNair-Wilson, Patrick (New Forest)

  Bell, Ronald

  Gilmour, Sir John (Fife, E.)

  Maddan, Martin

  Bennett, Sir Frederic (Torquay)

  Glyn, Dr. Alan

  Madel, David

  Bennett, Dr. Reginald (Gosport)

  Godber, Rt. Hn. J. B.

  Maginnis, John E.

  Benyon, W.

  Goodhart, Philip

  Marples, Rt. Hn. Ernest

  Berry, Hn. Anthony

  Goodhew, Victor

  Marten, Neil

  Biffen, John

  Gorst, John

  Mather, Carol

  Biggs-Davison, John

  Gower, Raymond

  Maude, Angus

  Blaker, Peter

  Grant, Anthony (Harrow, C.)

  Maudling, Rt. Hn. Reginald

  Boardman, Tom (Leicester, S.W.)

  Gray, Hamish

  Mawby, Ray

  Body, Richard

  Green, Alan

  Maxwell-Hyslop, R. J.

  Boscawen, Hn. Robert

  Grieve, Percy

  Meyer, Sir Anthony

  Bossom, Sir Clive

  Grylls, Michael

  Mills, Peter (Torrington)

  Bowden, Andrew

  Gummer, J. Selwyn

  Mills, Stratton (Belfast, N.)

  Gurden, Harold

  Miscampbell, Norman

  Braine, Sir Bernard

  Hall, Miss Joan (Keighley)

  Mitchell, Lt.-Col. C. (Aberdeenshire, W)

  Bray, Ronald

  Hall, John (Wycombe)

  Mitchell, David (Basingstoke)

  Brewis, John

  Hall-Davis, A. G. F.

  Moate, Roger

  Brinton, Sir Tatton

  Molyneaux, James

  Brocklebank-Fowler, Christopher

  Hamilton, Michael (Salisbury)

  Money, Ernle

  Brown, Sir Edward (Bath)

  Hannam, John (Exeter)

  Monks, Mrs. Connie

  Bruce-Gardyne, J.

  Harrison, Brian (Maldon)

  Monro, Hector

  Bryan, Sir Paul

  Haselhurst, Alan

  Montgomery, Fergus

  Buchanan-Smith, Alick (Angus, N&M)

  Hastings, Stephen

  More, Jasper

  Buck, Antony

  Havers, Sir Michael

  Morgan, Geraint (Denbigh)

  Bullus, Sir Eric

  Hawkins, Paul

  Morgan-Giles, Rear-Adm.

  Burden, F. A.

  Hayhoe, Parney

  Morrison, Charles

  Butler, Adam (Bosworth)

  Heath, Rt. Hn. Edward

  Mudd, David

  Campbell, Rt. Hn. G. (Moray & Nairn)

  Heseltine, Michael

  Murton, Oscar

  Carlisle, Mark

  Hicks, Robert

  Nabarro, Sir Gerald

  Carr, Rt. Hn. Robert

  Higgins, Terence L.

  Neave, Airey

  Cary. Sir Robert

  Hiley, Joseph

  Nicholls, Sir Harmar

  Channon, Paul

  Hill, James (Southampton, Test)

  Noble, Rt. Hn. Michael

  Chapman, Sydney

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

  Normanton, Tom

  Chataway, Rt. Hn. Christopher

  Holland, Philip

  Nott, John

  Churchill, W. S.

  Holt, Miss Mary

  Onslow, Cranley

  Clark, William (Surrey, E.)

  Hordern, Peter

  Oppenheim, Mrs. Sally

  Clarke, Kenneth (Rushcliffe)

  Hornby, Richard

  Orr, Capt. L. P. S.

  Cockeram, Eric

  Hornsby-Smith, Rt. Hn. Dame Patricia

  Owen, Idris (Stockport, N.)

  Cooke, Robert

  Howe, Rt. Hn. Sir Geoffrey

  Page, Rt. Hn. Graham (Crosby)

  Coombs, Derek

  Hunt, John

  Page, John (Harrow, W.)

  Cooper, A. E.

  Hutchison, Michael Clark

  Parkinson, Cecil

  Cordle, John

  Irvine, Bryant Godman (Rye)

  Peel, John

  Cormack, Patrick

  James, David

  Peyton, Rt. Hn. John

  Costain, A. P.

  Jenkin, Patrick (Woodford)

  Pike, Miss Mervyn

  Critchley, Julian

  Jennings, J. C. (Burton)

  Pink, R. Bonner

  Crouch, David

  Johnson Smith, G. (E. Grinstead)

  Pounder, Rafton

  Crowder, F. P.

  Jones, Arthur (Northants, S.)

  Powell, Rt. Hn. J. Enoch

  Dalkeith, Earl of

  Jopling, Michael

  Price, David (Eastleigh)

  Davies, Rt. Hn. John (Knutsford)

  Joseph, Rt. Hn. Sir Keith

  Prior, Rt. Hn. J. M. L.

  d'Avigdor-Goldsmid, Sir Henry

  Kaberry, Sir Donald

  Proudfoot, Wilfred

  Dean, Paul

  Kellett-Bowman, Mrs. Elaine

  Pym, Rt. Hn. Francis

  Deedes, Rt. Hn. W. F.

  Kershaw, Anthony

  Quennell, Miss J. M.

  Digby, Simon Wingfield

  Kilfedder, James

  Raison, Timothy

  Dixon, Piers

  Kimball, Marcus

  Ramsden, Rt. Hn. James

  Dodds-Parker, Douglas

  King, Evelyn (Dorset, S.)

  Rawlinson, Rt. Hn. Sir Peter

  Douglas-Home, Rt. Hn. Sir Alec

  King, Tom (Bridgwater)

  Redmond, Robert

  Drayson, G. B

  Kinsey, J. R.

  Reed, Laurance (Bolton, E.)

  du Cann, Rt. Hn. Edward

  Kirk, Peter

  Rees, Peter (Dover)

  Dykes, Hugh

  Kitson, Timothy

  Rees-Davies, W. R.

  Eden, Rt. Hn. Sir John

  Knight, Mrs. Jill

  Renton, Rt. Hn. Sir David

  Edwards, Nicholas (Pembroke)

  Knox, David

  Ridley, Hn. Nicholas

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

  Lament, Norman

  Rippon, Rt. Hn. Geoffrey

  Emery, Peter

  Lane, David

  Roberts, Michael (Cardiff, N.)

  Eyre, Reginald

  Langford-Holt, Sir John

  Roberts, Wyn (Conway)

  Farr, John

  La Merchant, Spencer

  Rodgers, Sir John (Sevenoaks)

  Fell, Anthony

  Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland)

  Rossi, Hugh (Hornsey)

  Fenner, Mrs. Peggy

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

  Rost, Peter

  Fisher, Nigel (Surbiton)

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

  Royle, Anthony

  Fletcher-Cooke, Charles

  Longden, Sir Gilbert

  Russell, Sir Ronald

  St. John Stevas, Norman

  Taylor, Sir Charles (Eastbourne)

  Wall, Patrick

  Scott-Hopkins, James

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

  Walters, Dennis

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

  Taylor, Frank (Moss Side)

  Ward, Dame Irene

  Shelton, William (Clapham)

  Tebbit, Norman

  Warren, Kenneth

  Simeons, Charles

  Temple, John M

  Wells, John (Maidstone)

  Sinclair, Sir George

  Thatcher, Rt. Hn. Mrs. Margaret

  White, Roger (Gravesend)

  Smith, Dudley (W'wick & L'mington)

  Thomas, John Stradling (Monmouth)

  Whitelaw, Rt. Hn. William

  Soref, Harold

  Thomas, Rt. Hn. Peter (Hendon, S.)

  Wiggin, Jerry

  Speed, Keith

  Thompson, Sir Richard (Croydon.S.)

  Wilkinson, John

  Spence, John

  Trafford, Dr. Anthony

  Winterton, Nicholas

  Sproat, Iain

  Trew, Peter

  Wolrige-Gordon, Patrick

  Stainton, Keith

  Tugendhat, Christopher

  Wood, Rt. Hn. Richard

  Stanbrook, Ivor

  Turton, Rt. Hn. Sir Robin

  Woodnutt, Mark

  Stewart-Smith, Geoffrey (Belper)

  Vaughan, Dr. Gerard

  Worsley, Marcus

  Stoddart-Scott, Col. Sir M.

  Vickers, Dame Joan

  Wylie, Rt. Hn. N. R.

  Stokes, John

  Waddington, David

  Younger, Hn. George

  Stuttaford, Dr. Tom

  Walder, David (Clitheroe)

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES:

  Sutcliffe, John

  Walker, Rt. Hn. Peter (Worcester)

  Mr. Walter Clegg and

  Tapsell, Peter

  Walker-Smith, Rt. Hn. Sir Derek

  Mr. Bernard Weatherill

  NOES

  Abse, Leo

  Douglas, Dick (Stirlingshire, E.)

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

  Albu, Austen

  Douglas-Mann, Bruce

  Jones, Gwynoro (Carmarthen)

  Allaun, Frank (Salford, E.)

  Dully, A. E. P.

  Jones, T. Alec (Rhondda, W.)

  Allen, Scholefield

  Dunnett, Jack

  Judd, Frank

  Archer, Peter (Rowley Regis)

  Eadie, Alex

  Kaufman, Gerald

  Ashley, Jack

  Edelman, Maurice

  Kelley, Richard

  Ashton, Joe

  Edwards, Robert (Bilston)

  Kerr, Russell

  Atkinson, Norman

  Edwards, William (Merioneth)

  Kinnock, Neil

  Bagier, Gordon A. T.

  Ellis, Tom

  Lambie, David

  Barnes, Michael

  English, Michael

  Lamond, James

  Barnett, Guy (Greenwich)

  Evans, Fred

  Latham, Arthur

  Barnett, Joel (Heywood and Royton)

  Ewing, Harry

  Lawson, George

  Baxter, William

  Fernyhough, Rt. Hn. E.

  Lee, Rt. Hn. Frederick

  Beaney, Alan

  Flsher,Mrs.Doris (B'ham,Ladywood)

  Leonard, Dick

  Benn, Rt. Hn. Anthony Wedgwood

  Fletcher, Raymond (Ilkeston)

  Lestor, Miss Joan

  Bennett, James (Glasgow, Bridgeton)

  Fletcher, Tea (Darlington)

  Lewis, Arthur (W. Ham, N.)

  Foley, Maurice

  Lewis, Ron (Carlisle)

  Bidwell, Sydney

  Ford, Ben

  Lipton, Marcus

  Bishop, E S.

  Forrester, John

  Lomas, Kenneth

  Blenkinsop, Arthur

  Fraser, John (Norwood)

  Loughlin, Charles

  Booth, Albert

  Freeson, Reginald

  Lyon, Alexander W. (York)

  Bottomley, Rt. Hn. Arthur

  Galpern, Sir Myer

  Lyons, Edward (Bradford, E.)

  Bradley, Tom

  Garrett, W. E.

  Mabon, Dr. J. Dickson

  Brown, Robert C. (N'c'tle-u-Tyne,W.)

  Ginsburg, David (Dewsbury)

  McBride, Neil

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

  Gourlay, Harry

  McCartney, Hugh

  Brown, Ronald (Shoreditch & F'bury)

  Grant, George (Morpeth)

  McElhone, Frank

  Buchan, Norman

  Grant, John D. (Islington, E.)

  McGuire, Michael

  Buchanan, Richard (G'gow, Sp'burn)

  Griffiths, Eddie (Brightside)

  Mackenzie, Gregor

  Butler. Mrs. Joyce (Wood Green)

  Griffiths, Will (Exchange)

  Mackie, John

  Callaghan, Rt. Hn. James

  Grimond, Rt. Hn. J.

  Maclennan, Robert

  Campbell, I. (Dunbartonshire, W.)

  Hamilton, James (Bothwell)

  McMillan, Tom (Glasgow, C.)

  Cant, R. B.

  Hamilton, William (Fife, W.)

  McNamara, J. Kevin

  Carmichael, Neil

  Hamling, William

  Mahon, Simon (Bootle)

  Carter, Ray (Birmingh'm, Northfield)

  Hannan, William (G'gow, Maryhill)

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

  Carter-Jones, Lewis (Eccles)

  Hardy, Peter

  Marks, Kenneth

  Castle, Rt. Hn. Barbara

  Harrison, Walter (Wakefield)

  Marquand, David

  Clark, David (Colne Valley)

  Hart, Rt. Hn. Judith

  Marsden, F.

  Cocks, Michael (Bristol, S.)

  Hattersley, Roy

  Marshall, Dr. Edmund

  Cohen, Stanley

  Mason, Rt. Hn. Roy

  Coleman, Donald

  Healey, Rt. Hn. Denis

  Meacher, Michael

  Concannon, J. D.

  Heffer, Eric S.

  Mellish, Rt. Hn. Robert

  Corbet. Mrs. Freda

  Hilton, W. S.

  Mendelson, John

  Cox, Thomas (Wandsworth, C.)

  Horam, John

  Mikardo, Ian

  Crawshaw, Richard

  Houghton, Rt. Hn. Douglas

  Millan, Bruce

  Cronin, John

  Huckfield, Leslie

  Miller, Dr. M. S.

  Crosland, Rt. Hn. Anthony

  Hughes, Rt. Hn. Cledwyn (Anglesey)

  Milne, Edward

  Cunningham, G. (Islington, S.W.)

  Hughes, Mark (Durham)

  Mitchell, R. C. (S'hampton, Itchen)

  Cunningham, Dr. J. A. (Whitehaven)

  Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen, N.)

  Morgan, Elystan (Cardiganshire)

  Darling, Rt. Hn. George

  Hughes, Roy (Newport)

  Morris, Alfred (Wythenshawe)

  Davidson, Arthur

  Hunter, Adam

  Morris, Charle3 R. (Openshaw)

  Davies, Denzil (Llanelly)

  Irvine, Rt. Hn. Sir Arthur (Edge Hill)

  Morris, Rt. Hn. John (Aberavon)

  Davies, G. Elfed (Rhondda, E.)

  Janner, Greville

  Moyle, Roland

  Davies, Ifor (Gower)

  Jay, Rt. Hn. Douglas

  Mulley, Rt. Hn. Frederick

  Davis, Clinton (Hackney, C.)

  Jeger, Mrs. Lena

  Murray, Ronald King

  Davis, Terry (Bromsgrove)

  Jenkins, Hugh (Putney)

  Oakes, Gordon

  Deakins, Eric

  Jenkins, Rt. Hn. Roy (Stechford)

  Ogden, Eric

  de Freitas, Rt. Hn. Sir Geoffrey

  John, Brynmor

  O'Halloran, Michael

  Delargy, Hugh

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

  O'Malley, Brian

  Dell, Rt. Hn. Edmund

  Johnson, Walter (Derby, S.)

  Orbach, Maurice

  Dempsey, James

  Johnston, Russell (Inverness)

  Orme, Stanley

  Doig, Peter

  Jones, Barry (Flint, E.)

  Oswald, Thomas

  Dormand, J. D.

  Jones, Dan (Burnley)

  Padley, Walter

  508

  509

  Paget, R. T.

  Short, Mrs. Renée (W'hampton, N.E.)

  Urwin, T. W.

  Palmer, Arthur

  Silkin, Rt. Hn. John (Deptford)

  Varley, Eric G.

  Pannell, Rt. Hn. Charles

  Silkin, Hn. S. C. (Dulwich)

  Wainwright, Edwin

  Parker, John (Dagenham)

  Sillars, James

  Walden, Brian (B'm'ham, All Saints)

  Parry, Robert (Liverpool, Exchange)

  Silverman, Julius

  Walker, Harold (Doncaster)

  Pavitt, Laurie

  Small, William

  Wallace, George

  Peart, Rt. Hn. Fred

  Smith, John (Lanarkshire, N.)

  Watkins, David

  Pendry, Tom

  Spearing, Nigel

  Weitzman, David

  Perry, Ernest G.

  Spriggs, Leslie

  Prentice, Rt. Hn. Reg.

  Stallard, A. W

  Wellbeloved, James

  Price, William (Rugby)

  Steel, David

  Wells, William (Walsall, N.)

  Probert, Arthur

  Stewart, Donald (Western Isles)

  White, James (Glasgow, Pollok)

  Reed, D. (Sedgefield)

  Stoddart, David (Swindon)

  Whitehead, Phillip

  Rees, Merlyn (Leeds, S.)

  Storehouse, Rt. Hn. John

  Whitlock, William

  Richard, Ivor

  Strang, Gavin

  Willey, Rt. Hn. Frederick

  Roberts, Albert (Normanton)

  Strauss, Rt. Hn. G. R.

  Williams, Alan (Swansea, W.)

  Roberts, Rt.Hn.Goronwy (Caernarvon)

  Summerskill, Hn. Dr. Shirley

  Williams, Mrs. Shirley (Hitchin)

  Robertson, John (Paisley)

  Swain, Thomas

  Williams, W. T. (Warrington)

  Roderick, Caerwyn E.(Brc'n & R'dnor)

  Thomas, Rt.Hn.George (Cardiff,w.)

  Wilson, Alexander (Hamilton)

  Rodgers, William (Stockton-on-Tees)

  Thomas, Jeffrey (Abertillery)

  Wilson, Rt. Hn. Harold (Huyton)

  Roper, John

  Thomson, Rt. Hn. G. (Dundee, E.)

  Wilson, William (Coventry, S.)

  Rose, Paul B.

  Thorpe, Rt. Hn. Jeremy

  Wool, Robert

  Sandelson, Neville

  Tinn, James

  Sheldon, Robert (Ashton-under-Lyne)

  Tomney, Frank

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES

  Shore, Rt. Hn. Peter (Stepney)

  Torney, Tom

  Mr. Joseph Harper and

  Short, Rt.Hn.Edward (N'c'tle-u-Tyne)

  Tuck, Raphael

  Mr. James A. Dunn.

  Question accordingly agreed to.
  Resolved,
  That this House, disturbed about the plight of thalidomide children, and the delay in reaching a settlement between Distillers (Biochemicals) Limited and most of the children and their families, recognises the initiatives
  510
  taken by Her Majesty's Government to improve services for the handicapped and disabled; and welcomes the undertakings of Her Majesty's Government to investigate any case where the needs of a thalidomide child are thought not to be met by the services available, and to consider, as soon as the cases are no longer sub judice, whether a trust fund needs to be established for thalidomide children.

  LORRIES (SIZE)
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Miss Harvie Anderson): I have to tell the House that there are many more hon. Members seeking to speak in the debate than it will be possible to call. At the outset, therefore, I make an appeal for short speeches so that as many as possible may take part.
  7.38 p.m.
  Mr. Anthony Crosland: I beg to move,
  That this House, mindful of the environment, is against bigger and heavier lorries.
  I shall, of course, try to accede to your request, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
  I hope that the Motion is as clear as the English language can make it. It is not an anti-European Motion. It is a Motion against a particular EEC regulation, and it is a Motion against bigger and heavier lorries in general, from whatever source the pressure for them comes. It is a Motion which, like Early Day Motion No. 55 on "Heavy Lorries", in the name of the hon. Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Mr. Maude), is supported by people with extremely varying opinions on the Common Market, and it is a Motion the sentiments of which are supported also by many bodies in no way connected with the Common Market argument—for example by the four local authority associations, and by the Select Committee on Nationalised Industries in its First Report of last Session, dated 15th June 1972, in which it recommended:
  "Whatever limits of weight for road vehicles are under consideration in the EEC, existing restrictions which are at present applied to British vehicles should be retained and applied fully to all lorries under the terms of the Road Traffic (Foreign Vehicles') Act 1972."
  Support for the Motion obviously goes very wide indeed.
  My second preliminary point is that I am not moving the Motion as some crazy Doomwatch character wholly indifferent to all questions of economic growth and efficiency. The Minister for Transport Industries is fond of saying that the heavy commercial vehicle plays a large part in the economy of the country and therefore in the lives of ordinary people. I fully accept that and, indeed, have constantly fallen into trouble with the environmental lobby because I am un-
  512
  willing and refuse to sacrifice the goal of economic growth. It is a question of balancing the economic against the environmental factors. In this instance the balance, in my view and that of many hon. Members, is in danger of tilting too far against the environment.
  I start by outlining briefly the facts of the present situation. British limits are 32 tons overall weight, 10 tons axle weight and 15 metres length for articulated vehicles. The EEC Commission, after 10 years of study, finally proposed in May a new regulation setting limits to operate from 1980 of 40 tonnes overall weight—these are metric tonnes, but the difference between the metric and the British imperial ton is not of great significance—11 tonnes axle weight and 15·5 metres length. This draft regulation was referred to the Council of Ministers and they, after postponing a decision once, are now due to meet on 18th December with the three applicant countries present.
  Why are so many hon. Members on both sides of the House bitterly opposed to any increase in the size and weight of British lorries? The first reason obviously is the financial cost. The Minister has told us that, on his best estimate, it would cost £200 million over the next 10 or 15 years to strengthen roads and bridges to allow these heavier lorries to travel in Britain. I suppose that on some comparisons this is not a vast sum. Yet the annual cost is 10 times as much, for example, as the yield of museum charges—a mean measure that was pushed through the House of Commons with a three-line Whip to save public expenditure. I should think that hon. Members could find many better ways of spending £200 million than strengthening British bridges to cope with even bigger juggernauts.
  But, in my view and probably that of many hon. Members, far more serious than the financial cost is the environmental cost. Today we are all in favour of the environment we are all in favour of the quality of life. The White Paper "Development and Compensation—Putting People First", which we debated on Monday with the corresponding Bill, starts in its first sentence with the words:
  "The Government are committed to enhancing the quality of everyday life in Britain."
  That is a ringing declaration indeed.

  513
  What effect would heavier lorries have on the quality of everyday life? We all know perfectly well that they would mean more noise, more discomfort for pedestrians, more deeply damaging vibration—we are still waiting for a detailed report on vibration from the Road Research Laboratory—more parking nuisance, more accidents, because heavy lorries are more accident-prone than lighter lorries, more damage to buildings and more pressure for road widening in historic towns and villages. In other words, it would mean not an improvement but a worsening of the quality of everyday life in Britain.
  We do not want this creeping menace to our environment. This is the time to call a halt, and this is what the Motion intends.
  Mr. Arthur Lewis: Will my right hon. Friend give way?
  Mr. Crosland: I am very near the beginning of my speech.
  Mr. Lewis: Loss of railway revenue is important.
  Mr. Crosland: It is very important indeed.
  Mr. Lewis: Put them back on the railways.
  Mr. Crosland: I shall come to British Rail in a moment. The trouble with early interventions is that they always allude to points which come later in one's speech.
  Much of this argument has been conceded by the Minister because, when he was under heavy pressure in December 1970 to increase the maximum weight of vehicles, he refused to do so, largely on environmental grounds. In a Written Answer on 16th December, 1970 the Minister said:
  "I have decided not to allow the maximum weight of goods vehicles to be raised above 32 tons. I am primarily concerned that greater efforts should be made to reduce the noise, congestion and pollution which lorries cause, and to improve their ability to operate within the physical limitations of our road system." —[OFFICIAL REPORT, 16th December, 1970; Vol. 808, c. 350.]
  What was right then is right now. Nothing has changed in the interval to alter that decision.
  In passing, I want to draw attention to a significant aspect of the Minister's
  514
  Statement—namely, that it was couched in terms of gross overall weight. The Government have put up a very successful smokescreen in recent months which has largely deceived the Press—which is only too easily deceived in matters like this—and have repeatedly said that what mattered was axle weight, not gross weight.
  This is a new doctrine. The Minister's 1970 statement, which I have just quoted, made no reference to axle weight; it was framed entirely in terms of gross weight. It is not only a new doctrine, but also a false one. It is true that the financial cost of improving roads and strengthening bridges is largely dependent on axle weight; but the environmental damage—the noise, the congestion, the blocking of narrow streets, the accidents and the damage to buildings—is a function of gross weight and size.
  The proposed increase in gross weight in the relevant EEC regulation is enormous. The increase in weight proposed is equivalent to the weight of a traditional double-decker bus. This is what the road hauliers want. They made their position clear in a letter to the Minister on 25th August 1972 in which they said:
  "We realise, however, that the Department … has consistently taken the view that it cannot accept an axle weight in excess of 10 imperial tons. If this view prevails we would nevertheless urge that it be taken in conjunction with the highest possible gross weight."
  They want the highest possible gross weight. But that is not what the Motion says. The Motion is against bigger and heavier lorries, and that covers both gross weights and axle weights. We are told that that is what the Government are accepting tonight.
  The Minister will, of course, reply very sympathetically. Indeed, to be realistic, he has no choice in the matter. He will tell us that he is grateful for the Motion, that he is deeply conscious of the threat that these heavier lorries pose to the environment, and that he is trying desperately to tame the monster —with a special advisory road network for heavy lorries, a national network of lorry parks, a whole stream of circulars going out to local authorities, and so on. I support all these endeavours on the part of the Minister. But how long will it be, to take a frequently quoted example, before the village of Bridge, in Kent, is

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  bypassed? How long will it be before all the other towns and villages in Britain are effectively bypassed? The answer is years and years. We are not prepared to wait for so long.
  The trouble is that the Minister, like his previous boss, the present Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, is a great deal better at talking about the environment than actually improving it. [HON. MEMBERS: "Unfair."] It is not unfair at all, and most hon. Members know it as well as I do. They remind me of a cartoon in the New York Herald-Tribune some time ago of a company secretary reporting to the chairman: "So far we have spent 5,000 dollars curing pollution and 270,000 dollars bragging about it."
  The Minister's overall transport policy is profoundly inimical to the environment. It is a policy of laissez-faire, decontrol and barely suppressed hostility to British Rail.
  Let us make a comparison with some of the European countries. On this occasion it is the Common Market countries which are cast in the rôle of villains. But if we consider overall transport policies, we find that most of those countires have far more enlightened policies than we have. They support their railways better and they control their lorries better. As a result, the share of freight carried by road is much higher and the share of freight carried by rail is much lower in this country than in almost any other European country. According to the latest European figures, the road share of freight in Britain is 75 per cent. while in France it is 33 per cent., in the Netherlands 25 per cent. and in Germany 23 per cent. Britain is the only European country in which rail freight traffic has been declining since 1950.
  It was that dangerous and damaging trend which persuaded the Labour Government, in the Transport Act 1968, to introduce the concept of quantity licensing, in an effort to reverse the trend away from rail. But the present Minister has refused to implement the provisions of the 1968 Act because he believes passionately in laissez-faire and decontrol. I quote something that he said in an interview with The Times on 25th
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  October 1972 which accurately expresses his philosophy:
  "We want the maximum freedom for road transport, while Europe flirts with systems of regulation partly to divert traffic to rail … We are against quotas as practised by France, Germany and Italy. I personally regard these as an abomination; a great restriction of freedom of movement, and denial of what transport is all about."
  Evidently the Department of the Environment's document on the rail cuts, recently leaked and published in The Sunday Times, was an accurate expression of the Minister's philosophy.
  The fact is that in this year of grace 1972 we cannot accept that philosophy. Transport cannot be left to the forces of unregulated laissez-faire, to purely private commercial choice or to what the Financial Times yesterday called "liberalism". It cannot because it involves far too many social and environmental costs which lie altogether outside the commercial balance sheet, and these are costs which more and more threaten the quality of everyday life which the Government purport to wish to enhance.
  It is not a question of hostility to the road haulage industry, either to employers or to employees. I have many of both in my constituency, as other hon. Members do. Very tough and independent-minded citizens they are, and they are fully entitled to do everything that is permissible within the law. It is a question of saying that the balance of argument must now be tilted deliberately towards the environmental benefit, even at some economic cost, in the same way as we impose additional costs on other industries in the interests of preventing pollution. There is no question of singling out this industry.
  We are informed by the Press, and the view is supported by the rapid exodus of hon. Gentlemen after the last Division, that the Government are proposing to accept the Motion—a prudent decision, if I may say so, though one dictated less by tender concern for the environment than by the hard-headed arithmetic of the Government Whips.
  Assuming that the Motion is accepted, what obligations will be imposed on the Minister for Transport Industries? First, on 18th December at the ministerial meeting he will be obliged to say that

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  this regulation, on which it has taken 10 years to secure agreement, can wait for another two weeks. If it cannot wait for another two weeks Britain, shortly to join the Common Market, will not be bound by it.
  Assuming that no final decision is taken on 18th December—and it would be incredible if it were—after 1st January, when Britain is a full member of the Community, the matter will again come up before the Council of Ministers and the decision there will have to be unanimous.
  What attitude will the Minister take then, assuming that he attends the Council of Ministers? The answer is that all he has to do is to consult his right hon. and learned Friend the new Secretary of State for the Environment who is sitting 2 ft. to his left, because the Secretary of State made the whole position clear when introducing the Second Reading of the European Communities Bill. He said on that occasion:
  "A United Kingdom Minister will sit on the Council"—
  that is the Council of Ministers—
  "where it is recognised that decisions are not taken which may conflict with the vital national interests of a member State. … No Government would proceed on a matter of major policy in the Council unless they knew that they had the approval of the House."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 15th February, 1972; Vol. 831, c. 274]
  On this issue the Government know that they do not have the approval of the House and, therefore, they cannot proceed. But if, in defiance of the Motion, they tried to proceed, they would be defeated in the attempt, because to implement the regulation they would have to introduce an order under the Road Traffic Act 1972, and that order would certainly be rejected by the House. I hope that the Government Chief Whip is listening to this with close attention, because it may become a matter of some concern to him later.
  All this is quite as it should be, and I speak as a moderate supporter of the Communities. I do not share the obsession of some people about national sovereignty. I think that we must, and should, and already do, surrender sovereignty when international considerations are involved—for example in mat-
  518
  ters of defence, foreign policy, international trade and international pollution. But the size of heavy lorries in Britain is not such an issue. It is wholly a matter for us to decide. It affects nobody but ourselves. There is no call for surrender here of British interests in the interests of some wider need or wider harmonisation. It is a decision for us and us alone, and what we say now in this House—and I believe that we echo opinion in the country—is that enough is enough. We say this in no anti-internationalist spirit.
  We are determined not to agree, and, incidentally, not to agree only a few short weeks before the European Architectural Heritage Year opens under the auspices of the Council of Europe—which is ironic enough—that at some future date even bigger and heavier lorries shall rumble along the roads of Lincolnshire, through the villages of Kent, through historic towns up and down the country and through the metropolitan centre of our own capital city in Parliament Square. That, I believe, is the strong, unambiguous and unanimous will of the House of Commons.
  7.58 p.m.
  The Minister for Transport Industries (Mr. John Peyton): I should like to start by assuring the right hon. Member for Grimsby (Mr. Crosland) that I am not going to waste the time of the House with a long procession of oily thanks to him for his speech or for the Motion. There are very few comments that I should like to make on his speech, save that I agree with the first things that he said, with his acknowledgement that this debate is not directed against the Community, and with his tremendous acknowledgement of the importance of economic growth and the part in it played by the lorry. I suppose those are all things to be mildly welcomed, but beyond that I leave the right hon. Gentleman's speech because I shall deal with many of the points that he made in the course of making my own. Listening to the right hon. Gentleman, anybody would have thought that he or his right hon. and hon. Friends had never had any responsibility for the affairs of this country. I profoundly wish that they had not.
  I should prefer that lorries should not get either bigger or heavier, and even more am I concerned that axle loads,

  519
  to which the right hon. Gentleman referred as a smokescreen—which was a pity—should not increase. I have expressed these views for the last two years not only in the European Conference of Ministers of Transport but also to individual Ministers from the Six and to the Commission and, latterly, to the Council of Ministers.
  I have pressed in particular three arguments: first, the unrewarding and higher expenditure on maintaining and strengthening roads and bridges; secondly, the intrusion upon the environment in terms not only of physical damage but also of congestion, noise and fumes; and lastly, I have even used the argument, old-fashioned though it may seem to some, that people find these larger vehicles offensive and do not want them—a view which is, I am sure, widely shared in Europe.
  I have explained to the Ministers of the Six and to the Commission how totally unacceptable it would be to public opinion here if a policy which was not intended to be effective before 1980 were to be pushed through a few weeks, and now only a few days, before our entry and against the strongly declared wishes of all three acceding countries. I could not, without denying all the arguments which I have used in Europe, do other than accept the Motion on behalf of the Government.
  In doing so, I would make only one reservation. None of us can see the future or assess the pressures which may arise, but I assure the House that, having heard this debate and being conscious of the views expressed. I shall have them very much in mind.
  It is right that we should remind ourselves, as the right hon. Gentleman did, of the immense part played by the heavy lorry in our commercial and economic life. Nor should we ignore the benefits to be obtained, both for manufacturers and for importers, of a degree of harmonisation, a development which would particularly benefit our export trade.
  Among the Six, as elsewhere, there are differences of opinion. Only with difficulty and after many years of debate did they reach agreement. It is hardly surprising now that, even though that com-
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  promise may be somewhat unsatisfactory, they are reluctant to see the results of their labours put in jeopardy. It is fair that I should acknowledge that they have been every bit as good as their word in giving to the acceding countries a full opportunity to express their views—an opportunity which will be renewed on 18th December.
  Lorries have been getting steadily bigger for many years. I called a halt to the process in this country, because there was on the stocks when I took office a proposal that the overall weight of vehicles should go up to 44 tons.
  Mr. Frederick Mulley: Would the Minister make it absolutely clear that the proposal was from the industry and was nothing to do with the Government, and that I had set up an environmental committee whose report he kindly recommended when he made his announcement?
  Mr. Peyton: I am sorry—certainly no innuendo against the right hon. Gentleman was intended in my remarks—but there was on the stocks a proposal when I took office. It did not come from the previous Government. [HON. MEMBERS: "Then say so."] I am certainly prepared to say so. The right hon. Gentleman has an easy conscience; it is his hon. Friends who seem so disturbed about it.
  I remain concerned, if vehicles do grow at all in weight or size, that this should be only for the most powerful reasons and subject to strict limitation as to routes. The rule that a vehicle should be free to go almost literally wherever it can burst a passage is both brutal and archaic and should be discarded.
  Opinions still vary, of course, as to how the conflicting claims of transport economics and the environment should be reconciled where overall weights are concerned. We in this country restrict them to 32 tons. At the other end of the scale, the Dutch allow them to g3 up to 50 tons. The proposal now before the Council of Ministers is for 40 tons.
  Greater unanimity and, I think, greater importance attach to axle loadings. I would stress that it is these that are responsible for the weight of the impact upon the track and for the vibration which

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  damages buildings and bridges. Three Common Market countries have a 10-ton limit at present. They, like the other three, of course, have been ready to negotiate on this point. The three acceding countries, including ourselves, have the same limit, 10 tons—as, incidentally, do almost all States in the United Sates of America. At a recent meeting of the Economic Commission for Europe in Geneva, Sweden, Switzerland and Russia joined Austria, Poland and Yugoslavia in accepting the same figure.
  I am sure that we all welcomed the expressions of high concern for the quality of life which were contained in the recent Summit communiqué. It is the willingness of Europe now to allow those sentiments to be translated into practical policies that is under test.
  It would be wrong—I think that the righ hon. Gentleman acknowledged this—if this debate were conducted as if the problem of the heavy lorry were one which emanated solely from Europe and had no native significance. I will therefore devote the second part of my speech to summing up what we have done since we have been in office to restrain the lorry.
  As I said, I rejected a proposal to raise the overall weight to 44 tons. We have taken powers to stop at the ports all foreign vehicles which, either by reason of their size or by reason of their loading, do not comply with our laws. Previously, our own laws were virtually unenforceable. I am intensifying the enforcement effort generally. We are now engaged in constructing adequate road links between the docks and the motorway network—a process which will be completed by about the mid-70s Towns and villages are being bypassed, a process which I intend should be further stepped up.
  We have embarked upon a substantial research programme aimed at the radical reduction, if not elimination, of the atrocious noise made by heavy vehicles. To deal with the nuisance of diesel smoke and fumes, I have just brought into force new manufacturing standards and substantially increased spot checks on vehicles in use. I recently published a manual giving guidance on special loading. A £10 million programme to build up a national network of lorry parks is now under way.
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  I have initiated discussions with both local authorities and industry in order to achieve a system of restricting vehicles to roads capable of accommodating them.
  Advisory signs to guide heavy vehicles on special routes will start to appear in the ports next spring. I have also started a programme of detailed research into the problem of distribution in towns. I am very grateful for the co-operation of the road haulage industry and other users of transport in this matter. I do not believe that that total of activity adds up to the right hon. Gentleman's charge of laissez-faire.
  It would be hard, I think, to overstate the need for industry generally and local authorities to comply with the growing and not unreasonable demand that the lorry should be civilised. While I do not seek for a moment to put on one side the strong feelings of the public, properly reflected here, I am confident that the House will have in mind, so far as Europe is concerned, that we are currently engaged in negotiations.
  As to the general issue of lorries, I am equally sure that the House will not wish to ignore the immense contributions made by these so-called "juggernauts" to industry and commerce in an island abundantly furnished with factories, warehouses and shops to which their services are indispensable. The House will also be aware, I am sure, that the blow to employment if the lorry were senselessly fettered would be incalculable.
  8.10 p.m.
  Mr. John Morris: The Minister was less than frank with the House when he indicated that proposals were on the stocks to increase weights up to 44 tons when he took office.
  Mr. Peyton: I want to get this absolutely straight. There was a proposal. I am very sorry if anyone took it that I meant that it had emanated from the previous Government. It did not.
  Mr. Morris: The matter is on the record of the House. If my right hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Park (Mr. Mulley) had not intervened, I wonder whether the typescript of the Minister's speech, which he was reading, would have made it abundantly clear and exonerated the previous Government. Had it

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  not been for the intervention of my right hon. Friend, no such explanation would have been given, and it would have been left to the judgment of the House and the country.
  Mr. Peyton: The right hon. Gentleman can have access to that piece of typescript, but he will find no reference to that project.
  Mr. Morris: In that case, one wonders why the Minister had no intention of telling the House the whole story, which necessitated my right hon. Friend's intervention.
  It is the view of many that, whatever the outcome of the EEC negotiations on this subject, the size, length and weight of lorries has already gone too far on our roads today. Anyone who drives on the roads of London or those of our great urban areas knows the difficulties of motorists and lorry drivers. They know the difficulties of lorry drivers seeking to cope with the immense cargoes they try to propel, and of motorists trying to cope with the problems which face them.
  Secondly, I am confident that this must be a moment of truth for the Europeans among us because generally there is a realisation that we are bound by the past. Up to 1st January all that we can do is to face a book that is closed. We can wriggle, and euphemistically we are told that we can be consulted. But we are prisoners of the past, in which we had no hand. Against that background, why is there a hurry now to convene these meetings on 18th/ 19th December, when 1st January is so close? All these matters have been negotiated over the last 10 years, and the Commission is loth to begin once again.
  I was intrigued by the Minister's statement reported in the Financial Times on 7th November that he thought and hoped that the Council would leave the matter open until early next year. If it does not do that, we shall be faced with a fait accompli and we shall be able to do nothing about it.
  That is what some of the European Ministers want. We were told again on the 7th November by the Financial Times of a comment by the Luxembourg Minister of Transport, that a decision
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  must be taken this year. But why before 1st January, as these regulations will not come into effect until 1980 for international traffic and 1985 for domestic traffic? Why the hurry now?
  After 1st January, in the words of the new Secretary of State for the Environment which have been quoted to us, we are told that we shall have a great influence in negotiations. But it will be the same kind of negotiations, and if the Minister fails on 18th/19th December, are there any expectations of greater success in any other negotiations after 1st January? If the matter slips over to 1st January, if this hurry is not continued and the matter is delayed, then we shall have, as we have been told from time to time, the great power of the veto.
  May we have an assurance tonight that if the matter is deferred until 1st January and comes up again, as undoubtedly it will, the Government will then exercise their veto, as we have been told time and again by the Secretary of State, and that this will be the great power that we shall have to protect our essential national interests?
  What is the battle really about? Is it only about axle weights? We should be quite clear that more than one issue is involved. There are axle weights, gross weights and, following and consequent upon those, the length of vehicles as a whole. It would be at the Minister's peril if in whatever battles he wages about axle weights he ignored or attached insufficient importance to gross weights and total length. The history of the matter is that the size of vehicles has grown. We should stop to consider where the start line was. In 1947 all lorries had a 22-ton gross weight limitation. Over the years that has grown. From 1947 onwards, the weights for rigid lorries rose in 1955, 1966 and 1972. Articulated lorry weights crept up in the same manner. Now we face an increase from 32 tons to 40 gross tons. That is an increase of 25 per cent. on the present limitation and almost double what it was in 1947.
  When people mouth expressions about the qualify of life, it is against this spectrum that we have to consider present-day developments. Regarding axle loads and the increase from 10 tons to 11 tons, I am sure the Minister has done his best

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  in the circumstances to put the case of the immense expenditure that would be involved on British roads if the limitation on axle loads rose. Only a few years ago a great deal of money had to be expended in Britain in order to increase and improve railway bridges and to ensure that they were made safe. Having regard to one's experience at that time £200 million may not be sufficient.
  I accept that road traffic has risen and will continue to rise, but it is against that background that I fear that some of the Government's expressions sound fairly hollow when one remembers the agitation from the Government side of the House when we who were sponsoring the Transport Bill in 1967 tried to introduce quantity licensing; for purely doctrinaire reasons that was not implemented by the present Government. Perhaps that is the key to part of this matter; not to the whole of it, I concede, but it would shift some of the burden.
  In conclusion, it is odd that The Times should have said on 20th May this year that the overall weight rising to 40 gross tons is not regarded as so serious in Britain.
  The Sunday Times said something to similar effect:
  "Yet the British Government seems prepared to accept some gross weight increase up to less than 40 tons. What is more, the Government apparently has no objections to increasing the length from the present 15 metres to 15½."
  The present Minister has a similar view. As recently as 7th November this year he said that he and the Government would be more flexible on gross weight than on some of the other matters.
  Therefore, the Government should be quite clear tonight and should come clean with us. Are they battling on the three points, axle weights, gross weights and total length? Is the Minister more flexible about gross weight? Are the Government likely to concede, to allow the increase from 32 tons to 40 tons, or something much in excess of 32 tons? Will they allow these increases to continue as they have over the years? If they intend that, this should be made quite clear. If that is the intention, to fight the battle solely on axle weights and to concede it on the other two grounds, then the words in the debate we had on
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  Monday about the importance of the quality of life, which the Government mentioned in their White Paper, sound very hollow indeed to anyone who wants to drive on Britain's roads.
  8.20 p.m.
  Mr. Angus Maude: It is my first happy task to thank the Opposition for providing the time to debate what is to all intents and purposes an all-party Motion which I initiated on the Order Paper the week before last. I agree entirely with the sentiments expressed by the right hon. Member for Grimsby (Mr. Crosland). I also thank the Government for accepting the Motion. A backbencher can seldom act as a catalyst for uniting the House of Commons on a matter as important as this, and I am proud to have had that happy experience.
  I have undertaken to speak briefly, and I do not consider it necessary to rehearse in detail all the arguments for restricting the size, weight and axle load of heavy lorries. When, as the right hon. Member for Grimsby said, all four local authority associations which are the planning authorities, the authorities responsible for conservation, and which will have to meet the bill for damage and deal with the widening of streets in towns and villages, are against the increase, when the Royal Institute of British Architects is expressing extreme concern on architectural grounds about the threat to buildings, to the environment and to the towns and cities, and when the Minister expresses himself in such terms it is obvious that the situation is serious and must not be allowed to get worse.
  I agree with the right hon. Member for Aberavon (Mr. John Morris) that size, length and gross weight are as important as axle load. It is essential that they should not increase. The scale of our landscape and the scale of our historic towns and villages simply will not accept vehicles larger than are permitted at the moment. The Government, the House and the Europeans must recognise that we are here faced with a vicious circle in three ways. It is easy enough to talk about it being legitimate or reasonable to increase the size and axle load of lorries provided that better roads are built for them. But the moment that bigger and better roads are constructed

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  for heavy lorries the number of heavy lorries increases to take advantage of them. That in its turn produces indirect effects on the unloading points, on the feeder routes of the new motorways and so forth, and the process is almost never-ending.
  There is also a second vicious effect. Any increase in the size of these heavy lorries reduces the operating costs of distribution. It follows that competition with the railways becomes greater and that there is a further diversion from rail to road when everyone knows that this diversion should, if anything, be halted. I hope that my right hon. Friend will give careful attention to the evidence that the restriction of the British Railways' capital development programme is resulting in them moving from their freight lines a significant amount of rolling-stock which they are not able to replace, in particular, for example, on the trunk route from Southampton. That is already resulting in freight that was carried by rail being diverted to the roads simply because British Rail cannot now cope with it. The Government should give urgent attention to that aspect of the problem.
  The third vicious circle is that if the size of heavy lorries is increased further and the costs of distribution are reduced, that reduction is achieved not just out of the blue. It is not a total reduction in costs; it is simply a case of the operators transferring the costs from themselves to others—namely, the public. The heavy lorry makes a substantial contribution to the cost of roads through its licence fees and its fuel tax. But the heavy lorry operator does not bear the social cost of the dislocation of traffic in towns, the long-term damage to historic buildings and the making of the main streets of villages intolerable to the people who live there.
  Those are the costs which are passed on by the heavy lorry operator to the public, to the pedestrian, to the motorist, the shopper and the owner of residential property on the routes frequented by the juggernauts. These facts must always be taken into account in consideration of the crude economics of the argument. In the Industrial Revolution we blighted in the name of private enter-
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  prise, laissez-faire, free enterprise and profit, a very substantial part of the environment of this country, some of it permanently. The people of this country are in no mood to allow this to be repeated by modern technology. The Government must recognise the strength of public feeling, which is virtually unanimous. The manufacturers of heavy lorries do not feel strongly about this question. They are prepared to work to a double standard for this country and for export sales. They object, however, to being restricted here and to having to compete with vehicles of a greater size which are allowed into this country. The Government have taken steps to deal with that to some extent.
  The strength of public feeling on the issue is so great—that feeling is almost unanimous among the public and among all the recognised authorities who have to cope with the effects of the problem—that if tonight we have a unanimous resolution opposing any increase in the size or axle loads of heavy lorries it will not only strengthen the Minister's negotiating position but should weigh very heavily with those who have to make a decision in Brussels. I say not just to the Government but, if it is permissible here to talk over the Government's head, to the Commission in Brussels that the people of this country not only feel desperately strongly about this but that they have at their disposal innumerable methods, most of them within the law but some without it, to make it impossible for heavier lorrries to operate in this country.
  8.28 p.m.
  Mr. Russell Johnston: The hon. Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Mr. Maude) deserves the congratulations of the House on the motion that he and several other hon. Members tabled, as do the Opposition for their valuable motion on a matter of broad public concern.
  Although we all abominate the juggernauts, the fact is that they are already with us. Despite what the Minister for Transport Industries said in opening, our capacity to control them is not very well developed. It is very difficult to argue the statement that many heavy vehicles are already breaking the existing regulations. We have no adequate way to check or prevent that. That is the present

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  situation, rather than one that might develop if the Communities were unwise enough to adopt the proposal to increase the total weight limits from 32 tons to 40 tons and the axle loading from 10 tons to 11 tons.
  I understand that in Kent, the main thoroughfare through which continental vehicles pass, the inspectorate for checking the weight of vehicles is well under strength. About 300 lorries a day pour through Dover, yet there is no weighbridge near enough to the docks. There is no effective way to introduce systematic checks. Therefore, it is small wonder that so many regard overloading as an acceptable risk. There is no effective way to check overloading despite what the Minister says.
  I entirely accept the right hon. Gentleman's good intentions in referring to the Road Traffic (Foreign Vehicles) Act, the attempt to control and the increase in the powers and penalties, but at the end of the day it is not only in regard to expenditure on roads that the Government must demonstrate their political will. They must also do so in regard to the capacity to police overloading effectively, if we are to do anything about it.
  I agree that we cannot put back the clock and ban the large juggernauts altogether. They have a major rôle in long-distance transport—but on roads which can carry them, and in the context of a national transportation policy which exploits to the full our existing rail network.
  The right hon. Member for Grimsby (Mr. Crosland) said that Britain more than any other EEC country with the possible exception of France—I think I heard an interruption to that effect from behind me—carries more of its freight on the roads. He gave the figure of 75 per cent. That in itself is an exceptionally strong argument for the United Kingdom to make to the Community in discussing the regulations on 18th December.
  On a European level, the plan must in the end be dropped. Any argument that. Britain should be an exception would not make sense to me, because it would be a dangerous precedent. It would mean that a text with general significance in the Community would not be applicable in all aspects to all member States, and that would be wrong. But the Govern-
  530
  ment have a duty to apply every possible pressure to the Governments of the Six.
  As a convinced European who has many times argued for entry into the EEC, I cannot believe that any member of the Six would wish the enlargement of the Communities to be heralded by a political and legal disagreement of the nature which would ensue if the regulations were introduced. As the Minister said, it is not only on our own behalf that we can advance an argument. We can do so also in conjunction with the Irish and the Danes, who have the same regulations as we already have and who take the same standpoint. Just a few days away from the accession of the new member States, the Six will surely never decently—and I emphasise the word—approve a directive which would go so much against the wishes of its new members.
  8.33 p.m.
  Sir Robert Cary: The hon. Member for Inverness (Mr. Russell Johnston) is right. The weight of the giant lorry is falling mainly in South-East Kent. As I live on the slopes of the North Downs, overlooking Wrotham and Ightham, I see many of their journeys. Much more so does my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury (Mr. Crouch), who, perhaps more than anyone else, is directly concerned with the need for the rapid building of a motorway between Canterbury and Dover.
  Mr. David Crouch: Hear, hear.
  Sir R. Cary: I hope that my right hon. Friend the Minister for Transport Industries will make that one of his first priorities. Even if he does, I gather that it will take three to four years to build the motorway.
  Mr. Crouch: Eight.
  Sir R. Cary: Dear, oh dear. Life is getting worse.
  I very much agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Mr. Maude) that public feeling on the matter in south-East Kent is becoming very intense. That is the main impact of the moment, and I will not waste the time of the House by speculating about what it will mean to some other parts

  531
  of the country if it is not checked or stopped.
  The right hon. Member for Aberavon (Mr. John Morris) was a little unfair to my right hon. Friend the Minister for Transport Industries when he used the expression "On the stocks". I accepted it as a general expression which I have heard used frequently in transport conferences in the industry over the last five or six years. The phrase was used in that context and was not a party matter.
  I congratulate my right hon. Friend on the vigorous and energetic way in which he has defended British interests in the last 12 months in his negotiations with the members of the Six.
  Mr. Stanley Orme: With his hands tied behind his back.
  Sir R. Cary: I know the immense trouble which my right hon. Friend has taken to make himself as well informed as anybody could be in two years about a complicated matter like the transport industries of our country and those which exist abroad. He has brought credit to the House and to the Government by the vigorous way in which he has defended in all quarters, at Brussels and elsewhere, the British interests that we are now trying to sustain.
  I have two short points, and I must accept that this is an occasion for brevity. The Common Market cannot have one blanket law for axle weight and size of vehicles covering nine countries whose topography, distances and road conditions are as full of contrasts as our own. When a flat country like Holland is compared to the undulating topography of this country, it is ludicrous to put forward a blanket limit for both axle weight and size of load.
  We must make the Government more determined to provide a system of road construction to carry the greater loads which must come in the years ahead. I agree with the right hon. Member for Grimsby (Mr. Crosland) that this occasion is not a means of destroying for all time the bigger lorry. There is a case for the bigger lorry. But my right hon. Friend must plead at Brussels for this country to be given sufficient time, perhaps a number of years, to prepare
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  our country for greater vehicles. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] If the House is to say "No" at any time to bigger lorries—
  Mr. Neil Marten: Until further evidence.
  Sir R. Cary: I have heard that expression before. It would be inflexible and unthinking of the Six to try to force a decision on this matter on the three new members on 18th December. When I listened to the threatening tone in the news this morning regarding this matter, I was rather depressed. If the Six do act against our national interests, I shall not be sending any Christmas cards to Brussels. Neither shall I be blowing my tin trumpet in the fanfare on 1st January for people who behave in such an inflexible and unthinking way to an extremely good member joining their club.
  I hope that the Six will not press my right hon. Friend too hard. I hope that if any new decision is to be taken the House will be allowed to consider it in its own time when we are a member of the Community.
  8.40 p.m.
  Mr. James White: It is fair to say that at least I am one of the few Members of this House to hold a heavy goods licence. For the major part of my working life outside the House I was a long-distance lorry driver, so I speak with some authority in seeing things from the cab. It rather amuses me that when we start to talk about bigger vehicles everything is mentioned except the stress on the driver. The voice of the lorry driver is overdue for a hearing.
  The Minister said that from next spring selected routes will be operated from various docks. What selected routes are we to have in Scotland? Scotland has 82 miles of motorway, but not continuous. Thus, lorry drivers coming 300 miles from London in motorway conditions find themselves suddenly on a dual carriageway, often with sheep crossing the road or a tractor towing a trailer on to the road. This is one of the reasons why so many people are killed and injured on these roads in Scotland.
  The lorries from Europe operate the bunk-bed system, which we abolished in 1933 or 1934. According to the European

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  regulations, a driver is allowed to work only eight hours a day; a British driver can drive for 10 hours. There is no limit, however, on how many hours the European drivers can work. It appears to me that we are taking backward steps in our transport policy. The Scottish Daily Express, in a very good article recently, said that the real shame of Scotland was the condition of our roads and that it was ludicrous to talk in 1972 about having 82 miles of motorway. It pointed out that we are not equipped to take the type of vehicles that we have already.
  It is fair to point out just how efficient and economic British Rail is becoming. It must surely be our ambition not just not to have bigger lorries on our roads but to get more traffic as a whole off the roads and on to the railways.
  8.42 p.m.
  Mr. Peter Rees: I do not speak with the specialised knowledge of the hon. Member for Glasgow, Pollok (Mr. James White) but I think I may claim a special interest—a special interest recognised by both the hon. Member for Inverness (Mr. Russell Johnston) and my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Withington (Sir R. Cary). The brunt of this heavy traffic is borne by Dover in particular and East Kent in general. My hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury (Mr. Crouch) will concede that probably the problem is more acute in Dover than it is in his constituency.
  Mr. Arthur Lewis: You both suffer very much.
  Mr. Rees: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for recognising that fact. The number of TIR vehicles leaving and arriving at our shores through Dover last year totalled 85,000, plus 25,000 trailers. Add nearly 1 million passenger cars and try to imagine how that traffic can be squeezed through Dover between the Castle and the Western Heights; hon. Members will appreciate the sensitivity of my constituents on the problem.
  We talk about the environment and our concern for it, and we must all recognise that there is nearly always an economic price to be paid for our concern. In this case, possibly the economic price will be increased transport costs, but it is a price which East Kent will be prepared
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  to pay not only in the dog days of July, when passenger cars stretch four miles back from the docks, but all the year round when huge lorries come through, because these vehicles are destructive not only to the fabric of houses but of sleep and civilised existence and even of life itself and the narrow streets of our towns and villages which were not designed for them.
  We are all agreed in the debate on the general principles and therefore I want to make a few constructive suggestions, some of them already touched on by my right hon. Friend the Minister, who has shown considerable sensitivity towards this problem. First, I hope that he will spur on local authorities and encourage the private development of lorry parks with customs facilities near our docks. There is no point in siting lorry parks deep in the countryside. We need them as close to the docks as they can be conveniently sited. This is partly a matter of private development and partly a matter for the local authorities.
  Secondly, I hope that the Minister will press on with the installation of permanent weighbridges, or encourage those responsible to do so. At Dover we have only what is called a mobile weighbridge and it is barely sufficient for the purpose. We shall need a permanent one next year.
  It was recognised in the debate on the Road Traffic (Foreign Vehicles) Act—I am surprised that Opposition Members have not drawn attention to that Act, because it has been the single most constructive contribution of the present Administration to solving this problem—that the place to check these lorries is not on the highways but at the point of entry.
  Finally, will the Minister develop further the plans—and I know that the prime responsibility lies with the local authorities—to keep these massive lorries off narrow country lanes, except for access purposes? This problem must be studied in much greater depth, for we suffer acutely from it in East Kent.
  Mr. Arthur Lewis: Another suggestion, which I am sure the hon. and learned Member will accept, is that if the Minister insisted that the goods came into Harwich and were loaded straight on to container trains and carried by rail to their destinations, Dover, Canterbury and

  535
  other country areas would be greatly assisted.
  Mr. Rees: I am not over-concerned above the port of Harwich. Provided that we have the right facilities, I welcome the traffic at Dover. After all, it is our staple industry. If there were more time I could develop the theme of the impact of the Channel Tunnel on East Kent, but that would enlarge the debate beyond its present ambit and it would certainly prevent other hon. Members from intervening.
  How far could freight rail services be improved and tailored to take traffic off the roads? This is not a matter of imposing quantity limits which could not, I think, be justified on this side of the House as a matter of principle. The railways must be tailored to lure traffic back to them. This must be a matter of commercial choice and judgment and not of Government diktat.
  I do not want to send my right hon. Friend into the negotiating chamber in Brussels on 18th December bound hand and foot, but I want to leave him in no doubt about the strength of feeling in my constituency. I conclude by following a recent Royal precedent and saying "Bigger and heavier vehicles on British roads—I am against them".
  8.49 p.m.
  Mr. David Clark: I shall not try to compete with Conservative Members and say which constituency in the South-East of England is most congested by heavy lorries, but I remind them that this is a problem throughout the country, no less a problem in the hill districts of the Pennines and rural Wales than it is in South-East England. The feeling is as rife in those other parts of the country.
  Although succinctly centred around the lorries, the debate is wider than that in the sense that we are discussing the good will of the Community, whether it will force through this decision on 18th December or have the good will to wait until we are full members on 1st January. It is even wider than that, because we are discussing whether we are to allow social and environmental costs to be overridden by purely commercial values. That is the nub of the debate.
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  All hon. Members agree that we have come far enough along this road and that we are not prepared to allow lorry sizes to be increased by one iota. I do not share the point of view of the hon. Member for Manchester, Withington (Sir R. Cary) that this is only a stalling operation. If we are to say "No", we should say it now and not try to put off the decision until next year or the year after.
  I want to outline some of the reasons why I think we should not have these lorries. Basically there are the environmental reasons. We are different from Continental countries because we have more vehicles per kilometre and therefore we are far more congested than most other countries. This puts a completely different complexion on the situation. Not only is damage being caused to historic churches, which are vitally important, but it is also being caused to the terraced houses in the North, alongside the main trunk roads. They are persistently suffering from cracked roofs and walls. If we get these heavy lorries, matters will be worsened. I need not mention the noise problem because it is obvious to us all.
  The other main objection is that of cost. On the Minister's own figures it will cost about £200 million to strengthen the roads and bridges. This is probably an under-estimate. If we work out the cost of strengthening gas mains and service mains, such as water, it will probably be considerably higher. We are already seeing evidence, even with newly-laid natural gas lines, of the lorries causing fractures in the pipes. In my constituency last week 150 people had to be evacuated because of this happening. Heavy lorries would make the position much worse.
  The other principal reason why we should oppose these lorries is simply to do with safety. I am not for a moment arguing that heavy lorries will be any less safe than other vehicles when they come out of the factories. I am sure that with modern technological innovations they would be safer. However, human nature being what it is and our system of checking and inspection being what it is, it will be difficult to impose the necessary standards of safety. I was horrified to receive an answer from the Minister for Transport Industries last week saying that

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  20 per cent. of the foreign lorries examined at Dover were found to be overweight and that two of those lorries were 80 per cent. overweight. When we bear in mind the fact that if a lorry is 20 per cent. overweight its braking is 5 per cent. less efficient, according to the brake manufacturers, we can immediately see the dangers involved. In the hilly terrain of this country we are almost daily hearing of runaway lorries and almost weekly we are confronted with fatalities.
  What are the Government to do about it? We have had Mr. Coppé, the Commissioner for Transport of the Community, saying that this is a "necessary sacrifice". It may be for him but certainly the British people, while they see it as a sacrifice, do not regard it as a necessary one. That is the point which the Secretary of State should make. I want to be quite blunt and ask him whether, if the decision is deferred until we are full members of the Community, he regards the subject of heavy lorries as being one of vital national interest and whether he is prepared to use his veto if necessary. We should have an answer to that.
  Mr. Marten: I can give the hon. Gentleman the answer to that; he may not get it in the wind-up speech. My right hon. and learned Friend the present Secretary of State for the Environment said on 15th February, 1972, in the Second Reading debate on the European Communities Bill:
  "assuming that a question arose on which there had been strong feelings in this House"—
  which there are tonight—
  "prima facie it would be a matter in the national interests and a British Minister would have power to insist in the Council of Ministers that it was a matter of major national importance which required a unanimous decision and that he could not be part of that unanimous decision."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 15th February, 1972; Vol. 831, c. 277–8.]
  That was the then Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, who is now the responsible Minister and he will keep his word, of course. I challenge anyone who doubts that to a duel outside.
  Mr. Clark: I thank the hon. Gentleman for what he has said in defence of the Minister. I only hope that it is correct.
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  I have been worried by the Minister's phrase about not being "shoe-horned" into accepting 40-ton lorries. I believe that the Minister has at times been less than frank with the House when discussing the implications of entry to the Common Market. I hope he has not spoken in this respect as a toothless tiger and that when he goes to the Commission he will insist on adherence to the feelings of the British people.
  8.55 p.m.
  Mr. Charles Simeons: The matters which we are discussing will not be implemented in Europe until 1980. A lot can happen between now and then and many opinions can alter. I suspect that by 1980 the motorway from Dover to Canterbury will have been built.
  We are talking not about all the fleet of lorries but about only a percentage of it—I guess 20 per cent. [HON. MEMBERS: "Or 25 per cent."] Perhaps 25 per cent. But the lorries do not drive around like minis or weave in and out like taxis. Just as much havoc is caused as a result of lamp posts having been knocked over by minis as is caused by lorries. [HON. MEMBERS: "Rubbish."] Hon. Members are entitled to their opinion. However, as I say, we are not talking about all lorries; we are talking about a limited number. There are means of diverting a limited number of vehicles so that the environment is protected.
  We should make distinctions between three things: size, weight, and the pressure on the roads or axle weights. First, heavier lorries do not mean bigger lorries because a 32-tonner and a 40-tonner can be identical in size, as the Department of Trade and Industry confirmed today. There may a difference of only 20 inches betwen a 32-tonner and a 44-tonner, and that is hardly noticeable.
  The main point is that the difference in the payload or carrying capacity of a 32-tonner compared with a 44-tonner is 10 tons. The choice is between a number of lorries which are no bigger than at present but which are able to carry much bigger weights, or very many more lorries. I suspect that in two or three years' time we shall all unite one evening in saying that there should be fewer lorries. What is proposed is the way to achieve that.

  539
  Our immediate choice is lorries of acceptable weight and identical length. We must decide what they should be. The greatest influence on choice is the international standards which are accepted by rail and sea within Europe and in this country of containers with a maximum length of 40 ft. and a maximum weight of 30 tons. Some hon. Members say that goods should be picked up from the docks and put on the railways. But they cannot be taken off the railways and put on lorries without re-packing them. The chaos and industrial strife which would result from that is too enormous to contemplate. Therefore, we must decide what we shall have. If we are to put goods on the railways, we must have lorries which can take the containers. If we are concerned about the effect on some of our villages of 40-footers weighing 30 tons, we must have two 20-footer containers which go to certain points on lorries and are then split on to smaller lorries to be taken into no-go areas.
  Looking towards Europe, there can be little doubt that we shall be governed by our present rolling and container stock. I predict without too much fear of contradiction that by the time 1980 arrives we shall have lorries of identical length but capable of carrying a greater weight.
  I live at the end of the runway at Luton Airport. The aircraft industry is overcoming the noise problem by having bigger aeroplanes with much more modern engines. The industry says that it will soon be able to produce quieter engines. The fact that a lorry is bigger does not mean that it is noisier. Two important factors to consider are road surfaces and types of tyre.
  Mr. Maude: I do not know whether my hon. Friend is aware that one of the greatest sources of noise from heavy lorries is empty lorries returning after they have dumped their loads. It is when they bounce over uneven road surfaces that they wake everybody up in the middle of the night.
  Mr. Simeons: People who run empty lorries are inefficient and should go out of business. If my hon. Friend's constituents do this they should go out of business and my hon. Friend would not worry any more.
  Mr. Maude: They are not my constituents. The lorries just pass through my constituency.
  Mr. Simeons: The owners of those lorries will go out of business.
  The fact that smaller lorries necessarily means more lorries might be an incentive to manufacturers. They know that British users are already importing large continental lorries, although they are not using them to capacity. They can see that this is the direction in which things are going.
  We must ensure that we are guided tonight not by emotion but by what we believe will happen in 1980 when the regulations are implemented. Above all, manufacturers want to have standardised lorries. They want to have a good home base, and from this they can sell to the continent. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Mr. Maude) that manufacturers will accept making a type for the home market and a type for abroad, but there is great merit in making only one type if this is what continentals will do.
  If we have smaller lorries we shall have a greater number, they will be more expensive, and more money will be invested. I believe that by 1980 the thoughts that are being expressed tonight will be out-dated and that lorries greater in capacity but not greater in measurement will be replacing the present ones just as the TriStar does the BAC-111.
  9.3 p.m.
  Mr. Leslie Huckfield: I am pleased to follow the hon. Member for Luton (Mr. Simeons), because he has gone some way at least towards putting the matter in its true perspective. We are talking tonight of less than 2 per cent. of the commercial vehicle population. There are about 1·6 million commercial vehicles, of which only 55,000 weigh over 8 tons gross. Less than 2 per cent. of those would be 32 tons gross. Far fewer would be likely to want to go up to 40 tons gross even if permission were granted in future.
  I cannot help feeling that tonight we are undergoing some kind of cruel deception, because the passage of this Motion will not do anything to alleviate the situation which applies in the constituency of the hon. Member for

  541
  Stratford-on-Avon (Mr. Maude) and in some very hazardous villages on the way to Harwich and Dover. Instead of talking in generalised terms about forbidding weight increases, we would do better to get down to tackling the serious problems which apply in many constituencies, for which I have tremendous sympathy.
  It is right to say that there is hardly any size difference between lorries of 32 and 40 tons gross. In fact, we are talking about the same 40-ton standard international containers, the same 15-metre trailers, and, indeed, exactly the same kind of lorries—except that, if this Motion is accepted tonight, they will be only half loaded. Therefore, we are talking about not what one can see on the roads but what one cannot see—and that is what is inside the containers and trailers. I wish that this evening many speeches had dealt with the question of how we are to enforce the regulations. The difficulty is that it is not what the police can see on the roads; it is what will be inside the same kind of containers and carried by the same 15-metre trailers.
  Mr. Hugh Dykes Mr. Hugh Dykes (Harrow, East) rose—
  Mr. Huckfield: I hope I may be allowed to finish this point before giving way. The House should be concentrating on the question of how to enforce the standards, bearing in mind that we cannot even enforce the present ones. The consequences of the Motion, which no doubt will be accepted on both sides of the House, is that we shall have many half-empty containers and trailers. As a result we shall seriously disadvantage ourselves in competition with Rotterdam, and will lose the economies of scale which will be available to other countries.
  Mr. Dykes: Would the hon. Gentleman not agree that when the new parking restrictions were introduced, with yellow lines and traffic meters in city centres, precisely the same arguments were used about enforcement in terms of traffic wardens?
  Mr. Huckfield: The hon. Gentleman knows that I am in favour of more lorry parking restrictions. However, I cannot help feeling that we are again making the wrong assessment about axle loads. It is not axle loads which we should be
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  considering but axle spacings. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for the Environment has been briefed by his civil servants that it is the distance between the two axles on the tandem of the trailer which determines the weight the wheels put on the road. I should like some further elucidation by the Secretary of State about how we arrive at a figure of £200 million. I am sure that neither the Transport and Road Research Laboratory nor the universities which carry out research into this matter know that nobody appears to know where that figure comes from.
  Mention has also been made of pay-load. It is a fact that the payload of a 40-tonner—which is 39 tons Imperial weight—is 27 tons, and that the payload of a 32-tonner is only 22 tons. Consequently, some 40 lorries of 22-ton carrying capacity means only 32 lorries of 27-ton carrying capacity. If the weight were to go even higher—I do not advocate such a step—the number of lorries could be reduced even further. Because of the increase in the lorry sizes since 1966 there has been almost 1 per cent. decrease in the number of commercial vehicles on the roads.
  I should like to put a point of view from the drivers' angle because I, too, have been a driver, though I cannot claim the same length of service in that capacity as my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Pollok (Mr. James White). I should like to point out that lorry drivers do not like driving large vehicles through small villages. They, too, are concerned about the environment and concerned lest this country introduces vehicles which are too large.
  The other point which must be made is that a lorry driver today is a very skilled man and has to possess a heavy goods vehicle driver's licence. The House might be interested to learn that at present there is a 40 per cent. failure rate in respect of such licences. The point of view of my union, the Transport and General Workers Union, is that, though we are most concerned about the increase in gross weights and the proposed axle loads, we would stress that the lorry driver is a skilled man.
  I should like in conclusion to mention the points on which I feel this debate should concentrate. I feel that if we want to deal with these problems it is

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  no good going about it in a sloganising fashion by saying that the railway is the only answer, because that just will not do. Putting the traffic on the railways would only increase urban congestion, because we should have to get the traffic to the railhead and take it from the railhead. If we wish to put the traffic on the railways without increasing urban congestion, we must think in terms of increasing the amount of private siding space, which will probably mean even calling on the Government to give subsidies for the construction of private sidings.
  Next, we must think seriously about building bypasses round such places as the constituency of the hon. Member for Canterbury (Mr. Crouch). This should have the utmost priority. We must do it before the regulations come in in 1980.
  Apart from that, we must talk seriously about night delivery schemes. Perhaps the Secretary of State can say something about how these would be enforced. We must develop shop-service schemes on the lines of the Watford model.
  More than that, we must think in terms of designated routes, not just advisory routes, and we must improve such routes as well.
  The paramount need is to improve the standards of lorries themselves, to improve braking systems, cut down pollution levels, and improve their efficiency throughout.
  The Secretary of State's Department should conduct its own inquiry into why the railways have lost so much traffic. It is not a matter of the share of freight going on the roads being 75 per cent. The railways' freight share at the moment is only 12 per cent. of the total freight in this country. The railways' share of freight receipts is only 5 per cent. In other words, 95 per cent. of the freight receipts are going to road haulage. The Secretary of State could make his biggest contribution to the debate if he announced that his Department would forthwith examine why some just cannot be put on the railways.
  9.12 p.m.
  Mr. David Crouch: Almost every hon. Member who has spoken in the debate has endeared himself to me by either pointing at me or
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  referring to my constituency and emphasising in some way the need for a bypass round Canterbury. I am grateful for that, but I do not wish to spend much of my time on that question, because I agree with the hon. Member for Nun-eaton (Mr. Leslie Huckfield) when he says that probably the most immediate and urgent need is more quickly to produce the roads to carry our freight traffic, to carry our existing 22-tonners and 32-tonners.
  We have a programme, and I acknowledge what Ministers and the Department have been doing under this Government in the last two-and-a-half years to accelerate it. But they must accelerate the programme still more. There must, I suggest, be papers from the Department on the subject on the Cabinet table showing which roads require further development or improvement, and specifying the places. This must be done as part of a crash programme, because in that way, I believe, we shall overcome a great deal of the difficulty which is making life an unbearable hell for so many of our constituents.
  I know that my right hon. Friend the Minister for Transport Industries agrees with that sentiment, but one must remember that, up to yesterday, he has been responsible only for the vehicles which go on our roads. He has declared, either here or outside the House, that he feels that the heavy vehicles about which we are complaining already should be directed to roads designated for them. But the fact remains that there are many areas on the approaches to our ports—the Canterbury-Dover route has been mentioned many times, and I shall not labour it—where the roads are utterly inadequate. Vehicles are travelling to and from our ports on roads simply not designed for such heavy—and important—traffic and trade.
  There is great public anxiety. My hon. Friend the Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Mr. Maude) caught the attention of the House when he stressed the serious concern which people feel about this problem. As he said, people are so concerned that they will even consider breaking the law. They are already doing it in my constituency. A protest group called the A2 Protest Group has recently been sitting down on the A2, barring all traffic from Dover to Canterbury and on to

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  London. They have done it against the law and have been investigated by the police because of it. They did it on Trafalgar Day. I turned a blind eye to what they were doing, and I took part in the meeting afterwards. This is not violent protest, but it is a necessary protest to register in the country and in this place as well that there is great public concern that something should be done. People generally—I do not mean only my constituents—are determined to get Government action on this matter.
  As a great lover of our Westminster Parliament, I believe that it is still possible to get Government action through Parliament via the Member of Parliament. As a European, I also believe that we must make it possible for Parliament, the Member of Parliament and certainly the Government to get action in Brussels on a matter which so affects the lives of our people. We must protect the British environment notwithstanding our acceptance of the European idea.
  Mr. Marten: How can my hon. Friend say what he has just said when he voted for Clause 2 and consistently voted for the European Communities Act? It does not make sense to say that.
  Mr. Crouch: I refuse to be drawn into an argument now, because we have debated this matter at such length. I am prepared to declare my adherence to and belief in the European idea, my belief in the future of this country united with the European Communities and my belief in the institutions of the EEC which we as a Parliament, people and Government must strengthen so that they properly represent the views of each nation, and certainly of this nation.
  If the 40-ton lorry were permitted, it would be an unacceptable standard of vehicle weight in this country. Of course there is the economic plea for this vehicle from the road transport industry. I have listened with interest to the plea which was made, and it is right that it should have been made. The road transport industry is concerned at the impact which the 40-ton lorry would make on the environment. However, it is for this place to limit that impact and to legislate for it, not to leave it to the good will and good intention of the road haulage contracting industry.
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  The 40-ton lorry will mean not only heavier vehicles on our roads, breaking them up as we have heard, damaging our bridges, shaking our old and historic buildings and keeping us awake at night, but much bigger engines, which will mean higher speeds, greater difficulty for other motorists in overtaking such lorries, and greater danger of those lorries being unable to stop in a safe distance.
  Because of the need for bigger engines there will be greater pollution on our roads from black diesel smoke. I have not time tonight to go into exact detail of how, because of the requirement in brake horsepower combined with the new requirement in British standards to limit exhaust emissions from diesel engines, there will have to be a considerable up-rating of engines to pull the heavier lorries. This will mean a considerable increase in the black diesel smoke which we find so insufferable today.
  If we were forced to adopt the 40-ton lorry—there may be an ulterior motive from the other side of the Channel—there is no British diesel engine available to pull such a juggernaut.
  Sir R. Cary: Gardeners have one.
  Mr. Crouch: I checked this morning with the diesel engineer at the research department and I understand that neither British Leyland nor Gardeners has a vehicle engine of sufficient brake horsepower to pull a 40-ton lorry. Therefore, we shall be forced to turn to America for such an engine.
  Mr. Simeons: Is my hon. Friend suggesting that the ingenuity of British engine manufacturers is such that they cannot produce such an engine?
  Mr. Crouch: Given time it is possible for the engineering and motor car industries to produce the necessary engine, but it will take eight to 10 years. In the meantime we may find the road haulage industry looking to Germany or to America.
  This is not a question of jeopardising our competitive position among the European countries on the question of the vehicles that we use and the engines we buy. This is a European environmental problem, and there is no reason why this

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  country and this House should not give a lead to Brussels in the matter.
  9.20 p.m.
  Mr. R. C. Mitchell: The Motion says that the House
  "is against bigger and heavier lorries".
  Many of my constituents are against the big and heavy lorries that already exist. Representing, as I do, one of the major ports of this country, I see the problem every day, and I receive masses of complaints about it from my constituents.
  The hon. Member for Luton (Mr. Simeons) implied that the argument was about whether we had heavier lorries or more lorries. I suggest that in the long term that is not the argument. What we should be debating is the method by which freight is to be moved in future—by road, by rail or by some other form of transport.
  Mr. Simeons: How does the hon. Gentleman propose to get goods from the railhead to factories without using lorries?
  Mr. Mitchell: I realise that short-distance hauls from the railhead to factories will have to be by road. What I am saying is that far more long-haul traffic should go by rail. That is why I found the Minister's speech so staggering. A study of HANSARD tomorrow will show that not once in his speech did he use the word "railways". The right hon. Gentleman knows that even as we are debating this issue—the point was made by the hon. Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Mr. Maude)—British Railways are closing their freight service to Southampton Docks and forcing all that freight on the roads. When I write to the Minister about this I receive the usual reply that this is a matter for the commercial judgment of British Railways.
  What I want the Department to do—it seems that the environment side of the Department does not talk very much to the transport industries' side—is to compare the loss that British Railways are making—and some of us think that it could be reduced anyway—with the extra environmental and social costs of putting that freight on the roads. My guess is that if the Minister were to carry out that survey in Southampton he would find that the cost of putting this traffic on the roads is far greater than the loss being
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  made by British Railways on that part of the track. I am sure that a strong case could be made for subsidising rail freight in order to avoid a loss.
  We should be discussing future transport policy in this country. We should be considering where heavy goods traffic will go. In my opinion the future requires that much more should go by rail. If that were to happen it would relieve the pressure on our roads.
  9.24 p.m.
  Mr. Neil Marten: Enough has been said about heavy lorries, and I do not wish to pursue that matter. None of us, with one, or possibly one-and-a-half, honourable exceptions, wants the size of these lorries increased. I want to refer to the constitutional issue arising out of the Government's decision to accept the Motion.
  Tonight, this Parliament is sovereign, and Government, Opposition and Parliament together are saying that we will not have these lorries. Parliament is instructing Ministers in the Department of the Environment to agree with what Parliament has said. When they go forward to Brussels, at whatever level the meeting, they and their officials will have no power to go further than what we have said tonight.
  The right hon. Member for Grimsby (Mr. Crosland) rightly quoted what my right hon. and learned Friend said, when Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, on Second Reading of the European Communities Bill:
  "No Government would proceed in a matter of major policy in the Council unless they knew that they had the approval of the House."
  Tonight, the Government are being told that they do not have the approval of the House to agree to any further extension in the size or weight of lorries.
  In an intervention, I quoted a further undertaking by my right hon. and learned Friend:
  "… assuming that a question arose on which there had been strong feelings in this House, prima facie it would be a matter in the national interest."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 15th February, 1972; Vol. 831, c. 274, 277.]
  Of course, strong feelings have been expressed, and, therefore it makes this a matter "in the national interest".

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  If the Minister for Transport Industries would do me the honour of listening to this, he would see that it will affect him when he goes to the meeting on 18th December. He is being told by the House of Commons that this is a matter in the national interest and that British Ministers will have the power to insist that it is such a matter in the Council of Ministers. That power is permissive; we want an assurance tonight that the Minister or any of his colleagues will insist that this is a matter of major national importance requiring a unanimous decision and that we will not be part of that unanimous decision.
  It was on that undertaking by the Secretary of State on which the vote on the Second Reading was taken—a very clear undertaking on the use of the veto, or, more accurately, the unanimous decision procedure.
  I am not sure that the Government realised what they were doing, but by accepting this Motion they have given an honourable pledge that this is a matter of national importance and that they will not be part of the unanimous decision. I hope that the two Ministers now on the Front Bench have taken that point.
  When I asked the Minister for Transport Industries the other day whether this would be treated by the Government as a matter in the national interest, requiring unanimous decision, I was surprised that he should reply:
  "At present this is a matter for the Council of Ministers of the Six but in the consultations which are taking place. I have emphasised the importance that the Government attach to an agreed solution which will take full account of our views."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 20th November, 1972; Vol. 846, c. 300.]
  If my right hon. Friend were standing here and I was sitting down there, I can just hear him criticising that answer, or non-answer. He would look over his "Sir Alec Douglas-Home" spectacles, and, in that well-known vinegary voice that he reserves for Ministers who have not answered questions, he would wade into me.
  But I do not worry about that any more, because we now have the admission, by the very fact that the Government have accepted this Motion, that they will block it when it comes to the
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  next meeting in January, when we shall be a member of that Council of Ministers. If it happens on 18th December that the Community passes a regulation which will be directly applicable as the law of this country on 1st January, then I would say to all those who voted for the European Communities Bill that it is they—perhaps in their ignorance; I would be generous about that—who will be responsible for heavier lorries coming into this country, because they accepted that a regulation of the Community automatically becomes part of our law when we join. So they will carry the responsibility, those who voted for it—
  Mr. Arthur Lewis: On both sides of the House.
  Mr. Marten:—on both sides of the House. Then I hope the country will recognise who it has to blame when these lorries comes thundering through Britain.
  9.30 p.m.
  Mr. Stanley Orme: I underline the point made so powerfully by the hon. Member for Banbury (Mr. Marten) that this will be the first of many issues arising from EEC regulations that we shall have to face. Hon. Members from both sides of the House will be making the constituency case and deploring what is happening, but they have voted for this and will have to stand and be counted.
  This issue of lorries goes exceedingly deep. It concerns not just the countryside of Kent or the rural areas. The Manchester Docks are situated in my constituency, where there are thousands of terraced houses past which lorries bang day by day and night after night into one of our main ports in the middle of an urban area. My constituents find that these lorries are already far too big and that it is unbelievable that a Government could allow an increase of the measure proposed.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Nun-eaton (Mr. Leslie Huckfield) said that it was only 2 per cent. and that the axle weight equates with the length and size of the vehicle. To my eyes these vehicles keep getting bigger. If it is only 2 per cent. and it does not matter, why is the pressure on at present to increase the size of these lorries and introduce these Continental juggernauts?
  Mr. Arthur Lewis: They are already breaking the law.
  Mr. Orme: When it comes to the cost of our roads, we say that only another £200 million will make the roads satisfactory and that we can build bypasses. Although we want more motorways, over the last 10 or 12 years we have spent too much of our national resources on motorways. The Minister did not face that issue. I believe that he is anti-railway in his outlook. He never mentioned the railways and the possibility of transferring much of this weight from the roads to the railways in a properly integrated transport system.
  One of the countries pressing this motion in the Six is France, which is destroying some of her major cities by sacrificing them to the car and the lorry. The Sunday Times produced an excellent article in its supplement last Sunday dealing with what is happening at present in Paris. Apparently not only is it the House of Commons that is digging up the middle of London to make new car parks; the same thing is happening outside Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. But the French are also building roads along the Seine to take heavy lorries, and that is destroying the river's banks.
  We are told that this is happening in the interests of economic development and savings on costs. As my hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Itchen (Mr. R. C. Mitchell) said, however, one has to equate exactly what is the cost in terms of the environment, of wastage and the manner in which it affects people, and not just in terms of pure, economic costs of the movement of goods from A to B. Some assessment ought to be made of the present amount of traffic and whether it is all as essential as is sometimes claimed. We know of the great necessity for most of it, but often there is not enough planning, particularly in the development of industries and the planning of railways, which could remove much of the trouble.
  In our country it would be absolutely criminal to extend what is already far in excess of the traffic it can take. To see this we do not have to go to villages or to crowded cities, such as that which I represent. We have only to stand outside the House of Commons and watch lorries crossing Westminster Bridge and
  552
  negotiating the roundabout outside the House to see the problems. I can see these lorries and I know the problems they create in our society.
  The Minister must go back on 18th December and say that the British people will not have it. He must tell the Commission that it cannot take a decision in our name, because if it does the House of Commons will not implement the order when it comes forward. We still have the last say. It is a question of sovereignty, but our sovereignty has been eroded. We were told during the Common Market debates that the issue of sovereignty was an airy-fairy argument, but that has come home to roost in a big way.
  The British people will not tolerate this and they will take steps, as the hon. Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Mr. Maude) said, to prevent it happening. We do not want to see it, but if it comes there will be a reaction in this country. Will the Minister say how many lorries are being turned back at the ports because they are overweight? If tonight we say that we will not accept such an increase in weight, our Ministers must insist in Brussels that Britain will not accept it. They will have an excellent case because the House of Commons will have spelled it out, and it is up to the Minister to say that we shall not carry it out.
  9.37 p.m.
  Mr. Roger White: The opening speeches of the debate were overwhelmed by the excellent contribution by my hon. Friend the Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Mr. Maude). He expressed the tone and feeling of the House in the way in which he advanced his argument. The problem of the heavy vehicle is by no means a new one. It has been with us since the end of the last war and, like Topsey, it has grown. Much has been said about Kent and in my part of that county between the Medway towns and Dartford we have seen the effects of heavy vehicles thundering through our villages and towns and upsetting our environment.
  My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Dover (Mr. Peter Rees) referred to the TIR lorries now appearing on our motorways. We meet them on the A2, and with the greatest respect to the hon.

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  Member for Nuneaton (Mr. Leslie Huck-field) I too can see the size of these vehicles and I believe that they are growing in size and in number. They are causing great concern and worry not only to those who live in and around my constituency but also to the local authorities and the police.
  My right hon. Friend the Minister for Transport Industries gave a short list of the Government's achievements in matters such as off-street parking. Such measures are all to be welcomed because they are positive. But clearly the worry this evening is about the position in which we shall find ourselves on 18th December. No one doubts the feelings of the House and the Minister has already made clear on his visits to Brussels the way the Government feel on the subject. With another hon. Member, I visited Brussels three weeks ago and we made it abundantly clear to those gentlemen on the Commission who are responsible for transport about the way we felt on this issue.
  I agree with the hon. Member for Salford, West (Mr. Orme) that the object of the debate is for a message to go from the House across the Channel to tell those in Europe that we certainly agree with the other three countries of the Six which now enjoy the same axle weight limits as we do. We believe also that our friends in Ireland and Denmark should be considered. Heaven knows why, after 10 years, this matter should be rushed through. That approach should be challenged with the utmost vigour. I wish my right hon. Friend every possible success in his mission on 18th December.
  Mr. Speaker: Order. In the past hour and a half we have had 14 back-bench speeches. I compliment those backbench speakers.
  9.40 p.m.
  Mr. Frederick Mulley: Hon. Members on both sides will wish to thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Grimsby (Mr. Crosland) for having initiated this debate, and for the simple, clear motion he moved. It has led to a good debate, with many excellent short speeches. I hope that hon. Members will have noted that it is the intention of the Front Benches to follow their example. We have allowed ourselves only 10 minutes each, so hon. Members
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  will understand if we cannot deal with all the many points raised.
  I am sure that my right hon. Friend meant the motion to be taken just as it reads in plain English. It does not deal with axle weights or this or that, but says that we are against bigger and heavier lorries.
  While the debate is important for the content of the motion, it goes much wider. It is significant for three reasons: first, because it concerns our relations in Europe after we join the EEC on 1st January; secondly, because it underlines the need in all such transactions and policies to take account of social as well as economic costs; thirdly, because tonight the House is sending a message to the Government about the rôle of the House and the Executive.
  I believe that all those propositions have the assent of the great majority of the people outside as well. We know that opinion on both sides of the House towards our entry varies between euphoric enthusiasm and total abhorrence.
  Mr. Marten: Hear, hear.
  Mr. Mulley: But the issue we are debating is not essentially or mainly about our attitude towards Britain's admission to the EEC. My right hon. Friend made that very clear. In my experience, many Members who are among the most enthusiastic supporters of cur entry are the most critical of the damage that heavy lorries do to the environment.
  It may be a matter of regret to the Government that the issue should have arisen now, on the eve of our entry, but it is probably a good thing, because it provides a test of how they intend to conduct themselves within the Community. We must make it clear from the beginning that we as well as the other members can look after our vital national interests. If we do not—I say this as one who has been on record for over 20 years as believing in Europe—we shall be the only one of the nine Governments around the Common Market table so to behave. Therefore, there is a clear message here about Europe.
  Secondly, there is a very clear message to the Government about the importance of the environment, of social costs and

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  the rest, and the willingness of the public at large to pay to preserve the things they hold dear.
  The economic arguments were set out fairly in the Financial Times yesterday by Colin Jones. Those arguments, not only for the industry but indirectly for us all as consumers, obviously point to larger and larger lorries. But I thought Mr. Jones stretched a point, and I am sure he would have difficulty in persuading people of it, in saying that there was also an environmental argument, in that one large lorry could carry the load of two small lorries. I do not think that he would carry conviction in the House tonight.
  However, there is an economic case for larger lorries. When I was Minister of Transport and the industry made its proposals for larger lorries, the argument was that it would be much better if the lorries could carry two 20-ton containers instead of one with a large amount of wasted capacity. But nobody ever explained to me why those concerned with the shipping trade had decided, without, as far as I can gather, any consultation, to standardise 20 tons for a container and so, willy-nilly, the whole of the environment and the whole of the vehicle policy had to be changed to fit.
  If it is the case—I hope it is not—that the compromise reported in the Financial Times of 8th November is true and that the Minister is flexible about the proposal for 40 tons, that still will not permit such lorries to carry two 20-ton containers, because there is the weight of the vehicle as well.
  It is necessary for us to understand that we probably will have to pay. But the British people are willing to do so to keep the sizes of lorries—that is, the gross weight, the axle weight and the dimensions—at their present level and not beyond.
  When I was Minister of Transport I was immensely impressed by the representations which I had from all quarters, particularly from that very responsible body, the RIBA, to which the hon. Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Mr.
  556
  Maude) referred in an extremely eloquent and forceful speech. Consequently, I caused a full examination to be initiated. I was not in office when the reports came back, but I like to think that they had some part in persuading the Minister for Transport Industries to take what everybody conceded at the time was the right decision on that recommendation.
  However, it is not sufficient, although we are sure that the Minister is trying to keep down the size of lorries, to try to get special rates and so on. He must also, as hon. Members said, consider the rôle of the railways.
  In looking back, it was a mistake that we made no provision in the Transport Act, 1968 for subsidies to be paid for freight. I think that it is a scandal, for example, which the hon. Member for Southampton, Itchen (Mr. R. C. Mitchell) has raised many times, that we are closing down railway services to ports. Europe would regard as chickenfeed the support which we give to our railways compared with the massive support which the Germans give to their railways.
  The Minister should look again at quantity licensing, which is still the law of the land. He could introduce it tomorrow by making an order to do so. If it is thought that for administrative reasons it is not a good scheme, let him or somebdy else come up with another one. I accept that it would make only a marginal difference to the total traffic on the roads, although it would make a difference to our social and environmental policies. But we should not get any traffic back on the railways unless something is done. I hope that the Government will do something positive about the railways and not something on the lines of the leak which appeared in the Sunday Times.
  The Motion contains plain English words, and it will not be enough—I accept that the Minister is advising the House out of conviction to accept the Motion, and I hope that that goes for the rest of the Government and that it is not a matter of expediency—to say that all these matters will be kept in mind. We are giving a clear message to the Government, and they will be judged by their achievement and not by their words. They will ignore this message at their peril.
  9.50 p.m.
  The Secretary of State for the Environment (Mr. Geoffrey Rippon): I am grateful to the right hon. Member for Sheffield, Park (Mr. Mulley) for the way in which he wound up the debate for the Opposition. Like the right hon. Member for Grimsby (Mr. Crosland), he has put the matter fairly in saying that this is not an issue which divides those who are pro- or anti-European or pro- or anti-Common Market. The debate has shown that there is very deep feeling on this matter on both sides of the House, and I have no doubt that that will be duly noted in the proper quarter. It has been a valuable and—I agree again with the right hon. Gentleman—a helpful debate which reinforces the views which the Government have repeatedly expressed about the need to preserve, as the right hon. Member for Grimsby said, a balance of economic and environmental factors on this issue.
  In a reasonable speech—he is always reasonable—the right hon. Member for Grimsby expressed his view that on this issue the balance was perhaps tipping against protection of the environment. I entirely agree with him. But I take issue with his suggestion that the question of axle weights is a new factor in the situation. We discussed this and many other matters when the European Communities Act was before the House and on 28th June my right hon. Friend the Minister for Transport Industries said:
  "On dimensions and weights, the Council reached the point of wanting a 40-ton maximum overall weight and an 11-ton maximum axle loading. The discernible difference between a vehicle of an overall weight of 32 tons, as we have at the moment, and 40 tons is very small. What is important is the axle loading. The French have had the high figure of 13 tons for axle loading, as have some other European countries, whereas we have had 10 tons. The Community orientation has come down to 11 tons."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 28th June, 1972; Vol. 839, c. 1480.]
  One must recognise that there has been a process of consultation about these things for a very long time. But not everyone appreciates that the proposals which are now being considered involve already a general agreement about a reduction of axle weights and gross weights in the case of many countries. The right hon. Member for Grimsby said that no one was really affected but ourselves. I do not think that is really true.
  558
  We all have an interest in the harmonisation of international practices in these matters—harmonisation by the target date of 1980—which will benefit not only the manufacturers but the users, including lorry drivers and public alike. There has to be, as the debate has shown, proper consultation—and the Community thinks this also—on environmental damage on a wider front.
  In the light of the decisions taken at the meeting of Heads of Government at the summit in Paris, it would be wrong if the Ministers of Transport in all the countries did not take note of what the Heads of Government have said on these matters. But there has been already in Europe a welcome movement towards harmonisation, for example, of noise limits. The noise limits on new lorries are now the same in the United Kingdom and in the Community. The Community's standards of smoke emission are similar to and largely based on ours. There are many considerations about safety standards. So I do not think that we can say that these are not matters that do not affect us all generally and that there would not be great advantage if we could get harmonisation.
  Of course, we are right to insist that harmonisation should be on a proper basis. No one in this House needs persuading about the damage which the lorry out of its proper place does to the environment and thus to the quality of our everyday life. The Government fully accept that we cannot just go on as we are and that the price in terms of noise, fumes and congestion is quite unacceptable.
  My right hon. Friend the Minister for Transport Industries has explained on many occasions the measures that the Government are taking—to use the phrase which is sometimes used nowadays—to "civilise" the lorry itself and restrict the roads on which it may travel. Here we have to take largely our own action. We have taken already a number of measures to which reference has been made in the debate.
  Mr. John Morris: Are the Government more flexible with regard to gross weight as opposed to the question of axle weight?
  Mr. Rippon: Gross weight is not as much at issue as axle weight. We want to

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  come up with the right answer to this complex problem. We allow lorries of much greater weight than this on our roads. They carry abnormal indivisible loads up to 150 tons. We have to be concerned about this and about where we let them go. We have to keep the matter in perspective. As the hon. Member for Nuneaton (Mr. Leslie Huckfield) said, we are talking about 2 per cent. of commercial traffic and these are technical matters on which it is not possible to be quite absolute. What we have to do is to return to the subject of what we do about these lorries whether under the European proposals or under our own existing laws, for the European proposals do not come into operation until 1980.
  With my hon. Friend the Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Mr. Maude), I believe that the scale of our landscape and of our towns and villages is such that we cannot indefinitely allow these lorries, of whatever weight or size, to chunter through villages and along country roads. It is a matter of getting ahead with a road system on which these lorries can go. The important thing is that we should not discriminate—non-discrimination is the principle—so that neither our own nor foreign lorries are allowed to chunter through our towns and villages along roads totally unsuited to them.
  The House will acknowledge that it was the present Government which first took any action to prevent foreign lorries of any weight whatever from coming into this country. As the House has heard, the French already have axle weights of 13 tons, which they are now willing to reduce, and negotiations about that are going on. We freely allowed them into this country until the Road Traffic (Foreign Vehicles) Act 1972 put on some control.
  I was asked how many lorries had been stopped and turned back. In the first two months in which the Act was in operation the figure was 90, but it is interesting to note that the number is falling off as the message gets home that we will not have in this country foreign lorries that do not comply with our regulations.
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  It is clear to all that something has to be done in Europe as a whole to bring this matter under sensible regulation, especially as we are now engaged in preparations for the European Agricultural Heritage Year—[Laughter.] I am sorry; I should have said European Architectural Heritage Year. I am glad that the House is in a merry mood on this occasion, for we have reached general agreement on the substance of the matter before us.
  A number of hon. Members have suggested that there is Government hostility towards British Rail. That is not true. As the right hon. Member for Grimsby, my hon. Friend the Member for Stratford-on-Avon, the hon. Member for Glasgow, Pollok (Mr. James White) and others have said, it is important to consider the need to co-ordinate road and rail. This is another aspect of the situation within our command. The House may have noted that in re-organising the duties of my Department I have asked my right hon. Friend to take responsibility not simply for the transport industries, including buses, but for transport policy generally, including roads and traffic management.
  Mr. Douglas Jay: Will the Secretary of State settle this matter by giving a clear undertaking that, if necessary, the British representative will use his veto in the Council of Ministers?
  Mr. Rippon: My hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Mr. Marten) accurately quoted the position, as he accurately quoted what my right hon. Friend the Minister for Transport Industries said and how between us we set out the position, the position after 1st January, 1973 and the interim position until then. [HON. MEMBERS: "What about the veto?"] What is wrong is to try in negotiations of this kind to lay down in advance answers to hypothetical questions that arise only in the absence of the agreement that we expect to reach.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Resolved,
  That this House, mindful of the environment, is against bigger and heavier lorries.

  LEGAL AID
  10.0 p.m.
  The Attorney-General (Sir Peter Rawlinson): I beg to move,
  That the Legal Aid (Financial Conditions) Regulations 1972, a copy of which was laid before this House on 16th November, be approved.
  Mr. Speaker: I take it that it would be for the convenience of the House if we discuss the following two Motions at the same time:
  That the Legal Aid (Scotland) (Financial Conditions) Regulations 1972, a copy of which was laid before this House on 16th November, be approved.
  That the Legal Aid (Extension of Proceedings) Regulations 1972, a copy of which was laid before this House on 16th November, be approved.
  The Attorney-General: That would be convenient, Mr. Speaker.
  In the first two regulations paragraph 2 deals with the situation where there is a refusal of legal aid in view of the upper limit of capital and paragraph 3 deals with a person's contribution and disregard. By the proviso to Section 2 of the Legal Aid and Advice Act 1949, amended by the Legal Aid Act 1960 a person may be refused legal aid if he has a disposable capital of more than £500 or such larger figure as may be prescribed and it appears that he can afford to proceed without legal aid.
  Under Section 3 (1) of the 1949 Act, as amended, a person's contribution to the legal aid fund in respect of any proceedings may include, and be a contribution in respect of, capital not greater than the amount, if any, by which his disposable capital exceeds £125 or such larger figure as may be prescribed.
  These proposals increase the maximum capital limit from £500 to £1,200 and increase the free capital limit from £125 to £250. Under the 1960 Act the regulations for increasing these amounts of disposable capital have to be approved by resolution of both Houses of Parliament. The figure of £500 disposable capital has remained since 1949, and the figure of £125 disregard on disposable capital has remained since 1960. The Legal Aid Advisory Committee
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  which makes comments and recommendations in respect of legal aid reported in June 1972. I stress that this was an interim report as it is pending a thorough reappraisal of the whole of the capital and income limits now being undertaken by the Committee.
  On the first of the two matters, the disposable capital limit, at present of £500, the Committee pointed out that to restore the limit to its original money value in 1949 the figure should be increased to £1,200. It went on to recommend that to allow for inflation the figure should be fixed at £1,500. The Government have decided that in the present circumstances, well known to the House, it would not be right to increase the limit beyond that warranted by the fall in the value of money since 1949; that is, to restore the value of £500 in 1949 to its current value, £1,200.
  I emphasise that this upper limit is not an absolute bar to receiving legal aid. A person may receive legal aid if it appears that he cannot afford to proceed without it. If his maximum contribution is less than the estimated cost of the proceedings, legal aid can be granted, and that is the usual interpretation. Legal aid is usually granted if he has a capital limit of £1,200 and it is estimated that it will be an expensive action which will cost several thousand pounds. While his contribution may be £1,200, he will nevertheless be granted legal aid. Therefore, the limit is not of overwhelming importance.
  The question of disposable income and capital is determined by the Supplementary Benefits Commission. There are disregards of furniture, clothing, trade equipment and tools, and of half the value of a person's house after deducting the value of any encubrances, plus £5,000, which the Assessment of Resources (Amendment) Regulations propose should be increased to £6,000. The first £150 on a life policy and any debts due to be repaid in a period of 12 months are also disregarded.
  Moreover, the assisted person can keep from his disposable capital what has been described as the nest egg; namely, £125, which paragraph 3 of the Regulations suggests should be increased to £250. It was fixed at £125 in 1960. Translated

  563
  into the money terms of today, it would be £210. The advisory committee suggested £325, but the Government propose £250, which is an increase in real terms of £40, comparing 1972 with 1960. The advisory committee suggested £325 because it is the limit at which capital is ignored for assessing supplementary benefit. However, under the Legal Aid Scheme, unlike the Supplementary Benefits Scheme, allowances are made for dependants. It is proposed in the Assessment of Resources (Amendment) Regulations to increase the allowances. It is proposed to increase the allowance for a first dependant from £75 to £125, for a second dependant from £50 to £80, and for any further dependant from £25 to £40.
  As a result of the proposals in the regulations, the amounts will be lower for a single person than the supplementary benefit amount but higher for a married person. They will be even higher for a person with one child, who will get about £130, and for a person with two children, who will get about £170. It has been suggested that this is a fairer and better balance, taking into account the needs particularly of married people and those with dependants and children.
  The advisory committee is carrying out a thorough reappraisal and, therefore, these proposals are only temporary, but I believe that they represent important improvements in the Legal Aid Scheme.
  Sir Elwyn Jones: What are the present figures for disposable income? That is the other vital factor. If that is a fast one to bowl now, perhaps the right hon. and learned Gentleman will give us the figures later, because they are the other half of the coin on which legal aid is based.
  The Attorney-General: I do not have the figures now. I will obtain them and give them to the House. I appreciate the right hon. and learned Gentleman's point. The question of capital has been, to a certain extent, more worrying than any other.
  The second statutory instrument deals with the question of the extension of proceedings. It is proposed to extend legal
  564
  aid to proceedings before a Commons Commissioner in England or Wales. Scotland is not troubled with this matter.
  As I have told the House in answer to Questions, considerable study and research is being conducted by the Nuffield Foundation and other bodies into the question to which tribunals should be extended legal proceedings. There may be certain tribunals where those appearing would reap greater advantage by having a person other than a lawyer representing them. It is hoped that the advisory committee will consider that question next year having had the advantage of the research by the Nuffield Foundation and other bodies.
  There are a number of important reasons why legal aid should be extended to proceedings before commons commissioners. It may seem improbable to select commons commissioners, but this is a clear case and an important one for a limited number of people. First, in proceedings before commons commissioners there is a real need for legal representation. The long task of registration has been completed and we have reached the stage when objections should be taken before the commissioner who will confirm, modify or reject.
  This can be of vital importance, especially to upland farmers or small holders who rely on common grazing for upkeeping their livestock. Matters which come before commons commissioners and which are important to the smallholder and upland fanner are very recondite in law. For instance, is it common land? Was the land subject to rights of common or manorial waste? Ancient grants and manorial records may arise and need to be examined. Even the medieval principle of levancy and couchancy might have to be argued. Apparently the number of animals which a commoner may be allowed to graze on common land can be limited to the number he can support on his own land in winter.
  All these are complicated matters, although they may appear to be somewhat improbable. They are important matters, as also are the questions of prescription, abandonment or mergers. It would be impossible for the smallholder or farmer to argue any of these matters satisfactorily before a commons commissioner.

  565
  Second, apart from these technical and difficult points of law, if legal aid is not given now it will be too late, because this is a once-for-all operation for commons commissioners. The operation will be completed in six years. It is estimated that this aspect of legal aid will cost only £20,000 spread over those six years and will apply to only a few people. Nevertheless, the persons affected are entitled to have these matters brought before the commons commissioners; and their general livelihood and smallholding will depend upon the decision arrived at.
  It is important to have a legal aid, thirdly, because the decision of the commons commissioner is a final one with only a limited right of appeal to the High Court.
  For these reasons, it is fair to extend this small amount of legal aid to the small number of people involved in these proceedings before the advisory committee has the advantage of the results of the Nuffield Foundation Research with respect to other matters.
  To answer the question asked by the right hon. and learned Member for West Ham, South (Sir Elwyn Jones), the limit of disposable income is £950.
  In general, 157,864 legal aid certificates are granted each year in England and Wales. Some 12,622 certificates were granted in Scotland, and the cost—
  Mr. Greville Janner: In terms of the legal aid certificates granted, in how many cases has a contribution to be made by the individual to whom the grant is made?
  The Attorney-General: I cannot say exactly how much the contribution would be. I should have thought that it would be a considerable amount out of the figure of 157,000 certificates.
  The cost to the Exchequer is £12,145,000 in respect of England and Wales and £1,362,000 for Scotland. Of those sums civil claims account in England and Wales for £9,433,106 and in Scotland £883,357. These are substantial sums, and it is right to remind the House that the lawyers participating in the service carry out this work with a 10 per cent. deduction of costs taxed on a com-
  566
  mon fund basis. The figure used to be 15 per cent. and is now 10 per cent. That is the contribution of the legal profession to the legal aid service, and we should not forget that contribution.
  These proposals afford limited but important changes and bring about improvements in the general scheme. I hope that the House will accept them.
  10.17 p.m.
  Sir Elwyn Jones: The Opposition welcome these regulations so far as they go, but in our view they do not go nearly far enough. Legal aid costs still represent only about one-thousandth part of the total of public expenditure. That seems to represent what the community is now prepared to spend directly to assist citizens to obtain access to a whole range of legal services. It covers the need to obtain compensation for personal injury—and we discuss this matter tonight in the shadow of our earlier discussions about thalidomide victims; it also covers dissolution of broken marriages and the cost of representation in serious criminal proceedings.
  In terms of civil claims with which these regulations are directly concerned, the present situation is far from satisfactory. The position is highlighted in a remarkable report by the Legal Action Group, a report which I invite the Attorney-General to consider when the opportunity arises. The report was published in October of this year and is entitled "Legal Advice Centres: An Explosion." It points to the inadequacy of the present legal aid and advice arrangements which have resulted in the appearance of 61 part-time centres to fill the present void in available legal services. These centres have sprung up in the last year or two on the initiatives of solicitors, barristers, social workers and university law teachers working voluntarily in the centres, and they have sought to fill the gap.
  The commentary upon them in this most valuable report is this:
  "The problems of running a centre on part-time voluntary lawyers' services are immense, and centres freely admit that their service is a mere patch tacked over some of the bigger holes in the tattered garment of the Legal Aid Scheme. Their major failings are: lack of a comprehensive service, and lack of continuity."

  567
  It gives me no satisfaction as a lawyer to draw these matters to the attention of the House, but it is against that background that the right hon. and learned Gentleman puts before us these somewhat inadequate proposals.
  Although the illusion persists that legal aid is free, a man has to be very poor to obtain free legal aid or advice today. Under the regulations as now proposed, to qualify for free legal aid in order to undertake civil proceedings, which may be vital to him or his family, his disposable capital must not exceed £1,200 and he must have a disposable income not exceeding £950. The proceedings which he wishes to institute may relate to matters of great importance to him—divorce matters, serious accident cases, matters like the thalidomide cases, breaches of contract, matters affecting his conditions of employment or any other non-criminal matter, subject to certain exclusions such as that of libel.
  The words "disposable capital" in the regulations refer to what a man is calculated to have left after certain deductions are made. I looked again tonight at some of the regulations governing the financial limits for legal aid. They have been described as of "hideous complexity", and that they certainly are; but the part of them which has given us on this side of the House great concern is the provision for deductions related to the value of the dwelling which the would-be litigant may possess.
  Rule 9 in the second schedule to the governing rules provides:
  "Except as is provided in the next succeeding paragraph of this rule, in computing the amount of capital of the person concerned, there shall be disregarded, in respect of the value to him of any interest in the dwelling in which he resides, any sum which might be obtained by him by selling that interest or borrowing money on the security thereof"
  Then there follows this paragraph:
  "There shall be taken into account one half of the amount by which the value of the dwelling, after deducting therefrom the amount of any encumbrance charged thereon, exceeds £5,000."
  I understand from the right hon. and learned Gentleman that that has been increased to £6,000.
  With today's sky-rocketing of property values, when even a small and miserable house in a. poor area may command a
  568
  selling price of £7,000, £8,000 or even more, a serious problem is presented to, for example, elderly would-be claimants who may have paid off their mortgages but who may be excluded by reason of the regulations from obtaining legal aid because the net capital value of their dwelling-house is over £6,000.
  What is to happen to them? No one would suggest that they ought to be turned out of their homes so that they may be enabled to fight what may well be a perfectly legitimate and desperately serious civil action. Therefore, I hope that in the review which is to take place—it is at least reassuring that these regulations are only interim measures—these elements of deductions governing what amounts to disposable capital will be basically re-examined.
  Another factor which will not have escaped the attention of the House is that when legal aid falls to be considered when applications are made, the income of the spouse is added to that of the applicant, thus making the low scales that we are considering even more stringent.
  We shall not vote against the regulations tonight as they offer some improvement. Nevertheless, we submit that the proposals in the regulations covering both England and Scotland are insufficient to cope with present needs. The first part, raising to £250 the amount of disposable capital which cannot be called upon for a contribution towards legal aid, is in our view far too low. It is interesting that the Supplementary Benefits Commission rightly disregards the first £325 of capital when assessing supplementary benefits.
  I noted with interest today that back in April this year the New Law Journal suggested that the figure should be raised to" £500. That would indeed seem a modest figure. It is most disappointing and deplorable that the Government have decided not to recommend the somewhat higher figure suggested by the advisory committee.
  For people with disposable capital above £1,200, no legal aid whatever is to be available. This will have the effect of leaving a large number of our citizens who may have perfectly good civil claims too rich, if that is the right word, to qualify but too poor to take the risk to go it alone in the courts.
  The Attorney-General: I pointed out that even though the contribution limit may be up to £1,200, legal aid would not usually be refused if it was estimated that the action in which the applicant was involved was expensive and likely to cost several thousand pounds. Therefore, it is not a complete barrier.
  Sir Elwyn Jones: It would have been interesting if the right hon. and learned Gentleman had given us an indication of the number of cases in which that discretion had been exercised and what amounts had been involved. My information—it may be that my hon. Friends have more specific information—is that the discretion is not generously exercised. Indeed, it would be surprising if, bearing in mind the content of the regulations, the discretion were exercised with generosity. If the right hon. and learned Gentleman can reassure us with statistical figures of the percentage of cases in which discretion has been exercised, that will certainly to some extent qualify my concern about the effect the regulations will have. However, I fear that they will show that the discretion does not amount to a great deal.
  Therefore, despite the modest improvement effected by the regulations, I submit that it is only if a man is extremely poor or rich that he will be able to afford a civil action. There will be one law for the rich and the very poor, but injustice or potential injustice for the man in the middle. That is why we confess to our disappointment at these figures.
  As Members of Parliament conducting our weekly or fortnightly "surgeries" we all know of many instances of the grave anxieties that our constituents face. In one case of mine a woman working in a hospital fell on a wet floor. She and her husband were at work. There is advice that they may have a good cause of action, but they do not qualify for legal aid, and the risk of going ahead and the consequent disaster in the event of losing the action and having an order for costs made against them creates a situation in which it is thought more prudent not to assert the claim. That is the kind of case with which we are all familiar and which, as a lawyer, it gives me no satisfaction to recount.
  I beg the Government to look again at these figures and encourage a review in
  570
  the very near future. I trust that the next time an advisory committee reports the Government will, at the least, give effect to its recommendations and will not cheesepare on them in the miserable way they have done in relation to the figures in these regulations tonight.
  These regulations also apply to Scotland, and I am comforted to think that sitting eagerly behind me seeking to catch the eye of the Chair is the Shadow Lord Advocate, my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Edinburgh, Leith (Mr. Ronald King Murray), who will no doubt have something to say about the Scottish provisions, and it will surprise me if he disagrees with the criticisms I have made of the regulations as they apply to England.
  I was intrigued by the special selection for inclusion for legal aid, proceedings before the commons commissioner but, having heard of the intricacies of levancy and couchancy, which is a daily topic of conversation in West Ham, I am not entirely surprised that legal aid is deemed to be necessary to deal with these recondite matters which the Attorney-General trips off his tongue with that expert knowledge of these matters which we know he possesses.
  However, it is a strange selection bearing in mind the far more deserving cases before other tribunals. I have in mind in particular the whole realm of welfare benefit tribunals where decisions vitally affecting the interests and financial position of a large number of our fellow citizens are taken and before which they must go unassisted.
  Our verdict is that these regulations should have been far better, but we have to take them for what they are worth. Accordingly, we shall not oppose them tonight but we declare our grave disappointment that they are far below what the advisory committee recommend and far below the needs of the current situation.
  10.33 p.m.
  Mr. Percy Grieve: I share the welcome which the right hon. and learned Member for West Ham, South (Sir Elwyn Jones) has given to the increase in the limits for legal aid, and I do so without a number of the reservations which the right hon. and learned

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  Gentleman put forward. It is always possible when public funds are made available in the interests of social welfare to say that an increase or the availability is not enough. That, however, is a matter that has to be considered in the light also of the requirements of the public purse and I think it is pertinent to remember when we are considering the legal aid system and the moneys that are made available for it that this is a matter in which this country leads the world. Certainly in most Continental countries people are amazed at the extent to which, out of public funds and through the good will and resources of the legal profession, we help the litigant.
  We also aid foreigners who bring deserving cases here. It is with some pride that I recall some years ago myself representing an impecunious French citizen who was suing an Englishman in our courts—[An HON. MEMBER: "Shame."] I am astonished that the word "Shame" should be uttered in this connection. This is something of which we should be proud. The whole costs were in the end recovered from the Englishman, who had mown the man down in his car and had for many years evaded service. Justice was done in the end, and it is something of which we should be proud.
  I should like to say a work of appreciation for the work done by legal aid committees in the granting of legal aid certificates. I served for many years on an area committee and I am in great admiration of the voluntary work done by solicitors and barristers, who are often instrumental in seeing that the upper limit does not prevail where it is plain that the costs would exceed it.
  There are no doubt defects in our system. It does not cover many deserving cases whose need is often looked after by voluntary bodies. I am not at all sure that public money could not be made available with great advantage to help voluntary organisations like Cambridge House, the Mary Ward Settlement and the other legal advice bodies. I see you looking a little impatient, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and perhaps I am going outside the rules of order. Perhaps you would just permit me to add that public money
  572
  made available in this way would be a very important prop to our system of legal aid and voluntary help.
  I welcome the financial improvements in the legal aid system which the regulations bring about.
  10.38 p.m.
  Mr. Ronald King Murray: I would echo the guarded welcome to the regulations which my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for West Ham, South (Sir Elwyn Jones) gave on behalf of the Opposition. The only thing which can be put on the credit side is that these proposals are interim only. I hope that means that we shall have firm proposals breaking new ground in the near future.
  I do not want to embarrass the Attorney-General if he does not have the figures at his fingertips now, but the House would be interested to know the increase in expenditure that will result from the three sets of regulations. I am naturally more interested in the expenditure for Scotland, but the House would, I am sure, be interested in figures in all three cases. It is possible to make a guess, based on the figure for total expenditure which the Attorney-General gave. It is obvious that if these regulations are making up for the loss of value resulting from inflation, one can guess fairly accurately the sort of expenditure involved.
  I echo what was said by the hon. and learned Member for Solihull (Mr. Grieve). I hope that funds at least as great will be set aside by the Government for the support of legal aid centres and their establishment where they do not exist at present.
  10.40 p.m.
  Mr. Arthur Lewis: We have just listened to four excellent speeches from four hon. and learned Gentlemen, all of whom have an interest and do not have to declare it. I declare that I have no interest except that one day, God forbid, I may have to ask for assistance under the scheme.
  My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for West Ham, South (Sir Elwyn Jones) said that West Ham would not be affected by the third set of regulations. However, he forgets Epping Forest and Wanstead Flats, which may well be

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  covered when we have the travelling cattle which have created many problems. Who knows whether the regulations may be of assistance concerning them?
  Sir Elwyn Jones: On the contrary, I said that West Ham talked about nothing but levancy and couchancy.
  Mr. Lewis: My right hon. and learned Friend is correct.
  I am interested in how the scheme works and how the proposed increases will operate. I cite one of hundreds of cases. A policeman known to have a good record had a son, who had never been in trouble previously, who was charged with an offence concerning fireworks. He was found innocent. The policeman could get no legal aid. He was landed with costs of about £300, which he could ill afford. Not so long ago, however, a man named Sewell murdered a policeman and was convicted. He is now in prison. He claimed and got free legal aid, but it is alleged in the Press—it has not yet been denied—that he has £20,000, £50,000 or £150,000 in ill-gotten gains.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. E. L. Mallalieu): Order. I hope the hon. Member will bear in mind that this is a very limited debate. It concerns only the increases which are mentioned in the regulations.
  Mr. Lewis: I agree, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I am explaining that at present the man I have mentioned cannot get legal aid although he has a clear record.
  The Attorney-General explained about disregards, capital assets and income. I was about to explain that a man known to have £150,000—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The regulations have nothing to do with criminal cases.
  Mr. Lewis: I tried, Mr. Deputy Speaker, to ask the Attorney-General when he mentioned special cases and total costs. I was about to ask how it was hat one man got legal aid while another, man, completely innocent—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Can the hon. Member explain to the Chair how this is in order?
  Mr. Lewis: Yes, Mr. Deputy Speaker. As I understand it, the first set of regulations increases the amount of legal aid if a man has a disposable income or capital of more than £1,200.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: But not in criminal cases.
  Mr. Lewis: I quoted a particular criminal case to illustrate what was happening at present. I was explaining that people with criminal records and large sums of money can get free legal aid for non-criminal cases.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: I have allowed the hon. Member considerable latitude. I hope he will now come within the bounds of order.
  Mr. Lewis: Surely, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I am only emphasising the point made by the Attorney-General. The regulations state that:
  "a person may be refused legal aid if he has a disposable capital of more than £1,200."
  Why is it that accused persons with disposable assets well in excess of £1,200 receive legal aid when more deserving cases do not get it?
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. That has nothing to do with the regulations. Their whole point is whether the amounts should be increased and, if so, by how much. That is what hon. Members may discuss.
  Mr. Lewis: Surely, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I can take up points made by the Attorney-General. He referred to the increased cost. He explained that total costs were about £12 million, that about £9 million was attributable to civil cases in England and Wales and that about £2 million was attributable to Scotland. What has happened to the odd £1 million? Is it needed to meet the additional costs of the scheme consequent upon the Attorney-General's proposal to extend the limit to £1,200 in disposable assets?
  I am not prepared to agree to the regulations to increase that limit to £1,200 because I do not believe that the scheme is being operated properly. It would be wrong to increase the limit because that would increase also the burden on the taxpayer. If the Attorney-General wants to increase the limit to

  575
  £1,200, he must assure me that the scheme is being operated properly. I do not believe that people with disposable assets in excess of £1,200—or £1,200,000 for that matter—are prevented from benefiting from the scheme.
  When I seek to question the right hon. and learned Gentleman about this he does not give the answers, and when I write to him he refuses to take action. Now, after many months, he is unable to tell me how much legal aid has been granted. Has he considered reducing the expenses of running the scheme? Has he considered reducing the amount lawyers get from refresher briefs? Do they get refresher briefs? Are we sure that there is not too much wasted time in the courts?
  My right hon. and learned Friend mentioned the thalidomide case. It has been going on for 10 years. The others present in the Chamber are all lawyers, with one honourable exception, and they and I know that the longer a case takes, the more money the lawyers get. It would be regarded as very strange if my dockers claimed a £500-a-day refresher for each day they held up the loading or unloading of a ship. It might be a good thing to cut down the length of time which so many cases take. I suggest that it might be done by cutting instead of increasing the lawyers fees the longer a case goes on. That would be an incentive to the lawyers to get on with the job. The legal fraternity can act with great speed when it wants to and can be equally slow when it wants to be slow. The case of the AEUW and the National Industrial Relations Court was settled overnight, but I am still waiting for the details of costs after 12 months in other cases.
  Will the extra money involved in these regulations enable people to claim legal aid in road offence cases such as speeding? People are known to get away with being pulled up two or three times for speeding without being taken to court. But most of my constituents cannot afford lawyers when they are pulled up and cautioned for motoring offences. I hope they will be within the new limit and will be able to get assistance.
  I hope that the Attorney-General will consider the case of an innocent person who is compelled to defend himself in court but will still be below the new limits in the regulations and will not get
  576
  legal aid. The right hon. and learned Gentleman says that this is an interim measure and that another will come later. He should ask his advisory committee to examine the possibility of the innocent person claiming and getting his costs so that he is treated as fairly as some of the big company directors who deliberately pass over their assets to their wives or other relatives and go bankrupt in order to be able to take advantage of legal aid. One can read of such cases in the Press almost any day. I hope that the Attorney-General will tighten up and prevent abuse of the scheme in this way by these wealthy sharks who are phoney company directors.
  10.54 p.m.
  Mr. Greville Janner: I sometimes wonder, when listening to my hon. Friend the Member for West Ham, North (Mr. Arthur Lewis). whether, if the House were well stocked with doctors, he would accuse them of having vested interest every time they voted in favour of improving the National Health Service. Some of us believe that the importance of justice in this country is crucial—
  Mr. Arthur Lewis: So do I.
  Mr. Janner: —and that the importance of legal aid is to ensure that justice is available to all, irrespective of their wealth.
  The most important point made in the debate so far was made by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for West Ham, South (Sir Elwyn Jones), who said that at the moment justice is available for the rich and for the poor but not for the man in the middle. The object of all improvements in the legal aid scheme should be to make justice available where it is not available. To the extent that the improvement in the regulations does that, I am sure my hon. Friend the Member for West Ham, North will approve of them.
  We all recognise the defects in the legal aid scheme. The most essential is that the bulk of ordinary working people earning a decent living are unable to obtain free legal aid. In many cases they are unable to obtain legal aid at all. They may have a perfectly good case, but if they are faced with a rich company they cannot afford to fight it. If they are faced with a legally-aided plaintiff, again

  577
  they will be unable to defend themselves. That may be equally serious.
  The injustice moves in both directions and it is to conquer that injustice that all improvements such as those proposed this evening should be directed. The test of the improvement is whether it is sufficient and whether it goes far enough in the right direction.
  We are concerned with two statutory instruments. The first is financial, and the second deals with individual tribunals. The second does not even meet the criterion set up by the advisory committee, which is to provide advice which I presume is meant to be followed. There is little point in having someone to offer advice if it is intended to flout that advice. That is what the Government have seen fit to do. They say, "We all know the current position". That is not good enough, because as a result of the advance we are moving back to where we were in 1949. That is hardly a tribute to the efforts being made to provide justice for the people in the middle. We want to move forward so that the people can get justice which is not available at present.
  The increase is parsimonious and mean. I hope that "interim" means that there will be a further advance very shortly. Perhaps the Attorney-General will be good enough to define "interim" so that we know what he has in mind. There can be an interim order which lasts for one day, one which lasts a week and one which lasts the life of the Government which may be rather longer than we hope. However, if the Attorney-General defines "interim" we might sleep a little better.
  The other matter concerns me even more. We have advanced into another tribunal, but the advance is so petty and so limited as to be scarcely worth making. My constituents do not have the infinite advantages of the people who live in West Ham. For a start, they are not represented by the hon. Member for West Ham, North. They have no Epping Forest, although they do have Abbey Park, where Wolsey died. But that is about it. There is no common land that I know of, and my constituents will gain no advantage from the order.
  However, there are two main areas where I regret most deeply that the advance has not been made. The commons commissioner is almost unheard of
  578
  anywhere outside West Ham. The national insurance commissioner, on the other hand, is a man of crucial importance, particularly on a day when the House has been considering the thalidomide children.
  I appeared before the Chief National Insurance Commissioner on 17th October on behalf of a little boy called Jimmy Martin who has no legs and only one arm. Such cases normally take a short time, but the commissioner informed us that it was the first occasion where there had been an argued case on the correct meaning of the law as set out in the regulations. By definition, the people who need legal aid most are those who can least afford to pay for lawyers. By definition, the person who has to ask for an order to receive £4.60 or so a week cannot afford to engage counsel and cannot afford a solicitor either, so he appears with neither before a commissioner who is of infinitely greater importance than the commons commissioner.
  The Jimmy Martin case ran for a day instead of a few minutes or a few hours. Instead of judgment being given on 17th October, it was reserved, and today the decision has still not been given.
  Second, of all the tribunals to choose from, why pick the commons commissioner, when we know that in the tribunals set up to administer the compensation for unfair dismissal under the Industrial Relations Act there is no legal aid and people must appear without help? To give preference to these regulations is ludicrous.
  We shall willingly vote the commons commissioner into the legal aid field tonight, for the benefit of those who wish to take advantage of that tribunal. But it is ridiculous to leave out of account the hundreds of thousands of ordinary people who need representation of the most humble kind before the industrial tribunals. Just a few weeks ago the Government admitted that some 73 per cent. of all cases to reach an industrial tribunal for compensation for unfair dismissal fail. In other words, the employers, who can afford to be represented by lawyers, win, and the employees, who receive no legal aid when they appear before tribunals infinitely more important than the commons commissioner, fail. It is a very unfair order of precedence that the Government have set.

  579
  Three reasons were given by the Attorney-General. The first was the speed of final decision, the fact that a matter will be finished shortly, and that unless legal aid is granted soon it will be too late. That argument applies equally well to Jimmy Martin's family. They can only make their application now. If they wait too long the boy will be grown up, like the people waiting for council houses who die before they get them.
  The second reason was that there was a very limited right of appeal. The right of appeal from the national insurance commissioner, so far as I know, does not exist, so there is even greater need there.
  The third reason is that it is a limited field. So are those in great need.
  We can apply to the areas of real need precisely the same criteria as the right hon. and learned Gentleman has applied to this recondite, strange area of both legal and physical country, the commons.
  I hope that the Government will direct their attention to the areas of real human need where legal aid may be as essential as a doctor is to a sick person, and that they will do so very soon.
  11.4 p.m.
  Mr. Edward Lyons: We must welcome any increase in the legal aid limits. If we took the more reserved attitude of my hon. Friend the Member for West Ham, North (Mr. Arthur Lewis) and successfully opposed the regulations, even fewer of the dockers of West Ham would be able to bring legal actions when, for example, they suffered personal injury on the roads.
  Mr. Arthur Lewis: My hon. Friend will understand that I was not opposing the regulations, but it would appear that I had to oppose them in order to get in order.
  Mr. Lyons: The regulations are helpful, and we are grateful to the Government for producing the increases. The real question is whether the increases are great enough. Anyone dealing with individuals bringing or resisting actions without benefit of legal aid knows that discussion of costs plays a large part in deciding whether to continue proceedings or to accept an offered settlement.
  Often, results occur which are not just but are the result of lack of funds of
  580
  the person bringing or resisting the proceedings. It will still be the case, after this new measure becomes law, that people who could not be regarded as rich by any stretch of the imagination will not be able to obtain legal aid.
  I was recently attending a trial in South-West Africa on behalf of the International Commission of Jurists. I know that that was a criminal trial and that these orders do not relate to criminal proceedings, but in South and South-West Africa legal aid procedure in civil and criminal proceedings is rudimentary. The result is that people who have been injured and make a civil claim and those who resist criminal proceedings have great difficulty unless some outside source is prepared to put up funds for defence or for prosecuting a civil claim.
  In Britain it is right to say, as the hon. and learned Member for Solihull (Mr. Grieve) said, that we can take pride in the legal aid scheme because it goes further than the schemes in other countries, while there are countries with no schemes at all.
  One does not want it to be said, as an hon. Member opposite said outside in circumstances attended by great publicity, that there is one law for the rich and one for the poor and that one can buy justice. That was a remark which, in respect of criminal proceedings, was totally false, totally untrue.
  Mr. Arthur Lewis: It is true.
  Mr. Lyons: In the civil field, curiously enough, there is one law for the rich and poor—both can defend and bring civil actions—while it is the man in middle area who is discriminated against. The orders go only a small part of the way to secure that gap in the law and end that injustice.
  One would like to know what estimate is being made of the numbers of extra people who will be brought within the legal aid net by the increases proposed. I have pleaded that one reason why we have not heard a suggested estimate is that the numbers will perhaps not be too great.
  I should like to say a final word on the esoteric subject of the commons commissioner, about whom I am entirely ignorant. I always thought that couchancy was something to do with

  581
  medieval tournaments and the insignia carried on medieval shields, but it is something appropriate for every citizen of West Ham to discuss, if it is discussed nowhere else.
  I echo the remarks of my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Leicester, North-West (Mr. Greville Janner) when he referred to other tribunals to which the Government are not proposing to extend legal aid.
  One feels that the commons commission has been chosen simply because there are few cases, even in West Ham, for that august body and that it will not cost a great deal of money to provide legal aid for it, whereas, in relation to cases of unfair dismissal, and in relation to cases before the national insurance commissioner, to introduce legal aid, necessary and advisable as it may be, will cost the country a more notable sum of money. It seems, therefore, that the Government are less reluctant to introduce it in the other case. One can only hope that those who have lost their jobs wrongfully, or allegedly wrongfully, will have an opportunity to get proper advice and secure a remedy for any wrong done.
  Subject to those comments, I welcome the regulations.
  11.10 p.m.
  The Attorney-General: I suppose it will be said that I am biased, but the speech which I enjoyed most was that of my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Solihull (Mr. Grieve). Not only did he unreservedly welcome the regulations, but he spoke sense, and reminded us that this is a service of which we are entitled to be proud. Those who first introduced it, members of the party to which the right hon. and learned Member for West Ham, South (Sir Elwyn Jones) belongs, can take pride in having done so. We have extended the scheme thereafter. I do not imagine that we would ever do without it now, and we all want to improve it and ensure that it is as fair as it is possible to make it.
  But the public purse has to be considered. Hard is the path of Government and Ministers when they put to the House of Commons, admittedly modest, suggestions for improvement at a time when an advisory committee is conducting a study in depth which may take a little time, only to encounter the objec-
  582
  tion that what we propose is mean and miserable. We have listened to what the advisory committee has had to say. It will deal with the whole matter of disposable capital and income, and I hope that before many months are past I shall be back here with something more, though, no doubt, it will again be said "But this is mean and miserable." It is the duty of an Opposition to take that attitude, I suppose, so that whatever proposal I make will be greeted with the same response.
  We have taken what the advisory committee said with regard to disposable capital, that £1,200 would put it back to the 1949 position. In that respect an injustice will be corrected. I must say that, if injustice it be, it has been going on since 1949, and others would have been responsible only a few years ago. As regards disposable income, the figure we have taken will, we believe, give a fairer and more balanced position at this time of inflation when restraints are being imposed upon people and the report of the committee is being prepared.
  The advisory committee reported that it had carefully considered the cost of the civil legal aid and advice scheme and was
  "satisfied that it is administered economically and that continued care is exercised to avoid waste of public funds".
  As well as the work done by practitioners, there is the service performed by those who serve on the legal aid committees in the important task of making assessments and judgments for the granting of legal aid certificates. This also is important work, and they should be congratulated on it.
  The hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh, Leith (Mr. Ronald King Murray) asked for the estimates. I can only tell him that the estimate of cost for the financial conditions regulations would be in the neighbourhood of £200,000 in England and Wales and about £20,000 in Scotland. In the case of the commons commissioners, it would be £20,000 over six years.
  May I correct something which I said earlier? I said that 12,622 certificates had been issued in Scotland. In fact, that was the number of applications; 8,821 certificates were issued.
  There is provision for legal aid centres to be set up under Part II of the Legal

  583
  Advice and Assistance Act 1972. The right hon. and learned Member for West Ham, South has put before us the views and opinions of the Legal Action Group, which I will study. The need for legal aid centres will be kept under review by the Law Society and my right hon. and noble Friend's Department. The £25 scheme will come into effect in April, 1973, and it is hoped that this scheme will indicate where the need for legal aid centres is greatest.
  I turn to the house property position. I have already said that it is proposed to increase the £5,000 disregard to £6,000. The advisory committee has been especially considering the allowances for house property. I hope that it will be realistic and will take modern prices and costs into account.
  The hon. and learned Member for Leicester, North-West (Mr. Greville Janner and the hon. Member for Bradford, East (Mr. Edward Lyons) have referred to the question of the middle man. That is what the regulations are about—to help the middle man, perhaps only in a modest way. The hon. Member for West Ham, North (Mr. Arthur Lewis) misconceived the purpose of the regulations, which is to make legal aid available to more people in prosecuting or defending civil actions. In any area in which fixed limits are set there will always be people who fall on the wrong side of the line and there is hardship. There will always have to be a line. The question is where to draw it.
  Mr. Arthur Lewis: I do not think it is a question of misconception. Perhaps I accentuated the position in order to show its unfairness. I am concerned about those in the criminal classes who can get away with it. Something better could, and should, be done for those in the middle class.
  The Attorney-General: In order to stay in order I must deal with the regulations, and they are concerned with civil legal aid and not with criminal legal aid, which is another matter.
  The hon. and learned Member for Leicester, North-West and the right hon. and learned Member for West Ham, South made play with the fact that we are introducing the commons commis-
  584
  sioner, that esoteric gentleman, and the esoteric law upon which he will have to decide. I thought I made the position clear, but perhaps it was not clear enough. Legal aid will have to be granted in such proceedings. It is certain that it will have to be legal aid as opposed to any other form of aid because the law is difficult and complicated and it is impossible for a farmer or smallholder to argue it himself. Here is a clear case. None of the other cases is absolutely clear. The Nuffield Foundation and other foundations are doing very important and detailed research in this respect, and it would be foolish to rush in before we had their advice or before the results of their research had been put before the advisory committee. These matters will begin now, because registration is completed. Objections can be made. This is vital to a few people. It is a clear case, and we point to it and say that in this respect legal aid is necessary. We have therefore taken the opportunity to introduce the order to help those people.
  Nothing can be more agreeable than for an Attorney-General as agent for the Lord Chancellor to be able continually to ask for increases, even if it means that the hon. Member for West Ham, North has his usual say about lawyers. It is agreeable to ask for increases and extensions of legal aid. They may be modest, but they are important and they will be useful. They will help those whom we wish to help.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Resolved,
  That the Legal Aid (Financial Conditions) Regulations 1972, a copy of which was laid before this House on 16th November, be approved.
  Resolved,
  That the Legal Aid (Scotland) (Financial Conditions) Regulations 1972, a copy of which was laid before this House on 16th November, be approved.—[The Attorney-General.]
  Resolved,
  That the Legal Aid (Extension of Proceedings) Regulations 1972, a copy of which was laid before this House on 16th November, be approved.—[The Attorney-General.]

  ADJOURNMENT
  Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. John Stradling Thomas.]

  SIGNALS RESEARCH DEVELOPMENT ESTABLISHMENT, CHRISTCHURCH
  11.21 p.m.
  Mr. John Cordle: I greatly welcome the opportunity of raising the matter of the Signals Research Development Establishment at Christchurch. This matter concerns not only myself but my hon. Friends the Members for Dorset, North (Mr. David James) and the New Forest (Mr. Patrick McNair-Wilson).
  This matter is of grave concern to the staff of the establishment. I have in my hand a notice of dissent signed by 180 members of the staff which I propose to read:
  "We, the Undersigned, Mobile Members of the staff in SRDE, view with dismay and anger the very bare Precis of the Rationalisation Committee's proposals, and the extraordinary short time which our staff negotiators are being given to discuss them.
  We insist that: unless the Management/Rationalisation Committee are prepared to allow our Staff Representatives ample time in which to discuss with the Committee the pros and cons of a fully documented case for rationalisation, together with considered alternatives, we will not co-operate."
  The decision of the Ministry of Defence to close this research development establishment is one of major concern causing a great deal of anxiety and unsettlement in Christchurch, not only to the staff of the establishment but to the community as a whole. The honourable career of this establishment started in 1903 and continued all the way through the First and Second World Wars with development of very special wireless telegraphy. The establishment was responsible in the Second World War for the invention of the No. 10 microwave radio set used by all three Services.
  It is proposed to transfer the work of the establishment to the Royal Radar Establishment in Malvern. I ask the Minister to confirm or deny whether this is the situation. When I saw my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State two or three weeks ago he said that there was not a definite decision yet on the question of closure. This has been a matter of unsettlement. I should like to have an answer "yes" or "no" tonight
  586
  on whether the decision has been taken. On behalf of the people of Christchurch I strenuously oppose the closure of this establishment.
  The demise of this establishment will have a devastating effect on the social and economic life of the town and its immediate surroundings, since the staff of the establishment are well integrated with the local community.
  The SRDE is the largest employer in Christchurch and about 900 people work there. Of these, 300 may be considered as mobile; they are highly qualified, highly paid civil servants. The remaining 600 are lower-paid employees, both skilled and unskilled. If all these people were to lose their jobs the effect on Christchurch would be devastating. Although the 300 mobile civil servants would be moved to jobs elsewhere, such a mass exodus would have a marked effect upon the commercial prosperity of the town and would put a relatively enormous strain on the property market.
  The wages and salaries paid in the SRDE are in the neighbourhood of £2 million per annum, and most of the money will be spent locally in the shops, on entertainments, rates and other pursuits. The cash flow in the local community will be reduced by approximately this figure if the establishment closes down or moves. Further, over 100 SRDE wives have local jobs, which are mainly of the service type. A characteristic of the Christchurch type of "older citizen" community is that an above-average level of supporting services is required, much of which is provided by the SRDE wives. If the establishment is disbanded, the effect on community facilities for the older citizen is likely to be very marked.
  As for the skilled and unskilled workers, I must emphasise that jobs will have to be found for them should the Ministry fail to take them to alternative employment elsewhere. Christchurch has no shortage of vacancies for skilled machine workers, though this could change dramatically—for reasons which I shall presently relate. But for the unskilled the situation is one of despair. Christchurch does not have the industry to employ them. We have a total employed population of about 14,000, corn-prising 10,000 men and 4,000 women, and

  587
  we have about 500 unemployed men registered and about 50 women. Of the men registered as unemployed, 52 per cent, are over 67 and 70 per cent. are over 50. I do not know what proportion of SRDE workers are unskilled, but I would estimate that the figure is about 300. Therefore, if any of these men are above 50 years of age, the future is bleak. All these workers have families and take an active part in the life of the town. I beg the Minister not to disturb the social and economic life of our community needlessly by making these men redundant.
  The reason why I say that such redundancies would be needless is that it is my considered opinion that there is no need to close down the establishment. It easily pays its way, and it has played, and continues to play, a vital role in the highly efficient communications system used by the British Army of the Rhine. Furthermore, the establishment is at once compact, well-organised and successful. Much of its work earns foreign currency. The SRDE workers are an essential group in Christchurch, and I believe that the Minister has a duty to ensure that their work continues, that their jobs are secured and that the town of Christchurch is not devastated by the closure of the SRDE.
  It is certain that the onus of proving the necessity—I say "necessity", not "desirability"—of closing the establishment is squarely upon the Minister. It is an onus that he will not easily discharge. Should he come forward with a strong case for closing the establishment, I still insist that these workers who cannot be absorbed in other Ministry establishments must be protected and helped. The Minister must actively encourage other local employers to take them on. I do not think it is asking too much in this situation to request that the orthodox methods of the Ministry be bypassed. A golden opportunity has presented itself.
  Messrs. Penny and Giles Limited, a member of the Penny and Giles Group, wishes to increase its undertaking in the Christchurch area. The company is based at Mudeford. It would like to buy 45 acres of the site presently occupied by the establishment. It seeks to erect a purpose-built construction. If this went through, the company could take on between 150–250 extra personnel. This
  588
  would alleviate the increase in unemployment consequent on the closure of the establishment, as well as the redundancy problem caused by the closure of the British Aircraft Corporation plant at Hurn, close to Christchurch, which over the last 18 months has suffered redundancies amounting to 12,000 men.
  I have asked that in this instance the orthodox methods of disposal of Crown land should be bypassed. The Department is already in the process of selling off surplus land at the establishment. Planning permission for industrial development has been granted by the county council for part of the land which has been bought by the local authority.
  The disposal of surplus land is controlled by the Property Services Agency, which is required to offer land to other Government Departments and then to local authorities. If no offers are accepted there has to be a public auction. Penny and Giles could bid for the land, but there is always the possibility of some other purchaser outbidding it. This company will expand 'its interests in Christchurch if it can get the land. It would thus be enabled to employ a sizeable number of workers made redundant by the closure of the establishment. If the company cannot expand at Christchurch it is highly likely that it will move to Wales, where it can expand. This would aggravate a worsening situation.
  I concede that the set method of the disposal of land is fair and wise. However, this is an exceptional situation, and the Department must do everything to mitigate the damage it will cause by the closing of the establishment. People are more important than procedures, and no procedure is wholly just if strict adherence to it ignores good reason and humanity. I ask the Minister to do one of two things—halt any plans to close the establishment at Christchurch or confine redundancies as much as possible and give every encouragement to Messrs. Penny and Giles Ltd. to step into the breach.
  11.33 p.m.
  The Under-Secretary of State for Defence for the Army (Mr. Peter Blaker): The House will recognise the anxieties on the part of his constituents which lie behind my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth, East and Christchurch (Mr. Cordle) in raising this subject. I recognise

  589
  too, the interest in this important matter of my hon. Friends the Members for New Forest (Mr. Patrick McNair-Wilson) and Dorset, North (Mr. David James). I have had the opportunity this evening of talking with my right hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth, West (Sir J. Eden), who has also explained to me many of the important points referred to by my hon. Friend. He also assured me that he takes a close interest in the problem.
  There are two points with which I must deal before dealing with the matters raised by my hon. Friend. There is no dispute between us about the vital importance of the work which the Signals Research Development Establishment is carrying out and its capacity to carry on such work in future. Whatever decisions are taken, the value of this work will not be lost. What is in question is the best way of reconciling the need to continue work of this kind with the various factors which I shall mention.
  Secondly—here I am answering one question put to me by my hon. Friend—I must make it clear that no decision about the establishment's future has yet been made. Certain proposals for rationalising the Department's research and development activities were put confidentially to representatives of the staff associations and trade unions on 19th October. One of the proposals affected the SRDE. Our consultations with the staff associations and the trade unions have not yet been completed. When they have been completed, that is the time when decision will be taken.
  On consultation, to which my hon. Friend referred when he read an extract from a document early in his speech, I should like to make clear what the position has been. Since 19th October there has been an exchange of letters in which the reactions of the staff side to the broad proposals were put forward and were answered by the Permanent Secretary.
  A meeting to discuss this correspondence took place and further information which was asked for was supplied to the staff side. A thorough examination has been made with the staff side of the technical arguments in favour of the rationalisation proposals, and local delegates from the establishments affected are
  590
  similarly being given an opportunity to make representations.
  A meeting between the Controller of Research and all the establishments affected is due to take place tomorrow. On 1st December a senior official will meet the trade unions, and on 4th December the secretary of the procurement executive will be meeting the staff side. On these occasions there will be a full opportunity for discussions and the putting of questions.
  Mr. Cordle: Will there be an opportunity also for the town clerk and a deputation from the council to have discussions with my hon. Friend or with the Secretary of State?
  Mr. Blaker: My hon. Friend the Minister of State has just written to the Town Clerk of the Borough of Christchurch saying that he would be happy to meet a deputation from the borough council, and he would appreciate my hon. Friend's attendance.
  Mr. Cordle: I thank my hon. Friend for that information.
  Mr. Blaker: Turning to the substance of the proposal which my hon. Friend has criticised, I should like to give the general background to the House. The starting point is the formation of the Procurement Executive of the Ministry of Defence, following the report of Mr. Derek Rayner's project team published last year as a White Paper. Before the Procurement Executive was set up, the Navy Department, the Army Department and the Ministry of Aviation Supply each ran research and development establishments of their own. There was central co-ordination of programmes by the Ministry of Defence, but the organisations were fundamentally separate.
  One of the more important objectives of the Rayner proposals, which the Government accepted, was to achieve some rationalisation of the activities of 30 different research and development establishments. The Rayner report regarded rationalisation as an urgent task aimed at giving better value for money. It would have been strange indeed if, as a result of bringing all these establishments under one management, the conclusion had been reached that until that time all was for the best in the best of all possible worlds.

  591
  Towards the end of last year a number of studies were put in hand on the different aspects of the research and development programme—for example, communications, electronics, materials research and explosives research, all being subjects which fell within the scope of more than one research and development establishment. The aim of these studies was mainly to establish the facts and the realistic possibilities for reorganisation. When the studies began we informed the staff associations and the trade unions concerned of what we were doing and undertook to consult them before decisions were taken on the proposals.
  The principles on which we attempted to plan the future size and shape of the organisation were fairly obvious and straightforward, but they bear very much on the case which my hon. Friend has made, and it might be useful to the House if I were to list them.
  The first requirement was to produce an organisation which is more flexible than the present one. In the nature of things, research and development requirements vary greatly over the years, and to have a number of small establishments, each highly specialised, does not make for good managerial arrangements. The second principle was that the task should be done as economically as possible. This means, broadly, that we should try to minimise overheads and overlapping between the tasks of establishments. The third need was that wherever possible we should reduce defence land holdings. The fourth principle was that we should seek to devise an organisation which could get on with its job with the minimum of headquarters intervention.
  The task was to reconcile those principles with the hard realities of the situation as revealed in the factual study to which I referred. The problem was to work out means of altering the shape of the organisation as cost-effectively as possible. It would have been easy to start with a clean sheet and work out in a vacuum the best allocation for the various activities, but the fact was that we started with a pattern of resources, both human and material, which could be altered only at considerable cost in terms both of money and of individual problems.
  592
  It would have been tempting to conclude that the disruption and the problems made all change undesirable, and this—I hope that my hon. Friend will not misunderstand me if I say this—is the ultimate logic of the argument that there should be no change in the research establishments of the country. But that was not the conclusion to which we came. We found that certain changes, by bringing together related activities, would lead both to greater efficiency and to worthwhile money savings.
  The proposed move of the Signals Research Development Establishment to Malvern would, we believe, be one such change. That establishments and the Royal Radar Establishment, Malvern, have a great deal of technical background in common, and the total of facilities which they would require together would be less than they would require if kept apart. Their runnings costs would be lower, and their total land requirements would be lower.
  My hon. Friend rightly referred to the important question of employment in the area. I should like to give my own views on this problem because I represent a a seaside area where there is the problem of seasonal unemployment and where the structure of the population from the point of view of age is similar to that which my hon. Friend described. I ask my hon. Friend to remember that we are talking about proposals which, if they are adopted, are not expected to be brought into effect until between three and five years from now. My hon. Friend gave the figure of 300 for mobile individuals. My information is that it is more than 400.
  My hon. Friend referred to the possibility of Messrs. Penny and Giles creating 150 to 250 additional jobs in the Christchurch area, provided they can acquire part of the site of the Signals Research Development Establishment. This raises the whole question of the procedures for disposing of land which is surplus to Ministry requirements. As my hon. Friend rightly said, this is a matter for the Property Services Agency. He described the procedure which it normally followed. These procedures may seem time-consuming and complex but they have been designed to safeguard the public purse and cannot lightly be put aside. I understand that my hon.

  593
  Friend has already discussed his suggestion with the Secretary of State for Defence, who felt able to hold out little hope of arranging a sale on the lines suggested. It would be wrong for me to hold out any more hope, but I understand that Messrs. Penny and Giles is in correspondence with the Property Services Agency.
  It is never a popular or painless process for a Government Department to seek to save money. As has been said before, everyone is in favour of general economies and particular expenditure. No one could expect that the Ministry's plans for the rationalisation of
  594
  research and development establishments, when they are determined, will commend themselves to all those directly or indirectly affected. But I assure the House and my hon. Friend in particular that our decisions will be taken only after a very thorough consideration of the technical position that we have established from our own studies and of the technical effect on individuals and communities, including my hon. Friend's own area, to which he has so ably drawn attention tonight.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Adjourned accordingly at thirteen minutes to Twelve o'clock.

CIVIL SERVICE
  Government Offices (Dispersal)
  Government Offices (Dispersal)
  Transferred Staff (Housing)
  Transferred Staff (Housing)
  Northern Ireland
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  R.A.F. Computer Project (Contract Change)
  Computers
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POSTS AND TELECOMMUNICATIONS
  Radio Reception (Folkestone)
  Radio Reception (Folkestone)
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  Telephone Kiosks (Vandalism)
  Broadcasting (Technical Aspects)
  Broadcasting (Technical Aspects)
  Future of Broadcasting
  Future of Broadcasting
ENVIRONMENT
  National Parks (Land Disposal)
  National Parks (Land Disposal)
  New Town Development Corporations
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  Rent Rebates (Council Tenants)
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  Improvement Grants
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  A46, West Cumberland-Penrith
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  A45
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  Local Government Reorganisation
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  A6, Rushden
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  Car Parking (Price Freeze)
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  Government Buildings (Cleaning)
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  British Railways Finance
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  Building Land
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  Golf Courses (North-West Region)
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  Member's Communication
  Member's Communication
SCOTLAND
  M90 (Road Markings)
  M90 (Road Markings)
  Peterhead Harbour of Refuge (Announcement)
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  Local Elections (Irish Citizens)
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  Farm Amalgamations (South Ayrshire)
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  Population
  Population
  Mr. George Pottinger
  Mr. George Pottinger
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EDUCATION AND SCIENCE
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FOREIGN AND COMMONWEALTH AFFAIRS
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AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES AND FOOD
  Wines (Imports)
  Wines (Imports)
DEFENCE
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EMPLOYMENT
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  Employers' Liability (Compulsory Insurance) Act 1969
HOME DEPARTMENT
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  Butterworth Inquiry
  Butterworth Inquiry
NORTHERN IRELAND
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  Church Lane, Belfast
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SOCIAL SERVICES
  Homeless Persons
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WALES
  House Prices
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  Bilingual Traffic Signs
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Preamble
The House met at half past two of the clock: The CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES on the Woolsack.
Prayers—Read by the Lord Bishop of Rochester.

DISABLED PERSONS: PROVISION OF FACILITIES
BARONESS MASHAM OF ILTON: 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—
(1) How many social service departments of local authorities do not have access for the disabled, especially those in wheel chairs;
(2) How many social service departments which do not have such access were built after the passing of the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act 1970; and
(3) What steps they are taking to enforce Section 4 of the Act.
LORD MOWBRAY AND STOURTON: My Lords, local authorities are not required to make returns about this matter, and so there is no general information available on the first two parts of the Question. With regard to the third part, my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for the Environment intends to continue providing local authorities with information about designing for the disabled, and at the same time to remind them of previous circulars and publications about the provisions of the Act.
BARONESS MASHAM OF ILTON: My Lords, while thanking the Minister for his Answer, may I ask him whether he is aware that the Kendal social service department, which was opened in July of this year, has its offices on the first floor, without a lift, and uses the ground floor for storage space? Further, does not the Minister think that if these Government offices do not provide appro-
1244
priate access they are not meeting their quota by way of the number of disabled people they employ?
LORD MOWBRAY AND STOURTON: My Lords, I was not aware of the case which the noble Baroness has quoted, about Kendal: I will indeed take note of it. I would remind your Lordships that many health authorities in fact have a mobile service which can go out to help people who are disabled, without their having to come into the offices. But as to the other point, I will indeed take note.
BARONESS MASHAM OF ILTON: My Lords, if a firm employs more than 20 people it is supposed to have a quota of disabled people employed; so perhaps the Kendal social services department is not employing any disabled people.
LORD MOWBRAY AND STOURTON: My Lords, I take the noble Baroness s point. But it is rather wide of the original Question, and, frankly, I am not briefed to give the exact answer on it.
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: My Lords, can the noble Lord say whether the architects who work for local government are instructed that when considering their designs they should take into account the needs of the disabled: and, furthermore, in the interests of the aged, that they should not construct more steps than are absolutely necessary?
LORD MOWBRAY AND STOURTON: My Lords, I can assure the noble Baroness, Lady Summerskill, that since the Act was passed no building has been built with regard to which the architects have not taken full account of the requirements of the Act. There are one or two points, of which the noble Baroness is obviously aware, to be borne in mind. For instance, fire requirements sometimes conflict with what would otherwise be desirable for the disabled. But the architects are aware of this, and we in the Department of the Environment are quite happy that from now on, as from the passing of the Act, things are all right in new buildings.
BARONESS LEE OF ASHERIDGE: My Lords, would the Minister agree that, ideally, we should like all offices to be equipped in such a way that the disabled can be looked after with dignity and

1245
comfort? Would he also agree that there is no excuse at all if modern buildings are not equipped with lifts? But since there are some difficulties, as we all know, with ancient types of buildings, will be at least make sure that the standards of courtesy which at the moment apply in the best local authorities apply to all? For instance, as the Minister has said, there is no reason why a service should not be taken to the disabled; or, when the disabled come to an office which is without a lift or other facilities, why there should not be a sympathetic attendant who can go down to street level and deal with them there without discomfort to them.
LORD MOWBRAY AND STOURTON: My Lords, I am very happy to be able to agree with every single statement that the noble Baroness, Lady Lee of Asheridge, has made. I am sure that local authorities will also take note of what she has said.
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, again I doubt very much whether local authorities will read exactly what my noble friend has just said. Will Her Majesty's Government ensure that the spirit which the noble Lord has accepted is passed on to local authorities and that they try to do something about it?
LORD MOWBRAY AND STOURTON: Yes, my Lords; I can assure the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, that that will be done. I can also assure him that new building regulations are to go out shortly. There is a Yellow Paper, as the noble Lord is aware.
LORD INGLEWOOD: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that in this field local authorities are often under some difficulty? They are under instructions from the Government to prepare their budgets allowing only a very small increase for the fall in the value of money, and frequently have new duties such as these imposed on them in the middle of the financial year, which often can be carried out only at the expense of cutting some other service, since no additional funds may be available. Furthermore, without any comment on the merits of this particular building in Kendal, may I ask my noble friend whether he is aware that Kendal is a most enlightened place?
LORD MOWBRAY AND STOURTON: My Lords, I shall say merely that we will take note of what the noble Lord has said. With regard to imposing liabilities on local authorities, I think these matters are not usually of great expense. They are small matters which, if they are reasonable and practical, as laid down in Section 4, can be done.
LORD INGLEWOOD: My Lords, is not my noble friend aware that those who are chairmen of social services committees do not consider that all the additional duties imposed on them by the Government over the last 18 months or more are small matters which can be carried through just by shuffling their funds around, and that social services committees of major local authorities have been in very considerable difficulties?
LORD MOWBRAY AND STOURTON: My Lords, where matters of the disabled are concerned, a very small amount of effort can bring a very large increase of comfort and aid to the disabled.
BARONESS MASHAM OF ILTON: My Lords, at Kendal, the ground floor is used for storage. Why was it not used for the offices of the social service department?
LORD MOWBRAY AND STOUR TON: I My Lords, I do not know the exact answer to that question, but I will take note of what the noble Baroness has said.

FUTURE OF NAMIBIA
2.43 p.m.
LORD BROCKWAY: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what is their attitude towards the report of the Secretary-General of the United Nations on the negotiations between Dr. Escher and Mr. Vorster on the future of Namibia (South West Africa).
THE MARQUESS OF LOTHIAN: My Lords, we hope that the report will prove to be a first step towards a negotiated settlement on the basis of genuine self-determination; and that the Security

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Council, which is at present considering the matter, will agree that contacts should continue between the United Nations Secretary-General and the South African Government.
LORD BROCKWAY: My Lords, while thanking the noble Marquess for that Answer, may I ask whether the Government will reconsider their passive and negative attitude on this issue and plan positive action to secure the integrity of the territory, the right of its people to unity and their right to self determination and eventual independence?
THE MARQUESS OF LOTHIAN: My Lords, as I said in my original reply, we hope that this report, which certainly has some encouraging aspects about it, will lead to genuine self determination, which, of course, is the prerequisite of any further decisions regarding the territory.
LORD CARADON: My Lords, will the noble Marquess tell us whether British policy continues to be based on the principle that the South African Government have forfeited the right to administer the mandate in Namibia?
THE MARQUESS OF LOTHIAN: My Lords, the noble Lord will no doubt remember that the opinion of the International Court, which Her Majesty's Government did not accept, was that the mandate has been forfeited. But I do not think that the noble Lord would disagree with the fact that, whatever he may think or whatever other countries may think, South Africa in practice still has control of the territory. That is why I think that the approach which is going on at the moment has very hopeful and positive aspects. I repeat that I only hope that the United Nations will allow the Secretary-General to continue seeking a solution in this matter.
LORD CARADON: My Lords. I hope that the noble Marquess will not object if I press this Question. It has been stated—I have stated it myself on behalf of this country at the United Nations—that in our opinion the South African Government have forfeited the right to administer the mandate. May I ask whether we have now abandoned that opinion?
THE MARQUESS OF LOTHIAN: My Lords, I do not think I can go any
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further than I did in my answer to the noble Lord's previous supplementary question. I will certainly draw the attention of my right honourable friend to what he has said.
LORD BARNBY: My Lords, reverting to the original Question and Answer, would not my noble friend agree that, because of its ethnological variety, the fact that tribes are entirely different from each other in language, traditions and history, it is much more difficult to find a solution in South West Africa than in any other part of South Africa?
THE MARQUESS OF LOTHIAN: My Lords, as my noble friend is well aware, problems in Africa are always extremely difficult, and this is no exception. I would repeat that Her Majesty's Government hope that a solution will be found to the problem of this particular territory on the basis of self determination for its inhabitants.
LORD CARADON: My Lords, may I further ask whether the principle which has been repeatedly stated in the United Nations on behalf of this country, that there should be an advance to self determination and independence as one undivided territory, is still the policy of Her Majesty's Government?
THE MARQUESS OF LOTHIAN: My Lords, I should require definite notice of that question; but I believe that I can assure the noble Lord that that is the case and that this territory will be treated as a single whole.
LORD CARADON: My Lords, I wish to ask a further question. May we take it that in order to achieve the purposes of self determination and independence which have been stated on behalf of this Government, it is the intention that mounting pressure should be exerted on the South African Government?
THE MARQUESS OF LOTHIAN: My Lords, I think that the United Nations is fully seized of this matter and that we fully support the action they have taken so far.
LORD BROCKWAY: My Lords, reverting to the supplementary question put from the Benches opposite, may I ask whether it is not the case that, despite the ethnic differences in South West

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Africa, the representatives of the tribes have asked for independence on a basis of unity?
THE MARQUESS OF LOTHIAN: My Lords, the noble Lord has the advantage of me in this matter. I will not disagree with what he has said; but I will certainly look into it.

MEDICAL PROFESSION INQUIRY
LORD PLATT: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they will give an assurance that the proposed Committee which is to inquire into the regulation of the medical profession will be in no way restricted in the scope of its inquiries or in the ambit of its recommendations.
THE MINISTER OF STATE, DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND SOCIAL SECURITY (LORD ABERDARE): Yes, my Lords, it will be open to the Committee to consider any matter and make any recommendations within their terms of reference, which have deliberately been drawn very widely.
LORD PLATT: My Lords, while thanking the Minister for his generally satisfactory Answer, may I ask specifically whether the terms of reference (which, although drawn widely, are to inquire into what changes need to be made in the existing provisions) exclude discussion as to whether there might be more than one body and whether, for instance, the function of disciplinary action might be altogether separated from that of registration? As the terms of reference do not touch on the question of finance, may I ask whether they exclude discussion of, for instance, whether there should be an annual retention fee, and what penalty should be imposed if the doctors do not pay?
LORD ABERDARE: My Lords, the terms of reference are very wide and I think the noble Lord can be certain that his points are fully covered. The Committee will be free to make any recommendation that seems to them desirable about the composition of a body to regulate the medical profession or, pre-
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sumably if they wish to do so, to make provision for more than one body. The terms of reference would also enable consideration to be given to the method of financing such a body.
LORD SEGAL: My Lords, would the noble Lord impress on the Committee that some degree of urgency attaches to their deliberations, and would the Government declare that they are well disposed towards any legislation that may be needed to carry the Committee's recommendations into effect?
LORD ABERDARE: My Lords, it is a little early to do that, since the Committee has not yet been appointed. I am sure my right honourable friend will impress upon the Chairman that he and his Committee should proceed with the utmost dispatch.
VISCOUNT ADDISON: My Lords, would the Minister say whether the terms of reference include, for instance, the co-ordination of two bodies into one, or three into two; in other words, to bring the controlling body under one head rather than under a number of heads? Would the terms of reference cover that situation?
LORD ABERDARE: My Lords, the terms of reference are to inquire into the changes needed to be made in the existing provisions for the regulation of the medical profession. I am sure that it is entirely open to the Committee to make any recommendations they may wish.
LORD LEATHERLAND: My Lords, may I ask the Minister whether, if the Inquiry is to take a long time, the Government will use their influence to see that Interim Reports are published? Secondly, and so that we get the matter in proper perspective, may I ask whether the Government are aware that millions of people in this country are very grateful for the services which their doctors provide?
LORD ABERDARE: Yes, my Lords, I am aware of both those points.
LORD BROCK: My Lords, will the Minister agree that the recommendations should not result in a lay majority in the final structure of the G.M.C., but that doctors will be assured that their affairs

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are guided by adequate and proper medical representation?
LORD ABERDARE: Yes, my Lords. Again it will be up to the Committee to make any recommendations they may wish. But it did not seem to Her Majesty's Government that the regulation of the profession would very well be accomplished by a body which was not, in my right honourable friend's phrase, "a predominantly professional body".
LORD DAVIES OF LEEK: My Lords, will the noble Lord tell me whether it would be relevant to this Inquiry to include a compulsory sabbatical period for our overworked general practitioners whose services we all appreciate? Is the noble Lord aware that it would give much comfort and succour to members of an overworked profession if there could be a sabbatical period in which they could keep themselves up to date and also get a rest, while still receiving their remuneration?
LORD ABERDARE: My Lords, I will certainly take note of what the noble Lord has asked me. I should not think that came within the terms of reference.
LORD BLYTON: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that many of the young doctors I have talked to who refused to pay the fee are up against an autocratic body in the G.M.C.? Will the Report of this Committee guarantee to give to these people, who have been on strike against paying the fee, some sort of technological change in this whole body?
LORD ABERDARE: My Lords, I very much hope that the establishment of this Inquiry will put at rest some of the fears which have been expressed by the junior doctors. This is the object of the Inquiry, and I hope that it will be successful in that regard.

LEAD HAZARD TO HEALTH
2.54 p.m.
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: 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 how often the premises of the lead merchants H. J. Enthoven have been inspected in the past year, and whether examinations were made of the dust, and investigations for lead poisoning undertaken.
THE EARL OF GOWRIE: My Lords, since the beginning of November, 1971, the premises of H. J. Enthoven and Sons Limited have been visited by Her Majesty's Inspectors of Factories on 12 occasions. On one of these occasions, in July of this year, the Industrial Hygiene Unit of the Factory Inspectorate made lead-in-air estimations and analysed samples of dust deposits inside the buildings. The works medical officer keeps the Factory Inspectorate informed of the results of the blood lead analysis. Recently the Medical Services Division of the Department of Employment carried out an examination of 52 workers.
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: My Lords, will the noble Earl answer me two questions? Is it not a fact that this factory has been there for many years? Therefore, why did the inspections start only last year? If these inspections have been made over the year why was it that the very high lead content of the dust was found only recently and considered so dangerous that the children in the vicinity have had to be removed to other parts of the country?
THE EARL OF GOWRIE: My Lords, it is not true to say that the inspections started only in November of last year. Inspections are a matter of form. In reply to the second of the noble Baroness's questions, the Inspectorate was concerned with looking into the safety and health level of workers inside the factory, but co-ordinating inquiries have been put in train in regard to pollution outside the factory.
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: My Lords, did not the noble Earl read the report of the Royal Society on the Birmingham survey in which they announced last week that in individual cases of dust there was as much as 3 per cent. of lead and that this was a hazard to children's health, and particularly that there was a risk of brain damage? What

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does he intend to do about that report in respect of the rest of the country?
THE EARL OF GOWRIE: My Lords, I am aware of an article, I believe from American sources, about the possibility of behavioural change as a result of lead poisoning. But I should like the noble Baroness and the House to be aware that it is not the opinion of the Government. It is our medical advice that the raised level of lead in the blood, which is under discussion, is not medically regarded as poisonous.
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: My Lords, if it is not poisonous, can the noble Earl say why the children and the families near this factory have been moved to other parts of the country?
THE EARL OF GOWRIE: My Lords, I would point out that the firm concerned, which is the subject of the noble Baroness's Question, has voluntarily closed its Riverside works until filters have been fitted between the main extractor system and the stack. I am sure that the noble Baroness will welcome this.
LORD DAVIES OF LEEK: My Lords, is the noble Earl aware that some of us would not like his statement (if my interpretation of it is accurate) that lead is not poisonous to go from this House? Those of us who live in an area where lead was used for dipping wares in the pottery industry know that an Act has been in operation for years to prevent poisoning from lead, and that a glass of milk was given to each of the potters every day. Did the Minister say that lead was not injurious?
THE EARL OF GOWRIE: No, my Lords.
LORD DAVIES OF LEEK: Good!
THE EARL OF GOWRIE: I was trying to make a distinction between our natural concern as to raised levels of lead in the blood and lead poisoning.
LORD DAVIES OF LEEK: My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Earl for that explanation, otherwise I may have misinterpreted him in a public meeting or in discourse.
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, while the noble Earl is trying to answer these very difficult questions, could he
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perhaps answer the question put by my noble friend Lady Summerskill, about why, if the present levels of lead dust and lead consumption, are not regarded as being seriously damaging, children have been removed from the neighbourhood? I find there a certain inconsistency.
THE EARL OF GOWRIE: My Lords, if I had said that, I appreciate that an inconsistency could be interpreted by the noble Lord. I was trying to make a distinction between our natural and serious concern as to raised levels of lead in the blood and the pathological condition known as lead poisoning.
LORD PARGITER: My Lords, having regard to the fact that inspections started before last year, can the noble Lord say how many inspections of this factory have taken place in the last ten years?
THE EARL OF GOWRIE: My Lords, that is another question, and if the noble Lord cares to put it down I will answer it.
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: My Lords, may I ask another short supplementary question? Is the noble Earl aware that I was not speaking of American sources; I was speaking of our own Royal Society meeting in London last week. I was quoting from a British source.
THE EARL OF GOWRIE: My Lords, I said in my earlier answers that we were concerned about this matter. We do not know how valid any particular conclusion is or any particular research, but we will examine these results and we are watching developments most closely.
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: That is a little better.
LORD WYNNE-JONES: My Lords, is the noble Earl aware that there is growing concern in scientific circles about the danger of poisoning from a number of heavy metals, including lead? Is his Department going to take action as a matter of urgency to see that the levels of pollution are kept down?
THE EARL OF GOWRIE: My Lords, I think the noble Lord will be aware that the Department of Employment, and indeed all Departments of the Government, are actively looking at the recommendations of the Robens Committee on Safety and Health at Work at this time.

COMMONWEALTH IMMIGRANTS
EARL ST. ALDWYN: My Lords, it might be for the convenience of the House if I were to inform your Lordships that the noble Lord, Lord Clifford of Chudleigh, has indicated to me that he does not intend to move the Motion standing in his name on the Order Paper.

BADGERS BILL [H.L.]
THE EARL OF ARRAN: My Lords, I beg leave to introduce a Bill to prohibit the taking, injuring or killing of badgers. I beg to move that this Bill be now read a first time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 1a.—(The Earl of Arran.)
On Question, Bill read 1a, and to be printed.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
EARL ST. ALDWYN: My Lords, on behalf of my noble friend the Leader of the House, I beg to move the first Motion standing in his name on the Order Paper.
Moved, That Standing Order No. 44 (No two stages of a Bill to be taken on one day) be dispensed with To-morrow for the purpose of taking the Counter-Inflation (Temporary Provisions) Bill through its remaining stages on that day.—(Earl of St. Aldwyn.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
EARL ST. ALDWYN: My Lords, on behalf of my noble friend the Leader of the House I beg to move the second Motion standing in his name on the Order Paper.
Moved, That Standing Order No. 38 (Arrangement of the Order Paper) be dispensed with on Tuesday, December 5, for the purpose of giving the Lord Windlesham's Motion on "The Future of Northern Ireland" precedence over Public Bills and Orders on that day.—(Earl St. Aldwyn.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

PORNOGRAPHY: THE LONGFORD REPORT
3.1 p.m.
THE LORD BISHOP OF LEICESTER rose to draw attention to the Longford Report on Pornography; and to move for Papers. The right reverend Prelate said: My Lords, at first sight this Motion may seem to be a rather unnecessary procedure, for the existence of the report can hardly have escaped the attention of many of your Lordships. Whatever complaints we who belonged to the Committee may have about its reception, we make no complaint about the amount of attention and space that has been accorded to it. The media have in fact ail the time lived in a kind of love-hate relationship with the Committee. They loved it because it was spicy; but they hated it because they thought they might attract some tinge of pharisaism or prudery if they were too kind to it. But whatever the views of critics and others on the report, and on the proposals made, there has been widespread admiration and respect for the noble Earl, Lord Longford, for the courage and perseverance with which he has given himself to this problem. I personally should like to place on record the enormous privilege that I feel it to have been to have worked closely with him during these last 18 months, and to say that, whatever others may think, I admire and respect both the courage and the discretion with which he conducted the controversial tour to Denmark.
Our report of course has its limitations. There were the inevitable limitations of the private nature of the inquiry. We admit that the members chosen were those who regarded pornography as a problem meriting attention. There was, however, considerable variety in the outlook and background of the members of the Committee. We were by no means a homogeneous group in politics, age, religious belief or the lack of it. If it is any comfort to any Members of your Lordships' House, we had at least two atheists on the Committee. So there was that degree of variety in our outlook.
I feel it is right and proper that your Lordships' House should devote a few hours to considering this matter. Your Lordships will have noticed that there is a considerable list of speakers. The

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Times' diarist was just a little previous when he rather gleefully reported that there were only two names down for this debate. He would have been wise to wait a little longer before he gave his opinion about the degree of interest that was being shown in it. Of course I fully understand that many of your Lordships approach this debate with a considerable degree of hesitation and distaste, but I have felt it right to disregard either the warnings or the blandishments that have been brought to bear upon me with a view to the withdrawal of this Motion. I believe that our House will rise to its reputation, as it invariably does, and show that it can deal with the most troublesome and delicate matters with dignity and mutual respect.
The Press reception of the report was not unsympathetic. It received virtually unstinted praise from the Daily Mail, the Daily Express and the Daily Mirror. It was only when you reached the quality papers that you began to get the harsh criticism, although The Times and the Daily Telegraph were not really unsympathetic. The one really scoffing review which I read was in The Times Literary Supplement, and we have to consider what this implies as to the relation between the literary establishment in this country and those standards of decency and dignity which I believe most of us would wish to uphold. A penetrating review came from Mr. C. H. Rolf in Smith's Trade News. He is a distinguished contributor to the New Statesman, formerly secretary to the A. P. Herbert Committee on Obscene Publications, and a member of the Arts Council's Working Party on censorship laws. He said:
"The Longford study group has done a splendid job. The Home Office should have done it."—
though he pointed out that if they had done it we should have been landed with a blue book instead of a red one. He said:
"The report is socially valuable, coolheaded, deadpan where it could have been sensational, funny where it could have been silly."
He refers to the big vested interests which were at risk, and stated that of course
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this would explain a good deal of criticism.
"Poor old John Milton",
he said,
"will be brought on once again to read his Areopagitica in defence of human behaviour that would make wild animals walk away in embarrassment, but Lord Longford and his reasonably merry men will be happier if their labours produce some workable improvement in the Obscene Publications Act of 1959…"
We tried to face the question—we had to—whether pornography did harm, and we were well aware of the Report of the Commission in the United States which somehow brought itself to the majority view that it did not do harm. Of course this view was rejected by the Senate and the President. I made it my business to read the evidence as summarised in the book by Mr. Alan Burns. All I can say is that if I were to read passages from that book to your Lordships I should not be surprised if they produced physical nausea. We received sufficient evidence to convince us that pornography certainly can do harm. On page 105 of the report there is a statement by a pathologist—notice that, my Lords; it is not by some sentimental parson, but by a pathologist—who had had to deal with the sad case of a successful schoolboy found hanging with a copy of a popular paper open in front of him. He gave as his opinion that in practically every case of this kind which it was his unfortunate duty to investigate there is pornographic literature lying about.
But we in the Committee do not base our case on "nicely calculated less or more" where harm is concerned. We believe that pornography itself is evil, and that it represents a wrong turning in men's quest for happiness, love and a rich experience in human relationships. In the last resort, we are talking about a value judgment. It is not something which can be statistically proved, one way or the other, but we have to make up our minds what sort of society we want, what sort of a country we want our children and young people to grow up in. We have all seen advertisements for a play in London entitled "The Dirtiest Show in Town". I know nothing about it—it might be the cleanest show when you come to see it—but all I do know is that the mere suggestion planted in thousands of minds that "the dirtier the better" is something that may do

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lasting harm to many minds and hearts. I have permission to quote a few phrases from a letter sent by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt. I do not think anybody will accuse him of being a particularly namby-pamby type. He wrote to me in connection with this debate and said:
"I do not believe it is possible for most people to absorb the spate of pornography being forced upon their attention through commercial channels at this time without a general lowering of human behaviour, a blurring of the distinction between right and wrong and damage to human relationships."
I must now summarise the main proposals which the Committee wish to lay before the public. They offer a definition of pornography, though this is not a definition which would have any legal force. Our definition was:
"that which exploits and de-humanises sex, so that human beings are treated as things, and women in particular as sex objects."
Our proposals are not proposals for the extension of censorship. The only proposals which involve censorship at all concern the cinema, where there is already the Board of Film Censors and where certain proposals are made, as we think, for the improvement of the construction of the film censorship Board. In the main, we are proposing one new simple law, which will state and describe plainly those things which cannot be produced with impunity but which will involve punishment by society. Many critics have been kind and generous to our intentions and our general viewpoint, but critical or scornful of the legal proposals. I should like to remind the House that no one should dismiss too lightly the legal proposals coming from a Committee which included in its membership the noble Lord, Lord Shawcross, the Lord Justice Edmund Davies, Professor Norman Anderson, of the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, University of London, the noble Lord, Lord Fletcher, and several other highly qualified members. The draft Bill was drafted by one who is known to be among the most eminent of recent Parliamentary draftsmen.
Prima facie, it is not likely that such a Committee would have produced nonsense; but even if someone did think that likely or possible, we have received the most massive support in the recent statements made by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, and two other
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Judges in a recent case. I shall say nothing regarding the substance of that judgment, because there is some possibility that it may once more be sub judice, but the fact that three eminent lawyers gave as their fixed opinion that the Obscene Publications Act was in need of urgent revision is something that surely this House should take note of as it addresses itself to the legal questions arising from the Longford Committee. I will not go further into this point in case I should get caught on some problem in connection with sub judice matters, but I am quite certain that many of you, knowing nothing of that problem, read the judgments in The Times, and I can allow them to carry their own weight and force.
I wish to appeal to your Lordships and, through your Lordships, to the public at large to give the legal proposals of the Committee a fair crack of the whip—if that is not an unfortunate metaphor in this connection. I have noticed that the right honourable gentleman the Home Secretary, for whom we all have great respect as a man of good sense and liberal instincts, has said that he is concerned about the public display of indecent material, but he has stated more than once that he sees little value in the reform of the obscenity law and particularly in a new definition for obscenity. We wish to take on the difficult task of persuading him to change his mind. We wish to urge upon this House and upon the nation the value of a redefinition. It is strange that those who are so violently opposed to Victorian taboos should rest so smugly and complacently on the Victorian definition of obscenity, which dates from 1868 and condemns only those things which, taken as a whole, tend to deprave and corrupt those likely to read or see them.
The study group was firmly convinced that this definition regarding a tendency to deprave and corrupt is one which invites long drawn-out arguments to which clear conclusions are unlikely to be found. So we offer a new definition, which is to be found on page 383 of the Report. We say there that—
"an article or a performance of a play is obscene if its effect, taken as a whole, is to outrage contemporary standards of decency or humanity accepted by the public at large."
It has been said that this makes no allowance for changing standards; but of

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course it does. The articles to be condemned are those which outrage contemporary standards of decency accepted by the public at large, and those who are campaigning against this clause are campaigning for freedom to publish material which does outrage contemporary standards of decency and humanity. That is quite an undertaking.
It has been said that the new definition is too subjective. Who is going to judge, people ask, whether material does so outrage contemporary standards? In most cases, of course, it will mean the jury. But is that any more subjective than trying to prove that material depraves or corrupts? In both cases, it is necessary for those who are judging to have some picture in their minds about what life ought to be like, about what sort of a world they want—and that is just as applicable to the old definition of "corrupting and depraving" as it is to the new one about "outraging contemporary standards". Of course attention has to be paid to changing standards, but must changing standards always mean declining standards? Mr. Alfred Garnet is very much addicted to a certain adjective. It is one, of course, that I have frequently heard—I have not lived to my age without becoming thoroughly familiar with it, and I am no longer deeply shocked or surprised when I hear it. But I notice that if such a word is used sixty or seventy times in a short programme it loses all its effect either to amuse or shock, and the only deduction that dramatists must come to is that if they want to shock and surprise it is no good using that word; they have to think of something worse. So this continual decline in standards goes on unless the better minds in the community do something to arrest and change it.
Judging from the letters that I have received in connection with this debate I am not sure whether standards are not already changing in the opposite direction. I have been particularly impressed by the number of expressions of interest and support that I have had from intelligent young people. I believe it is a mistake to think that all the best and liberally minded people in the nation want to see a continual decline to the gutter in every aspect of our cultural and social life. We all know that the B.B.C.
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has its moments when it is so anxious to prove that it is not an old-fashioned, puritanical maiden aunt; that it prefers to appear in the guise of a wicked old woman, now 50 years of age and past enjoying sin for herself, but taking a wicked delight in persuading others to enter on that course.
Then we have taken our boldest plunge and suggested the withdrawal of the defence of the public good. This is the defence which can be raised about material admitted to be obscene but held by some still to be in the public interest. We have seen a very vivid example of this in the case of Regina v. Gold which was reported at some length in the New Statesman. The point is made that so long as there is in the material some passing on of knowledge which may perhaps remove feelings of guilt from those who otherwise would have felt guilty in indulging in certain practices, there is a contribution to learning and the public good; and some very extraordinary decisions seem to me to be made as the result of that defence.
Speaking for a moment about that case, I do not know whether your Lordships noticed that at the beginning of it the judge passed on a request to the jury that if there were any there who were members of any organisation which strongly objected to the publication of sexual material of this sort they should withdraw from the jury, and one did so. I cannot stop to explain what he said, but your Lordships would be rather disturbed if you saw the statement that he made which apparently disqualified him in our modern world from being a member of a jury in a case like that. No statement was made that if there were any members of the jury who believed in pornography and liked it they should withdraw. I do not know quite where this is going to lead to. We shall soon come to the point where anybody in a jury who believes in the Ten Commandments will be asked to withdraw from any trial concerning theft or murder.
We state that indecent material should not be displayed or offered for sale in any public place, and we hope that this will do something to protect young people, including our children in school, from certain kinds of so-called sex education. We have suggested consider-

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able increases in the fines which can be levied on offenders. I am sure that your Lordships will all agree that pornographers ought to bear their share in the rise of the cost of living.
We have introduced a new proposed clause; namely, a clause making it an offence to engage or induce other persons to take part as actors in any obscene or indecent performance to be shown to the public, or as models for similar shows or photographs. We believe this to be a necessary protection for the immature or the economically weak. We believe that this clause, if accepted, would do more than anything else to put some kind of a brake, at least, on the production of this material in our own country. We suggest that all these conditions should apply across the board to books, magazines, cinemas (with certain reservations), to the B.B.C. and the I.T.V. We see no reason for exempting broadcasting from the demands of the law—in fact, quite the reverse, for here is something which invades almost every home in the land. We are totally unconvinced by the argument that it is always possible to turn off what is not desired. We know from experience that this is often impossible and impracticable.
On the whole, we stress the point that the only way we can really protect the young is by improving the standards of adult entertainment. It is fictitious to say to our young people, "You are not old enough for this", or to advertise a film as I saw recently advertised in the Charing Cross Road as an "Adult film for adult audiences". What could you do more to encourage young people to want to see that film, either then or as soon as possible? We believe that it is fictitious to use this word "adult" as an excuse for indecency. There is no better way of encouraging young people to want pornography than to let them think that this is what grown-ups most enjoy. It is true that the whole of this effort with which we have been engaged in the pornography Committee is in itself a negative occupation. We regard ourselves merely as trying to get rid of bad smells and poisons in the life of our community. We know perfectly well that the real task for a healthy community is to open the way for happy, healthy and wholesome development of personality and personal
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relationships. It is because we believe that sex and the life of love has so much more to offer than pornography that we want to see pornography strictly controlled.
My Lords, I close with some words from Miss Elizabeth Manners, the author of the powerful book, The Vulnerable Generation:
"Let us bring our children into the presence of greatness instead of holding up to them as an example all that is lowest and most degraded in our society; let us show them beauty not only in the physical world but in human relationships, rather than expose them to the ugliness of life.…If all we can do is to show them a world where violence, lust, hatred and confusion reign, how are they going to face the challenge of the future?"
My Lords, I beg to move for Papers.
3.29 p.m.
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, I am bound to say to the right relevant Prelate—
SEVERAL NOBLE LORDS: Reverend!
LORD SHACKLETON: Reverend. I will dispute the right reverend Prelate's relevance a little later on; but I am one of those who did not welcome this debate. I only speak because I regard it as my duty, and I do so without much pleasure; I certainly do not speak on behalf of my Party, but I feel bound to express views which I hope will be regarded as moderate and acceptable, but which none the less lead me to a different conclusion from that of the right reverend Prelate. May I say that one reason why I was anxious not to speak was my affection for my noble friend Lord Longford. Although the report has been received with praise in some quarters, my own impression is that it has been received with a great deal less than praise in others; and some of the things which have been said about Lord Longford personally I believe to be both unkind and totally unjustified. The fact that he may have brought some of them on himself is something that my noble friend would, I am sure, be the first to accept.
I want to make it clear that those, like myself, who are bothered and indeed confused, with less of the certainty which perhaps came from the right reverend Prelate; that those who oppose the sort of proposals and disagree with some of the arguments in the Longford Report,

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do not feel so out of any love for pornography. While I shall seek to avoid getting caught up in semantics, I must deal in the realm of ethics and indeed of social ethics. I am sure that the right reverend Prelate, and indeed the whole of the Bishops' Bench, would be among the first to agree that ethics are the concern of every citizen and that laymen have to express their views.
I have read the Longford Report, which is more than most people, I think, in your Lordships' House have done. Some of my noble friends were put off by the cover; and the fact, it has been selling well in the Charing Cross Road I make only as a passing point and in no way as any reflection on Lord Longford. What I should like to say is that, having read the report, I find the contents a great deal less illiberal than many of the reviewers have expressed; and I agree with the right reverend Prelate that there is a great deal of genuine heart-searching; the issues are brought out and discussed, and for the most part discussed with moderation. None the less, I find some of the arguments, and therefore the conclusions, unsatisfactory, as I confess I have found the arguments from the right reverend Prelate. He, for example, said that the Presidential Commission on Obscenity and Pornography somehow brought themselves to sign the document. I happen to believe that when people are put on a Royal Commission, or an American Commission appointed by the President, the appointing body seeks to find responsible citizens, people with knowledge, and well adjusted. I must say that I am not an export—I mean an expert—on pornography (nor yet, I hope, an export), and have seen practically no hard pornography—although my noble friend Lady Phillips offered to chaperon me on a journey down the Charing Cross Road. But it is important in this debate that we should at least see what measure of agreement there is between us.
I am perfectly prepared to accept that pornography is disgusting and an offence and that it is wrong that the public should have it forced upon them. Nor do I wish (I have some qualifications that I will come to) the young to be exposed to this. I feel that this is very much a matter for the families. But, in any case, it would be intolerable if the young were at a very immature age to have to see some of what
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I believe is pretty unpleasant stuff. But I am bound to say that it has yet to be proved that exposure to pornography is a major social evil as compared with the many other social evils with which we live every day. The right reverend Prelate said that sex and healthy love is more important than pornography. I could not agree more, but I would not, frankly, have put them in the same sentence. I do not regard pornography as something other than an unpleasant, almost eccentricity.
I accept a great deal of the arguments in the report, but I will go on to say why I want us to look at this whole problem very coolly and that our instinctive distaste should not blind our judgment when we come to consider remedies. One of our difficulties in discussing this question is that pornography, like many other things, but particularly, seems to arouse an almost psychopathic hatred among some people. It was not in evidence at all in the speech of the right reverend Prelate, and that is why I beg that we do look at this coolly when we are going to consider remedies. There is to my mind an overwhelming weight of serious sociological, and indeed psychiatric and medical evidence that pornography and obscenity in the media of communication and entertainment have no harmful effects on adults. Noble Lords may not agree with me on this, but I can only say that experts who have considered this have honestly come to this conclusion.
I may say that the American Commission went to on recommend the repeal of legislation that made its sale illegal while retaining legislation to prohibit its sale to children and young people. Somewhat similar conclusions and recommendations in regard to books were made by the Working Party of the Arts Council. In each case—and here I quote from the introduction by John Trevelyan to the Obscenity Report, which is another document that noble Lords ought perhaps to look at because it includes the American Report—
"responsible people weighed the available evidence and reached the conclusion that we were unnecessarily worried about the sale of obscenity and pornography to adults who want to buy it".
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: My Lords, may I break in? The noble Lord of course is no doubt going to refer to

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the views of the Minority Commission in America which reached precisely the opposite conclusion.
LORD SHACKLETON: I am perfectly prepared to, my Lords, although I was anxious to avoid it because Mr. Keating's Report was, I feel, one of the most prejudicial and unscientific documents that I have seen anyway. I believe the Commissioner was brought in when President Nixon found that the Report was not to his liking, in an attempt to redress the balance. None the less, the noble Earl will be able to refer to it. But this was the Commission as originally appointed and the majority came to this conclusion.
I am not seeking at this moment to prove the case. I am merely trying to say that there is another point of view and it is one that we should not lightly dispense with or throw away because of the strength of feeling that I believe we all in your Lordships' House have with regard to the offensive and unpleasant nature of pornography. It is very much easier for those of us in public life to take the easy path in this sort of matter. That is why I say I do not particularly enjoy making this speech, and I am doing so because I believe it is in fact my duty to put these arguments. Again I stress that these are personal conclusions, the personal views of someone who admits to being somewhat confused on the issue; but none the less I am concerned about the legal consequences of the legislation which has been proposed in the Longford Report.
I am prepared to accept, if distinguished lawyers tell me, that the 1959 Act, based on the Hicklin legal definiiton of obscenity, may now be unsatisfactory and may present the judges and police with difficulties. But the question before us is not whether we should move towards more restrictive legislation, with all the dangers that are involved, or whether in fact we ought to advance in another direction. Let me say that I am not myself now advocating the course that has been followed in Denmark. I admit that the noble Earl, Lord Longford, and the right reverend Prelate are more expert on this—and I mean that in no disrespectful sense of the word—but I am bound to say that the Danish legislation (and it may be that others can contro-
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vert what I have to say) is quite specific in protecting the young and protecting the public from unpleasant display. At this point I think we would all agree that whatever else may emerge we would wish to achieve this. Incidentally, it has been pointed out by the Criminal Law Committee in Denmark that no one has ever succeeded in providing a general definition of "pornography" as a basis for interpreting the law. Therefore, the suggestion put forward by the right reverend Prelate has the attraction in that it provides such an interpretation.
The fact is, and I have it authoritatively, that to-day there are none of the clubs showing the sort of shows to which the noble Earl objected and which existed a year or two ago. They have been closed by police action. There is even a movement to remove from the more fashionable streets the sort of pornographic displays which I understand have existed and which we find objectionable. The text of Section 234 of the Act says that any person who sells obscene pictures or objects to a person under sixteen years of age shall be liable to a fine. There is provision also about sending this sort of stuff through the mails when it has not been asked for. Therefore I think we should consider carefully before we adopt anything like the legislation which has been proposed.
Here I think we need to take a quick look at the ethical and the social basis of what is proposed, and I would commend to noble Lords who have not read it a brilliant lecture given by Dr. Jonathan Miller to the British Academy, and if any one, because of the name of Jonathan Miller, conjures up different types of entertainment, I am bound to say that the noble Lord, Lord Robbins, delivered a similar address, although not on the same subject, under the Thank Offering to Britain Fund lectures, and I am sure the noble Lord, Lord Robbins, would confirm that this was a very respectable audience and a very respectable occasion.
I have not time to deal with the whole of the very interesting argument but I urge noble Lords to read it. The point that Dr. Miller brings out is that there are three arguments that can be used against pornography. One is the moral one. I accept that this is important and that there is a strong Christian basis to it,

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but I shall also, if I may, go on to question whether it is correct to proceed to enforce morality by the sort of law that is before us. One is prudential; that is to say, it is socially harmful, and I still believe that that is unproven. We may all instinctively say, "This is the sort of thing which people would say there ought to be a law against", but the question we still have to ask is how much social harm pornography does when we come to consider the sort of legal remedies and their consequences which must follow. While I concede the third of his conclusions—and I have already stated this—that pornography is offensive and we are entitled as the public to be protected from it, I do not think either the moral arguments or the social arguments justify the sort of restrictive legislation with which we have been all too familiar in other countries. I will come in a moment to the question of whether it is censorship.
In a report on the question of the damage that is done, and the social argument, the Danish Forensic Medicine Council, in I think about 1966, stated after thorough analysis that they were unable to find anything to suggest that the reading of pornographic or erotic literature has been a contributory factor in the committing of crimes. This is arguable. I do not believe it is proven either way, but there have been some recent studies and we must at least note them. We may wish to reject them, but the study by Mr. Kutchinsky quite recently has suggested most strongly that there is a definite decline in exhibitionism and indecency towards girls and that this, at least in time, is correlative with the new law by which pornography is more freely available to adults than it had been. This is a provisional report; the Danish Government are considering it further. But it leads me on to the question as to whether we ought now to indulge in the sort of legislation which the right reverend Prelate and the noble Earl suggest.
I think I am right in saying that in the Longford Report there was some reference—and certainly I have seen it elsewhere—to the link between the sadism of Nazi Germany and, in particular, the paper der Stümer. I still have, I regret to say, a copy of that terrible issue which had the words "Toten Schade tür Juden"—"Death Penalty for Jews". It was a horrible paper, and those who
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argue that Christian sexual morality requires the courses advocated in the Longford Report must remember that ultimately it may lead to censorship, because it is a very difficult and dangerous area in which to draw the line, and that it is essentially the totalitarian societies, whether Fascist, Nazi or Communist, that have been the most puritan in their approach to sexual issues.
If we are to bring the force of law to bear against pornography who will be benefited thereby? I have already agreed—and I hope we shall be able to find a law to provide it, although I think it will be difficult—that public display of an offensive kind should be limited. We insist that young people should be protected; but I am again bound to say—and it may be embarrassing to say it—that there is even evidence that pornography may be beneficial to those unfortunate people outside the influence of the Church, or even within it, who are sexually frustrated or deviated, and it may even provide a safety valve for people who might otherwise harm others. Some noble Lord will find this a shocking statement, but we may as well face the social consequences of the course we might take.
I say to the right reverend Prelate that although there are determinist arguments in regard to the development of children—it is suggested that their sexual capability and nature are determined while they are quite young—I also regard it as a basic part of the Christian creed to believe that human beings are given free will and the freedom of choice. I note that the Bishop of Stepney, in his evidence in the Report, actually suggests that whatever is done, it should not be done by means of restrictive measures. The answer to pornography, he says, is not a restrictive answer; and it is interesting to find in another part of the Report—in my view a very good part of it—that the conclusions are not dissimilar to those I have expressed. The moral issue is recognised as a difficult one and there is an expression of hope that suitable law will be found.
I believe we have to accept that the principle of freedom of choice that I have mentioned should apply to those who reach the age of maturity. In any case, I find it difficult to see an alterna-

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tive. Personally, I should have thought—there may be evidence to the contrary—that hard "porn" is, if anything, inhibiting, and it may be suggested that it is desensitising to the real subject of sex and love. I also find much that appears in the popular Press, and indeed on television, offensive; and I have said so in your Lordships' House. I am all for the raising of standards, but I do not believe that we shall achieve this by stricter law which, whatever the right reverend Prelate may say, will in my view have the effect of censorship; it has been all too effective in the past.
There are other noble Lords—for example, the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, and my noble friend Lord Stow Hill—who are more competent than I am to discuss the actual proposals, but do we really want to go back to the sort of debate we had 12 years ago and consider whether Lady Chatterley's Lover should be banned? Indeed, at the time of that debate some people wanted to ban the whole of D. H. Lawrence. Where does one draw the line? This is what concerns me.
I was bothered by some of the remarks of members of the Committee when they appeared on radio and made statements about the importance of being inhibited about sex. I do not believe that this is the right approach. Nor do I believe that the right reverend Prelate would accept it, though surely we can be rational and think in terms of love. Pornography may be an evil, but it is an evil that should not call for a disproportionate amount of our time when there are so many other evils which are, I believe, greater. How far is it an escape from a society which many people regard as unjust, hard and self-regarding with poverty, cruelty and violence? There is much scope here for moral improvement, but it is not the sort of improvement that can be achieved by law. I quote again from Jonathan Miller:
"Our current concern with obscenity and pornography merely delays constructive social action."
I do not wish to deliver a sermon. I would rather we concentrated on the real ills of society and did not allow ourselves to be distracted into what could be a dangerous digression by a further
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extension of the law into areas where individual freedom must be allowed to find its path—I hope to good rather than to evil.
3.55 p.m.
LORD BEAUMONT OF WHITLEY: My Lords, I am delighted to follow what was in my view the courageous and exceptionally wise speech of the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, with virtually every word of which I agreed. That is one of the reasons why I shall be addressing your Lordships for possibly a record short time for a Front Bench speaker. One other reason is that I and the great majority of my colleagues on these Benches were mystified as to the reason for this debate and felt, with the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, that possibly it was unnecessary. We had a debate on the subject of pornography not very long ago and it is the impression of many of us that the Longford Report adds nothing of substance to the real arguments at issue. We are indeed grateful to the noble Earl, Lord Longford—and I have read his report—for the last few pages. Appendix 5, compiled by Maurice Yaffé", is an admirable summary, in my view, nowhere before assembled in such an encapsulated form, of what the evidence on this subject really is, and we are even more indebted to the noble Earl, Lord Longford, in that on balance it does not do his case very much good.
What I have said so far I think carries with it the agreement of the great majority of my colleagues on these Benches. What I now wish to say is entirely personal. It has always seemed to me that the burden of proof in a free society rests on those who would restrict people's freedoms or maintain restrictions on those freedoms, and that the burden of proof is not on those who would establish the freedoms. We must, therefore, be persuaded by argument and proof that pornography in fact does serious harm to individuals and society. The noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, has already spoken about the evidence and I will not repeat his remarks, except to put one slight gloss of them. The fact that there is very little evidence to show the harm that pornography does is often written off—indeed, it is twice written off in the Longford Report—as being the result of the opinion that this is a question to which it is impossible to apply

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standards of proof. I do not think that that is necessarily so. I suggest that one of the reasons for the lack of evidence that pornography does harm is perhaps that pornography does not do harm. We may dislike it and be disgusted by a lot of it, but there is little evidence to show that it does harm except in a small minority of cases, of which several are quoted in the report and one of which was mentioned by the right reverend Prelate. I submit that the small minority of cases has the same ratio to normally sexual man as the number of cases of religious maniacs has to normally religious people.
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: My Lords, perhaps the noble Lord will permit me to ask a question, the answer to which may help his case; or alternatively it may not. Does he know of a comparable area where the kind of evidence for which he is looking exists, or is this a special test to be applied in this case? Is this evidence, call it scientific evidence, available in any other field?
LORD BEAUMONT OF WHITLEY: My Lords, while the noble Earl, Lord Longford, was asking that question I heard the word "drugs" murmured. I do not think I quite appreciated the noble Earl's point. I say that one must have evidence to introduce restrictions. We have evidence in cases of crime and we have evidence about what happens to human beings through an unlimited supply of hard drugs. I suggest that we are entitled to seek for evidence if we are going to ban pornography, and I suggest that it is not there. Without that evidence we are left in a position where, with the greatest respect and without any vanity on my part, my opinion is as good as the noble Earl's, no better no worse; or, more important possibly, the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton's opinion is as good as the opinion of the noble Earl, Lord Longford or the opinion of the right reverend Prelate. I suggest that this is a very unsound basis for any legislation. I would go on to say that it is almost imposible to draft any legislation which will not include a class of publication which many of your Lordships would regard as pornographic, such as the magazine Forum, but which I am
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personally convinced on the whole does good.
I entirely agree with, I imagine, almost everyone in your Lordships' House in saying that I, too, will support legislation which will stop pornography or any offensive material of any kind being forced, unsought, on people who do not want it. I will certainly join in support of that at any time, but if I am to be asked at any time to support legislation which will tell me or my children, or other people and their children, what they may or may not read, a much better case must be made for it than has ever been made yet.
4.1 p.m.
BARONESS YOUNG: My Lords, may I begin by congratulating the right reverend Prelate, the Bishop of Leicester, for giving us the opportunity to discuss the report of the noble Earl, Lord Longford, on pornography, and for the very stimulating way that he has dealt with it. This was an entirely private initiative by the noble Earl, Lord Longford, and he deserves the highest praise for tackling this exceptionally difficult subject and in providing a report in less than eighteen months. We are all in his debt for making available an up-to-date commentary on one of the less attractive features of our times but one on which many members of the public have expressed concern.
My Lords, the report covers a wide range of subjects; not only the problem of pornographic publications, which is the concern of my right honourable friend the Home Secretary, but also those of sex education and broadcasting which are the concern of my right honourable friends the Secretary of State for Education and Science and the Minister of Posts and Telecommunications. If I were to attempt to deal comprehensively with all these aspects I am afraid I should speak for far too long. What I propose to do is to give a general indication of the Government's attitude to the report as a whole and then deal specifically with those parts of it dealing with sex education and broadcasting, leaving my noble friend Lord Colville, who will be winding up, to deal with those aspects of the report which are of more direct concern to the Home Office.
We would, I think, all like to thank the noble Earl and his Committee for the

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work that they have put into this report. The list of persons and organisations who were consulted or gave evidence shows the very wide range of opinion and views made available to this inquiry. At the same time the report includes a number of personal expressions of opinion on the part of those involved and they sometimes give the report a vividness that the more impersonal reports of official inquiries often lack. But this is not a substitute for a scientific analysis of the scope of the subject and the nature of the problems. We need, therefore, to remember that this was a private inquiry and that, however persuasive we may find parts of it, we cannot regard it as a conclusive treatment of a very difficult problem.
Subject to reservations of this kind, however, I am sure that all noble Lords and Baronesses, on both sides of the House, will join with me in welcoming the opportunity that this report affords of conducting a more informed discussion of a subject which rightly has received a good deal of public attention in recent years. The nature of this public interest, however, needs to be analysed with some care. The report of the noble Earl's Committee received wide publicity, but I do not think we should conclude from this that it was only pornography as such which gave rise to that interest. The public attitude is in fact a good deal more ambivalent to this subject than some expressions of view might lead us to believe. A national opinion poll conducted shortly after the report was published showed a wide measure of agreement for the proposition that pornography should be controlled. At the same time, the majority of respondents believed that they personally would be unharmed by exposure to pornography. This is a situation in which, in the absence of any more reliable objective criteria, it is peculiarly difficult to frame a law which will impose appropriate restrictions on the material to which we think various groups in the community ought not to be exposed without at the same time interfering to an unjustifiable degree with what we ourselves believe we should be free to choose to read or see.
Indeed, if current trends were confined to pressure for the removal of all restrictions there might be cause for concern.
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But this is not the case. There is an equally strong desire for an improvement in the general quality of life and in the environment in which we life. In this context I think it is entirely consistent that pornography should be regarded as a form of pollution and that, whatever action we think appropriate with regard to the private circulation of pornographic material, there should be pressure for its removal from our public life. This is a subject on which my noble friend will have more to say later.
The report rightly stresses the potentially harmful effects pornography may have on children. Whatever uncertainties there may be about the effects of porno-graph on adults I am sure there will be universal agreement that the healthy development of children is far too important to be put at risk in any way by exposing them to influences of this kind. Here I hope that I can give a partial answer to the point that the right reverend Prelate, the Bishop of Leicester, put. The law already makes special provision for this in a number of ways; that is, the protection of children. The definition of obscenity expressly takes into account the persons who are likely, in all the circumstances, to be exposed to the material in question. Its effectiveness is illustrated by the proceedings against the Little Red School Book and the Oz School Kids issue. The former was deliberately produced for a young audience and there was a strong implication in the case of the latter that it had a special appeal for the young. Both were convicted on the ground of obscenity, a great deal of the proceedings in the case of Oz being concerned with the effect of the material on children. The Oz convictions for obscenity were subsequently quashed on appeal, but this arose from defects in the judge's summing-up which related to other issues than the effect on children.
In addition, the Children and Young Persons (Harmful Publications) Act, 1955, which was passed to deal with horror comics, makes it an offence to print or sell, et cetera, books or magazines likely to fall into the hands of children or young persons which deal with crime or violence or incidents of a repulsive or horrible nature. Section 3 of the Cinematograph Act 1952, which followed the Departmental Committee on Children

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and the Cinema, makes it the duty of the cinema licensing authority to impose conditions prohibiting the admission of children to unsuitable films and Section 4 of that Act makes special provision for children's performances.
Finally, there are already in existence provisions directed against the display in public of material which is indecent. These are less effective than they might be, and my noble friend who will be replying at the end of the debate will have more to say later about the Home Secretary's plans for improving this branch of the law. The strengthening of this protection will automatically reinforce the safeguards against the material to which children are exposed.
I turn now to that part of Lord Longford's report on sex education. I have already referred to the concern which we all naturally feel about the influences which surround young people as they grow up. They are exposed to many and various pressures from the adult world, and as a former chairman of an education committee and as a school governor, I can vouch for the way in which many schools are trying to help young people to cope with the complexities of life and to withstand many of the present-day pressures; and in particular to help them in the field of sexual behaviour and personal relationships.
My Lords, it is of course for individual local education authorities and for the managing and governing bodies of schools, to decide what they should do about including education about sex in the school curriculum. My own education authority some years ago felt that with the increasing pressures on young people opportunities ought to be provided for pupils not only to learn about the physiology of reproduction but also to appreciate that sex was not just a personal physical matter; that responsible thinking about sex involved thinking about other people, about love and marriage, about the family, about future responsibilities as parents, about religious beliefs. My own authority therefore drew up a scheme of approach to teaching about sex and personal relationships which is not dissimilar from the approach set out in the Gloucestershire scheme which is referred to briefly in the chapter on sex education.
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A great many local education authorities have drawn up similar schemes of work or have working parties studying the subject, or provide courses and conferences for their teachers. There is great variation in the way individual schools have responded. Some, for various reasons, may do very little; but where schools have decided to ensure that there is a systematic approach to the whole subject it is certainly usual for them to seek the views of parents about it. It may often happen that doctors and nurses, religious and voluntary organisations, participate in the work and that the courses may be designed so that parents can also participate in discussions arising from them. Parents who have been thus involved have found that this has given them a better understanding of the problems of their children, particularly in adolescence, and of how to discuss these with them.
I mention all this because I think that a great many of the responsible people who are involved with what is going on in schools on this subject—among whom I would number myself—were perhaps a little surprised that a chapter on sex education in schools should not include any mention of it. I also think that there may be many within the education service who will feel that in suggesting that work done in schools might verge on the "pornographic" the members of the sub-committee were perhaps looking more at the work of what I might term "private venturers" outside the education service than at the approach of members of local education committees, or of those who represent the community on school managing and governing bodies, or of the teachers themselves.
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: My Lords, may I interrupt the noble Baroness? She has been so kind about our report that I hesitate to point out that there were two head teachers of State schools who played a very prominent part in our sex education committee.
BARONESS YOUNG: My Lords, I did, of course, read with great interest the membership of that committee. I think it only fair to the education service and to those many people who have been involved in the education world to put the other side of this case, because there

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are many people who feel that young people to-day need responsible help and guidance and are getting it from the education service.
Before leaving this subject, I should like to say something about the sex education programmes shown by the B.B.C. These were in fact initiated by the Schools Broadcasting Council. This body is comprised of representatives of teachers' associatons. local authorities and representatives of the Department of Education and Science, all, one would pink, highly responsible people. The programmes were shown to Members of Parliament and I think it is true to say that they regarded them as highly responsible and valuable. In these circumstances I cannot accept that they could be considered in any sense pornographic.
I am sure your Lordships will agree that it is only fair that I should voice these criticisms of this particular chapter. It is also only fair that I should commend the authors of the chapter on sex education for the many valuable comments that they have made. It is valuable that we should be reminded of the sensitivity of the young and of their natural hesitancies and embarrassments and their different rates of growth; that there must be careful consideration of the purpose for which information is being presented to young people and of what information is presented; that attention should be focused on parents' responsibilities and on the benefit which can come to both parents and teachers when there is co-operation in considering the best ways of helping children to reach an understanding of their own physical and emotional development, and of the problems of behaviour which are associated with these. Education is, of course, a field where the Government have some positive concern. I hope that what I have said will reassure your Lordships that their responsibilities are fully recognised by all who work in this field and that we need have no cause for disquiet on this score.
Another field with which the report deals and which is subject to the control of public authorities is broadcasting. The first point that I should like to make on this subject is that it is a longstanding constitutional convention that the respon-
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sibility for programmes broadcast should rest wholly and solely with the broadcasting authorities as trustees of the public interest in broadcasting. The Government believe this to be right. If a Minister were to make a judgment on programme content, it could so easily be used as a precedent leading to some more generalised form of political control over programmes. We shall, I think, recognise that if broadcasters are to retain freedom to develop their art there are certain to be occasional lapses among the many thousands of programmes we see, for there are each week some 200 hours of television and several hundred hours of radio programmes. Secondly, we must keep a sense of proportion when we think about what has been termed "obscenity" in broadcasting. After a most careful reading of Mr. Muggeridge's chapter, I conclude that, though he has criticisms to make about broadcasting services, he does not regard them as pornographic.
Now, my Lords, I come to the specific recommendations. The primary recommendation is that broadcasting should be subject to an amended obscene publications law under which it would be an offence to outrage contemporary standards of decency or humanity accepted by the public at large. Many of your Lordships will remember that the previous Conservative Government considered whether there should be legislation to cover broadcasting, as well as the cinema and the stage, during the stages leading to the Obscene Publications Act 1959, but in view of the exercise of control over broadcasting by public corporations, the B.B.C. and the I.T.A., the then Lord Chancellor, Lord Kilmuir, agreed that it was right to leave broadcasting "in the limbo of the common law" where it already lay. That remains our position. Our view is that it is unnecessary to subject broadcasting to obscenity Statutes, for the governing boards of the B.B.C. and the I.B.A. are already under an obligation to ensure that so far as possible programmes do not offend against good taste or decency and are not offensive to public feeling. The words "so far as possible" reflect the fact that there is a wide range of opinion across the national audience as to What is offensive, and that some people are very much more easily offended than others. They are the words which Parliament wrote into the Television Act

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1964 in recognition of the difficulty, if not the impossibility, of formulating an exact prescription.
The second recommendation is that the B.B.C. should make more use of their advisory councils, who should be called on to publish annual reports. There is no reason to suppose that the B.B.C. are wrongly ignoring the advice of their advisory councils; and indeed they would be very foolish not to make good use of their advice. But it is the B.B.C. who have the ultimate responsibility for programmes broadcast, and it is for them to decide whether they act on the advice or not. If the annual reports of the advisory councils were published, I believe it would have the effect of setting the advisory councils up as broadcasting councils in conflict with the B.B.C. rather than as useful advisers retaining their confidence. Indeed if the B.B.C. were bound to take their advice it would not be advice but instruction, and the B.B.C. would not be fully in charge of the service.
The third recommendation is that a viewers' council would allow for an additional outlet for complaints by the general public. This is a solution proposed by a number of people, but it has always been rejected on the grounds that a viewers' council would tend to erode the authority, and therefore the sense of responsibility, of the B.B.C. and the I.B.A. and act as a buffer between them and Parliament, which is the institution best fitted to represent public opinion.
I should like to make it clear that the broadcasting authorities do not discharge their responsibilities without any check. First, there is the formal machinery—the whole range of advisory councils and committees, one of whose major functions is to keep the broadcasters properly sensitive to public opinion. Then there are letters from viewers and listeners, written directly to the B.B.C. and I.B.A., or to the Press, or to Members of Parliament. Next, there is the Press itself, which finds broadcasting a matter for constant and vigilant attention. Finally, the broadcasting authorities are subject to public opinion as it expresses itself in Parliament. By one means and another, if there is justifiable dissatisfaction with the performance of the broadcasting
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authorities, it will make itself felt. I realise that there are anxieties. Some have already been expressed in the debate. The various views, and especially the criticisms, which are expressed here will, I know, be most carefully studied by the noble Lords, Lord Hill of Luton and Lord Aylestone, and their colleagues on the Governing Boards of the B.B.C. and the I.B.A.
My Lords, I am afraid that I have not been able to deal in any way exhaustively with those aspects of the report I have discussed. This is a complex subject. It is undoubtedly one of great public concern and there is pressure for Government action and, as I said, my noble friend will be dealing with this later. I will content myself with saying that Government action must depend to some extent on a full and informed public debate. In addition, there are other aspects of this subject which are outside the control of the Government but which call for continuing effort from all sections of the community to raise standards The report of the noble Earl's Committee has already served to further both of these ends, in itself, and in the debate which it has prompted this afternoon. The Government have already studied the report with care, and we shall now wish to consider further all that is said in the course of the debate.
4.22 p.m.
VISCOUNT HANWORTH: My Lords, first I should like to get out of the way the personal and philosophical angle in what we all know is a very emotive subject. Much as one may try to be a pragmatist and look at it purely from that point of view, there must in the end be a slight personal bias one way or another according to what one's values may be. The humanist—and most permissive people in some degree are that—are, in my opinion, no more logical when it comes down to brass tacks than they might say is the churchman, because in the end those things that are really important can seldom be proved.
For example, it is difficult to say why, to the humanist, the future of the human race should be important. It may matter for their children, but logically why should it matter in the longer-term future to the humanist? So many of these

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things are not capable of complete logical proof one way or the other. I personally happen to support, in the main, the views of my noble friend Lord Longford, because I believe in the dignity of life, in after-life and in a distinct purpose for this life. Nevertheless, I intend to approach the subject largely as a moderate and as a pragmatist, but I am afraid that I ought to say that I dismiss the arguments of the avant garde as being important only in so far as they have a much greater influence on the moderates than they used to have.
I should regret it if, in a subject like this, in the end our decisions were taken too much from the views of the vocal minority. I think that the balanced view is contained in everything which the noble Viscount, Lord Eccles, said in a previous debate on this subject. Pornography is ugly and degrades the higher expressions of sex and sexual relationships between men and women. I think I can say, on my own terms. that it is morally degrading, if the term "moral" is used in the normally accepted sense. I do not pretend that there can be proof of this, because I do not think that that sort of thing is susceptible to proof. It would not in fact surprise me if, to certain perverted people, hard pornography might even be of some value. But we have to think of the majority as a whole, and although, as I shall say later, I do not believe in trying to stamp out hard pornography utterly, I do believe in trying to some extent to decrease it and to prevent it from being publicly shown.
I wonder how many of your Lordships have visited the "porn" shops and realise how rapidly they are spreading, and, until quite recently, how much more blatant they were becoming. I believe that this is an extremely important factor, because it shows that the tightening up of our law—and, incidentally, the Longford Report—has in fact made people a very great deal more careful, and the situation is a great deal less objectionable from a public point of view. I have some hesitation in saying what in fact is exhibited, but I think that to some extent I must. I do not propose to go any further than the noble Earl, Lord Longford, did on a previous occasion, but I feel that unless one realises what exists one is apt to deal with a sub-
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ject far too much on an armchair basis.
In some shops, even in the open part, you can see explicit copulation in full colour with all the parts shown in detail. Behind the curtain, to which there is often free access, threesomes with oral sex is, for example, on full display. In the sealed magazines or books which are sold for about £4 anything which you could possibly imagine is available. Another merit of our law, ineffective though it may be, is that it has kept up the price of these magazines so that they do not distribute as freely as would otherwise be the case. I just mention in passing that for 50p you can buy the Adult Advertiser, which is also in the window, although admittedly sealed, and this contains advertisements from people interested in threesomes, foursomes, or any form of perversion.
Whatever we feel about hard "porn"—and I am not so concerned about it because I think that it is so sordid that it really puts off a great many people and does not have appeal—I nevertheless think that it would be highly unfortunate if it spread without check. The question of course is, as I was saying: what should and can we do about this? Clearly a great deal goes far beyond what is legal, but is ignored by the authorities. But we are in a difficult position with the present law. One thing I am certain of is that unless we take some action now, things will tend to get worse, and it will be much more difficult or even impossible to take any effective action later on. I must also deal with the cine club. In the cine club, to which membership can be obtained after one hour's waiting period, fully explicit copulation and anything else can be seen. In the sex book shops, incidentally, there are plenty of slot machines showing copulation, but not as yet, I believe, with the full display of sexual parts.
Now I should be very sorry if this sort of thing proliferated. There is in many people a sort of curiosity which may induce people to patronise this whether they approve of it or not, and there is always the question of going with the herd, led by the one or two people who are interested. I also think that it would be the greatest pity if we start producing blue films in England, and expose out-of-work artistes to this type of commercial-

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ism. One obvious course of action to reduce the blue film problem would be to insist on a much longer period of waiting for membership of these clubs, and I would suggest that this should be at least a week.
Having discussed the harder "porn", I must say that it is often so sordid that it may well do no great harm provided that its spread and openness is controlled. What concerns me much more is the soft "porn", which in my view undermines the fabric of society to a much greater extent. I particularly refer to magazines such as Mayfair and to the Duchess Theatre. Part of an advertisement for one of Mayfair's books includes the following:
"Dr. Ellis advances original thinking on sex with married women, and lays down rules for success showing how to conduct an affair without detection "—
not, I think, a socially desirable type of publication. I can see absolutely no reason why, on the stage and in the public cinema, we should not go back to our previous standards of banning complete nudity. I am afraid that I dismiss entirely any argument about artistic licence in this matter. I seem to remember from the Classics that Petronius made an art of all the vices, and there was no doubt considerable art displayed by the Inquisition torturers.
I think pornographic literature presents the biggest problem so far as control is concerned, because it is so difficult to draw a line, particularly where it masquerades as scientific or useful information. For example, there is the book on the Masters and Johnson's Clinic, where sexy girls were used to help men overcome their problems. There is an illustrated book showing the 42 positions. This is quite a reasonable book from the point of view of information, and it is really only the advertising for it which is, in my view, really deplorable. Probably one cannot go back to censorship and though I might consider it, I can understand people's reluctance to adopt that course or any course which would be effective with literature. But I am sure, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, said, that if we are to reduce pornography and prevent it penetrating promiscuously the Obscene Publications Act 1959 must be amended. Authorities are at present often afraid of prosecuting
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even blatant cases because they may fail, which would be a signal for everybody to go one further. As somebody has already pointed out in this Chamber this evening, that is what people try to do, because what one has become used to is no longer really stimulating or shocking. Whatever viewpoint one adopts on this matter, I am certain that even the present legislation has some merit in so far as it keeps up the price of the hard "porn" and prevents its indiscriminate distribution. I do not think it is hypocrisy to try to sweep some of the dirt under the carpet, because it tends to keep the general atmosphere clean.
Finally, I think most of us would feel it important to try to keep dignity and decency in public life, whatever we may think about sexual morality and permissiveness. To do this some action is, in my view, needed, and perhaps what we have heard is proposed by the Government will go some distance in that direction. That is all I want to emphasise on this occasion, but I would say that I think those who deal with this subject purely as armchair critics should at least take some steps to see how rapidly this pornographic literature is spreading, and should form their opinion as to how serious or unfortunate it will be if this spread accelerates in the way I believe it was doing until three months ago.
4.35 p.m.
LORD SOPER: My Lords, when the announcement of this debate first appeared on the Order Paper I shared with a number of other noble Lords a lack of relish for what was likely to happen. But it is not for that reason that I shall ask the indulgence of your Lordships' House if I leave at a fairly early time as I have an imperative engagement in Cambridge. I felt that I ought to stand up and be counted, so I am standing up, and I hope that I can be counted not only as an individual but, in this case, as a representative of a large section of the Christian Church.
I start with two preconceptions about pornography, and I am not ashamed and I do not apologise for the word "preconceptions". I work on the edge of Soho; I have thought about the matter, I have culled what information I have been able to arrive at and I am satisfied

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about two points. The first is that pornography is æsthetically and morally objectionable, whether it is a more delicate shade of grey or that hard "porn" (which, if I may say so, your Lordships have probably never seen), which is an abominable black—as black as pitch. Nevertheless, I believe that there are two considerations, one of which has already been advanced this afternoon, that would invalidate any further attitude on your Lordships' part on such a subject as pornography and would reduce it to the purely private field. The first is that pornography is incapable of definition and therefore cannot intrinsically exist. This is widely said, but it is completely fallacious. Humour is incapable of definition. Hazlitt had a very good shot at it and quite failed; and I remember my grandfather telling me that Jerome K. Jerome, with whom he sat in many boats, often used to discuss humour and came to the conclusion that there was only one permanent element in humour and that was melancholy, which I thought was a curious statement to make. But I have a sense of humour, though I cannot define it; and I have a sense of pornography, and I hate it.
The second consideration which, if it were true, would invalidate any discussion on your Lordships' part is that raised by my noble Leader. If he will not think it entirely impertinent and impudent of me, I wonder whether his syllabic difficulties with the word "reverend" were an indication of his inner unease with the thesis. But at least it seems to me an extraordinary proposition that, of all the occupations to which man can addict himself, pornography is the only one that has no consequences. This seems to me to be utterly fallacious, and it is not borne out by the practical experience of those who repeatedly recognise, if not a causal relationship between pornography and evil practices, at least a statistical one. You find a man who is addicted to stealing and you will also find that he is probably addicted to other forms of vice. You find a man who is addicted to the kind of anti-social habits that belong to a great many young people to-day—and to older people, for that matter—and you will generally discover that pornography is mixed up with them both. If you
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look at probation officers and, if I may say so, Methodist ministers and reverend Prelates, the likelihood is in the opposite direction. I feel that this is important and, although there is no direct post hoc, propter hoc argument, or its reverse, that can be agreed upon, it is nevertheless my unbreakable conviction, after some forty years in this field, that pornography is a menace to many, is the accompaniment of a great deal that is evil, and is highly likely to promote the kind of evil which may otherwise exist only in the mind and not come to actuality.
The other preconception is that, undoubtedly, pornography is increasing. One of the ways in which I should regard this debate to-day as being counter-effective is the unfortunate fact that the more the subject is talked about, the more likely it is that some people who would otherwise avoid it will take an interest in it. I confess that I have been presented with facts about hard "porn" of which I knew nothing. I do not think I have been unduly affected by them. I certainly know to what an extent conversation about pornography and the wide discussion of it is far more frequent to-day than it was; and if your Lordships will allow a personal reference, I have just come back from Tower Hill where we spent, not at my choosing, about half an hour in a very, I thought, disreputable and squalid discussion of pornographic matter, which I am sure would not have been stimulated had it not been for the fact that publicity has been widespread. I hope that the results of our debate to-day may lead, not to more discussion but to the application of those things which we may agree are sensible and right, and perhaps some of them in the legal sphere.
So I come to this report somewhat objectively, my Lords, because although I attended the first meeting I was immediately afterwards "hospitalised" and I took no further part in the proceedings. Therefore I can look at it perhaps with some objectivity; and I wonder, in the first instance, whether many of those who have presented the kind of opposition to which very courteous reference has been made to-day have really read it. It is a long and complicated document. I read it assiduously and in some cases

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repeatedly; and, if I may, I should like to congratulate those who have formulated its general principles and have finished it off, so to say. I would regard them as having done a piece of work which is to their credit; and I should like personally to say that the sniggers and the titters which have sometimes been directed against Lord Longford and others are utterly disreputable, and I am ashamed of them.
My Lords, it seems to me that I am reinforced in my conviction that pornography is an evil thing by the evidence that has been produced, in one or two cases rather unexpectedly. I would draw your Lordships' attention to the emphasis that is put on the invasion of privacy, which I must say was comparatively new to me. There are some things which are the better for an airing; there are other things which should be kept, surely, within the closer confine of personal and intimate relationships—and the splurging of these matters, even in the milder forms of pornography, is, I think, a denigration of human dignity. But there is a far greater and stronger indictment. I recognise that violence of one sort or another is perhaps the supreme challenge to what we are pleased to call our civilised community, and it seems, to me strange and very disheartening that whereas so many young people are now rebelling against public violence, they are at the same time cosseting private violence. For the close association between the private violence of hard "porn" and indeed violence of many kinds, and the sex act, or the contemplation of the sex act, is no quirk of the sentimentalist. It is a fact; and it is a fact to which I could give chapter and verse if I were so disposed. I would ask your Lordships to believe that, whatever other results may follow from pornographic addiction or interest in pornography, there is in my experience over the years a great attraction to certain forms of private violence which accompanies an undue and, I think, an unhealthy attitude to pornography or to sex.
I come now to one or two criticisms which would, I think, to a certain extent modify my approval of the analytical part of the report. I am not satisfied with the Christian approach. I do not say that as "dog in the manger", because
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although I have nothing particular against the Festival of Light a good deal of it is pretty cloudy and overcast, and for me it does not represent the kind of attitude which I would think is and ought to be predominant in a Christian's relationship to pornography. There is still the residual attitude that we in the Churches, and particularly in Nonconformity, are concerned with Puritanism of the less reputable type, and that if people are enjoying themselves the inference may justly be drawn that they are doing something that they should not be doing. I share nothing of that; and I would much rather have seen in the report a stronger emphasis on the place of pornography, not in the private and pious (or lack of it) progress of the individual but in the quest for the Kingdom of God or a just and decent society.
I stand up and talk about pornography, but I should not be prepared to do it unless I was also prepared and ready to stand up and talk about war, injustice and a great many other evils which I think are undoubtedly greater than pornography. The supreme argument against pornography, from the Christian standpoint, is not, surely, that it pollutes the individual soul, but that it stands, even in its milder forms, between the progress that that individual ought to make to a just society and his inability, by the exercise of pornographic tension, to do so. I should have much preferred that the argument from the Christian standpoint had laid more heavily upon the lack of a true intention and a creative and worthwhile instinct in application to this particular field.
My Lords, I want to make one specific reference, and I know I shall be understood when I say that I have a great respect for the large number of people in our modern community who are homosexual. I do not pretend to understand them and I think it is entirely foolish to think that any non-homosexual can so do. But many of them I respect, and in certain places in the report I feel we owe an apology to them. On page 338, for instance, and on page 381 there are references to homosexuals which associate them, by inference, with sadists and others, and this is wrong. I do not pretend to understand how difficult it is for a homosexual to find his way in a

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society which is predominately heterosexual. What I do say is that I have lived to see a much more humane and decent attitude to them, and I should not like that record now to be smirched—without any intention, I am sure. I should like to be able to say publicly—and I hope they will hear it—that there is no kind of aspersion which, in an argument against pornography, can properly be attached to one who, by a chance of nature, is homosexual and at the same time is living a decent, fine and contributive life.
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: My Lords, perhaps I may take this opportunity to interrupt the noble Lord, because this seems to be the moment when I should say that I think there are one or two unfortunate references to homosexuals in the report. I take the whole responsibility for any error of that kind, and I side very much with what the noble Lord has just said.
LORD SOPER: My Lords, may I now turn to the legal side of the matter for a moment and confess that I am undecided? I am satisfied that there should be a stricter application of the law as it now stands; and I am afraid I can have very little to say in agreement with the general proposition which is so often ventilated by my noble friends on the Liberal Benches, as if freedom is some kind of isolated palm tree in the middle of an otherwise uninhabited island surrounded by an uncharted sea. Freedom is part of the complex of a human relationship, and the better part of freedom is ordered restraint. I am sure that no noble Lord such as, if I may say so, my ecclesiastical friend the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont, could have made the speech he did today—eloquent, persuasive and thoughtful—had it not been for the kind of restraint he had endured at school and in his formative years. I think we talk rather stupidly about liberty, as if it is a prime virtue. Liberty is only a prime virtue if it has first been produced out of a situation in which we have sought the good of one another. This is not the beginning of a sermon, but I think a matter of social ethics with which most people would quickly agree. What does seem to me to be above all imperative is that we should protect the young for whatever may be said about the influences for or against
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pornography being available to those who are adult (and that, of course, is a very vague word; I am not prepared to specify at what stage or at what age adulthood begins and adolescence ends) surely it is beyond question that there are very few of your Lordships who would tolerate the presence of hard "porn" on your own table, where your own children could make themselves available of it. I believe that the definition of obscenity at which this particular Committee or group of people have arrived is better than the one which has caused endless debate and innumerable difficulties in the past.
But what most I believe (and I wish to conclude on this point) is that it is necessary to create or at least to try to create a climate where people have something better to do than to waste their time with the dirty business of pornography, a better climate economically where there will not be so many rascals making money out of other people's weaknesses or inferior habits and where there will not be a kind of lapse from any sense of purpose. It is to recreate the sense of a community full of purpose that perhaps is a modification of what has already been said about the restrictions implied and applied in Communist China. I do not necessarily agree with all that was said or shown in the last few weeks about Communist China. The fact that most of the people taking part in it never glanced at the camera seemed a sinister comment to make on the (shall I say?) spontaneity of their efforts. Nevertheless, it is true there is within the framework of an overall sense of public responsibility and a desire for community welfare, a good reason for having nothing to do with the dirty business of pornography.
4.51 p.m.
LORD NUGENT OF GUILDFORD: My Lords. I am glad to follow the noble Lord, Lord Soper. May I say how much I enjoyed his vigorous and luminous statement on the Christian attitude to pornography? I am sure that all noble Lords feel the same. I must also thank my noble friend Lord Ferrier for having very kindly given me his place so that I could make my contribution to this debate. Unfortunately, I have an appointment at 6.30 p.m. which I cannot ignore and therefore I hope that your Lordships will excuse me if I leave the House.

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I begin by thanking the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leicester. Unlike the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, I think that he is very relevant and I think that his debate is very relevant; because I take the same view as Lord Soper, that the noble Earl, Lord Longford, has made a major contribution with his report. We may not agree with everything in the report, but it is a major achievement and as I sec it—not everybody agrees with him: but I agree with him—what he has done is for the first time to give a lead to public opinion. He has been able, in the broad sense of his report, to express the anxiety of millions of people (possibly even of most of our people) that the growing flood of pornography which is permeating our country is becoming an increasing danger to the life of the community. This is a great achievement and the noble Earl has my warmest congratulations.
This week, as it happens—and this is something to which the right reverend Prelate referred—the Court of Appeal, in the mouth of the Master of the Rolls and his learned colleagues, expressed the view—and I am sure that noble Lords have given full weight to it—that the law as it stands now is largely unenforceable and that really it is the duty of Parliament to look at this again. Here is another full justification for the right reverend Prelate's initiating this debate.
My Lords, I must say that I found the noble Earl's report a tough proposition to read. I do not say that I agree with all of it; but I found that in the main it was comprehensive, certainly highly informative, and I thought that large sections of it were very fairly argued. It is a major achievement judged by any standards. There are only two points that I want to make on it. The first is on the intrinsic merit of the report and its recommendations; the second is an attempt to answer the question posed by the report: what next? I agree with its conclusions that a clarification and strengthening of the law is needed; but let me add that I am not advocating a strengthening of the law with the intention of suppressing vice. I accept that vice is an inevitable part of human nature and that legislation against it is useless, and possibly worse than useless. The objective in my opinion is the restraint of commercial exploitation of vice by
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pornographic material. That is what I want to restrain and that I believe is what most, if not all of us, want to do. We know that it has now become big business, international business, and a good deal of it is imported into this country. It is evidently increasing in volume and making a great deal of money.
I am sorry that the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, is no longer in his place because I should like to say a word or two (although I shall not take too long because there are so many other speakers to follow) in answer to the noble Lord's argument that there is no evidence that pornography does harm. I listened with great interest to the noble Lord's speech. I thought it a most valuable, and indeed essential, contribution to this debate; because, after all, this view has to a large extent held the field up to now. The activities of the noble Earl, Lord Longford, with his Committee and the report, and the general feeling expressed by the community has arisen only because the state of the law as it now is has given rise to this ever-increasing flood of pornography. When the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, pleaded that it was not an easy line for him to take, I am not sure that he is alone in that. I do not think it is easy for any of us to take part in this debate. We all find it difficult to command our feelings and to reach a useful, objective conclusion. Nevertheless, I accept that there are serious arguments that we have to try to answer. The report produces some evidence in answer to Lord Shackleton's point that no harm comes from it, but at the end of the day this must be a matter of judgment. I am bound to say that I find myself in the same field as the noble Lord, Lord Soper, that pornography is corrupting and is a menace both to adults and to the young. But essentially to the young, I regard it as a serious danger.
Let us look at one or two notable pieces of legislation which we have had in the last decade; for instance, the Race Relations Act. It would have been impossible to find the necessary evidence to support that; but most people on all sides felt that this would in the main help to form opinion, to create a certain climate which would be helpful in this very important field. As for the Street Offences Act, it would have been

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extremely difficult to find evidence to support that piece of legislation. Yet we passed it and the result has been that the prostitutes have disappeared from the streets. I do not say they have disappeared altogether; but at least we are no longer importuned and the disreputability which London was gaining has been removed.
The concern of the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, was for the young; and I was glad to find myself in agreement with him here. But I would ask this question of him and other noble Lords who feel the same as he does. Is it really possible to protect the young from the corrupting effect of pornographic material if it is freely circulating among adults—and ever more freely circulating, as is now happening? We know that those who are peddling pornography are using ever more forceful methods to canvass the community to get more customers. Therefore it is spreading; and there is a lot of money in it. Inevitably, this increasingly exposes the young to this material. Looked at solely as a matter of protecting the young from this corruption, my own conclusion is that it is impossible to protect them if the adult community is to be exposed to it in the quantities we are now seeing. The report says, my Lords, that the law needs strengthening so that successful prosecution in proper cases would be less difficult (I agree with that, and I was glad to see that the Court of Appeal gave that view powerful support) and that on conviction penalties should be heavier. That also to me seems to be right.
Coming now to the major legislative recommendation in the report; that is, the new definition of obscenity, it might be worth reading it again although the right reverend Prelate did quote it to us:
"An article or a performance of a play is obscene if its effect, taken as a whole, is to outrage contemporary standards of decency or humanity accepted by the public at large."
Thus the test, my Lords, is what outrages ordinary standards of decency and humanity. I agree with that; I think that that is a good test. This seems to me to get the right balance between the twin dangers of corruption of the community by pornography on the one hand and the censorship of free expression on
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the other. I would have hoped that this would go a long way to meet the powerful arguments adduced by the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton.
In my judgment, the point at which publications outrage the feelings of the average person is the point at which the freedom of the individual is under attack—and freedom of expression has indeed become licensed. There can be no moral defence of that. I should have thought that Lord Soper's expression of view on this aspect was luminous indeed. I should also have thought that the report's recommendation that the defence of public good should be dropped is justified. In the major cases of prosecution that have been taken the defence arguments have gone to really ridiculous lengths in using this particular defence. So I agree with the report about that.
Coming to my second point, the report asks, "What next?" My starting point, my Lords, is that the Government have a basic responsibility to care for the moral life of the nation—all Governments have—and I was glad to hear my noble friend Lady Young's speech. The Longford Report, in my opinion, confirms that there is a danger, and that it is growing; and this, as I say, has been confirmed by the Court of Appeal. Therefore there is a strong case for amending legislation. I would not press my noble friends on the Government Front Bench to proceed immediately to amending legislation because I recognise the enormous difficulties of moving in this field. I recognise the weight of the arguments put so ably by the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, and supported by the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont of Whitley; and no doubt they will be supported by other noble Lords as well. So I would not say that we should proceed immediately; but I feel that Governments should now be preparing to take some action in this regard.
The report recommends setting up a voluntary advisory committee and I think that this is a good idea. It would be a focus for complaint. It would provide a source of education; a source for investigation and research. It might perhaps produce an annual report which would help people to see what was happening and to get a better understanding of the whole picture. This is something for which the Government, if it were thought

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wise, might make a grant. The Government might say, "Here is a field where there is danger to the community similar to the dangers on the road. We will treat it in the same way as we do the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents and give a grant. The rest of the money they will raise from private sources." This, I think, the Government should consider.
I should have thought that the Government also should consider setting up a full-dress inquiry into this matter, a Royal Commission; not as a means of side-tracking, but as a preparation for legislation. The summary of my advice to my noble friends is that the combined weight of the report of the Longford Committee and the observations made by the Court of Appeal this week indicate that there is a real obligation for action by the Government now; and that it would be pusillanimous for them to do nothing in the face of the dangers to which the moral life of the nation is now being exposed.
5.5 p.m.
BARONESS GAITSKELL: My Lords, I should like to thank the right reverend Prelate for introducing this Motion. So far in this debate I agree with my noble Leader, the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, and with every single word that the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont of Whitley, said. I am afraid that I do not agree with my noble friend Lord Soper, but I always listen to him with pleasure and with respect and affection—I cannot help it. I should like to congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Young, on her speech which I enjoyed and with almost all of which I agreed, especially her remarks on sex education.
I think that this inquiry of my noble friend Lord Longford could more accurately be described, without any disrespect, as a symposium; that is, a collection of opinions. Despite the protestations that the Report is concerned only with pornography, it deals largely with sexual behaviour and, except for one or two, like Maurice Yaffé and Frank Gillard most of its contributors make no pretence at being objective. Most of them joined the Committee with closed minds that had already been made up. My Lords, any frank discussion of sexual habits and morals
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quickly reveals the fact that views expressed are subject to conscious and unconscious falsification. We can all plead public concern about pornography, about crime, about life in general, and can join in a great lament. It would be unfair in a short speech to start giving quotations which began by making me sceptical, then critical, then disbelieving and, finally, mystified. Only a" Longford dictionary of quotations" could illustrate the obscurantist approach to their subject of nearly all the contributors. I will give just two small examples which stick in my throat. One is from a correspondent who said: "Hypocrisy is better than obscenity"—whatever that means. And the other is from David Holbrook's tortured exposition of sex:
"The politics of pornography would appear to be intrinsically Fascistic."
Again, I do not know what that means.
Throughout most of the report sex and pornography are mixed up with violence and crime, with the suggestion that, somehow, permissive sex leads to violence and crime; and, in one particular bit, to murder—the Manson murders. But the shoals of condemnation and indignation dredged up in the report fail to explain any of this. When I think of instances of the obscene tarring and feathering in Ireland I wonder which comes first, violence or sex as puritanism. Unlike the noble Viscount, Lord Han-worth, I am at a slight disadvantage in this debate because I have not actually seen, but have only heard of, examples of hard pornography; I have only read about them. I am not acquainted with those mechanical aids which can be described as the machine tools of the sex industry. Even here I cannot see the law being effective, except against offensive display, because it is not inconceivable that those who are interested in this kind of thing could devise a "do-it-yourself" kit. I feel that this whole business of hard pornography has been greatly exaggerated. Thousands like myself have never seen any of it. I would agree that pictures and displays of gross indecency, offensive to people, should be brushed under the carpet or placed under the counter. On balance, however, I am opposed to all forms of literary censorship, because the result of banning books and plays would be inimical to truth and freedom.

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My most serious criticism of the report is its attitude to sex education, which I see as a great threat to the progress that has been made in this field over the last 50 years. The attempt to brand the sex education of young children by the B.B.C. as pornographic is monstrous, seeing that it was under the control of the Schools Broadcasting Council, as the noble Baroness, Lady Young, said, a very responsible body which has mandatory authority. Mr. Malcolm Muggeridge blamed the B.B.C. without even getting his facts right. Because one or two people may be insensitive and even coarse in their presentation of the physical facts to children—and it is the parents who are frightened into fits about this, not the children—there is no need to be so reactionary. The proposal that it should be illegal to show children, under educational auspices, material which may not be shown in a public place would turn an anatomy textbook for medical students into a primer on pornography. The gist of what the Committee recommend runs something like this. We must protect our children—and this has been echoed constantly throughout this debate. How? By keeping them ignorant—the Peter Pan syndrome. Many sex educators and councillors think that most adolescents when given appropriate and explicit sex information which satisfies their natural curiosity have their interest in pornography reduced. Personally, my Lords, I think that sex education should be given in stages, sensitively, delicately and honestly presented, from a very young age. Otherwise, we shall never have a generation of parents who can talk to, instruct and guide their children about sex. This is one of the greatest stumbling blocks between parents and children to-day.
We have come a long way in the last fifty years. The Family Planning Association and the Health Education Council have not had it easy with their propaganda. The fear of being accused of condoning loose sexual morals has been a brake on progress in this respect. I cannot take the doom-watch warning throughout the report too seriously. I do not believe that society to-day is on the decline and fall, more than it has been in the past, and especially on the decline and fall because of a more open and
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honest approach to sex relations. There is of course the commercial aspect of pornography, which is absolutely horrible. But how do we isolate and curb this in a materialistic age and in a market economy? No one has given me the answer this afternoon; and I am not very convinced about the legal curbs. After all, what about the chocolate-coated pornography of the James Bond books? People seem to have completely forgotten about them.
My Lords, there is one glaring omission from this report, which includes the opinion of many writers, psychologists and other distinguished people. A year ago there was published a book by Geoffrey Borer called Sex and Marriage in England Today. This is a statistical survey and should be compulsory reading for all the members of the Longford Committee. It is a piece of research on the current social scene setting out the views of many people on marriage, love, sex, et cetera. The survey has taken a stratified random sample from electoral registers in 100 Parliamentary constituencies. The samples range through every class, not just the liberal middle-class. The under 45's were questioned by experienced interviewers from the Opinion Research Centre, and the results written up by Geoffrey Borer. His conclusions show that the liberal middle-class intellectual Londoner is the non-typical English person. Over 1,000 men and over 1,000 women were questioned. Among other conclusions, here are a few. Eighty-six per cent. of women and 46 per cent. of men married the first person they had been intimate with. Even among the young, the beneficial effect of pre-marital sex was not readily accepted—though there seems recently to have been a slight shift in this respect.
The majority of the unmarried having intercourse do not regularly use contraceptives, and when they do they are often very inefficient ones. This answers the point in the report which says that nurses and other people become pregnant just as easily as other people who have not access to such information. A quarter of each sex are repelled by homosexuality and they have no compassion or understanding of it. Forty per cent. of men and 34 per cent. of women thought that a woman could be in love with two men at once and 40 per cent. of both

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sexes thought that a man could be in love with two women at the same time. But the most interesting statistic to me was that 21 per cent. of men and 18 per cent. of women think that people do not really fall in love. I say this because the Longford Report is liberally sprinkled with the word "love". One feels that, difficult as it is to define the words "pornography" and "obscenity", it is far more difficult to define the word "love" in personal relationships.
Finally, my Lords, I have little sympathy for the obscurantist way in which the report is written; for the turgid language of some of the writers, occasionally quite incomprehensible, which I think does not lend itself to an objective inquiry and to the enlightenment which is necessary in this field for reform.
5.19 p.m.
THE LORD BISHOP OF GUILDFORD: My Lords, I rise to speak, with typical episcopal brevity, for three reasons. The first is that I am always very concerned lest when a matter like this is debated, and the debate is opened by a Bishop, the impression is spread abroad that the Church is taken up more by being against sin, like the bishop in the Queen's Silver Wedding speech, than being for goodness. While of course any honest historian must admit that there have been periods when the so-called protection of purity has been largely associated with puritanical repression, and while undoubtedly there have been similar periods when the repressive censorship of the Church would have been the despair of the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, and the noble Baroness, Lady Lee of Asheridge, it should never be forgotten that those periods were the result of a perversion of Christianity and not Christianity in its true form. For since the first century joy has been the official mark of the Christian.
Your Lordships will no doubt remember that when the Governor of Bythinia, young Pliny, wrote to Whitehall (it was then called Rome) asking what should be done with these people called Christians who refused to sacrifice to the Emperor, Whitehall (then called Rome) wrote back saying they had no precedent and asking for more information. Pliny replied that, so far as he could tell,
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the Christians did the following things: they got up early, had a common meal, sang a hymn and were joyful. And that joy has been the true mark of the Christian ever since. I myself hope to see again the Church being the patron and encourager of all that is best in art, drama, music and true gaiety, and being the provider and nurturer of all fiat gives to people, especially young people, the best that the word "recreation" can mean.
Secondly, with great respect I would, as a new boy, wish to challenge and help to rebut the criticisms so often voiced—and, alas! voiced this afternoon by the Leader of the Opposition, the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton—that to care for one aspect of morality means that one ignores or tends to ignore other equally important aspects. This, I submit, is false.
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, if I might interrupt the right reverend Prelate, I do not know that I used those precise words.
THE LORD BISHOP OF GUILDFORD: With great respect, I venture to think that the impression given by the noble Lord was very definitely that, though I hesitate from the Lower Fourth to contradict the Upper Sixth. Just because we are to-day engaged in discussing the obscenity of pornography, it certainly does not mean that any of us are less aware of the obscenities of slums or of poverty—least of all Prelates, who have worked in the middle of both of these; indeed, many of us still do.
Thirdly, the most important part of the Longford Report, to me, is the chapter called "Sex Education"—a title which is as inadequate as it is commonly, and I think, wrongly, used and which certainly does less than justice to the recommendations made in the report. The biology of sex is one thing; the morality and situational ethics of sex represent other things. Far too often they are separated. They must surely be related, and I suggest that the phrase "personal relationships", which I was delighted to hear mentioned by the noble Baroness, describes far more fully the type of education needed for life—for life means people meeting people.
The total inadequacy of the biology of sex being sufficient is well put by the

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noble Lord, Lord Platt, in his biography, Private and Controversial (the only criticism of which is that it is appallingly expensive), when he writes about the medical education of doctors in this way:
"…. the young doctor in his early university years is still, in most Medical Schools, made to study man as a machine and man as a corpse but never as a person.…. By the time he commences clinical work his youthful enthusiasm may have left him, he has been conditioned to think of man as a machine, and illness as a defect in the machine which requires all the resources of modern medical science to detect it and put it right. One of the duties of his medical teachers is to give him a greater understanding of the patient and his attitude to illness."
He goes on:
"Of course, I shall be criticised once again for tilting at the academics, but can you imagine any organisation except a university which would send doctors into the world without any sex education of any kind except purely anatomical or chemical?"
Here indeed is strong support for my view about personal relationships.
I think, my Lords, that few of us would wish to disagree with the Longford Report's recommendation that it ought to be parents who, first and consistently, give instruction on personal relationships. But may I ask your Lordships, as parents—do we? Do your Lordships do so—have your Lordships done so? Perhaps we might have some self-examinations and possibly some confessions later. I speak as a parent, and so indeed does the noble Earl, Lord Longford, with his scintillating covey of brilliant progeny. I ask: does embarrassment or even ignorance impede us? If your Lordships will forgive a personal element, I would mention that my wife is a doctor who, apart from her clinics, has spent a great deal of her spare time over the last 15 years lecturing on personal relationships to schoolboys and schoolgirls, to parent/ teacher associations and to new entrants in the nursing services and in the Women's Royal Army Corps. Naturally, as parents, we have discussed dozens of questions which most frequently come from both children and parents, and also we do a "double act" which we call "Bringing Up Parents".
I think it is difficult to overestimate, until these questions are seen, the apparent ignorance of too many parents about the actual biological information for
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which children ask, or the difficulty facing so many parents who try to cope in the expression of their views on the whole realm of personal relationships, when dealing with their own or other people's children. I imagine that your Lordships will be aware how ruthlessly, though sometimes charmingly, children at a very early age can see through hypocrisy, half-truths or the sheer lack of full knowledge. Well do I remember some years ago when suddenly—and it is always suddenly, is it not?—one of my small sons asked me one of those questions which clearly means, Father: tell me the facts of life."Mindful of my tuition under my doctor wife that children should be given short, clear answers which are easily understood, I proceeded to do exactly that. On went my cross-examination: on went my answers, short and concise. As time went on and the water got colder, I was congratulating myself on the ease with which these things could be done and wondering why all the fuss was made by parents over the matter of telling children the so-called facts of life. Then eventually, after half an hour or more, there was a pause and my small son said, "Well, thanks very much, Dad. I suppose I had better ask Mummy. She really knows!"
Therefore, I offer strong support for the suggestion that the Department of Education and Science should co-operate with local authorities in providing courses for parents and teachers in association with doctors and those concerned with the moral welfare of children. I would plead that all sex education should be taught in the context of personal relationships, as the noble Lord, Lord Platt, suggests, rather than simply as "technical instruction". I believe that if this is done, when our children pick up any deadly thing—whatever sort of pornography it may be—it will not hurt them. I believe that we shall have gone a considerable way towards ensuring that the natural instincts and affections implanted by God will be hallowed and directed aright. I believe, my Lords, that we owe this to our children.
5.29 p.m.
LORD FLETCHER: My Lords, the noble Earl, Lord Longford, has very kindly allowed me to intervene at this

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stage. Unfortunately, I shall be unable to stay for very long in your Lordships' House because of having to leave for another engagement. However, I shall speak very briefly and on a very narrow point.
This debate has covered a very wide field. I wish to deal not with the broad philosophical questions which have occupied the minds of so many Members of your Lordships' House, but with the rather narrower legal questions. I do so because I had some responsibility for the preparation of the chapter in the Longford Committee's report dealing with the legal aspects of this subject and in preparing the text of the Bill which the Longford Committee suggested should be introduced in order to change the present laws. May I remind your Lordships that the Obscene Publications Act 1939 was introduced and passed for the purpose of strengthening the law against pornography.I think it will be generally agreed that the Act of 1939—
TIIE MINISTER OF STATE, HOME OFFICE (VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS): My Lords, the Act of 1959.
LORD FLETCHER: I am sorry my Lords, 1959. That Act has signally failed in that respect and, as the Master of the Rolls and his two colleagues said in a notable judgment the other day, the Act has misfired; it has failed to implement the purposes for which it was passed and the intentions with which Parliament passed it.
Whatever else one may think, I hope it will be generally agreed that the present law is in need of reform. There may well be differences of opinion as to how the law should be reformed; but what we have done in the chapter to which I have referred is to suggest a suitable method of reforming the existing law in order to deal with the way in which it has been misapplied and misinterpreted, and the confusion which has been brought about as is quite clearly evidenced from the numerous cases in which the law has been dealt with.
The existing law has failed broadly in two respects: first, by introducing the defence of the public good and enabling expert witnesses to be called about the literary and scientific merits, or otherwise, of a particular publication.—It has,
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perhaps inadvertently, enabled those expert witnesses not merely to deal with the literary or other merits of a particular publication, but also to give their opinion (which they were not supposed to do) as to whether the particular publication was in fact obscene or not. 'Chat was a matter that was intended by Parliament to be left entirely to the discretion of the jury.
The other way in which the existing Act has failed to give effect to the intentions of Parliament is the unfortunate reproduction in the present law of the phrase first introduced a very long time ago, defining obscenity as "something which had a tendency to deprave and corrupt persons who are likely to read it" The result of that definition has caused continuous confusion to juries who have had to consider prosecutions. As the Master of the Rolls said the other day,
"That test could be used skilfully to obtain an acquittal by a piece of sophistry: if the likely readers were those already depraved and corrupt, this item would not mike them more so; but if the likely readers were just ordinary sort of folk they would be so revolted that they would be turned away from it. That argument was called, `the aversion argument It was so plausible that the courts had held that, when raised by the defence, it must be put to the jury. If it was not, the conviction might be quashed."
That was the result in a number of cases.
Starting therefore from the proposition that I think would be generally agreed, and which was so forcefully slated in the Court of Appeal the other day, that some change in the law is necessary if the intentions of Parliament are to be observed, I would remind your Lordships of the specific proposals which are recommended in the chapter of the Longford Committee report. We suggest—and I do not think this will be seriously disputed by any of those who have spokes: to-day—that in the interest of protecting the young and avoiding the public exhibition of indecency, it should in future be an offence for a person to exhibit or distribute in a street or other public place any written, pictorial or other material which is indecent. That would leave it open to the jury to decide whether they were offended or not. It would do a great deal to reduce the appalling public display of indecent material which affronts so many people in Tottenham Court Road, Soho, and other places, and the continuous display of indecent material

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on public bookstalls to which all persons of any age have access.
The second change which we recommend is that the present confusing and anomalous definition of obscenity should be replaced by another one. No one would suggest that these words are incapable of improvement, or are not open to comment, but we suggest that the revised test of obscenity should be:
"An article or a performance of a play if its effect taken as a whole is to outrage contemporary standards of decency or humanity acceptable to the public at large."
If the defence of public good is a matter on which expert evidence could be given, there again this would be a simple matter for a jury, chosen at random, to decide. It would be an objective test and would have relation to contemporary standards, which admittedly change from time to time, of decency or humanity. If it were thought that there was something extraordinary in the introduction of the word "outrage" I would remind your Lordships that "outrage" is a very strong word, and here I quote what Lord Simon of Glaisdale said recently in a reported decision:
"Outraging public decency' goes considerably beyond offending the susceptibilities of, or even shocking, reasonable people."
My Lords, I promised to be brief. I want to conclude by saying that I hope as a result of this debate, which has ranged over a wide field, Her Majesty's Government will recognise what has been said by a number of speakers this afternoon, and recently reinforced by the Court of Appeal, that the present law calls for revision; and I hope that we shall have an announcement from the Government that they intend to introduce a Bill to change the present law, failing which I hope that a Private Bill for that purpose will be introduced, either in this House or in another place, in order that the debate on this subject confined to the legal aspects may be continued.
LORD GOODMAN: My Lords, I had intended, according to the order of the debate, to speak after the noble Earl, Lord Longford, who is the originator of all this bother. I gather that by some rearrangement I am not to be afforded that opportunity. However, I have read the report—
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, I am sorry to interrupt, but I am greatly interested in the procedures of this House. I should like to learn all about this. Could the noble Lord say how it was that he arranged to speak after my noble friend Lord Longford?
LORD GOODMAN: My Lords, certainly I can say it. I did not arrange it. When I arrived at your Lordships' House I found the order of debate, and naturally I intended to speak in accordance with the order of debate.
THE LORD BISHOP OF LEICESTER: My Lords, I saw on the list the word "after" written against the name of the noble Lord, Lord Goodman. What it meant I do not know, but I merely report the fact.
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, I accept the noble Lord's explanation; but it was the use of the word "intended", and the emphasis the noble Lord put on it, which gave rise to some misapprehension.
LORD GOODMAN: My Lords, may I clarify this mystery by saying that I telephoned the Government Whip's Office to find out where I was speaking. I was told the order in which I was speaking, and that I was speaking after the noble Earl, Lord Longford. As it is not necessary in this debate for one to make very elaborate preparation in relation to one's speech I expected that I would be afforded the opportunity, after hearing the noble Earl, Lord Longford, to make certain comments on his speech. That is the whole of the mystery attaching to this matter. There was no corruption, no bribery, no coercion, no attempt whatsoever to secure an advantageous place. I regarded it as slightly fortunate that I was going to speak after the noble Earl, Lord Longford, but that is another matter. However, what I have to say can be said just as valuably, or just as valuelessly, in the order in which I am now speaking.
LORD BEAUMONT OF WHITLEY: My Lords, may I ask whether we may be told when the noble Earl, Lord Longford, is going to speak? A number of us are confused by the procedure.
BARONESS LEE OF ASHERIDGE: My Lords, may I further ask whether we may not take it as a rule that when we see the order of speaking, that will be

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the order in which noble Lords are called? I do not know why a mystery has been made of this.
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, if I may help, it is not unusual for one noble Lord to change places with another. As I understand it, the noble Lord, Lord Fletcher, as he has already told the House. I believe, because he has to go early, has taken the place of my noble friend Lord Longford, who in turn has taken his place.
LORD GOODMAN: My Lords, I should have thought it was quite unusual for a principal participant such as Hamlet to give way to Polonius. However, I do not think we need occupy the time of the House further in discussing the order in which the speeches are made.
My Lords, may I commence by saying that it was not my intention to inflict on your Lordships a speech from myself. Up to this morning my intention was to regard this debate as something of a non-event, for reasons which I shall explain. But I was telephoned earlier this morning by a prominent Member of your Lordships' House who requested that I should participate in the debate. Hence, I abandoned those engagements in which I should have been peacefully engaged, to my own mild and modest personal profit, and came here to make the speech I was requested to make.
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: My Lords, should I be breaking any secrecy if I were to reveal the fact that I saw the noble Lord's name down yesterday on the list of speakers?
LORD GOODMAN: My Lords, may I assure the noble Earl that the mysteries of this House cannot be explained by me. It was not until this morning that I telephoned to accede to a request that I should speak, although I had been asked several weeks earlier whether I would speak and had said that I would not. If your Lordships wish me to dilate for a further half-hour on the circumstances in which I speak, I shall be happy to do so; if I may continue with the observations that are germane to this debate, I shall equally be pleased to do so. I was saying that it was not my intention to speak, for the very simple reason—though I
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have the deepest admiration for the noble Earl and a considerable degree of affection, and I hope that I may claim a good deal of friendship with him—that I did not regard it as a possibility that any serious body of people would regard this report as a serious contribution to public business. It was on that basis that I reached the conclusion that we could all be better occupied in doing other things than discussing the report. Having made a statement of such stringency and positive severity, it is right that I should justify it.
The circumstances of this report are these. The noble Earl propounded a Motion in this House on which we all spoke on the subject of pornography. A few, like myself, said that it was not the most crucial issue of the day. This I still believe to be the case. Many people come to complain to me about the incidence of V.A.T.; about the imminent arrival of the Common Market, which some support and some do not; about the iniquities or benevolences of the Industrial Relations Act. I have not had a single human being ever come to me to say: "What is wrecking this country to-day is pornography." I do not believe that any sane human being entertains that belief. There may or may not be some increase in pornography, but the first feature of this report is its total failure to establish whether there has been an increase or a diminution, or whether the level is maintained, as it ought to be, at a decent common denominator.
There is nothing in this report that remotely resembles a scientific investigation of anything. There are 54 surviving members of the Committee, shown on the frontispiece. How anyone could hope to investigate anything with the assistance of 54 people gathered together in council, I do not know. The most startling feature of the whole report is the total impossibility of gleaning from it which of the 54 members supports what. One can extract from this report every conceivable opinion on the question of censorship. For instance, I go along heartily with a splendid comment by the Bishop of Stepney. I should like to read it to your Lordships. Your Lordships will find it at page 191, according to the copy which the noble

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Lord so kindly sent me. At page 191 there occurs this most elegant and I think valuable phrase:
"Censorship or its equivalent can inspire nobody for the kind of crusade that is needed amongst us to-day."
I shall be very surprised indeed if that is the general tenor of the noble Earl's observations when he comes to tell us what the report contains. Yet here, firmly imprinted in the very middle of the book, is a statement that is totally at variance with every recommendation that is made at the end of it.
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: My Lords, I cannot let that remark go. That is of course a total mis-statement, so gross that I think the noble Lord really cannot have read the report, though he was kind enough to give evidence, and his own evidence is among the most valued treasures which we possess.
LORD GOODMAN: My Lords, the mystery of my movements increases minute by minute. I never gave evidence of any kind to this Committee. Had they asked me to give evidence, the terms in which I should have refused might have been positively inelegant. What happened was that the noble Earl wrote to me to say that he would very much welcome my advice on the best method of presenting the report, from a public relations and publicity point of view, when it emerged. Since, as I say, I value the noble Earl and was hoping to save him from some of the errors he has since perpetrated, I wrote a letter to him which he has reproduced in the report.
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: My Lords, with the noble Lord's permission.
LORD GOODMAN: Certainly, my Lords; I am not saying that it was done without my permission. But the difference between that and giving evidence is very real and very profound, and very significant. I gave no evidence; I would not have given any evidence because I do not think the noble Earl had a Committee which was capable of assessing the evidence, or to have been there at all.
When the noble Earl, in his Motion before this House suggested that he was going to set up a private committee, my friendly and emphatic advice to him was that he should do no such thing. The
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wisdom of that advice has been totally confirmed by this document. He lacked not the zeal, not the moral qualities, not the intelligence: for all of those he has in very high abundance. But he lacked the qualifications in terms of social investigation to carry out an investigation of this kind. What he has done is a very grave disservice to the techniques of social investigation, if I may be permitted to say so. To pretend that this is a report at all, and to convey the impression that a number of gentlemen have surveyed the evidence, considered the evidence, and arrived at cogent conclusions, is slightly deceptive, and rather more than slightly deceptive, of the public at large.
It would be of interest to examine just a few fragments of the so-called evidence that appears in this report. These, I think, are very typical of what little there is. If your Lordships will look at the chapter which is called, "Effects—A Few Examples", you will see that two illustrations are given. One is of a youth, or it may be an adult, who wrote a letter to say:
"The most important thing about pornography I have found is that it does literally corrupt. In all boys' schools, like … school, pornography plays an important part of the average boy's life."
This individual, having presumably attended one school, is accepted as an expert on what goes on in all schools. Can one conceive of any serious investigation remotely concerned with a scientific assessment of the evidence that would have inserted this letter at all, and particularly that startling paragraph? The writer then goes on to say:
"In the boarding house, the effect of pornography is very noticeable. The fact is that pornography does not satisfy, but rather builds up people's emotions."
Then, another person writes to say that he went to a school where, on account of the pornography that was to be found in the school, two boys had been taken into the prefects' room.
"… they were separately made to look through the book while the prefects gave a lesson explaining the pictures. Each boy was then taken back to the bed, stripped and masturbated, while the next was told to look at the wall."
This piece of interesting evidence is supported by no inquiry as to who the boys were; no investigation of their doctor or their parents; no investigation of any

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confirmatory evidence of any kind. It is simply a statement, made by somebody at large, which is inserted as a positive con-elusion of the facts it seeks to establish. In any court of law it would be greeted with such derision that no counsel would have had the effrontery to present it as evidence of anything. Yet it is accepted as the sort of material to which we, serious-minded people concerned with legislating for the public at large, should attach importance for the purpose of determining our legislative programme, I could go on for hours demonstrating the same sort of material in this report, which disqualifies it totally from serious consideration as a social document.
THE LORD BISHOP OF LEICESTER: My Lords, may I just remind the noble Lord that the terms of reference of the Committee were to see what means of tackling the problem of pornography would command general support. That was the unifying task in the work of the Committee, not a purely scientific survey of the extent or growth or even the results of pornography.
LORD GOODMAN: My Lords, may I say to the right reverend Prelate with the greatest respect that that does not really deal with the problem. This document was accepted by the Press and largely advertised as a document which established the existence of a problem. To presuppose the existence of a problem would have rendered the document totally useless and unnecessary. It is not a question of knowing how to deal with pornography; it is a question of knowing what quantity of pornography there is to deal with, whether it has increased or not increased and whether in fact it constitutes a public menace. As I have said, there is not a single word in this document in which anyone has tried to assess what the quantity of pornography was before we started, what the quantity of pornography is now, and what it ought to be or ought not to be.
Assuming it to be a possibility to conduct a scientific investigation of this character—and I am rather inclined to the view that the American report may establish that it is a matter of grave difficulty in scientific terms—I submit that the way to start it is for the Committee to devise its own definition of
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pornography. It should say, "For our own purpose pornography is"—this, that or the other. "Then we shall apply that test to the amount of suspect material that exists to see whether or not it is still of the same quantity or an increased quantity or of a reduced quantity. "It did not even enter the innocent heads of the Committee that this was the right way to approach the matter. If they had engaged someone who was versed in these techniques—to whom this document must be a total affront—and had given consideration to the possibility that they might even need to produce a report which did not in the end confirm their existing prejudices (because there is not a word in this report which could not have been written without the investigation and without bothering the numbers of people who were brought in evidence, or so-called evidence, before them); if they had even contemplated the possibility that as a result of an investigation one might arrive at a conclusion which was contrary to one's existing preconception, a very different document might have been produced.
I do not want to say more about the report. The noble Earl has produced a report in circumstances of total probity, total good faith and a sincere and burning passion that it represents a social document. When he comes to speak, at whatever stage he finally makes utterance, I shall be astonished if that is not what he says; if he does not say that this is a valuable social document concerning a deplorable situation. May I say to him, with absolutely equal sincerity, that it is not a valuable social document, it confirms nothing and it does little credit to the people who produced it.
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: My Lords, may I just say one thing to the noble Lord now, because he is not always able to stay to the end of these debates. In case he is not here when I speak I would tell him that I am not going to confine myself to defending our own report. I may have some very sharp things to say about the oration which has just fallen from the noble Lord's lips.
LORD GOODMAN: My Lords, may I say that I have borne sharp things in my time and if one is impelled to say things

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that one believes one must accept the consequence that those who believe otherwise will say sharp things about one. As to whether or not I shall be here when the noble Earl finally utters, that will depend upon when the mystery of his speech is finally resolved.
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: My Lords, may I say that it used to be a tradition when I first came to this House that if one took part in a debate one stayed until the end.
LORD GOODMAN: My Lords, may I make my position absolutely clear on that matter, for now and for future purposes? If the price I have to pay for participating in the debates of this House is that I am unable to discharge the other many duties that I have, then I fear I must forever remain silent, which no doubt would be a situation which noble Lords would bear with great courage and great fortitude. Whatever the tradition may have been in the past, no such tradition was enjoined upon me when I was invited and honoured by a request to join your Lordships' House, and I fear that I cannot conform to it. Having made that position clear—
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: My Lords, I wonder whether the noble Lord might possibly observe what is a common custom, and that is that when the noble Lord finds himself in this position he apologises to the House and explains the circumstances briefly.
LORD GOODMAN: My Lords, I never make a speech without apologising to the House at least five times. May I now utter a blanket apology for all future occasions, that when I am not here to listen to the rest of the debate it will only be because engagements so pressing and urgent have prevented me from staying. Certainly I will make personal and detailed explanations on each occasion when I must depart before the conclusion of a debate, because it would be my wish to remain. I am interested in the debates, but it so happens that I have a life which is singularly tortured by the sort of treadmill that voluntarily I have allowed myself to be put on.
If I may now return to the debate and leave the question of my own activities,
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may I make these observations. We have had urged upon us the suggestion that there is an immense increase in volume of pornography that needs to be dealt with. I do not believe this to be true. First, I believe that if there is any increase in pornography it is almost entirely a metropolitan problem, and a problem of the large metropolis. I do not believe that if you go to Bath, or if you go to Hereford, or if you go to Harrogate or to one hundred and one other pleasant and agreeable cities you will find the police of those cities preoccupied with questions of pornography. They might in some cases, for traffic reasons, be concerned with matters of drug addiction, although I do not think on any great scale; but so far as pornography is concerned this is a metropolitan problem and almost entirely a problem of London. It is a problem if not only of London, of the great cities. It is not a problem of the majority of communities in this country.
The second point I should like to make is that we proceed on the assumption that every social ill is capable of repair by legislation. I think this is a dangerous assumption and an assumption that ought to be challenged at the earliest opportunity. I notice a very considerable attendance in the ranks of the right reverend Prelates and, if I may say so, one would expect to find that in a debate of this kind. I say that without any intention of being otherwise than totally serious. The right reverend Prelates will remember better than anyone that the Ten Commandments are the most solemn injunctions ever imposed on mankind. Very few of those have ever been found capable of being incorporated into any legislative framework. You cannot by law secure that people honour their fathers and mothers; you cannot secure that they do not cast covetous eyes on the possessions of their neighbours; you cannot secure that almost any of those prohibitions can be matters of legislative action. When those vital prohibitions are not capable of being included in any legislative framework, why should we suppose that a matter such as pornography, which by the side of them pales into insignificance and is of relative unimportance, can nevertheless be dealt with?

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We are all concerned with attaining the same objective. We all want to see a better way of life. For some seven years of my life, first under the chieftanship of the noble Baroness, Lady Lee of Asheridge, and then under the noble Viscount, Lord Eccles, I was concerned solely with the question of how to enable people to achieve a better way of living, how to give them interests and activities that were of a more elevated and exalted character—if one may use a slightly pretentious phrase. That was my concern and preoccupation for seven years. The people who are concerned and preoccupied with pornography make one terrible mistake that emerges so saliently and clearly from this document: they look only at the tiny, seamy side of the human community. They do not go to see what a vast increase there is in that public that now goes to the clean, healthy and thoroughly entertaining theatre; the public that goes to the concerts and to the operas; the public who swarm into the art galleries—provided that the titles of the art galleries are such that they commend themselves to the noble Viscount and are intelligible to the public at large. These publics are increasing by thousands and thousands. May it not be that the increase in the more benevolent and valuable interests is attributable to the fact that we have removed trammels and chains from the activities of human beings in all directions? Would it he too high a price to pay to have a little extra pornography if it is wholly and totally outbalanced and outweighed by the increase in these more benevolent and worthy social activities?
I invite the noble Earl to consider that question very seriously: to consider whether it is not necessary to have a free society for people to expand in all directions; to a modest extent, perhaps, in a declension of human behaviour; to a greater extent in an improvement and an advancement of human behaviour. It seems to me that an examination of the moral behaviour, habits and practices of the community—what they read and look at—is incomplete and totally inadequate unless one looks at the whole picture. There is one lady I know who periodically appears on television, writes letters or otherwise engages herself in perfectly reputable and honourable criticisms of the forms of entertainment that now regale our society but who never seems to go
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and see a worthwhile entertainment; she never seems, at the time of some expletive being uttered on the B.B.C., to say, for example, that three splendid documentary programmes were being put out on television or that some excellent music was going over the air. It is only in contrast with what is worth while that one can assess what is unworthy and despicable and it is the major fault of this document, the Longford Report, that it is concerned, and almost pathologically concerned, with aspects of human behaviour which exist, which have always existed and which can never be removed.
I come briefly to the so-called legal code, because the proposed new definition is really—I hesitate to use words which might give offence to the noble Lord—an absurdity. We are told that hereafter pornography is to be something that outrages contemporary standards of decency and humanity. I have not quoted the exact words but that is the gist of the proposal. Consider first the word "outrageous", to which some reference was made by the noble Lord, Lord Fletcher. It means that before one can have a prosecution one must establish that people are at such boiling point and rage over a piece of pornography—take the test which is applied to criminal libel—that there is bound to be a breach of the peace. That is almost impossible to prove. Human beings can be outraged in the true sense of the word by almost anything. The likelihood that they are going to be outraged by the publication of photographs showing young women in the nude to the point where one can procure a prosecution under this definition is remote to the point of being non-existent.
That is not, however, the major point. The most dangerous point—here again, it is a most terrible defect of this document—is that it never considered historically what the implications would have been on English literature and art if a definition of this kind had prevailed years ago. Not a syllable in the document is addressed to the question of what would have happened to Bernard Shaw, Thomas Hardy, Havelock Ellis and hundreds of others who would have been in jail for three years because they would have been said to have outraged contemporary notions of public decency or humanity.
Let us consider the use of the word "humanity" in the document. This must

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give a great deal of offence. This is dragging a word of immense social quality, virtue and kindliness into a context which has no place, no context and no possible meaning. Should W3 not have thought that a few weeks ago some of the newspapers in this country, by their cartoons and articles in relation to immigration and the black population, were outraging canons of humanity? Would we suggest that their proprietors—Heaven forbid; I speak as the chairman of their association—should be lugged off to gaol for three years? The existence of this definition is to be found in the most confused thought that it is possible to imagine. It is to be found in the utter and total hatred of pornography, making it impossible for the perpetrators of this report to reach any objective assessment of the words they were using.
Let us consider this definition. It is really saying that unless one conforms to the standards of the mass of mankind one is committing an offence. Hence, it is an attack on every kind of nonconformity. It is an attack on every kind of liberal thought and minority thought and, if I may say so, it goes from worse to worse the more one thinks about the definition because it does not even achieve what its draftsmen set out to achieve. It will not catch the material it is after. Consider a production like Oh! Calcutta! I do not know how many of your Lordships have seen this production; I confess that I have not seen it. I am sure, however, that it will be seriously deplored by those members of this Committee who subscribe to its ultimate conclusions. I am sure that whatever form of legislation was introduced, they would want it to net oh! Calcutta! and similar productions.
I remind your Lordships, on the other hand, that Oh! Calcutta! has been produced for upwards of two or three years in a London theatre which holds about 1,000 people for eight performances a week. This means that there are something like 50,000 people a year who go to see this production. If one adds the number of years and numbers of productions elsewhere, it is perfectly clear that the production does not outrage anyone's opinions. There have been no riots at the theatre. Immense numbers of people have
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been to see it with total satisfaction. Some say that it is a bit dull, others say that it is rather disappointing or that the sexual aspects do not come up to expectations. But that is not, as I understand it, the complaint that would be made about it by the noble Lord and his Committee. Be that as it may, I suggest that they have produced a definition of total futility and of poisonous dangerousness to free thought. They have contrived to achieve the near impossible. They will not catch what they are after but they will endanger a great many things which no human being is entitled to be after.
If I speak trenchantly and in a manner which unfortunately might give offence to the noble Lord and some of the people concerned, I can only say that this is a case where the issues are of such importance that one cannot mince one's words. It is right to say to the Government that there is no evidence of this vast volume of pornography—that there is no evidence which would justify any intrusion into the freedom of human behaviour and thought. Of course we should like to see pornography reduced and the profits reduced, and there is a very simple method by which to achieve this. Indeed, the noble Lord demonstrates it himself.
I confess that through the business to which I have referred I have been unable to give much study to pornography and I do not think I have a pornographic magazine or volume in my possession. With the further relaxation which I hope will come from abandoning certain activities, I hope that I shall be able to make a more detailed study of the matter. As things are at the moment, what the noble Lord says is that if one goes to Denmark one finds that the pornography is ten times cheaper than it is in England. It is clear that the way to remove these outrageous profits is to introduce the system in being in Denmark, where there is no restraint of any kind on its publication. If we are anxious to prevent people from becoming rich by this foul and odious means, the answer is to remove the restraints. Nothing increases profitability by profiteers and people dealing under the counter more effectively than rationing, and the noble Lord is anxious to introduce a system of rationing.
Some years ago I used to earn an honest penny by practising as what was known as a literary lawyer. Publishers

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employed me to advise them on whether a book could be published with safety from libel, safety from copyright and occasionally safety from obscenity. This latter role was one for which I was not particularly well equipped, but once one is established as a literary lawyer one is reluctant to turn away a fee. On one occasion a book was brought to me which had been published in the United States of America. It had been the rounds and virtually every publisher in London had rejected it because of the considered high risk of publication. I read the book over the weekend and on the Monday I telephoned the publishers and said: "I do not know what all the fuss is about. A more innocuous work I have never seen. I cannot see anything at all that needs to be removed."Elated and fortified by my opinion, which they were prudent enough to ask me to give in writing, they proceeded to publish the book. Indeed I believe that some 60,000 copies of the book were produced in hardback form, and the noble Earl, who is a publisher of distinction, will know that that is by no means normal in the publishing trade.
Some time later the senior partner in the publishing firm came to see me and said,"We were astonished by your opinion and you must be the most courageous lawyer in the world to have given us that advice. We have published the book; we have made a small fortune and we have not been prosecuted. "He added," How did you come to consider passages x, y and z on pages so-and-so", and when I came to examine those passages I realised that I had completely missed every one of the obscenities. In truth, I had not understood a single one of the obscenities. In my innocence they were too much for me. This story has a moral—that it is nearly impossible, if not impossible, to procure a definition of "obscenity."
On the question whether obscenity does harm to people, a very high-powered American commission looked into this matter. Incidentally, there is another feature of the noble Lord's report to which I took a slight objection. While he refers with great approval to the qualifications and standing of the people who produced the minority report in relation to America, there is not I think any reference to the qualifications and standing of the immensely impressive and
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distinguished people who constituted the vast majority. The fact that they contained the Attorney-General of California, the leading child guide expert in the country, and a number of people of similar quality, is nowhere referred to. We are, however, referred at one stage in one of the minority reports to a passage of such idiocy that it is difficult to comment on it although I will draw attention to it. What is perfectly clear is that this is a subject about which there will always be argument. It is not a subject agitating the public at large. It is not a subject that needs any immediate action. In previous debates in your Lordships' House I have been struck by the fact that a number of your Lordships in making speeches have had the candour to say that in your youth you have read pornography. I cannot remember which particular Members of your Lordships' House but quite a number have said that from time to time and have gone on to say that they have now abandoned the practice. If you want more incontrovertible proof that the reading of pornography can do nothing to a community which becomes the consuls and the proconsuls and the senators and the praetors in every part of the world that fact in itself is established.
I do not think that I need say any more than this: it is quite clear that what I have said will not be acceptable to a number of your Lordships, but I ask you to go out and ask a number of people whether they really think that the question of pornography is the most urgent and vital consideration of the modern day and whether they really think that providing this pitiful stuff which a number of people need on account of their own sexual and mental inadequacy is something that ought to occupy the attention of your Lordships' time for another second and certainly for another debate.
6.11 p.m.
LORD COLERAINE: My Lords, like some other of your Lordships and like my noble friend Lord Nugent of Guildford and the noble Lord, Lord Shackle-ton, but unlike the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, I have not intervened in this debate with very great pleasure. I suppose that I have the characteristic of an out-dated generation in that I do not particularly like the parade in public of

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matters which I think are better kept private. I intervene for only two reasons: one reason is my respect for the noble Earl and my admiration for the way in which he has stood up to abuse and ridicule and has produced what I consider, and what I believe a number of your Lordships will consider (in spite of the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, to whose entertaining speech we have listened with so much pleasure), to be a very great contribution to a very important subject. It is rather important, whatever defects his report may have, that he has been able to focus the attention of Parliament on this very important problem. Of course it is not the most important problem with which we are faced. If I were asked what that was I should probably say that it was inflation; but that does not mean that every debate must be about inflation, nor does it mean that we must never discuss other subjects. The noble Lord, Lord Goodman, asks, what reason is there to suppose that there has been any increase in pornography and interest in pornography? He can detect none. But in the book he was telling us about he could not detect any obscenity, and he was told that there was a good deal of it. I think that very possibly the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, is too innocent for this world. The noble Lord seemed to me to advance some very extraordinary propositions. I may be misrepresenting him, but as I understood him, he said that unless you provided pornography there people would not go to Covent Garden.
LORD GOODMAN: My Lords, I had no intention of interrupting any further speaker but I cannot let go on record an historical assertion of that kind attributed to me. I said no such thing. What I said was that you had to examine the whole picture and you had to see whether the possibility that there was an increase in pornography due to the increase in human liberty was not more than compensated for by the more desirable aspects of entertainment now prevalent.
LORD COLERAINE: Yes, my Lords: but the noble Lord seemed to make some connection between the two, and I cannot myself see that there is any connection at all. He also said that after all it really did not much matter because it
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was a metropolitan problem and the problem of large cities. They did not have much pornography, he understood, in Harrogate. That is probably very true, but the plain fact of the matter is that the great bulk of our people live in London and in other large cities, and it is a small minority which lives in Harrogate; so that if pornography is a problem in the metropolitan area, then I submit that it is a national problem.
I would call in evidence against the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, someone whom he would probably be surprised that I should call into the witness box, namely, Mr. Norman Mailer. Mr. Norman Mailer, as your Lordships know, is a brilliant American writer, author of The Naked and the Dead, The American Dream and other works, but he has never been regarded as the male equivalent of Mrs. Whitehouse. I was very much interested to read a year or two ago something that he said:
"A war has been won. Writers like myself can now in America write about any subject; if it is sexual and explicit, no matter, the American writer has his freedom … We can all congratulate ourselves."
I believe that would be the view of the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, also. And yet, Mr. Mailer goes on to say:
"I am troubled, for back of the ogres of censorship and the comedies of community hypocrisy, there still rests the last defence of the censor, that sophisticated argument which might urge that sex is a mystery, and men explore it and define it and examine it and eventually disembowel it of privacy at their peril."
I believe that Mr. Norman Mailer is right.
I am not an anthropologist but I do think that it is probably the case that if you look at any society or culture, however primitive, however civilised—whether you look at the culture of the South Sea Islands, or Hinduism or the eleusinian rites of classical Greece or whether you look at the world to-day, or at any rate at the mystery of Western Europe—sex, however much people may have differed about the various ways of practising it, has always been regarded as something sacred. What seems to me to be so appalling to-day, and what makes me convinced that there is an increase in pornography, that there is an increasing pollution of the moral atmosphere, is that now sex is regarded as a commodity (a trivial commodity even if an expensive one) and that is a terrible thing.

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We should remember also that whatever our faith, we in Western Europe are the inheritors of a Christian culture. I do not mean that we are all Christians by faith, and still less that we are all Christians by practice; but we have inherited a Christian culture deriving from Palestine, Greece and Rome, and I cannot help feeling that history shows that whenever any society turns its back on its traditional culture, as we are doing today, it is in a state of decadence. One of the phenomena of history is the experience of the Jewish race. With one or two temporary back-slidings, they have stood through the centuries and through the millennia for their faith, for their inheritance, and they have survived tribulations and privations as I think few others could have done.
Another thing that I think we have got to realise about obscenity, pornography, is that it is not just an accidental moral pollution of the air, like burning coal fires in one's grate; to some extent it is a deliberate attempt to destroy the existing basis of society. As we know, in the Oz trial the editor of Oz made no bones about this. He said quite explicitly that his purpose was to destroy the idea of family life, and if you did that you could overturn the whole of Western society. There is really nothing new in that. Always throughout European history there have been people who have been trying to find a millennium, to overturn society and start a new society of love and brotherly kindness: people like Eon of Brittany, the pseudo Baldwin, John Ball and so on. And these periods of milleniastic endeavour have nearly always been in periods of shock, after great wars, great devastations, great plagues, I think that to some extent we are passing through such a period to-day.
Another characteristic of these Messianic movements is that they are never inspired by the working class, never inspired by what we think of as Christian Socialism; they are always inspired by people on the fringes of the intellectual world and people who are rejected for some reason or another by the middle class to which they rightly belong.
May I say one thing more. I was very much impressed by something that was said earlier in the debate by the noble Lord, Lord Soper, when he said that we
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were inclined to misunderstand the reality of freedom. I wonder how many of your Lordships would agree with me in what Montesquieu says:
"Liberty does not consist in doing what one pleases.
Liberty only consists in doing what one ought".
I think there is a very profound truth there. I do not see how you can maintain a free society without restraint, and what I suppose chiefly distinguishes man from the lower forms of animal life (and I believe that they are lower) is.just this capacity for self-restraint. The lives of animals are regulated by nature. They mate in due season and for the purposes of reproducing their species. They kill for food. We have the freedom to mate for fun and to kill for fun. But I cannot help thinking that if we abuse that freedom we will go the way of other civilisations which have passed away before us. And whatever the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, may have said to us, however brilliantly he may have spoken, I certainly believe that at the present time we are living in an increasingly polluted atmosphere, and that unless we pull ourselves together we may find that we have gone so far down the slope that we cannot recover ourselves again.
6.25 p.m.
LORD ARDWICK: My Lords, may I say that I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Longford for deferring his speech. It is not often when one is number 14 in the batting order, with a long list of speakers such as we have to-day, that one has a House of such size, and I am sure it is because we have not yet heard Lord Longford and that we are all agog "waiting for Godot". I, too, am speaking with some reluctance to-day. The more we talk about pornography I fear the greater the interest we arouse in it; I am quite sure that until the noble Earl began his inquiry a great many people in this country had never heard of it, and I think we are in some danger of making "pornography" into a clean word.
Lord Longford's Committee have produced the kind of report that I expected from them. It is earnest, it is sincere, it is wide-ranging, indeed far too wideranging, but of course it is nothing like a scientific sociological inquiry. It adds, I think, a little to our knowledge, and

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perhaps something to our perceptions. But it fails to find a convincing answer, because there does not seem to have been any real agreement on, any real concept of, the problem. Some members of the Committee would really, I suspect from reading the report, like us to renounce not merely the Devil but also the world and the flesh. They do not approve of the sexual revolution, which has enabled people to say openly that sexual relations can be happy and enjoyable in themselves, and that the private sexual life of adults is their own moral concern, not that of the Church or of society, and certainly not that of Governments.
There is, of course, a dark side to the sexual revolution. There is a widespread trade in pornography, pornography which is easy to recognise but very difficult to define in legal terms. And its danger is, I think, not exactly a social one but the effect it may have on sexual attitudes and sexual values. Its corruption is of the mind and the spirit and of the relationship between the sexes. But may I say that those of us who grew up in a harsh, oppressive, puritan environment could suffer a worse corruption of mind and spirit and find our relationships with the opposite sex very seriously impaired. I am sure indeed that the old repressive system did far more damage to the spirit, and indeed to sheer mental balance, than pornography does to-day, for the repression in our youth was universal, while pornography, growth industry though it may be, still touches only a small part of our society.
There is an attempt at page 412 of the report to define pornography in a fashion which will appeal to liberal and sensitive minds. Indeed, I find much to admire in it. It defines pornography as that which exploits and dehumanises sex so that human beings are treated as things and women in particular as sex objects. But I wonder whether the Committee really accept that. Suppose you have a book, or a film, which deals with real and passionate love of man for woman and woman for man, and spares us no detail of their cherished intimacies. There is no dehumanisation, no treatment of a woman as a sex object. Well, I think that one can make aesthetic objection to this kind of work, as the Amises do in
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their excellent essay in the report, but it falls outside the attempted definition of pornography. I should imagine that the kind of work that I have tried to visualise is that which many people who sympathise with the findings of this report would like to prohibit. But of course it would also be possible to produce a book, or a film, which exploited and dehumanised sex and yet which spared us the ultimate intimacies, the ultimate embraces. It could be morally horrifying, but would it be pornography? The Taming of the Shrew almost comes into that category, and so does that cold classic Les Liaisons Dangereuses.
In the end the Committee come to the law, and they would prohibit any publication or performance whose effect, taken as a whole, is to outrage contemporary standards of decency accepted by the public at large. But what is acceptable to the public at large? I do not know. It is one of the problems that we have all the time in Fleet Street. It may surprise you, in view of what Fleet Street publishes to-day, that we are erring, we think, on the side of safety in order not to shock our readers. But I do not know what is acceptable to the public at large. I do not think that a discussion with 11 other people in a jury room will enable any of us to know. There is, I suspect, no public opinion, no consensus, in society the moment you get outside the field of very obvious hard commercial pornography. I have doubts whether a jury of this kind would be so repressive as the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, feared. I think the contrary, that it would be very easy to disgust a jury of people who were largely under the age of 50, but that it would be very hard to outrage them to-day. The sense of outrage is not very strong among the younger generation, taking the younger generation right up to middle age.
I believe that there will be almost universal agreement that if a law can be framed to prohibit a public display of indecent books, pictures, and objects, both outside and inside shops it should be framed and rigorously upheld. It is the Wolfenden solution of making prostitution available only for those who seek it out. The object is to avoid creating demand by the provision of supply. I am sure that this would greatly diminish

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the trade. When you are selling respectable magazines your biggest sales effort is to get them displayed on the news stands and in the shops. If you cannot get them displayed—and there is often a reluctance to display serious minority publications—then all may be lost. I am sure that this would apply to the trade of pornography too.
We can never eradicate pornography. I disagree with the noble Lord who spoke last; I do not think that it is a new phenomenon. Sex may always have been a sacred mystery, but I think that it has also always been a profane revelation throughout history. We have always had the brothels side by side with the temples. We can never eradicate pornography, but I think that we can contain it and keep it out of the hands of children. What we cannot do is to turn the clock back to the Victorian age; to put art in a puritan straitjacket; to tell people how they must conduct their private lives if they do not wish to suffer social penalties; to return to reticence in the serious discussion of sexual matters, including reticence in the classroom. Yet this, I suspect, is the secret longing of many people. But it has nothing to do with pornography, or depravity, or corruption; it is an attempt to reincarnate Dr. Bowdler and Mrs. Grundy, and it cannot be done.
6.36 p.m.
LORD FERRIER: My Lords, as one of the strong supporters of the noble Earl, Lord Longford, in the debate in April last year (though I found the subject distasteful then as I do to-day), I welcome this report. With all its imperfections, including its length, it far exceeds my expectations of what the result of the inquiry would be. Further, I feel that it is remarkable that so voluminous a report was procured from so many sources with such remarkable speed. If it is lengthy, at least it shows that the spadework has been thorough—and in using that word I quote from the speech of the noble Earl last year. I do not think that he would claim the report as being more than spadework, but that spadework has been thorough, despite what the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, said. I feel that we owe a debt to the right reverend Prelate for introducing this debate in the face of considerable resistance, and I accordingly welcome it as
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showing, by the number of speakers, that those who tried to pour cold water on the project were, and are, quite out of touch.
To be fair, one of the reasons why I welcome the debate is that the sooner the whole beastly controversy is out of the way the better; and in that respect I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Ardwick. We can make too much of this. At the same time, circumstances are on the right reverend Prelate's side. We not only have this ugly and important debate, but the Press to-day disclose similar rumblings in another place, and yesterday we read with satisfaction the judgment of the Court of Appeal in the Blackburn case. I think that we can disregard the sniping which has come from various directions—generally from the expected permissive quarters. I will not elaborate on what I mean unless it be to say that the majority of sensible people, God-fearing and otherwise, seem to accept that something must be done about the law. Regardless of what the noble Lord, Lord Gcodman, says, I prefer to listen to the noble Lord. Lord Soper, and the right reverend Prelate himself, and many others, and to my own wide circle of friends, who say that pornography is increasing—or it was increasing until recently, as the noble Viscount, Lord Hanworth, pointed out—at an alarming pace.
The noble Lord, Lord Goodman, said that pornography is not the most important issue to-day, and in that I agree with him. In a lengthy and rambling speech—almost confused, I thought—but redeemed throughout by his shafts of humour, he disclosed of course that his views were as valuable on this subject as his views on the book which he recommended might be published, and then found he had left out a whole lot of pages. I think that I could go on about Lord Goodman's speech, but I can safely leave that in the hands of the noble Earl who is to follow me.
LORD BIRKETT: My Lords, in the absence of the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, would it not perhaps be fair to say that that was not what, the noble Lord said. He did not leave the pages out; he read them through most carefully without understanding them.
LORD FERRIER: My Lords, perhaps he read the whole of the Longford Report

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and did not understand some of the pages. I beg the noble Lord's pardon in his absence. But I think the noble Lord, Lord Coleraine, put his finger on the problem when he said that pornography has been increasing at an alarming pace, and is still increasing. I am one of those who make no bones about believing, as I think the noble Lord, Lord Coleraine does, that it is not only the dirty money which is to be made out of hard pornography which actuates the trade, but the resources of world revolution—the outriders of anti-Christ. These resources are being poured into this channel like the sophisticated arms in Ireland to-day. I made this point obliquely when I spoke in 1971. It is the weak for whom we plead. Of course, as the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, said, pornography, soft or hard, has very little effect on the mature, but we must realise—and I think this is brought out in page after page of the report—that it is the weak and the immature who deserve our protection.
Of course the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, has reason to hold the views which he holds, as have others, about the effects of pornography on the mature, but that is not the point. We can leave the mature to look after themselves. As one of my correspondents emphasised, the social sequence of pornography's effect on the weak is simple—vice, drugs, violence and crime follow in that order. As I see it, the problem is not so complex as the intellectuals and academics—what one of my friends calls the "silly-clevers"—would make us believe. As Peregrine Worsthorne said, as reported in the book:
"The pornographers are the new blasphemers, and it should be the rationalists and humanists driving them out of the Temple, far more than the Christian moralists, since it is now their religion which is being put at risk."
I have only three more brief points to make. First, I should like to thank Mr. Kerrigan and Mr. Keith Steven, the Secretary of the Church of Scotland Committee on Moral Welfare, who prepared Chapter 23 on the position in Scotland. They pinpoint the important difference between the laws of Scotland and England. Perhaps they are a little complacent about the impact of pornography in the North, less widespread though it may be than in the more densely populated urban areas in the South. One of the few points on which I agreed with the
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noble Lord, Lord Goodman, is that this is very largely a problem of urban and city areas where there are dense populations. Of course, in Scotland, Glasgow is the only area to which this description applies. Another point about the chapter on Scotland which I find satisfying is that the authors suggest the same wording of a new definition for their draft Bill as that in the draft English Bill. The noble Lord, Lord Goodman, has torn that definition to ribbons, but I do not think that that matters. This is something to bite on. This is what the noble Earl last year called "spade work" and it is something to bite on. It is important that both in Scotland in regard to the law there, and in England and Wales in regard to the law here, there is a consensus of opinion on this definition. I cannot forbear to mention the "Scottish Petition for Public Decency", which is reported on page 390 and which was signed this very year by about a quarter of a million folk of all denominations. It is another emphatic pointer to the wishes of the general public that something must be done about the legal position and about the enforcement of the law as it stands, and that right early.
The General Assembly of the Church of Scotland had some hard things to say about the change in the B.B.C.'s approach in the middle 'sixties, and there is much in what they said. Incidentally. I often feel that it is no use contending that "you can always switch off if you like". Of course you can, but it is rubbish to say that, as the mother of a working class family said to another of my correspondents. She was referring, in particular, to violence, although they were discussing pornography. She said:
"I often wish the children were not gazing at the television, but if I switch it off what happens? They go out into the street far below, which is worse."
The noble Baroness, Lady Young, said that the B.B.C. are well governed by the Board of Governors. I sometimes doubt that, because one of my acquaintances, who is closely concerned with the B.B.C. though not a member of the staff, told me when I was complaining about the "British Empire" series earlier in the year, "The fact is that the Governors are not governing". That surprised me, but it was late at night.
The second point which I wish to make arises from my personal dismay at the

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obvious influence, through the Press and through broadcasting, of such people as Dr. Martin Cole, Mr. Kenneth Tynan and so on. I suppose it is a free country but, all the same, I wonder—and I am not alone in so doing—how long the tenure of the present literary consultant of the National Theatre has to run, and indeed how the position ever came to be so filled, especially when I am told that the position has an influence over the line to be taken by theatrical critics generally. Lastly, I should like to emphasise, from my experience as boy, school prefect, father and grandfather, what the report contends. That experience is that the vast majority of young people of every creed and colour, clothed and unclothed, are naturally modest and regard provocative nakedness and exposure as interference with the proper privacy of sex matters. I have personal knowledge of the distressing and dismaying effect of soft "porn" on a naturally reserved and innocent young girl of thirteen.
I draw particular attention to the quotation on page 230 from Dr. Louise Eickhoff's letter in The Lancet, which reads:
"… the safety devices which are built in to protect the individual and Society—i.e., a desire for privacy, secrecy, intimacy, and reservation for the love-bond situation".
I emphasise those words as they are very important. They are the words of a well-known consultant child psychiatrist. How often do we sing:
"Teach us to rule ourselves always
Teach us Delight in simple things,
And Mirth that has no bitter springs".
And Kipling was no prude. I beg the intellectuals and academics not to lead us, with their theories and disputations, into a sort of mental and moral Spaghetti Junction with numerous tortuous ways, both in and out, and with many weary miles to go for any who take the wrong turning before, if ever, the right road is regained. The problem, as I see it, is a straightforward crossroads, and the sooner a revised law repaints the signpost the better for us all.
6.50 p.m.
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: My Lords, I hope I have not disconcerted anybody by speaking later than indicated by the list of speakers, which was intended to assist my noble friend Lord Fletcher, who had to leave. It is a privilege to
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follow the noble Lord, Lord Ferrier, who speaks so effectively on behalf of moral values. I am particularly glad that he and the Church of Scotland generally have been so kind to our report, both in supplying us with invaluable members of our Committee and in backing up the report since it has appeared. I aim naturally most grateful to the right reverend Prelate for initiating this debate, and for all he has done to help us in so many different ways; and I am grateful, too, for the kind things said about me by him and by others. A good manly years ago Ernest Bevin defined "inflation" as making a successful speech at a public dinner and "deflation" as going home and telling your wife about it. So far as I am concerned, "inflation" has been listening to one or two of the speakers and "deflation" has been listening to one or two of the others. So on the whole, and not only to-day, I have been able to strike a kind of balance between those two extremes. But if it is not impertinent of me, and though it is not perhaps quite my position to do so, may I thank all the speakers.
My Lords, I have rather a lot to say, and therefore perhaps noble Lords will forgive me if I do not deal in detail with a number of the speeches, as I would do, of course, if I was winding up. But the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, has kindly stayed longer than usual. To find him here at eight minutes to seven argues that this is a very important subject indeed and not a trivial one, as some Members were inclined to argue earlier. I also take it as a mark of personal friendship.
LORD GOODMAN: My Lords, it argues only total devotion to the noble Earl.
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: Of course, my Lords, the noble Lord is so cunning. Now he has completely disarmed me, and I am going to find it difficult to say what I would really say if I had a little more courage. At any rate, I thought that the only trouble with his speech, obviously, was that he was waiting to prepare his speech while I delivered what he thought was to be an oration of perhaps an hour, and that in the result he had no time to prepare, so he came down to the House in a very muddled condition—a delightfully muddled condition; but "muddled", I

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think, is the only fair word one can apply to it. But without trying to sort out all his muddles for him, let me comment on two points, one of them personal. As far as humanly possible I am going to leave out the personal references to myself, but he said that I was an excellent fellow who would be a good prep school master in a lean year, or words to that effect, but that I was not qualified as a social investigator. My Lords, I do not know who in this House is more qualified than I am. I think the noble Lord, Lord Robbins, might be said to be more qualified, in view of his great Report, and I think the noble Baroness, Lady Wootton, might he said to be. But with one or two exceptions I have had much more experience of social investigation than 99 noble Lords out of a 100. I was for three years with Lord Beveridge when many noble Lords were doing more dangerous things, though not necessarily things more intellectually educative; I conducted an inquiry myself, under the auspices of the Nuffield Foundation, into the causes of crime; and I have carried out other inquiries. So if the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, who has had no experience whatever, so far as I know, of social investigation, who is an ignoramus in that field—I repeat, a total ignoramus in the field of social investigation—comes down and says that I would have done a wonderful job if only I had been qualified, I can only say that he knows as much about social investigation as I know about the law. If I was in trouble (and the world is very full of it) I would go to him for help. I have before now, and I would go again for help on any legal or indeed human matter. But when it comes to social investigation, to use a famous expression,"Chuck it, Smith!" At any rate, having dealt with that in, I hope, an amicable way, may I come on to other points?
The noble Lord, Lord Goodman, argued that pornography was probably not noticeably increasing. Last year in this House I submitted the proposition that pornography had increased, was increasing and ought to be diminished. If I am asked, "Has it increased since then?", I think it would be rather difficult to give a very confident answer because while a lot of very unpleasant productions have emerged or developed
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in the 18 months, there has been, on the other hand, some counter-movement associated with my friend Mrs. Whitehouse, who was obliquely referred to (not very unkindly, but obliquely referred to) by the noble Lord, and through the Festival of Light and others. At any rate, there has been some counter-movement, and it would be rather hard to say whether pornography is worse as of now than it was when we debated these matters in the spring of last year. At any rate, let us take the words of Mr. Carr, the Home Secretary, who declared at the Conservative Conference:
"There is a great and growing public concern about pornography".
That is what the Home Secretary said, and I do not think that we can assume that the public are so deluded as to imagine that there is an increase in pornography when that is not really so. So I think that if we take the words of Mr. Carr we shall probably agree that there has been this growing concern and probably some increase, although there has been some counter-movement.
My Lords, as various speakers have mentioned, of course there has been a very important development in the last few days. I am a little inhibited, perhaps, but I am talking of the judgment of Lord Denning and his colleagues in relation to an application for an order of mandamus by Mr. Blackburn against the police. I am a little inhibited because I understand that Mr. Blackburn is appealing, and therefore I must be careful not to intrude on what is sub judice. But from that case it emerges beyond question that pornography, not only soft pornography but hard pornography—pornography which is by any possible test, actual or theoretical, illegal—is being sold freely in London. That is the actual position, and I think that has to be accepted as a fact. The law is being freely broken. Whether we should like to tighten the law or not, the present law is being freely broken; and the whole question whether one can improve the administration of the law without altering the law is one which comes rather close to the issue which is sub judice. But I think we can pay very great attention, to say the least, to the judgment of Lord Denning and his colleagues, which must surely strongly support the view that has been argued in

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our report, that the existing law is ineffective and inadequate, and should be changed. I am not trying to argue that the judges said that the particular changes recommended in our report were the right ones. They just said that the present law ought to be changed, and I think we are bound to start from there.
Now the questions—obviously the eternal questions, as one might say; or they seemed to become eternal to me as we went on with this inquiry—are, broadly speaking, three: What is pornography? Does it do any harm? And what, if anything, do we propose to do about it? I shall touch very briefly on the definition. I will remind your Lordships—the right reverend Prelate reminded us of it earlier, but I will mention it again—that in our report we defined pornography as
"That which exploits and dehumanises sex so that human beings are treated as things and women in particular as sex objects".
We have been attacked on various grounds, very naturally. As Mr. Truman, I think, once said, "If you find it too hot you can always come out of the kitchen"; so one is certainly not complaining of any criticisms. We have been attacked on various grounds, but not so far as I know in regard to the definition. The point to notice, surely, is that pornography is closely connected with perversion and, through perversion, with cruelty. Anybody who chooses to walk down the streets of Soho and can bear to look into the windows will see the close connection between pornography in the purely sexual sense and cruelty. So when we are talking of sexual liberation, or anything of that kind, do not let us forget that many people who would favour sexual liberation dislike cruelty quite as much as I do, and I dare say more; and I hope that that point will not be overlooked.
However, let us come to the vital question: Does pornography do any harm? In the first place it causes offence, and I say that causing widespread offence is harmful. If you are causing embarrassment, pain or distress, that is harmful. It is impossible for me to feel that the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, agreed with me very much in these matters, but at any rate on that particular point I think that he (and it may even be the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont, who seemed to be
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still more extreme in that direction; but certainly I think the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton) would agree that where pornography causes public offence it should be curbed. I think I am interpreting the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, correctly. So there does seem to be a very widespread agreement here, and in the country, for some steps to curb what is called display". No doubt when we come to that, when, as I hope, the Bill appears, we shall have all sorts of problems initially or at the Committee stage. But there seems to be a great consensus in regard to "display". I welcome that heartily.
Then we come to the question of whether it does any harm, in the sense of causing any moral deterioration in those who come under its influence. One can supply individual instances. We supplied a few in the report which I need not repeat now; but I will quote as an example one which came to me a day or two ago—not because, taken by itself, one example or 50 examples or 100 examples prove that on balance it does harm—merely to focus our thoughts. I am taking it from a newspaper cutting that the lady concerned, the victim, sent me:
"After a pub crawl a young motorway labourer went home to study his collection of pornographic photographs. As he pored over them he thought of the 31-year-old divorcee who lived nearby. He had never spoken to her. The 22-year-old man was so stirred that he grabbed a wrench and smashed his way into the woman's house and savagely attacked her in the bedroom. Screaming, ' I want you ', ho stabbed her in the stomach and slashed her across the throat with a knife."
That is one example. If people say that there was never evidence, then they are flying in the face of a large accumulation of evidence. When people say that there is no evidence let them start by observing that one can collect quite a lot of pieces of individual evidence.
LORD GOODMAN: My Lords, I shall be interested to know what the noble Earl thinks that that is evidence of. Is he saying that that assault would not have been committed if the accused had not had a collection of pornographic photographs? Has anyone seen the collection? Do we know where they derive from? Were they published; were they photographs taken privately or were they

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bought? This is typical of the sort of evidence that appears in this report.
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: My Lords, that sounds clever, but it is not quite clever enough. I am going to read out—I was not going to do so, but in the circumstances I must—what the judge who sentenced him to six years said. He said:
"Whoever supplied you with pornographic literature can be sure that they have a lot of responsibility for what you did."
I am prepared to stand on the view taken by the judge who sentenced him. I think that that was a satisfactory answer to that single point. If the noble Lord is not going to be satisfied with the answer to that limited point, then he is going to be very hard to please this evening.
My Lords, I go on to the wider question of what would be the effect of the prevalence of pornography. This is obviously immeasurable. Supposing, for argument's sake, you find it increasing 50 per cent. in five years, no one can say that that increase would be related to a certain increase in crime or to a certain expansion of promiscuity. You pass beyond any sort of field of measurement. But we can assume that a major increase in pornography such as, I submit with great respect to the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, has occurred, is bound to have an effect of some kind. If we say that it is not likely to have an effect of any kind then we are flying in the face of all common sense, of all experience, of all educational theory, of all advertising technique and in the face of—a good point made earlier by a noble Lord whose name escapes me—the principle to which we give effect in dealing with the stirring up of racial hatred. We assume that that does have an effect; and we must assume that a great expansion of pornography has a major effect; although I agree that one cannot measure it.
We are told that there is no evidence. Here, with the permission of the House, I will go into the question at some little length. When people talk about no evidence they mean, I suppose, no statistical evidence, no evidence of the kind examined in the appendix of our report. It was prepared by Mr. Yaffé. I am afraid that I have the feeling, without being rude to the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, that
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he has not read Mr. Yaffés appendix. He spoke as if we had paid no attention to the evidence. There is a careful examination of the evidence in our appendix.
LORD GOODMAN: My Lords, I hesitate to interrupt, but the noble Earl keeps referring to what I have done or what I have not done. I read the appendix which was a careful and reasoned statement of why he was not prepared to repudiate the majority report of the American Commission.
THE EARL OF LONG FORD: My Lords, I am afraid that that was not Mr. Yaffe's conclusion. Here I pick up a point from what I think the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, said. Perhaps he will correct me if I am wrong. Lord Shackleton seemed to be saying that there is overwhelming agreement among experts—I do not know who they were but I should be glad to meet them—that pornography does not have any adverse effect on adults. Whatever else the alleged experts say, they would not be able to argue that. They might be able to say that there is no evidence that it has any effect; but they certainly cannot argue that there is any clear proof that it does not have an effect. It remains, so far as the experts are concerned, an open question. That is the real position, as anybody who looks at Mr. Yaffés appendix will know.
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, without looking a: what appears in Hansard, I cannot remember the exact phrase. The noble Earl may be right: but I was at pains to put forward the evidence of those who said that the evidence was in the way I indicated and this did not seem at least to be inconsistent with Mr. Yaffé's conclusion which was that in the present state of knowledge it is not possible to draw any useful conclusion which might be applied to this problem. Perhaps he was floating in the middle. All that I thought I concluded was that it was yet to be shown that pornography caused the harm it was suggested that it caused.
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: My Lords, if I misinterpreted the noble Lord I apologise, but I thought it so important to make the claim that it remains an open question so far as the experts' evidence is concerned, that I ventured to take him up on it.

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Now let us consider what is meant in a discussion of this kind when we say that there is no evidence. We presumably mean that there is no relevant scientific evidence and we draw the conclusion from that—people who differ from me on this will draw this conclusion—that when there is no scientific evidence one assumes that there is no evidence; that the fact does not exist. The truth is that it is not usually possible (and that is the point of my question to the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont) to discover scientific evidence in matters of this kind. Let us take any of the major social inquiries. Ordinarily speaking, you cannot produce scientific evidence for the more important conclusions or assumptions. Take the Beveridge Report on social insurance and allied services. Beveridge was asked to look into social insurance and allied services and he decided—not in the light of evidence, but he just decided because it was his social objective—that he wanted to abolish want. He made the assumption also that one ought to have full employment, a national Health Service and an adequate system of family allowances. The last three were what he called his assumptions.
Take the Wolfenden Report. That Committee arrived at a basic principle, but without evidence, that one should not interfere with people by law unless they seem to be doing harm to somebody else. That is the famous Wolfenden principle. It was not arrived at as a result of scientific evidence. It was just the conclusion of the committee. Take Lord Robbin's Report. I would place his Report on Higher Education along with the Report of my old master, Sir William Beveridge. I would give it as great acclaim. But he and his colleagues reached the conclusion (I do not know whether they reached it at the beginning or at the end; but it was unproved and unprovable) that everyone who qualified to receive a university education should, in fact, receive one. I have the exact wording here if the noble Lord would like me to read it.
LORD ROBBINS: My Lords, with respect and true gratitude to my old and dear friend the noble Earl, I must differ from him in this connection. The conclusion to which he refers was reached by the members of that committee only after
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the most exhaustive statistical investigation of the so-called"pool of ability" theory. And Professor Moseley's work on that—I had very little to do with it except for asking Professor Moseley to make that inquiry—seems to me to be a model of the way in which a preliminary sociological investigation of a great problem should take place before conclusions are reached. While I am on my feet, may I just allude to the Beveridge Report. The noble Earl is quite right in saying that up to the time he came to write his Report in the middle 'forties, Beveridge knew exactly what he wanted. But behind the Beveridge Report lies 15 years of sociological investigation, from Charles Booth onwards.
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: Well, my Lords, I do not in fact agree with the noble Lord's interpretation. However, the noble Lord will know his own Report better than I, but I know Lord Beveridge's Report and had a great deal to do with it; and I still say that he formed his social objectives when he was not a young man but when he was about the same age as I am now. When you reach that sort of age undoubtedly you have formed your own social objectives. I will not go on with the argument about the Report of the noble Lord, Lord Robbins, but I still say to the noble Lord that the assumption or conclusion that everybody who would benefit from a university education should have it is an unprovable conclusion. You simply cannot prove it from facts or figures. The noble Lord will see—
LORD ROBBINS: My Lords, I do not want to deny that there is a value judgment in that final conclusion.
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: Exactly, my Lords: a value judgment. So perhaps then we may agree on that. When it comes to dealing with pornography a major value judgment is involved. The question is, of course, what do we then do about it? A value judgment, and one which is made by almost everybody, is that pornography does some harm. Last year the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, actually said that obviously pornography should be diminished if we can find means of diminishing it, and that, by definition, could not be anything but a good thing. He said something rather close to that tonight, and that is why I said I thought

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he was confused. He hovered between saying that it was something we wanted diminished and something which did not do any harm and might even be beneficial. But if one thinks that pornography ought to be diminished, it is, presumably, because one thinks it is a bad thing and that is the general assumption of almost everyone here. The real question—I am not one who thinks that it is an easy question; I think it is a difficult question—is: how do you draw a line which does not interfere with essential liberties? That is the crucial question, and perhaps I shall not confuse the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, or anybody else when I say that I quite agree that they are very much concerned that that line should riot be drawn so tightly that we interfere with the creative impulses of the country.
My Lords, I must say a word about censorship. Last year I said in this House that most of us dislike censorship and most of us dislike pornography, and the question is, how can you deal with pornography without expanding the area of censorship? As the right reverend Prelate said at the beginning of the debate, we have not expanded the area of censorship; and I repeat that by "censorship" one must mean the appointment of a censor, someone who can stop a publication from coming out. We have not done that. We have suggested a reconstruction of the film censorship, but we have not expanded the area of censorship. So far as that goes, we, in our plan, have complied with the requirements that I set out last time.
Before I conclude I must say a word about the deep-rooted opposition to any proposals of this kind. Some of it comes from gifted people—the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, for example, and the noble Baroness, Lady Gaitskell; and no doubt we shall hear it from the noble Baroness, Lady Lee of Asheridge, when she speaks. It is particularly identified with the arts, with communication, and there is no doubt that many such people feel that any attempt to strengthen the law against obscenity represents a movement towards repression. I am not going to argue that now. I have been connected with books as much as most noble Lords in this House, one way and another, directly or indirectly, and I fully understand that some people have these subconscious feel-
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ings. As soon as the idea is mooted that we should strengthen the law in the way suggested they feel that they are on the other side. I can only hope that they will gradually realise that there is no need to be so alarmed.
My Lords, I must say a word about a rather deeper and, in a way, a more rational and, to me, rather more objectionable point of view. Many of the artists or writers I have in mind would come under this next heading; and, of course, many would not. There are a lot of people to-day, talented people, in their own way idealistic people—many of them are at any rate—whose philosophy I can only call one of sexual liberation. In the extreme case these people are utterly opposed to the family. We saw that last year in connection with the Oz case. And some evidence given to us was explicitly aimed at the destruction of the family. That is what I would call the extreme form of sexual liberation. Many others believe in what used to be called "free love". That is not quite such a fashionable term as it was, but it seems to me to cover their activities fairly well. At any rate, overtly or covertly, they favour sexual promiscuity. If you favour sexual promiscuity you are not likely to welcome a report such as the Longford Report. You are bound to feel that it is going to interfere ultimately with the kind of thing of which you approve.
The people I am talking of are a strong force; nobody can deny that they are a strong force. I am not saying that there is anything wicked about it; I am just saying that theirs is a point of view utterly opposed to the point of view of Christians and of Humanists who believe in faithfulness in marriage and chastity outside it. In our report we have a very strong Christian inspiration, if you like, but we also have a powerful contribution from Humanists who speak up strongly for the family. So it boils down to this: that while one can conduct all these scientific inquiries and pseudoscientific inquiries—and they can go on for years—the fact is that those who favour sexual promiscuity, or do not see any reason why one should be alarmed about the growth of it, will dislike my report. It is as simple as that. But there is a vast number of people in this country who are in the middle, whether

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or not they happen to call themselves Christians. Certainly most of them will not be Roman Catholics. But the vast majority of people still—
BARONESS GAITSKELL: But, my Lords—
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: May I just finish my sentence? There are a vast majority of people in this country who still aspire to faithfulness in marriage and chastity outside it.
BARONESS GAITSKELL: My Lords, I thank my noble friend for giving way. Can he tell me what sexual promiscuity has to do with the growth of pornography? Or rather, what has pornography to do with sexual promiscuity which, over the ages, has been absolutely free for men? They have always had it. Now, with "women's lib", women are also coming up to it. Personally, I am not particularly in favour of promiscuity—that is part of my prudishness. However, I appreciate that other people can be allowed to do as they like about promiscuity.
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: My Lords, the noble Baroness says "other people." I do not know whether she means children or not—
BARONESS GAITSKELL: No, of course not.
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: The noble Baroness is making those expressive gestures when I mention children—
BARONESS GAITSKELL: What has promiscuity got to do with children?
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: My Lords, I am afraid that Dr. Martin Cole actually recommended it for children, in an article in the Guardian written last year. So I am afraid that one cannot separate the two topics in that way. One noble Lord, I think it was the noble Lord, Lord Ferrier, said that you cannot separate what has influence on adults with what has influence on children. At any rate, the noble Baroness, Lady Gaitskell, does not see any connection between pornography and promiscuity. She said earlier that she had never seen hard pornography. I cannot exactly say that I hope she sees a lot of it, but the fact is that if she knows nothing about hard pornography I must explain
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to her that it encourages perversion in every possible way, and that leads to sexual promiscuity. Therefore, if one is actually against sexual promiscuity, one will be on the other side to people who are in favour of it. Many people are interested in pornography and many are not, but the fact is that if the vast majority of people feel that marriage in this country is threatened, then they will undoubtedly repudiate pornography.
What the future holds one cannot say. I should like to see much more research into the reasons why these people become addicts of pornography, and to help them in some way. For the moment the task is clear. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, has explained that the present law is quite unsatisfactory, and I do not doubt that most fair-minded people would agree with him. Whether it is done in exactly the same way as we recommend in our report, or in some other fashion, I am sure that there will soon be general agreement that something drastic must be done without delay.
BARONESS GAITSKELL: My Lords, before the noble sits down, may I ask him what promiscuity has to do with perversion?
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: My Lords, I would say that promiscuity is a form of perversion.
7.21 p.m.
VISCOUNT BARRINGTON: My Lords, I do not want to add to the certain amount of confusion that there has been about the routine of this debate by speaking from Benches that are not my own. The only reason I am doing so is not because I am going to utter illiberal sentiments, but in the faint hope that the few things that I want to say may be more audible than they have been in the past. If they are not, it will be no loss whatsoever to your Lordships. I promise your Lordships that, speaking after the noble Earl, Lord Longford, and so many other speakers, there are but a few points that I want to make, except to explain that where I stood, as I mentioned in the last debate, I still stand.
I should like, first of all, to thank the right reverend Prelate for opening the debate in what I thought was an admirable way. It has sometimes been

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said that the Church of England, of which I am a professing but rarely practising member, speaks with two voices on this subject, as on many other subjects. I should be sorry to think that it spoke with only two voices. In the days of the very primitive church it spoke with at least twelve, and with the addition of St. Paul, thirteen. Fortunately, in those days, the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, was not an early practising Christian, or the amount of volubility going on would have escalated considerably. I think that what is meant by this was clearly put, as it often is, in a cartoon by Osbert Lancaster a long time ago, which represented two clerics, one of the old school. I do not think that he had a name, but I first met him when he was behind a lectern announcing that the lesson would be taken from the 33rd Chapter of Jeremiah, "trad" version. On this occasion he was sitting in his study interviewing a curate of the younger, more progressive school, and the caption was, I think:
"Am I to understand, Trendy, that you are campaigning for the installation of a jumbo font to baptise the entire cast of Oh! Calcutta!?"
He did not comment on that, but one could see from his face that he disapproved of the project, and if one had asked him on what grounds I think he would have said: "On all grounds that I can think of, and many that I cannot." Those, I think, are the grounds on which the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, disapproves of this Report, as much of the Press did, too. I shall read the noble Lord's speech with great interest, because some of his, I thought, fascinating comments went by so quickly, and particularly the order of the comparative importance of the Ten Commandments and the Two Commandments, which are generally thought to be the more important even than the Ten Commandments. And pornography he considers so much less important than what you do with your ox and ass either on Saturday or Sunday—I forget which.
What I felt about the report when I read about it in the papers, before I had the courage to get a copy, was that I was in for a shock, because it was criticised, as it has been to-night, on so many grounds which seem to me to be rather incompatible. I can remember that it was
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criticised for being an attempt by a minority to impose their views on a majority, and an attempt by a majority to impose their views on a minority; of ignoring public opinion altogether, and wishing to use public opinion as a criterion of these things; as a voice of one narrow-minded man, and as a conflict of voices of a great many sort of mini-men; and a good many others, all of which bears out that this is a difficult subject. I do not think one would expect it to be anything else.
There are other difficult subjects of course. Even biography, with which the noble Lord's family is connected, is not an easy subject. I remember the earliest clerihew that he ever published explained that science and biography differs from geography—one is about maps and the other about chaps. You can say that science and pornography are similar to geography in one respect—that each is fine if you know where to draw the line The whole thing that we have been discussing to-night, I think with great profit, is this difficulty of definition. I entirely agree with those speakers who have said that, although the Longford definition (if one may call it that) is not the perfect one it is a great improvement on what is thought elsewhere to be a bad one. I also agree with the noble Lord, Lord Soper, who said that the fact that you could not define it precisely did not really matter. I think it was A. E. Houseman who, when asked to define poetry, said that he could no more define poetry than a dog could define a rat; but he thought that they would both recognise them from the symptoms they cause. They may produce different symptoms in different people, as they evidently do.
Those who tend to be the most anti of what the report is trying to do, however unsuccessfully, rarely defend their objections on the ground that pornography is a good thing; that it just does not exist; or possibly that it is not a bad thing. I think the more frequent defence—the one that has been put up by a number of people to-night, and I think by all the first speakers—is that pornography is a regrettable thing; but it has been with us always, and the less said about it the better; it is something that we should only escalate by talking about it. I have some sympathy with that point of view,

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but I do not now, as I might have done five years ago, agree with it.
At this stage of the evening I shall not try to demonstrate that pornography, as the noble Earl, Lord Longford, said, is increasing and ought to be diminished. I think that pornography, if it is on the increase, is one of the things that cannot be dealt with effectively by saying nothing about it. As has been said, it may be the right way to deal with student demonstrations in spite of the episode yesterday, which I think reflected no credit on any one but Mr. St. JohnStevas. On the whole, student demonstrations are out to attract attention. By all means let them do so from the university, but from the public, the less the better. Pornographers—by whom I mean the high pornographers waiting behind the scenes; not those who appear in sequins in the streets or at circuses, but the men really making money from it—do not want to attract public attention. They want to get the profits, but they do not want their activities to be known about.
It seems to me indisputable that, since the Longford Inquiry has been instituted, there has been a slight slowing up in the terrifying speed at which children's toy shops of the most harmless old-fashioned kind are exhibiting things which may not be the worst thing in the world—but nobody has ever said that pornography is the worst thing in the world. They are things which should not be exhibited in children's toyshops, I should have thought, if there was any possible way of avoiding doing so. One very interesting contribution which appeared in the report was that made by Mr. Kingsley Amis and, I think, his wife regarding novels. They suggested a recommendation and although, like the rest of the report, they were against censorship, they thought that children's books might perhaps offer a case for grading, in rather the same way as films are graded, as being suitable for children. That suggestion was rejected by the Committee on the good and liberal grounds that it smacked too much of censorship. I should have thought that that very fact rather blows up the idea that the whole of this report is an attempt to establish the Spanish Inquisition again in a Puritan guise.
The noble Baroness, Lady Gaitskell,
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berated the Committee for having a closed mind on some points. I felt that at some points in her speech she very rightly and properly closed her mind—and I see no harm in doing that when one has considered a subject carefully, as she had. I have sometimes felt that the mind, like the mouth, needs to be closed sometimes. However, my Lords, I do not wish to go on any longer. I would merely say that I am extremely grateful that the subject has been brought up. I believe that nothing but good will come of its having been criticised and debated in this way. I think it will be a relief to your Lordships now to hear somebody else rather than myself.
7.32 p.m.
THE EARL OF LAUDERDALE: My Lords, whether it will be a relief to your Lordships to hear me after hearing the noble Viscount, Lord Barrington. I cannot tell. However, I should like to take things a little further than he did when he said that "Each is fine if you know where to draw the line". That is what this debate is all about. So far from there being any need for justification or apologia, the purpose of this debate is
"to show virtue her own feature, scorn her own image, and the very age and body of the time his form and pressure."
So I join with others in expressing my thanks to the right reverend Prelate for his persistent and patient endeavours which have led to this debate. I would not pretend to endorse, or even to understand, every line of the Longford Report, but I do begin with a simple premise, which is that the British Government have a duty to uphold our civilisation. This obligation is part and parcel of the Prime Minister's proclaimed "duty to govern". This obligation is on a par with military defence, but it overrides and includes all other obligations.
Our civilisation is based on monogamous family life. It is this characteristic which is the bulwark of honour towards personality and respect for the person. As Santayana wrote:
"The family is one of nature's master-pieces."
Surely we all agree that pornography affronts all this? Surely we all agree that pornography debases women? Surely we all agree that pornography sullies men? Surely we all agree that pornography

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corrupts those adolescents who have access to it? Surely we all agree that pornography involves an open challenge to family life? Poison, my Lords, is poison, however it is taken—whether through drink, to kill or numb the body; through food, to kill or numb the body; through the nostrils, to kill or numb the body; through the eyes or ears—by the sight or the sound of filth—poison numbs and distorts the rational mind and its inherited instinct or chosen values. But this poison which we are discussing—and it is a most disagreeable subject—is not only individual in its attack, it is collective in its effect because it assaults the family. Whatever, from filthy drains to filthy drawings, could have the effect of sapping family life or undermining good health, it is the Government's plain duty to resist.
There have been many different lines of attack and, if you will, my Lords, the more the merrier: no enemies, no honour. Some particularly specious arguments have been put forward this afternoon. We were told that of course it is proper to protect children but that it does not matter what adults do—or words to that effect. This argument was anticipated by the right reverend Prelate; but the simple fact is that what adults can do, the young will yearn for and learn from. We have been told that there are so many other more important problems that we should not lose time on this one; but are we to debate famine and war 24 hours a day, seven days a week? We have been told that local education authorities and the B.B.C. can be trusted to be responsible, and I now quote words used by the noble Baroness, Lady Young, who spoke first for the Government in this debate. And may I say in parenthesis how much I, and no doubt many others here, enjoyed her speech? It is the first time I have heard the noble Baroness lead for the Government from the Box, and my anticipation was in no way disappointed. But she did use the word "responsible", and all I would say is that this is a subjective value judgment. In the case in question, of local education authorities on the one hand and of the B.B.C. and the I.T.A. on the other, there is widespread disquiet, rightly or wrongly. We have been told that private sex or depravity concerns nobody but those
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directly concerned. My Lords, one might as well say that the lone drunkard does no harm to others. But he debases his own character, he sullies his surroundings and, if he has a family, he brings trouble upon them.
From other excuses for letting things ride, I select and challenge three. First of all, there is this old red herring—and I must say that I was sorry to hear this argument being alluded to, apparently with some measure of sympathy, by the noble Baroness in her opening speech—the idea that we must be careful of infringing freedom. Of course we must be careful of infringing freedom; but that is really not the issue. There is the cry against censorship, coupled with such pejorative phrases as "the prohibitive society", to quote a headline in the Guardian. My Lords, we gladly prohibit in many ways. We prohibit a man using the fruit of his toil, of his savings, of his inheritance, to do as he likes; and we redistribute it for him. We readily prohibit free speech on race relations. We parentally prohibit our young from this or that in the cause, if you will, of simple preventive medicine.
Prohibition and censorship are simply parrot cries which have little relevance to this problem. So far as literal censorship itself is concerned we all know that there is the British Board of Film Censors, and those of us who have worked in the media, whether it is the Press, radio or television, know that there is a self-imposed censorship voluntarily operated by the media on matters of national defence. Even if we should like these operations strengthened, the principle of censorship already exists. How it is imposed, how it is arrived at, is another matter. The censorship argument simply does not bear examination. We not only do not allow our children to eat muck gathered from the gutter, we employ a public cleansing department to clear the gutters in the interests of public health. This is what we do. Then, for fear of being called "square", or accused of seeking to limit freedom (which as the noble Lord, Lord Soper, so rightly reminded us is simply the pinnacle of self-restraint rather than another name for license) and being accused of censorship, I say, why leave gutter filth about parcelled in titillating tinsel, there to poison

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the minds and hearts and to ruin the most private emotions?
The second argument (or shall I say "attack"?) that is brought is the attack by way of humour ranging into mockery; and since the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, was not here at the opening of the debate and declared he had little intention of staying until it ended, I am bound to say that he reminds me of two persons: first of all, the man who never was, because there was some obscurity about when, whether and in what order, the noble Lord was going to speak; then the famous character who asked: "What is truth?", but would not stay for an answer. The noble Lord's innocence was shown by his inability to recognise a red light until it had signalled 33 minutes. He dismissed the problem as one of mere metropolitan concern, evidently unaware that some 50 per cent. of the people of this Island live on 3 per cent. of its land space. He gave us a clever and amusing speech, as he always does, but I cannot help but remind him—because I am sure he will want to read the debate to-morrow, if he has time from his other occupations—that Mr. Spender wrote:
"Cleverness and stupidity are generally in the same boat against wisdom."
The humour argument is one that we have to look at with some care and which has not been raised, except under cover of mockery, to-night. It is one of the subtlest used by the "porno" purveyors when lewdness or filth is conveyed on radio or T.V., coupled with suggestive motions, even if these are only motions of the eyes by an actor. The humour argument was raised only this week when, by letter, Mrs. Whitehouse approached the Minister of Posts and Telecommunications about the B.B.C. playing a "Top of the Pops" song which some would call soft "porn" and which at any rate had an evident double meaning, a double entendre, called My ding-a-ling. The song may or may not be as suggestive of private and mutual masturbation as is claimed; but listen to the excuse attributed in the Press, and so far as I am aware not denied, to Philips records, the publishers: so far from denying any double entendre they say, and I quote from the Press:
"Any double meaning was in the grand tradition of British humour."
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That was their defence. The very same used to be said of that B.B.C. satirical programme, That was The Week That Was, much of which was so extraordinarily funny. But the minute society says, "You can laugh at anything, it is only fun, it is only British humour", you are saying something very dangerous indeed. For you are saying, in effect, that your children can, if they like, mock a lame old man stumbling across the road. If you say you are free to laugh at anything you like, then you can say you are free to mock the brave to ridicule the holy, to disparage the intimate. If you say that you can laugh at anything you like, you might just as well tell children that they may laugh at their mother.
The third argument is the classic Government excuse. The Government always tend to say, and this seems to have been the implication of the speech of the noble Baroness this afternoon, "Well, we do not have the powers". That may well be—indeed, thee is the Denning judgment to suggest it. But the argument, "we do not have the powers" may very well mean—and the object of this debate is to probe this very point—"we do not want the powers either." I have a typical example. I do not for a minute impugn the honour, the honourable intentions or the sincerity or probity of my noble friend Lord Belstead, who is involved in this matter. He told me just now that he would not be here to listen to my speech, and I warned him that I was going to raise what I now have to say.
Last winter, controversy arose over a film called Growing Up, supposedly made to help schools and others teach sex, but without any reference to self-control, let alone ethics. It elicited a Question on the Order Paper in this House from the noble Baroness, Lady Masham of Ilton. I warned the noble Baroness that I would make this reference and she gave me what was in effect her consent for what I am going to say. My noble friend Lord Belstead in answering the Questions excused the Government from intervening in that matter by saying:
"responsibility for secular instruction in schools rests with the local education authorities, the governing bodies of schools, and head teachers."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 26/1/72; col. 321.]

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Arising from a supplementary question of mine about self-control my noble friend Lord Belstead and I exchanged, at rather a slow rate, a long correspondence. It led finally to the following statement, and this is what I have warned the Government I propose to quote, because I think it is important. It was very much in the spirit of the speech of the noble Baroness earlier this afternoon. My noble friend Lord Belstead said:
"Curriculum matters are usually regarded as a professional matter for teachers; the Education Acts do not give the Secretary of State any power to prescribe what subjects (other than religious instruction) shall be taught in schools, or how they should be taught … it is necessary to avoid appearing to tell teachers what to teach or how to teach it."
I do not deny that that is the situation. But it cannot be right for the Government simply to go on sheltering behind the statement, "We have no powers", without justification in terms of their paramount obligation to defend our civilisation and to defend family life. It may be right that these matters should remain with the local education authorities; I do not know.
LORD BEAUMONT OF WHITLEY: My Lords, who gives the Government powers to defend family life? If I thought that the Government were going to defend family life I would certainly vote against them even more strongly than I do now, As Mr. Macmillan, a member of the noble Earl's Party, said, "If I want moral inspiration I will go to the Archbishop of Canterbury". I do not want the Government defending family life, and I do not think a lot of other people do, either.
THE EARL OF LAUDERDALE: My Lords, I am obliged for the noble Lord's intervention. I understood him to open his speech earlier by saying that he agreed with everything the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, had said and that was why I did not directly address my arguments to him. But when he says: "Who gave this Government power to defend family life?" I say: "Who gave this Government power to defend the country? Who gave this Government the power to govern? What is implied in government?" If the noble Lord thinks that it is only for the Church—he is, after all, an ordained priest—to instruct us on these matters, I am afraid I do not agree with
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him. However, this is a matter on which we can legitimately differ. I am not saying that the Government's job is to exhort. They have done too much of that in the last twenty or thirty years. I am saying—I repeat and I assert—that the people of this country expect the Government to protect our civilisation; that that is founded on family life and this is something which the Government have to protect. A priest of the Church of England may disagree with that, but if so, then he had better talk to his own Bishop about it.
The kind of answers one receives when the Government say: "We don't have the powers", raise the question: Do they want the powers? It may be that they would consider, like the noble Lord opposite, that any intervention in this field is improper. But they do not claim that. They have said, on the contrary, that it is proper that public authorities should behave responsibly. Indeed, they therewith assert value judgments. So the argument does not quite apply. But whether the Government want powers or not, will they say, as they might: "Well, we haven't got them and we can't get them. Parliament wouldn't give them to us"? I do not want to rake up old controversies, but it is too recent an experience for me to miss the opportunity of reminding your Lordships that the Government which, rightly or wrongly, but in the teeth of sustained Parliamentary opposition, can drive through both Houses of Parliament, unamended by a single jot or tittle, the most contentious and revolutionary constitutional change in three centuries, can scarcely be believed if they say they cannot take or get the powers they believe necessary.
My Lords, I do not pretend to endorse every line of the Longford Report, but what I say is that humour is a phoney excuse for doing "nix". Censorship and pejorative phrases about the prohibitive society are a specious excuse for doing "nix". "We don't have the powers and we don't see how to take them", is a cowardly excuse for doing "nix", all the less creditable from a Government which boast, "Our duty is to govern". So I join those other noble Lords who finished their speeches with, or built them around the question: Are the Government ready, or are they not ready, to take steps to amend the Obscenity Act?
7.53 p.m.
LORD STOW HILL: My Lords, I listened with great interest to the philosophical approach of the noble Earl who has just sat down but I hope he will understand if I do not follow him in it. I want to limit my remarks and, I am afraid, to reduce them to a much more pedestrian plane. The great advantage of being able, without any skulduggery, to follow both my noble friend Lord Longford and my noble friend Lord Goodman is that I was able—and I am sure the House enjoyed it with me—to listen to their very charming personal exchange with which they terminated those references to each other which they thought it appropriate to make. I should like to add, and I add it on behalf of every Member of your Lordships' House, this further epilogue to that exchange: that we, all of us, hold them both in great affection and admiration. I am sure I have all your Lordships' assents to that.
I feel wholly unconvinced by the bulk of the content of this report. I hesitated to intervene in this debate because what I had prepared to say was so admirably stated I thought by my noble friend Lord Goodman, and what I will say now is somewhat repetitive of what he said. I start by approaching the subject upon the basis that, broadly speaking, it is unproven whether and to what extent "porn", if I may use that expression, really does harm. The report itself contains statements by experts which leave the matter in doubt. It also contains an account of a sadistic incident with a sexual undertone in the life of Casanova. What effect that would have I should have thought can be pretty confidently asserted as being to make almost everybody who reads it physically sick; and, if they have any latent sadistic instincts in their nature, to shake them off. I should have thought that that pornographic account was one which would do good rather than the reverse; make us kinder rather than less kind. But the whole matter is one of great uncertainty. I can only draw upon the experience that all your Lordships can draw upon. I am not an expert (or, I hope, an export) in pornography, although some years ago I had some public responsibility in these matters and made it my business, as I thought it was my duty, to study what then seemed to be the dimensions of this problem.
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My next point is that it seems to me very much open to question what are the dimensions of the problem. The noble Lord, Lord Goodman, said there was very little evidence in the report as to the dimensions of it. In Chapter 2 the Committee seek to investigate that aspect of the problem and set out certain figures. I would only comment upon them that if those are the figures which are found to be applicable to a population, largely living in great cities, of over 52 million people, they do not seem to me to present any great cause for alarm. I should have thought they were very small, rather than very large. I therefore conclude at the outset that in the report, to the extent that there is a mischief, its nature and its dimensions are very considerably overstated. I believe that the vast majority of our fellow citizens do not go out after "porn"; it does not much come their way; they do not bother their heads about it. In this fascinating world of the 1970s we are all confronted daily with an endless array of public topics which are, I should have thought, of far more engrossing interest to the average citizen than is "porn".
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: My Lords, may I ask the noble and learned Lord a question, not in a desire to be amusing? Why is it that so many noble Lords have put down their names to speak to-day—I think twenty-five or so—if there is no interest in this subject at all?
LORD STOW HILL: My Lords, I did not say there was no interest in it at all. It is the subject raised in this debate. It would be discourteous to the noble Earl, Lord Longford, if we did not take some interest in the massive labours which he has undertaken, and placed before the public and this House for its consideration. Indeed, I would go further and say we ought to be grateful to him. Any noble Lord who calls attention to a matter of public interest—I do not use an adjective of degree to categorise that public interest—I think deserves our gratitude; and for that I am grateful to the noble Earl.
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: I thank the noble Lord.
LORD STOW HILL: My Lords, I might almost limit myself to saying that. However, might I proceed? I do not know, but I should have thought that if one, at a hazard, asked the first hundred people one met outside this House where one could find the sort of instruments which are described in the report, or where one could find a live representation of a sexual act, after they had got over their astonishment at the inquiry they would scratch their heads and say they had not the remotest idea; it had never occurred to them to ask, and they were less interested still. I should have thought that that was the attitude of the ordinary citizens of this country.
Of course, there are unbalanced people. Of course, there are people in their middle age who, for one reason or another, find it necessary to calm or assuage their feelings by reading certain types of book, There always have been; there always will be; and it does not matter what the law says, they will always seek after those things. If one goes out for "porn", I do not care what laws one passes one will always find it if one has the money. I believe the noble Viscount, Lord Colville of Culross, when he speaks at the end of this debate, is going to announce some proposals to deal with—I do not quite know what, but I think it is advertisements, and so on. I hope he has in mind, and I am sure lie has with his great judgment and experience, the undesirability of putting upon the Statute Book laws which cannot be enforced. It is a great mistake just to drive this stuff under the counter. By so doing it is a very good way of increasing the emoluments of pornographers, whoever they may be. It brings the law into disrepute. When, over a quarter of a century ago, I walked into the Law Officers' department I imbibed this truth very early, especially as we then had rationing and that sort of thing and other then necessary attempts to interfere with people's private choice and private liberty, which broadly speaking would be in a remote sense analogous to what I suppose is proposed—I do not say necessarily proposed but proposed in fact, and I suppose under contemplation by the Government. I will say no more about it than that.
So I approach this upon the basis that really, as my noble friend Lord Goodman said, it is a great pity just to concen-
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trate one's gaze and one's attention on this particular aspect of human activity in this wonderful great people of ours, with its magnificent personal freedoms, its active social, intellectual and political life, and to try to persuade oneself that really this is a major element in our national makeup. I put it to your Lordships' House that it just is not. It is not as important as all that.
Having said that, and having completed, by so doing, what I want to say about the report in general, I turn to the proposals. May I at this stage address myself directly to the right reverend Prelate, and may I also call him the "right relevant Prelate" because I thought that was exactly what he was. In opening this debate, with the greatest possible clarity, he drew the attention of your Lordships to the proposals which are contained in that report, and it is on those proposals that I now want to say a word or two. May I say at once that I leave on one side and do not propose to touch upon what I regard as perhaps rather peripheral questions concerning advertisements, and so on, and I go direct to that which the right reverend Prelate addressed himself to, namely, the proposal to substitute for the definition in Sections 1 and 4 of the Obscene Publications Act 1959 a new definition of obscenity; namely, that a publication is obscene
"if its effect, taken as a whole, tends to outrage contemporary standards of decency and humanity as accepted by the public at large."
I would very much regret it if we were to substitute that definition for the existing definition.
I believe we owe a great debt of gratitude to Mr. Roy Jenkins and those who collaborated with him in working out the basic elements of that 1959 Act. It is an extremely difficult Act to work out; it is an extremely difficult concept to compose in a great country like ours where we cherish as our major freedom the unfettered right to exchange ideas, to say what we like, to think what we like, to portray what we like, subject to certain well-defined limitations to which, over the years, over the decades, over the centuries, we have become accustomed, and which we acknowledge: the law of libel, the law of profanity and the law of sedition, and perhaps the latest

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intervention in the completely free expression of opinion and of the use of words—namely the forbidding (for which I had some direct personal responsibility) of the public dissemination of race hatred. I remember being roundly denounced, when I sought to commend in another place the provisions of the 1965 Act which imposed those limitations, as a Home Secretary who had little or no regard for freedom of speech. I am completely unrepentant. I am sure I was right in what I did then. Why? Because the history of this half century shows that the dissemination publicly of race hatred can cause immense harm.
The Obscene Publications Act 1959 poses, roughly speaking, the same test. One looks at Section 1 of that Act and one is told there that a work is obscene if, when it is taken as a whole, a jury can be satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that it tends to corrupt and deprave those who are likely to see it or read it. I submit to your Lordships that that is a practical, sensible test to which reasonable people will be ready to conform. The question is, can a jury be satisfied that it will do harm? Even if it can be shown that its tendency is to deprave and corrupt, taken as a whole, nevertheless, if it can be shown that the work in question has some countervailing literary, scientific or other merit which justifies its publication, no offence is committed. When I studied this matter before, and on the occasions when I considered my noble friend's report—which, if I may say so to him, I have read through, word for word, all 520 pages, with great interest and with some enjoyment—I have really thought it is extremely difficult to better that definition.
Mr. Raymond Blackburn may, I understand, be appealing, and therefore it would not be right for me to make comments on some of the observations which fell from the lips of the Master of the Rolls and the Lord Justices of Appeal who heard his appeal, because there may be a further appeal. Otherwise I should have wished to comment on those observations and to challenge them. I put it in this way. Suppose there is a book, or something of the sort, which is being put before a jury and it has been urged by counsel for the prosecution that it is
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likely to fall into the hands of a particular type or group of people, or people of a particular age, and that it is likely to corrupt and deprave them. The jury listen to that and to the evidence in support of it, and they say, "Well, we are not satisfied that it is likely so to do. We do not know. It has not been proved to us". I ask a simple question: in a civilised country, should there be a conviction for supplying that sort of work to persons of that sort when nobody can say whether it will do them harm or not? I say that the answer unhesitatingly must be, "No, certainly not". If it is shown that middle aged, unbalanced people are the kind of people who buy that sort of book and it cannot be shown that it does them any harm, why should there be a conviction? I should have thought it was totally uncivilised to convict in a case like that.
Then both the report and the Master of the Rolls criticised Section 4 on the basis that it involved the proposition that it was sometimes in the public interest for pornography to be circulated. My answer is that that is not what Section 4 says. Section 4 says that even if it is shown that there is a tendency to deprave or corrupt those who may read it. nevertheless if its circulation is in the public interest because it has a countervailing merit of a literary or scientific or other kind, there is no offence. That seems to me to be civilised and common sense, and I think reasonable people would be ready, and are ready, to accept it. If I am asked whether I think that the 1959 Act should be replaced, I wait to see what is proposed to replace it. It is not perfect. It is extremely difficult to draft legislation which is perfect in that sense. What the report proposes to put in its place is I think utterly undesirable—namely, the definition of obscenity in these words:
"outrages contemporary standards of decency or of humanity as accepted by the public at large".
How do you find out what are the standards which are accepted by the public at large? Who, in that context, are "the public at large"?
THE LORD BISHOP OF LEICESTER: My Lords, with great respect may I ask the noble and learned Lord how one decides whether something will corrupt or deprave?
LORD STOW HILL: By listening carefully to the evidence of the psychologists and others who are called before one if one is sitting on a jury so that one can ask oneself, "Have they or have they not satisfied me?" If one is left in doubt, one must acquit. That seems to me to be quite sensible.
Coming to the question of the standard of public taste, to use that phrase as a short description of the proposed definition, I suggest that the basic fallacy on which that definition is based is its assumption that there is an ascertainable, definable consensus on the part of right-minded people as to what is proper and what is not. That is not, with respect, the case. I accept at once that at one end of the scale there will be works, books and so on, which nobody could argue could possibly offend even the most susceptible prudish taste. At the other end of the scale will be works which most though probably not all people will agree are unmeritorious and wholly coarse. The difficulty, however, lies in the vast number of gradations in between. There are endless examples which come between those two extremes about which reasonable people will differ. Some will think that those works which fall in the intervening area should be suppressed. Other, just as reasonable, people will think it outrageous that they should be suppressed and we have to live together with our differences. We must live our lives without breaking each other's crowns and that is what we have succeeded in doing and what the 1959 Act helps to enable us to go on doing.
What is the situation? There are reticences which I suppose in the time of our parents were thought to be indispensible by the reasonable and sensible people of those days. Equally reasonable people these days would think those reticences a joke. I am sure that your Lordships know of books by modern authors. In my opinion, many of them are of very great merit and I have read a large number of them. Many such modern works are, in sexual topics, extremely explicit, so explicit that if they had been written twenty or thirty years ago they would have left their readers speechless with astonishment. But do they do us harm? If they do, let them be brought before a jury and an attempt made to satisfy the jury that they do us
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harm. But if we are to have this standard of public taste, the result, I submit, will be utterly capricious and arbitrary. It will depend on who is on the jury.
The report in a passage which distressed and shocked me and which must have distressed and shocked many of your Lordships recounts how when Thomas Hardy wrote Jude The Obscure in 1896 Bishop Howe publicly announced that he had burnt his copy and how a Mrs. Oliphant of those days subjected the author to a Press campaign alleging that he was immoral and had run down the institution of marriage. The result was that he did not write novels for some years. That is what the report says and I assume it is accurate. Speaking for myself, and rather figuratively as one of the "public at large"—and I believe I am not the only person who thinks this way—I would sooner risk having truckloads of concrete hard "porn" than a repetition in a modern context of that Jude the Obscure incident with the sanction of our criminal courts. It is totally wrong I think to consider this question without considering its implications for that precious basic freedom of being allowed to say what we think, subject to the well known exceptions to which I have referred.
I respectfully submit that before this House presses on with a desire that there should be a change on the lines proposed, noble Lords should consider the implications on the broad freedom of the human spirit. To adopt this arbitrary change would be a great mistake not only because it would be arbitrary but because it would be the wrong test. We should be allowed to flout and challenge public opinion. That is the only way by which we can subject ourselves to a constant process of self analysis and make sure that cherished and accepted beliefs are submitted to constant examination with the passage of time. Public opinion is not and should not be static. It should be open to challenge and if we adopt this standard of public taste, when it can be ascertained, I suppose it will prohibit what are regarded as outrageous challenges.
What is the meaning of "humanity" in this context? It would outrage I should have thought standards of humanity to portray, for example, pictures of naked human bodies starved and

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tortured stacked up in Belsen as they were seen at the end of the last war. Are we not to be allowed to look at them? Where would this get one, and if the Government decided to start on this path, where would it end? The proposals in the Report are very wrongheaded. The noble Earl, Lord Longford, knows without my telling him that I greatly respect his sincerity of purpose and all of us who have watched his splendid public career know that he is amply imbued with courage and sincerity. On this occasion, however, I believe he has gone badly wrong and if we have to stand up and be counted, I declare myself to be utterly unsympathetic to his proposals.
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: May I ask the noble Lord whether he is aware that these proposals were drawn up by a very highly qualified legal subcommittee and that it was not a question of my going wrong personally? I had the privilege of being able to agree with that legal sub-committee, as did our main committee. It is giving a false impression for the noble Lord to imply that in some way I had thought out these ideas.
LORD STOW HILL: My Lords, I assure the noble Earl that I had no intention of giving such an impression. I knew that a guiding spirit was my noble friend Lord Fletcher, with whom I worked for many years and who is well known to me. I entirely accept what the noble Earl says. I start from the basis that a great deal of thought has gone into the preparation of this formula. One of the vices in it is that in spite of all the effort that has been made to try to produce it, it is still open to those obvious criticisms which cannot be got round.
8.17 p.m.
LORD BIRKETT: My Lords, like the rest of your Lordships, I should like to see children protected and I am anxious to see that nobody is unwillingly drowned in a sea of unsolicited pornography. Like most of your Lordships, I can see that the present law is difficult, some would say incapable, of administration. Nevertheless, I cannot like this report. Indeed, I like very little about it. I do not like the look of it. It looks too much like an official and impartial Report, or at
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least, to be fair to it, it would if its cover were torn off.
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Birkett, cannot have it both ways. He cannot accuse us of giving it a pornographic look and at the same time making it look like a Stationery Office publication. He is starting off in an unfair way and I am sure that he does not wish to continue along that line.
LORD BIRKETT: My Lords, I stand corrected. One five hundred and twentieths of it does not look like an official Report; the other five hundred and nineteenths of it are all too easily confused with a document of that nature. I believe that the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, and the noble Baroness, Lady Young, share my mistrust of such a document. This is not to put blame on the Commission, who I am sure intended no deception. No matter what the right reverend Prelate may say about the nature of its intentions, I am bound to say that I like my reports to be impartial and that I find several things about this report extremely suspicious. For example, I do not like the way in which it treats its rivals. The noble Lord, Lord Goodman, may have been rather too shy to say this, but I think that the report of the Arts Council Working Party was given less than adequate space in the 520 pages of this report. Space it has not stinted itself, and a slightly fuller reference might have been made to what was a very important document, even if it disagreed with the final outcome of this Committee's report.
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: My Lords, we in fact interviewed half a dozen members of that body, including the chairman, Mr. Montgomery. Taking matters in the round, I feel that they had very full treatment.
LORD BIRKETT: Well, I am grateful to the noble Earl for that intervention and perhaps I stand corrected, but my impression was that it had been rather put on one side as something which should not be emphasised too much in this report. I certainly think it is true, as the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, pointed out, of the Majority Report of the American Commission. Since lie has mentioned it I shall not pursue the matter except to say that twice in the

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Report, and once in the report to-day, the President's remarks on the subject were brought up and it is time that they were quoted again and looked at a little more carefully. The President in more or less dismissing out of hand the Majority Report in America, said:
"The Commission contends that the proliferation of filthy books and plays has no lasting harmful effect on a man's character. If that be true, it must also be true that great books, great paintings and great plays have no ennobling effect on a man's conduct. Centuries of civilisations and ten minutes of common-sense will tell us otherwise."
Well, five seconds of really quite superficial thought led me to suppose that this simply does not follow. The second proposition does not follow the first. It is like saying that if one pill does you no harm then no other pill can possibly do you any good. In any case, if it did follow then it is a very questionable statement to say that great plays should have, an ennobling effect on man's actions or upon his conduct: perhaps upon himself and perhaps upon his spirit. Nobody is more in tune with the world's great literature than I am—I have a great passion for it and for its paintings and music; but whether it ennobles a man's conduct I should have thought was very open to question. I would have thought it behoved the Commission to think very much more carefully about the President's crisp little sentences before adopting them so wholeheartedly as a reason for excluding the Majority Report, by and large, from its own.
I do not like either the use of what I call "bogeyman words". "Commercialism" occurs throughout the report, and every time the word "commercial" or the word "exploitation" appears a little frisson of distaste runs through the report. That is understandable, but one should ask oneself whether it is not simply an automatic bogeyman response. After all, half the great artists of the world have commercially exploited everything that they do. Most of our lives are devoted to commercial exploitation. Surely it is another word for earning one's living. If it is a nice, large, fat living then everybody looks a bit more askance, but at the same time that is what it is about. The elements of exploitation and commercialism in pornography are understandably regarded as nastier than
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those very self-same elements of exploitation and commercialisation in other fields. But the words themselves should not perhaps carry the same weight of distaste as they do in the report. An even more disturbing word is "voyeurism". The minute that the word "voyeurism" or the word "voyeur" occur people instantly assume that the hardest of hard pornography is in question. But the very nature of voyeurism is in a minute way the essence of art. The great Greek tragedies, which I suppose are not the greatest but the earliest, surviving full-scale masterpieces of any sort, are essentially based on the fact that one would rather witness the horrors and triumphs of the world in their most grandiose form than suffer them oneself. That is one of the elements of catharsis and one of the elements of all great art, I suggest, in a small degree. But beware of a word which automatically is regarded as something to be pushed beneath the carpet.
THE LORD BISHOP OF LEICESTER: My Lords, would not the same thing be true about the word "catharsis"?
LORD BIRKETT: The word "catharsis" was surely not used in any pejorative sense in your report, unless I am mistaken.
THE LORD BISHOP OF LEICESTER: If I understood the noble Lord aright, he was staying that catharsis is a good thing, and I am just drawing his attention to the fact that this is a word which has a kind of aura of connotation around it in the same way that every word has.
LORD BIRKETT: My Lords, I absolutely subscribe to the right reverend Prelate's remarks in that direction. One should, I agree, beware of words which have an aura of blessing about them or automatic good as well as words which have an aura of automatic ill. With that I agree wholeheartedly, but the Committee itself said at one point, with what I think may be taken to be something of a cheek:
"We thought we should not be restricted by semantic niceties and that we should go beyond dictionary definitions."
I wish they had been restricted by semantic niceties and I wish they had not gone beyond dictionary definitions, because in the last resort clarity is what

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we are all seeking in this somewhat turgid matter, and clarity after all, if it cannot be achieved with the aid of the dictionaries of the world and the lexicographers of the world whose task is clarity and clarity through differentiation, I do not know where clarification is to come from at all. The use of words, particularly in a context like this, is of such vital importance that one should perhaps pay more respect to dictionary definitions than we normally do.
I cannot say that I really like the reports of the sub-committees, but lest you should wonder whether I am going into my dislikes on all of them, let me say that I am not. It occured to me in passing that so much reference was made about sex education and the duties of parents, that perhaps somebody ought to point out, what is perhaps a cynical view, that the responsibilities of parents in these matters are so often not carried out. It would be a wonderful world in which the need for sex education in any other form except parental advice were unnecessary, but alas! the need is all too enormously apparent un and down the country.
My own particular sphere, of course, is films and on that the report of the subcommittee filled me with alarm and despondency. We are the only people at the moment who have a censor, in the proper sense of the term, and I am bound to say that for an industry which does very little except complain we have been extraordinarily happy with our censor. Many people would be happy to have nothing to do with censorship and for my own part I should be happier if there were not one at all, but the operation of that system has, by and large, been extremely good. This is in very large measure due to the personality of the last censor. I intend no disrespect to the present one who has not been incumbent in that position for long, but I refer to Mr. John Trevelyan. Mr. John Trevelyan was an extremely civilised and humane creature, and very cultured as well; and the advantage of that system especially when the position was occupied by somebody like John Trevelyan, was that he was in a position to talk as an equal to film makers who were about to make films and to advise them on what his attitude or the attitude of his Board might be. He might say, "This is very questionable and it will depend on how
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you handle it, but I should be wary of this if I were you". He would warn one in advance of where the danger point would be from his point of view. The suggestions made in the Longford Report, that is to say of a much wider based body, would make life really impossible for film makers. The suggestion that the general public, the local authorities, and Government appointments should all form together into a great pool to decide about these things is not a possibility in my view, and I find it extremely alarming.
But, of course, all these objections are small by comparison with the main nub of the matter which is what to do about it. The actual proposals for action that the Longford Report comes up with—in other words its draft Bill, because in that is encapsulated the whole of its conclusions—I must say I view with the gravest alarm. It is all very well for the noble Earl, Lord Lauderdale, to say out of hand that this is not a matter where liberty and freedom come into question. But it is a matter where liberty and freedom come in, and it is no good laughing out of court the idea that a libertarian angle can be taken on this report. It is precisely from that point of view that I find the report most alarming.
The proposed definition of what shall be deemed obscene has already been exhaustively gone into by the noble Lord, Lord Stow Hill, and far better than I can do it, but it occurs to me to wonder, if you set out the word "outrage" as the central word in this important phrase, how close the word "outrage" is to the word "offence", and how close the word "offence" is to the word "shock". I am not one whit reassured by the words of Lord Simon of Glaisdale which were quoted in the report, and quoted again to-day by Lord Fletcher, although they are words instinct with wisdom:
"It should be emphasised that 'outrage', like 'corrupt', is a very strong word. Outraging public decency goes considerably beyond offending the susceptibilities of or even shocking reasonable people."
It may well be a strong word when used among people using and choosing their words carefully, but that with "12 good men and true" is not likely to be the situation. One must deal in the general context of words, which daily are debased,

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and "outrage" is a word often used in the mildest sense. It requires some thought to remember that "outrage" is a strong word. While one is dealing with the "12 good men and true", or the 10 out of 12 who will be required to decide these matters, will it be the judge who directs them as to what the current state of public decency is and asks them to decide whether it has been offended, or are the jury to decide what is the current state of public decency?
I am susceptible to the argument that it is no good running away from one's responsibilities by saying, "It is all too difficult to administer. I cannot understand the thing; it is incapable of definition, and therefore we should do nothing". I do not believe it is an argument for doing nothing, but I believe it is a very strong argument for not adopting the draft Bill proposed in this report. And on top of that, to knock away totally the defence of public good based upon literary or scientific merit seems to me, to use Lord Lauderdale's words, a specious argument, because the reason it is being knocked away is because, according to the report, the present formula has been misused; that expert witnesses called to give expert opinion about literary merit have been allowed to express opinions about obscenity. If that is the only objection, let them not be permitted.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: My Lords, the noble Lord will no doubt know that the Court of Appeal has already said that they must not do it any more.
LORD BIRKETT: My Lords, I am obliged to the noble Viscount for that intervention, because surely that has now cured any objection to this defence of public good. If the Court of Appeal has so ruled, why should we have any further problem? At any rate, I regard this suggested Bill and its two important clauses as being a very serious libertarian issue, not because any of those concerned with the report would wish to diminish the liberties of the subject but because once placed there there would always be the danger and possibility that it may be so used; and that is a danger so great that nothing must be allowed to countenance it. It is the thin
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end of a wedge which extends deeply and broadly into the very basis of our human freedom.
8.35 p.m.
BARONESS LEE OF ASHERIDGE: My Lords, a great deal which I should have liked to say has already been said most eloquently. I hope it is quite clear that if the central theme of to-day's debate had been pornography it would have been a crashing bore and would not have justified the attendance in your Lordships' House and the number of speakers who have asked to take part in this debate. The noble Earl, Lord Longford, said, "Of course, there is great interest in pornography; see the number of Members of your Lordships' House who have asked to be called to speak". But listening to this debate it must surely be clear, and it was stated most eloquently by Lord Birkett, by Lord Stow Hill and by others who have spoken, that what we are really concerned about to-day is the freedom of the Press, the freedom of literature, the freedom of the theatre, the freedom of creative artists in every form.
I cannot think of anything that would be more damaging to everything we value in a free society than to adopt some of the central formulas in Lord Longford's report. The noble Lord, Lord Stow Hill, mentioned that even Hardy's Jude the Obscure was a subject for censorship. All that fuss about Lady Chatterley's Lover! So far as I know, all that happened was that a lot of small boys and girls, those of my generation, who used the Old Testament under the desk at school to try to find out about the facts of life, had the marked passages of Lady Chatterley's Lover instead. That was the wonderful advertisement that was given to it by prohibition. Indeed, one of my more flippant friends, talking about pornography, said, "It's much too good for the working classes. You need a sound classical education before you can really enjoy it." I have not had a sound classical education: I have no Greek; my Latin is very poor; it does not go much beyond "Amo, Amas, Amat" There is not much left to learn for any educated youngster who has studied the classics.
So what are we trying to do? Surely we are not trying to limit literature in any sense. And surely we are not our-

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selves so illiterate as to imagine that majority contemporary opinion, in any country at any time, is capable of judging what is worth painting, singing, writing or playing. There would have been no ancient literature. There would have been no Chaucer. My own Robert Burns was incapable of pornography; he was just robust and straightforward. Have you any idea what the Kirk Elders said about Robert Burns in his day? We should have had no literature if that criterion had been applied. I am quite sure that my good friend the noble Earl, Lord Longford, did not set out on this crusade in order to limit the freedom of artists, genuine creative artists; that would be the last thing he would want to do. But it is only the artist who is endangered by his proposals. You cannot legislate against pornography. All you can do is to put it under the carpet. If I had to choose between sex sadism and political sadism, I would prefer the first. Do not let us underestimate the fact that there is a connection between the two.
Some of us knew Berlin when it was the most permissive capital in the Western World. Hitler made great play about cleaning up the side shows; it was all going to be nice, clean living, out in the open air, singing out of tune together. He cleaned up the side shows in Berlin, but where do you think the purveyors of pornography went, where do you think the customer went, where do you think this crippled type, the people who were not fortunate enough to have a childhood where they were well loved or to have normal love in life later on, went; where do you think those Berliners went who were making fortunes in the Berlin underworld, or their customers? I will tell you were they went: they were given a licence for cruelty in the ranks of the Storm Troopers. After all, there was nothing in the titillation of using a whip in a bedroom compared with stripping six million men, women and children naked, even taking the gold fillings out of their teeth. I am not going to pursue this line too far, but if you repress certain thwarted instincts in one direction you are apt to get them coming out in another direcion.
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: My Lords, I do not want to interrupt, but I cannot quite follow the noble Baroness's
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drift. I gather that she was arguing a moment or two ago that Berlin before Hitler was an immensely permissive place and that somehow that led on to Hitler. I do not follow her argument, to put it bluntly.
BARONESS LEE OF ASHERIDGE: My Lords, my argument is that the kind of sadism and pornography that you had in Berlin, that you have in all the great capitals, as the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, said, did an infinitely minute amount of harm compared with what happens when that same instinct towards wounding and cruelty in human nature takes other forms.
I believe that many of our ablest young writers and playrights are trying to understand this problem of cruelty in human nature. There were those who were shocked by Edward Bond's play Saved, where an infant was stoned, but the whole theme of that was how frustration, and boredom, and ignorance led youths on from first teasing a child to ultimately murdering a child. Well, I think that there is a great deal of boredom frustration and intellectual and spiritual poverty in our country at the present time, as well as material poverty, and I believe that the way to make a better society is not to get everything out of perspective, as I believe, with all respect, the Longford Report does, but to try to understand what makes human beings behave in certain ways and how far it is possible for us to understand the many mysterious elements that still remain about human motivation.
I believe that we have to be humble; we have to accept that there is a great deal that we do not know about human beings, human phychology, human needs. But there are other things that we do know. In the other place they are to-day discussing the problem of thalidomide children. For ten years they and their parents have been made the playthings of legal proceedings. I would define that as an obscenity. I consider it obscene when you have a youngster leaving school full of life, ready to find a place in the world, and there is no place for him. I am not saying that if we had a society where there was no unemployment and where there was kindness and light everywhere there would be no pornography; all I am saying is that this concentration

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on pornography is largely irrelevant, because the manners and tastes of any community are going to be decided by the general levels of education and other opportunities. That is why, as the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, has already said, for seven years when he was Chairman of the Arts Council—and I am sure that his successor will carry on in the same great tradition—we were trying to bring to people better opportunities. I believe that that is the way forward. You are not going to destroy or remove pornography by any kind of legislation.
Of course, what you can do is take better care of the children. I was amused when I heard some Members of your Lordships' House describe how they taught their own children the facts of life, because, quite frankly, even the best of parents often prefer to leave that to a grandmother or an aunt, as I happen to know. Very often it is some other older person in the family who can talk to the children much better than direct teaching from their own parents. But we were talking about civilised, responsible families. There are children who do not have that kind of home background, and I listened with the greatest admiration to the contribution made by the noble Baroness, Lady Young, and the noble Baroness, Lady Gaitskell, and others who were talking particularly about the need to ensure that children do not grow up in fear and with a sense of guilt, and with thwarted mentalities. After all, if we insist on sending a lot of little boys to boarding schools when they are teenagers, when sexual tensions are extremely strong, and pack them all together and give them a classical education, and some of them end up by saying, "Men for pleasure, women for duty", who is to blame? I consider that a kind of deprived upbringing, for a child to be segregated from a home climate. I have my prejudices; I may be wrong; but what I do insist on is that we have so many major problems facing us of housing, health, unemployment, young ones who are needing to be helped to raise their eyes to the stars, and who are needing both their bodies and minds to be properly nourished.
At the end of the day, do not let us be too hypocritical; a little pornography has never done anyone any harm. We
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must keep a sense of proportion about all those things, and above all—and I believe that this is the thing that has justified every moment of this debate—we must save our valued Lord Longford from doing a desperate mischief: in seeking to cure what he considers one kind of social evil he could rally round him very dangerous company who would take advantage of his well-meant sentiments in order to strangle some of our most precious freedoms.
LORD CLIFFORD OF CHUDLEIGH: My Lords, the noble Baroness talked a good deal about cruelty, but would she not agree that the greatest fun in life is growing up, and the greatest fun in growing up is finding out? Therefore, would she not agree that the pornographers should be prosecuted, if only for being spoilsports and killjoys?
8.48 p.m.
LORD GAINFORD: My Lords, all those who have spoken seem very well united in their thanks to the right reverend Prelate for initiating this debate, to which I certainly add my thanks. Further, most of them seemed to express some general disapproval of the permissiveness in to-day's society, though perhaps they differ as to the importance of it. For myself, there was not perhaps a great deal in the report under discussion that has come my way. However, I am a man, I hope human, and liable to be interested in various ways by what may be considered low-class literature and entertainment, particularly if the material is spicy and humorous. However, judging by much of the material one finds on the counters of bookstalls and news agents, I fail to see why it is necessary sometimes for the "i's" to be dotted and the "t's" to be crossed, just about with a bludgeon. For a number of years I have been interested in the cinema and having just heard the noble Lord, Lord Birkett, I dearly wish I had an opportunity to compare notes with him. I used to be a very regular filmgoer, and now, as a family man, I find it increasingly difficult to discover a suitable film show to which I can take my children. There used to be a few cinemas in London which could be relied on to show programmes that were good family entertainment, and it was all the more disappointing to see them all

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close down or become places where films with Certificate "X", and more than usual lurid advertisements, were shown.
My concern in the matter of this entertainment is really in another direction, because until September of this year I was an official of the Building Regulations Division of the Greater London Council, and one of my duties was in connection with entertainment licensing. Friends would often ask me whether this meant censorship, and they sometimes seemed just a little disappointed when the reply came that my duties consisted of inspecting places of entertainment in order to make sure that they were safe, both for the public and for those employed there. My warrant card was quite impressive, indicating that I was an official representing the council as licensing authority for places of public entertainment.
My colleagues and I had quite a large area to cover in the boroughs North and West of the Greater London Area, from Barnet all the way round to Hammersmith. When carrying out inspections of cinemas, it was usual to have a short chat with the managers to go over matters that needed attention. In due course the conversation would turn to business and a good eight out of ten managers complained that the present trend of films was gravely endangering the cinema trade. Audiences were not large, except possibly in the late evenings, yet when the main feature was a pleasant comedy, romance, musical or some interesting documentary—in fact, anything to which a family as a whole could go—the place would be packed and once again there would be queues outside. The fact that a film has an "X" certificate does not necessarily mean that it is a lurid sex or horror film; in fact, some are very clever and witty. One film which I should like to discuss—and I hope that the remaining speakers might be able to give me some information about this—is The Devils, which has been most mentioned in this report. Before I say anything more, I will admit right away that I am skating on rather thin ice and am therefore being very careful. One of the remarks which I believe the famous Confucius really did make was that to have one good look at something was a thousand times better than hearsay. But I have not seen that film, and I will tell your Lordships why.
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I admit that I was put off by everything I heard about it. In addition to that, there was a bit of almost personal vanity, because I played a part in an amateur stage production of The Devils. It was a slightly shortened version of the original stage play. It was quite a hard job to do, but all of us in the company had a thoroughly interesting time doing it. We all became very interested in the history of that bit of 17th century France, which not many of us knew anything about before. The comments we heard after the performance were very encouraging. The audience seemed to enjoy it very much indeed, and they also seemed to show interest in the historical period and learned something from it. That film seems to have come out as a sort of sensational horror film. It seems to have done well in the West End, but does not seem to have done very well in the so-called Provinces on circuit. I can only suppose that it was too daring to go and see, or that, although it is expensive enough to go to a West End cinema now, people came to London to sec the film, had a good supper out as well and went home feeling that they had had a thoroughly good bit of entertainment and something to talk about.
I certainly agree with the recommendation on page 424 of the report, that the British Board of Film Censors should include representatives of the industry, of local authorities and of members of the public, but certainly not, as the noble Lord, Lord Birkett, feared, a most immense field to be consulted before any film is allowed out. I believe, from the evidence of what I have seen and heard, that unless there is a trend towards better entertainment in the cinema a number of cinema staffs will be increasing the figures of the unemployed. Lastly, I should like to take this opportunity to say that, though we are concerned about the profit that some people may have been making out of trying to force on to the public material which only a small minority really seem to want, there are also some people who are having their livelihood threatened by this trend.
8.56 p.m.
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, anyone who has to sit through three debates three nights running in this House, with

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no catering facilities, is entering upon what is tantamount to a hunger strike. If I am brief, it is not because I think that the subject is unimportant nor that I do not feel greatly indebted to the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leicester. I am among those who believe, or feel or sense that since we last discussed this matter last year there has been some improvement, from the viewpoint of those who would support the right reverend Prelate or my noble friend Lord Longford. This, I gather, is known as a value judgment, though whether it is better or worse for that, I do not know. Had the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, been here, I should have asked him to tell me how it is that one can have a purely quantitative assessment of what must be subjectively, and largely, a matter of values.
One experience which led me to take this less gloomy view of our social trends was a demonstration at which I was invited to speak last year, organised by the National Festival of Light in Trafalgar Square. The Square was absolutely full. I am by now a connoisseur of demonstrations in Trafalgar Square and have spoken at some of the biggest, including that protest against the Suez invasion. I have never been more impressed that at this demonstration, and I was particularly impressed because at least 80 per cent. of those who packed the Square to demonstrate for moral values were young people. After that, I found it quite impossible to believe that there was any threat to the younger generation, that all was lost so far as our younger generation was concerned. Those young people protesting, as I said, for moral values, were happy, hopeful, healthy young people and not at all bigoted, prejudiced or likely to be following the sort of desperate and defeatist line which some people appeared to indicate is that which is to be followed by those who, like myself, admire what has been done by my noble friend Lord Longford.
If it is true that there has been this improvement since last year, if there has been this subtle change of opinion in this matter, if the pornographers are now on the defensive instead of on the advance, as I believe them to be, it has
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not happened by chance and has been because of some people who have had the courage to get up and be counted, and I include among those my noble friend Lord Longford. He and his colleagues have caused people to think about this subject. Despite a good deal of sniggering that has gone on, there has been this cool thought for which my noble friend Lord Shackleton rightly asked. I am glad of this chance of thanking my noble friend Lord Longford and those, like the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leicester and my noble friend Lord Soper, who took part in that Committee.
My Lords, in a field in which so many have said that there is no conclusive scientific proof, it may be unprofitable to bandy personal opinions, but I must say that I share the surprise of my noble friend Lord Soper, the noble Lord, Lord Nugent of Guildford, and others that some should be so ready to accept that there is no correlation between excessive "porn" and positively anti-social behaviour and violence of one kind or another. Like the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leicester, I have read the evidence of police officers and others to the effect that criminals charged with sex offences have very often, if not always, undue quantities of pornographic literature in their possession. I will not give other individual instances that I have come across for I am told by some of those who have spoken to-day that that is an unscientific approach to this matter, but I cannot overlook, for example, the recent case of the so-called Hell's Angels who went out and secured a 15-year-old girl, brought her back to their meeting and raped her. I cannot believe that those individuals, those Hell's Angels, are completely insulated from modern behaviour, from the sort of atmosphere that we are talking about. I do not think this has anything at all to do with Jude The Obscure, Chaucer or the rest of it. The sort of literature which describes, if not actually encourages, the kind of behaviour which was indulged by those young lads is the sort of literature that we need to deal with.
My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont, made what I thought was a quite unnecessary protest about restriction. No one is trying to tell him what he and his children should read. All I

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am asking is that my children, or my grandchildren, shall not have forced upon them literature which others think should be read. I am wanting some control of the public environment which ensures that their interests and their tastes are not deliberately cultivated by people who are in this business for profit-making purposes.
My Lords, it is not necessary to say that this evil is worse than other social evils. I agree with the Bishop of Guildford when he said that a condemnation of pornography does not mean approval of, or even unconcern about, other social evils. I agree with my noble friend Lady Gaitskell that the killing of Irish by Irish is probably a greater obscenity. I agree with the author who wrote to The Times complaining about the obscenity of the unused Centre Point. I agree with my noble friend Lord Shackleton when he condemns the evil of poverty. All these things are obscene; but because one attacks one obscenity does not mean in the least that one is unconcerned with the others—and the record of my noble friend Lord Longford, I should have thought, would confirm this. But there is something else about this which I would venture to put to your Lordships. Might it not even be that an attack on one of these obscenities helps us to combat the others? Might it not be that the Western World has seen this outcrop of pornography because we have not set ourselves sufficiently constructive social purposes in other directions? Might it not be that too much effort is going into porn, as a means of amusement for some and profit-making for others, and too little effort is going into curing these other social evils that some of my noble friends have spoken about? My Lords, a greater concentration on the social good and a rejection of extreme self-indulgence could achieve the objectives which both they and I share.
As I said at the beginning, I believe that there is much evidence that the ultrapermissives are now on the defensive. In so far as this is true, it does not mean that we can sit back again. We were told on the occasion of the last debate that efforts were to be made to curb offensive public display, and I ask the noble Viscount whether he can say more as to what is being done in that direction. We were told on the last occasion
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that action would be taken to tighten up on the private cine clubs, and I would ask the noble Viscount whether he has anything to report on that front. Several noble Lords have referred to the words of Lord Denning, and to the impossibility of leaving the law of obscenity as it now is even though we may share doubts about the precise formula which the Longford Committee have put forward. My Lords, would a Select Committee, as suggested by the noble Lord, Lord Nugent, be advisable?
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: My Lords, the noble Lord suggested a Royal Commission.
LORD BESWICK: A Royal Commission or a Select Committee. Would that idea find favour with the Government? I hope that the noble Viscount might be forthcoming there. There is a problem here. No one wants to have the rigid censorship which has been condemned, but everybody says that there are certain elements which should be controlled. There is a real problem, and I suggest that we should get down to it together to see whether we can find the answer. In the meantime, if the present law is to be administered, could the noble Viscount comment on the way jurors are selected in these cases? The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leicester referred to a particular case where, I understand, the judge endorsed the following instructions. He said to the potential jurymen:
"If any of you hold or have expressed, or belong to any organisation which holds or expresses strong views against publication in any form of explicit sexual matters or practices, then it would be desirable if you did not serve upon this jury".
My Lords, what an extraordinary method of selection! That means that an extremist on the libertarian front can serve on such a jury quite properly but those who might belong to the Church of England, like myself, would be held to be unsuitable in these cases. I cannot think that this is the right way to go about it, and I wonder whether the noble Viscount can say what precisely is the position. And, if it is as described her,, then what is being done about it?
There is one other thing to which I shall call attention. My noble friend Lady Lee made reference to the position

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in pre-Nazi Germany and my noble friend Lord Shackleton when he opened from this Box at the beginning of the debate quite rightly called attention to the evils a Nazi censorship. When he made this reference I thought of something that was said about Sir Hugh Greene's stewardship at the B.B.C. It was said that when he encouraged that remarkable series which I enjoyed so much "T.W/", he was thinking of those days in pre, Nazi Germany and the kind of anti-Establishment attacks which those political reviews mounted.
Censorship can come in more than one way. Those years in pre-Nazi Germany had their effect. I suggest to my noble friend a different interpretation of events. It was not that the Nazis recruited their supporters from those clubs; it was that those clubs, those reviews and that permissiveness succeeded in sapping the self-confidence of that democratic society. They undermined that society; and then you had a backlash in a big way. The danger here could be that we should get precisely that backlash which would lead to the nonsense about Jude the Obscure to which my noble friend Lord Stow Hill referred. It is because, I believe, that proper self-control and social discipline can keep us away from that course that I so much admire the way in which the noble Earl, Lord Longford, set about this report and that is why I am so grateful to the right reverend Prelate for giving us this opportunity to discuss it.
LORD BEAUMONT OF WHITLEY: My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down, I wonder whether he can clarify one point about something he said about my speech. He said, as I understood it, that he was not in any way wanting to control what I and my children should read; and that in making that point I was, he implied, producing "a red herring". He then went on to argue, as I understood it, that he wanted to change the law on obscenity and publications and wanted better control over the private showing of films in cinema clubs. These things seem to me to be incompatible. That seems to me to be controlling what I read and what I see.
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, I have no wish to control what the noble Lord does in the privacy of his own home.
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I do not even wish to control what is shown on private cinema screens. The point about these tine-clubs is that they are not genuinely private and what is sought to control is the proper constitution of what claim to be private cinema clubs.
9.10 p.m.
THE MINISTER OF STATE, HOME OFFICE (VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS): My Lords, it now falls to me to attempt to reply on behalf of the Government to a massive debate, a varied one, a thoughtful one, and one in which very strong convictions have been expressed, by no means all from the same point of view. I think that that very fact ought to cause the Government to look with very great care on what they propose to do and to make perfectly certain that their action is correct. If I am not wholly mistaken, virtually all the strongly-held views, although they were not so directed, would in fact become directed to the alteration of the kernel of this matter which is the definition of obscenity either in the form proposed by the noble Earl, Lord Longford, or in the form put forward by others such as the Society of Conservative Lawyers in the past. I believe that all these convictions would focus on this if we were in fact debating a Bill rather than the Longford Report this evening. Therefore it behoves me to take careful steps along that road although I shall not shirk from trying to deal with some of these matters when we come to them.
Perhaps I may be forgiven if I do not again use the broad brush that was displayed by my noble friends Lord Eccles and Lord Windlesham on behalf of the Government in April last year; because to-day we have specific recommendations or proposals before us. I believe that on that occasion, with a good deal of brilliance, the background was painted in. Now we can touch on some of the detailed figures and events in the foreground. It also means that I shall be forgiven by three noble Lords if I do not again go into the question of the educational side which my noble friend Lady Young dealt with earlier.
My Lords, to listen to a few of the speeches—and I think that I have here in mind particularly that of the noble Lord, Lord Goodman—one might think

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that we were proposing to introduce for the first time a law which brought some control over obscenity. I must remind the House that we have, after all, had for many years a Common Law offence of obscene libel. It was perhaps crystalised in the case of Hicklin that was mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, and it has since become statutory as a result of the 1959 Act which was then extended mildly in 1964. Therefore, we have already on the Statute Book methods of dealing with obscenity. By "obscenity" I think one knows what one is talking about, as several noble Lords have said, including the noble Viscount, Lord Barrington, who "pinched" the quotation that I wanted to use myself.
Like the noble and learned Lord, Lord Stow Hill, I have had the, possibly, somewhat dubious advantage of looking at a great deal of material. Fortunately, not all of it is available in this country, but it might have been available were it not for the vigilance of the Post Office, Customs and Excise and the police. And when I say "looking at" I do not mean only photographs, because in my somewhat limited judgment of this I believe that the written word is possibly even more insidious—although this is a surprising view—than some of the things that you see, even in coloured photographs. My Lords, at one stage I thought that perhaps the answer to this might almost be, if only one could do it, to go back to the Common Law, when really all that the courts were saying in many cases was, "Obscenity is obscenity." But I do not think that we can do that because, wide-ranging though the noble Earl's report is, and the problem that it faces, and the criticisms that it makes, this is really not a new problem and a document that I have here (I do not think I can find it at the moment), the Report of the Select Committee, led up to the Bill which the noble and learned Lord, Lord Stow Hill, was discussing and which was introduced by Mr. Roy Jenkins.
It is very important to remember that in 1958 this Select Committee stated that much of the evidence it received was suppose I have got to face it—one cannot directed to the uncertainty of the Common Law and in that case—I go back to that. They were also con-
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cerned about the lack of powers of forfeiture or seizure of obscene material, and they were concerned about the difficulty of fixing the borderline between what was and what was not permissible. Certainly their recommendations, which were in due course translated into the Bill, were intended to bring greater certainty by substituting the new statutory offence even though it did pick up the wording of the Common Law. The Committee certainly envisaged, too, that their recommendations would facilitate the job of the police in suppressing the trade in pornography. But at the same time—and it is this balance that it is so important to remember and which has been brought out so strongly in the differing views put forward this afternoon—they wanted to make sure that there should be no undue interference with the free expression of opinion and the rights of the individual, a point that has been mentioned by several noble Lords. The noble Lord, Lord Goodman, referred to it in the case of authors, and it was referred to by my noble friend Lord Coleraine. I do not know whether he adopted it, but at any rate he raised the point through the mouth of Mr. Mailer. And certainly it was raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Lee of Asheridge. It may be questioned whether these attempts to reconcile or to produce a balance have been as successful as they might have been, but it is absolutely crucial to remember that it was a balance that was sought between two very strongly opposing viewpoints both of which have been strongly expressed again this afternoon.
My noble friend Lord Nugent of Guildford—he was echoed by the noble Lord, Lord Beswick—asked whether we could get round this, possibly by setting up a Royal Commission. I am afraid that I do not think that we could. In the first place, there have been a largish number of investigations both here and also abroad, and whatever one me y think of the United States investigation it was pretty full and produced certain facts. There was a very thorough examination in Denmark and we have a number of other—if I say "lesser" I do not mean less important, but at any rate, not quite so official inquiries of one sort or another. I do not believe that what we want is further information, although I

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will come to the matter of research in a moment. It really is a matter of trying to find a solution and this may boil down only to a matter of wording in the case of the central nub of pornography.
My Lords, I think that I ought just to say a word—although I do not believe that I need enter into the ring of this much disputed question—about whether pornography does harm and the statistical truth. I find that my noble friend Lord Eccles dealt with this in the last debate. I am advised that there is very little evidence about the possible effect that pornography may have on the personality, and that it would be difficult, in view of the problem of isolating the significant influences, to undertake meaningful research in this field. There is a distinction to be drawn, I think, between the sort of examples quoted in the noble Earl's report (of which some have been produced this evening) about a single instance of a person who either has, or inflames himself with, pornographic material and then goes out and commits a sexual offence, and finding out whether it may not be that the reason why he has the pornographic material in the first place is also the reason why he is disposed to commit the sexual offence. It is when you get to research of that depth of psychology that you run into the most mammoth problems, not least of finding control groups who are free from the perverse and distorting influences into which you are attempting to research. This is why I say that the absence of evidence is really something that we have to face up to, although there may be individual cases of the sort about which we have heard.
I am also concerned about the lack of any information about the possibility of a causal relationship between behavioural abnormalities and material which deals in a sexual content with the infliction of pain and suffering. This is something that the noble Baroness, Lady Lee, was talking about—sexual sadism. Again, we are very short of causal psychological evidence upon this matter. I am therefore afraid that the references in the speeches of the noble Lord, Lord Soper, and of the noble Earl, Lord Longford, about these individual cases do not really help the Government very much along this path.
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We find therefore that we have not got the scientific base from which to set forth. But what we have is an existing criminal law, and I suppose that the Government in this have to try and hold the ring with the criminal law between what are conflicting viewpoints. As the noble Viscount, Lord Barrington, and other noble Lords said, the law must attempt to draw the line correctly, and we must not in the process infringe the central liberties, as mentioned by the noble Earl, Lord Longford. It would be a brave man who would take from this debate a readily apparent solution which would be likely to be agreed by all those who have spoken. When my noble friend Lord Lauderdale asks the Government whether they want a solution, I can only say that we do, certainly in the field of obscenity. I may say that I think there was a certain subtle shift in his argument away from education into the field of obscenity, where it is not necessarily very easy to follow him. But when you come to the small print it is a very different matter altogether.
THE EARL OF LAUDERDALE: My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend for giving way and for his reference. Would he go so far as to say that the Government not only want a solution, but if they can find a solution they are ready to come to Parliament for the powers necessary, irrespective of a measure of unpopularity?
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: My Lords, I should have thought that that was an acceptable proposition. I am bound to say that I consider the problem of finding the correct form of words singularly more acute than the problem of facing the unpopularity when one does so. If my noble friend could suggest how this should be drafted I should be grateful.
I have been asked a number of specific points, and I begin with a point that was only mentioned by the right reverend Prelate, the Bishop of Leicester. It is one of the points in the report, about human exploitation. This is an offence in the draft Bill. I believe, however, that it confuses two issues. First of all, performances in the course of professional acting are dealt with; and then there are other forms of voluntary modelling. In the case of the acting profession I

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believe that it would be irresponsible of Government to start creating new criminal offences without the active encouragement of the union concerned, and so far as I know this has not been forthcoming and we have had no representation from Equity or the other unions concerned.
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: My Lords, I am sorry to interrupt the noble Lord: I did not quite hear.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: I said, my Lords, that we have not had any representations from Equity that they require this particular form of protection for those members of their union who might be involved. I believe it would be irresponsible for me to endorse a new criminal offence without that. When it comes to modelling, there may be some cogency in the analogy with prostitution, when it comes to a question of living off immoral earnings, but the analogy is far from perfect. One can think, for instance, of a photograph taken in a way which might turn out unintentionally to be indecent, or used in ways not envisaged at the time the photograph was taken. It would be difficult then to defend putting a photographer, and perhaps even a model, in jeopardy in respect of the actually taking of that photograph because of the subsequent use that was made of it, when there was no original intention that it should be used in that way. Again, I think we are in trouble over the inclusion of the word "indecent" in the proposed definition of the offence. In fact where material is being produced for commercial pornography, the producer will normally be liable for prosecution under the Obscene Publications Act itself for possessing obscene material for gain. If he cannot be identified with material and prosecuted on this ground, then I think it is unlikely that you would be able to get him for exploitation either.
The cinema was mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Birkett, and my noble friend Lord Gainford. My right honourable friend's predecessor started discussions with the licensing authorities and the British Board of Film Censors, and my present right honourable friend, the Home Secretary, proposes to pursue these. We shall thus have a chance to consider the proposals made in the Report of the noble
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Earl's Committee concerning censorship in this country. I do not think, therefore, that I should anticipate that, but it should be borne in mind, I think—and perhaps this is not often enough said, though I was glad to hear Lord Birkett's confirmation of the work of the Board of Film Censors—that material is now being produced (primarily abroad, where it is widely shown in public) which presents the Board with serious problems: and frankly, having seen something of it, I am not surprised. In maintaining the balance that they do, the Board are doing a very difficult job with a great deal of responsibility and skill. It would be surprising if some of their decisions were never questioned anywhere, but so long as the criticisms come equally from both sides, which I believe they do, the Board can feel satisfied about doing a valuable job. Certainly if it were not so, then the expeditions of the family of my noble friend Lord Gainford to the cinema would be considerably more hazardous even than they are now.
As for giving the Board a governmental character, as the noble Lord suggested, I believe that the arguments which prevailed between about 1910 and 1915, when precisely and exactly the same proposition was put forward and was rejected by the then Government, hold good in just the same way to-day. If the Board wishes to reconstitute itself with other private elements, that is a matter for its members, but I would not recommend the insertion of Government members in it.
Cinema clubs were mentioned by the noble Viscount, Lord Hanworth, and the noble Lord, Lord Beswick. There are here proposals by the noble Earl's Committee, but my right honourable friend doubts whether the overlap proposed by the Committee between the system of censorship and the law of obscenity, if both are to apply, is really practicable. However, it is indefensible that some exhibitions should be subject to no form of control at all—these are the ones which the noble Lord, Lord Beswick, was talking about—performances which are essentially public in character and which are advertised, but just escape licensing control by being thinly disguised as club performances. My right honourable friend accordingly proposes to require

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that all performances promoted for private gain should have to be licensed and that this should be reinforced by other safeguards. He also proposes that the test of obscenity—that is the obscene publications side of it—should be extended to all exhibitions which would still remain not subject to control by the licensing authority in respect of the contents of the films. That is the other gap in the law—not the clubs for gain, but the members' clubs of one sort or another. Legislation will be needed. It will be suitable legislation for a private Member, possibly a Member of this House, and its progress would depend upon the Parliamentary timetable. We have the proposals worked out, and possibly noble Lords might like to consider them.
Before I come on to the main part of the Obscene Publications Act, I wonder whether in answer to the noble Lord, Lord Beswick, I could say a word about jurors. I did not truthfully know beforehand about this. The situation as to jurors is usually this: sometimes the judge can make an indication that certain people may be liable to challenge. If what he said in this particular case has been fully reported, it seems possible that some criticism of the sort the noble Lord mentioned might be levied. But I do not know. It certainly would not be any standard form of direction that he gave. In addition to anything the judge may say, both parties have seven peremptory challenges, and after that they can go on challenging jurors on merits for shown reasons. That is a perfectly normal procedure; there is nothing unusual about obscenity trials in this respect.
Now I come to the point about indecent display. If there is one thing on which I can mercifully find agreement in this House this afternoon and this evening, it is that. Treating their speeches either directly or inferentially, the right reverend Prelate, the Lord Bishop of Leicester, the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont, the noble Viscount, Lord Hanworth, the noble Lord, Lord Fletcher, the noble Lord, Lord Ardwick, the noble Earl, Lord Longford, the noble Lord, Lord Birkett, and the noble Lord, Lord Beswick, would all like this issue dealt with. I daresay
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that if the others who have spoken were asked, they would like it dealt with too. The Committee's proposals concerning the definition of "obscenity" raised serious difficulties, and here the notion of outrage is as difficult as in any other case. Although the report is based on the consideration of harm done by pornography, which is the basis of the existing law—and this is really the trouble about "outrage "—the proposed new definition shifts the basis away from harm done by pornography on to the basis of a notion of causation of extreme offence or outrage, which might well produce different results and is a mixture of logic. It is for this reason that we find it as difficult in "indecent display" as it is elsewhere in the obscenity laws.
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, I am very interested in what the noble Viscount is saying. The position in Denmark, I understand, is that there are bylaws which serve to prevent offensive exhibitions or publications. That is one of the main burdens of the complaint, and it does not raise quite the same difficulty of definition of obscenity. I gathered that the Danish experience is being studied, and I hope it will continue to be, because there is a slight tendency to regard the Danish experiment as purely an experiment in permissiveness, which it is not.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: My Lords, it is not. The situation in Denmark, as I understand it, is that there are municipal by-laws, as the noble Lord said, though I do not think they are necessarily all in the same terms. The whole of the burden of enforcing all the laws of obscenity in every realm has simply fallen on to these municipal bylaws. The police, the local authority, or somebody, have to attempt to deal with every possible problem under them. I do not think that that is the right way to do it. We do not want to have differential by-laws in this country.
But if I may continue we may get somewhere. There are already copious laws on this subject, and anybody who has read the report knows all about the Vagrancy Acts. But we have those under review at the moment by a working party, as part of the general revision of criminal law. We have asked the working party to formulate proposals in advance of the

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main conclusions on this particular subject. It has already had several discussions and I understand that a Paper on it will soon be submitted to my right honourable friend. As I think the noble Lord has just indicated, it is of course an easier field than obscenity itself, because the object is not to draw a line or lines below which material is absolutely banned but simply to draw a line below which material must not be openly flaunted; and the threat of prosecution can easily be avoided by simple discretion. It is not altogether free from difficulty and I do not think the noble Earl's formula is quite right, particularly when it deals with distribution; and there is trouble about the "public place"; but this I hope we should be able to get over. But it is I think a field where we are all agreed—certainly my right honourable friend is—that we have the most profitable line for immediate action. The timing again, alas!, must depend upon the Parliamentary timetable. I do not think, however, that it would be a mistake to concentrate on this small area, even if we have for the moment to set aside the wider definition of "obscenity".
I believe there is a good deal in the analogy produced by the noble Lord, Lord Ardwick, and my noble friend Lord Nugent of Guildford, with the Street Offences Act. It may not be altogether a desirable thing to do, but at least we can get rid of what is known to be and agreed to be an offence to the public, and of course something which is highly offensive in relation to children. I do not believe (the noble and learned Lord, Lord Stow Hill, raised this point) that we should here be dealing with something which is in the least unenforceable, because, after all, we have the existing law. It may be it is spotted about; it may be that the penalties are very low; but there have been prosecutions on this question and I think the concept is quite simple and that we should not be falling into the trap of producing something which would bring the law into disrepute altogether. This, therefore, I believe is the most immediate prospect for advance, and I hope we may be able to get on with it.
My Lords, I wonder how much more I ought to say about this matter. It is
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very late. We really now come to the whole of the 1959 Act. First of all, I should say one thing about forfeiture. This is a complicated matter. It was introduced really on an official basis in 1959, and it is fairly successful. For instance, the number of items seized by the Metropolitan Police alone amounted to 35,000 in 1969; 71,000 in 1970; 139,000 in 1971, and in the first ten months of this year 900,000 items of pornography. So it has had quite an effect. Of course, we are here dealing with a matter which has been raised in the Court of Appeal in the recent judgment. I do not think it would be right for me to go into this matter, not only for the sub-judice rule but also because we have not even yet got a formal copy of the views, or the judgments, of the noble and learned Lord and his two colleagues; but also beause I believe these things may very largely turn out to have been obiter, not necessary for the judgment. I do not believe it would be a good idea for me to go into this tonight, although the whole of their criticism is obviously something we need to look at. There is certainly no discrepancy between the law for seizure and for doing away with and destroying these goods without necessarily taking them to court and the provisions that were mentioned by the Court of Appeal, the Prosecution of Offences Regulations of 1946. There is in fact a perfectly good answer to this and there is no lack of legality in what has been going on at the moment.
Where we really come to trouble is in the prosecutions under Section 2. The philosophy here is I think fairly simple. One may wish to get rid of large amounts of pornography if one can do so, or other indecent matter—by "pornography" I am going quite wide; not only sexual matters, for sometimes it can be violence and there is no necessary sexual overtone. You may want to do it by way of forfeiture. Equally, what you may want to do is this. You may want to attack the pornographer himself. There may be occasions when you want to get the person who sells it, the person who writes it, the person who distributes it. For these purposes, of course, seizure alone is no good and you must have another criminal offence. The one we have at present is that under Section 2

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of the Obscene Publications Act. It is not right, I think, to say that the penalties here are small or insignificant. The penalties on indictment are three years' imprisonment or an unlimited fine, and I cannot think of anything much more severe than an unlimited fine. Magistrates can order a fine, I think, of £100 or six months' imprisonment, which is their usual maximum on summary conviction.
So we are not necessarily lacking in powers here, but there has been a good deal of difficulty in getting the law clarified: for instance, the question of what may be raised under the defence of public good. It is only recently, in the Anderson case, which is the Oz School Kids' issue, that the Court of Appeal has finally pronounced, as I told the noble Lord, Lord Birkett, that one cannot call expert evidence on the question of obscenity and the question of the tendency to deprave and debauch. This is a matter for the jury alone. I think perhaps the noble and learned Lord, Lord Stow Hill, has not quite grasped this. Perhaps he has not yet had a chance to read this. Certainly the law has moved on a substantial way since the noble Lord, Lord Fletcher, did the research which underlay the legal committee's report. On that, as on one other thing, he was out of date. For instance, he was out of date on the question of the tendency to deprave and corrupt on the basis that the subjects who might reasonably be expected to read pornography, might fox instance, be such dirty old men that they could not be corrupted or depraved. Again, the courts have put this right.
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: My Lords, I am sorry to break in, but l think it would be wrong for me to let it be supposed that our sub-committee was out of date. Lord Justice Edmund Davies was a leading member of that subcommittee and he was thoroughly up to date.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: My Lords, the point is that these things have happened since the report was written. One has to keep up to date with the law. I am not suggesting that it was not correct when it was written, but the law has been clarified since and one has to take account of it when one is seeing whether a matter is as unsatis-
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factory as is suggested. At the same time we have the added subtlety that my noble friend Lady Young has mentioned in the whole concept that, particularly if we wish to protect the children, we have built into the wording of the Statute the ability to see whether the matter is tending to deprave and corrupt in respect of the particular audience that is likely to read it. This is a cunning and subtle piece of legal mechanism which has enabled things to be caught and to be dealt with which might very definitely not otherwise have been covered by the law of obscenity. I do not know whether the Little Red Schoolbook would have been caught if only adults were going to read it. I rather doubt it. But it was caught when it was specifically designed (as it clearly was) to be read by schoolchildren. So we have that sort of bringing up to date.
What we have not yet dealt with, and what is a major difficulty and is very much in the minds of those who wrote the noble Earl's report about this defence of public good, is the aversion argument which has been referred to previously. Some have tried to say that an article which is so obscene as to be absolutely repellent can be covered by the defence on the grounds that it is for the public good that it should be read and this will simply put people off ever participating in this sort of thing. The courts have never decided whether this argument really lies there or whether it may not more correctly lie in the test of whether, because it is so foul, it does not after all tend to deprave or debauch at all. If the latter concept is right there is no question of expert evidence, there is no question of the defence of public good being brought in; and if we look at the words of Section 4 I am not at all sure that it is suitable for this argument, anyway, and so you have the matter left to the jury. I am bound to say that having seen some of this material I would not expect juries to have much difficulty in saying that it tended to deprave and corrupt, even if the lawyers for the defence, and it would only be a matter of submission, were to put to them that it was so foul that it could only put people off. I do not believe that the material I have seen would present much difficulty to juries in this regard.

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I have already spoken for a considerable time, though this has been a long debate and I have had many points to answer. I will not go into this matter in too much detail and I would not necessarily despair of the existing law. Like other noble Lords, I certainly see major difficulties about the alternative put forward by the noble Earl's Committee. I think that the courts may still make rather more out of this than one may think, listening to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, and I have noted the opinions of other noble Lords in regard to cases on this subject such as the Whyte case. However, I believe that there is more good in it than perhaps we recognise and that at any rate to change that is a major operation.
What I can take away from this debate for the Government is the fact that there is a wide divergence of view about how to attack the central problem of obscenity and that there are two conflicting points of view which must be balanced and which the present law tries at least as best it can to assimilate together. As for the rest, on cinema clubs legislation would be welcomed, and on display—my right honourable friend said at Blackpool we were willing to do this—we are now in a position, backed by the views of your Lordships, to go ahead with the unanimous view that this would be a popular thing to do.
Certainly the debate has been exceedingly helpful to the Government. I am most grateful, whatever may have been the criticisms from other sources, to have had the opportunity to discuss this matter, because we have learned a good deal and have updated ourselves this afternoon. I therefore add my congratulations to the right reverend Prelate, and I think it would be grossly unjust if I did not add my thanks to the noble Earl as well.
LORD FERRIER: My Lords, before my noble friend sits down, may I ask him to note that he has not mentioned Scotland, though I hardly expected him to do so? Will be write to me about the subject, or would be prefer me to put down a Question at a later date for Written Answer?
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: My Lords, my knowledge of the criminal law of Scotland is utterly non-existent. It would therefore be rash of me to attempt to answer my noble friend. Per-
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haps he will allow me to draw toe matter to the attention of my noble friend Lord Polwarth.
9.48 p.m.
THE LORD BISHOP OF LEICESTER: My Lords, most of us who are here now are here only from a sense of duty and there are few rewards for staying so long. But I think your Lordships will agree that we have heard some very good speeches in the latter part of the evening and that there is a certain sense of camaraderie which unites us all at this late hour. I think it would be kind for me to put into just one phrase my thanks to all those who have spoken broadly in support of the proposition that I made and the general outlook of the Longford Report. I must, however, speak a little more fully, though very briefly, about those who have in the main opposed these new proposals. I think at once of the noble Lord, Lord Shackleton, the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont of Whitley, the noble Baroness, Lady Gaitskell, the noble Baroness, Lady Lee of Asheridge, and others who represent more or less one point of view, though expressed in different ways. Their main points, as I understand them, are that they consider the whole problem to have been exaggerated. In relation to that, I draw their attention to the part of the report which speaks of two economics graduates at Leeds who within one year built up a mail order pornography business amounting, they said, to 25,000 book club members. They did not admit that they were fostering an addiction and there are other details about them. If two people can get a 25,000 circulation going within one year, when one adds all the rest of the promoters together one surely sees that it is not quite such a trifling phenomenon as some people would suggest.
Then, of course, there is the tremendously strong point put in an almost classical way by the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont of Whitley, that we have to establish very sure proof of social harm before the liberty of a subject is interfered with in any way. With that I have very great sympathy, but I think that it has to be balanced with a very clear idea of the sort of things that you are going to allow under that very noble description of freedom of the subject and liberty of expression. The noble Lord spoke about the therapeutic value of

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pornography for certain people and said that we must be sympathetic about that. But that could never be a final test of behaviour and of what could be allowed because there are some who find it therapeutic to themselves to assault small girls, or in other words to behave in an anti-social way. It is only a very relative element in the weighing up of these things.
The noble Lord, Lord Goodman, endeavoured to blind the House with brilliance and at one time I thought that he was almost succeeding. But on reflection I think that we shall all agree that his speech had not been very carefully thought out. I shall mention one example alone: he made a great fuss about the word "outrage" and said that it might necessitate proving the possibility of a breach of the peace. He had not even stopped to look to see that what the outrage was about was not people at all but standards, and the whole of that wonderful, brilliant passage about outrage was totally misplaced. The Devils—I am referring to the film—has been mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Gainford. I think your Lordships will be interested to hear in just a sentence of a letter I received only this morning from a blind man. I do not know him at all but he said to me in this letter:
"I never thought that I should give thanks to God for being blind, but since my wife has told me what she has seen in the film The Devils I am genuinely grateful that at least I have been spared that."
That is just a little indication of the kind of offence that is caused by some of these way-out efforts.
I come now to the comments from the Government Front Bench and, of course, I am very grateful for the careful speeches that have been made by the noble Baroness, Lady Young, and by the noble Viscount, Lord Colville of Culross. Lady Young presented us with a picture that almost seemed to suggest that all was for the best in the best of all possible worlds, and she expressed it so gracefully that we were almost inclined to believe her. I feel that it would be a mistake to underrate the remaining sense of anxiety, particularly among parents, about the developments of sex education. Nobody is against sex education in that sense, but
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we think that it has always to be kept in a broad context and not allowed to exist as a thing by itself, as it were, apart from human relationships. We are grateful, of course, for the promises—if that is not too strong a word to use—about legislation on indecent display and we hope that as time goes by Her Majesty's Government may take a rather more favourable view than the noble Lord was able to take in the matter of the reform of the Obscenity Act. The present Act was defended with great lucidity, as always, by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Stow Hill, and it will be for the assistance of the Government to have before them in Hansard all the speeches that have been made to-day, from whatever point of view. I think we must face the fact that there is going to be considerable discussion about the Act itself, particularly after the recent judgments. While I think a Royal Commission would be a mistake, the Government might consider drawing up a Green Paper in which not only their proposals about indecent display and about cinema clubs and other things could be set out, but also some of the remaining unresolved questions in connection with the Obscenity Act 1959.
My Lords, you really can go home very soon, and that you will be very thankful for. I end by saying that in the last resort we have to think what sort of country we want our children to grow up in. I am afraid that there are some noble Lords and Ladies who, when they hear the word "pornography", think that what we are worried about is one or two magazines with a picture of a pretty girl on the front without too many clothes on. That is really not the sort of thing we are talking about at all. I am talking about the kind of cards, that can be easily got, by members of schools and other young people, by answering advertisements, showing pictures of carnal intercourse between girls and animals. These are the kind of things that are going on, and I have spared the House any more vivid descriptions of material of this kind. But I assure your Lordships that we are not talking about trifles. I beg leave to withdraw the Motion, if it is your Lordships' wish.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

  DEFENCE EXPENDITURE
  DEFENCE EXPENDITURE
  BORSTAL TRAINING SENTENCES
  BORSTAL TRAINING SENTENCES