Sitting of 6 February 1975

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

    Probationers (Compensation Orders)
    Sir George Youngasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department in view of the fact that those placed on probation with compensation orders to repay stolen funds are free to leave the country and thereby avoid the penalties imposed on them by the courts, whether he will propose measures designed to prevent this abuse.
    The Minister of State, Home Office (Mr. Alexander W. Lyon): No, Sir. We are always ready to consider proposals for dealing with abuses, but we know of no evidence which would justify such measures, even if they were practicable.
    Sir G. Young: I am grateful to the Minister for that reply, but will he consider a system of endorsing passports, or a system whereby bonds are placed with the courts, before people with compensation orders against them are allowed to leave the country, particularly where, as in some cases, compensation orders are made as an alternative to imprisonment?
    Mr. Lyon: The hon. Gentleman has kindly drawn my attention to the one case which he has in mind, but about 62,000 compensation orders were made last year, and if in each case the magistrates' clerk had to endorse the passport—in some cases there would be no passport—it might well be an excessively cumbrous procedure just to deal with one or two cases.

    Prison Governors (Pay)
    Mr. Tinnasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what representations he has received from the prison and borstal governors' branch of the Society of Civil Servants on pay and conditions of the governor grades in Her Majesty's Prison Service; and if he will make a statement.
    The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Roy Jenkins): The society recently asked to see me about a current pay claim but, with its agreement, the matter has been left in abeyance while negotiations proceed.
    Mr. Tinn: Will my right hon. Friend take note of the great concern expressed to me by representatives of the governor grades about what they feel to be a continued deterioration in their relative position? Will he see whether there can now be a reply or some reaction to a memorandum on priority problems affecting the morale and efficiency of the governor grades, which I believe was submitted to my right hon. Friend's Department in October 1973?
    Mr. Jenkins: I shall take note of what my hon. Friend says. The conduct of the negotiations is a matter for the Civil Service Department. I hope that the negotiations will proceed as satisfactorily as possible. I am grateful to my hon. Friend for drawing my attention to the memorandum. I shall look at it and see that a reply is sent to the society.

    Comprehensive Community Programme
    Mr. Laneasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he is satisfied with the progress in tackling urban deprivation; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Alexander W. Lyon: I would refer the hon. Member to the reply which I gave to a Question by my hon. Friend the Member for Salford, East (Mr. Allaun) on 3rd February.—[Vol. 885, c. 373–4.]
    Mr. Lane: Is it still the Government's view that the co-ordinating responsibility should remain with the Home Secretary? Can the Minister say a bit more about the half dozen or so trial runs of the comprehensive community programme, because the timetable seems to be falling rather behind schedule?
    Mr. Lyon: We are engaged with a number of local authorities in determining whether they will be willing to co-operate in the scheme, but the overall direction of the scheme is the responsibility of my right hon. Friend.

    Urban Aid
    Mr. Liptonasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department which schemes proposed by the London borough of Lambeth he has approved under the current phase of the urban aid programme.
    Mr. Alexander W. Lyon: Under Urban Programme Circulars Nos. 11 and 12, seven capital projects and 13 non-capital projects proposed by the London borough of Lambeth have recently been approved. I will, with permission, circulate details in the Official Report.
    Mr. Lipton: I am grateful for that reply, but is my hon. Friend aware that urban aid on an ever-increasing scale is required in deprived twilight areas like Lambeth to deal with the many causes of the terrifying increase in the juvenile crime figures which were published today, amount to 36,500 for London in 1974?
    Mr. Lyon: Yes, Sir. I am not at all complacent about what we do in relation to urban deprivation in any part of the country, particularly in the central London area. I accept my hon. Friend's premise. This is, as is everything else, a matter of public expenditure, and that is under stringent control.
    Following is the information:
    Urban programme approvals for Lambeth Borough Council, January 1975.

    Circular No. 11

    Capital:

    £

    Vauxhall youth and community centre

    8,360

    Short-stay home for mentally handicapped children

    12,000

    Day centre for single homeless

    8,000

    Triangle adventure playground

    16,665

    Hatfields car park: conversion to play space

    16,550

    Non-capital

    £ p.a.

    Social worker for handicapped children

    2,295

    Lambeth Women's Aid

    10,000

    Coach for use with elderly and disabled

    5,000

    (once-only)

    Firearms and Shotguns
    Mr. Macfarlaneasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he will introduce legislation to ensure that firearms and shotguns are given identical licensing qualifications.
    The Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Dr. Shirley Summer-skill): My right hon. Friend has under consideration the question whether the present law is adequate, but he has no immediate plans for legislation.
    Mr. Macfarlane: I am grateful to the Minister for her reply. Have the police made strong representations about the growth in firearm offences, with particular reference to the use of shotguns?
    Dr. Summerskill: The views of the police were expressed in connection with the previous Government's White Paper. The disturbing fact remains that shotguns are now used in crime more frequently than any other weapon subject to certificate control. I consider the present controls unsatisfactory in terms of shotguns.
    Mr. Hardy: As the present controls may not be entirely satisfactory, will my hon. Friend ensure that my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary does not perpetrate some of the errors which were contained in the previous Government's Green Paper? If urgent attention must be given to any aspects of firearms legislation, the need seems to be most acute in connection with the possession and handling of air weapons.
    Dr. Summerskill: There are differences of view on this subject, and different representations have been made. It would be unrealistic to suggest that time could be found for any legislation in the present Session.
    Mr. Farr: Is the Minister aware that some countries with the best firearms public safety records have the minimum of legislation controlling their ownership?
    Dr. Summerskill: I am aware of that—and of the particular views of the hon. Gentleman on this subject.

    Espionage
    Mr. Litterickasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he is satisfied that the existing arrangements for the prevention of espionage in Great Britain are effective.
    Mr. Roy Jenkins: In a free society the total prevention of espionage is not possible. But I think that our arrangements for prevention are a proper response to the threat.
    Mr. Litterick: I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for that response. Will he reassure the House that he will be prepared, for example, to set in train an investigation into the activities of the espionage and subversion organisation operating from the American Embassy in Grosvenor Square?
    Mr. Jenkins: The report about CIA activities in this country was categorically denied by the American Embassy after it was published just over a year ago. I have no reason to think that that denial was not accurate. Certainly there would be no countenancing of any illegal activities by the agents of any Government in this country.

    Film Censorship
    Mr. Townsendasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will make a statement on the Government's policy regarding film censorship.
    Dr. Summerskill: The Government have no present plans to alter the law in this field.
    Mr. Townsend: Does the Minister agree that the present regulations concerning film censorship are very English and rather dotty? Is it not about time
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    that the Home Office carried out a thorough review so that this important work can be done on a satisfactory and sensible basis?
    Dr. Summerskill: I cannot agree that merely because something is English it is dotty. The present system entrusts ultimate responsibility to local authorities—which are representative of the wishes and needs of their particular areas—while making available to them the guidance of the British Board of Film Censors. The system is essentially flexible, but we are willing to consider any representations that may be made on ways in which its operation may be improved.
    Mr. Strauss: It may well be that the initiative in a matter of this sort should come from back benchers rather than from the Government. Bearing in mind the active and invaluable support which my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Home Department gave to the passage of my Theatres Bill in 1968, will he give sympathetic consideration to a change being made in the film world, similar to that which took place in the theatrical world, which would enable adults to see films that they think desirable and want to see, on the understanding that the obscenity laws as stated in the Theatres Act will continue to apply?
    Dr. Summerskill: There is a difficult line to be drawn between censorship and the protection of the public. I appreciate that strong and sincere views are held on both sides of the question. It is necessary that any alternative to the present system should be both effective and generally acceptable.
    Mr. Marten: Should there not be a national line below which local authorities ought not to fall?
    Dr. Summerskill: That is obviously an aspect of the matter on which there are different views. That view has been expressed strongly in some quarters, but others strongly object to such an approach.
    Mrs. Dunwoody: Will my hon. Friend bear in mind that the use of censorship in relation to only one branch of the arts is likely to be an exceedingly dangerous and difficult thing to administer? Before

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    the Home Office launches forth into this complex sphere may we hope that it will consult not only the people working in the film industry but local authorities and medical authorities?
    Dr. Summerskill: I assure my hon. Friend that the Home Office is actively in touch with all the different bodies and people concerned with film censorship.

    Immigration
    Mr. Parkasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he proposes to make any change in the rate of entry of United Kingdom passport holders who are subject to immigration control; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Roy Jenkins: I have recently reviewed the arrangements for the admission of United Kingdom passport holders, in the light of our special obligation to them—an obligation which has been accepted by successive Governments and which is acknowledged in all parts of the House—and of the hardship that some of them are currently suffering in Africa because of employment and other restrictions.
    I have come to the conclusion that the annual allocation of special vouchers should be increased in this year from 3,500 to 5,000.
    Mr. Park: While thanking my right hon. Friend for that reply, may I ask him whether this will have any side effects on applications for entry permits from non-United Kingdom passport holders?
    Mr. Jenkins: No, Sir; I do not think it will have that effect. Our policy dealing with entry applications is extremely strict, except in relation to United Kingdom passport holders—to whom we have a clear obligation and where I judge it right to try to discharge the obligation in a disorderly way, at a good rate, as fast as can reasonably be done—and dependants, where we have an equal obligation. Virtually no new rights of entry going beyond those categories are created.
    Mr. Eyre: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that he and the Minister of State have shown this afternoon that they completely misunderstand the climate of opinion on this subject in the densely populated reception areas? With the worsening of the unemployment situation
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    in the Midlands, and the shortage of resources available for education and housing services, is the right hon. Gentleman aware that there is growing concern about the accelerating rate of immigration under this administration, and that this concern will be much greater as a result of what he has said?
    Mr. Jenkins: I must point out to the hon. Gentleman, with whom I share the representation of a city, that I am as aware of these problems as he is. In no way do I seek to discount the fact that problems are involved. I must point out that in my view it is overwhelmingly likely, at this stage, that the admissions for settlement from the Commonwealth in 1974 will be the lowest we have had for a decade. In these circumstances it is sensible to make a small contribution to dealing as expeditiously as we reasonably can with the problem of United Kingdom passport holders, to whom we have an obligation, which has not been seriously challenged in any part of the House and certainly not by the Opposition Front Bench. I am anxious to avoid the position in which my predecessor, the right hon. Member for Carshalton (Mr. Carr), found himself when he had to deal in an orderly way—and he did so courageously—with the problem of the sudden Ugandan exodus. I wish to deal with the problem so that we are not confronted with any repetition of that situation.
    Mr. Ronald Bell: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the entitlement of these people to come here has been challenged in the House not only by me but by the then Mr. Duncan Sandys, who was Secretary of State at the relevant time? Allowing for an average number of dependants, how many people will come in on the 5,000 vouchers? Will the right hon. Gentleman estimate the number of people who, in his view, are entitled to come to this country upon this line of argument, if it is persisted in?
    Mr. Jenkins: I am aware that the hon. and learned Gentleman has sought to challenge this view and that he has not succeeded in persuading the House. I do not wish to get involved with Lord Sandys, who has now left us but who had a considerable responsibility for the fact that the commitment exists and has

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    to be discharged, as is recognised. There are some dependants involved, perhaps about three per person. [An HON. MEMBER: "At least."] There is no indication that the figure is higher than that. The increase I have announced to deal with a commitment that we all have and which I inherited largely from Lord Sandys, might lead to an increase of about 5,000 in this year.
    Sir K. Joseph: In arriving at this decision—which we shall want to study carefully—did the Home Secretary consider whether compensating cuts might be made in the number of foreign workers—I am not speaking of Commonwealth workers—who are admitted to this country for work which more and more British people are becoming available to do?
    Mr. Jenkins: That is largely a matter for my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Employment and I think he intends to make a statement on the matter in the fairly near future. I must not in any way anticipate that statement or indicate the lines it will follow. My policy and that of the Government is to maintain strict control over immigration but also to recognise that we have certain obligations—which are not seriously challenged—to United Kingdom passport holders and the dependants of those who are already here, and not to increase to any significant extent the number of those who have a right to come.
    Mr. Douglas-Mannasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he will make a statement concerning the use of his powers under paragraph 42 of the Immigration Rules in the case of Franco Caprino.
    Mr. Watkinsonasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will make a statement about the case of Franco Caprino and the application of paragraph 42 of the Immigration Rules.
    Mr. Roy Jenkins: I would refer my hon. Friends to the reply which I gave to a Question by my right hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland, North (Mr. Willey) on 27th January.—[Vol. 885, c. 5.]
    Mr. Douglas-Mann: I welcome the information contained in that answer and recognise that there are circumstances in which my right hon. Friend's arbitrary
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    powers of exclusion or expulsion must be retained, but will my right hon. Friend assure the House that in a case where there has been no recommendation by the court either he personally or the Minister of State considers the issue before action is taken and that it is not dealt with solely at official level?
    Mr. Jenkins: I welcome what my hon. Friend said in the early part of his supplementary question. On the latter part, I give him without qualification the assurance for which he asks.
    Mr. Watkinson: Does my right hon. Friend realise that the provisions of this section are wide-sweeping and have given rise to fears among the immigrant community? Will my right hon. Friend consider the appointment of independent tribunals or an amendment of the section to ensure that no one is excluded for political reasons?
    Mr. Jenkins: I assure my hon. Friend and the House that I should never contemplate excluding someone by virtue of the opinions which he holds. To that extent the political consideration does not operate. Some objections to the procedure laid down in the 1971 Act were taken by the Labour Party when in opposition, but it is perhaps a little easier to criticise the procedure—I think there is some ground for criticism—than to suggest exactly the right procedure in the very rare cases in which matters of security arise. I should find it difficult to recommend the House to give up entirely executive authority in those rare cases. I hope that if any widespread dismay exists among the immigrant community ita will be dispelled, because it is not justified by what has happened. The power has been rarely used and in the case of Caprino the matter was not proceeded with.
    Mr. Beith: Is the Home Secretary aware of the widespread belief that the order was not proceeded with because the information on which it was based was found to be false? Does he recognise that one crucial difficulty of the law as it stands is that of enabling the person to whom the order is being applied to challenge information which may prove to be false?
    Mr. Jenkins: I cannot answer the hon. Gentleman without getting into the position of half disclosing to the House matters which it has never been the practice to disclose to the House. I do not regard the hon. Gentleman's premise as wholly accurate, but I assure him and the House that these matters are dealt with and will continue to be dealt with with the greatest care and with a respect for liberal values as well as the security of the State.
    Sir David Rentonasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether, in view of the shortage of jobs, homes, school places, fuel, food and foreign exchange, he will reconsider his immigration policy, particularly with a view to enabling heads of families who wish to do so to return to their own countries.
    Mr. Alexander W. Lyon: I keep immigration policy under continual review. Apart from the dependants of Commonwealth citizens settled here, who have a statutory right of entry, and United Kingdom passport holders to whom we have a special obligation which is acknowledged in all parts of the House, entry is on a very modest scale. In all but two of the last 11 years emigration from this country has exceeded immigration. For those who wish to return to their own countries assistance can be provided under Section 29 of the Immigration Act 1971, but there is no evidence of substantial demand.
    Sir D. Renton: Is the cause of family unity best served by adding to our own social and economic problems when we could give more help than we do to heads of families by reuniting them with their families in their native countries?
    Mr. Lyon: It was the Government that the right hon. and learned Gentleman supported that in 1971 gave the statutory right to any man who was settled here to bring in his wife and children. All that we are discussing in relation to the queue in the subcontinent is the fulfilment of that pledge. It does not apply to anyone who wants to return to the subcontinent. We can make arrangements for them if need be.
    Mr. James Lamond: With reference to the dependants of immigrants who are
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    already in this country, has my hon. Friend made any progress in his attempt to shorten the lengthy wait for interviews at British high commissions in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh?
    Mr. Lyon: We regard the delay which we inherited as intolerable. The first steps that we have taken are to place five extra entry certificate officers at Dacca—where the delay was of the order of four years—to cope with appointments and an extra four entry certificate officers at Islamabad, where the delay was about two years. We are also hoping that the changes in the procedures will help to shorten the length of the queues.
    Mr. Powell: Without implying any criticism of the voluntary body which is the Government's agency for the purposes of Section 29 of the 1971 Act, will the Government now consider whether it would not be more proper and efficient that these matters should now be directly administered by the Government?
    Mr. Lyon: No, I do not think so. The requests that come forward for such assistance are dealt with expeditiously by the body concerned. We have no reason to doubt its efficiency in carrying out its work. The difference lies in the right hon. Gentleman's estimate of how many people would want to avail themselves of the scheme.

    Race Relations Act
    Mr. Guy Barnettasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he intends to publish a Green Paper in advance of legislation to amend the Race Relations Act; at what date; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Roy Jenkins: Before any new legislation is brought before the House, I shall make known the Government's proposals so as to give all concerned a full opportunity to express their views. I would not at this stage like to commit myself as to the exact form in which we will communicate the proposals.
    Mr. Barnett: Is my right hon. Friend aware that there is considerable anxiety on this issue, particularly amongst community relations councils and community relations officers? Does he agree that it is vitally important that the Government

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    should not make up their mind too early, particularly in view of the fact that the Select Committee on Race Relations has now decided to investigate the organisation of race relations administration in this country?
    Mr. Jenkins: Yes, I am aware of the Select Committee's decision and I welcome it. I hope that it will be able to proceed with reasonable expedition. I do not think that my hon. Friend, or my hon. Friends generally, will wish us to lose the time scale which I have in mind for race relations amending legislation in the next Session, in which we shall also have to consider the form of the organisation of administration. I am anxious to do that. In the natural order of events that will involve my publishing to the House and the country some indication of the lines on which we wish to proceed by at any rate the late summer. I hope that the Select Committee will bear that in mind.
    Mr. Norman Fowler: Does the right hon. Gentleman realise that there are managements and unions that do not consider it necessary to give wider powers of general investigation to the Race Relations Board? Further, does the right hon. Gentleman remember that the Select Committee, which reported only last July, came firmly to the conclusion that the case for extended legislation had not been made out?
    Mr. Jenkins: Yes, I am aware of that. I have already indicated that we must take serious account of the Select Committee's report. I have done that and I have studied its recommendations. I indicated previously that, on the whole, I do not share its view on this matter. I am open to argument from all quarters before I announce any proposals. Our proposals are not imminent, but I hope that the matter will be announced in reasonable time so as to enable us to legislate during the next Session.
    Mr. Rose: As Section 6 of the Act has proved almost totally inadequate in dealing with the problem of racial incitement in the most blatant cases, will my right hon. Friend look with favour at an amendment to that section? Will he also consider the position of clubs which purport to be open to the general public?
    Mr. Jenkins: I have already indicated that I believe that the judgment of the House of Lords raises an issue, and that we must consider how best to deal with the problem. I shall consider any proposals which are brought forward regarding Section 6. I must express a little scepticism as to whether race relations Acts can effectively deal with the right of people to express their views, however objectionable we may find them.
    Mr. Stokes: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that most English, Welsh, Scottish and Irish people dislike the present Race Relations Act? Is he aware that they feel that it discriminates against them and that they further feel that the right hon. Gentleman does not always take their feelings fully into account? Does he appreciate that they would deplore any extension of the Act?
    Mr. Jenkins: The hon. Gentleman would be a little presumptuous to speak even for most English people. To announce quite as full a catalogue as he did is to carry presumption towards the ridiculous.

    Voluntary Service Unit
    Mr. Alan Clarkasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he is satisfied with the allocation of grants by the Voluntary Service Unit.
    Mr. Alexander W. Lyon: Yes, Sir. All grants made by the Voluntary Services Unit are approved by Home Office Ministers.
    Mr. Clark: Is the Minister aware that this body has lately awarded the sum of £20,000 to an organisation known as "Release"? Would he care to comment on the unwholesome paradox of his Department, which is responsible for the police, at the same time subsidising an organisation many of whose staff have criminal records, which is largely devoted to advising criminals of their rights and helping them frame counter-charges and petitions against the police? Would he not agree that this can only add to the bewilderment and sense of frustration felt by ordinary, law-abiding people who see the way in which criminals have this inverted standard applied to them, whereby they are seemingly exalted and subsidised at the expense of law-abiding people?
    Mr. Lyon: "Release" does an enormous amount of good work among people who are in many ways cut off from the rest of society. It may be that it is able to do so precisely because some of the people are the kind of people the hon. Gentleman has described. The money which has been given by the VSU has gone to that part of "Release" which is separately organised, which is a charitable trust and which does a good deal of work by providing comprehensive advisory services for people between the ages of 18 and 24 who are otherwise alienated from society.

    Shrewsbury Pickets
    Mr. Atkinsonasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he has received a petition from the solicitors acting on behalf of the Shrewsbury pickets on certain legal matters; and if he will make a statement as to the action he proposes to take.
    Mr. Roy Jenkins: I have considered with care petitions on behalf of both prisoners submitted by their solicitors, but I cannot find that there are any new considerations such as would justify my recommending interference with the decisions of the courts.
    Mr. Atkinson: Is my right hon. Friend aware of the widespread conviction that this trial was politically motivated, as borne out by the savage brutality of the sentencing? Will he say, now that he has looked at petitions, that he has also looked at the notes that have passed between previous Attorney-Generals, Home Secretaries and Directors of Public Prosecutions following the 1972 Conservative conference? Will he also say whether, to his knowledge, parts of those notes have been deliberately destroyed to get rid of the concept that this was a politically motivated trial?
    Mr. Jenkins: I have no knowledge at all of that matter. I have not looked, or sought to look, at the working papers of the previous administration, which would in no way be in accord with our constitutional practice.
    Mr. Atkinson: But it is germane to the petition.
    Mr. Jenkins: What I have to consider is that a court reached a decision on this matter and that that decision was upheld
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    by the Court of Appeal as recently as three months ago. It is not a question of my delivering a judgment—in either my personal or my ministerial capacity—as to what I think about the sentences or, for that matter, the verdict. Were I to do that I can assure my hon. Friend and the House that I could unearth hundreds, perhaps thousands, of cases on which I could take a view—as could every hon. Member—different from that which particular courts may have taken. I do not believe that it is the duty of anyone holding my office to try to do that. Were I to start on that slope I would find it a very slippery one indeed.
    Mr. Brittan: Will the right hon. Gentleman make it clear that there is not a shred of evidence to show that this prosecution was politically motivated in its conception, or was conducted in a political way as it went on? Will the Home Secretary accept the congratulations of the House for standing up to a vigorous campaign which was politically motivated and which is thoroughly to be deplored?
    Mr. Jenkins: I have nothing to add to what I have already said relating to the first point of the hon. Member's supplementary question. As to congratulations, I seek no congratulations from any part of the House in the discharge of what is always a difficult duty. Nor do I make any objection to people taking political points. Any campaign is politically motivated. It is my duty to reach a decision independent of campaigns.
    Mr. Tom Ellis: Whether or not the prosecution was motivated by political reasons, may I ask my right hon. Friend whether he has had any evidence presented to him, from whatever source, to the effect that the judicial process itself was suspect?
    Mr. Jenkins: No, Sir.

    Holiday Camps (Fire Regulations)
    Mr. Hoyleasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he is satisfied with fire regulations as they affect holiday camps.
    Dr. Summerskill: The fire risk to the public presented by holiday camps has not been considered sufficient to justify their early designation under the Fire Precautions Act 1971, but guidance is to

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    be issued shortly about fire precautions on such premises.
    Mr. Hoyle: As many people will be taking their holidays in holiday camps this year, will my hon. Friend urgently reconsider her reply and bring holiday camps into line with hotels and boarding houses?
    Dr. Summerskill: Guidance is being issued before the holiday season, and those parts of holiday camps which are used for public assembly are already covered by fire precautions legislation. The risk of loss by fire in residential accommodation is not sufficient to justify an early designation of holiday camps under the Fire Precautions Act.

    "Equality for Women" (White Paper)
    Mr Leslie Huckfieldasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many representations he has received following the White Paper "Equality for Women"; and whether he will make a statement.
    Mr. Roy Jenkins: About 180 organisations have commented on the White Paper, and the Home Office has also received about 30 letters from individuals.
    Most of those commenting on the White Paper as a whole welcomed its proposals on scope and enforcement. Many have also commented on particular aspects of the proposals, and their views are being considered in the preparation of the Bill.
    Mr. Huckfield: I congratulate my right hon. Friend on his general determination to proceed with his White Paper proposals as a whole, whether or not he is following the recent precedent set by the Conservative Party. What consultation has my right hon. Friend had with the TUC on the possibility of making intent rather than effect the main criterion of discrimination? What proposals has my right hon. Friend for making industrial tribunals more approachable by appointing more women to them?
    Mr. Jenkins: I am aware of the TUC's representations, suggesting that effect is more important than intent, and I am considering them sympathetically at present. On the second point raised by my hon. Friend, I indicated in the House, or
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    certainly at the time of the launching of the White Paper, that I regard it as very desirable that the number of women sitting on industrial tribunals should be substantially increased, certainly when they are considering cases of this nature and also as a matter of general principle. I hope that it will be rare for an industrial tribunal to consider a case under the Sex Discrimination Act—as I hope it will then be—without a woman member as part of it.
    Mr. Lane: In view of the groundwork done by the Conservative Government and the fact that the Government White Paper was published last summer, is not the Bill taking an unconscionable time to appear?
    Mr. Jenkins: Frankly, I found a little of the groundwork done by the Conservative Government faulty. I do not like to inject party political points into Home Office affairs, but since the hon. Gentleman asked me straight I shall put it to him straight. I thought it necessary substantially to extend the scope of the Bill and to make the enforcement powers more adequate. In terms of the White Paper, which was welcomed more than were the previous proposals, this required amendment of those proposals. A Bill of this nature is fairly complicated, but I hope to be able to publish it towards the end of this month.

    Homosexuals
    Dr. Phippsasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will propose to reduce the age of consent for homosexuals to the same as that for heterosexuals.
    Mr. Alexander W. Lyon: My right hon. Friend has no present plans for amending the law in this respect.
    Dr. Phipps: Is the Minister aware that there is no evidence that homosexual acts by males over the age of 16 lead to permanent homosexuality and that the law regarding the homosexual age of consent is the only law which defines as an adult a male person over the age of 21? Does this not create a class of persons unique in attracting social penalties at a most sensitive time in their development, and is it not unjust?
    Mr. Lyon: I am not unaware that 21 is higher than other ages in relation to the age of consent. But when the Latey Committee proposed 18 as the age of majority, it recognised that this particular age should be left as it was. We have so far accepted that point of view. The Law Commission in its second programme recommended that it should be allowed to study the whole of the law relating to sexual offences, and in preparation for that we, in the Home Office, have initiated research into the whole range of sexual offences, including this particular problem.
    Mr. Strauss: Is my hon. Friend aware that even at the time when the legislation was introduced—a measure which removed sexual activities among homosexuals from the category of criminal offences—the age of 21 was considered by most people to be much too high? In view of the changed public opinion in this matter meanwhile, will my hon. Friend take active steps to reduce the figure from 21 to 18, or will he at least give further consideration to this matter and, if necessary, support any Private Member's Bill which may be brought forward to carry out this reform?
    Mr. Lyon: I listen to my right hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall (Mr. Strauss) with considerable respect on this subject, but I do not accept his premise. It was not the case that most people regarded the age of 21 as too high. The Wolfenden Committee did not regard it as too high and urged that it should be kept, even though in some ways there seemed to be anomalies when set against heterosexual offences. But the House at the time accepted the situation and I have no reason to think that the matter has changed.

    Pocket Bodyguard Equipment
    Mr. Kenneth Lewisasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what discussions have taken place between the Metropolitan Police and a firm whose name has been supplied to him regarding the sale of pocket bodyguard equipment; and what is the result of Scotland Yard's investigation into this matter.
    Mr. Roy Jenkins: The Metropolitan Police has told the firm that it is its policy to advise members of the public
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    against carrying any form of device for protection purposes.
    Mr. Lewis: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that where there is an increase in violence and a rise in the number of mugging cases in certain areas, people are bound to seek to carry their own personal devices to safeguard themselves? Is it not better that they should carry such devices, which are effective but reasonably safe, rather than that they should carry lethal devices which can cause bodily harm and land people in court, with disastrous results?
    Mr. Jenkins: On the matter which the hon. Gentleman has in mind, I think it right that I should be guided by police advice, particularly when I agree with that advice. The view is that such a device could be regarded by the courts as on offensive weapon under the Prevention of Crime Act 1953. There is no legal protection, because no control can be exercised over sales to prevent the devices falling into the wrong hands. The deterrent value of these devices is doubtful, and the police, who are in the best position to judge, consider that attempts to use such devices would be likely to increase the risk of violence to the user.

  TUC AND CBI
  Mr. Ashleyasked the Prime Minister when he next proposes to meet the TUC and the CBI.
  The Prime Minister (Mr. Harold Wilson): Before I answer this Question, Mr. Speaker, may I ask for a moment's indulgence. In so doing I do not want to rob the House of Question Time, and perhaps in your discretion you can take account of that point.
  I feel that the House would not wish to leave the events of this week without referring to the departure from his accustomed place of the right hon. Member for Sidcup (Mr. Heath).
  While it has not escaped the notice of the House and the country over the years that the right hon. Gentleman and I have had our differences, and that neither of us has been diffident in expressing them, those differences have been political,

  1555
  representing a deep divergence of political philosophies. They have not been personal.
  The right hon. Gentleman has made a most notable contribution to the work of the House and has done so much to make it a more workable institution. Increasingly, there will be time to appreciate what the right hon. Gentleman has done for the processes and machinery of Government, and in many and indeed fundamental areas of policy. Those are matters which history as much as his contemporaries will be called upon to judge. But, Sir, in the House of Commons setting, in this Chamber and in the conduct of business behind your Chair, whether on Privy Councillor terms or otherwise, he has been ever considerate and understanding, and always concerned to serve the best interest of this House and its Members.
  There, and in other ways I can recall—
  Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop: Further to that point of order—
  Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. If this is not an answer to a Question, are we to have a new precedent by which the Prime Minister or others start to make statements during Question Time not in answer to any Question? If the Prime Minister wishes to make a statement or any comment, the usual time to do so is at the end of Question Time and not in the middle of it.
  Mr. Speaker: It is for the Prime Minister to decide how he will answer a Question.
  Mr. Speaker: Will the hon. Gentleman pursue the matter at the end of Question Time?
  Mr. Thorpe: Further to that point of of order, Mr. Speaker. The House is in a difficulty. Can you say whether you will accept the suggestion that, since Question Time is being cut into, it should be extended?
  Mr. Speaker: But for the interventions I would certainly have been able to manage it, but time has been taken up by them.
  The Prime Minister: There have been precedents over many years, as many hon.
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  Members will remember. I was saying that in the conduct of business behind your Chair, Mr. Speaker, the right hon. Gentleman has always been concerned to serve the best interests of the House and its Members. There, and in other ways, I can recall many acts of individual consideration and kindness going far beyond the normal exchanges and activities of parliamentary life in our democracy.
  In whatever field the right hon. Gentleman's talents and experience may be deployed, and in his continuing membership of this House, which we welcome, I know that the whole House will wish him well. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."]
  I can tell my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent, South (Mr. Ashley) that I met representatives of the TUC, as the House knows, on 20th January, and I expect to have a further meeting with the CBI next week.
  Mr. Ashley: Since my right hon. Friend has referred to the right hon. Member for Sidcup (Mr. Heath), I, too, should like to seek the indulgence of the House to say that the right hon. Gentleman has shown me very great personal kindness in times of very great trial. I endorse all that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister said.
  Since the social contract has been attacked by the Opposition almost as savagely as they are now attacking each other, is my right hon. Friend aware that the 75 per cent. success of the social contract is a fine achievement, in comparison with the 100 per cent. failure of policy confrontation pursued by the Opposition—not only by the former Leader of the Opposition, the right hon. Member for Sidcup, but by every right hon. Gentleman on the Tory Opposition benches? As 75 per cent. is by no means good enough, however, will my right hon. Friend consider inviting the TUC and the CBI to a specially convened conference to discuss ways of implementing the social contract 100 per cent.?
  The Prime Minister: I agree with a great deal of what my hon. Friend said. Indeed, he will have seen the urgent appeals made on behalf of the TUC for further compliance with the social contract. I do not think that it would be appropriate to call a conference with the TUC and the CBI at this time. It is for them to get together in all matters

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  affecting the future of industry. The House will have noticed that they are in fact doing so. They met earlier this week. It is for them to work out this matter. We are in touch with both the TUC and the CBI and they are in touch with each other.
  Mr. Lawson: Does the Prime Minister agree with the distinguished authors of "Crisis '75", many of whom are Labour supporters and nearly all of whom have said that the root of most of our problems lies in excessive trade union monopoly power with which the social contract is not strong enough to deal? What does he propose to do about it?
  The Prime Minister: I have noted these comments, which carry the authority which the particular individuals expressing them exercise. However, I have not seen from them or from anyone else a suggestion of an alternative to the present policy within a democracy. The alternative supported by the hon. Gentleman a year ago was a ghastly disaster for this country.
  Mr. Bidwell: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the TUC is worried about increasing unemployment? Has he seen the front page of this month's Record, the paper of the Transport and General Workers' Union—my union—which suggests that to overcome the problem immediately there should be an expansion of State enterprise activity? Has my right hon. Friend any comment to make on that view?
  The Prime Minister: Yes. We have been in close touch with the Transport and General Workers' Union and all other unions, particularly with the TUC and, of course, NEDC. For some months now my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer and I have expressed the view that the danger of unemployment in this country and elsewhere—in America it is very much more serious than in this country—is now as great as the problem of inflation, both of which are connected. We have been taking all measures within our power, starting with my right hon. Friend's Budget in November, to help to avert the worst features of unemployment which were already endemic in this country a year ago and about which we warned at that time.
  Mr. Robert Carr: I thank the Prime Minister for what he said about my right hon. Friend the Member for Sidcup (Mr. Heath).
  May I ask whether, in view of the latest CBI survey—published a day or two ago—which shows the most depressing trends about the likely prospects for unemployment, investment and exports, he will have urgent talks with the CBI about what can be done to help industry to overcome these trends, particularly bearing in mind the great damage that the CBI believes will be done by the Industry Bill?
  The Prime Ministers: I note what the right hon. Gentleman said and thank him for his opening remarks.
  The right hon. Gentleman will recall that two days ago I answered a Question from the Leader of the Opposition about the CBI survey and the Financial Times survey. I have nothing to add to what I said on that occasion except that, as I indicated in my original answer, I am hoping to meet the CBI next week. The CBJ suggested another meeting following the one that we had a couple of weeks ago, and I look forward to that meeting next week.

  HORSTED KEYNES
  Mr. Tim Rentonasked the Prime Minister if he will make an official visit to Horsted Keynes.
  The Prime Minister: I have at present no plans to do so, Sir.
  Mr. Renton: Has the Prime Minister forgotten that Horsted Keynes is the terminus of that bastion of the private sector—the Bluebell Railway line? If he has not time to visit that enterprise, will he tell the House whether the Government are waking up, belatedly, to the immense damage that will be done to small private businesses by the capital transfer tax?
  The Prime Minister: I am certainly aware of the connection with the Bluebell Line, and I am sure that we all wish it every success. If my hon. Friend—[Interruption.] I am sorry; I mean "the hon. Gentleman". I must not get too mixed up this afternoon. I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman is a

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  member of the Finance Bill Committee, but I am sure that he has had abundant opportunities to raise all matters affecting the Budget and the Finance Bill, including the affairs of the Bluebell Railway line. I am sure that, if he has, my right hon. Friend is considering what he said.

  ECONOMIC AFFAIRS
  Mr. Atkinsonasked the Prime Minister if he will transfer to one Minister other than himself overall responsibility for economic affairs.
  The Prime Minister: No, Sir.
  Mr. Atkinson: Does my right hon. Friend recollect the statements that he has made from time to time in support of the four Ministers responsible for industrial investment, trade, prices and wage settlements? Does he agree that now is the time to start planning the economy, that in furtherance of that idea an economic strategy should now be settled and announced, that in furtherance of that, if it is right to plan our domestic economy it must also be right to plan our external trade, and that we must now introduce selective import controls to carry out the policies to which we are committed?
  The Prime Minister: My hon. Friend is right to remind me that I have given full support to my four right hon. Friends and to stress the great importance of investment, which I have done, and which the Government are doing by their actions. I shall be dealing with this matter at some length, with an industrial audience, tomorrow in Lancashire.
  Concerning plans for the economy and investment, my hon. Friend will know that two successive meetings of NEDC, one of which I chaired, were specifically devoted to studying the whole problem of increasing investment in this country in both private and public industry, and that some notable advances were secured by NEDC in the discussions last Tuesday.
  I believe that import controls and quantitative regulations or any other attempt to solve our problems by the restriction of imports, whether by quantitative quotas or deflation, would simply help to accelerate a downward trend in world trade, from which Britain would be the first to suffer.
  Mr. Jasper More: If the Prime Minister found it necessary to make a transfer of that kind, may I ask to which Minister he would make the transfer?
  The Prime Minister: Having already answered "No" to the Question, that was not merely a hypothetical question but a non-question.

  NATIONAL ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT COUNCIL
  Mr. Michael Lathamasked the Prime Minister upon what general criteria he decides whether to take the chair personally at a meeting of the NEDC.
  The Prime Minister: The Chancellor of the Exchequer is Chairman of NEDC, but I normally expect to take the chair three or four times a year. There are no general criteria on which I base my decision to do so on any particular occasion.
  Mr. Latham: Would those criteria permit the Prime Minister to chair a meeting to consider the recent horrifying report of the little NEDC for the building industry, that this year there will be a sharp fall in private housing and new construction generally?
  The Prime Minister: The little NEDC and the Government have been very active on that matter. The hon. Gentleman will recall that when we took office rather less than a year ago it was clear that house building would fall to the lowest level since 1946, just after the war, at a time of chronic shortage of materials and skilled manpower. The hon. Gentleman will also be aware of the statement, since the NEDC report was drafted, made by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment, showing that the Government are taking the housing crisis seriously whereas our predecessors did not.
  Mr. Skinner: My right hon. Friend is a relatively busy man, but if he finds time away from the NEDC and all these other matters, will he take a trip to see the BBC, as a kind of non-aligned representative, regarding the carving up of the necessary television time for the ballot during the next five days? Does he share my view that, as this is International Women's Year, the right hon. Member for Finchley (Mrs. Thatcher) should have

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  equal time with the other four candidates together, or does he think that it ought to be on the basis of carving it up between all of them?
  The Prime Minister: The Question relates to the National Economic Development Council, and no other subject. However, even if my hon. Friend had stretched his well-known ingenuity to the limit in getting in a supplementary question, I do not think that he could have produced one which was further from the original Question, and it does not call for an answer by me.

  MONKSEATON
  Mr. Trotterasked the Prime Minister whether he intends to visit Monkseaton before Easter.
  The Prime Minister: I have at present no plans to do so, Sir.
  Mr. Trotter: Is the Prime Minister aware that if he visited Monkseaton he would find a very large number of self-employed people who are very worried about attacks on their living standards under this Government? Is he aware, further, that they feel that many of these attacks are the direct result of Government policy? Does the Prime Minister regard it as fair and right to maintain the standards of the self-employed, and will he instruct the Chancellor of the Exchequer and other Ministers to amend their policies accordingly?
  The Prime Minister: I am sure that the hon. Gentleman is sincere in what he says, but if he sincerely wants me to go to his constituency so that his dissatisfied constituents can make representations to me, it can only mean that they have a total lack of confidence in their elected representative in Parliament.
  Mr. Mike Thomas: Does my right hon. Friend agree that a far more serious problem affecting the people of Monkseaton and others on Tyneside and in the rest of the country is the way in which inflation is hitting at the living standards of the poor? Will he take action to ensure that whilst his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Prices and Consumer Protection is subsidising food
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  his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Energy is not putting up fuel prices, bearing in mind that fuel is equally essential to the poor?
  The Prime Minister: My hon. Friend will know that I hope to visit Tyneside within two or three weeks, though I am not sure that my visit extends to Monkseaton. I have no doubt that all the manifest anxieties of the area which have arisen under successive Governments will be expressed to me. My hon. Friend will be aware that it is the policy of the Government, rightly, to subsidise food, and that is supported by the Conservative Party, according to the second of its two manifestos last year. But as regards publicly-owned industry, my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer has made it clear that, with the continuing increase in costs in these labour-intensive industries, it is not in the interest of the country that we should continue to increase subsidies. In his Budget speech, he said that over a period of time it would be necessary to raise prices to a more economic level.
  Mr. Pardoe: Will the Prime Minister say why it is right for the Government to subsidise food but not to subsidise fuel? Is it the Government's policy to subsidise fuel or food, or both?
  The Prime Minister: Under successive Governments, fuel and other products of publicly-owned industries which are labour-intensive have been subsidised for a considerable time. The hon. Gentleman will not be unaware—his party pressed seriously on this—that there is also a problem of energy conservation which is not furthered by uneconomic prices. But because food is, like energy, and like housing, a basic necessity, especially for pensioners, lower-paid workers and others, we believed that since we were the victim of world prices it was the duty of the Government to provide some easement for the hardest-hit families by way of food subsidies. I thought that the hon. Gentleman and his party supported that policy. I must have been wrong.
  Mr. Speaker: I infer from what the Prime Minister said earlier that he would like permission now to answer Question Q6. Mr. Adley.

  EEC (MINISTER'S SPEECH)
  Mr. Adleyasked the Prime Minister if the public speech by the Secretary of State for Trade, about the EEC, to the Southern Regional Council of the Labour Party at Brighton on 19th January, represents the policy of Her Majesty's Government.
  The Prime Minister: I refer the hon. Member to the reply which I gave to the hon. Member for Tonbridge and Malling (Mr. Stanley) on 4th February.—[Vol. 885, c. 1138–9.]
  Mr. Adley: Although I have been careful not to confuse a leak with a speech, I was greatly interested in the Prime Minster's reported remarks yesterday about the need to ensure that the forthcoming referendum provided a sufficiently large poll to encourage him and his Government to consider the result worth while. Is he aware that in the two votes in 1967 and 1971, 87 per cent. and 95 per cent. of Members of this House, respectively, voted on this issue and that in the first instance an overwhelming and in the second instance a large, clear and full-hearted majority was in favour of staying in? Will the Prime Minister give us his view of the necessary percentage that a referendum has to achieve if it is to be meaningful?
  The Prime Minister: I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on asking a question about a speech that I did make. I sympathise with him that the main theme of his question was based on his inability to distinguish between what he called an accurate leak and an inaccurate one. I did not say yesterday—and there are 60 of my hon. Friends who will confirm it—that the Government were considering what size of percentage of vote, or what margin, was necessary. I was referring to the remarks made by my hon. Friends in a very serious discussion, and I noted that that point had been made. I did not in any way associate myself with the point. I am sorry that the hon. Gentleman has been misled, through no fault of his, by some rather inaccurate comments in the Press, whose representatives are a little overworked at present.
  Mr. Roy Hughes: Does not my right hon. Friend agree that the Secretary of
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  State for Trade believes in giving the true facts to the people of Britain and not in engaging in pulling the wool over the eyes of people, as has been done by so many of our big businesses and pro-Market organisations? Does not my right hon. Friend agree, further, that the Secretary of State for Trade does not believe that Britain's economic eggs should all be placed in one basket, and is not that belief witnessed by the recent excellent deal that he has concluded with Iran?
  The Prime Minister: I join my hon. Friend in congratulating my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Trade on the success of his talks in Iran. I shall be following up this matter with industry tomorrow.
  Dealing with my hon. Friend's general question, he will be aware that on two days, last week and this, I have answered a series of questions about the speech by my right hon. Friend, and I agree with my hon. Friend that in the past some remarks on this matter have been very one-sided.
  Mr. Thorpe: Accepting that the Prime Minister and his Government have given no thought at all to what represents a credible turnout to make the forthcoming referendum meaningful, surely the right hon. Gentleman—who, after all, has the persistence of a convert to this issue, and must have a burning enthusiasm about it—has worked out what, in his view, would represent sufficient full-hearted dissent to enable us to come out of Europe.
  The Prime Minister: What I said yesterday—I thought that it was important—was that to some extent it lay in the hands of us all to ensure the biggest possible vote on this matter, in order to give additional authority to the decision made by the British people. As for what the right hon. Gentleman himself said this week, I remember him saying during the election campaign that if Labour won the election he would support a referendum—
  Mr. Thorpe: No, I did not.
  The Prime Minister: The right hon. Gentleman was so reported. I apologise if he was misreported. It was not in a newspaper or on a broadcasting medium which supports our party. If the right hon. Gentleman denies that he said it, I

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  accept it, of course. I shall check my records on the matter.
  The right hon. Gentleman referred to me as a convert. I have taken the view all along that if the terms are good for Britain, entry is good for Britain, but that if the terms are crippling, it is not. The purpose of the negotiations is to see whether they will be good for Britain and Europe, or crippling to both.
  Mr. Robert Carr: This is a very important matter. Will the Prime Minister undertake to see, therefore, that the forthcoming White Paper specifically discusses the question of percentage polls in the referendum, and margins of majority one way or the other, and their effect on the decision?
  The Prime Minister: I give that assurance. All matters raised with us will be considered, and the White Paper—which, although a White Paper, to a considerable extent will be a consultation document, because the House will want to debate it and express views on it—will make all possible suggestions. But the House will debate it, and nothing in the White Paper will be binding on the Government until we hear the views of the House. Then we shall put forward our proposals for legislation.
  Mr. Speaker: Does the hon. Member for Tiverton (Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop) wish to pursue his point of order?
  Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop: If the Prime Minister invites us to believe that the statement he has made was intended to be a reply to a question from his hon. Friends, we shall take that as indicative of his usual behaviour to the House.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
Mr. Robert Carr: May I ask the Leader of the House to give the business for next week?
The Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. Edward Short): Yes, Sir. The business for next week will be as follows:
MONDAY 10th February—Consideration of Private Members' motions until seven o'clock.
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Second Reading of the Export Guarantees Bill.
Remaining stages of the Arbitration Bill [Lords] and of the Biological Standards Bill [Lords].
Consideration of Lords Amendments to the Education Bill.
TUESDAY 11th February—Motion on EEC Documents on Energy Policy (R/446/74 and R/3333/74).
WEDNESDAY 12th February—Remaining stages of the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Amendment) Bill.
THURSDAY 13th February—Supply [10th Allotted Day]—for which the subjects have been chosen by the Liberal Party.
Until about seven o'clock, debate on a motion on "The class-based nature of British life (including reference to industrial partnership)", and afterwards, a motion on "The quality and cost of public administration".
Motion relating to the Building (Second Amendment) Regulations, 1974.
FRIDAY 14th February—Private Members' Bills.
MONDAY 17th February—Second Reading of the Coal Industry Bill and of the Safety of Sports Grounds Bill [Lords].
Mr. Carr: Perhaps the Leader of the House will help us, because all sides of the House will need some help about tomorrow's business. There is a serious point about tomorrow's business on which I think the House would like some guidance. Will the Leader of the House give some information about the motion which has appeared on the Order Paper today to set up a Select Committee to examine and report on the proposals contained in the Abortion (Amendment) Bill, which is down for Second Reading tomorrow? This is surely a rather unusual procedure. The House would like to know whether that motion will be put before the House tomorrow. Will the decision whether it goes ahead be contingent on the Bill tomorrow receiving a Second Reading?
I come to next week's business. I am disappointed that the Leader of the House has still not found time for a debate on foreign affairs. Will he give some indication how soon he will provide that

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time? There have been many requests for this debate, and he will no doubt know that only yesterday, following the statement on Cyprus, there was a further request from my right hon. Friend, which I think received support on both sides of the House, indicating the urgent need for a debate on that aspect of foreign affairs, as well as others.
Finally, I should like to look slightly further ahead and ask the Leader of the House whether, in view of the very important proposals and their nature, he will urgently consider providing two days for the Second Reading debate on the Industry Bill, bearing in mind the precedents that two days were given by the Conservative Government for the debates, for example on the Industrial Relations Act and the Local Government Act.
Mr. Short: First, on the business tomorrow, perhaps I could explain this motion. The main business tomorrow is a Private Member's Bill, introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Pollok (Mr. White), supported by my hon. Friend the Member for Pontypool (Mr. Abse), dealing with reform of the abortion law. While I applaud their diligence and the care with which they have assembled that Bill, we feel that it is in some ways inadequate and in some ways defective and would not command general support.
On a matter of this importance, where a great many people have very deeply held views, I feel that we should try to get a generally agreed measure. I therefore felt that it would be very useful indeed to refer the Bill to a Select Committee. The Select Committee will be able to consider the Bill itself, the Lane Report and our experience with the existing Abortion Act. I hope that from that consideration there will emerge the outline of a generally agreed measure on abortion. I hope that this will commend itself to hon. Members in all parts of the House.
I certainly had considered the need for a foreign affairs debate, and I will arrange it, but I am afraid that it will not be for a week or two.
If it is the general wish of the House, I would make a second day available for the Second Reading of the Industry Bill.
Mr. Carr: While I appreciate what the Leader of the House said about tomorrow's Bill, I am still not clear whether the Select Committee will be set up irrespective of whether that Bill receives a Second Reading.
Mr. Short: My motion will come after the Bill. I would propose that whether or not the Bill gets a Second Reading, it would be useful to send this subject to a Select Committee.
Mr. Jay: Is my right hon. Friend proposing that we should have an economic debate at an early stage, as the Government will soon have to take major decisions and the House ought to have the chance to express its views about them?
Mr. Short: No, Sir. I have no plans in the immediate future for a general debate on economic affairs.
Mr. Bowden: Will the right hon. Gentleman make it absolutely clear that whether or not tomorrow's Bill is passed, a Select Committee will definitely be set up?
Mr. Short: I cannot do that. That is a matter for the House. But what I do undertake is that whether or not the Bill gets a Second Reading, the motion proposing the setting up of this Select Committee will be moved and put to the House.
Mrs. Renée Short: My right hon. Friend has confounded confusion. Will he look again at what he has said? Will he send the whole question that this Bill was supposed to cover and the Lane Report to a Select Committee but on condition that the wrecking Bill down for tomorrow's business is withdrawn? That is the only condition on which we would agree to a Select Committee.
Mr. Short: I am very glad that my hon. Friend agrees about a Select Committee. I should have thought that that would have general support throughout the House. I am afraid that the question whether the Bill is withdrawn is entirely a matter for my hon. Friends and for its sponsors.
Mr. David Steel: I am as confused as everyone else on this matter. I accept the right hon. Gentleman's logic and that it may well be a good idea to send this

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matter to a Select Committee. This does not affect me as I must be here anyway, but there are other hon. Members who were planning to be here only if there is to be a vote. They are therefore entitled to know whether there is likely to be a Division on the Bill tomorrow as a matter of general information. If the Leader of the House is not able to tell us, perhaps one of the sponsors would say whether it is intended to pursue the Second Reading tomorrow.
Mr. Short: The hon. Gentleman will realise that I cannot say whether there will be a Division. I wish that I could say on what we shall be having Divisions from one day to another.
Mr. Faulds: When may we have a statement as to the Government's intentions both about ridding Somerset House of its civil servants and about the future use of that building, as it is totally unsuitable for use as a British theatre museum, as has been suggested?
Mr. Short: My hon. Friend takes a great interest in this matter. I shall certainly see whether I can get any information about it for him.
Mr. Jopling: Has the right hon. Gentleman seen Early Day Motion No. 236, in the name of his hon. Friend the Member for Berwick and East Lothian (Mr. Mackintosh) and signed by hon. Members on both sides of the House, asking that the Government set up a Select Committee on Agriculture? In view of the very grave difficulties which face the industry at present, does the right hon. Gentleman realise that this would be a most welcome comfort? Will he give an undertaking that a statement will be made next week or a debate allowed in the early future to allow this Committee to be set up?
[That, in view of the present problems facing the agricultural industry, of the need to study and make suitable proposals to improve the Common Agricultural Policy, and of the need to expand agricultural production, to ease balance of payments problems and to consider the detailed regulations on agricultural matters issuing from Brussels, the Government should now appoint a Standing Select Committee on Agriculture.]
Mr. Short: No, Sir, I cannot do that. I recognise the importance of this matter, but there is a tremendously heavy load of Committee work at present, so I can give no undertaking at the moment.
Mr. McNamara: Will my right hon. Friend again turn to tomorrow's business? Will he confirm that Motion No 34 on the Abortion (Amendment) Bill will be put tomorrow, or is that to come on another day?
Secondly, will he confirm that if it is to be debated there will be a possibility of three votes—one on whether the Bill should be withdrawn, one on whether the Bill should have a Second Reading, and one on whether the matter should be referred to a Select Committee—in which case all hon. Members, whatever their interest, who are concerned about the subject, should be present.
Mr. Short: Motion No. 34 will be put tomorrow.
Mrs. Renée Short: How?
Mr. Short: It will be a free vote and the Question will be put after the Second Reading of the Bill. I hope that hon. Members will think about it, since the proposal will allow the whole question to be considered. It will allow the Roman Catholic Church, and anybody else who wishes to do so, to give evidence to the Committee. From that I hope that we shall achieve an agreed measure on the reform of the abortion law. I hope that that commends itself to all hon. Members.
Mr. Wigley: Before the Industry Bill is debated in the House, will the Bills to introduce the Scottish Development Agency and Welsh Development Agency be published by the Government? If not, will there be a day, before too long, when we can debate that matter in its own right?
Mr. Short: No, Sir. The Bills will not be published before that. However, the normal Second Reading debates will take place after the Bills are published.
Sir Frederic Bennett: As I understand the situation regarding tomorrow's business, whether there is a Second Reading or not the motion to appoint a Select Committee will be put forward. Does that of itself preclude the other stages of the Bill, or shall we find ourselves in the

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farcical situation in which a Select Committee is considering a Bill which is going through the Committee stage and Third Reading?
Mr. Short: Certainly that will happen if the Bill is read a Second Time tomorrow. If that happens the Select Committee will go on side by side with that.
Mr. Cryer: Will my right hon. Friend agree to give time for the urgent presentation of a Bill to amend and repeal the conspiracy laws which have been used so savagely against the Shrewsbury Two? Will he also accept that many of us are prepared to undertake one or more all-night sittings similar to those when we prepared to consider legislation such as the Prevention of Terrorism (Temporary Provisions) Act?
Mr. Short: The Government have been considering the conspiracy laws. I agree with my hon. Friend that they need revising.
Mr. Speed: Will the Leader of the House confirm my understanding, which is that whether the Bill set down for debate tomorrow obtains a Second Reading or not, it will largely be null and void? There will be a Select Committee. If the Minister believes that there will be agreement in that Committee, he is a cockeyed optimist. We shall lose nine to 10 months with no guarantee of legislation following the report of the Select Committee.
Mr. Short: I am very sorry the hon. Member feels that way. I thought it would meet the general wish of the House that hon. Members on both sides should try to agree on a measure dealing with abortion. That is the purpose of the Select Committee, which will be able to send for persons, hear their evidence, and consider the Lane Report and our experience and the Bill sponsored by my hon. Friends. I hope that from that a Bill can be drafted. Therefore, this will not be a pre-legislation Committee, but very near to one.
Mrs. Wise: Will my right hon. Friend accept that many of his hon. Friends, especially women, feel strongly on the matter of tomorrow's business and that Motion No. 34 does not tally with the
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statement which he made? Motion No. 34 speaks about the proposals in the Abortion (Amendment) Bill and does not mention the Lane Report. We believe that it is grossly improper that the motion should be in this form when the House has not considered the Lane Report, produced by a committee which sat for three years—and in a situation in which abortion figures are actually declining.
Mr. Short: If my hon. Friend thinks that it is grossly improper to try to obtain agreement on a measure concerning abortion, I am afraid I do not agree with her. I am advised that this motion will enable the Committee to consider the Lane Report. I shall look at the point again. The motion says that the Committee will have power to send for persons, papers, records and so on, which is the normal form. I am advised that it will be able to consider the Lane Report and any matter concerning the working of the abortion law.
Mr. Powell: Has the attention of the right hon. Gentleman been drawn to the Prayer on the Order Paper on firearms licence fees? In view of the many important aspects of this order, will he arrange for time to be made available for debating that Prayer?
Mr. Short: I cannot guarantee to give any time, but I shall look at the matter and let the right hon. Gentleman know.
Mr. Palmer: My right hon. Friend stated that next week we would consider the orders dealing with European energy policy. May we be assured that we shall have much more time on that occasion than we had on a previous occasion, since this subject is of the greatest importance?
Mr. Short: I am giving a whole day for those two orders. I make it clear that this will be one of the four whole days devoted to EEC affairs.
Mr. Cormack: Will the right hon. Gentleman provide time for a debate on the Finer Report on one-parent families for which hon. Members on both sides have been calling for some time? Will he draw the attention of his right hon. Friend the Prime Minister to the all-party motion on human rights in the USSR which was tabled last night?
[That this House expresses its hope that the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secre-

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tary will have successful discussions with the leaders of the USSR, but believes that the cause of detente cannot be satisfactorily fostered whilst Soviet citizens are denied of basic human freedoms enshrined in the Declaration of Human Rights; and draws attention in this regard to the case of Georgi Vins, a Reform Baptist Pastor, recently sentenced to five years' hard labour plus five years' exile for conducting church services for members of his faith.]
Mr. Short: On the second point, I will certainly do so. I have a great deal of sympathy with the first point. There was one short debate on that matter. I will bear the matter in mind for when we have more time.
Mr. Newens: Is my right hon. Friend aware that many of my hon. Friends think that a foreign affairs debate is long overdue and that there is a considerable urgency about the need to discuss all sorts of problems under this heading? When does he propose to give us the opportunity to do that?
Mr. Short: I am afraid that the nearest I can come to it is to say that there will be an opportunity before Easter. My right hon. Friend and I fought the last two elections on an enormous legislative programme. We have a considerable programme to get through, but I shall provide a day for a foreign affairs debate as soon as I can.
Mr. Peyton: The Opposition greatly appreciate what the right hon. Gentleman said about a second day for the Industry Bill, which I think is very important. Secondly, may we take it that the motion on the energy orders will be simply to take note? Thirdly, the National Consumers Council was set up this week. It has had a chequered career since the White Paper in the autumn. It was referred to later as having been set up. It has now been set up. Can we have a discussion on this subject at some time in the future?
Last, I refer to the question of the Select Committee which has just been announced by the right hon. Gentleman. He may or may not be right in his decision, but I am surprised that he did not first consult the Opposition. I wonder whether he has considered the question of precedent. Such a proposal might be
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extremely undesirable, even with a difficult subject such as abortion, on which I admit there is no unanimity. Surely it is wrong for Governments to seek to impose Select Committees on Private Members' Bills quite so arbitrarily as this.
Mr. Short: The right hon. Gentleman made three points. On the first, we are still considering the form of the motion for the debate on the EEC energy policy. We have not decided that yet. On the second point, I cannot promise any time in the near future for a debate on that matter but it is an appropriate subject for one of the right hon. Gentleman's Supply Days.
On the third point, there are precedents for this action. I feel—I hope the right hon. Gentleman agrees—that we should start to involve back benchers in the framing of legislation. It seems to me an ideal subject. There were considerable experiments in the 19th century in this procedure. All the railways legislation, for example, was drafted in Select Committees. A social topic of this kind is tailor-made for a Committee of the House to draft the legislation. I hope that when hon. Members think about it, they will feel it to be a very useful innovation.
Mr. Lamond: Will my right hon. Friend try to find time for a debate on the textile industry, many sections of which are in great difficulties, with many thousands of workers on short time or out of work completely, with mills closing and firms such as ICI and other fibre producers facing competition not only from the Far East but now from the United States, where companies can undercut ICI prices because the raw material, oil, is considerably cheaper there?
Mr. Short: Certainly. As I have said before, I have a great deal of sympathy with the difficulties of the textile industry. I will certainly refer my hon. Friend's question to the Secretary of State for Trade.
Mr. Pardoe: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that there is now an urgent need for a debate on the whole question of contributions to political parties and the financing of political parties? Would he look carefully at the report of debates in the Standing Committee on the Finance

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Bill in the early hours of this morning and realise that the Government, without any consultation with the opposition parties, have for the first time introduced a major tax on contributions to political parties, which will have a considerably greater effect on the contributions to opposition parties than on those to Government parties, and that this is a matter of great constitutional sensitivity? Will he therefore take careful note?
Mr. Short: The hon. Member asks me to take note. Yes, I take note. On the first part of his question, the Liberal Party has a Supply Day next week which it could devote to this subject. I cannot offer any opportunity to debate this matter in the next week or fortnight, but I hope before long to reintroduce the motion that I withdrew some time ago.
Mr. Skinner: On this question of contributions to political parties, which has just been raised, curiously enough, by the Liberal spokesman, will my right hon. Friend take into account the fact that there is a good deal of scepticism on these benches whether this is an appropriate thing for the House to do? Will he also take into account the fact that it would seem totally out of place if, for instance, taxpayers' money was handed over to a political party such as the Liberal Party, which already has two secret funds which are not audited or shown to the general public and are controlled by three people? In view of that, is it not a total waste—
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. George Thomas): Order. We are dealing with next week's business.
Mr. Short: My hon. Friend should refresh his memory by re-reading "Labour's Programme for Britain". The proposal appeared in that document.
Mr. Winterton: May I support the plea of the hon. Member for Oldham, East (Mr. Lamond)? Would the right hon. Gentleman pay special attention to the urgent crisis in the British textile industry, which cannot await a debate at some time in the future? Can we not have a debate at an early date, since otherwise there will be very high unemployment?
Mr. Short: I am afraid not, but, as I promised, I will certainly draw the con-
1576
cern expressed by my hon. Friend and now by the hon. Member to the attention of the Secretary of State for Trade.
Mr. Grocott: Bearing in mind our experience this week in the important two-day debate on devolution, when a large proportion of the time was taken up with Front Bench winding-up speeches at the end of the first day and opening speeches at the beginning of the second, would my right hon. Friend agree that, in future two-day debates, it would be unnecessary to take up so much time in this way, and that that time should be available to back benchers?
Mr. Short: It is worth considering whether a winding-up speech, say, is necessary on the first day. But these are debates, after all, and they must be opened and wound up. I think that my hon. Friend is being a little niggardly since I provided, exceptionally, two days to debate that subject.
Mr. Adley: May I draw the right hon. hon. Gentleman's attention to Early Day Motion No. 206, signed by more than 50 hon. Members, particularly in view of what the Prime Minister has just said about the discussion which will take place about the referendum and the percentage thereof which will be valid?
[That this House recalls that, on 10th May 1967, Her Majesty's Government obtained a majority of 426, on an 87 per cent. poll of hon. Members, for the proposal to seek membership of the EEC; that on 28 th October 1971, Her Majesty's Government obtained a majority of 112 on a 95 per cent. poll of hon. Members, for the same proposition, notwithstanding an exhortation from Her Majesty's Opposition, against the proposition; and trusts that the full-hearted consent of Parliament thus given will not be over-ridden by half-hearted dissent or disinterest should the proposed referendum produce a low poll.]
Does he not accept that, while a general debate on the Common Market is important and welcome, this specific point is so important that we should have a debate on it in Government time at an early opportunity? Some of us believe that half-hearted dissent by the British people would be much less effective than full-hearted consent of this House.
Mr. Short: No, Sir, I cannot promise a debate on the specific point, but the

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White Paper which my right hon. Friend promised will be published in about three-and-a-half weeks, at the end of this month. There will be a debate on it shortly afterwards, when the hon. Member will be able to deploy his point.
Mr. Flannery: Since I have recently written a letter with many accompanying signatures to my right hon. Friend and have not yet managed to get a reply—I am sure that I shall get one—on the question of the Shrewsbury pickets, and in view of the widespread ignorance displayed on the Conservative benches about the facts of the matter, would my right hon. Friend seriously consider a debate on the Floor of the House, as that letter requested, since throughout our country an increasingly large number of people who want to defend human liberty would like this subject debated?
Mr. Short: First, if my hon. Friend did not get a reply, I apologise. It may be that a reply was sent to the first of the 17 or so signatures. If not, I will see to that immediately. On the subject of the pickets, I cannot add anything to the answers given to a number of questions on this subject by the Home Secretary.
Mr. Tebbit: First, the right hon. Gentleman might suggest to his hon. Friend that the opposition, on the Government benches, uses some of its time to conduct that sort of debate. On the main point, would he accept that he is not exactly improving his reputation as the custodian of back bench liberties by the way in which he is conducting tomorrow's business? Would he not think it more appropriate, if the Government had wanted to achieve this approach, that they should have done it before this Private Member's Bill was introduced, and if they have only just thought of this approach, that they might at least wait until well beyond Second Reading until they continue it? If, further, the right hon. Gentleman thinks that a Select Committee of back benchers is the right way to get agreed legislation, why not start with a Select Committee on the Industry Bill or the National Enterprise Board Bill or whatever other piece of tomfoolery he cares to call it?
Mr. Mendelson: Would my right hon. Friend accept that at least a number of hon. Members welcome the Govern-
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ment's initiative in putting forward the proposal for a Select Committee, and that it is to be hoped that, between now and the start of tomorrow's debate, or even during the course of the debate, hon. Members will get together after having debated the matter for a whole day and then agree that the logic of the Select Committee idea is not to press the matter to a vote tomorrow but to refer it to a Select Committee with all the other documents involved and let the Committee look at it? I hope that this will find widespread support tomorrow.
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I hope that we shall not start tomorrow's debate today.
Mr. Short: I certainly agree with what my hon. Friend, one of the most experienced parliamentarians in the House, has just said. He will understand that I cannot pass any comment on what informal discussions may take place tomorrow.
Mr. Michael Latham: Would the right hon. Gentleman nag the two distinguished Ministers on his immediate left—the Minister for Housing and Construction and the Under-Secretary of State for the Environment—to produce the Bill on land nationalisation as quickly as possible, so that it can be rejected by the House?
Mr. Short: If the hon. Gentleman contains himself, the Bill will be produced before long and I hope that he will support it.
Mr. Dan Jones: If the Private Member's Bill tomorrow is carried, could not the Select Committee and the Standing Committee be in serious conflict if they went on apace?
Mr. Short: We must wait and see how we get on tomorrow. Of course it will turn out all right tomorrow.
Mr. Kenneth Lewis: Can the Leader of the House tell me when he proposes to have the Second Reading of the Air Travel Reserve Fund Bill, which has just been published? Will he ask that there should be a change on the back of the Bill and that instead of its being presented by Mr. Secretary Shore, this Bill should be presented by Mr. Secretary Benn, or that at least his name should

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be on the Bill, because it was Mr. Secretary Benn who persuaded people to go on Court Line holidays and lose all their money? Is he not associated with the Bill?
Mr. Short: Not for the first time, the hon. Gentleman has made a grossly inaccurate and unfair statement, but the name of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Trade is, of course, the right name to head the list.
Mr. MacFarquhar: Would my right hon. Friend agreed that an unfortunate precedent may have been set in setting up a Select Committee on Abortion? Is he aware that it is highly unlikely that in the future he will get distinguished and expert people to serve on Committees such as the main Committee, to spend long periods of time examining the evidence and then to find that their whole work is to be resubmitted to a less expert Committee of this House?
Mr. Short: We are most grateful to the main Committee which looked at this subject, but I do not think it follows that any Committee should have a right to have its findings accepted in toto by this House. There is no reason why it should not be possible to send for further evidence or indeed to hold debates in Committee.
Mr. Marten: On the question which so worries my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch and Lymington (Mr. Adley) about a low turn out in the referendum, will the right hon. Gentleman recognise that if there is a low turn out it will be merely because of disillusioned pro-Marketeers?
On the business next week, could the Leader of the House say whether the Supply Day given to the Liberals is an additional Supply Day or one surrendered by a generous Conservative Front Bench? If so, will the Ulster Unionists and Scottish Nationalists also get a Supply Day or part thereof?
Mr. Short: On the hon. Gentleman's first point, I am quite sure that he will do his best to ensure that there is not a low turn out. On his second point, the Supply Day given to the Liberals is, of course, an innovation. It is one of the normal 29 Supply Days conceded by the official Opposition. If other, minor or
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smaller parties want Supply Days they should contact the Opposition Chief Whip and try to influence him.
Mr. Andrew F. Bennett: Would the Leader of the House remember his promise to consider a debate on the strategic plan for the North-West? Also, will he note Early Day Motion No. 176 on the Pic-Vic Railway Tunnel and consider giving time for a debate on this subject and on the way the Government seem to be neglecting the allocation of resources to the North-West of England?
[That this House, mindful of the importance of the Pic-Vic Railway Tunnel not only to the transportation policy of the Greater Manchester Council but also as a positive contribution to ensuring the prosperity and quality of life for the whole of the North West Region, calls upon the Government to augment the transport supplementary grant allocated to Greater Manchester for 1975–76 and allow this vital regional project to continue.]
Mr. Short: Putting those points together, I realise their importance, especially in relation to a debate on a strategic plan for the North-West. I notice that the hon. Lady the Member for Lancaster (Mrs. Kellett-Bowman) is not here today. I repeat, this is a very suitable subject for half a Supply Day. Nevertheless, I agree that it is important and I shall certainly bear it in mind.
Mr. Costain: May I ask the Leader of the House to clear up one important point on tomorrow 's debate? He will realise that all hon. Members will be keen to be in their constituencies tomorrow and also to be in the House. Am I right in assuming that if this Bill fails to get a Second Reading it will prevent another such Bill from being brought up this Session? If the Bill does get a Second Reading, would not the two Committees conflict?
Mr. Short: On the hon. Gentleman's second point, certainly the two could go ahead together. There is no conflict. It is a Private Member's Bill and there is no earthly reason why the Select Committee should not continue. Let us wait until tomorrow and see how we get on.
Mr. Loyden: I would ask my right hon. Friend whether, in view of the unemployment situation existing in the North-West, he would give us time to debate

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the question of unemployment in the near future.
Mr. Short: As I said on the general economic debate, I cannot find the time in the near future, but the whole question of regional debates is one at which we shall have to look. Certainly, I am looking at it and will see what can be done about it.

STATUTORY INSTRUMENTS
Ordered, That the draft Double Taxation Relief (Taxes on Income) (Malta) Order 1975 be referred to a Standing Committee on Statutory Instruments.—[Mr. Edward Short.]
Ordered, That the draft Double Taxation Relief (Taxes on Income) (Cyprus) Order 1975 be referred to a Standing Committee on Statutory Instruments.—[Mr. Edward Short.]

ORDERS OF THE DAY
  SUPPLY
  [9TH ALLOTTED DAY]—considered
  SUPPLY

    HOUSING
    4.15 p.m.
    Mr. Nicholas Scott: I beg to move,
    That the salary of the Secretary of State for the Environment should be reduced by the sum of £1,000.
    Since I shall in the course of my speech be mentioning housing associations, I should like to declare an interest in that I am the totally unpaid chairman of a voluntary housing association.
    There are several ways whereby the Opposition can make clear, on the Order Paper, their criticism of Government policy but the way we have chosen today is particularly appropriate in this case, not only because the Secretary of State for the Environment has not thought it right to be present today for this debate, and not only because we on this side of the House have been increasingly impatient at the flippant and irresponsible answers he has given to supplementary questions when he has been at the top of the list, but because of the typical way in which he handled the long-awaited statement on private house building. It had been trailed by his hon. Friend the Under-Secretary and by himself for many months and was eventually sneaked in as a Written Answer on 27th January, so that the Secretary of State could not be questioned about the adequacy or otherwise of the measures he was putting forward, and he was able quickly to disappear from the House and the country.
    I believe that that shows a contempt for this House and for the right hon. Gentleman's responsibilities to this House and that this motion today is, therefore, particularly appropriate. The right hon. Gentleman is fond of describing himself as a democratic Socialist. As every week goes by he seems to be more Socialist and less democratic.
    But, above all, we are moving this motion today because of what we see as his ill-founded complacency and

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    optimism in face of the current housing crisis in this country. As I said on Second Reading of the Housing Rents and Subsidies Bill, no party can really be satisfied with its housing record since the end of the Second World War.
    It was the Patronage Secretary who said at the end of the last Labour Government that he was thoroughly ashamed of their housing record. Although the first three years of Conservative Government compared with the last three years of that Labour Government showed that we had provided no fewer than 30 per cent. more new and modernised homes in those three years than did the Labour Party in their last three years, still we were not satisfied with that record, and we believed that more needed to be done. Nevertheless, that period of Conservative Government was one of real and substantial achievement in the housing field, a great deal of which is now a permanent feature of the housing scene in this country.
    It was a Conservative Government who introduced the long-overdue system of national rent rebates and allowances which has brought benefit to many tens of thousands of our less-well-off citizens so that no person should now be in fear of losing his home because of his inability to pay the rent for that property. It was a Conservative Government who produced the idea of the housing action areas, which I believe has a tremendously important rôle to play in the future development of housing in our inner cities. I hope that this idea can be developed as time goes on, for there is a danger that—just as when any development area was created there grew up alongside it an area which eventually became known as a "grey" area, so that on the one side powers and resources were available while on the other side none was available—we may need flexible intermediate powers to go arm-in-arm with housing action areas if eventually they are to be fully effective. Again, it was in a period of Conservative Government that we saw improvement grants increase from 124,000 in 1969 until they were running at the level of 453,000 per annum in 1973.
    It is sad that it is the collapse in the improvement grant scheme as much as the collapse in house building which has
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    featured in the 12 months of the Government's record. The Conservative period of Government also saw a tremendous boost to the voluntary housing movement, which I hope will be continued. It was in October 1973 that the announcement was made about a low-start mortgage scheme, which would have been introduced rapidly had we been returned to power last February. It has taken almost 12 months for the Government to take action. They attacked the idea when it was introduced. Now, belatedly, they have been converted to it. We hope that it will not be too long before they are converted to other aspects of our housing policy as well.
    Mr. Bob Cryer: Under the Conservative Government there was a continuing scandal of the speculative builders obtaining improvement grants and then selling the houses at very large profits. Surely it was up to the Conservative Government to ensure that such builders were subjected to means-testing, in the same way as they subjected council tenants to means-testing under the Housing Finance Act 1972.
    Mr. Scott: First, the improvement grants were introduced under Labour and not Conservative legislation. Secondly, so far as profits were made they were taxed. Thirdly, there was an important and lasting improvement to the housing stock as a result of the expenditure of the money.
    Mr. Norman Tebbit: It is neglectful of my hon. Friend the Member for Chelsea (Mr. Scott) not to point out something else. These grants were, in general, made available under discretionary powers of local authorities. The local authorities were perfectly free to blacklist people who behaved badly.
    Mr. Scott: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for pointing that out.
    The Conservative Government had real and substantial achievements in housing. Yet I admit that last winter the figures for house building were disappointing. Had we been returned to office, we would have taken early action to change the situation and get the house building drive going again. One can but condemn the present Government for their inaction and for the continuing bland assertions, which we had from the Minister for Housing and

    1585
    Construction throughout last summer, that an up-turn was coming. Indeed, the latest figures show that the total starts are no less than 25 per cent. down on last year. Perhaps the Minister can give us new figures today. If he can, I doubt whether they will be any more encouraging. Moreover, improvement grants were nearly 50 per cent. down in 1974 over 1973. There is, indeed, a sad tale both for new housing and for modernised homes.
    Is the Minister satisfied that the present rateable value limitations are not too inhibitive of the most effective use of improvement grants, particularly in central London? I am getting a number of letters suggesting that they are. It would be interesting to hear the hon. Gentleman's reaction or whether he has any plan to revise the limits.
    Not only is there a bleak picture at present. The prospects look worse and not better. At Question Time today my hon. Friend the Member for Melton (Mr. Latham) referred to the shocking report of the "little Neddy", but not only that body but also the National Federation of Building Trades Employers, the Federation of Builders and Plumbers Merchants, and every other reputable forecaster about the future of the building industry are united in saying that the best that we can hope for is to maintain the present abysmal level of house building. The fact is that house building and modernisation are in the doldrums, the queue of the homeless is getting longer, the brick stockpile is now 900 million bricks and getting bigger, brickworks are closing, builders are going bankrupt and the dole queues of the building workers are growing longer.
    The reaction of the Secretary of State to the situation is set out in Hansard of 15th January, when he said:
    "… having studied the question of what are the real limitations on the lower end of the market, I have become more and more convinced that it is not the lack of 100 per cent. mortgages, it is not the 11 per cent. interest rate or the size of the deposit, but is the general state of uncertainty created by the world economic situation. If people cannot see in what sort of job or position they are likely to be a year from now, they are reluctant to take on the risk of buying a house.—[Official Report, 15th January 1975; Vol. 884, c. 442.]
    In other words, the problem has nothing to do with him and he will pass the buck on. But even if one accepts the right hon. Gentleman's remark that it is
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    economic pressures rather than anything else which are responsible, what do the Government do but pile more economic woe on what already exists? For example, there is the capital transfer tax. I welcome the concession announced for small businesses, entirely as a result of pressure from the Opposition. But Ministers must understand that even the announcement of that monstrous tax added uncertainty on top of all the other measures and pressures facing small businesses, causing dismay and the postponement of future plans.
    In addition to all that, small builders are faced with the worst effects of the war on self-employed people which is being conducted by the Secretary of State for Social Services. Then again, there is the tremendous increase in the rates burden which is taking place this year under the present Government.
    But at last we got the Secretary of State's statement—if one could presume to call it that—in his Written Answer of 27th January. I am not surprised that it was done as a Written Answer, because I remember the Prime Minister saying, on 19th December, that whether or not a Minister made a statement orally or by Written Answer depended on the importance which he placed on the measures he was announcing.
    In view of the measures the right hon. Gentleman was announcing, it is not surprising that the Secretary of State announced them by Written Answer. They are totally inadequate to deal with the house building situation. We welcome the belated conversion to low start mortgages. A whole year has been wasted but better late than never. We welcome the move to stabilise special mortgage funds. Is that part of the Written Answer intended to be a commitment to keep the mortgage rate at 11 per cent? If the building societies find it difficult to hold the rate at 11 per cent., will a loan from the Government automatically be made? When we promised 9½ per cent., we were attacked as being guilty of a pack of lies. The right hon. Gentleman's statement on this issue, if it means anything, means that the Government are committing themselves to an 11 per cent. mortgage rate. If they are, let them make it clear so that home buyers and builders can plan on the assumption that the rate

    1587
    will be no higher than that. If not, let the Government not wrap it all up in the way they have done in the Written Answer.
    We welcome the increase in the value of the option mortgage scheme. But we regret that nothing was said positively about the removal of the limit on special advances by the building societies. A large number of higher-priced houses, many of them newly built, are sticking in the market. The loan charges are a burden on the builders and are inhibiting them from starting many of the low-priced houses that we need now. Since we have a £25,000 tax limit on mortgage relief, the Government could have abolished the limit on special advances and thereby made a significant contribution to getting some of these more highly-priced houses moving. The Minister says that consultations will continue. We should like to see action. The overall impact of the statement is that it is unlikely to be sufficient to get the industry moving and does little to lift the gloom which faces us on the housing building front.
    I want to look at the record of the Government during almost a year's responsibility for housing policy. My main complaint is that, at every turn of policy, politics have been put before the needs of the people. The one jewel, of which we shall no doubt hear a great deal, has been the increase in council house building. But that is not enough to compensate for the collapse of the house building programme overall, and, what is more, it is not what people want.
    We know from every survey which has been made that people want to be able to own their own homes, and a national housing policy which concentrates on the expansion of the public sector and not the private sector is not meeting the wishes and needs of our people. Yet, in area after area it is this dogma which triumphs at the expense of the needs of our people, and they suffer. Let us take the example of the Rent Act 1974. It has dried up the supply of rented accommodation. I know that the Minister gets irate every time that is mentioned. But the evidence is piling up. We see it in New Society and Time Out. In the columns of the
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    Evening Standard advertisements for furnished accommodation are down by no less than 75 per cent. on the number when the Rent Act 1974 was introduced.
    In Earls Court, in my constituency, which had a high level of rented accommodation, particularly for single people, it is now virtually impossible for someone who is British to obtain furnished accommodation. The accommodation is being reserved for holiday lets and for foreigners coming for short stays. Our own people, particularly young, single people, have been driven out of the accommodation by the effects of the Act. It is the Government's legislation. They should be monitoring it. They should be able to give us evidence on how it is working.
    Mr. Stephen Ross: As the hon. Gentleman referred to the columns of the Evening Standard, perhaps he will cast his mind back to the columns of that paper last July, when it criticised his party for its tactics in Committee in preventing the passing of the Act. The situation had then become so difficult that people were being evicted because it was known that the legislation was coming.
    Mr. Scott: I was not in the House at the time, but my hon. Friend the Member for Hornsey (Mr. Rossi) co-operated with the Government so that the Bill could get on to the statute book before the Summer Recess. Therefore, that allegation is untrue.
    There is a prima facie case of overwhelming compulsion that the Act has dried up the supply of furnished, rented accommodation. It is up to the Government to answer that case if they wish to persuade the House that it is working as they thought it would.
    Secondly, I come to the question of municipalisation and acquisition. Hundreds of millions of pounds are being spent on buying up property in the rented sector, often at inflated prices, without producing a single extra home and, instead, increasing the stock of empty properties which will be held by local authorities. Perhaps the Minister will develop the interesting remark made at Question Time yesterday that only 1 per cent. of local authority housing was empty. That is a long way from the evidence we have seen in, say, the GLC's

    1589
    strategic plan for London, which talks of levels of 4 per cent. If the Minister has firm evidence that it is only 1 per cent., we should very much like to hear it.
    The programme of municipalisation and acquisition is adding considerably to the expense of management of local authority properties. We have already seen in Circular 171/74 how this has been acknowledged by the Department. It has written to local authorities saying that in view of the extra cost of managing the scattered properties which are being bought up under the programmes of municipalisation and acquisition it may be necessary for local authorities to reduce their expenditure on the repair and maintenance of their other properties. What a recipe for disaster! Anyone who owns property knows that if he puts off repairs and maintenance he is building up extra expense and extra problems for the future. It is to contribute to the slum problems of the future if the policy of acquisition by local authorities is carried out on a large scale. If present plans go ahead, much sound housing will be put under the bulldozer, and that will be a reckless waste of the nation's resources.
    This is nowhere seen more clearly than in London, where the GLC is talking of putting up its mortgage rate from 11 per cent. to 13¼ per cent. It would cost the GLC £3 million in a year to hold the rate down to 11 per cent. It is not prepared to find that money, but next year it will find no less than £69 million for municipalisation and acquisition. What a set of priorities! What a way to put politics before people! We see doctrinaire considerations winning against common sense, economic sense and housing sense.
    We see the same dogmatic attitude in the consultative paper on the new towns, where the emphasis is on a return to rented property rather than ownership. Although surveys show that people in the new towns want to be able to own their own homes, and although many people are attracted to the new towns by the idea that they can rent now and buy later, this paper, with its new emphasis on renting at the expense of ownership, is yet another example of the Government's worthless lip-service to owner-occupation.
    Then we have the Housing Rents and Subsidies Bill, with the ending of fair
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    rents for council tenants and a return to a haphazard system of rents, under which the rent paid by a family or household depends not on its means but on the state of the housing revenue account of the area in which it lives. With the return to a haphazard system of rents, we see the continuation of the Labour Party's vendetta against the private landlord, and a resultant decline in the quality of our housing stock—yet another contribution to the slums of the future. Again, dogma triumphs over the housing needs of the country.
    Finally, land nationalisation is hanging over the whole housing future of the country like a great thunder cloud, threatening the drying up of the supply of building land and inhibiting builders from getting on with the job of housing the people. One of the best contributions the Government could make to confidence in the house building industry would be to drop any idea of continuing with their proposal for the nationalisation of development land.
    So, in every area we see the dreary, dogmatic Socialist approach, which is wasteful and is oversimplified in its answers to our problems, every time reinforcing failure with fresh policies designed to achieve further failure—control bringing about shortage, shortage being the excuse for municipalisation, and then more shortage. Now there are ideas from below the Gangway for requisition, mercifully so far resisted by Ministers. But who knows how long it will be before they listen to those siren voices?
    Instead, can we not agree between the parties on a national housing policy to meet the needs of the people? Can we not forget dogma for a time and remember the people whose homes are at stake?
    Finance is the key. The Government have announced that they are having a departmental review of housing finance. We understand that it covers not only the pattern of subsidies but the rôle of building societies. Could we not drop the departmental review and have a wider review of the whole question of housing finance? The Lord President of the Council talked this afternoon about the need to involve back benchers in the drafting of legislation. This would be an admirable area in which back benchers on both sides of the House could co-operate

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    with Ministers. They could hear independent evidence on the way in which particular patterns of subsidies work and on the rôle of the building societies. We might be able to develop, perhaps through a Select Committee, a cross-party approach to the whole question of housing finance. That would certainly be a great step forward.
    The development of a national housing policy could bring great benefits to all our people. Ownership should be its cornerstone. Even the Labour Party pays lip-service to this. Already 52 per cent. of our people own their own homes. We should try to raise that figure. We should be aiming at a target of not less than 70 per cent.
    We welcome the belated move in the direction of low start mortgages, but could we not hear from the Government that they are seriously considering a scheme to help young people with their deposits when they are buying their homes for the first time? Could we have from them a specific commitment to peg the mortgage rate—if not going the whole way to our 9½ per cent., at least to 11 per cent.? In that way we should give young people the incentive to buy their own homes and give builders the confidence that the houses they should be setting out to build will have a ready market when they are built in a number of months' time.
    Mr. John Ovenden: Before the hon. Gentleman leaves the proud record of the Conservative Party in Government, will he enlighten us as to how the more than doubling of house prices in three years, and the rise in mortgage rates from 8½ per cent. to 11 per cent., assisted first-time buyers?
    Mr. Scott: I prefer to stick with the speech I have here. If the hon. Gentleman imagines that the recipe that is presently being put forward by his right hon. and hon. Friends will not lead to a renewed increase in house prices he is much mistaken. Unless we can get house building going again at a much higher rate than we show any signs of achieving at the moment we shall return to a situation in which mortgage money will be available, housing will not be available and prices will rise. Do not let the hon. Gentleman imagine that those problems
    1592
    will not occur again. They will reappear unless we take urgent action now.
    First, there must be a package with the object of encouraging owner-occupation which will enable the builders to build and young people to buy the houses when they have been built.
    Secondly, there should be a new deal for those who live in council property. I agree with the Secretary of State for the Environment that we do not want council tenants to be treated as, or to regard themselves as, second-class citizens. There is a danger that that will happen. I welcome the announcement that the Minister for Housing and Construction made recently and the clause that was added to the Housing Rents and Subsidies Bill to provide for co-operatives on council estates. We should go further than that.
    The time is coming for a new charter for council tenants. The first principle should be the right for council tenants to buy the flat or house in which they live. Although I do not notice that in the Government's proposals, that should be the first right that council tenants should have in their charter.
    There should also be a much more relaxed attitude so that council tenants will be able to take in lodgers. Indeed, there should be encouragement for them to do so. There should be greater facilities to encourage mobility. At the moment, the rate of mobility in the public sector of housing is less than half that in the housing stock as a whole. It would be possible—perhaps through the use of the Department of Employment's computer services—to have a flat-matching exchange system on a national basis, just as there already exists a job-matching system in the Department of Employment.
    Every council estate or block of flats should have an association of tenants who should be consulted by the local authority on certain matters and should have an increasing say in the management of the estate or the block of flats in which they live.
    Mr. John Lee: On the one hand, the hon. Gentleman is saying that we should encourage the sale of council houses to the tenants who occupy them. He then goes on to the unexceptionable remark about the desirability of greater mobility.

    1593
    How can he reconcile those two suggestions? In reducing the housing stock how can he enable tenants to exchange homes?
    Mr. Scott: The fact is that mobility in the owner-occupied sector is more than twice as high as in the council sector. The more owner-occupation there is the greater the mobility. First, we must encourage owner-occupation. Secondly, there should be a new deal for council tenants.
    Thirdly, there should be more emphasis on the work of housing associations. I welcome what has already been done but there is still immense scope. In London we should pay particular attention to the development of housing associations that will provide for single people. They have suffered as a result of the Rent Act 1974. I will not go over that ground again, save to say that single people are in a difficult situation. We should cater for single people through the housing association movement.
    We could take a much more imaginative attitude towards encouraging housing associations to take part in mixed development, which includes a commercial element. As we redevelop the centres of some of our cities we should encourage housing associations to use the commercial element to help to subsidise the housing element. In such developments housing associations could make an important contribution.
    I hope that the Minister will be able to tell us when the associations are to hear about the development grants to which they are entitled. Many associations want to go ahead with planning the expansion of their work which will be possible under the Act. At present they are held up by lack of knowledge about the level of the development grants that they will be able to obtain.
    I now turn to the homeless. What reaction will the Government eventually show to the suggestion made by Shelter on the one hand and Booker and Gray on the other? There should be some sort of housing special emergency office to cope with the problems of the homeless. It could use short-life property both in the private sector and in the public sector to help to cope with the problem.
    Why will not the Government take a less doctrinaire attitude towards the
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    ideas put forward by my hon. Friend the Member for Kensington (Sir B. Rhys Williams) and others who suggest that we should move towards a system of short lets or terminable leases so as to make the maximum use of our housing stock? It is nonsense that we have so many empty houses in the hands of local authorities and private landlords. We should be finding every possible way of using the stock of empty houses to the maximum degree. Lack of energy in the public sector and lack of encouragement in the private sector are preventing the Government from taking the right steps. One result is that we are seeing an increase in squatting in many of our cities, and particularly in London. That is a growing and serious situation.
    There are two types of squatting. First, there is the self-help housing group, which is behaving perfectly responsibly and coming to an arrangement with the local authorities. It is maintaining the property effectively and efficiently, and when the property is required by the local authority it gives it up in good order. On the other hand, there is the growing habit of squatters to move into property which has been prepared for people on the housing list. They move in ahead of the people on the list and jump the queue in the worst possible way. They damage the property in the process and behave totally irresponsibly. That must be dealt with. The Government should be considering the law of trespass as it now stands so as to decide whether any legislative action is necessary.
    The first form of squatting to which I have referred is working well and could work still better. It could be given some encouragement. The second form of squatting needs to be stopped as quickly as possible because it is unfair to those on housing lists who are having to wait for the homes to which they are entitled.
    If we could put together a housing package along those lines on a non-doctrinaire basis I believe that we could best meet the wishes and the needs of the people. I appreciate that the Minister for Housing and Construction is not in the Cabinet and cannot make any announcements of changes of policy along the lines of the suggestions that I have made, but perhaps when his right hon. Friend returns he will persuade him to

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    read the proceedings of the debate. I hope that he will then turn his mind to the real crisis that we face in British housing and to ways of meeting it. I hope that they will not be decided by pressures from Labour Members below the Gangway but will be based on the needs of the people.
    4.49 p.m.
    The Minister for Housing and Construction (Mr. Reginald Freeson): We listened to a rather ragged and sad speech from the hon. Member for Chelsea (Mr. Scott). I shall sum up his contribution to the present housing situation. His package includes the introduction of some kind of licensed squatting system, the introduction of short-term leases, the encouragement of a greater number of lodgers in local authority housing, an 11 per cent. fixed rate mortgage, the increased or automatic sale of local authority rented housing and a computorised tenancy exchange system. That is the sum total of the positive suggestions that the hon. Gentleman listed in addition to anything that may be going on now.
    Some of the observations that the hon. Gentleman made that were based on that little package I shall deal with on a future occasion not very distant from now. I shall deal with some other matters during the course of my remarks. I will not bother to deal with some of the hon. Gentleman's points because they do not amount—the hon. Gentleman knows this—to anything like a fresh contribution to resolving the housing problems now facing us.
    By the time the Conservatives lost office last February, the country faced an alarming prospect. In 1973 103,000 houses had been approved for starts by public authorities—the lowest figure for over 20 years—while the White Paper on Public Expenditure published in December 1973 envisaged 95,000 approvals in 1974 with a further drop in ensuing years. Early in 1973 a steep decline set in for private housing starts. By February 1974 the forecast hovered uncertainly around 120.000 starts and was still sharply in decline.
    In summary, the new Government inherited the prospect of a little over 200,000 housing starts in 1974 as compared With 350,000 started in 1969.
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    During the previous administration's period of office, rented properties went off the market at an annual rate of 120,000—400,000 properties lost in 3½ years. Simultaneously, local authority building to rent slumped by 50 per cent. while rented council dwellings were sold off indiscriminately.
    House prices doubled, land prices trebled. We had the highest-ever mortgage interest rate-11 per cent. with an almost inevitable further increase to 12 per cent. or even 13 per cent. It was known that it was coming as far back as the autumn of 1973. We had all this and a mortgage famine, too. By early 1974 new mortgage commitments by building societies had fallen by over one-third in a year.
    Sales had slumped and builders had stopped building. The normal level of unsold new houses is about 10,000 to 15,000. But when the Labour Government came into office there were about 50,000 newly built private houses standing unsold. The one bright spot in the record was house improvement carried out under the last Labour Government's Housing Act 1969. The annual number of improvement grants issued increased by 250,000 from 1970–73, largely inflated by the temporary anti-recession measures in the 1971 Housing Act, which ended last June. Even this policy was in part wrongly handled.
    So concerned was the then Minister to get good statistics to offset the poor house building figures that little effort was made to concentrate resources on the areas where housing stress was greatest. Only about 10 per cent. of the total public expenditure of £1,400 million during that period was devoted to properties in the gravest need. My answer about the rateable value limits we have imposed as part of a concerted strategy to get resources shifted to the bottom end of the market is that I do not believe that it is right to change those limits on improvement grants at the moment. I shall watch the situation carefully. I believe that the policy is right.
    Frankly, I do not wish to spend more of my time dealing negatively with the record of the previous Government. Instead I wish to discuss some of the main problems facing us in housing. These I put into four headings—higher and stable production, greater variety of

    1597
    types and tenure of housing, urban renewal and community development and better use of resources. There are major implications under each of these headings for the future structure of the house building industry, for social policy, the organisation of local government, for financial policy and institutions and for the analysis of need and projection in the housing market.
    The Government's first concern when I was appointed Minister last March was to tackle an unprecedented collapse in housing. Quick measures were needed to deal with the immediate crisis and to point the way to longer-term measures. In effect we produced an emergency strategy. We averted higher mortgage interest rates and ensured a better flow of mortgage funds for new home buyers by the £500 million loan facilities for the building societies. That was the first step on the road to the stabilisation of mortgage finance, since consolidated in the measures announced by the Secretary of State on 27th January.
    We brought in a much strengthened Housing Act 1974 to deal with areas of housing stress and the areas rippling out to grey areas, for which the hon. Gentleman asked us to legislate. We have already done that. We did it in that Act which provided for improvement grants to be made more effective and expanded the work of the Housing Corporation and of housing associations.
    We brought in the Rent Act to give security to most furnished tenants. Let me make this point: for every tenant who is maintained by security under this Act in his own home and is not evicted there is one less vacancy advertised on the newsagents' boards. It is about time that this obvious fact was absorbed by Conservative Members.
    We introduced the Housing Rents and Subsidies Bill to return to local authorities the responsibility for fixing rents, further to regulate private rents, to redirect subsidies to new building, to redirect them to buying and modernising old properties and sponsoring tenants' co-operatives. An extra £350 million was made available for public sector housing in 1974–75 bringing the total additional provision up to £850 million.
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    In a special policy circular to local authorities last April, followed up by our regional offices, we outlined ways in which local authorities could expand their housing activity quickly. We revised the cost yardstick to ease the blockage in the pipeline of local authority housing schemes, speeded up administrative processes and enabled local authorities to buy new unsold houses from developers. The same circular made a start with our programme of social ownership—the most effective way to hold the rented sector in future. Local authorities were asked to concentrate their purchases within housing stress areas and to relate this policy to programmes of housing and environmental improvement.
    Mr. Michael Latham: If all these measures have been so effective, why is it that both private housing starts and council housing starts are declining in the third quarter?
    Mr. Freeson: If the hon. Gentleman will contain himself he will find that I am about to refer to these matters. What has been achieved so far by these initiatives? Nothing dramatic. I am not, of course, here to make debating points. I am here to discuss housing problems and I hope that Conservative Members are here to do the same, unlike the hon. Member for Chelsea. There have been no smart solutions as a result of these initiatives. There has been nothing which would lead me to be the least bit smug. I will not come down to this House month after month, as Ministers in the previous administration did, saying that statistics showed that the situation was improving when at the end of the day there was a collapse in the housing market.
    We have a long haul ahead. The housing programme had gone through the floor when we took office. Its economic base may never be quite the same again. We shall all have to do some fundamental thinking about structure and the use of resources in this area for the future.
    Nevertheless, the results have started to show. In 1974 public authorities in Great Britain started 146,000 new dwellings—a 30 per cent. increase over 1973. New dwellings contracted by public authorities in 1974 totalled nearly 151,000—the highest annual total since 1969. Up to 15th January local authorities and new town corporations in England and Wales

    1599
    had acquired over 10,000 unsold houses from private developers at a cost of nearly £100 million, a useful addition to the stock of rented accommodation and of much help to the builders concerned.
    During the first half of the present financial year English and Welsh local authorities bought over 9,000 existing dwellings, most of which were purchased by agreement. The Housing Corporation is now approving 28,000 new dwellings a year together with another 5,000 housing association dwellings approved by local authorities. These are new dwellings and not improvement schemes. These figures compare with only about 20,000 approvals in 1973.
    Mr. Wyn Roberts: The Minister referred to there being 50,000 unsold houses when the Government came into office. Will he confirm that there are now 56,000 unsold houses?
    Mr. Freeson: That is a fair question. About 50,000 houses were unsold compared with the normal 15,000. We have a completion rate of 11 thousand per month of houses under construction, so there is an addition to that stock as well as a depletion as houses are bought. Had it not been for the sale of some of those unsold properties into local authority hands and the stepping up of the sale of new houses in the private market, that figure of 56,900 would have been enormously greater. The total would have been about 80,000 to 90,000 by now, but I will come to the figures later
    In the private sector the steep decline in starts has been halted. They have been level for about six months, taking one period with another, while there is just a hint that completions may have begun to creep up in the last quarter. There is a long way to go, but we have provided a basis for recovery, and there are signs that demand is picking up.
    The mortgage famine is over. Building societies' new mortgage commitments are now running at £355 million a month compared with £140 million last March. Local authority lending is £440 million this year, as opposed to about £292 million in 1973. About 15,000 new house sales per month were being financed in the last quarter of 1974 instead of 10,000 to 11,000 last spring. This, coupled with the buying of unsold houses by local autho-
    1600
    rities has reduced the over-large overhang of new private houses under construction by 35,000.
    Further, the important measures announced 10 days ago reiterated our commitment to stabilisation and to include further short-term loans if appropriate. Our measures, founded on stabilisation, aim at restoring the house building industry's confidence and capacity to provide a much higher level of new building, at ensuring that demand is steady and strong, and helping people who wish to own their own homes for the first time.
    The package was announced after full consultation with the house building industry and building societies, and they have welcomed it. I regret that such a niggly and negative attitude was adopted by the hon. Member for Chelsea.
    Mr. Scott: Are the Government committed to 11 per cent. mortgages?
    Mr. Freeson: No, they are not. The hon. Gentleman is irresponsible in asking that question. The previous Conservative Government and a Conservative Government if returned in the future could not carry out such a commitment. The main purpose of our action is to get a stable flow of mortgage funds. I make no political point about this. The time may come when interest rates could be delicately balanced one way or the other. They might come down.
    The package that was announced following consultation with building societies and builders will provide what the market needs now, and the builders' representatives have agreed that.
    Mr. Dennis Skinner: My hon. Friend is right to acknowledge that the Opposition cannot give a clear and unmistakable commitment on interest rates as they believe in the free market forces, and one assumes that high interest rates world-wide result in high interest rates in this country, which affect building society interest rates. Does my hon. Friend agree that the Labour Government, if they had the will, in co-operation with building societies and local authorities, could subsidise interest rates in the knowledge that the money that would accrue from lower interest rates would not go to building society investors but to the community in

    1601
    the name of the local authority? That can be done and, what is more, it should be done by a Labour Government.
    Mr. Freeson: That is certainly not a policy to which the Labour Party is committed. I agree with my hon. Friend that it is possible for any Government to commit themselves to the subsidisation of interest rates for house purchase and there may be situations in which it would be right to do that. It was done for a short time by the previous Tory administration, just before the local elections of 1973. We have to judge how best to deploy resources in housing, and at this stage that would not be the right way to deploy them.
    Underlying the action we have taken to revive owner-occupation is the fundamental need to provide more houses which first-time purchasers can afford and a greater variety of dwelling sizes. Local planning authorities must help in this, including many local authorities who are represented by Opposition Members. They must deal more speedily with planning applications and allow higher densities. Insistence on low densities does a great disservice to those who want to own their first house, it wastes land and pushes up builders' and community costs. We shall make this clear to local authorities in a forthcoming circular.
    The circular will provide a further series of initiatives for increasing the housing provision. I should mention two aspects. There is clear evidence of substantial need for larger numbers of dwellings for small households in the private sector as well as the public sector. What is also clear is the great scope for speeding and improving the procedures on house building programmes, for adopting new ideas to increase new building and the better use of existing stock.
    I am keenly aware of the difficulties facing the industry, particularly the small and medium-sized firms which normally provide about two-thirds of the new houses which are built for owner-occupation. Many of the difficulties relate to the structure of the industry, which is under-capitalised. I look to the industry itself—both management and trade unions—to join us in examining these problems for the future.
    1602
    Meanwhile, although the Government have removed doubts about mortgage finance, other obstacles remain. I am sure that the banks, which are now well placed for more lending, will recognise the growing evidence of demand in this sector and the Government's firm commitment on mortgage finance and will lend more support to the house building programme. I am in touch with the building societies on the scope for them to help with working capital.
    Yet further initiatives will follow. I am examining the housing cost yardstick system to see how it might be reformed, and also the tendering and contract procedures, project planning and management methods. I do not intend simply to issue exhortatory circulars. There will be direct and continuing dialogue with local authority members and house builders. I shall visit the major metropolitan centres, with my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State, to discuss problems, initiatives and opportunities which Government action offers to both. I will examine with them, too, the scope for corporate action to deal not only with new house building programmes but with the multiple problems of housing and urban stress and the best methods for adopting a total approach to them.
    Mr. Michael Morris: Before he sets off on his grand tour will the hon. Gentleman have words with his right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer on the priority programme, so that house building can be considered a priority lending factor alongside exports and manufacturing industry?
    Mr. Freeson: There are Bank of England restraints on lending for commercial property purchase and investment. There are no restrictions on lending for the building of houses. I was about to discuss further aspects of the housing scene beyond house building on which we shall make the follow-ups to which I have referred.
    I place this question of urban renewal and urban stress at the centre of housing policy. The hearts of many of our major towns and cities are threatened with physical decay. In them are concentrated most of the three million dwellings which are either slum or sub-standard.

    1603
    There, too, are millions of people suffering from poverty and other social disadvantages. Common to these areas are poor job opportunities and an exodus of skilled younger people, outworn schools, poor community services, high population densities and a gross lack of open space and other amenities.
    Far too often, narrowly-conceived and badly-integrated policies have been adopted in the past to tackle these problems. They have not cured fundamental urban problems but have shifted them around. The biggest obstacle to effective urban renewal, apart from the ever-present need for more resources, is fragmentation of policies and organisation. This is also true of the suburbs, and much of the building activity that goes on there on which the private house builders depend for their success also suffers in this way.
    It is not enough to build houses. There needs to be much more sensitive understanding of needs—for example, the needs of the homeless, the disabled and the old—and also of community values.
    Perhaps I should digress for one moment to refer to an appalling figure that I discovered when I came into office last March. Three-and-a-half years after the passage of the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act only 200 dwellings for the disabled had been completed. It is not our responsibility. There had been absolutely no follow-up by the Tory administration with local authorities in pursuance of that Act—none whatever. We have taken several initiatives this year and we shall be pursuing them. That inaction is an absolute scandal and I feel very strongly about it.
    Mr. Ivan Lawrence: What have the Government done since?
    Mr. Freeson: I should be glad to digress to answer that comment. Although we have been back for only a few months since the last election, we have already been in touch, through our regional offices, with local authorities to find out what has happened to all the undeveloped schemes which have been in the pipeline for the past three years. It is clear that the number is far from adequate—only 1,600 or so during a period of three-and-a-half years of Tory Government. We want to ensure, if we can, that we achieve one
    1604
    housing scheme of some kind or another in this area from every housing authority in the course of the next year.
    Both in the suburbs and in the inner cities there is, as part of our housing policy, a need to pursue community values in the planning and development of areas, a closer link between builders and authorities to obtain better land use, and a better mix of housing types and premises, instead of ever-widening areas of three-bedroomed suburban housing.
    Mr. Michael Latham: As a matter of information, in pursuing the Minister's policy of increasing planning for these purposes how much extra resources are the Government making available to local authorities in this respect?
    Mr. Freeson: There is no limit on local authority house building and we have shown by our efforts in the past year what can be done to increase building by public authorities. There will be an increased effort in future in provision for the disabled and in due course I hope that other special groups who have received scant attention in recent years will be examined. There has been an increase in output in the public sector of 30 per cent. or more—output on which the activity which I have been discussing is so dependent.
    Mr. Scott: The Minister has outlined the problems of the inner cities and the interplay of the various urban considerations. Will he tell the House what he intends to do about the situation and how he will resolve any overlap? Does the matter still rest with the Home Office Unit on Urban Deprivation, or is there some new initiative in the pipeline?
    Mr. Freeson: If the hon. Gentleman wants me to discuss that subject, it would take me much longer than a 25-minute speech. The hon. Gentleman will know that there are a number of initiatives which are being pursued by the Government in our total approach to urban renewal and other social questions. Twelve months is quite a short time in which to reorganise initiatives which should have been pursued over a number of years. I shall come in a moment to the fresh initiatives which we in the Department of the Environment are taking. There certainly needs to be much greater activity on this point.

    1605
    The Housing Act 1974 adopts some of the new thinking that has gone into urban problems in recent years, although not by any means as radically as I would have wished. The need to get that measure on the Statute Book quickly to meet immediate housing needs meant that major reforms in the direction of a total approach—the neighbourhood or community approach to urban renewal—have had to be deferred. But we are following up the Act with administrative action to push policy in this direction—on housing survey techniques, comparative costing of rehabilitation and redevelopment, urban management, neighbourhood councils, integrated programme budgeting, co-operative housing and a number of other initiatives.
    Mr. Bruce Douglas-Mann: My hon. Friend implied that there were no financial restrictions on local authorities in respect of new house building. What restrictions are placed on local authorities in carrying out improvement work—and in terms of the Housing Act to what extent are local authorities restricted by loan sanction in carrying out improvement programmes?
    Mr. Freeson: My hon. Friend has raised a number of points. If he is referring to existing council housing, there is a budgeting arrangement which is being set up under Section 105 of the Housing Act to try to concentrate lump sum allocations on priority improvements and to try to get resources lower down the market rather than in respect of better quality property. If he is referring to house purchase then, unlike house building, there are restraints, and they will have to continue within the general overall public expenditure limits with which we are all having to comply at the moment. But in respect of old houses which are purchased and which then become subject to improvement, those properties will receive the same financial treatment without any specific restraints. I hope that that answers my hon. Friend's points.
    The Inner Area Studies and Urban Guideline Reports of recent years will no longer be treated simply as research projects, but as the basis of action. In conjunction with other Government initiatives in this field—the comprehend-
    1606
    sive community programmes, urban aid programmes, education priority areas, community development programmes and the Housing Acts' priority neighbourhoods, general improvement, housing action areas, and metropolitan conferences—we are soon to embark on a programme of Government-initiated area management trials in a number of local authority districts.
    If we are to tackle these complex problems effectively, it means that we must increasingly go for a far more integrated aproach, based on the needs of neighbourhoods. We must no longer allow our older areas to decline to the point at which there is no other answer but the bulldozer. We must get in early and use a gradual and sensitive mix of rehabilitation, redevelopment and new building, and clearance where needed, along with other use of housing powers and social action. It is in these areas that social ownership has a major part to play in furtherance of the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Mitcham and Morden (Mr. Douglas-Mann).
    Social ownership and control does not mean a future consisting of a choice only between conventional owner-occupation or municipal renting. It means a variety of public initiatives sponsored by Government and local government; municipal lettings, housing associations, tenants' co-operatives; and licensing, and joint management arrangements between private owners and local authorities, all of which are being examined and pursued. I see a future for a wide variety of social tenure.
    In the end, much of the job comes down to seeking ways of ensuring that resources of manpower and money are used more efficiently. I am convinced that there are many other aspects of this which need to be explored and studied. Stabilisation of mortgage finance, speedier procedures connected with housebuilding, an adequate level of public sector housing, better use of the existing stock, new forms of tenure and tenants' involvement—all come into the picture. But there are many other aspects of the use of resources which need to be followed up. For example, are our methods of housing investment the best that can be devised? Are there ways of harnessing other

    1607
    financial resources institutionally geared to the implementation of public policies and administered accordingly, perhaps through the Housing Corporation or some other body? How do we find effective means of finding out how communities are affected by interaction in the housing market? Shall the scope of Housing Aid Centres be extended? Have we produced the right relationship between central and local government? There are many such questions to be probed. But at least we have embarked on a good deal of this work and have fed back much of what we already know of local authority and Government action.
    What I have described is but a beginning. We have a lot of work to do and many problems to tackle. Underlying them all will be the question of how best to organise and use our social and economic resources. The biggest single task in the coming year will be the housing finance review which has been announced.
    Mr. Frank Allaun: Yesterday this House carried a clause in the Housing Rents and Subsidies (Scotland) Bill which provided a ceiling of El·50 a week for rent increases in the private sector. A number of Labour MPs have continually pressed my hon. Friend to do something similar for England and Wales. Does this mean that we are to get such a ceiling for England and Wales? If it seems high, it is better than nothing. Surely it would be a serious anomaly if in Scotland there was a ceiling of £1·50 for rent increases in the private sector and we in England, particularly in London which is suffering even worse rent increases than the rest of the country, did not have this protection. I should be grateful for a reply to what I am sure my hon. Friend will agree is an important question.
    Mr. Freeson: I am aware of the proposal in the Scottish Bill. The short answer is that the Housing Finance Act, from which the Scots are moving to their new system, was different from that in England and Wales. [An HON. MEMBER: "Not much."] I will not pursue that matter in detail. I suggest to the hon. Gentleman who said "Not much" that he should go to the Vote Office, get a copy
    1608
    of the Act, and compare it with the English Act. It is a different piece of legislation. The system being introduced for Scotland is for a special situation which is not applicable elsewhere. No doubt my hon. Friend will wish to deal with that matter later in the debate.
    What I have described is but a beginning. We have a lot of work to do and many problems to tackle. Underlying them all will be the question how best to organise and use our social and economic resources.
    The most important work in the coming year will concern the housing finance review to which the hon. Member for Chelsea referred. While we do not accept the idea of a Select Committee procedure, at which the hon. Gentleman seemed to be hinting, any representations and submissions from people or organisations with material proposals or offering analyses which will be helpful in this sphere will be analysed and fed into the review if they have anything fresh to contribute to what is being prepared for study.
    Mr. Scott: If the Minister will not accept a Select Committee approach, may I ask whether he will undertake that, when the review is complete, it will be published in a consultative document so that others can take part in the debate on the final shape of any legislation which may be required?
    Mr. Freeson: It is not for me to decide what will be presented in the form of a consultative document or Green Paper. That must be a collective Government decision. However, the idea of preparing consultative documents in the wake of the review as a basis for discussion before legislation is introduced is excellent. I will certainly put it forward at the appropriate time. The review will go well beyond questions of rents and subsidies which, until now, have been the main burden of housing finance reviews. It will aim to cover investment in housing, housing needs and demands and how they are calculated, and an analysis of the ratio and efficacy of total subsidy expenditure in relation to total capital investment in achieving housing objectives. It will cover various systems of help to people in all kinds of housing tenure, the relationship of rebates and allowances to the social security

    1609
    system, and a number of other fundamental questions.
    This objective and factual approach is essential to a comprehensive strategy for housing. Another essential is co-operation and adaptation by all—the Government, local government, private owners, builders and building societies—to solve our housing and urban problems. If we can learn to base our action ultimately on social objectives, we can end contention and work together to renew our cities and other suburbs and make them worth while.
    We have a long haul ahead of us, but that is the Government's objective. I hope that everyone will join in it.
    5.25 p.m.
    Sir Derek Walker-Smith: I am grateful for the opportunity to take part in a debate on this important and human subject. It is the latest of a great many debates on housing which I have been privileged either to listen to or participate in since I made my first speech on housing in this House nearly 30 years ago.
    I speak as the representative of a large constituency with acute housing problems in a congested part of the country. I am also the chairman of the National House-builders' Council, itself something of a misnomer because it does not build houses. This body exists to promote and enforce high standards of construction in the private sector. It is a representative body consisting of builders, building societies—
    Mr. Skinner: Bricklayers?
    Sir D. Walker-Smith: Yes, the trade unions concerned—very respected and statesmanlike gentlemen they are, from whom the hon. Gentleman has much to learn—local authorities, architects, surveyors and consumer organisations. As chairman of this representative body I pursue a non-political path, though in this House I speak as a committed Conservative from these benches.
    I can best seek to reconcile my different rôles by adopting as objective and statesmanlike an approach as possible in the hope that the House will not find that too difficult a concept to absorb.
    Housing raises divers problems in
    1610
    many areas. There are the industrial and technical problems of construction, economic and financial problems in terms of both resources and public expenditure, the social implications of having not only enough houses, but houses of the right standard at the right price and, from the point of view of the distribution of industry and a balanced labour force, in the right places.
    Looking at the situation on the basis of the relationship of dwellings to households, as shown by the last census, the supply position, prima facie, is not wholly unsatisfactory. The April 1971 census showed that we had about 750,000 more dwellings than households. However, that conclusion has to be looked at in the light of various factors.
    The total number of houses masks wide differences in their quality and expectation of life. At the time of the census, of our 19 million houses 1¼ million were statutorily condemned as unfit for habitation and 1¾ million required improvement.
    We must allow a contingency item for voids, for people in transit, and so on. If we deduct 5 per cent. for voids, we change the balance and leave the figure for dwellings marginally less than for households.
    The locational balance of existing houses is wrong. It does not wholly or precisely conform to the pattern of demand, which in turn should reflect the distribution of industry. That factor is aggravated by the decreasing flexibility in housing provision and occupation. The greatest flexibility was achieved in the pattern of an earlier age when the largest proportion of dwelling houses was in the private rented sector.
    The pattern now is very different. Of our 19 million dwellings, over 10 million are owner-occupied, nearly 6 million are council rented, and over 3 million in the private rented sector, which has not only dwindled, but ossified. The result is that it is virtually impossible now to get private rented accommodation on a rack rent basis, and the position is aggravated by the effects of the 1974 Rent Act, as my hon. Friend the Member for Chelsea (Mr. Scott) said.
    Mr. Michael Latham: Will my right hon. and learned Friend confirm that that figure of 3 million privately rented, under the new statistics, includes 1 million tied service houses which cannot be considered part of the private rented stock and previously were identified separately from it?
    Sir D. Walker-Smith: I am obliged for that timely assistance from the inexhaustible quarry of expert knowledge which my hon. Friend has about this subject. I must, as an advocate, get over this habit of understating my case. That is certainly so, and I am obliged to my hon. Friend.
    The decline of this alternative source of accommodation—the private rented sector—puts the average citizen in quest of accommodation in a difficult and unenviable position. Frequently, as my talks at constituency surgeries and my post bag confirm, his position is that he cannot get a local authority house because he has insufficient residential qualification to achieve the necessary priority on the housing list, he cannot afford to purchase an owner-occupier house because he cannot meet the existing level of mortgage interest rates, and he cannot get private rented accommodation because there is none on offer on the market. That is the unenviable position which forms the background to any debate on housing today.
    Therefore, in the absence of private rented accommodation, we have to rely for new provision on the public sector and on building for owner-occupancy in the private sector, both of which have formidable problems to encounter.
    With regard to local authority housing, the stark truth is that in present circumstances there is no prospect of supply ever matching demand, and the smaller dwindling contribution from the private sector the more remote the prospect becomes.
    I have in East Hertfordshire two housing authorities, one predominantly urban and the other a mixture of small towns and villages. Taken together, therefore, their housing position, prospects and problems should not be atypical of the generality, though admittedly their propinquity to London no doubt aggravates the problems. My hon. Friend the Member for St. Albans (Mr.
    1612
    Goodhew) will confirm this because he is very much in consimili casu.
    Over the next year or two, these two authorities expect a housing contribution of 750 to 900 houses between them. That new provision has to cater for a waiting list of, at present, 4,500 between the two authorities, with a current increment of 15 each week, which is 1,500 a year between the two. Obviously even with the voids occurring by death or removal, the supply can neither match the demand nor effectively erode the waiting list. So these authorities are in the unenviable position of Sisyphus, with unending and unrewarded labours. The waiting lists remain, and, with them, all the human misery which they represent—the cramped accommodation, the making do and the sadness and sickness of hope deferred.
    The situation can be improved only both by greater provision from the public sector and by the reinforcement of a greater contribution from the private sector.
    Basically, an improvement in housing provision, both public and private, depends like so much else today on a reduction of interest rates. That of course requires a change in the economic climate both nationally and internationally, which takes us beyond the subject-matter of this debate, but which is an inescapable ingredient of this problem.
    Meanwhile, the building societies have done their best to contain the problem—and it has been a very good best. But there is also the problem of local authority mortgage interest rates. Great hardship is involved in local authorities raising their rates, as I know from the many approaches I get from my constituents.
    In the Broxbourne district, one of the two to which I have just referred, it has been found necessary to increase the mortgage interest rate in April from 11½ per cent. to 12¾ per cent. Mortgagors naturally are puzzled and dismayed at having to pay more than they would have to pay to building societies. But the local authority, on the prescribed basis of charging, can do no other. The council has made representations to the Government and awaits their response. I urge a speedy and sympathetic consideration of its approaches by Ministers.

    1613
    Apart from interest, there are further measures which can be taken in the public sector. One is a review and possibly a temporary relaxation of the Parker Morris standards. Another is a rationalisation of the yardstick of housing approvals. I was glad to hear the Minister refer to that, even though cursorily. Another is a realistic approach to local authority rents, as my hon. Friend the Member for Chelsea suggested. Measures should be designed to accelerate the snail's progress of so much contemporary council housing. Prominent among those must be the simplification and expedition of planning procedures.
    In that connection, we await the report—I understand that it is now imminent—of my good friend and eminent colleague in Chambers, Mr. George Dobry, QC, whose light and learning we shall have on the subject shortly. What he proposes will have to be examined carefully and critically. But the country will expect strong and effective action by the Government to institute any changes and improvements which are both helpful and viable.
    The Department should take a close look at its own procedures to see whether it cannot expedite and streamline the system of consultation and approval which often adds to the delays of local authority housing.
    Whatever is done to improve local authority procedures and the efficient, speedy and economical provision of housing, whether by contract building in the public sector or building for sale by the private sector, it is possible only on the basis and through the instrumentality of a strong and confident building industry. We have not got that today. The building industry is at a low ebb. It is beset by present difficulties and fears for the future.
    Activity in the building industry was reduced substantially in 1974. Taking the output of the construction industry from the Department's figures, at 1970 constant prices, seasonally adjusted, we see a sharp fall comparing quarter with quarter. For the first quarter of 1973, the figure was £333 million. For the first quarter of last year, it was only £206 million—a drop of about 30 per cent. There was a similar
    1614
    drop of about 30 per cent. in the second quarter, a lesser drop in the third quarter, and for the fourth quarter we still await the figure, and we have considerable trepidation about what we shall see. It is true that these totals include industrial building, as well as public and private house building. Nevertheless, there is a clear inference of need to restore activity in the building industry.
    If the trend continues, such figures could have serious implications also for unemployment and for a possible permanent recession of the building labour force, so that the necessary labour would not be available when we have the expansion for which we hope in time to come.
    Unfortunately some of the Governments measures, far from assisting the industry, are injuring it, notably in the case of the projected capital transfer tax. There, the effect may be to squeeze out the medium-sized concerns and leave in the building and construction industry only some 50 or so leading contractors at one end and the small firms at the other.
    I welcome the concession made the other day in the Finance Bill, in answer to the force and logic of Conservative criticism. But more needs to be done. The Government should also examine the formula basis for tendering, at present mandatory, which in some cases has the effect of raising tender prices. They should review, too, the insistence on a firm price contract, without a fluctuation clause, for the short jobs. In an uncertain and inflationary situation, that can inhibit participation in such work.
    I conclude with some very brief observations on the suggested measures for the private sector. I can be much shorter in regard to these than I would have been if the debate had been taking place 10 days ago. That is because of the package of measures presented by the Secretary of State. I indeed welcome those. It would be churlish of me not to welcome them, as my council, the National House-builders' Council, was a contributor of the ideas incorporated in the package. I am obliged for the reference by the Secretary of State in his statement to the co-operation of the Council in the discussions leading up to these measures and for his expressed intention of maintaining close contact with us.

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    I particularly welcome the institution of the deferred payment scheme for first-time buyers, though I wish that it had been done earlier. I have long been an advocate of this and similar measures. I hope that the Government can now give consideration to those further proposals for assisting house purchase which I and my council have from time to time put forward, thereby relieving the housing pressures which exist at present.
    Finally, what we need, and need urgently, is improved and expedited procedures for local authority housing; a continuing stimulus for greater house ownership, with a revival—at any rate in the long term—of provision of rented accommodation in the private sector as well; a reduction in interest rates for both public and private sectors alike; and restored confidence and stability in the building industry.
    If the Government can initiate a prompt and purposeful advance on all those fronts, we can confidently hope that our next housing debate will be held against a less gloomy background.
    5.42 p.m.
    Mr. John Forrester: The right hon. and learned Member for Hertfordshire, East (Sir D. Walker-Smith) has a long experience and much expertise in these matters. While we all respect those qualities very few of us are able to match them. I thought at one stage that he was, perhaps, wearing his neutral hat when he advocated as much council house building as private building. I am sure he appreciates that it is necessary in the present situation.
    Housing seems to be the problem which just will not go away. The hon. Member for Chelsea (Mr. Scott) reminded us that it had been with us a long time. I rather suspect that it will be with us for a long time still to come. It is still our greatest social problem, and is responsible for many of the ills of society which beset us today. It is a complex problem, as we have heard this afternoon, but we seem to be making it even more difficult to understand. We used to talk in terms of unfit houses and new building schemes. Nowadays, we are talking of PNs, HAAs, CDAs, GIAs and clearance areas and bringing them to fruition through public participation, housing associations and
    1616
    co-operative enterprises. You name it, and there is some organisation to tackle the problem.
    The overriding need in this situation is clearly for new houses. While housing action areas and general improvement areas are admirable in themselves they rarely produce the new housing which the country desperately needs. I appreciate that these are the only hope of many people of having an improvement to their homes and getting a good environment in which to live, but there is a delicate balance which must be struck in our resources of money, men and materials. How much of them should be diverted into that field from new construction?
    I welcome the fact that the Secretary of State is urging local authorities to complete their housing action areas within five years. What seems to happen so often, unfortunately, is that many schemes get started but never seem to get finished. I suspect that one of the problems is that so many of the people involved cannot find the difference between the Government grant and the total cost of the improvement. In a below-average wage area such as Stoke-on-Trent, or in areas in which there are high concentrations of pensioners—and these are common in potential housing action areas and general improvement areas—great stress and embarrassment are caused because of the shortage of cash.
    Old folk do not want to be bothered by having their houses torn apart about them whilst they are still living in them. We ought to face that problem. With all the criteria which seem to be laid down in the recent circulars, strange as it may seem, in Stoke-on-Trent we shall find great difficulty in designating many areas as housing action areas. I wonder whether the Secretary of State can allow the concessions for alternative accommodation, for compensation and for hardship payments which may be payable in housing action areas, to be made payable to pensioners, and, perhaps, others in great need in the general improvement areas as well.
    The Secretary of State is urging planning authorities to look at applications much more quickly and to look imaginatively at lower-priced conventional or non-conventional housing at higher densities. It is true that many people do

    1617
    not want gardens, and that smaller houses are better than no houses at all. There is obviously great scope for good economic housing, especially where land is scarce and expensive, but I hope that we shall guard against the prefabricated boxes which sprang up after the war and which deteriorated so rapidly. They were, perhaps, more expensive in the long run than good housing would have been.
    We must also guard against builders thinking that they can get away with inferior designs or layouts, or even jerrybuilding. While local authority officers and planning committees must, obviously, cut out unnecessary delays, they must not be pressurised into approving schemes which have neither merit nor imagination. The need for housing is obviously desperate and urgent. The homeless of today will not forgive us if we are tied down by red tape, incompetence or vacillation. Future generations will judge us very harshly if we forsake standards and quality in moments of panic and desperation and build for the future generation the slums and ghettos of perhaps 40 years' time.
    Without—in order to save time—making the case for it, may I appeal to my hon. Friend the Minister to have a look at the clause in the Local Authority Goods and Services Act which prevents direct works departments from tendering for new construction work outside their parent area? This is a restrictive clause which is quite unfair. Many people have probably taken this matter up with my hon. Friend. I hope that we shall soon get a change in the law to put the matter right.
    I welcome the statement of the Secretary of State that he would be taking measures to stabilise, whenever necessary, building society funds. Given the need for building societies to pay interest to their depositors, it may well be that it would be easier and cheaper in the years of famine to stabilised the funds than it would be in prosperous times. Our experience of the last housing boom taught us that it is essential to control funds when they are overflowing into the building societies in order to prevent excessive rises in house prices. In those years builders asked not what was a fair price plus a fair profit for a house, but what the market would stand. Even in Stoke-on-Trent and in areas such as that
    1618
    of my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Mr. Golding), houses then marketed at £16,000 or more are now selling for something over £12,000, and houses then sold for £9,000 or £10,000 can now be sold for only £7,000 or £7,500. I wonder how much of the profit was made on those houses in the first instance. I cannot help feeling that the greed of many speculative builders at that time was responsible for their own downfall and contributed to the collapse of the private market.
    The fall in interest rates and the slump in the stock market has proved a boon to the building societies. However, the admirable plan of the Chancellor for an inflation-proof savings scheme, if it does not apply to building societies, may lead to another mini-disaster. Many retired people have their funds in building societies. They will be sorely tempted to withdraw those funds and to join an inflation-proof scheme, especially if inflation continues at the present rate. Whilst the £500 million stabilisation fund may work well now, I hope the Chancellor does not throw the Minister into rougher water in the months ahead.
    No one can be complacent about the housing situation, for which there are no easy and quick solutions. The number of starts is depressingly low to anyone with this subject at heart. The number of starts fell quarter by quarter during 1973 and unfortunately continued to fall during 1974. Many builders just accepted the attitude that there was no point in starting new houses when they had tens of thousands of houses on the stocks waiting for completion. There is now more confidence in the industry. Sales are moving along faster. I think that builders are tending to complete the houses which they started many moons ago.
    We hope that this means that there will be an improvement in the new starts in the not too distant future. The £500 million loan to the building societies was a helpful factor, and the deferred payments scheme has obviously helped. I was one of those who did not like the deferred payments scheme. I still have some reservations about paying for 10 years with virtually nothing paid off the capital, but it is a scheme which my right hon. Friend has been wise to introduce.

    1619
    Rent rebate schemes are here to stay until the economic situation changes drastically—when, we cannot forsee. Why cannot there be a mortgage tax relief scheme based on income? I am inclined to introduce a motion to the effect that mortgages of over £20,000 should not be eligible for tax relief. I prefer a scheme granting 80 per cent. tax relief for those who, at the lower end of the income bracket, are paying a little above the standard rate of tax, on the average national wage, reducing, according to income, to 25 per cent. That will spread the money to those in need.
    Mr. Ernest G. Perry: Has my hon. Friend ever considered the fact that there are two kinds of mortgage? A policy holder buying a house through an insurance scheme receives income tax relief on the premium he pays and on the interest. The purchaser of a house through a building society receives income tax relief only on the interest he pays. Does my hon. Friend think that the person buying a house through an insurance policy should enjoy the same tax relief as someone buying a house through a mortgage scheme?
    Mr. Forrester: I am sure my hon. Friend has already made that point. I know that he is an expert in insurance. Some insurance peddlers tried to convince me of that doctrine some time in the past. That is, perhaps, a more far-reaching improvement than the one I now suggest. I do not necessarily rule it out, but we should move step by step. Having reached this stage, I think that a mortgage for any amount over £20,000 should not qualify for any further tax relief. With subsidies as they are in the public sector, and the state of the private housing market, we must look at any other schemes put forward to encourage home ownership. Whilst I do not think we can justify a 1½ per cent. or a 2 per cent. reduction in the interest rate across the board, at least we can justify a reduction for those at the lower end of the income bracket.
    I suspect that no one knows the complete answer to the intractable housing problem which has been with us for so long. We need to look at new ideas all
    1620
    the time. Many of us need to rethink our former positions. In the meantime we need houses. We cannot afford to spend time debating when we need the houses. I am convinced that, in the short term, only local authorities can make any significant contribution by building houses quickly. Whether those houses are kept in local authority hands or sold off in the future to tenants or others is immaterial. Only the local authorities in the past few years have kept alive the hopes of tens of thousands of homeless people when the private market failed. I think those people should continue to have priority.
    If there is some way of penalising those authorities who do not play their part in solving this national dilemma, so much the better.
    5.57 p.m.
    Mr. Anthony Steen: In many ways it is paradoxical that in an age of developed technology and advanced communications we stand by apparently helpless and witness the on-going damage and trauma suffered by tens of thousands of our people living in a new kind of artificial environment. I refer to the twilight council estates on the fringes of our great cities. Hitherto, artificially enclosed environments have been involuntary ones, for example prisons to protect the public from the individual, and voluntary ones, such as monasteries to protect the individual from the public.
    The new kind of artificially enclosed environment is the permanent community where people live in council estates built as a result of urban renewal—that euphemistic term for slum clearance and subsequent development.
    Presumably these estates were designed not to isolate those living in them but to receive a balanced population of all ages coming primarily from the slum clearance areas, and aimed at redressing poor housing and obviating health hazards flowing from inadequate accommodation. I am afraid that that has not happened. The reasons can be found in the collapse of technocratic planning which reflects the values of a fast-changing and vanishing era. Technocratic planning reflects bureaucratic organisation based on hierarchy—planners and those planned for, the decisions by the one for the other.

    1621
    The system breaks down because it is essentially undemocratic. Planners are too remote, too ignorant of local conditions and too slow to respond to change.
    On the perimeters of our great cities there are many such examples of estates in which thousands of people live, some in mid-or high-rise blocks, some in deck access flats and maisonettes and a few in houses. All share one thing in common—the totally inadequate supporting services for those people who live there. The failure to provide any basic amenities at the earliest stage of occupation starts a downward spiral of dissatisfaction and discontent and causes isolation and depair. Often new houses are occupied by families with young children, yet no schools operate on such estates for some years, no play schemes are organised, there are no adventure playgrounds and there are few playgroups. Often months go by before a bus service is introduced and the bus stops are invariably in the most awkward places. Nor are there any shops, and when they appear they do nothing to help build a sense of community. Inevitably there is a large supermarket sited across some main road so that children cannot go there safely unaccompanied.
    In one estate in Liverpool, four years after the first family moved in, there was still no post office, no launderette, no butcher and no fishmonger. The distance to the nearest shops and cost of public transport have resulted in mobile shops occupying unadopted land not subject to local authority byelaws and often a health hazard. In one general practitioner's area over a six-month period, as a result of these mobile shops, 199 cases of proven food poisoning were recorded—nearly 21 per thousand of the population, compared with a national average of only 1 per thousand of the population.
    Isolation from shops is one problem but separation from family, friends and neighbours whom they knew in the old area is another and more important one. There are no relatives to help out when children return from school and there is difficulty in finding baby-sitters. For a young mother new relationships are not easy to build up, and if she has a young child she will find herself alone for long periods. The husband has further to travel to and
    1622
    from work, so he leaves earlier and gets back later. They cannot go out in the evenings together, so the husband goes to the local pub on his own. This inevitably starts a syndrome often referred to as "the captive wife", and this affects her stability and, in turn, that of the whole family unit.
    Old people are an even more tragic group. They become so used to familiar surroundings in which they may have lived all their lives. As younger families move out of slum clearance areas, they become victims of vandalism. They fear so much for their homes that they are compelled to follow the young families. They arrive dislocated on these estates, where they often fall prey to both mental and physical illnesses resulting directly from loneliness, depression and neglect.
    Young people need special help and social provision, and skilled supervision is necessary, but few estates provide facilities for them. The total absence of detached youth workers, arts and community centres, youth clubs and community service and job opportunities helps to create within this most vulnerable age group a mixture of despair and exasperation which in turn results in their turning on to the community rather than into the community. Boredom and isolation result in vandalism. Underground and unattended car parks are especially vulnerable on these new council estates.
    That these estates are often soulless and the people in them apathetic has been a proverbial excuse for the failure of Government and local authorities to make a real effort to put right that for which they were responsible. A number of things could be done which the present Government could advise planners to consider in building future estates.
    First, light industry should be built on nearby sites and sold to companies. This would provide more income for the local authorities. They could provide facilities out of the new source of rates and it would give employment on the doorstep for the family—both full-time employment for the husband and part-time for the wife. American post-war cities have been particularly successful with this approach.
    Second, the Government could insist on mixed developments. One often wonders whether the poverty syndrome is not subconsciously carried by the planners from

    1623
    the inner city to the outskirts of the cities by moving a complete population from one area to another. To change this, the Government should insist on mixed developments, different neighbourhoods, with owner-occupation and council occupation. I say "different neighbourhoods" because all the experiments have shown that if owner-occupied housing is placed next to council housing on one street it is not a success. Those who own their own houses look after them far better than those who live in council housing, and as a result the owner-occupied houses cannot be sold at the same price as they would fetch if they were in different neighbourhoods. A good example of a good mixed development is the Fairview Estate in Ruyston, and there are others in Peterborough and in Cwmbran in Wales.
    Another development could be an incentive scheme to maintain. In a nation which is getting poorer, we need to maintain and preserve plant and machinery. How quickly do we find new estates becoming the outer city slums, the ghettos of the future? We could give cash incentives to those who maintained their council houses to an agreed standard.
    The Government could also encourage supporting services for those families about to move. This is a major life change for them, a transitional crisis which calls for help and advice. We could arrange for films to be shown about the new area and provide relevant information about essential services—for example, where to find doctors and solicitors. The best person to help those moving into new estates may be someone already there. The local authority should be charged with the responsibility of caring for the individual family. Arrangements could be made so that there was not an abrupt change in life style but a change in controlled stages.
    The Government could see that planners carried out balanced developments with well-spaced accommodation. In one estate in Liverpool the planners envisaged a balanced population in which old people would be accommodated in one-bedroom flats in the mid-rise blocks adjacent to the middle-aged families in the maisonettes. That is the theory, but in practice things have not worked out.
    1624
    These mid-rise blocks in cross-section resemble a Neapolitan sandwich with access at three levels. The flats are all situated below access level. There are 16 stairs from the front door down to the flats. That is one illustration of how little thought has been given to the needs of the elderly, especially those with arthritis and chronic bronchitis. The blame must be laid fairly and squarely on the planners, the housing architects and the medical officers of health, all of whom are involved in urban renewal.
    Apart from the intrinsic difficulties of the flats, there are other problems. These mid-rise blocks are long—often 250 yards long—and the lift is at one end only and often out of order. It requires a fairly healthy person to walk from the nearest place at which a vehicle can park to his front door. Even those who have been placed in the maisonettes complain of difficulties with the stairs leading to the lavatory. It is ironic that one reason for representing a house as unfit is that it has an outside lavatory, although that is often more accessible than the indoor lavatories in new developments. A few couples also have flats or maisonettes in cluster blocks, but as they have no lifts similar problems occur.
    Perhaps the Minister might also investigate some estates where no longer are the even numbers on the right and the odd on the left but numbering runs consecutively anti-clockwise with the first house on the left as one enters and the last one opposite that on the right. Then the street runs a tortuous course so that No. 106 can be next to No. 110. Furthermore, no two streets have identical patterns, and to make life more difficult in some streets houses are mixed with cluster blocks and medium-rise blocks of flats.
    Many of these difficulties could be overcome by a more practical and realistic approach to identification of both streets and houses. New estates were built to redress the poor housing which exists in the central areas of our great cities and to obviate the health hazards of inadequate accommodation.
    The absence of basic social amenities, the lack of thought put into the details of the design of these dwellings, the absence

    1625
    of any form of sheltered accommodation and the impossibility of rapidly transferring unsuitable cases to more suitable accommodation have led to the development of a hard core of dissatisfied people. The prime purpose of the slum clearance programme designated in the 1957 Housing Act, which put the responsibility of replacing unfit houses on medical officers of health, was to improve the health of the nation and to improve chronic ill health where it existed. This has not been achieved, and for this reason, and with respect, the Minister should take a drop in salary.
    6.10 p.m.
    Mr. John Ovenden: I am sure that the hon. Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Mr. Steen) will forgive me if I do not take up his points one by one, but I would point out to him, and I am sure he will agree, that the defects in estates of which he has spoken are not peculiar to council estates. I could take him to some very soulless, soul-destroying private estates. I sympathise with his problems in the numbering of streets while he is canvassing.
    I should like to return to the theme of the debate as it was set by the hon. Member for Chelsea (Mr. Scott) in opening. I welcome the opportunity to debate housing. This is the first time since I became a Member of the House 11 months ago that the Opposition have chosen to debate the subject of housing. I can understand their reluctance. In a sector where a party has such a dismal record, one would have thought that common decency demanded a period of silence. Presumably they now believe that we have forgotten their appalling failures and that they can afford the opportunity of sniping opportunist attacks on the Government's efforts to grapple with this problem.
    Any motion of censure concerning the housing situation can be directed only in one direction, to right hon. and hon. Members on the Conservative side for the situation they created, because we are today reaping the harvest they sowed and suffering the legacy of policies they pursued in office. Housing has rightly been called the great British failure, rightly because all Governments share some degree of blame. Failure, however, like all other human activities,
    1626
    is relative and we have to recall that the Government inherited in housing, particularly in the public sector, probably the worst chaos that had existed since the war. Council house building was down to the same level as in 1947 and starts in the public sector were down by over one-quarter compared with 1970.
    I well recall fighting the 1970 election as a Labour candidate in a Conservative-held constituency when great play was made of the fact that housing completions had fallen since the peak of 1968. The Conservative Party attempted to make great political capital of that fact. It is interesting to note that even if the 1970 level had been maintained throughout the following four years there would now be 200,000 more public sector dwellings than actually exist, and 200,000 families still languishing on council waiting lists would have been decently housed. We have not yet had any answers from the Opposition during this debate about this state of affairs.
    The 1970 figure in public sector building was far from adequate, and we never claimed that it was. But it is worth recalling one of the main reasons why the 1970 figure was lower than that of 1968, for instance. One of the main factors involved was the encouragement given by Conservative Members to Conservative councils to cut back housing programmes. For these reasons it must be the No. 1 priority of the present Government to get public sector starts back at least to the 1970 level as soon as possible. They are making real progress. The 1974 figures already show a considerable improvement on those of 1973.
    One factor we have to bear in mind, however, is that the stock of council houses has been further depleted by the short-sighted policy of selling council houses. I was appalled to hear a spokesman for the Opposition this afternoon still putting forward the idea of selling council houses as a contribution to the solution of the country's housing problem. How can we offer the hope of decent housing to people on the housing waiting list if we reduce the total stock of housing available? By doing so we reduce the number of voids which become available each year to house people on the list. That argument has still not been answered by Conservative spokesmen despite the

    1627
    fact that they go through election after election putting forward that solution to our housing problem.
    Mr. Michael McNair-Wilson: Can the hon. Gentleman say how many council tenants he knows to have been dispossessed of their houses once they have been housed? If they have a council house and keep it for life, why should they not be given an opportunity to buy it?
    Mr. Ovenden: The simple answer is that tenancies are as limited as life itself, and houses become available as a result of natural factors if they are retained in the ownership of the local authority. Many council tenants choose to take houses in the private sector. Every local authority that has gone through the process of selling council houses is finding that fewer houses now become available as voids than in the past. We lost 100,000 houses to the public sector by this process alone in two years, 1972 and 1973. We lost them by the efforts of local authority asset strippers.
    I am pleased that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has not only tried to put a brake on this process but has to some extent turned the tables. He is now allowing local authorities to buy houses from the private sector, and in many areas that is not only improving the housing prospects of people on housing lists but it is doing something to rescue the building industry from the disaster inflicted upon it by the policy of the last Conservative Government. If that Government can claim credit for any achievement above all others, it is that they managed to build more houses at a price at which nobody could afford to buy them than any previous Government in Britain's history. The present Government are on the right road.
    I was glad to hear that my hon. Friend the Minister for Housing and Construction is not complacent about the situation, as none of us can afford to be complacent. He and his right hon. Friend have made a major contribution to tackling this problem, mainly because they have been prepared to make available the financial resources that are needed, and because they are committed to an increase in public sector housing expenditure, in contrast to Conservative
    1628
    Members, who are always committed to a reduction in such expenditure.
    I believe that the Housing (Rents and Subsidies) Bill provides a framework for an extension of public sector housing but it is by no means the last word. I am glad that we are to have a comprehensive review of housing finance. We need to examine housing finance to find out how we can encourage local authorities to expand their house-building programmes. We need to ensure that a penalty is not placed on authorities which face up to their housing problems and have to force up rents year by year while at the same time other authorities which simply ignore the housing problems staring them in the face can court popularity by keeping rents and rates low.
    We need to find a system that will overcome that appalling position. Many ideas have recently been put forward on how to increase our housing stock and how to speed up the provision of housing. I wish to deal particularly with one of them. I was interested to see that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment, speaking to the National Housing and Town Planning Council, asked whether people would not greatly prefer quicker, cheaper homes to the hopeless, endless wait for bigger, more expensive houses. Without wanting to suggest for one moment that that was a loaded question, it can, of course, have only one answer. We need to consider whether those are real alternatives and whether it is necessary to lower our standards to tackle our housing problems. There is very little evidence to support that point of view.
    Between 1951 and 1961 the average floor area of a three-bedroom council house was reduced by about 10 ft., but in that same period the total number of houses produced by local authorities was just about halved. At the same time the Labour Government, in the year in which it achieved its record building figure—1968—ensured that 90 per cent. of those houses were built to improved Parker Morris standards. I do not accept, and a great number of people on this side of the House do not accept, that the maintenance of standards is incompatible with increased building provided we are prepared to make the resources available and to spend a more adequate proportion

    1629
    of our gross national product on housing than we have done up to now.
    If the intention of my hon. Friend the Minister in that suggestion was that housing could be speeded up by the adoption of different measures, I fully support him. If we can achieve a speedier provision of housing by industrialised or prefabricated building methods, I go fully along with him. But while the time taken to build a council house has lengthened appallingly, I do not believe that we should tackle our housing problem at the cost of potential slums. We must not be obsessed with a search for the cheapest methods available.
    There is much that is good in the products of industrialised building and we should use them to encourage local authorities to use them, particularly where conventional building is not appropriate or where there is difficulty over supplies and building labour. We must, however, make it clear that our interest in new building techniques is motivated by our concern to tackle the housing problem and not by an obsession to cut back the amount of money spent ou housing.
    There are other areas in which we could improve the provision of housing. The most immediate step the Government could take to improve the building industry would be to bring before the House as soon as possible the Bill to eliminate lump labour. There is much that we could do in the pre-contract and design stages to speed up the process.
    We need to look closely—I am glad we are to receive a report soon—at planning procedures. They need a radical overhaul. No one wants to take away from the individual his democratic right to object to planned developments, but we can at times face serious delays caused by objections from usually well-housed people to any further residential development, in particular council house development. We must find ways to ensure that the right to object to development is not abused to the detriment of those in housing need and that the scales are not loaded against the homeless in this process.
    I believe that the Government have been right to concentrate activity on the public sector. It is widely accepted by many people involved in housing that only the public sector can make a genuine
    1630
    contribution towards housing those in greatest need. The hon. Member for Chelsea seems to be keen on quoting Shelter. He may be interested to know that the Government's view is shared by Shelter. It, too, believes that it is the local authorities which must play the primary rôle in solving our housing problem.
    But that does not mean, of course, that we can ignore the private sector. In the private sector 50,000 houses are empty, completed and not bought. Estate agents have an average of 124 unsold houses on their books, 61 of which have been there for over three months. The key to giving a boost to the private sector lies in assisting the first-time home buyer. Although low-start mortgages as envisaged by building societies and the Department are useful, they do not provide an adequate substitute for more direct help aimed at reducing rather than forestalling the costs. The Opposition brought out a policy promising 9½ per cent. mortgages, but the only effect of that would have been to force house prices still higher and to make it even more difficult for the first-time buyer.
    We must give priority in this Parliament to the establishment of the national housing finance agency envisaged in the Labour Party manifesto so that we can be in a position to give more direct aid to the young home-buyer and to tackle the overriding problem of regulating the flow of mortgage funds. I know that my right hon. Friend wishes to do this in co-operation with the building societies. I remain far from convinced that the problem can be tackled by a voluntary agreement with them. I think that in the coming years we have to see much closer Government control and involvement in the supply of mortgage funds. I therefore welcome the statement that the Government are giving priority to the establishment of a housing finance agency and direct help for young house buyers.
    6.25 p.m.
    Mr. W. R. Rees-Davies: I shall confine myself to one issue. It is an important issue affecting the Isle of Thanet and the whole South-East of England. It turns upon the fact that the London authorities are anxious to spread their tentacles into the South-East. They

    1631
    want to move out of London a large part of its elderly population.
    The Isle of Thanet—the same is true of many other South Coast towns—has a large elderly population, totalling about 40 per cent. The result is, of course, that our social services are highly taxed and there is great demand for geriatric services. Our hospitals, understaffed, are in a grave situation. We have a great many homes for the elderly, and in addition there is the provision of accommodation for the elderly in the shape of flats, maisonettes and so on.
    It is quite natural for people to want to retire to Thanet and other towns along the coast, like Eastbourne and Bournemouth. As a result of this process, however, a grave imbalance of population is developing. The London authorities understandably want to move their old people away in order to make room for those still in work. On top of that, of course, there is the recognition that if they can move them out they can escape the obligations of having to deal with the problems of the elderly through the provision of geriatric facilities and ensuring that other social services are provided.
    The process has reached dramatic proportions. We have to put a stop to it, and the Government at national level must recognise that there has to be a better balance. But when I wrote to the Minister I was told that the Government were not prepared to limit or control the exodus from this great City of London.
    We are, of course, willing to take people, provided that they are self-reliant and able to be dependent upon themselves, particularly in the ability to buy their own property. But, as my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Hertfordshire, East (Sir D. Walker-Smith) said in his able speech, the problem is that people cannot afford to buy a house. They cannot afford the high interest rates. Unless they are engaged in swapping a house, many of them are in difficulties. Ten million houses are affected.
    Thanet is quite willing to build more council houses and is doing so. It is also buying certain groups of houses and also individual houses—in some cases unsatisfactorily, because they are badly mined in areas where there are private
    1632
    housing estates. We are in difficulty. What is needed is building for rent. Only 2 million houses are available for rent throughout the country, a low figure which shows the nature of the problem. Yet it is only in the rented sector that we can meet our problems locally.
    If we are to look after our own population and also the exodus from London, that exodus must be spread throughout the country and not concentrated in the seaside towns. But if people are to move at all, it is rented accommodation that is wanted. The Socialists object to private rented accommodation, but we do not object to public rented accommodation and housing associations. We feel that everyone, including the private sector, has a part to play.
    My appeal tonight to the Under-Secretary, who wrote to me on this subject, is to recognise that there is a grave danger of crippling the South Coast towns. There is a danger of turning them into resorts purely for old people, of having nothing but homes for the elderly, if we continue to accept a large influx of such people.
    Financially the situation is most unfortunate. We cannot afford to pay what the Greater London Council can afford to pay. We cannot afford to pay what some of the housing societies, the Lewisham Borough Council or the other big councils can afford to pay. The Greater London Council has borrowed £100 million from the Arabs at enormous interest rates which we the London ratepayers have to pay. We in Thanet have no Arab friends, and we cannot pay for the Arabs to give us loans at those rates.
    Big Brother is tending to loom only too large over us. The problem affects not merely Thanet but the South Coast. It is a very human problem, and I do not believe that the Londoners would want it solved in the way I have described. Nor do I believe that the situation is attractive when there are too many old people, with not enough mix of the younger and middle generations.
    We are happy to have a great many retired people and for them to enjoy themselves. We want to give the services. To give a tuppenny concession on the bus cost Thanet £125,000, but up the road at Dartford a concession of half the fare cost only £75,000. Because of the small

    1633
    amount of ratepayers' money which we receive in places such as Thanet and various other places along the South Coast, we cannot give those advantages without soaking the ratepayers.
    Some hon. Members may have seen the excellently-produced programme on "Midweek" the other night by the man who was our financial adviser in Thanet. He pointed out how we have had to work and scrape to make sure that the rates burden does not rise by more than 25 per cent. in the coming year so far as the local authorities are concerned. That has meant cutting back to a degree in a way that London would not dream of. Let us recognise that there has to be a balance in the areas and the regions, between London and the South Coast, and between Birmingham and its perimeter. If we do that and if we realise that we have got to use the whole field for a real drive on a policy for both council and private rented property, we may be able to get somewhere. We shall not be able to do it by owner-occupation with the high interest rates today.
    6.35 p.m.
    Mrs. Millie Miller: The hon. and learned Member for Thanet, West (Mr. Rees-Davies) has made a most reasonable plea not to be overburdened with the elderly from the centre of London. I only wish that his attitude was shared by the many local authorities much nearer to the source of the problem. If only the Conservative-controlled councils on the perimeter of London took that attitude, many of the problems of central London would have been relieved by now. It is tragic for the many people in central London who are elderly or disabled or who have great social problems to be held back in central London because of the lack of co-operation by some of the outer boroughs.
    I want to remind the House of the problem in London. The Greater London Council pointed out in its recent memorandum to the Layfield Committee that:
    "In London, the number of people living in areas of multiple deprivation amounts to the entire population of the former county borough of Newcastle or of the former city of Manchester."
    In a small way this indicates how serious the problem is for London, which is the major area of housing shortage and housing problem in the whole nation.
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    Much that has been said, particularly by the mover of this rather strange motion, the hon. Member for Chelsea (Mr. Scott). I have found completely irrelevant. I am in a position to feel this more than some hon. Members, because during the whole of the term of the Conservative Government I was a member of the London Boroughs Association and of its housing and works committee. I was also a member of the Association of Municipal Corporations and its general purposes committee. I was also a member of the London borough of Camden. I see in the Chamber at least three past or present members of that authority. The borough rates very high in social and housing problems.
    I was fascinated by the description of the Tory administration's housing record. I remember, as a member of all the three bodies I have described, which were not all the time Labour-dominated, that the other frustration was the complete lack of co-operation between the Government of the day and local authorities at all levels. There was the further impossibility of working out any kind of constructive housing policies in the light of their intransigence.
    The hon. Member for Chelsea spoke of a reduction in the amount of rented property in the Earls Court district of London. I remember vividly how 18 months ago, long before there was a Labour Government, I was called to a conference of tenants of privately-owned property from that very area, pleading for Labour Members in central London to try to rescue them from being thrown out on their necks by speculative purchasers of their rented properties who were trying, in the jargon of the time, to break up estates and sell the flats separately. A year ago and more at least 1,800 flat-dwellers in large blocks of flats were pleading with Camden Borough Council to purchase their estates so that they would be safe from the depredations of that same group of speculators.
    There is not time for me to go over the ills that housing suffered under the previous administration. There is so much to be done. I am astounded at the cynical way in which the motion has been put forward. When we are debating the most serious social problem of today, I should like to move a counter motion to surcharge Conservative Members many

    1635
    thousands of pounds for their neglect in this sector, which has brought untold misery to many people in the London area and in urban areas throughout the country.
    I am concerned that we should look for ways in which we can start—it can only be a start—to solve the housing problem after years of neglect. I do not absolve previous Labour administrations either. In local government I fought many battles with earlier Housing Ministers on some of these issues. Today we must think of how we can overcome these problems. The only way is by co-operation with generosity or willingness to understand the problem. There must be co-operation starting with the Government.
    In the London area the Greater London Council has a vital part to play, especially with its strategic housing rôle, as have the local authorities, By that I mean all local authorities, not merely those which wish to solve the housing problem. We know from the London scene that there are nearly 2,000 acres of land which could be used for housing and which for various reasons have not yet become available to the local authorities. As my hon. Friend the Minister will know, the Greater London Council is very concerned about the part it wishes to play. The first area in which its concern is expressed is housing loans. Hon. Members on both sides of the House have spoken about the problems of those who wish to buy their own homes and we have heard, particularly from the Labour benches, of the urgent need for local authority building for rent. There is still anxiety expressed especially by young people who will perhaps not become eligible for council property until their children have grown up and who want to purchase a home if they can.
    It is an anomaly that, whereas the Government have given so much to building societies to stabilise the mortgage interest rates, councils are reaching a stage where they will be forced to increase their mortgage interest rates far above what the building societies are now charging. The GLC is trying to help people to build new homes—people who are homeless, people who want to move out to take employment outside the
    1636
    London area, young people and even older people wanting to buy older properties. It would be a pity if they were deprived of the opportunity of a GLC mortgage to buy property when they may well not be eligible for a building society mortgage.
    Of some 500 loan applications received by the GLC recently, 75 per cent. were for pre-1939 properties, including 60 per cent. for pre-1919 properties. About 80 per cent. of all applicants were under the age of 30, and all were first-time home buyers. But I want to utter a word of warning about concentrating entirely on first-time home buyers. The Building Societies Association has rightly said in the past few days that if help goes only to first-time buyers, those who want to move on to larger accommodation and thus free their homes for first-time buyers will be precluded from obtaining mortgages. We may put a halt to the mobility of which Conservative Members have spoken if we say that mortgages will be available only to people buying for the first time.
    The other area of great concern—it is the concern of the GLC and the boroughs—relates to the indication from the Government about possible restrictions on the work of modernisation and improvement. The Opposition's statement that they had a wonderful record on home improvement is a fallacy, because they omitted to mention that the bulk of the money spent on improvements was spent by local authorities modernising and improving their estates. But much more remains to be done to them.
    Many earlier estates have been completely modernised and converted. The more recent ones, not only the pre-war ones but the immediate post-war ones, are beginning to need attention. I fear that it will not be long before the housing built in the past few years subject to the stringencies of the housing cost yardstick will start to need vast sums spent on it. We dare not let the present local authority housing stock deteriorate so that future generations in the House and in the local authorities in the London area are faced with ever-expanding bills for conversion, modernisation and even structural work because of the skimping in recent years on construction.

    1637
    The Government's recent circular expressed the wish that local authority action would help people living in substandard homes, and said that difficult areas should be given priority even at the expense of other areas and of conservation. It is essential that the Government do not restrict this area of local authorities' work.
    The GLC and the London boroughs have been doing a great deal in the matter of housing development. It is encouraging to see that local authority development is beginning to build up again. A vast amount of the GLC's stock is old property, and the GLC needs the Government's support all the way.
    The housing subsidies introduced by the Government will help considerably in making sure that rent rises in the public sector are restricted. But I should like to take up a point made by one of my hon. Friends about the restriction of private sector rents. It is unfair to argue, as did a Conservative Member in in reply to my hon. Friend, that because the Housing (Financial Provisions) (Scotland) Act was less stringent in its pressure on Scottish council tenants there should be less stringency in the increase in Scottish private sector rents as well. In fact, because London and areas in the rest of the country suffered the most serious effects from the Housing Finance Act, they should have the greatest protection. There is tremendous worry for people still living in the private sector in London—there are many of them—about what will happen when the lid is taken off private rents.
    The problem of housing in London has worried the House for a long time. It has certainly worried those who have been trying to cope with it. By co-operation we may be able to make inroads into the housing waiting lists. But those lists are not the only criteria by which to judge the needs of London or any of our cities, many of which artificially hold down their housing waiting lists while they house what they call social cases ahead of all the people who wait patiently for many years. For the sake of those who wait, of those who are not even eligible to get on housing lists and of the elderly who are often stuck in city centres while their young families are moved many miles away for rehous-
    1638
    ing, I beg the Government to treat the subject with the seriousness it deserves.
    Labour Members campaigned on the housing issue above all others. I believe that many of us were elected on our pledges to do something about housing. I and many of my hon. Friends will not be satisfied until all the figures we have seen today have been increased in value, until there is more house building, especially in the council sector, until the private sector can get itself properly organised, as it has not been able to do so far, and until the construction industry is once more ticking over properly. We shall not be satisfied until we see the end of the problem, and not merely the beginning of the end.
    6.58 p.m.
    Mr. Stephen Ross: I congratulate the hon. Member for Ilford North (Mrs. Miller), who obviously spoke with considerable knowledge of her subject and with great compassion. I share that compassion. It is likely that it helped me considerably in my election to the House—although other people may have other ideas. I have been very much concerned with the subject, but have been involved on the other side of the fence.
    I may, perhaps, be looked upon with some suspicion by Labour Members because for the best part of 22 years I was a partner in a firm of auctioneers and estate agents, a firm which has been going for nearly 200 years. I believe that the Opposition, Chief Whip was horrified when he put his house on the market to find that my name was still on the notepaper. But I wish to declare that I have no financial interest whatsoever today. My only interest is that I am a member of a charitable housing association. Therefore I speak with some knowledge of the housing situation, although I have never served on a housing authority. I was on a county council, which does not generally deal with housing matters.
    We have before us a motion to reduce the salary of the Secretary of State by £1,000. It comes oddly from a party which left office only one year ago and which bequeathed its successors with problems of unprecedented proportions. Perhaps the motion would have been better worded if it had suggested that Ministers concerned with housing—from

    1639
    both parties since the war—should be surcharged £1,000.
    It now seems that both major parties agree that they have made rather a mess of housing policy. I do not say that this Government have carried out all that they could or should have done or that they have achieved what they have done as quickly as they might have done, but I see signs of improvement. It seems that sales to the private occupier are improving. If one talks to an honest estate agent it is clear that the property market had rather a good January. Sales have started to pick up.
    The figures suggest that housing association starts are on the increase. I am glad to say that the housing association with which I am concerned is at long last getting off the ground. It has made its first purchase and it now has a scheme for some 60 units. It is annoyed that a further scheme which was thought to be highly desirable has been turned down. I shall be writing to the Secretary of State about that matter. I hope that the Housing Corporation will help us.
    I think that we all agree that housing and rent legislation is in a mess. In our present economic situation we should try to get two basic priorities right. I should like to see Ministers and Prime Ministers appearing on television and putting over to the general public that we must ensure that we have enough food with which to survive and that everybody is entitled to have a decent roof over his head. I want to be constructive and to suggest some ways in which the Secretary of State could be more helpful in the present situation. In this context I believe that his announcement of a complete reappraisal of our housing legislation is to be greatly welcomed.
    The real problem, as we all know, is the escalation of house and land prices and the increased cost of construction over the past three or four years. So many properties are way beyond any person's means. Unfortunately, some people are still taking on commitments which they should never have been encouraged to accept. I remember some three years ago an unemployed man being given a building society mortgage to buy a £10,000 house. At that time they were virtually throwing the money around.
    1640
    In the short term I suggest that there is a dire need for new ideas on low-cost structures built with traditional materials. In the past two or three days I have sent some details to the Minister. This matter was drawn to my attention because in my constituency the redevelopment is taking place of one or two holiday camps. One of the camps is in a residential area. The chalets are built in terraced form with traditional materials and sold purely for holiday occupation. They have an 11-week gap when they have to be empty. I believe that that is a nonsense.
    That is the sort of structure that we should be considering because they could be sold freehold. There are similar properties in Wales on a similar site which have only a one-day gap and which cost in the region of £5,000. They are properly built two-bedroomed properties. If they can be built within the price range that I have mentioned it seems that the housing lists could be halved almost overnight. I believe that it would be agreed that the people who should first take advantage of such a scheme should be those who are on the waiting lists. I ask the Minister to look seriously at that suggestion. I am sure that many marvellous ideas appear at the Department of the Environment from many sources, but I hope that he will seriously study the papers that I have sent him.
    I have been advocating mobile homes for some time. It seems that local authorities do not look upon them favourably because they are costly. I am pleased to say that one local authority in my constituency has agreed to purchase a fair number. I believe that they are worth while because they provide an immediate solution. I am sure that all right hon. and hon. Members who hold what are called "surgeries" will have had the experience of people queueing up to tell them about their housing problems. When I ask people with housing problems whether they would live in a caravan they invariably say "Anything to get out of the place I am in." For people to live in a front room with two kids and elderly in-laws leads only to nervous breakdowns and all sorts of distress. In certain circumstances the provision of mobile homes is a move in the right direction.
    I hope that the Minister for Housing and Construction or the Under-Secretary

    1641
    of State for the Environment, the hon. Member for Manchester, Ardwick (Mr. Kaufman) will give a welcome to the Bill of the hon. Member for Bridgwater (Mr. King) when it comes before the House on 28th February. I know that it does not relate to the purchase of mobile homes, but it seeks to give some security to those who occupy them.
    We also need more flexibility on the part of the building societies. They still do not look favourably on flats and elderly type properties, yet that is very often the sort of area in which help is most needed. I had a letter only the other day from one of my constituents, and it reads:
    "The majority of the housing that is available"—
    he is referring to the position in the town in which he lives—
    "is low-cost Victorian requiring modernisation with bathrooms, and there are … a very considerable number of these houses which are vacant and for sale. The building societies are not prepared in virtually all cases to grant mortgages even to investors for houses without bathrooms and consequently the young couples who would like to purchase have been unable to do so through their inability to raise finance through their building society. They have, therefore, applied in most cases to the local authority whose object in making mortgages available is to assist the lower paid in purchasing smaller houses which could be improved with the aid of the Government grants."
    Unfortunately the mortgage rate offered by the council to which my constituent refers will from 1st March be 14¼ per cent. Presumably that is a rate that is fixed for all time. That is quite beyond comprehension.
    Another ridiculous anomaly is that another district council with which the Isle of Wight is lumbered is lending money at 11 per cent. Executives and the others in the 14¼ per cent. area are buying their houses on loans from the district authority which is offering 11 per cent. mortgages. We hear of mortgages being offered by local authorities at even higher rates.
    Further, the cost of buying and selling is too high. That is a pretty bright remark from someone who has been in the business, but I have made that statement publicly on many occasions. The whole process is too intricate. There is on the Notice Paper a motion concerned with this matter, and which I have signed,
    1642
    although I do not agree entirely with the wording.
    Why on earth can it not be possible for someone to go into an estate agent's office and to sign a conditional contract? He could be interviewed by a legal clerk and a mortgage broker. If he disclosed accurate information and gave proper details of his earnings a 'phone call could be made to the local authority to check whether there were any diabolical ideas such as putting roads or sewers through the house. The conditional contract could then be signed. A further check could be made afterwards and if the information was correct the deal could be made permanent. Such a system would be much cheaper. We all know that this business of searches is a nonsense. Why cannot a local authority have around one of its rooms a map so that an immediate answer can be given instead of there having to be a delay of two or three weeks?
    Mr. Nick Budgen: I do not know whether the hon. Member for Isle of Wight (Mr. Ross) sees the grin which spreads from ear to ear of the hon. Member for Birmingham, Handsworth (Mr. Lee). If we have that sort of conveyancing there will be a barristers' bonanza.
    Mr. Ross: If it will help the house purchaser I do not mind if it produces a barristers' bonanza. The Chairman of the Law Society some two or three years ago was advocating such a system. He said that estate agents, lawyers and mortgage brokers should get together. It is a disgrace that it takes up to two months to complete a transaction.
    If we have registration books for cars, why can we not have the same thing for property? The whole process of registering title has gone too slowly. We have got nowhere at the moment on this. Most solicitors tell me that it is not very helpful to them.
    Mr. Lee: If all Crown land were publicly owned there would be no difficulty with searches for title.
    Mr. Ross: I cannot go that far. There will be another debate shortly on that question.
    The situation at present is that a person may think that he has sold a property,

    1643
    but it is subject to contract. Five or six weeks later he is contacted and told that the buyer has backed out. The situation which prevailed two or three years ago with the terrible practice of gazumping would never have arisen if we had this sort of practice I have suggested. The present situation literally drives some people to suicide. The whole process of buying and selling is far too complicated and many people would like to see it made far simpler.
    I welcome the Dobry Report which deals with planning rigidity. I would like to see some advice sent to planning officers because I think their approach is too rigid. They must be more flexible in their outlook. They are still referring to plans which are 10 or 12 years old.
    Mr. Walter Clegg: They are out of date.
    Mr. Ross: They are out of date.
    In my own housing association I have grave doubts about one of the developments we are carrying out. We are building between 50 and 60 units for low-cost occupation out in the country, eight miles from the nearest town. What are we really doing? We are creating the worst possible situation, because it will cost the occupiers £1 or more in bus fares to get in and out of town. I believe this is wrong, but this is land which has been zoned for housing. In our main county town there are 50 acres which could be used for housing. This is very low-cost agricultural land, but it cannot be used because the planning officer is using a plan 10 or 12 years out of date. He does not want to change it and will not advise his committee to change it. I was present when he was appointed, and I asked him to be more flexible.
    Some land which has been scheduled as industrial should be looked at again. There is a case in Kingston, which is not my constituency, which is causing concern. There is another in Dagenham, where I was the other day, which is also causing concern. We know what happened at Flixborough. Some of this land should be re-scheduled.
    Dealing with the renovation of existing properties, why have the proposals which came forward from Shelter, which were mentioned by the hon. Member for
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    Chelsea (Mr. Scott) earlier, had such a cool reception from the Government? I hope that this is not the case, and that the hon. Gentleman is seriously considering them, because I think that its booklet on bed and breakfast and its other suggestions have a great deal to commend them.
    We should like to see more encouragement given to self-build groups. I should like to assure the Opposition Front Bench that most members of housing associations give their time completely freely. They are excellent people, and include architects who are not looking for a quick way to make money. I know that there is a suspicion that some housing associations are an easy way for architects to get substantial fees. I regret that in some cases that has proved to be so. However, in many cases they are professional people who, like most of us here, feel desperate about the housing situation. They are anxious to do something about it. Therefore, I hope that this suspicion does not lie too much within the Department of the Environment.
    Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. George Thomas): Order. I dislike interrupting the hon. Gentleman, but there are another 16 hon. Members who would like to speak. The hon. Gentleman has been speaking for 16 minutes.
    Mr. Ross: My apologies, Mr. Deputy Speaker, for having gone on so long. If I may have two more minutes, I promise to sit down. This is a subject on which I feel very strongly.
    I welcome the encouragement of tenant co-operatives. I welcome the Government's conversion to the low-start mortgage scheme. It is good Liberal policy. I have the booklet if hon. Members want it. I believe that far more urgent attention should be given to the renovation of properties many of which are owned by local authorities, some, incidentally, by the Minister's own Department, some by the National Coal Board, and others by private developers. Many of them are good, sturdy buildings, and it is criminal not to make greater use of our existing resources.
    I had intended to comment about the NHBC, but I realise that the right hon.

    1645
    and learned Member for Hertfordshire, East (Sir D. Walker-Smith) has unfortunately left the Chamber. I will not now refer to it. He has promised to see me about it. The council could be more helpful in some cases, when some of the jerry-builders we have had over the last three years have gone bankrupt and left poor people in dire straits.
    I will send the Minister a good scheme for the purchase of option leases. I hope he will study it. It offers some protection for people about to move into properties, with the right to purchase over a five-year period. If the Chancellor were to be generous and give tax concessions on the rent, I think it would be a scheme that could work very well.
    Finally, I draw attention to the housing policy document produced by the Royal Institute of British Architects. It is a very good paper on housing. The reason why I shall not be supporting the Opposition in the Division Lobby tonight can be summed up in paragraph 53, which states:
    "The Royal Institute believes that the Secretary of State's readiness under the pressures of the present social and economic difficulties to seek new answers to the housing problem could give the nation an overall housing policy it has so far lacked; and the opportunity for the architectural profession to be more fully used and its work more sensitively adjusted to the real needs of the people."
    I pray that this may be the case.
    7.8 p.m.
    Mr. Andrew F. Bennett: The need for extra housing is overwhelming. It is sad that, over the years, all the words that have been spoken on this subject have not produced better results. I can only hope that the Government's proposals will in fact produce results. I certainly do not want to support a motion to reduce the Minister's salary, but I should like to press him and his colleagues concerned with housing to take on board a little extra work.
    One can argue the merits of private ownership or of renting housing. One can argue about renting housing from councils or from housing associations. One can discuss the merits or lack of merits of rent increases. It is, however, a fact that the number of council tenants rises each year and that the number of would-be council tenants is rising even faster. Most council house tenants and
    1646
    would-be tenants may not like rent increases, but from my experience what upsets and frustrates them are other problems of housing management. What they demand more than anything else from a council is that it deals efficiently with repairs, maintenance, requests for transfers, the letting of property and other problems of housing estate management.
    I should like to quote one or two of the letters which I have received over the past fortnight from constituents, which set out the sort of problems which exist in Stockport and which I believe are typical of most of a large authority's housing problems. In the first letter a girl writes:
    "I am an unmarried mother with one eight-week old baby. My parents will only have me home if I agree to have my child adopted. I want to keep him, but Stockport council say I have to wait six months before I can even go on their housing list."
    Another letter reads:
    "Three of my children are in the care of the local authority. I would love to have them home with us but in a one-bedroom flat it is impossible—can you help us get a larger home? We do want them with us. We know of lots of council houses which have been empty for months."
    Another letter says:
    "It is my brother. He is very ill. He is driving my sister to distraction trying to look after him. Could he be transferred to another council house nearer to us so that we could help to look after him? We have not got a lot of time and most of it is spent travelling backwards and forwards trying to help. It is a terrible worry if anything happens and we cannot get down to help."
    An elderly lady writes:
    "It is a five-roomed house but I cannot get upstairs. I am just living in one room. I would love a little flat. I am sure I could manage to look after myself then."
    Another letter says:
    "It is the repairs. We have been waiting months for a new window. The present one just lets the water pour in. They keep coming up to our estate with new window frames about every three or four months but they never come to our house."
    Another correspondent says:
    "My son always used to call in on his way home from work just to see I was all right. But he had to move with his job down South. Is there any way in which I can get a council house down there?"
    One of the sad things that seems to crop up in far too many of the letters I receive is something which can be expressed like this, "Oh yes, I have been

    1647
    up to the housing. They do not want to know. They treat me like dirt." It is pretty frustrating for a tenant or a would-be tenant in an authority that has a housing problem. It is even more frustrating for housing officials who, day after day, have to deal with housing tragedies.
    It is no wonder that even the most sympathetic housing official loses his cool sometimes in trying to explain to some angry applicant or tenant that his is only one of many similar problems and deserving cases. Housing management within local authorities has just grown. I was going to say "like Topsy" but perhaps it would be more appropriate to say "like Jack's beanstalk". It has shot up.
    At one time housing managers in almost every local authority could know every tenant and interview every applicant. Today that is impossible. Most local authorities are trying to bring some modern management approaches to their housing problems. But each local authority seems to be working out its own scheme, often involving designing its own computer programme. This is expensive. Each authority has to work through its own teething problems with the programmes. Each authority has its own particular approach and problem.
    Surely the Government could do more to advise local authorities on the most satisfactory way to overcome the many problems facing large authorities in managing housing. Surely they could do more to spotlight those authorities which have first-class schemes of housing management so that one authority could learn from another. Surely, too, the Government could look at a national scheme of co-ordinating housing transfers. We might even go further and take into account the problem of under-occupation of many council houses and perhaps consider making grants to local authorities so that they can build on expensive sites—expensive not because of the land but because of the problems of working on that particular site. On such sites there could be built accommodation for single persons which would greatly reduce much of the under-occupation. It would be useful if, in doing this, there was not such a rigid adherence to the cost yardstick.
    Might not the Government encourage better housing management by making
    1648
    grants to cover the cost of design and putting into practice new schemes of housing management? Are the Government satisfied with the opportunities available for people who wish to train in housing management? How many refresher or training courses are there dealing with this subject?
    So far I have dealt with problems of management of local authority housing from the point of view of the tenant or would-be tenant. I also ask whether the Government are giving local authorities enough technical advice. They seem to be prepared to pour out advice about how to undertake housing schemes but the advice seems to be much slower when it comes to dealing with the problems which have occurred with schemes designed to that original advice. Can the Government now tell a local authority how to solve the problem of vermin or other infestations which occur in the heating ducts of many flats which were pressed on local authorities by the Ministry in the past? Or do they still pass the buck on to the Ministry of Agriculture?
    What is the Government's advice on debt control? Nothing seems to cause more anger than the size of a town's arrears. Yet such rent arrears appear to vary fantastically from one local authority to another. It does not seem to correspond to the harshness with which an authority reacts to rent arrears. Rather it relates to other items of policy. Could the Government not give much more advice on this subject? I know that many of the problems of housing management can be dealt with only by solving the housing shortage. I beg the Government to take a major initiative to improve housing management while at the same time leaving housing management in the control of the local authorities.
    7.15 p.m.
    Mr. Walter Clegg: Without wishing to sound in any way superior, may I say how much I enjoyed what was said by the hon. Member for Stockport, North (Mr. Bennett). He showed a grasp of the problems facing the tenants of council estates. He reechoed a good deal of what was said by my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Mr. Steen). Although this is a censure debate, it is obvious that

    1649
    there are matters on which both sides of the House can agree. Housing has always been a subject which has raised the passions of all hon. Members.
    I was disappointed in the Minister's speech because although he was replying to what is virtually a censure debate and one would have expected some political hard-hitting, his speech seemed to be informed with a certain amount of bitterness. Apparently the hon. Gentleman disagrees. This is the impact the hon. Gentleman has upon my hon. Friends and myself.
    Mr. Freeson: I hope that the hon. Gentleman will not pursue this line. If he cares to look at the text of my speech afterwards—I will show it to him—he will find that my references to the record of the previous administration took up about three pages out of 39. The rest consisted of a discussion of the housing problems facing us.
    Mr. Clegg: The hon. Gentleman indulged in some political knock-about. It was not the major part of his speech. In his speech he asked for a serious discussion on housing. What I say is, whether he likes it or not—and he obviously does not—his approach to this side of the House makes it difficult to achieve the kind of discussion he wanted.
    We on the Conservative side of the House feel that we have something to contribute. We feel that compassion is not one-sided. Labour Members have something to learn from us. Perhaps I can illustrate this by referring to the speech of the hon. Member for Stockport, North. Throughout the debate there has been concern for council house tenants. This is nothing new. My maiden speech eight years ago argued for a charter for council house tenants.
    Never before have the two sides of the House been so close on this matter. If we are not careful we shall build two societies, two nations—and that is hackneyed enough. It worries me when I go around the country, not only in my own constituency but in others, too, to see on the one hand, the owner-occupied estates, and, on the other hand, the council estates, knowing that the people who live and die in those estates often never meet one another. They may, of course, meet at work or in the shopping centre.
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    This is wrong and it is where I disagree with my hon. Friend the Member for Chelsea (Mr. Scott). It would be no bad thing in certain areas for council tenants to live next door to houses that are owner-occupied. Equally I disagree with Labour Members who would not sell council houses to tenants. We want a mixed society. Not all the comprehensive schools in the world will bridge this gap if, when the children leave school, they go their separate ways.
    In the last century one could say that what one saw was the result of laissez-faire policies, but that has been planned. When I see what council tenants have had planned for them, and when I listen to the hon. Member for Stockport, North and my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Wavertree, I get very angry. Some of our cities that have been planned and redeveloped are just arid wastes Politicians and others condemn people to live in these arid wastes. That is not done from wicked motives—far from it. It is done by well-meaning committees advised by well-meaning officials. It hurts the heart to go round these areas and to realise that people have had to live in them for so long.
    What can we do to help council tenants? It has been said from my side of the House "Why should a council tenant have a garage, why should he have a car?" That is a wrong approach. Why should not a council tenant have a car and a garage? Why should he not have a colour television set if he wants one? The price he has to pay for that is a fair rent, and the Conservative Government did some work on that.
    In many ways council tenants suffer from subsidised rents. For example, the tenant of a private landlord is told by the Government that he is fully protected, not only for his lifetime but for the lifetime of his wife, his son and any member of his family who is living with him. Does the council tenant have that right? Not on your life. He is a "grace-and-favour" tenant. If the council gives him 28 days' notice and he takes the matter to the court, the court cannot prevent his eviction. It is time that council tenants were given legal rights.
    The hon. Member for Stockport, North spoke of the difficulties of moving within council estates. That problem will not

    1651
    be solved by computers because we live in a bureaucracy. Although it is under democratic control supervised by the Press—and thank God it is supervised by the Press—it is a bureaucracy. Tenants should be given the right to move. That system worked well in the private sector. A tenant with a lease was able to transfer it to someone who was respectable and responsible. Such a right should be considered for council tenants. They should be given the ability to move without reference to a council official. A tenant may go to an official and say "May I move? I have agreed it with Mrs. So-and-So who has a bigger house. It would suit her to move to mine because she wants a smaller one". Imagine how he feels when he is told "No, it cannot be done. Your name must go on a list". There is too much bureaucracy in this sector.
    The wife of a council tenant never has a say in the sort of house in which she wants to live. In that matter the housewife does much better in the private sector. On private estates there are three or four kinds of houses from which she can choose. She also has a choice in the decorations. She has a choice in the kind of radiator system she wants. How many of all the millions of council tenants get such a choice? It is time that they had a choice. It is time they did not have their lives decided by committees. I have gone on much longer than I meant to do about this problem, but I have felt strongly about it for a long time.
    May I move to some practical suggestions to the Minister which arise from my profession as a solicitor? I declare an interest in that I act for tenants, landlords, builders and people who buy from builders—"You name it, we do it". That is not advertising.
    The Minister referred to the time that was taken in deciding planning appeals. When I take a case to the High Court there may be a three-day appeal on the most complex matters but at the end of the hearing the judge adjourns for half a day and comes back the following day with his judgment. On comparatively simple matters involved in some planning appeals I cannot understand why it takes the Minister four or five months to make
    1652
    a decision. He could do the job in 48 hours.
    One reason for the big rise in the price of houses is the planning system and the delays which occur. The planning system limited the supply of land, and there were many people who had an interest in preventing land coming on to the market—often to protect their own views. So pressure groups arose. There was a crying need for land. The planners knew that the population would increase, but did the planning system give us land? No, it did not. It is a restrictive planning system. At least within the narrow confines of the planning system, for Heaven's sake let us get people who can do what the judges do and give good decisions on simple matters within weeks rather than months.
    Another worrying problem which will affect the future rather than the present is the Government's proposal for the nationalisation of building land on a 10-year rolling programme. On 27th January the Minister made a statement to reassure builders who were getting worried. They wanted some definitions in the White Paper and the legislation was taking time to bring forward. If we are to have that legislation, the Minister must instil into local authorities the need for employing personnel who can develop the land. Under the new system the entrepreneur who used to provide most of the private housing will have to go to the local authority. Local authorities do not have trained staff. They have some valuers and estate managers, but they have no one who can say "This is the type of house to build here. This is the house that will sell". Local authorities have no staff to provide the initiative that the profit motive gave to the entrepreneurs who previously built houses. If we are to have this system, let us build into it some new initiatives. Some local authorities have no more idea how to set about it than they have about flying to the moon.
    Through interplay across the Floor of the House we can come close to an agreed policy. The Minister, for better or worse, accepts owner-occupied housing. We have new and better ideas about municipal housing. If we can get together many thousands of people in the country will be grateful.
    7.30 p.m.
    Mr. Jim Marshall: The hon. Member for North Fylde (Mr. Clegg) said so many things with which I disagree that I hope he will forgive me if I do not take up each of his points, otherwise I should probably use the whole of my 10 minutes in meeting them. I should like, however, to refer to two points made by the hon. Gentleman.
    The hon. Gentleman and other Opposition Members make continual references to the condition of council estates, as though it was of a somewhat lower order of magnitude than that thrown up by the social conditions of private estates. I myself—and no doubt this applies to many of my right hon. and hon. Friends—live in what might be defined as a lower-middle-class, privately-developed housing estate. I assure the hon. Member for North Fylde that many of the social problems which are to be found on council estates certainly exist on private estates, perhaps sometimes to an even greater extent. The social mix in private estates is not perhaps representative of the population as a whole.
    By far the largest number of people in private estates, particularly the newer estates, tends to be young. Those people certainly face the problems to which the hon. Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Mr. Steen) drew attention. Often young people who live on private estates have nobody to look after their children, and there is sometimes a cycle of social deprivation. I mention this to emphasise that the type of problems to which the hon. Member for North Fylde referred are exhibited on private estates as well as on council estates.
    The hon. Member for North Fylde also referred to the need to speed up planning procedures. I agree with him on that point, but we must not forget that over the years we have tried to democratise our planning procedures. We must ensure that the public still have sufficient rights of investigating and that members of the public are able to make known their point of view before final decisions are taken.
    The motion which is now before the House seeks to reduce the salary of the Secretary of State for the Envoronment by £1,000 a year. It is a motion that
    1654
    appeals to me to some extent, but certainly the arguments which have been put forward by the Opposition in support of the motion have no appeal to me whatever. Therefore, I shall oppose the motion. I feel that it is impertinent for the Opposition to use one of their Supply Days, less than a year after the Conservatives lost office, to criticise the Labour Government's housing policy.
    I should like to take a brief look at the Conservative record in the public sector from 1970 to 1974. That record is a story of a continuing decline—namely, from 180,000 houses completed in 1970 to just over 107,000 houses completed in 1973. The Tories' record in the private sector was little better in its social results. First, the Conservatives managed to double the price of the average house. Secondly, their policy brought about a soaring interest rate which meant that the ordinary man or woman saw the dream of owner-occupation disappearing into the distant future, if not into the realm of the never-never land.
    But what did the right hon. Lady for Finchley (Mrs. Thatcher) say towards the end of the October election campaign? She donned the garb of Father Christmas and said that come Christmas she would reduce the mortgage interest rate from 11 to 9½ per cent. Hon. Members now know what was in that sack. It was certaintly not a 9½ mortgage rate, but it was action which had serious consequences elsewhere.
    We must look at this Opposition censure motion in the light of the Tory housing record. The consequences of their policies when in government meant that those seeking homes were caught in a vicious, cruel pincer movement. Home-seekers could not find homes to rent and those who sought to buy their own homes could not afford to do so. That was the legacy which the Tories left to the Labour Government in February 1974. I would not seek to pretend that within the space of 11 or so months the Labour Government have radically altered the housing situation, but there are definite signs that improvement is on the way. In the public sector, starts are now at the highest level since 1970 and that is to be commended. The Government have rightly made housing the first social priority. In the short

    1655
    term the emphasis is going into public sector housing.
    I should like to urge caution in some degree on my hon. Friend the Minister for Housing and Construction. Local authorities are being urged to build, build, build more public sector housing. I agree with that view, but we must also ensure that the desperately needed social infrastructure in respect of welfare centres and community centres is built into estates at the same time, otherwise we are likely to create the kind of housing conditions which local authorities built up in the middle 'thirties and late 'forties and which have led to some of the problems to which reference has been made in the debate. It is difficult for local authorities at present to plan for the required social infrastructure because of the Chancellor of the Exchequer's curb on public expenditure. I hope my hon. Friend will bear that factor in mind when he looks at future council housing schemes.
    In the private sector the Government have agreed to assist the first-time home buyer and to seek to prevent violent fluctuations in house prices.
    I should like to make a plea on behalf of those who are buying homes on mortgages from local authorities. I have received information in respect of the city of Leicester that local authorities are required to balance their books one year with another. It is a municipal requirement in approved schemes in Leicester and in other authorities that the minimum rate of interest which should be charged is ¼ a per cent. above the average Consolidated Fund rate for the coming year. Leicester's City Treasurer told me that the Consolidated Fund rate this year amounts to 12 per cent. Therefore, unless the Secretary of State takes immediate action the city of Leicester is likely to increase the mortgage interest rate from the present figure of 11 per cent. to 121 per cent. We must remember that this will adversely affect the less affluent members of our community who are seeking to buy their own homes. It is that section of the community above all which we as a Labour Government should be seeking to help.
    I turn to ways in which I believe the housing situation could be improved at the margins. I accept that we shall only
    1656
    solve the housing problem in the long term by building more homes. But there are ways and means which are now available to us in which we can use the present housing stock far more effectively and use the present resources in financial and manpower terms far more effectively than they are used at present.
    I should like to refer to two instances. The first concerns the practice which is still being pursued in some local authorities where residential properties are being converted into offices. This has happened in Leicester in the past few years and is a practice which should be deplored, if not stopped, by the Minister.
    Planning permissions are being granted to turn hostels and hotels which have ceased to be used as such into office accommodation. Again, in view of the desperate shortage of hostel accommodation in many local authority areas, this practice should be deplored, if not stopped.
    A second way in which we could use available resources more efficiently relates to houses in clearance areas which are fit for occupation but are boarded up alongside unfit houses. I understand the natural reluctance of local authorities to become involved in putting short-term tenants into fit houses in clearance areas. However, there is no reason why those local authorities should not co-operate with voluntary associations to ensure that some of the fit houses in clearance areas are used. I understand that Leicester has recently decided to co-operate with the Catholic Housing Association to ensure that within the next few weeks or months five or six families without homes will have short-stay accommodation in a fit house in a clearance area.
    In order to make this system work successfully, the voluntary associations require not only the co-operation of the local authorities—that is obvious—but the passive acceptance by the rest of the population, particularly those on housing waiting lists, that it will not lead to queue-jumping. I hope that my hon. Friend will encourage local authorities more than he has done hitherto to adopt this practice.
    I have one final point. I hope, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that you will tell me if I run over my time a great deal.
    Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Myer Galpern): Order. I remind hon. Members

    1657
    that it is not the prerogative of the Chair to limit speeches. It lies within the scope of hon. Members if they wish to show consideration for others who may want to take part in the debate.
    Mr. Marshall: I apologise, Mr. Deputy Speaker. It was your predecessor who reminded another hon. Member of the need to curtail his remarks in view of the numbers of hon. Members still wishing to speak.
    Mr. Deputy Speaker: I fully share the views expressed by my predecessor in the Chair.
    Mr. Marshall: Local authorities and other public authorities own many properties which remain empty for substantial periods. From the local authority point of view, this usually arises from insufficient manpower on the housing side, but more particularly on the legal side which is concerned with the conveyancing. That leads to many houses remaining empty. I suggest with some diffidence that local authorities should be encouraged to put more of their legal work out to private practice if they find it impossible to cope with their work loads. This is done in other sectors of local authority work. Many architects' departments are at present putting out work to private practice. The legal profession should be treated no differently.
    The situation regarding other publicly-owned houses is somewhat different. In my constituency police authority houses have remained empty for 18 months to two years. Chief constables are reluctant to pass the ownership of houses to the local authority because they want them for new recruits who will require rented accommodation. If that happens, the chief constables will have to sort out the problem two or three years hence. However, that should not be an excuse for keeping empty houses which could help in some small way to solve the housing problem.
    I have outlined three ways in which we could alleviate our housing difficulties. I appreciate that they will not solve the problem. Only a massive building programme will solve the housing problem in the long term. If we are to ameliorate our difficulties in the ways I have indicated, within the coming months—that is the time scale about which we are talking—we can ensure that people without
    1658
    homes or in bad housing conditions will have some semi-permanent accommodation to call their own.
    7.45 p.m.
    Mr. Nick Budgen: The hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, North (Mr. Forrester) made a thoughtful and perspicacious speech in which he remarked on the dangers that indexation on Government borrowing might have for the building societies and, as a result, for the whole of the house building industry. Those thoughtful and helpful remarks illustrated what I believe all in this House ought to bear in mind—that we cannot isolate the housing market from the economy and market forces generally.
    It was with great regret that I heard the hitter and contemptuous way in which the Minister for Housing and Construction referred to the speech by my hon. Friend the Member for Chelsea (Mr. Scott). The hon. Gentleman spoke in a derisory way about the Tory housing record and gave the impression that the Labour Party had a monopoly of kindness, compassion and care for the underprivileged. The impression given was that we on this side of the House did not care about the great human indignities that arise from the housing problem.
    The fact is that the Tory administration got into difficulties on their housing programme towards the end of their period in office not because they cared too little but because previously they had cared too much. Paradoxically, because of our great human concern for the problem of unemployment, in 1971 we started to increase the money supply and to fuel that easy credit which unhappily confounded all our hopes in the housing sphere.
    Paradoxically, the same mistake could be made by the present administration. I do not suggest that they lack care or compassion. Indeed, looking at the Government's White Paper on public expenditure, published last Friday, it is clear that they propose vastly to increase public expenditure on housing from £2·3 billion to £3·6 billion. The same paradoxical situation will arise. By throwing money at the problem they will unhappily move a little nearer towards a hyper-inflation in which the economy will founder, and the human problems of unemployment

    1659
    and deprivation consequent upon difficulties in the housing market, will again defeat them. So let them, for once, allow their heads to rule their hearts. Let them not think that they alone care, but let them be careful about what they do with public expenditure.
    So it is that I take up two points made by my hon. Friend the Member for Chelsea when he suggested small ways in which the problem might be mitigated. If I put them forward in a non-partisan and co-operative way, I hope that they will not be dismissed in quite the contemptuous and offensive manner in which the Minister dismissed them when they were advanced by my hon. Friend the Member for Chelsea.
    I accept immediately that, from my own point of view, though perhaps not that of my hon. Friend the Member for Chelsea, there is a great philosophical divide between me and Government supporters. But let us look at small ways in which we can mitigate our terrible housing problems.
    My hon. Friend the Member for Chelsea made the sensible and moderate suggestion that it might be possible to allow landlords to let housing for short periods on terminable leases. The Minister laughed that suggestion to scorn. Was that a very sensible approach? I know the argument. It is that these poor tenants cannot stand up to the vicious landlords and that, unless there is rent restriction, rent control and legislation from which the parties cannot contract out, tenants will always come off worst.
    Let us compare that sort of philosophy with the Government's philosophy on industrial relations. We are told when workers are in a wigwam, on a picket line or at a sit-in, that they have far more managerial ability than the managers and that they are capable of dealing at arm's length with merchant bankers, international companies, multi-national companies, Governments and all individuals. But when it comes to dealing with a landlord, they cannot do so on the basis of equality, even though we all know that the normal landlord is an old widow who has a couple of houses in a back street in an industrial city.
    I suggest that the extraordinary inconsistency in those two attitudes springs
    1660
    from the patronising and paternal attitude that the present Government have towards ordinary people. If ordinary people as tenants were allowed to contract on a basis of equality with landlords, many of the empty houses about which the hon. Member for Salford, East (Mr. Allaun) spoke so movingly a few days ago would be filled for short periods by those who at present are on the expanding lists of people wishing to have council accommodation.
    Mr. A. P. Costain: Do not we find a perfect example of the sort of accommodation that my hon. Friend has in mind in the empty police cottages about which the hon. Member for Leicester, South (Mr. Marshall) was complaining just now? Would not terminable leases help in such a case?
    Mr. Budgen: Of course, and I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his intervention. He has far more knowledge on the subject than I have, and what he said illustrates my point exactly.
    The second point which I make in a co-operative and non-partisan way relates to the need to encourage more lodgers in large council houses which are at present under-occupied.
    Let us consider the problem. It is clear that by indiscriminate rent subsidies it will be the case that over-large council accommodation will remain unduly attractive to those who have such houses. What is more, if we increase the rate support grant, the financial pressures of the property tax will again be taken off those who live in over-large council accommodation.
    Mr. Michael Ward: Why does the hon. Gentleman specify only council accommodation in this context? Does he not agree that there is a strong case for his suggestion being applied across the board, and to owner-occupied property as well?
    Mr. Budgen: I am discussing council accommodation at the moment because I believe that in private accommodation, on the whole, market forces work. A widow in private accommodation may feel that it is to her advantage to sell her over-large house, to invest a proportion of the sum she receives and to live in a smaller and cheaper house. At present,

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    those financial pressures do not operate in the public sector of housing.
    The present administration wish to subsidise the council tenant further by holding down rents. I accept that that will be done. I accept, too, that the property tax will be mitigated by increased rate support grant. This has the support of my party. So, as a very moderate suggestion, perhaps we might try to work with human nature.
    The typical situation is the widow who lives alone in a three-bedroom council house. If no sort of financial pressure is put on her to persuade her to move out voluntarily, she is likely to remain. It is the house in which she brought up her children, to which she feels a great sense of attachment and in which she has all her memories. Probably she enjoys the garden. I accept that the present administration are not likely to put pressure on her to make use of the extra two bedrooms.
    Local authorities should be encouraged to persuade such ladies with under-occupied houses to take in lodgers.
    Mr. George Cunningham: How?
    Mr. Budgen: By not charging them more rent if they take in lodgers, so that it is in their interests to do so. In this tiny way, a Socialist administration would be working with the fallibility of human nature, recognising that on the whole ordinary people do things for a mixture of motives and sometimes even for profit.
    If ordinary people are allowed to do that, it may be that the stock of public housing will be better used.
    Several Hon. Members rose—
    Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Myer Galpern): I understand that the wind-up speeches are due to begin at about 9 o'clock. There are still 10 hon. Members who wish to contribute to the debate. I bring those facts to the attention of hon. Members in the hope that they will evoke an intelligent response.
    7.58 p.m.
    Mr. Julius Silverman: I shall endeavour, Mr. Deputy Speaker, to make what you describe
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    as an intelligent response, though sometimes, as earlier speakers have found, what an hon. Member has written in his brief tends to run away with him. However, I shall try to restrain myself.
    I found that I was unable to agree with very much of what the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Mr. Budgen) said. His concluding remarks were devoted to the problem of lodger charges. Some councils charge them and some do not. I agree with the hon. Gentleman that it is wrong to make the charges as a matter of principle. But these lodger charges are embraced in the rebate scheme of the Housing Finance Act, and that scheme has been adopted by the Government. None the less, it is a provision which ought to go.
    I agree entirely that every inducement should be given to people to take in lodgers, although there might be some supervision to see that lodgers are not charged extortionate rents. But otherwise, the rebate scheme which the hon. Member's Government introduced—although he was not there at the time—tends to go in precisely the opposite direction to the suggestion which he has put forward tonight.
    I am afraid that I shall have to take up the other points in his speech with him in my chambers.
    One point has been mentioned to some extent but must be emphasised tonight. That is, that while it is true that some people prefer owner-occupation and some people prefer rented accommodation, it is a fact of life in the situation today that the nub of the problem, and its solution, must lie in the public sector. It must lie with that sector because the vast majority of people in this country, whatever they may prefer in theory, in practice cannot possibly conceive it within their means to buy a newly built house in the economic situation of today.
    Therefore, I welcome entirely the suggestion that the Government have begun to encourage local authority house building, and the fact that the building of council houses has increased by 50 per cent. It is inevitable that as the private rented sector shrinks, as it has done for years and obviously will continue to do it must be taken over, if it is to be preserved as a rented sector, by the local authorities.

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    I come to the owner-occupied sector. Other hon. Members have referred to the escalation of prices in that sector. What has happened in the owner-occupied sector is an example of what I call the shambles and lunacy of a free market economy. If we examine what has happened over the past few years we see that it is incredible. The hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West said that the last Government introduced the measure with good intentions, and they had precisely the opposite effect to what was intended. What the would-be owner-occupier wants is a mortgage, but there are not enough mortgages. One therefore provides credit for mortgages, but because of the economic situation—the depression—money flows into the building societies and there are then plenty of mortgages. What is the consequence? The consequence is that in a short time up go the prices of houses, up go the prices of land. Land prices increased two and a half times and house prices by twice within a matter of two to two and a half years.
    Mr. Budgen: The hon. Gentleman is confusing the situation in that he is suggestitng that a free market economy must always be a market economy with a high rate of inflation. It is sound money which ought to be the condition precedent to the market economy.
    Mr. Silverman: Totally apart from the general rate of inflation there was a particular and specific rate of inflation in the housing sector. This was due simply to the supply of money into the building societies, partly due to the late departed Chancellor of the Exchequer and partly due to the economic forces, as the hon. Gentleman said. One cannot isolate houses from the general economic situation. The Conservatives produced an extraordinary result. To my mind, it is a piece of economic lunacy, but this is precisely what happened. The prices of houses have again risen to such an extent, together with the rate of interest, that the purchaser still cannot buy them. The plain fact is that private owner-occupied houses have been priced out of the market. They have been priced out of it not only because of the policies of the Conservative Government, but because of the chaotic conditions of an uncontrolled economy.
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    What do we do about it? There are some hopeful signs. I welcome the package introduced by the Secretary of State, and the provision of mortgages for young couples. I am bound to say, however, that I have certain doubts about this provision, whether the young couples might not be incurring burdens which perhaps in a few years' time they may find very difficult to meet. Nevertheless, by and large, at present, it is an advance. I welcome still more the intervention of local authorities in buying many thousands of the houses on the market—Birmingham has been one of those authorities—and selling them on 100 per cent. mortgages.
    In order to stabilise the housing market and to provide a stable demand for the houses produced by private builders for owner-occupation as well as for the local authority, considerably more public intervention is indispensable, either by local authorities or by some public agency, to ensure that we have a stable labour force. That is what we have not had in the last few years. We have had a fluctuating labour force and fluctuating demand. A few years ago there was a depressison in the building industry. Building workers left the industry. Two years ago we had an industry that had contracted and was incapable of meeting the demands made upon it. Now, again, we have a depression in which the demand has fallen. No doubt that will again have an effect upon the building industry.
    The only way in which we can retain a stable demand and a stable force is by some form of public intervention of the sort which is happening now and which will have to be expanded.
    I am in favour of urban renewal. It seems strange—perhaps not so strange—that it was not until the price of house building rose to the present extent that the Government and local authorities began to think in terms of urban renewal and the community advantages which it brought about. They had not previously thought about the preservation of a community and the life of the community together, and the preservation of links between people and people which it is very difficult to re-establish once a community has been destroyed and another built.
    Planners and councillors are still not united at all upon this issue. Many

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    planners much prefer that an area should be demolished and built again, because that is much neater. One or two areas in my constituency are involved. It is essential that the planners and councils should be of one mind in determining to develop an improved urban community—that is, to provide confidence for the people in the area that it will be an area in which it is worth while to live in the future. Otherwise, people will say "I shall not wait to see what happens. I shall clear out." That is the sort of thing that is tending to happen in the urban renewal areas.
    There must be some long-term planning—and not only long term—about the provision of amenities. There must be a radical approach to the question of improvement, which must be tackled upon as quick a basis as possible, above all to establish confidence. That is what I sometimes find lacking in people who live in a particular community. I hope that the Government will bring home this point to local authorities because much can be done about urban renewal not only to preserve communities but also to preserve resources and finance.
    In that respect I want to refer particularly to Circular 171/74, about which I have no doubt that the Minister has already had correspondence from some local authorities. The hon. Member for Chelsea (Mr. Scott) referred to that in his speech. It was the only point of his speech with which I agreed. This provides for the limitation by rateable value of the houses on which improvement grants can be given. The City of Birmingham is rather worried about this matter because in a mixed development of urban renewal, some are smaller houses and some are larger houses, and we want an improvement throughout all of these houses. Therefore, any such limitation prevents the fulfilment of the objective of an urban renewal area.
    I know that the Minister has in mind that these improvement grants should not be used for speculation or for people who do not need them. Nevertheless, I hope that he will look at this matter again. If it is necessary to safeguard against speculation, there are other ways of doing that. This is something which concerns Birmingham and many other local authorities. It is a small point, but it matters in relation to the programme.
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    I should have liked to raise one or two other points but, bearing in mind your request, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I shall cut short my speech.
    8.11 p.m.
    Mr. Michael Latham: I should like, first, to declare a prospective interest, in the sense that I have been asked to join the board, as a non-executive director, of a house building company. I have not yet done so, but as I have accepted in principle I ought to declare that prospective interest now.
    It is a great pleasure to follow the speech of the hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Mr. Silverman), as I have on previous occasions in the House in housing debates. He always speaks with great knowledge of the problem. I did not agree with very much of what he said, particularly when he talked of public intervention and the need for more of it—for reasons which will become apparent as my speech progresses.
    It is difficult to overestimate the seriousness of the crisis which the construction industry faces at present. In a debate about housing and about reducing the salary of the Secretary of State, such as we are now having, the House ought to consider the whole construction industry and not merely the private housing or, indeed, council housing sectors, important though they are. I want to talk briefly about the problem in the contracting sphere. The evidence is there for all to see.
    First, a recent survey in January by the National Federation of Building Trades Employers found that two-thirds of contractors were working at three-quarters capacity or less, and that this figure was expected to rise to 75 per cent. by June, with as many as one-third of the firms only half employed or less. Of the firms involved, 66 per cent. expect 1975 to be a worse year than 1974, and about 62 per cent. contemplate reducing their labour force.
    Next, there is the Economic Development Committee for Building. Last year that body predicted a 6 per cent. decline in new construction output in 1974 and a further 2 per cent. decline in 1975. That was last year. Now it is talking about a 6 per cent. decline in 1975 and possibly a further 3 per cent. decline in

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    1976. Indeed, that body thinks—not me, but that body—that these figures may be too favourable, because the council housing recovery may be hampered by local authority financial and staffing problems.
    Next there is the National Council of Building Material Producers, which has an extremely sophisticated forecasting system. On 14th November it predicted that the fall in construction output in 1975 would be 6 per cent. But on 17th January this year its director was quoted publicly as saying
    "Since well over half the work which can be done in 1975 will come from orders received before the end of the past year, a further serious fall in output—and therefore overall demand for our products—is unfortunately inevitable."
    Then there is the survey of commissions from the Royal Institute of British Architects. As my hon. Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Mr. Costain) has often said in the House, the Institute's survey represents the most sensitive predictor of future work load in the construction industry that is available to us. In the third quarter of 1974 there was an 11 per cent. fall, as compared with the second quarter of 1974—under the present Government—and a 17·4 per cent. decline as compared with the same quarter of 1973.
    After allowing for increases in the cost of building, the level of commissions has now—not under the wicked Tories—fallen to the lowest level in the past eleven years. As long ago as 25th October the magazine Building Design reported that four out of every ten architectural practices had cut back on their staffs. The situation has certainly become worse since then.
    There is plenty of other bad news. There are already 130,000 building workers laid off and, according to the Financial Times survey, the figure could reach 300,000. As long ago as November 1974 the London Brick Company announced cutbacks in production amounting to an annual fall of 10 per cent. Brick production in December was at an atrociously low figure of 337 million, there is a nine weeks stock of bricks currently lying around in store, and production was 27 per cent. below December 1973 levels.
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    Now for the point which I made in an intervention during the Minister's speech this afternoon. The latest survey of the Department of the Environment shows that new orders for construction work—this related to November 1974—also paints a gloomy picture. There was a 7 per cent. decline in the period September to November 1974 over the previous three months and there was a 22 per cent. decline over the same period of 1973. The slight improvement which took place in October has not been sustained. Even council housing showed a 6 per cent. decline in new orders over the previous quarter.
    That confirms what I have long thought to be the case. We see a tailing off of the increase in council housing building which was first set in motion by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Hexham (Mr. Rippon) early in 1973, which was reflected in the sharp rise in council housing starts in the first quarter of 1974 to the same level as in the first quarter of 1971, a figure which completely demolishes the argument that the Housing Finance Act 1972 cut council housing any more than did the Housing Subsidies Act 1967. Incidently in the first quarter of 1974 the figure of starts for council housing was the same as that achieved by this Government in the third quarter of 1974. I am not optimistic of further progress in that regard.
    Despite the slump in orders, materials prices continued to rise. There is a proposed price increase of 10 per cent. for plaster currently before the Price Commission. The Department of Industry construction materials index, which began 1974 at 156·5, stood at 185·0 by November 1974. In conjunction with the recent wages settlement promulgated by the National Joint Council for the Building Industry, this can only mean a further sharp rise in construction costs, which presumably will be reflected in contractors' tender prices, and thereby increase the level of public expenditure, or else by a reduction in the real value of the work load.
    There are no redeeming features at present. All trends at present are downwards, and nothing which the Chancellor of the Exchequer did, in his statement on

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    11th September 1974, by increasing construction output by 1 per cent., has yet made any difference in the construction industry.
    The industry is in the worst recession since the 1930s and we are not yet over the worst. What are we to do? If we are to get the contracting industry going again, we require a further degree of work load in the public sector. However, since there is no money available, I do not advocate that course. It will be a long hard slog for the industry, at a much lower level of work load than can be coped with, more unemployment, fewer apprentices and less training, wasted resources, and an uneconomical use of plant.
    I now wish to suggest a few points involving no public expense but which will do something to restore confidence in the industry. First, the Property Services Agency of the Department of the Environment, the local authorities, and other public sector clients should be required to publish within 12 months full details of their projected construction programmes over the next five years. The generalised figures in the public expenditure blue book are useless. The industry needs specific information to gear its resources properly. The Minister's national consultative council has been looking at this problem for some time and the matter should soon be settled.
    Secondly, the whole of the industry's consultation procedure is absolutely hopeless. The Ministry's national consultative council is a total waste of time. I know because I once served on that council. I do not agree with the liaison committee which the Minister has proposed. I should like to see five consultative panels, each headed by a junior Minister, dealing separately with resources, private housing finance, public sector housing, public sector non-housing and building land. There is an urgent need for much more practical experience of the industry in Marsham Street, and a revised consultative procedure would be a good start.
    The productivity deduction for firm price tendering, which is inflationary in fact if not in intention, should be scrapped.
    The Property Services Agency should be instructed to let more of its contracts
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    on a fixed-fee negotiated basis with proper provision for a claw-back of excess profits.
    The regional offices of the Department of the Environment should be active in checking that all local authorities adopt the Banwell selective tendering procedure in their standing orders. The cost yardstick, which has long since ceased to have any useful purpose, should be abolished forthwith.
    Finally, I believe that the construction industry training board should be replaced by a manpower board for the construction industry, which will be responsible for the supervision of the training and indenturing of apprentices, liaison with skill centres and manpower forecasting. There should also be powers, by means of a registration scheme, to require all firms undertaking public sector contracts to have a specified percentage of their workforce under training as apprentices. Agreement should be reached with the National House-Builders' Council to administer a similar scheme for private housing. The board should also have powers to recover training grants from firms which "poach" newly trained apprentices from other firms.
    Those seven points could possibly deal with the crisis in the construction industry. The crisis is one of confidence. The Department of the Environment, the Minister and Parliament have failed to understand the practical problems of one of our largest industries. We need to show that we do understand those problems. And the time to start is now.
    8.21 p.m.
    Mr. Bryan Gould: It is difficult to imagine an issue of more direct concern to many millions of people than that which we are debating tonight. I can think of no political action that would effect a greater improvement in the everyday lives of those millions than Government policies which would make a real impact upon the housing problem.
    The solution to the problem on one level is simple. All we need to do is to provide more houses. The difficulties arise when we ask what Government policies will produce that much-desired result.
    The last Conservative Government believed that they had found the answer.

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    They believed that the answer lay in policies which would allow market forces to operate freely. To that end they passed the Housing Finance Act, the purpose of which was to introduce the profit principle into what had previously been regarded as a sector in which social service was the principle. As a result of that, they reduced subsidies to council tenants.
    An undeclared object of the Act was to force those affluent council tenants, so beloved of the Tory mythology, out into the private market. To reinforce that the Tory-controlled councils cut back on their council building programmes. Taking Southampton as an example, the yearly rate of building dropped from about 1,400 per year to 200 per year during that period.
    Even more seriously, Tory-controlled councils sold off to private developers the building land which had been so carefully accumulated by Labour councils over the years. On that land now stand unsold houses built by private developers, which local authorities are having to buy back. All of this took place at the same time as a free-for-all for the speculators, fuelled by another disastrous Tory experiment in free market forces—competition and credit control.
    Mr. Lee: May I mention that not only did they sell off land acquired by Labour local authorities but that in the city of Birmingham they managed to sell off land which had been in the possession of the city ever since that dreadful socialist Joseph Chamberlain had acquired it for the city years before?
    Mr. Gould: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for drawing my attention to that further and powerful example.
    The building societies of course also played their part. They profligately dissipated the funds which had flowed into their coffers over this period—quite wildly and without responsibility. As a result house prices soared, but the whole thing contained the seeds of its own destruction. Inevitably prices soared well beyond the reach of the ordinary family, the building societies were eventually hit by rising interest rates and the whole Tory housing policy came shudering to a halt, with the building programme in both public and private sectors virtually non-existent and housing lists swollen.
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    I said that the Tories had applied an ideological principle—the free market principle—in this area, but of course they are not a party to apply political principle if other interests get in the way. I recall that a few days ago an hon. Member, whose constituency I cannot remember but perhaps I can best identify him by saying that as far as I know he is not standing for the leadership, described the party—I hope I do not paraphrase him too unkindly—as a shifting coalition of whatever interests happened to be vested at any given moment.
    The coalition shifted in one respect, and in at least one aspect of their policy they abandoned political principle. I refer to the now notorious proposal to reduce mortgage rates to 9½ per cent. I shudder to think what situation we should be in now if by some mischance the electorate had returned a Conservative Government in October and if that Government were trying to spend our scarce resources in meeting that commitment. It is amazing to me that the authorship of that shockingly irresponsible proposal should now be regarded, it seems, as a qualification for the leadership of the Conservative Party.
    We hear a good deal from the Tory Party about the iniquities of indiscriminate subsidy and the great advantages of selectivity. It may be that in this matter we get a glimpse of what the Tories really mean by selectivity.
    We in the Labour Party take a different view. We do not believe that market forces alone can be allowed to regulate housing. The laws of supply and demand are all very well, but they can only create and establish an equitable market if at a time of increasing demand the supply can also be increased to meet it. That has clearly become increasingly difficult when we are dealing with a scarce resource like building land.
    The only other alternative offered by a free market to that problem is to suppress demand through the operation of the price mechanism. To say that is to define the problem that we inherited when we took over the Government in February and to give the reason for the abject failure of Tory housing policies.
    In contrast to Tory Members we believe that, like education and health,

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    housing is in the last resort a matter of social and community responsibility. When it comes to allocating scarce resources, the overriding principle must be that everyone is guaranteed a decent minimum standard of housing and that only when that guarantee has been met should the power of the purse be allowed free play. That philosophy and that approach to the housing problem mean that a Labour Government should follow through resolutely policies of frank intervention in at least three areas—land, finance and the construction industry itself.
    On the question of land, it is clear that the Government's proposals for the public ownership of development land met a warm response in two elections last year from the many people who had been sickened by the profits made by speculators at the expense of the community. No one pretends that those proposals will be free from difficulty. The machinery will obviously require careful consideration. In particular we must be careful that, in the short term at any rate, the supply of building land does not dry up because local Tory-controlled councils and land owners who are prepared to sit it out may try to frustrate the Government's objectives. I believe this means that adequate powers of compulsory purchase must be given to agencies which in the last resort should be subject to direction from central Government rather than open to frustration from local Tory-controlled councils.
    Mr. Michael Latham: Will the hon. Gentleman say in what way compulsory purchase powers are not adequate at the present time, or is he suggesting that it is objectionable to provide a public inquiry?
    Mr. Gould: If I may go on with my speech I can demonstrate to the hon. Gentleman exactly why it is difficult at present for local authorities in the position of my own to acquire the land they need for building programmes. If the Government are in any doubt as to the urgency and desirability of their proposals on the public ownership of land, I would ask them to look at the example of Southampton, where we have over 4,000 families on the housing list, which has rapidly increased over the last four years. By 1978 the building programme in
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    Southampton will simply come to an end because there is no more building land within the city. May I add that by that time the housing list will have increased to 6,000 families.
    The only hope for those 6,000 families is that the city should be able to acquire and assemble land outside the city. That is why I urge my hon. Friend, despite the proper attention that he will no doubt pay to the short-term problem, to pursue with energy and resolution the proposals in the Government's White Paper.
    Turning to finance, here is a field where the Government have not yet received adequate credit for what they have been able to do. The money which was made available to local authorities for house building and house purchase has made a considerable impact on the problem. The Government's measures, the £500 million loan to the building societies and other action on interest rates, have given greater stability to house purchase prices. But the Government must do a good deal more to follow up this very good start. I was delighted to hear the Minister reaffirm that there was no financial restriction on local authority house building programmes but I urge him to consider seriously and urgently the possibility of increasing block grants to local authorities for the purchase of existing houses. My own council is being offered many times the number of houses that it is able to buy, and the restriction in this respect is purely financial.
    I also suggest that the building societies must be brought much more to a sense of their own responsibility in these matters. I believe they are much more open to criticism than they realise, if only for the fact that they duplicate quite unnecessarily their facilities and offices. A point made earlier by my hon. Friend the Member for Gravesend (Mr. Ovenden) may well be right, that in the last resort the Government themselves must take some responsibility for the provision of finance for house purchase.
    While on the subject of mortgage rates I should draw attention to a point made earlier concerning the problem of local government mortgage interest rates. My hon. Friend has been looking long and hard at this problem, but surely it cannot be right for local authority borrowers to

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    be paying considerably more than many building society borrowers, particularly bearing in mind that they are generally less well off than building society borrowers and that the houses made available to them are often not those on which building society mortgages are available. This is a matter being discussed by the departmental review of housing finance. While that may be a long-term solution, I hope that attention is being paid to the possibility of a short-term solution to this problem.
    Finally, it is recognised on all sides that the construction industry is fragmented, low in morale, under-capitalised and unwilling to adopt new techniques. There is a powerful case for the establishment of a national construction corporation which could utilise, for example, resources in labour and materials earmarked for the Channel Tunnel project. That would be an enormous fillip to employment in the country and to economic activity. It would guarantee that the houses we need were built. Furthermore, it would enable the pioneering and standardisation of new techniques in industrial building. While clearly we do not want to be building the slums of the future, if the Minster would care to ask the 4,000 families on the waiting list in my constituency whether they would be prepared to move to a new prefabricated house built to modern standards of suitable design they would jump at the chance, particularly if the house had something in the nature of a garden attached to it. While I agree with the remarks of one of my hon. Friends that density should not stand in the way of a building programme, I can give the assurance that if I were to ask many mothers with young families in high-rise blocks in my constituency whether they would like such a house and garden they would also jump at the chance.
    Many measures have been mentioned which would help with the housing problem. We must use every weapon in the armoury available to us. In passing, I would mention the problem of modernisation and reinforce a point already made. I hope the Minister will pay particular attention to raising the rateable value limit for improvement grants. I believe that if the present Government pursue their policies with enough resolution they
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    can break the back of the housing problem within their term of office—and what an achievement that would be for any Government.
    8.35 p.m.
    Mr. Michael McNair-Wilson: I shall not pursue the points made by the hon. Member for Southampton, Test (Mr. Gould), at any rate not at the beginning of my speech. I begin by declaring an interest, to the extent that the company for which I work has an association with a construction company. I must also say that I suport the motion to reduce the Secretary of State's salary by £1,000 if only to teach him and the Government a lesson about inflation.
    One cannot take an entirely national view about the housing situation. For instance the January bulletin of the Building Societies Association states:
    "1975 should be a brighter year for the housing market. There is a strong demand for cheaper dwellings and those builders who are in a position to meet this demand will probably be encouraged to do so by the continuing high level of mortgage commitments,"
    I assume that the bulletin is an authoritative document and if what it says is true, it seems to follow that we are not really being inhibited from beating the housing problem by lack of cash in mortgage terms or, at this moment, by lack of land availability. It is a question of lack of houses for the people on the waiting lists.
    In Newbury we have 2,000 people on the housing waiting list and by the year 2000, with a population increase of 1,500 annually, we shall have 37,500 more people in the area. Yet we have a waiting list now that we cannot satisfy and, per thousand of the population, Newbury is worse off than the East London constituency I used to represent so let no one imagine that housing is merely an urban problem. It applies patchily throughout the country, and in some areas it is just as bad as it is in the conurbations. So first we must look for the reasons for the failure to meet need, and then I want to suggest one or two methods which might be considered to overcome the problem.
    In the West Berkshire structure plan we define the problem as the failure of local authorities to keep pace with need, the insufficiency of housing for owner-occupation and the gradual reduction of

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    the stock of private rented accommodation, which has been made unprofitable mainly by the actions of Government and by improvement grants, which have made it possible for owners, with vacant possession, to improve and then sell the property with resultant loss to future tenants.
    In the circumstances it is hardly surprising that local councils which have failed to meet their housing need have now turned to the private market to satisfy it and are buying large numbers of houses on private estates. I shall not go into the question of whether it is the Department's job to provide money for local councils to buy private housing, but it is surprising to me to find that while private building developers are able to build a three-bedroom house for between £9,000 and £10,000 the same type of house built by a local authority usually costs about £15,000. This discrepancy deserves careful attention from the Department, since it is the ratepayers' money but why it exists I find more difficult to pinpoint.
    It may be that the present method of many local authorities to seek tenders from a mass of different firms has something to do with it. The authorities may imagine that the more companies who tender, the more likely they are to get a bargain price for their housing. But this method denies them the simplest and most proven way of getting what they want—that is, going to companies which have a good track record and can show that they can build the sort of houses which are needed. I suggest that the Department should set up an inquiry into the cost of housing to local authorities and to private developers and work out why the discrepancy exists.
    I also ask whether it is reasonable, in the Government's view, that a local authority should be negotiating to buy houses on a private estate—indeed, that it should have bought them—although no information about this is given to private purchasers who are likely to buy houses on the estate.
    If I am told that it does not matter whether it is a mixed estate, I would argue "Why not tell people?" If it matters, some people are being misled in their purchase. Very often people put their life savings into their first house, and it is only reasonable that the private developer and possibly even the councils
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    should have the duty of making clear their intentions with regard to the buying of houses on private estates. I also ask whether the Minister is concerned that some of the property being bought by local authorities does not come up to Parker Morris standards? To let them slip there means that one is no longer adhering to the standard which has so far been considered sacrosanct in the housing market.
    Having touched on the question of why housing is cheaper in the private market than in the council market, I come on to the question of confidence, which we all think the building industry needs if we are to get the houses that are required. The hon. Member for Test referred to prefabrication and industrialisation. I am told that by and large the building industry looks on this as a gimmick. We have tried prefabrication. There is in my constituency an estate of prefabricated houses dating back to 1948. To regard the mass-production of houses as worth while, one must assume that there is a flow of material to keep fabrication going and that it will be possible to create not only a home for people to live in but a house which adds something to the quality of their lives. I do not think that that is possible, or that industrialisation and the modular brick are the right solution.
    We must give proven companies the opportunity to build the houses we need. This takes me to another point which was put to me strongly by companies in the industry and which I commend to the Minister. Once a company has shown that it can produce the houses and it is building an estate, it is necessary to allow it to go in for serial tendering so that when it has built up its team and is building the houses it is also allowed to tender for the next contract. It then moves from one complete estate to the next keeping its building team together, rather than waiting until the end of the contract. That prevents the gap in the planning permission, the break-up of the team and the pause that most of us have condemned.
    When we consider the quality of the housing which we wish to see in both council and private estates, we see that the whole question of planning consent must be looked at with greater care. Some

    1679
    councils still seem to believe that once planning permission is given for an estate of houses their responsibility has ended. But in fact their responsibility at that moment becomes much greater. In Berkshire we have seen estates started and planning consents trodden into the ground by the contractors and property developers. When protests have been made by local residents, they have been passed over on the grounds that they were too late. Or protesters have been told "You should have said something about it before" or "We have not got enough enforcement officers." That will not do.
    Another thing that will not do is to suppose that one can put into a rural area the same sort of houses as can be put into the suburbs of a city and maintain the environmental quality of the countryside. It is incredible that in an area like West Berkshire the ancient towns and villages enjoyed by so many people, let alone the inhabitants, are every day beginning to look more and more like the suburbs of outer London.
    Yet I am told that, when planning permission is given, the local authority has no power to enforce upon the builder a particular design in keeping with the environment in which the houses are to be constructed. If that is so it is high time that the Department considered whether it should take that power to itself and whether we should insist on something more like an English country house. I do not mean something with large, rolling acres. I mean something that fits into the rural scene. If we are building homes for people to live in, we must hope also to enrich the amenity of the area and to maintain the character of the neighbourhood. That will not be done by putting up suburban houses in the English countryside.
    We seem too anxious to build housing estates around our towns like layers of skin. That is one reason they become soulless in terms of community to the people living there. When we cannot go any further with our existing towns, we build new towns. Why do we never build new villages? Why do we not take the nucleus of a hamlet and turn it into a village of 2,000 or 3,000 people? We could do that and make the new village
    1680
    every bit as beautiful as the older villages. There is need for a change of mind by the Department and the planners.
    If I succeed in nothing else tonight, I hope I shall succeed in putting into the Minister's mind the thought that he must insist that the quality of housing put up in the countryside has something to do with the countryside, and that when we build houses for people on housing waiting lists we do not simply give them isolated units to live in but help them to have a house in a community to which they can belong and to which they can add something.
    Several Hon. Members rose—
    Mr. Deputy Speaker: Four hon. Members still wish to take part in the debate. If each takes five minutes, we can accommodate them all.
    8.47 p.m.
    Mr. Joseph Dean: I shall respond to your appeal by being as brief as possible, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
    I compliment my hon. Friend the Minister on the measures taken so far in both sectors of housing in an attempt to deal with the present serious situation in the provision of houses. I want to deal mostly with the public sector.
    First, I take to task the hon. Member for Chelsea (Mr. Scott), who again referred to what appears to be one of the main planks in the Opposition's housing programme, the selling of council houses. This is not the first time I have said that that would have a detrimental effect on rehousing people. I gather that the hon. Member assumes that once a person gets a council house he is always buried from it. That assumption is nonsense. If the hon. Gentleman examines the figures for the national movement of people migrating from council houses for one reason or another, he will find that in the major conurbations 50 per cent. of the housing need resulting from slum clearance and the demands of those on the waiting list is met by re-lets annually. Selling off the houses would mean local authorities finding themselves with depleted stocks.
    We are already starting to see the racket in the resale of council houses sold by authorities. I should not say "sold", because the houses were public assets given away for less than £2,000. They are now being sold on the open market

    1681
    for £10,000. Some authorities which were almost forced into selling the houses, or which came under the control of Tories who indulged in this give-away policy, are having to buy back the houses, now that they have become Labour-controlled again, at £9,000–£10,000. If that is not taking the council tenant or the ratepayer for a ride, I do not know what is.
    I want now to deal quickly with how the construction industry can best help. I do not want to deal with improvements, because they constitute a subject of their own. I would put the whole of the resources of the building industry into the construction of new houses, even if necessary at the expense of improvements. I would opt for the construction of new houses.
    For the council house building programme we are now predicting about 150,000 starts and completions. I have been making some inquiries and my information is that the construction industry with its existing resources could commence and provide another 100,000 houses a year by conventional means. Those houses could go towards increasing our council housing stock. We must consider how we can harness that resource so that the houses can be built as quickly as possible.
    We cannot build houses without acquiring land. I hope that the Land Bill will be altered so as to allow local authorities quicker intervention in the purchase or acquisition of land. Current housing legislation includes a 66 per cent. capital subsidy. Although that appears to be generous I believe that it will prove inadequate very quickly.
    Only today I was looking at the tape. It indicated that over the past 18 months inflation in the building industry will escalate to 34 per cent., one of the factors being the new wage settlement. I have never believed that people who have lived in squalor or in bad housing all their lives through no fault of their own should have to pay astronomical sums to get into new houses. At present they are bearing an unfair share of the redevelopment of the community in which they live.
    I think that my hon. Friend will accept that 34 per cent, is a dramatic figure. Will my right hon. and hon. Friends consider using the denominator of 66 per cent. as a base and raising it as quickly
    1682
    as possible? If not, I foresee disproportionate increases in council rents that will be quite unfair to the council house tenant.
    I urge the harnessing of our building resources so that the fullest possible impact can be made on the housing shortage. People are playing about once again with industrialised housing. That may answer some problems but it will create others. Industrialised systems lead to the provision of unsocial amenities and in the end they are dearer and harder to maintain. The average industrialised house is 20 per cent. dearer than the traditional house. I believe that there is no logic in putting forward an argument in favour of that system of building unless the argument is confined to a geographic location where no building force is available.
    There is no logic in asking local authorities to spend ever-increasing sums on industrialised building. I believe that the facts that have been given to me are correct. If we are now building 150,000 houses in the public sector by normal means—and it is estimated that we can provide another 100,000 by the same means—I can see no reason for wasting time at local or national level by paying attention to gimmicky industrialised buildings. We have the potential to build houses in the traditional style. That is a style that offers the best value for money. The people of this country do not want any of the gimmicks in which we have been indulging, but a modern English-type home built by traditional means.
    8.54 p.m.
    Mr. Michael Morris: By some means we must get through to the Government the grimness of the situation now facing us and the need for action and not gimmicks. I agree wholeheartedly with the suggestion of the hon. Member for Leeds, West (Mr. Dean) that we should cut out the frills. There are sufficient bricks throughout the country to provide 40,000 homes. I hope that when the Under-Secretary of State gets out and about, as I understand he is to do, he will ensure that those 40,000 homes are built.
    The present situation is the most serious that we have faced since the 1930s. Beside the unused bricks that are lying about there are 50,000 unsold houses and 200,000 partially built houses.

    1683
    There are also the empty properties that are owned by the local authorities. As hon. Members know, the figure is not 1 per cent. but nearer 4 per cent. I hope that the Minister will ask for a review from local authorities so that we know exactly how many houses are now lying empty.
    I hope—and I urged this previously—that we shall have a review of homelessness. The Minister must have become increasingly aware of the fact that the homeless figures have increased dramatically. I do not want to go back over the reasons for that. He knows, as well as I do, that he made a mistake last summer. Be that as it may, we look to him to provide proposals to deal with the problem. It cannot be left to continue. These families are suffering seriously. Local authorities cannot be asked to put their hands in their pockets to provide finance to help these people. It is incumbent upon the Government to provide a special grant to help out with this interim problem.
    Admittedly, the Government have produced some proposals recently which go some way along the road, and they are to be congratulated on tabling those proposals. I do not believe that the low-start mortgage is the key part of the problem at the moment. Even in that area there is a need for a long-term assurance from the building societies that when times get tougher, the low-start scheme will continue. At the moment they say that when funds become short that scheme will be stopped. It is incumbent upon the Government to give a reassurance on that.
    There is also a need for action at the medium and expensive end of the market. If both sides of the Chamber accept the £25,000 limit, I see no reason why that should not be indexed over a time. At least we can remove that problem from the area of politics. Although the Minister said this afternoon that there was no problem on bank finance, the information I have is that there is a problem, and I believe that he ought to look at that area.
    He should go back to the building societies and tell them that there is a need to lend for development purposes, because builders are being frustrated. He
    1684
    needs to instruct building societies to look at some of the adventurous schemes that are being produced by the Housing Research Foundation and by a group that happens, by chance, to be in Northampton—the Housing from Income Committee—both of which have done extensive work on schemes, which have been worked out in depth, to demonstrate how people on lower incomes can purchase their own homes, without using methods of indexing. I hope very much that he will give encouragement to this.
    My hon. Friend the Member for Melton (Mr. Latham) put forward several proposals. I have listed another six. The prospects in this industry are grim. We need positive proposals that will rejuvenate this industry and move it forward. We have waited too long for the funds we have had so far.
    I speak for many hon. Members on the Conservative side of the House when I say there are many areas in housing about which we can agree. We can agree on owner-occupation, on the need for council housing, and improvement grants. It there are these common areas of agreement, surely now, of all times, is the time to pick up those areas of agreement, to put forward proposals and to formulate a common policy that will remain for 10 years. What has bedevilled this market since time immemorial is that when a new Government take office, they change the policies of the previous Government. If the Minister can gear this housing finance review up to a six-month timetable so that we can get some action going, he will have my support and the support of a great many other hon. Members. If this is to be another 18-month review, let him be warned, because we on the Tory side will justifiably criticise the Government. We crititcise the Government today because it has taken them 12 months to implement two or three proposals that we put forward.
    9.0 p.m.
    Mr. Michael Ward: I am grateful to you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, for allowing me to speak for a few minutes at the end of this debate. The brickfields of my constituency are overflowing. I endorse what was said by the hon. Member for Northampton, South (Mr. Morris) and my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, West (Mr. Dean) about the need for traditional building.

    1685
    I know that both hon. Members speak from a deep knowledge of local authority building, in one case with the London Borough of Islington and in the other with the City of Manchester, which has been a pioneer in the use of building materials.
    I sympathise with the Minister in that when I came into office in local government in 1971 I had a bare cupboard and, with my colleagues, I had to generate the housing programme in the London Borough of Havering where I was then the leader of the Labour Party. I know the great problems that this creates. In the London Borough of Havering we inherited a housing programme which had only five starts in it for the year in which we came into office. At that time we had a waiting list of 3,000 to 4,000. In our area, as in many areas mentioned by hon. Members, the majority of the heads of households depend on rented accommodation. They are ineligible for mortgages. Too often in the past Conservative Members have tried to thrust mortgages and home ownership down the throats of young people who in many cases did not want it and would have preferred rented accommodation.
    The problem of mortgages is one with which I do not have time to deal in detail. Hon. Members have referred to local authority mortgages. The City of Peterborough council, has' approached me on this question. It is as concerned as are hon. Members about the high mortgage rates charged as a result of the requirements of the Public Works Loan Board. The figure of 14½ per cent. quoted by the right hon. and learned Member for Hertfordshire, East (Sir D. Walker-Smith) and the hon. Member for the Isle of Wight (Mr. Ross) and others is typical.
    I have an interest here in that I have a council mortgage of this kind. For many years it has been running at 7 per cent. I have often said to my borough treasurer, "It is most unfair. We ought to vary the rate so that the older mortgagors who have these preferential rates help to moderate the high rates required of the new applicants." I hope that the Minister will examine this question because I am sure that there are many authorities who could do more to moderate the level of the mortgage rate currently being charged if they adopted
    1686
    the sort of policy the London Borough of Havering is now adopting of increasing the rate charged to, older borrowers from 6 per cent. or 7 per cent. to 9 per cent. or 10 per cent. to help the youngsters.
    The right hon. and learned Member for Hertfordshire, East spoke of the ossification of the private rented sector. There is certainly a great deal of ossification throughout housing, whether local authority or private. The generation of movement in these sectors is important. That is why the encouragement given to local authorities to purchase homes—whether those of pensioners in the private sector who might move into council accommodation and release family houses, or those of people who wish to purchase properties in the general market—is welcome. I hope that the Minister will encourage local authorities to use those resources.
    The provision of £200 million announced by the Chancellor in March is welcomed by all in local government. It will help create this mobility. Despite the attack upon it by the hon. Member for Romford (Mr. Neubert), who is not here today, the provision of houses by local authorities on the open market in the last two years has been most valuable in creating the movement, for example, of families from multi-storey blocks to family homes with gardens. It has created a general movement which is most important.
    I had hoped to deal with aspects of the private rented sector in the London Borough of Havering, but as the Minister and the Opposition spokesmen have already lost part of their time I shall reserve that for another occasion.
    9.5 p.m.
    Mr. John Stanley: I wish briefly to deal with three matters. The first concerns the effect of the Rent Act 1974. The Minister acknowledged that there has been a reduction in the number of advertisements for furnished lettings. He attributed that to tenants taking advantage of the security of tenure provisions of the 1974 Act. I put to him that there is another explanation which may have equal validity. Indeed, it is one given by many estate agents and housing managers. It is that furnished lettings are still becoming avail-

    1687
    able and vacant possession is still being obtained but the lettings are not being re-let on account of the provisions of the 1974 Act. That is a matter of fact, not of opinion.
    I ask the Minister to establish an independent working party to monitor the effects of the 1974 Act and to report by the end of this year so that the facts may be established. If the facts are as I have suggested they may be, I hope that the Minister will consider introducing amending legislation. If the Rent Act 1974 operates in this way it contributes to the constriction of the furnished letting market and accentuates the problem of homelessness.
    My second subject is the Government's low-start mortgage scheme which in principle I welcome. I wonder how many hon. Members realise the length of time it takes a person who takes advantage of the low-start mortgage scheme to owe an amount of principal less than he actually borrows? I did not realise it until I spoke to an official in the Minister's Department this morning. The answer is that a person who takes out a mortgage of £5,000 under the low-start mortgage scheme will owe more than £5,000 for up to the end of year nine and only in year 10 and beyond will he owe less. That is one effect of the scheme. I make that point to emphasise that the low-start mortgage scheme may be of marginal help but is not a fundamental solution to our housing problem.
    Thirdly, I believe that successive Governments have been tackling our housing problem painfully slowly because they have been tackling it in the most expensive way. We provide only two routes to meet the housing need, the route of a council house, which is very expensive on the public purse, and the conventional route to owner-occupation, which is very expensive on the private purse. Because we have been offering those two expensive routes we have been proceeding painfully slowly in meeting the housing need.
    I suggest to the Minister that there is a mid-course. There are millions of people who, although they cannot afford 100 per cent. of the cost of the cheapest house in their area, are willing and able to afford 60 per cent., 70 per cent., or 80 per cent. of the cost of the cheapest house
    1688
    in their area. That has been illustrated in my own constituency where the local authority has had no problem with its building for sale scheme, and has sold more than 200 houses exclusively to council tenants and those on the waiting list at about 70 per cent. of the cost of the cheapest house in the area.
    There is a way of doing that nationally by providing a scheme under which a person can buy a 60 per cent., 70 per cent. or 80 per cent. interest in the house, with the public sector, the taxpayer, effectively providing the balance of the purchase price. The scheme is outlined in a pamphlet which I produced last year called "Shared Purchase" which was adopted by the Liberals in their election manifesto in October. I will send it to the Minister, and I ask him to look at it dispassionately, objectively and in a nonpartisan way, because I am convinced that it provides the route for bringing together the maximum amount of owner-occupation with the minimum amount of public subsidy. It provides the means for a massively expanding owner-occupation.
    I say this to the Minister with some reluctance because I believe that the Government and the political party with the ability to implement a scheme such as this will be well-rewarded by the electorate. I had hoped that it would be implemented by a Government composed of members of my party but, in their temporary absence, I hope that it will be implemented by the Labour Government.
    9.10 p.m.
    Mr. Geoffrey Finsberg: This has been an interesting debate, though much of it has been somewhat predictable. Each side has given its own assessment of the position and has put forward remedies. No Government since the war have found the answer. The Government who came nearest to finding a solution were the Government with Mr. Macmillan and Mr. Marples who succeeded in reaching the target of 300,000 houses annually. That will go down in history.
    The speech made by the Minister for Housing and Construction—if one can be charitable and call it a speech—constantly harked back to the housing record of the Conservative Government, attacked it

    1689
    and said nothing else, in order to conceal Labour's inability to work out a coherent practical strategy. He said that Labour's strategy contained no slick solution, which is also right. He should have added that it contained no solutions and no hope.
    My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Hertfordshire, East (Sir D. Walker-Smith) made an exceptionally valuable point about the imbalance of the pattern in the housing supply. Far too many Government Departments seem to think that what is good for London, Birmingham and Manchester is good for the rest of the country. That is not so. My hon. Friend the Member for Newbury (Mr. McNair-Wilson) returned to that point later.
    The hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, North (Mr. Forrester) spoke in rather disparaging terms about the possibility of more prefabs. I advise the hon. Gentleman not to come to my constituency, because I live opposite a row of prefabs which were built 25 years ago and their tenants are battling to keep those prefabs because they prefer to live in those dwellings rather than in soulless blocks of flats.
    My hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Mr. Steen) spoke about the failure of planners to think of the needs of the community as opposed to the needs of tidy plans. All those concerned in local government have suffered in this way. As local government units have grown larger and larger, it has become more and more difficult for councillors to exercise that sort of authority and control over the planners. The planners have so much expertise—expertise which no councillor, however long-serving or able, can ever hope to match.
    The hon. Member for Gravesend (Mr. Ovenden) made great play of the matter of discouraging the sale of council houses. I hope that tenants will note his remarks. I am glad to reassure him that I shall be quoting from Shelter a little later in my remarks.
    Mr. Ovenden: Selectively.
    Mr. Finsberg: My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Thanet, West (Mr. Rees-Davies) touched on the real and human problem of the strain placed on the social services by increasing numbers
    1690
    of elderly people who retire and move from London to the coastal towns. This is an important point on which both sides of the House would agree. Some sort of solution is needed to this problem. London wants its elderly population to move out to the country and to the seaside towns, but it is wrong that those areas should bear an unfair burden because of the age of the population. Somebody needs to look further at this point.
    The hon. Member for Ilford, North (Mrs. Miller) spoke about local authority housing. I very much agree with her that we cannot let the local authority housing stock deteriorate. If that is the case, why are the Government allowing acquisition to take priority over repairs and maintenance?
    The hon. Member for the Isle of Wight (Mr. Ross), as the sole Liberal representative in the debate, made a rather discursive speech, which I did not hear but of which I have had lengthy reports. He apparently said that the major problem with housing was the need to speed up and cheapen the process of buying and selling. The hon. Gentleman was impatient with the present planning procedure. We all share that impatience, and I shall deal with that a little more extensively later in my remarks.
    The hon. Member for Stockport, North (Mr. Bennett) spoke of the need to minimise the under-occupation of council dwellings. I remember a survey which was carried out in about 1969 by the Greater London Council which showed that there were at that time some 150,000 under-used rooms. Nobody can suggest that people should be moved out, yet somebody must bring home to tenants who are under-occupying valuable space that this is anti-social. We need a campaign of education. I hope that the Minister will pay some attention to that point.
    My hon. Friend the Member for North Fylde (Mr. Clegg) has, since he made his maiden speech, pursued the question of the rights of tenants. I agree with him that an experiment which was contemplated in the London borough of Lambeth of giving council tenants a short lease rather than living, as it were, from month to month might be expanded, because they are as entitled as private tenants to know that they have security for a number of years if they so wish.

    1691
    My hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Mr. Budgen) gave us a sombre monetary warning on public expenditure. I hope he will forgive me if I do not follow him along that trail tonight. I am sure he would lose me very early.
    The hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Mr. Silverman) emphasised the need to maintain the community and that the community is helped by urban renewal. We all know about the problems which have caused the disappearance of the small corner shop to which people can go late at night. We know about the problems of the elderly who live in old property but where, if a pint of milk is left on a doorstep, someone knows within a couple of days that Mrs. Buggins is unwell and will go in to look after her. In a tall, soulless block of flats she may have been dead for a month before being found. That is no exaggeration. I think we must look anew at this question. I welcome much of what has appeared in recent Government circulars putting emphasis on rehabilitation rather than redevelopment.
    My hon. Friend the Member for Melton (Mr. Latham) put forward seven practical ideas which deserve careful thought by the Department. I hope that the Minister will give them the attention they rightly deserve. They were practical suggestions. The House will expect considered reasons why the Department does not feel able to carry them out or, better still, to be told that it will carry them out.
    I assure the hon. Member for Southampton, Test (Mr. Gould) that the Conservative Party still believes that the 9½ per cent. mortgage pledge was right, though it can hardly apply now in view of the appalling economic situation that has been compounded by the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
    I agree with the hon. Member for Leeds, West (Mr. Dean) about the need to continue traditional building methods as opposed to industrialised building. The hon. Gentleman speaks with a wealth of experience in local government.
    My hon. Friend the Member for Northampton, South (Mr. Morris) rightly drew attention to the growing problem of homelessness. The need for policy and action falls into two main areas—construction,
    1692
    which was ably dealt with by my hon. Friend the Member for Melton, and management and maintenance. Before examining these areas I want to look at one of the basic problems in the public sector which ought to be non-controversial.
    I saw some interesting figures on housing problems in the city of Oxford recently. In 1958 Oxford's waiting list comprised 2,000 people. Land was bought on which to build an estate of 2,000 houses. By 1964 about 3,000 homes had been completed. The waiting list was still 2,000. A further 1,000 houses have been built since, but the list now stands at over 2,500.
    What are we to do about waiting lists? We need to re-examine homelessness, and the criteria of housing need require fresh examination. All of us, irrespective of party, must be shocked at the totals of waiting lists. I do not believe that they can be accepted purely at face value. We need to reassess waiting lists. We should divide them into three categories: category A, urgent priority cases; category B, those with some housing need; and category C, those with no need for local authority rehousing in the foreseeable future. [An HON. MEMBER: "Then why are they on waiting lists?"] Because, unfortunately, local authorities put them on lists—Labour-controlled local authorities especially, but others do so as well.
    We must concentrate all our efforts on the category A persons instead of carrying huge administrative burdens, instead of planning for unrealistic figures and instead of buoying up hopes that one day perhaps the local authority will offer rehousing when no prospect exists for a very long time. It would be of value if the Central Housing Advisory Committee were asked to examine this as a matter of urgency and if the Minister subsequently issued a circular of guidance.
    I want to touch upon two other aspects—the sale of council houses, and improvement grants. It is estimated that local authorities have a small average turnover of re-lets, and the opportunity to use those re-lets is the basic reason given by the Labour Party for stopping the sale of council houses.
    Why should the remaining council house tenants be deprived of the opportunity and the right to become owner-occupiers and to have something to pass

    1693
    on to their children? Surely that is the desire of everyone. I am not prepared, nor is my party, to see council tenants treated as second-class citizens. The Labour Party has no freehold on the votes of council tenants, as Government supporters well know.
    I repeat my party's pledge to encourage the sale of council houses and flats—because the sooner the tall flats are broken up, the better—by reductions in price to sitting tenants and favourable mortgage rates to council tenants as well as to others. In saying that, I take the point made by the hon. Member for Leeds, West. I should be happy to put in a resale clause to ensure that the first option up to a certain number of years for reselling was given to the local authority.
    From the Government's Circulars Nos. 13 and 14/75 I am glad to see that they are encouraging the use of improvement grants, although on 5th February the Minister said in a reply to me that the number of grant approvals declined during the second and third quarters of 1974.
    We have heard pleas from Birmingham, Manchester and central London. Many local authorities believe that the present rateable value limit of £300 is too small and that it should be raised to £400. Apart from what has been said by Government supporters, I make this entirely bipartisan approach for the London borough of Camden. Both sides of the House believe that the Minister should act quickly on this. No one will be impressed by the way he brushed it off earlier.
    I welcome the strong encouragement in the same circulars which is given to housing associations. I welcome the Government's view in the face of the equivocal and sometimes hostile attitude of some Labour-controlled councils. Paragraph 26 of Circular No. 14/75 is vital in this, and I hope that it is drawn to the attention of some of the more theoretical leaders of Labour-controlled councils.
    Ministers have made it clear, both in Parliament during the passage of the Act and elsewhere, that registered housing associations can and should play an important rôle in supporting authorities, especially in attacking areas of housing
    1694
    stress and in meeting the housing needs of special groups of people. These words should not be merely an exhortation in a circular. They need to be translated into action.
    One of the greatest curses in redevelopment or rehabilitation—I welcome the emphasis now on the latter—is the slowness of planning procedures. Hon. Members on both sides of the House have drawn attention to it, and it occurs both locally and at ministerial level. Somehow we have to get the procedures better organised, and I ask the Minister why it is not possible in a routine case for the inspector's report to be on the Minister's desk within two months—[HON. MEMBERS: "Two weeks."] I am trying to be practical—and for the Minister to give his answer one month later. The trouble is that before the inspector's report reaches the Minister's desk myriads of civil servants toss it from desk to desk, week after week and month after month. I acquit Ministers of the delay. The trouble is that they do not get the documents quickly enough. I hope that they will do something about this.
    When massive schemes take place it is vital to safeguard those still left on the site. Again, I am delighted to see this emphasised in Circular 13/75. I hope all local authorities will endorse the point that they must do everything possible to counteract blight by intensifying the provision of housekeeping services, the maintenance of the surroundings, adequate rodent control and better refuse collection. All too often local authorities, of both political persuasions, allow the place to deteriorate and encourage vandalism.
    The policy of municipalisation on an indiscriminate basis must end. I am delighted to see that that is the gravamen of what appears in the Government's circulars. Indiscriminately purchased municipal homes can be expensive to manage. They require more staff. They certainly are not value for money. Many are bought at auction without a survey, and subsequent costs are extensive.
    Let me cite the Greater London Council which next year is providing £70 million for acquiring private dwellings. The debt charges for this will be approximately £10 million a year, with £1·5 million coming out of the rates and the balance of £8·5 million coming from

    1695
    taxes. Of the 3,823 already acquired, 1,452 or 38 per cent. are vacant. Assuming occupation by an average family of a man, his wife and two children, the number who can be accommodated will be 6,389. At a cost of £70 million, this is £10,969 per head. For the same amount of money, 17,000 people could be rehoused in new dwellings.
    Local authorities already have too much property which they manage badly. I do not believe that any hon. Member, on either side of the House, can say that in his postbag each week, irrespective of party, he does not get letters about repairs not carried out, broken windows, requests to pay more attention to complaints and the fact that nothing is done about transfer applications. All of us know that this happens. [Interruption.] Hon. Members who think otherwise should have spoken in the debate. I am short of time and they must sit silent.
    We have all had letters concerning the inability of council tenants to get answers from local authority management. Yet the Government want more of that management. In the rate support grant documents and again in their recent circulars they made the point that even less money will be available to spend on maintenance. Yet their policy is to drive blindly and blithely on, encouraging the acquisition of more and more dwellings, which will be worse and worse maintained. That is a cloud-cuckoo land situation.
    On construction, as my hon. Friend the Member for Melton said, the figures are dismal. I do not propose to reiterate them. I hope that the Under-Secretary will not treat us to some of his usual flippant, selective and often inaccurate quotations. On 23rd January he said:
    "The report of the London Housing Action Group, which was published last autumn, and which was a report by that admirable all-party group whose members include a number of distinguished Conservative Members on housing, made it absolutely clear that the behaviour of many outer London boroughs in respect of house-building was an absolute scandal, that some of their housing totals were disgraceful by any possible criteria."—[Official Report, 23rd January 1975; Vol. 884, c. 2085.]
    The fact is that he forgot to tell the House that many outer London boroughs had not had their offer of quotas to the
    1696
    GLC taken up. So the need could not have been as urgent as he made out.
    I now come to the question of Shelter. At the end of October, the GLC owned or had resolved to buy land sufficient for 58,000 homes. Of these, 15,000 were under construction. Land for the remainder is waiting on the bureaucratic process, which, on the basis of 4,300 homes a year—GLC production has been running below this in the last couple of years—is now taking 13.6 years from the decision to acquire land to the completion of the homes as planned.
    Even at an output of 5,000 houses a year, which is approaching current targets, the process stretches out for 11¾ years, or 1¼ years longer than the 10-year forward acquisition programme suggested by the Government in the White Paper on land. Yet the Government want councils to buy even more land, which they will hoard like misers.
    The Under-Secretary also said:
    "In the 10 months during which I have been a Minister"—
    it seems longer than that—
    "I have sat through what have appeared to be countless housing debates, here in the Chamber and in Committee. I have yet to hear, on any occasion"—
    "any occasion"—
    "an Opposition Member speak on behalf of tenants."
    To give the facts, I cite the Committee on the Housing Act 1974 and the legislation on leasehold enfranchisement, which helps tenants and which came from our side. The hon. Gentleman said nothing about that or about the service charge legislation, for which even the absent Welsh nationalists voted in Committee. The hon. Gentleman voted against that in spite of advice given to him by—putting it bluntly—two people who know more about housing than the Minister and who are sitting on the third row of the benches behind him. In spite of that, the hon. Gentleman and his colleagues voted against the tenants. Therefore, let us have no more humbug from the Minister about that.
    The Under-Secretary ought to be a little more practical. He also said:
    "In addition, the Conservative Party operates far too much on the basis of conjecture and imagination rather than fact."—[Official Report, 23rd January 1975; Vol. 884, c. 2085, 1907–08.]

    1697
    I hope that the two facts I have given the hon. Gentleman from Hansard will show him that he ought to stick to facts and not to conjecture or imagination.
    The Secretary of State unveiled a package of fresh help for the homeless, for people who wanted some sort of aid. He unveiled it just before he flitted out of the country. The Minister in his opening speech today said that this package was supported by the building societies and the National House Builders' Federation. I am bound to say that I am glad. At least, I hope that "fair shares for all" is still the policy of the Labour Party. When the House reduces the Secretary of State's salary, I hope that a proportionate cut will come from the Minister for Housing and Construction, because he certainly deserves to have a cut.
    However, let me again quote Shelter, because why should I waste my time in thinking up a description of the Government's help for housing when Shelter has given me a very useful quotation? I quote:
    "Anyone expecting a Midas-touched package on housing help will be at least disappointed or at most incensed at the first dry bone to roll out of the cornucopia."
    I suppose that the Secretary of State can be described as one of those mythological people who produced nice things out of cornucopias. Certainly many of his ideas are myths. But we wait to see what practical results will come from them.
    In the end, any housing policy must rest upon four legs—local authorities, housing associations, owner-occupiers and the private rented sector. If any one of those is artificially hampered or restricted, an undue strain is thrown on the others and the situation gets out of control. We have seen this time and again since the war, under Governments of both major parties. The trouble is that the present Government, who ought to have learned by now, have learned even less than they appeared to have learned when they came to power in 1964. They still believe that by killing the private rented sector and by telling local authorities to overburden themselves they will be able to solve this problem.
    Prejudice is a great time-saver. It enables Governments to form opinions without having to get the facts. We
    1698
    charge the present Government with failing to get facts, with ploughing on, as my hon. Friend the Member for Chelsea (Mr. Scott) said, with blind prejudice, with no policies. It is precisely because we charge the Secretary of State with doing this, with being motivated by theory and not by practice, with being motivated by prejudice and not reason—with making a major contribution to the failure of his Government's housing policies—that we believe that the House will be acting in the public's interest if it reduces his salary.
    9.35 p.m.
    The Under-Secretary of State for the Environment (Mr. Gerald Kaufman): A year ago tonight precisely the right hon. Member for Sidcup (Mr. Heath) obtained the unnecessary Dissolution of Parliament, which led inexorably to the unedifying events of the past few days. Since they lost office last year the Tory Opposition have had 22 Supply Day debates. As my hon. Friend the Member for Gravesend (Mr. Ovenden) has pointed out, this is the first that they have had the effrontery to devote to housing. That is scarcely surprising. In their four years of government their housing record was one of unparalleled failure. They broke every pledge that they made in order to gain power.
    I will quote just some of their pledges, from the manifesto that won them office. Chastened by the rebukes of the hon. Member for Hampstead (Mr. Finsberg) I shall be as unflippant as possible in quoting from the Conservative manifesto. The manifesto said:
    "Our vigorous new housing drive for the 1970s will … house the homeless … bring about a great increase in home ownership … see that the tenant, whether of a private property or of a council house, receives a fair deal. Our policies … will help keep down house prices."
    That was the better tomorrow that they promised on housing. But it was a very different legacy that was left to this Government by the combined and dedicated efforts of the right hon. Member for Worcester (Mr. Walker) and the right hon. and learned Member for Hexham (Mr. Rippon). They promised a "vigorous new housing drive". They armed themselves to make that drive successful by planning vast reductions in Government expenditure on housing. They planned

    1699
    an 18 per cent. cut in housing expenditure in the four years up to 1978.
    Their vigorous new housing drive produced a slump in housing starts. The three full years of their government produced 163,000 fewer housing starts than in the last three years of the Labour Government. In 1973, their last year in office, fewer council houses were started than in any year for 28 years, ever since 1945.
    Mr. Scott: One of the achievements of the last Conservative Government was to switch emphasis from the bulldozer to renovation and the modernisation of existing houses. The first three years of the Conservative Government produced 30 per cent. more new and modernised homes than the last three years of the Labour Government.
    Mr. Kaufman: I have no doubt that if the Conservatives added also the doors and hinges put on they could make their total look even better. But that would not alter the fact that the Conservative Government housed 163,000 fewer people than the Labour Government.
    The Conservative Party promised "a fair deal for tenants". But it remorselessly forced up rents by means of the Housing Finance Act. The Tory Government promised "to keep down house prices". But in their period of office house prices rose by 114 per cent. and the mortgage rate went up from 8½ per cent. to 11 per cent. They promised a great increase in home ownership. Instead they produced a mortgage famine and left the building industry and the building materials industry in the state of utter demoralization—
    Mrs. Elaine Kellett-Bowman: What is it like now?
    Mr. Kaufman: —described by the hon. Member for Melton (Mr. Latham), for which they were totally responsible.
    They promised—they really did—to "house the homeless". But in their period of office the number of homeless, measured in terms of those placed in temporary accommodation, increased by one-third. As far as housing was concerned, that was the quiet revolution brought about by the Tory Party.
    That was their housing achievement in government. In opposition, their stance
    1700
    has been even more negative and cynical. On the Housing Bill, they forced amendments here and in another place which turned the provisions to deal with service charges and to help leaseholders into a legislative balderdash. On the Rent Bill—our measure which gives security of tenure to furnished tenants—they were scared to vote against Second Reading on the Floor of the House. Instead they tried to smother the Bill by a squalid filibuster in Committee and they were frightened off only by a weekend of adverse publicity. During the passage of both the Rent Bill and the Housing Rents and Subsidies Bill they mounted a campaign—heart-rending it was—for higher rents and for reduced protection for private tenants.
    Their attitude was summed up in a letter published in The Times last week from the hon. Member for Kensington (Sir B. Rhys Williams)—I am sorry that we did not have a contribution from him today: we always enjoy them—in which he denounced what he called the "obsession" of the Labour Party with security of tenure. We plead guilty to that obsession. We are of course well aware of the Tory Party's indifference, if not hostility, towards tenants, but they have even opposed what this Government have done to try to help home ownership. They bitterly criticised the £500 million bridging loan introduced by this Government last spring to help the building societies.
    Mr. Michael Latham: Since the hon. Member has given so many figures, will he now give the figures that he did not give earlier—the figures for output in the private housing market in 1970–73, which showed a very sharp increase over his Government's figures?
    Mr. Kaufman: I shall come to the private housing market, the hon. Gentleman need have no fear.
    As I was saying, they bitterly criticised our £500 million bridging loan. The hon. Member for Worthing (Mr. Higgins), speaking from the Front Bench, was most high-minded about it in the debate last May:
    "… the Government are seeking to achieve short-term popularity by giving hand-outs to all and sundry without regard to the longer term".—[Official Report, 13th May 1974; Vol. 873, c. 1021–2.]

    1701
    This, from the party which in government had vainly tried to stem an increase in the mortgage rate by a £15 million gift—not a loan—to the building societies just before the 1973 local elections. They had regard to the longer term all right.
    This, from a party which, in opposition, was to pull out of the hat—one of the capacious hats of the right hon. Lady the Member for Finchley (Mrs. Thatcher)—its even more blatant bribe to reduce the mortgage rate to 9½ per cent. by Christmas, an open cheque committing the taxpayer to unlimited subsidies. This evening, the hon. Member for Hampstead spoke of that pledge very much in the past tense—it "was" right, he said. Clearly, the 9½ per cent. mortgage was a special offer for a very limited period—the three weeks of the last election campaign. Now, the right hon. Lady has popped it back in her cupboard together with the rest of her collection of cheap, shop-soiled goods.
    No wonder the right hon. Lady admitted last weekend in her letter to her constituents:
    "How well I remember in the last election, when I put forward our policies to help more families to own their own homes, people were saying to me, 'If only you'd done this earlier, when you were in government.'"
    If the right hon. Lady is successful in the ballot next week, her party slogan will have to be changed from "At a Stroke" to "I Confess". It is this party, with this record, which has the nerve to attack this Government for our housing record.
    I do not claim that the housing situation today is anything but utterly serious. Millions are living in intolerable conditions. Many more are starved of their rightful aspiration to own a home of their own. Much, much more needs to be done before the problems are even in sight of a solution. More effort needs to be put in, more resources need to be injected.
    But in the past 11 months, much has already been done. This Government have a proud record in housing and have already gone a long way to fulfilling our manifesto pledges. Four days after we took office, we froze rents. Most council tenants have had no rent increase for 16 months, some for nearly two years. The new Housing Rents and Subsidies Bill now almost through Parliament ends rent decontrol in the private sector—the decontrol imposed by the Housing
    1702
    Finance Act—and instead imposes stringent phasing provisions on increases in regulated rents.
    My hon. Friends the Members for Salford, East (Mr. Allaun) and Ilford, North (Mrs. Miller) pointed out that in the Scottish Bill there is a ceiling. I know that my hon. Friend has often asked in this House and elsewhere for such a ceiling. I would point out to him that although in our Bill we do not have a ceiling on annual rent increases, as the Scots have, we do, thanks to him and other of my hon. Friends, have a reserve power which the Scots do not have.
    For 750,000 furnished tenants we have ended an indefensible scandal at long last by giving them security of tenure. Within a few weeks from now the repeal of the most obnoxious provisions of the Housing Finance Act will receive the Royal Assent. The whole bogus edifice of fair rents in the public sector will be swept away. The monstrous paraphernalia of rent scrutiny boards will be consigned to the dustbin where they belong. It is significant that this change—the abolition of the rent scrutiny boards—went through the Standing Committee on the Housing Rents and Subsidies Bill on the nod. Not a single Member of the Tory Party was ready to say a word in favour of the reprieve of the rent scrutiny boards or even to offer thanks to the worthy public servants who devoted much time and effort to their labours on these now happily moribund institutions. Soon the rent scrutiny boards will lie at rest, unmourned in an unmarked grave. Soon responsibility for rents will be returned to democratically-elected local authorities.
    A special subsidy is being brought in to help local authorities keep down rent increases, and already the beneficial effects of this special element are being seen in some of the first rent determinations. I am sorry that Mr. Speaker is not in his Chair. The Wirral has announced a 41p a week increase, Oldham a rise of only 23p a week. That is the help we have brought so far to tenants. But we have also acted on behalf of owner-occupiers and would-be owner-occupiers. We recognise the difficulty of local authority mortgage rates, referred to by my hon. Friends the Members for Ilford, North, and Leicester, South (Mr. Marshall) and Southampton, Test (Mr.

    1703
    Gould) and we are looking at the problem to see whether there is a way of helping.
    Our £500 million bridging loan to the building societies froze mortgage rates for the great majority of owner-occupiers and ended the mortgage famine. We saw in the Press only last week-end an assurance from Mr. Leonard Boyle, Chairman of the Building Societies Association, that mortgage rates would not be increased during the next few months. Certainly that makes a change from what we used to get under the Conservative Party—three increases in the mortgage interest rate in 1973 alone.
    The inflow to the building societies in the last six months of 1974 was £904 million compared with £579 million in the last six months of 1973. The number of new mortgage commitments in the second half of last year, compared with the second half of 1973, was up by 26 per cent., and that was before the package of measures announced by my right hon. Friend last week to help builders and building societies. As was pointed out by my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent, North (Mr. Forrester) and the hon. Member for the Isle of Wight (Mr. Ross), there is hope that in the owner-occupation sector the worst that was inflicted by the Conservative Party in the stop-go, boom-bust and slump which they inflicted on the owner-occupier section is over.
    Completions are now beginning, but only beginning, cautiously to reflect the recovery in building society advances. But in the public sector there has been a much sharper improvement. That is due to the massive increase by this Government on planned expenditure by the Tory Government, expenditure which, as I have pointed out, was due to be reduced by 18 per cent. over the coming years. This year, if the Conservatives had remained in office, they had planned to spend £2,322 million on housing. We are in this year spending £3,466 million on housing—a 50 per cent. increase.
    Mrs. Elaine Kellett-Bowman: In real terms?
    Mr. Kaufman: Yes, in real terms. I am delighted to see the hon. Lady here. We always welcome her encouragement. Out of this increase in real terms,
    1704
    we have been able to help local authorities and new towns to buy 10,000 new houses from developers. This is a very useful addition to the rented housing sector.
    It also helps to bring about the mixed development advocated by the hon. Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Mr. Steen). He advocated mixed development in terms of council houses being sold to owner-occupiers. We seek to achieve it by local authorities buying private houses for occupation by council house tenants. It is different, but it is mixed development, and it also means more houses available for council tenants. It is also a valuable aid to the building industry.
    What is more, we have asked the local authorities to draw up five-year municipalisation programmes. Municipalisation is a very important part of our policy. We look forward next month to the programmes of municipalisation which the local authorities are to send us. Meanwhile, in this financial year, there has been by far the greatest advance ever in municipalisation, a policy which is essential in view of the failure of private landlordism to meet its responsibilities.
    Mr. Stephen Ross: The hon. Member for Chelsea (Mr. Scott) raised a point about the three-year lease guarantee by local authorities. Will the hon. Gentleman deal with that? It is a valid point in relation to the private landlord sector.
    Mr. Kaufman: That is a matter for the local authorities. There is nothing to stop them from doing it now if they wish.
    We have removed the restrictions on the direct works departments of local authorities building for sale—something they were prohibited from doing by the Conservative Government, who claimed nevertheless to believe in building for sale. I assure my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent, North that we are carefully examining the problems caused to many direct works departments, my own in Manchester included, by restrictions imposed by Conservative legislation.
    Tender approvals in Great Britain in the private sector last year rose proportionately more than in any year since 1946. This is part of the great advance

    1705
    in local authority house building, because we have picked council house building programmes off the floor. Public sector starts in Great Britain last year rose for the first time since 1967. They rose by 30 per cent. The increase in starts was the biggest since 1953, and the increase in tender approvals was proportionately more than in any year since 1946.
    Compared with the tangled wreckage which the Conservatives left behind, this is a record of outstanding achievement. But we have higher standards than they. To us, all this is only a start—a useful start certainly, but simply a base on which we can build our lasting solution to this nation's daunting housing problems, and in this Parliament we shall take steps to deal with other blemishes which have long bedevilled the housing scene.
    We shall soon bring in legislation to tackle the abuses of the lump, as my hon. Friend the Member for Gravesend, will be interested to hear. We shall bring in comprehensive legislation to assist caravan and mobile home dwellers, and we have mounted a major review to discover the facts about their plight and their problems. We shall at last, in the next Session of this Parliament, legislate to abolish the agricultural tied cottage system.
    These measures will help hundreds of thousands of householders. But we are only too well aware that the basic housing problem of this country affects millions more. While holding down rents is vitally important—and while we have done a lot towards this—a genuine housing policy is no more about rents alone than a genuine education policy is about the cost of school meals or a genuine health policy is about prescription charges, a point validly made by my hon. Friend the Member for Stockport, North (Mr. Bennett) in his highly relevant remarks about housing management.
    A genuine housing policy is about mobilising effort and resources to meet the needs of the young couples desperately anxious for a home of their own—to buy or to rent. A genuine housing policy is about helping the millions living in substandard accommodation whose children will never stand a chance.
    My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education can bring in the most far-reaching educational reforms. But
    1706
    these reforms will be of no avail to the child who goes home to over-crowding, to bickering parents whose marriage is endangered by living conditions which remove all chance of human dignity. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Services can bring in massive and expensive improvements in the National Health Service, but these improvements will be powerless against the asthma, the bronchitis, the chronic ills which will never leave a child brought up in a damp ill-heated slum.
    It is the children of the ill-housed, who lack gardens to play in, or even playgrounds in their neighbourhood, who go off in search of their own adventure playgrounds, who too often meet a pitifully early end, killed exploring city railway lines or drowned in claypits. These are the casualties of the inner cities, the wastelands of urban civilisation defaced by abominable housing conditions.
    Conservative Members make fleeting visits to this alien terrain.
    The right hon. Member for Worcester (Mr. Walker) once went to Lambeth, and was shocked.
    The right hon. Member for Carshalton (Mr. Carr) passed swiftly through Hulme, expressed brief horror, and was gone again. They were like visitors to a strange planet. No wonder the Conservatives have been driven out of the great cities, whose problems they fail to understand.
    Mr. Robert Carr: As the hon. Gentleman referred to me, will he tell the House and the country what his enormous programme of municipalisation will do to increase the number of house-owners?
    Mr. Kaufman: The programme of municipalisation will make sure that the houses of my constituents which are not repaired by private landlords are dealt with by local authorities.
    We hear many windy clichés from advocates of a certain version of national unity about the desperate battle we must fight for Britain's survival. But the true battle for the future of Britain is being fought in the dingy streets of Camden and Islington, in the rotting council flats of old Ardwick. This housing battle is a battle whose nature we on the Labour side understand. It will be won only by the regeneration of our cities, by refur-

    1707
    bishing the old houses that can still be saved, and above all by building the new houses that will give our people not simply new homes but new hope.
    In Government the Conservatives lost that battle because they never saw the need to fight it. That is why their censure tonight is a bogus and empty exercise. We know that victory in the housing
    battle will take a long haul and painful effort. But we know what the fight is about, and we are determined to win.
    Question put,
    That the salary of the Secretary of State for the Environment should be reduced by the sum of £1,000:—
    The House divided: Ayes 242, Noes 295.

    Division No. 87]

    AYES

    [9.59 p.m.

    Adley, Robert

    Fletcher-Cooke, Charles

    McCrindle, Robert

    Aitken, Jonathan

    Fookes, Miss Janet

    Macfariane, Neil

    Alison, Michael

    Fowler, Norman (Sutton C'f'd)

    MacGregor, John

    Amery, Rt Hon Julian

    Fraser, Rt Hon H. (Stafford & St)

    Macmillan, Rt Hon M. (Farnham)

    Atkins, Rt Hon H. (Spelthorne)

    Fry, Peter

    McNair-Wilson, M. (Newbury)

    Awdry, Daniel

    Galbraith, Hon. T. G. D.

    McNair-Wilson, P. (New Forest)

    Baker, Kenneth

    Gardiner, George (Reigate)

    Madel, David

    Banks, Robert

    Gardner, Edward (S Fylde)

    Marshall, Michael (Arundel)

    Bell, Ronald

    Gilmour, Rt Hon Ian (Chesham)

    Marten, Neil

    Benyon, W.

    Glyn, Dr Alan

    Mates, Michael

    Berry, Hon Anthony

    Godber, Rt Hon Joseph

    Mather, Carol

    Biffen, John

    Goodhart, Philip

    Maude, Angus

    Biggs-Davison, John

    Goodhew, Victor

    Maudling, Rt Hon Reginald

    Blaker, Peter

    Goodlad, Alastair

    Mawby, Ray

    Body, Richard

    Gorst, John

    Maxwell-Hyslop, Robin

    Boscawen, Hon Robert

    Gow, Ian (Eastbourne)

    Mayhew, Patrick

    Bowden, A. (Brighton, Kemptown)

    Gower, Sir Raymond (Barry)

    Meyer, Sir Anthony

    Boyson, Dr Rhodes (Brent)

    Grant, Anthony (Harrow C)

    Miller, Hal (Bromsgrove)

    Braine, Sir Bernard

    Gray, Hamish

    Mills, Peter

    Brittan, Leon

    Grieve, Percy

    Miscampbell, Norman

    Brotherton, Michael

    Griffiths, Eldon

    Moate, Roger

    Brown, Sir Edward (Bath)

    Grist, Ian

    Monro, Hector

    Bryan, Sir Paul

    Grylls, Michael

    Moore, John (Croydon C)

    Buchanan-Smith, Alick

    Hall-Davis, A. G. F.

    More, Jasper (Ludlow)

    Buck, Antony

    Hamilton, Michael (Salisbury)

    Morgan, Geraint

    Budgen, Nick

    Hampson, Dr Keith

    Morris, Michael (Northampton S)

    Bulmer, Esmond

    Hannam, John

    Morrison, Charles (Devizes)

    Burden, F. A.

    Harvie Anderson, Rt Hon Miss

    Morrison, Peter (Chester)

    Butler, Adam (Bosworth)

    Hastings, Stephen

    Mudd, David

    Carlisle, Mark

    Havers, Sir Michael

    Neave, Airey

    Carr, Rt Hon Robert

    Hawkins, Paul

    Nelson, Anthony

    Chalker, Mrs Lynda

    Hayhoe, Barney

    Neubert, Michael

    Channon, Paul

    Hicks, Robert

    Newton, Tony

    Churchill, W. S.

    Higgins, Terence L.

    Onslow, Cranley

    Clark, Alan (Plymouth, Sutton)

    Holland, Philip

    Oppenheim, Mrs Sally

    Clarke, Kenneth (Rushcliffe)

    Hordern, Peter

    Page, John (Harrow West)

    Clegg, Walter

    Howe, Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey

    Page, Rt Hon R. Graham (Crosby)

    Cockcroft, John

    Howell, David (Guildford)

    Parkinson, Cecil

    Cooke, Robert (Bristol W)

    Hunt, John

    Pattie, Geoffrey

    Cope, John

    Hurd, Douglas

    Percival, Ian

    Cordle, John H.

    Hutchison, Michael Clark

    Peyton, Rt Hon John

    Cormack, Patrick

    Irvine, Bryant Godman (Rye)

    Pink, R. Bonner

    Corrie, John

    Irving, Charles (Cheltenham)

    Price, David (Eastleigh)

    Costain, A. P.

    James, David

    Prior, Rt Hon James

    Critchley, Julian

    Jenkin, Rt Hon P. (Wanst'd & W'df'd)

    Pym, Rt Hon Francis

    Crouch, David

    Jessel, Toby

    Raison, Timothy

    Crowder, F. P.

    Jones, Arthur (Daventry)

    Rathbone, Tim

    Dean, Paul (N Somerset)

    Jopling, Michael

    Rawlinson, Rt Hon Sir Peter

    Dodsworth, Geoffrey

    Joseph, Rt Hon Sir Keith

    Rees, Peter (Dover & Deal)

    Douglas-Hamilton, Lord James

    Kaberry, Sir Donald

    Rees-Davies, W. R.

    Drayson, Burnaby

    Kellett-Bowman, Mrs Elaine

    Renton, Rt Hon Sir D. (Hunts)

    du Cann, Rt Hon Edward

    King, Evelyn (South Dorset)

    Renton, Tim (Mid-Sussex)

    Durant, Tony

    King, Tom (Bridgwater)

    Rhys Williams, Sir Brandon

    Dykes, Hugh

    Kitson, Sir Timothy

    Ridley, Hon Nicholas

    Eden, Rt Hon Sir John

    Knox, David

    Ridsdale, Julian

    Edwards, Nicholas (Pembroke)

    Lane, David

    Rifkind, Malcolm

    Elliott, Sir William

    Langford-Holt, Sir John

    Rippon, Rt Hon Geoffrey

    Emery, Peter

    Latham, Michael (Melton)

    Roberts, Michael (Cardiff NW)

    Eyre, Reginald

    Lawrence, Ivan

    Roberts, Wyn (Conway)

    Fairbairn, Nicholas

    Lawson, Nigel

    Rodgers, Sir John (Sevenoaks)

    Fairgrieve, Russell

    Le Marchant, Spencer

    Rossi, Hugh (Hornsey)

    Farr, John

    Lester, Jim (Beeston)

    Rost, Peter (SE Derbyshire)

    Fell, Anthony

    Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland)

    Sainsbury, Tim

    Finsberg, Geoffrey

    Lloyd, Ian

    St. John-Stevas, Norman

    Fisher, Sir Nigel

    Loveridge, John

    Scott, Nicholas

    Fletcher, Alex (Edinburgh N)

    McAdden, Sir Stephen

    Shaw, Giles (Pudsey)

    Shaw, Michael (Scarborough)

    Stewart, Ian (Hitchin)

    Walker, Rt Hon P. (Worcester)

    Shelton, William (Streatham)

    Stokes, John

    Walker-Smith, Rt Hon Sir Derek

    Shepherd, Colin

    Tapsell, Peter

    Walters, Dennis

    Shersby, Michael

    Taylor, Teddy (Cathcart)

    Warren, Kenneth

    Silvester, Fred

    Tebbit, Norman

    Weatherill, Bernard

    Sims, Roger

    Temple-Morris, Peter

    Wells, John

    Sinclair, Sir George

    Thatcher, Rt Hon Margaret

    Whitelaw, Rt Hon William

    Skeet, T. H. H.

    Thomas, Rt Hon P. (Hendon S)

    Wiggin, Jerry

    Smith, Dudley (Warwick)

    Townsend, Cyril D.

    Winterton, Nicholas

    Speed, Keith

    Trotter, Neville

    Wood, Rt Hon Richard

    Spicer, Jim (W Dorset)

    Tugendhat, Christopher

    Young, Sir G. (Ealing, Acton)

    Sproat, Iain

    van Straubenzee, W. R.

    Younger, Hon George

    Stainton, Keith

    Viggers, Peter

    TELLERS FOR THE AYES:

    Stanbrook, Ivor

    Wakeham, John

    Mr. Richard Luce and

    Stanley, John

    Walder, David (Clitheroe)

    Dr. Gerard Vaughan.

    Steen, Anthony (Wavertree)

    NOES

    Abse, Leo

    Dormand, J. D.

    Jackson, Miss Margaret (Lincoln)

    Allaun, Frank

    Douglas-Mann, Bruce

    Jay, Rt Hon Douglas

    Anderson, Donald

    Duffy, A. E. P.

    Jeger, Mrs Lena

    Archer, Peter

    Dunn, James A.

    Jenkins, Hugh (Putney)

    Armstrong, Ernest

    Dunnett, Jack

    Jenkins, Rt Hon Roy (Stechford)

    Ashley, Jack

    Dunwoody, Mrs Gwyneth

    John, Brynmor

    Ashton, Joe

    Eadie, Alex

    Johnson, James (Hull West)

    Atkins, Ronald (Preston N)

    Edelman, Maurice

    Johnson, Walter (Derby S)

    Atkinson, Norman

    Edge, Geoff

    Jones, Alec (Rhondda)

    Barnett, Guy (Greenwich)

    Edwards, Robert (Wolv SE)

    Jones, Barry (East Flint)

    Barnett, Rt Hon Joel

    Ellis, John (Brigg & Scun)

    Jones, Dan (Burnley)

    Bates, Alf

    Ellis, Tom (Wrexham)

    Judd, Frank

    Bean, R. E.

    English, Michael

    Kaufman, Gerald

    Beith, A. J.

    Evans, Ioan (Aberdare)

    Kelley, Richard

    Bennett, Andrew(Stockport N)

    Evans, John (Newton)

    Kerr, Russell

    Bidwell, Sydney

    Ewing, Harry (Stirling)

    Kilroy-Silk, Robert

    Bishop, E. S.

    Faulds, Andrew

    Kinnock, Neil

    Blenkinsop, Arthur

    Fernyhough, Rt Hon E.

    Lambie, David

    Boardman, H.

    Fitch, Alan (Wigan)

    Lamond, James

    Booth, Albert

    Flannery, Martin

    Latham, Arthur (Paddington)

    Boothroyd, Miss Betty

    Fletcher, Raymond (Ilkeston)

    Leadbitter, Ted

    Bottomley, Rt Hon Arthur

    Fletcher, Ted (Darlingon)

    Lee, John

    Boyden, James (Bish Auck)

    Foot, Rt Hon Michael

    Lestor, Miss Joan (Eton & Slough)

    Bradley, Tom

    Ford, Ben

    Lever, Rt Hon Harold

    Bray, Dr Jeremy

    Forrester, John

    Lewis, Arthur (Newham N)

    Brown, Hugh D. (Provan)

    Fowler, Gerald (The Wrekin)

    Lewis, Ron (Carlisle)

    Brown, Robert C. (Newcastle W)

    Fraser, John (Lambeth, N'w'd)

    Lipton, Marcus

    Brown, Ronald (Hackney S)

    Freeson, Reginald

    Litterick, Tom

    Buchan, Norman

    Freud, Clement

    Loyden, Eddie

    Butler, Mrs Joyce (Wood Green)

    Garrett, John (Norwich S)

    Lyon, Alexander (York)

    Callaghan, Jim (Middleton & P)

    Garrett, W. E. (Wallsend)

    Lyons, Edward (Bradford W)

    Campbell, Ian

    George, Bruce

    Mabon, Dr J. Dickson

    Canavan, Dennis

    Gilbert, Dr John

    McElhone, Frank

    Cant, R. B.

    Ginsburg, David

    MacFarquhar, Roderick

    Carmichael, Neil

    Golding, John

    McGuire, Michael (Ince)

    Carter, Ray

    Gould, Bryan

    Mackenzie, Gregor

    Carter-Jones, Lewis

    Gourlay, Harry

    Mackintosh, John P.

    Cartwright, John

    Graham, Ted

    Maclennan, Robert

    Castle, Rt Hon Barbara

    Grant, John (Islington C)

    McMillan, Tom (Glasgow C)

    Clemitson, Ivor

    Grocott, Bruce

    McNamara, Kevin

    Cocks, Michael (Bristol S)

    Hamilton, James (Bothwell)

    Madden, Max

    Cohen, Stanley

    Hamilton, W. W. (Central Fife)

    Magee, Bryan

    Coleman, Donald

    Hamling, William

    Mahon, Simon

    Colquhoun, Mrs Maureen

    Hardy, Peter

    Marks, Kenneth

    Concannon, J. D

    Harper, Joseph

    Marquand, David

    Conlan, Bernard

    Harrison, Walter (Wakefield)

    Marshall, Dr Edmund (Goole)

    Cook, Robin F. (Edin C)

    Hattersley, Rt Hon Roy

    Marshall, Jim (Leicester S)

    Corbett, Robin

    Hatton, Frank

    Mason, Rt Hon Roy

    Craigen, J. M. (Maryhill)

    Hayman, Mrs Helene

    Meacher, Michael

    Crawshaw, Richard

    Healey, Rt Hon Denis

    Mendelson, John

    Cronin, John

    Heffer, Eric S.

    Mikardo, Ian

    Cryer, Bob

    Hooley, Frank

    Millan, Bruce

    Cunningham, G. (Islington S)

    Hooson, Emlyn

    Miller, Dr M. S. (E Kilbride)

    Dalyell, Tam

    Horam, John

    Miller, Mrs Millie (Ilford N)

    Davidson, Arthur

    Howells, Geraint (Cardigan)

    Mitchell, R. C. (Soton, Itchen)

    Davies, Bryan (Enfield N)

    Hoyle, Douglas (Nelson)

    Morris, Alfred (Wythenshawe)

    Davies, Denzil (Llanelli)

    Huckfield, Les

    Morris, Charles R. (Openshaw)

    Davies, Ifor (Gower)

    Hughes, Rt Hon C. (Anglesey)

    Morris, Rt Hon J. (Aberavon)

    Davis, Clinton (Hackney C)

    Hughes, Mark (Durham)

    Mulley, Rt Hon Frederick

    Deakins, Eric

    Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen, N)

    Murray, Rt Hon Ronald King

    Dean, Joseph (Leeds West)

    Hughes, Roy (Newport)

    Newens, Stanley

    Delargy, Hugh

    Hunter, Adam

    Noble, Mike

    Dell, Rt Hon Edmund

    Irvine, Rt Hon Sir A. (Edge Hill)

    Oakes, Gordon

    Dempsey, James

    Irving, Rt Hon S. (Dartford)

    Ogden, Eric

    Doig, Peter

    Jackson, Colin (Brighouse)

    O'Halloran, Michael

    1710

    1711

    O'Malley, Brian

    Sheldon, Robert (Ashton-u-Lyne)

    Varley, Rt Hon Eric G.

    Ovenden, John

    Shore, Rt Hon Peter

    Wainwright, Edwin (Dearne V)

    Padley, Walter

    Short, Rt Hon E. (Newcastle C)

    Wainwright, Richard (Colne V)

    Palmer, Arthur

    Short, Mrs Renée (Wolv NE)

    Walden, Brian (B'ham, L'dyw'd)

    Pardoe, John

    Silkin, Rt Hon John (Deptford)

    Walker, Harold (Doncaster)

    Park, George

    Silkin, Rt Hon S. C. (Dulwich)

    Walker, Terry (Kingswood)

    Parker, John

    Sillars, James

    Ward, Michael

    Parry, Robert

    Silverman, Julius

    Watkins, David

    Peart, Rt Hon Fred

    Skinner, Dennis

    Watkinson, John

    Pendry, Tom

    Small, William

    Weetch, Ken

    Penhaligon, David

    Smith, John (N Lanarkshire)

    Weitzman, David

    Perry, Ernest

    Snape, Peter

    Wellbeloved, James

    Phipps, Dr Colin

    Spearing, Nigel

    Welsh, Andrew

    Prescott, John

    Spriggs, Leslie

    White, Frank R. (Bury)

    Price C. (Lewisham W)

    Stallard, A. W.

    White, James (Pollok)

    Price, William (Rugby)

    Steel, David (Roxburgh)

    Whitehead, Phillip

    Radice, Giles

    Stewart, Rt Hon M. (Fulham)

    Whitlock, William

    Rees, Rt Hon Merlyn (Leeds S)

    Stoddart, David

    Wigley, Dafydd

    Richardson, Miss Jo

    Stott, Roger

    Willey, Rt Hon Frederick

    Roberts, Gwilym (Cannock)

    Strang, Gavin

    Williams, Alan (Swansea W)

    Robertson, John (Paisley)

    Strauss, Rt Hon G. R.

    Williams, Alan Lee (Hornch'ch)

    Roderick, Caerwyn

    Summerskill, Hon Dr Shirley

    Williams, Rt Hon Shirley (Hertford)

    Rodgers, George (Chorley)

    Swain, Thomas

    Wilson, Alexander (Hamilton)

    Rodgers, William (Stockton)

    Taylor, Mrs Ann (Bolton W)

    Wilson, Rt Hon H. (Huyton)

    Rooker, J. W.

    Thomas, Dafydd (Merioneth)

    Wilson, William (Coventry SE)

    Roper, John

    Thomas, Jeffrey (Abertillery)

    Wise, Mrs Audrey

    Rose, Paul B.

    Thomas, Mike (Newcastle E)

    Woodall, Alec

    Ross, Stephen (Isle of Wight)

    Thomas, Ron (Bristol NW)

    Woof, Robert

    Ross, Rt Hon W. (Kilm'nock)

    Thorne, Stan (Preston South)

    Wrigglesworth, Ian

    Rowlands, Ted

    Tierney, Sydney

    Young, David (Bolton E)

    Ryman, John

    Tinn, James

    Sandelson, Neville

    Tomlinson, John

    TELLERS FOR THE NOES:

    Sedgemore, Brian

    Tomney, Frank

    Mr. Laurie Pavitt and

    Selby, Harry

    Torney, Tom

    Mr. Thomas Cox.

    Shaw, Arnold (Ilford South)

    Urwin, T. W.

    Question accordingly negatived.

    BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
    Ordered,
    That the Motion relating to Doctors and Dentists may be proceeded with at this day's Sitting, though opposed, until half-past Eleven o'clock or one and a half hours after it has been entered upon whichever is the later.—[Mr. Pendry.]

    EEC (DOCTORS AND DENTISTS)
    10.14 p.m.
    The Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Services (Mr. Alec Jones): I beg to move,
    That this House takes note of the draft EEC Directives on doctors and dentists contained in COM(69) 127 and R/2610/74 and in particular observes that:

    (i) the Directives raise important questions of principle which relate to the special circumstances of medical practice in the United Kingdom;

    (ii) the effect of the Directives on the movement of doctors into and out of the National Health Service is not clear.

    Mr. John Roper: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Irrespective of the propriety of tabling take-note motions with riders attached, I should like your advice on the difficulty which is caused to hon. Members on both sides of the House when a motion of this sort is tabled on the day of the debate, making it extremely difficult for hon. Members to table amendments.
    Mr. Nigel Spearing: Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. May I support my hon. Friend on this matter. I think that the rights of back benchers who hold different opinions have a place in these matters. You will recall that before the Summer Recess in the last Parliament Mr. Speaker heard a point of order concerning amendments from backbenchers to take-note motions. As a result of representations made by the Scrutiny Committee to Mr. Speaker, he changed the procedure and such motions were not only tabled but were selected by him—and indeed some have even been accepted by the Government. Therefore, it would be contrary to Mr. Speaker's ruling, and indeed to the request made by the Scrutiny Committee, if it were not made possible for back benchers to table amend-
    1714
    ments to motions on the day in question. There are more of these provisions to come before the House next week, and I hope that the Government will pursue past practice.
    Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. George Thomas): There are two separate points which have been raised, the first of which is wrongly addressed to me. The timing of a motion on the Order Paper is not my business. My rule is to follow the Order Paper. But on the question of amendments I understand that the hon. Member for Farnworth (Mr. Roper) submitted an amendment but that Mr. Speaker did not select it. I must remind the House that the time spent on points of order comes out of the 1½ hours of debate.
    Dr. J. Dickson Mabon: Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. May I seek an understanding of the situation? Was the manuscript amendment submitted to the Table out of order on grounds of principle or of substance?
    Mr. Deputy Speaker: Mr. Speaker did not select the amendment. Mr. Speaker is not obliged to give his reasons, and if he is not so obliged, certainly I am not.
    Mr. Bob Cryer: Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Could we know what sort of criteria Mr. Speaker uses—
    Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman may raise a point of order, but it is not for hon. Members to question Mr. Speaker's selection of amendments. The House has entrusted Mr. Speaker with that responsibility, which he has exercised.
    Mr. Cryer: Further to that point of order. I am not questioning Mr. Speaker's desire to make a selection, nor his right to do so. I seek an understanding as to what protection Mr. Speaker can afford to back benchers so that the proper democratic procedures can be followed. Clearly, if Mr. Speaker is generally to reject all amendments tabled simply as a matter of principle and will not take back bench amendments, that will not permit back benchers to have a proper and full democratic debate on EEC orders. I appreciate that after the referendum we

    1715
    shall be pulling out of the Common Market and that this problem will not then arise, but until that point is reached. I should appreciate your guidance.
    Mr. Deputy Speaker: To my knowledge, Mr. Speaker has on two occasions selected amendments on the Order Paper and therefore the question of principle does not arise. I must again remind the House that this discussion is eating into the debate.
    Mr. Mike Thomas: Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. May I, too, seek your guidance? It seems to me that some hon. Members appear to have the opportunity of tabling amendments before motions reach the Order Paper, whereas others are not in that situation. Would you rule whether my hon. Friend the Member for Newham, South (Mr. Spearing) is or is not part of the usual channels and whether you have any responsibility for those usual channels.
    Mr. Deputy Speaker: I have been here too long to know much about the usual channels. What little I do know warns me not to make a ruling of any sort in that direction.
    Mr. Alec Jones: At the outset I should like to indicate that the points of order regarding the nature of the motion will certainly be conveyed to my right hon. Friend as soon as the debate is concluded.
    One of the basic principles of the Treaty of Rome is that within the European Economic Community there should be freedom of movement for people and freedom to provide services. There are proposals for a series of directives to be issued by the Council of Ministers which will define the necessary arrangements. Tonight we are debating directives concerning doctors and a related proposal for an advisory committee on medical training. These will be considered by the Council in Brussels next week. They raise important issues in relation to medical education in this country. It must be said that their effect upon movement in and out of the National Health Service certainly is not clear. Because of this, I know that some hon. Members are uneasy. Tonight I hope to explain just how far regard has been paid to
    1716
    our special circumstances and what more we think is needed.
    It is, of course, already possible in many cases for doctors to move from one country to another to practise their profession. The proposed directives would, as required by the Treaty, remove a number of obstacles to free movement of both employed and self-employed doctors. Tonight we are considering only doctors, but the pattern which is developing for the medical profession will have implications for dentists and, indeed, for a number of other professions. The Government have recognised throughout this wider interest which again emphasises the importance of the issues raised.
    The doctors' directives, as now drafted, are the result of considerable detailed discussion by officials of the member States, and many amendments have been made since they were first proposed. As a result, the 1969 document considered by the Scrutiny Committee, and by another place, has undergone many changes. To bring the House up to date, explanatory memoranda were made available on 30th May 1974 and 3rd December 1974. In addition, in October a memorandum was provided on the proposal to set up an advisory committee on medical training.
    Since the accession of this country two years ago my Department has joined in these discussions, most of which have taken place at Council working group level. The Department has been particularly concerned to ensure that account was taken of the special circumstances in this country and that proper regard was had to the need to safeguard the interests of the patient and to ensure a very high professional standard of medicine. There have been frequent consultations between my Department and the General Medical Council, the EEC Committee of the BMA, the Committee of Vice-Chancellors and Principals and the Council for Postgraduate Medical Education.
    I should now draw the attention of the House to a few of the more important provisions. We felt that it was an essential prerequisite that the standards of medical training were satisfactory and comparable between member countries. We therefore pressed and obtained the agreement of other member countries to

    1717
    the inclusion in the directives of basic quality criteria. Originally the criteria were merely quantitative, setting out years and hours of training required. The new quality criteria are intended to be sufficiently flexible to take account of future development in medical training while safeguarding the final standard.
    Here I should like to draw the attention of the House to the part played by the European Standing Committee of doctors in convincing our partners in the Community of the importance of defining the minimum standards of training by reference to quality as well as quantity. Last year Mr. Walpole Lewin, the chairman of the Council of the BMA, was appointed as chairman of the committee and Dr. Derek Stevenson became the secretary general.
    To help to ensure comparability of standards, agreement has been reached on the setting up of an advisory committee on medical training. This committee will exchange information on medical courses, discuss the objectives and review developments in medical training. It will have as members three experts and three alternates from each member State. The three members would be nominated by the Government on proposals made by the practising profession, the universities and the competent authority for registration—in all probability the General Medical Council. Their initial concern will be under graduate education, but the provision of alternates will allow for the inclusion of members with expert knowledge of particular subjects—for example, in postgraduate education. There is also provision for the co-option of other expert opinion.
    We also think it very important that doctors seeking to establish themselves in another country should know something of the practices of that country and should demonstrate their command of the language before setting up practice—a point which is not always appreciated. At this point, I should like to remind the House of the existing arrangements for doctors from overseas. Many, generally those from Commonwealth countries, can apply for full registration as medical practitioners. Such a fully registered doctor could set up in private practice or apply to set up in general
    1718
    practice in the NHS. However, if he wanted to work in hospital, he might be required to undergo a three or four week attachment during which, amongst other things, his ability to communicate would be assessed. Other overseas doctors, including those from EEC countries, may be granted temporary registration which permits them to take up specific hospital posts. But they cannot enter general practice. These temporarily registered doctors may also be required to take an attachment.
    There has for some time been considerable criticism of these arrangements. The House may recall that on 27th November my hon. Friend announced that the GMC was to introduce later this year a new test of linguistic ability and professional competence for all doctors seeking temporary registration. The GMC's powers do not permit it to apply this test to doctors applying for full registration. However, we are expecting the report of the Merrison Committee soon, and this will touch on many aspects relating to the registration of doctors.
    The EEC directives would in effect put EEC doctors on a par with the fully registered. I think it fair to say that one of the concepts underlying the present system of full registration was that it was reasonable to assume—some may doubt this—that English would be a language familiar to the Commonwealth doctor. With all respect to the profession, I do not think it reasonable to assume that all EEC doctors have a good working knowledge of English, nor, indeed, that our doctors are fluent in French, Italian, German or other EEC languages, and certainly not Welsh at this juncture. We would have thought that all countries would want to be sure that a doctor, before practising, could communicate with his patient.
    There are some limits on how far down this road we can go without appearing to discriminate and creating a further barrier, when the removal of barriers is the essential objective of the Treaty and the directives. At present there is a provision in the directives which permits member States to set up information centres where the EEC doctor can be given advice on health and social security laws and professional ethics.
    Following points made by my Department at Brussels, we were able to have

    1719
    this extended. The doctor can now also be advised on how to acquire an adequate knowledge of the language of the country in which he wishes to establish himself. So far as doctors seeking employment in, say, an NHS hospital are concerned, the existing regulations on the freedom of movement of workers within the Community allow language proficiency to be assessed. As regards the self-employed doctor, for NHS general practice there are selection procedures for all established practices where no doubt language proficiency will continue to be taken into account.
    Nevertheless, there is at present no provision which would permit us to assess the language ability of a doctor wanting to enter NHS general practice in an under-doctored area or to engage in private practice. It is considered unlikely that many doctors without an adequate knowledge of English would wish to establish themselves or would attract patients if they did—[HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] I am pleased that on this issue at least, I command the support of my hon. Friends. There are of course here, as elsewhere, pockets of other nationals, and one or two doctors may wish to come to minister to their own nationals.
    In general, doctors who establish themselves in another country will no doubt face many difficulties initially and can be expected to make use of any facilities which are provided to help them. However, I am sure that we ought to pursue this further in Brussels and see what more can be achieved to ensure, if we can, that proper language tests could be universally applied.
    This seems to us consistent, not only with current trends in this country but also with the EEC system, which permits such tests for the employed doctor. Particularly where sickness is concerned, it seems only logical to try to bring the self-employed within the same bounds. I make no apologies for spending some time on this matter. We think it important. But there are other matters to which I should draw attention. I notice again that because of some of the interruptions time is passing far too rapidly.
    The original proposals were firmly against the possibility of part-time post-
    1720
    graduate training. This was understandable because of concern about the possible abuse of such a system. In this country, however, part-time training under proper safeguards is an established part of our system of medical education. It is particularly relevant in the case of married women doctors with domestic commitments. This is vitally important to us because of our large and growing population of women medical students and doctors. Not only would it be a loss to them personally; it would deprive society of a good deal of medical skill.
    I am glad to be able to tell the House that when my Department raised this, other member countries recognised the problem. Approved part-time training will be acceptable so long as the standard is in no way impaired. These arrangements will be reviewed within four years of the adoption of the directives.
    The mutual recognition of qualifications is based on mutual trust and on the assumption that a doctor carries out broadly comparable functions and is trained to an approximately equivalent standard in each member State of the Community. The intention is that in general a doctor who is suitably qualified and allowed to practise in one member country will be accepted and permitted to practise in other member States.
    The General Medical Council—the competent authority in the United Kingdom—would satisfy itself that a doctor wishing to practise here genuinely holds the qualifications which he claims and will then admit him to the register. Normally there would be no reason to interrupt this process. Conceivably, at some time a situation might arise when the competent authority had justifiable reason to doubt whether the medical graduates of a particular teaching establishment had been trained to the required standard. We do not really expect such an event to occur, but if it did arise here the directives provide that the GMC could require of the overseas competent authority confirmation that all the training requirements laid down in the directives had been fulfilled.
    It is also proposed that the Council of Ministers should issue a separate statement which will provide that where a

    1721
    member State has serious doubts that the medical qualifications are based on training which does comply with the minimum standards laid down, they shall inform the European Commission. The Commission will examine the matter as quickly as possible and confirm to the member State concerned that the training standards have been complied with—if that is the case. In such a situation the Commission would be expected to avail itself of the services of the advisory committee. In the meantime we expect that the GMC would defer registration.
    Mr. Neil Marten: I am sure that the hon. Gentleman would welcome a short rest in his speech. What is the exact status of these documents? It seems to me that the Minister has made very sensible suggestions about these documents. Obviously this matter will be discussed in Brussels. Will the Minister give an assurance, however, that when things have been discussed and the documents finalised, they will come back to this House so that we can look at the legislation as it is and so that the House can move amendments to that legislation, when we see it in its finalised form, before the Council of Ministers agrees to it?
    Mr. Jones: The hon. Gentleman will realise that I cannot give that sort of assurance. The assurances I may be able to give on any points raised in the debate will be considered when the meeting is held.
    Mr. Douglas Jay: Supposing a doctor from one of the other member States wishes to practise here, yet the General Medical Council is of the opinion that he does not satisfy these conditions—and the Commission in Brussels believes that he speaks perfect English, although the GMC thinks he does not—what is the situation? Is he qualified to practise here?
    Mr. Jones: We are talking not only of language qualifications, but also of medical qualifications. We expect that, in this situation, the GMC will defer registration until such time as the conditions may be complied with.
    Mr. Jay: Indefinitely?
    Mr. Jones: I would say that "defer" means such period of time until those
    1722
    conditions can be complied with. That is the answer which I gave earlier.
    The directives provide for the situation where a specialist resident in another country is called in to assist in the treatment of a patient where his knowledge and skill would be particularly valuable, and in a frontier region—we do not seem to have many of them in this country, thank goodness—a doctor may wish to cross the border in the course of his normal work. Clearly there needs to be adequate safeguards. The activities of doctors providing services in this way will be subject to the normal disciplinary rules governing the practice of the profession in the country which they are visiting.
    Hon. Members may well ask what is likely to be the result of adopting these directives. As I have already said, the effect on movement of doctors into and out of the NHS is not clear. It would be a very brave man who suggested that with the adoption of directives such as this there could be absolute clarity. The directives do not, of course, affect in any way our existing arrangements for registering and employing doctors from non-member States. As regards the EEC there is already movement between member countries, for the GMC can temporarily register an EEC doctor for practice here, and similar arrangements operate abroad.
    I make this point because when I suggested that we could not give an absolute guarantee of what would be the likely consequences of implementing this directive, if it were implemented—that is not in my hands—obviously nor can anyone give an absolute guarantee of what is happening to numbers of doctors practising in this country now. This country has for a very long time provided postgraduate training for overseas doctors and has as a result quite substantial flows of doctors into and out of the country. With the directives, movement could gradually increase, though there are of course factors which will tend to limit movement. The language barrier alone will, I am sure, be a problem for some time. Clearly we shall need to keep a close watch on trends in this direction.
    I have sought to explain how the United Kingdom objectives in the negotiations were set, given the obligations under the Treaty of Rome. We have already made considerable progress and I have

    1723
    described the ways in which the directives have been modified to take account of our special circumstances. I have suggested what more we should seek. The House will see that steps have been taken to safeguard the public health and maintain proper standards of medicine. The co-operation and efforts of the profession have been of value in helping us to meet these objectives.
    One final point I must make. The directives if agreed would not come into effect for some 18 months so that no action will have been taken pre-empting the outcome of any eventual decision reached on the question of whether this country should remain a member of the Community. Whatever the final outcome of that decision these proposed directives for doctors take proper account of medicine in this country.
    10.40 p.m.
    Mr. Hugh Dykes: I am sure that the House would like me to congratulate the Minister on having so well read out the explanatory memorandum. He made it a little longer by adding one or two points, primarily about the language difficulty, and that was welcome. Whatever one's global views about the EEC, this whole procedure is getting increasingly unsatisfactory. This is perhaps the most difficult example so far, and that is why I sympathise with the Minister's difficulties. But that does not get around the point that the House has to face, irrespective of any negotiation about membership. In an hour and a half, under this special and esoteric procedure, we are debating a momentous decision, the first of the potential harmonisation decisions—"decisions" in the general sense—which I personally support.
    This is a major step. We have had points of order, right or wrong, which took several minutes, and the Minister spoke for some time on the Government's position. There is little time left for other hon. Members to put forward their views on this important matter. Presumably because all this is being examined in the Procedure Committee some of the minutes of evidence of which we shall in due course have, which will show how unsatisfactory these proceedings are, we must make do and mend for now. That is why I do not press the point too much.
    1724
    But hon. Members, whether medical experts or not, are in a great difficulty. We have before us a mix of documents. There are the directives, the most out-of-date documents ever presented to the House under this procedure. They are not even based on any English text officially. They are based on the other foreign language text which has been completely overtaken by events. One understands the validity of EEC documents going to and fro in all the agencies of the Community as proposals are worked out—that is acceptable to many hon. Members—but when a basic document like this is presented on such a complicated matter the House is in great difficulty.
    That is one part of the mix of documents that we are considering. The other is not even a draft directive, as we have seen; it is what is called a Council decision. I think that I am correct in saying that one of its essential elements is that it does not have to be examined by the European Parliament. What we are considering in one composite motion, which has some, to say the least, unusual riders and which was presented at the eleventh hour by the administration, is something which will not be examined by the European Parliament, whether other hon. Members consider that relevant or not, nor by the United Kingdom delegation. There is also another document which, according to the Minister, will be discussed in the Council of Ministers next week. But, again, we are not sure whether there should be scope for some follow-up by the House. I suggest that tentatively.
    Mr. Marten: Since my hon. Friend represents the Conservative Front Bench,—I think that is what he represents—does he agree that this matter, when it is finalised and before it goes actually to be approved by the Council of Ministers, should come back to this House?
    Mr. Dykes: I was not suggesting that I was giving a definite answer one way or the other. It is not for me to answer. It is for the Government to give guidance. My hon. Friend must bear in mind that this is now being considered by the Procedure Committee.
    In the time available, I want to fill out some points made by the Under-Secretary of State by asking some questions

    1725
    as well as making brief observations, which, however, will not do justice to the importance of the matter. Bearing in mind that the directive document is out of date, I hope that the hon. Gentleman will be able to say more about the up-to-date text. We need more information. If he has time, I hope he will deal quickly with what might be needed and the manner in which we can make amendments. My reading is that any amendments would be routine and textually of a minor nature. For example, when will the further proposals on dentists be worked out in detail and brought before the House? This point has not been gone into sufficiently so far.
    All this emanates directly from Articles 52 and 57 of the Treaty of Rome. These govern the future development of professional workers in the Community. Is there not also relevance in the proposals not only to Article 49 as well but to Community Regulation 1612/68 of 15th October 1968, concerning the movement of workers? I am thinking mainly of the general principle in that regulation, but particularly of Article 1, which is largely relevant to the general conditions for, for example, the qualifications of people coming here, based on professional capacity, not least if those qualifications are to be assessed by other than statutory bodies.
    I am anxious to see just how the standards set out so far—apparently in the latest draft directive—which have been described as close to those which our medical profession has wanted all along, are to be developed further once the Council of Ministers has promulgated its decision, presumably next week or shortly afterwards. This is important.
    I add my tribute to the work done by United Kingdom doctors on this document in all the relevant committees. It was an immensely complex task. As a result of their intervention at the appropriate moment—they showed better timing than many politicians—the advisory committee was created. It was almost exclusively due to their work although in saying so I mean no discourtesy to the many other doctors in the Community involved.
    Then there is the question of the anxieties people here would feel about
    1726
    our doctors going to work in the rest of the Community under these proposals, quite aside from the question of salaries. I think the conventional wisdom of the Department would agree that Belgian doctors earn more pro rata than doctors anywhere else in the Community. That is why they are proving difficult about these proposals. They fear an influx of Italian and British doctors, for example. Apart from the salary aspect, the hon. Gentleman should say more about the vital question of doctors in under-doctored and over-doctored areas—again in the context of the sad fact that we have fewer doctors per thousand of population than almost any other of the major Community countries.
    We would also wish to know when the Government last had a formal meeting with the United Kingdom doctors on the standing committee of doctors in the Community. Insofar as the details of that meeting can be made known to the House and the public, what points have come up at the eleventh hour before the Council of Ministers' meeting?
    All this seems to have taken place originally some years before we joined the Community, but it seems to have gone with a tremendous rush in the last few weeks and we shall wish to be satisfied that the rush is justified in view of the underlying importance of this first major exercise in professional harmonisation.
    I refer quickly to Article 48 of the Treaty of Rome referring to public service, to the public sector posts. In the medical context there are some who believe that certain NHS posts come in here. That might be the relevance of the second rider to the Government motion, but we require more explanation of that from the Minister if he can provide it.
    I am puzzled, and perhaps others on both sides are, too, at the registration of qualifications. In the debate in the Upper House on 9th December, the Minister referred to the obvious fact that we have no statutory system of registration. There is no statutory system of registration for medical specialists. That is an important part of the overall picture. In the treatment of registration for visiting doctors or of doctors coming from other countries to settle here we have to have

    1727
    more careful examination than was indicated by the Minister.
    I personally would appreciate a more definitive date for the promulgation of directives, bearing in mind the 18 months' gap.
    I conclude by expressing a broad welcome on behalf of most hon. Members on this side, but not necessarily all. This will undoubtedly pave the way for other major steps in the harmonisation of professional qualifications and standardised procedure for admission and stay in many other professions. Lawyers will be interested to see how things go, bearing in mind how they tend to control these matters. There is a lawyers' impingement on this subject of medical harmonisation. It is not sufficient merely to express a general welcome for this momentous step in this country and the EEC. It is much more important to have more information from the Government.
    10.54 p.m.
    Mr. Roderick MacFarquhar: I listened with great attention to the Minister's speech but I am still trying to ascertain the precise meaning of the riders in this take-note motion. It is true of all legislation that there is great doubt and uncertainty, but I still fail to see the necessity for the riders.
    The problems raised by this legislation are two. Either we should worry about a possible Gadarene rush of British doctors to the fleshpots of Brussels or we should worry about a flood of linguistically and medically incompetent doctors from the Continent attracted by our climate and customs, and of course, our high salaries.
    I shall discuss first the problem of our doctors flooding to the Continent. Anyone who has had dealings with constituents who decide to emigrate realises that it is traumatic for a family to reach that decision, and that the decision is made only in extreme conditions. It will certainly not be made, except under grave provocation, where there is an enormous linguistic problem. But the most important indication that the likelihood of a flood of our doctors to the Continent is small is the fact that it is already possible for them to go to the linguistically safer
    1728
    areas of the United States, Canada and Australia, as many have, to get the better salaries and facilities enjoyed there. Therefore, we should be more concerned about those who go to English-speaking countries.
    As for the possible influx of medically or linguistically incompetent doctors into this country, it seems to me from what my hon. Friend said, and from EEC Regulation 1612 of 1968, that the linguistic problem is relatively small. We can apply tests, and where there are loopholes this country can ensure that the linguistic qualifications are all right.
    Our Department of Health and Social Security has done a great deal of work with regard to medical incompetence in the past couple of years. Whereas there might have been a danger in that regard a few years ago, the proposed creation of the advisory committee, coupled with the further safeguards in the directive, indicate that it is highly unlikely.
    Furthermore, there is the question of salaries. It is highly unlikely that French doctors, for instance, would accept salary cuts of 20 per cent. to 30 per cent. to come to Britain, quite apart from the Belgian doctors, who, we have already heard, enjoy a still better standard of living.
    When we are implicitly making a judgment on foreign doctors, we must take into account the kind of statistics which indicate their competence. On the whole, infant mortality rates in the Common Market countries are about the same as ours. We are certainly not among the top countries. Life expectancy, which we may presume bears some relationship to medical care, if not a total relationship, is also about the same in all the countries. Therefore, we see that any fear that we shall be flooded with medical incompetents is extremely ill-based.
    However, those are negative arguments. If the result of the directives is immigration into this country, it is probably to be welcomed as a net benefit. We are far worse off for doctors per head of population than any other EEC country, with the possible exceptions of Ireland and Luxembourg. We are in no position to scorn foreign doctors. Our National Health Service is totally dependent upon them.

    1729
    In a statement last December the Department gave startling figures. The percentage of doctors in practice in England and Wales born outside Britain or Eire was 11·3 per cent. in 1965. By October 1973 it had risen to 16·5 per cent., and by last October it was 17·4 per cent. In the hospital service the 1965 figure was 29·1 per cent., and in October 1973 it was 34·7 per cent. Furthermore, when making that statement the Chief Medical Officer of the Department of Health stated that in the previous year the number of National Health Service doctors rose by 3 per cent. and that half had been born abroad.
    Mr. Arthur Palmer: For a long time, and particularly in psychiatry, it has been almost impossible to find young British doctors. Does my hon. Friend agree that those who come from overseas, and sometimes from the Commonwealth, often practise a branch of medicine in which language is all important and that they have an imperfect command of English?
    Mr. MacFarquhar: I accept my hon. Friend's point. I suggest that the fears that might be aroused by this directive—namely, either a massive outflow of doctors or a massive inflow of the wrong kind of doctors—are ill-founded. If we are so lucky as to get some competent foreign doctors from the Continent the National Health Service will benefit, as it has already benefited from other foreign doctors.
    I close with a different point. I return to the way in which the directive has been presented. As I have already suggested, there was no point in the riders which my hon. Friend added. They were vague and anyone would take them for granted in discussing this legislation. They add nothing to our debate. Why were the riders inserted? They have been inserted after consultation with whom? I suggest that the proper course to take in these debates—they will be regular debates and there will be late night sittings—is to put forward the directives unamended and without internal riders. If the Government or Members have reservations they should be mentioned in debate. The Government will then be able to go forward with their negotiating position, taking into account the points of view of Members.
    Mr. Marten: Before the hon. Gentleman sits down—
    Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Myer Galpern): Order. The hon. Member for Belper (Mr. MacFarquhar) had sat down. Sir Derek Walker-Smith.
    11.3 p.m.
    Sir Derek Walker-Smith: One thing that emerges from the fasciculus of directives which has prompted these agreeable exchanges this evening is something to which I drew attention in an earlier debate before Christmas—namely, the slow pace of Community legislation. That is not necessarily in itself a bad thing, but it is certainly a slow pace judged even by our legislative pace. It also shows the difficulty of adhering to set programmes.
    I understand that these directives date from March 1969 and derive from the general programme adopted by the Council of Ministers as long ago as December 1961. That programme was designed to achieve freedom of establishment in the liberal professions by the end of the transitional period which was reached as long ago as 31st December 1969. Under the programme approximately 40 proposals for directives were received by the Council from 1967 onwards. They covered doctors, dentists, pharmacists, veterinary surgeons, midwives, nurses, opticians, architects, engineers, tax consultants and lawyers. I need hardly say that I catalogue them in no order of priority in putting the lawyers at the end of the list.
    It is my understanding that none of the 40 or so proposed directives has as yet come into operation. The consequence of that is that the directives which are mandatorily required for the transitional period in Article 54 of the treaty on freedom of establishment and Article 57 on mutual recognition of qualifications were not achieved during the transitional period. Nevertheless, Article 52 of the treaty, which requires in principle the abolition of restrictions on the freedom of establishment, is now operative in nine member States. That was held to be so by the European Court of Justice in the case of Reyners and the Belgian State. For the benefit of our admirable and conscientious Reporters, that is transcribed as Reyners v. Belgian State. In

    1731
    that case it was held to be directly applicable, despite the absence of the necessary directives.
    The result of that is that the first directive which we are considering is no longer operative, is redundant, and we are, therefore, saved the necessity of considering it. The freedom of establishment for these professions is already established in our law under the terms of Article 52 of the treaty as applied by the European Communities Act. If the freedom of establishment for professions is to be good in principle there must be a satisfactory common basis of qualification and training.
    As to this, the second and third directives with which we are dealing here, and which deal with this aspect, are out of date. They are out of date not only because they were made before the enlargement of the Community to nine Member States but also because they have been overtaken by events. They have been overtaken by the recommendations of the Commission's working party, which was assisted by a four-day public hearing of the representatives of the medical profession in October 1973, which was attended by, among others, representatives of the British Medical Association and the General Medical Council as well as representatives from United Kingdom universities.
    The provisions of the third directive as they stand are unsatisfactory, as the Minister has said, because they specify criteria which are quantitative instead of qualitative; that is, they insist on minimum periods of study and training irrespective of the content of the instruction or the results achieved. This point was taken up by the working party, which recommended making the methods as flexible as possible. It said in its report:
    "This increased flexibility might consist in (a) reducing, as much as possible the evocation of quantitative criteria. It would be very advisable in particular that present and future proposals should not include indications on minimum hours of training to be devoted to each subject of the programme. When quantitative criteria are mentioned the total time devoted to training could, for example, be taken into consideration; (b) referring wherever possible to qualitative criteria".
    That must be so and I understand that the Minister already accepts that point.
    1732
    There are two points which I raised in the European Parliament when this matter was debated on 23rd April last, on the resolutions of the working party. The first point concerned disciplinary procedures. I refer to such procedures because the basic ingredients of professional life are, first, a proper qualification to enter, second, an accepted and prescribed code of conduct; and, third, a procedure to enforce that code of conduct. I ask now the question I asked in the European Parliament: is it clear that disciplinary procedures, including the procedures for elimination from the register of those not conforming to prescribed standards, will apply to all Community practitioners in the host country? Will those practitioners simply be subject to the indigenous procedures of the host State or will there be special procedures, and, if so, what procedures, and how much further has that got since the days when the directive was promulgated?
    My second point arises from a matter to which reference has already been made, and that is to the inhibitions of language. Language and other considerations give rise to difficulties of adaptation, particularly with regard to medicine. They are not insuperable difficulties. Those of us with any knowledge of the health service know how many people from overseas are practising here. I well remember in the rather distant days when I was Minister of Health—even more distant than the days of the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell)—that there were many Spanish nurses in the psychiatric hospitals, all doing the job to the best of their ability.
    Nevertheless, language is an obvious difficulty in medicine, and it follows that some period of adaptation is desirable even for doctors who have recognised qualifications in their own country and the right of establishment. But will any period of adaptation be legally possible and admissible?
    That question was also discussed by the working party which, in paragraph 28 of its report, said this:
    "There was a widespread expression of view in favour of a period of adaptation for migrant doctors so as to secure a sufficient familiarity with the language of the host country and the legal and social context in which they would be practising."

    1733
    The report continues:
    "In the opinion of the legal services of the Commission, this would be discriminatory against migrant doctors and thus incompatible with the provisions of the Treaty."
    The report suggested that further consideration should be given to this important matter. A little time has gone by since then. I ask whether that consideration has been given, and, if so, to what effect. Has the matter been reexamined in the legal context from the point of view of the relevance of Articles 56(1) and 66 of the treaty, which, taken together, seem to contemplate the possibility of a dispensation from the right of establishment provisions where considerations of public policy or public health so suggest.
    Clearly, if freedom of establishment is to succeed in any profession, particularly in the sensitive sector of medicine, adaptation periods may be required before immigrant doctors from the Community are entitled to practise in this country.
    Mr. Mike Thomas rose—
    Sir D. Walker-Smith: I am just about to finish, but I will give way.
    Mr. Thomas: I am delighted to hear that the right hon. and learned Gentleman is finishing his speech. Does he agree that all these qualifications apply to the thousands of doctors who are already practising in this country, including the Scots?
    Sir D. Walker-Smith: I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman is suggesting that the Scots speak a language different from our own. It may sometimes sound different but it is the same language. I fail to follow the point of the intervention, and I am sorry I gave way. Courtesy led me astray. I shall not allow it to do so another time.
    There are these further points which require consideration, and on which I hope we shall receive guidance from the Minister.
    Several hon. Members rose—
    Mr. Deputy Speaker: I remind hon. and right hon. Members that the debate must be concluded at 11.44 p.m. Hon. Members may draw their own conclusions on the length of the speeches they make.
    11.14 p.m.
    Mr. Christopher Price: I should first like to congratulate my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State on the funniest piece of "Eurobureaucratese" that the House has ever heard.
    It is important to remember that the inclusion of self-employed professionals in the Treaty of Rome was a last-minute afterthought. The workers having been freedom of movement, the élite realised that they would be left out.
    Sir D. Walker-Smith: It started in 1961.
    Mr. Price: The élite "lump" labour of Europe was included to enable it to move across boundaries. I do not give much account to the scare stories about foreign doctors flooding this country or about us losing all our doctors to other countries. There is already a good deal of movement of professionals in Europe. My objection to the provision in the treaty is that it was unnecessary. Europe would have developed quite sufficiently without such legislation.
    The explanatory memorandum mentions, under the heading of ministerial responsibility, the Secretary of State for Social Services and the Secretary of State for Education and Science. But it is difficult to find anyone in the Department of Education and Science, which has important responsibilities here, who knows anything about this legislation. These various negotiations have been left very much to the professionals and their sponsoring Ministries.
    The greatest danger in this lies in the attempt to make statutory what was in any case a developing movement of professionals. It is in danger of strengthening a number of élite professional monopolies which were in any case going through a period of development, and it will prevent any further sensible development in the health service professions—and, indeed, in the other professions as we come to them.
    Countries all over the world are taking completely different attitudes these days to how they deal with their health service professions. China, for example, is going in for what it calls "barefoot doctors". It is using medical auxiliaries, far more widely than we would think of,

    1735
    as doctors. Russia has a far greater percentage of women doctors—in other words, it promotes its nurses to be doctors far more than we do. In this country, it is almost impossible.
    Without such legislation, that sort of development can go on. What the legislation is doing for the medical profession is establishing it as an extremely dangerous élite within Europe. Presumably, the same will be the case with the other professions later.
    This thing started in 1961 and has been argued over ever since. It started with the absurd business of adding up the hours spent in the lecture room, and so on, and has gradually evolved. It is one of the most nonsensical ideas ever to emerge from the Treaty of Rome. It typifies the complete waste of time which much of the legislation of the EEC represents.
    11.20 p.m.
    Mr. J. Enoch Powell: One thing that has become clear as a result of the debate is that, before these directives attain their final form and are ready to be approved, they will need to come back in that final form for the consideration of this House. I understand why the Under-Secretary is not in a position to give that assurance, but I hope that after the debate he will ensure that in the quarters where these matters are decided that is firmly recorded.
    It was worth while that considerable time should have been spent, even in this brief debate, upon the form of the motion, because almost on each occasion we are in an experimental area. I think that it would be agreed that this form of motion is decidely unsuccessful. Even if the matter were to be done in a more timely fashion than this has been done, a motion should assist hon. Members to prepare themselves to take part in the debate by concentrating upon what, at any rate, the Government consider to be the relevant point.
    No one with this motion before him, even after the most diligent reading of the explanatory memoranda, could have added flesh to the bones or given any substance to these entirely vague propositions (i) and (ii). I mean no disrespect to the Minister when I say that, even
    1736
    after his speech, it was not clear whether they recorded matters on which the Government still required amendment of the directives before they would assent to them or whether they drew attention to subjects of interest which would not be affected one way or the other by the final form of the directive. The situation is unsatisfactory, and I hope that notice will be taken of it for the future.
    If this were our own legislation being passed in the proper legislative form, no doubt many of these matters would be dealt with by a White Paper preceding or accompanying the presentation of the Bill. Then such matters as the possible effect upon the volume of migration of doctors, the details of plans for improving linguistic standards, and so on, could be set out before the House, studied, and brought into the debate in the proper way.
    This evening, granted the brevity of time, it has been impossible to do that. Therefore, when draft directives come before the House, although I would say nothing to discourage the Government—indeed, I wish to encourage them to pinpoint specific matters which in their view require to be resolved for strengthening their hand—they should not repeat this experiment and put upon the Order Paper observations which are so general that they can be of no assistance to hon. Members and can invoke no expression of concrete opinion from the House which would be of value to the Government.
    11.22 p.m.
    Dr. J. Dickson Mabon: I agree with the sentiments expressed by the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell). If there had been added to the motion an item (iii) and an item (iv) saying "God is Love" and "Please adjust your dress before leaving" I should still vote for it, because it would be just as helpful as the two declarations (i) and (ii) that we have here qualifying the motion.
    We are taking note of a Council directive which will become effective next week or a month or two from now because, if the Council of Ministers decides that this is formalised, there shall be set up for the first time in the history of Europe—even medieval Europe—what is in effect a European General Medical Council.
    I need not remind the House of the formation of the General Medical Council

    1737
    100 years ago—to be precise in 1858—and what it meant to Scottish doctors who were denied the right to practise in London, to London doctors who were denied the right to practise in other parts of England, to Irish doctors who were denied the right to practise in England and Wales, and so on.
    We are discussing a document which proposes to set up an advisory committee on medical training and to assist the practice of medicine with its various specialisations. I accept that there are defects in it, including the one relating to disciplinary matters. I concede that to the right hon. and learned Member for Hertfordshire, East (Sir D. Walker-Smith). It is not a perfect document, but it represents a substantial stage forward in harmonising European medical practice.
    The idea that language is a barrier to medicine, of all professions, is absurd. All the great, and indeed lesser, physicians—I declare my interest as a practising physician—have moved about from country to country from time immemorial practising in different areas and giving of their best to humanity. Language was a minor barrier. I ask right hon. and hon. Members to reflect on the number of doctors today in this country who come from many territories and whose mother language is not English, despite their connections with the Commonwealth, and to realise what they do in this country, not only in general practice but in hospital practice and in research. This argument about the language barrier is about as mean as the pusillanimous motion which we are discussing.
    There are difficulties about these matters, I agree, and we shall have to sort them out. But we have to recognise that, despite the history of past events beginning in 1961, this document is dated 10th October 1974. It represents a great deal of hard work by the entire medical profession in this country, representative members of which took an active part in the standing committee. No Government Department invented the document. It was prepared by the medical profession of the nine countries of Europe, but principally by the British medical profession. Give credit where it is due.
    We have sought to create, for the first time, attached to the Commission and the Community, an advisory com-
    1738
    mittee on medical training, and I imagine that advisory committees on other forms of professional training will follow in this form. This has to work. It is not perfect. It will be improved in time. I remind right hon. and hon. Members that in this House 100 years ago the radicals of medicine pioneered the statutory registration of their profession. From the General Medical Council flowed the pattern of regulation of all the other professions thereafter, and it is right that, in the continuing flow of history, we should have this draft directive in European terms.
    I welcome it. I realise that there are defects. But we are making a very big step forward tonight, not only for Europe but for medicine.
    11.27 p.m.
    Mr. Cranley Onslow: I have no intention of disagreeing with a word that was said by the hon. Member for Greenock and Port Glasgow (Dr. Mabon). He put the nub of the matter succinctly, and I hope that the Minister took note of it; his comments on the motion, like those of the hon. Member for Belper (Mr. MacFarquhar) and the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell) were also very much to the point.
    It seems that the Government have such difficulty in getting their supporters into the Division Lobby—or keeping them out of it—on any given occasion that they are having a dummy run for the question on the referendum. They have tabled a motion saying "We have an important matter to discuss, but we cannot tell you what it is about." I hope that they will do better in future when they put important matters of this kind before the House, and not devalue their importance by tabling trivial motions of this kind.
    I wish to ask the Minister two questions and to make one suggestion. First, does he agree that more credit should have been given in his brief to those representatives of the BMA who did the spade work? Dr. Rowe and Dr. Grey-Turner put in an enormous amount of work, and I confess that I was a little taken aback by the self-congratulatory note of the officials in the Minister's brief.

    1739
    Secondly, can the Minister say what is meant by paragraph 5(i) in the supplementary explanatory memorandum? I do not think it means what it says. If it means what it says, I am disturbed by it. I believe that the intention is that there is, or may be, an obligation on member countries not to put barriers in the way of the employment of other nationals in their hospitals. It is not a matter of laying an obligation on them to employ the nationals of other countries, but that is what it says. In future, I hope that we shall have explanatory memoranda which explain.
    I come, finally, to my one proposal. This advisory body will be an important body of some standing in Europe and, I dare say, internationally. When it is set up, it will need a home. I hope that it will not gravitate to Brussels. I do not make a special plea that it should come to London instead. I should like to see it go to Edinburgh, and I can think of many good reasons why it should go there, apart from the fact that I am half Scots myself. When the Minister goes to talk over these important matters in Brussels, I hope he will bear my suggestion in mind, together with the other matters raised in the debate.
    11.30 p.m.
    Mr. Alec Jones: I naturally expected criticism of the procedure and of the type of motion which is before the House. Not being an expert on procedure in this place, I shall do as the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell) mentioned and make sure that the points which have been raised by a number of hon. Members about what they regard as the unsatisfactory nature of the motion are referred to the appropriate quarters. I seem to remember, however, that there have on occasion been other motions to approve or to disapprove something, and they have equally met with the disapproval of hon. Members on both sides. But I do not want to develop that aspect now.
    It seems to me that what we are talking about is acceptance by all hon. Members who have spoken—and, I believe, by all Members in the House—that there is at present a considerable movement of doctors both into and out of this country. By and large, I suppose that as customers
    1740
    of the doctors we dislike the movement out more than the movement in.
    What we have to concern ourselves with this evening, however, is whether the directive which we are discussing has an effect upon that movement in or out which harms the people who are served by the doctors who practise here. At least, we must ensure as far as lies in our power that the directive effectively protects the interests of doctors but, above all, protects the interests of patients in this country.
    That has certainly been the aim of the Government and of all who have taken part in the discussions. I join the hon. Member for Woking (Mr. Onslow), in paying my tribute to the doctors who played a part in this. If the hon. Member felt that my tributes were not sufficiently lavish. I apologise to him for that failure. I would, however, say that, not only tonight but on many occasions, we have indicated to the doctors concerned—indeed, to the whole medical profession—our gratitude for the part they have played in this direction.
    It is because of their activities and advice and the guidance they have given, aided by members who happened to be in my Department, that the directives have been amended and improved considerably from the first draft document. That was what we set out to do. We set out to take the first draft document, take the expert advice available to us and see whether we could improve the directive in such a way as to guarantee that the interests of would-be patients in this country were protected. That is why we believe that even next week it will be necessary for us to go somewhat further, because I do not necessarily agree with everything that has been said tonight concerning language. I believe that the aspect of language is of some importance in this matter.
    Obviously, the major concern of all of us must be with the standards which the directive contains. I think it was the right hon. and learned Member for Hertfordshire. East (Sir D. Walker-Smith) who spoke about a slow pace of movement and suggested that the documents originated in 1969, if indeed he did not go back to 1961.

    1741
    It is true, as I said in opening, that we are talking of a document which saw the light of day in 1969. At that time, however, the qualifications were based on length of training, and it was the considered advice given by the experts, by the members of the medical profession, that mere length of training was not a sufficient guarantee as to the nature of the qualification which these doctors might possess. We felt that it was absolutely essential to ensure that the qualifications should be based on the quality of the training and not only on the quantity. Initially there was reference only to the duration of training and the suggestion of a period of either six years or 5,500 hours. But now, as a result of the discussions and the aid we have received, the medical qualification will guarantee that the doctor has acquired adequate knowledge of the basic sciences and scientific methods, of the structure, functions and behaviour of healthy and sick people, and of clinical disciplines and practices, and that he must also have had suitable clinical experience in hospitals under appropriate supervision.
    Many of us might well have taken that for granted. But those criteria were not in the original directive. It is because the directive has been improved that we are moving the motion this evening.
    I was asked how the medical standards would be promulgated. We envisage that the particular qualifications will be set out in a new schedule to the Medical Acts, when these could be varied from time to time by Order in Council. The detailed requirements as to training will be brought to the attention of universities in much the same way as the GMC makes recommendations today.
    The hon. Member for Harrow, East (Mr. Dykes) talked of registration. In this respect, I mentioned in my opening speech the Merrison Committee. We are expecting a report from that committee very shortly, and the committee will be dealing not only with the qualifications and discipline matters but with the question of registration, and the whole picture of registration of specialists will then be brought forward.
    I was also asked whether the amendments to the Medical Acts would be minor amendments. It will certainly be necessary to amend the Medical Acts, but until the directive is settled I could not
    1742
    anticipate the extent of any such amendments. The Government will have the opportunity of considering also the Merrison Report, as I have mentioned, and it is quite possible that on overseas doctors there will be constructive amendments to be made as a consequence of that report.
    I was also asked by the hon. Member for Harrow, East about dentists. Other hon. Members mentioned the fact that this directive was the forerunner of others. But as far as I am concerned, this evening we are talking about doctors. Although the draft directive as originally published in the Official Journal of the European Communities related to the freedom of establishment and the freedom to practise of dental surgeons as well as medical practitioners, the directives deal now only with the medical profession.
    Once the directives on doctors have been finally approved, it is expected that work will commence in Brussels on draft directives for other professions. I understand that some preliminary discussions have taken place on the pharmaceutical industry, and that exploratory talks are about to take place concerning the nursing profession.
    My hon. Friend the Member for Greenock and Port Glasgow (Dr. Mabon) suggested that language was not a barrier. I am not suggesting that language is a complete barrier. I can well take the point he made that the great physicians of old time never found language a particular barrier. But those great physicians seldom went into many of the under-doctored areas of this country.
    Dr. J. Dickson Mabon: Nonsense!
    Mr. Jones: Seldom. We could argue about it. However, without being disrespectful to the doctors in my locality, for whom I have the highest regard, I do not recall those world-famous physicians visiting Rhondda on many occasions.
    Dr. Mabon: Rhondda is one of the best examples.
    Mr. Jones: I am not suggesting that there is any great conflict. My hon. Friend the Member for Greenock and Port Glasgow spoke of the great physicians. He said that such people would have no difficulty over language. However, that is not the only difficulty

    1743
    with regard to doctors. We must have some regard to the patient. I do not suggest that language is an insurmountable barrier, but it would be folly to suggest that it was no handicap. The majority of people expect, and have the right to expect, when they consult a doctor, whether in general practice or at a hospital, to be able to communicate on a reasonable level. The directive sets out the minimum standards to ensure that that kind of difficulty does not arise.
    Reference was made to paragraph 5.i. of the supplementary explanatory memorandum. I assure the hon. Gentleman that the proposition he suggested is not valid. According to Article 48 of the treaty, the provisions in it relating to the freedom of movement do not apply to employment in the public service. When a doctor from a member State practises in the medical profession in a public hospital, the post carries the status of a public servant. Within three years at the latest after the adoption of the directives, it will be possible for nationals of the other member States to be so employed. No attempt is made to erect a barrier. This will remove the barrier which has been suggested.
    Many points were raised in the debate. Many of them will be referred to at the meeting in Brussels next week. In the meantime, I commend the motion to the House.
    Question put and agreed to.
    Ordered,
    That this House takes note of the draft EEC Directives on doctors and dentists contained in COM(69) 127 and R/2610/74 and in particular observes that:

    (i) the Directives raise important questions of principle which relate to the special circumstances of medical practice in the United Kingdom;

    (ii) the effect of the Directives on the movement of doctors into and out of the National Health Service is not clear.

    STATUTORY INSTRUMENTS (JOINT COMMITTEE)
    Ordered,
    That Mr. Reginald Eyre be discharged from the Select Committee appointed to join with a Committee of the House of Lords on Statutory Instruments and that Mr. Nicholas Fairbairn be added to the Committee.—[Mr. Walter Harrison.]

    STATUTORY INSTRUMENTS (JOINT COMMITTEE)
      ADJOURNMENT
      Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn. [Mr. Coleman.]

    PUBLIC TRANSPORT
    11.42 p.m.
    Mr. Geoffrey Dodsworth: Three months ago I had the opportunity of raising in the House the question of public transport facilities in South-West Hertfordshire. I am glad to have this opportunity of raising the wider question of public transport.
    I very much regret the fact that the occasion is celebrated by another 24-hour unofficial strike on British Rail, which is a source of great concern, inconvenience and considerable irritation to members of the public. However, it might be helpful if I address myself to the changes or events since the last debate and in particular refer to some of the comments of the Under-Secretary of State for the Environment at that time.
    A shift from private cars to public transport is taking place. I referred to that in the original debate. If we refer to page 10 of the First Report of the Expenditure Committee, which dealt with public expenditure on transport, we see it stated that 80 per cent. of all passenger travel is by car, 12 per cent. is by bus and 8 per cent. is by rail. Using the same proportions, the effect of a 10 per cent. reduction in passenger travel by car would be that 18 per cent. will travel by bus and 12 per cent. by rail. That means that on the original proportions a 10 per cent. reduction in the car travelling public represents a 50 per cent. increase in bus and rail travel. This indicates a very serious change indeed, and all the signs we have concerning the increasing costs of fuel suggest that such a transfer is likely.
    This is happening at a time when our transport services are very much under question. It is time that we had a fundamental review of the system. For example, the means of control and operation of the National Bus Company must now be open to question in the light of its achievements in the public interest. As I said, I also believe that the licensing system should be reviewed.

    1745
    We are living in times when the most stringent economies are required and it would be wrong to press for further expenditures, but the operations of the NBC are already in a critical state. Losses of between £10 million and £15 million are anticipated for 1974, and the only way that this can be rectified is by a substantial increase in fares. Operating costs appear to be running at a level which would require a 30 to 35 per cent. increase.
    In the group there are 54 operating companies, employing over 68,000 people and operating over 20,000 vehicles. The theory was that the establishment of the group would provide more rational and co-ordinated bus services. We have had the schedules but not the buses. We have not had the economies of scale. I understand that the NBC needs an injection of £20 million and is likely to increase fares by 30 per cent. in order to meet its day-to-day operating costs.
    I can find no provision in the Public Expenditure White Paper for the period up to 1978–79, Cmnd. 5879, for Government subsidies for the NBC. The amount recorded for 1975–76 is nil and it does not seem from the comments on page 57 that there is any provision in that regard at all. So where is that £20 million to come from? Where is it provided for in the Estimates?
    Another suggestion is that we should rely on the benevolence of local authorities to contribute to the operations of the National Bus Company. All the evidence in my constituency and the reports from other constituencies suggest that local authorities cannot be benevolent or make a substantial contribution. I understand it has been said that the increased costs, which may be 30 to 35 per cent., will mean increased wages and salaries in particular and that as a result we can rely on having an improved service. Indeed, I have seen reports emanating from the National Bus Company suggesting that there had been such an improvement. I therefore undertook a test to see what improvement there had been.
    I am very grateful to St. Joan of Arc School in my constituency in Rickmansworth, which has carried out an informative travel survey, based on the detailed journeys of 301 pupils by bus, covering 13 different departure points. I shall not
    1746
    give all the details at this late hour, but I should like to quote briefly from the survey:
    "If the 15.50 bus is not caught due to connection difficulties, pupil does not arrive home until 18.00 hours.
    All pupils complain of considerable delays, especially in the morning. Waits of 50 minutes are not uncommon.
    Double-decker buses taken out of service have been replaced by single-deckers, resulting in overcrowding.
    Timetable says one bus every 10 minutes. In reality there is one every half-hour.
    Complaints that 100 girls board buses to Watford causing great overcrowding and complaints because the girls are boarding the buses at all,
    90 per cent. of the girls complain about the bus services.
    On another service, there is only one bus an hour and sometimes it does not turn up at all.
    Another disrupted bus service; buses often drive past with passengers waiting."
    On another bus service there is only one service an hour. A disrupted bus service means that passengers are left waiting without the chance of a bus. I could go on, but I shall not do so.
    Some of these matters have been reported to London Country Bus Services. I must put on record the extreme courtesy with which I have been treated by the managing director, the general manager and the area manager, but what my constituents require is not simply courtesy from the management but an improved bus service.
    I have also had the opportunity to raise some of these matters with the chairman of the transport committee of the Greater London Council. Indeed, I was urged to refer complaints to the London Transport Passenger Committee. I can only regard it as a most elegant cul-de-sac for my complaints, but it does not help to solve the problems of my constituents since it means that complaints take even longer to be answered.
    I could go a stage further and say that the chairman of the GLC's transport committee even suggested that a survey showed that because the services were so inadequate they were not being used, and that if they were not required they might be withdrawn altogether. Surely that would merely compound incompetence.
    I fully understand the GLC's problems and I appreciate that there is a deficit of over £2 million on the bus operations

    1747
    of London Transport provided outside the GLC area. I sympathise with that aspect of the matter, but in the present economic climate we can understand the lack of desire on the part of the people of London to support, through the local authorities, the work of the National Bus Company. However, we must appreciate that there is a more fundamental consideration, namely, that we should have a full review of the system.
    I believe that the House should have an opportunity to have a full debate on public transport in all its aspects. Surely we have had enough evidence to tell us that we need to have an overall, full-scale review. One of the best ways for the House to apply itself to this problem is to have not a short debate, such as a half-hour debate, but a full day's debate on this subject. This surely must happen in a situation in which the Government are forcing people to use a public transport service which is inadequate and in some cases non-existent.
    The criteria for issuing licences—the present system is based on the Road Traffic Act 1930—were, first, the desirability of the service, secondly suitability of route, thirdly the existing provisions for the public, and fourthly the needs of the area as a whole in relation to traffic, including appropriate co-ordination of all forms of passenger transport.
    I believe that it is the policy of the National Bus Company, and certainly of London Country Bus Services, to oppose applications for new licences on the ground that they already are providing service in the area or, alternatively, that there is no need. The evidence on that point can be clearly demonstrated. Therefore, it would be helpful if the Minister were to advise or direct that licences should be granted without opposition from nationalised concerns in order to make the fullest possible use of private enterprise concerns. It would still be open to local authorities to represent the public and social view, but the automatic objection should be removed.
    What concerns me at present is that with the development of new road systems, and in view of the London outer orbital route expenditure, we need to have an improved public transport ser-
    1748
    vice Therefore, I am most grateful for this opportunity to air this important subject.
    11.54 p.m.
    The Under Secretary of State for the Environment (Mr. Neil Carmichael): I must first apologise to the hon. Member for Hertfordshire, South-West (Mr. Dodsworth) for missing the first few moments of his speech. I was available in the House but was taken slightly by surprise by the sudden change of subject. I probably knocked down a few of our policemen in trying to get here in time. This is the fourth Adjournment debate I have had in the last five days, and, as they say in another place, we really cannot go on meeting like this.
    The hon. Member has raised a very large subject and has suggested a full day's debate. That can be arranged only through the usual channels and the hon. Member has as much influence on them as I have, particularly in view of the pressure on the parliamentary timetable. We have heard a great deal about transport in the last few months in connection not only with my Department but with the Department of Energy, and debates involving the Treasury have also touched the edges of the subject.
    The hon. Member must be congratulated on his great persistence over the past few months in airing the difficulties which beset public transport. Indeed, faced with the catalogue of misfortunes which have been produced at this and earlier debates I sometimes marvel that public transport operators still keep going at all and doing the best they can against considerable odds. But of course we never hear about the millions of journeys which are made every day by public transport which are perfectly satisfactory. I think we should pay tribute to the people in the industry, at all levels, in what is only too often a thankless task.
    The hon. Member is right to highlight the importance which is attached to reliability both by the travelling public and by the transport operators. The factors affecting the choice between using public transport or the private car are complex. Price, convenience, comfort, reliability and speed are all-important ingredients. But reliability certainly scores highly in studies which have been made of passenger attitudes, and bus operators

    1749
    for their part have found that they have suffered worse passenger loss after a period of unreliable and irregular service.
    There can be no doubt that a bus service has a very short shelf life. If buses do not arrive, they are quickly forgotten about and alternative means of transport are found. Nothing is more frustrating for a prospective passenger than to wait in the cold and rain without any immediate alternative means of transport, uncertain whether the next bus will come in five minutes or in an hour. This sometimes happens, and if it has happened once, the prospective passenger thinks twice about risking it again if there is any other possible choice.
    Unfortunately reliability is also the factor in bus services which is least under the direct control of the bus company. The situation is all too familiar—shortage of spare parts and late deliveries of new vehicles from the manufacturers and suppliers. On that, the Departments of the Environment and of Industry are in close touch with operators and manufacturers to ensure that particular bottlenecks and trouble spots are identified; and the operators and manufacturers by their nature have a close working relationship—which is not to deny that things clearly go wrong in particular cases. Again, staff shortages mean that vehicles cannot always be maintained properly or, if fit for the road, that they lack drivers and crews. The position here is patchy and varies a lot over the country as a whole and from time to time.
    On top of that, traffic congestion can disrupt schedules and leave huge gaps in the timetable. The key here lies in the response of local authorities and the extent to which they are ready to adopt policies that would transfer more passengers from private transport. There is a lot of scope for more vigorous bus priority traffic management and for spreading the peak.
    I am sure that the hon. Gentleman knows the figures well enough. In 1950 there were 16,000 million passenger bus journeys, and the number of cars licensed was 2 million. By 1960 the number of passenger bus journeys had dropped to 13,000 million and the number of cars licensed had risen to 5·6 million. By 1970 the picture was serious—9,000 million passenger bus journeys and 11·6 million cars licensed. The number of
    1750
    journeys was down by nearly half in 20 years, and the number of cars on the road was up fivefold. All operators have been hit, but rural operators and operators on the periphery of the big cities have been hit worst of all.
    Bus operators have shown a readiness to experiment, and the Government have sponsored a number of bus demonstration projects illustrating ways in which bus operators and local authorities can help each other to improve bus services. There are all sorts of possibilities—bus lanes in comprehensive traffic management schemes, such as that at Reading; the use of minibuses in pedestrianised shopping areas, as in Leeds, Norwich and one or two other places; experiments with radio and television control, as in Leicester; the super-bus experiment in Stevenage, in which I have taken part; and, in my opinion the most exciting, the dial-a-ride service in Harlow. That is a two-year experiment being conducted by the local authority and the county council with help from the Department and from the Transport and Road Research Laboratory. I know that Hertfordshire County Council has been forward-looking in encouraging experiments.
    Overall, I must stress that responsibility for co-ordinating public transport provision to meet the needs of the area rests with the county councils under Section 203 of the Local Government Act 1972. This reinforces the point that transport cannot be looked at in isolation. The planning of transport must be intimately linked with plans for the provision of housing, jobs, schools, shops and recreation. These are not topics that can be dealt with by a single enormous blueprint. The problems and their solutions and the pattern of demand vary from place to place, and can be dealt with only in the context of each place and in response to the needs of the community as a whole.
    That is why the Government attach such importance to the preparation of transport policies and programmes prepared by the new county authorities. This gives an opportunity for local choice, unbiased by such considerations as whether particular activities attract high or lower rates of grant, on the strategy for the whole range of local transport activities

    1751
    —roads, buses and traffic. The new system should set the right framework for decisions about the proper level of public transport in any particular area. It would be rash, however, to assume that within this framework it is possible to press a switch and achieve a magical transformation scene. There is a tremendous uphill battle ahead if public transport is to play its full and proper rôle. We must carefully consider the lessons we have already learnt. I agree with what my right hon. Friend the Minister for Transport told the hon. Gentleman in reply to a Question. I would welcome a full day's debate on transport—if nothing else, it might clear up some of the problems we are tending to get in Adjournment debates—but there is no doubt that we know enough about transport, apart from the problems of the sudden fivefold increase in the price of crude oil. The difficulty is to get the machinery and the resources to get rid of some of the problems that we know about.
    One point that the hon. Gentleman raised—
    Mr. Ivan Lawrence: On the question of an overall integrated transport system, may we have some indication that the Government are seriously considering something like a two-tier pricing system for private motorists who are not able to take advantage of public transport? On the question of pushing a button or things happening quickly, may we have an undertaking from the Minister that the Hodges Report on school buses will be implemented much more speedily than appears likely at present?
    Mr. Carmichael: On the hon. Gentleman's first point, I am not trying to hide behind the old formula but that is a matter for my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer. One of the Treasury Ministers some weeks ago took an Adjournment debate on the cost of petrol and the implications in rural areas. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Energy has also dealt with that matter. The Government are very concerned about the recent increases in petrol costs. Many examples are being given to the Government, and they are being urged to accept many different
    1752
    propositions. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Energy is considering them all together with the Chancellor and the other Departments which will be involved. The Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food will be concerned with the situation in rural areas.
    In a recent Adjournment debate I said we must always remember that this is a matter that concerns not only the rural areas. For example, shift workers in cities where there is no all-night transport are in exactly the same position. It may seem easier to travel 10 miles across a city, but the problem is just the same as travelling 10 miles along a country lane if there is no transport available.
    I was about to deal with school buses. I think the House will be aware that proposals for a relaxation of licensing were contained in the Bill introduced by the right hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr. Peyton) when he was Minister of Transport. When my right hon. Friend the present Minister for Transport brought forward his Bill, that was omitted. It was not that we felt that such a change was not necessary. We appreciated the problem and we received representations from both sides of industry. We had to be extremely careful.
    It is correct to say that licensing was introduced in 1930 because of the great dangers to the public presented by the "pirate" buses and the risks taken by private operators. No one is anxious nowadays to run a bus service. That is where I differ from those who try to suggest that private enterprise could do a better job than the nationalised buses. I do not think that the National Bus Company would object if private enterprise came along to take over a bus service.
    Unfortunately, most people who come along want to take only the cream and to leave the rest. That is part of the problem. Further, there would be no obligation to provide continuity. There must always be some form of responsibility. That applies to services such as school buses. I am making an investigation into the question of how we can use the available resources in the country areas, including an extension of the postal bus service. I understand from my colleagues in the Scottish Office that

    1753
    there is to be a large extension of the postal bus service over the next few years.
    There is also the question of whether school buses should be allowed to pick up other passengers. When I began looking at this problem I thought that it was something which could be dealt with within 10 minutes. I have met representatives from the West Country and from London, and next week I shall be seeing representatives from the North of England. I assure hon. Members that people who have had experience of this issue—this has nothing to do with politics—have cautioned me about it. Everyone wants to do something, but to
    1754
    find the right formula is difficult. We realise that something must be done.
    I commend the hon. Member for his enterprise in getting the girls of St. Joan of Arc School to do the survey. I should be interested to see it, because we like to keep up to date in the Department. At the end of the day the responsibility for public transport—delegated by the Government through grants and all the rest—lies with the local authorities. They must organise transport in their areas in the way best suited to local people.
    Question put and agreed to.
    Adjourned accordingly at eleven minutes past Twelve o'clock.

AGRICULTURE FISHERIES AND FOOD
  Sheep
  Sheep
  Wheat
  Wheat
  Calf Subsidy
  Calf Subsidy
  Eggs
  Eggs
NATIONAL FINANCE
  EEC Subsidies
  EEC Subsidies
  Oil Costs (Ditchley Park Discussions)
  Oil Costs (Ditchley Park Discussions)
  Special Commissioners of Income Tax
  Special Commissioners of Income Tax
  Capital Transfer Tax
  Capital Transfer Tax
  Unemployment Benefit
  Unemployment Benefit
FOREIGN AND COMMONWEALTH AFFAIRS
  Luxembourg Compromise Arrangement
  Luxembourg Compromise Arrangement
  Mr. Ghayth Nabib Armanazi
  Mr. Ghayth Nabib Armanazi
  Ministerial Appointments
  Ministerial Appointments
EMPLOYMENT
  Social Contract
  Social Contract
  Wales
  Wales
  Manpower Services Commission (Scotland)
  Manpower Services Commission (Scotland)
  Unemployed Persons
  Unemployed Persons
  Wages
  Wages
  Hull
  Hull
  NEWSPAPER CONFERENCE (PRIME MINISTER'S SPEECH)
  NEWSPAPER CONFERENCE (PRIME MINISTER'S SPEECH)
  LOCAL AUTHORITY ASSOCIATIONS
  LOCAL AUTHORITY ASSOCIATIONS
  PRIME MINISTER (OVERSEAS VISIT)
  PRIME MINISTER (OVERSEAS VISIT)
  PRESIDENT FORD (TALKS)
  PRESIDENT FORD (TALKS)
  LABOUR RELATIONS
  LABOUR RELATIONS
  BALLOTING PROCEDURES
  BALLOTING PROCEDURES
  SCOTTISH TUC (TALKS)
  SCOTTISH TUC (TALKS)
  TRANSPORT VEHICLES
  TRANSPORT VEHICLES
  CARDIFF
  CARDIFF
HOME DEPARTMENT
  Picketing
  Picketing
  Immigration
  Immigration
  British Broadcasting Corporation
  British Broadcasting Corporation
  Fraud Squad
  Fraud Squad
  Prisoners' Families (Visits)
  Prisoners' Families (Visits)
  Solitary Confinement
  Solitary Confinement
  British Citizens (Passport Control)
  British Citizens (Passport Control)
  Shrewsbury
  Shrewsbury
  Police (Recruitment)
  Police (Recruitment)
  Police (Foot Patrols)
  Police (Foot Patrols)
  Juvenile Offenders
  Juvenile Offenders
  British Women (Children's Nationality)
  British Women (Children's Nationality)
  Milton Keynes (Television Station)
  Milton Keynes (Television Station)
  Conspiracy Laws
  Conspiracy Laws
  Marriage Guidance Council (Grants)
  Marriage Guidance Council (Grants)
  Excluded Persons
  Excluded Persons
  Mr. Ghayth Nabib Armanazi
  Mr. Ghayth Nabib Armanazi
  Illegal Immigrants
  Illegal Immigrants
  Sex Discrimination
  Sex Discrimination
  Public Buildings (Terrorist Attacks)
  Public Buildings (Terrorist Attacks)
  Truancy (Lambeth)
  Truancy (Lambeth)
  Fire Precautions Act 1971
  Fire Precautions Act 1971
  Bookmakers
  Bookmakers
  Detective Superintendents and Inspectors
  Detective Superintendents and Inspectors
  Diplomatic Missions (Parking Offences)
  Diplomatic Missions (Parking Offences)
ENVIRONMENT
  Mr. Henry Mason, Godmanchester
  Mr. Henry Mason, Godmanchester
  Architects
  Architects
  Home Loss Payments
  Home Loss Payments
  Sparks Farm, Cuckfield
  Sparks Farm, Cuckfield
  Trees
  Trees
  Roll-on/Roll-off Freight
  Roll-on/Roll-off Freight
  Ribble Valley
  Ribble Valley
  M5 (Huntwater-Blackbrook)
  M5 (Huntwater-Blackbrook)
  Scala Theatre Development Proposal
  Scala Theatre Development Proposal
  New Towns (Consultation Paper)
  New Towns (Consultation Paper)
  New Towns (Housing and Land Sales)
  New Towns (Housing and Land Sales)
  Palace of Westminster (Lighting)
  Palace of Westminster (Lighting)
  Parliamentary Car Park
  Parliamentary Car Park
  UNSOLICITED GOODS AND SERVICES
  UNSOLICITED GOODS AND SERVICES
  LEGAL AID
  LEGAL AID
ENERGY
  Gas and Electricity Tariffs
  Gas and Electricity Tariffs
  Electricity Consumers
  Electricity Consumers
  British Petroleum Shares
  British Petroleum Shares
  Radioactive Waste
  Radioactive Waste
INDUSTRY
  HS146 Aircraft
  HS146 Aircraft
  Rolls-Royce (1971) Ltd.
  Rolls-Royce (1971) Ltd.
  Short Bros. and Harland Ltd.
  Short Bros. and Harland Ltd.
  Electricity Industry (Foreign Borrowing)
  Electricity Industry (Foreign Borrowing)
NORTHERN IRELAND
  Textiles (Departmental Purchases)
  Textiles (Departmental Purchases)
  Gardiner Report
  Gardiner Report
  Sinn Fein (Talks)
  Sinn Fein (Talks)
OVERSEAS DEVELOPMENT
  EEC (Enlargement)
  EEC (Enlargement)
SCOTLAND
  Dogs
  Dogs
SOCIAL SERVICES
  Hypothermia
  Hypothermia
  Public Bodies
  Public Bodies
  Staffing (Edinburgh)
  Staffing (Edinburgh)
  Hospital Waiting Lists (Walsall)
  Hospital Waiting Lists (Walsall)
  Family Endowment
  Family Endowment
  Food Subsidies
  Food Subsidies
TRADE
  European Economic Community
  European Economic Community
  Air Traffic Beacon (Barkway)
  Air Traffic Beacon (Barkway)
  Japan (Motor Vehicles)
  Japan (Motor Vehicles)
  Trawlers (Voyage Recorders)
  Trawlers (Voyage Recorders)
  Textiles
  Textiles
  Exports and Imports
  Exports and Imports
  Oil Imports
  Oil Imports

Preamble
The House met at three of the clock: The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
Prayers—Read by the Lord Bishop of Ripon.

VOLUNTARY ORGANISATIONS
Lord ABERDARE: 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 which Minister is responsible for the co-ordination of Government policy in regard to voluntary organisations.
The MINISTER of STATE, HOME OFFICE (Lord HARRIS OF GREENWICH): My Lords, my right honourable friend the Home Secretary has this responsibility.
Lord ABERDARE: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that during the time when we were in Government we had a specific Minister in charge of liaison with voluntary bodies, and this worked very successfully? Would the noble Lord consider whether something similar should exist now? Is he aware that the voluntary bodies themselves are feeling this lack and are not aware, so far as I know, that the Home Secretary has this special responsibility, and are feeling somewhat neglected?
Lord HARRIS of GREENWICH: My Lords, I should be slightly surprised if that was the view of most voluntary organisations, because I spend a great deal of time, and so do officers of the Voluntary Service Unit, in discussion with officers of voluntary organisations. The situation is exactly as it was in the time of the Government of noble Lords opposite, when the noble Lord, Lord Windlesham, was involved. I am responsible for the day-to-day activity in this area, and am responsible to my right honourable friend the Home Secretary. I do not think there is lack of awareness in most voluntary organisations, although inevitably some may be unaware of the
978
existing situation ; and it is helpful that this matter has been raised this afternoon.
Lord ABERDARE: My Lords, will the noble Lord consider making a statement at a suitable moment or issuing a report on what is happening in this Unit within the Home Office, to explain to those voluntary bodies that are not aware that this matter is being carefully looked into?
Lord HARRIS of GREENWICH: My Lords, I will certainly have a look at that point. We had a seminar with a substantial number of voluntary organisations only in December to discuss some of the financial problems now facing voluntary organisations. But I entirely agree; we have a responsibility to make sure that we do the best we can to make people aware of our existence, and I will certainly look at that point.
Lord HAILSHAM of SAINT MARYLEBONE: My Lords, would it be helpful if the noble Lord added to his title by which he is honourably known as a Minister in this House, the title of, "Minister with Special Responsibility for Voluntary Organisations" so that everybody would know where and to whom to go?
Lord HARRIS of GREENWICH: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble and learned Lord for that suggestion, and I will certainly draw it to the attention of my right honourable friend. I think it will be a matter to be determined at a rather more eminent level than my own.
Viscount MONCK: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord whether it is true that the Home Office is responsible for all voluntary organisations? Is not the Department of Education responsible for some?
Lord HARRIS of GREENWICH: No, my Lords. The Question of the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, dealt with co-ordination, and that is the area for which my right honourable friend the Home Secretary is responsible. There is a day-to-day contact between officers of the Voluntary Service Unit and a network of liaison officers which exists in most of the Government Departments dealing regularly with voluntary organisations.
Baroness ELLIOT of HARWOOD: My Lords, may I ask whether Mr. Hart,

979
who I understand is Director of the Unit the noble Lord is speaking of, has responsibility for other Government Departments, excepting only the Home Office, and voluntary organisations which might well be helped by other Government Departments as well?
Lord HARRIS of GREENWICH: No, my Lords, the head of the Unit is responsible in the first place to me. His second responsibility, as I indicated in my reply to the last question, is to keep day-to-day contact with this group of liaison officers which exists at Assistant Secretary level in each of the major social service Departments. That is really his responsibility.
Lord LEATHERLAND: My Lords, does my noble friend agree that many of the relationships of these voluntary organisations with public affairs are through the county and local district councils, and that those relationships are most harmonious?
Lord HARRIS of GREENWICH: My Lords, I am glad to hear it.
Lord GORE-BOOTH: My Lords, is the Minister aware that voluntary organisations will be very grateful for his explanation? Is he also aware that any announcement will need very careful drafting in the light of various questions, and that this will be attended to?
Lord HARRIS of GREENWICH: Yes, my Lords. It would perhaps be right for me to say at this juncture that I think we have a clear responsibility to make our existence common knowledge through the voluntary organisations which may not know of the existence of this Unit. But I should not leave anyone under any impression that there were very substantial additional Government resources available for the purpose of assisting voluntary organisations; there are not. The funds at our disposal are fairly limited, and at the moment we are applying them to assist some of the most useful voluntary organisations which are suffering quite severely as a result of inflation.

PORTUGAL: UK INTERESTS
3.13 p.m.
Lord ORR-EWING: 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 steps they are taking to safeguard British persons and property in Portugal.
The PARLIAMENTARY UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE, FOREIGN and COMMONWEALTH OFFICE (Lord Goronwy-Roberts): My Lords, the protection of British lives and property is always in the first instance the responsibility of the local authorities. In Portugal, as elsewhere, we will make any representations that are necessary, but we have no reason to suppose that British lives or property are endangered.
Lord ORR-EWING: My Lords, will the noble Lord give the House some indication of the number of British business people and retired people living in that country? Furthermore, is the noble Lord aware that the democratic Parties—apart from the non-democratic Communist Party—have now been deprived of their rights of assembly, and that the hopes which many of us have of reestablishing democracy in that country are rapidly in danger of total extinction?
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, on the first point, the total number of British nationals resident in Portugal for various reasons on 1st March was 5,837. I have no separate figures for the business community, but I will seek to provide that information for the noble Lord and the House. On the second question which the noble Lord raised, I do not think we should jump to the conclusion that the right of assembly is yet in serious danger in Portugal. Recently, there have been certain encouraging signs, especially the precautions taken on 31st January, which indicate that the Portuguese Government understand very well the need to protect the essential democratic freedoms of speech and assembly.
Baroness ELLES: My Lords, in view of the recent events in Portugal and the failure of the authorities to keep order

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at a recent conference, could the Minister give this House any information as to the attitude of Her Majesty's Government towards giving help to the Central Democrat and Social Party and other centre and moderate Left-Wing Parties, in order that they may be able to survive and take part in the free democratic elections which are ostensibly to be held in April? If not, is there not a danger of a complete Communist take-over, with the threat not only to Portugal itself but to the vital interests both of the United Kingdom and of Western Europe as a whole?
Lord GORONWY-ROBERTS: My Lords, Portuguese law now forbids the subvention of Portuguese political Parties from outside. However, there is every reason and considerable opportunity for democrats in other countries of whatever Party persuasion to indicate appropriately, by visits and otherwise, to the Portuguese people and Government the support that exists for the strengthening of the new democratic rÉgime, of whatever Party, in that country. In fact, my right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary is paying a visit to Portugal today and tomorrow, and I think that this will be regarded as a very clear and strong indication of the support by all Parties in this country for what the Portuguese people and Government are trying to do; namely, to set up a proper democracy. Also, we welcome very much the visits to Portugal by representatives of political Parties represented in our own Parliament. It is unfortunate but by no means conclusively fatal that the events in which the noble Baroness played a distinguished role took place. As I said on 31st January, partly as a result of the lesson learned from the events in which she found herself involved, the Portuguese Government have taken steps effectively, as we now see it, to maintain the essential freedoms of speech and assembly.

INDUSTRY: FUTURE OF THE PUBLIC SECTOR
3.15 p.m.
Lord CAMPBELL of CROY: 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 it is their policy to reduce the private sector of British industry in relation to the public sector.
The MINISTER of STATE, DEPART-MENT of INDUSTRY (LORD BESWICK): My Lords, the Government have made it clear that they are committed to a mixed economy in which the private sector is vigorous, alert and profitable. Within that economy there will be, as stated, an extension of public enterprise. If it is in the national interest that financial assistance should be given to particular firms, the nation must have a right to seek a share, if it so wishes, in the equity of those firms. This will be done through the medium of the National Enterprise Board.
Lord CAMPBELL of CROY: My Lords, are the Government concerned about the speech which was made by the Chairman of the Confederation of British Industry two days ago in which he expressed anxiety about the Government's proposals for industry and warned that they could mean the end of the private sector as we know it today and also that they would mean higher unemployment?
Lord BESWICK: My Lords, of course one always takes into account what is said by the President of the CBI. My view is that he is under a misapprehension and that view has been expressed to him.
Viscount MASSEREENE and FERRARD: My Lords, does not the noble Lord agree that it would be very detrimental to the standard of living of the people if the Government further reduced the private sector of British industry? After all, does not the noble Lord agree that it is the profits from the private sector that provide the real wealth which goes to subsidise the enormous losses of the public sector of industry?
Lord BESWICK: My Lords, it depends what the noble Lord has in mind when he talks about "real wealth" ; but if he looks at it in terms of goods and services he will see that this country would have been in a bad way indeed had there not been public enterprise in this country.
Lord WADE: My Lords, without going into the complexities of the last question, may I ask the noble Lord whether he would agree that the position must be made as clear as possible? Therefore, may I ask him whether he would agree that at the present time, particularly when confidence is so important, it should be made clear that there will not be an increase in the public sector at the expense of the private sector purely for ideological reasons?
Lord BESWICK: It is my view, my Lords, that most of us are getting too much worked up about the public as against the private sector. I think it would be a good thing if we spoke in terms of productive sectors; and if we can get more productivity one way than another, that is the line we should pursue.
Lord HARMAR-NTCHOLLS: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that if the President of the CBI is under a misapprehension a lot of other people are under the same misapprehension, and particularly people outside this country whose investment is vital to us to meet the challenge of the future?
Lord BESWICK: My Lords, in the first place I made that statement because I had seen it stated—I will not say by the President of the CBI but certainly by some commentators—that the Industry Bill now before Parliament gives unlimited power to my right honourable friend compulsorily to acquire equities in companies ; and that just is not true. The NEB will not be able compulsorily to acquire equities of private companies. There is a good deal of misapprehension and I am personally in favour of having a proper discussion in this House as to what is involved. I would add this, in reply to the noble Lord: there are difficulties at the present time but he is grossly mistaken if he thinks they are difficulties that have arisen only in the last 12 months.
Lord HAILSHAM of SAINT MARYLEBONE: My Lords, while paying tribute to the anxiety of the noble Lord not to get worked up, may I ask whether he would tell his right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Industry that perhaps he is doing some of the "working "?
Lord BESWICK: Well, that is not a bad thing, my Lords.
Lord PANNELL: My Lords, will the noble Lord tell us what is to happen when we find that day by day and week by week the private firms of this country are coming to the Government to be bailed out?
Lord BESWICK: My Lords, it is a fact that a number of people in this country—skilled management—are more concerned with getting investment capital than about the ownership of that capital, and if it can come only from public concerns they are glad to get it.
Lord ORR-EWING: My Lords, will the noble Lord tell us where the £2,000 million from the NEB is coming from? And if it is to come from public funds, why was this sum not included in the public expenditure programme for forthcoming years?
Lord BESWICK: My Lords, it will come from public funds. It has not yet been approved by law.
Lord HAILSHAM of SAINT MARYLEBONE: My Lords, if in fact private concerns do come for working capital in the manner suggested by the noble Lord below the gangway opposite, may it not be in part due to the taxation policy pursued by the present Chancellor of the Exchequer?
Lord BESWICK: My Lords, if it is to do with taxation policies, then the taxation policy of the previous Conservative Administration must have been pretty poor, because it was at the time that they took over that the investment in this country began so decidedly to drop.
Lord SHINWELL: My Lords, may I ask my noble friend to explain one thing? In this matter of taking over private industry for ideological purposes, can he recall any occasion when an industry was taken over for that purpose? Was it not a fact that they had to be taken over, otherwise the position would have been more calamitous?
Lord BESWICK: My Lords, personally I have a high regard for ideology. I remember when we took over the coal industry, that was for an ideological

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reason; it was for the good of the country.
Lord BROCKWAY: My Lords, may I ask the Minister whether it is not wrong to use the phrase "private sector" when a hundred companies control 75 per cent. of the manufactures of this country? Is it not the case that it is not individual enterprise but great corporations which now dominate our economy?
Lord BESWICK: My Lords, that is a point of view which is accepted by many people. I myself think it is a mistake to speak in the way we do about the private sector, because a great deal of the so-called private sector depends so much upon public funds.
Lord DAVIES of LEEK: My Lords, will my noble friend take no notice of the brouhaha of the Liberal Party, whether from Liberal Lords or others, because my noble friend may or may not be aware of the fact that His Grace the Duke of Sutherland in 1885 accused the Liberal Party of being in the pay of Russia? Secondly, is he aware that the Conservative ideology is such that they still believe private enterprise is in the 19th century, when it is now a co-operation between capital and the people who are trying to discover a formula for the new methods of production?
Lord BESWICK: My Lords, I give my noble friend a categorical assurance that from now on I will take no notice of the brouhaha.
Lord HARVEY of PRESTBURY: My Lords, in considering this matter will the noble Lord take into account the tens of thousands of shareholders in this country in concerns like ICI and Courtaulds, many of them small investors with life savings involved? These and also trade union pension funds and other pension funds all have to be considered as the country's wealth, and the Secretary of State is playing around with the whole future of this country's economy.
Lord BESWICK: My Lords, I think the noble Lord ought not to say what he did in the latter part of his question. The fact of the matter is that pension funds and some of the trade union funds are taking a beating now and there is great anxiety. No one is using this area
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as a playground. It should give us all cause for serious concern.
The Earl of ONSLOW: My Lords, is the noble Lord saying that the fall in capital values has nothing to do with Her Majesty's present advisers?
Lord BESWICK: My Lords, what I am saying is that the difficulty we now face did not begin with the present Labour Government, and anyone who thinks it did gravely misunderstands the basic changes that have taken place in the Western World in the last few years.
Viscount MONCK: My Lords, in the hope of bringing this Question to an end, would the noble Lord allow us to congratulate him on the many replies he has given, which I think are excellent, especially in view of the heavy cold from which he is obviously suffering?

HOUSING RENTS AND SUBSIDIES (SCOTLAND) BILL
Brought from the Commons ; read la, and to be printed.

HOUSING RENTS AND SUBSIDIES BILL
Baroness BIRK: My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper.
Moved, That it be an instruction to the Committee of the Whole House to whom the Housing Rents and Subsidies Bill has been committed that they consider the Bill in the following order, viz.:—

Clauses 1 to 4 ;

Schedule 1 ;

Clauses 5 to 8 ;

Schedule 2 ;

Clause 9;

Schedule 3 ;

Clauses 10 and 11 ;

Schedule 4 ;

Clauses 12 to 15 ;

Schedules 5 and 6.—(Baroness Birk.)

On Question, Motion agreed to.

EDUCATION (AMENDMENT) BILL [H.L.]
3.29 p.m.
Lord CLIFFORD of CHUDLEIGH: My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now resolve itself into Committee on this Bill.
Moved, that the House do now resolve itself into Committee.—(Lord Clifford of Chudleigh.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly.
[The EARL OF LISTOWEL in the Chair]
Clause 1 [Option to purchase property of educational foundation by local communities] :
On Question, Whether Clause 1 shall stand part of the Bill?
Lord ELTON: I wish to detain the Committee only briefly at this stage, but I think your Lordships will agree that we left the Second Reading of this Bill under the impression that there were to be conversations between the Promoters of the Bill and the representatives of the Church Commissioners under, one hoped, the aegis of the Government. Since no amendments have since been tabled to the Bill, and since at that stage the Government said that the Bill was unacceptable, I should like to know what conversations have in fact taken place.
The MINISTER of STATE, DEPART-MENT of EDUCATION and SCIENCE (Lord Crowther-Hunt): We noted at the end of the Second Reading debate the proposal made by the noble Lord, Lord Elton, that such conversations should take place. The view of the Government was that they would take no part in those consultations, but that if they got under way and proposals emerged from them we should consider very carefully what the new proposals might be.
Lord ELTON: One must therefore take it that the consultations have not taken place. But if we refer to the debate which took place on 3rd December last, we find that the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester said he had made inquiries and was satisfied that the Church authorities concerned would be
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most willing to hold a conference with representatives of the Secretary of State, in order to see what could be done to meet what this House has already shown to be a strongly held point of view. Therefore, it seems to me that the intention was voiced, that the opportunity existed, and that nothing has happened.
I said that it seemed to me that if nothing happened the impression would be clearly left in the country that, in a matter which is of much wider concern than is possibly generally realised in this House, the Church Commissioners, if not being obstructive, were at least suffering from inertia. If this process continues, the impression will not be of inertia but of obstructionism, and this is not an opinion which ought to be generally held. I should like a representative from the Bishops' Bench, or the noble Lord opposite, to assure the House that this is a matter of concern which is not being brushed aside like some mosquito. This is the fourth time that this matter has been brought before the House.
Lord CROWTHER-HUNT: So far as this side of the House and the Government are concerned, we have made it clear that we do not propose to take any initiative in this matter. It is therefore up to noble Lords who support the Bill to take whatever initiative they may wish to take in the way of discussions. We shall be very pleased to receive any proposals which may emerge from these discussions.
Lord ELTON: Will it be acceptable to the Government, if those proposals can be incorporated before the Report stage, for them to be taken in this House, rather than that the Bill should go in its present form to another place?
Lord CROWTHER-HUNT: I am not as fully acquainted with the procedures of this House as I should like to be, in view of my very short experience here. If that were acceptable to the House, we on this side would raise no objection.
Lord ELTON: I am much obliged.
Clause 1 agreed to.
Remaining clause agreed to.
House resumed: Bill reported without amendment; Report received.

GENERAL RATE BILL
3.33 p.m.
Lord MELCHETT: My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now resolve itself into Committee on this Bill.
Moved, that the House do now resolve itself into Committee.—(Lord Melchett.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly.
[The EARL OF LISTOWEL in the Chair.]
Clause 1 [Postponement of new regulation lists] :
Baroness YOUNG Baroness YOUNG moved Amendment No. 1:
Page 1, line 9, after "1980" insert "or on such earlier date as the Secretary of State may prescribe by order made by statutory instrument ".
The noble Baroness said: I am very sorry that the noble Baroness, Lady Stedman, is unable to be present this afternoon. She has written to explain to me that she is very busy rate-making in Cambridgeshire. Not only would she bring to this debate first-hand knowledge of what local authorities think about this Bill—which would have been invaluable—but as she comes from Cambridge and I come from Oxford I hope the noble Lord, Lord Melchett, would have found us an irresistable pair.
I hope that the Government will consider this Amendment most seriously. It in no way goes against the principle of the Bill; indeed, it allows the Government to do exactly what they want to do ; that is, to postpone revaluation until 1980. This is a short but very important Bill. We on this side are very grateful that in another place the Government accepted an Amendment and brought forward the date for revaluation from the original date of 1981 to the present one of 1980. But even this represents a postponement of revaluation of two years, from 1978—when it should take place— to 1980. As I have said, my Amendment in no way prevents this postponement and—I wish to emphasise this—I do not feel it would be a useful exercise to suggest an Amendment which was completely contradictory to the purpose of the Bill.
This Amendment does something which the Bill does not allow; that is, if circumstances make it desirable it would be possible to have revaluation in 1978. Nobody sitting here today can possibly foretell what will happen in the next three years. But one thing we do know is that the Committee looking into local government finance under Mr. Frank Layfield, QC is sitting, and we do not know what it will say about the future of local government finance. All we can say for certain is that the Committee may recommend that some form of the rating system should continue. If, as I submit, this is a possibility, and unless the noble Lord, Lord Melchett, can say categorically that he knows the Layfield Committee will not recommend any form of rating system at all, then it seems to me that all the arguments advanced on Second Reading against postponing revaluation will apply. The fact is that if we do postpone revaluation we increase the anomalies that already exist in the rating system.
I am well aware that revaluation, which will give increased rateable value to existing property will not increase rate income, but it will ensure a much fairer distribution as between one ratepayer and another. This sense of unfairness is one of the many criticisms of the rating system and by postponing revaluation for two years this sense of unfairness is increased. So all that this short Amendment seeks to do is to allow the Government, if they so wish, to postpone revaluation to 1980. As we have been told already, the Committee looking into local government finance is expected to report later on this year, and if by any chance it recommends that some form of a rating system should continue we could then have revaluation in 1978, as was originally agreed.
As I said at the beginning, I very much regret that the noble Baroness, Lady Stedman, is not able to be here this afternoon. She was good enough to write to me, and I should like to read the relevant paragraph of her letter. She says:
" I hope it is possible to get an assurance from the Government that if Layfield makes it possible they will consider advancing the date for revaluation ",
which I think puts succinctly the point I have been making. I also very much

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regret that my noble friend Lord Cranbrook is unable to be present this afternoon, because he is at the moment a serving member of the Suffolk County Council. He has just telephoned me to say that he cannot get here, because of the signalmen's strike; neither can the noble Viscount, Lord Ridley, who is actively engaged in local government in Northumberland, because he, too, is involved with rate-making. I am sorry about this, because all three Members of your Lordships' House have much more up-to-date experience of local government than I, and their contributions to this debate would have been invaluable. Nevertheless, I hope the noble Lord, Lord Melchett, and the Government will recognise that the point I am trying to make is in no sense a Party political point. It in no sense stops the Government doing what they wish to do under the Bill, but it does give a measure of flexibility in case circumstances should alter in the next three years. I beg to move.
3.40 p.m.
Lord MELCHETT: I thank the noble Baroness for moving the Amendment and for explaining exactly what she is hoping to achieve, because I confess I had not fully understood it. I think the reason is that there is a basic misunderstanding between us on just how long it takes to get a revaluation under way. The Government, of course, accept that there are anomalies in the present system; that is why the Layfield Committee is at present considering it. I cannot give any undertaking—and I am sure the noble Baroness does not expect it—as to what the Layfield Commitee will recommend, whether they will recommend one system of local government finance rather than another. Many ideas have been put to the Layfield Committee and I have no special information as to what they will recommend. However, the Layfield Committee are expected to report by the end of this year.
I thought that the noble Baroness's Amendment would raise only the question as to whether revaluation could take place in 1979. She has, however, raised the matter of the year 1978. That year is already an impossible date. Work would have had to start in the middle of last year if a revaluation were to take
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place in 1978. The real question, therefore, is whether 1979 is a possible date for the next revaluation. The answer is that it is not. I think my honourable friend the Under-Secretary of State explained the reasons very fully in another place, and I thought that I explained them clearly on Second Reading, but obviously I did not. If revaluation were contemplated for 1979, the valuation office would have to begin their detailed work in 1976, next year. Properties have to be surveyed, evidence has to be sifted, and a great deal of work has to be done both in the field and in the office. If it were not done carefully the valuation list which resulted would not be defensible. As we know from the last revaluation, a great deal of time and trouble is taken to justify the revaluation made. Before evidence of rental value can be sifted and analysed it has to be collected; for a 1979 revaluation the valuation office would have to prepare forms, organise their workforce and set in hand the detailed internal procedures which must precede a job of this kind. This would have to begin about the middle of this year; that is, in a few months' time.
As the noble Baroness knows, the Layfield Committee is not expected to report before the end of this year. We do not know what it will recommend, and, in any event, my right honourable friend will need time to consider the Report and to consult with many interested parties. All this time the valuation office would have been busy on what might well be wasted work if the Committee recommends a change of system of valuation or a new method of local government finance. My right honourable friend will not be in a position to know whether or not the work has been wasted until he has received the Report. If the noble Baroness's Amendment were accepted my right honourable friend would have to decide in July this year whether or not to bring in an Order to change the date to 1979. He would then be no wiser about what the Layfield Committee would recommend than he is now, and the ground on which he believes now that the 1979 revaluation is not possible would equally apply in July of this year when the decision would have to be taken. So my right honourable friend would do nothing and the position would be as if the noble Baroness's

993
Amendment had not been made. So the Amendment will achieve nothing. In the light of that explanation, I hope that the noble Baroness will see fit to withdraw the Amendment.
Baroness YOUNG: What the noble Lord, Lord Melchett, is saying is that the Government have decided that whatever the Layfield Committee decides— whether or not to continue with the rating system—they are not going to have a revaluation; and if the Committee decides to continue with the rating system, they will not have a revaluation before 1980. Is that the position?
Lord MELCHETT: The Government have said that they will await the outcome of the Layfield Committee before embarking on revaluation; that is in order not to waste valuable time and money on a revaluation which might not be needed.
Baroness YOUNG: They have decided that they do not feel that it is worth while to do a revaluation because they do not know what the Layfield Committee will say. In the meantime every local authority up and down the country will feel that the Government have decided that they will not do this because they have prejudged Layfield, and, furthermore, that they do not really mind whether or not there is fairness between one ratepayer and another. This is the effect of it.
Lord MELCHETT: I really do not think the noble Baroness is being fair. We have not prejudged Layfield. The noble Baroness is attempting to try to make us prejudge Layfield by embarking on a costly and difficult exercise before the Committee has reported and before we know whether or not that costly and difficult exercise is needed. The Government are saying that we will await the outcome of the Committee's deliberations before deciding whether or not to have a revaluation. We have not said that there will not be a revaluation. We have said that we will await the outcome of the Committee's Report.
Baroness YOUNG: We can interpret that in two ways, I regret to say. I had hoped very much that the noble Lord would say that this would be possible, and, even if he would not consider this Amendment, perhaps he would look at it for 1979. There are, of course, a great
994
many professional views on the length of time a revaluation takes. There was a time in 1948 when revaluation was undertaken by local government itself. The then Labour Government decided, perhaps for very good reasons, that it might look somewhat wrong for local government to undertake its own revaluation, and this became the function of the Inland Revenue, on the ground that it would be much more efficiently done by them than by local government. We now find that when it comes to revaluation we are always told that there are not enough valuers, that it will take years to do, and that, despite the fact that both Government Departments and local authorities have computers and equipment of every kind to help them, they still cannot do a revaluation under this length of time.
I am bound to say that I think this is an extremely unsatisfactory state of affairs. I think it is very unfortunate that local government should have been put into this exceedingly difficult position, because— make no mistake about it—local government is having a great deal of difficulty at this time in rate-making. One has only to open the newspapers any day to see the outcry that exists about rates. Although I accept that this will not produce more money, it will help to alleviate the burning sense of injustice that ratepayers feel.
Lord MELCHETT: I am sorry to interrupt the noble Baroness again. I wonder whether I may ask her a question. Does not she feel that, if there is this burning sense of injustice and a great deal of dissatisfaction with the current method of local government finance, it would be better to await the outcome of the Layfield Committee's deliberations before embarking on further revaluation?
Baroness YOUNG: I cannot honestly say that I do. I do not know what the Layfield Committee will say; none of us does. It will depend entirely on whether or not the Layfield Committee recommends any reform of the rating system at all. We do not know that. We have had a full discussion of this matter. I am very sorry the Government have not seen fit to look at what seems to me a most reasonable proposal, or, indeed, even to consider the matter further. I shall, of course, go back and consider all this and see whether other Members active

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in local government will wish to raise the matter again on Report. It was unfortunate that they could not be present today. For the moment I would beg leave to withdraw my Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 1 agreed to.
Remaining clause agreed to.
House resumed: Bill reported without amendment.

DISEASES OF ANIMALS BILL [H.L.]
3.50 p.m.
Lord STRABOLGI: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time. Many diseases, such as cattle plague and sheep pox, were eradicated from Great Britain in the last century and in the early years of this century by the strenuous efforts of the State Veterinary Officers and their assistants. Foot and mouth disease is of course a name much more familiar to us in this age. A severe epidemic of this disease occurred in the autumn of 1967, as your Lordships will remember, and lasted until the middle of 1968, causing severe economic losses to the livestock industry, particularly in the West Midlands. Circumstantial evidence strongly linked the source of the outbreak to mutton imported from Latin America which had been sold through normal retail outlets in the area of the initial outbreaks.
Foot and mouth disease is a highly infectious disease and very readily spread. Over the years it has been introduced in a number of ways. In the last century several outbreaks were traced to imported cattle, but experience with other diseases had already shown the disease risks in importing live animals, and import controls thus limited the possibilities of foot and mouth disease entering the country in this way. In more recent times, however, it has become clear that foot and mouth disease can be carried in other ways. Besides the 1967–68 epidemic, imported meat was responsible for an outbreak in Lanarkshire in 1926. In 1908 an outbreak in Edinburgh was believed to have originated from infection carried in imported hay ; an outbreak in Gloucestershire in
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1938 was due to infection in an imported glandular product which had been used in a pharmaceutical preparation injected into a cow; while in 1952 an outbreak clearly demonstrated that infection could be transferred in infected milk derived from infected cows and fed to calves. This was home produced and not imported milk, yet the same considerations apply to the latter. My Lords, the permutations of how this disease can be spread are manifold. It must be concluded that all ruminating animals and swine, any of their meat or other products and any other thing that has been in contact with them can all harbour this disease!
Swine fever has been eradicated from this country at great expense, but it can be transmitted quite readily by infective animals or materials from them. Swine vesicular disease, our current problem disease, which in outward appearance is so like foot and mouth disease but affects only pigs, most likely entered this country in illegally imported pig meat. So far as poultry are concerned there is, of course, the variation of fowl pest known as Newcastle disease, which despite its name is not really a home product. It was eradicated after appearing here in the 1920s, but it re-entered this country in poultry carcases imported from Eastern Europe shortly after the Second World War, and since then, I regret to say, England and Wales have never been really free of the disease. Our veterinary surgeons have, over the last 100 years or so, achieved remarkable progress to combat, overcome and eradicate from our countryside many animal diseases, and I should like to pay a tribute to them. But no programme of eradication and control at home can be successful unless risks of possible infection from overseas can also be eliminated.
From the time of the great cattle plague of 1865, it was progressively realised that there was need to control imports not only of live animals, but also of meat and other things. The extent and format of regulations reflected growing knowledge of the methods of transmission of disease. This resulted in a consolidated Act in 1894, but knowledge and experience grew further so that further Acts and Orders were made. As a result, in 1950 a further consolidating Act was

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passed, called the Diseases of Animals Act 1950, and, although this has been amended to some extent by subsequent enactments, it remains the principal animal health Act on the Statute Book.
Unfortunately our present legislation does not allow flexibility for effective and speedy action. It contains much detail which cannot be amended at short notice, because it is in the Act itself. Some of this detail has been overtaken by modern events and is no longer required, and other would more appropriately appear in subordinate legislation. The Government therefore propose by this Bill to formalise a three tier structure of control. The first tier, the Bill itself, would provide the basic framework which already appears in the present Act, although rather entwined in detail. This structure is that the Agricultural Ministers have the powers to prohibit or control by Order and licence the import of any animal, poultry or other thing whereby disease may be introduced. The second tier would be the import Orders made under the enabling powers which would detail the prohibitions and cover, where admissible, the general conditions under which animals or other things could be imported. Each Order would relate to a group of animals or poultry or products, and would contain provision for individual imports or consignments to be licensed generally or individually. The third tier would be these licences which would contain the detailed veterinary conditions, such as health certification, or quarantine, or like matters, that the importer would have to meet for his particular import. I would emphasise, however, that wherever it is possible from the animal health point of view to allow unconditional entry of animals or goods this will be done.
My Lords, I will now, with your permission, run briefly through the clauses of the Bill. The major clause is Clause 1. This, in effect, sets up the three tier system to which I have just referred by replacing the detailed provisions in the Diseases of Animals Act 1950 with these more flexible powers. There are however one or two other points in this clause. We have also clarified the question of what is imported by extending the definition from the general sense of the word meaning something brought in from another country into Great Britain. We
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have included items brought into this country which may have come from such places as oil rigs or similar structures not strictly another country, and also items which may be simply taken from Great Britain out of our territorial waters and then returned to us, but possibly having met with something foreign on the high seas.
The clause also widens the definition of disease and of animals for import purposes. This is to enable new conditions in animals not legally specified as disease under the 1950 Act that may occur in imported livestock or goods, to be dealt with as animal disease. Also it will allow the possible future control of imports of species such as reptiles or fish, or their products, which may come to cause an animal health risk. Furthermore, the definition of when goods brought by air are imported is clearly defined on the lines of the Customs definition. The clause also authorises the specified matters detailed in Schedule 1 which I will deal with in a moment.
My Lords, Clause 2 of the Bill widens the powers of entry of inspectors so that they can enter vessels or aircraft currently at ports or airports in Great Britain, to ascertain whether any animal or product is on board which could pose a disease threat to us. The power extends also to vessels, boats, hovercraft and aircraft which may have come into a port which is not a recognised port or airport such as an emergency landing field. Existing powers are deficient in this respect, particularly where aircraft or vessels in transit are involved. These may well have animals on board which are unacceptable to us. In most cases the reason for the presence of the aircraft or vessel will be for service purposes such as refuelling or crew changing or part loading or unloading of a cargo, and they will soon be on their way. Thus the need to use these powers will probably be infrequent, and will in all cases be very carefully considered, but nevertheless we think it necessary that we should have them in case our national animal health should be at stake, particularly from insect borne disease.
This clause also provides powers for inspectors to enter buildings, land or vehicles inside or outside ports where it is suspected that imported animals or other things are being or may have been

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kept. This is to enable us to ensure that there have been no breaches of any conditions of an Order or licence made under the authority of the Act. This will be particularly true where post-import conditions are imposed. We do not envisage the use of these powers as a matter of routine, but again it is necessary for us to reserve them to ourselves in case national animal health should again be at risk.
Clause 3 toughens up the penalties for infringements by allowing prosecution on indictment. This brings the penalties into line with those in last year's Rabies Act. Clause 4 contains transitional provisions to enable existing Acts and Orders to continue until the new Orders, to be prepared under the Bill, can be made ready for introduction. Clause 5 enables the Bill to come into effect by enabling Order and also indicates that the Bill relates only to Great Britain. Northern Ireland has her own veterinary legislation, and acts independently but in accord with Great Britain in these matters.
Now, my Lords, I should like, if I may, to turn to Schedule 1. Schedule 1 contains the matters to which Orders made under the enabling power may relate. These are self-explanatory and cover the whole range from importation, through quarantine if applicable, to any other post-import conditions that may be required. It is not proposed as a general rule to pay compensation for imported animals or goods that have to be destroyed because they are diseased or infringe the regulations. Nor is it intended that the Agricultural Departments shall bear any of the costs in connection with an import other than those normally incurred by them in carrying out routine policing of the import controls.
Schedule 2 repeals the existing provisions in the Diseases of Animals Act 1950 that relate to importations, plus the subsequent amendments that have been made to those provisions in later enactments. The Schedule also picks up and repeals an item in the Customs Consolidation Act 1876 which relates to the seizure of diseased animals at ports of entry. These powers have long since been superseded by other powers. This seems to have been forgotten and it was not realised that they were still extant.
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Regarding our obligations as members of the European Economic Community, our partners in the Community have made great strides in transforming their foot-and-mouth disease position from an endemic situation to one in which outbreaks are happily few and where eradication successfully follows. Nevertheless, regular vaccination against this disease is still a main plank of their defence and unhappily swine fever still occurs in some parts of the Community. It was for these reasons that by the Treaty of Accession we are allowed to retain our national animal health rules for our protection against the risk of foot-and-mouth disease and swine fever infection in imported meat and for the import of live animals. These rules are subject to negotiation on their future and these negotiations have yet to take place. It cannot be known what the outcome of the negotiations will be, but whatever animal health rÉgime is eventually agreed for trade between ourselves and other members of the EEC, the three-tier system which this Bill proposes should mean I submit, that the new rÉgime could be taken on board without further recourse to legislation.
My Lords, the sea has over the centuries been our good ally, but we have long since realised that we cannot rely upon it, and it alone, to protect us, and today we are also at risk from the air. We must therefore strengthen our cordon sanitaire. There are still many diseases and disease conditions lurking in various parts of the world that would prosper if they could cross the sea or come through by air and gain access to our herds and flocks. It is to the credit of the vigilance of the Minister of Agriculture and the Secretary of State for Scotland in successive Governments and their veterinary advisers that these diseases have so far largely been kept at bay. But we need modern and effective legislation to give them adequate powers to continue to do this. This Bill, I submit, is the right way to give them such powers to act swiftly and surely when our national animal health situation is threatened from outside. My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be read a second time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a —(Lord Strabolgi.)
4.9 p.m.
Earl FERRERS: My Lords, we are grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi, for introducing this Bill relating to the diseases of animals. Much of the protection of our animals, and indeed of our country, stems from the Diseases of Animals Act 1950. It is a salutary thought to realise that that Act is now no less than a quarter of a century old. I think we can rightly pay tribute to the architects of that Act—to the noble Lord's Party who were in Government at the time it was introduced and to the Minister of Agriculture of that time, the late noble Lord, Lord Williams of Barnburgh, whom we all remember and respect as a great Minister—for having had the foresight to introduce a Bill the provisions of which were sufficiently wide to encompass the majority of developments which were likely to appear over the ensuing 25 years. Of course there have been developments in research and techniques in husbandry and in travel, and it is right that the Act should now be updated.
Diseases change, as do their incidence, type and virulence, and, indeed, their ability to mutate and change their nature thereby becoming more resistant to known antidotes. Modern methods of travel and moving animals, moving sera, moving carcases, whether by air or roll-on roll-off ferries, can suddenly present a country with the full impact of a disease for which they could be well unprepared and which they certainly did not expect. We have seen examples recently—and the noble Lord referred to some of them— foot and mouth disease, swine vesicular disease, even anthrax and Newcastle disease. In my judgment, therefore, it is wholly right for the powers available to the Minister to deal with these emergencies to be updated. Nobody likes giving Ministers undue powers if they are likely to be subject to abuse, but I think that that is extremely unlikely. Though their imposition may cause hardship to some at the time when they are imposed, this should be accepted in the interests of disease prevention. I would congratulate the Government on bringing in this measure and the Minister of Agriculture for having again the foresight to act in advance of the need. The Bill will enable the Minister to act quickly by Order— which will be subject to Negative Resolu-
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tion. Therefore it can come into effect quickly. And with disease, speed of action is essential.
Again I would reiterate the sentiments which the noble Lord expressed in saying that we should be grateful to the veterinary staff of the Ministry of Agriculture who at a moment's notice bear the responsibility for curtailing an outbreak of disease. We have seen a number of examples of these situations and I think that the work which these staff have done has been extraordinarily efficient, for which we should all be grateful. Despite our affiliations with the Common Market (which I, for one, hope will grow and come closer) we have one unique advantage—and the noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi, referred to this—in that we are an island ; and from a disease point of view this is a prize which we should never undervalue. This aspect makes it easy for us to control and prevent disease from entering and gives us a unique advantage in the export of livestock in that they come from a diseasefree country.
The noble Lord mentioned the Common Market and said that the Bill did not conflict with the arrangements which we have for foot-and-mouth disease and swine fever, but I should like to ask him how the Bill squares with our obligations to the Common Market and our exemptions from it. I think I am right in believing (and what the noble Lord said confirms this point) that from an animal health point of view we can take such action as we like to protect ourselves for the next five years or so, after which time the arrangements will be reviewed. This could mean inhibiting imports from the EEC countries, but I should be grateful if the noble Lord would confirm that if we do so it would not in any way be in breach of our commitments.
There is only one other point to which I should like to draw attention. In this case I wish to offer my humble congratulations, not to the Government or to the noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi, but to his noble friend the Leader of the House, because when the Rabies Bill was introduced originally into your Lordships' House—it subsequently fell because of the General Election—I remember the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, who was then in Opposition, making a great fuss, and quite rightly so, about the

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inadequacy of the fines and penalties for those who deliberately imported animals from countries where rabies was endemic and, by so doing, flouted the law. It was his observations and determinations that went right up to the noble and learned Lord the then Lord Chancellor, and it was decided to make an exception to the normal penalties for acts of a similar nature and to make the offence an indictable one, where a person may be liable to imprisonment for twelve months or to an unlimited fine. My Lords, that was a very marked improvement on the penalties which were available previously, and that position was due entirely to the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, when he was in Opposition. The fact that the same enhanced penalties now appear in this Bill is again a tribute to him. I am glad to see that the Government have taken this opportunity to increase the penalties for those who deliberately flout the law and so endanger the health of the animals in this country. We are grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi, for introducing the Bill, and we wish it well on its passage through Parliament.
4.15 p.m.
Lord de CLIFFORD: My Lords, I rise briefly to address your Lordships on the Bill. I should like to give it my wholehearted support. There are only one or two small queries which I wish to raise on the subject. I have had drawn to my attention a number of people who are worried about the position of oil rigs. The importation of rabies could quite easily come through those oil rigs, because, I am given to understand, dogs are permitted to land on them from other parts and, so far as I know, dogs from this country are also permitted to land on them. What control have we under this Bill over those oil rigs? I do not see mention of oil rigs, but the noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi, during an opportunity we had to discuss this matter, conveyed to me that oil rigs are classified as vessels. Would the Government consider putting oil rigs and their control and searching as a description in the Bill, just as it includes
" vessel, boat, hovercraft, aircraft or vehicle of any other description," ?
I find it difficult to conceive that an oil rig is a "vehicle", or necessarily a
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" vessel". I see that the Bill includes hovercraft, which was a fair newcomer to the methods of transportation, and perhaps the Government will see whether they can also include oil rigs in this provision.
My second point, about which I am worried, is where the actual limit of search ends, or—shall we say?—begins. What is the position of a pleasure yacht during the summer, going from this country and taking the pet dog with it outside the three mile limit, say, to Ireland? People of the Irish Republic are worried about this possibility. If the yacht goes to Ireland with the pet and calls at one of the French ports on the way, how are we to keep surveillance to ensure that the dog is not taken into France and then landed in Ireland and subsequently brought back again? Inspection arrangements in Ireland are accepted by us on the same level as they accept ours.
This is an excellent Bill and I have only one further matter to raise, which brings me back to the European Economic Community. I hope that in all negotiations with the Community in the future the Government will insist upon our right to maintain the protection of our animal health. I should like a little guidance from the noble Lord about Article 36 of the Treaty of Rome, because, while giving us the power to maintain our protection for, as they say,
" Public morality, public policy or public security ; the protection of health and life … of animals "
et cetera, it ends up with a little sting in the tail, which says:
" Such prohibitions or restrictions shall not, however, constitute a means of arbitrary discrimination or a disguised restriction on trade between Member States."
I hope that Her Majesty's Government will keep this little sting in mind in the negotiations with the Common Market, because I feel there is a weakness here whereby, for instance, our quarantine restrictions for rabies might be held as a restriction on trade for movement and sale of dogs within the Community. Apart from that point, my Lords, I give a most wholehearted welcome to the Bill.
4.21 p.m.
Lord STRABOLGI: My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Lords who took part in the debate for the welcome that they have given to the Bill. I am

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particularly grateful to the noble Earl, Lord Ferrers, for the kind remarks that he made about Her Majesty's Government and the tribute paid to the late Lord Williams of Barnburgh. I should like, if I may, to pay a tribute to the noble Earl. He and I have worked together on the Rabies Bill and on the present Bill, both of which were, of course, non-Party measures. I greatly appreciate his constructive approach to these matters which are, of course, so important.
My Lords, the noble Earl asked particularly about the Common Market and how the Bill matches up with our obligations. We can retain our own animal health import requirements until 1977, but we shall be conducting a review with our EEC partners before any changes are made. With regard to the Rabies Bill, I am very glad that the noble Earl also supports the fact that in this Bill it will also be an indictable offence, because the penalties should, I think, take account of the gravity of any transgressions of this kind.
My Lords, I should also like to say how much I appreciate the speech of the noble Lord, Lord de Clifford, who also was kind enough to give me notice of the interesting questions he has raised. To deal first with the question of the Treaty of Rome, it is provided by Article 30 of the Treaty that :
" Quantitative restrictions on imports and all measures having equivalent effect shall … be prohibited between Member States."
Article 31 goes on to prohibit any new restrictions of this kind. The power to regulate imports by licences conferred on Ministers by the new section 24 of the present Bill does, on the face of it, fall foul of these provisions, as enabling the Ministers to impose a quantitative restriction in respect of animal imports. However, by Article 36 of the Treaty, it is provided that the provisions of Articles 30 and 31,
" shall not preclude prohibitions or restrictions on imports … justified on grounds of the protection of health and life of humans, animals or plants,"
provided such restrictions or prohibitions are not used as a way of discriminating against other Member States or of disguising genuine restrictions on trade within the Community. Clearly, the regulation of imports under Section 24 falls
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within this exception and will not be contrary to the Treaty.
My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord de Clifford also asked about oil rigs and said that he did not think that they were vessels. When we had a preliminary discussion on this, before I had got quite so far into my brief, I told him that I thought they probably were vessels, but in actual fact the noble Lord is perfectly right: they are not vessels, they are places. I think, in that way, that they would also be caught under Clause 2(1) (4B)(a). There is of course also the question of animals going outside territorial waters and returning. I think that this is covered in Clause l(3)(a) which says :
" An order under this section may provide that, in such circumstances as may be specified in the order, animals or poultry which—

(a) are brought into Great Britain in such circumstances that they are not imported, within the meaning of this Act and

(b) whilst outside Great Britain have been or may have been in contact with any of the things specified in paragraphs (a) to (c) … above."

My Lords, I hope that that covers the point because Clauses 1 and 2 have been drafted specifically with these two questions in mind; that is, the entry of animals or poultry from oil rigs or other similar constructions and ships outside Great Britain and its territorial waters and the return to this country of animals or poultry which have not been landed in a foreign country, but which may have been exposed to infection by contact with animals on other ships.
With regard to the definition of a "port" and of "territorial waters", here, of course, as the Bill points out, the territorial waters will extend over a distance of three miles. The definition of a port will be the definition in the Customs and Excise Act and this is used here because every point on the coastline and the adjacent waters is taken as coming within the limits of a port. All imports by sea, therefore, enter a port and so become subject to inspection. In other words, ports really extend along their coastline until they meet another port and the extension also goes out to sea up to the three mile limit so that the whole coast and the sea three miles beyond is covered. Aircraft are similarly covered if they land at a customs airport of which there are 30 in Great Britain,

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including all the prinicipal civilian airports. A further provision gives an inspector comparable powers of entry where a vessel, hovercraft or aircraft is not at a port or customs airport, but is reasonably believed to have arrived recently in Great Britain. This caters for aircraft landing at other airports, for emergency landings and for evasion of customs or animal health checks.
My Lords, I hope that has answered the various questions raised by the two noble Lords.
On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

APPLE AND PEAR DEVELOPMENT COUNCIL (AMENDMENT) ORDER 1974
4.30 p.m.
Lord STRABOLGI Lord STRABOLGI rose to move, That the Draft Apple and Pear Development Council (Amendment) Order 1974, laid before the House on 5th December 1974, be approved. The noble Lord said: My Lords, I must apologise to your Lordships for addressing you once again, but it was thought more convenient that we should take these two agricultural matters fairly near to each other—not necessarily convenient to me, but convenient to your Lordships in all parts of the House. This Amendment Order is presented for your Lordships' approval in accordance with the requirements of the Industrial Organisation and Development Act 1947 under which the principal Order was made in December 1966. It will have the effect of increasing from £3 to £6 per acre the maximum rate of annual charge which may be imposed by the Council upon commercial growers of apples and pears, and of substituting on 1st April 1976 metric units for existing references to imperial units of measurements.
My Lords, the principal Order, the Apple and Pear Development Council Order, was made in 1966 after my right honourable friend the then and present Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food had satisfied himself that substantial numbers of growers within the industry wanted a Development Council and that it had the full support of representa-
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tive organisations. It is now five years since the first review of the Council held in 1969, and in accordance with the 1947 Act my right honourable friend has again consulted the Council and organisations representative of persons in business and employment in the industry as to whether it should continue in being, and if so whether the Order of 1966 should be amended in any respect. My right honourable friend has found that the Council is still wanted by the National Farmers' Union, the National Union of Agricultural and Allied Workers, the Transport and General Workers' Union and the Council itself. He is also in agreement with the Council's proposals, which are supported by the other organisations, to increase from next April the maximum rate of annual charge and to provide for a change-over to metric units from April 1976.
My Lords, the details of this Draft Order relating to metrication are the most practicable possible and the timing of the change is in line with the programme of metrication agreed upon by, and for, the agriculture and horticulture industry. I feel I need not dwell upon these changes as they keep very closely to direct equivalents of the imperial units in the present Order, but I am sure noble Lords will wish to hear more from me about the proposal to increase the maximum rate of annual charge.
I must stress that we are here referring to a permitted maximum charge. It is to provide for possible increases in the Council's needs over the next five years at least. It is not a measure of what future annual charges might be, although it would be realistic to expect them to rise rather than fall. The need of the home industry for the services of the Council in the fields of publicity, research and development are likely to intensify during the next few years. The Council are, I think, doing an excellent job for our growers at a very low cost. The charge for 1974–75 is £2·70 an acre which is the same as the previous year and still below the £3 maximum set nearly five years ago. But if your Lordships need further reassurance, I would point out, if I may, that each year's charge is subject to the approval of the Minister.
My Lords, as the proposed amendments are fully supported by the representative organisations of those concerned in the

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industry, as I have said, and are necessary to the continuance of the Council, I take pleasure in commending them to your Lordships. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Draft Apple and Pear Development Council (Amendment) Order 1974, laid before the House on 5th December 1974, be approved.—(Lord Strabolgi.)
Earl FERRERS: My Lords, we are grateful again to the noble Lord for explaining this Order. As he said, it is simply an updating provision, making sure that the original Order is up-to-date with more modern practices and with the changeover to the metric system. This is, as we all know, inevitable, and will doubtless cause a lot of confusion to those who are to interpret it, but we accept the need for it. It also enables an enlarged levy to be paid at a later date. In view of inflation and the fact that the levy has not yet reached the maximum under the existing Order, this would seem to be an entirely reasonable request. My Lords, we support it.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

EEC FORESTRY
4.35 p.m.
Lord INGLEWOOD Lord INGLEWOOD rose to move, That this House takes note of the Sixth Report of the European Communities Committee (Session 1974) on the proposed Council Directive on Forestry Measures (R/599/74). The noble Lord said: My Lords, I do not intend to expand on the duties of this Committee, the procedure and the evidence they have heard, because the noble Lord, Lord Walston, spoke earlier this week at some length about this when he was introducing a somewhat similar Motion in the field of agriculture. I would just say that where the Committee feel that any proposal for EEC secondary legislation—and we all know there is a mass of such proposals—raises special issues, they should draw the attention of the House to them and this is one such case. As your Lordships will see from the last sentence in the Report:
" The Committee consider that the proposal raises important matters of policy to which the special attention of the House should be drawn"
So we drew the attention of the House to this matter and time for debate has now
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been found. We cannot decide these questions here by vote, nor can we amend them. But we can hope to make our views crystal clear to responsible Ministers, in the hope that that will strengthen their hands when they meet ministerial colleagues from other EEC countries, and in doing so we shall be, I hope, performing a useful and a proper function of Parliament.
My Lords, before coming on to the merits of the proposal, I should like to draw attention to several dates because they are important—including a misprint, for which I would apologise, at the head of the Report, which is dated 23rd July 1973. There has been a time lag, but not as long as that, and it should of course read, "23rd July 1974". That was a long time ago, I must admit. Printing was then delayed by a strike until shortly before Christmas, and in the interval there have been several statements made by Ministers about forestry policy and fiscal arrangements in this country, and we must now accept that forestry in this country is in a state of great uncertainty. It is against the current forestry policy in this country, and such ministerial statements as I have mentioned, that the likely effects of the EEC proposal must be judged.
I now turn to the Select Committee's Report. I believe it is clear, and I do not intend to go through it paragraph by paragraph, but I would, with the permission of the House, like to underline several points. The general objects and effects of this EEC proposal are set out in the first large paragraph on page 2 of the Committee's Report, and it will be noticed that at the head of it there is the phrase that the principal object of the measure is "improving agrarian structure …". Other intentions and objectives are set out later, but noble Lords should notice that "improving agrarian structure" comes first. That explains a great deal of the nature and thinking behind this document. The general objects and intentions have been given a limited welcome by interested bodies, and I have heard it put like this: that they are all right so far as they go, but they do not go very far in any direction, and in the main not in the best direction for us. The most remarkable thing about the statement of objectives is that there is little emphasis on timber production. I

1011
should have thought that that should have come first and that the purpose of improving agrarian structure might have come later; but the EEC proposal is framed the other way round. Then it may seem odd that this proposal is not an integral part of the EEC long-term forestry policy—which is never mentioned in this document; and for the good reason because as yet they have not published any such policy. It is doubtful whether they can do so with any ease because forestry is not mentioned in the Treaty of Rome. Nor is timber an agricultural product covered by the provisions of the Treaty. This proposal is something on its own. It is aimed to solve a very special problem which is a consequence, one might say, of the Mansholt Plan where the aim was a reduction of the number of farms, mostly small farms, on the poorer land. I am advised that this problem of doing something with the land so evacuated is most acute in France.
There is another point which I should like to mention, which again is included in the last paragraph in page 3 and that is the vires of the draft Directive. Does it, in fact, fall within the Treaty of Rome? Doubts have been cast on this; they have been echoed within the Council of Ministers and are now under further consideration by the Commission.
So much for the general background of this proposal which, one must admit, is not entirely precise nor entirely fitted to our thinking nor to our forestry policy in this country. None the less, it has merits.
With regard to finance and the possible costs of operating this scheme, the sums are unlikely to be very large. It is extremely difficult to assess what they might be, broken down between a number of countries. The net cost to us, I am advised, could be £15 million or £16 million if the scheme were adopted on a wide scale; against which we might recover £3, £4 or £5 million, from the central funds. Although we must not be hostile to every proposal where we are likely to put more into the central funds than we get out, it is right for the Committee to draw the attention of the House to this fact. If such a view were always taken the EEC would collapse, and very shortly. In this case the central
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paragraph on the last page of the report sets out the financial position in greater detail. I do not think there is any need for me to read it.
The House should also take note of the Continental thinking on this problem of small woods. In the main, woods on the Continent, private as well as public, are on a much larger scale. As set out in the proposal, the thinking is very selective. We are much less selective in our thinking on small wood schemes and have always put greater emphasis on timber production.
It is worth noticing that if the central funds are to pay part of the costs of improvement work and planting carried out under this proposal, member-States none the less are given a wide discretion as to how they might contribute to the various systems of aid towards the balance incurred by the individual up to a certain figure. One of the ways whereby member-States may contribute is by fiscal incentives. If put into operation, this scheme, so far as the British Isles is concerned would be mostly of value to Scotland. Your Lordships' Committee thought this; and we thought that, to a lesser extent, it would be valuable to Wales; but the noble Lord, Lord Lloyd of Kilgerran, who gave me notice that he would like to speak but could not be here, asked me to say that in his view he thought that it would be of little help to Wales. In our view, taken from the view of the United Kingdom, it is unnecessarily narrow ; since it is based on planting one time agricultural land, mostly small areas, taken out of agriculture or shortly to be taken out of agriculture.
My Lords, I did not at the beginning declare my interest. I thought that most noble Lords would know that I have an interest in forestry; but I do so now. I have had a lifelong interest and I learned much of what I know in Germany as a student. I am the owner of some woodlands in Cumberland, small by Continental standards but, I suppose, medium by United Kingdom standards. Like most others, and like some in your Lordships' House this afternoon, even after many years I have seen only a small financial return for my endeavours and for the resources employed. I have had some reward in having made a

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contribution to amenity and conservation issues; and I have some pride in having once won the Royal Forestry Society Gold Medal in the annual plantation competition. I would not say that except for the fact that there is another noble Lord here, the noble Earl, Lord Lonsdale, who has won it twice. There are probably others in the Chamber who have won it too.
More than some, perhaps, I therefore have reason to appreciate the necessity for the continuity of policy; and this applies in every country. I would therefore make a plea to the Minister when in Brussels not to make changes in our established long-term policy or to compromise on essentials just to meet some provision of these proposals which are really of only a short-term nature. Much harm could flow from that and quickly. I call in aid a paragraph in the Report of the Economic and Social Committee of the EEC when they scrutinised this draft proposal. They say:
" In view of the long period before there is an appreciable return from forests, the Committee would stress the importance "—
not our Committee; but the Committee of the EEC—
" of continuity in forestry, especially in tax policy with regard to forest holdings and forest production. To ensure this continuity official measures by the European Community and the member-States must have an appropriate long-term orientation."
I stress the words,
" the importance of continuity … especially in tax policy ",
and the words:
"To ensure this continuity official measures by the European Community and memberStates must have an appropriate long-term orientation."
The essence of the whole industry could not be put more clearly than in that paragraph.
Your Lordships may think that this continuity, which is vital in all countries, is even more vital in this country which has such a small part of its surface area carrying a healthy crop of trees. Eire and Holland are the only countries in Europe which compare with us. Percentage-wise, if I may use this jargon, France and Germany must be three or four times as high as we are. I would submit that we in this country cannot afford to lose any of these healthy wood-lands no matter for what reason. In my
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final sentence, when the right honourable gentleman goes to Brussels and talks with his colleagues at home, I would ask him to remember—and I hope that the noble Lord who is to reply will underline this —the memorable phrases in a speech made by Tom Williams when the present Minister was his devoted Parliamentary Private Secretary. Mr. Tom Williams said in another place "that the Government considered taking into account all available information on present and prospective world supplies of timber, and that well-planned afforestation represented a sound national investment." That is no less true today than it was 25 to 30 years ago when Mr. Tom Williams said that in another place. He concludes his speech with these words, and I shall conclude my speech with the same words. He said:
"… no forestry workers, no timber; no timber, no security for this country."—[Official Report (Commons), 30/11/1945; col. 1784.]
My Lords, I beg to move.
Moved, That this House takes note of the Sixth Report of the European Communities Committee (Session 1974) on the proposed Council Directive on Forestry Measures (R/599/74).—(Lord Inglewood.)
4.50 p.m.
Earl FERRERS: My Lords, we are grateful to my noble friend Lord Inglewood for drawing our attention to this draft E.E.C. Directive on Forestry Measures and, in his speech, touching on all the salient features, the parts which affect everyone, and yet doing so in a correct and non-controversial manner. This Directive has one unique distinction in Community Directives—that is, its brevity. We should also be grateful to the Select Committee who went into this subject for their excellent Report, which makes it clear that if this becomes an E.E.C. Directive it will affect Britain and British forestry in a very material way— and not necessarily in a beneficial one. I think I should explain or declare such interests as I have. I am not a forester, although I own some land on which timber grows and I am involved in other capacities with woodland. To my eternal shame and discredit, a quarter of a century of being connected with agriculture has seen me responsible for planting enough trees to cover no more than a total of a couple of acres or so.

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The draft Directive is, in my judgment, a very unsatisfactory document. Its objectives, if put into action, would run right across the policy of State-aiding private forestry which, for a great many years, we have had in this country. This is because the whole philosophy behind the document starts from a totally different standpoint from that on which our policy has always been based. The purpose of grant-aiding forestry under this Directive is not because woods are themselves desirable, or that the economy of the E.E.C. requires timber, or that the amenity of member States within the Community would be enhanced by timber, but because it would form part of a policy—as the Select Committee point out—of "improving agrarian structure". This is, as my noble friend mentioned, a legacy from the days of the Mansholt plan when it was considered by some that the answer to the "butter mountain" within the Community was to plant up farms with trees.
This document—as the Select Committee rightly point out—is directly aimed at the afforestation of agricultural land and at altering farm structure, for which E.E.C. grants would be made available. I do not believe that if we want to alter farm structure the right way to do it is to plant forests. Nor do I believe that we should encourage this method of restructuring by providing, or accepting, grants. I can see that in certain countries within the Community, where there are farms which are both small in size and on marginal land, this scheme has certain attractions. Very few of our farmers or foresters would take up, or be in a position to take up, the benefits of the scheme, and yet we should be obliged to pay into the E.E.C.'s funds for the grants which would be payable under the scheme to other countries. My information is—and I am glad that my noble friend's remarks confirm this—that we should have to contribute £4 or £5 to the Community for every £1 which the United Kingdom would receive from E.E.C. grants. That is a very expensive way of encouraging private forestry.
This document is specifically related to State assistance to private forestry. I find it curious and anomalous and even possible fortuitous that we should be discussing a document which, although I think
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the United Kingdom would be better without it, is nevertheless one by which the Community wish to encourage and aid private forestry, for it comes at a time— and I make no apology for mentioning this—when private forestry in the United Kingdom is still reeling from the realisation of the effects which the considered proposals of Her Majesty's Government are going to have, not just on private foresters as individuals, not just on private forestry as an industry, but on the whole structure and appearance of woodlands, the countryside, the amenity and the environment. I refer to the capital transfer tax proposals as they are contained in the Finance Bill.
Under these proposals, capital transfer tax will be levied on a woodland every time it changes ownership. In the case of hardwood, which may take between 150 and 200 years to grow to maturity, this may result in tax being paid five or six times by those who have not only not received any cash reward from their ownership but who will have actually incurred expense, with the full possibility —as in the case of Dutch Elm disease —that the crop may die before maturity and become not just valueless but a liability on which further expense is incurred in felling. Even if the crop goes to full maturity, frequently the aggregate of tax paid over the years will exceed the value of the crop when felled—and let us remember that the tax paid has to come, all through the years, from resources other than the woodlands on which the tax is based. It may surprise your Lordships to know that the compound interest charges alone on the tax paid over a period of 150 years on a ten-acre hardwood plantation could amount to over £500,000. That is on the assumption that changes of ownership take place at death. If they take place during the life of an owner, the situation is infinitely worse, as they are subject to the "grossing up" procedure.
I am not concerned here with those who pay the taxes, or with any arguments about the philosophy of the redistribution of wealth, or with the merits (of which there are plenty) of the capital transfer tax. I am merely concerned with the effects and the results which this tax is going to have. The first is that people will stop planting. Already it is estimated

1017
that 20 per cent. of the production of young trees in nurseries has not been taken up this year and some 30 million seedlings will have to be burned. This can only have, and is having, a serious threat on the employment of people in areas where forestry is the main occupation, and on nurseries.
The second effect is that it will not be worth while to maintain existing woodlands. Both their standard and their appearance in the countryside will deteriorate. The third effect is that trees will be felled both before the owner's death and when the trees are immature, because no one wishes, if it can be avoided, to pass on a tax liability to someone else. The effect, therefore, which the tax, if it goes unamended, is going to have on the amenity and the countryside is quite horrifying, and I beg the Government—from a national point of view—to think again.
It is over the past ten years that the public have been made, and quite rightly so, conscious of and aware of our need as a generation to protect the environment which we, as a generation, have inherited, which we, as a generation, are destroying, and which we, as a generation, will have in turn to pass on to others. The public have been invited —and rightly encouraged—to appreciate
the environment and to participate in the amenities which the natural environment around us provides. It was for this reason that the Forestry Commission employed Dame Sylvia Crowe to help landscape some of their forests, because large blocks of conifers were considered to be aesthetically unacceptable. It is for this reason, presumably—and I am glad to see the noble Lord, Lord Taylor of Gryfe, is in his place, because he will put me right if I am wrong—that the Forestry Commission has just announced the expenditure of £27 million on log cabins so that the public can enjoy their forests (though with that level of expenditure I am bound to say I cannot think where they are going to fit the trees in). The point is they have the amenity at heart. It is for this reason that the Countryside Commission was set up. It is financed by the Department of the Environment and offers grants—it gave £300,000 last year—towards encouraging people to plant shelter belts and trees for the improvement of their locality. It is for
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this reason that many local authorities are themselves prepared to give grants for amenity planting.
This public awareness of the desecration which the age of the machine and the concrete mixer is imposing upon our national heritage has resulted in the widespread use by local authorities and others of landscape architects, planners and environmentalists, as an antidote to the march of technological progress, which may benefit the statistician and the cost accountant but which offends against the natural and the aesthetic, and which eventually but inevitably numbs the senses.
" Purely untutored humanity interferes comparatively little with the arrangements of Nature; the destructive agency of man becomes more and more energetic as he advances in civilisation ".
That sobering thought, I regret to say, was expressed not by me but by G. P. Marsh in 1864. One wonders what he would think now, in 1975.
It was because of the sudden awareness of the privilege of the surroundings which we have inherited that the last Conservative Government agreed with— and their successors accepted—the need to encourage the planting of broad-leafed hardwood trees, which can never be an economic proposition. This is why the Government pay not just a normal planting grant but give a substantial supplementary grant of a further £50 per acre for those who plant broad-leafed trees. This is done because 86 per cent. of all hardwood planting is done by private foresters. My noble friend Lord Brookeborough was hoping to be with us today but he has had to return to Northern Ireland because of the British Airways strike, which has meant his getting another flight by another airline. He would have told your Lordships that 100 per cent. of all hardwood planting is done by private forestry, and in that Province— which is far less tree-covered than the rest of the United Kingdom and yet has such a great tourist attraction and a great tourist industry—it is vital that the environment should be carefully protected and that forestry should be encouraged.
It is not without significance, nor is it surprising, that the Department of the Environment was so concerned with the protection of the environment that they set up and financed the organisation which

1019
had as its slogan, "Plant a tree in '73". One result of this campaign was the setting up of the Tree Council, whose chairman is Dame Sylvia Crowe; and the Council is having a National Tree Week next month. This is a body with a grant from the Department of the Environment whose main purpose is to urge people to plant the right thing in the right place. So here we have these bodies—financed by Government—set up to encourage people to plant trees for the benefit of the nation, and yet we have the Chancellor's proposals, the result of which must be the despoilation of the countryside.
The council planning officers, who hold so much sway not only over town planning but also over country planning, are very concerned about the whole question of what they call the "rebuilding" of the agricultural landscape. They have told me that they view with apprehension any legislation likely to interfere with that aim. It is not without significance that bodies such as the Council for the Preservation of Rural England, the Association of County Councils and the Countryside Commission—the latter body, of course, has a statutory duty to advise Ministers on matters related to the conservation and enhancement of the natural beauty and amenities of the countryside—have all found it necessary to make their views known about the damage they believe will occur to the environment if the capital transfer tax proposals on woodland go ahead in their present form.
These are bodies which are not normally concerned in any way with taxation or with individuals. The views of the Countryside Commission are worthy of note, and they were put clearly and positively when the Commission said to the Chancellor that these new taxes—and here I quote:
"… could be accompanied by a lasting deterioration in the countryside."
My Lords, can we ignore that warning, coming from that source? It was none other than Engels, who said in 1892:
" A great nation never learns better or quicker than by undergoing the consequences of its own mistakes."
But that can be an expensive way of learning.
1020
My response to that would be that a good Government—if they can see in advance the consequences of their mistakes—should not hesitate to take such action as would avoid making those mistakes. That is not humiliating: it is courageous, it is sensible, and it is respected. I feel some sympathy with the noble Lord, Lord Beswick, this afternoon, not least because he is overcoming an indisposition—and, incidentally, we are glad that he has recovered sufficiently to be present—but, frankly, because all Governments make mistakes. Some two years ago, I had to stand at the Dispatch Box from which the noble Lord will reply today and try to defend the Government of which I was a very insignificant member over the actions on forestry which they proposed and which met with massive disapproval, particularly on the production of their White Paper on Forestry and that disastrous cost-benefit analysis, which will be remembered with anguish by many of your Lordships. We were given Hell—and, with respect, quite rightly so—but what we did was "peanuts" compared with what the present Government are doing.
However, there is a moral in this. The then Government entered into consultations and thought again. New arrangements were worked out to the satisfaction of all and a bad position was retrieved. I respectfully suggest to the noble Lord, Lord Beswick, that he urges upon his Government—and he has influence in this sphere—to think again and to realise that it is easier to destroy than to create. All the effort and expenditure which has been so wisely entered into by Government Departments, independent bodies and individuals will be to no avail if the present proposals for taxing woodlands remain as they are.
It will not be just private individuals who are affected but all of us: our nation and our nation's heritage. Forestry has a large part to play in Britain for the whole country and for our future benefit. The State must aid private forestry, as this document suggests, but, equally, the State must let private forestry aid the State. My message to the Government is, "Forget this Directive and reconsider what you are doing not just to the woodlands but to the whole environment". For, after all, it is our duty, as a mere fleeting generation—and it is a very

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short passage that we enjoy here—to preserve our environment for the enjoyment and appreciation not only of our own generation but for those who will follow.
5.9 p.m.
The Earl of LONSDALE: My Lords, the Motion of the noble Lord, Lord Inglewood, is timely and we should all be grateful to him for bringing it forward. It brings to the fore the need for increased forest areas in the EEC, for the various purposes which the Draft Directive mentions, one of which is to improve the agrarian structure and to make forestry form part of a really effective pattern of land use in which it is harmonised to the best possible advantage with agriculture and the environment.
I am not as critical as my noble friend Lord Ferrers of the Draft EEC Directive. I think it contains a good deal of sound material applicable to this country. It also says that forestry provides employment in rural areas where the opportunities for agricultural employment are decreasing, and that an important objective of forestry is the production of wood, and that all member-States are net importers, and the Community as a whole imports nearly half of its requirements of forest products. The Draft Directive also says that an increase in wood production therefore seems desirable and that forestry makes major contributions to the beauty of the landscape and to the conservation of fauna and flora. There is a lot of good stuff in the Draft Directive which needs to be studied carefully.
The Motion of the noble Lord, Lord Inglewood, is also timely in that it provides us with an opportunity to consider the timber industry of Great Britain in an EEC context. I must begin by declaring the inevitable interest that most of us who are speaking in this debate have, as Lord Inglewood said. I am an owner of woodlands, one of which won a gold medal in the time of one of my forbears and another gold medal in the time of another of my forbears. Such is the scale. The noble Lord, Lord Inglewood, is an expert at growing oak trees. The speciality of my properties is sycamore trees. The life of oak and of sycamore is very long, and hence these medals come not necessarily to one's own generation but to future generations or past generations. I am also a member
1022
of the Home-Grown Timber Advisory Committee, which is charged with the duty of advising the forest Authority. I am also Chairman of the Forestry Committee for Great Britain which is the representative organisation for the private sector in Scotland, England and Wales. As a member of the English Tourist Board, I am proscribed, however, from talking about leisure and recreational or tourist potential of forestry, because my membership is an office of profit; so I shall leave that aspect of forestry, hopefully, to other noble Lords to develop.
It has been acknowledged by all of your Lordships that the home-grown industry is in a state of confusion and uncertainty. First, the White Paper of June 1972 caused a hiccough. My noble friend Lord Ferrers has referred to it. It culminated, however, in new guidelines for forestry on 5th July 1974. But in those new guidelines, which concentrated to some extent on hardwoods, integration with agriculture, the appearance of the landscape and amenity and recreation, the need for an expanding private forestry industry was reiterated. The forestry industry is built upon the Forestry Act 1919 and the Forestry Act 1945 which provided incentives for expanding our national forests. The second factor, of course, which has thrown the industry into confusion and uncertainty is the White and Green Papers on CTT and on wealth tax, which were published on 8th August 1974. To give some idea of the effect, the Commission's planting in 1973/ 74 was 45,471 acres of bare land and 8,206 acres of replanted land. Those figures, and indeed all these figures which I quote, are taken from the Commission's Annual Report for 1973/74.
The Commission has a target laid down by Parliament to plant 45,000 acres of bare land every year, so it was obviously achieving its target, despite the fact that in 1972/73 it could acquire only 12,000 acres of land and therefore was biting into its reserve of plantable land, and in 1973/74 it could acquire only 17,000 acres. But the situation is quite different this time round. I understand that it will buy at least 45,000 acres quite comfortably this time round. I state that only to illustrate that plantable land is not now a reason for a fall-off in planting. Plantable land is again available since the fortunes of agriculture declined.

1023
Now the private sector. In 1973/74 the private sector planted 46,700 acres of bare land, almost the same as the Commission, and replanted 9,900 acres, again almost the same as the Commission. But in 1974/75, this current planting season, all the estimates are to the effect that not much more than 24,000 acres will be planted by the private sector or replanted, as against 56,300 acres in the previous winter. This is what the uncertainty has done and this will undoubtedly have an obvious effect on employment. The CTT proposals have, as I say, produced this current uncertainty and confusion and caused this steep decline in planting—no shortage of land. The old tax system designed for forestry developed over the years from 1910 and the 1919 and 1945 Acts set out the targets for an expansion of the industry. The fiscal system for forestry is part and parcel of the incentives for an expansion of the industry which was called for by Parliament. The possibility of a growing crop being taxed several times before it can be harvested and produce cash has entirely removed the incentive to plant more trees, let alone hardwoods, because the expense is so much greater and the time taken to maturity is so much longer.
In debate on the CTT clause in the Finance Bill in another place, the Chancellor of the Exchequer suggested that all the hardwoods were being planted by the Commission. This is not true in fact. In 1973/74 the Commission planted 576 acres of hardwoods, while the private sector planted 2,965 acres of hardwoods. The private sector planted 84 per cent. of all the hardwoods planted and the Commission planted 16 per cent. We are both planting hardwoods, but it is the private sector which thinks most about the countryside because its woodlands are in small blocks and small areas and the traditional areas for high landscape value. That is why private forestry plants so much more hardwood than the State sector.
The inclination of woodland owners not to plant any more because of CTT is obviously directly contrary to the statement of 5th July 1974 which, among other things, provided for additional incentives in order that more hardwoods would be planted. But the private sector can only die, and die rapidly, under the
1024
CTT proposals. At the same time, it did not seem to be the Chancellor's wish to kill off the private sector in any sphere of commerce and industry. On 14th May 1974, Mr. Healey said to the CBI:
" Wrong decisions by me could in time destroy the private sector of a mixed economy. I can assure you, as you asked me to, that Her Majesty's Government has no intention of destroying the private sector or encouraging its decay. We want a private sector which is vigorous, alert, imaginative—and profitable."
The private sector of the forestry industry can be none of those things if the CTT proposals go through unamended. Mr. Healey also said in his Budget Statement of 12th November 1974 in another place, at column 259 of Volume 881 of the Official Report :
" The Government … have a duty to see that firms which are alert and vigorous can be profitable as well. But such firms can be profittable only if the system of price control and taxation within which they operate makes this possible. Any adjustments to the system which the Government have to make for this purpose cannot rightly be regarded as State aid ".
In other words, it is suggested that if an industry needs a special tax system because only with it can it survive and thrive, it should have a special tax system. Many times through the years the Forestry Committee for Great Britain have suggested that the more obvious examples of advantage being taken of the tax system ought to be dealt with, and could be dealt with, without upsetting the tax system as a whole.
I mentioned employment The figures for employment are startling. The best estimates of employment in the forestry industry have been agreed with the Forestry Authority, and the best estimates are that there are 13,100 forest workers in the private sector, 10,850 in the State sector and 12,000 odd in the processing industries which process the timber. If planting by the private sector stops and management by the private sector declines, a very large part of the 13,100 who are employed in the private sector will find themselves looking for other jobs. This will lead to further depopulation of the countryside, particularly if one thinks that about one in six of those who are employed in the countryside of South-West Scotland are employed in forestry, most of which is private forestry.
I hope that a subsequent speaker will go into the importance of home-grown

1025
timber in an import-saving role. At this moment I will merely say that in 1962 the imports of timber and timber products were £414 million, but that in 1973/74 it is estimated that there will be imports amounting to £2,083 million—a five-fold increase in 13 years. This is because of the higher price of timber and a much greater usage of timber and paper than was ever expected when the White Paper of 1943 was produced. Therefore what one must ask is whether Her Majesty's Government still want an expanding forestry industry which is in line with the EEC Draft Directive. Do Her Majesty's Government want a healthy and vigorous private sector within the forestry industry, and, if so, what steps will Her Majesty's Government take to make this possible?
5.23 p.m.
Lord BOLTON: My Lords, I, too, must claim an interest in the odd gold medal! I imagine that every shade of opinion in your Lordships' House will be in agreement with the main reasons for encouraging forestry within the European Community, as set out in their discussions and papers of 1971 and 1972. Speaking as an active participant in the forestry industry, I am concerned, like many others, that the United Kingdom will not fulfil the stated objectives or ideals if the present fiscal concessions are withdrawn or are not adequately replaced during the debates and discussions that are proceeding in another place.
Forestry is a very long-term investment. It is not merely a financial investment. As the noble Earl has just said, it is an investment in the social, cultural and environmental stakes of all rural communities. In so far as urban dwellers are able to share in the beauties of the countryside, they, too, have a stake in the future of forestry. The Forestry Commission, or, indeed, any other similar public or national body which might be envisaged, could, by its very nature, only be geared to running large units and not the enormous number of scattered, smaller units which can only be economic and viable if they remain as autonomous units. These units, strongly encouraged by the EEC in their various papers, are an integral part of the British countryside. As I have said, the EEC has recognised this clearly in many of its Papers.
1026
Should private silviculture be placed in jeopardy by precipitate fiscal policies which may not have taken into account the enormous implications, I fear that the very nature and appearance of a great national heritage will disappear. It will certainly lead to the increasing depopulation of many rural areas which again, as the noble Earl has said, badly need that population and that work. The many thousands of workers in private forestry and the many ancillary industries attached to private forestry will suffer heavily, too. It takes great faith to plant a seedling which probably will not mature for 70 to 150 years. However, while I and others regard social and amenity aspects as of prime importance in this particular debate, I would also respectfully remind your Lordships that in two World Wars the supply of home-grown timber was deeply appreciated by many industrial parts of the nation.
In conclusion, may I say that 200 or 300 years ago an Englishman declared that when Englishmen had not the faith to return home and plant an acorn England was finished. My Lords, I should not like to see that happen.
5.26 p.m.
Viscount NORWICH: My Lords, may I add my thanks to those which have been expressed previously this afternoon to the noble Lord, Lord Inglewood, for having drawn our attention to this Report and draft recommendation. I never address your Lordships' House without a feeling of deep humility, and I do not think that I have ever addressed your Lordships' House with a feeling of greater humility than I have this afternoon. First, because, to my great regret, it may well be that I shall have to leave before the end of this debate—for which I crave your Lordships' indulgence but I have an appointment which I cannot break—and, secondly, because not only have I not planted a single tree in my life but I do not actually own any. I owned four trees, but they were all elms which became diseased; and all four had to be chopped down two years ago. Therefore I regret to say that my experience is minimal and my knowledge very little more than that.
Also, when I speak about conservation, normally I declare an interest as a member of the Executive Committee of

1027
the National Trust. In this case, obviously the question of capital transfer tax does not apply to the National Trust, which itself is a charity. Therefore I can speak only as a lover of the countryside and as one who is determined to do everything he can, within the limits of his very small powers and ability, to see that that countryside is protected.
The proposed Council Directive that we are looking at this afternoon states that member-States will be required to bring in schemes to encourage afforestation and that, within such schemes, member-States will be required to pay 60 to 90 per cent. of the cost of the qualifying operations. So far it seems to me to be so good that I see nothing inherently reprehensible or undesirable about it. I think the problem is that before we can agree or disagree on such a policy, it is vital that we clear our minds about our own domestic policies with regard to woods and forests. The problem is basically a very simple one. Therefore I will not take very long to express it. quite apart from the fact that the noble Earl, Lord Ferrers, has already made most of the points that I wanted to make. If we are to continue with our past policies of encouraging afforestation, there can be nothing new in that. We have had the principle of Government help for afforestation for a long time. Never have we had it in a more enlightened form than with the Dedication Scheme of last July. This offered, essentially, very nearly four times as much grant for those wishing to plant new forests of deciduous trees and hardwoods as the amount which might be available for those who wish to cover an even greater acreage of this country with those gloomy and grim expanses of conifers which have done so much in the last 20 or 30 years to destroy the beauty of so much of our countryside.
If this Dedication Scheme were to continue I have no doubt that the situation over the next ten or twenty years would be enormously improved. This is a carrot —and an important and valuable carrot— to encourage people to improve the countryside and its general aspect. But, suddenly, since the last Finance Bill we are faced with not one stick but the possibility over the long term of five or six different slicks, the cumulative effect of which
1028
will infinitely outweigh the potential benefits of this single carrot. Those sticks are the regular and repeated imposition of capital transfer tax, perhaps five or six times over the 150 odd years which a deciduous forest takes to grow to maturity.
It seems inevitable that those who own such forests will be faced with the necessity every 25 or 30 years—however long it may be—to pay this tax once again, because as we all know from bitter experience that once a tax has been imposed it becomes increasingly difficult ever to get it removed. Thus the owners of such forests will almost certainly be forced—however much it may be against their will—either to chop them down before maturity and replace them with conifers or simply to chop them down before maturity and not replace them at all. Once again, inevitably, the result can be only the ruination of much of our countryside and immeasurable and irreparable loss, not only to those who might have direct benefits as the possessors or the immediate enjoyers of those forests but to the bird and animal life that inhabit them, as, indeed, to every inhabitant of this country for whom the view of such woods and forests on the horizon, on the hills, in the valleys, is of such vital importance to the beauty of this country as we know it.
This is a terrible prospect but the situation would obviously be much worse if we did not feel that Her Majesty's Government were already acutely conscious of it. Fortunately—and I hope the noble Lord, Lord Beswick, will not contradict me a little later—I think I may say that we are fairly confident that Her Majesty's Government are well aware of the long-term dangers of the capital transfer tax as it is at present threatened. We had assurances almost exactly two months ago from the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food; we have had not so much assurances but rather clear indications from the Chancellor himself on the 21st of last month, and we have had further indications from Mr. Joel Barnett as recently as yesterday. From all of this, it seems that the Government are well aware of the dangers, and are not only aware of them but are, I hope, eager and anxious to do something about the position.

1029
That being the case, I do not want to press the subject too hard from these Benches. I am perfectly certain that, thinking, as they already do, that they may be wrong, Her Majesty's Government will give us reason within the next few days to thank them for having got us out of this agonising shadow which remains over us at present. I believe the best thing we can do is to express our hopes, our convictions and our desperate pleas that this matter should be looked at most carefully and that by the simple solution of merely levying tax, at least so far as deciduous forests are concerned, only on the sale rather than the inheritance of timber, the danger may be averted.
5.36 p.m.
Lord CAMPBELL of CROY: My Lords, I hope the Government will consider carefully the remarks that have just been made by the noble Viscount, speaking as he does as an authority on conservation matters. I hope now in a fairly brief speech to have the opportunity to emphasise the importance of the forestry industry in Scotland, and I must start by declaring a small interest, because I own some woodlands on a small scale at my home in the North of Scotland and part of them are under the Dedication Scheme.
I join in thanking my noble friend Lord Inglewood and the Select Committee for their lucid and concise Report, and also for his most helpful presentation of it to us today. It seems to me that the main point from the Report is that the EEC are proposing the encouragement of forestry, and particularly private forestry, although it is restricted to schemes associated with farming, and afforestation is suggested, with financial incentives, although some clarification is needed as to what is meant by "fiscal incentives" by the EEC.
My noble friend Lord Lonsdale suggested that something might be said about the question of the balance of payments. I understand that after Japan, Britain is the second largest importer of timber in the world, and it may be asked why have we in this country over many years and under successive Governments allowed our balance of payments to be so burdened. Why is it that only about 10
1030
per cent. of our own needs in timber and timber products, including paper, are provided from our home-grown timber at present? I believe the answer is that Governments have always been thinking in the short term, but more recently we have been thinking further ahead and I believe we ought now to be thinking in terms of 10, 20 and more years ahead and not just about the balance of payments for this year and next year, however important they are.
When I mention timber products, of course I am thinking of pulp for paper and board. In recent years two integrated mills, large for the United Kingdom, have been established, one in Scotland at Fort William and another at Workington, and Government help on a generous scale was forthcoming and was used because of the employment that was provided. These mills were built to use indigenous timber. We could increasingly produce more timber at home and not have to pay for so much of our needs in foreign currencies. There is still suitable land available; for example, land which is not attractive agriculturally and for which trees are the best, or sometimes the only possible crop. They then provide good jobs in rural areas where the jobs are needed and also, with a little care, the afforestation can improve the countryside. These considerations apply particularly in large areas of Scotland, because about half the forestry operations, both private and by the Forestry Commission, take place in Scotland and therefore future policy is of great concern to us North of the Border. I know that at least three of my noble friends from Scotland are proposing to take part in the debate.
It is not surprising that while I was sharing the responsibility for the Forestry Commission in recent years, it was decided that its headquarters should be moved to Edinburgh—I understand that this move should be completed in a few months' time—because that is the centre of the main forestry growing areas in Britain. Indeed, about 80 per cent. of all forestry in the country is North of a line drawn approximately through Yorkshire. The Forestry Commission have unique functions, because they are not only responsible for a large proportion of forestry, but are also the authority for administering schemes applying to the

1031
private sector. This unusual function has been carried out well by the Commission.
I am glad to see the noble Lord, Lord Taylor of Gryfe, in his place. I know he may feel that in his position as Chairman of the Forestry Commission, he is debarred from speaking in this debate, but no doubt he is listening to everything that is said. I know he has been endeavouring to assist progress to the benefit of the community as a whole, because, as I have said, those in the Forestry industry can make long-term contributions to our economy. Enlightened forethought and co-operation with farming, tourism, recreational interests and the general public can also lead to benefits being gained for the countryside. I believe the noble Lord recognises this fact, and has been giving encouragement.
But there is a threat which I must mention, which has been raised before in the debate. Hanging over the forestry industry today, there is the threat of the Government's capital transfer tax. This has not been adapted to apply to this long-term process. At the very time when the EEC are sensibly proposing encouragement to domestic forestry industries, including financial incentives, the Government's proposals would kill off more than half the British industry, the private sector. The noble Earl, Lord Ferrers, elaborated on this. I would say only that the existing tax system has, for over sixty years, recognised that to tax a crop several times during its long growing life would make it impossible for forestry to be carried on. If the Government persist in removing this system without replacement, most private owners will have to give up forestry because they cannot afford to incur enormous losses for themselves and their successors.
Do the Government really wish to increase imports of timber, pulp and paper —already over 80 per cent. of our needs —and deprive themselves of the hitherto expanding domestic contribution to the balance of payments? An adapted form of the capital transfer tax should be applied to forestry. Provisions should be included, as they can be without difficulty, to prevent last-minute purchases of woodlands to avoid paying full tax, sometimes known as "the death-bed
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arrangement", by providing for five to seven or ten years' transfer before death. I must point out again that unless this is done as many as 30 million seedlings and transplants may have to be destroyed in the coming months, according to one estimate, and a rundown in employment started.
The Chancellor of the Exchequer has been calling for investment in British Industry as a whole. Forestry is an industry in which modernisation and investment can increase employment instead of reducing it, as in many other industries, and in areas where jobs are needed. Other industries such as steel and textiles very ofter suffer from redundancies when investment takes place in modern plant. This is something which the noble Lord was addressing us about earlier this week. In forestry, of course, there is modernisation, but with afforestation, on the whole, it means more jobs, not less. As the noble Lord, Lord Inglewood, said, the financial return is small and distant. Unless continuity is assured over the years no one can be expected to face the inevitable losses of growing the trees which the country needs.
Let us also consider the lamentable results of wholesale felling when no money is left for clearance, far less for replanting. The effects on the countryside would be savage. The woods and glades of today would be reduced to devastated acres of stumps and scrub. In Scotland, this enforced destruction of the landscape would be most damaging to employment, to the tourist industry and to all who depend on tourism in Scotland, such as the shops, garages and other services, not only in the rural communities, but also in sizeable towns.
I hope, too, that newspapers and publishers are fully alive to the threat to their supplies of newsprint, and paper which I have mentioned. There have been newsprint troubles for the Press in recent years when supplies have been difficult. At present, about 9 per cent. of the newsprint used by the Press in this country is produced from home-grown timber. It is important that our newspaper industry should not become virtually dependent on supplies of newsprint from abroad. Today at Question Time, the noble Lord, Lord Beswick, was particularly helpful in a

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reply to me, saying that the Government —if I may paraphrase his words—were in favour of a mixed economy. He said that in some cases private investment was not forthcoming, and therefore public investment had to take its place. But this is not the case in the forestry industry. Here we have private investment, long-term investment, available. It can be used, and the taxpayers' money need not be used either directly or in interest on loans, provided that that investment is not penalised or expropriated, which is what the present proposals look like.
I am glad to note that the proposal in the EEC document that forestry is to be encouraged, although we think that the restriction to planting woodlands on farms is unnecessary. We think it should extend much more widely to undertakings also which apply only to forestry. In Scotland, and I believe also in some parts of England and Wales, there are large areas where the terrain is difficult and suitable for growing trees, but not for farming. First and foremost, I suggest that we must ensure the future of a healthy forestry industry here in Britain.
5.48 p.m.
Lord MOLSON: My Lords, I must declare an interest as President of the Council for the Protection of Rural England. My only purpose in intervening in this debate is to emphasise the tremendous importance which the whole amenity movement attaches to the proper development of forestry, and especially the encouragement of hardwoods. Of course, we are not opposed in suitable cases to the planting of conifers but have many times in the past criticised the covering of grand open spaces with excessively large quantities of conifers, all of exactly the same hue. We naturally rejoiced when the present Government, on the advice, I think, of the Forestry Commission, introduced a new subsidy last summer in order to encourage the planting of a much larger proportion of deciduous trees, especially among conifers, in order to break the line and the monotony, and to give us that unique beauty which deciduous trees have, especially in Autumn.
My noble friend, Lord Campbell of Croy, said we must take a reasonably long view, and ought to look thirty or forty years ahead. I beg the Govern-
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ment to look much further ahead than that from the point of view of amenity. As has been said by several noble Lords with great forestry experience, hardwoods last for 150 years and only come to their full glory and beauty when they are a hundred years old. It is our duty in this generation to look ahead and to make sure that one hundred years hence the beauty of the English and Scottish and Welsh countryside is preserved for those who come after us.
I do not wish to criticise the capital transfer tax. On some occasion I may think it appropriate to do so. My concern this afternoon, in speaking for the Council for the Protection of Rural England, is to ask that forestry shall be treated in an exceptional way. The owner of beautiful woods, with all that they give to the glory of the countryside, should be treated in the same way as the owner of works of art which are of national beauty and importance. The Treasury in the past, I am glad to say, has managed 'to administer a scheme under which works of art of national importance are taxed only when they are sold. I ask the Government to consider the English countryside as of no less importance in the whole capital wealth of beauty of the nation as that which is represented by pictures and other works of art. My Lords, the Labour Party has a good record, or certainly many individual members of it have an extremely good record, in the matter of the preservation of amenity. I thought that the reply of the Chancellor of the Exchequer in the House of Commons a short time ago held out great hopes that he will show the flexibility of mind that is necessary to ensure that this capital transfer tax shall not have an adverse effect upon the amenities of the country.
I ought perhaps to declare a minor interest. I am a small woodland owner, of about 50 acres. Last winter I sold and cleared a small wood and replanted it, and in choosing the trees with which I planted and the way in which I left a Scottish burn visible from the road I had in mind the preservation and indeed the enhancement of the beauty of our part of Scotland. I am not necessarily referring to companies in this matter, who, incidentally, of course, are not affected by this capital transfer tax. But I hope that the Government will

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make sure that those individual owners —I believe they are the great majority— who try to add something to the beauty of the countryside for posterity shall be enabled to do so. My Lords, I apologise that I shall probably not be able to remain to the end of the debate, owing to a longstanding engagement, and I hope that nothing I have said is so controversial as to make it obligatory for me to remain.
5.54 p.m.
Lord LOVAT: My Lords, I should like to add my thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Inglewood, for introducing this debate, which should not be a controversial one. Unlike the noble Lord, I can make no claim to winning gold medals for forestry. Essentially I am a farmer, but my father was the first Chairman of the Forestry Commission, which took birth in 1919. When I went up to Oxford he thought I was being extremely idle—I was reading History—and he insisted that I take a forestry degree at the same time. I should have got into bad trouble if I had not passed both exams, which I somehow managed to do.
My Lords, the question before us, as I see it, is this. The present Government have the thought that private forestry is a sector in which certain taxes can be avoided. I can assure the noble Lord who is to reply, with my hand on my heart, that no person who grows trees and loves timber does it from that point of view. One is thinking in the long term, and one cannot stress sufficiently, although every speaker has done this, that the long term is what counts in forestry. Sir Walter Scott summed it up better than anybody when he was talking about trees:
" They are aye growing while we are sleeping."
That is a nice way of putting to the Government the importance of homegrown timber which is not in competition with the Forestry Commission but which this country most certainly cannot do without at the present time, the balance of payments being what it is.
The last speaker, Lord Molson, said that the Labour Government had looked after forestry very well. Well, I think they have; I am not going to pick a quarrel on that. Mr. Attlee's Government introduced the Dedication Scheme which I
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think began in 1946, and several speakers have mentioned "Plant a tree in '73". When Lord Beswick was out of the Chamber the noble Earl, Lord Lonsdale, quoted something that the Chancellor of the Exchequer said in 1974. I think I might read it again, because I believe it is important if consistency in forestry is to be preserved. We are all agreed it is a long-term policy. Mr. Healey said:
" Her Majesty's Government has no intention of destroying the private sector or encouraging its decay. We want a private sector which is vigorous, alert, imaginative and profitable."
I do not think one can completely reverse that very wise statement if some extremists on the Left Wing of his Party consider that private interests are taking advantage of growing trees.
I am a member of the Scottish Woodland Growers' Association, and we are fully aware of the deathbed purchase, which we are the first to agree is a wrong thing. The stopping of any alleged abuse of the tax system has our full support, and at least ten years ago the private sector expressed its concern to the Board of Inland Revenue about the so-called deathbed purchase and its willingness to see the rules amended to stop this practice. But to amend a rule and to prevent an abuse is one thing; to introduce a new tax system—and I am speaking now about the gift tax—which without qualification could destroy the entire private sector of the industry is quite another. I hope the noble Lord, Lord Beswick, will bear this in mind, because we are planting trees for the nation and not for ourselves.
We are importing £2,000 million worth of timber in a country which is growing only 8 per cent. of the national requirement, and in a country which can grow timber better, I am informed, than any other country in Europe, where other nations are fully aware of the importance of timber as an integral part of their agricultural requirements. Belgium produces 43 per cent. of its national requirement, France no less than 84 per cent., and Italy 56 per cent.
In my forestry experience—and I have been planting trees for 43 years since I inherited from my father and became a Member of your Lordships' House—I have always been led to believe that the Baltic supplied an enormous quota of

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timber at the nod of a head. This is not so. The Baltic and Scandinavians have cut back their resources to such an extent that I myself have had an inquiry from Scandinavia to send trees as pulp from Invernessshire to Gothenburg in Sweden. This is an amazing state of affairs which one can hardly believe.
These are facts, and one must not run away from them on a gift tax blanket which will be penal in this industry. Confidence is already shaken, and it is not only the forester, the proprietor, who is concerned, as many noble Lords have pointed out; it is the nurseryman, the contractor, the man who makes the fencing wire, the man who digs the ditches with his small machinery, the new School of Forestry in Inverness, the farmer who loses his shelter belt. Moreover, there is the drainage of the hillside. When trees are cut down you have flooding in the river system for years afterwards. The water table, too, rises and falls. As your Lordships all know, shelter from trees for animals is the equivalent of food; it keeps animals warm in the cold winter nights. This is particularly important in the Highlands of Scotland, which is the greatest potential area for growing more timber.
If noble Lords think that the Forestry Commission can take over all that the private sector is doing, they are wrong. It is not physically possible to do this. Neither is the proprietor who can no longer plant trees likely to sell to the Forestry Commission; he will put sheep and cattle on that hill. One of my problems on a large estate—and I declare my interest in farming—is that I have had to think long and hard before planting trees where I thought hill cattle or sheep could do better. I calculated that on the present price of mutton and of homegrown timber, sheep had to produce twins every year to match a forestry plantation of even conifers—which have been perhaps criticised too much even when the land is suited to their needs.
Do not think that because private growers could not continue, the Forestry Commission could do so single-handed. It is not true. I have known all the Chairmen of the Forestry Commission— some of them by their Christian names— since the Commission started. We have as good a man as any in the present holder of the office, the noble Lord, Lord
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Taylor of Gryfe. I am sure that he will make a case out for us. It is nothing more than good common sense, which I have no doubt he will pass on. I am only sorry that he cannot speak to make it clear to the noble Lord, Lord Beswick, and the Government across the way.
6.4 p.m.
Lord CRAIGTON: My Lords, as noble Lords have pointed out, in one major respect the Council Directive is hardly suitable for the British scene. The current form of the proposal refers to the large number of agricultural holdings where agriculture is practised on land which is not suitable for this purpose but which is very suitable to forestry. In essence, this is not a British problem. However, I agree with my noble friend Lord Lonsdale that what concerns us is referred to in this Report. Paragraph 3 of the explanatory notes sets out the two wider objectives, which are indeed our objectives; first, an increase in wood production, and
"of similar importance "—
that is, to wood production,
"and in certain circumstances of even greater importance are the contributions which forestry makes to the beauty of the landscape, to the conservation of flora and fauna, and to the protection of the soil."
Apart from the noble Viscount, Lord Norwich, I alone have no interest to declare. In fact, all I know about forestry I learnt from my noble friend Lord Dundee, who spent a day with me and told me so much about softwoods. However, I am interested in the environment. The effect on forestry of any change in the taxation system which leads to enforced felling and, as noble Lords have said, a reduction in planting, will have a disastrous effect on the environment. My noble friend Lord Lovat has already pointed out that Britain, as compared to the rest of Europe, has far too few trees already. If money has to be raised in this way, it is the best oaks, the most beautiful hardwoods, which will be the first to go, and with them much of our wildlife and our scenic beauty.
The danger here is greater than one might suppose. Last October the Countryside Commission issued a discussion paper entitled, New Agricultural Landscapes, which suggests that with today's modern farming methods many

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of our hedges are doomed, and that from every conservation point the tree-planting schemes must take the place of the hedges we shall lose. So from a conservation point of view, we need more and not less woodland than we have now. Ornithologically, the majority of British terrestrial birds depends upon woodland, particularly broad-leafed woodland, for their livelihood. Some of them live inside the woods, some of them live on its edges which to them are the equivalent of hedges, and which they will also lose. Furthermore, all the species that we have need our present variety of woodland in the variety of areas in which they now are.
I agree that it is true that in the last few hundred years a number of species have successfully adapted to man-made environments; the suburban garden, the town centre, and the hedgerow. But— and this includes many of the birds which have adapted themselves to man-made conditions—the majority of our species need the woodlands for some or all of four purposes: feeding; nest sites; song posts, and roosts. Thus, these same woodlands—and in some cases conifer forests—while important to the birds are equally important to a significant proportion of other living things which are largely dependent upon the association of themselves with woodlands for their continued survival. Every noble Lord here can think of some.
Do we really want our bluebell woods to be denied to future generations? Do we really want to jeopardise the continued existence of 22 out of our 57 native species of butterfly, which, too, are closely associated with our British woodlands? I agree with other noble Lords that it seems incredible that any Government should even consider dealing a body blow to the production of a natural reserve which socially, economically, aesthetically and environmentally will become more and not less necessary to Britain as the years go by.
6.9 p.m.
Viscount INGLEBY: My Lords, I speak from the Cross-Benches, which is perhaps quite a good place to speak from in a forestry debate. I am glad to see— at least I think I see—that the table on which the Hansard writers are writing is made of good English oak. My quali-
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fications for speaking are really only two: first, that I love trees, I plant one almost every day during the winter; and, secondly, that I live on the North Yorkshire moors. Those who know them will appreciate the shelter that woodlands afford. Though you may appreciate the shelter, you may not realise that the North Yorkshire moors were forest for much longer than they have been heather, bracken, and bilberry.
They became forests after the last Ice Age and they remained so for a long time until man started clearing them by burning and by grazing. It is this burning and grazing that has changed what was originally a good forest brown earth soil into the black peaty soil that we have today. My policy is to plant a mixture of hardwoods and softwoods in these places because this will in time restore the fertility of the soil.
Of course, there are many other benefits of planting. There is first the benefit of the jobs—and in our area the population has halved in the last 20 years. There are the benefits to the landscape. It is a very bare and bleak landscape and the provision of mixed trees will add greatly to its beauty. Then, of course, there is the timber which will be produced. One would think that every Government would encourage these objectives, and indeed every Government since 1910 have done this. It was Lloyd George who introduced the Amendment exempting forestry from his new estate duty. But recently we have been faced with this threat of capital transfer tax. Since woods would normally change hands in company with agricultural land, there would be a heavy rate of capital transfer tax to pay; and as various speakers have pointed out this might have to be paid between three and seven times in the lifetime of a tree. It was Sir Henry Rider Haggard who said, "One should always think twice before cutting down a tree ", and I am very glad indeed that the Chancellor has said that he is prepared to think again. Common sense surely leads to only one conclusion: if you are going to have a capital transfer tax on a tree it must be paid when the tree has reached maturity, when it is felled, and when the owner has the wherewithal to pay the tax.
Last August, as various speakers have mentioned, the Government introduced a

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new Dedication Scheme under which the owner accepts a measure of control from the Commission. He consults with the Commission about the plan of operation and the Commission in their turn consult with the local planning authority, the Ministry of Agriculture and the various amenity bodies, so that at the end of the day a scheme is produced in which all interests are represented. Such a scheme would ensure sound forestry, good land use, environmental benefits to the landscape and reasonable public access. Most people probably do not get a chance of planting trees before they are 40 years of age. One cannot expect anything back for 20 years, so an owner will not see much back in his own lifetime. In addition, a great deal of care is required to look after the trees. If he is going to provide all these benefits, is there not a good case for exempting woodlands from the capital transfer tax?
6.14 p.m.
Lord STANLEY of ALDERLEY: My Lords, my staff, I think, have interpreted the Council's Directive in words that I hope I can understand. First of all, I must declare that I do not know one tree from another. My only knowledge of trees was taught me by a sergeant-major, who told me they were "bushy topped ". I want to support the Committee's concern over the effect of Article 6, paragraph 1, which reads:
" No aid shall be granted for any conversion of forest areas and uncultivated areas into agricultural use ".
My Lords, if this Article means that no aid shall be given to convert uncultivated areas into agricultural, as opposed to forestry, use, all I can say is that the authors of this document must have some similar characteristics to my daughter's donkey.
First of all, this could be very damaging to the expansion of British agriculture. Secondly, there is some derelict land now that is so for economic reasons. As we know, economic pressures change quickly and it could very rapidly become worth while to cultivate this land for agriculture. Thirdly, some land is derelict now because we do not know how to drain it, but we are learning every day how to drain. New techniques are coming out. Only yesterday I heard of an interesting one which in
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the future might make some of these areas suitable for agricultural production as opposed to forestry. Apart from the enormous potential that exists in reclaiming areas such as the Wash and Morecambe Bay for intensive and arable use, I am most concerned that the Community should realise that there is enormous potential in draining and converting into productive pasture many areas of our wetter West.
My thoughts, of course, are in my own county of Anglesey. It may be that the Welsh Black lives in a marsh and the Welsh sheep lives off slate, but I can assure your Lordships that they do much better on grass. All that has to be done is to drain and fence. I know that this is a hobby of mine. The latter point of fencing seems to be forgotten always by our legislators—God bless them! Anyone who has read the work of Dr. Wynn Parry of the University of Wales on permanent pasture will know that, correctly drained and fenced, these new pastures will produce some 6 cwt. of beet during the summer season without nitrogen. It was with great humility that I learned this, and I did this in Anglesey, much to my surprise. The real snag is that you must drain, which costs, say, £100 an acre, and you must fence, and even if they are 20-acre fields it comes out at £80 an acre. I do not like to say it again, but, due to the shortsightedness of a previous Government (whose colour I shall not mention) there is no fencing grant. As I understand it, this Community Directive will follow the same line. Indeed, if we were reclaiming land it might also take away the drainage grant, which we still have.
Another snag is that these wet uncultivated lands are often farmed by farmers with little capital, so they are unable to improve them. I am sorry to turn the clock back, but I can think of no better use of the country's money than giving aid for the drainage and fencing of these uncultivated areas. If I persuade your Lordships to such a view, my only regret is to those who want to shoot snipe. Finally, may I point out that to convert swamp into productive pasture takes, say, two years. I am sorry to annoy your Lordships who are great foresters, but I am sure you will agree that this will give a quicker return than growing trees, which I gather takes up to 150 years, and

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in areas such as Anglesey the planting of trees is fraught with hazards. They either get blown over or they may get polluted by fluoride.
I hope that then noble Lord, Lord Beswick, will, as usual, tell me that I have got it wrong again and that this Directive does not mean as much as I think it could mean. At least I have not, as have other noble Lords, troubled him with the problem of DDT. I think the Government have done a very good job in this matter and I do not think I have any capital left to bother about. I hope this Directive does not mean as much as I think it could mean.
6.20 p.m.
Earl WALDEGRAVE: My Lords, I hope I shall be forgiven if I do not follow very closely the noble Lord, Lord Stanley of Alderley, on his difficulties with Article 6 of this Directive, because I agree with most other Members of your Lordships' House who have spoken today that we should congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Inglewood, on having brought our attention to the Report of this Committee and to the proposed Council Directive. I am happy to support it with the noble Lord, Lord Inglewood, because he and I were both Parliamentary Secretaries to a Minister by the name of Soames who may have had something to do with this Council Directive—in any case the better part of it.
The noble Lord and I both left Mr. Macmillan's Government in July 1962 with a number of others, the noble Lord to come to your Lordships' House and I to depart to the Forestry Commission. I am sorry that the noble Lord, Lord Taylor of Gryfe, is not in his place now —he was earlier—because he was one of the Commissioners, when I was Chairman, and a better colleague one could not have had. He will of course be frustrated—and here he comes!—none the less by the Addison Rules, which mean that although knowing all about the Forestry Commission he has to sit silent, while Parliamentary Secretaries who know little about it have to speak on there forestry matters. There is one gold medal, not for a forest or a wood, to which I think the noble Lord, Lord Taylor of Gryfe, and I could perhaps both aspire; that is, that when we were working in the
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Forestry Commission we were lucky enough to get Dame Sylvia Crowe to join us as an adviser, and what wonderful work she has done for the amenity side of forestry in this country.
My Lords, the proposed Directive must be welcomed by anybody who has even the remotest belief in forestry. In so far as the Directive seeks to encourage afforestation, it seeks to improve existing woodlands and the production of wood for industry, and to provide for recreational needs. I, for one, am glad that it also states, quite clearly, that it relates principally to State assistance for private forestry. It has been a great genius of this country that in forestry matters we have been able to run both private and public forestry in double harness—and very successfully—on non-Party lines, without quarrels, right from the beginning of the Forestry Act 1919. Long may that position continue.
As has been referred to in this debate, the noble Lord, Lord Beswick, has already mentioned the fact—and he also stated this in answer to a Parliamentary Question at the beginning of our Sitting today—that he believes in a mixed economy and wishes to see a vigorous private sector. We are glad to hear that, I am sure. Forestry is an important industry for this country. It is not taken seriously enough. Forestry produces timber, obviously, but it also produces raw material for paper and all the things that go into the paper industry. Soon after the 1919 Act in this country forestry used to be largely concerned with producing pitwood for coal mines. It is now as largely concerned in producing pulp wood for the enormous paper industry, thereby saving us a great deal of imports.
There are now great pulp mills in this country, in the North of England, in Scotland and in the South of England, and these are important. They give a great deal of rural employment and this must not be forgotten in districts of the United Kingdom where rural employment is difficult. In the West of Scotland; in my own country, the West of England, and in Wales a great deal of employment is provided by forestry, the pulp mills and the ancillary industries. But, over and above all, many noble Lords have said this afternoon what an overwhelmingly important contribution forestry makes to the whole amenity and environment, as it is

1045
now called, of the countryside with which we are now so deeply concerned.
Most people probably prefer what is called hardwood—the deciduous tree, the oak, the ash, the elm, the beech and the sycamore. These are the very trees that are threatened today, not only by Mr. Healey (if he is, in fact, threatening them) but by animals that are almost more difficult to catch. They are, for instance, threatened by the grey squirrel. We heard that the noble Lord, Lord Inglewood, grows oaks. He will find that his oaks will soon be eaten when squirrels get up as far as Cumberland—mine have been. We heard that the noble Earl, Lord Lonsdale, has a great sycamore interest. He will not have any sycamores when the squirrels get there, I am sorry to say— again, mine have gone. Beech are now tremendously attacked by grey squirrels, and it is just at this time when many of our most decorative, beautiful and valuable hardwoods are being attacked by the grey squirrels (let alone Mr. Healey) that the Dutch elm disease has come into this country and swept away all our coffin boards, which will be a really great loss to the countryside.
It is at this time when the hardwoods of this country, to which the general public is so addicted and which it loves so much, are threatened by natural causes that they are also threatened by unnatural causes like Budget proposals, capital transfer taxes, wealth taxes and so on. I cannot believe that this will really come about when it is known that these woodlands are also threatened in other ways which may be far more effective in bringing them to an end.
Noble Lords have reminded us that ever since the estate duty was introduced —and the capital transfer tax will now take its place—it has been recognised, as Mr. Lloyd George did in 1910, that you needed different rules to deal with a crop like timber, which takes 80, 100, 150 or 200 years to grow. I am sure the Treasury will one day understand that more or less elementary truth. If there have been loopholes found in any tax system, the proper thing to do is to block them and not, in the old phrase, "empty the baby out with the bath water" and do away with all the trees, because nobody could then avoid tax on them. So I am sure that that will not really happen.
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My Lords, I do not think I want to say anything more about the general position, except to add that there is one point which I am surprised has hardly been mentioned this afternoon. Nearly all the private woodlands, which are of such importance in this country—mostly quite small areas of woodlands of 100 or 250 acres, which are quite big woodlands in the private sector—are subject to the dedication contract. These contracts of dedication were voluntarily entered into and, so far as I know, cannot be broken. A dedication contract which cannot be broken will have been entered into in totally dissimilar fiscal circumstances, when a man agreed to leave his land always growing timber—always in woodland. He will have taken advice from trustees and lawyers, believing that it was right in the national interest, as well as in his own interest, that a certain area of his land should be dedicated in perpetuity for the growing of trees. Then, much later, he will have found that the whole basis of the tax law had been arbitrarily changed so that nobody in his senses would, or could, advise anybody to dedicate on a permanent contract. I cannot believe that this can really be sustained, and I am sure that when the Treasury realises the position and remembers that there is a dedication contract to which most of the private woodland in this country is subject, it must be advised not to break one of the basic considerations of the contract, which was that since estate duty was introduced, woodlands have always been, and would always be, treated in the necessary way, because timber is a long-growing crop and not a quick turnover crop like a bicycle. My Lords, that is all I have to say.
6.32 p.m.
The DUKE of ATHOLL: My Lords, when I was first elected to your Lordships House—and, I think, unlike anyone else here, I was elected to this House—I was taken around by a very eminent Member of long standing who had been of even longer standing in another place. He told me that I must always be very careful to declare an interest. However, he said, "In this House we do not bother to declare an interest in agriculture or forestry, as all Peers are expected to take an interest in agriculture and forestry." Things seem

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to have changed slightly since then; so, in order to make sure that I do not transgress the conventions of your Lordships' House, I hasten to declare that I have a financial interest in forestry and that anything I may say may be tinged by that interest. None the less, I should hope that it would not be too tinged.
My Lords, it is seldom that one is 13th on the list of speakers and can agree with almost everything that has been said by the 12 previous speakers. I had slight doubts about what my noble friend Lord Stanley of Alderley said but, apart from that, I do not think that I have any reservations at all. However, it is equally seldom that one has a debate in which there are no speakers from the Government side—except for the Minister who is to reply—but in which there are 13 speakers from the Opposition side. However, I do not suppose that any noble Lord opposite would find it easy to defend the indefensible, so they are not trying to do so.
My Lords, we are considering today the EEC Directive on forestry but, if the Chancellor does not change his mind about the capital transfer tax, in a few years' time there will be no private forestry in this country for the EEC or anyone else to try to influence. A reduction in planting has already taken place in the forestry year 1975. In the forestry year 1974, in round figures, the private sector planted 36,400 acres in Scotland. The forestry year runs from 1st October to 30th September. In the forestry year 1975—that is, from 1st October last year to 30th September this year—it is anticipated that the private sector will plant 17,900 acres, or just under half what was planted last year. This represents a loss of 23 million plants, again in round figures, 18 million of which will have to be destroyed because they will not be any good for planting next year. A further fact is that we import about 90 per cent. of our timber products. Therefore, it seems that the Chancellor, with a total disregard for the long-term interests of this country, is trying to kill off private sector forestry by introducing capital transfer tax and making it apply to a crop such as timber which takes anything between 60 and 150 years to mature. As the noble Viscount, Lord
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Ingleby, said Mr. Lloyd George, in 1910, introduced the Amendment on which subsequent capital taxation of forestry has been based. The effect was that one pays the tax only when one benefits from the crop. That was 65 years ago, or almost exactly the life of a conifer in the most advantageous site in Britain, or about half the life of a broad-leafed tree growing anywhere in Great Britain. Even Mr. Lloyd George would, I think, be disappointed by the action of the present Chancellor.
My Lords, I hope that I have made it clear that, if there are no Amendments to the Finance Bill as at present drafted, there will be no private forestry in this country in a few years' time. Not only that: existing woods will be neglected, unless they are very near maturity, and they will become overrun with brambles in the South of England and with bracken in the Northern part of the country. Personally, I think that this would be undesirable. Many other noble Lords have spoken of how disastrous this would be to the environment and I simply want to endorse all that they have said.
My Lords, I think it is interesting that in Scotland 46 per cent. of the woodlands are in private hands and that this figure is lower than in any other country in the EEC. In West Germany, for instance, it is 69 per cent.; in France, it is 90 per cent., but we all know that the French are great individualists. The figure over the whole of the EEC is 82 per cent. It has also frequently been pointed out that both this Government and the last Government wanted to encourage the planting of hardwood trees and they have done this by altering the Dedication Scheme; and we now get very much bigger grants for planting hardwood than for planting conifers. I think that this is a very good thing. In fact, the alteration has been more favourable to England than to Scotland, but that does not matter and I am sure that this is a good thing to have done in the interest of the whole country. At the moment, an average of the last four years shows that just over 80 per cent. of the hardwood plantings have been planted by private forestry, whereas between 17 and 18 per cent. of the plantings have been by the Commission. If, therefore, private forestry planting were

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reduced virtually to zero, the planting of hardwoods would also be very considerably diminished. I do not say that the figures which I have given would necessarily apply, because the Forestry Commission might take over some of the planting of hardwoods which private individuals undertake; but it would certainly tend to work in that way.
Furthermore, in many cases private forestry is closely integrated with agriculture, and for the Forestry Commission to take over the private sector would be very costly to the taxpayer. Many of the woods which private people plant are too small and uneconomic in size for the Forestry Commission. On the whole, the pattern of the British countryside has been developed because many people have been prepared to plant a few small woods in order to improve their landscape for the sake of the environment. Obviously a body like the Forestry Commission would not be able to do this because they are responsible to the Treasury for their finances.
My Lords, I hope that the Chancellor will take note of what has been said, universally, I think, by all noble Lords who have spoken this evening, and will act upon it. It is a pity that he is being so slow about it. I wish that Governments—and this applies to Governments of all shades—would think before they interfere with forestry. The previous Government did away with the Dedication Scheme as it then operated, as my noble friend Lord Ferrers has pointed out. This was a disaster. It reduced confidence in forestry, which is essential because it is such a long-term operation. The present Government have proposed the capital transfer tax, and even if they now alter it, confidence has been eroded to an even greater extent than it was by doing away with the Dedication Scheme in 1972. These two factors, my Lords, have meant that people are bound to think twice before planting trees. They do not feel that they have the long-term assurances which up to the early '70s they felt they had from Governments of every complexion in this country. My Lords, I hope that the Chancellor will take note.
6.42 p.m.
Lord BESWICK: My Lords, I share the humility expressed by the noble Viscount, Lord Norwich, when he mentioned that he spoke in the presence of such a
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formidable body of knowledge and experience. I doubt whether I have before heard of such a rich collection of medals attained and never indeed have I heard the words "declaration of interest" repeated so often. But I have benefited myself, with one reservation which I will eventually give, from what has been said. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Inglewood, and the noble Earl, Lord Ferrers, when they expressed indebtedness to the Select Committee for setting out so concisely the issues involved in the proposed Council Directive, and I compliment the noble Lord, Lord Inglewood, on the way he opened the debate this afternoon.
Of course I give an assurance that the views which have been expressed will be brought into the reckoning when the time comes for Community discussions on this Directive to proceed beyond the examination of its finer points and into debating its merits on principle. I give that assurance with considerable confidence and with a gayer heart, for, as I understood it—and I am not sure that my understanding was the same as that of the noble Earl, Lord Waldegrave— the noble Lord, Lord Inglewood, was not exactly enamoured of the Council's Directive. Certainly to that extent I share his views. Our own Select Committee have fastened upon those features of the proposals which court caution where the Unted Kingdom interest is concerned, and in general Her Majesty's Government share the Committee's reservations on these features. May I first qualify, in one matter of detail, the references to the Committee. Towards the end of their Report the Committee
"welcome the proposal that provision should be made for the improvement of existing unproductive woodland and shelter-belts."
There are two features here which noble Lords should bear in mind and it may well be that the Committee would not dissent from either of them. First, I hope that noble Lords are in no doubt that there is already provision, under our Farm Capital Grant Scheme, for grant-aiding the planting of shelter belts in our hill fanning areas where they can be of such great importance to farm husbandry. Secondly, both the Forestry Commission and private woodland owners have made great strides in rehabilitating our woodlands after the Second World

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War fellings, and our own plans are adequate to cope with whatever has still to be done in the so-called unproductive woodland remaining.
The noble Lord, Lord Stanley of Alderley, referred to drainage in this connection. I will consider the appeal he made. I think that there is no question in the Draft Directive of any restriction on drainage, but I will write to him when I have had an opportunity of seeing the implications of what he had to say on that point. As the noble Lord, Lord Inglewood, said, the Committee have also fairly recorded the Government's doubts about the vires of some parts of the Draft Directive. These doubts—which I may say have been echoed by other member countries and indeed by the legal services of the Council of Ministers—centre around the fact that (as the Committee themselves have indicated) timber is not among the agricultural products scheduled in Annex 2 to the Treaty of Rome and as such does not form any part of the Common Agricultural Policy. In these circumstances, and whatever the merits of any measure to improve existing unproductive woodland, the Government could not agree to its inclusion in this set of proposals. That would imply a suggested extension of the Common Agricultural Policy.
This brings me to what the Government regard as the central issue, which the Committee have clearly exposed. In practice, and shorn of any trimmings, this revolves around two simple questions: first, is there a case for any kind of Common Forestry Policy within the Community? Secondly, if there were such a case, should this or any other substantial Community provision for forestry be built upon and within the Common Agricultural Policy, and funded at its expense? So far as the Government are concerned, even if there were a case —and we are not convinced that this is so—we should question the justification for founding it upon the Common Agricultural Policy and our reasons are much the same as those given by the Committee. Having said that, I emphasise that the Government fully accept that agriculture and forestry are sister industries; and that, by an effective pattern of land use, each can complement the other to mutual (and to our national) advantage.
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For practical evidence of this, I need only point to the successful measures of integration between farm and forest which have been pioneered both by the noble Lord, Lord Dulverton, at Fossfern and by the Ministry of Agriculture and the Forestry Commission at the experimental centre at—I hope I have it right —Pwllpeiran. Indeed, the Government, like the previous Administration, have acknowledged that it is integration with agriculture and other forms of good land use such as environmental benefits— rather than merely" encouraging forestry "—which should be the cornerstone of the Forestry Dedication Scheme.
All this is consistent with the preamble to the Draft Directive; indeed the details of our new Scheme were notified to the EEC Commission who had no objections. Where we begin to part company with the Commission's proposals is when they project a mandatory Scheme for consciously encouraging what I might describe as a "one way traffic "; that is to say, out of food production and into timber. Thus the basic contribution towards planting costs would be payable only if a substantial proportion of the area concerned had previously been given over to farming. Then again, there are the proposed embargoes on land reclamation for agriculture by any who received afforestation grants under the Directive and upon domestic schemes of grant-aid by member countries which, like the United Kingdom, may already be encouraging the reclamation of land suitable for agriculture.
Of course there is always scope for negotiation at Brussels. Certain of my colleagues are demonstrating this. But in this instance it seems fair to ask whether the real effort should be directed towards sorting out problems of detail or whether it would be more realistic to go back to fundamentals; and more specifically to consider whether the entire concept makes sense in the present-day circumstances of the enlarged Community. The fact is that this proposed measure was conceived before the United Kingdom entered the EEC and against the anxiety about structural surpluses within the Six. I need hardly say that our own problem is precisely the reverse. We have no surplus acres to cause an embarrassing glut of food. On the contrary, our problem is the

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loss of agricultural land for various purposes. The Government position is that the problem should be examined and debated in that broad context rather than that this should be put into the CAP.
My Lords, I was glad to see in the Select Committee's Report, and to hear confirmation of it from the noble Lord, Lord Inglewood, that the financial proposals were unacceptably unfair as far as we were concerned. Even on the most optimistic assessment of our receipts and payments within the Community balance sheet, this measure means that the United Kingdom must be a heavy net loser. This must be so because of our land hunger and because the needs of home food production so circumscribe the acreage we can release from afforestation. Additionally, the terms of the proposed Directive operate against any member-country where, as in the United Kingdom, a sizeable proportion of the annual planting programme is undertaken by the State and where Government assistance to the private sector is built partly upon tax relief. Both these features are accommodated within the Commission's proposals, but neither of them would qualify for a FEOGA grant.
The Government view on this complex and controversial draft is that policy and provision for forestry is best left for individual member-States to fashion and update according to their own circumstances. In Britain we have lately done just that; and have now reshaped our domestic measures to accord with modern needs on lines which I would fairly claim—and I think that this has general support from what has been said—are politically bipartisan. We now have a revised programme for State forestry and a new Dedication Scheme which, while recognising that investment decisions in afforestation as very much a matter for the individual, nevertheless offer positive incentives that are simple to administer for those who are prepared to plant and manage their woodlands in a manner consistent with sound forestry practice and good land use, including integration with agriculture and environmental and recreational benefits. I accept what was said by noble Lords of the importance of hardwoods as part of the amenity aspect of this matter and noble Lords have already referred to the fact that there is an additional grant where hardwoods are planted.
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Reference was made by the noble Earl, Lord Waldegrave, to the effect of the capital transfer tax on new contracts drawn up under the Dedication Scheme. There has been a good deal of discussion about the negative effect of this new tax on the new scheme. If I may say so, I think it is premature for the noble Earl to talk about breaking contracts. There has been a substantial flow of applications ; although the greater part of the area including early applications inevitably relating to decisions taken before last August when the tax White Paper was published. About 10 per cent. of the applications relate to land already planted. A total of 241 applications had been approved, or were under consideration, by the 31st January, covering 28,235 acres of planting.
My Lords, I must say that one agreeable feature of this debate has been the absence of any Party-based rancour. There has been criticism levelled against the 1972 Conservative Administration; the noble Lord, Lord Inglewood, on the other hand, gave generous praise to my old colleague, Tom Williams. Reference was made to the CTT. I made a list of those noble Lords who referred to this. I find that the noble Earl, Lord Ferrers; the noble Earl, Lord Lonsdale; the noble Lord, Lord Bolton; the noble Viscount, Lord Norwich; the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Croy; the noble Lord, Lord Lovat; the noble Lord, Lord Craigton; the noble Viscount, Lord Ingleby; the noble Lord, Lord Stanley of Alderley; the noble Earl, Lord Waldegrave, and the noble Duke who wound up, all used very strong language in this regard. I think that they were wrong, if I may say so, in suggesting that the intentions of the present Government or of the Chancellor of the Exchequer were, as one noble Lord phrased it, "the despoliation of the countryside ". I think that it was wrong when one noble Lord, I think it was the noble Duke, said that it ws intended to kill private forestry. That was not the intention.
The Duke of ATHOLL: My Lords, if I said that was the intention, then I withdraw my remark. What I said was that the effect would be to kill off private forestry.
Earl FERRERS: My Lords, the same goes for me! I used the words, "despoliation of the countryside ". This

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was a reference to the effect and not to the intention.
Lord BESWICK: My Lords, if the effects were there and the intention was to do this, then one can say logically that you criticise an intention to do all these wicked things. The odd thing about our country and the people who happen to govern it is that they are not motivated by wicked thoughts. I should have thought that the attitude of the one speaker from the Liberal Benches would have been better. He indicated that he thought something might be done. He was very generous in this regard.
Reference has been made to the statement made by the Chancellor of the Exchequer on 22nd January that we were looking at this—and we wanted to look at it. There is a problem here. It was the noble Lord, Lord Lovat, who said that no one who plants a tree is trying to do anything but plant a tree and that tax considerations do not come into it. In fact, four-fifths of the trees planted other than by the Forestry Commission in recent years have been planted by investment companies who had tax considerations in mind, and hedges against inflation as well. There is a difficulty here. Let us recognise that it is a difficulty that we must face up to.
We want, however, to see whether something can be done about the special problem of the woodlands. Last night (I am not sure at what hour of the night or morning) the Chief Secretary said that the Government were considering what form of relief they could offer. He said that they had come to no conclusion, but favoured an outline scheme somewhat as follows: (a) no tax will be payable on the value of the timber growing on woodland transferred on death, but on a sale thereafter, either of the woodland itself or of standing or felled timber, tax becomes payable on the sale proceeds attributable to the trees not, as under estate duty, on the value of the timber at the death: (b) On any lifetime gift, or other transfer not at full market value, the deferred charge would be triggered and the tax now charged in respect of the earlier death would be allowed as a deduction in arriving at the value transferred by the current transfer for the purposes of arriving at the tax charge on the gift itself; (c) The arrangement would
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be tied to five years' ownership and probably to dedication under the Forestry Commission schemes.
This was something he indicated and was not a rigid proposal. It is a tentative outline. If noble Lords on further consideration of this—and they have an opportunity of reading it—care to comment to me on any feature of it, I will see that what they have to say is considered.
7.2 p.m.
Lord INGLEWOOD: My Lords, I am sure that we are all very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Beswick, for listening to the debate and replying at such length and with such care, especially when it is not so long since he was far from well. I hope his voice has not been strained by speaking for too long. We are also grateful that he has taken us into the Government's confidence and given us an idea of how these proposals might be modified to achieve a greater sense of fairness and to avoid the major damage to which reference has been made. We shall study with interest what he has said. There is no doubt from the attendance in the Chamber, at least on one side, from the number of speeches, from the contents of the speeches and also—I hope the noble Lord the Chief Whip will notice—the brevity of the speeches, that this debate has been worth while and has justified the time that we have been allowed.
It is understandable that the debate should have ranged away from the EEC Directive to forestry prospects in our own country, which must be very relevant when we are considering draft proposals emanating from the Continent such as we have been doing today. I was exceedingly glad that the noble Lord has been able to tell us something hopeful at the end of his speech. From various exchanges in the Committee stage in another place it was clear that the Chancellor of the Exchequer was very mixed up about the effects of his proposals. If he had carried them through as they were originally put to us there is no doubt that in a very few years— it is no good pretending otherwise—the face of the countryside would have been changed for the worse; something like half the private woodlands would have been reduced to scrub, the best oak, as has been said, going first. There would

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be an increase in our dependence on imported timber and a number of good men would be put out of good jobs. I should like to think that that would not happen. If it were to happen any future proposals emanating from the EEC would be irrelevant to what remained of the industry in this country, which would be too lame to stagger along.
I am going to mention one new point as I think it is very relevant. No noble Lord has mentioned that, unlike oil or coal, timber is the only raw material where reserves are continually being replaced. They are replaced slowly, and in a normally stocked forest in this country, half hard and half soft wood, the increment is something like 3½ per cent. or 4 per cent. per annum only. I just say that for the Record. Finally, may I say to the noble Lord, Lord Beswick, that if he seeks any further information he will be welcome to visit us at home. We can go for a long walk in a most beautiful part of the country and I will not deliver a third speech but will just answer his questions, including financial questions. And now I hope that he, with all other noble Lords, when I ask them to take notice of this Report, will echo the words of the great Evelyn who, when speaking about forestry, said:
" It is what all who are owners of land may well contribute to, and with infinite delight as well as profit, who are filled with the laudable ambition of imitating their illustrious ancestors and serving their generation."
On Question, Motion agreed to.

TOWN AND COUNTRY PLANNING (INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT CERTIFICATES: EXEMPTION) (No. 2) ORDER 1974.
7.5 p.m.
Lord GEORGE-BROWN Lord GEORGE-BROWN rose to move, That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty praying that the Town and Country Planning (Industrial Development Certificates: Exemption) (No. 2) Order 1974, laid before the House on 6th December last, be annulled. The noble Lord said: My Lords, may I say to the noble Lord, Lord Inglewood, whom I knew in another capacity and under a different name and with whom I often contended about an industry in which we were both tremendously interested, how much I appreciated what he said and
1058
how much I was on his side about it. It was nice, as my noble friend Lord Beswick said, that he paid a tribute to Tom Williams. I was going to say that, Tommy Dugdale apart—but I do not know whether I am allowed to say that —I think Tom Williams was the best Minister of Agriculture that we have had. He really cared about the trees and about afforestation.
I hope the noble Lord will not mind my saying that each of us has his own idea about what is the most important issue on any particular day. I owe the House and also my noble friend Lord Beswick an apology, for having put down very late last night this Motion, which results in keeping here those Members of the House who do not have pressing engagements elsewhere and putting my noble friend to the nuisance of having to answer two debates, one after the other. I apologise; but it is not my fault.
With your Lordships' permission, I should like to explain why I am doing this. I think it is constitutionally very important. In terms of merit, I am not sure about the annulment of this Order. I have an idea that when I was last a Minister for Economic Affairs, which was eleven years ago, I then took the same view that the Government are now taking. It does not, of course, follow from that that I would take the same view today, eleven years later. So in asking your Lordships to annul the Order I am not seeking to take a position or invite my colleagues to take a position on the merits of the Order. Clearly, there are arguments either way, and both are respectable. But what I do know is that all the Labour Members of the London Group in the House of Commons are against it. They may be right, they may be wrong. Moreover, as my noble friend knows, we are nowadays, differently from yesterday, greatly in favour of manifestos and conference decisions.
I also know that not only are the Labour Members of the London Group against this Order but that the Greater London Council, which is Labourcontrolled, are against it. I also know that the Regional Council of the Labour Party in this area are against it. I myself would not argue strongly about it, except that in these days the Labour Party believes in Conference decisions. I also know that trade union authorities

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in the Greater London area are against it. Even that would not persuade me, nor would it persuade my noble friend, necessarily to accept what they say. He is like me—a dissident—but neither of us would be elected if we had to be elected on that basis. However, I have to draw his attention to the fact that a great deal has changed in the last 11 years since I was the Minister responsible for the economy of this country. I am told on very good authority that the numbers employed in manufacturing industry in the Greater London area fell in the 10 years between 1961 and 1971 by 400,000, which is 25 per cent, of the total. I am also told that in the year 1971–72 alone the numbers employed in manufacturing industry fell by another 60,000. The worry of my colleagues and, if the noble Lord will permit me to use the phrase, "our comrades" in the other place, is that if we go on in this way, there will ultimately be no blue collar workers in the London area. It will become a service area.
What does this Order propose? It proposes that as against the 10,000 sq. ft. limit which the Conservative Government imposed—above which special arrangements have to be made—the limit should be moved to 5,000. That is what the Conservative Government did in 1972: they increased the limit from 5,000 to 10,000. If my noble friend will not hold it against me—which I am sure he would not do because he is such a nice man—in my day it was 3,000. So it went from 3,000 to 5,000 and the Conservatives took it to 10,000, beyond which one needed to go through special machinery. This Order proposes to take it back to 5,000, despite the fact that all these industrial jobs have been lost in the meantime. So that is the basis for my asking the House to be kind enough to spend a few minutes on this subject tonight.
I now have to explain why it had to be tonight, having put down the Motion only last evening. I find this to be an extraordinary situation. This Order was originally made in October last year. Then it had to be remade with the coming of the new Parliament. There was a Prayer put down by the London Members of Parliament—not just Labour Members —and they were told that time would
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be found for them to pray against the Order. Alas! time was not found for that and something happened which I can describe only as a "schlemozzle" in the other House—there must be another more literate word for that, but I know what I mean by it—and the authorities said to my honourable friends in that place: "Don't worry, we will put the Order down again." My honourable friends in another place assumed that no Government would make an Order—the very same Order—twice, unless they meant to find time for Members to pray against it.
So in all that total innocence which my noble friend, when he was the Member for Uxbridge, shared with me— though, of course, both of us have now grown out of that in this House—my honourable friends assumed that they need not do any more. The Government relaid the Order. We have now sat for 80 days, not 40, plus a little bit from the "overgrowth" of the last Parliament. This is the last possible day, but still they have not been given a chance to pray against the Order. I repeat that I do not truly know on which side of the argument I would have been, but I think it is approaching sharp practice—even though the sharp practice was inadvertent in the case of my Government (it would have been deliberate in the case of any other)—to put down the Order a second time and still not provide an opportunity to debate it.
Therefore I offer my apologies to your Lordships for raising the subject, but there was no other time in which to do it. It so happens that I was consulted yesterday by the chairman of the Greater London Group of London Members of Parliament. That I happen to know him personally in another capacity is, of course, neither here nor there; but he consulted me late last night and I then consulted the Chief Whip in another place. It is not for me to give away any confidences that passed. Old colleagues talk to each other quite frequently, as we have noticed from the Crossman Diaries, though not everybody records the conversation; it is my view that the Chief Whip in another place, who is himself a London Member, would not be upset if the House did what I am inviting it to do tonight. I am supported by a very

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useful, a very important and a very distinguished body of opinion.
In the 1971–72 Session, the two Houses set up a Joint Committee on Delegated Legislation. It was presided over, by agreement, by our noble friend Lord Brooke of Cumnor, who I wish were here tonight. The Committee spent a lot of time looking at this subject. Obviously one of their great problems was that the weight of delegated legislation is overcoming the other House. Paragraph 28 of their Report says:
" But, above all, your Committee's concern has been to devise proposals which will safeguard the rights of the Private Member, who has been deprived of some of them by the growing pressure of Government business over the past few years."
I stop there in order to say that it is not "the Private Member "; it is the Members who represent what must surely be a third of this country. It continues:
" Present arrangements do not guarantee it"—
" it" being the right to raise the matter—
"and that is why changes are necessary. If Ministers can make law by way of statutory instruments and Members of Parliament find they are without any opportunity to debate some of these instruments, Parliamentary control over delegated legislation is illusory."
I repeat that I am not on the merits of this Order. I am on the point that certain Members of Parliament, representing what must be a third of this country, wish to pray; they thought they could pray in the first 40 days; found they could not; thought they were offered another 40 days, and still find they cannot. And on this, the very last day, the only place in our Parliamentary arrangements where a right may be put to this wrong is in this way.
I say to my noble friend that I am looking just for a way out. He knows me quite well. He knows that if need be I would not hesitate to divide the House against this Order, and I would hope to be followed. If I divided the House against this Order, the only result that would follow is that the Government would need to lay the Order again. If they laid it again they would presumably get in touch with my honourable friend the Chairman of the Greater London Group of Labour Members of Parliament and say, "Let us have a chat about
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it", and presumably arrange for a debate. If the Minister, my old friend and very close friend, were able to say to me: "All right. Don't worry too much. You've made your point. I will see to it that a debate will take place down there ", that would be the end of the business so far as this evening is concerned. But failing that I would invite the whole House, all Party politics aside, to join with me to stop an arrogance. I do not think it is an arrogance of Ministers. It could quite easily be an arrogance of bureaucrats who think they can offer sops to Members of Parliament, who might well think they can get away with it at the end of the day.
I came up to this House not quite knowing what it would be like. I happen to believe that the British Parliamentary system requires two Houses. I happen to believe this is one of the things we could well do—put a check on the bureaucracy and on the Executive, and say:" Well, think again. We won't destroy it."
Just before I sit down, my Lords, I must say one other word to my noble friend in case he uses this point against me. I believe there have been only 14 Prayers against Orders—so I am told in the Committee's Report—over a very long time; and I believe that only one caused a lot of trouble. That was the one concerning Southern Rhodesia. There is a difference between this Motion and that one. I am not challenging the merits of the case; Lord Salisbury and his friends were. I am asking this House only to use its influence to give the other House a chance to do what it is supposed to be able to do: to let Members pray against an Order by the Executive and divide on it if they need to do so. Having been a Minister myself for quite a long time, I would say it is a very good check on a Minister for him to be told: "You cannot be sure you can get through simply by not allowing fellows a chance to vote." I hope that my noble friend, indeed my personal friend, will be able to say to me: "George, don't fuss. Time will be found for a debate in the other House." If he says that, the debate can end now. But if he does not, I must tell my old and noble friend that I shall ask the House to follow me into the Lobby.
Moved, That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty praying that

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the Town and Country Planning (Industrial Development Certificates: Exemption) (No. 2) Order 1974, laid before the House on 6th December last, be annulled. —(Lord George-Brown.)
Lord BESWICK: My Lords, does the noble Lord, Lord Drumalbyn, wish to make a contribution, because I was going to respond fairly quickly to the invitation extended by my noble friend.
Lord DRUMALBYN: Then, my Lords, perhaps I may ask the noble Lord this question. We have listened with great delight to the noble Lord, Lord GeorgeBrown, and this is obviously not in any way a Party political matter, because there are some Labour Members and some Conservative Members in the areas concerned. But what I was a little puzzled about was whether in fact a Prayer had ever been put on the Order Paper in the other place. It would be unusual in my experience to wait until you were given an assurance that time would be given to debate an Order in another place before you put the Order on the Paper. This Order could have been put down by either side, or by both sides, in another place and then the time might have been given. The noble Lord, Lord GeorgeBrown, did not inform us whether or not an Order was on the Order Paper.
Lord BESWICK: My Lords, I can probably answer that point. The Order was laid and a Prayer against it was put down, but no time was found—
Lord DRUMALBYN: My Lords, I am much obliged.
Lord BESWICK: — for the Prayer to be moved. That was the position and it is not an unknown position to occur. Nevertheless, may I say that I fully appreciate why my noble friend has not been able to raise this matter until tonight, because until tonight he could not have been certain—we were not certain—that time would not have been found in another place to discuss it. Although I could make, I suppose, a debating point that there have been 80 days in which one could have come here to pray against the Order, the fact is, as my noble friend said, that we use this power very carefully indeed; and so far as a Division is concerned, by convention we have not in fact in this place used the power at all.
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My noble friend asked whether I could give him an assurance. I understood him to say that he would accept my personal assurance and that it would be based upon the knowledge which we have had of each other over very many years. He will recognise that it would be wrong of me to go into matters of management in another place. I have reason to believe that there will be a debate in another place, and I can give him the assurance for which he asks. On that basis, I hope that he will probably find it possible to withdraw the Motion.
Lord AVEBURY: My Lords, before the noble Lord, Lord George-Brown, withdraws his Motion, may I ask whether the undertaking which has just been given means that the Order will be laid for a third time in another place, so that the persons who were hoping to have the debate there can do so on the same basis as they would have done before?
Lord BESWICK: My Lords, I am not quite sure how much one ought to go into detail about management in another place. However, I understand that the Prayer has now been changed into a Motion and that time will be found for debating that Motion.
Lord GEORGE-BROWN: My Lords, my noble friend having said very clearly that he and I understand each other, and that time will be found for debate in another place, which must mean that the managers in the other place will organise matters so that time can be found, I beg leave to withdraw the Motion.
Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

  CYPRUS: ARMED FORCES AID
  CYPRUS: ARMED FORCES AID
  SCOTLAND: STEEL PRODUCTION
  SCOTLAND: STEEL PRODUCTION