Sitting of 27 March 1973

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

PRIVATE BUSINESS
LONDON TRANSPORT BILL
HULL TIDAL SURGE BARRIER BILL
As amended, considered; to be read the Third time.
GREATER LONDON COUNCIL (GENERAL POWERS) BILL (By Order)
Order read for resuming adjourned debate on Question [6th March], That the Bill be now read a Second time.
Debate to be resumed upon Tuesday next at Seven o'clock.

ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS
  EMPLOYMENT

    Redundancies (Bolsover)
    Mr. Skinnerasked the Secretary of State for Employment what redundancies have been notified that are due to take place in the Westhouses area of the Bolsover constituency in the first week of October 1973.
    The Under-Secretary of State for Employment (Mr. Dudley Smith): None, Sir. I understand, however, that British Rail is considering closing the West-houses motive power depot. Staff have been notified informally, but as formal joint consultation has not yet commenced any speculation about redundancies would be premature at this stage.
    Mr. Skinner: I hope that they remain premature right through until after 1st
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    October. Is the hon. Gentleman aware that this is an area which has been decimated by temporary closures over the past eight years and that the Blackwell Rural District Council has been painstaking in its efforts to introduce new industries into the area, to service which the depot will be needed? Will the hon. Gentleman consult the East Midlands Planning Council and his right hon. Friends concerned to see to it that this closure is averted?
    Mr. Smith: I should like to look at what the hon. Gentleman says. He probably knows that these are not direct matters for me. I emphasise that no final decisison has yet been made to close the depot. But with the continuing buildup of new industry in the area and the increase in notified vacancies, the prospects for alternative employment are reasonable if it should close.
    Mr. Jessel: Is it not one of the best ways of promoting employment for the area concerned to have a reputation for good labour relations and a lack of militancy? Might it not be the case that the activities of the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) and the Clay Cross Council are detrimental in that respect?
    Mr. Skinner: The hon. Gentleman should get his geography right. It is not in my constituency.
    Mr. Smith: Good labour relations are always helpful to any district.
    Mr. Skinner: Silly idiot.
    Mr. Concannon: To answer the hon. Member for Twickenham (Mr. Jessel), is the Under-Secretary aware that it is well to point out that when local government elections are held in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) there is an 80 per cent. turn-out? A lot of us would like to be able to say the same.
    Mr. Smith: That hardly arises on this Question.

    Older Workers
    Miss Fookesasked the Secretary of State for Employment if he will take steps to encourage the employment of men in the age group 55 to 65 years.
    The Minister of State, Department of Employment (Mr. R. Chichester-Clark): The current modernisation and extension of the employment and training services provided by my Department should be of benefit to older workers, as to others; the same is true of the Government's measures to expand the economy and stimulate employment generally.
    In particular, in the assisted areas grants are available to employers who are prepared to retrain and employ unemployed workers of 45 years of age and over.
    Miss Fookes: Is my hon. Friend aware that there are many men and women of mature age outside the assisted areas who feel that they have been thrown on the scrap-heap simply because employers seem to have an unhealthy preoccupation with age?
    Mr. Chichester-Clark: Successive Governments have taken the view that the interests of older workers are best served by encouraging employers to consider them on their merits rather than by protective legislation. It is encouraging that there has been a fall in this category of unemployment in the past 12 months.
    Mr. James Lamond: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that many local authorities have superannuation schemes with upper age limits of 50 or 51? Is there anything that he can do to encourage them to take into their employment men over that age?
    Mr. Chichester-Clark: That is not a matter for my Department. However, I am certain that what the hon. Gentleman has said will be noted.

    North Sea Oil
    Mr. Douglasasked the Secretary of State for Employment if he will make a statement on his estimate of the effect on unemployment on rigs and drilling platforms in the North Sea of the proposed tax changes.
    Mr. Eadieasked the Secretary of State for Employment what co-operation exists between his Department and the Department of Trade and Industry in relation to the monitoring of jobs that are likely to arise as the result of the development of projects attached to North Sea oil.
    The Secretary of State for Employment (Mr. Maurice Macmillan): The proposed tax changes are unlikely to have any significant effect on the level of employment on rigs and drilling platforms. My Department and the Department of Trade and Industry are represented on the North Sea Oil Committee of the Scottish Economic Planning Board which co-ordinates information about all aspects of North Sea oil developments.
    Mr. Douglas: In the co-ordination of activity, will the Minister pay regard to the fact that many of the highly skilled technologists on these rigs come from outside the United Kingdom? What steps has his Department taken to ensure that the companies employing the technologists recruit United Kingdom workers and at the same time ensure that they pay taxes in the United Kingdom?
    Mr. Macmillan: It is not possible to ensure that people who are not resident in the United Kingdom, whether they are British or non-British subjects, pay tax in the United Kingdom. As to the skills developing on the rigs and in the ancillary work connected with them, more and more British residents will be employed in these jobs. The number of jobs which these developers are providing in Scotland is increasing rapidly.
    Mr. Costain: Has my right hon. Friend any record of the number of jobs that this new industry has produced, and what are the prospects for the future?
    Mr. Macmillan: We must remember that so far this work is purely exploratory. There is no oil yet flowing from the North Sea. A total of 3,600 development and exploration jobs has so far been created, including jobs on rigs. Projects which are firm and which have been announced are expected to produce another 8,600 jobs over the next four years, and there will be more projects which are still under consideration.
    Mr. Eadie: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that there is a need to update information about North Sea oil jobs available now—not jobs projected for the future? Is he further aware of the great anxiety in Scotland about the loss of jobs in the older-established energy industries? The rate of loss of jobs is greater

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    than the gain in new jobs. Will the Minister tell us about jobs that are coming to the fore now?
    Mr. Macmillan: I have just done so. The situation is changing rapidly. On 21st February I said that there were 3,000 jobs currently created and there would be about 8,500 over the next four years. The present figures are about 700 higher, and that gives an indication of the speed with which the situation is developing and how many more jobs are being created. We must remember the great investment that has been made in the coal mining industry to preserve jobs in the older energy industries.
    Mr. Wolrige-Gordon: As much of the work on the oil rigs is highly skilled, what stimulus is my right hon. Friend giving to encourage the training of British nationals in this work?
    Mr. Macmillan: Firms engaged in North Sea oil activities benefit from training grants to expanding firms in assisted areas, which are £15 per man and £12 per woman per week.

    Disabled Persons
    Mr. William Hamiltonasked the Secretary of State for Employment what is the latest figure for unemployment among the registered disabled in Scotland; what was the comparable figure in each of the previous three years; and what progress has been made towards ensuring that firms comply with the law in the employment of such persons.
    Mr. Dudley Smith: On 12th February there were 9,738 registered disabled people unemployed in Scotland. This compares with 11,264 in February 1972, 9,724 in February 1971 and 8,640 in February 1970. My Department continues to take all reasonable measures to ensure that employers fulfil their statutory obligations.
    Mr. Hamilton: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that these figures are far too high? What is the figure expressed as a percentage compared with the percentage of able-bodied people who are unemployed? Will he ask each firm that is not complying with the law to give specific reasons why it should not conform?
    Mr. Smith: Yes, Sir, the figure is too high but it has improved. The percentage total of unemployment among registered disabled persons is 13·4 per cent. We are reviewing all our specialised services for the disabled, and I am glad to announce that we shall shortly publish a consultative document on the quota scheme which goes into the question how much employers should be pressurised or whether we should adhere to the previous method of acting by persuasion. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will let us have his views when he has read the consultative document.
    Mr. Marten: Apart from the review of specialised services, which is much appreciated, is there not almost a failure to advertise the need for firms to take up the quota of 3 per cent. registered disabled? Would not such advertisement bring mounting pressure from the public on firms to do the right thing?
    Mr. Smith: Yes, Sir, there is something in that, but because of the extra efforts made by my Department in the last two years more and more employers are becoming aware of their obligations. This whole issue is dealt with in the consultative document and hon. Members on both sides of the House will find it fascinating reading.
    Mr. R. C. Mitchellasked the Secretary of State for Employment if he is satisfied that there are adequate employment facilities for the disabled in the Southampton area.
    Mr. Dudley Smith: I am glad to say that the employment position for the disabled people in the area has improved significantly over the last year and that the number of unemployed registered disabled people has fallen from 509 in March 1972 to 451 on 12th March 1973. There is of course room for further improvement and my Department will continue to make all possible efforts to place those affected in suitable work.
    Mr. Mitchell: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that I am receiving an increasing number of letters from disabled people in the Southampton area complaining that they are finding great difficulty in obtaining employment? Is he satisfied that firms in the area are taking up their full quota of disabled people?
    Mr. Smith: At the last count 33·9 per cent. of employers in the area with a quota obligation were fulfilling it. That compares unfavourably with the national figure of 42·2 per cent. I inquired whether there were any special reasons, and I understand that there are not. We do all we can. I mentioned in reply to an earlier question, before the hon. Member entered the Chamber, that we are considering this matter. We will publish a consultative document about the quota system. I hope that that will bring about improvements when a final decision is made.
    Mr. S. James A. Hill: Is my hon. Friend aware that in the survey carried out by the Department of Health and Social Security the percentage of disabled in the South West was the highest in the country? Can he say whether there is any expansion in the vocational training facilities in my area?
    Mr. Smith: Yes, I am aware of the figures that my hon. Friend quotes. Vocational training facilities in the area are being considerably expanded. The Southampton Government training centre was expanded last year by 116 places to a total of 387. A further 40 places will be added shortly. In addition, a centre with 148 places is due to be opened in Portsmouth in the near future. Improvements are taking place, but I am well aware of the difficulties in the area.

    Factories (Prosecutions)
    Mr. William Priceasked the Secretary of State for Employment how many firms were prosecuted by Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Factories during 1972.
    Mr. Maurice Macmillan: During 1972 1,527 firms were prosecuted under the Factories Act and other legislation administered by Her Majesty's Factory Inspectorate.
    Mr. Price: Why were there not more? Are not many industrialists getting away with outrageous malpractices merely because there are not enough factory inspectors to go round? When will the Factory Inspectorate be big enough to do the job properly?
    Mr. Macmillan: The hon. Gentleman is drawing a totally unwarranted conclusion from the figures I have given. In 1968 there were 928 prosecutions; in

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    1969, 1,050; in 1970, 1,185; in 1971, 1,315 and in 1972, 1,527. Prosecutions are taken when they appear to be necessary. There are other factors to be taken into account, and there are also other methods of ensuring that the law is complied with and that proper precautions are taken.
    Sir Gilbert Longden: Will my right hon. Friend say when action will be taken on the Robens Report?
    Mr. Macmillan: Yes, I hope very soon to be in a position to give the House more details on this. The Government have accepted the principle of the Robens Report, which underlines what I have just said. While recognising the need to keep a statutory backing of the health and safety regulations, it emphasised strongly the need for the co-operation of management and workpeople in protecting people at work by prevention as well as by prosecution.
    Mr. Harold Walker: Notwithstanding the Government's acceptance of the principle of the Robens Report, will the right hon. Gentleman accept that the Opposition have some reservations? Will he assure the House that before the Government commit themselves to proposals we shall have an opportunity to discuss the principles and philosophy of the report?
    Mr. Macmillan: Two questions are involved. There is the question of organisation and there is the question of the methods that that organisation will use. It is on the second that consultation with employers and unions is most essential. Part of the Robens concept is that the methods of ensuring safety and health at work will in the first instance be applied through a body on which unions and employers are represented, and that is why consultation is so important.

    Empire Pools, Blackpool (Dispute)
    Mr. Milneasked the Secretary of State for Employment if he will now make an offer to conciliate in the dispute between Empire Pools, Blackpool, and the Union of Shop Distributive and Allied Workers.
    Mr. Chichester-Clark: My Department's officials have offered on several occasions to assist in the present dispute but the company considers that no useful

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    purpose would be served by a meeting at this stage.
    Mr. Milne: Is the Minister aware that the mainspring of the firm's attitude-following a decision on a meeting with his conciliation officer and an agreement to recognise the union—is that the firm discovered a difference of £6 per week between its rates and the rates paid to comparable grades by its competitors, Littlewoods and others? Is the hon. Gentleman also aware that there is considerable local concern and that the Lord Mayor of Blackpool has intervened because of the likely effect on trade union conferences in the town? Will he try to get the firm to keep to the recognition agreement that it has concluded with the union?
    Mr. Chicbester-Clark: I understand the local concern but, while officials can be of help by way of negotiation, there is no statutory power to impose conciliation upon parties. Although from the Government's point of view, as has always been made clear, reference to the National Industrial Relations Court is a matter of last resort, this is a classic case in which the union itself could have gone to the NIRC had it been a registered union but, unfortunately, it is an unregistered union.
    Mr. Torney: Is the Minister aware that this dispute presents an excellent opportunity for the Government to put into practice the Prime Minister's pronouncement that he believes in the trade union movement and wants to be conciliatory to it? The employers are being very obstinate. Would not this be an excellent opportunity for the Government to put a little pressure on them? Does the Minister realise that it is a question not purely of wages but of recognition, and will he bring pressure to bear on the employers?
    Mr. Chichester-Clark: I do not wish to comment on the merits of the dispute except to say that it is a pity that this case could not have been taken to the NIRC by the union. Unfortunately the union disbarred itself by being an unregistered union. I hope that the parties will consider afresh the whole possibility of joint talks under the Department's chairmanship.

    Young Persons (North East)
    Mr. Horamasked the Secretary of State for Employment what was the number of youths under 18 years of age unemployed in the North East at the latest available date.
    Mr. Dudley Smith: Two thousand four hundred and twenty-six boys under 18 were registered as unemployed on 12th March.
    Mr. Horam: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that he has given me only half the figure? What about the number of girls who were unemployed? Does he agree that the percentage reduction is very small by comparison with the general fall in unemployment? Is not that disturbing?
    Mr. Smith: In recent months there has been a steady improvement for all young people in the North East. On 12th March 4,252 young people under 18— that is, 2,426 boys and 1,826 girls—were registered as unemployed. The number has fallen from 15,000 since August 1972 and includes a fall of 700 over the past month. The situation in the North East is not good but it is improving.
    Mr. R. W. Elliott: Is my hon. Friend aware that the take-up in the Northern Region of the greatly improved incentives to incoming industry is way ahead of that of any other area? Does he appreciate that there is now much greater hope for unemployed young people, male or female, than there ever was during Labour's six and a half years in office?
    Mr. Smith: My hon. Friend always approaches these matters sensibly and realistically. That is the position. However much the Opposition may pretend otherwise, it is a fact.

    Hospital Workers (Dispute)
    Mr. Pavittasked the Secretary of State for Employment what action his conciliation machinery has taken to secure a settlement of the pay dispute involving hospital ancillary workers.
    Mr. Maurice Macmillan: The wage increase offered is at the limit allowable in stage 2 of the counter-inflation policy, and the unions concerned have been urged to put their case to the Pay Board

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    which is being asked to report on anomalies created by the standstill by 15th September. In these circumstances there is no scope for conciliation.
    Mr. Pavitt: Is it not time that the right hon. Gentleman changed his policy of masterly inactivity in disputes of this kind? Is it not time he used all the initiative his Department may have, especially in this case when a very hard-pressed section of the community will be able to cease its dispute immediately if its request for a provisional inquiry, as put forward by the BMA, is met? Will he not move on this?
    Mr. Macmillan: The suggestion of the BMA was for an inquiry whether by the Pay Board or other methods. As has been made clear to the unions concerned, the Pay Board is operational and will be formally so very shortly. The union can put its case to the board immediately. The hon. Gentleman refers to the conciliation power of my Department. Since the offer made by the employers is at the limit allowable under stage 2 of the counter-inflation policy, there is clearly no room for further conciliation.
    Sir P. Bryan: Would my right hon. Friend agree that one result of the present dispute has been to show up the anomalies in the wage structure within the industry? Will he confirm that the Pay Board is in a position to make recommendations not only on wage rates but also on wage structure?
    Mr. Macmillan: The terms of reference of the Pay Board, which will be formally published as soon as the board is formally constituted, make it quite plain that it is within its remit to consider anomalies and relativities both as between different industries and within any given industry. My hon. Friend's point is fully covered.
    Mr. William Hamilton: Is it not quite plain that as a result of the Government's policies the standard of living of these people—some of the lowest-paid in the country—will be worse 12 months from now?
    Mr. Macmillan: No, Sir.
    Dame Irene Ward: Reverting to my right hon. Friend's answer about anomalies and things, may I ask whether that means that women will be paid the same as men?
    Mr. William Hamilton: No.
    Dame Irene Ward: This is very important. I would like to know. May I also ask my right hon. Friend, whose policy; support, whether it is in the national interest—I am not now making a party political point—that people such as the hospital workers should be so low-paid? Ought not action to be taken before this kind of situation arises? I wish that all parties in Government would consider this angle, because we do not want our people to be underpaid.
    Mr. Macmillan: This is the whole purpose of the Pay Board and of referring to it not only the National Health Service ancillary workers but also other groups which have put forward precisely the same argument. As for the point my hon. Friend makes about pay for women, in addition to the £1·80 per week now available to women workers in the National Health Service there is a further offer of 80p per week as a step towards equal pay in equal steps of one-third between now and 1975. It is not possible to consider the position of one group of low-paid workers except in the way which is laid down for the Pay Board. We must then consider the anomalies and relativities arising initially out of stages 1 and 2 and the further terms of reference. Then we must go, by the end of the year, into the other anomalies.
    Mr. John Grant: In view of the Minister's appalling intransigence over these disputes involving many low-paid workers, may I ask why he allowed the recent settlement in the newspaper industry to stand? Can he tell us the result of his investigations into that dispute?
    Mr. Macmillan: It was settled under the same terms as a number of other settlements, as far as I recollect. If the hon. Gentleman wants more details he had better put down a Question about it. There have been 30 settlements within the stage 2 terms covering about 370,000 workers.
    Mr. Harold Walker: Did I hear the right hon. Gentleman correctly, that the Pay Board would not be required to report until September? Is he aware that his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Services was reported on the one o'clock news today as having said that implementation would be in December?

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    Is not this an intolerable and unacceptable length of time for these low-paid workers to have to wait for justice? If the right hon. Gentleman is so sure that the Pay Board can resolve the dilemma, why is he being so stiff-necked about an alternative form of inquiry?
    Mr. Macmillan: The alternative form of inquiry is not compatible with the exercise that is the whole function of an independent Pay Board. The Pay Board has been asked to report as soon as possible and in any case not later than 15th September. This is to enable all its findings, including those concerning other low-paid groups of workers, to be considered by the Government, and I hope by the unions, when framing policies for stage 3 of the counter-inflation programme.

    Automation
    Mr. Meacherasked the Secretary of State for Employment if he will estimate the number of jobs lost in each of the last five years as a result of the introduction of automotive and mechanically-controlled machines.
    Mr. Chichester-Clark: I regret that this information does not exist.
    Mr. Meacher: Is the Minister aware that Government sources indicate that in the last five to seven years about 2 million jobs have disappeared largely because of new capital technology? If we are ever to return again to full employment, is it not quite clear that we will need a massive planned expansion of non-productive services on a scale far beyond anything that the Government have so far envisaged?
    Mr. Chichester-Clark: I do not know from where the hon. Gentleman gets his figures. We know that he nearly always has figures which nobody can find anywhere else.
    Sir R. Thompson: Is my hon. Friend aware that recent studies in the United States have indicated that by the turn of the century all the work necessary to be done in the North American continent can be performed by 2 per cent. of the population? If those studies are even half correct, the social consequences for other advanced industrial nations are very severe. Can my hon. Friend say whether any long-term research is being

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    carried out by his Department into this problem?
    Mr. Chichester-Clark: I can tell my hon. Friend that records are available. They were started on 1st June 1972 because of the interest in redundancies due to technological change. The records suggest that jobs lost by way of technological change come very low on the list.

    Hartlepool
    Mr. Leadbitterasked the Secretary of State for Employment if he will make a statement on the trends of unemployment in the Hartlepool exchange area.
    Mr. Dudley Smith: Unemployment in Hartlepool has been and still is too high, but the situation improved significantly over the past year.
    Mr. Leadbitter: The first part of the hon. Gentleman's answer is abundantly clear and correct. The last part is stupid and irresponsible. Will he bear in mind that by 1975—that is, two years from now— a further 2,800 jobs will be lost in the town due to the closure of the steelworks? Two years following that a further 1,700 jobs will be lost. The present unemployment is over 3,000. The hon. Gentleman's thinking in the House is utter nonsense. Will he not do something about it?
    Mr. Smith: The "utter nonsense" is the figures which are officially compiled. Unemployment amongst men and boys in Hartlepool has fallen by over 1,000 in the past year, from 3,590 to 2,480. The rate has fallen from 10·4 per cent. in March 1972 to 7·4 per cent. this March. We have never pretended that the position in Hartlepool was anything other than serious. We know perfectly well that the steel closures will present a considerable problem. That is why we set up a task force to prepare proposals for comprehensive economic and social measures to deal with the rundown.
    Mr. Leadbitter: Too long.
    Mr. Smith: The Hartlepools has been made a special development area. Assistance is now available under the Industry Act. No Government could be doing more for an area which has suffered under difficulty for a very long

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    time, including the time of the last Labour Government. It is irresponsible and stupid of the hon. Member to make statements like that.

    Settlement of Disputes (Statistics)
    Mr. Hugh Jenkinsasked the Secretary of State for Employment if he will publish in respect of 1954, 1964, 1969 and 1971 an analysis of the method of settlement of disputes as published in respect of 1933 and 1943.
    Mr. Chichester-Clark: The collection of data for this analysis was discontinued in 1945.
    Mr. Jenkins: Is it not regrettable that the Government have discontinued the collection of statistics about the way in which disputes are settled? Did not all the information at one time available show that the vast majority of disputes were settled by direct negotiations between the parties concerned? Is it not the case that it is only the Government's intervention at the moment which is preventing the settlement of a number of disputes including, for example, that of the hospital workers? Therefore, the Government are directly responsible for the maintenance of these disputes.
    Mr. Chichester-Clark: I do not accept for one moment what the hon. Gentleman says. I do not believe that he accepts it in his heart either. If he wants to blame Governments for having discontinued these figures, he had better turn on his right hon. and hon. Friends. They made no attempt to reintroduce the collection of these figures. What the hon. Gentleman says about the majority of disputes being settled by direct negotiations between the parties concerned is, of course, true. A relatively small proportion of them reach the stage of conciliation or arbitration.
    It is difficult to see how these figures would have been of very much help. The methods by which disputes are settled are by no means as clearcut as some might suppose. Several methods can be used before a settlement is reached and all of them may have played an important part in reaching a settlement.
    Mr. Redmond: Does my hon. Friend keep records of the number of cases handled by his conciliation officers? If

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    so, what is the number of cases handled by them? Is it increasing or decreasing?
    Mr. Chichester-Clark: There is absolutely no evidence to suggest, as some hon. Members opposite sometimes do, that there has been any loss of faith in the conciliation service. In 1972 officials conciliated in 716 disputes, of which 150 involved stoppages of work, compared with 650, including 166 stoppages, in 1971. On the evidence, there is very great confidence in the conciliation service.

    Llanwern Steelworks (Dispute)
    Mr. Roy Hughesasked the Secretary of State for Employment if he will make a statement about the dispute involving boilermakers at the Spencer Works, Llanwern, Newport, Monmouthshire.
    Mr. Chichester-Clark: About 300 members of the Boilermakers' Union employed at the British Steel Corporation's Spencer Works have been on unofficial strike since 6th February following the dismissal of a shop steward over an incident involving a foreman. Some 3,000 other workers have now been laid off as a result.
    Conciliation officers from my Department have held joint and separate discussions with representatives of the corporation and the Boilermakers' Union, but I regret that agreement on a basis for a return to work has not yet been found. Informal discussions are continuing and my officers are giving what help they can.
    Mr. Hughes: Does the Minister appreciate that the strike resulted from a minor incident and that several thousand people have now been put out of work? Does he not feel that the British Steel Corporation is adopting a rather intransigent attitude by insisting on sanctions against the man concerned before submitting the case to an independent arbitration? Will the Minister, in view of the serious social consequences involved, institute an inquiry into the dispute so that the full facts can be ascertained and the men can get back to work?
    Mr. Chichester-Clark: I do not think that an inquiry would be helpful in the present circumstances. For that course to be taken there has to be a basis for a

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    return to work, and that would need to be found first.
    I do not think that I should comment on the merits of the dispute. Certainly there was an incident involving one worker. Whether that incident was a serious one is not for me to say. It was open to the dismissed employee to make a complaint to an industrial tribunal under the unfair dismissal provision of the Industrial Relations Act. Apparently he decided not to do so.
    Mr. Callaghan: As the Minister has said, the dispute involves only one man, and thousands of men are now out of work as a result. Will he tell us what is the objection to the proposition that I put forward, following my hon. Friend, that the man, whatever the merits or demerits of his offence, should be allowed to return to work without prejudice to an immediate disciplinary inquiry? That would entirely cut the ground from under those who wish to strike—from the 275 men who are on strike—and thousands of men could then get back to work. The disciplinary inquiry could be held immediately, and the verdict would have to be accepted. None of us knows the facts. Is not this a case where, for the sake of one man, it should be possible to allow him to return to work, provided an immediate disciplinary inquiry is held?
    Mr. Chichester-Clark: As I understand it, the BSC is prepared to go to arbitration provided that there is a full return to work and the dismissed shop steward remains suspended without pay. The union officials would agree to go to arbitration and to return to work provided that the shop steward was taken back or suspended on full pay. I would not want to comment further on that. If we can achieve something by conciliation, that is always open, but I do not think we can go further than that today.

    Peterlee New Town
    Mr. Dormandasked the Secretary of State for Employment which projects for which his Department is responsible are being considered for location in Peterlee New Town.
    Mr. Dudley Smith: My right hon. Friend is considering setting up a job centre separate from the present employment exchange.
    Mr. Dormand: That at least is more encouragement than the information I am usually given when I raise matters affecting the new town in my constituency. Is the hon. Gentleman aware that, although Peterlee is the most attractive and best-designed new town in the country, with a dedicated staff and board, it is still attracting less employment than any other new town? Will he do something about this, particularly in view of the fact that there has been a pit closure in recent months? Finally, does he agree that the most immediate and the most important way of doing something about it is to transfer a Government Department or agency? Would not his Department show an example by doing that?
    Mr. Smith: I agree with a good deal of what the hon. Gentleman has said. He knows that the transfer of Government Departments—a matter on which he has been making assiduous representations— is not one for me. The response to the training facilities in the area is fairly poor from Peterlee, which gives us some concern. Anything that the hon. Gentleman can do to encourage his constituents to take up the opportunities which are there would be appreciated.

    Occupational Classification
    Mr. Michael Shawasked the Secretary of State for Employment what steps he is taking to bring the new occupational classification system CODOT to the attention of employers.
    Mr. Chichester-Clark: Every available opportunity is being taken to publicise CODOT, in addition to publicity through the usual media, particularly the Press and specialist journals. My Department's officers have also contacted a wider selection of employers personally or by mail.
    Mr. Shaw: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that information, but is it not true that more publicity could still be given to this scheme which, although small, is eminently worth while?
    Mr. Chichester-Clark: I entirely agree with my hon. Friend, and for that reason I am grateful to him for his Question, which I am sure will help to publicise the project. He may be interested to know that his own classification under CODOT is 001.

    Industrial Relations Training
    Mr. Madelasked the Secretary of State for Employment what consultation he has had with the Confederation of British Industry and the Trades Union Congress on improvements in training in industrial relations.
    Mr. Chichester-Clark: Consultations are taking place at official level between my Department and the CBI and TUC.
    Mr. Madel: Have there been any consultations with the TUC on the CIR Report on industrial relations training?
    Mr. Chichester-Clark: The discussions with the TUC, with the education department, were concerned principally with how the TUC saw shop steward training developing in future. They were not, for reasons which the House will understand, specifically upon the CIR Report.

    Motor and Engineering Industries (Stoppages)
    Mr. Hollandasked the Secretary of State for Employment what was the number of strikes in the motor vehicle and engineering industries lasting less than four days during 1970 and during the whole of 1972.
    Mr. Chichester-Clark: The official series of statistics excludes stoppages lasting less than one day, unless the total number of days lost exceeds 100. In 1970 stoppages included in the official series which lasted not more than three days numbered 211 in motor manufacturing and 423 in engineering. Comparable statistics are not yet available for 1972 and I shall write to my hon. Friend in due course.
    Mr. Holland: Notwithstanding the failure of the Department to produce figures which should be available, can my hon. Friend give any indication of the trend in the numbers of short-term wildcat strikes since the change of Government in 1970?
    Mr. Chichester-Clark: These figures should be available by the end of next month. As for my hon. Friend's other question, 1971 was a considerable improvement on 1970 as regards short-term stoppages. There were little more

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    than halt the previous number of stoppages in these industries in that year. The number of workers involved also fell substantially, as did the number of working days lost.
    Mr. Heifer: Is not the Minister talking utter and complete rubbish? What has happened is precisely what the Government were warned about, that if they brought in such legislation as the Industrial Relations Act all that we would get were bigger and better strikes, for which the Government would be responsible.
    Mr. Chichester-Clark: The hon. Gentleman is an expert on talking rubbish. He clearly has not listened to the reply. He came into the House with his supplementary question presumably written down or at any rate well noted mentally and he did not change it in the light of my answer, which showed a considerable improvement.

    PARLIAMENTARY DEMOCRACY (MINISTER'S SPEECH)
    Ql. Mr. Skinnerasked the Prime Minister if the public speech made by the Lord Chancellor on 10th March at Margate on parliamentary authority represents Government policy.
    Mr. Adleyasked the Prime Minister if the public speech by the Lord Chancellor at Margate on 10th March on parliamentary democracy represents Government policy.
    Mr. Peter Archerasked the Prime Minister whether the public speech of the Lord Chancellor on individual freedom at Margate on 10th March represents the policy of Her Majesty's Government.
    Mr. Norman Lamontasked the Prime Minister whether the public speech of the Lord Chancellor on liberty under the law on 10th March at Margate represents the policy of Her Majesty's Government.
    The Prime Minister (Mr. Edward Heath): Yes, Sir. The concept of liberty under law, which was the theme of my noble and learned Friend's speech, is an

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    essential element in the Government's policies.
    Mr. Skinner: But is the Prime Minister aware that in his speech about parliamentary democracy the Lord Chancellor implied that property speculators were partly responsible for undermining the system? What does the right hon. Gentleman himself think about property speculators, especially today, when he is being used in The Times to advertise the multi-million-pound Heathrow Hotel, next to Mick Jagger? Why is he concerned about this matter? Is it because he is being used to help property speculation or because he is put next to Mick Jagger?
    The Prime Minister: First, the hon. Gentleman has completely misread my noble and learned Friend's speech—
    Mr. Skinner: No, I have read it all.
    The Prime Minister: I did not say that the hon. Gentleman had not read it. I said that he had misread it, and that is now apparent. As for the advertisement in The Times, I am not annoyed; I am just slightly surprised that apparently a reputable paper should have put in an advertisement of that kind.
    Mr. Adley: In his speech the Lord Chancellor quoted Disraeli's remark that, if we wished parliamentary democracy to continue, we had to have party government. While many people are happy to see my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister as a latter-day Disraeli, will he agree that, if we are to encourage moderate trade unionists to stand up for what they believe to be right, they must get a lead from the Government, and that they are now getting that lead?
    The Prime Minister: I would not wish to enter into an argument about historical analogies. On my hon. Friend's other point about moderate trade unionists, this is a matter for them. The Government, in their tripartite talks, showed that they were prepared to discuss anything at any time with them, and this remains our attitude. But the decisions of trade unions and trade unionists must continue to be for them to take.
    Mr. Archer: Since the Lord Chancellor made the point that effective action
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    by Governments is sometimes necessary to protect freedom, will the Government now ratify and implement the international convention on human rights? Since he also emphasised the need for a Government lead in creating a climate of opinion, what public events have the Government in mind this year to celebrate the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights?
    The Prime Minister: The hon. and learned Member knows the position about the ratification of the human rights convention, but the present Government have certainly done as much as their predecessors to maintain human rights. In those spheres where we have been under challenge—for example, in Northern Ireland—the Government have clearly shown their determination to ensure that human rights are protected.

    ENERGY RESOURCES
    Mr. Douglasasked the Prime Minister if he will raise the topic of a Commonwealth organisation for the exploitation of energy resources at the next Commonwealth Prime Ministers' Conference.
    The Prime Minister: I have no plans to raise this matter.
    Mr. Douglas: Will the Prime Minister reconsider that answer? Does he not agree that, in view of the threatened world energy shortage, energy policy is of unique importance? Does he not also agree that the Commonwealth Prime Ministers' Conference would be an admirable forum to bring together the needs of the developing and developed nations on world energy problems?
    The Prime Minister: I would not question the hon. Gentleman's statement about the vital importance of this matter, and I am aware that he has made a contribution to the subject by the publication of his own pamphlet. The matter may come up in the general discussion at the Commonwealth Prime Ministers' Conference on economic affairs and international affairs generally, but I do not think that the meeting of Commonwealth Prime Ministers is the right body to make decisions about energy policy or to implement them. It was in that sense that I was answering the Question.
    Mr. Redmond: Does my right hon. Friend agree that we are in an energy crisis? Is not the Government's action over the coal industry right in giving the mining industry a future if the miners match the courage which they have shown during this last week with restraint? Is not this an opportunity for my right hon. Friend to pay tribute to the courage of the miners in Yorkshire for what they have done in the last week?
    The Prime Minister: I have already paid my tribute publicly to the miners concerned. On the subject of coal, the Government are trying to achieve a balanced energy policy which is concerned not only with the immediate situation but also with longer-term developments, whether in the oil industry or the requirement for coal or in the future that we foresee for nuclear power.

    UNITED KINGDOM (ENTRY SECURITY)
    Sir Gilbert Longdenasked the Prime Minister if he is satisfied with the co-ordination between the Northern Ireland Office and the Home Office in the matter of security precautions in controlling entry into the United Kingdom from Eire and Northern Ireland, respectively.
    The Prime Minister: Yes, Sir.
    Sir Gilbert Longden: Would my right hon. Friend care to hazard a guess at how much longer the people of Great Britain will tolerate in Northern Ireland on the one hand the conspiracy of silence which shields these brutal murderers— whose identities must be know to hundreds of their fellow citizens—and on the other hand the obduracy of some of those who so quaintly call themselves loyalists?
    The Prime Minister: On the first part of the question, we all recognise the power of intimidation which has been exercised in certain part of Northern Ireland, particularly perhaps recently in Belfast. But we also welcome the fact that more and more information is coming forward to the security forces and that advantage is being taken of this. This is shown by the number of arrests which have been made in recent weeks and also in the collections which have been made of arms
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    and explosives. On the second part of my hon. Friend's question involving what he called the obduracy of those who call themselves loyalists, I would have thought that last Saturday's meeting, which was on such a small scale, gives us encouragement to believe that moderate opinion— and a great deal of Northern Irish opinion —is in support of the Government's proposals in the White Paper. I believe that those proposals will receive more and more support.
    Miss Devlin: While accepting the need and the Government's desire for necessary security precautions in this country, may I ask the Prime Minister to ensure that such precautions are not carried out to such an extent that they are an infringement of civil liberties of individuals—as witness the case of 10 persons detained in Ealing police station? Could he state under what security regulations they were denied access to lawyers, visitors and priests and kept for four days in conditions in which, save for a blanket, all 10 were stark naked?
    The Prime Minister: It is essential that all precautions should be taken in security matters, but there is no intention of impinging on civil liberties. If there is any accusation on those lines, it is a matter for the courts to deal with.
    Several Hon. Members rose—
    Mr. Speaker: Order. I must remind the House that we shall this week have a two-day debate on Northern Ireland.

    SOUTH AFRICA
    Mr. Leslie Huckfieldasked the Prime Minister what is the policy of his administration on visits to the Republic of South Africa by Cabinet Ministers.
    The Prime Minister: We welcome them. These visits, on a suitable occasion, provide contact which is better than boycott as a means to promote change.
    Mr. Huckfield: Does the Prime Minis-tea" appreciate that any such ministerial visits are seen by the South African Government as giving tacit approval to their system of apartheid? Does he not understand that there is a widespread belief throughout the world, particularly following the release of recent figures, that it is British investment which is

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    keeping apartheid going in Africa? Will he do something to stress to Cabinet Ministers the importance of not visiting South Africa and being seen to keep their system going?
    The Prime Minister: No, Sir. I cannot agree with the hon. Gentleman's view. It has been the policy of Ministers in successive Governments to visit other countries when they are in disagreement—and in serious disagreement—with policies pursued by Governments in those countries. We have often been pressed by the Opposition to make visits of this kind. Am I right in thinking that the hon. Member for Nuneaton (Mr. Leslie Huckfield) made a visit to the Republic in the autumn of last year? If so, what is the difference?
    Miss Joan Hall: Has the Prime Minister had any discussions lately with the South African Government about security of shipping in the Indian Ocean, particularly with regard to tankers around the South African coastline, which is very important to this country?
    The Prime Minister: We have not recently had any discussions with the South African Government about this matter but, as the House knows, we have said we will carry out our undertakings under the Simonstown agreement.
    Mr. David Steel: Given the Government's views on the visits of Cabinet Ministers to South Africa, does the Prime Minister think it right that his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Science should have shrugged aside the harassment of student leaders in South Africa when it has been condemned by the vice-chancellors of the universities? Was not this a chance for the Secretary of State to have spoken firmly on the matter?
    The Prime Minister: My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Science was on a visit concerned with scientific matters, and in many instances it is right that a Minister should not comment on the internal affairs of other countries.
    Captain W. Elliot: Does my right hon. Friend agree that if the West had ostracised Russia at the end of the Second World War, we would probably by now
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    have had a third world war? Does he not agree that the more visits made by Ministers and by members of the public to all countries the better, and that such visits are an excellent thing?
    The Prime Minister: Yes, Sir, that is my view. I suppose historically many people might say that if a different approach had been made directly after the Russian Revolution in 1917, the history of the 1920s and 1930s and all that followed might have been very different.
    Mr. Michael Foot: If the Prime Minister feels that he can do nothing to preserve the good name of this country by giving advice to Cabinet Ministers visiting South Africa, can he at least do something immediately to deal with the British firms engaged in large-scale exploitation of South African labour? When will the Government do something about this situation?
    The Prime Minister: Members of the Cabinet act quite properly in these matters, and the Secretary of State for Education and Science acted perfectly properly in South Africa. On the question of British firms, it has already been made public on many occasions and in this House that the Department of Trade and Industry advises British businessmen of their rights and obligations in South Africa and their opportunities to improve the conditions of those who work there. The hon. Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Michael Foot) in his enthusiasm for this cause is being unfair to many British firms which have deliberately taken action to improve the conditions of workers in South Africa.
    Mr. Foot: If the Prime Minister thinks that I have been unfair to any British firm in this respect, will he undertake to publish in Hansard the replies which each firm has given to inquiries directed to firms by the Department of Trade and Industry?
    The Prime Minister: What I said was that the Department of Trade and Industry had informed all these firms of their ability to improve conditions for workers in South Africa. The Department has not directed inquiries to firms; it has informed firms of these matters. This information is freely made available to the British firms in South Africa. This

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    is the responsibility of the Department of Trade and Industry and it has quite rightly carried it out.
    Miss Lestorasked the Prime Minister if he will seek to pay an official visit to South Africa.
    The Prime Minister: I have at present no plans to do so, Sir.
    Miss Lestor: But bearing in mind what the Prime Minister has just said about not boycotting South Africa, bearing in mind the theory consistently advanced by the Conservative Government that British involvement in South Africa would be a way of undermining apartheid, and also bearing in mind recent disclosures in The Guardian and other newspapers that this is blatantly untrue and that investment in South Africa means investment in apartheid, will he reconsider his plans not to visit South Africa? Will he visit South Africa and test for himself the theory that British investment in that country upholds and supports the apartheid régime?
    The Prime Minister: No, Sir. But I welcome the decisions announced by British firms which invest in South Africa to take further action themselves to deal with these matters.
    Mr. Hastings: Would it not be a good idea if the Opposition could make up their minds whether they want more or fewer Cabinet Ministers to go to South Africa?
    The Prime Minister: That difficult question should be put to the Opposition.
    Mr. Richard: Does the Prime Minister recognise that there is widespread concern, which is not confined to one side of the House of Commons, about the recent disclosures in The Guardian? Why on earth will not the Government accept that people would very much like to know precisely the facts about British firms in South Africa and how they treat their African labourers? Why does not the Prime Minister therefore use the machinery of this House to institute some kind of inquiry into the ways in which our firms are carrying on in South Africa?
    Mr. Michael Foot: Because he does not give a damn.
    The Prime Minister: The hon. Gentleman, who usually interjects from a seated
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    position, is quite wrong about this matter. There is concern in this country about the conditions of those who work in South Africa. The hon. and learned Member for Barons Court (Mr. Richard) is himself casting doubt on the report in The Guardian by suggesting that somebody had better be sent there to find out whether this is the true situation. If the House of Commons wants one of its Committees to go there, it is for the House to arrange, not for the Government. What the Government do, through their Departments, is to inform all British firms of what they can do to improve conditions in South Africa.
    Mr. Harold Wilson: In view of what appeared to be the rather helpful remarks by the Prime Minister in answer to that last question, may I ask whether he will now therefore take the necessary steps to put down a motion on the Order Paper to give a Select Committee of the House locus standi to inquire into this question? Surely that was what he meant. Will he now go ahead with it?
    The Prime Minister: The affairs of Committees of this House are under their own jurisdiction, as the right hon. Gentleman knows well. If one of the Committees of this House deems it right and appropriate to investigate these matters, it is for that Committee to take the necessary action.

AIRCRAFT NOISE RESTRICTION BILL
Mr. Hugh Jenkins: I beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to restrict aircraft noise.
The Bill which I seek leave to introduce is, as the lawyers say mutatis mutandis a translation of a Bill currently before the State of New York. That Bill, introduced in that country by Assemblyman Harris and Senator Smith, seeks to limit aircraft noise within that State. The Bill which I am introducing would apply to the whole of the United Kingdom but in other respects its effects and the effects of the Bill currently being introduced in the State Assembly of New York would be the same.
The American Bill recognises that aircraft noise in excess of 108 effective perceived noise decibel levels—I have a

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certain amount of noise decibels to contend with on my Front Bench at the moment, but I think that I can put up with it—which is called EPNDB for short, should be prohibited.
There are administrative limits here. The authorities at Heathrow have already expressed administratively that noise should be limited to 102 EPNDB at night and 112 during the day. However, these limits are without legal sanction and penalty. They apply only to take-off noise, not to landing noise.
My Bill follows the American pattern in carrying penalties and in being enforceable, but if at any point it were possible for us to do better than the Americans —for example, in requiring closer limits on night noise—this could be looked at in Committee.
In support of their Bill the American sponsors say that aircraft noise is interfering with the daily lives of people both inside and outside their homes, at their work-places, and that it constitutes
"a degradation of their environment".
The same degradation of the environment is occurring in this country.
The Americans say that aircraft noise interferes with teaching in schools, with the work of doctors and with the recovery of patients in hospitals. Precisely the same is happening in the vicinity of Heathrow and elsewhere in the country.
The Bill would prohibit landing or take-off noise at airports over the limit of 108 EPNDB prescribed, except that in cases of emergency the noise level could be exceeded. No other distinction or limitation is made.
Apart from its intrinsic merits and urgent necessity, the Bill will provide an interesting experiment in international co-operation. It is often felt that the great barrier to reducing aircraft noise is that the country which does it unilaterally risks grave commercial consequences. However, if it were done simultaneously both here and in New York, I do not think it would be long before all other States and countries would have to fall in line.
It might be necessary to allow a certain amount of time to fit jet aircraft with the silencing kits which are now available and can be fitted at some little
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expense. Concorde, on landing and takeoff, would have to get under the 108 EPNDB, but, as the manufacturers say that the production aircraft will have no difficulty in meeting normal levels, there should be no complaint from the British Aircraft Corporation.
I believe that the Bill will be the first occasion on which an attempt will be made to reproduce American legislation in the United Kingdom terms. It will be an attractive technical exercise as well as a useful and necessary measure.
One of the first things that I attempted to do on coming into this House was to limit aircraft noise. In my inexperience I tried to go too far and too fast at one bound and I finished up losing my Bill. This is a modest measure, which I have succeeded in introducing within the 10 minutes available to me. I trust that the House will wish to see the Bill and that the Government will not oppose giving it a Second Reading in due course.
Question put and agreed to.
Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. Hugh Jenkins, Mr. Michael Barnes, Mr. Sydney Bidwell, Mr. Norman Buchan, Mr. Toby Jessel, Mr. Frank Judd. Miss Joan Lestor, Mr. Elystan Morgan, Mr. Neville Sandelson, Sir George Sinclair and Mrs. Shirley Williams.
AIRCRAFT NOISE RESTRICTION
Bill to restrict aircraft noise presented accordingly and read the First time; to be read a Second time upon Friday 13th April and to be printed. [Bill 99.]

EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT (MINISTERS' SPEECHES)
Mr. Speaker: I wish to add something to my ruling yesterday on the matter raised by the hon. Member for Islington, South-West (Mr. George Cunningham). It is in clarification of the answer which I gave to his supplementary question.
The hon. Member expressed concern that he might be debarred from asking the Prime Minister about any ministerial speeches made abroad on the ground that there was always a presumption that a Minister speaking abroad did represent the policy of Her Majesty's Government. Although this may in practice often be the case, the basic distinction—this is the new point—is not simply between

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speeches made abroad and at home; it is between those made, for want of a better description, in a representative and a non-representative capacity. If a Minister of Cabinet rank addresses a public meeting, whether in London or in Paris, then the only question which is in order is one to the Prime Minister asking whether what the Minister said represents the policy of Her Majesty's Government. On the other hand, if any Minister officially represents the Government at an international conference or deliberative body, whether at home or abroad, then any speech he makes must be presumed to be made in such a representative capacity, and questions about its details can be addressed to whichever Minister is departmentally responsible for their substance.
In ruling in this sense in 1963 my then predecessor was not making any innovation but was giving expression to a practice of long standing. The practice is, in my view, sensible and advantageous to hon. Members.
Mr. George Cunningham: I am grateful, Mr. Speaker, for that further clarification. May I say, without disrespect, Mr. Speaker, that your rulings of yesterday and today do not totally remove the problems that face hon. Members. In your ruling of yesterday, Mr. Speaker, you said—you have repeated it today— that the situation created by what happened in Strasbourg was not new in that Ministers have frequently spoken at the meetings of the Council of Europe, and so on, in the past.
1100
I put this point to you, Mr. Speaker, for its future relevance. In the past, so far as I know, Ministers may have reported the views of the Council of Europe or of some other body of which they were members, but surely it is unprecedented—this is the new point—that a Minister apparently expressing his own views when he expressed them was found later to have modified those views in the light of the majority opinion of the European Council of Ministers. In other words, he was doing that compromising operation which happens within a cabinet of a national Government.
I suggest, Mr. Speaker, that that raises new issues. We have for the first time a British Minister not reporting the views of a body of which the British Government is a member but putting them over as the British view, having first modified the British view to take account of the views of other members of the body. In this situation I say respectfully that there are considerations which go beyond the bounds of order and of what can be dealt with by a ruling from the Chair. What is required now is that there should be a statement by the Chancellor of the Duchy, the Foreign Secretary or the Prime Minister—perhaps by the Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the European Community—so that in future we know were we stand when a British Minister speaking abroad confesses that he has adapted his views to take account of the views of the Council of Ministers.
Mr. Speaker: I shall consider what the hon. Gentleman said. I do not propose to say anything more about the matter today.

ORDERS OF THE DAY
NATIONAL HEALTH SERVICE REORGANISATION BILL [Lords]
Order read for resuming adjourned debate on amendment to Question [26th March], That the Bill be now read a Second time.— [Sir K. Joseph.]
Which Amendment was, to leave out from "That" to the end of the Question and to add instead thereof:
this House cannot assent to the Second Reading of a Bill providing for a reorganised National Health Service which is too managerial in aspect, unrepresentative in character, and fails to meet the need for a democratic health service.—[Mr. John Silkin.]
Question again proposed, That the amendment be made.
Mr. Speaker: Before I call the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Secretary of State for Wales, I have to announce that I have a very long list of speakers for today. Yesterday speakers from the back benches took 28 minutes, 24 minutes, 20 minutes and so on. This is not being quite fair to other hon. Members. I ask for reasonable brevity.
3.43 p.m.
The Secretary of State for Wales (Mr. Peter Thomas): I am very glad that it has been possible to arrange that this Second Reading debate should have a second day in which there can be particular emphasis on the Welsh interests in the Bill.
We have had two full debates in Welsh Grand Committee on the proposed reorganisation of the Welsh health service. There were differences between the Government and the Opposition, but there was a large measure of agreement. We agreed, for instance, that our joint aim is to make better provision for the needs of the patient and the community through a well organised and truly national health service.
I do not intend to take up the time of the House by repeating in any detail the general theme discussed yesterday, but it is right to emphasise again that the Government's proposals in the Bill and in the arrangements to be made under it have this aim: a better deal for the patient and better protection for every member
1102
of the community. Everything else flows from this.
Inevitably in a measure to reorganise the administration of the service much of the immediate attention has to be focussed on matters of efficiency. This is no more than the necessary means to the end, for without sound management—I use that word in the sense in which it was used yesterday by my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Security in his winding-up speech—we cannot produce a better service, we cannot use our available resources more effectively for patients' benefit. We want their needs to be better understood, and we want better planning to meet those needs. We want particularly to make sure that those who are elderly and those who suffer from mental handicap or mental illness, or from chronic illness—what my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Services described yesterday as the "Cinderella groups"—are not overlooked.
That is what we want a well-managed service to achieve. I think that we are all agreed on that. There is also wide agreement on the measures to secure the necessary close collaboration between the health service and other related services.
I know that there have been claims that the health service could somehow have been put under local government. As my right hon. Friend said yesterday, in a perfect world this may be the solution. But neither Government have found it a practicable one. The Opposition, when in office, could not discover a realistic means and none has been discovered since. I am sure that reorganisation of the health service can only be on the basis of separate health authorities as proposed in the Bill.
The differences between us are how best to secure a well-managed service and at the same time ensure that it is sensitive to local needs and wishes and responsive to them. We attach as much importance to this as do the Opposition. But we are concerned that the kind of arrangement which hon. Members appear to suggest would put the effectiveness of the service at risk and would not be in the true interests of the people.
We must be sure that health authorities contain a proper balance of personal

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skills and experience for this work—and this means selecting members, in the main, for their personal qualities and for their contributions to the tasks of management rather than for representational purposes.
Local community influence on the planning and running of the service is best and most effectively secured by the independent community health councils we propose in the Bill.
Having said that on the general theme, I now propose to concentrate specifically on Welsh matters. First, there is the one major difference in the Bill between the provisions for England and Wales: the proposal to set no intermediate tier of authority between the eight Welsh area health authorities and the Secretary of State for Wales. We have debated this at some length in the Welsh Grand Committee on two occasions.
The right hon. Member for Deptford (Mr. John Silkin) would agree that it is always desirable, in any organisation, to keep the links in the chain of responsibility as few as possible. It is particularly desirable that in the health service the greatest possible responsibility should lie close to the communities being served.
If at all possible, the area health authorities should be in direct relationship with the Secretary of State. In England my right hon. Friend recognises the hard fact that the sheer number of AHAs—90— makes this impossible; they must be grouped under regional authorities.
In Wales we do not have this problem. The right hon. Member for Deptford will be glad to know that this is a "tier" which we shall be happy to shed. Obviously eight AHAs do not require to be sub-grouped under intermediate authorities; and Welsh Ministers and the Welsh Office are no more remote from any area health authority than an all-Wales health authority would be.
The people of Wales expect Ministers to concern themselves closely with the health needs of every part of the country, and this must mean direct responsibility for the allocation of resources, the coordination of area plans, and oversight of how the service is run.
The Government accept the arguments of the former administration that the
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people of Wales will best be served by concentrating the greatest possible measure of responsibility and authority upon the people who know the needs and circumstances of their areas. We agree with them that to make the eight area health authorities subordinate to an intermediate authority would be bound to work against this aim. In Wales our smaller scale is an advantage which we must not throw away.
I recognise the dilemma of Welsh hon. and right hon. Members opposite. When in office they said, forcibly, just what I have said, and nothing, so far as I can see, has happened to explain any change of mind. I think their problem, judging from the debates we have had, is how this might fit in with what they anticipate or hope the report of the Royal Commission on the Constitution may say.
To set up a Welsh regional health authority on these grounds would, I am bound to say, be to prejudge the report of the Royal Commission—which is precisely what the former administration in its Green Paper said must not be done.
We do not yet know what the Royal Commission may say. Certainly the constitutional issues with which it has to grapple are intensely difficult and complex. It would be unwise to work on guesses but from the statement of the right hon. Member for Sowerby (Mr. Houghton), which he published yesterday, it is clear that the Crowther-Kilbrandon Report will undoubtedly need most careful consideration before final decisions can be taken. It is bound to take time. But the reform of the health service—which we are all agreed is necessary—cannot wait, and we must do what is right in the circumstances as they are now.
Of course, we must be prepared to review the matter again fully in the context of the Royal Commission's report. This is what the previous administration said it would do. This is what we also propose to do.
Mr. Cledwyn Hughes: The right hon. and learned Gentleman has really evaded the central issue. Does he agree with the principle that if there is an elected council for Wales these functions should be given to such an elected council?
Mr. Thomas: I know that the Labour Party has said that if it got into office there would be an elected council for Wales which would have certain responsibilities, including health. But, as that is a very remote thing and is quite some distance away, it is clear that we cannot possibly hold up the reorganisation of the National Health Service in order to cater for that eventuality. The position is that this Government propose that there should be the area health authorities in Wales, of which there are only eight, in a direct relationship to the Secretary of State, without the intermediate and suffocating tier which was proposed.
Mr. Ted Rowlands (Merthyr Tydvil): Why is the right hon. and learned Gentleman not singing the same tune when it comes to the reorganisation of water? In fact, on the Water Bill the whole argument is that the Government cannot publish the constitution of the regional water authority because they are expecting Crowther to report in such a way.
Mr. Thomas: That is a totally different set-up. It is not proposed that in the reorganisation of water there should be area authorities. It is proposed that there should be one national authority with powers covering the whole of Wales. What I have said is that, as it has been decided to have one national authority for Wales, it is only right that the composition of that authority should not be finally defined until the Crowther-Kilbrandon Commission has reported. Therefore the constitution which is proposed is merely an interim one. The proposals for a Welsh National Water Development Authority cannot possibly be compared with the proposals for eight area health authorities in Wales.
I know that some hon. Members have expressed the fear that without the Welsh Hospital Board—to whose excellent work I again pay tribute—there may be a fall-ing-off in matters like the surveys of hospital services for the elderly and for children and the inquiry into waiting times in hospitals. But I do not think it has been generally appreciated how many of these surveys have sprung from advice, often detailed advice, given through my Department. The right hon. Member for Cardiff, West (Mr. George Thomas) will certainly appreciate it because several of the relevant notes were issued in his time. It is our firm intention that surveys and
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inquiries of this kind shall be pressed forward on the broader basis of the integrated health service.
Added momentum will come from putting direct responsibility for planning and operating the service where the needs and difficulties, along with the salutary pressure of the community health councils, will be directly felt. I have no doubt that initiatives in these matters, and in inquiries into how to run particular aspects of the service more efficiently and economically, will come increasingly from area health authorities.
Full co-ordination and any necessary all-Wales coverage will be secured through the regular consultations between area health authorities and the Welsh Office. The Welsh Office will be strengthened: it will promote operational research and the increasing use of management intelligence. Experienced staff of the Welsh Hospital Board will be moving into it, and it will recruit appropriate officers to enable it to give guidance and advice in relation to special matters such as the scientific, ambulance, pharmaceutical and catering services.
I see a very real partnership developing with the area health authorities, and they will share very fully in the processes of central decision. The Welsh Secretary of State will also have the support of expert advice from all-Wales professional advisory committees, as provided for in the Bill, and strategic advice from the Welsh Council. Good progress has been made informally in discussion with the professions on the constitution of professional committees not only at central but also at area and district level.
As hon. and right hon. Members know, a Welsh Health Technical Services Organisation will be set up as a special health authority under the powers proposed in Clause 5(6) of the Bill to carry out the design and execution of major capital works, central supplies functions and the running of central computer services and to provide general support to area health authorities and to the Welsh Office in the fields in which it is expert. Adjustments in the precise range of its work will be made as appropriate in the light of experience, after consultation with area health authorities.
The technical services organisation is another expression of the partnership

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between area health authorities and the Welsh Office, for both of which it will be providing specialised supporting services. I propose that the composition of the small board to head the organisation should be balanced to reflect this partnership, with the majority of its members being drawn from area health authorities and the Welsh Office.
I want now to speak of the staff of the service, many of whom are, I know, going through a period of uncertainty, and of the arrangements being made to look after their interests. The Welsh National Health Service Staff Advisory Committee —which, given statutory authority, will become a staff commission—has been set up specifically to ensure fair and equitable treatment. It has already done much valuable work and has established close contact with staff interests throughout the Principality. On transfer to the new health authorities, staff will have the protection of Clause 19. I expect that in practice virtually all who work in local health authorities, executive councils or hospital management committees will be transferred to the new health authorities on duties reasonably comparable to those they were doing before.
I have referred previously to the fact that staff of the Welsh Hospital Board are faced with more uncertainty than most about where they may go. A large proportion of them will be able to judge pretty well what changes the Bill's proposals will bring. Nearly half the staff are engaged on building work or on running computer services, and these could expect to transfer to the technical services organisation. Another large group will be transferred to the South Glamorgan Area Health Authority with its work in the blood transfusion service. For others their personal position is not yet so clear but we are fully aware of their difficulties. We have had discussions already and we will continue full consultation with them with a view to resolving the uncertainties as soon as possible.
As for staff coming into the Welsh Office, I have said already that it would be important to ensure that their terms and conditions of service were not less favourable, taken as a whole, than they are now. I fully understand their concern about superannuation rights, age of retire-
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ment and protection of personal salaries. Discussions are proceeding, and I see no reason to doubt that we shall reach an amicable agreement.
I now turn to the work being done to prepare the way for the new health authorities. Joint liaison committees of existing authorities have been set up and are hard at work preparing detailed information about current arrangements ready for the new area health authorities. I have emphasised that staff interests must be kept fully in the picture. There is also an all-Wales joint liaison committee to co-ordinate at that level. It has established a link with representatives of the staff organisations. Hon. and right hon. Members representing Welsh constituencies have received copies of the circular which I issued last week setting out my views on the central features of the organisations within area health authorities subject, of course, to the passing of the Bill.
I have recommended that the pattern of health districts proposed in the management arrangements steering committee's report, though I recognise that area health authorities may need to reconsider that later in the light of experience. I have endorsed the recommendation in the report for teams of officers at area and health district level. These arrangements are practical examples of how within a sound management structure we shall try to bring day-to-day decision-making closer to the local community.
I refer lastly to the community health councils. I hope that on reflection Labour Members will accept the importance and great value of this new feature of the service. These councils can contain a much broader spectrum of people representing local interests than could possibly have been expected within the area health authority itself. Their will and freedom to criticise fearlessly will not be inhibited by problems of divided loyalty. They will have the means and the right to make their views known publicly, and they can expect to receive consideration and reasoned response from the area health authority. It will be my responsibility to ensure that their work is not hampered in any way.
My hon. and right hon. Friends yesterday referred to the significant improvements made through the provisions of

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the Bill as a result of the consideration in another place, and I gladly acknowledge the contribution made by Baroness White.
I am satisfied that particularly in Wales, with our tradition of service to the community, we shall have active community health councils exerting a strong influence on the development and standards of the health service in Wales. If hon. Members have other suggestions designed to improve still further the effectiveness of the community health councils and suggestions designed to take into account our particular Welsh circumstances, we shall be ready to consider them fairly and sympathetically.
As to the pattern of community health councils, our general view is that it would be best normally to have one for each health district. It is at this level that the most meaningful influence can be exercised on the planning and running of an integrated service. We are ready, particularly in rural Wales, to consider sympathetically the creation of more if this is the wish of the people concerned.
We shall certainly consider claims for a unified community health council in the operational health divisions of Gwynedd and Powys, but there must be the general proviso that community health councils should not be so numerous and represent such small populations that they impair their effectiveness.
I know that all of us are deeply concerned to ensure that we acquire the best health service in Wales that we can possibly have. There is no doubt that in Wales the best way to serve our people is through a single-tier system in which the greatest possible responsibility is put close to the communities being served. I believe that the voice of those communities will be heard powerfully through the new community health councils. Out of the unification and re-organisation of the service will come new strength and vigour and a better service to the people of Wales, and I commend the Bill to the House.
4.8 p.m.
Mr. George Thomas: The House will have noticed that the Secretary of State for Wales is not supported this afternoon by the Secretary of State for Social Services. I can understand that. The right hon. Gentleman has said
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to himself, "It is none of my business. It is the business of the Secretary of State for Wales to deal with Welsh matters". That is an issue to which I shall return later.
Yesterday my right hon. Friend the Member for Deptford (Mr. John Silkin) and my hon. Friend the Member for Halifax (Dr. Summerskill) outlined our deep anxieties about this measure. My right hon. Friend told me today that he felt as though he had intervened with a contribution on the health service in a debate on family planning and abortion. Like the Secretary of State for Wales, I shall not seek to pursue that subject today. I am one of the dwindling number of Members in the House who were here in the 1945 Parliament when the Labour Government put the National Health Service into operation. It was a far-sighted Act and it has been justified a million times. I have been here long enough, Mr. Speaker, like you, to have the ineffable—
Mr. Speaker: Is the right hon. Gentleman suggesting that I have been here long enough?
Mr. Thomas: I withdraw, Mr. Speaker. May you be here as long in the future as you have been here in the past. But I hope I shall not be here with you! I have been here long enough to have had the ineffable pleasure of watching the Conservative Party reverse its judgment on the principle of a National Health Service. The service has saved countless lives, but the time to restructure it is here" and both sides of the House recognise the need to unify the service.
The National Health Service removed the nightmare of hospital bills from the life of our working people. I hope the House will forgive me this brief personal word, but in my early years in this House one of my most frequent duties was to call upon hospital almoners on behalf of old people who could not meet the hospital bills with which they were presented. As late as 1946, breadwinners in this country were refusing to go into hospital when they should have done because they could not afford the bill. No wonder we on this side are so proud of the National Health Service. It was our creation and we keep a jealous eye on what is done to it.

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Before turning to the Welsh Bill that is cocooned within this English measure, I have one comment to make. This is a major measure. It affects every family in the land and I believe it should have come to this House before it went to another place. I hope that the Government do not regard this as a precedent for the other major Bills which from time to time they bring before the House. We believe there should have been a separate measure proposed for Wales. When the previous administration published its Green Paper, referred to in felicitous terms by the Secretary of State this afternoon, we firmly intended that Wales would have its own Health Service Reorganisation Bill. The Department was geared to this end. Wales was to be treated as Scotland is being treated.
Now the whole significance of giving the Secretary of State for Wales executive responsibility over the National Health Service in the Principality is being undermined by this administration. In health matters the Secretary of State gives Wales separate Green Papers, separate statistical returns, separate consultative documents, separate management papers, a separate White Paper, separate circulars about management and a separate Staff Commission. But in the Bill itself the Welsh proposals are tied like a tin can to the tail of another measure—and the reason advanced by the Government in defence of their attitude, by both the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, in another place and by the Secretary of State in the Welsh Grand Committee, was that they have acted in this way to save parliamentary time. That is their alibi.
The true reason is that any measure brought before this House that deals mainly with Welsh affairs has, by the Standing Orders of the House, to be submitted to a Committee composed of all the Welsh Members of Parliament, and everyone knows that the Welsh Committee would consist of 28 Labour Members out of 36. I understand the Government's difficulty. If they sent any Bill there it would come in as a Tory Bill and go out as a Labour Bill. But why do not they "come clean" and say the reason why every Welsh measure has to be submerged in an English measure is
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that they dare not deal with the Welsh Members of Parliament who are gathered there in strength? Quite clearly, for the rest of this Parliament only agreed measures will be Welsh Bills.
I turn to deal with the question of the regional board in Wales. The Secretary of State again took shelter behind our Green Paper, but he makes two major mistakes. He forgets our insistence throughout that
"Any proposals for health service reorganisation for Wales put forward at the present time must not pre-empt"
the outcome of the work upon which the Commission on the Constitution was engaged.
That is a quotation from the foreword of my own Green Paper. The Secretary of State referred to this but he did not indicate that these proposals that he is now submitting to Wales he regards as binding and long term. In our proposals we created representative area health authorities on which I made provision for the ancillary workers in the industry, as well as the professions, to be represented. Our current hospital difficulties have reminded the whole country that the ancillary workers are an essential and vital part of our National Health Service. The fact that they do the unglamorous and the dirty work of the Service has only led to them being treated shabbily.
We believe in all the workers being represented. The Secretary of State dealt with our proposal for an elected Council for Wales in which health will figure largely, but the Secretary of State himself assumes all the powers that are given in England to the regional boards without giving any added power at all to the area health authorities in Wales, as compared with those in England. He argued in the Welsh Grand Committee,
"If there are area authorities which are in direct contact with the Secretary of State, inevitably those area health authorities are more powerful."—[OFFICIAL REPORT. Welsh Grand Committee, 21st November, 1972, c. 13.]
They are said to be more powerful because the Chairman will have access to the Minister. This is the most phoney argument that I have heard advanced in the House—and that is saying something.
Mr. Peter Thomas: How does the right hon. Gentleman reconcile what he has just said with what he said in the

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Welsh Grand Committee on 28th July 1971:
"It is right that area health boards should be directly responsible to the Secretary of State. That will give them much more power provided that real power is vested in the localities. A body in between could be just an impediment."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Welsh Grand Committee, 28th July 1971; c. 19.]
Mr. George Thomas: We are talking about two different bodies. I am talking about a democratic area health authority, and the Secretary of State knows that he has produced a very different creature from that which I proposed. We shall give the powers enjoyed by the English regional boards to an All-Wales Council representative of the people of Wales. The cold, managerial system so attractive to the Government will go. It does not provide for one elected representative of the Welsh people to have a say in the broad sweep of health policy throughout Wales.
We intend to democratise the service. We give this assurance to Wales. We shall restore lay representation. We shall ensure that those who administer our health service have been elected by the people. All experience proves that elected representatives are more conscious of public pressure than are professional managers of the type so attractive to the Secretary of State.
Opportunities for public service in Wales are being eroded by this Government. First we saw the numbers serving in local government reduced. Now the numbers serving in the National Health Service are to be reduced. The paper-thin defence of the Secretary of State hitherto has been that the Welsh Hospital Board was a nominated body and that I and my predecessors as Secretary of State for Wales nominated people to it. That is true. But though I salute the courage with which Mr. Gwilym Prys Davies has gone out of his way to meet the people as though he were answerable to the people, nonetheless we are now planning for the health service in the next 20 years. We refuse to accept the managerial concept. We put all our faith in local democracy.
Nominated bodies proliferate in Wales and they are resented. The Tourist Board, the new Water Resources Board, the Welsh Council, the Welsh Development Corporation, the Mid-Wales Industrial

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Corporation, and the consultative committees of the nationalised industries—all are nominated bodies. If the Secretary of State for Wales represented a Welsh constituency he would be sensitive to the rising tide of public anger against Ministers' men managing our affairs. The truth is that change is in the air. People are demanding a greater say in their own affairs. The Government's mistake is to take the philosophy of long ago and to seek to apply it in an age which simply will not accept it.
Nominated bodies tempt political nepotism. I remember what Nye Bevan wrote in "In Place of Fear". It is respectable to quote that because we on the Opposition benches speak with great affection of Nye Bevan. Referring to these political appointments he said that he acquitted the Conservative Party of nepotism because there was no money involved. That is no longer true. The chairmen will be paid.
I confess that when I bore the responsibility now carried by the right hon. and learned Gentleman, all other things being equal I always preferred the nomination of a good Labour man or woman. That is natural enough. It is not an offence for a Labour Minister. The Secretary of State has shown how vulnerable he is on this score.
I recall the case of Oliver James, a distinguished public servant in Pontypool and leader of the Cwmbran Labour group. He was thrown out by the Secretary of State. He was Labour. I think of Philip Squires, one of Glamorgan's most able and distinguished public servants. He was chairman of the Welsh Sports Council. The Secretary of State could see only a vacancy for a Tory. Of course, we all tend to be a bit biassed when it comes to nominations to bodies of this kind. But my charge is that this system is bad for democracy. It is time that it was changed. An elected man is better every time than a nominee whose very existence depends on the good will of the Minister.
I turn to the community health councils, the guardians of the people's rights. Referring to them earlier today the Secretary of State spoke of the salutary pressure of the community health councils. The original proposals of the Secretary of State are with us no longer. Even the non-elected House of Lords could

1115
not stomach these undemocratic proposals. We have reached a sorry pitch when even the dukes, earls, viscounts and barons feel it necessary to tell the Government that they are not giving enough protection to the man in the street.
The Secretary of State said that the community health councils would have no divided loyalty now and that they would be independent and strong. That was his general theme. But the Government insist that the staff of the community health councils are the creatures of the Minister. The staff will have divided loyalties. The staff will be answerable to the Minister. He pays their salaries, not the community health councils. Everyone knows that the quality of the advisers whom the community health councils have will decide the degree of independence that ultimately they are able to exert. I see no reason why the community health councils should not be staffed, housed and financed by the local authorities.
That is what the Welsh Counties Committee asked for when its representatives met the Minister of State a little while ago. The committee said:
"The proposal for the membership and servicing of the Community Health Councils is criticised by the Committee. The Committee consider that not only should the Council be serviced by the corresponding local authorities, to give the necessary independence from the body which the Council may from time to time be called to criticise, but also that County Council members should be included in the membership of the Community Health Council to enable the Social Service viewpoint to be clearly expressed."
These proposals are not likely to improve the quality of the service to the patient. But they are certain to create an army of bureaucrats answerable to bureaucrats. The Secretary of State for Wales has let the cat out of the bag. He issued a circular to which he referred earlier giving guidance to the new health authorities in Wales and outlining his lines of accountability. It looks as though we shall have as many officials as we have doctors. We shall have more and more people doing less and less for the patient.
Let us consider the advice of the Secretary of State to the authorities. I am reminded of the way in which the number of officials has multiplied in some of the nationalised industries—[Interruption.]

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Those who work in the nationalised industries and are anxious for them to succeed resent it more than anyone. The Secretary of State says in his circular that each area health authority will appoint an area medical officer, an area nursing officer, an area treasurer and an area administrator, each with his chain of command. In other words, empire building on a mammoth scale will go on. There will also be an area dental officer, an area pharmaceutical officer and an area works officer. Then we get the administrator for the family practitioner services. Responsible to him will be the chief ambulance officer, the area personnel officer, and the area supplies officer. Then comes the area medical officer, who in turn will have his little empire. In paragraph 10 we are told:
"Other posts may be established at the discretion of Area Health Authorities."
That is at area level.
I turn to the district level. There we repeat the performance. There will be a district community physician, a district nursing officer, instead of the old matron running the hospital, a district finance officer, and a district administrator. Then we come to the Welsh Health Technical Services Organisation. It would take too long to read out all the names. Never will there have been such empire-building since Alexander.
I turn to the question of the Ombudsman, of the Parliamentary Commissioner. Six Alan Marre is a very distinguished and able public servant. All of us who know him respect him. But I am sure that in his wildest dreams he never expected to be exalted into a trinity, three in one and one in three—Sir Alan Marre, Parliamentary Commissioner for Scotland, Parliamentary Commissioner for England and Parliamentary Commissioner for Wales—in addition to his other duties.
His powers, however, are those of a poodle whose claws have been cut. He cannot deal with major grievances. The list of negatives which the Government laid down for him reads like the Ten Commandments: thou shalt not deal with grievances about general practitioners; thou shalt not deal with any grievances that can be taken to a tribunal; thou shalt not deal with any grievances that could be taken to a

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court; thou shalt not deal with any grievances to do with dentistry; thou shalt not deal with any grievances to do with pharmacy; thou shalt not deal with any grievances to do with appointments, with discipline or with superannuation. I could continue the list.
The office of Parliamentary Commissioner is a sop to keep the people quiet. They have given us the shadow hoping that we shall mistake is for the substance. The Parliamentary Commissioner will have about as much influence in dealing with the real grievances of the people as my respected Aunt Maria, and not much more.
The Secretary of State will know that the Welsh counties waited upon him— at least they tried to wait upon him, but, like everybody else in Wales who wants to deal with health matters, they found that the Secretary of State was an invisible man and they had to see the Minister of State. The Welsh counties saw him on 21st January. They made representations on the question of the Ombudsman. They suggested that the best method of dealing with the situation would be to have a commissioner of administration for Wales covering all aspects of public administration. They said that would give them one commissioner to deal with complaints arising from local government, the health services and the water service.
They waited for a while and on 23rd March—exactly two months later—they had a letter, a shabby letter from the Welsh Office. It was in typical Civil Service jargon, if I may say so—and I have had my share of that. I acquit the Minister of State of any blame for this letter. His only contribution was to write in, "Dear Mr. Rees" and "Yours sincerely, David Gibson-Watt". That is the only part of this letter that is in the language that the Minister of State would use. This ponderous heavy style is all used to cover up the fact that it is saying "No" to every request that the Welsh counties made.
Having received their rebuff, the Welsh counties quite properly addressed themselves to every Welsh Member of Parliament. They are unhappy about the question of the joint consultative committees which are dealt with in Clause 10. They want to know—and so do we—to

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whom are these joint consultative committees to be responsible? Who will resolve the disagreements—again the great man? How many members are to sit on these consultative committees? Will the division be on a 50-50 basis, area health authority and local authority? Who will provide the secretarial services? I hope that the Minister of State, who failed to answer the County Councils Association on these questions, will answer us tonight. Since he was engaged when I was relating the questions to which I hope we shall have a reply, I will give them to him later in the day.
This Bill is anaemic. It shies from faith in elected representatives. It puts power that belongs to the people into the wrong places. It fails to tackle the real issues. The structure proposed for our health service is just not good enough and we shall vote against it tonight.
4.36 p.m.
Mr. J. Enoch Powell: After the characteristically good-humoured and entertaining speech of the right hon. Member for Cardiff, West (Mr. George Thomas), I hope that hon. Members from Welsh constituencies will not think it amiss if even on the second day of this debate upon the first major reorganisation in the National Health Service since its foundation 27 years ago there are contributions relating to the whole of England and Wales and to the general policy underlying the Bill —even if some of those contributions should come from former Ministers of Health themselves.
I often think that former Ministers of Health find themselves in very much the same relationship to the present incumbent as the saints in Paradise to the Church Militant here on earth. With a mixture of compassion and benevolence they watch him toiling along the hard and stony road which they themselves once trod. I express to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Services my admiration for his energy and my envy of his optimism. May neither years nor experience nor reflection lessen the infectious and impressive character of that optimism.
As has already been observed, a crosscurrent has been stirred up in this debate by Clause 4. I do not intend to be diverted by that clause except to say

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simply this, which I think is a point that perhaps has not yet been made. It is a perilous line we cross when we invite the medical profession in the National Health Service to issue prescriptions not upon their clinical judgment of medical need but in pursuance of a social policy. I cannot believe that that erratic element introduced into the health service by the way in which Clause 4, as my right hon. Friend has explained it, will be administered, will be found to be successful or long-lasting.
Turning at once to the organisational changes, I note some directions in which I feel a definite gain has been achieved. The system of regional health authorities and area health authorities seems to me decidedly superior to the present structure of regional hospital boards and hospital management committees. Not only is the balance between the two geographically better, but I notice that in the terms of the statute my right hon. Friend has given himself much greater flexibility in his relationships with these two tiers than was permitted by the theory underlying the organisation in the 1946 Act.
I hope that this change will more and more lead the Department and the Secretary of State to deal directly and intimately with the area health authorities. I am in agreement here with the hon. Member for Norwich, North (Mr. Wallace), who spoke yesterday. Indeed, the hon. Member was repeating what has been an aspiration of mine since before I became Minister of Health; namely, that the regional hospital boards, instead of being the dominant element in the administration of the service, should more and more be restricted to a planning and advisory function—which was perhaps the orginal concept—and that the genuine administrative and living link between the responsible Minister and the service should go direct to the administering authorities which are now to be the area health boards.
I do not think there is anything really impracticable in a Department of State keeping the necessary contact with the number of area health authorities that there are to be. I am aware of aphorisms about the structure of an army, to the effect that a commander cannot have more than six subordinates; but it is a common experience, with, for

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example, the old Department of Housing and Local Government, that a central department can deal effectively with quite large numbers of administering authorities. This contact is to the benefit of both ends of the line of communication: it gives the Minister a much closer and more direct insight into what is happening on the ground; and it eliminates the sense of frustration and dissatisfaction on the part of those administering the service, who constantly feel they are separated from the Minister by an opaque screen. I would not go quite so far as did my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for Wales this afternoon in referring to the tier in between as "suffocating", but I know what he means; I know the sense of frustration which largely justifies that epithet. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Services has provided himself with a more flexible and lively structure of administration, particularly of the hospital service.
It is right, too, to recognise that the time had come for the teaching hospitals to be fully absorbed into the administrative structure of the National Health Service. No doubt 25 years ago it was right that they should have almost a separate organisation of their own; but during the quarter century that has passed they have seen the advantage in much closer links with the rest of the hospital service and the National Health Service, and I hope they will accept the place in it which is assigned to them by the Bill.
I am afraid, however, that I cannot say the same of my right hon. Friend's attempt to solve his central dilemma—a problem which was created when the National Health Service came into being. Administratively viewed—although, of course, this does not exhaust the whole description—the creation of the National Health Service represented substantially the nationalisation of the hospitals. That was the essence, the big thing that happened in 1946: all the hospitals were taken out of the previous diverse ownership and administration and vested in the Minister of Health, to be entirely financed by him and administered by agencies acting in his name.
This act of nationalisation inevitably opened a gap—what would have been called, if the jargon had been invented

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at that time, an interface—between the National Health Service and nationalised hospital service on the one hand and the community health services on the other. That separation in the administrative organisation has become more and not less perceptible in the course of the last 25 years.
In a distinguished speech last night my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State, in an eloquent passage, illustrated the growth of the community health services in importance and in ramification. The health services administered by the local authorities, although they were in some ways the pioneers of the National Health Service, have changed and become more important relatively to the National Health Service and to the totality of health care in the course of the last 25 years. There is no point in attempting to deny that we are here confronted with a built-in problem, basic and serious, that of the administrative division between the community health services on the one hand and the rest of the National Health Service, particularly the hospital service, on the other. If it is to be solved at all by administrative means, the problem can be dealt with only in one of two ways, which follow of their own accord. One is to denationalise—by which I mean, municipalise—the National Health Service. The other is to nationalise the community health services also. There is no third method whereby administratively this gulf can be bridged or this gap filled.
Let me look at these two alternatives. I look first at the municipalisation of the National Health Service, whereby the administering authorities—in this case the area health authorities—would be local authorities, directly or indirectly elected authorities.
The reform of local government has not improved the prospects for this solution; and in that I take issue with what my hon. Friend the Member for North-ants, South (Mr. Arthur Jones) said yesterday. It is a fallacy to suppose that the creation of larger local government units has increased the financial resources of local government. The taxable capacity of a given area of land and population is no different whether that area is divided into 20 administrative units or covered by a single administrative unit. The fact remains that there is a limit, not precise but practical and political, to

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the finance which can be raised by means of taxation available to local authorities from any conceivable area of local administration. The idea that even half the £2,000 million a year spent at present upon the National Health Service could be added to the expenditure of local government in this country—could be added not only to what local authorities spend at present on the community health services but to all the rest of their expenditure, particularly education expenditure —appears to me to be inconceivable.
This is the heart of the matter. It is simply impracticable, so long as the National Health Service is publicly financed, for even half the financing of the service to be made the responsibility of local authorities. That is the central reason why one Government after another have looked at this solution and turned away from it. It is not because of the capability or incapability of local representatives or elected councillors or anything of that sort. It is simply because nothing short of the total range of national taxation is capable of bearing fairly the cost of the National Health Service.
Of course, right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite know that perfectly well. Therefore, although one sympathises with the sentiments glowingly expressed just now, for example, by the right hon. Member for Cardiff, West, the Opposition amendment—and surely hon. Members opposite must accept this—is really spoof. They are humbugging either other people or themselves if they pretend, and seek to persuade the House, that there can be representative and democratic administration of a National Health Service unless the representative and democratic bodies which they imagine are to administer it will be responsible for at least the lion's share of the cost of the service.
Mr. George Thomas: In education the local authority raises a proportion, not the lion's share. The lion's share is raised by the taxpayer. It could be lower in the case of health.
Mr. Powell: If the right hon. Gentleman is willing to write into the policy of his party and to proclaim in the country that he and his colleagues intend to place upon local authorities and upon local taxation, in addition to everything

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else, the same proportion of the cost of the National Health Service as they bear at present of the cost of school education—
Mr. Thomas: I did not say that.
Mr.Powell: If the right hon. Gentleman did not say that, and is not prepared to say that, then he cannot appeal to the precedent of education.
I do not believe there is any difference between the two sides of the House that the essence of democracy and of representation is financial responsibility. That is what this House is about. Our representative nature, which was being dilated upon in many speeches yesterday, does not arise simply from the fact that we are elected; it arises from the fact that we grant supply and that, having granted supply, we hold to account those who spend it and answer to our electors for the way in which it is spent. That is the only meaning of representative democracy: to raise a substantial proportion of the cost of a service—and I do not say even a "decisive proportion" but a really substantial proportion—and to be responsible for the way in which it is spent.
Unless that is what we mean by democratic and representative administration of the National Health Service, we are talking about nothing. This is not achieved just by putting members of local authorities on to the administering health authorities. It is not done by co-option. It can happen only when the representatives bear the responsibility for taxation as well as for expenditure and policy and where, therefore, their election is not the election of a number of ladies and gentlemen on the ground that they appear to the electorate admirably qualified to administer the health service. Election means that the electors have the opportunity to vote for one policy rather than for another policy. Therefore, the administration must be in the hands of those who are elected.
Mr. Richard Crossman: Is not the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Mr. Powell) merely saying that, under the existing system of local finance, transfer is impossible? If we were to transfer from the centre to the local authority certain

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forms of taxation which at present go to the Treasury and say they should go to the local authority, would we not then provide the local authority with sufficient finance to be able to bear the fair proportion. Is not the criticism of the Government that their reform of local government finance simply has not taken place, without which such a reform cannot be contemplated?
Mr. Powell: I suppose it is possible to imagine that Parliament could endow local authorities with virtually the full range of major taxation which this House exercises. But I chose my formulation carefully before, when I said I could not imagine that the major burden of the cost of the health service could be fairly or practicably borne other than by the whole range of taxation imposed upon the public of this country.
This is obviously a matter of opinion, but I would think it fantastic to imagine that local authorities, which can be responsible only if the sources of their finance are recognisably and definably local, could ever exercise a sufficiently wide range of taxing powers to fulfil the condition which I have stated and which I believe lies in the nature of things.
This difficulty, on which not only the amendment of the Opposition founders but also the alternative to which it points, is not altered or reduced by any community health councils or by any health service commissioners. It is in the very nature of the inter-connection of representation with taxation and with responsibility for what is actually done.
Thus if my right hon. Friend was going to resolve the problem, he was, in fact, obliged to take the other alternative, as he has done, that of nationalising the community health services. That is the essence of this Bill: we have completed in the Bill the process of nationalisation of health care in this country which commenced with the National Health Service Act 1946.
I fear that in doing so we shall be found to have lost more than we have gained. The gain is obvious, such as it is. We have brought under one administrative umbrella—a word that I believe was used more than once yesterday afternoon by my right hon. Friend—all the health services operating or available in

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an area. As to administrative logic and tidiness, there can be no criticism and nothing left to desire. But I believe that for the sake of the shadow we have lost a great deal of substance.
In the first place, we have lost the only sources of independent policy, initiative and decision which existed outside the central Government in the whole range of health services. After drawing up the first hospital plan, I well remember, when, in 1962,I moved on to attempt a similar plan for community health services, how astonished and delighted I was to find that there was not one Minister of Health but 145 Ministers of Health: one Minister of Health and—at that time—144 local health authorities. I realised there were potentially 144 separate and independent sources of initiative, experiment, variation and adaptation to local conditions. I saw how rich were the sources of experience available to the health service under such a system compared with those that were still possible in the monolithic structure of the nationalised hospital service.
From now on there will only be one sort of policy and initiative in the community health services as in the rest of the National Health Service. There will be sources of information and opinion but this is something quite different from an authority which, having formed a view, can act upon it and be responsible for the consequences. That will have disappeared.
With it will go the independent status of the local officials. I do not know whether that is not just as important as the independence of local authorities. There one had men equal to any in the national Civil Service who enjoyed an independence and an independent responsibility which nothing can replace. They had an immediacy of contact with the people of their area. Every hon. Member, in assisting his constituents with their problems, has hitherto had reason to bless the existence of independent local authority officials of high calibre with whom he could deal directly and between whom and himself there could be completely unrestricted exchange of opinion and advice.
The Secretary of State for Social Services (Sir Keith Joseph): I am grateful to my right hon. Friend. I am agreeing

1126
with almost everything he is saying in what is a beautifully analysed speech. However, I do ask him to consider that the area health authorities, which he has just recognised will be agencies of infinitely greater potential and power than either hospital management committees or local health authorities will be able to pursue national policies by way of a wide range of initiatives. Any sensible Minister in any sensible Government will encourage the diversity and initiative which my right hon. Friend so rightly recognises are riches of the community.
Mr. Powell: I am sure that my right hon. Friend and most of his successors would exercise their powers and duties in that way. But he has had to pronounce the fateful word "agency". They are the agents of the Secretary of State, who will be answerable to this House and the public for everything which is done or not done, not only as hitherto in the hospital service but in the whole range of community services. That means that even the most powerful community physician will be in a quite different position from the old medical officer of health, responsible to a local authority and to a local electorate.
The second great loss which I think there will be is through the growth of bureaucracy. It is inevitable that in bringing together under one umbrella, with the professed aim of co-ordinating them, services so subtle and diverse as the community health services, the family practitioner services, and the hospital services we shall find that one tier after another of administration will be erected in an effort to bring that co-ordination about.
A word about this concept of co-ordination. It is a delusion to suppose that in a department such as medicine and health care, which progresses by specialisation and by the growth of specialisation—I guarantee that every advance in health has come about as a result of a refinement of specialisation—co-ordination in the interests of the patient is produced by an administrative structure which will throw a roof over all those who ought to be co-ordinated. Co-ordination will come about, whatever is the administrative structure, only by direct links between one professional and another, one speciality and another, one function and the other. We may well find that we have impeded

1127
rather than facilitated that communication by this attempt to throw an umbrella over the whole.
The third, and perhaps most serious, loss is that we shall have taken away from local government, in the very period when we purport to be seeking to strengthen it, one of its most valuable and valued functions. We shall have removed from it services which attracted to local government some of the most dedicated people. We shall have taken away from it the functions, many of them functions upon which local government was built, which make local government respected by the electorate and central government.
These, then, are the three major losses —the growth of bureaucracy, the loss of independent sources of initiative and authority in the health services, and the removal of a major function from local government. This is the price that has to be paid for my right hon. Friend's solution to the dilemma of administrative division between the National Health Service and the community health services. I will not seek to deny my right hon. Friend his Bill tonight; but I am afraid that when we give it a Second Reading we shall be sealing the loss of things which once destroyed cannot easily be restored.
5.6 p.m.
Mr. Cledwyn Hughes: I will seek to obey Mr. Speaker's injunction and be brief. I do not propose to follow the speech the right hon. Member for Wolverhamption, South-West (Mr. Powell) in detail. At the start of his speech he likened himself to one of the saints in Paradise. It occurred to me that many of his hon. and right hon. Friends would be very happy to see him achieve that elevation. There were points in the right hon. Gentleman's speech with which I agreed. It was a thoughtful contribution and I respect his knowledge and experience. His criticisms will bear careful study. My immediate reaction however, is that it was destructive speech. He criticised the Bill but did not say what he thought would be the right structure to put in its place. To that extent it was a disappointment.
I want to deal rather more with the Welsh aspect of the Bill. We can all

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summarise our objectives and aspirations by saying that the National Health Service exists or should exist to ensure that the poorest and most vulnerable member in the community, whether he lives in Cardiff or a remote village in Anglesey, should, if he is taken ill, receive the best medical attention it is possible to obtain. All of the administrative structure, the committees, the councils, the doctors and nurses, the ancillary workers, exist or should exist to achieve that simple but profoundly important end. There should be equality of treatment and of opportunity for treatment. Health is the one thing that money should not be able to buy. That was Aneurin's Bevan's objective and vision.
There are, of course, certain physical and geographical constraints. If a person lives in a remote Welsh village he will be a considerable distance from a modern teaching hospital in Cardiff or Liverpool, where all the facilities of science and technology are concentrated. That makes it all the more important for our GP services and our administrative machinery to be efficient. I take this opportunity to pay tribute to the contributions which the hospitals of Liverpool have made to the population of North Wales. I am sure that the residents of Liverpool will allow me to pay tribute to the Welsh surgeons, physicians and nurses who have served in the Liverpool area.
As the Secretary of State for Wales knows, I have been deeply concerned for a long time about the inadequacy of the Caernarvon and Anglesey Hospital at Bangor, a concern shared by my right hon. Friend the Member for Caernarvon (Mr. Goronwy Roberts), the hon. Member for Conway (Mr. Wyn Roberts) and by my hon. Friend the Member for Merioneth (Mr. William Edwards). When I say inadequacy, I refer to the building, because the medical and nursing staffs have worked like trojans under difficult conditions to serve the patients' needs. The small hospitals of Anglesey are old and unsuitable, although their staffs work with dedication. In Bangor there are long waiting lists and beds sometimes have to be put in the corridors of the hospitals. There has been inadequate financial provision to meet the increased demand. These things must be put right very soon.
That brings me to one of the main themes in the debate, and to a point

1129
with which the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West dealt— namely, that the people who pay for the National Health Service should have and should be seen to have some say in its running. The further we are away from the centres of administration and decision, as is the case in my constituency, the greater the care which should be taken to ensure that people obtain the best service.
The Bill provides the Government with a golden opportunity to place the service on a democratic base. Unhappily, instead of making it more democratic it is to be less representative than before. It is reprehensible that Wales should be less well served than England. The Secretary of State for Wales is to be the great panjandrum, the final arbiter and the master of the service in the Principality.
I thought that the right hon. Gentleman's justification for all this was rather contrived. It is strange how little confidence he and his colleagues have in men and women elected by the community. They talk about freedom but they do not practise it. I cannot accept the argument of the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West. For even if the members elected to district and county councils do not raise the major part of the finance, they are more responsible than the nominees of the Secretary of State. That is the point which the right hon. Gentleman has failed to grasp. The Secretary of State has had representations from various Welsh local authorities and from the County Councils Association. As my right hon. Friend said, they have been unanimous in their criticism. I also read the letter of 9th February which the Minister of State sent to the Secretary of the Committee, Mr. Haydn Rees, and I found it unconvincing.
The attitude of the County Councils Association is clear. It describes the Government's plan as a major set-back and misfortune for local government.
Then there is the proposal to enlarge yet again the empire of the Parliamentary Commissioner for Administration. We shall shortly need a commissioner to investigate the Parliamentary Commissioner ! I confess that when I read Clause 31 I understood that there would be a Welsh Health Commissioner stationed in Wales. That would have been both prac-

1130
ticable and right. However, it is to be Whitehall again, and the Secretary of State and the Minister of State have surrendered yet another piece of ground.
So we have it in a nutshell. There is to be totally inadequate local authority representation and the power of appointments and administration is reserved to the Secretary of State. The court of appeal is to be in London. That is not good enough. We cannot ride roughshod over the reasonable demands of local authorities and people generally without inviting cynicism and damaging the trust which people should have in the Service. I hope that the Government will have second thoughts in Committee. The right hon. Gentleman has enough on his hands as it is. I am not sure that it is a good thing that officials in his Department should be given the work and the power which will come to them as a result of the Bill.
My right hon. and hon. Friends believe that accountability should be to an elected Welsh body. I was disappointed that the Secretary of State did not develop that theme. He fobbed it off. He is refusing to deal with it. He knows perfectly well what the point is. Like us, he has considered it over many years. Perhaps the Minister of State will consult his right hon. and hon. Friends and give us a better reply. If an elected council is set up to perform certain functions in Wales, do the Government believe that the National Health Service should be one of them? It is a simple question and I think that the Minister can give a straight reply. The inference, if there is no reply, is that they do not believe in further devolution. The principle of this Bill is anti-devolution and it is so regarded in the Principality.
Mr. Raymond Gower: I am listening with interest to what the right hon. Member for Anglesey (Mr. Cledwyn Hughes) says. Would he favour giving such a council the right to levy taxation of any kind, or would it have a certain amount of money provided from funds from Westminster? I am merely asking for information.
Mr. Hughes: I know that the hon. Member for Barry (Mr. Gower) has given a good deal of attention to this matter. I have no objection in principle to giving an elected council for Wales the right

1131
to levy taxation in certain matters but this depends on the functions. The position could be the same as that of county councils—that part could come from local rates and taxes and part from the Exchequer.
I have three more points, which I will summarise in the interests of brevity. First, the North Wales branch of the National Health Service Social Workers is opposed to a mandatory contractual relationship between area health boards and the local authority social service departments, and the provision of social care to patients under the area health board. It takes the view that this will lead to great diminution of the care of patients and the polarisation of medical and social work. Will the Minister of State please comment?
Secondly, what is the position regarding the appointment of a regional pharmacist in Wales on the lines of similar appointments in England and Scotland? I understand that there has been considerable delay in the Welsh Office on this matter. Perhaps the Minister of State will give us the latest information.
Finally, on reading the Bill it could be concluded that the nursing service does not exist, or that it is not in the least important. In one sense it can be described as the most vital element in the whole of the National Health Service. Will the Minister of State say what representations he has received on the Bill from the nurses' representatives? They have a strong claim to be well represented at all levels in the structure. The position of the nursing profession should be taken into account, and I hope that the Minister of State will recognise this in his reply.
Finally, I pay tribute to those who have served on the Welsh Hospital Board, on the hospital management committees and on the health executive committees in Wales over the last 27 years. They deserve our gratitude for their devoted voluntary work. I have strong reservations about the Bill and I shall be voting against it tonight.
5.18 p.m.
Mr. Marcus Worsley: I hope that the right hon. Member for Anglesey (Mr. Cledwyn Hughes) will forgive me if

1132
on this occasison I do not follow what he said. Perhaps the fact that I had a Welsh great-grandmother gives me no entitlement to do so.
Mr. Cledwyn Hughes: That is not quite close enough.
Mr. Powell: Not patrial.
Mr. Worsley: Thanks to my right hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Mr. Powell), not patrial. Nor do I intend to follow those hon. Members who have spoken on Clause 4. Of course, family planning is a critically important matter. However, it is peripheral to the Bill. We are here to discuss how health care should be administered. I hope that I shall be forgiven if I do not talk on Clause 4.
We are unlikely to take a more important decision during the course of this Parliament about our domestic affairs than to decide how we are to tackle health care. This Bill is not something that my right hon. Friend has dreamed up. It is the result of a whole process of negotiation, discussion and debate which goes right back into the time of the previous Government. It was one of the many things that they left unfinished after six years of office, and I hope that we shall finish it tonight.
I listened with the greatest attention to my right hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South-West. Those of us who have thought about the health service over recent years have been enormously aware of the dilemma that he presented to us, although I do not think that I have ever heard it presented as crisply and as clearly as he did today. But what he did not tell the House was what he would do to solve the dilemma. He said that there were two ways in which it could be solved, and he rejected both. So I take it that he would wish to preserve the existing situation—
Mr. Powell Mr. Powell indicated assent.
Mr. Worsley: —of a division between a nationalised hospital service and a municipalised service for community care.
I do not agree with my right hon. Friend on this. While completely accepting the disadvantages of either solution of the dilemma, the time has come when

1133
we must consider the health needs of the citizens of an area together. This is pre-eminent. It is now 11 years since the Porritt Report and the hon. Member for Willesden, West (Mr. Pavitt), apparently at the same time, put this idea forward. This is the time to carry it out, and, in spite of the vote of the Opposition, I hope that we shall do so tonight.
A new and comprehensive look at the needs of an area, in health or anything else, has profound and often disquieting results. We have just done this with social work. The local authority social services have been asked for the first time to look at the whole range of social needs in their areas and to produce a plan to cope with them.
Such a new look has often shown up new areas of need. Therefore, I believe that the new look that we need in health will produce a clearer idea of new areas of need, but it will also—this is why I disagree with my right hon. Friend— bring a new emphasis to health care in the community and outside the hospital. I simply do not believe that, in the present state of medicine, one can sensibly consider health as if there were a boundary at the hospital wall.
In such a transformed set-up, the general practitioner will find himself again the centre of the service. One of the ill effects of the hospital-centred service has been to some extent to eclipse the GP. The new health service, I believe, will restore him to his proper importance.
But there is a danger in such a comprehensive look. I should like to quote again the precedent of the social service reorganisation. The danger is that, by trying to do too many things, by trying to cover the whole field, we may cease to do as well the things that formerly we did best. In the social services, there is proper concern about some of the services for children, which, under the old arrangements, were well cared for and which have sometimes suffered.
In the health field, one is obviously afraid for the acute hospitals. One is afraid that the centres of excellence which are built up there, and above all in the teaching hospitals, may be at risk. It seems to me, as a layman, that doctors have such a special feeling towards the teaching hospitals where they were trained —the only comparable thing is the alle-

1134
giance of soldiers to their regiments— that we must look carefully in Committee to see whether we have yet got this right.
I do not wish the present situation to continue. I am sure that it is right for the teaching hospitals to be more directly associated with the community, but I am not certain whether, in an area like the one in which my constituency lies, where there are two teaching hospitals, it is right that there will be no board of governors or representative body for the individual hospitals.
As for relations with local authorities, I have long taken the view that our objective should be a National Health Service responsible to the local community. The local community can be represented only by its elected local authorities. In that way only can one have a health service that is truly responsive. Only in that way can we end the anomaly of considering the health needs and the social service needs of an area as if they were wholly separate.
But, like the last Government and this Government, and like my right hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South-West, I do not believe that this is now possible. My right hon. Friend was absolutely right to remind the House of the financial problem, which cannot be glossed over. Unless there can be found for local government a massive new source of finance, the thing cannot be done. We had much better face up to that. Hon. Members opposite know it perfectly well. They are misleading the country and the House when they suggest that this thing can be done without a radical alteration of local government finance.
But even if that were not so, it is ruled out at the moment by the doctors' obsessive fears about local authorities. I call them obsessive because I suggest that they are not wholly rational. Therefore, the Government are absolutely right at this stage in not seeking to put the National Health Service under local authorities.
But—this has not been stressed enough in this debate yet—the Bill will lead, I am sure, to a period of growing together of the local authorities and the health service. A word has been coined to describe this—"coterminosity". I am

1135
delighted that no one on the Government Front Bench used that monstrous word, but it expresses the important concept that these services should be administered in the same areas. The extent of joint plans, cross-membership of committees and the rest is considerable. These authorities will be encouraged to work together.
May I say something which I hope will contribute in a minor way to the solution of the dilemma that my right hon. Friend has posed? I do not think that the National Health Service should be run by the local authorities. That was not my phrase. Instead I used the phrase "responsible to" about its relationship to local authorities. It is an unhappy fact that there is a tradition in this country of local councillors interfering in the detailed administration of local affairs, which is deplorable and discouraging to those who have to administer. It is that fear of the detailed interruption of their own clinical programme which is at the root of the doctors' fears. Therefore, our objective should be a health service responsible in general terms, and not in detail, to the local authority.
Perhaps I may instance one example which might possibly help towards a solution in future. I refer to the relationship of London Transport to the Greater London Council. London Transport is not run by a GLC committee, it is run by a distinguished and high-powered board, but on overall policy it is responsible to the GLC. That precedent should be brought more widely into local government in other ways.
I have always felt that central government services tend to be more efficiently run than are local government services. One reason is that we in this House do not try to run the services of central government as a local authority tries to run its services. We in this House leave it to Ministers, although we may challenge Ministers and give them overriding directions. I wish to advance the idea that there could in local government be responsibility without directly running the services.
We must not be afraid of management in the health service. The Opposition speak as though management in itself is a bad thing, but the health service is a complex organisation. I see that the

1136
hon. Member for Cardigan (Mr. Elystan Morgan) disagrees with that view, but I am sure that he would agree that a teaching hospital is complex and needs detailed administration. There is no real conflict between the good management which ought to exist—and we must not be afraid of good management—and a responsible service. I see that the hon. Member for Cardigan agrees with me on that.
I conclude by saying that the House must appreciate the real concern in local government at the loss of powers. For example, the Greater London Council is concerned at the fact that the Bill takes away from it the London Ambulance Service. I do not think the council is right in that view, and I believe that the ambulance service must be an essential part of the National Health Service. But it is the gradual piece-by-piece erosion of the council's powers on one issue or another, perhaps even more than consideration of the merits of the particular case, which leads it to take this view.
We must not see the Bill as an anti local government measure or as something which seeks to draw the health service away from local government. We must see the Bill as a measure which seeks to bring local authorities and the health services together as bodies working in the same area for the same ends. If it is to be seen as the beginning of their working and growing together, then I believe that the Bill will be seen as a landmark in the National Health Service.
5.35 p.m.
Mr. Arthur Blenkinsop: I am glad to have the opportunity of intervening, partly because I am one of the dwindling number of Members of the House who were involved in the early stages of the National Health Service, and also because, over the years, I have seen a large number of major changes. I believe it is absolutely right that we should now be considering the need for change—indeed the time for change is overripe. Therefore, I am more willing to accept the comment by the hon. Member for Chelsea (Mr. Worsley) in this respect than those points made by the right hon. Member for Wolverhamp-ton, South-West (Mr. Powell). Both raised very important issues. Some of these points should be followed up rather more fully.

1137
The right hon. Member for Wolver-hampton, South-West was wrong to say at the opening of his speech that "the big thing which happened on the introduction of the National Health Service was the nationalisation of the hospitals". This was a big thing administratively, but I believe—and I think the country also believed—that the really big thing was that it enshrined acceptance of the principle that health was the concern of the whole community. That was the overwhelming issue at that time.
The health service expressed our interdependence in a way in which no other legislation had done previously. The administrative forms then set up were no more than the best we could achieve at that time. They enshrined various compromises some of which we were unhappy about at the time and have become increasingly unhappy about since. Many of these compromises were enshrined because of the narrow views of the main professional bodies at the time. It is a misfortune that a great deal of misleading advice has come from the main professions and the leaders of those professions. They have not played a very healthy part in the development of the health service in the sense that one might have hoped.
Any criticisms of this Bill should be shared between the Minister and the leaders of some of these professions, who are still rejecting the possibility of further advances which are now needed on broad social grounds. We must take account of the great changes which have occurred and which, above all, have emphasised more and more and day by day the close link between health problems and social problems.
The great issues that have to be tackled by our health service cannot be tackled by the health service in isolation, even when widening it to the broader community health service as comprehended in the new set-up. This relates not only to the question of mental health, a topic which was raised yesterday by my hon. Friend the Member for Woolwich, East (Mr. Mayhew). The answers to our problems cannot come from the National Health Service by itself but require, above all, the concern of the organisation of the whole range of our social services. It is wrong to say that this is true only of mental

1138
health. It is true also of most of the problems that confront us in health matters today. Perhaps it is something of an anomaly at a time when many in our community are expressing their faith more completely in scientific and technical answers to problems. The reality is going the other way.
The answers are more and more to be found in a wider social understanding than in narrow, technical terms. It is because of this dilemma that I am so worried about the structure proposed in the Bill. I said a moment ago that it was not only in our concern about the needs of the mental health service that we had to see a close connection between health and social services. Whatever subject one takes is of concern in the House and outside. Some of us have been particularly concerned about the misuse of drugs. There may be no clearer case than this where an answer cannot be found in legal impositions or through ordinary channels of the health service, but by a close linking together of the inspired judgment and concern in the whole social field with the co-operation of those working in the health service.
We talk about the care of the elderly. This theme comes through clearly again. Any efforts which can be made effectively through our National Health Service can be vitiated by the general social policies that are followed nationally in this country and by particular communities. We are increasingly beginning to realise the great gap that was left in our health service in the preventive and occupational spheres. Many other countries have done more than we have. Alas, the Bill makes no adequate provision for or takes no step towards new development. The new administration must take account of these facts.
I accept the view expressed by some hon. Members yesterday that the regional approach must essentially be the broad one of planning of fairly wide resources and their distribution at regional level. It should be our concern to try to bring health within the concept of wider planning and under democratic control. That is why many hon. Members regret that the opportunity was not taken with local government reform of establishing or at least making possible the development of a regional level of elected authority. We

1139
must face this necessity. Had we done so earlier, we might have seen more clearly how to bring the National Health Service at that planning level within the democratic control of an elected body.
I believe that contact and reality come at district rather than at area level. I am doubtful about what has been said concerning the functions at area level. There is a great element of artificiality at that level. It is at district level where the real working contacts will come.
Mr. John Silkin: There is a great deal of force in what my hon. Friend is saying. Is not the dilemma that he has posed, which was perhaps posed at the time of the Green Paper of 1970, that it is at area level where we have the social services and that the attempt to create a parallel level, as it were, between the two has created the difficulty? Were the social services at district level, presumably the district level would be the level in the health service.
Mr. Blenkinsop: I think that we ought to be looking towards some development of that kind. I am not necessarily seeking to try to impose some new pattern; I simply wish to see something new emerge and develop. Above all, I do not want to prevent the growth of the health service in a rational and clear way.
I think that Aneurin Bevan, with others, saw the health service as a living thing with opportunities to grow and to change as it grew. I believe that some of that growth can most easily take place at the district and health centre level. After all, the health centre was initially seen as one of the focal points of the development of the health service. Many people saw it as the point at which the closest link could come with the community and the whole range of social services around it. Of course, others rejected it. Aneurin Bevan was uncertain about the possibilities of experiments like the Peckham Health Centre. He certainly did not favour it as an example for the future. But a great deal has happened since then. I believe that the health centre, certainly the district hospital, and the wide range of new social services, can gather together at that point.
The right hon. Member for Wolver-hampton, South-West ruled out the pos-

1140
sibility of democratic control through the health service on financial grounds. Finance has always played a major part in discussions and consideration of the health service. But the right hon. Gentleman is wrong in suggesting that we are therefore completely prevented from seeing a growth of local authority influence and, indeed, responsibility. The idea put forward by the hon. Member for Chelsea was interesting. I do not assume, as the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West seemed to assume, that if a local authority is obtaining the greater part of its financial resources from outside its immediate area, if it is relying upon large national subventions, that completely prohibits the possibility of the independence of local administration by that authority.
We have a wide range of experience today at different levels. Education and a figure of about 60 per cent. national support has been mentioned. No one suggests that that has destroyed the possibility of independent action by local authorities. Indeed, there are many highly independent authorities—they have demonstrated their independence under all Governments —which rely upon large proportions of funds from national quarters. Experience abroad suggests that we cannot draw his close parallel between responsibility and the source of funds that the right hon. Gentleman seeks to draw. It is a common assumption, but one which can no longer be accepted automatically at face value.
Our concern is that the Bill fails to recognise the vast change which has taken place over the last 25 years and that it does not enable that close working of health and social services to be carried out which it should be our duty to ensure is carried out. For that reason and our desire to provide a new and steadily developing link between local authorities and the health service, I believe that the Bill must be rejected.
5.48 p.m.
Dr. Gerard Vaughan: I hope that the hon. Member for South Shields (Mr. Blenkinsop) will understand if I do not follow exactly the line that he has taken. Rather, I follow a line similar to that taken by my hon. Friend the Member for Chelsea (Mr. Worsley), even to the extent of defending myself a little by pointing out that I have a good Welsh

1141
name and good Welsh origins although I do not represent a Welsh constituency.
I should like to comment only on the reorganisation side of the Bill. I do not wish to comment on Clause 4, although I share some of the anxiety felt by my right hon. Friend the Member for Wol-verhampton, South-West (Mr. Powell) about asking general practitioners and medical practitioners generally to take on this new kind of service.
I recall clearly, from experiences during the war, when general practitioners were asked to prescribe—to authorise, I suppose, is the right word—a whole range of equipment—hot water bottles, and things of that kind—and the difficulties which that led to between doctors and patients. But I am afraid that I cannot go along with the rest of my right hon. Friend's characteristically well-reasoned but rather gloomy and destructive speech.
Listening to the debate I could not help thinking of Aneurin Bevan's words in 1946—it seems fashionable to quote him today—that there is a danger of forgetting why these proposals are brought forward at all. The danger in this case is of losing sight of the many very necessary and good features of the Bill.
It seems a simple and unarguable fact that the National Health Service in its present form does not match up to the present-day needs of medicine. It is just those needs that we have been talking about—the community needs. Today even a surgeon—I suppose that he is the sharpest, white-hot end of technical skill in medicine—very frequently has to bring a patient's relatives into the full care of his patient. That applies more to other specialities, such as psychiatry and geriatrics, and in paediatrics, for example, where the paediatrician will frequently bring in the mother or father of a patient as part of his therapeutic team. When one realises how much medicines has changed on these lines, one begins to realise that the present structure does not match up to what is needed.
I accept that the Bill is aimed at improving patient care. I have some worries as to how far it will achieve its object, but I accept it. I accept entirely that a closer working link with local authorities and a take-over of some of their services can operate only in the way of improving our community services.

1142
The unification of the health service is essential. The Bill, however, offers a very large dose of line management. It offers a major tightening of executive authority. This is logical when one considers the difficulties of the National Health Service. But it is logical only provided that we realise that it will not solve a whole range of other problems which must be solved.
Only today there was a leader in the Daily Telegraph talking about the comments of the Parents Association—
Sir K. Joseph: The Patients Association.
Dr. Vaughan: The Patients Associa-titon—which has been investigating peoples' attitudes towards their general practitioners. It asked for good and bad comments. There were five times as many bad comments and complaints as there were good comments. The bad comments were mainly centred around bad receptionists, brusque, disinterested service and difficulties in getting general practitioners to go to people's homes in the way that they used to.
The Bill will do nothing to solve that side of our problems. But at the same time we are running a multi-million pound organisation employing over 800,000 staff, hence the need for better management. There is no general clash between most doctors and the administrators. In a few instances doctors make good administrators, but generally they are not interested in this on a big scale, and are only too pleased to work beside competent, well-trained administrators. We have some excellent individual administrators today, but not enough of the calibre we need. I see no reason why we should not have a centrally run, standardised structure for the health service within which the medical profession can exercise all its skills, variety and individuality, and meet individual patients' needs—secure in the knowledge that its financial, technical and building base is run by a competent authority.
In winding up the debate yesterday, my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Security said that the community physician would be a vital part of the district management team. I agree. But in Committee we should look very carefully at some of the bases on

1143
which the recommendations have been made.
Yesterday the hon. Member for Willesden, West (Mr. Pavitt)gave us a very amusing rundown on the Grey Book. I should like to read a small part from it.
"If the work of the DMT"—
district management team—
"is found unacceptable by the AHA"—
area health authority—
"the DMT will not be held corporately accountable, but the AHA, with the assistance of the Area officers, will assess the performance of each team member to determine the source of the difficulty"
This smacks very strongly of a sort of Big Brother sending his investigators into the district management team to eliminate the individual who does not conform. If I am fortunate enough to be selected to serve on the Committee, I shall wish to have a very close look at that kind of thing.
Are we happy to read in the Brunei Report, on which much of the Grey Book is based, that patients were not studied because
"patients are not part of the organisation."
I cannot go along with that.
In Committee I would suggest that we shall need to examine very closely whether the Welsh pattern should not be applied to England as well; whether we need a regional tier, except as, perhaps, a planning and advisory authority; whether, for example, the area health boards should not have representatives on the regional tier, if we have to have a regional tier, so that it is merely a coordinating centre for the area health authorities.
I get a little worried that we are putting in a system in which the policy decisions run from the top downwards, leaving very little discretion for the lower levels, whereas we would all like to see a district level with lots of discretion.
I should like to see much more authority given to the community health councils. We have to look very closely again at how they are constituted, and perhaps give them some financial backing and some teeth. Even at this late stage, is it possible to let the people who provide health care, including ancillary

1144
workers, and those who use the health care, the patients, have a real say in how the service is run?
The Committee must look very closely at the question of the teaching hospitals. My hon. Friend the Member for Norwich, South (Dr. Stuttaford) says that we are denigrating the teaching hospitals. I do not agree. We are modernising them by bringing them into the general system. But there are special difficulties in London. The teaching hospitals simply do not fit in with the geographical structure proposed. We need to look very carefully at the boundaries and to change them.
We heard a good deal of comment yesterday about the position of private practice. I hope that Clause 43 will enable private practice to be extended.
Mr. Leslie Huckfield: Does the hon. Member have an interest?
Dr. Vaughan: I say that because in medicine we have good medicine from individuals. I have a vested interest in teaching hospitals.
Mr. Huckfield: Hear, hear.
Dr. Vaughan: I have a vested interest in private practice. The reason for this is that it allows myself and my colleagues—
Mr. Huckfield: To make more money.
Dr. Vaughan: No. We have to work a great deal harder in our National Health Service sessions.
Mr. Huckfield: I am in tears.
Dr. Vaughan: I sat on the Expenditure Committee and heard the evidence about the corruption and abuses in private practice. They do not exist on a large scale. I assure hon. Members that if they read the evidence they will find that only a few isolated instances could be quoted and most of the evidence that we heard was on the excellence of the service, the long hours that part-time people work and the absence of large-scale abuses. What we did hear was a good deal about the difficulties of the waiting lists, and these are something which we must do something about.
Mr. Huckfield: Having read most of the evidence which was presented to that

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Committee and having been a member of one of the boards which presented evidence to it, I can assure the hon. Gentleman that if he reads it himself he will find that board after board and witness after witness said that there was no standardised procedure whatsoever laid down through a hospital group or region for the accounting or monitoring of private practice. I call that abuse.
Dr. Vaughan: I accept the point which the hon. Gentleman has just made, that the accounting as at present practised should be looked into, and that was one of the recommendations of the Committee. We made no secret of it. But I object strongly to the suggestion that there is widespread corruption and abuse of the kind that we heard about yesterday.
There are a number of aspects that will need looking into by the Committee, but in general I think that we should recognise the good features of this Bill, we should see the advantages of it, and I recommend it very strongly to the House.
6.1 p.m.
Mr. Richard Crossman: I start by apologising through you, Mr. Speaker, to the House for the fact that I was away yesterday, and I have sought to catch your eye today. It was only because I was unavoidably detained overseas that I was away, and I am grateful for a minute or two to put one or two points. I am not going to waste time on replying. I want to get on to essential matters.
First, about family planning, I would only add to the debate that as the Minister who had to operate the Abortion Act I became an irrevocable supporter of free family planning, if only for the reason that it is intolerable to have a free health service giving abortions free and not giving family planning free as well. I would have preferred it to be completely free, but I will say to the Secretary of State that he made a point in urging us to remember that if one has to pay 20p for life-saving drugs it is difficult to say that a special advantage should be given to drugs or appliances for family planning. Therefore I do not feel strongly about that.
If I could venture a suggestion through him to the Chief Government Whip, would it not be sensible to have a free

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vote on this clause, because there are very strong feelings about it and there is no great financial or other issue involved?
Mr. John Silkin: I should be perfectly happy on this side of the House to recommend to my hon. Friends that there should be a free vote. I hope the Secretary of State will recommend it to the Patronage Secretary, too.
Mr. Crossman: I want now to return to the central issue, which was argued so powerfully by the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Mr. Powell). I must say that I differ from him profoundly on two issues, only one of which I will discuss. He expressed— which he does not often do—extreme optimism. He is optimistic that the area boards are to be the pivotal centre of the scheme. If the Bill is judged solely by the speech of the Secretary of State, that can be believed, for there are columns about the area boards and only one paragraph about the regional authorities. That gave the impression that it was the area boards that mattered, but those of us who know the Health Service a bit from the inside are careful not to accept that kind of treatment. I look at the text of the few words he attributed to the regional boards. He said, strangely:
"…. we need a mechanism for ensuring that they"—
the area boards—
"follow the general strategy …".
So we need 14 boards to supervise other boards and make sure they follow a general strategy. Is it just an accident that we have 14 regions today with large bureaucracies, self-perpetuating oligarchies? I strongly suspect they will stay where they are and be renamed. I find it difficult to believe that, since these regional authorities are told to be responsible to the Secretary of State for
"long-term planning, hospital building, regional services, and the allocation of resources …"
there is very much they are not responsible for! Moreover, these boards are wholly nominated by him. I suggest that the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West is being a little complacent when he thinks that, by putting in a new tier of area health authorities below the regional authorities, the regional authorities are going to be weakened. The rule of the Health Service is

1147
"the higher, the more powerful". The higher you go, the greater the power, and if the area is put in below, it will be below. True, it will have a budget, but it will be submitted to the region, which is the authority for all these key issues. The Secretary of State added:
"There will no doubt be a continuing dialogue between area health authorities and regional health authorities."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 26th March 1973; Vol. 853, c. 932.]
I will translate this into a continuous mass interchange of bumf, endless official discussions, endless passing of papers, while the regional board smashes down any authority the area possesses.
Anybody who looks at it carefully must be seriously alarmed to find five tiers and to see the strength of the line which has been created between the Minister right at the top and the patient in the hospital or the doctor's clinic below.
I want not to be purely destructive but to make a number of suggestions. It would be tolerable—and I follow a point made by the hon. Member for Reading (Dr. Vaughan)—if the regional authorities were, for instance, nominated by the areas. If the areas set up their regional co-ordinating authorities, if they were clearly seen to be created by the areas in order to co-ordinate the services between them, we would really feel a great sense of relief.
Secondly, if the budgets of the area authorities were submitted direct to the Secretary of State and not to the regional authorities, then again I would have confidence that the region was not the effective authority between the Secretary of State and the area authority.
The third thing we need is to have the majority of the members of the area authorities not nominated by him but nominated from below by people in the region.
I have to repeat something I said in the White Paper debate. We are faced by vast satrapies in these self-perpetuating oligarchies, which are there and are difficult to remove. Are we really going to keep the fiction of the Secretary of State nominating all the members of the regional authorities—which means that they nominate themselves? Because he does not nominate them; he does not have

1148
time to. Year after year they build their power and their vested interest. All this, which is the most unsatisfactory part of our present service, will be strengthened, not weakened, by the changes proposed in this Bill.
So I beg the hon. Gentleman to consider the possibility of a regional authority created as a confederation of area authorities—working together, bringing members together—who will look at it from the point of view of the region rather than the area.
The other major deficiency of the new structure is that the responsibility goes upwards and not downwards. This was already so. When someone is appointed from above he feels responsible to the people who appoint him. What we need is an authority or a service which feels itself responsible to people below and not above. The Bill actually overwhelmingly strengthens the sense that responsibility goes up, and the sense of remoteness in the people below.
We therefore come to the community health councils. There are some minor changes in the Bill but I agree with those who have urged the Secretary of State to see that a mere consultative council is absolutely impotent against the kind of bulk authority that he has built up against it. I do not merely want the councils to be given money, I want them to be given jobs and to be endowed with a sense of management. Here I agree with those who say that the areas, far from being splendidly close to the community, are gigantic and miles away from it. Even a district under the new local authority is far removed from the community and to talk as though the creation of the areas is democratising or is enabling people to participate in the services is to fly in the face of the size of these areas and their nature. What we have to consider is how to improve the Bill in this respect. Clearly the first thing is to provide that the community health councils are elected. People below must be able to choose the people who will represent them up above and express their point of view. There must be a large elected element and I entirely agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Woolwich, East (Mr. Mayhew) that it would help a good deal if there was at least a central community council with authority to go direct to the Minister.

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But above all the councils should have some power. There is a particular power in which I am interested. It is my conviction that there are areas of the service where care is more important than cure. That applies in over half the hospitals. In all the long-stay hospitals care is just as important as professional skill. The right hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West must realise that the service does not consist wholly of consultants and specialists and that the work of the service is not only concerned with professional medical activities. The work is also of caring for people, and caring is not done best by professional nurses or doctors. For the 8,000 disabled children in the long-stay hospitals, care and love, and being made to feel at home, depends on the rôle of the professional being matched by the outside voluntary organisation with a passion, a conviction and a dedication to the cause.
I know that the Secretary of State believes in the rôle of voluntary participation. At the community level it is of the highest importance to organise voluntary work effectively. Every long-stay hospital should have as many volunteers as it has professionals, actively participating and bringing in the community so that the evils cannot take place. The evils occur when professionals are isolated from the community and are doing a repetitive job which does not have a high cure quotient in it. The professionals get into routines and they are only woken up by volunteers from outside who have an idealism the professionals cannot have. That integration of the volunteer and the professional can be organised only at a level far below the area, far below the district, at the level of the genuine neighbourhood community council which should exist in local government as well as in the health service.
Another major omission from the Bill is more striking because the Secretary of State is a great devotee of professionalism. In view of his belief in professionalism and managerialism there is an extraordinary omission from the Bill of attention to active participation in policy-making by professions other than doctors. There should be a recognition of all the other professions in the service, of all the other skills and of the trade unions representing those who are semi-skilled. They all have a right to participate in policy

1150
at all levels. If there is a denial of the electoral principle in the selection of people who run the system, surely there must be recognition of the need for this vast service to have all the people who are organised, people in unions or professional organisations, in a position where they can participate actively so that policy making is not a monopoly of the consultants and top level appointees by the Minister. Sound policy can be made only in close relationship with care. Representation of the hospital workers' trade unions should be written into the Bill so that they have a say in policy making from the top of the service to the bottom.
My last point relates to the basic flaw in the Bill which is the split between community services and health services. I agree that it is doubtful whether transference of certain specific health services from the local authority to the health service will automatically improve the quality of the service. To do so would certainly reduce the level of democratic participation. People do not feel the same about a local authority service as they do about the health service. They feel that they can exercise some control over the local authority service since it is democratically organised. We must exercise the greatest care here. There were powerful reasons for the transfer. But we must be careful that by the transfer we do not bureaucratise all those areas of the Health Service. On balance I believe the transfer was right but it leaves an even bigger gulf than before between prevention and cure.
Take the simple example of home helps. We left the home helps with the local authorities but the doctors passionately wanted them on their side. There were powerful arguments both ways. But as long as the home help is financed out of the rates, we will not get a community service for the aged coordinated with the health services for the aged. That is what results from this basic and disastrous division.
I do not want to waste time discussing local authority finance except to say that if we had a local income tax we could perfectly well raise the money for local authorities—many other countries do it— and retain local independence. But that is an abstract thought because we cannot

1151
get such a provision into the Bill. However, we should admit to ourselves that this is an appalling flaw and all the speeches in the world about good intentions will not get over that. In considering getting people out of long-stay hospitals it must be remembered that they cannot be got out unless the local authority it willing to take them on and pay for them.
Sir K. Joseph: Both the right hon. Gentleman and my right hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Mr. Powell) are hiding behind the illusion if they think that only finance stands between the Government of the day and putting the National Health Service under local government. There is a second reality—the medical attitude. It is surely true that doctors on the whole are not ready to be run by the party politics of local authorities.
Mr. Crossman: I had not forgotten this. It was the point to which I was coming. It could be overcome if we were prepared drastically to reform local government finance and compel the Treasury to hand over some part of a health tax to the local authority. If that were done—and it could be done—that would get over the difficulty. I was emphasising that we shall not cure many of the worst problems about getting people out of hospitals, which is one of our main requirements, as long as we have the situation where it depends on the local authority building and paying for the hostel. There are those who think that putting people in local authority hostels can solve all hospital problems, but a hostel may be just as bad as a hospital from the point of view of the patient.
We are to have fairly soon the report of the Royal Commission on Government, and recommendations. If by any chance, as I feel is quite likely, there is a proposition for provincial government then the last excuse of the doctors would be removed. It really would be impossible for a doctor to say, "I refuse that authority". It is worth considering whether we should hold our thoughts about the final reform of the Health Service until we know this shape. My view is that it would be far healthier to have provincial control of the National

1152
Health Service as well as of local government services, because thus we would be uniting the two sides, than not to have unity at all. Then, once we have unity at the provincial level we can knock out the terrible regional tier and see a relationship emerging which was not so devastatingly bureaucratic, since there would be some basic democratic control as well as a single health-community service budget. A single budget could be made at regional level.
Meanwhile, I say to the Secretary of State that his managerialism is terrifying to me. I repeat something I have said before; the job of management should be done by managers, by paid officials; and the members of the authority should not be good at management, they should be good at telling managers about local needs. But these people we will appoint according to the qualifications I see given are not the kind of people that are needed. The kind of people we need are not necessarily expert or experienced people. They are people who can speak for the patient, and expound local needs—people who go about the place and understand, exactly like elected councillors. They are the people who know about these things.
In my view it is a mistake to let the service—and here I agree with the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West—become a co-ordinated committee of bureaucrats. I am appalled by the prospect of a tremendous block of bureaucrats desiccating every original proposal and being difficult over every case. This was the danger when the Health Service was created. It was an over-professional, over-managerial service, with too many tiers. Under the managerialism of this plan the split with community service are aggravated. I pray God we shall not think that this Bill is any more than a patch-up measure worthy to stand alongside the local government reform of this Government.
6.25 p.m.
Dame Joan Vickers: I hope the right hon. Gentleman will not mind if I do not follow his speech. I would like to follow the comments of the hon. Member for South Shields (Mr. Blenkinsop), in regard to health centres. I hope that we shall have more health centres and less elaborate hospitals. Hospitals are becoming rather

1153
over-elaborate these days. The English White Paper says, in paragraph 8, that there are very striking arguments for bringing the health and social services under a single administration. Those services are not brought under one administration. Our region extends from Gloucester to Penzance, with its headquarters at Bristol, which is very inconvenient and means that most people have no contact with Bristol. I am speaking only because I had the great honour of being trained under Sir Frederick Menzies one of the great hospital administrators of the LCC. The service was taken over from the Metropolitan area board, then it was changed under the 1948 Act, and now there is to be this further change. We have gradually become less democratic over the organisation's future. It was rather unfair of the Secretary of State to say that democracy is not an instrument of efficient management. I gather he said it to justify the proposal that area health authorities should not be primarily representative but that members should be chosen for their capacity to judge. I am glad he is present, for I would like to ask him how they will judge and how they will know which people are capable of judging.
Sir K. Joseph: These are areas.
Dame Joan Vickers: But we have to find the people, and I am worried about how we are to find them. We are already seeing over 13,000 volunteers go down to about 1,600.
Sir K. Joseph: I hope my hon. Friend will justify those figures. According to my calculations about the same number of volunteers will be manning the new services as are manning these services now.
Dame Joan Vickers: In the debate in the House of Lords which I read carefully those were the figures given. I believe my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury (Mr. Crouch) will support me in that. The White Paper emphasises the duties of management in treatment and care. I am wondering how we can divide treatment from care. I hope when people are chosen in the various areas they will be people who are fairly well-known, because the good thing about local government representation is that people know where to go and to whom to complain.

1154
Nurses have hardly been mentioned, and I will concentrate now on the nursing situation. In the White Paper, Cmnd. 5057, it is promised that each area health authority will always include doctors and at least one nurse or midwife; but it is stated that for this staff must not be drawn from those accountable to the authority's chief professional officers. I understand that there is no problem here for doctors, consultants, or general practitioners, but that this would create difficulties for nurses. They are accountable to the area chief nursing officer. I know that the Royal College of Nursing has been in touch with my right hon. Friend on this. The College says the situation is not acceptable because it might mean having a retired representative or a nurse working in another area. When the Minister concludes the debate he may be able to say something about these consultations.
We speak of health care in the community. I was very interested in what was said by my hon. Friend the Member for Chelsea (Mr. Worsley). I would like to know what is to be the future role of health visitors and health inspectors. There are over 6,000 health visitors who have been neglected in the previous report and the White Paper. Health visitors are the only representative organisation concerned with the community nursing service, which is important; and they provide a whole range of community nursing services. They have directors of nursing services right down to clinic nurses. They are to be transferred to the area health authority or to become responsible for the geographical area in which the staff has its existing working base at the present time, or in which the larger part of its present working district is situated. There are a few health visitors who spend their entire time in the school nursing service. I would like to know what rôle they are to play in the future, because they do not seem to come into the Bill in any particular way. The rôle and work of the health inspectors may be considerably changed as a result of the reorganisation of local government as well as of our entry into the EEC.
I feel that Clause 41 should contain powers for the transfer to the National Health Service of responsibility for the licensing and inspection of nursing agencies under the Nurses Agencies Act

1155
1957. This is extremely important. For example, the Director of Nursing Service for Croydon states that when a new agency is established—and they can be set up quite easily—she visits it initially every three months and then yearly. Her inspection involves checking the qualifications of the nurses employed, ensuring that they are adequate for the work they are allocated, and also the pay scales. I hope that this work will be transferred to the National Health Service. I am sure my right hon. Friend will agree that this would be to the protection of the general public.
I turn now to the question of representation on the family practitioner committees. I understand that dentists will have three representatives at that level but none at area level. Is my right hon. Friend considering having osteopaths on the family practitioner committees?
I want to mention Clause 19, because of its tie-up with local government in Relation to the transfer of staff. Line 44 contains the words "taken as a whole" which are causing anxiety as they do not appear in the parallel provisions in Section 255 of the Local Government Act 1972. As changes are coming about in both the National Health Service and in local government, I believe it is important to keep similar changes in line.
Hospitals for the Army, Navy and Air Force take in civilians. How are they to tie up with the area health authorities? Will they have their own organisation, or will they be completely independent?
Finally, I wish to ask about child guidance services. They are to be divided into three sections—child guidance psychiatry based on the local hospital, social work for children based on the local authority social services department, and educational psychology based on the local education committee. I hope that these three aspects of the work will be tied up together.
6.33 p.m.
Mr. Emlyn Hooson: The hon. Member for Plymouth, Devonport (Dame Joan Vickers) devoted much of her speech to the nursing service, and was right to do so. Like patients, the nurses seem to have been forgotten in the Bill. The greatest criticism I hear of the National Health

1156
Service is of its remoteness from the people and this has been a matter of concern for a number of years. My impression of the Bill is that it tends to create an enormous administrative superstructure and that the result is likely to make the people feel even more remote than they do now.
I represent a sparsely populated county and I know that people there feel deeply that the administration of the NHS has been too remote. For example, we see hospitals in Cardiff built over-elaborately with a great deal of money wasted. Yet the money wasted would provide us with all the services we need. The hon. Member for Cardigan (Mr. Elystan Morgan) and I have been pressing for a long time for additional specialists to be appointed to the General Hospital at Aberystwyth. There is not a child specialist or an ear, nose and throat surgeon there. But we are obstructed by the powers that be in Cardiff. There is a constant feeling that the regional-tier body is already too remote and that in England, where it is to be retained, is liable to become even more remote under the new scheme.
The right hon. Member for Wolver-hampton, South-West (Mr. Powell) posed the dilemma facing any Secretary of State for Health and Social Services as perhaps no one else in the House could have posed it. Then he proceeded effectively to demolish the case for the nationalisation of the community health services. He advanced three reasons— and I agreed with all three—why community health services, which are already much closer to the people and are subject to democratic accountability, should not be nationalised in this way. When he had turned his attention to the National Health Service, he had argued in the other direction. He did not argue that this process would democratise a nationalised service, but argued against the case for municipalising it.
The right hon. Gentleman did not deal, however, with the question of having a provincial democratically elected assembly to which the National Health Service could be responsible. That was dealt with by the right hon. Member for Coventry, East (Mr. Crossman). The right hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West, laid great emphasis on the fact that democratic control depends on

1157
financial responsibility. I have always thought that to be a half-truth. Ultimate control depends on financial responsibility, but that does not mean to say that one cannot get effective although not ultimate control without the degree of financial responsibility which he implied.
It is very important that we should have much greater accountability for the National Health Service than we have today. I thought that the right hon. Member for Cardiff, West (Mr. George Thomas) was right in suggesting that eventually in Wales these functions should be in the hands of an elected Welsh assembly. I am glad to see his conversion to the idea of an elected assembly. For years he was against it. But it is fair to point out, in view of his effective criticisms of nominated bodies and their proliferation in the Principality and elsewhere, that it was the late Aneurin Bevan who introduced the nominated bodies at all levels in the National Health Service. Nye Bevan may have thought it necessary then, although the Liberal Party did not agree. No doubt the right hon. Member for Cardiff, West supported him, but now he has learnt the error of his ways.
Mr. George Thomas: Nye Bevan was fighting the medical profession, which had the full support of the Tory Party, which did not want a National Health Service at all.
Mr. Hooson: There is considerable validity in that point. The medical profession took a stupid view in 1946 and 1947, but the error could be put right now. Where I disagree with the right hon. Member for Cardiff, West is in my belief that it is better for the moment that the Welsh Hospital Board or a board at regional level should disappear and that the ultimate control should be in the hands of the Secretary of State for Wales. If we do have an elected Parliament or Council for Wales, the authority of the Secretary of State could then be transferred to that elected body. That is why I support the present proposal.
I share the criticism made by English Members of the regional bodies for England. I do not think they are necessary. It is important to realise that the National Health Service basically exists

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for the patients, that the patients live in a community and that therefore the community health councils are of the utmost importance. What is a community in this context? I think of it as the community which surrounds a hospital to which the local people are taken when they are ill. It is a community in which the doctors themselves live. It is a community interest which has to be represented at a level very close to the people.
I agree that care is very important. I live a few miles away from a hospital for incurable children, and the voluntary help it gets is very important, to the children, to the parents and to the medical and nursing staff.
I reiterate the plea that the Government should look again at the powers which they intend to give to the community health councils. They should allow them to have much more power of decision. It is not merely a matter of observing and reporting. They need teeth so that they can make their views known in their communities and in their hospitals.
I turn finally to the area health authorities, and in this connection I refer to my own area which I shall share with the hon. Member for Brecon and Radnor (Mr. Roderick); the new administrative county of Powys. We shall be an area health authority under the Government scheme yet we do not have even a district hospital. What control shall we have over the hospital services available to us? We shall not have representation on the bodies which provide us with district hospital services. Therefore our area health authority will be concerned only with the community hospitals and the community health functions at present carried out by local government. I should have thought that in Wales especially there was a first-class case for putting the area health authorities under local government. I am not satisfied and have never been that it is impracticable to do so.
I agree with the view expressed by the Secretary of State that there has been objection from the medical profession to being controlled by local authorities. I can understand that to a degree. But if there was a provincial or, as we would describe it in Wales, a national body having ultimate control, we could easily

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change the system so as to have accountability at county level as well.
6.42 p.m.
Mr. David Crouch: The hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. Hooson) said that there was no district hospital in his new county. May I point out to him that there is provision in the Bill for an overlap of responsibilities from one AHA to another where such a situation arises?
In his eloquent way, the right hon. Member for Cardiff, West (Mr. George Thomas) spoke about the Bill's offering a cold managerial system. He said that he preferred elected men, and that elected men were better every time. I know that a remark like that is always popular in this House. But is the right hon. Gentleman right to say that in terms of the management and implementation of the National Health Service across the country?
My right hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Mr. Powell) touched on this question of where responsibility lies for a national service. I speak as one who is a nominated man. I sit on a regional board. I feel the responsibility of being a nominated man, as do my colleagues on the board. Among them there are trade unionists. There are businessmen who give up time from business management to help manage the business of the hospital service. There are people nominated from the local authorities and others recommended from the county and district authorities. Among the members of the regional board there is a sense of dedication and a feeling of great responsibility.
I do not defend the position of a regional board in terms of the thinking of today. Regional boards are already in the past. They have lost their real place. But if we adopted the Opposition's view and transferred this responsibility to the local authorities, I wonder how we should find elected men in local authorities with the time to discharge their local government responsibilities and to serve the local administration of the National Health Service. A local government representative finds it very hard to give enough time to the vast administrative and budgetary controls about which he has to worry in

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local government. To add the further burden of the full administration of the National Health Service would be too much.
The right hon. Member for Coventry, East (Mr. Crossman) and other Opposition Members have said that officials in the area of local government health service administration will feel saddened to be transferred to a nationalised control from what was their previous control under local government. I can understand that. We have to watch the changed position of all those who have served under local government and enjoyed that responsibility. I have in mind medical officers of health, those engaged in the ambulance service, the midwives and all the other areas of local government health provision. We must not neglect to take account of their views in a changed position.
The overall object of the Bill, which I welcome, is to achieve a better administration and organisation of our health service. According to the original White Paper, the objective is
"… a better and more sensible service to the public".
I hope that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Services will not forget that. It could be forgotten very easily as we went into a Standing Committee and considered the great panopoly of bureaucratic administrative procedures, controls and set-ups with which the Bill is concerned.
The Bill caters for professionals in the medical administration service. A bureaucrat does not sit only in Whitehall or in the town hall. Many of those whom I meet are medical bureaucrats. It has been pointed out by a number of hon. Members who are associated with the medical profession that medical practitioners welcome working under good management. Nevertheless, the Bill seems to lean over backwards to involve the professional man in the National Health Service in the better management of the new administration of the service.
We are assured by my right hon. Friend that some laymen will continue to be involved in this management problem, as they are at present. But I am concerned that the bureaucrat may win and that the patient may lose. This again must be watched as we consider the Bill in Committee.

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The crux of the problem that the Bill presents to the House, to the public, to patients and to the service is where the voice of the patient should be heard. Is it best heard after the event when there is a complaint and when a problem has arisen because a service in a hospital or from a general practitioner or a midwife, or an ambulance service has not been good enough, effective enough or quick enough? Alternatively, should it be heard at the point of planning and decision?
I serve as a layman on a regional board. We are a mixture of professionals, bureaucrats and amateurs. We have a voice at the point of planning and decision. We like to think that that voice sometimes speaks for the patient. There is a strong need for responsible laymen in addition to responsible local government representatives in the area health authorities to help make these decisions in the future about the structure of the new National Health Service administration. I hope that there will also be a place for those responsible laymen and responsible amateurs in the regional health authorities.
My own experience as one of those laymen attempting to be responsible in this job is that I want to ask questions. I am not afraid to ask them. I am determined to get answers. But to be able to ask questions I have to know the job at which I am looking. I have to visit the hospital to ask about the food, the general sanitary conditions, the decoration and a great many other matters which are all part and parcel of any hospital visitor's work. I see my job not as trying to replace the medical bureaucrats running the hospital but rather as equipping myself with a knowledge of what is going on and trying to see it from the patients' point of view so that I can ask questions at the management stage.
I am concerned that we may be departing from the position we have at present where the layman can take part in planning and decision by the institution of the community health council. I am not against the community health council, but I have seen and had experience, as all of us have, of the other consultative councils which already exist to keep a check on the nationalised industries. The Select Committee on Nationalised Industries, of which I am a member, has reported

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pretty adversely on the effectiveness of those consultative councils. It appeared to the Select Committee that there is some window-dressing and little effectiveness. I say to the Secretary of State about the new community health councils that we must be sure that they are given appropriate weight. He said yesterday, and the Under-Secretary indicated in answer to an intervention, that he was prepared to see them grow into something bigger than what is written in the Bill. I support that.
The Minister of State, Welsh Office (Mr. David Gibson-Watt): Certainly concerning Wales this is very much in our minds. It is very much our view.
Mr. Crouch: I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Minister of State for saying that.
I wish to say something about the regional health authority versus the area authority. The Secretary of State properly laid emphasis on the area health authority as the most important sector of the new National Health Service administration. The regional health authorities are to be agencies of the central department of the Secretary of State. I do not say that is wrong. We are talking about national control and I have seen under the present system how a regional hospital board can sometimes step in and assist a hospital group when the group is facing perhaps almost insurmountable problems. I have also seen a regional board step in and redirect priorities in money allocation to correct a bad situation. I have also seen the board step in where it has seen inefficient management, sack the lot and replace them. The regional hospital authorities should be seen in that light, a more generous light, and not as an agency which would be breathing down the necks of area health authorities and spoiling all their initiative.
Where I differ from my right hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South-West is that I am concerned at the continued separation between the National Health Service and the health services provided by the local authorities. The Secretary of State provides the money for the majority of health provision for the general practitioner service, for hospitals and now, in the new plan, he has to take over many of the personal

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health services formerly provided by local authorities. But the provision of homes and hostels is to remain with the local authorities.
If the National Health Service could be empowered to provide such homes I maintain that a big frustration in the effort to provide a complete health service would be removed. I think in particular of our psychiatric hospitals and hospitals built 120 years ago as mental hospitals, which are now quite monstrous. They could be largely emptied of patients if we had these homes and hostels with today's medical knowledge and drug therapy. There is frustration about them because, on the one hand, the National Health Service, through boards and various groups is saying that it wants to do this, and, on the other, local authorities say they cannot afford it and have not the budget for it.
This massive reform of the National Health Service must go further than just providing a better management structure and a better bureaucracy. I am not against that, but I believe it must also provide attractive conditions for employment of all who work in this service, in the medical and nursing professions and all the ancillary professions as well. We must bear in mind that it is job satisfaction in looking after the sick at which we should be aiming, not just job satisfaction in providing better budget control and management planning alone.
6.57 p.m.
Dr. M. S. Miller: It is always a pleasure to speak following the hon. Member for Canterbury (Mr. Crouch). In matters dealing with health services and other social affairs he adopts a very reasonable and humane attitude.
Reorganisation with a view to great efficiency, however desirable—and I make no bones about the desirability of greater efficiency—is no substitute for further development of the National Health Service into a humane and fully comprehensive service. I heard the Undersecretary make play yesterday with the word "management". I took the point he made—that management need not be restricted to a narrow definition. In my student days we used to talk about the management of certain diseases and

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illnesses, for example, tuberculosis, rheumatic fever and cardiac illness. We meant the total care of the patient, his drug therapy nursing attention as well as medical attention, his diet, his physical and mental wellbeing and so on. In this sense the word is certainly appropriate. If it was used in that way, I make no criticism of its use by the Undersecretary.
Tribute has been paid to the architect of the National Health Service—Aneurin Bevan—but Bevan did not envisage a static National Health Service. He looked forward to one which would grow—to which would be added parts all the time —a health service which would dedicate itself to the mental and physical welfare of our people. At the moment we have not a health service but an ill-health service, where too much emphasis is placed on diagnosis and cure. I admit that this is an immense advance on medical provision in most parts of the world, but insufficient attention is paid to the prevention of illness. I am afraid that the Bill does precious little to alter that imbalance.
The second general criticism I make of it is that it is a perpetuation, as I believe, of an elite in the system of control. I have no doubt that what will emerge from this massive reorganisation will be a continuation of domination of the Health Service by the big white chiefs of the medical profession—the demigods of the scalpel and the hypodermic. The proposals for reorganisation are not democratic; there is too much appointing of members of committees and boards and little or no provision for public participation.
It is, unfortunately, sometimes forgotten that the National Health Service was instituted for the benefit of the people and not the medical profession.
In deference to your wish that we should be brief, Mr. Speaker, I hasten to the main point of my remarks and make only a passing reference to one of the main areas of contention in this reorganisation scheme, and that is finance. I echo the views of my right hon. Friend the Member for Coventry, East (Mr. Crossman) in that I also see no reason for ruling out a system of national financing of local authority services in respect of health matters.

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I want now to turn to Clause 4, which yesterday engendered so much heat and controversy. I understand the views of those who genuinely and sincerely feel that the extension of family planning services could lead to increased promiscuity. My views, however, are based on my present work as a family planning consultant in a large centre and on 20 years in general practice. I offer these views in a completely undogmatic way, in the full realisation that we are always in a constantly changing situation in which not every factor is known and in which psychological and physical motivations are not entirely understood.
The Margaret Pyke Centre of the Family Planning Association, in which I do a regular clinic, has become an important and well-known centre for study and training in family planning. It houses a busy family planning clinic with a staff of 50 doctors and 48 nurses. It began in 1969 and by 1971 was so successful that in that year 12,674 patient visits were made to it. In the following year the number had increased to 16,826. In this year, 1973, the patient visits are expected to jump to over 40,000 because patients are being seen at the clinic at the rate of about 1,000 per week.
In 1971, the proportion of married to unmarried patients who attended the clinic was equal. In 1972, 25 per cent. of those who attended were married and 75 per cent. were unmarried. The age breakdown makes interesting reading. Seventeen per cent. were under 20, 45 per cent. were between 20 and 24, 24 per cent. were between 25 and 29, 6 per cent. were between 30 and 34 and 8 per cent. were above 35. We in the clinic are pleased that young people are seeking advice.
My conclusion is that, since 98 per cent. of the unmarried who attend the clinic for the first time are already having sexual intercourse before seeking advice on contraception, the existence of our family planning service can hardly be said to have been an incentive to promiscuity. What might appear to be an increase in promiscuity is in fact a much more open and less inhibited attitude towards sex.
I have no wish to labour this point. All I say is that we have to have a balanced judgment, perhaps on a par with the judgment that was made when free

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contraceptives were available to Servicemen during the war. Did it make them more promiscuous, or was it a form of protection for those who would be promiscuous in any case? In this debate we have to get away from the preaching of people who raise the spectre of promiscuity, calling in aid their own innate prejudices, their own inhibitions and repressions. We cannot allow ourselves to be influenced too much by people who think that sex is, at best, a sordid necessity which must be tolerated in certain circumstances and at worst a vile lust which must be suppressed.
The emphasis must be on a completely free family planning service—free advice, free treatment and free appliances. Money should be no barrier, not even a small barrier—because it is the very people who should be encouraged to take advantage of family planning services who are most likely to be deterred by any form of payment, whether through poverty, irresponsibility or lack of knowledge. That is the position we must face. We may not like it, we may be annoyed by it, we may even sometimes rant and rave about it, but that is the situation and we ignore it at our peril.
As the individual stands to benefit by the extension of family planning services, so does the nation. I make no apology for referring to the report of the Population Panel, which was published last week. It produces a picture which is clear enough to those who take an intelligent interest in our environment without being doom watchers. It is difficult to understand those sceptics who compare it with the predictions of Dr. Malthus, 175 years ago. Are those sceptics suggesting that the scientific techniques available nowadays are no better than the inadequate ones of the eighteenth century? Are they suggesting that the accumulation of knowledge and technology in the last 150 years does not enable us to make reasonably accurate predictions?
We find from Table 6 on page 30 of that report that in the United Kingdom, taking the decades between 1901 and 1972, in the first decade from 1901 to 1911 the live birth rate was 27·2 per thousand and the death rate was 15·4 per thousand. The difference was 11·8. It is this difference that makes the increase in population. By 1971–72 the difference had fallen to 3·5.

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During all this time the birth rate fluctuated from year to year. It is not a constant factor, it varies enormously. Britain's population at the moment is ijncreasing at the rate of about one million every five years. All we are saying is that if the birth rate continues to be higher than the death rate an increase of population will occur. There is no guesswork in this, and we cannot adopt a Micawber-like attitude.
The experience of Aberdeen has been mentioned, and I commend Mr. Alistair Service on his report. Tribute must also be paid to Sir Dugald Baird, whose foresight was responsible for the tremendous improvement in Aberdeen.
Aberdeen has one of the lowest infant mortality rates in the world. In 1970 it was 14·5 per 1,000 live births, compared with Glasgow's 23, 19 for Scotland as a whole, and last year it was down to a little over 12.
No one, surely, will suggest that the women of Aberdeen are unhappy because fewer children are born in that city. One always has to have regard for cause and effect, of course, and not jump to hasty conclusions. But there seems to be no doubt in the mind of the Medical Officer of Health for Aberdeen that the city's enlightened attitude towards family planning is the major factor in that happy situation.
A recent national opinion poll indicated that 64 per cent. of the British electorate favoured a free contraceptive service for all.
We in this House are often accused of being out of step with our electorate. Here is a matter in which we could show that we appreciate the needs of our people.
"A large part of our annual increase in population would disappear if only we adopted a strenuous and effective programme to ensure that no woman has more children than she wants to have, nor has them before she wants."
That is a quotation from a recent book on Dr. Malthus. I contend it is surely a sensible and desirable aim if we are truly concerned about welfare and emancipation.
7.12 p.m.
Dame Irene Ward: I wish first to congratulate my right hon.

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Friend on having introduced the National Health Service Reorganisation Bill.
I have always had a great admiration for the team that runs the health and security services. In an operation of this kind there must naturally be all sorts of issues in the Bill on which one would like to comment. But in the limited time available, I can do no more than say how much I appreciate the efforts the Secretary of State has made to have a health service which contains all the qualities that the majority of the people of this country, and not only those in the House of Commons, wish to see embodied in the Bill.
I wish to speak today because I happen to be a Vice-President of the Royal College of Nursing. I am very proud of that office and always do my best to represent the point of view of the Royal College of Nursing in the House of Commons. Although there is much that I should like to say about the Bill, I will restrict myself to putting forward some of the points made by the Royal College of Nursing in its report. As I shall be able to mention only one or two of the anxieties and requests of the College, I hope that when I send my right hon. Friend the report of the Royal College of Nursing, he will examine the points of view there expressed and let me have an answer before the Committee stage of the Bill. That will enable me to shorten my speech today.
Without going into the matter in detail, I should say that I have also had representations on the Bill from Northumberland County Council. I will send its proposals and comments to my right hon. Friend and hope he will read them very carefully. If he can meet some of its criticisms I shall be very grateful, as I know Northumberland County will be too.
The report of the College of Nursing is very complicated. It is very important from the point of view of the administration of the service and of the nursing service within the health service that attention should be paid to it and that there should be an effort to meet the points of view put forward by the Royal College of Nursing. Therefore, one or two of what I consider to be the main points should be put forward in the debate and so recorded in HANSARD.

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However, it is very difficult in a short space of time to comment on them.
The first matter on which the College of Nursing makes a comment is the structure of the reorganised service. It says,
"The Royal College of Nursing sees this as creating a complex structure resulting in an expanded management chain which will be expensive of resources both in terms of finance and manpower and likely to create frustrations for those at the level of operational management; it is also considered that it could prove counterproductive in terms of the efficiency of the service."
A great deal is said about this in the report. I have picked out that one sentence only because I have noted during the speeches made from both sides of the House that this criticism has already been expressed.
As to the Central Health Service Council, the Royal College comments:
"The present constitution (as embodied in the Bill) provides ex-officio membership for the Presidents of the Medical Royal Colleges and for the Chairman of the Councils of the British Medical Association and the Society of Medical Officers of Health, but makes no comparable provision for either the Presidents or Chairman of the Councils of the Royal Colleges of Nursing and Midwives. Additionally, its membership is weighted to an entirely disproportionate extent in favour of the medical profession, even allowing of their particular contribution to the service."
I am a great supporter of the medical profession and I will not therefore comment on that. At the same time, however, it has been said by a variety of people from both sides of the House that we must be careful that other people who are just as interested in the effective working of this new Bill also have their place.
I notice—and it is right that this should be so—that great tribute is always paid to the nursing profession. With the introduction of a Bill of this kind, when great emphasis is placed on the part played by the nurses in the health service, it seems extraordinary that no provision has been made for either the nursing profession or the midwives to be represented at the highest level on this council.
My right hon. Friend is always very generous and listens attentively to what one has to say, although not necessarily always agreeing with one. Indeed, that is the right of any Secretary of State because he would go mad if he had to agree with everything that everybody said. He must make his judgment. But I wish

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him to know that I make this specific point on behalf of the Royal College of Nursing which, after all, plays a large part in the health service and feels that it is being neglected in the higher grades of the establishment of the councils. This I believe should be rectified. It will give the Royal College of Nursing, the Royal College of Midwives and myself very great satisfaction because, of course, both those Royal colleges have been consulted by the Minister who is in another place and has met some of the suggestions of the Royal College of Nursing but not all of them.
It may be easier for me to argue here that it would be right for representatives of the Royal College of Nursing and of the Royal College of Midwives to have their place among the medical profession which also, of course, is very generous in its appreciation of the nursing services provided in the health service.
I hope that my right hon. Friend will give me satisfaction on this point when he receives this report.
I am sorry that I do not have the time to say many other things. I wish that Clause 4 could be taken out of the Bill and introduced as a separate Bill. We could then have a full debate upon all the implications of the population report. What worried me, listening to the debate yesterday, was that so much was said about Clause 4 and so little was said about the other clauses. I do not always support my right hon. Friends but I will support my right hon. Friend's Bill tonight. It would be better, however, to have a full debate on the whole issue of population since the report has just come out.
The report from the Royal College of Nursing continues under the heading,
"Relationship between officers at the same level of management."
It says,
"The Royal College of Nursing welcomes the emphasis placed on equality between members of the team in respect of status and involvement in the work of the service as a whole, but it is in no doubt that this equality will only be meaningful if it is also reflected in the salaries of the different members of the team at each level in the structure.
Salaries and conditions of service, are, subject to negotiation, or determination, by the bodies set up for that purpose, namely the relevant functional Councils of the Whitley Councils for the Health Service and the Medical

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Review Body. The Royal College of Nursing is already pressing its view on this subject as the organisation holding the largest number of seats on the Staff Side of the Nurses and Midwives Whitley Council and it is fully supported by the other Staff Side organisations.
However, it believes that this issue involves a matter of principle which will need to be accepted at Government level before meaningful negotiations can take place."
That is that the salaries must be reflected as equal when equality of service on councils is brought into operation. I do not see why I need even argue this. All members of the Government have said that they are in favour of the rate for the job and equal pay for equal work. Here is an opportunity.
What worries me about Governments is that they adore making statements which sound acceptable but when it comes to putting them into operation, all sorts of reasons are put forward for not doing so. The Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Secretary of State for Social Services agree with me about the introduction of equal pay for equal work. Here is an opportunity which my right hon. Friend could take without any opposition from the Treasury, and I am sure with the full support of the House. I look forward to my right hon. Friend accepting the point of view of the Royal College and demonstrating to us that the Government do believe in equality. The people who will work on this council will work as a team and there is no reason why women drawn from the nursing or midwifery services should not have the same salary at the top of the profession as the medical profession.
I am glad that my right hon. Friend has invited Sir Alan Marre to be the Commissioner for the Health Service and I am even more pleased that Sir Alan Marre has accepted the post. For many years I have been a member of the Parliamentary Commissioner's Committee. We know and value the effectiveness and competence of Sir Alan Marre. My right hon. Friend is lucky that Sir Alan was able to take on the additional job. I know that it is a very involved organisation which is being set up and that the National Health Ombudsman will have only the "final" problems raised with him. This is very satisfactory.
What I do not know is what happens when a decision has finally been taken—

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when a decision is made whether there has been maladministration. Will my right hon. Friend then do what is normally done with the reports from the Ombudsman? Will a report from the Commissioner be presented to the appropriate committee and shall we then, as in the case when the report is presented to Parliament, have the opportunity of cross-examining the officials concerned who may be or may have been brought into the cases? It is important that we should have this because it makes for good relationships between Parliament and the Departments.
I am a little worried that there is but one tiny reference in the whole of the Bill to the remedial professions. That is something to do with staff hidden away in one little clause. For many years I have been on the Council of the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy and have done quite a lot in my small way to try to help the remedial professions. It rather worries me that there is just this little reference, because the remedial professions have a large part to play in rehabilitation and all sorts of things connected with the health service.
Sir K. Joseph: I would like my hon. Friend to know that this Secretary of State has the remedial professions very close to his heart and that their representatives are lunching with him tomorrow to discuss matters of mutual interest.
Dame Irene Ward: I hope that my right hon. Friend will have a good lunch and will be able to meet the requirements of the remedial professions.
We should all be grateful for the effort that has been made by the Secretary of State and his team in bringing forward this Bill. I hope that when it is put into operation we shall have a better service for looking after patients and making a further contribution to those who require our care.
7.30 p.m.
Mr. Eric Ogden: By 7.30 in the evening the House has usually reached the part of the debate when the 10 minutes limit for speeches applies. I shall do my best to limit myself to that time, even though I had a false start yesterday at about this time, due to a confusion of identity, fortunately for my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham, North (Mr. Whitlock)

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and myself. I hope that, because of the voluntary time limit, the hon. Member for Tynemouth (Dame Irene Ward) will excuse me if I do not follow her speech and take up the details of what she was talking about. It is because she has a special knowledge of her area, and not because she turned on me rather like a tigress when I sought to intervene by making a comment during her speech. The hon. Lady's contribution, as usual, was cogent, forceful and completely un-copyable—inimitable is the word.
Welsh Members have accepted with remarkably good grace the intrusion of English and Scottish Members in the debate, which was to be mainly but not exclusively reserved for the effect of the Bill on the Principality. I make no complaint about that. I made no complaint yesterday when the hon. Member for Pontypool (Mr. Abse) intervened during the English part of the debate. I plead in justification that perhaps Welsh Members will recognise that Merseyside is not too far from North Wales, that hospitals and facilities are used extensively by people from North Wales and that we are interdependent in respect of such services.
My first point comes from the speech of the Secretary of State for Wales. It is unusual for an English Member to be able to raise a point made by the Secretary of State for Wales. The right hon. and learned Gentleman contrasted the three-tier system in England with the two-tier system in Wales. When he referred to the impact that the constitutional commission might have on further reorganisation, the possibility of a council or an assembly for Wales in future, and the effect that that would have on the health service organisations in the Principality, it might have been thought by some hon. Members that what he said he and his Government were proposing would automatically exclude the possibility of a council or assembly for England. I declare my English interests. If we are to have a council or assembly for Wales and one for Scotland and another for Northern Ireland, there may well be pressure, and rightly so, for there to be a council or assembly for England. I am not saying that there has to be, but such a council or assembly should not be automatically excluded. Hon. Members may

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have got the impression that that was the Government's intention.
When the Secretary of State for Social Services opened the debate yesterday afternoon, he said:
"The whole purpose of the health service reorganisation which the Bill proposes is to provide an improved service for patients."
I recognised that over the past few years the Secretary of State and his colleagues have achieved an impressive record of improvements in sectors of the National Health Service and the facilities that it provides. He has taken advantage of a "spending Government" to obtain major improvements in a whole series of sectors, namely, the disabled, the elderly, the mentally handicapped, among others. He has had to be stimulated and pressed by Labour hon. Members, but there have been changes, and that must be recognised.
I doubt if the right hon. Gentleman will claim that the Bill, with all the care that has gone into its preparation, is his greatest achievement or endeavour. There are clear and definite doubts and fears that it will not achieve the aims and objectives that he claimed yesterday. The right hon. Gentleman said:
"There is some well meant criticism of our proposals."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 26th March, 1973; Vol. 853, c. 924 and 932.]
Indeed, he heard more criticism yesterday and he has heard more today. I have no doubt that in the months to come he will hear criticism again and again from hon. Members on both sides of the House and from organisations and individuals outside who have no political affiliation.
The Bill no doubt follows months of consultation and discussion. It would be interesting if we could see the original draft, and see the changes, compromises and alterations that have been made since that date. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will accept that the Bill in its present form can and should be altered so that it is improved and will do more good and less harm.
The House must recognise that Parliament, as a legislator, comes into the progress of a Bill of this kind at a very late stage. Discussions take place between interested parties and the Department, and the Legislature comes into the picture at a much later stage. That might be

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inevitable, but it is unfortunate. It seems that when we sometimes consider ways of involving Parliament in developments of this sort we are guilty of ignoring the ways that are available to us and the reports and discussions that have been made available to us in the past, and often only the recent past.
For practical purposes the Bill is an enabling measure. Throughout the debate hon. Members on both sides have introduced different aspects of it and have brought in their individual and special experiences. The Committee stage is likely to be a lively one, and not necessarily a comfortable one for either the Government Front Bench or the Opposition Front Bench. During the Committee stages of Bills of this kind there have been alliances between hon. Members on both sides. They have been temporary alliances but they have been very effective. There is nothing like an alliance of back benchers to encourage both Front Benches to make progress in a practical and realistic direction.
The Bill has 57 clauses, five schedules and 93 pages. I congratulate the hon. Members who have spoken today for managing to achieve a better balance on the whole of the 57 clauses than was managed yesterday, when Clause 4 took a greater proportion of time than I thought necessary. I cast no doubt on the importance of Clause 4. Its place in the organisation proposed in the Bill is not to be doubted. However, one third of the debate yesterday was spent on that clause. Let me simply say that I support Clause 4.
It is the custom and practice that on social matters of this kind the House is allowed and has almost the right to a free vote. It may well be a way of getting various parts of the House and sections of the Government out of difficulty if in Committee or on Report Clause 4 is allowed a free vote on both sides of the House. Those who conscientiously support it, or oppose it, for moral reasons should be able to do so without fear of the Whips. Other legislation of this kind has been given a free vote over the years. To a large degree the major Bills on social legislation have been Private Bills, which, of course, have a free vote.
Mr. Timothy Raison: Surely the problem here is that money is involved? That is what distinguishes it from the normal so-called Private Members' conscience Bills.
Mr. Ogden: Money always seems to get involved somewhere along the line. It is a matter of degree. It would still be possible for the House to have a free vote on Clause 4. On the wider issues raised by that clause, I quote for the first time in Parliament a comment made by my wife. As far as I can remember she said:
"I will try to listen more patiently to men who insist on lecturing women on the rights and wrongs of contraception, pregnancy or abortion when men themselves can become pregnant."
There are times when men take too officious and righteous a rôle in saying what should happen in such situations. My wife was making the point that if men had some of the duties, obligations and abilities of women we might well look at these matters rather differently.
What of the other 56 clauses and five schedules? There are three about which I am specially concerned. The first is the membership of the district, the area and the regional health authorities. The amount of power seems to be concentrated at the top of the pyramid—namely, the regional health authorities—rather than at the base. That is not a good thing. We must examine closely the relations between the districts, the areas and the regions, and the relations between those three authorities and the Secretary of State. Whether we have democratically-elected authorities or appointed authorities, Members of Parliament could provide a link between the regional, area or district authority and the House. I am not volunteering for that job—I have much less knowledge or experience than other Members from Merseyside—but, for example, the late Mrs. Braddock, who rendered such service to hospitals in Merseyside, would have been a very valuable link between a health authority and Parliament. It is a proposal that the Minister might like to consider.
My second cause of concern is the relations and communications between the local hospital and health services and the local social services. I was informed today, in a letter from the Secretary of State for Social Services, that he is to visit Liverpool on 2nd April—Monday

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next—that in the morning he will meet teachers and students in social work and in the afternoon social workers in Hale-wood. I have no doubt that he will listen carefully to the doubts, fears and anxieties which some of these social workers have expressed to me. Some of those doubts have been expressed in this debate, so it is an opportunity of which I hope he will take full advantage.
My third point relates to patients' interests. However good the community health council or the Health Service Ombudsman are in redressing grievances —and this is important—my experience of hospital service is that difficulties arise when the staff, whether doctors, consultants or nurses are under extra pressure and stress. This happens when they are trying to do an hour's work in 30 minutes. We should provide better facilities and support, so that fewer difficulties are likely.
I make one suggestion to all those employed in the National Health Service generally and hospital services in particular. There are too many divisions both among the professions and within each profession. It is ridiculous that in 1973 there should be so many unions and professional organisations representing so few people. There could well be a more unified representation structure, whether within the nursing service alone or for doctors and consultants. There are too many individual groups arguing about wages and conditions. They have in the main one employer, and the more united the front among those employed, the better the conditions of the service will be.
My hon. Friend the Member for Wol-verhampton, North-East (Mrs. Renée Short) yesterday detailed the misuse of the private sector. There has been misuse, but there is a dilemma here. In South London children's hospitals, for a a simple operation like a tonsillectomy the average stay for a child aged between 6 and 10 is five days, and the waiting list is about nine months. In the North-West the average stay from the day before the operation is again five days and the waiting list is 12 months.
I have personal experience of the dilemma of public or private practice. A little while ago my own son was told that he required a tonsillectomy. My choice

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was to wait nine months or to go to a private consultant and be able to have the operation in a fortnight. I took the view that, for myself, I could decide to deny myself private facilities, be big and brave and wait my turn, but that I had not the right to deny the best possible hospital services to my own family. We arranged the matter, and he had the operation, which was very successful, within two weeks. That is the contrast —between nine months and two weeks—
Mr. Leslie Huckfield: This is disgraceful.
Mr. Ogden: It is all very well for my hon. Friend to say that this is disgraceful—but I did not have the right to deny the best possible hospital treatment to my own child, although I could deny it to myself.
Mr. Huckfield: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Ogden: No, the hon. Gentleman will not give way. This is a personal decision that I had to take and, rightly or wrongly, that is the decision I took. I would sell my house or anyone else's house to get medical attention for my son. But I should not have had to be in that position. This is the practical situation. Incidentally, why should my child be in hospital for one-and-a-half days for this private operation when the length of stay is five days for a National Health patient? Is it because they thought that I could look after my child better? There are some difficulties. This is a dilemma that I had to face. I did not have to tell the House about it. It is one that other hon. Members will have to face.
There are no differences between this side of the House and the other side about the aims in the Bill. My right hon. Friends have moved their amendment because they believe that the Bill is so bad that it cannot be altered. In practical terms I doubt whether that will be so after 10 o'clock. It looks as though the Bill will go forward, much though hon. Members opposite dislike it. So we have to see how much we can alter it to make it do less harm and more good and to prepare for another Bill which will get down to the real need, which is for an improved, expanding and really effective National Health Service.
7.45 p.m.
Mr. Nicholas Edwards: I will not follow the comments of the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Mr. Ogden) except to say that our wives are in agreement and that I agree that the Bill can be improved.
First, I must apologise to the House for the fact that I have not been here for the whole debate, but I am a member of a Standing Committee considering the Social Security Bill and it is one of those occasions when one's priorities are very difficult to decide.
However, I was privileged to hear the notable speech of my right hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Mr. Powell). I should have liked to say more about it, but time does not permit, except for this comment. It seemed to me that he drew a conclusion which was deeply depressing—that we should make no change, that no improvement, apparently, is possible, that we must just grin and bear it. If my understanding of his argument is correct, that is an approach which it is hard to accept.
I turn to the speech of the right hon. Member for Cardiff, West (Mr. George Thomas). I am sorry that he is not here at the moment, but of course I understand the reason. We have debated the reorganisation of the health service twice in the Welsh Grand Committee. Having re-read the report of those debates, I was astonished, as I listened to the right hon. Gentleman today, at his effrontery as he attempted to skate over the magnitude of the policy upheaval that he was trying to defend.
In July, 1971 the right hon. Gentleman proposed, as he had in his 1970 Green Paper, that the area health boards should be directly responsible to the Secretary of State. He made it plain that he would not pre-empt Crowther-Kilbrandon. In the meantime, until the Government had taken decisions on the Commission's recommendations, the Welsh Office would form the top tier. His position was exactly that of the Secretary of State today. My right hon. and learned Friend said that, when the recommendations were available, the Government would reconsider the present arrangements.
But not so the Opposition. They have decided to pre-empt the report and to go

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back on their 1970 Green Paper and 1971 reaffirmation. They now promise that, whatever the Commission reports, they will go ahead with their new scheme and put the control of the health service in Wales at regional level in the hands of an elected council for Wales. It is characteristic of the Labour Party that they should appoint a commission to consider what should be done but should in the meantime decide to act in their own way, regardless.
Mr. Elystan Morgan: I am sure that, in the interests of accuracy, the hon. Member would make this distinction between the Green Paper of 1970 issued by the Labour Party, and the White Paper of August, 1972, issued by his own Government. The Labour Party's Green Paper did not set out any argument of merit against an all-Wales body. Such an argument is deployed in full in the White Paper of 1972. In other words, it seems clear that whoever wrote the White Paper of 1972 had a conviction that an all-Wales body was wrong anyway. There is no statement of such a conviction in the Green Paper of the preceding Government.
Mr. Edwards: The fact is that the Secretary of State for Wales made it clear this afternoon that the Government would consider the commission's recommendations when available and would judge the organisation of the National Health Service in that context. But the Labour Party, come what may, has decided to go ahead with its scheme. It will be interesting to see what happens if the commission decides something quite different.
In past contributions on this subject I have stressed three points. First, I have stressed the need for as much devolution as possible from the centre; secondly, the need to leave the main job of management within the area authorities to professionals of high calibre responsible to authorities composed of people of diverse talents; and thirdly the need to improve the effectiveness of the community councils. I believe that there will be devolution because I expect the area boards to exercise key functions and to play a vital réle in those parts of our health service where the impact on the general public is greatest. This will be particularly so in Wales where they will

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carry the executive function below Secretary of State level without the intervention of a further tier and where they will be subject to a degree of local scrutiny, while the Secretary of State will be responsible to Parliament, I fear that in England the regional board may be just that much more remote either from control by or contact with the people.
I turn to the way in which authorities will operate. It is important that the committees should primarily be policy-making and not administrative bodies. A committee cannot effectively carry out a detailed management function over such a range of services. I agree with the right hon. Member for Coventry, East (Mr. Crossman) that it should be done by officers. The paper on management arrangements makes it clear that this is the Government's intention. I am encouraged by the Welsh Office circular of March 1973, which makes it clear that officers will have executive authority and that the area boards will have wide powers, subject only to overall monitoring and budgeting systems.
The area boards will have important policy-making functions and the duty to prod, probe and examine the work of their officers. If this is what the area board will have to do, then four is not an adequate number to be appointed by the local authorities. I was relieved to hear the Secretary of State for Social Services say yesterday that there is no magic in the number 15 for the boards as a whole. In Wales we have some very large local authority areas. For example, Dyfed covers more than 25 per cent. of the land mass of the Principality. It contained three old counties and four proposed health service districts. What we need from policy-making bodies is vigorous questioning and intelligent suggestions from people who know their locality and its problems. I do not believe that four local government appointees, with all their other responsibilities, can do the job properly, particularly in large rural areas. I pressed my right hon. and learned Friend on this point on a previous occasion and I do not apologise for doing so again.
I turn to the community councils. In the Grand Committee I asked that better means should be provided to make sure that the councils knew what was taking place. I demanded that they have their

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own fully-informed and independent officers for the expert presentation of their case to management. It was clearly unacceptable that they should only have staff and financial resources made available to them from the area authority. My wishes in this respect have been largely met by amendments now made to the Bill.
One point requires clarification. My noble Friend Lord Aberdare in another place spoke on Report about staffing. He said that staff would be seconded by regional health authorities. Presumably, in Wales they would be seconded from the Welsh Office, though I am not clear on that point. Perhaps my hon. Friend will say what he has in mind when he replies. If they are to be seconded from the Welsh Office, then I have some doubts about it and a little sympathy with the remark made by the right hon. Member for Cardiff, West when he suggested that they would not be sufficiently independent. We must consider whether an alternative source should be available to them. Perhaps they could have power to recruit staff independently.
It is unusual to come to a Second Reading debate having already discussed the Bill with Ministers in Committee, but this is the position in which Welsh Members find themselves. On the last occasion I made two criticisms. One of them has been met in that the community council is now a much more convincing instrument. I hope the Government will again consider my other point and enlarge or give permission for the enlargement of, local authority representation. If they do that, I shall be satisfied. This is in large part a good and much-needed Bill. It is a Bill which had its origins in the proposals of the Labour Government and deserves our support. It will have mine.
7.57 p.m.
Mr. Frederick Mulley: I hope that the hon. Member for Pembroke (Mr. Nicholas Edwards) will forgive me if I do not take up his arguments involving the Welsh organisation of the National Health Service. I want to be brief and shall confine my remarks to only one point. I make no apology for so doing because this matter deeply affects my constituents and the city of Sheffield.

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As a result of the reorganisation proposed by the Bill it has been decided in principle by the Secretary of State that from 1978 the headquarters of the Sheffield region should be transferred to Nottingham. I wish to thank the Undersecretary of State for having received my colleagues and myself when we discussed these matters, and indeed I am grateful to the Secretary of State for his replies to a question which I asked only yesterday to the effect that he will further consider all aspects of the situation and will receive a deputation from the area. I shall then be able to argue the matter at greater length than I propose to do tonight.
Had it not been for the fact that the cause of Nottingham had been espoused by the Secretary of State, I would have said that there was no argument but that the headquarters should remain in Sheffield. When a change is proposed, the onus of proof surely lies heavily on those who want to make a change.
The burden of the Nottingham case, as deployed yesterday by my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham, North (Mr. Whitlock), is simply that from studying the various statistics it is argued that provision for patients in the East Midlands part of the region is less adequate than in the Sheffield area. This stems much more from the fact that Sheffield has a medical school in the university and a teaching hospital, and I welcome the fact that these facilities are being provided in Nottingham and Leicester. It is a scandalous suggestion that the members of the Sheffield Hospital Regional Board—who by no means come exclusively from Sheffield, and indeed the board for some years had a Nottinghamshire man as its chairman—have been coloured in their outlook by the mere chance that their meetings take place in one city rather than in another, or to suggest that by transferring the headquarters they will make greater provision for patients in one part of the region than in the other.
Members of Parliament from all parts of the region need to press for more generous resources for the region as a whole. We would be better able to do that if the Secretary of State did not go ahead with an expensive building pro-

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gramme to move the headquarters from Sheffield to Nottingham. I understand that the cost is estimated to be over £2 million. In my view, that would be much better spent on increasing the facilities in this area.
It is further proposed that if the headquarters were moved the great majority of the staff would remain in Sheffield. This seems a prescription for inefficiency which again can only rebound on the poor patients who will suffer in consequence. I concede that if we were setting up a new region which was rather untidily divided between the South Yorkshire-Derbyshire end and the East Midlands end there might be an argument for the headquarters being located in Nottingham. However, I believe that on balance we would have a stronger argument for the headquarters being in Sheffield. Apart from the fact that Nottingham is now to have a medical school—I understand that Nottingham University has been most active in propagating this suggestion— there is an argument that it would be more central and therefore more convenient. However, this falls down on an analysis of the distance from the regional authority's headquarters to those of the area authorities because Sheffield would be marginally nearer than Nottingham.
People in the East Midlands are by no means unanimous that they want the headquarters to be at Nottingham. The chairman of one of the Leicester Hospital Management Committees was recently most outspoken. He said that he wanted the headquarters to stay in Sheffield. There is a great deal of evidence that opinion in the East Midlands is divided, whereas there is absolutely solid support in South Yorskhire and Derbyshire that the headquarters should remain in Sheffield. I am authorised by my Yorkshire colleagues to say that they will give full parliamentary support to any steps that we in Sheffield may feel it necessary to take.
In addition to the problem in hospital management terms, there is an enormous problem for the staff, not least because they will not know until 1978 what is likely to happen. I understand the staff problem and I am grateful that the Secretary of State is studying the representations that have been made. However, the real concern and anger in Sheffield

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goes much wider than the mere issue of the headquarters. It is not a matter of civic pride. We understand, as the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Mr. Powell) pointed out, that the regional hospital authorities will not be so important in the new set-up.
We in Sheffield are concerned about future employment in the city, particularly in the clerical and administrative spheres, as a result of the rundown of employment in our traditional industries —steel, heavy engineering and coal. Two years ago we were granted intermediate area status. Everyone thought that that would help to bring employment to the city. But, rather than bring employment, it has tended to result in our losing it. First, British Railways, with the approval of the Minister of Transport Industries, transferred its headquarters work from Sheffield to a new headquarters in York. Now the Secretary of State for Social Services proposes to take a sizeable block of clerical and administrative employment from Sheffield and to transfer it to Nottingham.
I have never, in the 23 years that I have been a Member of this House, sensed such universal indignation—I have certainly never had so many representations from an enormously wide sphere of organisations and individuals—about the decision that was announced shortly after Christmas to move the headquarters from Sheffield to Nottingham.
I hope that the Under-Secretary understands and will convey to his right hon. Friend the depth of feeling that is shared throughout the population of Sheffield, which goes much wider than the argument of civic pride, for the retention of the headquarters in our city. There are many economic and social factors, as well as strong administrative logic, for the headquarters remaining in Sheffield. The region needs substantial investment in medical facilities. I hope that the further consideration that is being given to the matter in the Department will lead to a correct and early decision that the headquarters shall remain in Sheffield Such a decision will give great satisfaction to the citizens of Sheffield and be of great assurance to the staff.
Several Hon. Members rose—
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Robert Grant-Ferris): Perhaps I can help the House by saying that I can call about three hon. Members from each side if they speak for only ten minutes each. If they speak for rather less time than that, I think that I can call every hon. Member who wants to be called. Of course, I am on the hands of the House. Hon. Members must speak for as long as they wish. Mrs. Kellett-Bowman.
8.6 p.m.
Mrs. Elaine Kellett-Bowman: Before my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Services opened the debate yesterday I was extremely worried about four particular aspects of what I consider in general to be a very good Bill.
First, I was worried about the impact of the Bill on the newly shaped Lancashire county, with its unusual inheritance —as a matter of fact, I was looking at the map when Mr. Deputy Speaker was kind enough to call me—of a very large area of five ex-county boroughs plus my own substantial hospital centre of no fewer than 3,250 beds. However, as my right hon. Friend said, at col. 930 of the report of yesterday's debates he gave my colleagues and myself from the North-West a very good crack of the whip— ample opportunity of discussing this matter with him—about a fortnight ago. We put our points of view and he promised to consider them very carefully and give us a reply in the not-too-distant future. I know my right hon. Friend to be a sympathetic and wise man. I hope that the decision will represent some concession to the strong feelings we have about the matter.
Secondly, I am concerned, with many others, about the future of social work in hospitals. Having been a social worker I feel particularly strongly about this matter. However, there is no point in raising this question at the moment, as my right hon. Friend has promised a statement this week and I prefer to wait for that.
The third matter which concerns me deeply is not so much the building of new hospitals as the emptying of existing hospitals. This has been a pet theme of mine for many years. Some years ago, when I worked in welfare, we had

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what I can only call a barter system with elderly people. If an elderly person desperately needed to go into hospital we could often get that person into hospital only if we agreed to take a geriatric patient out. If we had many more hostels and homes to which they could go, with a sheltered environment, we could take about half the people out of our mental hospitals today, with drug control, and so on. I know that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State hopes that what he calls the "whole needs" of the elderly and the mentally handicapped will be catered for by the health care planning teams. But local authorities will still have to find the money. I am a little worried about the division of responsibility.
The fourth matter which worried me arises on Clause 4. I make no apology for mentioning this matter because I regard it as of considerable importance. It would be wrong in principle, as well as being thoroughly ill-advised, to levy prescription charges on vital life-saving drugs and to supply contraceptives entirely free of charge. I am glad, therefore, that my right hon. Friend, in his wisdom, has stated that contraceptives will be subject to charges like any other prescribed medical product—subject to remission for those who cannot afford the charge. To go any further than this would be both wrong and potentially dangerous.
I am sorry that the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Mr. Ogden) has left the Chamber. He said that his wife complained that men often discussed this in terms of the impact upon them. Yesterday the hon. Member for Pontypool (Mr. Abse) said that
"a man is more likely to have a sterile wife or a stillborn or premature or defective child if he marries a girl, particularly a young girl, whose first pregnancy has been terminated by an induced abortion."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 26th March 1973; Vol. 853, c. 1028–9.]
My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Huntingdonshire (Sir D. Renton), for whose calm wisdom I have the greatest possible admiration, said yesterday that we in our generation will fail future generations by not offering free family planning and drawing attention to its advantages.

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Neither of those hon. Members, nor any others apart from my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Mrs. Knight), have spoken of the dangers of the pill. I believe that we should be failing in our duty to the next generation and succeeding generations if we do not do so.
The short term dangers of the pill— thrombosis—are well known. It would be fair to admit that they are overbalanced by the dangers of pregnancy. But the dangers of increasing venereal disease and the resistant strains of it which are coming out were dealt with very fully by my hon. Friend the Member for Edgbaston. No one, however, has mentioned the possible long-term genetic effects of upsetting a woman's hormone balance by the use of the pill. We cannot know what will be the effect on women of taking the pill not for five or 10 years but for a lifetime. Members of the Opposition laughed yesterday at the idea that pills would be freely available to all those over the age of 65. Perhaps in a generation this idea may not be so funny, as the effect of using the pill over a lifetime may well be to cause a woman to remain fertile for very much longer. On the other hand, what will be the effect on a child born to a mother who has been on the pill for 15, 20 or 25 years?
My belief has always been, and remains, that we should encourage our children to be less and not more permissive. My hon. Friend the Member for Dorking (Sir G. Sinclair) spoke yesterday of the great change that has taken place in public opinion.
I believe that the change is one in the opposite direction to that which my hon. Friend implied. People are beginning to realise that the pill is no substitute for chastity outside marriage and loyalty within it. It may be trite, but I think that the best form of oral contraceptive is, as it has always been, the perfectly simple word "No".
I beg my right hon. Friend not to heed the blandishments of some of our hon. Friends, and to stick firmly to his proposals in this very important respect.
8.14 p.m.
Mr. Neil McBride: I hope that the hon. Member for Lancaster (Mrs. Kellett-Bowman) will forgive me for not following her arguments.

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The primary objective of the National Health Service is and must always be the making available to the patient of the best medical care, drugs and appliances in order to cure him of the ailment or the effects of the accident from which he suffers. Medical need should be the only yardstick, and not ability to pay. This service should be entirely free.
I am rather taken aback when I consider that while this is the primary objective, on which social and elected lay opinions must bear heavily, the Bill seeks to remove the aspect of public accountability provided by the lay representative.
For many years it has been important that democratic participation in the National Health Service should always include a high proportion of elected representatives—despite the fact that sometimes in the nomination to the executive councils trade unionists and others were passed over for someone else. The dedicated lay opinion and expertise built up over many years by people who have given their lives to this service is being relegated to the limbo of things forgotten in favour of the maxim that professionalism should run riot. I recall the words used in describing these non-elected agencies by the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Mr. Powell).
The Secretary of State for Wales is exclusively responsible for health matters in Wales. It follows that the proposals must be closely analysed in order to ascertain, in relation to the most personal and intimate service, which is the envy of the world, the end result of the Bill. The end result should be the betterment of the health service for the patient, with no decrease whatever in local authority influence and representation on all the bodies proposed. This will not be greatly furthered by the Bill.
Too much emphasis has been placed on the managerial structure, to the exclusion of the elected democratic influence. The representation of lay councillors, on their road to the top of the National Health Service, stops at the area health authority. That is a retrograde step. It is especially so when one recalls the valuable, devoted service given in Wales by people who are real experts in these matters.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, West (Mr. George Thomas), to

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whose excellent speech we all listened with close attention, would agree that in the Principality, in the nature of things, there is a closer relationship between elected councillors, Members of Parliament and the electorate than exists in England. I have found that to be so after many years of residence in Wales. People are in the habit of discussing matters with their councillors more often and more intimately than they are in even my native area.
I approve of the strictures mentioned by my right hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, West. There should be solely Welsh provisions in this matter. The voice of the Welsh people will not be heard. Welsh interests have been treated in a cavalier fashion. The stupidity of this arrangement by the Tory Government is seen in the City of Swansea. Unfortunately, my hon. Friend the Member for Swansea, West (Mr. Alan Williams) has been detained in Committee tonight. He would have wished to catch the eye of Mr. Speaker. We represent areas which form part of the new county of West Glamorgan. Within a radius of 12 miles of the city live 350,000 people. We find that the lay representation is insufficient.
This is considering the fact that in Swansea we have two large base hospitals, Morriston and Singleton, and I think that the city council should be much more heavily represented on the area health authority and that in the nature of things, if one considers right and morality, the representatives should be elected councillors.
The specification of functions is some-think that is clearly lacking in this Bill —and the policy is to involve the selection of people for their personal qualities, whatever they might be. This is clearly stated in the Welsh handbook which deals with management. The right hon. and learned Gentleman know that to be true. I submit that if this personal quality provision is favoured to the exclusion of experience and ability he will be creating a legion of rubber-stamping nominees. No one will deny that the community health services will be toothless wonders in the figurative sense. In the actual sense they will have no power of decision whatsoever. The right hon. and learned Gentleman knows this as well as anyone. He is failing in his duty in not giving powers of decision to these

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community health services. The only weapon in their armoury is the submission of an annual report. How stupid can a Government get?
Mr. Leslie Huckfield: My hon. Friend would be surprised.
Mr. McBride: My hon. Friend the Member for Nuneaton (Mr. Leslie Huckfield) says I would be surprised, but I can assure him that in Wales we have no cause for surprise. The measures in the Bill clearly define the fact that, with the exclusion of local authority accountability, we are seeing the creation of a vast army of bureaucrats. Indeed, from area level down there is a pyramidal structure which, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Coventry, East (Mr. Crossman) said, can only remove the people further from the Health Service, even with the proposals for a commissioner, when they wish to make a complaint.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, West referred to complaints. A very clear embargo is contained in the clause dealing with the commissioner, because the complaint has to be put in writing. We all know, since we are all more or less welfare officers, on a gigantic scale, that many good, decent people will be deterred if they cannot put their complaint through a Member of Parliament. This is a conclusion that has been reached by a corporate Government. The voice of the people is being eliminated steadily.
I proceed to the consultation document issued by the right hon. Gentleman on 7th December in which the Todd Report is dealt with in relation to the establishment of a medical school in Swansea, in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Swansea, West. In the Todd Report it was said that the land was available—and it is. In the right hon. and learned Gentleman's consultative document he says that the land is not available—and he is wrong. Consequently I think that the Todd Report of 1968, recommending that this medical school should be established in Swansea, was clearly based on the best principles of logic.
The Secretary of State knows that there is a shortage of native trained doctors

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in the Principality and that the pressure on Cardiff is heavy. Indeed, the pressure on all medical schools is heavy. He will have seen the plan at Singleton, which shows clearly that there could be a splendid result from the faculties there if the medical school were established. I ask the Minister who is to reply tonight to say definitely—because the Government owe it to the Principality—"Yes" or "No" to the question, will this be established?
The management of the National Health Service involves careful handling of large amounts of money, but this service differs in many critical aspects from the purely accountancy principles of ordinary business, since care of the patients and the principles of humanity and compassion cannot be quantified in terms of intrinsic assessment, but are factors of paramount influence and importance. The Welsh are, above all, a compassionate people.
Equally, the Bill limits the participation of the elected citizens of the community, and that is totally wrong. To hack about, for political, dogmatic reasons, the National Health Service in Wales is an insult to the brilliant Welshman who was the architect of this service which all nations envy. This measure they have formulated is no credit to the national Government and to Wales, and they will be judged on it.
The introduction of the soulless business efficiency concept by the managerial consultants is no substitute for compassion and experience and is alien to the wishes of the people I represent. The Secretary of State should consider afresh and most carefully. I say quite honestly that I do not think he is a bad man personally, although politically I would oppose him any time, but this is a measure which should rise above political dogma, and clearly dogma rules the day here. Therefore, the many objections that have been made should be considered carefully, and governing every other consideration should be the warm human feeling which is so prevalent in Wales and with which I am very proud to be associated—consideration of everything that is for the betterment of humanity.
8.26 p.m.
Mr. Timothy Raison: I do not propose to speak about private practice, but perhaps I should declare an

1193
interest as a director of Private Patients' Plan.
I shall not follow the speech of the hon. Gentleman in detail, but I should like to make an elementary point which applies to the whole of the Opposition's case, namely, that the object of better management is to serve the patient. The very first paragraph of the dreaded grey document sets this out well. It says:
"The objective in reorganising the National Health Service (NHS) is to enable health care to be improved. … Management plays only a subsidiary part, but the way in which the service is organised and the processes used in directing resources can help or hinder the people who play the primary part."
That is a very good summary of an important point.
I support the Bill, and the principle of unification. Frankly, I regret that we have not been able to combine the Health Service with local government. I am one of those who believe that of all of the many documents—White Papers, Green Papers, grey papers, and so on— that have appeared over the years, in many ways the best was the 1944 White Paper put forward by the Coalition Government, which talked about com-binding the two services in local government. However, I have to recognise that this is prejudice on the part of the medical profession, and to a much lesser degree financial considerations mean that this reform will have to wait for the next time round, in 30 years' time, shall we say.
Having said that, I want to go on to speak about the organisation pattern which has been designed, and to make the point, first, that one of the difficulties from which we are suffering is that the Government have decided to talk about regional health authorities and area health authorities.
The truth is that neither is an authority. There is only one authority under the proposed structure of the National Health Service, and that is the Secretary of State. It is because this misleading word has been adopted that a certain amount of the confusion has been caused in the debate.
Many hon. Members, notably on the Labour side, have said that they would like to see these authorities elected. The nature of an elected authority is, pre-

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sumably, such that the power will lie with it, but the fact is, and always has been, that the power lies with the Secretary of State. There might be a case for greater elected representation in these subsidiary bodies—which I prefer to call boards or committees—but they would not be there as people exercising real power; at the most, it would be delegated power.
I am still not persuaded that a regional tier is necessary. I do not regard this as a five-tier system, because the community health councils are not part of the management set-up But it is a four-tier system, and I am not sure that it needs to be. If one considers the powers or duties of the regional authority one finds it not too difficult to imagine that those duties or powers might be pushed down the line or up the line to some extent. It does not seem impossible for the Department of Health and Social Security to allocate resources between the regions. There are regional imbalances. This is something which could be done centrally, on an Elephant and Castle to area authority basis, perfectly well. There is no need to go through the regional set-up in between.
There is also the question of services which are thought to be too wide in their span to be decided by the area authorities—for example neurology, neuro-surgery, radiotherapy, and so on. If there is to be some sort of decision as to how these services are to be combined over the part of the country covered by special areas this could be done better and more simply by the Department itself. All the proposals for the regions in these matters would be chewed over at great length by the Department and it would be much simpler and much easier for people to get at the sources if decisions of more than area significance are taken at the top, where we, as parliamentarians, could get at them more easily. So I hope that at this late stage my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State will reconsider the need for the regions. For one thing it will prevent him from having to exercise his terrible judgment of Solomon between Nottingham and Sheffield, and I am sure that would appeal to him.
It has been represented to me by dentists in my constituency that there is a

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lack of dental representation in the proposed structure. They say that the draft legislation makes no provision either for dental membership of the new authorities or for consultation specifically with the dental profession for the appointment of members. Although there is no specific representation I would have thought that the terms in which the schedule is drafted suggests that the dentists would probably be listened to. I hope that my right hon. Friend will give an assurance about the suggestion that in the reorganisation circular dentistry will not be represented on the management team at regional or even area level. It seems clear that dentists are worried and I hope that it will be possible to meet their complaints or show that there is no ground for them.
I wish to deal with the vexed question of where the health social workers should go. It is a matter of peculiar difficulty. I have read quite a bit of discussion in the social work Press and, like other hon. Members, have received many letters on the matter. In principle I am still a Seebohm man—one who believes that the right place for social work is within the local authority social work services. Of course, if the principles of the 1944 White Paper were adopted the problem would largely disappear because they would all go under local government, but that is not being done.
So deep is the concern by the medical social workers and the psychiatric social workers in the hospital service that it might be worth looking at some kind of interim steps. It has been suggested for example by Phyllis Willmott, in Social Work Today—
"One solution … might be to drop Clause 18 … leaving in Clause 12 as the local authorities' back door—and then just wait a few years and see what happens."
I am not sure that that is not the kind of thing it would be reasonable to consider. We have always been prepared to listen to doctors' protests about who is to run them and it would not be unreasonable to show something of the same kind of sympathy to medical social workers against the background of the long-term objective of the unification of the social work profession.
Lastly, I want to say a word about the vexatious issue of Clause 4. I believe

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this is a softer issue than some participants on either side would have us believe; and the Population Panel, to its credit, saw this. I do not believe the case for an absolutely free service has been made out. I do not believe that the proposed charges would be a deterrent or that there is any real need to subsidise the pleasures of the innumerable people who at present pay. But there is one really serious issue—the issue of the doctors' rôle. The classic view is that doctors exist to provide medical treatment, but in recent years we have begun to put on them another function altogether, that of providing social treatment.
We have to make up our minds whether we think doctors are the right people to provide social treatment and equally, and whether it is fair to them that they should have to do so. To be more specific, we have to make up our minds what we really mean both in Clause 4 as it stands and in relation to what my right hon. Friend the Minister said in talking of this. He said that the doctor will be authorised to prescribe medically suitably contraceptives. Later, he said the doctor will be entitled to prescribe them. Do we really mean that the doctor is to have a choice whether to provide a contraceptive, or do we not? Is he to have the choice, or is everybody to have the right to go to a doctor and say, "Give me a contraceptive"?
If the doctor is to have a choice, is it to be on purely medical grounds, or on social grounds as well? I do not think the choice can be on purely medical grounds. We all recognise that this is to a great extent a social and non-medical matter, but it seems to me that we cannot allow Clause 4 to go through, or to have anything substituted for it, unless we make absolutely clear whether or not a patient has a right to receive, as well as whether the doctor should have the task of considering the matter. Frankly, I am not quite sure what the answer is, but to allow this legislation to go through without making up our minds on this issue would be a very grave error.
8.37 p.m.
Mr. Harry Lamborn: Much discussion has taken place during this debate on what should be the democratic participation within the service.

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The hon. Member for Canterbury (Mr. Crouch) drew upon his experience as a member—as he said, a lay appointed member—of a regional hospital board to advocate that the selected appointed system was, because of the nature of the service, best. In my experience as a lay appointed member of a regional hospital board, a lay appointed member of an executive council and an elected member serving in the capacity of Chairman of the Health Committee of the London County Council when it was the largest health authority in the country, I have no doubt at all that if we are talking about the opportunities that are left for initiative, for contact with the community and for public accountability, the system of local authority control by democratically-elected representatives assisted, as they were, by the professional people co-opted on to the committee was by far the best.
The London Ambulance Service which was established by the LCC and was carried through to become an even greater ambulance service under the Greater London Council is, I believe, the finest service of its kind in the world. I hope that the decision taken in another place will be upheld and that the service will remain with the democratically-elected GLC. Anyone who has had experience within the health service over the past years must certainly have been aware of the need for a unified service. In my view, this Bill does not create the unification that is necessary. In my experience, the difficulties in the past have always been at the point where the existing services were closest together. Certainly this was true of geriatric cases. The shortage of beds in hospitals for geriatric patients has always presented a problem, and I expect that many hon. Members have experienced difficulty in trying to make representations on behalf of the old person who, in the view of the hospital, cannot benefit from hospital treatment and therefore should not be occupying a hospital bed, but who, in the view of the local authority needs more care and attention than can be reasonably given in an old person's home and who cannot be accommodated there.
I see nothing in the Bill which will prevent that vacuum in the services, and I think the same position applies in the area of mental health, and the relation-
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ship between beds in mental hospitals and beds in local authority mental health hostels. Here again the same void will occur. It is more logical to bring the whole of the services under one umbrella. That is why it is most important that we make a stand for democratic control of the health service because we shall be told in a short time that it is impossible to separate the social services from the hospital services under the control of local authorities. In my view this is very much the territory of the personal health and welfare services which are part of the local community services.
There will be further inroads as a result of these services joining the health services in the large bureaucratic body which we propose setting up. I make a strong plea for health and social services administered by the local authorities, by elected representation.
I refer now to what has always been the third rung of the tripartite set-up in the health services, namely the executive councils. I cannot see any difference between the general practitioners' committee proposed in the Bill and the executive council. In my experience the executive council, with 50 per cent. of its members from the professions having a strong vested interest in their professions, has always been one of the greatest obstacles to progress in health administration. It has been the greatest obstacle in the movement towards the comprehensive health centre, and I imagine that any layman who has served on an executive council for any length of time will have suffered the same frustrations as I have experienced.
I make a plea for democratically controlled health and social services for the benefit of the community
8.44 p.m.
Mr. Robert Boscawen: I, too, have served for a considerable time on an executive council, and I share the view of the hon. Member for Southwark (Mr. Lamborne) about executive councils as they have been organised over the past 25 years. I agree with him that they are obstacles to progress, not entirely because of their membership make-up but because of the compartmentalised nature of the service as it is structured today.

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I shall confine my remarks strictly to the organisation of the service. The essential part of the Bill is the creation of a pivotal managerial structure at area level. The Achilles heel of the service has been largely the lack of co-ordination between the various hospital boards, management committees and executive councils.
The various professions have been responsible for the difficulties involved in achieving a broader concept of a comprehensive service. But the local authorities have, too. They have kept their own private little armies close to their bosoms and sought not to try to co-ordinate enough with other authorities. The same is true of the institutions set up under the service—the hospital management committees, the executive councils, and so on. They, too, want to fight their own private little battles with the minimum of interference from the other bodies. Anyone who has seen the difficulties which each of those bodies has had in trying to get representation on the other bodies—for example, an executive council trying to get representation on the regional hospital board—will know what I mean when I say that each body has sought to preserve its own little holy circle and to keep out anyone else who might be thought to threaten to take over its little empire.
For that reason alone, I am wholly in favour of producing a new managerial structure, and I disagree strongly with the Opposition's argument that this should be a democratically managed structure. The day-to-day management of such a highly technical multi-professional organisation as the National Health Service is not best done by a mini-parliament. It must have accountability to the public and to those closely allied to the health service, and that is not best done by the body which has the day-to-day management of the service. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Services has grasped the right nettle by setting up two bodies to run side by side—the area health authority and the community health council.
I want to see the community health councils become strong bodies. I hope that it will be possible for their chairmen to have access to the important meetings of their area health authorities. Obviously
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they cannot attend as executive members, but they should be able to attend as observers. They need to be fully aware of what is going on and to be able to do their monitoring and make their comments through their own channel of communication to the Minister about what is going on in the area health authorities.
I come then to the Health Service Commissioner, and in this connection I wish to comment on the speech last night by the hon. Member for Halifax (Dr. Summerskill). I must apologise for not being able to hear most of yesterday's debate. I was engaged in the Standing Committee considering the Social Security Bill. However, the hon. Lady said that she wondered whether the ombudsman or the Health Service Commissioner could look into complaints against general practitioners. I was surprised to hear her say that. The one good result to flow from the executive council system was the disciplinary or service committees which were able to hear complaints in a manner which did not frighten off complainants as a result of formality or expense.
The idea of not having hearings before a group of people consisting of laymen as well as professionals, in which the professional can always lighten the perplexities of the complainant as well as those of the layman, is a mistake. A Health Service Commissioner hearing a written complaint and being completely remote will not necessarily get as good an answer as did the disciplinary committees with the executive councils in the past. I have been on many of those disciplinary committees and generally I found that they came to pretty fair judgments in the cases laid before them.
My right hon. Friend has sought in this very difficult field to make the improvement in the health service which we all desire to see. He has learned many of the lessons over the past 25 years. Of course, we cannot build a perfect service in 25, or even 50, years. It will take a very long time to evolve. It will take more than a single Bill to get the right answer and a permanent structure. But this is a milestone in the development of the service which is the envy of the world. Although it has a long way to go before it becomes the service we want, this Bill is a milestone on the way. It makes

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important changes and it has to be made to work.
Half the battle is the way in which the area health authorities and the consultative councils work the system. Given the will to make it work and to liaise with each other to eradicate the Achilles heel of the service—lack of communication between the two major sides—this is a very good step forward in making a successful service for all.
8.53 p.m.
Mr. Goronwy Roberts: I rise to make one specific point which I have been asked to make. I should have liked to follow the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Mr. Powell) in what we must all have regarded as a speech of exceptional cogency, a speech which will repay study, not least by the right hon. Gentleman himself. I hope that having done so he might revise his views on the future of local government finance, but that is for a future occasion.
The specific point I want to put was referred to by the hon. Member for Wells (Mr. Boscawen) and many who have taken part in the debate. It is the immense importance of the community health councils. As I see it, we may have the most elaborate and indeed effective administrative structure at the regional and area level, but unless there is an effective grass roots voice—that is, community health councils which are not only consulted but listened to—the whole structure may well end in frustration and a health service which is constantly having to be changed and tinkered with to meet the deficiences which arise.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Coventry, East (Mr. Crossman) put his finger on the point when he said that there must be a sense of responsibility from the bottom up. Those of us who have experience of the health service meet a sense of frustration among the very people whom the health service is deemed to serve. Ministers and hon. Members have said that the health service is for the potential patients. It is they at district level, the people themselves, through community health councils, who can induce into the area, and it may be the regional structure, the knowledge of what those needs are and practical suggestions of how those needs
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can be met by the authorities which are designed to meet them.
I hope that when the Bill is in Committee, Ministers and members of the Committee will give careful thought to making the community health councils provided by the Bill truly effective bodies. To be that, they must be elected. The hon. Member for Wells decried the democratic process as a whole for this purpose, but, surely, even if the area and regional authorities are not so elected, there is no reason why the community health councils cannot be elected, properly serviced and deemed from the start not only to be consultative bodies but bodies which have the power of effective recommendation.
The Minister of State will recall that I raised with him a question of the outpatients in Portmadoc which bears this out. The outpatients' clinic was closed by the hospital management committee without consultation with the local people. The Minister of State has endeavoured to put the matter right and has written to me confidentially. I hope that he will soon be able to say publicly what has been done to restore the clinic. Had there existed a statutory elected body representing the people served by the clinic, and had that body been consulted, I am sure that neither the hospital management committee nor the Welsh Regional Hospital Board would not have made this terrible mistake which has affected 600 people.
When the outpatients' clinic was closed, those people had to go 30 miles to Bangor and to spend a whole day travelling and waiting in an overcrowded clinic. I hope that this example that has been brought to the Minister's attention will serve him well in Committee. As he has said in an intervention, he proposes to create community health councils in Wales which will have power and which will be properly served, so that the higher tier authorities will listen to them and carry out their wishes.
8.58 p.m.
Mr. Denzil Davies: In view of the short time available to me, I hope to be forgiven for raising one constituency matter without developing the other arguments which I intended to develop on the Bill in general.

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According to the Explanatory Memorandum, one of the main purposes of the Bill is
"to unify the local administration of the National Health Service under new health authorities covering the whole field of health care".
I understand that to mean that the new health authorities—and in Wales that must mean the area health authorities in principle—should be able to provide the whole range of health services within their area. In many areas this may not seem to present great problems, but in my constituency there is a considerable difficulty which relates to the hospital services. The Bill makes no reference to this, but according to the White Paper the whole of my constituency will be part of the Dyfed Area Health Authority, whereas the area adjoining my constituency will be part of the West Glamorgan Area Health Authority.
Llanelli Hospital for various reasons is able to provide hospital services for only 55 per cent. of the people who live in its natural catchment area—an area which comprises between 80,000 and 100,000 people. The 45 per cent. have to rely upon the hospital services provided by hospitals in the Swansea area, and those hospitals in future will become part of the West Glamorgan Area Health Authority. This means that the Dyfed Area Health Authority, will not be able to provide full hospital facilities in Llanelli within the Dyfed area. As matters now stand, 45 per cent. would still have to use those hospitals in the adjoining health authority.
According to the Bill, it seems that the Secretary of State has power by order, and it is a negative order which is unlikely ever to be debated in the House even if it is prayed against, to delineate the boundaries of the new area health authorities. My fear, and that of my constituents, is that whereas the Secretary of State will provide by order that all other services in the Llanelli area will be part of the Dyfed health authority, the Secretary of State will enshrine in that order a provision whereby the hospital services in my constituency will be provided by, and fall within, the West Glamorgan health authority.
I implore the Secretary of State for Wales not to so provide by order, but
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rather to order that the whole of the hospital services for the Dyfed area, including Llanelli, should be provided by the Dyfed area health authority.
Meantime, I recognise that there have to be arrangements to provide for the present unsatisfactory situation in which 55 per cent. go to Llanelli and 45 per cent. to Swansea. I implore the Secretary of State not to enshrine that unsatisfactory arrangement within the order and, therefore, within the legislation.
It is very important he should ensure eventual provision within the Dyfed area of the whole of the hospital services necessary for my constituency otherwise the hospital services in Llanelli will run down. They will neither be part of Dyfed nor will they belong to the West Glamorgan authority. If he is to maintain and carry out one of the main purposes of the Bill he must ensure the provision of the necessary facilities so that the Dyfed health authority can eventually provide all the hospital services now in Llanelli.
The Bill appears to me in general to portray a certain lack of sensitivity on the part of the Government towards the National Health Service. This insen-sitivity should not surprise us, I suggest, because the Bill is brought forward by the heirs and successors of those who a quarter of a century ago without any shame utterly opposed the concept of a free National Health Service.
9.3 p.m.
Mr. Leslie Huckfield: I am most grateful to the hon. Member for Llanelly (Mr. Denzil Davies) and my hon. Friend on the Front Bench for permitting me seven minutes in which to say my piece.
I was a member of the Birmingham Regional Hospital Board for two-and-a-half years. I resigned because I thought the composition and actions of the board were totally unrepresentative of the horizons and aspirations of the ordinary working people. Nothing I have seen in the Bill or in the debate either today or yesterday convinces me that conditions will change or improve under the proposal to create area health authorities and, worst of all, regional health authorities.
The board of which I was a member comprised approximately a dozen consultants or other medical people and a dozen

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business or professional people. The remaining three or four were somehow supposed to represent the interests of working people. Since the Secretary of State took office he has appointed to the regional hospital boards—as I was told in a parliamentary reply on 22nd November 1972—no fewer than 57 doctors, dentists and nurses, 44 company directors and managers, and a mere 15 trade unionists. The Secretary of State has appointed 149 men and only 48 women. He has made only three appointments of people under the age of 30.
If the Secretary of State makes appointments like those under the present criteria, what kind of appointments will he make to area health authorities and regional health authorities, when the main criterion for appointment will be managerial ability?
I fear for those who have to go to work and clock in at half-past seven every morning. I fear for those who live on council estates, and for those confronted by an 18-month waiting list for a hernia operation. I fear for those people whose kids have to wait nine months for a tonsillectomy. These are the people whom the regional and area health authorities ought to be considering. Unfortunately, because of the composition of these bodies they are the people whose interests will not be considered.
It is worse than that. The people who ought to be making complaints about the health service—the more articulate middle classes—are buying their way out. It is because we have this incessant growth of private practice—one might almost call it an incestuous growth— that the people upon whom the Secretary of State is relying to make complaints to the Health Service Commissioner will simply go private and buy their way out. If the right hon. Gentleman really imagines that the sort of people who have most to grouse about under the present, and certainly the future, administration of hospitals will write about these complaints to the Commissioner, I am afraid that his contact with working people is sadly lacking.
We have a system whereby we are gradually moving towards private practice. We have American medical interests coming to this country. If the semi-success of the proposal to take over
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part of the Harley Street Clinic continues it could set the pattern for the hiving-off of near-private wings of hospitals all over the country. We have already seen the disappearance of the National Health Service in dentistry in many parts of the country. If this sort of thing continues we shall see the disappearance of the National Health Service within the hospital service, too.
The hon. Member for Reading (Dr. Vaughan) carefully overlooked all the evidence placed before the Select Committee on Expenditure, which examined private practice in the hospital service. This clearly brought home the point that no standard form of accounting for private practice was laid down by the Department, by regional hospital boards, or even by hospital groups. There is also no standard system for monitoring it.
How can the right hon. Gentleman claim that he will keep private practice in check? How will he prevent all the abuses whereby consultants charge fees for carrying out services many of which are provided by the National Health Service? The trouble is that even with all of what the right hon. Gentleman has proposed there will not be an end to the domination of the Health Service by the medical profession. Regional hospital boards and group management committees are dominated by consultants and senior men. The new regional and area health authorities will be dominated in the same way.
The only solution is to restore a measure of democratic control to the service. My preference would be to have area health authorities elected, directly responsible to the people who elect local government. Why not take the thing the whole hog and put the hospital services under local government? I recognise that there are problems of raising finance but this must be the most logical way to carry forward the reform of local government.
Many people have said that our surest defence against bureaucracy and the medical profession, particularly the senior echelons of it, will be the community health councils. We will all have the same power as members of such councils, we can all walk around hospitals. The only power which these people will have additional to that is the power to produce an annual report. If the right hon.

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Gentleman honestly thinks that such a power represents a bulwark against bureaucracy—if he thinks that power will keep the consultants in check—I cannot accept it.
I hope that my right hon. and hon. Friends will reject the Bill. I hope that we will abolish private practice, and eventually bring into being a fully demo-cractically-controlled Health Service.
9.10 p.m.
Mr. Elystan Morgan: For two days the House has been debating the future of a service which is central to the concept of a welfare State, and the operation of which affects in the highest degree the lives of so many millions of people. Although this day was publicised as a Welsh debate—[HON. MEMBERS: "No."]—the accents of the Principality have not been as plentiful in their contribution as might have been the case.
I should be lacking in courtesy if I did not offer my thanks to whoever it is who is responsible for allowing a Front Bench opening and winding up on behalf of Welsh interests. By the same token, I should be utterly failing in my duty towards Wales if I did not express deep dissatisfaction with the Government's policy, as has been mentioned by my right hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, West (Mr. George Thomas), not to have a separate Bill for the principality.
The Secretary of State for Wales has sought to justify his position by maintaining that the fundamental provision for the proposed reorganisation is common to both countries. That is a specious argument. He has failed to draw the distinction between common standards and general standards, on the one hand, and a difference of pattern and scale, on the other. Of course, Wales accepts that it must be its aim to achieve the same standards of health administration as prevail in England. In the Green Paper published by my right hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, West in February 1970, that is accepted. The foreword says,
"The public will expect similar standards and similar procedures for obtaining services, whether in Wales or in England."
If the situations are the same in both countries, then it may be asked why it is
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that over the years there has been a pattern developing of the publication of separate reports, separate sets of statistics and separate management studies for the two countries. The view of the Labour Party is borne out by what is set out in page 5 of the Green Paper of 1970, which says
"However, there are important differences between the two countries. A policy of administrative devolution to Wales is in progress, and it is in keeping with this policy that decisions affecting Wales and the Welsh people should be taken within Wales. Since 1st April 1969 the Secretary of State for Wales has been responsible for the administration of the Health Service in Wales (and jointly with his colleagues in England and Scotland for health policy as a whole). Wales is a small country and the Secretary of State and his Department are in close touch with local needs and aspirations. Again, the future organisation of local government in Wales will differ in a number of important respects from the system in England. Finally, the form of organisation at the all-Wales level needs careful consideration."
Our case is that, if the very establishment of the Welsh Office and the publication of the various papers, studies and reports to which I have referred is not to be regarded as a completely useless and unjustifiable duplication of information and of systems, there is every reason why Wales should have a separate Bill on this most important reorganisation. When the National Health Service (Scotland) Bill of 1972 came before the House, it contained all the separate provisions for Scotland, although the main theme of that legislation compared in all essential respects with this Bill.
My right hon. Friend has already said that every hon. Member, certainly every Welsh Member, knows why the Government would not dare to put the provisions relating to Wales into a separate Bill. Although it would be possible, by the conscription of certain hon. Members, to " top up " the small number of Welsh Conservative Members who are members of the Welsh Standing Committee, it would be impossible for them to achieve a majority, due to the limits set by the Standing Orders of the House. Therefore, the Secretary of State would soon find himself in a slough of despond from which it would be impossible for him to extricate himself or his Bill.
That is the pattern with every piece of major legislation affecting Wales. The same has been true of local government

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reform and the reorganisation of water resources, and the same inevitably will prevail with every other controversial measure while we have this Government, whose policies and whose party have been so completely rejected by the people of Wales over the decades.
The Secretary of State for Social Services was fortunate yesterday in that the debate turned mainly on the issue of contraception. I do not know whether this was prudently and responsibly planned by him, but he certainly succeeded in preventing a conception by the public of the main rationale of the Bill.
The unification of the tripartite structure of the National Health Service has been accepted by the majority of people in the United Kingdom, certainly since the Porritt Report of 1962. But unification should never be regarded as an end in itself, but only as a means to creating a desirable situation. The goal is that persons who entrust their health and their survival to this service should be able to do so in the full confidence that they are at the mercy of a system which is efficient, humane, compassionate and just.
In order to achieve that, one would expect the Government to make a detailed examination of each and every component part of the service so as to see how each part could operate more efficiently, by itself and in conjunction with all the other parts. But that is exactly what the Government have chosen not to do. The Government parted with their responsibility and with £300,000 of their money to McKinsey, who are, after all, the modern counterparts of the Delphic Oracle or the Druids of the Isle of Anglesey.
Mr. Cledwyn Hughes: The Druids were much more accurate.
Mr. Morgan: There is no historical record of their having been proved wrong.
This firm of business consultants were no doubt admirably placed to dissertate on the efficiency or otherwise of certain commercial systems. However, in relation to the health service they have the wrong approach and inevitably they came to the wrong conclusion. They devised an expensive canopy of unification at the high level of management, but beneath
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that canopy all the old anomalies and deficiencies of the system were allowed to remain.
General practitioners, who are the most important unit in the health service, remain in astral isolation from the hospital service. There is the same deep historic chasm existing between general practitioners and consultants. There is still no resolution by the Government to put forward a dynamic programme for the provision of health centres in every locality in which they are needed. The same is true of group practices, the establishment of which is left entirely to the caprice and whims of individual doctors, as is provision of health centres to the widely differing attitudes of various local authorities.
In Wales—and I believe the acute needs of Wales are probably very much greater than other parts of the United Kingdom —we have at present 43 health centres and expect to have only 58 by the end of 1974. Many hon. Members on this side of the House, and I am sure many Conservative Members, regard health centres as probably the most important and intimate point of contact between the majority of patients or potential patients and the National Health Service. They regard them as units which provide a comprehensive range of services, including the services of medical social workers.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Halifax (Dr. Summerskill) said yesterday, the Bill is distinguished less by what it contains than by what is omitted from it. In a fine speech she listed a whole range of acute questions from occupational health schemes to the scandal of subordinating the rights and the massive needs of the ordinary patient to the privileges of the fee-paying few.
There is one matter of general interest which I wish to add to the list which my hon. Friend mentioned. I refer to the lack of cohesion which seems to exist in relation to older citizens. Where a person advanced in years needs special housing his case is the prerogative of the district authority. If he has to go into an old people's home it becomes the duty of the county authority, and if he has to enter hospital he comes within the sphere of the National Health Service. This situation double-banks itself and they are different faces of one central problem.

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I would have expected a Bill such as this, with Government Ministers looking many decades ahead, to contain some dynamic and bold provision regarding the sort of situation which I have outlined. There is no greater welcome in Wales than there is in England for the area health authorities as now conceived. In Wales we see them as yet another addition to that vast plethora of non-elected bodies which embarrass and infest the life of the Principality.
The area health authorities clearly will be more responsible than any other body for the day-to-day running of the service in their areas. It will be to them that ordinary people will look for guidance and for redress. But the question which Ministers have completely failed to answer is whether it is right to place such powers, such authority, such responsibilities, in the hands of a non-elected body.
In the 1972 White Paper the Secretary of State for Wales made it very clear what he thought of the status of elected representatives in such a connection. He said:
"The health service is a complex enterprise. Each Area Health Authority will employ a large staff and administer an annual budget running into millions of pounds. Good management is essential to make the best use of these resources for the benefit of patients and the community; and this must be the dominant consideration in determining the composition of Area Health Authorities."
What a slur on members of a local authority. As far as the Secretary of State for Wales is concerned, they are not the beautiful people who would receive the bounty of his appointment; they are people who would be profligate with the public purse and therefore are not to be entrusted with substantial finances.
The right hon. Member for Wolver-hampton, South-West (Mr. Powell) has advanced the argument to the House, in a speech which I thought was casualisti-cally mischievous, for all its brilliance, and contained little of creative proposals, that a distinction had to be drawn between a person who was an elected representative simpliciter and one who, elected, had the power to make decisions regarding the raising and the expenditure of money. I do not think that any such
1212
distinction can properly be drawn. After all, if this House were to set up a legislative assembly in, say, Northern Ireland without giving that assembly power to raise money by taxation, or, indeed, to have a voice over the expenditure of that money, those people would remain democratically elected representatives.
When an hon. Member rises in this House on an Adjournment debate to plead a case which, by definition, cannot involve asking for the expenditure of money, is he any the less a representative of his constituency or whatever interest he pleads at that moment? The expenditure of money often forms part of the full range of the duties and privileges of the elected representative. But it is not the essence of it. The essence of democratic representation is a mandate. It is not the able, wealthy, witty and powerful Members of this House who, over the years, have given this Mother of Parliaments the distinction that it enjoys throughout the world; it is the fact that we sit here in a free Parliament having been elected by a free and universal franchise. The fact that the people who sent us here have the right to withdraw that mandate in the fullness of time is the essence. It is the very absence of such a mandate relating to these authorities that makes them entirely unworthy of the reorganised structure that is now proposed.
Mr. Powell: Would that be true if the government of this country were carried on with finance provided by another body?
Mr. Morgan: I maintain that in such circumstances the powers of the elected representative clearly would be truncated, but he is no less an elected representative for that. I am quite sure that the right hon. Gentleman would not argue that if a person is charged with duties which involve the raising and the expenditure of moneys, that person is any the more a democratic representative on account of having been appointed rather than elected.
Mr. George Thomas: An extension of his duty.
Mr. Morgan: It is only by placing these authorities in the hands of democratically elected representatives that any meaning

1213
can be given to the system. It is such factors which breathe the spirit of life into the cold clay and dry bones of what would otherwise be a bureaucratic structure.
The community health councils are advisory bodies. The range of their functions is extremely limited. They can inspect only in the most formal and well-publicised circumstances. They are staffed and stabled by the area health authorities and clearly they can have no independence from those bodies which they are intended to watch.
I turn briefly to the blatant discrimination against Wales in the decision not to create a Welsh regional authority. No adequate reason has been given, in the debate or anywhere else, in justification of this decision. When the Secretary of State for Social Services was asked about this matter at a recent conference in London of the National Association for Mental Health, according to the second leader in The Guardian on 23rd March:
"Sir Keith Joseph was asked whether he was aware of the strong feeling in Wales that the NHS was going to be set back 20 years, under reorganisation, because the Welsh Office was taking over full responsibility for health. His considered reply "—
Sir. K. Joseph: I made a joke.
Mr. Morgan: The right hon. Gentleman's considered reply was:
"Isn't England lucky? "
No justification has been given by the Secretary of State for Wales, either, in his White Paper. He maintains that there would be the danger that such a regional body would be too remote. In the same article, The Guardian asks this rhetorical question:
"Can anything be more remote than unknown civil servants in their impregnable fortress at the Welsh Office?"
The answer is "Yes". The most remote figure of all is the ex-patriate Secretary of State for Wales, the right hon. and learned Member for Hendon, South (Mr. Peter Thomas).
We believe that the Welsh Hospital Board, for all the fact that it was appointed, was a body of intelligence and great enthusiasm. Over the years its intelligence and enthusiasm have embarrassed the Secretary of State and his senior officials.
1214
I should have liked to refer to a number of matters. I mentioned them briefly. One concerns Powys. In making the boundaries of the new area health authorities co-terminous with those of local government, certain anomalies have been created by following those boundaries slavishly. As we have heard from the hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. Hooson), in Powys there is no prospect in the foreseeable future of a district hospital. Seventy per cent. of patients of that county go outside that area health authority for hospitalisation. When the Minister of State comes to delivering the epilogue, I hope that he pays particular attention to that question. I hope that he will consider setting up, for those areas outside the Powys area health authority, a district authority and, indeed, a community health council in the area of each district hospital which serves it. I have in mind particularly the catchment area served by Bronglais Hospital.
I should have liked to refer to the position of the small hospitals and to have some guarantee that their position is assured. I hope that the Minister of State will apply his mind to that matter. Time, the ancient enemy, has got the better of me and many matters will have to be left unsaid until another occasion.
The plan which the Government now place before us is defective because it is obsessed with superficial unification of the health service at management level rather than with more humane and efficient operation in the context of the patient. It is deficient in that it fails to meet so many of the deep and real needs of the people in Wales and elsewhere. We believe that it will fail because it has shunned the ideal of democratic involvement. In Wales, the confusion which the new reorganisation creates will be worse confounded on account of its having completely ignored the imminence of the Crowther Commission's Report.
Above all, we suspect this proposed reorganisation because there is a danger throughout the McKinsey Report of equating the position of the patient with the position of a customer. The patient is a person who more often than not has no choice. Owing to injury or disease he has surrendered the dominion over his own affairs to those who have his medical

1215
card. In such circumstances it is a travesty of language to refer to him as a customer.
For all these reasons, it will be our privilege on this side of the House tonight to vote against this measure.
9.37 p.m.
Minister of State, Welsh Office (Mr. David Gibson-Walt): It is right that we should have spent two days debating the Second Reading of the first reorganisation of the National Health Service. It is right that time should have been given today to debating the Welsh reorganisation proposals, even though the differences between England and Wales are very small. When the National Health Service came into being 25 years ago, as has already been said during the debate it was no coincidence that the then Minister of Health represented a Welsh constituency, for the tradition of hospitals in the valleys of South Wales was a very strong one. It is right for us to remember in our debate today the tradition of the miners' hospitals in particular, and, indeed, the war memorial hospitals, in Wales.
This, however, has been an English-Welsh debate, as indeed it should have been, and during the two days we have heard a wide variety of views which show the wide variety of experience that right hon. and hon. Members have had in connection with the Health Service. Tonight I shall try to answer as many as possible of the questions that have been put to me from both sides of the House. Those that I cannot answer, particularly the Welsh ones, perhaps I can answer by letter later on.
The right hon. Member for Cardiff, West (Mr. George Thomas) asked me a question about staffing and membership of joint consultative committees, and to whom they are responsible. The joint consultative committees are the important links between the area health authorities and the local authorities. These are the committees whose function will be to help area health authorities and local authorities to collaborate and coordinate the planning and operation of their respective services. The proposal to set them up springs from the recommendation of the joint working party. I hope
1216
there will be local agreement on membership and servicing of the committees. Members of the committees will be responsible, of course, to their own parent authorities. I imagine that there will usually be a broadly balanced membership, and that area health authorities and local authorities will share in providing staff. There is provision for the Secretary of State to provide by order for the sharing of expenses and a means of resolving disputes. But collaboration can be a reality only if there is a real spirit of co-operation.
The hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. Hooson) referred to one of the obstacles to the transfer of the National Health Service to the local authorities, namely, the opposition of the doctors. That has been referred to by other members during the debate. In a lucid and powerful speech, the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Mr. Powell) put his finger on another of the major obstacles, namely, the problem of finance.
Whatever the hon. Member for Cardigan (Mr. Elystan Morgan) may have sought to do, he certainly has not convinced me that my right hon. Friend was wrong. Above all else the House, over many hundreds of years, has been responsible not only for levying money but also for seeing how it is spent, and I doubt very much whether many hon. Members would not like to be able to question the Minister at the Dispatch Box on matters of hospitalisation and health.
This is the strong point that some hon. Members may have forgotten. These obstacles were recognised by the Opposition when they were in power, and nothing has happened since to remove or ease the problems. I do not believe that my right hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South-West was quite so happy when he argued that the disadvantages of integrating the three arms of the health service would outweigh the advantages. Successive administrations of the last 10 years—and he, more than many people, knows the problems from experience—have examined the merits of integration in their discussion documents and, with the general weight of opinion behind them, are convinced that this reform is desirable.

1217
I acknowledge that it will withdraw from local authority control a service of which they can be justly proud, but we see no reason why this service should not flourish in the wider context of the reorganised health service. Nor do we see it as diminishing the responsibilities of the medical officer of health or the opportunities for local initiatives. Many medical officers of health will become the community physicians of tomorrow. They have welcomed the Bill, and do not see in it a diminution of their contribution to the health of the community. On the contrary, they see their influence extending to include health services as a whole, including hospital services. The strength of the community physician is that he will be looking at the health service as a whole. His training will equip him to do just that.
The reorganisation proposals will enable the community physician to work in closer association with his clinical colleagues in the hospitals and in general practice, and it is expected that he will play a significant part in the professional advisory machinery. His background of public health should ensure the right balance between curative and preventive medicine. In addition, he has an important rôle to play in the provision of local authority services, particularly the school health service, in environmental health and as an adviser to the social services department.
Some hon. Members from English constituencies in particular, notably the right hon. Member for Coventry, East (Mr. Crossman), have criticised the English regional health authorities and expressed concern lest they sap away the responsibilities of the area health authorities. Here again I pay deference to the right hon. Gentleman as an ex-Minister of Health with considerable knowledge on the subject. But I should say that in a country the size of England, unlike Wales and Scotland, the administration of the National Health Service cannot be conducted effectively from one centre in London. Some form of regional organisation is necessary. This could take the form either of regional offices of the central department or of statutory regional authorities. We think the advantages of this latter arrangement are overwhelming. The alternative is to have over-centralisation
1218
and delay. The area health authorities will be showing a wide variety of initiative and it would be wrong to underestimate the rôole they will play.
My hon. Friend the Member for Devonport (Dame Joan Vickers) and my hon. Friend the Member for Tynemouth (Dame Irene Ward) touched on the very important question of the nursing proffession. In the normal way an officer who is accountable to a chief officer of an area health authority is not also invited to serve as a member of the authority itself. This rule, which has always been in operation, might make it difficult to bring a suitable nurse on to each area health authority. Incidentally, there is not the same difficulty with the medical professional. In these special circumstances my right hon. Friends accept that as an experiment nurses and midwives serving an area health authority should not thereby be debarred from membership of the authority itself. I hope that that will be a help to those hon. Members who have felt unhappy about this matter.
My hon. Friend the Member for Tynemouth asked about the constitution of the Central Health Services Council. There is already power, by order, to vary the constitution of the council. My right hon. Friend intends to use this power to reconstitute the council and in considering the revised constitution he will take full account of my hon: Friend's comments.
Dame Irene Ward: I thank my hon. Friend.
Mr. Gibson-Watt: The question of salaries, also raised by my hon. Friend, is also a matter of negotiation. The right hon. Member for Anglesey (Mr. Cledwyn Hughes), whose constituency was gravely insulted by his hon. Friend in his concluding speech, asked a number of questions. The first was: if an elected Welsh Council is set up, would the Government agree that health should be one of its responsibilities? All I can say on this is that we must wait to see what recommendations the Commission is to make. [Interruption.] If hon. Gentlemen are so certain what the recommendations are going to be, perhaps they will tell me whether the right hon. Member for Sowerby (Mr. Houghton) knows what the recommendations are to be. I shall be grateful if I may be allowed to finish. Until the commission

1219
reports no Government, even the Opposition in government, would be able to make future decisions in the way they are able to whilst in office.
Mr. Elystan Morgan: The Minister of State will recollect that when the Local Government Bill was introduced both he and his right hon. and learned Friend explained to the House that they had consulted the Crowther Commission on the Constitution in order to see whether there was anything in those recommendations which might be contrary to their own plan. Can they now tell the House whether they have had exactly the same consultations with regard to this measure? If not, why draw the distinction?
Mr. Gibson-Watt: With respect, I do not thing that there is any distinction to be drawn. I can tell the hon. Gentleman that we have not had further discussions with the Crowther Commission, and are waiting for it to produce its report. It is not the job of Government to preempt the decision of the commission, and I am surprised that others should have done so. We must wait to see what the commission's recommendations are. If it were to recommend an elected council for Wales it would presumably suggest what responsibilities such a body might carry, and for what services, what its financial powers should be, and how it would fit into the existing constitution. There would certainly be difficult and complex problems to resolve, on which the commission would no doubt offer guidance.
We shall be prepared to review central organisation in the Health Service in Wales in the light of the commission's report. I do not see how anyone could responsibly say more now. The right hon. Gentleman also asked a question with regard to the nurses' representative. We have made clear that on both the district and area management teams a nursing officer will be a full member of the management team, and he or she will participate fully in the team decisions. As far as members of health authorities are concerned, again, we have said that each area health authority will have one nurse or midwife member.
My hon. Friend has said the Welsh Office will increase its staff resources to

1220
fulfil its new role, and will include a pharmaceutical adviser. At area level, area pharmaceutical officers will be appointed, though in some areas they will not need to spend all their time on area duties. The hon. Member for Pembroke (Mr. Nicholas Edwards) asked a question with regard to the staff of the community health councils. It has seemed to the Government that it would be in the best interests of those councils to have staff who are knowledgeable about health services. However, we appreciate the strength of feeling on this matter. The Bill leaves flexibility on how the matter should be dealt with through regulations, and we shall certainly consider very seriously what hon. Gentlemen have said.
Throughout the debate hon. Members on both sides of the House have stressed that the person who must be at the centre of our thoughts is the patient. This has been so during the long discussions that have been held with the various interested parties before we finally produced the Bill, and it has been so during the speeches of right hon. and hon. Members in the last two days.
The major difference between our proposals for Wales and those for England is that we shall not have a regional health authority in Wales. Public reaction to that has been mixed. Among those most closely associated with the National Health Service, particularly those working in that field, the preponderant feeling is in favour of direct relationship between the Secretary of State and area health authorities as being the best way to ensure real responsibility at area health authority level and so make for good management as close as possible to the people. Commentators feel that an intermediate tier in Wales would inevitably set up tensions and be at the expense of the area health authorities. The bodies who have commented in this way include the Association of Hospital Management Committees in Wales, the Association of Executive Councils in Wales, the National Association of Hospital Group Secretaries, the Society of Medical Officers of Health, the BMA Welsh Council, the Welsh Counties Committee and the University of Wales. That is a fairly formidable list. Amongst those who wanted a regional board to continue, not surprisingly, was the present Welsh Hospital Board.

1221
We feel strongly that if management is to be delegated to the area health authorities in the localities in a country as small as Wales, it would be wrong to interpose a further tier between them and the Welsh Office.
Another aspect of the decision not to have regional health authorities in Wales is the decision of the Labour Party to hand over the administration of the National Health Service in Wales to an elected council, to which I have already referred.
Mr. Grossman: Has the Minister received any representations from England that we would like the Welsh system introduced into England?
Mr. Gibson-Watt: I thought that we had been to considerable lengths to show that on this matter Wales had rather different problems from England.
Mr. Crossman: I am asking whether the Minister had representations from those in England who are envious of his admirable decision to liquidate the regional level.
Mr. Gibson-Watt: My right hon. Friend who receives these representations says that there have been some, but not all that many.
I have been trying to connect the speeches of the Opposition with the terms of their amendment. It is a difficult exercise. To my mind there is very little connection. I find the amendment as difficult to understand as some right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite. Perhaps the authors intended that this should be so. My hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South-West dismissed it in one word when he called it a "spoof". How right he was. The amendment says that the Bill proposes
"a reorganised National Health Service which is too managerial in aspect, unrepresentative in character, and fails to meet the need for a democratic health service."
During the course of the debate the Opposition did not appear wholly convinced that the service should be run by the local authorities. In his Green Paper of 1970, which has been quoted ad nauseam, the right hon. Member for Coventry, East (Mr. Crossman) said that the Government had decided, for the reasons that they had given, that the health service should be administered

1222
not by local government but by area authorities directly responsible to the central Government. The right hon. Gentleman agreed with us then. I think that in his heart he agrees with much of the Bill today.
In their speeches, right hon. and hon. Members on the Opposition benches have not sought to speak to their amendment, and it is my belief that they are not all that much opposed to the Bill—
Mr. John Silkin: The hon. Gentleman has been a little unkind about the Opposition amendment. As the only begetter of it, may I ask him what makes him think that members of boards appointed by the Secretary of State for Social Services or the Secretary of State for Wales will be better able to give a health service to the country than would elected members of the community?
Mr. Gibson-Watt: The right hon. Gentleman has underlined the difficulty, and he has not yet said where he stands. He keeps on talking about "elected representatives". He has not said whether he believes that those elected representatives should be local government representatives—
Mr. Silkin: Yes. I have said so.
Mr. Gibson-Watt: The right hon. Gentleman did not say that a moment ago. I enjoyed his speech yesterday, and I look forward to reading it again.
I believe that there is a very strong case for saying that the new National Health Service will be better run under the system that we propose. The right hon. Member for Deptford (Mr. John Silkin) and his hon. Friends complain about people being appointed to boards. However, he and his right hon. and hon. Friends have also made appointments to regional hospital boards in the past. The right hon. Gentleman is not on a very good wicket here.
One other point which needs answering is the argument of some hon. Members that fewer people will be working voluntarily on reorganisation in the service. Let me give the assurance that that is not so. All the figures and prognostications which I have make it clear that there will be more rather than fewer.
No administration setting out to reorganise the Health Service so as to bring

1223
its various arms together into a unit can be in any doubt about the magnitude and complexity of the operation. It calls for a large measure of understanding and a great deal of hard work from all those involved in the changes. Ministers are well aware of the need to ensure that the many people working in local government and in the health service whose careers must inevitably be affected by the Bill in greater or lesser measure are properly safeguarded. We have been at pains to ensure that the service and all those most closely concerned with it should be able to play a major part in shaping the new arrangements.
The Bill has been considered in detail in another place. The noble Lord, Lord Aberdare recognised readily that many points had to be considered. The noble Lady, Lady White made a notable contribution. There is a great deal of good will towards the Bill outside the House and much more in it than right hon. and hon. Members opposite are prepared to admit.
I commend the Bill to the House.
Question put, That the Amendment be made: —
The House divided: Ayes 259, Noes 285.

Division No. 90.]

AYES

[10.0 p.m.

Abse, Leo

Delargy, Hugh

Jeger, Mrs. Lena

Allaun, Frank (Salford, E.)

Dell, Rt. Hn. Edmund

Jenkins, Hugh (Putney)

Archer, Peter (Rowley Regis)

Doig, Peter

John, Brynmor

Armstrong, Ernest

Dormand, J. D.

Johnson, Carol (Lewisham, S.)

Ashley, Jack

Douglas, Dick (Stirlingshire, E.)

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

Ashton Joe

Douglas-Mann, Bruce

Johnson, Walter (Derby, S.)

Atkinson, Norman

Driberg, Tom

Jones, Barry (Flint, E.)

Bagler, Gordon A. T.

Duffy, A. E. P.

Jones, Dan (Burnley)

Barnes Michael

Dunn, James A.

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

Barnett', Guy (Greenwich)

Eadie, Alex

Jones, Gwynoro (Carmarthen)

Barnett, Joel (Heywood and Royton)

Edelman, Maurice

Jones, T. Alec (Rhondda, W.)

Baxter, William

Edwards, Robert (Bilston)

Judd, Frank

Benn, Rt. Hn. Anthony Wedgwood

Edwards, William (Merioneth)

Kaufman, Gerald

Bennett, James(Glasgow. Bridgeton)

Ellis, Tom

Kelley Richard

Bidwell Sydney

English, Michael

Kerr,Russell

Bishop E, S.

Evans, Fred

Kinnock, Neil

Bienkinsop Arthur

Ewing, Harry

Lamble, David

Boardman, H. (Leigh)

Faulds, Andrew

Lamborn, Harry

Booth Albert

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

Lamond, James

Bottomlev Rt. Hn. Arthur

Fitch, Alan (Wigan)

Latham, Arthur

Boyden, James(Bishop Auckland)

Fletcher, Raymond (Iikeston)

Lawson George

Bradley, Tom

Fletcher, Ted (Darlington)

Leadbitter, Ted

Broughton, sir Alfred

Foot, Michael

Lee, Rt, Hn. Frederick

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

Ford, Ben

Leonard Dick

Brown Hugh D. (G'gow, Provan)

Forrester John

Lestor, Miss Joan

Brown, RonaldfShoreditch & F'bury)

Fraser, John (Norwood)

Lewis, Ron (Carlisle)

Buchan, Norman

Freeson, Reginald

Lipton, Marcus

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

Galpern, Sir Myer

Lomas, Kenneth

Butler, Mrs. Joyce (Wood Green)

Garrett, W.E.

Loughlin, Charles

Callaghan, Rt. Hn. James

Gilbert, Dr. John

Lyon, Alexander W. (York)

Campbell, I. (Dunbartonshire. W.)

Ginsburg, David (Dewsbury)

Mabon, Dr. J. Dickson

Carmlchael Neil

Grant, George (Morpeth)

McCartney, Hugh

Carter, Ray'(Birmingh'm, Northfield)

Grant, John D.(lslington, E.)

McElhone, Frank

Carter-Jones, Lewis (Eccles)

Griffiths,Eddie (Brightside)

McGuire, Michael

Castle, Rt. Hn. Barbara

Hamilton, James' (Bothwell)

Machine, George

Clark, David (Coine Valley)

Hamilton, Winiam (Fife, w.)

Mackenzie, George

Cocks, Michael (Bristol, S.)

Hamling, William

Mackie, J. Kevin

Cohen, Stanley

Hannan, William (G, gow, Maryhill)

Mahon, Simson (Bootle)

Concannon, J. D.

Hardy, Peter

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

Corbet, Mrs. Freda

Harper, Joseph

Marks, Kenneth

Cox, Thomas (Wandsworlh, C.)

Harrison, Walter (Wakefield)

Marquand David

Crawshaw, Richard

Hart, Rt. Hn. Judith

Marsden, F.

Cronin, John

Healey, Rt, Hn. Danis

Marshall, Dr. Edmund

Crosland, Rt. Hn. Anthony

Heffer Eric S.

Marshall, Dr. Edmund

Crossman, Rt. Hn. Richard

Hilton' W. S.

Mason, Rt. Hn. Roy

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

Hooson, Emlyn

Mayhew, Christopher

Cunningham, Dr. J. A. (Whitehaven)

Horam, John

Meacher, Michael

Dalyall, Tom

Huckfield, Leslie

Mellish, Rt. Hn. Robert

Davidson, Arthur

Hughes, Rt. Hn. Cledwyn (Anglesey)

Mendelson, John

Davles, Denzil (Llanelly)

Hughes, Mark (Durham)

Mikardo, Ian

Davies, G. Elfed (Rhondda, E.)

Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen, N.)

Millan, Bruce

Davies, Ifor (Gower)

Hughes, Roy (Newport)

Miller, Dr. M. S.

Davis, Clinton (Hackney, C.)

Hunter, Adam

Milne, Edward

Davis, Terry (Bromsgrove)

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

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

Deaklns, Eric

Janner, Greville

Molloy, William

de Freitas, Rt. Hn. Sir Geoffrey

Jay, Rt. Hn. Douglas

Morgan, Elystan (Cardiganshire)

Morris, Alfred (Wythenshawe)

Reed, D. (Sedgefield)

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

Morris, Charles R. (Openshaw)

Rees, Merlyn (Leeds, S.)

Thomas, Jeffrey (Abertillery)

Morris, Rt. Hn. John (Aberavon)

Richard, Ivor

Tinn, James

Moyle, Roland

Roberts, Albert (Normanton)

Tomney, Frank

Mulley, Rt. Hn. Frederick

Roberts, Rt. Hn. Goronwy(Caernarvon)

Tope, Graham

Murray, Ronald King

Robertson, John (Paisley)

Torney, Tom

Oakes, Gordon

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

Tuck, Raphael

Ogden, Eric

Ross, Rt. Hn. William (Kilmarnock)

Urwin, T. W.

O'Halloran, Michael

Rowlands, Ted

Varley Eric G.

O'Malley, Brian

Sandelson, Neville

Wainwright, Edwin

Oram, Bert

Sheldon, Robert (Ashton-under-Lyne)

Walker, Harold (Doncaster)

Orbach, Maurice

Shore, Rt. Hn. Peter (Stepney)

Wallace, George

Orme, Stanley

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

Watkins, David

Oswald, Thomas

Short, Mrs. Renée (W'hampton, N.E.)

Weitzman, David

Padley, Walter

Silkin, Rt. Hn. John (Deptford)

Wellbeloved, James

Silkin, Hn. S. C. (Duiwich)

Wells, William (Walsall, N.)

Paget, R. T.

Sillars, James

White, James (Glasgow, Pollok)

Palmer, Arthur

Silverman, Julius

Whitehead, Phillip

Pannell, Rt. Hn. Charles

Skinner, Dennis

Whitlock, William

Pardoe, John

Small, William

Willey, Rt. Hn. Frederick

Parker, John (Dagenham)

Smith, Cyril (Rochdale)

Williams, Alan (Swansea, W.)

Parry, Robert (Liverpool, Exchange)

Smith, John (Lanarkshire, N.)

Williams, Mrs. Shirley (Hitchin)

Pavitt, Laurie

Spearing, Nigel

Williams, W. T. (Warrington)

Peart, Rt. Hn. Fred

Spriggs, Leslie

Wilson, Alexander (Hamilton)

Pendry, Tom

Stallard, A. W.

Wilson, Rt. Hn. Harold (Huyton)

Perry, Ernest G.

Steel, David

Wilson, William (Coventry, S.)

Prescott, John

Stoddart, David (Swindon)

Price, William (Rugby)

Stonehouse, Rt. Hn. John

TELLERS FOR THE AYES:

Probert, Arthur

Strang, Gavin

Mr. Donald Coleman and

Radice, Giles

Strauss, Rt. Hn. G. R.

Mr. John Golding

Rankin, John

Summerskill, Hn. Dr. Shirley

NOES

Adley, Robert

Cormack, Patrick

Hall, Miss Joan (Keighley)

Alison, Michael (Barkston Ash)

Costain, A. P.

Hall, John (Wycombe)

Allason, James (Hemel Hempstead)

Critchley, Julian

Hall-Davis, A. G. F.

Amery, Rt. Hn. Julian

Crouch, David

Hamilton, Michael (Salisbury)

Archer, Jeffrey (Louth)

Crowder, F. P.

Hannam, John (Exeter)

Astor, John

Dalkeith, Earl of

Harrison, Brian (Maldon)

Atkins, Humphrey

Davies, Rt. Hn. John (Knutsford)

Harrison, Col. Sir Harwood (Eye)

Awdry, Daniel

d' Avigdor-Goldsmid, Maj.-Gen.Jack

Haselhurst, Alan

Baker, Kenneth (St. Marylebone)

Dean, Paul

Hastings, Stephen

Baker, W. H. K. (Banff)

Deedes, Rt. Hn. W. F.

Havers, Sir Michael

Balniel, Rt. Hn. Lord

Digby, Simon Wingfield

Hawkins, Paul

Batsford, Brian

Dixon, Piers

Hay, John

Bell, Ronald

Douglas-Home, Rt. Hn. Sir Alec

Hicks, Robert

Bennett, Sir Frederic (Torquay)

Drayson, G. B.

Higgins, Terence L.

Bennett, Dr. Reginald (Gosport)

du Cann, Rt. Hn. Edward

Hiley, Joseph

Benyon, W.

Eden, Rt. Hn. Sir John

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

Biffen, John

Edwards, Nicholas (Pembroke)

Hill, S. James A.(Southampton,Test)

Biggs-Davison, John

Elliot, Capt. Walter (Carshalton)

Holland, Philip

Boardman, Tom (Leicester, S.W.)

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

Holt, Miss Mary

Body, Richard

Emery, Peter

Hordern, Peter

Boscawen, Hn. Robert

Eyre, Reginald

Hornby, Richard

Bossom, Sir Clive

Farr, John

Hornsby-Smith, Rt. Hn. Dame Patricla

Bowden, Andrew

Fell, Anthony

Howe, Rt. Hn. Sir Geoffrey

Braine, Sir Bernard

Fenner, Mrs. Peggy

Howell, Ralph (Norfolk, N.)

Bray, Ronald

Fidler, Michael

Hunt, John

Brewis, John

Fisher, Nigel (Surbiton)

Hutchison, Michael Clark

Brinton, Sir Tatton

Fletcher-Cooke, Charles

Iremonger, T. L.

Brocklebank-Fowler, Christopher

Fookes, Miss Janet

Irvine, Bryant Godman (Rye)

Brown, Sir Edward (Bath)

Fortescue, Tim

James, David

Bruce-Gardyne, J.

Fowler, Norman

Jenkin, Patrick (Woodford)

Bryan, Sir Paul

Fox, Marcus

Jennings, J. C. (Burton)

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

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

Jessel, Toby

Buck, Antony

Fry, Peter

Johnson Smith, G. (E. Grinstead)

Bullus, Sir Eric

Galbraith, Hn. T. G. D.

Jones, Arthur (Northants, S.)

Burden, F. A.

Gardner, Edward

Jopling, Michael

Butler, Adam (Bosworth)

Gibson-Watt, David

Joseph, Rt. Hn. Sir Keith

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

Gilmour, Ian (Norfolk, C.)

Kaberry, Sir Donald

Carlisle, Mark

Gilmour, Sir John (Fife, E.)

Kellett-Bowman, Mrs. Elaine

Carr, Rt. Hn. Robert

Glyn, Dr. Alan

Kershaw, Anthony

Cary, Sir Robert

Goodhew, Victor

Kimball, Marcus

Channon, Paul

Gorst, John

King, Evelyn (Dorset, S.)

Chapman, Sydney

Gower, Raymond

King, Tom (Bridgwater)

Chichester-Clark, R.

Grant, Anthony (Harrow, C.)

Kinsey, J. R.

Clark, William (Surrey, E.)

Gray, Hamish

Kitson, Timothy

Clarke, Kenneth (Rushcliffe)

Green, Alan

Knight, Mrs. Jill

Cockeram, Eric

Grieve, Percy

Knox, David

Cooke, Robert

Griffiths, Eldon (Bury St. Edmunds)

Lambton, Lord

Coombs, Derek

Grylls, Michael

Lamont, Norman

Cooper, A. E.

Gummer, J. Selwyn

Lane, David

Cordle, John

Gurden, Harold

Langford-Holt, Sir John

1226

1227

Le Marchant, Spencer

Page, Rt. Hn. Graham (Crosby)

Stodart, Anthony (Edinburgh, W.)

Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland)

Page, John (Harrow, W.)

Stoddart-Scott. Col. Sir M.

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

Parkinson, Cecil

Stokes, John

Longden, Sir Gilbert

Percival, Ian

Stuttaford, Dr. Tom

Loveridge, John

Peyton, Rt. Hn. John

Sutcliffe, John

Luce, R. N.

Pike, Miss Mervyn

Tapsell, Peter

McAdden, Sir Stephen

Pink, R. Bonner

Taylor, Sir Charles (Eastbourne)

MacArthur, Ian

Powell, Rt. Hn. J. Enoch

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

McCrindle, R. A.

price David (Eastleigh)

Taylor, Frank (Moss Side)

McLaren, Martin

prior, Rt. Hn. J. M. L.

Taylor, Robert (Croydon, N.W.)

Maclean, Sir Fitzroy

Proudfoot, Wilfred

Tebbit, Norman

Macmillan, Rt. Hn. Maurice (Farnham)

pym, Rt. Hn. Francis

Temple, John M.

McNair-Wilson, Michael

Quennell, Miss J. M.

Thatcher, Rt. Hn. Mrs. Margaret

McNair-Wilson, Patrick (New Forest)

Raison, Timothy

Thomas, John Stradling (Monmouth)

Maddan, Martin

Ramsden, Rt. Hn. James

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

Madel, David

Rawlinson, Rt. Hn. Sir Peter

Thompson Sir Richard (Croydon, S.)

Maginnis, John E.

Redmond, Robert

Tolney

Marten, Neil

Reed, Laurance (Bolton, E.)

Trafford, Dr. Anthony

Mather, Carol

Rees Peter (Dover)

Trew, Peter

Turton, Rt. Hn. Sir Robin

Maude, Angus

Rees-Davies, W. R.

Van Straubenzee, W.R.

Mawby Ray

Renton, Rt. Hn. Sir David

Vaughan, Dr. Gerard

Maxwell-Hyslop, R. J.

Rhys Williams, Sir Brandon

vickers Dame Joan

Meyer Sir Anthony

Ridsdale, Julian

Waddington, David

Mills, Peter (Torrington)

Roberts, Wyn (Conway)

Walder, David (Clitheroe)

Mills, Stratton (Beltast, N.)

Rodgers, Sir John (Sevenoaks)

Walker-Smith, Rt. Hn. Sir Derek

Miscampbell, Norman

Rossi, Hugh (Hornsey)

Wall Patrick

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

Royle, Anthony

Walters, Dennis

Mitchell, David (Basingstoke)

Russell, Sir Ronald

Ward, Dame Irene

Moate, Roger

St. John-Stevas, Norman

Warren, Kenneth

Money, Ernie

Sandys, Rt. Hn. D.

Wells, John (Maidstone)

Monks, Mrs. Connie

Scott, Nicholas

White, Roger (Gravesend)

Monro, Hector

Scott-Hopkins, James

Whitelaw, Rt. Hn. William

Montgomery, Fergus

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

Wiggin, Jerry

Morgan, Geraint (Denbigh)

Shelton, William (Clapham)

Wilkinson, John

Morgan-Giles, Rear-Adm.

Shersby, Michael

Winterton, Nicholas

Morrison, Charles

Simeons, Charles

Wolrige-Gordon, Patrick

Mudd, David

Sinclair, Sir George

Wood, Rt. Hn. Richard

Murton, Oscar

Skeet, T. H. H.

Woodhouse, Hn. Christopher

Neave, Airey

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

Woodnutt, Mark

Nicholls, Sir Harmar

Soret, Harold

Worsley, Marcus

Noble, Rt. Hn. Michael

Speed, Keith

Wylie, Rt. Hn. N. R.

Nott, John

Spence, John

Younger, Hn. George

Onslow, Cranley

Sproat, lain

Oppenheim, Mrs. Sally

Stainton, Keith

TELLERS FOR THE NOES:

Osborn, John

Stanbrook, Ivor

Mr, Walter Clegg and

Owen, Idris (Stockport, N.)

Stewart-Smith, Geoffrey (Belper)

Mr. Bernard Weatherill

Question accordingly negatived.

Main Question put forthwith pursuant to Standing Order No. 39 (Amendment on second or third reading):—
The house divided: Ayes 285, Noes 260.

Division No. 91.]

AYES

[10.12 p.m.

Adley, Robert

Brinton, Sir Tatton

Critchley, Julian

Alison, Michael (Barkston Ash)

Brocklebank-Fowler, Christopher

Crouch, David

Allason, James (Hemel Hempstead)

Brown, Sir Edward (Bath)

Crowder, F. P.

Amery, Rt. Hn. Julian

Bruce-Gardyne, J.

Dalkeith, Earl of

Archer, Jeffrey (Louth)

Bryan, Sir Paul

Davles, Rt. Hn. John (Knutsford)

Astor, John

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

d'Avigdor-Goldsmid.Maj.-Gen.Jack

Atkins, Humphrey

Buck, Antony

Dean, Paul

Awdry, Daniel

Bullus, Sir Eric

Deedes, Rt. Hn. W. F.

Baker, Kenneth (St. Marylebone)

Burden, F. A.

Digby, Simon Wingfield

Baker, W. H. K. (Banff)

Butler, Adam (Bosworth)

Dixon, Piers

Balniel, Rt. Hn. Lord

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

Douglas-Home, Rt. Hn. Sir Alec

Batsford, Brian

Carlisle, Mark

Drayson, G. B.

Bell, Ronald

Carr, Rt. Hn. Robert

du Cann, Rt. Hn. Edward

Bennett, Sir Frederic (Torquay)

Cary, Sir Robert

Eden, Rt. Hn. Sir John

Bennett, Dr. Reginald (Gosport)

Channon, Paul

Edwards, Nicholas (Pembroke)

Benyon, W.

Chapman, Sydney

Elliot, Capt. Walter (Carshalton)

Biffen, John

Chichester-Clark, R.

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

Biggs-Davison, John

Clark, William (Surrey, E.)

Emery, Peter

Boardman, Tom (Leicester, S.W.)

Clarke, Kenneth (Rushcliffe)

Eyre, Reginald

Body, Richard

Cockeram, Eric

Fair, John

Boscawen, Hn. Robert

Cooke, Robert

Fell, Anthony

Bossom, Sir Clive

Coombs, Derek

Fenner, Mrs. Peggy

Bowden, Andrew

Cooper, A. E.

Fidler, Michael

Braine, Sir Bernard

Cordle, John

Fisher, Nigel (Surbiton)

Bray, Ronald

Cormack, Patrick

Fietcher-Cooke, Charles

Brewis, John

Costain, A. P.

Fookes, Miss Janet

Fortescue, Tim

Langford-Holt, Sir John

Roberts, Wyn (Conway)

Fowler, Norman

Le Marchant, Spencer

Rodgers, Sir John (Sevenoaks)

Fox, Marcus

Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland)

Rossi, Hugh (Hornsey)

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

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

Royle, Anthony

Fry, Peter

Longden, Sir Gilbert

Russell, Sir Ronald

Galbraith, Hn. T. G. D.

Loveridge, John

St. John-Stevas, Norman

Gardner, Edward

Luce, R. N.

Sandys, Rt. Hn. D.

Gibson-Watt, David

McAdden, Sir Stephen

Scott, Nicholas

Gilmour, Ian (Norfolk, C.)

MacArthur, Ian

Scott-Hopkins, James

Gilmour, Sir John (Fife, E.)

McCrindle, R. A.

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

Glyn, Dr. Alan

McLaren, Martin

Shelton, William (Clapham)

Goodhew, Victor

Maclean, Sir Fitzroy

Shersby, Michael

Gorst, John

Macmillan, Rt. Hn. Maurice(Farnham)

Simeons, Charles

Gower, Raymond

McNair-Wilson, Michael

Sinclair, Sir George

Grant, Anthony (Harrow, C.)

McNair-Wilson, Patrick (New Forest)

Skeet, T. H. H.

Gray, Hamish

Maddan, Martin

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

Green, Alan

Madel, David

Soref, Harold

Grieve, Percy

Maginnis, John E.

Speed, Keith

Griffiths, Eldon (Bury St. Edmunds)

Marten, Neil

Spence, John

Grylls, Michael

Mather' Carol

Sproat, lain

Summer. J. Selwyn

Maude, Angus

Stainton, Keith

Gurden, Harold

Mawby, Ray

Stanbrook, Ivor

Hall, Miss Joan (Keighley)

Maxwell-Hyslop, R. J.

Stewart-Smith, Geoffrey (Belper)

Hall, John (Wycombe)

Meyer, Sir Anthony

Stodart, Anthony (Edinburgh. W.)

Hall-David, A. G. F.

Mills, Peter (Torrington)

Stoddart-Scott. Col. Sir M.

Hamilton, Michael (Salisbury)

Mills, Stratton (Belfast, N.)

stokes, John

Hannam, John (Exeter)

Harrison, Brian (Maldon)

Miscampbell, Norman

Stuttaford, Dr. Tom

Harrison, Col. Sir Harwood (Eye)

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

Sutcliffe, John

Haselhurst, Alan

Mitchell, David (Basingstoke)

Tapsell, Peter

Moate, Roger

Taylor, Sir Charles (Eastbourne)

Hastings, Stephen

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

Havers, Sr Michael

Money, Ernle

Taylor, Frank (Moss Side)

Hawkins, Paul

Monks, Mrs. Connie

Taylor, Frank (Moss Side)

Hawkins, Paul

Monro, Hector

Taylor, Robert (Croydon, N.W.)

Hay, John

Hicks, Robert

Montgomery, Fergus

Tebbit, Norman

Higgins, Terence L.

Morgan, Geraint (Denbigh)

Temple, John M.

Hiley, Joseph

Morgan-Giles, Rea-Adm.

Thatcher, Rt. Hn. Mrs. Margaret

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

Morrison, Charles

Thomas, John Stradling (Monmouth)

Mudd, David

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

Hill, S. James A. (Southampton, Test)

Murton, Oscar

Thompson, Sir Richard (Croydon. s)

Holland, Philip

Tilney, John

Holt, Miss Mary

Neave, Airey

Trafford, Dr. Anthony

Hordern, Peter

Nicholls, Sir Harmar

Trew, Peter

Hornby, Richard

Noble, Rt. Hn. Michael

Turton, Rt. Hn. Sir Robin

Hornsby-Smith, Rt. Hn. Dame Patricla

Nott, John

Van Straubenzee, W. R.

Howe, Rt. Hn. Sir Geoffrey

Onslow, Cranley

Vaughan, Dr. Gerard

Howell, Ralph (Norfolk, N.)

Oppenheim, Mrs. Sally

Vickers, Dame Joan

Hunt, John

Osborn, John

waddington, David

Hutchison, Michael Clark

Owen, ldris (Stockport, N.)

Walder, David (Clitheroe)

Iremonger, T. L.

Page, Rt. Hn Graham (Crosby)

walker-Smith, Rt. Hn. Sir Derek

Irvine, Bryant Godman (Rye)

Page, John (Harrow, W.)

Wall, Patrick

James, David

Parkinson, Cecil

Walters, Dennis

Jenkin, Patrick (Woodford)

Percival, Ian

Ward, Dame Irene

Jennings, J. C. (Burton)

Peyton, Rt. Hn. John

Warren Kenneth

Jessel, Toby

Pike, Miss Mervyn

Wells, John (Maidstone)

Johnson Smith, G. (E. Grinstead)

Pink, R. Bonner

White, Roger (Gravesend)

Jones, Arthur (Northants, S.)

Powell, Rt. Hn. J. Enoch

Whitelaw, Rt. Hn. William

Jopling, Michael

Price, David (Eastleigh)

Wiggin, Jerry

Joseph, Rt. Hn. Sir Keith

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

Wilkinson, John

Kaberry, Sir Donald

Proudfoot, Wilfred

Winterton, Nicholas

Kellett-Bowman, Mrs. Elaine

Pym, Rt. Hn. Francis

Wolrige-Gordon, Patrick

Kershaw, Anthony

Quennell, Miss J. M.

Wood, Rt. Hn. Richard

Kimball, Marcus

Ralson, Timothy

Woodhouse, Hn. Christopher

King, Evelyn (Dorset, S.)

Ramsden, Rt. Hn. James

Woodnutt, Mark

King, Tom (Bridgwater)

Rawlinson, Rt. Hn. Sir Peter

Worsley, Marcus

Kinsey, J. R.

Redmond, Robert

Wylie, RT, Hn. N. R.

Kitson, Timothy

Reed, Laurance (Bolton, E.)

Younger, Hn. George

Knight, Mrs. Jill

Rees, Peter (Dover)

Knox, David

Rees-Davies, W. R.

TELLERS FOR THE AYES:

Lambton, Lord

Renton, Rt. Hn. Sir David

Mr. Walter Clegg and

Lament, Norman

Rhys Williams, Sir Brandon

Mr.Bernard Weatherill.

Lane, David

Ridsdale, Julian

NOES

Abse, Leo

Baxter, William

Broughton, Sir Alfred

Allaun, Frank (Salford, E.)

Benn, Rt. Hn. Anthony Wedgwood

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

Archer, Peter (Rowley Regis)

Bennett, James(Glasgow, Brldgeton)

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

Armstrong, Ernest

Bidwell, Sydney

Brown, Ronald(Shoreditch & F'bury)

Ashley, Jack

Bishop, E. S.

Buchan, Norman

Ashton, Joe

Blenkinsop, Arthur

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

Atkinson, Norman

Boardman, H. (Leigh)

Butler, Mrs. Joyce (Wood Green)

Bagier, Gordon A. T.

Booth, Albert

Callaghan, Rt. Hn. James

Barnes, Michael

Bottomley, Rt. Hn. Arthur

Campbell, I. (Dunbartonshire, W.)

Barnett, Guy (Greenwich)

Boyden, James(Bishop Auckland)

Cant, R. B.

Barnett, Joel (Heywood and Royton)

Bradley, Tom

Carmichael, Neil

1230

1231

Carter, Ray (Birmingh'm, Northfield)

Hughes, Roy (Newport)

Padley, Walter

Carter-Jones, Lewis (Eccles)

Hunter, Adam

Paget, R. T.

Castle, Rt. Hn. Barbara

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

Palmer, Arthur

Clark, David (Colne Valley)

Janner, Greville

Pannell, Rt. Hn. Charles

Cocks, Michael (Bristol, S.)

Jay, Rt. Hn. Douglas

Pardoe, John

Cohen, Stanley

Jeger, Mrs. Lena

Parker, John (Dagenham)

Concannon, J. D.

Jenkins, Hugh (Putney)

Parry, Robert (Liverpool, Exchange)

Corbet, Mrs. Freda

John, Brynmor

Pavitt, Laurie

Cox, Thomas (Wandsworth, C.)

Johnson, Carol (Lewisham, S.)

Peart, Rt. Hn. Fred

Crawshaw, Richard

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

Pendry, Tom

Cronin, John

Johnson, Walter (Derby, S.)

Perry, Ernest G.

Crosland, Rt. Hn. Anthony

Jones, Barry (Flint, E.)

Prescott, John

Crossman, Rt. Hn. Richard

Jones, Dan (Burnley)

Price, Willian (Rugby)

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

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

Probert, Arthur

Cunningham, Dr. J. A. (Whitehaven)

Jones, Gwynoro (Carmarthen)

Radice, Giles

Dalyell, Tam

Jones, T. Alec (Rhondda, W.)

Rankin, John

Davidson, Arthur

Judd, Frank

Reed, D. (Sedgefield)

Davies, Denzil (Llanelly)

Kelley, Richard

Rees, Merlyn (Leeds, S.)

Davies, G. Elfed (Rhondda, E.)

Kerr, Russell

Richard, Ivor

Davies, Ifor (Gower)

Kinnock, Neil

Roberts, Albert (Normanton)

Davis, Clinton (Hackney, C.)

Lamble, David

Roberts, Rt. Hn. Goronwy (Caernarvon)

Davis, Terry (Bromsgrove)

Lambie, David

Robertson, John (Paisley)

Deakins Eric

Lamborn, Harry

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

Lamond, James

Ross, Rt. Hn. William (Kilmarnock)

de Freltas, Rt, Hn. Sir Geoffrey

Latham, Arthur

Rowlands, Ted

Delargy, Hugh

Lawson, George

Sandelson, Neville

Dell, Rt. Hn. Edmund

Leadbitter, Ted

Sheldon, Robert (Ashton-under-Lyne)

Doig, peter

Lee, Rt. Hn. Frederick

Shore, Rt. Hn. Peter (Stepney)

Dormand, J. D.

Leonard, Dick

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

Douglas, Dick (Stirlingshire, E.)

Lestor, Miss Joan

Short, Mrs. Renée (W'hampton, N. E.)

Douglas-Mann, Bruce

Lewis, Ron (Carlisle)

Silkin, Rt. Hn. John (Deptford)

Driberg, Tom

Lipton, Marcus

Silkin, Hn. S. C. (Dulwich)

Duffy, A. E. P.

Lomas, Kenneth

Sillars, James

Dunn, James A.

Loughlin, Charles

Silverman, Julius

Eadie, Alex

Lyon, Alexander W. (York)

Skinner, Dennis

Edelman, Maurice

Mabon, Dr. J. Dickson

Small, William

Edwards, Robert (Bilston)

McBride, Neil

Smith, Cyril (Rochdale)

Edwards, William (Merioneth)

McCartney, Hugh

Smith, John (Lanarkshire, N.)

McElhone, Frank

Spearing, Nigel

English, Michael

McGuire, Michael

Spriggs, Leslie

Evans, Fred

Machin, George

Stallard, A. W.

Ewing, Harry

Mackenzie, Gregor

Steel, David

Faulds, Andres

Mackie, John

Stoddart, David (Swindon)

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

Maclennan, Robert

Stonehouse, Rt. Hn. John

Fitch, Alan (Wigan)

McNamara, J. Kevin

Strang, Gavin

Fletcher, Raymond (IIkeston)

Mahon, Simon (Bootle)

Strauss, Rt. Hn. G. R.

Rletcher, Ted (Darlington)

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

Summerskill, Hn. Dr. Shirley

Foot, Michael

Marks, Kenneth

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

Ford, Ben

Marquand David

Thomas, Jeffrey (Abertillery)

Forrester, John

Marsden, F.

Tinn, James

Fraser, John (Norwood)

Marshall, Dr. Edmund

Tomney, Frank

Freeson, Reginald

Mason, Rt. Hn. Roy

Tope, Graham

Galpern, Sir Myer

Torney, Tom

Garrett, W. E.

Mayhew, Christopher

Tuck, Raphael

Gilbert, Dr. John

Meacher, Michael

Urwin, T. W.

Ginsburg, David (Dewsbury)

Mellish, Rt. Hn. Robert

Varley, Eric Q.

Gourlay, Harry

Mendelson, John

Wainwright, Edwin

Grant, George (Morpeth)

Mikardo, lan

Walker, Harold (Doncaster)

Grant, John D. (Islington, E.)

Millan, Bruce

Wallace, George

Griffiths, Eddie (Brightside)

Miner, Dr. M. S.

Watkins, David

Grimond, Rt. Hn. J.

Milne, Edward

Weitzman, David

Hamilton, James (Bolhwell)

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

Wellbeloved, James

Hamilton, William (Fife, W)

Molloy, William

Wells, William (Walsall, N.)

Hamling William

Morgan, Elystan (Cardiganshire)

white, James (Glasgow, Pollok)

Hannan, William (G'gow, Maryhill)

Morris, Alfred (Wythenshawe)

Whitehead, Phillip

Hardy Peter

Morris, Charles R. (Openshaw)

Whitlock, William

Harper, Joseph

Morris, Rt. Hn. John (Aberavon)

Willey, Rt. Hn. Frederick

Harrison, Walter (Wakefield)

Moyle, Roland

Williams, Alan (Swansea, W.)

Hart, Rt. Hn. Judith

Mulley, Rt. Hn. Frederick

Williams, Mrs. Shirley (Hitchin)

Healey, Rt. Hn. Denis

Murray, Ronald King

Williams, W. T. (Warrington)

Heffer, Eric S.

Oakes, Gordon

Wilson, Alexander (Hamilton)

Hilton, W. S.

Ogden, Eric

Wilson, Rt. Hn. Harold (Huyton)

Hooson, Emlyn

O'Halloran, Michael

Wilson, William (Coventry, S.)

Horam, John

O'Malley, Brian

Huckfield, Leslie

Oram, Bert

TELLERS FOR THE NOES:

Hughes, Rt. Hn. Cledwyn (Anglesey)

Orbach, Maurice

Mr. Donald Coleman and

Hughes, Mark (Durham)

Orme, Stanley

Mr. John Golding.

Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen, N.)

Oswald, Thomas

Question accordingly agreed to.
Bill read a Second time.
Bill committed to a Standing Committee pursuant to Standing Order No. 40 (Committal of Bills).

NATIONAL HEALTH SERVICE REORGANISATION [MONEY]
Queen's recommendation having been signified—
Resolved
That, for the purposes of any Act of the present Session to make further provision with respect to the National Health Service in England and Wales, it is expedient to authorise—

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

(a) any expenses incurred for the purposes of that Act by the Secretary of State;

1234

(b) any expenses so incurred by a per son holding office in pursuance of that Act as the Health Service Commissioner for England or for Wales;

(c) any increase attributable to that Act in the sums payable out of such moneys under any other Act;

(2) the charging on and issuing out of the Consolidated Fund of the salary payable in pursuance of that Act to a person who holds office as such a Commissioner and of any pension or other benefit so payable to or in respect of a former holder of such an office;

(3).the payment into the Consolidated fund of any sums received by the Secretary of State by virtue of that Act.—[Mr. Peter Thomas.]

RATE SUPPORT GRANT (SCOTLAND)
10.24 p.m.
The Under-Secretary of State for Development, Scottish Office (Mr. George Younger): I beg to move,
That the Rate Support Grant (Increase) (Scotland) Order 1973, a copy of which was laid before this House on 16th March, be approved.
Mr. Speaker: It may be for the convenience of the House to discuss at the same time the following motion:
That the Rate Support Grant (Scotland) Order 1973, a copy of which was laid before this House on 16th March, be approved.
Mr. Younger: The Rate Support Grant (Scotland) Order, to which I will refer as the main order, is to provide a grant for local authorities during the two financial years 1973–74 and 1974–75 —that is for the fourth period of rate support grant, and for the last full period before we reorganise local government in Scotland. Although the order covers two years, it is the first of the two years, 1973–74, with which we are most concerned tonight.
The Local Government (Scotland) Bill, which we are discussing in Standing Committee, will provide, if and when it is passed, that any existing rate support grant order shall cease to have effect in respect of the year 1974–75. We shall no doubt discuss the provisions for 1974–75 on another occasion, perhaps in about a year, and, with reorganisation then close upon us, we may decide on quite different grant amounts for that year. But there will be no further opportunity to consider the grant to be provided for 1973–74 and that is therefore what should be of most interest to us tonight.
Rate support grant is the main financial prop for local authorities. It contributes much more to local government finance than do local rates and these orders are therefore very important to local government workings through the years. Before making the main order, the Secretary of State is required by the 1966 Act to consult the local authority associations on the level of costs and prices, on the need for developing services, and on the extent to which, having

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regard to general economic conditions, it is reasonable to allow for development. In fact, there have been very active negotiations with the associations prior to the making of this order. I think it is fair to say that the details of the price base and the provision for development in the main order, and the cost increase calculations on which the increase order is based, have both been agreed by the local authority associations.
Perhaps I should remind the House of the working of the rate support grant system. The grant is in aid of local authority revenue expenditure—that is, expenditure which would otherwise fall to be met out of rates—but excluding contributions to housing revenue accounts, and to the trading services, which are of course expected to be self-supporting. The grant conveyed by the main order is thus fixed by reference to estimates of the expenditure of all local authorities.
Once total estimates have been reached, the grant percentage is decided and is applied to the estimates in order to give the aggregate of Government assistance. From this aggregate grant the specific grants on revenue expenditure are deducted, leaving more than nine-tenths of the aggregate grant to be distributed as rate support grant. The first main determinant of the rate support grant is thus the amount of reckonable expenditure, and the second is the percentage rate which is applied to that expenditure.
There are three elements of the rate support grant—the domestic element, the needs element and the resources element, each serving different purposes and distributed to the authorities on different criteria. Domestic element gives direct rates relief to the household ratepayer. Needs element, taking up nearly three-quarters of the grant, is distributed so as to compensate for the difference in circumstances between authorities—such as population, numbers of children or old persons, density, growth or decline of population and so on.
Resources element, nearly a quarter of total grant, compensates for local deficiencies of rateable resources. In effect it equalises the rateable resources at about the level of those authorities with the highest rateable values per head. I shall

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be speaking again about the domestic element, but the orders now before the House make no changes of substance in the factors affecting distribution of the needs and resources elements—none has been asked for by the local authorities on this occasion—and I suggest that we need not concern ourselves with the complexities of grant distribution, so far as these two sections of the grant are concerned.
In our discussions with the local authority associations, we reached more or less complete agreement over the forecasts of expenditure for 1973–74 and 1974–75. It is, of course, only over the need and scope for developing the existing services that there is any significant room for differences of opinion. Hon. Members of all parties no doubt agree in regarding the improvement of local services as a desirable aim, but there is an overriding need, as we said in the White Paper of last December on Public Expenditure, to ensure that
"the total calls on our resources for publicly financed services are kept within a rate of growth which does not prejudice other objectives"
As it turns out, we are providing for rates of growth which are higher in real terms than those which underlay any previous rate support grant order. The forecasts are that expenditure at constant prices will increase at an average rate of over 4·6 per cent. annually from 1971–72, apart from the provision for servicing of debt. This compares with the figure of 25 per cent. annual growth for public expenditure generally which was indicated in the December White Paper. For 1973–74, the year with which we are more immediately concerned, the forecast is that local authority expenditure will amount to about £581 million.
I will not weary the House by mentioning at this stage details of every one of the service headings under which this expenditure comes, but I should mention one or two of the more important ones.
I begin with education, which accounts for more than half of the expenditure reckonable for rate support grant. The main expenditure consequences of the programme announced in the White Paper "Education in Scotland: A statement of policy", which I presented to the House in December, will not be felt until the later years of the decade, but

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the estimates for 1974–75 do take account of the start we are making with the expansion of nursery education.
The new structure of promoted posts for secondary teachers has provided them with greater incentive and better prospects, and allowance has been made in the expenditure forecasts for the new structure to be fully implemented. We have also assumed a continuing annual growth of 3 per cent. in non-teaching costs per pupil and per student in schools and further education colleges respectively, to allow for improved standards of accommodation and for the rising expenditure on equipment and books needed to keep pace with increasingly sophisticated teaching methods.
The social work services—another heavy commitment for the authorities— have been developing at a rapid rate and provision has been made for continuing expansion in the next two years so as to give growth of 19·2 per cent. by 1974–75 over the close estimate of expenditure for the current year, in addition to increased provision for servicing of debt. This represents an annual average growth of 9·6 per cent. in real terms and will allow for the employment of a greater number of qualified social workers and supporting staff, for extra accommodation for the elderly and other groups and for expansion of the home help service.
On highways—which is second to education in terms of the amount of expenditure—in addition to loan charges, and in addition to some revenue expenditure within the current programme of additional works to promote employment, the figures in the report provide a little over 4 per cent. annually for improvement of maintenance standards.
If further details are required, I shall be glad to give them if I have an opportunity to reply to the debate.
Hon. Members may have noticed that in quoting rates of expenditure growth, I have generally taken care to exclude the cost of loan charges borne by the authorities. I do so because this element of expenditure reflects the amount of existing debt and the expected amount of capital investment. It is not affected by changes in routine maintenance and operation of services. In the report loan charges are allocated to services. If considered in

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isolation, the cost of debt service is seen as a major element in local expenditure. It amounts to about one-sixth of the total reckonable expenditure and is forecast to reach about £111 million in 1974–75. This figure reflects the pace of capital investment in Scotland during recent years, including the capital expenditure in the current programme of additional works to promote employment.
Hon. Members will see that for each of the grant years there is a reduction of £1 million for efficiency and economy measures. I make no apology for this relatively small deduction from these very large estimates. Just as the forecasts for individual services are an indication of priorities and growth rates which might generally be followed, so the specific reduction for economy measures is intended to indicate the need for all authorities to eliminate unnecessary expenditure or activities, to find savings through greater efficiency. In all, the forecast for 1973–74 is a sum of £67 million greater than the estimate for the current year. We all want the continuing improvement in quality of local services which these estimates represent, but the consequent growth of local expenditure must be financed and the problems of finance have been aggravated by inflation.
This raises the question of rates. Rates are a factor affecting other costs and prices, and they are an important item in household budgets. The Government therefore intend that the average level of rate increases in 1973–74 should be kept within bounds compatible with our attack on inflation. Moderation in expenditure is plainly the first step towards stable rates, and I hope that local authorities will contain their expenditure within the guidelines indicated by the figures in the report.
We are providing in this order for an exceptional increase in the rate of grant, an increase of 1½ per cent. Previous increases have been 1 per cent. or half of 1 per cent. We are also making an addition of £1 million to the grant for 1973-74, as the report explains, to match the special temporary assistance which is being given to ratepayers in England and Wales this year, as my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer informed the House on 6th March. A large part

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of the additional rate support grant will be used to shield the household ratepayer from rates increases, and we are adding £4·7 million to the domestic element. Accordingly the order provides that domestic rate poundages must be reduced by 15p in the pound instead of the present reduction of 12p in the pound.
In all, the Exchequer contribution towards local authority spending in 1973–74 on the services reckonable for rate support grant will be the massive sum of £396 million, of which £33 million is accounted for by specific grants and the rest by the rate support grant. What this means is that for every £100 of reckonable expenditure the Exchequer will be finding slightly over £68, rates as a whole slightly less than £32, and household rates, paid by individual householders only about £13·60p. Over the past six years, since the introduction of rate support grant, the share borne by grant has increased by 5½ per cent., and consequently the share falling on rates has been reduced by about one-seventh.
Taking account of the estimates, of the higher grant rate and of the additional £1 million the order gives effect to a reasonable, indeed, a generous, settlement. It should enable local authorities to maintain and improve the quality of services without substantial increases in rate poundages. In short, it creates the conditions in which rates can be stabilised, and it is with this in mind that we have decided that during 1973 we shall monitor changes in local rates. The word "monitor" is used carefully. What we intend is not to take away from the local authorities their discretion as to the requisition they issue or the rates they levy but to inform ourselves of the assumptions on which the fixing of rates and requisitions is likely to be based.
We may wish to exchange views with individual authorities. There are bound to be disparities in local needs, but in general we should expect the levels of expenditure to conform broadly with the estimates on which this main order is based, and that as a result over the country as a whole the average level of rate increases will be moderate and tolerable.
I should briefly refer to the increase order, but I will not take up the time of the House with detail. This order follows up the main order of 1971 and the increase order of 1972. By providing

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additional grant to take account of the effect of changes in costs and prices it preserves the value of that 1971 settlement. Wages and salary awards are the main component in the cost increases which have affected local authority expenditure, and in 1972–73 they account for £33 million in a net increase of £48 million.
As the report explains, the estimates of cost increase are based on the systematic examination and calculation of the effects of wage awards and price changes on local government expenditure. They have been agreed with the local authority associations. The effect of the order is to authorise payment of £33 million of additional rate support grant to the authorities for the two years 1971–72 and 1972–73, which in itself should considerably ease the rating position in the coming year.
The increase order is to increase the existing grants for 1971–72 and 1972–73. The main order is to provide new grants for 1973–74 and 1974–75. I will be delighted to try to answer any questions which hon. Members may wish to raise. I commend the orders to the House.
10.39 p.m.
Mr. Robert Hughes: I want to make one or two comments about the increase order before moving to the main order. The order shows substantial increases to be made by the Government towards rising pay award costs and other increases. It is staggering to find that an extra £2·6 million will have to be found for supplies and services, £2·57 million for property costs, £3·02 million for payments to other bodies and persons and £3·51 million for other unspecified increases in costs.
In view of that, perhaps it is surprising that in the main order the Government say that they have made no provision for any increases in the future. This means that we are to come back at a later stage to decide what the increases will be in 1973–74.
I am not sure that this is the best way to deal with it. It might be better to try to project some of the increases and avoid having to return. We might get better budgeting at local authority level and, if rates are to be monitored, we might see a more efficient system. How-

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ever, the orders simply reflect the growing costs being faced by local authorities and show how much influence the Government have on local authority expenditure and rates.
Very substantial changes in costs have occurred. The Under-Secretary used the figure of 4·6 per cent. as being the real increase. The figure of 4·7 per cent. has also been quoted. I shall not quarrel about that small difference. I wonder whether we are not confusing increasing expenditure with increasing service. The two things do not necessarily go together. One can have a vast increase in expenditure which is outwith the control of the local authority and the Government can pat themselves on their backs and say that they have taken care of inflation by providing more money—but they may not have provided better services.
Regarding the main order, I am not sure whether it is the perennial refrain "It is not enough" or the Oliver Twist position which I adopt—that of saying, "Can we have more?" Unfortunately, we cannot have more. Therefore, we have to decide how far the moneys provided are sufficient to meet the needs. The Under-Secretary may care to check my calculation, which is that average rates paid in Scotland are increasing at the rate of 6 per cent. per annum, despite the increased sums made available by the Government. Despite the increased proportion of reckonable expenditure, ratepayers are having to find slightly more than 6 per cent. extra each year. Perhaps here we have a reflection of the amount of money which has to be found by the ratepayer instead of the Government.
The Under-Secretary said that in discussing with local authorities the amount of reckonable expenditure there had been agreement. He indicated that there was some agreement about the amount of money to be found from central Government. However, will he clear up the point about the reduction in differentials between Scotland and England and Wales from 8·5 per cent. to 8 per cent.? We understand that this means that ½ per cent. has been transferred to England to help with the early stage of local government reorganisation. That is what some of our

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local authority treasurers are saying in the Scottish Press.
The statement made to the Convention of the Royal Burghs was that there has been a transfer of money. I have been unable to find out exactly how much this has cost Scotland. Was it necessary to make this reduction in the differential? The Convention of the Royal Burghs was told that most burghs are likely to have rate rises of probably 10 per cent. to 20 per cent. If that is so, it is a very substantial increase in money from the pockets of ratepayers.
Can the Government give an accurate forecast as to how far individual authorities are likely to increase their rate demands? How much of this increased burden on ratepayers is due to the continual derating of industrial premises? We still have the derating in Scotland, whereas England and Wales do not. It can be argued that derating is necessary in order to encourage industry to come to Scotland and that this is worth while. But Scottish ratepayers are beginning to ask whether they should subsidise industry coming to Scotland in two ways—through income tax, which could be argued to be a reasonable proposition in that income tax takes account of the various family circumstances, and through rates, a direct subsidy from the ratepayer, being a very regressive form of taxation.
The local authorities are asked to have restraint in view of the coming reorganisation of local government. On page 5 of the report on the order there is a very curious phrase. It says:
"The Secretary of State is concerned that the new local authorities, on taking office, should not find themselves hampered by an unnecessarily high rate of current spending."
I am not sure what that means. It would be disastrous if there were to be some kind of hiatus on local government expenditure in the changeover period between the Bill becoming law and the new authority taking over.
Not enough is being done in local authority work at the moment, and if there is no continuation of progress the new authorities will start off being handicapped rather than hampered. I hope we shall have some clarification of the steps the Secretary of State intends to take to curb what he considers to be

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excessive spending. I am not thinking specifically of house building, which is not covered in the order. But something must be done about refurbishing the older housing estates. It saddens me to go round some of them. Some were built pre-war, some immediately post-war and some not so long ago. When I see how they are deteriorating I am concerned. I am not sure whether the amount of money specified in the urban programme can be used for this purpose or whether it is intended for something else. Certainly local authorities should be encouraged to bring their older housing schemes up to a modern standard, not just inside the houses, because that can be done by improvement grant, but in the environment also.
The Secretary of State is being niggardly in deducting £1 million for savings in existing services. That cannot be regarded as an inconsequential amount when we consider how much is being provided to help domestic ratepayers according to the Government's announcement of 6th March. In his speech the Chancellor of the Exchequer said that he thought the amount would be at least £10 million. If it is more than £10 million, will there be a pro rata increase because the local authorities need as much as they can get.
I do not know whether the figure of savings is meant to be in terms of efficiency or in reduction in expenditure. Previously the figure was £500,000. What monitoring has the Secretary of State done to see whether that £500,000 was actually saved by the authorities, or was it simply a saving in money from the Exchequer? If it is a cut in actual expenditure from central Government and the local authorities have not been able to save by methods of efficiency, the amount being given with one hand to protect the ratepayer is being taken away again with the other hand. We must know whether his exhortations of 2½ years ago to save money have had any effect and whether there has been any reduction in the standards of service.
Services must be got right, because unless they are right there is no opportunity for change. Under the formula laid down by law the Government cannot change the gross amounts except by reason of changes in prices, wages or costs.

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May I deal with education expenditure? The Secretary of State says that he has provided for a change in determining the entitlement to free school meals. I believe that there will be a big increase in the costs of food to the schools and I am not satisfied that the Government have paid sufficient attention to this fact. There are continuing increases in the price of food and the Government are responsible for them. Unless they have made sufficient allowance for that in their estimates the schools will be faced with one of two possibilities. Either the people concerned with providing school meals will have to make cuts of some substance in the diet provided, or there will have to be further increases in the charges to those parents whose children take school meals, and that means all the attendant increases in means-tested schemes. We have had enough trouble about those already without going further.
We cannot contemplate a cut in the substance of the meals provided. Recently, we have seen a very worrying recurrence of rickets in our younger population. Rickets is the direct result of poor nutrition. It shows that the nutrition of children in Scotland has not kept pace with what might be regarded as the general increase in the standard of living. It also shows the danger of ending free school milk. We warned the Government at the time about what might happen.
I accept that the mere restoration of free school milk would not by itself prevent rickets. But in terms of a low nutritional diet, the availability of free milk is very important, especially if children are on the threshold of malnutrition. The Government should think in terms of restoring free milk and supplying vitamin D tablets to children, because together they would undoubtedly eradicate this social disease for ever.
One point about rickets which is overlooked is that it highlights the problem that there may be lurking in our school children other diseases of nutrition deficiency. In the view of the Opposition, the Government have no right to gamble with the future health of our children.
Mr. Patrick Wolrige-Gordon: Can the hon. Gentleman give the House any idea how many cases of

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rickets he knows of among school children in Scotland?
Mr. Hughes: The problem is confined to Glasgow, and the cases which came to light between 1968 and 1970 numbered about 21. But our evidence is that it is deep-seated and that many rickets cases have not been properly diagnosed because of the belief among doctors that the disease has disappeared. It appears that rickets may be endemic, especially among Asian children in Glasgow.
We are dealing with people suffering social deprivation. It has been shown that a quarter of the children—white children—in Glasgow suffering from rickets live in homes with no toilets and no hot water supply and where the average number of inhabitants is seven or eight. This is a serious problem, and the Government should be keeping a close watch on it. Indeed, the time has come for action.
I welcome the provision which allows for the greater employment of social workers. I am very worried about the number of families who land up in courts throughout Scotland and who are evicted from their homes for the non-payment of rent. If we are to prevent that, we need a very strong back-up service. At the moment, many social workers are regarded as no more than rent collectors, which destroys their relationship with their clients. The large case load has to be reduced, and that means employing as many social workers as we can get.
There is a growing need among local authorities taking care of the rehabilitation of patients due to be discharged from mental hospitals. Far too many people still remain in our mental hospitals simply because they have been there so long that there is no one outside to look after them and give them some support. I pay tribute to those Scottish local authorities which provide half-way houses or residential accommodation outside in the community to which people can be discharged from mental hospitals. But a great deal more needs to be done, and I hope that we shall hear from the Minister how far he sees this being a feature of the development of the social work programme.
I turn now to the local health services. I am sorry that the Under-Secre-tary of State for Health and Education is not present. It is stated that provision

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has been made for continued expansion of services, particularly for the improvement of home nursing and health visiting services and the further development of the family planning service. I believe that yesterday's announcement by the Secretary of State for Social Services of the intention to change the system which is available in many local authorities for the free provision of family planning services is disastrous. If it is done, I believe that it will destroy services such as those of Aberdeen.
I put on record again how important it is to have a properly developed comprehensive domiciliary and free family planning service. Infant mortality in Aberdeen is 12·3 per thousand live births, which is the lowest rate in the United Kingdom and one of the lowest in the world, if not the lowest. The birth-rate is down from 17·2 per thousand to 14·4 per thousand population. A significant factor is the fall in the number of illegitimate births, and I believe that the number of abortions is significantly lower than it would have been had it not been for the family planning service.
This great improvement has been brought about by close liaison between the Aberdeen Council and the regional hospital board. I believe, as the convenor who piloted the scheme through the council, that it has had great effect. I believe that this courageous decision by Aberdeen has done much to convert practically the whole country to its ideas. In making provision for expansion of the family planning service, the Secretary of State will, we hope, encourage as many local authorities as possible to follow the example of Aberdeen.
It is precisely because lower-income families and people with large families have a health hazard that it is important to have the family planning service. We want a commitment by the Secretary of State that where a local authority does develop a service along the lines of that developed by Aberdeen, now almost universally desired, it will be carried on by the new area health boards in Scotland, irrespective of what is done in England and Wales. I am told that in the National Health Service (Scotland) Act 1972 there is provision for the Secretary of State to allow the boards to carry on and develop such schemes and to launch new ones, and I hope that we shall get a com-

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mitment from the right hon. Gentleman that he will not discourage such services in any way.
More and more we are recognising the regressive nature of rates. We welcome the increases in the domestic element and, for what it is worth, the special temporary provision of the £1 million. But even with all this and the rate rebates, there is still injustice in rates as a method of local taxation. It cannot make sense for one wage earner in a household to meet the rates. More and more services are being transferred from national to local government. Each time it exacerbates the problems of the ratepayers and the whole position to the point where elections are fought not on what kind of services are to be provided but, especially by the Conservatives, on how far they will keep down the rates. This presents a false picture of what local elections are about and leads to an unhealthy state of local democracy and local debate.
The Under-Secretary of State said that this is probably the last occasion on which we shall have a debate in this form because of the changes in local government. I hope that this is also the last occasion on which we shall discuss local rates in this context and that we shall move towards some form of local income tax.
11.0 p.m.
Mr. W. H. K. Baker: Unlike the hon. Member for Aberdeen, North (Mr. Robert Hughes), I shall concentrate on one part of the main order, and that is Table 3 on page 7. The constituency of Banff is a predominantly rural area and cannot therefore benefit from the formula laid down. As my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State knows from correspondence and talks I have had with him, the present formula has worked adversely against Banff.
I do not intend to go into detail, except to say that through an accident of history the county of Banff has 11 small burghs, none of which is within the statutory meaning of "small burghs", ranging in population from 750 to 7,500, and seven of which have a population of under 1,700. Consequently, compared with other counties, Banff has done badly in the distribution of the rate support grant.

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To give one brief comparison, since the last order was discussed in the House, the proportion of grant received by the county of Banff relative to local expenditure was 57½ per cent., whereas in Kincardine, which is similar to the county of Banff, the proportion of grant relative to expenditure was 73 per cent.
Under the present formula, which is continued in the order, the ratio of landward to burghal population is taken into account, and in general it may fairly be said that the greater the burghal population relative to the landward population the greater is the grant that is received. In the county of Banff, as less than 52½ per cent. of the total population—40 per cent. in fact—is resident in the landward area, no percentage is added back under Column (2) of Table 3. That works to the great disadvantage of Banff.
I ask my hon. Friend and the Government to ensure that after the passing of the current legislation whatever formula is adopted will not discriminate adversely as it does in my constituency.
11.3 p.m.
Dr. J. Dickson Mabon: I am not surprised that the Under-Secretary of State took so little time to develop his defence of the Rate Support Grant (Increase) (Scotland) Order 1973. It must be very embarrassing for him, particularly when we recall the speeches he made in opposition, when the Labour Government first introduced these orders, in which he went through his ritual fire dance.
We see the order as evidence of the Government's inadequate handling of the country's economic performance. If ever there were a damning document on the last year of the Government's performance it is this order. To understand why the Under-Secretary of State skipped over it so quickly one has only to look at the increases in the original estimates, not to improve services but just to keep pace with rising prices, wages and costs. The order is a damning indictment of the twist in the inflationary spiral which the Government by their indolence, and sometimes by their active intervention, have caused in the last two years— particularly last year. I will not spend as much time as hon. Gentlemen did in Opposition on the increase order. It

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speaks for itself. Rather I come to the defects in the substantive order as it stands.
My first comment relates to the Under-Secretary's remark, which I did not wholly comprehend, that we should pay more attention to the first year of the substantive order and not be too concerned about the second. I know that the Local Government (Scotland) Bill, if and when it passes through the House, is bound to lead to changes in the presentation of these matters. Nevertheless, I cannot understand entirely why we should disregard the second year or not pay so much attention to it and that we should concentrate on the first year. I do not comprehend these comments. Local government will still exist in its present form in the financial year 1974–75. The services must continue. Chamberlains and county treasurers must know where they stand. I do not understand why we should disregard the second year. It is a bit beyond me. I should like the hon. Gentleman to develop that point.
Mr. Younger: Perhaps I can help the hon. Gentleman. I was pointing out that the Bill, as drafted, provides that any existing rate support grant order shall cease to have effect in respect of the year 1974–75. I was merely saying that this 1974–75 part will cease to have effect. Assuming, as we hope, that the Local Government (Scotland) Bill is passed, there will have to be a new order which we can start discussing from scratch.
Dr. Mabon: We shall not start from scratch, with respect. Obviously this second year in the order is bound to be picked up substantially as it stands. I should be astonished to hear that the order that will replace the second year of this order will in any single item be revolutionary to the extent of cutting it out substantially or of increasing it— doubling it or something like that. It can be only a marginal difference unless we are to have some significant changes of policy, about which we would like to hear.
We do not want to pass the order and waste everybody's time talking about the second year if it is not relevant. I regard it as extremely relevant, so I will not take the point that the figures presented here are without significance. I think that they are significant. I should like later in my

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remarks to give some illustrations of my concern about some items.
Secondly, I presume that we shall be discussing the new order this time next year—I should be grateful if the Under-Secretary would confirm that—or will it be a month earlier, as this order has been somewhat delayed? It may be that with the new order next year the hon. Member for Banff (Mr. W. H. K. Baker) will at last be put out of his misery. The poor soul has been making speeches as similar to that we heard him make tonight on every rate support grant order since the new system was introduced in 1966.
I know the reply that the hon. Gentleman will get. I read it to the House on at least three occasions. I know the problem. I agree that under the present structure there is no way out of the Banff problem. But Banff still gets substantially higher grants than some counties in other parts of Scotland which are supposed to be better off—for example, the central lowland belt counties. Yet many of the social problems of Scotland are in these areas—indeed, in some of the big cities such as Aberdeen and Dundee— which get grants less pro rata than Banff. I do not seek to defend or help the Under-Secretary with his brief. I hope that we will not have the hon. Member for Banff legitimately making a similar speech next year. I hope that with the emergence of districts and the disappearance of burghs these accounting matters will not arise.
My third comment relates to the Under-Secretary's reference to increases of 1 per cent. and ½ per cent. in the major orders. He did not mention that the 1 per cent. was ours and that the ½ per cent. was his. The first substantive order that came after the election of the present Government in the spring of 1971 cut the understood increase based on the 1966 Act of 1 per cent. a year by ½ per cent. That increase—I am not sure I am being a little generous to the Government—took us back to what we lost in the early years of the present Government. We are gaining nothing. If the Government had let progress continue, as was intended, we would be standing where we are.
The cut in 1971 cut the aid to the domestic ratepayer. The increase should

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have been twice what it was. In the last grant, as we see from the increase order, the domestic rate for the two years has been 11p and 12p. It is to be noted that in this substantive rate support grant order the domestic rate relief is 15p for both years. That is not for one year and rising in the following year but for both years.
I cannot accept that we should disregard the second order as something fictional. It is not, unless it is the intention in the next revised order which takes up the second order to increase the domestic rate relief by at least another lp or 2p. We shall not necessarily accept 15p for both years.
We are standing absolutely pat for both years. People are looking to the year after next to see what will be the position under the new system and under the present grant. The comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen, North (Mr. Robert Hughes) about the burden carried by Scottish domestic ratepayers vis-à-vis other ratepayers is valid. In the last Labour Government's term of office we had to consider whether it was a fair point to agree to keep industrial derating at 15 per cent. or to have an industrial re-rating.
I should like to know what would be the valuation of industry in Scotland and what would be the likely increase. What would be the rate, taking the average rate in Scotland, if we re-rated industry? How much would it mean in terms of income to the local authorities if we re-rated industry? I am not proposing that that should be done but I should like to know the result. How would the rating of Scottish industry be placed vis-à-vis the rating of English industry? I am speaking entirely off the cuff, but I think that in our time the figure was something like 12p in Scotland which after re-rating would have been 20p, as against England's 17p. I recall those figures from memory. What would our disadvantage be in Scotland if we re-rated industry?
The same applies to agricultural re-rating. I should like to know how much we are losing, taking the average poundage in Scotland, as against the estimate of the valuation of agricultural subjects— namely, agricultural land. What are we losing from 100 per cent. agricultural subjects?

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These are valid points in relation to the picture presented by the rate support grant order. If local government could raise all the money it needed, it would not have to go to the State and these orders would not be required. It would be healthier if that were the case.
Paragraph 10 of the Rate Support Grant (Scotland) Order, 1973, says
"The aggregate amount of Exchequer grant for 1973–74 is thus £395·80 million … and for 1974–75 it is £419·61 million."
My hon. Friend has rightly made the point that, judging from these figures and Appendix A, there is to be a reduction for efficiency and economy measures of £1 million, which to some extent offsets the £1 million which we are given in the second year when the efficiency reduction will carry on.
I can remember arguments about this. This is clearly a sop by the Scottish Civil Service to convince the Treasury that we are trying to be economical in local government. That is a reasonable goal, but this is a fiction, a piece of nonsense. I can almost see the greybeards of the local authority associations looking across the desk at the Minister and agreeing to this £1 million reduction, knowing that the sums involved are hundreds of millions of pounds. What does it matter? The Government should have abandoned this fiction. We have had enough experience of it.
After all, this is £1 million given by no arithmetical logic but by the sheer political expediency of the Prime Minister trying to treat Scotland the same as England, where local authorities were undergoing a considerable revaluation. We should not have had this Peter-Paul exercise of taking away £1 million in one year and giving £1 million in another respect, and in the next year taking away £1 million and not giving anything.
Why is it that, in the second year, according to Appendix B, there is no item for the additional works programme for roads? Does that presage some act of policy? Remember, we cannot restore this cut in an increase order, although we could restore it in the substantive order next year. Perhaps the Minister is thinking of that. Why is nothing provided there?
Why are rate rebates fixed at the same level for both years? Rates will

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rise. Will somebody suggest to me that rates will fall? The burden of rates on the domestic ratepayer, even with relief, will rise. Am I to assume that rate rebates will not rise? I do not see the logic of that. Why is the figure precisely the same in both years?
As for improvement grants for houses, do I take it that this figure of £2,500,000 in the second column represents the height of the charges of the improvement grants? In that year, in April, 1974, the improvement grant scheme will end, so I assume that the tapering-off will take place about then. Or will this figure rise still more? I should like to do some calculation of my own as to what is likely to happen in the following years and whether there is not perhaps a case for going on with the improvement grant scheme, which has been grudgingly extended in various bits and pieces, even if it has to be by legislation. Although the Minister has said that it was not wise, they have had to extend improvement grants. I should like to see them carrying on later than April 1974.
These are my criticisms, and I should be obliged if the Minister would answer them. I am most keen to know whether next year's order, in picking up all these points, will simply flow from this one, or whether the Under-Secretary is saying, "Look out—there will be substantial changes in policy. That is why an order will be needed next year, just as much as it would if we were not discussing the Local Government (Scotland) Bill."
11.20 p.m.
Mr. Patrick Wolrige-Gordon: Very united criticisms they were, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I was a little surprised at the muted tone of the speech of the hon. Member for Greenock (Dr. Dickson Mabon), until he told us how many times, when he was on the Government Front Bench, he had made the speech that my hon. Friend made tonight. I must tell the hon. Gentleman that he did not make his speech half as well as my hon. Friend did.
The hon. Member for Aberdeen, North (Mr. Robert Hughes) was undecided about what criticisms to make. He did not know whether to be Oliver Twist or

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Santa Clause. I feel that when the Opposition cannot make up their minds the truth is that they broadly support the Government's policy and think that they have made a fair judgment of the situation.
The hon. Gentleman covered many aspects, from mental health to rickets, and brought in family planning. Points of view vary on these topics, but when the hon. Gentleman talks about ratepayers being concerned about industrial derating and continuing to carry industry in that way, I must point out that many of them are concerned, too, about providing a free family planning service on the rates.
The main point made by my hon. Friend, and one which I should like to emphasise, is the enormous amount of the Exchequer contribution to the rate expenditure. I am sorry that the representative of the Scottish National Party has left the Chamber because I am sometimes tempted to ask from where the tremendous amount of money involved should come.
In my part of the country we are particularly concerned about the large increase in capital expenditure by local authorities as a result of boom conditions in the north-east of Scotland. It is worth driving home the fact that of the greatly increased expenditure the Exchequer produces about 68 per cent. and the householder only about 13 per cent. Nevertheless, the burden is considerable, and I hope that the Government have firmly in mind the burden of increased expenditure from this kind of activity.
I am always advised that the local authorities will reap the benefit in increased income in the years ahead, but that is not the immediate consideration which affects ratepayers who have to find their share—admittedly a small share—of the increased expenditure now, and I reinforce that point tonight.
11.23 p.m.
Mr. Frank McElhone: I shall not endeavour to take up the points made in the speech of the hon. Member for Aberdeenshire, East (Mr. Wolrige-Gordon). Unfortunately, time prevents my following up the remarks made in the forthright speeches of

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my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen, North (Mr. Robert Hughes) and my hon. Friend the Member for Greenock (Dr. Dickson Mabon), who displayed all the expertise and knowledge that one would expect from a distinguished former Minister of State. In a wide-ranging speech he managed to give us the information which the Government do not have. I say that with respect to the Under-Secretary of State, who opened the debate.
In such an important debate as this an hour and a half, allowing for Front Bench speeches, is totally inadequate to cover the whole of Scotland, especially at a time of local government reorganisation. Therefore, looking at the clock, and in order to allow some time for a reply to the comments of my hon. Friends and of myself, I shall truncate my remarks and not develop the argument in the way that I should have liked to do.
In the Glasgow Herald of 6th February the Glasgow City Treasurer, who led a deputation to the Secretary of State for Scotland, commented upon the changes in the rate support grant. Talking about differentials, she said that Scotland normally received 8· per cent. but that this had been reduced to 8 per cent. The reason for the reduction was that the other 0·5 per cent. was to go to England and Wales to pay for the reorganisation of local government.
It is a strange feature of the Scottish rate support grant that we have to have a reduction in order to pay for the reorganisation of local government in England and Wales. We should also remember that the largest authority in the whole of England—the Greater London Council—was not affected by reorganisation. But Glasgow is losing £500,000 in 1973–74. That would not be so bad, but we recall the speech made by the Secretary of State for Scotland in April 1970 at Dunblane, when he warned that this might happen, and said that we must guard against it. After his making that pious speech on local government finance we find the very same thing happening under his Government.
Scotland is losing £2·9 million in rate support grant, which is going to England and Wales. The Minister must answer this point, because it has never been answered. It was not answered when

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the allegations were made by the City Treasurer of Glasgow. I gather that it cannot be disputed that Glasgow, and particularly the Strathclyde region, suffered from revaluation. This fact has not been taken into account in recent rate support grant statements. Because of the increased valuations Strathclyde would lose about £4 million, and the figure for Glasgow, at the time was £1 million, in addition to the £500,000 that it is losing in 1973–74. Because of the decreased differential Glasgow does not come out too well.
One always pays regard to what the hon. Member for Banff (Mr. W. H. K. Baker) has to say. He is concerned mainly with Banff, but the Minister will recognise that the problems of Glasgow and other urban areas in Scotland are as serious, if not more serious. When one reads the order and listens to the Minister talking about the specific function in respect of social work, and expressing the hope that the House will be pleased to learn that the rate support grant has been increased by 9·6 per cent. in that respect, one realises that he has been ill-advised, or is totally unaware of the seriousness of the social problem in Scotland.
Many families are doing "moonlights", families who have been forced to do so through debts, often incurred by bad domestic management. There are about 40 cases a week in Glasgow. The Glasgow Housing Manager reports:
"There has been an increase of 600 of these incidents in just 12 months compared with previous years."
In my maiden speech I referred to the 2,000 families in Glasgow who have absconded or been ejected for non-payment of rent. This figure has escalated as a result of the burden on the social work department. On the last occasion when I spoke in a rate support grant debate we were told that there was a 25 per cent. increase.
Mr. Ian MacArthur: I have great sympathy for people in this position. Does not the hon. Member therefore welcome the Housing Act, which will make it possible for tenants who cannot afford to pay much rent to pay much less than before, and in many cases none at all?
Mr. McElhone: I hate to see the hon. Member being continually wrong in his interventions in my speeches. He, as well as anyone—because he was with me and many others who sat through the long debates on the Housing Bill—knows that the Housing Act will be responsible for making many more families "moonlight". The Minister knows very well, and many other people in local government know, that this is why so many local authorities refused to implement the Act. The hon. Member well knows, as does the Undersecretary of State that because of the substantial rent increases arising from the Housing (Financial Provisions) Scotland Act hundreds of families each year will have to "moonlight" from their homes.
Mr. MacArthur: Nonsense.
Mr. McElhone: This is bound to cause great social problems, and arises from one of the most vicious pieces of legislation to come from any Government in postwar years.
The Minister said that there was to be an increase of 96 per cent. in the provision for home help. I have raised this matter several times over the last few years. If the Minister examines the expenditure he will see that most social work authorities are under-staffed and do not provide proper facilities. In terms of expenditure on salaries for those who come from the colleges, it must be said that not one extra home help will result from the figure of 9·6 per cent. of expenditure on the social services.
I could go on at length about the inadequacy of extra rate support grant in the way of fire services. Fire prevention is of crucial importance in Glasgow, and I should like to see Scottish local authorities encouraged to introduce computers and extremely up-to-date fire prevention methods. The situation in Glasgow is critical; indeed, the situation in the whole of Scotland is causing some concern to fire authorities.
In Appendix II there is reference to "Other services". That includes housing improvements, weights and measures, youth employment and sheltered workshops. The amount of extra grant given to these other services is shocking. The Minister must be aware of the high level of youth unemployment, particularly in Glasgow. About 32 per cent. of all unemployed school leavers are to be found

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in Glasgow, and yet that important area of need is lumped in with "Other services". In the last three or four years the weights and measures department has taken on an increasing work load, much of which has arisen from the operation of the description of goods legislation. The department is working at full capacity and yet there is no extra capacity for the department to protect the consumer in fully implementing the legislation.
Sheltered workshops are also lumped in with "Other services", and yet constantly on Scottish television advertisements are screened calling for disabled people to apply for jobs. It is surely hypocritical to show those advertisements to disabled people when the order provides such paltry sums to meet the provision in this respect.
I give credit to the Under-Secretary of State for Development, Scottish Office, as the Hans Christian Andersen of the Government. He can certainly spin a fairy tale. When we consider the effects of inflation and the onset of the provisions of phase 2 of the Government's prices and incomes policy, we must realise that the first year of its operation will be important. I am afraid that these orders do not augur well for the reorganisation of local government which is about to take place as a result of legislation now passing through the House. I am very depressed about the situation.
11.34 p.m.
Mr. Harry Ewing: I am grateful to take advantage of the few moments left to me at the end of this debate to make a few general points on these orders. I wish to make some constituency points, because in introducing them the Minister said that the increase takes account of changes in population shift in population. My constituency point relates to educational facilities in the county of Stirlingshire, particularly in the Falkirk-Grangemouth area, where the population —though I take no credit for it—has increased beyond all reasonable bounds.
Whereas the population in all other parts of the country is declining year after year, the population in the Falkirk-Grangemouth area is increasing. There

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is a corresponding effect on the educational programme, the school building programme, and the ability to attract teachers. The Minister must know that the parents in the area are seriously concerned. This is not the fault of the education authority. Almost every new school that is built rapidly becomes inadequate for its area. Although the responsible Minister is not present tonight I hope that the Under-Secretary will draw my remarks to his attention. I know that representations are being made by the Stirling County Council. My hon. Friends and I who represent the county will be assisting in these representations to see whether we can convince the Department that some extra allocation ought to be made to meet this serious problem.
I regret the application of an average growth rate figure to social work, however generous such a figure may be. If there is any area in which there ought to be rapid growth it is social work. As my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Gorbals in this Parliament (Mr. McElhone)—Queen's Park in the next— pointed out, there is a growing need for the expansion of the home help service. Almost every area of social work, including the work of children's panels, needs expanding. All are suffering from a lack of finance. I recognise the problems here. Whenever anyone gets involved in social work and suggests that more money should be spent there is an immediate outcry. People call us do-gooders and say we ought to be cutting expenditure rather than raising it. That is not my view, and it is not a view taken by most people.
The Minister ought to have said more about the £1 million to be deducted for increased efficiency. It is not good enough for him to say that local authorities ought to eliminate unnecessary spending without giving examples of what he considers to be unnecessary expenditure. The Minister said that rate increases in the coming financial year would broadly conform to the Government's counter-inflation policy. Why has a limit not been applied? If the policy is related to the attack on inflation it is surely right to say that the Government have applied limits in other areas. Why, when it comes to rate increases, have they not done so?
I conclude with a reference to industrial derating, which concerns all of

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us. None of us is quite sure about the impact of industrial derating on the attraction on industry to Scotland. There are varying illustrations of the impact of industrial derating on local rates and the effect if industry were required to pay the full rate, or even 75 per cent. of the rate. I do not know which would be the better. But this matter requires study.
When owner-occupier rates were applied in the mid-1950s, when owner rates were abolished and the rates were applied to the occupier, the promise was given that industrial derating would stop and that, therefore, the domestic ratepayer and, to a lesser extent, the commercial ratepayer, would have a smaller burden. I am not hanging my coat on any nail, but I join my hon. Friend the Member for Greenock (Dr. Dickson Mabon) in asking the Minister to look seriously at this question. It is now giving cause for concern in Scotland.
11.41 p.m.
Mr. Younger: With the leave of the House, I shall try to answer as many as possible of the questions which have been raised. I am grateful to hon. Members of the Opposition for allowing me the time to do so. If I answer them speedily, they will understand that it is with the object of covering as many points as possible.
If Oliver Twist had looked around the House this evening he would have considered himself a backward, shy and retiring lad compared with some hon. Members of the Opposition.
Let us look briefly at the question of relativities between Scotland and England. Under the first order, made in 1967, the rate support grant system started with the Scottish ratepayer finding £37·50 towards every £100 of reckon-able expenditure. By 1973–74 the Scottish ratepayer will be finding £32 towards every £100 of reckonable expenditure. Over the years changes in the grant rate have reduced the ratepayer's contribution by £5·50—that is, by 14·7 per cent.
If hon. Members care to examine the English orders and reports they will find that over the same period the English ratepayer's share has fallen from £46 to £40 out of every £100 of reckonable
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expenditure; that is a fall of 13 per cent. Seen in this way, surely, it is clear not only that the Scottish ratepayer makes a smaller contribution to reckonable expenditure but that he has benefited more, not less, from the successive changes in the grant percentages.
I make the same point again in a different way. A 1 per cent. grant increase is a greater benefit to the Scottish ratepayer than to the English ratepayer. As a proportion of the reckonable expenditure falling on the rates, the 2 per cent. grant increase in Scotland for this year and next year is equal to the 2½ per cent. increase in England for the same two years.
However, I sense the concern in the House that the rate of grant should be at a level which is quite fair as between Scotland and England. Before the next rate support grant order is put before the House I shall look carefully at the differential between the two countries. That means not that it will be increased but that we shall satisfy ourselves about the relative levels of grant. In this we must take account of a number of factors, of which one is the impending reorganisation of local government. The costs of reorganisation will be taken into account in the Scottish settlement for 1974–75 in the same way as was done for England and Wales in respect of 1973–74.
The hon. Member for Aberdeen, North (Mr. Robert Hughes) mentioned a number of points, one of which was the efficiency cut. That was mentioned also by the hon. Member for Greenock (Dr Dickson Mabon). The report shows a token reduction of £1 million. The point of this is to lay before local authorities collectively a specific objective in their search for savings. We should keep this matter in perspective. A saving of £1 million is about one-sixth of 1 per cent. of the total estimate of expenditure.
I cannot possibly offer detailed suggestions as to where the savings should be found, as I was asked to do. That should be left to the authorities. In the numerous bodies represented by the expenditure of about £600 million, on which the order is based, there must surely exist a small margin of potential saving. Few local authority treasurers would categorically state that there is no scope within their organisations for

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marginal savings without noticeably affecting the standard of services. I cannot say categorically either that any particular rate of saving called for in past years has been achieved, or, equally, that it has not been achieved. That would require a totally disproportionate amount of monitoring to get the facts.
The hon. Member for Aberdeen, North (Mr. Robert Hughes) asked about changes in the assessment of parental income for free school meals. Provision has been made for the additional cost to authorities arising from the change in assessment of parental income for free meals purposes. We have deferred an increase in the cost of meals from 12p to 14p which was due to come into effect on 1st April as part of the counter-inflation policy.
The hon. Member also asked about the urban programme. It is provided under the Local Government Grants (Social Need) Act 1969 for the payment of grants toward local authority expenditure on projects designed to benefit areas of special social need. Its aim is to enable local authorities to take quick action by way of modest building schemes and certain projects to improve the facilities and services available in areas displaying symptoms of serious social deprivation.
The hon. Member asked about average rates increases and suggested that they might be approximating 6 per cent.
Mr. Robert Hughes: The point is that the average increase in rates over the whole of Scotland was at the rate of 6 per cent. per annum. What will happen in the different areas?
Mr. Younger: I cannot give that breakdown, but the hon. Member's figure of 6 per cent. is broadly correct, taking one year with another. As I said in a reply to a recent Question by my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Cathcart (Mr. Edward Taylor), this growth compares with the considerably greater growth in earnings over the same period.
The hon. Gentleman mentioned the distribution of the additional £1 million. It has been said that this money should have been given to ratepayers who are worst affected by the revaluation. This is not the first time that the Scottish counterpart of a sum used in England
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and Wales to provide transitional relief has been applied directly to the block grant. It was done in relation to general grant after the revaluation of 1963. If compensating individual ratepayers in the actual year of revaluation is a difficult administrative task for rating authorities, compensating them two years later would be almost impossible. For one thing, a great deal of property which did not exist in 1970–71 is now occupied and rates are being paid on it.
The hon. Member for Greenock (Dr. Dickson Mabon) asked me whether the 15p figure in the domestic element was for both years. I can assure him that nothing is finally decided about 1974–75. We could, however, be looking at this question in a year's time against a background of other changes in the distribution of expenditure between the ratepayer and the taxpayer. It is much wiser to leave our options open for the second of these two years, which is what I was indicating we were trying to do.
The hon. Member also asked why rate rebates in the two years should be put at the same figure. The answer is that a new basis has to be calculated for rate rebates. There is no realistic basis for estimating what rate rebate grants will have to be made under the existing scheme for 1974–75. Under the proposals in the Local Government (Scotland) Bill the new scheme will operate and the grant will no longer be deductible from the aggregate of rate support grant, which it has been in the past.
The hon. Member for Glasgow, Gorbals (Mr. McElhone), in a speech which dealt mainly with the problems of social work in which he is deeply interested, asked about rating problems for Glasgow. All is not as difficult as he feels it to be. The financial problems of Glasgow are taken into account. They have been considered on many occasions in connection with the grant distribution discussions, and the local authority associations have accepted the need for a special weighting to protect authorities in this position. In the coming year, Glasgow will receive grant of more than £3 million by virtue of the special weighting in the formula for distribution of the needs element, a weighting directly related to loss of population. Between them, the rest of the authorities will receive £3 million less than would be the case without this weighting. This is a significant

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contribution to Glasgow's special problem.
The hon. Gentleman also asked about home helps. Substantial additional provision for home helps has been made in the settlement, with the agreement of the local authority representatives. This is over and above the additions put forward for newly-appointed trained social work staff.
I have been asked a number of questions about social work services. I wholly share the views of those who seek adequate social work provision by local authorities. Authorities themselves are very conscious of this need. It is for this reason that the rate of growth in this service is substantially higher than that for services as a whole. In current expenditure, the growth rate between 1972–73 and 1973–74 has been forecast as 1209 per cent., and that between 1973–74 and 1974–75 as 9·34 per cent. These forecasts take into account the abolition of the minimum charge for home helps which has had the effect of increasing the reckonable expenditure on the service over the two years in question by 3·1 per cent. and 0·3 per cent. respectively. But, even after deducting these percentages, we are left with net percentage increases of 8·96 and 9·34.
I believe that these rate support grant settlements are wholly reasonable and generous for all the needs that local authorities expect to have to put in train in the next year or two. I pay tribute to the local authorities for their help in these discussions every year. As a result, we have managed to meet almost all the requests that they have made to us.
I hope very much that the House will agree to pass these orders.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That the Rate Support Grant (Increase) (Scotland) Order 1973, a copy of which was laid before this House on 16th March, be approved.
Resolved,
That the Rate Support Grant (Scotland) Order 1973, a copy of which was laid before this House on 16th March, be approved.—[Mr. Younger.]
ADJOURNMENT
Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Jopling.]

INDUSTRIAL DISPERSAL
11.53 p.m.
Mr. William Molloy: The Under-Secretary of State for Trade and Industry will be aware that over the past two years I have raised the question of industrial undertakings leaving the West Middlesex area in general and the Ealing area in particular. In my view the evidence that I have submitted from time to time about firms leaving the area has not been taken sufficiently seriously, with the result that in recent weeks we have begun to hear hon. Members who represent London constituencies expressing their concern about the growing number of jobless people in the Greater London area.
There is a feeling of grave apprehension in the West Middlesex area, especially in the boroughs of Ealing, Hillingdon, Brent and Hounslow. I know that the Minister will produce figures showing that there does not seem to be any great degree of unemployment, that there are plenty of jobs available, and that the situation is not as bad as some have been saying in the past two years. But the evidence is overwhelming, and I plead with the hon. Gentleman to recognise the situation which is developing in the West Middlesex area.
In the past two years no fewer than 20 firms have left the area, most of them light engineering establishments. This has caused a great deal of upset in the community in general and in all aspects of community life in the London borough of Ealing and in the neighbouring boroughs to which I have referred. Only recently, the Tory-controlled Greater London Council made an appeal to the Government to take seriously this very dangerous development of industrial undertakings leaving the West Middlesex area in particular.
Mr. Nigel Spearing: Is my hon. Friend aware that the GLC has not only expressed concern but has asked to see the Secretary of State? At a meeting on 27th February, it asked the Secretary of State
"… to receive a deputation of members … which would express the Councils concern at the excessive rate of industrial decline in London and press for action …"

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Is my hon. Friend aware that 198 acres in the borough which used to hold industry hace lost it over the last five years?
Mr. Molloy: That is the whole point. The Government seem to be undisturbed, because the statistics suit their argument. I am talking not about statistics but about people—about skilled craftsmen and their families. That is much more important than trying to square numbers and statistics. We are talking of people and communities, and the contribution they can make to their boroughs and to the country.
Only last week, the regional organiser of the Amalagamated Union of Engineering Workers received a letter telling him that yet another firm in my constituency was moving out. Let us, therefore, not hear from the Under-secretary of State the argument about figures of unemployment and underemployment and so on. I ask him, in conjunction with the trade unions, the borough councillors and the Tory-controlled GLC, to take serious cognisance of this dangerous development of industrial undertakings moving from the West Middlesex area.
There are industrialists who say that they need labour in the area and cannot get it. On the other hand, trade unions are expressing concern at the growth in the number of jobless in Ealing and the West Middlesex area. It may well be that they are both stating the truth as they see it. Very often, when a light engineering firm moves out to another part of the country a skilled artisan, such as an engineer or lathe operator, or a fitter and turner, does not feel that he can pick up his roots and go with it. For example, he may have a mortgage only half paid off. The alternative, for him, is to find other employment locally. There is alternative employment, but, as one man put it to me, "I am not enamoured, as a skilled engineer, of becoming a janitor or doorman". Such a man feels it an affront to his skill that he should be offered such alternative employment as well as a serious drop in his standard of living—because it does not provide the same level of remuneration.
This argument can also be applied to women, many of whom have become
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unemployed because firms have moved out of the area. I could give examples of women who are skilled electronic workers but who are now unemployed. Of course, there is also alternative work for them—as lavatory cleaners and charladies. But, having trained to become, and having used their intelligence as, skilled electronic workers, they, too, are not particularly enamoured of a drop in their standard of living in such jobs as they are being offered. I say nothing in denigration of charladies. They are important people. But when a trained man or woman who has worked for a firm for 20 years as a skilled artisan has to take an unskilled job because his firm moves away it is an affront to his dignity.
The movement of industry out of the West Middlesex area is a matter of serious concern. In my constituency is situated the Perivale Industrial Estate, which was designed in the late 1930s. The industrialists find that they cannot expand. We get the worst of both worlds. The industrialists who want to expand cannot do so, and have to move out of the area.
When men aged between 45 and 50 are asked to pull up their roots and move to another part of the country it causes a family crisis. Most people like to live near their jobs. They do not want to be harassed by travelling to and from work. The Prime Minister, on leaving this workshop a few months ago, was irritated because he could not quickly get to No. 10 Downing Street. The same applies to the working man. It is no proper life for a man to be with his family only at weekends. What is good enough for the Prime Minister is good enough for the working men in my constituency. They have a right to ask that firms should stay in their area.
In the cold, analytical language of the statistician, a firm decides to move out of the area and employees are rendered redundant. But this means a man losing his job, having to tell his wife, having to discuss with her how to pay off the mortgage, how to find enough money to clothe the children, and how little Johnnie is to become an apprentice. Statisticians do not know about those things. We must not become a nation ruled by statisticians who regard people as numbers. I am reminded of the vulgar attitude of some Army officers, who refer

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to other ranks as "bods" and do not realise that they are husbands. fathers and brothers.
The Rockware Company in my constituency has a first-class productivity record and has had no industrial confrontations. The shareholders have been happy because the increased productivity has meant a better return on their money. In return, the skilled workmen have received increased wages and have had nothing much to worry about. But because of the possibility of nefarious action by share strippers the company has had to consider how it can avoid being stripped.
It has decided that if it gets out of Ealing and sells the land on which the factory stands to developers it can make the equivalent of two decades' profit on its present output. But the nation has lost all the skilled work of the men who produce milk bottles, glass pipettes for hospitals, and so on. These men have devoted their working lives to what they thought was a good firm. Indeed, even middle management has been outraged by the company's attitude.
This kind of attitude is growing all over London. I wonder what would be said if a firm to which I have referred were involved in some very important part of Britain's defence. Would we allow the land developers and the share strippers to come in and close a factory that was making a vital contribution to the Royal Air Force, the Navy, or the Army? Of course not. It would be a grave mistake to assume that ordinary working men do not pose these arguments to themselves. The manner in which this operation was carried out was disgraceful.
The Minister for Industrial Development wrote to me about this matter. In his letter he said:
"Because of the urgency of the decision to close it was concluded that no prior consultation with the company's employees, as recommended by paragraph 44 of the Industrial Relations Code of Practice was possible."
The decision to close this factory was made three months after I had toured it and been told that the company hoped to enlarge it. Indeed, school leavers had been encouraged to start work with the company.
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What reply can we give to workmen when they ask: who can we trust? A strike or some other form of confrontation always hits the headlines. The Government are prepared to bash the trade unions at any time. Will they now have the guts and the courage to tell this firm that its reprehensible behaviour will not be tolerated? When it comes to applying the industrial relations code of practice to the employers, what do we find? All is forgiven, irrespective of how appalling the decision might be.
This aspect was quoted by The Times and the Financial Times. I recommend the Minister to read what is said in those newspapers, because they can hardly be described as extreme. Their comments about the Rockware incident show that they are as apprehensive as the rest of us. Such appalling behaviour should be halted.
The borough councils of Ealing, Hounslow and Hillingdon, the chambers of commerce and the local Members of Parliament, because of this grievous situation, which is getting worse every day, want to set up consultative machinery to examine the social effects of closures and job availability. They ask whether the Minister will be prepared to assist them in setting up this consultative machinery to examine all the problems that arise when it is inevitable that firms will leave the area, and to see what can be done to ease the situation. When this request is put to him I hope that the Minister will give it the attention that it deserves. We must make it clear that we cannot go along with this dangerous and evil philosophy of putting profit before people.
The London borough of Ealing is in danger of limping on one foot. Working people in Ealing and West Middlesex wish to contribute, with their skills and abilities, to the welfare of their borough and country. Parliament must help to remove this threat to their livelihoods. By so doing it will make a tremendous contribution to West Middlesex in particular and help to preserve the skills of our artisans, of which we are so proud.
12.10 a.m
The Under-Secretary of State for Trade and Industry (Mr. Anthony Grant): I am grateful to the hon. Member for Ealing, North (Mr. Molloy) for raising this matter. It is fair to point out that

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he has pursued his case—not that I agree with it entirely—assiduously and for a long time. The hon. Gentleman's constituency and mine are almost adjacent to each other, so I have an interest in this matter. Perhaps he will allow me to say that as a Minister I probably have made more ministerial visits to the various regions than any other Minister. I have had an opportunity to consider unemployment on a national basis. It is in that context that we must consider the problem.
The hon. Gentleman expresses a dislike for statistics. He reminds me of the man who was happy to use statistics and welcomed them if they supported his case, but condemned them if they did not. I shall have to use some statistics, as that is the only way in which the House can judge the position.
My Department and I will certainly give careful and sympathetic consideration to any proposals that come from the group to which the hon. Gentleman referred. We will consider carefully proposals and suggestions made by the GLC. It is our desire to work and discuss as much as possible with all bodies, to resolve the matter.
I shall first make a brief general observation. We probably all agree that industrial expansion is necessary to the economic survival of this country and that all should be done to encourage industry to compete in the new and expanding markets now available. I am confident that British industry will seize these wider markets.
Wider markets also bring increased competition, and the United Kingdom industry generally is in the throes of reorganisation to improve efficiency and to make its prices competitive. This reorganisation entails the restructuring of certain industries, like steel, and the nationalisation of others. The latter may take a number of forms, and is dependent solely on the commercial judgment of each company
The Government do not seek to influence the judgment of any company in the private sector in this respect, save in the capacity of protecting public money where it is invested. They do, however, supply one of the factors on which these judgments are taken. I refer to the Govern-
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ment's regional industrial policy, with which the House is familiar. In the sense that this ensures industrial growth in the less fortunate areas of the country, I cannot pretend that the Government find such decisions unwelcome, but I must emphasise that the Government aim is expansion of new industries in these areas rather than the attraction of existing industry from the non-assisted areas.
It is sometimes suggested that there is a disincentive to invest or expand in the non-assisted areas such as the South-East. That I do not believe to be true. The new 100 per cent. free depreciation allowance and the 40 per cent. initial allowance for industrial buildings represent for the first time an incentive to industry to invest throughout the country and not just in the assisted areas. It is not generally realised that in a non-assisted area such as West Middlesex a manufacturer can recover, in net present value terms, 32 per cent. of his outlay on plant and machinery and buildings for a typical industrial project. This is almost the best-ever incentive that has been available.
We stand by the policy which we have expressed on the issue of industrial development certificates on several occasions. They are no longer required in the development areas for new projects with an area of less than 15,000 square feet, or 10,000 square feet in the South-East. When we took office the limit was 3,000 square feet. We have adopted a much more flexible policy. For existing factory premises no certificate is required. Where the project is judged to be mobile —that is, equally capable of being sited viably in an assisted area—a certificate is normally withheld unless there are other overriding considerations. But where an application concerns modernisation or expansion of existing plant which is not readily capable of transfer, a certificate is usually granted. In practice, 90 per cent. of IDC applications, in terms of jobs involved, were approved in 1972 and the first two months of 1973. In the years 1968 and 1969, the comparable figure was 80 per cent. During last year and the first two months of this year a total of 49 projects were approved, and in the West Middlesex area there were only five refusals during this time.
I must now refer to the case of Rockware Glass. The group involved owns

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five factories—one at Greenford, two in Yorkshire, one in Lancashire and one in Irvine, in Scotland. The staff number 7,700, of whom 1,266 are employed at Greenford on the manufacture of glass bottles. This last activity has been under review by the company for some time, in view of increasing competition from containers made in other materials, but a decision was deferred when productivity at the factory improved after discussions with the unions involved.
Unfortunately, another development occurred which made a decision imperative without prior consultation with the unions. The company decided to act in the common interest of the shareholders and the employees at its other four factories by closing the factory at Greenford and transferring the work to its other factories. The company says that it regrets that it was unable to discuss the decision with representatives of employees at the Greenford factory in accordance with paragraphs 44–46 of the Government's code of industrial relations practice, but it says that publicity would have frustrated its effort. I regret, too, that it was unable to do so, and I hope that the principles laid down in this code will be followed by other firms which may find themselves in a similar position, because they are a fundamental basis for good industrial relations.
I am glad to learn, however, that the company is discussing with the unions the phased rundown of the factory, which is due for closure by early 1974. I believe that, when it first announced the closure in January, the company said that supplementary payments over and above those due under the Redundancy Payments Act would be made to employees affected. It has now offered substantial improvements on the supplementary payments originally envisaged, and these are under discussion with the workers.
The company also says that it is prepared to discuss alternative uses for the site with local councils and other interested parties, and a meeting is to be held on 5th April, under the chairmanship of the Mayor of Ealing.
The Government will do all that they can to alleviate hardship, although I do not think that hardship will be as widespread in the area as some people have suggested. There are currently, in March,
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60,644 unfilled vacancies in the Greater London area, including West Middlesex, compared with 67,277 registered unemployed.
Mr. Molloy: I cannot allow the Minister to make this reference to the company not adhering to the code of industrial relations practice because it might have frustrated its efforts. What about the frustration of those who cannot get work and their families? What if a union said, "We cannot give notice of a strike because it might frustrate our endeavours."?
Mr. Grant: I have said that I regret that the code was not followed.
I was about to say that the West Middlesex figures are even more dramatic. The number of unemployed in March was 5,409, and unfilled vacancies numbered 8,276, so the area is enjoying the same downward trend in unemployment that is shown nationally. I believe that this will continue and that the vacancies are only the tip of the iceberg. One sees evidence of this in the local papers which circulate in the area. In the Middlesex County Times this week there were 10 pages of advertisements for situations vacant, the Middlesex Advertiser had 10 pages, the Middlesex Chronicle 11 pages, and the Harrow Observer 13 pages. These were not for the sort of menial jobs to which the hon. Gentleman referred.
If, in the exception, some workers find themselves unfitted for work in their immediate vacinity—and I accept that this is sometimes a difficulty—they will have the opportunity of training for fresh skills, currently in demand, at Government training centres at Perivale and Twickenham, which together have more than 500 places. It is worth noting that of the 3,000 additional places planned for the whole country, more than 500 will be in London alone, which, in the circumstances, I do not think is a bad allocation. About 450 places are currently filled, but another 300 places will be made available at these centres during the next few months, and there will be a general expansion of training under the special Training Opportunity Scheme.
I understand that engineering places at the centres are fairly easily available and that under the scheme training facilities are available at employers' establishments and colleges of further education in a

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wide variety of subjects at all levels, from the semi-skilled right up to managerial level. These include training in the technical, clerical and commercial fields, and the centres are within reasonable travelling distance of Greenford. This is very important. The Training Opportunity Scheme is aimed at preparing individuals— including those made redundant—for new employment, and the Department of Employment is ready to discuss personal problems at its local offices.
It is sometimes suggested that hardship is caused through the replacement of manufacturing firms by others in the service industries. As at October, 1972, the latest date for which details are available in the GLC area, the hourly rate of earnings of manual workers aged 21 and over in all categories of industries was 83·35p—the highest in the country with the exception of the West Midlands. I do not believe that London is badly placed in that respect.
The local offices of the Department of Employment stand ready with their full range of services, including a computer-
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ised "job bank", to assist all those who may be looking for jobs to secure suitable work. Both in West London and in the wider travel-to-work area the number and range of vacancies, including skilled jobs have never been greater. This represents a uniquely favourable situation, in contrast to most other parts of the country.
This is not a complacent answer. This is a thoroughly realistic reply from a Minister who, if I may say so, has constituency interests in this area, who understands only too well the problems of the hon. Gentleman's constituents, but who is also able to see the overall picture throughout the country. In that context I must tell the hon. Gentleman and his constituents that here is now probably a better opportunity for them—albeit they will have to change—than ever before.
The Question having been proposed after Ten o'clock on Tuesday evening and the debate having continued for half an hour, Mr. DEPUTY SPEAKER adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.
Adjourned at twenty-three minutes past Twelve o'clock.

EMPLOYMENT
  Regional Employment Premium
  Regional Employment Premium
  European Social Fund
  European Social Fund
  Departmental Services
  Departmental Services
  Community Industry Scheme
  Community Industry Scheme
  Unfair Dismissal (References)
  Unfair Dismissal (References)
  Trade Union Rights
  Trade Union Rights
  Wages and Salaries (Payment by Cheque)
  Wages and Salaries (Payment by Cheque)
  Public Service Employees (London Weighting)
  Public Service Employees (London Weighting)
  Employment Agencies
  Employment Agencies
  Redundancy Payments
  Redundancy Payments
  Greater London
  Greater London
  Occupational Pensions
  Occupational Pensions
  Training
  Training
  Hull and Goole Docks
  Hull and Goole Docks
  Motor Car Industry
  Motor Car Industry
  Wales
  Wales
  Women (Activity Rates)
  Women (Activity Rates)
  Hartlepool
  Hartlepool
  Textile Industry
  Textile Industry
  Vacancies
  Vacancies
  Newcastle-under-Lyme
  Newcastle-under-Lyme
  Merseyside
  Merseyside
SOCIAL SERVICES
  Hospital Workers
  Hospital Workers
  Retiring Age
  Retiring Age
  Industrial Disputes (Benefits)
  Industrial Disputes (Benefits)
  Education and Training (Central Council Representation)
  Education and Training (Central Council Representation)
  Congenitally Disabled Children
  Congenitally Disabled Children
  Joint Liaison Committees (London)
  Joint Liaison Committees (London)
  Funeral Expenses (War Pensioners)
  Funeral Expenses (War Pensioners)
  Strikers (Optical and Dental Treatment)
  Strikers (Optical and Dental Treatment)
  Social Workers (Transfers)
  Social Workers (Transfers)
  Abortions
  Abortions
  Pensions
  Pensions
  National Insurance Contributions
  National Insurance Contributions
  Occupational Pensions Board
  Occupational Pensions Board
EDUCATION AND SCIENCE
  Training Workshops
  Training Workshops
  Welsh School of Medicine, Cardiff
  Welsh School of Medicine, Cardiff
  Students (Discretionary Awards)
  Students (Discretionary Awards)
TRADE AND INDUSTRY
  Steel Industry (Yorkshire and Humberside)
  Steel Industry (Yorkshire and Humberside)
  Industrial Development Certificates (Wales)
  Industrial Development Certificates (Wales)
  Trade Descriptions Act 1968
  Trade Descriptions Act 1968
  Industrial Dispersal (London)
  Industrial Dispersal (London)
ENVIRONMENT
  Rents
  Rents
  Countryside
  Countryside
  Disabled Persons (Motor Vehicles)
  Disabled Persons (Motor Vehicles)
  Rates
  Rates
  Shops (Definition)
  Shops (Definition)
  Roads (Construction Programme)
  Roads (Construction Programme)
  Motor Cars (Suppressors)
  Motor Cars (Suppressors)
  "Public Participation in Road Planning"
  "Public Participation in Road Planning"
  Tree Planting Year
  Tree Planting Year
HOME DEPARTMENT
  Prisoner's Petition
  Prisoner's Petition
  Dual Citizenship
  Dual Citizenship
  Firearms
  Firearms
  MINISTERS (PRIVATE INTERESTS)
  MINISTERS (PRIVATE INTERESTS)
  RATES
  RATES
  CBI AND TUC (MEETINGS)
  CBI AND TUC (MEETINGS)
  REGIONAL EMPLOYMENT PREMIUM
  REGIONAL EMPLOYMENT PREMIUM
  ECONOMIC AFFAIRS (PRIME MINISTER'S SPEECH)
  ECONOMIC AFFAIRS (PRIME MINISTER'S SPEECH)
  PERU
  PERU
  PRIME MINISTER OF BANGLADESH
  PRIME MINISTER OF BANGLADESH
  PRESIDENT NIXON
  PRESIDENT NIXON
AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES AND FOOD
  Eggs
  Eggs
  Sugar Beet Pulp (Price)
  Sugar Beet Pulp (Price)
  Farm Capital Grant Scheme
  Farm Capital Grant Scheme
  Agricultural Land (Lime Treatment)
  Agricultural Land (Lime Treatment)
  Fowl Pest (Yorkshire)
  Fowl Pest (Yorkshire)
  Abattoirs
  Abattoirs
DEFENCE
  Portsmouth Naval Base (Accidents)
  Portsmouth Naval Base (Accidents)
FOREIGN AND COMMONWEALTH AFFAIRS
  South Georgia
  South Georgia
  Icelandic Fisheries
  Icelandic Fisheries
  Uganda
  Uganda
  Public Purchasing (EEC Directive)
  Public Purchasing (EEC Directive)
NATIONAL FINANCE
  Value Added Tax
  Value Added Tax
  North Sea Oil
  North Sea Oil
  Deaths (Grant of Representation)
  Deaths (Grant of Representation)
  Capital Equipment (Tax Allowances)
  Capital Equipment (Tax Allowances)
NORTHERN IRELAND
  Fishing Authority
  Fishing Authority
  Employment
  Employment
  Irish Republican Army
  Irish Republican Army
SCOTLAND
  Turnhouse Airport (Demonstration)
  Turnhouse Airport (Demonstration)
  Teachers (Superannuation)
  Teachers (Superannuation)
  Non-manual Employees (Local Authorities)
  Non-manual Employees (Local Authorities)
  Regional Planning
  Regional Planning
  Barra (Landing Strip)
  Barra (Landing Strip)
  Isle of Harris (Water Schemes)
  Isle of Harris (Water Schemes)
  Ferry Service (Vatersay and Barra)
  Ferry Service (Vatersay and Barra)
  Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons (Services)
  Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons (Services)
  Edinburgh Airport (Runways)
  Edinburgh Airport (Runways)
  Cold Stores and Slaughterhouses
  Cold Stores and Slaughterhouses
  Selective Schools (Glasgow)
  Selective Schools (Glasgow)
WALES
  Public Contracts
  Public Contracts
  Industrial and Economic Co-ordination
  Industrial and Economic Co-ordination
  Roads (Llandovery and Llandeilo)
  Roads (Llandovery and Llandeilo)

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 Chester.

THE LORD BISHOP OF SALISBURY
George Edmund, Lord Bishop of Salisbury—Was (in the usual manner) introduced.

PANAMA ZONE SOVEREIGNTY: U.N. DISCUSSIONS
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 part their representative in the United Nations Security Council took in its discussions on the claim of Panama for negotiations with the U.S.A. for sovereignty over the Canal Zone
THE MINISTER OF STATE, FOREIGN AND COMMONWEALTH OFFICE (BARONESS TWEEDSMUIR OF BELHELVIE): My Lords, the British representative told the Security Council that Her Majesty's Government regarded this as an issue between the Governments of the United States and Panama. They hoped that their negotiations, which had already begun, would be brought to a satisfactory conclusion.
LORD BROCKWAY: But, my Lords, is not this question of much greater importance than an issue between the United States of America and Panama? Has not the veto imposed by the United States antagonised the whole of Central and South America, and has not our abstention caused distrust towards us, with very serious effects in that part of the world?
BARONESS TWEEDSMUIR OF BELHELVIE: My Lords, it is entirely up to the United States as to how they
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use their veto. So far as our own abstention is concerned I do not think that it registered mistrust. We abstained because we thought the Security Council should not pronounce on a delicate matter which was already under discussion between the United States and Panama.
LORD BROCKWAY: My Lords, may I ask the noble Baroness one further question? Is it not desirable that we should seek the internationalisation of the Panama Canal and of all international waterways? Furthermore, is not the objective at which we should aim the right of the peoples on the borders to their own independence?
BARONESS TWEEDSMUIR OF BELHELVIE: My Lords, I do not think that on a question on Panama I could introduce such subjects, for example, as Suez. But I would say that as this matter was under negotiation between the United States and Panama we did not think that the Security Council had any need to pronounce on the matter.
BARONESS GAITSKELL: My Lords, would it not be a good thing if such waterways as the Panama Canal, or even the Suez Canal, were always open to international shipping and were international waterways?
BARONESS TWEEDSMUIR OF BELHELVIE: My Lords, what is important, I quite agree with the noble Baroness, is that these waterways should be open to international shipping; and of course that is the prime interest of Britain in connection with the Panama Canal.

COAST EROSION AND ACCRETION
2.43 p.m.
THE EARL OF LAUDERDALE: 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 studies they have, or intend to, set up to observe coast erosion and accretion around the United Kingdom.
LORD MOWBRAY AND STOURTON: My Lords, under the Coast Protection

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Act 1949, the observation of coastal erosion in any area is primarily the responsibility of the maritime district authority, who are empowered to undertake such studies as they consider necessary to the discharge of their statutory duties. The costs of studies, integral to schemes of protection, rate for Exchequer grant when approved by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for the Environment. In addition, provision has been made in the research budget of the Department of the Environment's Engineering Directorate for certain studies likely to prove of general benefit; for example, the evaluation and monitoring of bastion protection schemes and the artificial recharging of beaches.
THE EARL OF LAUDERDALE: My Lords, in thanking my noble friend for that reply, would he accept, first of all, that it does not add very much to our information? Also, would he not agree that this is a question of the United Kingdom interest at large and is far too important to be left simply to local authorities?
LORD MOWBRAY AND STOURTON: My Lords, we keep a watching brief over all local authorities, and my right honourable friend has powers to interfere if he thinks the local authorities are not discharging their functions properly.
THE EARL OF LAUDERDALE: My Lords, would my noble friend not agree that when there is erosion on the coast of Aberdeenshire, when there is a 90 degree change to the entrance to the Tay estuary and when there is erosion of the Yorkshire coast and also of the Sussex beaches, and when there is accretion at Tents Muir Point in Fife and on the coast of Lancashire, this is something which requires general oversight? At present it is being treated piecemeal.
LORD MOWBRAY AND STOURTON: My Lords, it is, as I said, the local maritime authorities who are the local authorities. If my noble friend has any particular points to mention I should like to hear from him, and so would my right honourable friend. I would repeat that under Section 29 of the Act, acting upon complaint about an authority who, in the light of local inquiry, have failed to take sufficient measures for the protection of land in their area, the Secretary of State
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may then direct a local authority to do more. We are not aware that there is such an absence of duty on their part.
LORD DERWENT: My Lords, as my noble friend Lord Lauderdale has mentioned the Yorkshire coast, could he or my noble friend say which local authorities are not carrying out their duties?
LORD MOWBRAY AND STOURTON: My Lords, I cannot do so, because I am not aware of any local authorities who are not discharging their functions in this respect.
THE EARL OF LAUDERDALE: My Lords, would the noble Lord not agree that the dredging of spoil from the North Sea and the English Channel, coupled with tidal drift, is bringing great damage to some of our beaches, and that there are a whole series of cases, including Spurn Bight on the Humber, where damage is arising that is in fact not being dealt with? Does this not require such a watching brief by, as we might say, the Royal Commission on Pollution, or should there not be a five-year research study, or a study on a United Kingdom scale, taking accretion and erosion together?
LORD MOWBRAY AND STOURTON: My Lords, my noble friend first of all referred to dredging at sea. I can assure the House that dredging at sea cannot be done without obtaining a licence from the Hydraulics Research Station. If my noble friend will bring to our notice any forms of erosion, or particular cases where he thinks local authorities are in default of their duties, we should be grateful to him.
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord whether he would consider asking the Department of the Environment to consult the Natural Environment Research Council and other academic advisers as to the extent to which particular geography departments—and there are a number of very notable geographers who are concerned in this question—are carrying out synoptic studies? Is he aware that his noble friend is asking for a total look? Further, would the noble Lord see whether in fact the material could perhaps be brought together fairly easily?
LORD MOWBRAY AND STOURTON: Obviously, my Lords, we will look at this again but, as I said in my original

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Answer, there are continual studies being done on the overall picture. I must repeat that we are not aware of any serious erosion causing important trouble to the country as a whole.
THE EARL OF LAUDERDALE: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that at least one river authority is practically in despair about getting through to the Department of the Environment on this subject, and others are also worried? Is he further aware that this is a matter of great concern generally? I shall certainly write and give him particular examples.
VISCOUNT ST. DAVIDS: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that when it comes to erosion, one man's erosion is very often the accretion of his next-door neighbour? The reason why this has to be done on more than a local scale is because if the one man stops erosion the beach material may simply not get down to his next-door neighbour, that is, the neighbouring authority, and therefore they suffer erosion in their turn. There has to be a balancing up of a whole coast if you are really going to stop erosion in a proper manner and without spending too much money on it.
LORD MOWBRAY AND STOURTON: My Lords, I think that what the noble Lord has said is reasonable. I do not see anything to disagree with in that.
THE EARL OF LAUDERDALE: My Lords, would the noble Lord not agree that some system of monitoring would be worth while, such as the Sussex River Authority are doing on their coast? Could this not be done around Britain?
LORD MOWBRAY AND STOURTON: My Lords, we are in touch the whole time with the local port authorities and river authorities and harbour authorities, as are the local maritime authorities. I really think this matter is getting over-exaggerated. The picture is not a bad one. Where there is serious damage local authorities take action. I would instance authorities like Bournemouth and Southport, who take endless trouble with beaches and where there is obvious reason to gain on their part. On the whole, the country is well looked after by our maritime authorities.
LORD WYNNE-JONES: My Lords, would not the noble Lord agree that a similar answer might have been given a few years ago about water resources?

EAST GERMANY AND REPARATIONS FOR NAZI VICTIMS
2.50 p.m.
LORD JANNER: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether in the course of their negotiations with the German Democratic Republic they will make representations to that Government for reparation to be made to persons, communities and organisations where personal injuries and/or loss or damage to property were sustained by them in East Germany as victims of Nazi persecution.
BARONESS TWEEDSMUIR OF BELHELVIE: My Lords, we raised the general question of compensation for victims of Nazi persecution during recent talks with officials of the German Democratic Republic on establishing diplomatic relations. It was decided that both Governments would, at a time Ito be agreed, enter into negotiations for the settlement of financial and property problems still outstanding between the two States, and that each Government would be entitled to raise any questions.
LORD JANNER: My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness for her reply. May I ask her whether in this respect she agrees that we should set an example by urging other nations concerned, as well as ourselves, to make it clear to the German Democratic Republic that they have not paid a penny piece in reparations to those victims who were subjected to unspeakable horrors? There are still well over one million Nazis in the East German Democratic Republic who participated in these crimes. In the circumstances, this is a major issue and it would be unbelievable that the position should not be dealt with by them in the same way as the West Germans have done.
BARONESS TWEEDSMUIR OF BELHELVIE: My Lords, our own

977
responsibility is for United Kingdom nationals. We hope that the German Democratic Republic will recognise its obligations to compensate victims of Nazi persecution irrespective of their nationality.

CHANNEL BRIDGE PROPOSAL
2.52 p.m.
LORD DAVIES OF LEEK: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
The Question was as follows:
ask Her Majesty's Government whether, in view of the modem advances in bridge building and engineering, a Green Paper to discuss the question of a Channel Bridge will be presented to Parliament.
LORD MOWBRAY AND STOURTON: No, my Lords. A summary of the reasons why a Channel Bridge is not being pursued is contained in the Green Paper on the Channel Tunnel project published last week.
LORD DAVIES OF LEEK: My Lords, I am partially grateful to the noble Lord for that Answer. I have read with care the Green Paper, together with the summary. Does not the noble Lord think that the Green Paper is contradictory in so far as the Foreword says that we can expect a vast amount of traffic, whereas the Annexe on the Channel Bridge says that maybe the traffic would not justify the construction of the bridge? Consequently, the Green Paper is illogical. Nevertheless, have the noble Lord and the Government made a study of the potential benefits to British industry suggested by the offshore oil and gas development concerns, who say that the advancing new techniques by British Steel, with derricks and platforms in stormy seas, are evidence of the fact that steel, like lighthouses, can withstand the stormiest seas?
LORD MOWBRAY AND STOURTON: My Lords, I am not aware of all the facts that the noble Lord put to me, but, having regard to all the factors, I can say that the Government have come to the conclusion that the bored rail-tunnel is the only practical fixed link at this
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moment, and will be so for a considerable period in the future. The tunnel—if agreed upon—could be in operation by 1980. That does not rule out possibilities of alternative forms of fixed link at a much later date. At the moment we are discussing the tunnel or nothing.
LORD POPPLEWELL: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware how pleased most people engaged in transport are at the decision of the Government to go fully into this project? Is the noble Lord aware that this matter has been under discussion for something like 170 years? It is to the credit of the Government—who am I to give credit to the Government?—that they have shown forthrightness in approaching this project.
LORD MOWBRAY AND STOURTON: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Popplewell. The noble Lord sees the possibilities and potential in long-range rail freight coming from far-off ports and towns in Britain and going on the Continent. When the White Paper is published I am sure we shall have more information to go on.
LORD SLATER: My Lords, will the Minister state whether an out-and-out geological survey was taken before this project was brought into commission, or even talked about? There is a feeling throughout the country that a geological survey has not been taken. It would be to the advantage of the general public if such knowledge could be imparted.
LORD MOWBRAY AND STOURTON: My Lords, I do not know how to define the phrase: "out-and-out survey". Surveys in considerable depth have certainly been taken. If Phase 2 goes ahead after the publication of the White Paper—and I say "if"—further borings will be taken as well.
LORD SLATER: My Lords, one of the main reasons why I posed this supplementary question is that the Chislet coalfield in Kent is right on the edge of the South Coast. There may be a similar position there to the situation on the North-East coast, where a geological survey has enabled estimates to be made of the amount of coal that is lying under the North Sea bed at this moment. Men are working under the sea to bring that coal to the surface.
LORD MOWBRAY AND STOURTON: My Lords, the noble Lord may know that since April, 1971, detailed studies have been going on. We expect them to be completed about June of this year, after which, as the House is aware, the Government will be publishing a White Paper. The noble Lord can rest assured that knowledge and thought have gone into the Green Paper. I repeat that the studies have been in depth.
LORD NUNBURNHOLME: My Lords, may I ask the Government to instigate a full debate on the whole question of the necessity of the Channel Tunnel? As I understand it, to transport a car from here to France is going to be three times more expensive with the Channel Tunnel. Unless we can make the Channel Tunnel a feasible proposition I feel—
SEVERAL NOBLE LORDS: Question!
LORD AUCKLAND: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that his Answer will give disappointment to a large number of people? Has my noble friend considered the effect of a serious accident in a tunnel of this kind, quite apart from the risks of claustrophobia? Will he give consideration to the fact that a bridge would carry far more cars and other transport in the busy summer season?—and surely one of the ideas is to encourage the tourist trade. Will he re-think this matter carefully before coming to a final decision?
LORD MOWBRAY AND STOURTON: My Lords, my answer to my noble friend and to the noble Lord, Lord Nunburnholme, is that I think the noble Lords have not fully read or digested the Green Paper. Regarding accidents, it is confidently felt that there is far less risk of accident with a rail tunnel than with a bridge which would be liable to navigational accidents. On the matter of claustrophobia, when you are travelling in a train at a fixed speed, with no fumes, there is far less chance of claustrophobia then when you are driving and dealing with the problem of exhaust fumes. Regarding the amount of vehicles taken through, I think I am right in saying that it is the belief of the people who made a study of this subject that as many vehicles will travel through the tunnel with greater safety and greater speed than they would on a bridge.
LORD CONESFORD: My Lords—
THE LORD PRIVY SEAL (EARL JELLICOE): My Lords, I hesitate to interrupt my noble friend, but the noble Lord, Lord Popplewell, remarked that this matter had been under discussion, or under consideration, for 170 years. We might be in some danger of going on, by question and answer, for 170 years. I suggest to your Lordships that this might be a subject more fitting for a debate. I understand that this matter is being discussed through the usual channels.

COLLEGE OF ARMS BILL [H.L.]
LORD TEVIOT: My Lords, I beg to introduce a Bill to make provision for the determination and publication of a Table of Fees, the making available to the public of documents and the preparation of annual accounts by the Chapter of the College of Arms. I beg to move that this Bill be now read a first time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 1ª.—(Lord Teviot.)
On Question, Bill read 1ª, to be printed, and referred to the Examiners.

CONSOLIDATED FUND (No. 3) BILL
Brought from the Commons, endorsed with the Certificate from the Speaker that the Bill is a Money Bill with the meaning of the Parliament Act 1911; read 1ª.

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. 38 (Arrangement of the Order Paper) be dispensed with for the purpose of allowing the Lord Belstead's Motion on Thursday next and the Lord Bowden's Motion on Tuesday, April 10, to be taken before Public Bills and Orders.—(Earl St. Aldwyn.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
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) and No. 44 (No two stages of a Bill to be taken on one day) be dispensed with tomorrow for the purpose of taking the Consolidated Fund (No. 3) Bill through its remaining stages, and of taking it first on that day.—(Earl St. Aldwyn.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

FIRE PRECAUTIONS (LOANS) BILL
THE MINISTER OF STATE, HOME OFFICE (VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS): My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a third time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 3ª.—(Viscount Colville of Culross.)
On Question, Bill read 3ª, and passed.

THE ERROLL REPORT ON LICENSING LAWS
3.3 p.m.
LORD MAELOR LORD MAELOR rose to call attention to the Erroll Report on Licensing Laws; and to move for Papers. The noble Lord said: My Lords, I beg leave to move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper. I am addressing this House this afternoon as a Welshman and I am looking at the Report from the point of view of the people of Wales. I never tire of telling your Lordships that the people of Wales are different from the people of England. I am not suggesting that they are better (I would even say that in Cardiff!), but I am pointing out that we are different and that we look at questions such as the one we are discussing this afternoon from a different point of view. I can assure the Government that if they were to introduce a Bill in accordance with this Report to the other place, not a single Welsh Member out of the 36 Members of Parliament would vote for that Bill. I am sure of that.
the outset let me congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Erroll of Hale, and his Committee on the thoroughness of their undertaking. They have left no stone unturned and have produced a massive Report extending to 324 pages. From my point of view I would say that, like the proverbial curate's egg, it is good in parts. Let me refer to two of the good
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parts. I fully agree with the Committee's recommendations regarding clubs. As your Lordships are aware, magistrates, on granting a licence to a club, have no jurisdiction whatsoever over that club afterwards. They have no right of inspection and the police have no right to visit. As the Report rightly states, we have no statutory definition of a "club". The Report says:
"Broadly speaking it is up to any group of people to decide to set up a club and to prepare rules relating to the scope of club activities, eligibility for membership, and its detailed management."
know that many of these drinking clubs are sponsored by the brewers. Indeed, I would say that the majority of them are. They provide the money on the understanding, of course, that only their particular brew will be consumed on the premises. I remember when a club in my own village run by the Royal British Legion applied to my Bench for a licence; one clause in the covenant stipulated that only the sponsor's beverage was to be sold there. As chairman of the Bench I suggested that it would be desirable if that clause were deleted. They readily agreed, and the licence was granted. It will be interesting for noble Lords to note what happened afterwards. The following year, when carrying out my annual inspection of public houses—and I visited them all every year and was offered free drinks at every one—I had occasion to call at a public house, situated only 20 yards from this club, which had been declining in business for a number of years. I said to the licensee, "I suppose that the nearby club has ruined your business?" He replied, "On the contrary, it has improved tremendously. You see, they do not sell lager at the club and the lager drinkers come over here from the club for their favourite drink". Only one conclusion can be drawn from that and it is that, although the clause I referred to had been deleted, is was understood of course that only that brewer's drinks could be served there.
Now the Report declares definitely that magistrates and the police should have the right of entry.
A NOBLE LORD: Shocking!
LORD MAELOR: I fully agree with that, my Lords. The Report declares also

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that when magistrates consider an application for an off-licence they should, in addition to considering the suitability of the premises and of the applicant, consider also the need for such a licence and the nature of the goods sold at the shop. In other words, there should be a public demand before such a licence is granted. These are two of the good things which are proposed and I have no doubt that my noble friend Lord Shepherd will mention the others during his speech, but I want to deal with the bad proposals, and it will take all my time to do so.
I claim that the proposals, if they are carried out, will automatically cause heavier drinking. When the Report was published such a responsible newspaper as The Times advised in a leading article that the Government should be cautious. Let me quote:
"In general it would be wise not to go so far as the Committee would in satisfying the consumer. It is better to have a few thirsty throats than to provide further unnecessary encouragement to heavy drinking."
That is the point of view of The Times. We are living in an age of violence when an honourable judge last week saw fit to impose a sentence of 20 years' imprisonment on a teenager in an effort to suppress the prevalent violence. But are we, as adults, not responsible for all this? We have created what is known as the "permissive society". Consequently, I maintain that to the extent that the law can influence behaviour at all it should be leaning away from greater permissiveness, rather than towards it.
The Report recommends that the legal age for entering and drinking in public houses should be lowered from 18 to 17. In my view that is simply monstrous. Experienced magistrates know that when a licensee is charged with serving drinks to a person under 18 years of age, his excuse always is that the person served appeared to him to be over 18 years of age. If the age is reduced to 17, as recommended, we shall find boys and girls of school age going to pubs and claiming to be 17. That will inevitably give rise to hooliganism and violence. Imagine a boy or girl in a classroom under the influence of drink. They will be able to slip in during the lunch hour. The Committee had to agree with that possibility. On page 177 of the Report I find the following interesting observation:
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"We were repeatedly told of cases of young girls looking at least 20 in the evening, but no more than 16 when appearing in court without makeup and in school uniform. We found these perfectly credible."
If you reduce the age to 17, it will be these very girls who appear to be 20 in the evening who will be taking advantage of this relaxation and, as intoxicated young girls, will be liable to many forms of undesirable social habits. Irresponsible men will be ready to take full advantage of their emotional condition. I do not want to be personal but I cannot help expressing my surprise that one member of the Committee, namely, the right reverend Prelate, did not object to this particular recommendation. I should get the full support of noble Lords opposite when I tell them that the Society of Conservative Lawyers (not Labour lawyers) published a pamphlet on the first day of this year entitled, Liberty and Licensing. This pamphlet states that "alcohol is potentially dangerous to health", and then comes out against the lowering of the drinking age to 17. The Society of Conservative Lawyers favours opening hours ranging from a minimum of six to a maximum of nine between 10 a.m. and midnight. I must believe that the present Conservative Government hold that Society in high esteem. Needless to say, the Brewers' Society support the reduction of the drinking age to 17.
I now come to a recommendation which, in my opinion, can only be described as wicked, namely, to extend the permitted drinking hours to 14 hours a day. The Committee states, at page 147:
"We have concluded that the case has been made out for a system of permitted hours which allows a licensee greater flexibility to open or close than at present. It follows from this that the universal mandatory afternoon break should be abolished … We feel able to propose this, however, because we believe that in particular parts of the country, at particular times, such a change would be convenient to the public at large and could be made without creating or exacerbating existing social problems."
I like that word "exacerbate", for that is exactly what this recommendation will do. But, exacerbating who and what? In the first place, it would exacerbate the licensee. We are living at a time when workers in all industries are demanding a reduction in working hours and are also demanding a five-day week. This Committee is asking the licensee to work extra hours, and that for seven days a week. It

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may be said that he will have the right to choose his hours. But will he in reality? It must be remembered that he is simply an employee. He is working for a boss, and it is his employer, the brewers, who will tell him what hours he works. No wonder that licensees everywhere are already exacerbated and are protesting against the recommendation. Who else will be exacerbated? The drinking drivers of cars. Lack of public transport at midnight will invite customers to use their cars, and that will increase the number of drunken car drivers with a great increase in traffic accidents. That will be inevitable. A flexibility of closing times between 10 p.m. and midnight in different premises would also encourage migration from one public house to another, to the danger of both pedestrians and motorists.
Again, the abolition of the afternoon break will be likely to release drinking drivers into the rush-hour stream of traffic and pedestrians, including children coming from school. That will be exacerbation with a vengeance. The discretion of justices to require licensees to close for periods of up to two hours, which is recommended by the Committee, is conditional upon their receiving a "complaint from the police, a local authority or any member of the public". Should it not be that a licensee himself should satisfy the magistrates that there was a case for his opening early in the afternoon or late at night?
There is one other preposterous recommendation, and that is that young children should be allowed to accompany their parents into public houses. That is the surest way to rear a nation of drunkards. As an ex-school teacher I can claim that young children are, first and foremost, imitators. They like to imitate their elders and, particularly, their fathers. Watching their parents drinking daily at the bar they will instinctively, as it were, follow suit and will wish to be "with it", as they say. One of our greatest social problems to-day is that of the alcoholics, to whom my noble friend Lord Soper is bound to refer in the course of his speech. He knows from practical experience how menacing is this problem. When children will have been reared "on the bottle" there will be an inevitably steep rise in the number of incurable alcoholics. The Police Review has been most critical of that recommendation. It states that that
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will give rise to a return to Dickensian scenes, with children asleep in the corner or being exposed to fights and other incidents. Incidentally, the police also feel that 10 a.m. to midnight drinking would encourage "vertical" drinking without eating. The Review declares:
"This could be a serious menace and could disrupt a great deal of work in industry during the day. The French have plenty of experience of this as they have of alcoholism and these social evils may be aggravated here if facilities are increased."
In conclusion, I would urge the Minister, when he conies to reply, to tell us explicitly this afternoon that the Government have no intention of presenting to Parliament a Bill based on this Report. From chats I have had with Members of Parliament, I can assure him that this would be a very unpopular Bill it would never be passed. It would be a waste of time, and I am sure the Government have no time to waste to-day. I would also remind him that when the Daily Telegraph held a Gallup poll last December the result was overwhelmingly against the Report. For instance, 62 per cent. disapproved of public houses being opened for 14 hours a day 68 per cent. were against the lowering of the legal age from 18 to 17, and 77 per cent. did not want children to he allowed in bars.
On February 25 the Sunday Express carried an article by Keith Renshaw. In the course of his article Mr. Renshaw stated:
"Mr. Robert Carr, the Home Secretary, and his Cabinet colleagues have gone cold on any idea of quickly reshaping drinking laws along the radical lines recommended in December by Lord Erroll's committee on Liquor Licensing."
Mr. Renshaw then gives the reasons, and I shall finish my speech with those:
"Firstly, public opinion, as gauged by a Gallup Poll soon after the Erroll Report came out, is not nearly so favourable to freerer drinking as was expected. Secondly, many licensees have expressed concern about their ability to meet the staffing and costs involved in keeping open longer. Thirdly, the influential Society of Conservative Lawyers warned the Government against dropping the drinking age below 18 because of the risk to public order. Fourthly, the Parliamentary timetable is jammed for a long time ahead with priority legislation."
I shall be pleased to hear the noble Viscount, Lord Colville, declare that he fully agrees with all that Mr. Renshaw has stated, and I look forward now to

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hearing the views of noble Lords on this Report.
3.23 p.m.
LORD AMULREE: My Lords, I think we must be grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Maelor, for bringing up this subject now, and I am bound to say that there is a great deal in what he said in his speech with which I have a lot of sympathy. I should like, first of all, to explain the reasons why I am speaking here. One of the reasons is that in 1929 my father was appointed the chairman of a Royal Commission on licensing, which I think was the last inquiry into this subject. This Commission was not a frightfully happy one, because there were representatives of the temperance societies and of the brewers in about equal numbers upon it. So it is not really surprising that there were several minority reports and there were six reservations, and that the Report itself was never implemented at all. There was the further point, which was a great point at that time, which was the question whether the brewing industry or the pubs should be run by the State, along the lines of the Carlisle experiment, but that is no longer a question in front of us now.
There are two main points I would take up, following very much on what the noble Lord who moved this Motion has said. One is the question of extension. There appears to be no reason for proposing to extend the hours from 10 in the morning until midnight. I do not think there has been a public demand for it. Even in the Report itself it says that a survey was done by the Office of Population Censuses and Surveys, which showed that about 48 per cent. of people wished the hours to remain the same, or (shall we say?) were quite satisfied with them; 45 per cent. thought they should be increased; and of those people under 25, 34 per cent. wished for longer hours, but if you went to the people over 65, about 60 per cent. did not. So I cannot see that there is a great public demand for any change there. The demand I think comes mainly from the Tourist Board, and not from people at home.
Supposing one were to have some kind of extensison of hours, what would be the effect? Quite apart from the extra
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liquor consumed—and with that I think must come some increase in the amount of alcoholism—one cannot drink a lot more without something going wrong. My fear would be that it would put up the cost of running these public houses so enormously that the extra cost would not be covered by the extra consumption of liquor. So that would probably mean that the country pub as we know it would disappear, because there would not be enough money coming in to support it. We might be landed with a lot of what one might call super-market drinking establishments, which would be not so attractive as the ones we have in the country at the present time.
Furthermore, I think it might drive away, or prevent, the better type of licensee applying for a job, because he would realise that it was going to be a rather tough kind of job if he had to be working or in charge of a place which is open for a maximum of 14 hours. There again, I think the fact that it need not be open for 14 hours is going to be a very difficult thing to maintain; first, because the licensee himself might not be in charge—it might he the brewer saying "You must work these long hours". Secondly, supposing one licensee were to shut rather earlier or not be open for as long as his friends round the corner, would it not mean that the public would go for the friends round the corner and the licensee would then be forced to keep his premises open longer than they need be?
Another point brought up by the noble Lord was the question of the break in the afternoon. I think there is quite a lot to be said for that, and not only for the reasons which the noble Lord has given, which are very valid ones. I think some break is needed in order to get the pub properly tidy and clean. After all, if a railway train comes in which has to turn round and go out again, it is kept for a certain time in the station while people go round ventilating it and cleaning and tidying it up. In the same way when a plane comes in which is going to make a return flight, there is always a certain pause, partly to put in more fuel, but at the same time to get it properly ventilated and clean. How much more so would it be necessary in the public house, where the stink of stale beer and other things would be most offensive to people coming there after any length of time?

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Those are the reasons I should like to put forward in addition to what the noble Lord has said. I do not really see any call for any big extension of hours. I will not say that there might not be some odd corners where it might be required in some particular place, but I do not really agree with an extensive plan such as this one.
The lowering of the permitted age could also prolong difficulties, as the Committee itself points out, because although it is sometimes very difficult to know whether a boy or girl is 18 or only 17, it will be equally difficult if the permitted age is reduced to 17, to know whether they are 17 or only 16, and that is an age when they should not be allowed to drink independently. I have no objection to young people drinking at home with their parents under some kind of control, but it is not good for them to be allowed to go into pubs or public places and be able to drink. There was a good Report published in 1972 in Scotland, called Teenagers and Alcohol, which produced a good deal of evidence that real alcoholism, as opposed to drunkenness, is becoming more common in young people. So we have to be extremely careful before we agree that the age at which people can go into pubs should be lowered.
I now come to the question of the need for drinking places. I think it is generally agreed by both the brewers and the temperance societies that the number of pubs in this country is, broadly speaking, adequate. Of course if New Towns and new estates are built it will be necessary to have more pubs, so that people can get their fair supply. But for quite a time—I do not think the attitude is so marked now—there was a theory that if in a certain area there was a restaurant or two with a licence and a pub with a licence and somebody else wanted to open another restaurant, it was not advisable to grant him a licence because there were already enough licensed places in that area. Provided that the character of the applicant is satisfactory and the place chosen for the restaurant is suitable, he should automatically be able to get a licence to sell liquor, and a licence should not be not granted on the selfish basis that there are already enough people supplying drink in the area, so nobody else must be allowed to do so.
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I should like to make two minor points before I sit down. The first is about what is called the pub-café, where a family can sit down comfortably and drink together without the necessity of going into a pub and leaving the children in the street outside. That was one of the suggestions considered in the Report of the 1929 Royal Commission. It was then looked upon comparatively favourably, but nothing has been done to implement that suggestion and I now doubt whether it would be a very good thing, because it would mean that people were encouraged to drink and drive. Families would go by car to their pub-café and the person driving would drink as much as he wanted. Although children might be able to sit with their parents, people would be encouraged to drink and drive, and it is better for children to wait outside a pub than for the whole family to sit in a pub-café and drink.
Finally, a great deal of progress has been made by the brewers in regard to food, and I think this is important. At the present time, it is far easier to get food in pubs than it was. I do not want all licensed premises turned into restaurants which are expensive and which would change their whole character, but it seems important to do what one can. In a great many places, one can get sandwiches and sausages, rather like one can at the bar in this House, and that is very encouraging. If we are thinking about our licensing laws, we should try to have some system of monitoring so that it is known exactly what people think about going into public houses, what occurs when they get there, the amount they drink and the effect it has upon them in various kinds of drinking establishments. I shall be very interested to hear what the noble Viscount, Lord Colville of Culross, has to say in reply, but at the present time my sympathies are very largely on the side of the noble Lord who moved this Motion.
3.36 p.m.
LORD JACQUES: My Lords, this is a complex and controversial subject, and I would join with other noble Lords in congratulating the noble Lord, Lord Erroll of Hale, and his colleagues on the clarity of their Report and on the unanimity of their recommendations. I would also thank my noble friend Lord Maelor for putting down this Motion,

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and for giving us an opportunity of discussing the Report. I regard this debate as part of the public debate which ought to follow a Report of this kind.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: Hear, hear!
LORD JACQUES: My Lords, I see that the noble Viscount, Lord Colville, takes the same view and is satisfied to reserve his comments until the end. He is probably wiser than I am. This Report is only one stage in the movement towards greater freedom in our licensing laws, which began in the late 1950s. There was a rising standard of living and an increased number of people were drinking wine with meals, were having a glass of beer when they were toiling in the garden, or were drinking diluted spirits when resting with their friends in the evening. It had nothing to do with the use of alcohol as a drug or as a means of escape; it was legitimate demand. At the same time, new developments were taking place in retailing, new techniques were being applied which reduced retailing costs, and we had the development of the supermarkets which wanted licences. They did not want licences because there was a great deal of profit in them; they wanted licences because they might add to their volume and contribute towards the cost of their overheads, and above all, on grounds of prestige. In this era of "one-stop" shopping, they wanted to be able to offer their customers the wide service that should be expected from a store of their character. Consequently, they repeatedly made applications for licences and repeatedly were refused. The number of off-licences in the late 1950s was fewer than the number at the turn of the century, in spite of the enormous increase in the population which had taken place in the meantime. The law was being blatantly used to protect the interests of the retailers selling beer, wines and spirits who were already in the trade. Therefore, there was dissatisfaction because beer, wines and spirits were not available at the "one-stop" shopping stores, and that dissatisfaction was felt by the operators of these stores.
The first breakthrough came with the 1961 Act which introduced the right of appeal to quarter sessions, and during
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the 1960s many of our quarter sessions throughout the country refused to support magistrates where they had rejected an application purely on the grounds that there was no need in the particular area. The quarter sessions tended to attach more significance to the fitness of the applicant, the suitability of the premises, the kind of trade that was already being done and whether the premises were being frequented by adults or by young people. In consequence many of the appeals succeeded and it became generally known in some parts of the country that if the magistrates rejected applications on the ground of lack of need there was a good opportunity of success on appeal.
The next breakthrough was in 1964 when, in the Act of that year, the discretion of the magistrate in reference to applications for restaurants and residential licences was considerably restricted. That was a real breakthrough and meant that places which really ought to have licences were able to get them. The next event in this movement was the report from the Monopolies Commission in 1969. It recommended, and I quote:
"That the liquor licensing laws should be substantially relaxed with the general aim of permitting the sale of alcoholic drinks for on or off consumption by any retailer whose character and premises satisfied certain minimum standards."
Following that report by the Monopolies Commission, in 1970–71, we had the appointment of the Erroll Committee in these terms:
"To review the liquor licensing laws of England and Wales, taking account of the changes recommended by the Monopolies Commission and of any other changes that may be proposed and to make recommendations"
The Committee of course have done just that. They first looked at the issue raised by the Monopolies Commission, the question of need. They found that the test of need, as it applies throughout the country, gives rise to inconsistencies and uncertainties. It gives rise to inconsistencies because in some areas the magistrates do not use the test of need whereas in other areas they use the test of need with varying degrees of severity. It gives rise to uncertainty because the applicant is put in a position of unjustifiable uncertainty because of the inconsistency of magistrates. I can say from

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my personal knowledge that in some parts of the country you can get an off licence, providing you are a fit person and your premises are satisfactory, without incurring any expense whatever, but in other parts of the country, because of the attitude which is taken by the magistrates and the uncertainty, you have to employ not only a solicitor but also a surveyor who has to make a survey of the district, prepare maps and pinpoint the existing licences on the maps. Then, because of the uncertainty, you have to employ a barrister to state your case before the magistrates and in the end you are lucky if you get away with costs of less than £500. That kind of inconsistency is not justice; it is entirely wrong.
Looking at this problem, the Committee found that the test of need to applications for both on and off licences was both out of date and unnecessary. They recommend that the grounds for refusal should be based upon the fitness and competence of the applicant and upon the suitability of the premises both internal and external, and with particular regard to the implications for public order and for the environment in the immediate locality. They believe that if the standards required of the applicant and the standards required of the premises were as satisfactory as they should be, this would not result in a proliferation of licences; and I would entirely support that view. It is a high standard for the applicant and the premises that is needed rather than the need test. The Committee therefore support the Monopolies Commission.
On the question of licences, the Committee have noted that at the present time there is a great deal of confusion. Sometimes the licence is granted to the person on the spot who is responsible for the operation; on other occasions the licence is granted, not to somebody on the spot but to an executive miles away who is responsible only for the overall management and in particular for the premises. That, of course, is utter confusion which ought to be put right. Put briefly the Committee have recommended that instead of one licence there should be two licences—a personal licence granted to the operator if he is fit and competent, and secondly, a premises licence granted to the owner of the freehold or the leasehold if the premises are suitable. This,
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in my view, is a sensible proposal and should lead to the development of training facilities on the lines envisaged by the Committee.
The Committee have also noticed that there is unnecessary overlapping between local authorities and the magistrates. Nowadays local authorities are responsible for planning; that is, the location of premises for different usages. They are responsible for public safety in those premises; they are responsible for sanitation, for food hygiene and for compliance with the building regulations. Those are matters which are already fully dealt with by the local authority and need not be dealt with by the magistrates. Accordingly, the Committee suggest that when there is an application for a licence the local authority should get a copy of the application and should issue a certificate both to the applicant and to the magistrate saying to what extent the premises comply with the matters for which the local authority are responsible. That is a very wise proposal. It leaves the magistrates to concentrate on the matters which are their concern—and they are primarily concerned with the question of public order. For example, it is the function of the magistrates to look at the internal arrangements within the premises to see whether supervision would be adequate, but as to whether or not there is public safety is a matter which is already in the hands of the local authority.
I come now to the question of hours, which I think is the most controversial of the subjects dealt with by the Report. After careful consideration the Committee have come down in favour of flexible hours between 10 a.m. and 12 midnight. As a magistrate, I believe that this is their one serious mistake of judgment. I have read and re-read the chapter and I find that in my view they have attached too much importance to the inconvenience and the amount of work involved in licensees seeking extensions. As a magistrate, I have some experience of this. I serve on a county borough bench covering an area with a population of 200,000, and we have five or six courts sitting every day. The extensions required by licensees are dealt with in one court in the first ten minutes, so that extensions are no great problem so far as the bench is concerned. I would attach far more importance to the argument which is set out in the

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Report at paragraph 1117. I believe that a terminal hour of 12 midnight, coupled with the licensee's discretion to be open or closed, would inevitably lead to some public houses being open and others remaining closed. Consequently it would tend to encourage the movement by motor car of customers from one public house to another in circumstances which could give rise to public danger on the roads. So far as I am concerned, I should prefer a terminal hour of 11 p.m. with extensions by order or on application, as at the present time. We could, of course, clarify the grounds on which extensions could be granted and we could simplify the procedure.
I come now to young people. Here I think the Committee are absolutely right and that they have been grossly misrepresented in such public discussion as there has been since they published their Report. They recommend that it should continue to be an offence to allow a child under 14 years of age in a bar during permitted hours. In other words, their first recommendation is a continuation of the existing law. You would never have thought that if you had heard some of the public discussion that has been going on in the last few weeks. But, faced with evidence, on the basis of sample opinion, that two-thirds of the population would welcome places for refreshment where they could get drink and where they could be with, and not separated from, their family, they have suggested that there should be a qualification. They have suggested that magistrates should be able to issue a certificate certifying that the exclusion of children from a part or parts of premises is not necessary in the public interest; and in making that recommendation they have clearly in mind the possibility of there developing in this country the kind of place of refreshment which we find on the Continent, and which is so different from the English bar. There has never been any suggestion by the Committee that children should be allowed in a bar during permitted hours.
On the question of the age of drinking, I think the Committee are also right. First of all, you do not need to be an accomplished and acute observer to know that there is a very considerable avoidance of the law at the present time. On almost any evening you can go into any public
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house and see it for yourself. It is so easily done, and on such a large scale that it would place an unjustifiable strain, both up the licensees and upon the police, if any attempt were made towards strict enforcement of the present law. Consequently, if there was a reduction in the age from 18 to 17, one thing that would happen, it cannot be denied, is that the law would be far more observed than it is at the present time; and it is important, if we are going to have laws, that they should be observed. Seventeen is the age at which a young person, if he is brought before a court, goes not before a juvenile court but before an adult court. Seventeen is the age up to which there can be a care and protection order. Surely these are indications that this is the proper age at which young people should be admitted to public houses. I believe that the recommendations of the Committee are wise. They are certainly realistic.
There are a number of miscellaneous and consequential recommendations. I welcome particularly the scrapping of the licensing planning committees and the compensation committees. They have served their purpose. I would comment on only one of the miscellaneous recommendations, and that refers to registered clubs. Registered clubs, of course, are a form of co-operative organisation, and everybody will know that I have great sympathy with that kind of organisation. They have certain advantages. They can get registration comparatively easily, and that entitles them to supply their members. They can certainly do it much more easily than somebody who is trading for profit can get a licence. They have certain privileges in regard to hours, and the police cannot enter their premises without a warrant. The Committee suggest that if the licensing law is wholly reformed in the manner which they suggest, the registered clubs should come under exactly the same provisions as licensees. I can see no objection to that. In my experience over a lifetime of managing co-operative organisations, I have never pleaded that they should have any privileges when it comes to public order and public money; and, consequently, I can see no objection to that, with one proviso: that whatever applies to the working men's club must also apply to the Carlton. Provided that is

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accepted, I do not think there should be any great objection.
VISCOUNT AMORY: My Lords, I wonder whether the noble Lord would allow me to interrupt? I think I missed my opportunity earlier, but I was so anxious not to interrupt him in the middle of a sentence. However, just now he was saying something which I found most interesting, when he said that the present law, so far as it concerns young people, was not enforced because of the difficulty of identifying the age of the young person. I am sure that is right, and that there is a lot of drinking by young people under the age of 18. The noble Lord implied, I thought, that if the age was reduced to 17, that particular difficulty would be surmounted. I wonder whether it would, or whether there might not be the same tendency for 16-year-olds to come in and hope that they will be passed off as 17year-olds, with the same difficulty of identification of them.
LORD JACQUES: My Lords, I think it would be generally agreed that if there is avoidance of the law at 18—and there is, on a massive scale—then, if you have a lower age, there is going to be less breaking of the law. I think one could accept that. I believe there is substantial breaking of the law at 18. I believe that at 17 the breaking of the law would be comparatively minor. But it is a matter of opinion and judgment. I am glad nobody has suggested 16. That would have given rise to the possibility of the sixth-form going back unable to carry on for the rest of the day. I believe that, as to young persons, the proposals which are made are certainly realistic and, in all the circumstances, are wise.
In conclusion, may I say that I hope we will bear in mind that the problem of drink is now quite different from what it was at the turn of the century. The consumption of liquor; the number of selling points; the extent of drunkenness and illness and death from alcoholism in relation to the size of the population, has been greatly reduced. There is a much greater awareness of the need for moderation, perhaps because of the greater opportunities for education. I speak not for any Party but for myself. In speaking for myself, I hope that we will judge this Report in relation to the future rather than to the past. I believe that if we do that it will
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be acceptable with perhaps only minor modifications.
4.0 p.m.
LORD AUCKLAND: My Lords, my noble friend Lord Erroll of Hale and his colleagues have discharged a gargantuan task in almost record time for a Commission of this kind and, I think, generally speaking with a good deal of sound common sense and judgment. I recall the 1961 Licensing Act and some of the problems which that produced. Not being a magistrate or a lawyer or concerned with the catering industry I speak only as a layman. My wife happens to be a magistrate; she is faced from time to time with this problem of renewal of licences, and there are enormous problems involved. Whatever Commission is set up to look into the laws of licensing, whether in this country or any other country, it is never going to get its priorities absolutely right. The question which the House has to ask itself at this stage is this. How far does this particular Report go towards bringing about an improvement in our present admittedly anomalous licensing system? I believe that in the main the recommendations of the Report would lead to some improvement: although I share the anxieties already expressed by other noble Lords and by the noble Lord, Lord Maelor, to whom we are most indebted for opening this debate with a constructive and humorous speech.
Undoubtedly the most controversial aspect of this Report is the licensing hours. Where do we draw the line here? There are vast areas of London, in the City of London, where after probably eight o'clock at night there is virtually no drinking done at all—
A NOBLE LORD: Oh!
LORD AUCKLAND: My noble friend is surprised. I make one important qualification to that statement—and that concerns the Barbican, which is now a residential area and where of course there is a good deal more drinking going on. But within the City boundaries—and I am talking about public houses and not restaurants—after eight o'clock at night the number of patrons of public houses is fairly limited. At the same time, there are the seaside resorts which rely for a short season in the summer

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to make the money to keep going their public houses and other functions. Extensions of licences here are frequently necessary and desirable. I think that midnight is too late an hour but that 10.30 p.m. is too early. Any of your Lordships who has travelled, for example, down the A.24 trunk road past Balham and Tooting at 10.30 p.m. will know the scene: of people coming out of public houses, getting into cars and driving off looking neither right nor left.
But I think the greatest problem is the Sunday lunch-time drinker. I am not objecting to drinking on Sundays on moral grounds—far from it! But there is a tendency on Sundays, for young people particularly, to get up late and go off in a car probably without having consumed any breakfast and then to go into a public house to consume not merely beer but short drinks. Again, those of your Lordships who have been on a road, particularly a country road, between one o'clock and two o'clock on a Sunday afternoon will have seen, as I did last Sunday in Sussex, what was very nearly an appalling accident—due, I suspect, to one at least of the drivers involved having consumed too much.
That brings me to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Amulree, about food in public houses. I think it is a well-known medical fact—and the noble Lord, Lord Platt, will correct me if I am wrong—that drinking on an empty stomach is far more dangerous than drinking on a stomach lined with some kind of food, be it sausages, Cornish pasties or what-have-you. There are public houses, all too many of them, where the refreshments served are totally inadequate. The publican may argue that to produce hot snacks pushes up the electricity or gas bill; but I think that on grounds of safety, and particularly if we are to have extended licensing hours (and I can see much justice in this) it will be essential for more food to be available in public houses. I do not necessarily mean hot meals, but at least what are known as heavy snacks.
The other matter is that if we are too restrictive in our licensing hours we shall get to the situation which prevailed in New Zealand and Australia not so many years ago, when the bars were shut at the very early hour of six or seven at night
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and enormous amounts of liquor were hoarded in people's homes. This drink was still consumed. Merely by closing the public houses substantially earlier, one is not preventing people from drinking. They will probably take it to their own homes or to the homes of friends and consume it there. The question is whether it is more in the interests of public safety to consume it in a public house (assuming one is going out in a car) than in one's home. Some people do not merely go from public house to public house, but from private house to private house to various parties. This, too, can be very dangerous.
My Lords, I think that the question of children raises a very difficult matter of judgment. When one sees the physical stature of many children nowadays one realises that the problem is similar to that in respect of selling fireworks. A child nearly six feet tall goes into a public house. How is the harassed publican to know whether he is 16, 17 or 18 years old? The Report mentions what happens in Sweden where young people have to carry a card bearing their age. Whether or not that is a suitable idea for this country is a matter of judgment. Also, I think that in Scandinavia there is much more alcoholism than in this country; but although an enormous tax has been slapped on spirits the price of wine has been reduced.
I think this is a valuable Report. Inevitably it will meet criticism, as will any report on licensing. There are so many views which may be taken and so many anomalies which may occur. But I hope that the Government will be able to frame some legislation around the Report. Whatever defects it may have—some have been mentioned, and no doubt others will be mentioned in speeches to be made—I think those who have produced the Report deserve our thanks for trying to iron out one of the most anomalous of our institutions.
4.12 p.m.
LORD SOPER: My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Maelor for introducing this debate. May I call attention, first, to two quite extraordinary and significant facts which belong to the Report as a whole. The first is that it was accorded a unanimous vote of confidence by those who composed that particular Committee. Considering its extraordinary

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complexity, and indeed the many issues involved, I find that almost incredible; unless it is rooted in the proposition to which they address themselves, that it was their business to find something which would be generally acceptable to the community at large. That also is incredible to me, because the only recognised Gallup poll that has been undertaken since the publication of the Report shows that to be entirely wrong. Unanimity in complete fallacy is, I think, an extraordinary achievement.
The second point is that almost unanimously those who have responsibilities in various recognised fields have expressed large-scale criticism of the Report. Many of them, from the Lancet on one side, to Conservative lawyers on the other, to say nothing of the gaggle of temperance societies involved, have very largely condemned it in principle. I find it attracts my complete and absolute opposition. But not, I hasten to add, from the total abstinence, or the somewhat frenzied teetotal point of view. I am a teetotaller but am well aware that intemperance in the cause of temperance is generally counter-productive. I remember, to my cost, endeavouring to press the temperance cause on a man one day, and in order to enforce the argument I quoted from the Book of Proverbs:
"Wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging … At the last it biteth like a serpent, and stingeth like an adder."
He said that he had been looking for that sort of stuff for the last ten years, which largely destroyed the point of the argument.
My Lords, my opposition to this Report is substantial. But let me quickly add that there are at least two propositions within the Report to which I would give absolute allegiance and which claim my complete agreement. The first is that there should be one licensing principle operating within clubs and other licensed premises, and in this regard I am deeply grateful for the close analysis of licensing in general given by my noble friend. The other is something which has not yet been mentioned, though I have no doubt that it will be, the total prohibition of alcohol within a distance of the various refreshment areas on the great highways. Having said that, I would say that I find that there is precious little more that I can say, because I believe that the Report
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starts from the wrong place, goes in the wrong direction and, obviously, ends up in the wrong place.
To make that claim good I would refer to the general acquiescence of the Report in what it is pleased to call a situation; which situation it seems to recognise, and, to use one phrase which is found on page 64 of the Report, it regards alcohol as "deeply embedded" in the life of the community. Well, so was the thorn in the foot of Androcles' lion. Androcles did not proceed to make provision for more luxurious thorn bushes, and he certainly did not enter into a programme of exposing the lion to many of those thorns. He believed that this was an opportunity to remove an evil. I would communicate to your Lordships, whether or not it seems agreeable to you, that overall I am satisfied that alcohol is a far greater evil in the community than drugs; and, although it has personal benefactions which I would not deny, though I have no personal experience of them, yet socially it has to be reduced and limited and disciplined if the community in which we live is to become a tolerable one. For that reason I do not agree with the general atmosphere of this Report which seems to assert that the greater the freedom we enjoy the faster our progress towards the kind of society which we would cherish.
This, to me, is unacceptable and I have some personal and corporate experience of meeting these evils, or trying to do so. Therefore I come to the various proposals within the general statement of this Report with that kind of dubiety and that kind of opposition. I find that most of the proposals justify and support these particular criticisms. Take the one in which, perhaps, I am more particularly interested. Though my memory is fairly good I am not going to trust it, I am going to read to your Lordships something which is in the Report on the general Question of alcoholism. This is from Dr. Griffith Edwards of the Addiction Research Unit of the Institute of Psychiatry:
"The cost to the country of abnormal drinking is not readily susceptible to actuarial methods but is obviously considerable. The National Health Service currently admits approximately 8,000 patients each year to National Health Service hospital beds, and the number has been rising: to this figure would have to be added a large out-patient case load,

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and an uncertain but probably large contribution of abnormal drinking to the work of the casualty departments and medical and surgical wards. Alcohol problems contribute substantially to vagrancy and chronic homelessness: in a survey of a London Reception Centre 25 per cent. of men gave evidence of severe alcohol addiction. Drinking problems contribute to the causes of prison overcrowding and to the work of the Probation Service: a survey of three London prisons revealed that 40 per cent. of men had evidence of damaging drinking … The annual rate for drunkenness arrests fluctuates around 70,000–80,000 and the Report of the Working Party on Habitual Drunken Offenders bears witness to the acuteness of Home Office concern. The suicide rate among hospital diagnosed alcoholics exceeds normal expectations by a factor of eighty. Among male members of Alcoholics Anonymous, 35 per cent. have a history of broken marriage".
My Lords, there is a fact that I can add to that from the experience at the centre where we try to rehabilitate those who have come under the curse of alcoholism. Ten years ago the average age of alcoholics under our care was between 40 and 50. It is now between 30 and 40. There is an ever-increasing dependence on alcohol among younger people. Reading this Report, it seems to me that there is an almost frivolous attitude to one of the greatest social evils from which we are suffering. I do not share the view of my noble friend that it is a good thing that the question of need should be removed from the category of important issues where licensing is under consideration. I quite agree that there must be, and will be, all kinds of differences between the local administration and local attitudes in these matters of people living in various areas, but I would make a plea for the need standard as at least keeping in mind the dimension of the community and what really a community is for, rather than leaving the question open to much more occasional and, I think, casual arguments. It is better. I think, for people to make mistakes when they are considering the overall need than to succeed at a much lower level. That may be controversial, but I believe it.
What I am sure about is that the increase in the number of possible hours is quite impossible to believe in and to support. I do not know how much more people will drink over a long period. What I do know is that there will be much greater risk of those who are not
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drunk, but have a certain amount of alcohol inside them, being a much greater danger, particularly if they are in charge of motor cars, at the time when children are going home from school; and, what is even more important, at the later hours when public transport is no longer available as it is earlier in the evening. This, I believe, is a retrograde step and has no real justification in it whatsoever.
As I said before, I was much impressed at the analytical ability of my noble friend when he talked about licensing, but when he assumed the prophetic mantle I lost touch with him. If you reduce the age from 18 to 17 of course you will do away with the abuses of those who are 17, but you will attract the abuses of those who are 16, 15, 14 and 13. What is more, so far as I remember, most of the members of my sixth form were 17, not 16. It is, I think, a danger that young people are particularly under the influence and impact of advertisements which tend to make them think that if they want to grow up and be really men they had better start drinking early. I think it is a most dangerous, and to my way of thinking an insufferable, continuation of the process which has been with us for long enough now of earlier and more continuous drinking. The reference to the estaminets in France was most unfortunate because, as the evidence of M. Borotra and others shows, alcoholism in France has been closely associated with the assumption that if you provide a café-bar you will at least do something to mitigate the dangers of drinking on empty stomachs. That is not so, and has not been demonstrated to be true. Furthermore, if these propositions are accepted—and I agree that they have not yet been put into effect and, therefore, as the law stands at present, there is no possibility of children being accommodated in bars in drinking hours—as has been said in the Police Review it may well be that we shall return to some of the Dickensian situations.
My Lords, I can quote a personal piece of evidence. Just before the years of the First World War, when of course the licensing laws were changed, my mother took part as one of a number of schoolmistresses in Wandsworth in a survey of what was happening in public houses towards midnight on Saturday nights. She found 143 children below the age of

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10, either asleep in corners or left outside the doors. Without being a scaremonger, I have ample evidence in the job in which I am involved of carelessness about and the breakdown of family responsibilities; and I have great fear that if we provide the café-pub, and particularly with the opportunity of its remaining open until midnight, not only will children be exposed to brawls and drunkenness from those who have been sitting drinking for hours, but they will also be neglected. I think this would be a curse and a most dangerous innovation.
The Home Office set up, through the Institute of Psychiatry, a research unit to make comments on this White Paper. I have read their deliverance. It is a devastating document. The best thing it can say about the White Paper is that where the writing is clear it is possible to see more obviously how bad the argument is. But generally they really asperse the mental faculties of the members of the Committee. It is not for me to say that the Committee should have their heads examined, and I make no schizophrenic accusations; but if my noble friend and others—and particularly the Minister, if he has not already read it—will read this Report, they will find that it is damaging at the very point at which I have presumed to make the most severe comments. It is in principle a bad Report. It is in principle a Report which starts with an assumption about society which is false, and with an agreeableness about the kind of permissiveness which I think has already run too far. It entirely neglects the idea of the community and the sobriety which belongs to it. It underrates the evidence of the criminality and violence which are associated not with drunkenness but with moderate drinking—and I would bet my cassock that if you got rid of moderate drinking you would reduce prostitution by about 25 per cent.
If there is a move for Papers, my Lords, I should be inclined to move for a box of matches. I do not believe that this Report is worth anything. But we should be grateful for consideration of the problem it sets and for the evidence contained in its pages, which if properly assessed and put into another frame would, I think, be of immense satis-
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faction to those who look upon alcohol (as I do, along with others) as a great evil; those who are concerned that it should not persist; those who believe that it must be reduced; and those who believe that a proper and disciplined way of looking at alcohol is compatible (and I say this as a teetotaller) with moderate drinking. But I am saying, above all—and this is the point to which, in conclusion, I would advert—that to ignore the problem and to believe that it is largely disappearing is the grossest of fallacies. To deal with it will, as a programme, have to await a very different kind of White Paper from the present one. Let the material of this White Paper be incorporated in one which starts from the right place.
If it be argued that there is nothing constructive in what I am saying, I should be wholly in favour at this moment of the Government's instituting grave restrictions on the advertisement possibilities associated with alcohol. I think that every bottle of beer or of wine ought to have some notice on it that it is dangerous, or can be dangerous, to health. In conclusion, whatever other practical programmes may be available, any man if he so decides can sign the pledge, and I personally would recommend it.
4.28 p.m.
THE LORD BISHOP OF CHESTER: My Lords, I, too, should like to add my voice in gratitude to the noble Lord, Lord Maelor, for giving us the opportunity of debating the matters that are raised in the Report of the Committee which was chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Erroll of Hale. I fancy that none of your Lordships' House envies the members of the Committee, for indeed it was an extremely complex task that they were given and they were dealing with a very contentious matter. The fact that they have been able to produce so weighty a Report in, I think, about 18 months is a matter which elicits our gratitude and our admiration.
I, too, find in this Report certain things which I am happy to welcome. I welcome, in particular, the systematic collection of the factual data and the comments on the nature of alcoholism which have been collected in Parts I and II and in Appendices E and L. This is valuable material. It will be of the greatest use to those of us

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who have been concerned with this problem of alcohol over the years and are glad to have the matter brought into such easy access as it is in this Report. Again, as other noble Lords have mentioned, there are certain features in the Report which I think will gain general acceptance. I welcome that registered clubs should be subject to the normal licensing system.
The noble Lord, Lord Soper, welcomed the recommendation that the present ban on the sale of alcohol near motorways would be continued and I, too, welcome it. I am glad that there is also a suggestion that further research, which would be adequately financed, into the use and abuse of alcohol in society should be initiated. That would be extremely valuable for those who are concerned with research. But at that point I am afraid I run out of bouquets, and from now onwards I must align myself with the noble Lord, Lord Soper, in the expression of the belief that this whole Report is wrong in its approach, and that it is based upon wrong premises. I think the Committee has seriously over-estimated the public demand for the changes it proposes, and I suggest that the figures given in public opinion research confirm that opinion. I believe the Report underestimates the deleterious effect which the proposals would have. This is especially true in the areas of health and road safety.
One recognises the difficulties which faced the Committee in striking a balance. On page 46 of its Report the Committee states that its intention is to seek a fair balance between the extremes. But the evidence which has been published as a reaction to the Report suggests that the view they take of the balance is wrong. The medical profession, through the Lancet, the British Medical Journal, and the Institute of Psychiatry at Maudsley Hospital, to which the noble Lord, Lord Soper, has already referred, is against this Report: and so also is the law, according to the expression of opinon of the Society of Conservative Lawyers; so are the police in the Police Review; so also are the teachers in their magazine Monitor, which is a journal concerned with social problems as they relate to the teaching profession; so also are the Churches, according to the expression of opinion of both the British
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Council of Churches and of the Temperance Council of Christian Churches. These have all expressed serious misgivings about one or other aspect of the Report, and together they form a formidable group of experts.
I propose to confine my remarks to two aspects of this Report: health and road safety. At pages 34 to 56 of the Report, the Committee set out quite fairly some of the menaces to health which are presented by alcoholism. They point out that there are between 200,000 and 400,000 alcoholics in this country. They remind us that the social and economic cost of alcoholism to industry and business is considerable—sufficient to justify attention on grounds of economic expediency, let alone natural humanity. They tell us there are 8,000 alcoholic patients admitted each year to National Health Service hospital beds. They remind us that recent research has established a close link between the consumption of alcohol and cirrhosis death rates. Above all, they say that the overall impression, particularly over the last 20 years, is of rising consumption of alcohol, accompanied by increases in alcoholism death rates and in offences of drunkenness—all of which, however, are still below the peak levels reached towards the end of the last century and the beginning of this one.
That is the way in which the Report generally sets before us the health hazards. Is is not then an extraordinary consequence that the Committee should be recommending certain attitudes and actions? I should like to quote now from an article in the Lancet:
"For the Committee…"
(in the light of these facts)
"… then to suggest that pubs should have the right to open continuously from 10.00 a.m. to 12.00 midnight, and off-licences from 8.30 a.m. to midnight closing; to propose that bingo halls, dance places, and cinemas should have licensing hours coextensive with hours of opening, which licences are rather easily obtainable; to suggest that the pub should now be supplemented by the 'cafe-pub' so that parents can take the children along; all this, in terms of common sense can hardly be seen as a well-derived public-health strategy to meet a currently serious situation. If the committee had its way, we seem headed to catch up with our Victorian ancestors."
I find a disturbing comparison between the situation which I think would arise

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if these recommendations were implemented and the situation which is already with us in the world of betting. The small bookie is being squeezed out of existence and the betting shops are now being run by the big "rings" which control the majority of betting shops. They stay open throughout all the hours of racing. As a result of the staggering of hours of racing and the arrangement that there should be two meetings every day, there is a race on which people can gamble every quarter of an hour. If your Lordships will look at the papers to-day you will see that there are two meetings, one at Kempton Park and one at Leicester. There is a race every quarter of an hour from 2 o'clock to 4.45; and the reports of the results are constantly being portrayed in the betting shops. These places are breeding grounds for the compulsive gambler; and if pubs can be open from 10 a.m. until midnight the small pub-keeper will be squeezed out—he is already being squeezed out, and he will go for certain if this happens. The big combines, all with their highly sophisticated selling techniques, will move in and so we shall have a precisely comparable situation—a breeding ground for the compulsive drinker. If, as the Report suggests, the magistrate's absolute discretion to grant or refuse licences is removed, then I think it is very naïve indeed to think there would be no proliferation in the number of pubs.
In paragraph 32, Chapter 8, the Committee expresses the view that economic considerations would control the situation and that it would not be worth while opening new pubs. We were told this in 1960, when the Government opened the door (very harmlessly as they thought) to gaming. My friend, the late Dennis Vosper, who became a Member of this House, said in commending that Bill:
"I very much doubt whether anybody in this country would find it worth while to set up a casino under the very limited terms of this Bill."
My Lords, we know what happened. We know the confusion and the years of work that were imposed on the courts and on Parliament before we could get things straight.
Alcohol is an addictive substance and where this is being sold big money moves in. Nor, may I remind your Lordships, need it be a pub that is provided, because
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it is quite possible under the suggestions on the relaxation of licensing that big shops would be able to set up a bar and satisfy the licensing authorities that that was all in order. Here are the hazards to health which I think would be greatly increased if this Report were implemented, and it seems to me ironic that this is happening at the very time when the Government are spending £2 million on research into the treatment of alcoholism.
I come now to a matter that is very near to my heart, as it is, I know, to the hearts of many of your Lordships; that is, the question of road safety. There can be no doubt that there is a close relationship between road accidents and the consumption of alcohol. Breathalyser offences rose from 27,972 in 1970 to 39,840 in 1971. In paragraph 12 of Chapter 4 the Report says:
"Our own belief is that the pattern of drink and driving is closely related to social attitudes of alcohol generally."
Very good! Yet the Committee go on to suggest ways in which social attitudes will be encouraged to change in favour of making the drinking of alcohol easier in relationship to the motor-car. Thus there is to be the cafe-pub to which doubtless the family will go in the motorcar, and from which they will go away late at night in their motor-car. The making of licensing hours co-extensive with opening hours for bingo halls, dance halls and cinemas, to which people often go by car, and from which often they leave after public transport has stopped, will relate alcohol to the motor-car more closely.
The lowering of the age limit for consumption of all kinds of alcohol from 18 to 17 will take place at a time when cars and motor-bicycles can be driven at the age of 17. On the use of credit cards, it is suggested that the law should make is abundantly clear that their use on licensed premises is lawful. I suggest that all this amounts to an extraordinary contradiction, and one which we ought not to allow to go unchallenged. For those who remember the debates on gaming some ten years ago this Report presents a haunting similarity. We were assured then that the relaxations were minimal, that the safeguards were sufficient and that commercialisation would be impracticable. How wrong those soothing assurances proved to be,

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and what trouble it took to get the situation put under control!
I am confident that the same could happen in the area of the consumption of alcohol if the modifications contained in this Report were to be made law. The result would be worse, for more people in the home, on the roads and in society would be put in jeopardy. I welcome the recommendations in the Report for further research, but this should come before and not after the relaxations that are proposed. It is better to examine the security of the stable before the horse bolts as it is sometimes very difficult to get the horse back once it has gone. I remember so well the debates in 1961 on the Licensing Bill when it was before your Lordships' House. On Third Reading I ventured to express these opinions about that Bill:
"This Bill has been referred to on more than one occasion as an adult Bill for an adult people. Let it then be so; and let it be our hope that these new freedoms which are given will be exercised in a truly responsible manner."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 26/7/61; col. 1033.]
Those freedoms were given in 1961; they were about right, and there is no call and no reason to add to them.
4.44 p.m.
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: My Lords, as I came into the Chamber this afternoon I was handed a well prepared document which has been collated by the National Council of Women of Great Britain—an organisation which is known to most noble Lords in this House. The document was a little late in arriving, which was probably due to the fact that the business of the House has been altered. During the time I have been waiting to speak I have been able to look through this document briefly. I come to the conclusion that what I have prepared to say will be absolutely endorsed by the National Council of Women of Great Britain. That brings me to this amazing point: I have always understood that when a Departmental Committee was set up to examine a matter of great public interest and importance, such as we are debating to-day, the Department (in this case the Home Office) saw to it that the Committee was absolutely representative of the country; that it could express the views of people who
1012
would be involved and, in consequence, could be taken seriously. I hope that nobody will laugh when I say that the Committee which has examined this problem of increasing the hours of drinking time and of allowing small children into public houses consists of 15 men and Miss Black. This is incomprehensible. Here is a matter in which women are very much involved. Their children and husbands are going to be given permission to drink for hours and hours. What has happened to the Home Office? Have we forgotten that there are two sexes? If Miss Black had been accompanied by a number of sensible mothers, who would have injected common sense into the discussions on this Committee, this Report—which has been condemned time after time by noble Lords on both sides of the House—would never have seen the light of day.
In my experience of Parliamentary life I cannot recall a document related to public health and welfare which is marked by so many omissions and commissions as to render it almost valueless. My noble friend Lord Soper recommended putting a match to it. But he is a teetotaller and therefore everybody thinks him suspect. But I am not a teetotaller; I am quite happy to have a "sundowner" which I regard as a therapeutic addition to my diet. The fact that I am not a teetotaller makes my opinion—and I also speak as a doctor—much stronger than that of my noble friend Lord Soper.
The recommendations in this Report are quite appropriate for a brewers' bonanza, and that is all. I was glad to hear the right reverend Prelate speak strongly. It is the first time I have ever heard one speak strongly—perhaps I have been unlucky. He had convictions, and it is nice to hear people with convictions express them from the Bishops' Bench. He absolutely condemned this Report. He said that where there is drink money will follow, and of course he is quite right. I hope that nobody will hoot when I say to the noble Viscount who is going to answer that I should like to know how much the brewers gave to the Conservative Party funds at the last Election. This is important because this document could never really have been circulated and published unless there were people who had ulterior motives. The document is lacking in an elementary approach to the important problems of public health and safety.

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I know that figures are rather boring but I believe I heard my noble friend Lord Jacques say that alcoholism is decreasing. But what are the figures? There has been an annual increase in the consumption of beer and spirits since 1962. Evidence suggests that there has been an increase in the number of heavy drinkers rather than simply an increase of moderate drinkers. The rate of arrests for public drunkenness has been increasing each year since 1967—but this, I think, is the most startling figure—with the rate among young people under 18 rising by over 50 per cent. during the course of five years. That is the rate of drunkenness among children—I call them children.
The right reverend Prelate quoted various organisations—I think he mentioned the Law Society, the Church and so on—so may I quote to the House what the British Medical Journal said on December 16, 1972, referring to this Report. The British Medical Journal of course is the journal of the British Medical Association. It said:
"The impression is given that the Committee is set on policies of relaxation for reasons others than those concerning the public health. From the public health point of view the Report's main proposals must be condemned as untimely. Their adoption in practice would be to risk a further increase in alcoholism, with its attendant dangers to harmony in the home and life on die roads."
I think the House will agree that that is an unequivocal condemnation from the medical profession.
Apart altogether from the pathological conditions stemming from the over-consumption of alcohol, there is the situation with which the French are only too familiar. I am astonished when somebody says to me, in order to persuade me that these recommendations are the right ones, "Look at France". Look at France, my Lords! The French sit in their restaurants and one can see the unfortunate little children sleeping on the tables or sitting about waiting to be taken home by their parents—and there are many people here who want this country to reflect the drinking attitudes of France. Some of this has been said before, but I want to emphasise it. We are concerned to-day with many of the social effects. They are spoken about and written about ad nauseam Our prisons are overcrowded with men, three to a cell, many of whom have been
1014
charged with violent crimes—and recently the word "mugging" has been added to our dictionary. I would say that there are people in this House who hesitate to go for a walk outside their houses at night for fear that this awful thing may happen to them.
The venereal disease rate and the illegitimate birthrate are both increasing rapidly and both can be related to promiscuity. Can it be argued that these social problems will not be aggravated by opening the public houses at all hours —16 hours a day is suggested in the Report—and to boys and girls of 17 years of age? There is no evidence that the licensee is suffering from having to conform to restricted hours, because, as we have heard, he can always apply for an extension.
A point that has not been mentioned so far is the effect on family life. Is this an abstract concept which the brewers should be allowed to ignore? No mercy is shown to the family in this Report for it says:
"The Committee think it right to find some way of allowing all licensees, where they so wish, to admit children."
In this new world which the Committee would like to see, apparently parents will not have to worry about baby sitters; they will be allowed to take their unfortunate children to the public house to wait until the parents are ready to go home. As I have described, we shall have the same picture here as in France and many other countries. Undoubtedly, of course, this will provide a useful apprenticeship for the adolescents in preparation for their promotion to the public bar, where they can order alcoholic drinks in their own right at the age of 17. It is difficult for me to understand how the licensee will be able to distinguish between the 17-year-old and the 16-year-old—and, as has been said, with the school leaving age now being raised to 16, we may well hear of children consuming alcohol in the lunch hour and schoolteachers in the afternoon being confronted with yet another problem. Why not, if licensed premises are to be open to boys and girls of 17?
The Committee makes one excuse time after time. It says that insufficient research has been done into the past changes in the liquor licensing laws. When it comes to research and knowledge of this

1015
subject, it seems to me that a knowledge of the behaviour of people under the influence of alcohol, the demands of family life, the welfare of the impressionable child, all provide basic information which of course comes naturally and is generally available. What is it that the Committee wants to know about the effects of alcohol which is not already available? The same excuse is used to criticise the Department of the Environment for expressing apprehension regarding the effect of an increased consumption of alcohol on the drivers of cars and lorries. It would appear throughout that the Committee is prepared to accept a report only if it is favourable to their own thinking; otherwise it is dismissed. This in itself condemns this document as an unbalanced and partial review of the subject. The evidence of the Brewers' Society—and I hope all noble Lords here will read the evidence of the Brewers' Society—is treated with the greatest respect and they are conspicuously silent on the social aspect of increasing the consumption of alcohol.
While the Committee was unable completely to avoid mentioning that
"there may be some link between the availabiity of intoxicating liquor and the level of abnormal drinking and alcohol dependence",
it completely side-steps the whole question of public health by stating that this is the main concern of Ministers other than the Home Secretary. I believe that we are evading the main issue if we do not recognise that these recommendations are concerned with making a drug of addiction available to adults and immature young people. That is what we are discussing to-day. Alcohol is a drug, and now apparently the Committee is not satisfied with the limited consumption of the drug in this country. This Report advises the country to open its public houses and all premises that apply for licences, for 16 hours a day—
LORD MAELOR: Fourteen, my Lords.
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: My Lords, what is the difference?
LORD MAELOR: Two hours.
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: Fourteen hours a day, my Lords! What shocks me about all this is that my noble friend
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Lord Shepherd is associated with it at all, but perhaps after this he may see the light.
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, in view of the reference to me just made by the noble Baroness, perhaps she can at least withdraw any suggestion that there could have been any ulterior motive on my part for any association with the Brewers' Society.
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: My Lords, that is the whole point. I know the noble Lord, and I find it disappointing—I will not say shocking—that if he is not associated in any way with the Brewers' Society he should put his name to a Report of this low calibre.
SEVERAL NOBLE LORDS: Nonsense!
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: I want to emphasise once more that we are speaking of a drug of addiction and yet the Committee conclude that the recommendations as a whole will probably not have any adverse effect on the health of the people. Are these adults who have produced this Report, asking that a drug of addiction should be distributed so widely? (The noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, is adult; I make him an exception.) On the other hand, it is argued that a drug of addiction should be distributed in this manner in places where there are children, and given to children. A boy of 17 has not yet matured physically; he is not matured physically until he is 22. The noble Lord may know more about drink, but I know more about physiology. Here we have this boy and girl—and there is equality of the sexes here. It is very interesting in this Report that we see only one woman, a Miss Black, on the Committee, but when it comes to drinking the Committee are all for equality of the sexes, the girls are to go in with the boys and have their share.
This is my final word—because I have digressed—and I speak very seriously. I am glad to see the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, laughing because I detect a note of hysteria. It is depressing to have the whole House, on both sides, against one. It seems to me that the Committee have arrived at their conclusions without exercising a due sense of responsibility towards the community. That seems to be absolutely lacking in this Report. I would suggest that we adopt the attitude

1017
of the British Medical Journal, the journal of the British Medical Association, towards the Report's recommendations, by condemning them as calculated to further an increase in alcoholism with its grave consequences.
5.2 p.m.
LORD FRASER OF LONSDALE: My Lords, I wish to declare that I have the honour to be the Chairman of a considerable wine and spirit business which is a subsidiary company of one of our great breweries. Moreover, I was for twenty years a director of that national brewery. It may be—and this may surprise the noble Baroness who has just sat down—that I know a little more about it than she does on that account. Perhaps I do. I deplore the reference to drunkenness and the reference made by the noble Lord on the other side of the House to this evil thing drink. I call to mind what the right reverend Prelate, the Bishop of Chester, told us and the figures which he produced with triumph: the 25,000, 30,000, 40,000 people, this that and the other. Does he not realise that there are 50 million or 60 million people in these islands and that if you take away half of that number as being under the age of 17, you are still left with 25 million to 30 million? It is not true that this is a drunken nation nor is it true that alcohol is an evil. It may be that some become addicts. It may be that some who do not drink at all or do not drink quite enough are disagreeable companions from time to time. But it certainly is not true that drunkenness is rife in our country or that the pub is a bad and evil place. It is nothing of the kind. I would say from my knowledge of twenty years that those within the brewing industry, from the directors through the managers to the pubs themselves—and the pub-keeper is the man in the front line meeting the customers—are among the most responsible, pleasant and nicest chaps you can meet anywhere.
I was a soldier in my young life. I was President of the British Legion for 11 years, a society which promotes, fosters and regulates very many clubs in which a lot of beer is drunk. They are not drunken cesspools or evil places at all; they are places where it is not only the drink that you can have but the comradeship of people who you knew in the Services. These are good things and if there is the tendency to liberalise them and get a little
1018
away from the straightlaced and over-strict rules which have guided up in the past, I am inclined to be in favour of them, on public grounds and not as a brewers' bonanza as the noble Baroness suggested.
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: My Lords, I am glad the noble Lord remembered it.
LORD FRASER OF LONSDALE: My Lords, I do not think that we can entirely ignore the tourist trade. It is one of our biggest sources of wealth and of foreign exchange and it is true that very many tourists demand a little liberalisation in the rules which are used in this country. I do not intend to speak for long but just to place on record that this Report seems to me to be full of common sense and that we ought to be grateful to the noble Lord who chaired the Committee and to his colleagues. I should not be surprised if the noble Lord opposite, with whom I think I have had the pleasure of having a gin from time to time—if I am wrong, I will withdraw that—
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: Lord Soper?
NOBLE LORDS: Lord Shepherd!
LORD FRASER OF LONSDALE: I am sure that he would be a much less agreeable chap if he did not. He can speak for himself, but I would say that he is all the better for it. I am very pleased that this Committee has not been misled by the extremists, those with bees in their bonnets and those who believe that every bit of liberty must be a licence. I have been in the House of Commons and in this place for a long time together with the noble Baroness, Lady Summerskill, the doctor, and I am bound to say that I have not felt as free in her company as in that of some others who are friends of mine. Her criticism of Miss Black is most unjust. It is also extremely inaccurate.
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: My Lords, would the noble Lord forgive me for intervening? The last thing I did was to criticise Miss Black. I am not feline. I said that Miss Black, I am sure, would have been happier if she had had some other women, women who were mothers and who could make their

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contribution, with her. The last thing I ever do (and the noble Lord has known me for years) is to criticise another woman.
LORD FRASER OF LONSDALE: My Lords, I beg the noble Baroness's pardon. By implication she separated out Miss Black as if Miss Black were to be set up as one wholly unfitted to sit upon this great tribunal. The noble Baroness did not even know that she is not only a good mother but also a good grandmother.
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: But, my Lords, she was the only woman and there were 15 men: that was my point.
LORD FRASER OF LONSDALE: But she is quite capable of looking after herself, and them.
This Report has been sensible so far as the customer is concerned. It has been reasonable so far as the tenant is concerned—though admittedly a great many tenants would prefer not to see any more hours, and a great many small tenants in the little pubs in the remoter parts of the country would find it very difficult to work more hours; I agree with that.
Let us remember that this Report is only the first stage in this matter. We have not yet had the Government's consideration of it. It would be my guess that Mr. Heath, as well as the militant trade union leaders, has been very busy lately, and it will be quite a time before they get down to thinking about this matter very seriously. I doubt if this Report will come out of its dusty cupboard for a year or two. Meantime the trade will be talking, the trade unionists will be talking when they have stopped being militant and had time to think, and a lot of public opinion will be expressed up and down the country. Do not let us despair; we are not going to be overwhelmed with evil in five minutes. The principle in this measure is a sound and sensible one, and when we come to a Bill, which could be regarded in this context as the Committee stage of the matter, there will be, no doubt, many details which the Government will not adopt, and many suggestions made in this House and other places which will change the pattern. One last word about the national health. I would rather have my
1020
modest tot of gin and my health than the health which might have been mine if I had had nothing at all. I prefer a free choice.
5.12 p.m.
LORD DOUGLAS OF BARLOCH: My Lords, it is a cardinal fact, and I think a decisive one, that if the recommendations of this Report are put into operation there will inevitably be a large increase in the sale and consumption of alcohol. And that for two reasons: because it proposes to make it far easier, and indeed almost automatic, to open places at which alcoholic drinks may be sold, and it proposes to extend very considerably the hours during which they can be sold. The result of that, I am afraid, is bound to be that there will be more alcoholism, and this is a very serious problem. It is not only the alcoholics themselves, but it is their wives or husbands, as the case may be, and their families, who suffer dreadfully and are reduced in many cases to great distress. This is something which must not be ignored.
Unfortunately, we do not know exactly how many alcoholics there are in this country—possibly many more than people suspect, because alcoholics do not want to mention the fact, neither do their families. It is interesting to recall that a few years ago a doctor, a general practitioner, thought he would make an investigation among his own patients. When he started he believed that there was only one alcoholic among them, but when he came to question them and find out more about them he discovered that there were several score—not one but several score—who were in fact alcoholics. The figure has been given of something between 200,000 and 400,000. Whichever figure it is, it is a very large number, and we do not want to see it increased. That would be a very serious matter indeed. The indications are that alcoholism is increasing. Between 1950 and 1970 the number of convictions for drunkenness increased from 48,000 to 82,000 in England and Wales. That is a very large increase indeed.
Further, I submit that if we want to curtail this problem, it is highly undesirable, and indeed very dangerous, that young people should be introduced to alcohol at an early age. They ought, at

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any rate, to defer this experience until they are more adult and have more self-control. I am speaking here not as a teetotaller but as somebody who does take a moderate amount of alcoholic drink. I am not attacking this problem from the point of view that it is possible in this country to prevent the use of alcohol altogether; that is obviously quite impossible. Nevertheless, it is true that some limits have to be placed upon it.
I have referred to alcoholism. We must bear in mind that alcohol is not a food and the human body is not adapted well to cope with it. Its metabolism in the body depends upon the supply of a factor which is very scarce, with the result that it takes a long time before the body is able to eliminate the alcohol which it has taken in. This also has a bearing upon the fact that some of it is metabolised into extremely toxic substances. This is a reason why cirrhosis of the liver is a consequence. More than that, it has been found within the last few years that some of the products which are metabolised in the body from taking alcohol are alkoloids allied to cocaine and morphine, and it may very well be that this is the reason why quite a number of people become addicts to alcohol, because they are in the end forming in their body this kind of substance which tends to be addictive. If it had not been the case that men learned more or less accidentally to manufacture alcoholic drinks by fermentation, if alcohol had been a new chemical discovered at the present day, there cannot be very much doubt that it would be classed as a poison and one which should not be dispensed without a doctor's prescription. Nevertheless, like many other things, you can take a certain amount of it without necessarily suffering any damage; but it does have this great risk of excessive use and injury to health, not only directly, of course, but also by rendering people susceptible to infections or to other diseases.
It has been the policy of this country for nearly five centuries to control the sale of alcoholic drinks, and this is something which has been forced upon the Legislature by the evils which they discovered and noticed. I am old enough to recall what conditions were like in London prior to the First World War, when the public houses were open to a late hour in the night and it was common as one went along the streets to see many
1022
drunken people rolling about. It was a very distressing sight indeed, and caused great hardship and suffering to the families of those who consumed excessive amounts. Let us therefore be careful. I should like to know what are the views of the Department of Health on this subject. I understand that they are conducting research, but they do not need to conduct any research in order to educate the public, and school children in particular, that it is wise to be extremely careful and unwise to consume too much. So let us approach this subject with a great deal of caution, and not open the door to troubles which it is impossible fully to estimate.
5.22 p.m.
LORD PLATT: My Lords, there is a certain amount of self-confession about this debate and I am one of those who, like the noble Lord, Lord Fraser of Lonsdale, the noble Lord, Lord Douglas of Barloch, and various other speakers, enjoy my alcohol in moderation. We flatter ourselves that it is in moderation, although some of us are not always quite so sure about that. Of course, the definition of "an alcoholic" is a man who drinks more than you do. But I think it is particularly dangerous for people like ourselves, if we pride ourselves on the fact that we can resist the worst temptations of drink, to say that it is therefore relatively harmless, the laws should be relaxed, prohibitions should be eased, and so on. As the noble Lord, Lord Soper, and many others have pointed out, the problem of alcohol at this time is very serious indeed and is increasing. No wonder, then, that when this Report was published the two major weekly journals of the medical profession, the Lancet and the British Medical Journal, both came out with leading articles which were very severely critical.
I intended to start by saying that I had to make an apology because I have an engagement, arranged long ago, to which I must go. But the tempo of the debate having stepped up a little, I hope to be able to stay to the very end and hear what the noble Viscount. Lord Colville of Culross, has to tell us. I hope that I shall be brief, because everything that I intended to say has already been said. In general terms, I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Amulree, who was one of the

1023
first to speak and who is himself medical, that there are certain aspects of this Report for which I cannot see any real reason. We wonder what is behind it all. We wonder who is crying out for these so-called reforms. As other speakers have done, we also criticise the Report for its illogicality. The noble Lord, Lord Soper, said that it started in the wrong place and went in the wrong direction. I would beg to correct him and say that it started in the right place by pointing out what a serious problem alcohol is, and then immediately turned in the wrong direction. The noble Lord himself might agree that that is nearer to the truth. But I shall confine my remarks to making only short comments on the points I was going to make, instead of making them at any length.
Probably the worst recommendation is that to abolish the afternoon closing of the public house. I am quite sure that there are hardened alcoholics who will go from place to place and will drink wherever they can find it, who will no doubt also have well-stocked cupboards in their bedrooms. But they are the exception, and the average person who goes into a pub and has lunch and a few drinks with some friends, taking little heed of the time until somebody says, "Time please" at a certain hour, does not immediately take his car and go to some other pub and join another crowd. So, from the point of view of breaking up the continual drinker, the hours of closing in the afternoon are very important. They are also very important for the publican, for the licensee. As other noble Lords have pointed out, the small licensee will be in danger of being pushed out of the trade. How will the man who runs a small pub, with his wife—possibly with his son or married daughter coming in to help in the evening—be able to carry on if he does not have those few hours in the afternoon when he can relax, and how will he be able to carry on with the accounts, the stocktaking and so on, if the pub is open till 12 midnight? It is putting an impossible burden on a race of people, many of whom are very nice, decent people, and the pubs will be run more and more—as everything else is being run—by people who are interested only in making money. They will no doubt have a shift system and everything will be beautifully worked out. So the
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first recommendation I am against is to abolish afternoon closing.
The second recommendation that I am against is the extension of drinking hours till 12.0 midnight; and the third recommendation that I am against is to reduce the permitted age to 17. I see no reason at all for it. Young men and women of 17 can go into a pub by pretending to be older, but it takes a little effort. At present, they cannot walk straight in and know that they have a right to drink. The law does not appear to make it look all right for people of 17 to be walking in and out of a public house, which I am sure it is not. Here I come back to the noble Lord, Lord Soper, who was so right in saying—he did not use these words—that it is the tone of the Report which is wrong in certain respects. It starts off by putting to us the seriousness of the state of affairs, and then, to some of us, it seems to treat the problem much too lightly and to forget what it is.
Finally, I intended to comment on the present evil—and I do not mince my words—advertising of hard liquor to young people, which is absolutely deplorable. I think that the Report makes a very great understatement, when it states:
"These age groups are … susceptible … and we doubt whether current trends in advertising necessarily represent the most desirable ways of influencing their approach to drink."
Such a statement might have been made in the House of Lords, which is famous for its understatements. The Report continues:
"In our view, the brewing industry needs to recognise its social responsibilities particularly in relation to the appeals it makes to young people."
The noble Baroness, Lady Summerskill, I think, if I may correct her, made one mistake in quoting the right reverend Prelate. She said, "Where alcohol is concerned big money steps in". What I think the right reverend Prelate said was, "Alcohol is a drug of addiction and where addiction occurs big money steps in". I think this is a notable difference, because it is not only alcohol. We know that the evil of pushing and promoting cigarette smoking among the young is just as evil as pushing hard liquor.
BARONESS PHILLIPS: My Lords, I wonder whether I might ask the noble

1025
Lord one question before he sits down—and indeed several others of your Lordships who are medical experts. Would he not agree that the State draws very great revenue not only from alcohol but from tobacco, and if in fact he believes it to be the poison it is, why does he not advocate that there should be some change there?
LORD PLATT: My Lords, I thought I had advocated that ad nauseam. I still do, and I will raise it again very shortly if the noble Baroness would like me to.
5.32 p.m.
VISCOUNT AMORY: My Lords, I am sure that we are right to approach a question like this having a bias, other things being equal, towards the greatest amount of liberty that can be provided, but when we look at our modern society and try to make up our minds what its defects are I think we shall find it very difficult to find the defects to-day which are mainly due to lack of freedom or undue restriction. I think such failings as there are are due to very different causes from those. We must remember always that liberty without rule is anarchy, and when we come to this Report—which I have only skimmed through and not read in detail so I will not detain your Lordships more than another half a minute—it seems to me that some of the minor recommendations are sound and sensible because I cannot believe that our present licensing laws are as good and sensible as they can be. But I have very strong doubts whether the case has been made for the two recommendations which seem to me to be the most important. One is longer hours. It does not seem to me that the case has been made out for dramatically altering the hours. Half an hour here, half an hour there, yes. The only comparison I have been able to make is that I often go for my holidays to Southern Ireland—a delightful country in every way—where they have very long hours, but I must say that I do not think the results are ones that we need copy in detail. It does not seem to me that there are any identifiable advantages.
The second point is the lowering of the age from 18 to 17. We must all admit that barmen are presented with an absolutely impossible task to-day, from the
1026
appearance of young people, in identifying their age with any accuracy. Resulting from that, there is no doubt a great deal of abuse at present and that a great many people of both sexes under the age of 18 are drinking regularly. Here I regard the case of the girls as perhaps a little more serious than that of the boys. One must remember that most young people are keen on imitating their immediate seniors in age. Very few young people I know show any inclination to try to imitate me when there are four of five decades between me and them. It is their immediate seniors whom they imitate, and I rather fear that if the age is reduced to 17 there will be a great many 16 and even 15-year-olds who will then be anxious to imitate their immediate seniors, the 17year-olds. So, my Lords, while I have a slightly open mind on this matter, I feel that the case has not been made out for either of those two changes, which to me are the most important that arise from this Report. So I rather hope that when my noble friend comes to reply he will not indicate that the Government intend to accept either of those recommendations, at any rate without a good deal more consideration.
5.37 p.m.
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, like my noble friend Lord Jacques. I think I should make it quite clear that neither he nor I are speaking on behalf of our Party on this controversial subject. I do not think I would be speaking this afternoon if it had not been for the general circumstances in which this debate has taken place. I share with other noble Lords a sense of appreciation and congratulations to my noble friend Lord Maelor for having raised the Report of the Departmental Committee on Liquor Licensing this afternoon. It was only last Thursday, because of an understandable change of business, that it was announced that we were going to consider this Report this afternoon. I have no doubt that if we had adopted the usual timetable for such debates we should have had a different style of debate, because unless one had been present in your Lordships' House last Thursday afternoon, one would be unlikely to know that this subject was being debated this afternoon.
The other circumstance is in some respects more serious, because the way

1027
in which this debate has been arranged has prevented my noble friend—I must use that phrase this afternoon—Lord Erroll of Hale from being present in your Lordships' House to speak on the Report of the Committee in which he as chairman played a leading part. So, my Lords, I come to the reason for which I speak. I was deputy chairman to my noble friend Lord Erroll of Hale and my signature is on the Report. It is for the noble Viscount, Lord Colville, to defend the previous Home Secretary as to the composition of the Committee. I personally think that the then Home Secretary, Mr. Maudling, was right when he decided to excluded interested parties from membership of this Committee. He excluded the brewers; he excluded those who are well-known temperance leaders, and he sought to gather together—whether he was right or wrong is for him to decide—a group of men and women who he thought would be able to look at the evidence put before them with a degree of impartiality. And if I may say so to my noble friend Lady Summerskill, I not only resent personally but I resent even more so on behalf of my colleagues on that Committee who cannot speak here this afternoon, the suggestion that they had in any way an interest, or that they were under any obligation to that very powerful society, the brewers.
My Lords, if Members of your Lordships' House had read the Report, as I should have liked them to do, I think they would have been impressed with the wide variety of bodies and individuals who gave both oral and written evidence. I would say to your Lordships that this Committee went out of its way, through the Press, through television and particularly through the local Press when we visited particular localities, to give an opportunity and an invitation to organisations which might be interested to come and give evidence. My noble friend Lady Summerskill mentioned a particular organisation. I am only sorry that that particular group did not feel it worth while to submit their views to our Committee. If they had, their views would have been considered in the same way as all the evidence that was put before the Committee was considered.
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My Lords, I should like now, if I may, to perform the traditional duty of expressing very great appreciation to all those who gave evidence and to all those who submitted evidence: to the magistrates; the Magistrates' Association; the local authorities; the local authority officers; the publicans, whether they were tenants or managers; and also the very many imbibers, in clubs and public houses, whom I had the opportunity to meet during my pub crawls in Newcastle and Cardiff. If we were in ignorance when we began to tackle this problem, I think we were fairly well versed by the end, not only as to the advantages of public houses and clubs but also as to some of the very great problems that exist, particularly in places like Newcastle. Any noble Lord who has read the Report, particularly Chapter 3 and, I think, Chapter 24, will have been struck by the care with which the Committee looked at the social and medical problems concerned with liquor licensing. We had on our Committee a medical practitioner who himself felt it right to produce his own paper, which was of very great worth and of very great interest, and which had a great effect on the membership of the Committee when we were considering what needed to be done.
My Lords, I feel that in our production of this Report we are acquitted of the accusations that have been made this afternoon that we have been both frivolous and light. One of the first things that caused us concern was lack of information. We had a great deal of information as to the problem of alcoholism—how it arose and why it arose—but the information that we were seeking and that we found remarkably lacking was information as to the consequences of any change in legislation. We have changed the legislation on liquor licensing for well over, I think, seven or eight centuries, and we have done it in the fairly recent past. But there is little or no information as to how either social attitudes or general behaviour have changed. We wrote a very strong paragraph on this and made a recommendation that the Government, if they were to bring forward legislation based on our Report, should set up a monitoring organisation (and we suggested ways and means by which this could be financed) so that the Government, Parliament and

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the general public who are interested would be able to ascertain the changes that have occurred in social habits, and, of course, any social or medical changes that might flow from an alteration in our licensing laws. Unless we change the law, I doubt very much whether we shall be able to find any other type of information.
We did not feel—here we may be wrong, but this was our judgment after very careful consideration—that the social and medical problems which are a consequence of alcohol are likely to be changed unless there is some dramatic alteration in the licensing laws. Naturally, we are all concerned about the problems of alcohol; but if we are to deal with them it seems to me that, if we are to use licensing legislation, then we shall need not only to impose very severe curbs indeed upon the access people have to alcohol but also to make its availability more difficult by way of price. We also felt that, taking the country as a whole, and recognising that millions of men and women seek their leisure in public houses, clubs, hotels and refreshment houses away from their ordinary, humdrum life, we would need to change the laws greatly if we wanted in any way to change the basic social pattern. We therefore felt that if we were to make any changes by way of relaxation, the approach should be a gradual one, with counter-checks.
The Committee felt—and here there has been no criticism—that there had to be a continuation of the licensing procedure, and they came to the view, I think very wisely, that the ultimate decision should still remain with the licensing magistrates. But, my Lords, many of us on the Committee felt that the magistrates are to-day being asked to perform tasks for which they are ill-suited. I personally do not believe it is the duty of magistrates (nor do I believe that magistrates are trained for it) to carry out regular inspections of the lavatories or of the conditions in the kitchens of public houses where food is prepared; but many magistrates to-day feel that this is part of their duty. As a consequence, in many of the areas visited we found that the local authorities, which were best suited to perfom this task, did not do so because they felt they were treading on the toes of the magistrates.
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So we decided that we should leave to the magistrates the duty of deciding whether an individual was a proper person to hold a licence for the operation of licensed premises.
Those who, like the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chester, could not find anything very much to say for the Report would have recognised, I should have thought, that one of the points the Committee made was that it was their wish that in the near future those who operate licensed establishments should be, like many such people on the Continent, fully trained and practised in that form of occupation. We felt that it should fall to the local authority to see that the everyday standards of a public house should not only be established but also maintained. We felt very strongly that, by having the two-licence system, not only are we more likely to get a better type of person running a public house or licensed establishment but that, through the local authority, we ought to be able to reach a much higher standard of licensed premises. If we could obtain that situation, I believe that many of the problems that have been put forward to-day would disappear.
Where there has been unanimous approval is in the field of the Committee's recommendation that all establishments, particularly registered clubs, should come under one form of licence. This I know will cause heart-searching among various members of clubs. Here I join with my noble friend Lord Jacques in thinking that if you are to make this change it must apply to all clubs. For myself, I do not believe that any club that is well-run—as are the majority of workingmen's clubs—has anything to fear from the fact that the police and other forms of local authority officers have a right of entry or that this is likely to cause any difficulty. I come now to the two areas of greatest contention; first, hours. What are the Committee proposing? It is that we should move to a possible—and I stress "possible"—14 hours of opening as opposed to to-day's 9½ hours. That is all that is involved. I shall be frank: I approached this proposal with some reluctance; but we were confronted with the fact that in some districts even to-day it is possible to drink through the day. I must turn to my noble friend Lord Maelor (who, unfortunately is not present at the moment)

1031
to say that one only needs to go to the capital of the Principality to find that one can drink all round the clock without any great difficulty. There are a number of other places to which this remark applies —places like London.
We were very much impressed by two factors. First, there was—and here I agree with the right reverend Prelate—no great demand for an increase in the overall hours of drinking. In fact, if I may say so, I do not believe that the hours or the number of places is the governing factor on consumption. I believe that in the end it is the price. In fact, you can drink pretty well all over the place if you know where to go. What particularly impressed us was the fact that the police had great difficulty in checking on the various public houses in the districts for which they were responible. In terms of road traffic danger there are cases, we all know, of people driving from one licensing district to another.
When we suggested an increase from 9½ hours to 14 hours we were not suggesting that a public house would have to be open all that time. A great deal of the evidence that we received from both tenants and managers was that they would he open when there was a demand. The actual hours might be very similar to those of to-day. But there is also a factor in terms of holiday resorts or in places like London where you have tourists. We felt that there should be some relaxation, some degree of flexibility, for people who wished to have a drink during hours which at the moment are prohibited.
None of my noble friends who has criticised this aspect has drawn attention to the fact that the Committee in their Report gave the magistrates two degrees of discretion. First, in the field of environment they could say that if a public house was open until midnight and the noise level was unsatisfactorily high for people living in the neighbourhood, the closing time should be brought forward from midnight to 10 p.m. or 11 p.m. Again, in terms of the afternoon break I think that there is some point in what has been said to-day both in terms of driving and of the consequences of drinking in the afternoon. There is also the question of cleanliness. Here again, the
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magistrates have the power to impose a two-hour break provided that it is before 7 o'clock in the evening.
So, my Lords, while we recommend drinking between 10 p.m. and midnight, we do not believe that this will lead to wholesale openings throughout the time permitted, and if there are abuses the magistrates can impose restrictions. The Committee also took into account what could be the problems to a tenant of a public house, to the manager and to the staff. If a public house were to be open longer than the hours at present allowed, there would need to be a shift system. This would exert its own economic force on the owner of an establishment as to whether it remained open for the full period of time.
In regard to young people, I think I can say that this gave perhaps more anxiety to the Committee than did any other subject, for the reasons that have been discussed already this afternoon. I think that at the end of the day whether you stand for a permitted age of 18 or of 17, you may be equally right or wrong. I think, however, that the police and those who are involved in social work are more likely to be active in public houses, in looking for youngsters who are below age and drinking, than they are at present. Under the age of 18 I believe that it is a criminal offence to do so; whereas under the age of 17 one comes within the jurisdiction of the juvenile court, where one is not confronted with any sort of penal provision but comes under the care and protection of the local authority. I suspect that on the enforcement side, if the permitted age is brought down to 17, we are more likely to see the police and the other social services a good deal more active than they are at present. But this is an area which is bound to give everyone very great concern. Although I put my name to this Report I would not myself fight through the Division Lobbies in favour of either of these two ages. But I must say that I find it very hard, as the Report says, to justify the fact that you can now marry at 16, you can perhaps have a child at 17 and yet, under the present law cannot take out your father-in-law to buy him a drink. Whether it is the licensing laws which are wrong, or the proposals we have in mind, or whether it is the existing law governing the age when we gram privileges, duties and

1033
responsibilities to our youngsters is open to debate.
My Lords, I want to say one other thing about the young people in relation to café-pubs. Reference to cafépubs was not put into the Report to give those who wish to indulge in heavy drinking greater freedom from responsibility in respect of their children. I would say to the noble Lord, Lord Amuiree, that there is one of these establishments in Brighton. I have visited it and I think that the country would be enriched if there were more of such establishments. They provide somewhere where families may go; where the father can have a beer and the wife a coffee and the children a coca-cola and all the members of the family may remain together. That would be contrary to what one sees in some of our holiday resorts, where parents are in the bar and the children are waiting outside the licensed premises. I should like to see the idea of cafe-pubs developed, but I recognise that no legislation is likely to encourage such development. It will come only as a consequence of social change and the demands of customers.
May I conclude with a word about the Report. Basically the Erroll Committee was set up as a consequence of the Monopolies Commission Report in which it was recommended that something should be done about the tied house system. Like the Committee, I am convinced that there is nothing in the licensing laws which makes it possible for the present tied house system of the brewers to be broken. If the Government wish to break the system, if they believe, like the Monopolies Commission, that it is economically wrong and puts restrictions on the consumer, they will have to find other ways to deal with it. I do not believe that there is any future in looking to the licensing laws. I think it was the noble Lord, Lord Fraser of Lonsdale, who said that we have our alcoholics; from time to time we have our "drunks". Today when one sees "drunks" one feels that they are objects of pity. It is surprising to see one in these days, as compared with the situation in the days before the war. We are not a nation of drunkards. I do not believe that a modest relaxation of the drinking laws as recommended in the Report is likely to change our social habits. I feel that we
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are sufficiently adult and aware of the dangers, and I should like to see some relaxation. If we have that I should like the changes to be monitored, as suggested by the Erroll Committee, and if unfavourable trends emerge it would be for Parliament to decide and to change. My Lords, I hope that we may have another opportunity to discuss this Report. With my noble friend Lord Jacques I believe that this is a matter which has an impact on the social life of our people and concerns our increasing leisure time. It is something about which we should not make hasty decisions but which we should discuss and act upon in unison.
6.5 p.m.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: My Lords, the members of the Committee who produced this Report have, I trust, got broad shoulders, in view of some of the speeches which have been made this afternoon, but at any rate, they have a good advocate in the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd. In the regrettable absence of my noble friend Lord Erroll of Hale, the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, has, in the compass of a short speech, put over with great balance and discernment the highlights of the Report, very much on the same lines as I read them when I was preparing myself for this debate. I would join other noble Lords—the noble Lord, Lord Maelor, my noble friends Lord Auckland and Lord Fraser of Lonsdale, the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chester and others—in their congratulations and thanks to the members of the Committee for undertaking this, as it appears, somewhat thankless task, and for the speed and thoroughness with which they have done it. They were thanked in another place but we have not had the opportunity to do so here, and so I thank them sincerely on behalf of the Government. I believe, as other noble Lords have said this afternoon, that the way this Report has been set out, with a collection of background material at the beginning and an attempt to see, for instance, what, if any, effect upon the social and drinking habits of this country—and indeed on the incidence of alcoholism so far as it goes —may be detected from the legislative changes in the past, adds to our knowledge on the subject and provides a useful reference book for those who are interested. I will return to the question of information in a moment.

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The next thing I ought to say, although it may be at slightly short notice, is that I am glad that in this House—we seem to be doing this commonly nowadays—we have had the opportunity to give the first Parliamentary airing to this matter. The noble Lord, Lord Maelor, has been good enough to take on the burden of introducing the debate, and I am grateful to him and to other noble Lords who have taken part in it. There has been one common thread running through the speeches we have heard this afternoon, apart from the fact that the average length of a speech has been only just over 15 minutes, which is a very good record: it is the importance which everyone has attached to the subject, an importance which has led to a strength of feeling—in some cases quite an extraordinary strength of feeling—in what has been said. I do not think this unnatural in view of the far reaching social implications which may be involved if some of the changes advocated in the Report are put into effect. Certainly one must bear in mind the strong views which have been exercised.
The Government are certainly not going to rush precipitately into the introduction of legislation, and the sort of debate we have had this afternoon is very useful. The result is that I have not a great deal to say, because at this stage, as was mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Jacques, it is the job of the Government to listen—indeed that was promised by my right honourable friend the Home Secretary in another place—and to take account of what is said here and by members of the public. Since the Committee reported we have had representations, and we shall go on consulting people. I think I may say that in the 320 or so letters which we have received so far, the recommendations in the Committee's Report that have attracted the strongest criticism are exactly the same ones that have come in for most attention this afternoon; that is the reduction of the age from 18 to 17 for going into a pub to drink and the proposal to extend the permitted hours. I noted that in this House, on the question of the reduction of the age, the score is 8 to 1 against—one of the eight, my noble friend Lord Auckland, being not entirely against it. On the extension, I am sorry to say that nobody exactly agrees with the Committee's Report, although two
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noble Lords out of the eight who mentioned this would, I think, agree with something a little earlier than midnight and go some of the way with the Committee.
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, I wonder whether the noble Viscount could carry out a poll among those present about whether they would agree that the present restrictions on drinking with a meal in a West End restaurant should continue?
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: My Lords, all I have been doing is to try to get the score of those who have spoken on this subject, because for the purposes of a summary it might be of some interest. The only three noble Lords —apart from the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, who explained it fully—who mentioned the question of the need for a break at some time in the afternoon were mainly in favour of retaining this restriction. This is not, as I understand, inconsistent with the Committee's Report in any event. I see a fairly strong body of opinion against the cafe-pub, 5 to 1, the noble Lord, Lord Jacques, being the, only one strongly in favour.
I wonder whether those who have spoken, in some cases with considerable emphasis, against this idea have really understood, first of all, the nature of the beast that is being discussed; and secondly, the point that the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, has made, that after all nobody needs to apply to the justices under the scheme in the Committee's Report unless they think there is a demand for it. Because they will not get a licence unless the justices are satisfied that the premises and the person concerned are both suitable. On a purely personal basis (this has nothing to do with the views of the Government), I find great difficulty at times in finding somewhere where I can get my children something to eat, because unless one goes to a very ordinary café indeed, one cannot get a snack in a bar because one has to leave the children in the car or outside the premises. This is most inconvenient. I should not have thought that this idea was nearly so sinister as some speakers this afternoon appear to have indicated.
The only three points which I think have been universally greeted are all

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points of restriction: on the need to attach the licensing system to clubs four noble Lords agreed; the idea for continuing at least the ban on drink anywhere near motorways has also been universally greeted by those who mentioned it—and I think there was one other restrictive matter that received the approbation of your Lordships.
If I may go back for a moment to the question of further consideration, the right reverend Prelate listed some of the adverse reactions in the course of his speech: and we will study all these with great care, bearing in mind their source. It is not right, as one noble Lord (I think it was the noble Lord, Lord Soper) suggested, that the Home Office set up the Addiction Research Unit of the Institute of Psychiatry, but we did ask them for their ccmments, and I notice that they also gave evidence to the Committee.
As for the question of the views of women, I join very much with the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd. If the women for whom the noble Baroness, Lady Summer-skill, is such a powerful advocate really have the strong views that she suggests, it is a great pity that the only people who gave evidence to the Committee, apart from the Girl Guides, was the Darlington Women's Temperance Association. No other women's organisation gave written or oral evidence in the whole of the process of the consultations of the Committee, despite the fact that the public were widely invited by advertisement and other means to do so. What I would ask the noble Baroness to do is this. I am sure that their views should be taken into account, and perhaps she will be good enough to use her widespread influence in this field to make certain that those for whom she was speaking tell us what their views are. I think they have been under-represented in the considerations that have taken place.
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: My Lords, the noble Viscount and I know of many committees that have been set up in our time. It is quite customary for committees to invite organisations to come and give evidence. How many women's organisations can the noble Viscount tell me he invited to give evidence? That is the point.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: My Lords, the noble Baroness must take
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it from the point that we have now reached. This is the fact. I accept that the machinery used by the Committee to attract such evidence as was available was of the usual sort. I think it was very thorough. The fact remains that the opportunity was not taken. Surely the noble Baroness will not take offence when I ask her, if there are views which have hitherto been unexpressed due to failure to take the opportunity that was provided, to attempt to persuade those concerned to give us their views. Nothing could be fairer than that.
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: My Lords, I cannot undertake a clerical job for the noble Viscount and write throughout the country to women's organisations to ask them to come and give evidence. If the noble Viscount will ask one of his secretaries in the Home Office to do it, because they are responsible for this Committee, I am sure that that would be the best way to conduct the business.
VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS: My Lords, I have rnade the offer to the noble Baroness; it has been spurned, and there we are. I now come to the question of monitoring, which was first raised by the noble Lord, Lord Amulree, and picked up by the right reverend Prelate. We take the point of the Erroll Committee on this, and we are in the process of consultation on how best this should be done. What is, I think, the most important point of all on this (and this was the right reverend Prelate's point) is that we should need to have this machinery in operation before we start introducing changes in the law. This in itself is bound to have a substantial effect upon the timing of any implementation of the proposals in this Command Paper. We have taken to heart the suggestions of the Committee on this matter.
The noble Lord, Lord Jacques, mentioned the question of competition; and the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, told us that one of the main reasons for setting up the Erroll Committee was the Report in 1969 of the Monopolies Commission. I am not quite certain that the Committee have not come to much the same sort of conclusion as did the Monopolies Commission, only by an entirely different route. What we have to do now is to see whether, if we were to introduce at

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any rate the proposition that you should abolish the absolute discretion on the part of the justices to refuse a licence on the ground of need or the lack of need, we should get into a situation which would be satisfactory from the monopolistic point of view. This is a matter which needs discussion both inside the trade and also inside the Government, because my right honourable friend the Minister for Trade and Consumer Affairs is extremely interested in this. That is another matter that we are pursuing meanwhile.
While we are doing these things we should wish for further discussion—whether one will have time for another debate in this House just yet, I do not know, but I am sure there will be a debate in another place—and we should still like members of the public to express their views. But, as the noble Lord, Lord Maelor, advocated in his opening speech—and he used The Times to support him—we will be cautious in our approach to the matter. We understand that strong objections are raised—though the feelings, I would suggest, in some cases may be modified a little if the subtleties and nuances in the Committee's Report are studied with a good deal of care. I would not suggest for one moment that noble Lords who have spoken this afternoon have not read this Report from cover to cover, but it may be that one needs to read it a second time before all the points and their interrelationship are fully appreciated.
The Government have not made up their minds on this issue; our minds are still open. We shall not introduce legislation during this Session, the noble Lord, Lord Maelor, will be pleased to hear. My noble friend Lord Fraser is quite right in saying that we need time to think about it. I cannot give any undertaking when legislation might or might not be introduced, but what we can do is to thank those who have spoken this afternoon and to study what they have said. I will take my table of calculations with
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me. Above all, we have to thank the noble Lord, Lord Maelor, for having introduced our debate this afternoon, and to thank the Committee for the Report which sparked the whole thing off in the first place.
6.21 p.m.
LORD MAELOR: My Lords, I am sure we shall all agree at the close of this debate that it has been carried on in a good spirit—though perhaps the word "spirit" is a dangerous one in this connection. Immediately I sat down after speaking earlier, I had a request from a representative of one of the daily newspapers to declare whether or not I was a teetotaller. I do not know why he asked that question, unless he wanted to give me a pint, or perhaps a glass of Coca-Cola. I am very glad indeed that the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chester was able to take part in this debate: he gave us a fine speech. He happens to be the nearest Bishop to my home, though he is not my Bishop because he is in England and I am on the right side of the Border! I do not want to embarrass him, but I will say publicly this evening that he is the most popular Bishop in North Wales and also in the County of Cheshire.
The Report has been condemned by practically every speaker, and, speaking now as a Party man, I was sorry that my noble friend Lord Shepherd had been called upon to defend the Report. May I thank the noble Viscount, Lord Colville, for his promise en behalf of the Government to exercise caution; and may I thank him in particular for having assured us that nothing will be done at least during this Session—because I do not believe the Government will be here for the next Session! I beg leave to withdraw my Motion.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

ANTI-DISCRIMINATION BILL [H.L.]
Special Report from the Select Committee made and to be printed.
  EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND THE BRITISH PEOPLE
  EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND THE BRITISH PEOPLE
  E.E.C. AND CYPRUS: TURKISH MINORITY
  E.E.C. AND CYPRUS: TURKISH MINORITY
  DERELICT WAR SITES
  DERELICT WAR SITES