I beg to move, "That the Bill be now read a Second time."

This is not a spectacular Bill, but it does rank fairly high in the list of what are sometimes called useful Measures, and, were it not for the signs of restlessness on the Opposition Back Benches, I should have said that this was a non-controversial Measure, making practical, commonsense improvements in machinery without raising any really serious points of principle. Except on points of detail, this Bill is the same Bill as that presented to the House by the Coalition Government on 28th March last year, and this, as the House may recall, was foreshadowed by the White Paper on a National Water Policy of April, 1944, and promised by the late Prime Minister in answer to a Question on the 20th June, 1944. This is the Bill that was predicted in that statement, and, indeed, it was actually introduced by the Coalition Government, although some modification has been made in it by the present Administration.

The existing procedure originated just 100 years ago in the desire to improve on the Private Bill Procedure as a method of conferring special powers on local undertakings. In 1845, power to make Provisional Orders was conferred upon the Enclosure Commissioners, and the Provisional Order procedure was widely used in the rest of the century, notably in the Public Health Act, 1875, the Gas and Water Facilities Act, 1870, and the Electric Lighting Act, 1882. Under this procedure, Ministers are enabled to make Orders which are described as being

"provisional only and requiring confirmation by Parliament."

These Orders, when made, are scheduled to a Provisional Order Confirmation Bill. Such a Bill is, technically, a public Bill, and Standing Orders relating to the publication of notices, etc., in connection with petitions for Private Bills are, for the most part, inapplicable to Provisional Order Bills. Subject to that qualification, however, a Provisional Order Bill, after introduction, is dealt with in substantially the same way as local legislation. This practice held the field until the early years of the present century, subject to an important modification in its application to Scottish private legislation under the Private Legislation Procedure (Scotland) Act, 1899.

In the present century, increasing pressure for the extension of the public services has made it necessary to supplement Provisional Order Procedure in two ways, which I will mention. On the one hand, a practice, dating from the Housing and Town Planning Act, 1909, was adopted of making certain types of Orders—in particular those for enabling local and public bodies to acquire land compulsorily—not subject to review by Parliament. On the other hand, shortly after the last war, it became common to provide for Orders being laid before Parliament and requiring an affirmative Resolution of each House before becoming effective. These Orders are sometimes referred to as Special Orders. The House will know that they are then put down on the Order Paper, including those for gas undertakings and electricity undertakings, and usually they are made effective by an affirmative Motion of approval. It will be recollected that, in another place, there is a special procedure under Standing Orders for dealing with them. Thus for Orders of a local legislative character which are subject to review by Parliament there are at the present time, running side by side, two somewhat distinct and separate procedures—Provisional Order procedure and Special Order procedure. Both these procedures, as I think hon. Members generally will agree, have their disadvantages.

To take the Provisional Order procedure first, I think it will be generally agreed that it is slow, cumbersome and expensive. While a Provisional Order, if unopposed and if lucky in its timing, may not take many weeks, it has been estimated that on average a Provisional Order which is opposed takes some eight months to become effective. In view of the usually limited character of these Provisional Orders, and the urgency with which they often may be required, it seems to His Majesty's Government that this average of eight months is an unduly long time for this class of legislation. The subject matter of the Order has usually been thrashed out at a local inquiry which in itself is often protracted and expensive. The promoters of the Order then have to establish the case for the Order again before a Parliamentary Committee, and, if—as can happen and sometimes does happen—the Order is opposed in the second House, this involves fresh inquiry, fresh discussion and fresh appearances before a second Committee of Parliament. Thus there may be three separate occasions on which the issues are canvassed at great length and in great detail with the assistance of Counsel, expert witnesses and all the machinery of forensic proceedings.

On the other hand, the procedure by which an Order can only be dealt with on the Floor of the House is undoubtedly open to the comment that there may well be cases in which the issues at stake are of no more than local interest—affecting local bodies, statutory undertakers, individual land owners and so forth—and that these ought not to occupy the time and attention of the House as a whole and often cannot be fully and satisfactorily examined without the apparatus of maps, diagrams and so forth, and I think the House will agree that we should find it a little difficult to fit the apparatus of maps, diagrams and so forth into the physical environment of a Debate on the Floor of the House.

Moreover, under the ordinary affirmation Resolution procedure, the Houses are presented merely with an opportunity to accept or reject the Order, and the only way in which Amendments can be made to meet their views is by withdrawing the Order, and proceeding to make a new one. An attempt has been made in one or two Acts to meet this difficulty by provisions enabling the Houses to approve the Order with amendments, but such provisions are properly rare, because they would break down in the event of a disagreement between the two Houses of Parliament. In the course of preparing that part of the Reconstruction legislation which was dealt with at that time, the late Government were confronted with these two different forms of procedure—neither of them wholly satisfactory nor wholly adequate—the application of which to any particular subject matter depends at present largely on a mere accident, namely, the date of the legislation which deals with the matter. This Bill represents an attempt to combine the best features of both the Provisional Order and the Special Order procedure and, so far as practicable, to avoid the disadvantages of either of the systems.

There is another and still more important consideration which has led to the introduction of this Bill. The White Paper on Employment Policy—Cd. No. 6527—contemplated that the execution of large-scale works, whether by local or public authorities or by statutory undertakers, such as railway companies or public utility undertakings, should play an essential part in the maintenance of expenditure and of a high level of employment. It says, in paragraph 41:

"The Government are prepared to accept in future the responsibility for taking action at the earliest possible stage to avert a threatened slump. This involves a new approach and a new responsibility for the State";

and, again in a latter passage:

"Public investment, both in timing and in volume, must be carefully planned to offset unavoidable fluctuations in private investment."

The words "in timing and volume" are important in this connection: It is hoped that this Measure will be helpful in this respect, and we believe that by it we can convert into weeks, the months of delay which Provisional Order procedure may entail. Moreover, the increased responsibility of the Government, which it is proposed in the White Paper the Government should assume, will make it more necessary than in the past for the Government to interest themselves in proposals, whether for public works or of other kinds, which have hitherto been regarded as mainly matters of local concern. This is the case not only from the point of view of a full employment policy. For example, the Water Act, which was passed into law in the last Session of Parliament, placed on the Minister of Health a much more direct responsibility for securing the provision of water supplies throughout the country than there was under the previous law. A policy of this kind would be impracticable, unless the Government are in a position to secure that where national interests are involved, the effective responsibility for reaching decisions of policy should lie with the House itself to a greater degree than has hitherto been customary in the realm of Provisional Order and Private Bill legislation. The same considerations apply with no less force to the new conception of Town and Country Planning.

I would next deal with the scope of the Bill. This is dealt with in Clauses 1 and 8. It is convenient to consider the point first in terms of future Acts of Parliament and then in terms of existing statutory provisions. As regards future Acts, Clause 1 of the Bill provides that the procedure laid down in the Bill is to apply to any Order made under a future Act and described in that Act as being "subject to special Parliamentary procedure." Thus it will be for Parliament to determine when a Bill is placed before it in future whether a particular type of Order for which the Bill provides should be dealt with under the procedure which it is proposed to set up under the present Measure.

As regards existing Acts, Clause 8 provides that the Bill is to apply to any Order made or confirmed under the Town and Country Planning Act, 1944, where the Order is described in that Act as being provisional only and requiring confirmation by Parliament. In effect, therefore, the Bill substitutes the new procedure for Provisional Order procedure in these cases. Similar provision is included in the present Bill for Orders under the Town and Country Planning (Scotland) Act, 1945, the Local Government (Boundary Commission) Act, 1945, and the Water Act, 1945. None of these three Acts was mentioned in the Bill introduced last Session—it is fair that I should say that—the reason being that they had not then become law, but, in fact, it was the declared intention of the then Government to apply the new procedure to Orders under the three Statutes which I have mentioned. Certain purely drafting alterations have also been made in Clause 8 and the Second Schedule which deal with the application of the Bill to these four Acts.

Clause 8 of the Bill also provides that if an Address is presented to His Majesty by both Houses of Parliament for the purpose, an Order in Council may be made substituting the new procedure for Provisional Order procedure in the case of Orders made under other Acts of Parliament now on the Statute Book. This provision differs from the corresponding Clause of the earlier Bill by omitting words which would have postponed action for five years. It is curious how we meet this five-year period for the second time in one week—once in taking powers forward and now bringing powers back nearer to the present term of a period of five years. I am sure the fact that it is five years confirms me in my judgment that it is right in this case, as it was in the other.

The right hon. Gentleman is taking it out this time.

Yes, it is two-way traffic, but it is none the worse for that. The present Government agree with the late Government that the new procedure is experimental and that we shall have to watch how it goes. We think also that it may well be wise to defer its further application until some experience of its working has been granted, but we see no good reason for any postponement for so long a period as five years or indeed for any statutory bar at all. The matter is better left to common sense to deal with on the merits of the case, and Parliamentary checks, as I have indicated, will be provided in a suitable form. Clause 2 of the Bill and the First Schedule deal with proceedings preliminary to the Order being laid on the Table of the House. It should be noted in passing that this Clause and Schedule apply to Orders relating to England and Wales; Scotland is dealt with somewhat differently.

The main provisions setting out the new Parliamentary procedure are to be found in Clauses 3 to 6 of the Bill. It may be convenient, without going through these Clauses Sub-section by Sub-section, to give a general picture of the way in which the procedure is intended to work. An Order to which the Bill applies is to lie on the Table of each House and petitions against it may be presented within fourteen days, The Lord Chairman and the Chairman of Ways and Means have the duty of examining these petitions and in particular of distinguishing between those which are described as "petitions for amendment," that is, those which pray for detailed amendment, and "petitions of general objection," that is, those which attack the Order generally. If a petition which purports to be a petition of amendment in fact involves amendments which

"would constitute a negative of the main purpose of the Order"

the Chairman must certify it as a petition of general objection or, alternatively, can strike out the passages negativing the main purposes of the Order and certify the remainder as a petition for amendment. The Chairmen are then required to report to the House whether petitions have been presented and, if so, into which class those petitions fall. If within fourteen days after the Chairmen's report—in the Bill described as the "resolution period"—either House resolves that the Order be annulled, the Order falls to the ground—as under the ordinary "negative resolution"procedure—but without prejudice to the making of another Order. A Resolution to annul may be moved whether or not there are any petitions against the Order: If, on the other hand, no Resolution to annul is carried within the "resolution period" and there are no petitions, the Order becomes operative at the end of the period or at such later date as the Order itself may fix. Thus when the House is sitting the period within which an Order can become effective is 28 days, plus the time taken by the Chairmen to make their report, a very substantial saving of time as compared with the Provisional Order system.

Now take the case where there is a petition of general objection or a petition for amendment. In the case of a petition of general objection, if a resolution to annul is moved the House may, if it thinks fit, amend the Resolution and send the petition to a Joint Committee of both Houses which is to be set up by Standing Orders for which provision is made in Clause 9 of the Bill. The attitude which the Government would adopt if an Amendment of this kind were moved would no doubt depend primarily on two considerations. First, on the extent to which in their view national interests were involved and, secondly, on the question whether the issues raised in the petition had already been the subject of full discussion and consideration in the proceedings preliminary to the making of the Order. In the case of a petition for amendment the petition stands automatically referred to the Joint Committee.

The Clause is in this respect, perhaps, not clear in relation to our intentions. It is proposed to enable a Motion to be moved on the Floor of the House for annulment of an Order, and for an Amendment referring the Order, in relation to a petition of general objection, to the Joint Select Committee. If the Amendment for reference to the Joint Select Committee is carried, it is proposed to introduce words which will make it clear that the annulment Motion has thereby fallen, and is no longer before the House. It then becomes the duty of the Joint Committee to consider the petitions which have been referred to it. Clause 9 of the Bill provides ample powers under which Standing Orders may be made for regulating the proceedings of this Committee. The issues before the Committee will be limited to those raised in the petition or petitions before them, but subject to this it is contemplated that the procedure will not differ substantially from that under which Provisional Orders and Private Bills are now examined by a Committee of either House, that is to say, the petitioners and other persons having a locus standi will be entitled to be represented and place their cases before the Committee.

If the petition under consideration is one for amendment, it will be open to the Joint Committee either to report the Order without amendment, or to make such amendment as they think fit in order to give effect, wholly or partially, to the petition. If the petition is one of general objection, the Committee can do one of three things—either report the Order without amendment or report it with amendment or report that the Order be not approved. The report of the Joint Committe will then be laid before both Houses of Parliament. If the Order is reported without amendment, it comes into operation on the date when the report is laid or at such later date as the Order itself may fix. If it is reported with Amendments, two things may happen. In many cases the Minister in charge of the Order will no doubt be prepared to accept the Amendments and, if so, the Order in its amended form comes into operation on such date as the Minister may determine. If, on the other hand, he thinks it inexpedient that the Order as amended by the Joint Committee should take effect, he can either give notice that he withdraws the Order—in which case the Order is dead—or he can embody the Order as amended in a Bill. The Bill is then treated as having passed all stages, up to and including Committee, in the House in which it is presented, and if passed in that House goes to the other House and is similarly treated as having passed in that House all stages up to and including the Committee stage.

This procedure Calls for a word of explanation. The House will appreciate that the Minister must have an opportunity of inviting the House as a whole to disagree with the recommendations made by the Joint Committee if he thinks the public interest so requires. This is, of course, so under the existing Provisional Order and Private Bill procedure under which either House at the Report Stage can be invited to reverse the decision of its Committee. But for this purpose, it has been found necessary to adopt the procedure of embodying the Order in a Bill in order to attract the ordinary constitutional method of resolving disagreements between the two Houses. The Bill is to be treated as having passed all stages up to and including Committee in both Houses for the reason that the Older will have in fact been examined by the Joint Committee and a further Committee Stage in either House would be a mere reduplication of procedure. This follows the principle adopted in Section 9 of the Private Legislation Procedure (Scotland) Act, 1936, a provision which reproduced an earlier enactment of the year 1899.

The position will be substantially the same in a case in which, on consideration of a petition of general objection, the Joint Committee report that the Order be not approved. If the Minister in charge of the Order is prepared to accept the report, the matter is disposed of and the Order is dead. If, on the other hand, he is not prepared to do this and thinks it right to proceed with the Order, he can embody it in a Bill. In this case the Order to be embodied in the Bill must, of course, be the original Order as presented to the Joint Committee, since the Joint Committee have rejected the Order and not amended it. The Minister would then at the Report stage of the Bill invite the House to reverse the Joint Committee's decision and to pass the Bill embodying his Order with or without amendment.

Now I would like to refer briefly to the Scottish Application Clause—Clause 10. My right hon. and learned Friend the Lord Advocate is here, and will be able to deal with any Scottish points when he winds up the Debate. I may say, however, as Leader of the House, that I am happy that it has been possible to avoid, on this occasion, a separate Scottish Bill. Furthermore, this is a field—not the only one—in which Scotland has gone ahead of England. Since the beginning of the century the private legislation procedure in Scotland has differed materially from that in England, and the Bill proposes to modify the new procedure in its application to Scotland so as to make use of the system of inquiry relating to Scottish private legislation, which is now governed by the Private Legislation Procedure (Scotland) Act, 1936. The essential feature of this procedure is an inquiry in Scotland before Commissioners—who are usually Parliamentary Commissioners drawn from panels of Members of both Houses—and the system has now been working well for close on 50 years. What the Bill does is to provide for the tried machinery of inquiry by Commissioners in Scotland to be used, while giving safeguards at least equivalent to those provided by English procedure.

I have mentioned the difficulties of the existing system, and I will now try to answer the question: How will the Bill make these defects good? The answer can be given under three heads. First, the saving of time. The time usually taken at present to secure Parliamentary confirmation of an unopposed provisional Order may roughly be put at about four months. Under the new procedure, as I have explained, an unopposed Order can, if the House is in Session become operative after 28 days plus the time occupied by the Chairman in reporting as to petitions. This is also the case if a resolution to annul the Order is moved and is dealt with on the Floor of the House. There are substantial savings of time. If the Order is sent to the Joint Committee, the period will, of course, depend on the time within which the Committee report to the House. But there should be a big saving of time and expense here as well. A single examination before a Joint Committee is substituted for a double one before separate committees of the two Houses. What is more, under Clause 5 (1) the Order stands referred to the Committee

"for the purpose of the consideration of the petition."

In other words, it is not to establish the case for the Order, and neither the responsible Minister nor the persons at whose instance the Order has been made will have to "prove the Preamble" before the Committee.

When the Order is reported to the Houses the further time involved will depend on whether, on the one hand, it is reported unamended or with amendments which the Minister is prepared to accept—in which case it can operate at once or, on the other hand, has to be embodied in a Bill. In the latter case the time taken will of course depend on the state of the Parliamentary time-table.

Time will also be saved—and this is important—because it will no longer be necessary for the Minister responsible for an Order to observe the present time-table under which Orders must be submitted before Whitsun or, in the case of Scotland, at the end of March and the end of November. Under the Bill it will be possible to take advantage of all periods in which Parliament is in session. There should, therefore, be a big reduction in the average time taken to get an Order through, though in terms of days or hours of actual Parliamentary time there may not be very much economy.

Secondly, the Bill will save a great deal of expense on the part of the promoters and opponents of Orders as well as saving much effort on the part of Members of Parliament, officers both of the Central Government and of the local authorities and professional men. Thirdly, there is the question of the Government's responsibility. I have already referred to the need for the Government to assume greater responsibility in these matters in connection with the various measures of reconstruction and the full employment policy. We believe that the Bill will secure this object without doing injustice to private rights and interests. Where public and private interests directly clash, the former must prevail, but under the Bill the private interest will be entitled to full and fair consideration of its case. As will be seen, the Bill leaves it to the House to decide whether the examination should take place on the Floor of the House or before the Joint Committee.

I think that in describing the Bill I have covered the points made in the Amendment which has been put down by the hon. Member for The High Peak (Mr. Molson) and other hon. Members opposite. I need not perhaps say anything more about the ways in which the Bill will save the time of all concerned, and the other respects in which it improves on the existing Provisional Order procedure. But I should comment on the other points raised in the Amendment. I am bound to say, however, that they seem to me to be rather thin or over-subtle. It is true, of course, that the private individual is deprived, as the Amendment says, of the absolute right to have his petition heard by the Committee of the House, but surely that is not the point. Surely the point is whether private interests are guaranteed full consideration. And on this I hope that I have shown that the guarantees provided by the Bill are ample, and equivalent to those under the existing procedure. I fail to see myself too, any threat in the Bill to Parliamentary control over delegated legislation. On the contrary, Parliamentary control is, I suggest, fully preserved and safeguarded.

The distinction which the Bill draws is between objections based on broad grounds of policy, and objections based on individual interests. The proper place for broad grounds of policy to be settled is, we consider, on the Floor of the House, and within the decision of the House. Therefore, the Bill provides that in the case of petitions of general objection—that is, petitions which raise the whole policy of an Order—the House can either decide the issue on the Floor, one way or the other, or it can refer it to a Joint Committee. Parliament retains full control, and Parliament is the Tribunal which decides upon such general objections. The proper place for the second cause of objection, namely, petition for amendment, to be dealt with is, we think, in a Parliamentary Committee. The Bill accordingly provides that petitions for amendment are to be automatically referred to a Joint Committee. Surely there can be no complaint about this either from the point of view of Parliamentary control or of the private interests concerned.

I commend the Bill to the House as a useful Measure which, while fully safeguarding local and private interests, provides a simpler and more flexible system than the Provisional Order procedure. This procedure, valuable though it has been in the past, was designed in more leisurely times, and for the reasons I have given, it is not well adapted to the needs of the reconstruction programme, or the full employment policy. The new procedure will economise time, money and effort, and will be a better instrument of modern economic and social policy. I think this Bill, although not one of the first-class Bills of the Session, is nevertheless a valuable Bill in tidying, simplifying, and, I think, rationalising Parliamentary procedure in a field of which we have had, as I have said, about 100 years experience. I believe that the Bill is sound. I think that it is fair and just, and I think that it provides the proper safeguards and rights for Parliament and for private and local interests outside. I hope the House will give it approval as being a Measure which, on the machinery side, is going to contribute to the proper consideration of various Measures which are incidental but nevertheless vital to the Measures of reconstruction which we shall have to consider during the coming years.

Before the Minister concludes there is one question I should like to ask with regard to Clause 3—the question of the Chairman reporting on petitions. Why is no time fixed for that, in view of the fact that the idea is to speed up procedure?

I hardly think that it would be right to impose a time limit on the Lord Chairman of Committees and the Chairman of Ways and Means. We naturally assume that they will act with all proper expedition, but there will be times when there will be an accumulation of these Orders, and I think it would be wrong, and, if I may say so, not perhaps quite consistent with the dignity of these high officers of Parliament if we were to impose a time limit on them.

I am sure all hon. Members would like to join in thanking the right hon. Gentleman for the very clear and lucid explanation of the Bill which he has just given to the House. With one general proposition which was inherent in his speech, I should like at once to associate the party on these benches. The Conservative Party would never be content to approve social legislation and see the application of that legislation to the lives of the people delayed by any technical difficulties or shortcomings of the procedure of this House. Therefore, we are anxious to see if the procedure in this special field can be improved. We are prepared to consider the proposals for improvement which have been put before us by the right hon. Gentleman, and, although we shall have suggestions to make on various points, as he would be the first to expect, we shall not ask the House to divide on the Second Reading of this Bill.

In considering any procedural Bill, there are, I think, three criteria which ought to be considered and used as touchstones in deciding its work: First, is there a real need for the Bill; secondly, is the scheme proposed workable; and, thirdly, is the price which we are asked to pay either in diminution of Parliamentary control or diminution of the rights of the individual too high for what we are getting in the proposals? It is under these heads, that I shall ask the House to consider the Bill to-day. As I see the problem which it is designed to solve, it is two-fold. In the first place it is to provide an appeal to Parliament where the interests of statutory undertakers and local authorities are affected. They are bodies who have received their powers from Parliament, and they say that what Parliament has given only Parliament can take away, and, therefore, we must have recourse to Parliament with regard to any of our powers. The main problem this Bill raises is the position of this creation of Parliament, the statutory bodies of the kind I have mentioned. The second main point is the speeding up and improvement of what is still, I agree, a somewhat slow, and, in some characteristics at any rate, a cumbersome procedure, under the present Provisional Order procedure.

Before we consider that, I think it is essential that the House should appreciate the concrete problems with which this Bill on procedure will have to deal. The principal one is probably that raised by the Town and Country Planning Bill that was passed by the last Government, which deals with the question of the compulsory application and restriction of the user on statutory undertakers' land. There, the position is that before the land of a statutory undertaker can be acquired—and it may well be most necessary to acquire it in order to carry out a planning scheme and bring it into proper operation—there has first to be the approval, not only of the Minister of Town and Country Planning but of the Minister who is, so to speak, the godfather of the statutory undertaking—in the case of railways, the Minister of Transport, in the case of water, the Minister of Health, and so on. After that has been approved, this procedure comes into operation. That is, there has to be complete governmental approval, where necessary approval by the Cabinet and always of the Minister specially concerned with the statutory undertaker's position. It should be borne in mind, and I hope the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Lord Advocate will confirm this point, that in all that section of the field covered by the Bill there are of course appropriate compensation provisions made by the Statute which originally made provision for the acquisition of the land.

That is one section, and there obviously important points are raised. On the one hand, you have the planning necessary in order to make effective the re-establishment of our blitzed areas. It is useless making arrangements for the re-planning of areas if you do not make arrangements to bring services—transport, water and other things—to the homes of the people. Therefore, it is important that we should have a procedure which will provide in the necessary cases for the acquisition of statutory undertakers' land. Secondly, with regard to water, this House has approved a policy which involves amalgamation and it is necessary in some cases for this amalgamation to be carried out. This House has approved the Local Government (Boundary Commission) Act, and it is necessary that the decisions of the Commissioners should be brought into effect. These are all practical points, and practical needs, which result from the social legislation which the Coalition Government carried to the House of Commons to approve, wholly irrespective of party. It is essential that we should do our utmost to see that that legislation is made effective and is not delayed in its operation.

Then one comes to the question of the workability of these proposals, and of comparison with the present day. There, one can see—and I think it is most important that we should have had the concession made so frankly and freely by the right hon. Gentleman—that there should be an appeal to Parliament in these cases. There is no attempt, and it should be clearly on record that there is no attempt, to seek the procedure by Ministerial Order alone. The right of appeal to Parliament is unquestioned from any quarter of the House, and that will be a matter of great comfort to statutory undertakers who are making their plans for the reconstruction period. That brings me to the alternative procedure which can be suggested if the Ministerial Order is omitted. I think few would say that Private Ball procedure was suitable in these times, and I do not think, so far as my knowledge goes, that has been seriously put forward. But when we consider improvements, in local legislation, like the Provisional Order procedure, then one has to regard the question carefully.

I heard the right hon. Gentleman's statements with regard to the improvements in time. He would be the first to expect that these improvements which he claims make for the saving of time will have to be carefully examined on the Committee stage to show how they are to be brought into operation. But with one point I am sure there will be no disagreement, that is, the substitution of a Joint Committee for the two Committees, one of each House, at the present day. That is a suggestion of long standing, and I am very glad that it has at last been put forward for statutory consideration. That will have the result, as the right hon. Gentleman has said, of decreasing time and also of decreasing expense. I also heartily agree with the abrogation of the practice by which the Provisional Orders could only be introduced before Whitsuntide, or the corresponding date with regard to Scottish Orders. I venture to prophesy that the right hon. Gentleman will not have any difficulty about that suggestion at any stage in this Bill.

The third point which the right hon. Gentleman made as to the facilitating of the introduction of Government policy and dealing with orders which are now Government Orders is one which requires somewhat careful consideration. I hope he will listen sympathetically to suggestions as to the attitude of mind in which I think it will have to be considered if it is to work successfully in this House. I do not think that, at this stage, the details demand great attention. We want to be quite sure that in the stage before the Order is made in Parliament, by notice, local inquiry, discussion of objections and the like, the fullest opportunity will be given to all parties affected. The actual presentation of the petition presents no difficulty. The division of petitions into those of amendment and general objection casts yet another duty on the Chair. I am sure that the House realises how greatly indebted it will be if the Chair takes on this duty and carries it out as the Bill intends.

The point with which I wish to deal, because it seems to me it is the point of greatest innovation in the Bill, is that a petition of general objection may not be referred to a Committee. I should like to say one or two words about that. As I understand the procedure that will arise, after the 14 days of objection there will be another 14 days during which a Motion for annulment can be put down, and on the Motion for annulment it can be moved by way of amendment, that the Order be referred to a Joint Committee, and it is then for the House to make that decision. That immediately brings us to the old and vexed question of the real power of the private Member on a Motion for annulment such as we have had experience of in the case of Prayers under the Emergency Powers (Defence) Act during the war. The classical objection, which is put in all the books on Parliamentary procedure, and which the right hon. Gentleman and I have heard on more than one occasion during the past few years, is that it puts the burden on the private Member of keeping a House, getting his friends to stay there and introducing a Motion for annulment in a House which is tired after Government Business and wants to get home. That is a fair point which we have to recognise. On the other side, the private Member who moves the Motion for the annulment has the opportunity to open his case, if I may put it in that way, to pitch it high, and as those who have been at the other end of the gun recognise, even confront the Government of the day with a House which is afire with a private grievance, irrespective of any political views.

I have tried to put clearly and fairly all the advantages and disadvantages on both sides. That is undoubtedly one point. The other point which can fairly be made is that it is difficult for a Private Member to work up the requisite technical knowledge which may well be involved in this matter. On this point the procedure will only work if, as I say, the difficulty of the private Member is approached sympathetically by the Government, whatever be its political complexion, and if there is no attempt, either directly or indirectly, to prevent him from developing his case. That is the first point. Then, as the right hon. Gentleman did, it has to be considered from the other point of view. In what way, by what attitude are the Government going to approach the question of whether they will put the Whips on, and have the matter decided by a vote in the House, of which they will naturally be able to command result on almost all occasions? That again, I consider, is a matter of great importance. As far as I can judge at the moment—and one's judgment can only be hypothetical—there would only be two classes of cases which would justify that course. If I might take an entirely hypothetical example, there might be the moving of one of the London terminal stations at very great expense, running to millions of pounds, to another part of London. That is an issue which, by its public interest and size, would probably inevitably have to be decided on the Floor of the House.

Charing Cross bridge.

Charing Cross railway bridge is an example. In such a case, despite the technical problems involved, the House, if it is to do its job properly, would have to inform itself on these technical problems, and come to a decision upon them. I do not think that case presents much difficulty.

It is the other case which gives one considerable trouble. That is where the Government say that in the national interest, as they conceive it, Government policy does not stop with the parent Act but expresses itself in a particular Order which is before the House, and where there is a statutory undertaking or a local authority opposing the Order—someone who is really trying to continue in the forensic field an opposition to the policy which is inherent in the Bill. That is a very difficult point indeed. The undertaker will say "I am not trying to dispute the policy in the Bill, I am disputing the particular application of the policy embodied in this Order. I want an opportunity to develop that at length, with all the legal forensic assistance I can command, before a Committee." That Is the point where, in my belief, this procedure can only be workable if there is the most sympathetic co-operation from the Government of the day in such circumstances. A Member is coming forward on a constituency point on behalf, say, of a railway company, a water undertaking, a dock authority, etc., in his constituency, the operation of which is of great importance to those he represents. If he can make out a case that the problem which he is putting up really demands the definition, with maps and plans, which the right hon. Gentleman mentioned, and the Minister sees that despite what has gone before there is still a case for further examination, then he must be very ready to allow that to go to the Joint Committee. If this procedure once degenerates into one by which Orders which ought to have further consideration are pushed through on the Floor of the House by the Whips in order to save time, I do not think it will work, and it will certainly not carry out the intentions which the right hon. Gentleman has so fully and eloquently put before the House. That, as I see it, is the main problem which this Bill raises.

It is clear that in a certain class of cases, I agree a limited class but still a certain class, a petitioner against an Order will not be entitled to forensic examination. It is quite true, as the right hon. Gentleman said, that he will get it in every case where there is a petition of amendment. That still leaves the great field in which the only possible petition can be one of general petition, because the question is, "Do you intend to acquire that land or not?" or "Do you intend to amalgamate these undertakings or not?". I wish to be quite frank with the House. I have examined this point in the hope of being able to find an improvement, and I have not yet, at any rate, any improvement to offer the House. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman who replies and the hon. and right hon. Gentlemen on the other side of the House will consider it sympathetically, and if any improvement can be suggested on that point which will clarify the position as to the rightful use of that power which I have mentioned the passage of the Bill will be expedited, and the contents improved.

I do not wish to delay the House by following the right hon. Gentleman into his praiseworthy explanation of the Scottish private legislation procedure. I noticed that the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Lord Advocate looked, I will not say with awe and wonder, but with admiration and surprise, at the command of the Scottish private legislation procedure which was shown by his right hon. Friend. It does remind me of one old comment on this question which was made some ten years ago. It had been suggested that the English private legislation procedure could be improved by a closer approximation to the Scottish procedure, and the Committee which dealt with the subject said that there did not appear to be a great demand in England for the English procedure to be made more like that of the Scottish procedure in the same field. The comment was made at the time that this was highly probable, because there were at the outside only about five people in England who knew what the Scottish private legislation procedure was. I am very glad to think that after the speech of the right hon. Gentleman there are now six.

It comes to this, that there are three main—in fact, new—points in this Bill. The first is the joint committee with which, I venture to prophesy, there will be very little disagreement. The second is the power to deal with a petition of general objection on the Floor of the House. That does trouble a number of my hon. Friends and, as I say, it will require in any case the most careful approach by the Government, the most—not conciliatory but, on the Government's own side, watchful—approach, in order to see that no opponent is put in a wrongful position by reason of this innovation. The third point is an adaptation of the Scottish procedure, namely, that the Bill which can be introduced in order to reverse the decision of the joint committee should start at its Report stage. That is an innovation with regard to opposed Orders, although there was a similar provision for unopposed Orders under Scottish procedure. These three points are considerable innovations. With regard to the second two of them, obviously the Bill will require close consideration and careful scrutiny in Committee. The right hon. Gentleman will be the last person to wish to avoid that, and I am sure he will be anxious for all the points to be considered in case any improvements can be found. But with that warning, which I do press on the right hon. Gentleman as being not a mere statement in terrorem, but something that goes to the root of the proper and reasonable working of any improvement in this procedure, I say on behalf of my hon. Friends on these Benches that as far as we are concerned we shall be prepared to give the Bill a Second Reading and to co-operate to the full extent of our powers in making it an effective instrument for the purpose which I have stated.

I beg to move, to leave out from the word "That" to the end of the Question, and to add:

"this House declines to give a Second Reading to a Bill which fails to expedite or improve the present long-established Provisional Order procedure, but deprives the subject of his present absolute right to have his petition heard by an impartial Committee of this House and moreover diminishes the control of Parliament over delegated legislation."

When the Leader of the House moved the Motion to set up a Select Committee "to consider the procedure in the Public Business of this House, and to report what alterations, if any, are desirable for the more efficient despatch of such business," it seemed to me that this was just the kind of problem which could with great advantage be remitted to that Select Committee. This is a small but important part of the public procedure of this House, and when the Select Committee was set up to go into this matter I think it would have been a good thing for this matter also to be referred to it.

This Bill dates back to the last Parliament, and my hon. Friends and I put down the same reasoned rejection when it was introduced by the late Coalition Government. The right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the House knows that I am not one of those who object to alterations in the procedure of the House or to anything which will reasonably expedite our business. He made a statement on 24th August—and I regard this as being an absolutely unexceptionable statement—when speaking about delegated legislation, in the course of which he was good enough to say some kind words about the line which my hon. Friends and I followed in the last Parliament. He said:

"The real aim should not be to resist the principle of delegated legislation, but rather"—

I will omit some words which he was kind enough to say about my hon. Friends and myself—

"to devise a Parliamentary check whereby the Government may be prevented from running away with the show."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 24th August, 1945; Vol. 413; c. 1048.]

This Bill which we have before us to-day proposes to amend the present procedure, and there are laid down in the explanatory memorandum principles which are almost identical with those which I have just quoted from the right hon. Gentleman's speech of 24th August. The chief objection which we have to this Bill is that the words which are taken as a criterion in Clause 3 do not, in our view, at all accurately represent the distinction which has been drawn in the explanatory memorandum. As things are at the present time, every individual, including local authorities who are affected by a Provisional Order, have the right of coming to the House and having their grievances heard in a forensic atmosphere upstairs. It is intended in this new procedure to draw a distinction between objections which raise broad questions of national policy and questions of detail affecting private individuals, and with private individuals we include the local authorities who would be specially affected by the Boundary Bill and the Water Bill. When we get to the Bill itself, we find that the two Chairmen are required to draw a distinction between petitions of general objection—but petitions of general objection do not necessarily raise questions of broad national policy—and on the other hand petitions for amendment. A petition for amendment does not necessarily only raise some small matter of detail affecting an individual; it may also raise quite an important matter of policy. In fact, the chief point which my hon. Friends and I wish to make is that this distinction which is being drawn is on grounds of quantity rather than of quality. What is needed is to draw a qualitative distinction, as is done in the explanatory memorandum, between those which raise questions of national policy and those which merely deal with matters of detail.

Perhaps I may give an example, which is likely to arise before very long, of the kind of Provisional Order which will come before this House and which presumably will have to be regarded as a petition of general objection. In the Water Bill in Section 3 the Minister of Health is given compulsory powers of amalgamation. I take it that if a Provisional Order amalgamated a large number of existing statutory undertakers of local authorities providing water, and if one of them objected to being included in that Order, the Chairmen, looking at the Order and the petition, upon the face of it would regard that as being a petition for amendment. But if the Order happened to apply to only a single one, and there was objection to the whole of the Order, that would be a petition of general objection, and clearly that is not what the Government really have in mind. In both examples it might or might not be the case that the objection which was raised, raised a broad matter of general policy. It might only be a matter of detail affecting a particular locality which did not wish to be included or, on the contrary, did wish to be included in some general scheme. On the other hand, it might have brought up some matter of high policy, for example the inclusion of some waterless hamlet in an existing statutory undertaker's area, and it might involve the whole question of whether those in the existing statutory undertaker's area should be required to pay a higher rate in order to provide water for some other area which is to be included. Therefore, when we come to the Committee stage I hope the Government will be sympathetic to amendments which try accurately to reflect in the Bill the line of distinction which is laid down in the explanatory memorandum. This is going to be of immense importance in the case of the Local Authorities Boundary Commission Act. It seems to me that it is going to be extremely difficult to draw this distinction if the wording of Clause 3 of this Bill is left as it is.

I come to the next point. The tribunal which is to distinguish between petitions of general objection and those for amendment is one consisting of the Lord Chairman of Committees and the Chairman of Ways and Means. These Provisional Orders are nearly always highly technical and difficult to understand. In the last Session I was a member of the Select Committee on Statutory Rules and Orders, and it was part of the wisdom of the present Leader of the House when he agreed to the setting up of that Committee, to provide that that Committee should have the advantage of an explanation given by the representatives of the Department concerned. The meaning of a great many Provisional Orders would not be plain to any Committee or tribunal unless a representative of the Government Department making the Order was present. Still more in the case of a petition, unless there were counsel present able to illustrate his argument by maps and plans, and perhaps by calling expert witnesses, it would be almost impossible for any tribunal really to understand the point of the objection. That is where we get close to objecting to the principle of this Bill. It is doing away with the right of petitioners to have petitions explained in such circumstances in the seclusion of a committee room upstairs, with the opportunity of passing documents and so on, where it is possible for three hon. Members of this House to look into the whole matter and then report back to the House and explain what really are the issues between the Government Department making the Order and the petitioners who are petitioning against it.

If, after having looked at the form of the petition, the two Chairmen decide that it is a petition of general objection, what is the position of the hon. Member who represents the constituency which includes that local authority or individual? I am grateful to my right hon. and learned Friend the ex-Attorney-General, who has a great and almost paternal affection for this Bill, for the fairness with which he expressed the point of view of those of us who have put down this reasoned Amendment. Both he and the Leader of the House have had a long experience on the Front Bench, but a very short experience as back benchers, and they are both a little inclined to under-estimate the difficulty of the task of an hon. Member who is asked to oppose a Provisional Order. He has to go round and try to persuade his friends and acquaintances, who are not interested in the concerns of his constituency, to stay behind late at night when a House is being kept by the Government Whips, and then to divide against the Government, with all the approbrium that always involves and the castigations that come afterwards from the Front Bench.

I come again to the further difficulty that will arise on a petition of objection, the difficulty of hon. Members explaining in the House why objection is taken to a scheme for redevelopment, which is technically known in the Town and Country Planning Act as "an area of extensive war damage." My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for West Derby, Liverpool (Sir D. Maxwell Fyfe) made an appeal to the Leader of the House that the Government should set an example of using generously the power that exists of setting up a Select Committee to look into the details of a petition of general objection in all cases where it is obviously desirable and expedient to do so. It is extremely unwise for this House to pass legislation setting up a procedure which enables the Government, if they so wish, to drive legislation or Provisional Orders through the House without giving a fair and adequate opportunity of the petitioner to make his voice heard. That is exactly what my right hon. and learned Friend admitted would be the case if this procedure were not used with great moderation by the Government. We submit that in the Committee stage the Government should be willing to accept such Amendments as may be devised which will give an absolute safeguard against abuse of that kind.

The admission which my right hon. and learned Friend made goes far to justify the statement which we make in our Amendment that it deprives the subject of his present absolute right to be heard in a judicial atmosphere upstairs. The Leader of the House said he did not understand why we suggested that this procedure diminished the control of the House of Commons over delegated legislation. It does not do so ostensibly, because all these matters have to be referred to the House, but in order to see to what extent any protection is really effective one has to know how the House works. Anyone who has had experience of trying to oppose an Order late at night by means of a Prayer, knows that it is extremely difficult to make that procedure fully effective.

I come to an important point which has not been referred to. Under this Bill there will be nothing to prevent another place from referring any petition of a local authority to a Committee. Therefore, it may well be that Parliamentary counsel will tend always to advise their clients to lay their petitions before the House of Lords. It is the accepted practice of that House to refer to a Committee anything which, on the face of it, appears to involve a greater degree of inquiry than can be dealt with in public Debate. It would be unfortunate if it came to be generally considered by local authorities that it was to the other Chamber of this legislature and not to the House of Commons that they can turn in order to have a full and fair hearing of their petitions.

To summarise my argument as far as it has gone, it is, first, that a petition of general objection does not necessarily raise any particular question of national or Government policy; second, that to decide whether it does, will necessitate an inquiry which, under the Bill, the Chairmen are not authorised to undertake; third, that it will be difficult for the House to understand an Order properly when it cannot call experts to explain it with plans; and, fourth, that is the procedure which is likely to be adopted by another place. That is why we say that this Bill fails to expedite or to improve the present long-established procedure.

I was glad that the Leader of the House admitted that this House does not take long in dealing with Provisional Orders when once they are introduced. I had an analysis made of three Provisional Order Bills in each of the 20 years 1920–1939, and found that the average time taken was 3 1/7 months. If we compare that with the period taken by the Government Departments, we find that that is where the delay takes place. It was elicited in a Committee of this House upstairs, that, in the case of the Colwyn Bay Water Provisional Order Bill, the first request for an Order was made in February, 1944. A local inquiry was held on 25th May, 1944. The Government then took the conventional nine months of gestation before the Provisional Order Bill was introduced in this House on 25th January, 1945. The legislature had dealt with it and it had obtained the Royal Assent by 25th March. Therefore, when we want to speed up Provisional Orders, it is well that Government Departments should look to their responsibility in this matter as well. It would be possible merely by altering the Standing Orders of this House to reduce the time which is taken upstairs, because it is the custom of Parliamentary counsel to attack the entire Preamble of the Provisional Order in order then to concentrate on a single point; and it would be easy by altering the Standing Orders to confine the point to be dealt with by the Committee upstairs to the actual matter in dispute.

I would like to ask the Lord Advocate to answer this special and important point. Since it is now the intention of the Government under the Water Act, 1945, that the general policy of water development shall be dealt with by Provisional Order, what steps do the Government intend to take to prevent the promotion of Private Bills dealing with this matter? Obviously, we shall not have an orderly development and exploitation of water if, in addition to the policy of the Minister of Health under the Water Act, we are to have the promotion of Private Bills. Is that to be dealt with by opposing the Private Bill on the Second Reading, or will it be done behind the scenes by pressure being brought to bear on local authorities and statutory undertakers by the Ministry of Health? Or in what way will it be done?

I have tried to state a case against this Bill, which does not go to the root of the matter. We are willing to do everything we can to improve and expedite procedure, provided that the effective control of Parliament over delegated legislation is preserved and the right of the subject so to petition the House that his grievances can be effectively made clear to Members, is continued. I would appeal to the Leader of the House to meet us as far as he can in this matter on the Committee stage. There was a time, when he was Home Secretary during the war, when we regarded him as one who gloried in pouring forth a flood of dictatorial departmental edicts. There have been indications in the last year or so that that point of view has rather changed. He is no longer the administrator intent to get his business through with the minimum of interference from the tribunes of the people which look after the toad under administrative harrow. Now that he is Leader of this deliberative assembly, I hope that he will do all he can to maintain the prestige and the effective control of this House over delegated legislation.

I beg to second the Amendment.

This is a complicated subject, and hon. Members will agree that my hon. Friend who has so ably proposed this Amendment has made himself master of his case. It is obvious that he has spent considerable time, care and attention in marshal ling the facts he has put before us. The Bill is a legacy left over from the Coalition Government for the new Government, but as my hon. Friend said, some of us were going to oppose the Bill had it been brought forward by the Coalition, I want to emphasise that point, because I do not want any accusations of obstruction which are so often made these days by hon. Members opposite to be made against us. The case for the Bill obviously rests to a large extent on the fact that, because of the proposed legislative programme, there will be great pressure upon Parliamentary time. Therefore some method must be devised whereby that volume of legislation can be passed without prejudicing the scrutiny which this House ought to give to it. I do not want to challenge that in the least, but there is at present sitting the Select Committee on Parliamentary Procedure, and this Bill deals with certain aspects of Parliamentary procedure and Parliamentary machinery. When the Bill was first drafted by the Coalition Government, that Select Committee was not sitting, but now that it is sitting, I feel that this Bill contains points which are very suitable for submission for its consideration.

As I understand it, the Bill is intended to economise Parliamentary time. The two kinds of petition which have been mentioned are petitions for amendment and petitions of general objection. The first are to be referred to a Joint Select Committee. We do not oppose that at all, we think it is a good idea, but it is in connection with, petitions of general objection that the procedure suggested in the Bill is very different. If there is a petition of general objection the onus of moving that petition in the House will rest upon individual Members of Parliament, and I should like the House to consider how this Bill will increase the duties of Members. I have had some experience in moving Prayers for the annulment of certain Orders, and I know how difficult it is, especially when the Order deals with a constituency matter, to arouse enthusiasm among Members who represent other parts of the country and persuade them to sit late at night to support the hon. Member who moves the Prayer. I know also what it means to have the Whips put on and the whole machinery of the Government opposing the Prayer, and, with the greatest of respect to hon. Members, I know that if petitions were heard before a Select Committee upstairs with the full backing of counsel, the case for the petitioners would be argued considerably better than it could be by one individual Member on the Floor of the House.

I believe that the procedure under this Bill may tend to increase the amount of work already placed on the average Member of Parliament. In order to present an intelligible and reasoned case in support of a petition of general objection, the Member of Parliament will have to hear at great length evidence of a highly technical character. He will have to go into the matter extremely closely with the technical advisers, and to study plans, maps and documents. It will take him a long time and then, when he comes to the House, he is responsible for putting over the case to a lot of hon. Members who have not heard the technical experts, who have not had am opportunity of studying the plans, maps and documents, and the whole burden will rest on the poor individual, the back bench Member. Quite frankly I think that that is too much to ask him to do, and I therefore believe that in those conditions the scrutiny of the House over matters of this nature will compare very unfavourably with the scrutiny provided by the Judicial Committee sitting upstairs.

Again, I do not believe that it is by any means universal that petitions of general objection will be an attack on broad grounds of policy, and if I am wrong in this I hope I shall be corrected. Let me take a case. Suppose the Central Electricity Board, which is responsible through the medium of the grid system for supplying electricity and for seeing that there are sufficient generating stations sited in suitable places, decides upon a site for a new generating station and an Order is made to that effect. I understand that a petition against that Order would be a petition of general objection. No Amendment would be allowed, and the petitioner would not be able to say, except for purposes of argument, that the generating station might be sited somewhere else, or that there was no real reason for the station to be in that vicinity at all. But that is not a general objection against the electricity Board's broad policy. The matter may constitute a very small part of the business carried on by the Board, and I cannot conceive that such an objection should really be a case of general objection. I believe that we must try to draw some greater distinction between petitions which challenge policy and those which challenge details of the administration of that policy. At the moment they are both to be considered as petitions of general objection which must be wrong.

In conclusion, I do agree that there is scope and need for improvement in speeding up our machinery in this House, but as the new machinery proposed under this Bill gives very wide powers to Departments without, I submit, any proper Parliamentary check, I regard this Bill with serious misgivings, and I believe that it is possible to devise some machinery whereby the passage of these Orders could be expedited without impairing the right of scrutiny of Parliament.

I have listened with very great interest to the speech of the Leader of the House this afternoon on this Bill, and while I do not intend to deal with that part of the Bill which concerns the position in England, I would like to ask the Lord Advocate, when he comes to reply, to give us a little more information with regard to Clause 10, which deals with the position in Scotland. I should like to know definitely what changes are proposed in the present procedure followed in Scotland with regard to private legislation. The right hon. Gentleman, in moving the Second Reading of the Bill, paid a very high compliment to Scotland on the method of procedure which has been in operation for so many years and which has been so successful. As a matter of fact, if we in Scotland had not had this system of dealing with private legislation, this House, long ere now, would have had to face the question of giving us a government of our own, because if all Scottish business had to be discussed on the floor of this House it would take a very considerable time. Under the Private Legislation (Procedure) (Scotland) Act we have been able to facilitate Scottish business that has come before this House.

Occasionally Scottish Bills are introduced without their coming before a Commission in Scotland, and very often such Bills provoke acrimonious discussions when they are introduced here. Those who have been in the House for some time and remember the Debates we had on the various hydro-electric schemes in Scotland will remember also the intense feeling aroused, not only among Scottish Members but also amongst Members in every part of the House. Not all Scottish business comes to the House. We have had in operation the system described by the right hon. Gentleman this afternoon and I would like to know from the Lord Advocate what changes are proposed in the present procedure. If it is merely a speed-up, so far as I am concerned I shall not object to that. Neither shall I object if it can cheapen the procedure. But if there is any limitation on the powers of Commission that is appointed to deal with these matters in Scotland, we want to know what the changes are and whether they will be to the advantage of Scotland.

It is a curious thing, but when Provisional Orders have been submitted to a Commission in Scotland and the whole of the opposition has been heard, the Commission has reported to this House and the Provisional Orders have come before this House as Bills, I think I only remember one occasion when any objection was taken to the decision of the Commission. The Commission's decision has been accepted by this House on every occasion, and on most occasions without any discussion at all. It was considered that, if the Provisional Order had gone through the Commission in Scotland, been examined there and accepted by the Commission, so far as this House was concerned it was prepared to accept the decision of the Commission. If there happened to be a Scottish Member present whose constituency was affected by the Bill that was before the House, and which had formerly been before the Commission in the shape of a Provisional Order, I do not know of any Scottish Member who felt in the least embarrassed by that fact. I can speak with some knowledge on this matter, because I think I am correct in saying there is no Member in any part of the House who has served on more of these Commissions in Scotland than I have. On several occasions I have been chairman of the Commission, so that naturally I am very jealous of any change that may be proposed in regard to this procedure. We want to retain the procedure in Scotland, because the petitions that are presented against any Provisional Order are thoroughly examined by the keenest legal brains that we have in Scotland. The best men who can be got are engaged on both sides. The matter is sifted to the very foundations.

I can remember a number of interesting cases where difficulties and disputes that had gone on for a very considerable time were settled by the Commission. The hon. Member for South Edinburgh (Sir W. Darling) was head of a very important corporation, the Edinburgh Corporation, for many years. He knows that that corporation has promoted many of these Provisional Orders. He knows that other bodies in Scotland have presented Provisional Orders for certain improvements in their areas. I remember very well the last Commission of which I was a member in Scotland; I was the chairman of it. For years Edinburgh had been seriously divided over the question of the sites for certain institutions. That dispute went on for years, and then the time came when the Edinburgh Corporation presented a Provisional Order to settle the question. The Commission, which consists of two Members of this House and two Members of another place, settled the matter that had been so long in dispute in Edinburgh, and to this day the Commission's decision has not been challenged.

I am particularly anxious to know what changes are proposed in the system that we have had and which has been carried on so successfully in Scotland. There are, of course, certain proposals which cannot come before the Commission in the form of a Provisional Order and which have to be brought before the House in the form of a Bill. I am very anxious to know what the changes are, and I hope that the Lord Advocate, whom I congratulate on being elevated from the Law Courts of Edinburgh to the Front Bench, will be able to assure Scottish Members that there is no intention of interfering with the procedure that has been carried on so successfully in Scotland for so many years. I agree that there is a case for speeding up matters. There is too much delay in getting a Provisional Order before the Commission, and after it has been passed by the Commission, there is too much delay before it is presented to the House in the form of a Bill. If anything can be done to speed up that procedure, I shall have no objection to the Second Reading of the Measure. I hope the Measure will get a speedy passage, and I hope to hear from the Lord Advocate that there is no intention of interfering seriously with the procedure that we have had in Scotland for so many years.

I share with the hon. Member for Dunfermline Burghs (Mr. McLean Watson) a certain amount of apprehension about this Bill. When the Bill was first introduced in the last Parliament, I remember pressing my right hon. Friend the Member for Warwick and Leamington (Mr. Eden) to let us have a free vote on it. This is not a party question, it is a question of our procedure here, and it seems to me that such a matter should not be dealt with on a party basis, but on the basis of the knowledge we have gained from our experience of this sort of work. I gather there will be no free vote on this occasion, and no hon. Member is going to oppose the Second Reading of the Bill, but I think there are certain improvements which we will have to try to make on the Committee stage.

I am sorry the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the House is not present at the moment, but perhaps the Lord Advocate will tell his right hon. Friend that he made a joke which appealed even to Scotsmen about the five years, on which we had a Debate last Monday. I suggest that it would be quite a good idea, having put five years into the other Bill and taken two years out, that as he has taken five years out here he should put two years in in its place. That would give an experimental period. Surely, we ought to try a thing before going in for it wholesale. I hope that perhaps on the Committee stage the two-year period may be inserted. The argument seems to be that what we want to do is to speed up private legislation. I think that the more one knows of private legislation in this House the more one realises that it is difficult to speed it up, as far as Parliament is concerned. As my hon. Friend the Member for The High Peak (Mr. Molson) pointed out, the delay is in the Departments and not here. I would like to quote what was said in another place last year on this subject by Lord Hemingford, who, as Sir Dennis Herbert, was Chairman of Ways and Means for many years. He said:

"It would be correct to say that it is by far the most vital of our traditions that justice should be done between all subjects of the Realm. Having that task before us in Private Bill legislation, it is really impossible to shorten the time very materially."

That is his view. Being a judicial matter the thing cannot be pushed through in double quick time. An attempt was made before to speed up the procedure. In 1929 the Labour Government brought in the Public Works Facilities Act. What was the result of that attempt? It was a complete failure. To quote Lord Hemingford again:

"I must confess that the attempt on that occasion to speed up the execution of useful works by means other than the ordinary Private Bill procedure was a complete failure."

One can put things on paper for the speeding up of procedure, but when it comes to practice it is a very different matter. People outside the House, and sometimes hon. Members themselves, talk about the slowness and inefficiency of Parliamentary procedure. I have been interested in Parliamentary procedure for a very long time. It has been built up by experience and practice and I do not think there is very much the matter with it. There may be some things that could be improved, but when it comes to criticising Parliamentary procedure, I think that the more people know about it the less they criticise it. I do not want to go into details about the Bill, because there will be an opportunity of doing that later, but I would like to say a word about the question of local inquiry. I want again to quote from that great authority. Lord Hemingford:

"It may be unfortunate but it is the fact that the departmental inquiry by a Government Department is, to use a somewhat slang phrase, thoroughly fly-blown throughout the country. There have been numerous cases where these inquiries have been, from the lawyer's point of view, most unsatisfactory. They are conducted generally by a very excellent and experienced civil servant, who is not a lawyer, who has no legal knowledge, and who has, if I may say so, a very small amount of what I should call the judicial mind in dealing with matters of this kind."

Let us be careful where we go with regard to this private legislation. As my hon. Friend the Member for The High Peak said in his very able speech, we are now taking away from the private individual the power to come here and petition. It is a serious interference with the present rights of persons affected by Provisional Orders. Private individuals have lost for the first time their right to be heard in Parliament.

Preamble points are cut out unless someone persuades Parliament otherwise, which means against the wishes of the Government Whips. That seems to be quite simple, but what chance has an individual to get a Prayer carried? We know that the answer is that he has none. I hope the Lord Advocate will deal with that when he replies. There is another thing which I do not expect the Lord Advocate will known about. I do suggest that the Committee of Selection should have some say in the appointment of the Joint Committees and also that the members of the Joint Committees should have to sign the Declaration.

I am sorry if I have been rather critical. When the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for West Derby (Sir D. Maxwell Fyfe) originally brought the Bill before the House I was rather rude to him once or twice and now apologise, but he was very nice about it. This is not a party matter and it is something that we must watch carefully because it is a question of taking away the rights of individuals.

I listened, as I am sure all of us did, with great interest to the speech of the hon. Member for Dunfermline Burghs (Mr. Watson) reviewing the case of Scotland. I do not pretend to know anything about the position in Scotland but I was interested to hear the hon. Member say that over a long period of years the method of legislation by Provisional Order has worked satisfactorily without anyone making objection to it. That was the position taken up by the Leader of the House in his opening speech when he very ably reviewed the history of the Provisional Order legislation. As he pointed out, it has been in existence for something like 100 years, and there has been no objection to its working. It has worked satisfactorily from the point of view of both promoters and objectors. The two reasons he gave for introducing the Bill were that it was to speed up something, but what, he does not say. Is he going to say that he is speeding up something which is working, on his own showing, quite satisfactorily? How can that be a question of speeding up when all parties are finding the present position satisfactory? Is it to provide a cheaper and more expeditious form of legislation? The Provisional Order was introduced to give Parliament complete control over matters with which it could not itself adequately deal and which could be referred to committees. As the right hon. Gentleman said, you cannot spread maps and documents before the House itself, and so here is machinery which is both competent and adequate. On its findings a Provisional Order is issued and in due course Parliament has the Provisional Order laid before it and it is made a Provisional Order of Parliament.

Why is it that both this Government and the previous Government want to change what has worked satisfactorily for 100 years? The phrase "full employment," which occurred over and over again in the right hon. Gentleman's speech, on the face of it, had nothing whatever to do with it. I looked through the Schedules to the Bill and there is nothing there dealing with employment at all. Is it intended that some Orders shall be used on some occasions to deal with Acts not now in the Second Schedule of the Bill? That is not clear to my mind. If that be so, then that comes within the reasoned Amendment of the hon. Member for The High Peak Division (Mr. Molson). Clause 7 of the Bill limits the power of local authorities to make objections. Subsection (3) says:

"The reasonable costs incurred by a local authority in applying for or supporting an order to which this Act applies, or in opposing any such order, including costs incurred in connection with any local inquiry preliminary thereto, shall, to such extent as may be sanctioned by the Minister of Health, be deemed to be expenses properly incurred by the local authority."

It means that the local authority in future shall not be able to make objection except in so far as it is authorised to do so by the central executive or the Minister. That is an increase of the powers of the Minister. Is that what is intended by the Bill? Why do the Labour Government take over a Bill from this side of the House and seek to pass it into law? I have become familiar with the statement that this is the Bill which was introduced by the "caretaker" Government, with certain modifications and alterations here and there and that therefore the House is asked to pass it.

The Coalition Government.

Yes, the Coalition Government. I used to speak here for a minority, in fact I have done so every time I have been here, and it may be that the minority may prove right in the end, but it is well that the Minister should remind the House that it ought to be jealous of its own powers and authority and should not lightly put away machinery which has worked in a good, efficient and democratic way.

I feel that when a Measure of this sort has been recommended to the House by the right hon. Gentleman the Lord President of the Council on the grounds that it is likely to save time, and when it has also had the recommendation of the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for West Derby (Sir D. Maxwell Fyfe) on the same grounds—and we all really want to save the time and improve the working conditions of the House—it is our duty, if we see a real defect in their arguments, to try and point it out to the House as a whole. I agree that, as far as this new procedure is concerned, it is likely to save money. I think there is a chance that it may actually save time, though a very little—it has been grossly over-estimated, I think—in putting these Orders through. But I am absolutely convinced that this is not going to save the time of the House of Commons as a whole. We have had evidence given of the value of Standing Committees and how, if you have Standing Committees, you save the time of the House as a whole. The whole argument of the right hon. Gentleman, speaking on behalf of the Government, was that these things could be discussed on the Floor of the House. It is on the Floor of the House that you take up the time of the largest possible number of Members, whereas if a matter goes upstairs to a committee there are only a few hon. Members concerned. I remember there was the question of evidence on the Colwyn case, with which I had something to do as it was taken in answer to my request. I have had some experience of Bills upstairs, not very much, but enough to realise the amount of time that these save the House. There is usually no objection and they go upstairs quickly. There are very few days during which they are actually passing through the House itself. As far as the Committee upstairs is concerned, as a general rule, they do not take long, although they may at times.

Therefore, it is due to me to warn the House, if the Government remove these Committees, of the danger of having a long discussion on the Floor of the House. They will not save a great deal of time on the whole. To give an illustration, I will take the House back to what happened on an occasion in about 1930. There was a certain Private Bill, which the Government were more or less backing, concerned with trolley buses. The Bill, although opposed locally, was quite harmless and the Government were rather favouring it, but it happened that the representative of the particular division was in some disagreement with the Socialist Government of the day. The Socialist back bench Members, not being very wise, blocked the Bill and wasted half a day of their own Government's time on that Bill. I say frankly that this is a Bill which is not likely to save the time of the House as a whole.

There are two points I wish to emphasise and make clear to the House. We have heard that the main objection to the Bill in interfering with the present procedure under Provisional Orders is that the local authority, or private individual feels that he has some immediate contact with the House of Commons itself. I can see many Members of Parliament present to-day who have spent an immense amount of time working on Private Bills. The individual or local authority has direct contact with the private Member. This sense of contact will, under this Bill, be removed both from local authorities and other people. We heard that one of the ways in which this Bill would be used would be in the direction of boundaries. I can remember that with regard to Plymouth and Devonport there was a great deal of feeling, although it has passed away in due course. There is likely to be feeling in these matters and that will mean there will be high local controversy, and directly you have high controversy you force Private Members of the House of Commons to take up the question. If we get these Private Bills upstairs where matters are worked out we save a vast amount of the time of the Government, and when the business is done we start them off like a new married couple by sending them off with a sense that at any rate the House of Commons itself has had a very good look into the matter rather than some Department. That is absolutely essential. The sense of contact is something which I would be loath to refuse under the Bill.

I would like to say one thing on Clause 3, and I say it with great respect. I believe that at the moment I am the only Member in the House who can say it with knowledge. That Clause gives the Chairman of Ways and Means or whoever represents him the power of certification. I have never liked the power of certification. The appointment of Chairman of Ways and Means is a Government appointment and always has been. The power of certification is to be simply transferred from one hon. Gentleman to another in the respected position of Chairman. If I were Chairman I would not like to have that thrust upon me. It would be grossly unfair if I did not tell the House that I think that that would be wrong. I personally doubt whether there is any possibility of the Chairman or the Deputy-Chairman, both of whom have an enormous amount of work to do, doing this at a time like this when they will have far more work to do with the additional Bills coming on and whether we are not putting an unnecessary burden upon them. I put these points with very great respect, but they are points which ought to be put before the House, as they have not been considered. I do feel that it would have been wrong if I had not warned the House that I think it would be out of place to give that power to the Chairman, as I understand is the position.

I am concerned with the Scottish aspect of this matter, and I hope the Lord Advocate will allay my fears when he comes to reply. As the hon. Member for Dunfermline Burghs (Mr. Watson) has said, we have had a long and fortunate experience of the Provisional Order system in Scotland, and I have never heard any complaint from any direction whatever, political or otherwise, against this method of legislation. I think it is admittedly satisfactory. The people who come with Provisional Orders, have a full opportunity of stating their case at great length, and I have never known any objection taken to any decision. That being so, I have great difficulty in understanding why we should be expected to effect a change when the system was so universally approved.

I am also concerned with another circumstance and this has special reference to what the hon. Member for Dunfermline Burghs said. I hope the Lord Advocate will help me in this matter, too. For many years the people of Scotland, particularly in the Fifeshire and Edinburgh areas, have desired a crossing over the Forth, and the principal promoter for many years has been the hon. Member for Dunfermline Burghs. We have never been successful in convincing the Ministry of Transport of the national importance of this project, but in the last few months the local authorities have decided to promote a Provisional Order in order to achieve this end. Will the Lord Advocate tell me that they will be in a no less favourable position with that Provisional Order than they would have been in before these new proposals were made. I assure the right hon. and learned Gentleman that he will have some difficulty in retaining the high popularity which he enjoys in his country if he cannot give us some assurance on this matter. I am suspicious of legislation of this character. I am, by nature, timorous and slow. The kind of system which has worked well for 100 years is good enough for me. Festina lente is a good motto, if not for Tories, then for those newly-seated in positions of authority. I am suspicious of this legislation because it is adding again to the power of the authorities. I remember an old song which contains the line:

"Strength aiding still the strong"

and this is strength aiding still the strong. Are the local authorities going to be strengthened by this Measure? I doubt it, and I support the Amendment.

It is with the utmost diffidence that I find myself making my first speech to this House on the subject of procedure. As the most recent Member of the House, I have been anxiously, and, I hope, diligently, endeavouring to acquire the elements of procedure, but I know that many of the hon. Members who have spoken have a wealth of knowledge and of practical experience which I shall never be able to attain. In those circumstances, my appeal for the indulgence of the House is a heartfelt one.

At present, Orders of a local legislative character, which are subject to review by Parliament, may be carried through by one of two generally accepted methods. They may be carried through either by Provisional Order procedure, or by Special Order procedure. Each of these methods of procedure has certain defects, and the object of this Bill is to provide a new code of procedure which will contain the advantages and avoid the disadvantages of the two existing codes. There is really nothing in this Bill that is truly an innovation. It follows from both the existing codes, and there is at the present moment a real need for this Bill in order to deal with problems of reconstruction, and. particularly, in regard to the time factor.

May I review, for a moment, the scope of the new procedure, because that, I think, in itself, would deal with a number of the points which have been taken? First, the procedure is to apply to any Order under a future Act which is described in that Act as being subject to special Parliamentary procedure. So it will be, in every case, as far as the future is concerned, for Parliament to decide whether the new procedure is to be applied or not. Secondly, the new procedure is to be applied to certain Orders under one or two Acts, which were passed in the course of last year, and, thirdly, the new procedure may be applied to Orders under earlier Acts, but that must be done by Order in Council. It seems to me, therefore, that the control of Parliament over the delegation of legislation is firmly established, and it is left to Parliament to decide, in the light of experience, to what extent the new procedure is to be used, and it is not proposed to introduce any experimental period. Time and experience will show.

Perhaps the simplest way of answering a number of the points which have been raised would be to give the House a general review of the procedure. The First Schedule, deals with proceedings preliminary to the Order being laid on the Table of the House. That is as far as England and Wales are concerned. This preliminary procedure follows closely the existing system of proceedings preliminary to the making of a Provisional Order. There is no curtailment at this stage of any private rights or interests, and the fullest consideration is given to all these matters. Then, the preliminary stage over, the Order has to lie on the Table of each House, and petitions may be presented within 14 days. The duty is cast on the Lord Chairman and the Chairman of Ways and Means to examine and decide whether these petitions are petitions for amendment, or petitions of general objection. That is a distinction which is very important, and, indeed, is fundamental to the Bill. It is intended to be a broad distinction, and a distinction in quality, but I may say that we will gladly consider any formula which would help to make that distinction clear, because there is no denying that it is a fundamental and important distinction. I also agree that that would assist the Lord Chairman and the Chairman of Committees in what may well be a difficult task of discriminating between the two types of petition. The next step is that the Chairmen—

I am sorry to interrupt the right hon. and learned Gentleman in a maiden speech, but I did raise a point of some importance on this matter of the Chairman and his powers. With an Order under a Government Bill, what would the position of the Chair be? Perhaps the right hon. and learned Gentleman would put that point before the Lord President, and discuss it from that angle. It is very difficult for anyone except myself to put that point, which I have put forward with very great respect. I would like an assurance that the matter will be borne in mind.

I hope it will. I had intended to convey that it is a matter which needs attention, because this distinction is an important distinction between the two types of petition, and needs to be carefully defined. The jurisdiction of deciding into which of the two categories a petition falls, seems to me to involve a delicate definition. That is the impression which I had been hoping to convey.

That step having been taken, the Chairmen report to the House whether petitions have been presented, and, if so, into which class they fall. If, within 14 days after the Chairmen's report, either House resolves that the Order be annulled, the Order falls to the ground. That is the first step, but, where there are petitions of general objection, if the Resolution to annul is moved, the House may, if it thinks fit, amend the Resolution and send the petition to a Joint Committee of both Houses. That is an innovation. A petition does not go automatically, but the question of the principle involved in the Order has to be decided by the House, either on the Floor or through the Joint Committee. It does not go to the Joint Committee automatically; in this matter, it is for the decision of the House. When the report of the Joint Committee is laid before both Houses, three possibilities arise. If the Order is reported without Amendment, it comes into operation on the day when the Order is laid, or on such later date as the Order itself may fix. That is the first possibility. Secondly the Minister in charge of the Order may accept Amendments. If he cannot accept the Amendments, he must either withdraw the Order or embody the Order in the Bill. The course of embodying the Order in the Bill is necessary as the Minister is asking Parliament to reconsider a decision of a Joint Committee, but there is this important innovation—that the Bill, after introduction, will be treated as having passed its Committee stage in each House. That is an innovation which is introduced from Scottish procedure. It has been successfully tried in Scottish procedure.

The third possibility in regard to the Joint Committee's report is that if the Committee on consideration of a petition of general objection reports that the Order be not approved, the Minister has an option. If he accepts that ruling then, of course, that finishes the Order but, if he does not accept it, he is still entitled to embody the Order in a Bill. That gives one an idea of the procedure in so far as it relates to England and Wales.

May I say a word about the procedure as far as Scotland is concerned? I assure the hon. Member for Dunfermline Burghs (Mr. Watson) that this procedure makes no innovation whatever in Scottish private legislation procedure. The Bill so far as the application Clause is concerned proposes to modify the new procedure in its application to Scotland so as to make use of the system of inquiry relating to Scottish private legislation which is now governed by the Private Legislation Procedure (Scotland) Act, 1936. So that all that is proposed to be done is that, in modifying this new procedure in relation to Scotland, we intend to use our established Scottish procedure. The essential feature of that Scottish procedure is an inquiry in Scotland before Commissioners, who are usually Parliamentary Commissioners drawn from panels of Members of both Houses of Parliament, and we shall utilise that procedure which is well tried and entirely satisfactory in the application of this new procedure to Scotland. Since 1900 there have been 223 Provisional Orders under the Scottish procedure, and only 20 of them have been the subject of Parliamentary Debate. In only six of the 20 was there a Motion for reference to a Joint Select Committee, and only in one case was the Motion accepted. So it seems clear that the Scots system of preliminary inquiry has operated very satisfactorily. It gives a full ventilation of the facts, and it is both speedy and economical, so we feel it is entirely appropriate that, so far as the new procedure applies to Scotland, we should avail ourselves of this will tried expedient.

In Scotland the procedure is simply this: It is very similar to the Provisional Order procedure. First, there is advertisement and notice. Where there are objections, the Order must be sent before the Commissioners, and even if there are no Petitions, it may be sent before the Commissioners. The next step is that if the Minister makes an Order giving effect to the recommendations of the Commissioners, or if an unopposed Order is made without inquiry, the Order will be presented to both Houses. Once that stage is reached, there will be the same opportunity for petitions and the same scrutiny of petitions by the two Chairmen as in the English procedure, but there is this important difference: in view of the quasi-Parliamentary inquiry which has already been held, the Order will be referred for examination by a Joint Committee only if either House so resolves. That is an important difference between the two procedures. Apart from that, the Order may be annulled by either House and when it is referred to a Joint Committee, the procedure will be on the same lines as in the case of the English Orders. Similarly, too, where the Minister concerned disagrees with the recommendations of the Commissioners, he can embody the Order in a Bill which is treated as having reached the Report stage. So I think I can certainly reassure the Scottish Members, first that there is no invasion of our private legislation procedure, and that all we are doing is taking this tried expedient and applying it to the new procedure in so far as it affects Scotland.

The hon. Member for The High Peak (Mr. Molson) raised one special point with which I might deal. One cannot prevent local authorities from bringing in private Bills. They may, of course, be persuaded to withdraw them but, if they cannot be so persuaded, then it would seem they would have to be dealt with on Second Reading.

May I say a word with regard to the time factor, which is important in regard to the Bill? An unopposed Order, if the House is in session, can become operative after 28 days plus the time occupied by the chairmen in reporting and obtaining confirmation. The usual average period at present for the securing of Parliamentary confirmation of an unopposed Order is something in the neighbourhood of four months. If the Order is sent to the Joint Committee, the period will depend, of course, on the speed with which the Committee acts, but there will be a substantial saving of time as the Order stands referred to the Committee under the terms of Clause 5 for the purpose of the consideration of the petition—that is to say, the committee has only a limited objective. The issue which is before the Committee will be limited to the points taken in the petitions, and that should involve a substantial saving of time. Moreover, the examination is a single one before a Joint Committee and not a double one before several committees of the two Houses. When the Order is reported to the Houses, the further time involved depends, of course, upon a number of factors. It depends on whether there are no Amendments or whether the Amendments are such as the Minister is prepared to accept. In that event, of course, the Order can operate at once but if the Minister cannot accept the Amendments and needs a Bill, the Bill will still have to pass the Report and Third Reading stages in each House. But there too, there is a substantial saving of time because of the time saved in the earlier stages.

Considerable importance was attached by hon. Members to the point that under the Bill the subject is deprived of the right which he at present enjoys of having his petition heard by a Committee of this House. Under the Bill that right is no longer absolute, and cannot be so described. The Bill leaves it to Parliament to say in the first instance whether the question of policy is to be discussed on the Floor of the House, or is to be referred to the Joint Committee. That must, of course, always be a question for anxious consideration, and it depends a great deal on how the new procedure operates when the Bill is passed as to the use which will be made of it. However, looked at broadly, the subject has no legitimate grounds of complaint if Parliament prefers to deal with the question of policy itself. Any private interest is fully safeguarded, opportunity is given for due consideration, both in the preliminary procedure and in the petition procedure, and any point which the subject has can be fully brought into consideration. So I claim for the new procedure that it is certainly cheaper, that it is quicker, that it is more flexible than the old procedure, that it is better adapted for dealing with the problems of reconstruction, and, further, that it provides an effective balance between the claims of public and private interests.

Would the right hon. and learned Gentleman give us his assurance that he will try to get his right hon. Friend to arrange that the Committee of Selection here has the appointment of the committee, and also that the members appointed have to sign the declaration? I know he cannot answer that now.

I will certainly keep that in mind.

As one with some experience of the law and little experience of Parliamentary Committees, and a little experience of this House, I would like to take the opportunity of offering congratulations to the Lord Advocate on his maiden speech. With such experience as I have, I can imagine that it was no light ordeal to speak on this particularly technical and rather dull subject, and I am sure the House will agree with me that he has discharged his heavy task very well.

I do not want to say very much about the Second Reading of this Bill, with which the House will, no doubt, now proceed, but I would like to say that it is a useful Bill and I am sure it will help. I noticed, except for the speeches from the Front Benches on either side, that there was a regrettable tinge of conservatism in the speeches that came from all three major parties of the House. I can speak with an air of detachment on the subject, since I do not belong to any of them. Naturally, to me as a Socialist, it was a very regrettable tendency to praise past things. As a Socialist, speaking in a Socialist House of Commons, I do not quite like the tendency to assume, as a matter of course, as was done on all sides, that any interference with the right of an individual to approach the House of Commons, or the Ritz Hotel, or anything else, is necessarily a retrograde step, or a diminution of general freedom and liberty in this country. Whether it is a good thing or a bad thing to restrict the rights of the individual depends entirely on who the individual is, what property he has, and what interests he is defending, and no doubt we shall find that we are doing a very great deal of good in the course of this Parliament by restricting the rights of individuals who have property.

I beg to move, "That the Bill be now read a Second time."

Judging by the size of some of the Bills presented to this House, and of many which I anticipate are going to be presented, this could be regarded as a comparatively modest Measure. Nevertheless, there is no doubt its importance to inshore fishermen cannot be overestimated. The services rendered throughout the war by fishermen, both by those who served in deep-sea trawlers and those who manned the smaller ships, are so outstanding—from the point of view of the actual catching or landing of fish—and by the large number of fishermen who willingly went into the Services, that I make no apology for asking Parliament to sanction this small Bill as a matter of urgency, and I hope that these modest proposals, important though they are modest, will be readily approved by this House. The Bill is confined exclusively to inshore fishermen, to those engaged in catching white fish or shell fish. White fish, of course, excludes those boats which are wholly, or mainly, used for herring fishing. This Measure is, with some verbal modifications, a replica of a similar Bill introduced by my predecessor in March of this year. That Bill was circulated, comments were received, and slight verbal improvements have been made. Although it is the same Bill, with a slightly different godparent, I hope it will commend itself to hon. Members sifting on both sides of the House.

In the summer of 1944, a similar Measure was introduced by the Secretary of State for Scotland, with the support and assistance of my right hon. Friend, to provide financial aid for the herring industry. This, therefore, is simply a complementary Measure to help inshore fishermen to re-equip themselves for their post-war task of inshore fishing. I need hardly remind hon. Members of the part played by the small boat in the Dunkirk evacuation. It was one more epic of the sea in which the little man played a very big part indeed. During this war, inshore fishermen have suffered very severe restrictions in their fishing grounds. They have also suffered restrictions in the times they could fish, yet those who were not actually called for naval or military service carried on in some form, even though many of them had to migrate from Yarmouth, Lowestoft, or from other fishing ports on the East coast, to Fleetwood, or elsewhere, to ply their trade. They were ready and willing to risk all enemy attacks, whether by air, surface raiders, submarines or mines, and their valuable contribution to the nation's food supplies in those very hard times can scarcely be over-estimated. Pre-war, there were something like 17,000 inshore fishermen. Most of them were not doing too well in the inter-war years. During the war, many of their boats had to be laid up, and they have now become, more or less, derelict, and certainly they need either overhaul or renewal if they are going to be used for fishing in the future.

This Measure, therefore, is inevitable if we would restore inshore fishermen to the position—I hope to a better position—they enjoyed prior to the war. It is perfectly obvious that we cannot leave the inshore fishermen, themselves, to meet the cost of new vessels, or of reconditioning old ones. They would not be able to face that obligation. Therefore, as it is of vital importance to an island nation of this kind always to have a body of seafaring men ready for any crisis that might occur, it is only right that the nation should step in, at the proper moment, to help them re-establish themselves in their former pursuits. This Measure is calculated to do that, and I hope to create a body of contented fishermen who, in time of peace, will help to supplement the food resources of this country, and, in time of danger, will, in the future, as always in the past, be ready and willing to serve us. These men, with their special knowledge of local conditions, are almost in valuable. Their seafaring qualities I need not eulogise at all.

Clause 1 of this Bill enables the Secretary of State for Scotland and myself to make grants for either the provision of new boats or the reconditioning of old, up to £500,000, and loans to the extent of £800,000 to persons at present engaged in inshore fishing, persons desirous of engaging therein, including those previously engaged, who during the war have been on some other service, and ex-Servicemen who wish to enter this industry. The financial assistance will be in the form of grants, or loans, towards the acquisition of boats or equipment, or, I imagine, of both, in case of need. The terms of the grant, or loan, will be subject to conditions laid down by the Treasury, but I can assure hon. Members that these conditions will be reasonable, fair, and, I hope, generous to a degree.

The intention of the Government, at the moment, is that the applicants will only be called upon, in the extreme case, to provide 10 per cent. of the total cost of reconditioning their old vessels, or for the provision of such equipment as they may require. Grants, therefore, can be up to 33ࡩ per cent. On top of the grants, power is vested in my right hon. Friend and myself to grant a loan to the extent of 56⅔ per cent., making 90 per cent. in all. If no grant is asked for, and a person only desires a loan, then such loan can exceed the 56⅔ per cent. I have mentioned. Just how far the loan can go beyond the 56⅔ per cent. I cannot say at this moment, but such a loan in excess of that percentage will be allowed where no grant is called for. The grants are to be made for a period of five years. That permits men who are in the Services, perhaps far away from their homes, to be demobilised and restored to their former domiciles, and still to have grants under the terms of this Bill. However, should there be any person, any member of the Services, in the Pacific Ocean, or in the far corners of the universe, who, for one reason or another, finds it impossible to apply within the stipulated five years, Clause 2 would enable the joint Departments to extend the period of this Measure for a further two years. It is strictly inline with the Herring Act of 1944, and carries with it almost identical provisions.

In Clause 3, inshore fishing is defined as the catching of white fish and shell fish, but not herring fishing. There is one condition in the interpretation Clause with regard to the length and weight of the boat, the maximum length being 70 feet and the maximum weight 50 tons. To go beyond that length or that weight would be trespassing, perhaps, upon the deep-sea trawler realm, and for that reason this limitation is embodied in the Bill. I hope, with that short and very brief introduction, the House will give a quick approval to the Measure. It is of the utmost importance to inshore fishermen, and especially those demobilised fishermen, who will find the facilities awaiting them if the House responds as I think it will. I repeat that this Measure is almost supplementary to the Herring Industry Bill of last year, and I hope the House will be ready, at least before the due hour when we are supposed to close our Business, to grant us the Second Reading of it.

Speaking for hon. Members on this side of the House, I would like to congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on having persuaded his colleagues to produce this Bill in substantially the same form as that which I originally introduced in May of this year with the backing of my right hon. Friend, and that of the late Secretary of State for Scotland. Unfortunately, it fell by the wayside, but I am very glad that it has been reintroduced, and I can assure the right hon. Gentleman that we, on this side, will do all in our power to get it on to the Statute Book as quickly as possible. I hope he will be able to urge through the usual channels—I do not know whether it is going upstairs—that the remaining stages should be taken as quickly as possible because, as he says, the Bill is going to be of very considerable assistance indeed to inshore fishermen, and more especially to those who, but for its assistance, would almost certainly not be able to start fishing again owing to the damage done to their boats and gear during the war, either through enemy action or through having been laid up.

I am also glad that my right hon. Friend was able to give us a little more information about the terms of the grant and loan than are included in the text of the Bill. Some of my hon. Friends behind me who represent fishing constituencies will have certain questions to put to my right hon. Friend, and I hope that he will be able to give them satisfactory answers. We realise, of course, that, not for the first time in his experience or mine, he is up against the Treasury, but I hope, in view of the importance of getting fish for the country, that he, and his right hon. Friend the Minister of Food, will be able to exercise the necessary pressure to get reasonably generous grants and loans made for this purpose. I know there is another Bill to be discussed and, therefore, I will not do more than congratulate my right hon. Friend on introducing this Bill and hope for its speedy passage into law.

This is the first time that I have had the temerity to address this House. May I, in those circumstances, ask the indulgence of hon. Members? I would like to extend a very warm welcome to this Bill, not only on account of its intrinsic merits, but because it implements in some measure the promise made by the Government in the Gracious Speech, to take all necessary steps to promote a healthy fishing industry. During the last 30 years, the fishing industry has declined as much as any industry, and more than most, owing, not so much to the difficulties of the last war, but to something fundamentally and inherently wrong in its constitution. We have heard a great deal in the Debates during the last week of rehabilitation in regard to individuals and communities, and to the work of U.N.R.R.A. I suggest that we have now a class of work to do in regard to the rehabilitation of an industry. As I was considering what I should say here, it struck me that the letters of U.N.R.R.A. gave us a lead in the urgent need for the reorganisation, rehabilitation and assistance of the fishing industry.

It cannot be denied that the decline in the number of ships and the total catch and, worst of all, the number of men recruited to this industry must give us cause for very grave concern. It is a tragic commentary on the economic foundation of the three basic industries of this country—coalmining, agriculture and fishing—that they are failing to recruit sufficient men to offset natural wastage, particularly young and vigorous men who could look forward to a long career in these industries. One reason is not that the work of the fisherman is arduous or dangerous. That has never deterred him. We all know the marvellous work which those men did in mine-infested areas, and at Dunkirk. Disinclination to go into the fishing industry is to be found in their distrust of the economic set-up of that industry. Unfortunately, circumstances may arise in that industry whereby men who have worked hard, with considerable skill, on a dangerous voyage have not been successful at the end of it. We have seen the shocking sights of successful fishermen coming into harbour and throwing their catches overboard. That has aroused in those men a feeling of distrust of the whole industry.

This Bill does something to remove such distrust. Further, it seems that the fisherman is denied promotion. Members opposite are always inclined to favour free enterprise, but the average fisherman has no free enterprise at all and is never likely to have it unless we help him. This Bill is designed to give him that sense of proprietorship and enterprise and enable him to carve out his own destiny in a better way than he has ever been able to do before. Above all, the fisherman requires a fair reward, and I make no apology for stressing the needs of the actual working fishermen when the needs of the industry as a whole are being considered. This Bill is the forerunner of many which must come before us if we are to help the industry to rehabilitate itself. There are also questions of marketing, distribution, landings and repairs and I hope my right hon. Friend will consider not only giving facilities to fishermen to buy their vessels and gear, but will also provide facilities for landings and repairing their craft and working gear.

I have been impressed, during the Debates I have attended here, with the zeal with which Members have specially pleaded for their own constituencies. I would like to be allowed to make a special plea on behalf of my own constituency Lowestoft, and adjoining places on the East and South-East coasts. No part of the country has suffered more from the effects of the war. The primary industries of Lowestoft—holiday catering and fishing—were cut off at one stroke on the outbreak of war, and I ask that the men who have had the beaches barred to them should be given some special encouragement to make up for the tremendous sacrifices that their part of the country have made. I hope that this Bill will be the forerunner of a long series of Bills which will make the fishing industry what it ought to be—one of the prime food-producing industries of our country.

I realise the great honour I have to-night in addressing this House for the first time. I do not know what other Members have felt on such occasions, but so far as I am concerned it is rather like taking-off for the first time in a flying machine. But there is one great difference. On the first day that I was airborne I did everything in my power to show my friends—whether they were honourable or not I do not know—that it was an everyday occurrence. To-day, I wear my flag and crave the indulgence of the House. If, Mr. Speaker, I should stray from the narrow path of the Bill it may well be through inexperience, or the deep love which I have for this subject. I can, however, assure you that I will not speak for long, and I therefore trust that Mr. Speaker will have patience with me.

Do hon. Members realise what has happened to the inshore fishing industry? Do they realise that, in 1914, 2,000 fishermen in Cornwall, all naval reservists, joined the Royal Navy at the outbreak of war? Do they realise that in 1939 only 200 such men were available? These figures are appalling and speak for themselves. One of the important aspects with regard to the fishing industry is that it forms a pool, of reserve, for the Royal Navy. From this the men are drawn to man the little ships. I will not go into the subject of little ships; we all know what they performed during the war. But I am convinced that if the Government do not support this industry to the full it will cease to be an industry. One of the reasons why I am speaking on this matter to-night is that it is concerned with sea power, food and employment. These are three facts which we must always remember. It seems strange that when Europe and a great portion of the world is starving, fishermen anywhere should have anxiety as to whether or not their catch will be utilised. Yet this is the case. In my own division, in those lovely and romantic ports of Looe and Polperro, fishermen are anxious whether or not their pilchards will be required.

So far, I have been completely destructive; now I come to the constructive part of my speech. I ask the Government to see that in the years of peace which we hope lie before us there are sufficient fishery protection vessels, not only to stop poaching, but to form that intimacy which is so necessary between the Royal Navy and the fishermen of our Kingdom. I also ask the Government to study not only the question of refrigerated trucks for the transport of fish, but any chemical process whereby fish can be kept fresh. It is absurd that fishermen should suddenly be told that they must fish from Monday to Wednesday, but not from Thursday to Saturday. The weather enters into fishing. I do not know whether the Government are considering introducing a Bill for the nationalisation of the weather; if they do I trust they will take it on the Floor of the House, because I can assure them that it would be highly controversial. Also, are the Government considering setting up a White Fish Commission? Again I would like to know with reference to White Paper Cmd. 6680 whether the Government are going to treat the fishing industry as a Cinderella or not, because there is no mention in that Paper of a principal assistant secretary. Are they going to raise the status of the industry by raising that post to an Under-Secretaryship, or are they going to let this chance slip and allow the post to become that of an assistant secretaryship?

I would like to pass for a moment to the fishing fleets of Germany and' Japan. I consider that these countries have lost the right to sea-power, and although I would not deny these troublesome people fish I trust that the Government will see that their fish is caught in United Nations' bottoms, built in United Nations' yards. Let the House remember that a yard that is capable of building a fishing vessel, is capable of building a man of war.

This Bill has my full approval; I support it in every way, and I would do nothing to hinder its passage. But I do ask the Government to consider altering the 70 feet to 75 feet, which would enable the 75 foot M.V.Fs to be included. These boats may well be extremely useful to the fishing industry, and I do feel that the extra 5 feet will not interfere with the spirit of the Bill as expressed by the right hon. Gentleman the Minister. In conclusion, I appeal to Members on all sides of the House, when considering the fishing industry, to remember that an enlarged inshore fishing industry is part of the national security of this land of ours.

It is with great joy that I find myself, for the first time in my Parliamentary life, called upon to congratulate two maiden speakers who have spoken on a subject which is so dear to my heart. I think the whole House greatly admired the modest confidence with which the hon. Member for Lowestoft (Mr. E. Evans) addressed us just now. I am sure that, in him, Lowestoft has found one who will, consistently and persuasively, put before this House those matters which concern them so very dearly. We all hope that we shall often hear his voice in this Chamber. It was, of course, a very special pleasure to me to hear my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Bodmin (Commander Marshall), who represents a division in Cornwall nearer to England than mine. I had already heard of the great impression he had made in Cornwall by his care and anxiety for the good of the fishermen he represents, and I am sure we were all pleased by his thoughtful and interesting address. I am sure that in him the fishermen of Cornwall have found a much needed champion of great power and sincerity, and I look forward to hearing him many times in this House. I am grateful to have found so powerful and eloquent a colleague.

One of the delightful things about Debates on the fishing industry is that it is a subject in which all parties can join because it is a broad human issue. I am sure we are all delighted that the right hon. Gentleman has been able to bring in this Measure so soon. My right hon. Friend the Member for Southport (Mr. R. S. Hudson) welcomed the Bill, and he was entitled to rejoice over it like a father seeing his offspring doing well in the world. We are very glad indeed to see this Bill because in the broad sweep of proposals concerning reconstruction there might be some danger that the humble, seafaring, people living in the scattered districts, might be forgotten. I am very glad that they have not been forgotten in this respect, because these people are of the essence of our national life; they affect its character, its safety and its feeding and we rejoice that this start has been made. These people are often too much forgotten between the wars. During the war, they went out on the minesweepers, and we all know that it was the inshore fishermen, who formed a sort of sea Home Guard, who were the eyes of the lookout around our shores, and they had extra hazards beyond those encountered by the ordinary Home Guard.

I remember asking a very brave and distinguished fisherman who had taken part in these patrols, with what they were armed. He said: "Two Verey lights, and four cutlasses." That is very romantic, but romance is not enough, and I can assure the House that romance will have gone altogether unless we follow up this Bill to see that these men's livelihood is preserved. This is a modest Bill, and I am sure that the House will feel that these two sums, £500,000 for loans and £800,000 for grants, are very well spent on these people. I gather from the Bill that it is a five years' period, but that two years can be added should the need arise. I gather also that the sums are limited to £500,000 and £800,000, and I should be sorry to see the butter scraped too thin, if we find, as we shall find, that occasion arises to extend the time. There are great possibilities here. I have heard it said in the past that inshore fishing was dying out. That is not so; these people are anxious to go out in their little boats a hundred miles or more. I wish sometimes we could find a better term for this type of fishing than that of inshore fishing. People often think that these men are longshoremen, waiting to take people for little excursions in their boats. That is not so at all. These little boats go out many miles, and their great virtue is that they come back sooner than the deep-sea fishermen and therefore give us a different type of fresh fish.

There are one or two points which require to be clarified. It has been said in this Bill that there may be a grant up to one-third in case of need. I would like to know who decides when there is a case of need, and to feel sure that the Minister is going to take advice from those who will understand when a case of need arises. It is only people who know these little ports—and they differ one from- another even in the same locality—who can really advise about a case of need. I beg the Minister to satisfy himself that these cases of need are not too rigidly interpreted. I hope that he will not let it be said that there is no need because some fisherman has a few hundred pounds or even a few thousand pounds behind him. There may be a bad season, and a few hundred pounds savings may be badly needed by the fisherman and his family. I do hope that there will be flexibility in this matter. I heard of one member of a family who wanted to take over a third share in a boat. I gathered that the price was £500–£300 for the actual boat and £200 for the gear, and, of course, in that there would also be good will. So we see that there are quite large sums involved in this, and I would like to know that that type of case is covered by this Bill. Costs have risen considerably—for instance, engines. I hope the Minister will bear this point in mind because I want to be quite sure that engines are covered by the word "gear" or by the word "boat," because boats without engines are not going to be much use. There are other costs which have pretty well doubled, such as ropes, oil and nets.

What are to be the terms of these loans—the rates of interest and the period over which repayment has to be made? Here again, I hope there will be flexibility, and that repayment will be possible in a larger measure when the fisherman is doing well, when he has had a good season with plenty offish about and prices are stable. When he has had a bad season he will not be so able to pay back, and it is very important to see in cases where there are loans that they do not cast a millstone around the neck of these people and that the system of repayment is adjusted accordingly. If these loans have to be repaid there must be a suitable price for the fish which these inshore fishermen catch, in order to enable them to repay these loans. Let us see the end of those cases where the fisherman gets a minimum price and the housewife in London pays the maximum price.

For the inshore fishermen, the price is fixed on a different kind of catch from that which applies to the deep sea trawlers. One example: The inshore fishermen in Cornwall include a substantial quantity of ray and skate in their winter catch. Last year the price was based on the lesser proportion of ray and skate caught by people owning large trawlers. We are going to have these boats, and I rejoice. We must see that the men are there to work them, and I was very disappointed that the inshore fishermen did not come under Class B releases. We feel very strongly that the Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries did not sufficiently press forward in these matters. This is one of the occasions when we feel that we ought to have a Ministry of Fisheries, and Agriculture a Ministry of its own.

Is the hon. Gentleman referring to National Health Insurance?

No. I am referring to demobilisation. I dealt with the insurance matters in a Question a few days ago. The men who are to man these boats are enthusiastic and keen, and I think with the help of the local education authorities new recruits could be taught the elements of navigation and of the use and repair of nets and so forth. This is a time of change. The ways of the sea will not change, and the characters of the men who get their livelihood from the sea will not change. There is one thing I would like to see changed and that is our scale of social values. The men who contribute to our national life in the face of these special dangers should occupy a high position in our scale of social values. I congratulate the Government on their start, but we must follow through and make sure that the opportunity to preserve the inshore fishermen is fully seized now.

It may not be inappropriate for one who is addressing this House for the first time to express the hope that he may not be at sea, and I sincerely hope that I shall not fall into deep water. If I do, I hope that some charitable fisherman, inshore or otherwise, will help me out. I wish to say a word about this Bill by way of welcome. It seems to me a very beneficent Bill. It is designed to help a class of the community, not a large one, a class which the Minister put before the war at about 17,000 souls. It is designed to help every type of inshore fisherman, from the boy with the lobster pots to the inshore fisherman who is prepared to do all-the-year-round fishing. The inshore fisherman seems to me to be a small industrialist with great potentialities. He makes short voyages, but many of them; his catches are small but they are numerous, and they are fresh when he brings them in. He is a humble man with a small boat which has no sleeping accommodation, and which is operated by from two to four men and a boy. His voyages are short ones of from anything up to 20 miles out to sea He contrasts with the larger trawler—hardly a competitor—who does things in a larger way and who has more money behind him.

I wish to ask the House to regard the inshore fisherman from three aspects. First of all, as a citizen; secondly, for his services in the war; and thirdly, for his contribution to the food supply of the nation. The inshore fishermen are those good citizens who live all round our coasts in countless villages and small towns, forming fishing communities, hard-working and courageous men who live lives of great exposure to the elements and danger, who bring up strong families and who are an asset to the nation. On that ground alone they are entitled to the favourable consideration of this House. But their claim does not rest there. Their service in the war has been splendid. They have worked hard in the Merchant Navy, where their courage, strength and experience have been invaluable. They have worked in mine sweepers, armed trawlers and little ships which were of such enormous service in the war. They have formed the backbone of the lifeboat crews all round our coasts. Their skill in handling ships, their courage in heavy seas and gales, were particularly useful. Indeed, for any seafaring job which required to be done the inshore fishermen were available. On that second ground also I suggest that they are entitled to the favourable consideration of the House.

Then there is the third ground. They make a contribution to the food supply of the nation which is of peculiar value, because they bring to our shores daily a supply of fish which is, in the main, fresher than the fish which is brought by the trawlers. They meet a real need of the nation, but alas, many of them, during the war, were forced to neglect their avocation, their boats and their equipment fell into disrepair. This Bill seems to me to be a very apt attempt to meet the need which was thereby created, and to enable them to reconstitute their little industry, to re-equip their boats, and, where necessary, to buy new boats and new equipment. The only doubt I have about the Bill is whether it goes far enough. The Minister has told us, and the Bill assures us, that it is designed to help the inshore fishermen in three ways, first, by grants not exceeding in the aggregate £500,000 a year; secondly, by loans not exceeding in the aggregate £800,000 a year; and, thirdly, by a combination of the two—loans and grants. Are those two sums sufficient? Judging by the history of former efforts along these lines, I think that, after all, the financial provisions are sufficient. Therefore, I hope that the House will support this Bill in the form in which it has been presented to the House. May I thank you, Mr. Speaker, for calling me, and hon. Members for the attention which has been given to this, my first effort to address this House?

I rise to address this House for the first time, and I ask hon. Members to accord me the privileges usual on an occasion of this kind. I am emboldened to speak on this Bill, because it seeks to aid an industry in which I was born and brought up. My father and a long line of forbears, both paternal and maternal, lived their lives as inshore fishermen, and won their frugal livelihoods on the sea. Moreover, more than half the population of the constituency which I have the honour to represent in this House, are directly dependent upon the inshore fishing industry. I am sure that the tribute which was paid by the right hon. Gentleman who moved the Second Reading of this Bill will find great acceptance amongst the inshore fishermen of this country. I welcome this Bill because it seeks to aid the inshore fishermen.

On the Moray Firth coast, the inshore fisherman may be a white fisherman only, or a combination of white fisherman and herring fisherman. The line of demarcation between the herring fisherman and the white fisherman is not definitely drawn. The seine net man—that is the method of white fishing on the Moray Firth coast—usually functions as a white fisherman between the herring seasons. During the Recess I took the opportunity of obtaining first-hand information about this Bill in my constituency. I also made a voyage to the fishing grounds, in a vessel similar to those which this Bill aims to provide. In my own lifetime I have seen the white fishing develop on the Scottish coasts from baited lines to the seine net. The seine net is the method of white fishing almost universally used in the North of Scotland. The type of vessel suitable for the seine net, is the type of vessel which these inshore fishermen of Scotland hope to acquire through the help of this Bill.

The time at my disposal does not permit me to give a very extensive survey of the industry but there are one or two points which I should like to bring to the attention of the right hon. Gentleman with all the seriousness of which I am capable. The hon. Member for St. Ives (Mr. Beechman) mentioned the question of loans. I, too, would like to lay some emphasis on that point. The present day cost of a vessel suitable for inshore fishing, that is to say, a vessel suitable for seine net fishing, has little or no relationship to the pre-war cost.

Here is a case in point. A vessel equipped for seine net fishing, which could be found ready for sea, entirely new and complete with all gear, could be furnished for less than £2,000. The hull of such a vessel in the pre-war era would have cost something in the nature of £600 in the builder's yard. To-day the cost of the hull alone may be as much as £6,000. In some cases shipyard costs have multiplied themselves ten times. There are increases in the cost of machinery—these boats must he equipped with machinery, and the Diesel engine is the sine qua non of modern inshore fishermen—and the rope coiler has also increased in price sometimes by 10 to 15 per cent. Whereas in the pre-war era the cost of the vessel was something in the nature of £2,000, to-day the cost is nearer £8,000. If, for the sake of argument, a fisherman secures a loan of £3,000, it is well within the range of possibility that in a short time after the war the price of that vessel may be such that the outstanding part of the loan may be greater than the value of the entire vessel. I would ask the right hon. Gentleman to give thought to some method, whereby, in the event of values reducing to the extent which I have suggested, the indebtedness of a fisherman, which, through no fault of his own, is still outstanding may be written down somewhat and the spectre of potential bankruptcy removed from him.

This is not a new suggestion. During the last war the Government built a number of steam fishing vessels which were used on Government service, but the intention was that at the end of hostilities these vessels would be handed over to fishermen as they were designed as fishing boats. They were handed over at the then current value at the termination of hostilities. Within two years, the price of those vessels had to be cut in two, and a substantial rebate paid to the fishermen because, on account of a succession of bad fishing seasons, the current value of those vessels had come down by half. I know the danger which besets this otherwise splendid hope for the fishermen, and I need only instance that potential danger to the right hon. Gentleman to know that the matter will have his earnest scrutiny.

The other point that I would like to emphasise is this. In selecting those who are to be the recipients of this assistance from the Government, I would strongly urge the right hon. Gentleman to consider setting up local advisory committees on which fishermen shall be represented, so that suitable and well warranted types shall be recommended for receiving assistance. Anyone who knows the inshore fishing industry, must appreciate that it is essential that a boat shall be skippered by a really first-class skipper. Not every fisherman is a potentially good skipper, and it is vital for the success of a venture that a vessel shall have a good skipper. That point can be most adequately covered by the setting up of local committees on which fishermen with their local knowledge are represented.

On the question of the design of the vessel, I trust there is not in the right hon. Gentleman's mind, a hankering after a standardisation of types. Each fishing port in this country has its own idiosyncrasies concerning its fishing vessels. There are the questions of draught, beam, and height of forefoot, all of which have to do with the particular harbours which they have to use and the particular fishing grounds on which they seek their livelihood. I strongly urge the right hon. Gentleman to leave the selection of the design of the vessels to be acquired by Government help to the fishermen, because they know the type of vessel which will meet each situation.

No inshore fisherman, however well equipped, can succeed in his ventures, unless he has a satisfactory fishing ground. I was rather perturbed by the somewhat uncompromising nature of the answer that was given by the right hon. Gentleman the Minister of State yesterday, to a question in connection with territorial fishing grounds. That is a point on which we in the North of Scotland feel particularly keenly, especially as it affects the Moray Firth. I do not wish to say anything at present with regard to that fishing ground which may embarrass the right hon. Gentleman opposite, but I would sincerely and earnestly entreat the Government to give the greatest possible sympathetic thought to the question of trawling in the Moray Firth. We have there a vast field of endeavour for inshore fishermen. We have a fishing ground which can contain a very large inshore fishing population, but if that fishing ground has to suffer the continued and incessant depredations of the trawler, the hope of success for a large inshore fishing community there is very largely dissipated. There is in force in some sections of the Moray Firth area a practice which I would commend to the serious consideration of the right hon. Gentleman the Minister of Agriculture and his colleague the Secretary of State for Scotland. That is the practice which has been put into effect by the fishermen—it is entirely their own idea—of not fishing on Saturdays, as well as Sundays. It is, of course, well known that Scottish fishermen do not fish on Sundays. They have also ceased fishing on Saturdays, and that has provided a suitable opportunity to have the boats and gear completely overhauled before the next week's work.

I welcome this Bill. It is a great gesture towards a very deserving community. It brings a fresh and lively hope to many who are in doubt about the future. I sincerely hope it will be a means of retaining the young people in the inshore fishing industry. This Bill could not have come at a more timely moment than when they are coming out of the Services. In conclusion I say that if there is anything that the country, and this House in particular, can do to help this most deserving section of the community it will not only be a most timely aid to very deserving people but an investment which will repay itself a hundredfold.

It is with a double pleasure that I find myself with the opportunity of making a few comments on this Bill. My first pleasure is derived from the fact that in my early boyhood days I had the good fortune to spend my life in a fishing community, and I actually started life as a fisherman. My second pleasure is to pay a tribute to the two hon. Members who have just made their maiden speeches. The hon. Member for Banff (Mr. Duthie) showed by his speech that he had a wide knowledge of this subject which can only be secured by a close association with fishermen. We hope we shall have the opportunity of hearing him on many occasions when we have to discuss matters referring to this great industry. My hon. and learned Friend the Member for North Aberdeen (Mr. Hector Hughes) also made a great contribution to the Debate in his well-considered, well-documented and valuable speech. I congratulate both these Members, although, indeed, I myself am new, for the excellent speeches which they made on this important industry.

I would like to say how much I am at one with the speakers who have preceded me in congratulating the Minister on bringing this Bill forward at this very opportune time. It is an earnest of the intentions of the Government not to neglect the fishing industry as it was so sadly neglected after the last war. There are, however, certain limitations to one's congratulations, because some of us feel that the Bill hardly goes far enough to deal with the root problems facing fishermen to-day. The financial concessions which are made are of considerable importance, but there are other problems facing the fishermen which are not referred to in the Bill. There is, for example, the sadly neglected condition of many of the fishing harbours from which the boats have to operate. I would have welcomed it if we had had in the Bill some provision for dealing with these harbours and making them so suitable that they could accommodate the boats which we hope this Bill will be able to provide for the men who are coming back from the war.

I would like to suggest that as the Government provide protection in the way of fishery cruisers for the territorial waters, they should consider providing suitable dredging machinery or dredgers which could patrol the fishing harbours in order to keep them in proper condition for the boats that fish from them. Many of these small harbours and ports are unable financially to meet the great demand for better equipped harbours because of their decreased revenue during the years between the two wars. They have not been able to build up funds sufficient to keep the harbours in proper condition. I feel that in other respects, the Bill is eminently suitable. The hon. and gallant Member for Bodmin (Commander Marshall), whom I congratulate on a vigorous maiden speech, referred to the national need of keeping our inshore fishing industry going. That industry has provided a great reservoir of trained seamen which has assisted us greatly and been a valuable asset to the nation in time of war. The hon. and gallant Gentleman stated that 2,000 men in Cornwall were members of the Royal Naval Reserve and went to the Royal Navy in the last war, but that there were only about 200 of such men at the outbreak of this war. That example could be multiplied all over the country.

The industry must not be allowed to go back to where it was after the last war. The North-East coast of Scotland was almost built on the fishing industry. Large numbers of communities, self-supporting and enterprising, carried on by industrious and happy people before the last war, were left completely to their own resources after the war of 1914–18, with the loss of overseas markets and with a chaotic distributing system in the home market. This Labour Government, therefore, must see that the fishermen and all those who depend on them—because there are ancillary industries on shore which depend on the harvest of the sea—must not be left in the position in which they found themselves after the last war. We hope that this Bill is only the first of a succession of Measures which will bring greater certainty and prosperity to the industry. What the fishermen want more than anything is a declaration of a long-term policy and to see that the Government are not going to leave them as they were left after the last war. If the Government can bring those Measures in they will have the full support of all sections of the House.

I crave the indulgence of the House. I had not meant to make my maiden voyage so early, but for two reasons I decided that I would try to catch your eye, Mr. Speaker, to-day. The first is that the subject is of great interest to me and to many in my constituency. The second is that I whole-heartedly support this Bill and, therefore, do not see the danger of failing to obey the rules in regard to getting on to controversial subjects. While welcoming the Bill, I feel like the hon. Member for Berwick and Haddington (Mr. J. J. Robertson) that it does not go quite far enough. He mentioned that there were certain ports and small harbours that were in a bad condition. I agree with him, but I believe I am correct in saying that under the Sea Fish Industry Act, 1938, Section 56 (1, b), the local fisheries committee have power to

"contribute to the payment of the cost of executing works for the maintenance or improvement of any small harbour situate wholly or in part within the district of the committee."

I think it will help the small ports and harbours if the right hon. Gentleman the Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries can see his way to sanctioning the many demands which may be made in accordance with the Act.

I would like to speak for a few moments on behalf of those fishermen who at the moment have to keep their boats on open beaches. They are at the mercy of all storms, and I could read to the House many letters which I received from fishermen just after the storms at the end of September. One letter described it rather pathetically, and told how one fisherman lost his boat, but the others were saved because they dragged their anchors and were washed on to the beach. I agree the boats were saved, but anybody who knows any thing about boats will agree with me that they could not have been much better, for what they had been through. The fishermen who use the open beaches in my part of the world have a local boat called a coble, and I understand that it is a very seaworthy boat. I have been out in it, and if any other hon. Members have been out in it they will agree, I am sure, that 60 per cent. of its seaworthiness is the result of the courage and skill of the fishermen.

If we want to attract new blood to the inshore fishing industry, we must have bigger and safer boats. If we are to have those, we must have some sort of harbour or breakwater where they can lie at anchor. Small boats can, with a great deal of work, be pulled up on shore, but with anything bigger this would be impossible, and I would like to urge the Minister to consider inserting a Clause in this Bill that will provide money for the building of harbours. We do not ask for big harbours. We just ask for a mole or breakwater which will enable our boats to lie safely at anchor.

My last point concerns the financial side of the Bill. I would like to hear, as soon as may be convenient, the periods for which the loans will be made and what the rate of interest will be, because the sooner we have that information the sooner we shall be able to encourage people to come into the fishing industry. May I conclude, therefore, by asking the right hon. Gentleman the Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries if he will consider the points I have put forward.

This is my maiden speech and so I crave the indulgence of the House. In the constituency which I have the honour to represent, there are large numbers of farm workers, a comparatively small number of fishermen, and a smaller number of builders of fishing boats. If the countrymen were asked to provide a measuring-stick for this Bill they would say that it is "food for the people," and I think the fishermen and boat builders of Whit-stable would call it "hope for the future." In 1939,before I was called to less constructive activities, I urged the cause of the inshore fishermen both as a student of: economics and as a student of sea history. They are all the more important to-day, but there is a point which has not been mentioned. As a result of the ending of Lend-Lease, we shall have to say good-bye to the imports of canned fish we got from North America. That makes home production all the more important. Before the war, as I went round these small ports, I could see the heart going out of the industry, which was more and more composed of older men, older boats, and older gear. Fewer boats were fishing, fewer fish were coming in, and the cause of it all was faulty distribution, the lack of a guaranteed market and of a good steady price. Unless we realise that that was the fundamental cause of the depression, we shall be wasting the money this Bill proposes to spend. The young men would go down to the quays and look at their father's fish rotting in the boxes and say, "No, thank you, very much," and go away to earn their living in the city.

I feel that we can learn something from the Norwegians and the Danes. In Norway the fishing industry is one of the greatest industries, if not the greatest, in the country. Its prosperity has been built up on a craft about 70 feet long with a wooden hull and a semi-Diesel engine. In Norway, and in Denmark, they also use a 40–foot boat with a Diesel engine. They have discovered that in inshore fishing speed is the essence of success. It enables the boat to get to the grounds quickly, and get back to market quickly with its catch, and I suggest that we should bear that point in mind. I would also suggest that we should look at some of the craft that have been built for naval purposes during the war and which will now become supernumerary to Admiralty requirements. There is a craft which is built at Whitstable and many other places about 60 feet long, with a good-sized hull, that was used in the Far East to land supplies on open beaches. They are good craft, and many of them went out the whole way to the Far East under their own power. There are also small craft about 40 feet long used as Fleet tenders at home. They have wooden hulls and are well built by men who have been building fishing boats for generations. I submit that we might consider whether these two types of craft might not be converted for inshore fishing purposes.

But with new boats and new men we must have new ideas, and I would submit that this Bill might provide for the equipment of a school of inshore fishing where young men and boys could go to learn the fundamentals of the trade. We have had an example set us on that subject. When the storms of war blew the Belgian fishing boats away from their own ports they found haven in the ports of the West. They recently went home, pretty prosperous from the fish they had caught on inshore fishing grounds that many of our own fishermen had given up as unprofitable. While they were with us they established a school of inshore fishing at Brixham.

This Bill provides money for new gear, and I think we should realise that many of the inshore fishing grounds, especially in Eastern and South-Eastern England, are in a very bad condition. They are rich in fish because they have had six years' rest, but they are dirty, like a garden that has not had the hoe on it for some time. We were out fishing the other day off Mersea and our day's catch was about 20 skate, about the same number of sole, the casing of a V.1, a large and undefinable piece of aeroplane, and about a ton of mud and weed. I mention that because I think we must realise that during the coming months the damage to gear will be quite considerable, at any rate on the Southern and Eastern coasts.

I have said that maldistribution was the cause of the pre-war decline. How are we to deal with that maldistribution? The question is how to get the fish from the small ports to the places where it is needed most; that is, the country villages and the mining villages, to which the fish does not get now. A surprisingly large part of rural Britain lies within 25 miles of the coast. Surely, the answer is the establishment of mobile fish shops, that is to say, converted Army lorries, each lorry visiting seven, ten or 12 villages a day, so that the village women would know when the lorry was coming and would not have to trudge, as they do now, to the towns and wait in queues. I suggest also that there should be mobile fried fish shops. Those are not new ideas. Hon. Members from North of the Tweed know the fleshers cart very well. Mobile fried fish shops were tried out before the war and proved a success.

If these things are to be done, and if there is to be a system of distribution covering the smaller ports, there will have to be refrigerator equipment at the ports. Refrigerator equipment is expensive. I submit that suitable equipment already exists. I refer to that manufactured for the use of our armies in Burma and in other parts of the Far East. That equipment includes refrigerator barges, each of which has a capacity of about 9,000 cubic feet. Could not one, two, or if necessary three, of those barges be moored alongside the quay so that the fishing boats could unload into them, and the mobile fish shops and fried-fish shops could take fish from them as they wanted it. There were also used in Burma 50-ton sectional storage units, which were very easy to put up and dismantle. These units might be used for seasonal catches. There was also used in the Far East a 170 cubic feet insulated container mounted on three-ton lorries. I do not see why they could not be mounted on three-ton lorries in Britain. The Bill refers to equipment for the use of the industry. Could not refrigerator equipment at the ports be brought within the scope of the Bill?

I have said that this Bill can mean food for the people and hope for the future. I think it is generally agreed that our present rations are not sufficient for the heavy manual worker unless he has access to adequate canteen facilities. There are no canteens or cafeteria in the country side. I want to see fish on the plate of the farm worker, not once a fortnight when his wife has gone her weary way to the town and come back with a piece of flabby something wrapped up in wet newspaper. I want to see fish on the farmworker's plate two or three times a week, and fresh fish at that. I believe the Minister of Fuel and Power wants to see the same thing in the mining villages. I believe it is possible to achieve that within the terms of this Bill. Fish should be a vital factor in keeping up the productive capacity of the farmworker and the miner.

Finally, the future welfare and prosperity of our inshore fishermen is of vital national importance. If we look back through the pages of our sea history we see them glorious with the names of great sea captains—Drake, Raleigh, Hawkins, Blake, Nelson. Let us not forget that the hard core of their crews, the oaken heart, was the inshore fishermen. There are families at our inshore ports that have been there for centuries: Tregaskis in the West, the Brinkleys of East Anglia, the Bevis's of the Solent ports. Centuries ago William de Bevis saved Southampton from the Danish rovers. More than one Bevis is sailing under the White Ensign to-day. The inshore fisherman is an essential and integral part of our national life. In this Bill I believe we have the instrument that will create reality from the vision that is in the minds of some of us—a prosperous, healthy, inshore fishing industry, with new hope in the ports and villages round our coasts and more food for the people of the country side.

My speech is not a maiden speech; it has been made on so many occasions that it begins to sound like an old maiden speech that has been on the shelf for a long time. I am, however, glad that it falls to me to congratulate the hon. and gallant Member for Canterbury (Major J. White) and the hon. and gallant Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Lieut.-Colonel Thorp) on the contributions they have made. The merits of their speeches to-night will ensure a welcome for their future contributions to our Debates. Both were constructive, helpful and sympathetic. Indeed, all the speeches on the Bill, so far, have shown genuine sympathy with the needs of the inshore fishermen, a sympathy which has been noticeably absent on many occasions in the past. Certainly, as far as practical measures to improve the lot of the inshore fishermen were concerned, that sympathy has been absent in the past. I am not going to pretend that the Bill satisfies me. I have been too long in opposition to be able to switch over suddenly to complete support. As a stop-gap the Bill has certain virtues, but it does not go far enough, and it could not go far enough, for the problem has not yet been studied to an extent which would make it possible to reach conclusions giving a practical and practicable solution to the difficulties of the white fish industry.

Hon. Members opposite have very good reason to be sympathetic to the Government in this matter. Their own Governments, during their many years of power, failed completely as far as the inshore fishing industry was concerned. The fact that we are now faced with the problem in its present gravity is evidence and proof of that. Inshore fishing and white fishing generally is the more important to us in Scotland at the present time, because we are not sure what is going to happen even to the herring industry. We have not yet a policy on that. This is much less a criticism of Governments than it is a criticism of those who took a leading part in wrecking our markets in Russia for political reasons. The right hon. Gentleman opposite has just registered an expression which mingles guilt with disapproval. Honestly, he cannot get rid of his responsibility, but it affects him much less than the people for whom we are speaking to-day. We are going to be extremely dependent, in the fishing industry, upon the development of the white fish side of it. I notice that in the Ministry of Food they are very pessimistic about recovering the old markets in Russia and the Baltic for cured herrings. I am not going too far into the subject of herrings because I would be ruled out of Order, but I would stress that the white fishing industry now assumes an even greater importance from the point of view of feeding our people at home and the home market and of developing the export trade in white fish.

On the outbreak of the first world war the fishermen of the Western Isles had to leave their boats and go to war. When they came back, their boats were derelict and useless. They received a certain amount of compensation, but they had not the capital available with which to equip their boats. To that extent, the situation is anticipated this time, and this Bill will go some way towards helping these men. As the hon. Member who preceded me said, the actual value of the total sum is very hard to appreciate. We have, at the moment, all sorts of artificial values in boats, gear and general equipment in that industry. After the war we may find men saddled with heavy debt and a fairly heavy rate of interest. That has been the experience in the past with regard to sheep stock and housing. It will be out of all proportion to the decreasing values as things go back towards normal. I would emphasise that these men are not receiving a dole. They are establishing a right. They are making a claim which the Government are bound to concede, and it is not being conceded generously enough. Throughout the war these men have paid all the rates of interest. They have been away receiving ordinary Service rates of pay when they might have been at home perhaps making fortunes, as have some men in the industry. We have no right to charge these men any rate of interest that is more than an administrative charge. We are only compensating men who were deprived of the only possibility in the last 20 years of doing well out of the fishing industry. These men are coming back and starting all over again and it is a very small rather than a real contribution towards re-establishing them.

We are in general support of the Bill. We know that we have the good will of the Minister and a sixteenth part or so of the attention of the Secretary of State, when he is able to give a little of his time. He has his police duties, Department of Health, education and agricultural duties, the duties of his own Department and duties of all sorts, but we are sure that we, at least, have his good will and also part of his attention. I do not doubt his good will or his capacity, but it is almost impossible to expect of one-sixteenth of the Secretary of State that he will be able to tackle a problem which should be generally and comprehensively tackled by the Government as a whole as part of the reconstruction policy. Boats and gear alone are not sufficient. You can offer a man a loan or a grant at a certain rate of interest but it is a very small thing considered against the present prices. It is like offering a man a pair of bootlaces in the winter time, with the prospect of getting a pair of boots in the spring. This is a necessary step to take but it is by no means a fundamental attack on the white fish industry.

My hon. Friend the Member for Berwick and Haddington (Mr. J. J. Robertson) discussed the question of jetties and the provision and modernisation of harbours. There are many problems with which the hon. and gallant Member for Argyll (Major McCallum) and the hon. and gallant Member for Orkney and Shetland (Sir B. Neven-Spence) and the rest of us are familiar. There is the need for making provision for hauling out small boats and making it easier for fishermen to go to and from the fishing grounds. We have a list of names of places—some of them unpronounceable to hon. Members here—up and down the country which are well known to Scottish Members where piers and jetties are required. It is no use giving men a boat and gear, whether you include engines or not, unless you get down to the problem of giving them a base or harbour in which they can safely leave their boats and can equip and provision them, and can themselves have a little of the ordinary comforts of the greater ports. The question of the priority of access to the purchase of new vessels and priority in getting loans and grants is covered fairly in the Bill and I hope that there will not be too much of the means test spirit, provided a man can prove his case of being a genuine fisherman or interested in the industry. I want to see the boats themselves owned and worked by the men who actually go to sea and do the work and take the risks, and they should benefit most from the provisions of Parliament. I think that that is the intention of the Bill and I hope that the intention will be carried out in its administration.

There are several other points I would like to mention but I will resist the temptation. They are points which were brought before the Scottish White Fishing Industry Committee, but I would like to pay my tribute—and I am sure that I speak for all members of that Committee—to the hon. and gallant Member for Orkney and Shetland, who really was an extremely hard-working chairman. I have never known one work harder on a subject of such complexity and we want to pay tribute to him and say that it was a pleasure to work under him. The question of making grants and loans relates itself to the whole question of the resettlement of these fishermen. We shall not tempt men to the Western Isles when it is open to them to go to New Zealand or Canada by saying that there is a grant of one-third of the cost of a boat, which may cost £7,000 or £8,000. They have been thinking very seriously in terms of New Zealand and Canada, where they intend to settle every one of their fishermen before they take in others. That solution is not open to them. It is up to us to determine the position in a comprehensive way by providing these men with the capital for the practical requirements of the industry. These people want to live, marry and bring up their own children in the place where their natural avocation calls them to stay—the Western Isles of our country—but what is there to attract young intelligent men to stay in those Islands? There is not enough there to attract them. If you are going to say that their stake in the British Empire after six years of war is four acres and a cow, then they will tell you, "No, we prefer to go abroad and make a contribution to the population of other lands." That is bad for them and bad for the nation as a whole, but it went on between the two wars under the Government of the right hon. Gentlemen sitting opposite.

I hope that, now, a new spirit is abroad among them and that we shall get better support from them than we got before. These men are not like bargees; they are men who live by the sea but not men who live on it. That is to say, you must equip the hinterland in which they live, and the vilages from which they come, with the amenities which they, like any other section of the community, have the right to expect and enjoy. We do not want our people to have the feeling that they are recipients of an inadequate dole. We want them to feel that we are making some return to help them after the real contribution which they made to the winning of this war.

There are some things which the Government can do, which may appear to be small, but which will be immensely helpful to life in the Islands. Many of us here have, for a long time, advocated a flat rate to be charged for the carriage of fish, and I think this will be of considerable assistance to the poorer islands. In regard to transport, such problems as transport for the disposal of the supplies of fish which the inshore fisherman bring, access to markets, quick and regular, must be tackled by this Government. It must be tackled now, because, for years, this transport problem has been strangling the economic life of the Western Isles and of the fishing community there. One of the hon. Members who spoke shortly before me referred to the need for skilled fishermen. That is a very difficult point, There are older men who are fitted to do the navigational side, much better, perhaps, than boys or younger men, and I would ask the Minister to be extremely careful in this matter of sending out an "ability test" committee. After all, the practical fisherman has to know a good deal about navigation.

Then we would like to be assured that we, who have advocated technical classes in these Islands for a long time, shall have some promise that the technical classes will be set up in the Western Isles to teach navigation and other subjects, including a certain amount of the business management of a boat. I am sure the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetlands (Sir Basil Neven-Spence) will agree that this is one of the points on which much discussion has arisen. There is a further point about social insurance, and I urge the Ministers concerned with this Bill to look into the problem of the inshore fishermen to see that they are safeguarded and equated with other workmen. There are one or two other little things which could be clone and which might be brought under the general heading of equipment. There are many huts and buildings in the Islands which are perfectly suitable for shelter, for the storage of fishermen's gear, or even for re-creational purposes. Possibly, something might be done, if not by the right hon. Gentleman's Department, then by other Departments, to acquire these huts from the Departments concerned, since they are already Government property.

When the Committee's Report is published a good deal will be said about the distributive side of the industry. The important and essential thing is to bring some order and system into the distributive side. A great deal of pruning needs to be done, and hon. Members will agree that there is too much of the unnecessary middleman and too many people who, definitely, are not required, who only inflate the cost to the consumer and do nothing to help the producer. Another thing I would like to know is how this matter is to be administered as between English and Scottish claims. Is there to be any method of handling that problem? A warning came from a former Secretary of State who said that it is not possible for one elderly gentleman to be at once the Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries, Minister of Public Health, Education, Lunacy, Police and everything else from milk to murder. He simply cannot do it. I hope that when claims are received from Scotland, they are going to be dealt with on their merits, regardless of the part of the country from which they come. Let this infernal 11–8oths business go. Let us get rid of it. It has gone in afforestation and water; let us get rid of it in fisheries. It has been the bane of Scottish finance for many years.

Are we to have, in the House of Commons, a Minister answerable to Scottish hon. Members? Is the Secretary of State to be answerable to us on all Scottish questions? I would like to know whether the Secretary of State will be answerable to us on the Scottish problems in connection with this Bill and what arises out of it. Can I have an assurance that we shall have a Minister fully answerable to this House on these Scottish problems?

Finally, I want to refer to this question of inshore fishing as regards the depredations of trawlers. We got an answer yesterday from a right hon. Gentleman on our Front Bench which I, knowing him, thought was intended to be sympathetic but which was, to say the least, ambiguous. He said that he knew there was a strong case to be made out for the inshore fishermen, but there were also the interests of deep sea trawlers to consider. I think it must be remembered that, when the deep sea trawler comes into inshore waters, he is no longer a deep sea trawler but a pirate, whether Englishman, Dutchman or Frenchman. I notice that when they come into English waters from the French coast even the B.B.C. takes notice. They are immediately surrounded by naval craft and escorted back, and the worst interpretation is placed upon it by the French authorities. Are hon. Members aware that for years past, not only during the war, but before it, there was not a bay up and down the Western Islands into which trawlers did not come, day and night, under the very noses of the authorities, breaking the law with contempt? They pay as they earn, and sometimes in advance. They anticipate that they may be fined £100, or £200, but they can make that up in a few minutes in the Islands' waters. It is time we got down to the problem of illegal trawling. You will never protect the inshore fishing world unless you do stop this robbery of men who have been of the best service to their country in the Merchant Navy, in the minesweepers, and the Royal Navy.

One thing stands out in this Debate. Although this Bill deals with a comparatively narrow point, assistance for the re-equipping of the inshore fishing industry, it covers a. wide field, and many other subjects arise. I am sure the Minister realises that this is not the last we want to hear of the white fishing, because there are a great number of other problems that call for urgent attention. With regard to this Bill, I think I detected the Minister in a slight slip when he referred to white fish in connection with the Bill. Actually, I do not think the words "white fish" occur at all. The inshore fishing industry is referred to as the landing of sea fish by the use of boats of a certain size. Clause 3 does not tie up with white fish at all, although it does say, quite specifically, that assistance will not be available for boats, wholly or mainly, used in catching herring. I am glad it is left like that, because I am sure the Minister realises that you cannot draw any hard and fast line, and that assistance will be given under this Bill for boats which will inevitably have to spend part of their time in herring fishing. I would not put any obstacle in the way of that.

The hon. Member for Banff (Mr. Duthie), who, I am sorry to see, is no longer here, knows very well that fishermen have learned by bitter experience in the past the unwisdom of being tied up to one particular kind of fishing. This happened, particularly, in the case of the herring industry. It only requires a succession of years of bad catches, or a series of years in which the markets are poor, for these men to find themselves ruined. It had a very unfortunate result in some fishing areas, which led to the practice of inshore fishermen maintaining two types of boats to follow their calling, a herring drifter, steam, motor or sailing, for following herring fishing during part of the year, and a smaller boat to follow the white fishing, possibly haddock. Nothing could be worse than that, because it means that the men are saddled with two lots of costs. Unless a fishing boat is kept fishing throughout the year she cannot pay her overhead expenses.

A feature of recent years, associated more particularly with the growth of seine net fishing, has been the evolution of a new type of fishing vessel, the Diesel engine craft, suitable for engaging in all kinds of fishing, with seine net, cod net or line, or, it may be, fishing for herrings with ring net or drift net. This type of Diesel engine craft evolved in recent years is the answer to the fisherman's prayer. She can be on the sea all the year round, following whatever kind of fishing happens to be profitable at a particular time. These Diesel engine craft are good sea boats, and the larger type are quite comfortable to live in, and the Diesel engines are very economical to run.

No doubt boats of this type will be the ones chiefly built with the assistance to be given under this Bill. One or two hon. Members have referred to certain boats which the Admiralty have built during the war for their own purposes. I do not want to throw any doubt on the usefulness of these boats, and I think the smaller type will be quite useful for fishing purposes. They will undoubtedly require a good deal of money spent on them to convert them into fishing boats. But the fisherman ought to be very wary indeed about the larger types. I have seen them on the slips, and they looked to me clumsy, very high in the sides, and, in other respects, not likely to make good fishing boats. I only refer to that because the hon. Member for Banff referred to the experience fishermen had with the standard drifters after the last war, which were probably the biggest millstone ever hung round the men's necks, and I should be very sorry to see the men using either their own money, or getting a grant, or borrowing money, to buy such boats, unsuitable as they certainly were. In so far as these Admiralty boats are really suitable for fishing, it will cost a lot of money to alter them for fishing purposes, and I hope, therefore, that, in disposing of these boats, the price will be fixed reasonably low.

This Bill, of course, deals exclusively with the inshore fishing industry, in so far as that industry is engaged in catching white fish, and it is just as well that we should have a clear idea of the importance of the inshore white-fish industry in relation to the white-fish industry as a whole. The first fact that emerges is that the inshore white-fish industry is much more important, relatively, in Scotland than it is in England. In 1938, the Scottish inshore fishing industry landed 17 per cent. of the total weight of white fish landed in Scotland. The corresponding figure in England was just 1 per cent. I do not know what the more recent figures are, but probably the 1938 ones will be a guide. If the total contribution is relatively small from the point of food supply, I want to stress that it is extremely important for several other reasons. One or two have been referred to by the Minister, but I do not think he mentioned one to which I attach considerable importance, and that is the very high quality of the produce landed by the inshore fishing industry. It is the best we get.

Then there are some strong social reasons, because, unlike the trawling industry where those engaged in it are concentrated in a few large ports, the inshore fishing industry is based on innumerable small towns and villages and creeks scattered all round the coasts of Britain. It is, therefore, a very important means of livelihood for the coastal population. Previous speakers have referred to the importance of this industry to the Navy in time of war—the number of men it gets to man the patrol vessels and the mine sweepers and so on—but it is sometimes overlooked that this inshore fishing industry is a most important recruiting ground for the deep sea industry and also for the Merchant Navy. Finally, I think we ought to recognise that the inshore fishing industry has made a most valuable contribution to our food supplies during the war. We have depended enormously on them for our fish. So, for those five reasons I think it is a matter of considerable national importance that we should see this industry established on a firm basis.

The hon. Member for St. Ives (Mr. Beechman), who is no longer here, referred to the fact that there are people who regard this inshore industry as a dying one. Nothing could be further from the truth. They take the mistaken view that sooner or later the catching of fish must pass more and more into the hands of the large-scale, organised enterprise such as you get in the trawling industry. The case of Lossiemouth, to which the hon. Member for Banff referred, is, I think, a very good illustration of what the future of this industry may be. Of course, it is not only Lossiemouth but the men in the Moray Firth, but for certain reasons, over quite a large stretch of that coast fishing has tended to become concentrated in Lossiemouth, the reason really being the harbour facilities there. These Moray Firth fishermen, in common with all the other inshore fishermen round our coasts, were at one time line fishermen. Then, when trawling became prevalent they fell on hard times and turned to herring fishing. They enjoyed a long spell of prosperity when that was a prosperous industry, but then the herring fishing failed—I am talking now of the period between the two wars—and the state of these men became desperate. It has, indeed, often been referred to in this House. A few of them then started working with the seine net which was introduced into Scotland in 1921. I think it would interest the House to know that in that year these Lossiemouth men landed 254 tons of white fish valued at £14,711. By 1938, that is 18 years later, the catch had grown to 5,089 tons of fish valued at £127,000. That does not look to me like a dying industry. There is a section of the industry which has modernised itself, gone in for new methods, and been highly successful. I believe that lesson could be applied to many other parts round our coasts and that there could be considerable development of this seine net fishing. I hope this Bill will enable us to go ahead with its development.

The hon. Member for the Western Isles (Mr. MacMillan) raised a good point: what proportion of these grants is to go to the Scottish inshore fishing industry? I agree generally that assistance must go where it is needed, but certainly the figure of eleven-eightieths to which he referred must go by the board. We could not possibly accept eleven-eightieths of the grant, because, if hon. Members will look at the Duncan Report, they will find that the Scottish inshore white fish landings in 1935 were three times as great in quantity and four times as great in value as the English landings of white fish from inshore fishing. So it looks as if we shall have to stick out for from 75 per cent, to 80 per cent, of this money.

I must refer to one other thing which has a considerable bearing on the situation. Between 1911 and 1938 it has been observed that the English landings of white fish had risen by 50 per cent. and during the same period Scottish landings had fallen by 10 per cent. Analysis shows that this trend was mainly confined to the trawling industry, and that the rise in the English landings was mainly due to the development that had taken place at Hull, where they built vessels to exploit the distant waters. The Scottish fishermen, who are mainly concerned with the North Sea, suffered a great decline in landings and the English fishermen exploiting the same waters had exactly the same circumstances to contend with—that is, fishing in the near and middle waters they were encountering a growing scarcity of fish, more particularly in the North Sea, and that entailed more effort to catch fewer and smaller fish until, finally, production became uneconomic; in other words, over-fishing had been established. A great deal of scientific study has been devoted to this question, and it ought to be possible now to state with reasonable accuracy the total weight of white fish that ought to be harvested out of these waters in any given year, and also to state with fair accuracy the total amount of catching power that ought to be devoted to this industry.

We saw the near and middle waters over-fished before the last war. We saw the stocks recover during the last war when there was no trawling in these waters. We saw over-fishing at work again in the interval between the two wars. Once more we have seen the stocks recover. What I want to know is, Are the Government going to sit with their hands folded and allow the same disastrous sequence to occur again? If they do that, I say that all the assistance offered under this Bill will be of no use whatever. The answer to this question is really one of vital importance to the white fishing industry. It is known that intensive trawling in the deeper waters produces a scarcity of stocks in the inshore fishing waters; the more the deeper waters are swept bare of fish, the greater is the temptation of the deep water fishermen to poach on the grounds of the inshore fishermen—the only only grounds on which they can make a living. I urge the Minister to lose no time whatever in trying to arrange for an international conference to thrash out this problem of over fishing. The matter bristles with difficulties, but over-fishing is a suicidal practice and in the interests of food supplies, the fishing industry and fishermen of all nations agreement ought to be reached about it. I am not sure about the Admiralty's attitude on this question. I know they have always taken the view that we could not have too many fishing vessels. They were getting what they wanted on the cheap, at the expense of the fishing industry, which I do not think was right, because it could not in the long run benefit them if the fishing industry was in an uneconomic state.

I ask the Government to reflect on the consequences of an uneconomic fishing industry. In Scotland alone, nearly 18,000 men left the industry between 1913 and 1938 to take all sorts of other jobs. Ultimately, there will have to be agreement on the total tonnage of fishing vessels in the North Sea, and an agreed quota for the different nations. I hope a close eye will be kept, also, on the inshore fishing industry, because there is always the possibility that over-fishing will rear its head there too, if too many boats are built. I do not want to take up any more time on this issue except to say that I am glad the Bill has been introduced and ask whether the White Fish Commission could be revived? It did a lot of useful work for the inshore fishing industry as well as for other sections. The administration of the Herring Industry Act has been handed over to the Herring Board, administration which I think could have been well done by the White Fish Commission. For this and many other reasons I think that that Commission could very well be revived.

I would have liked to follow the last two Members in their rather wide survey of this problem, but there is not now time to do more than ask one or two questions strictly confined to the terms of the Bill. This Measure is designed to encourage fishermen to purchase boats. It is plain that these boats will be most useful to the men if they are regarded as dual-purpose vessels, that is, suitable for both white fishing and herring fishing. All advanced opinion in the industry is agreed that it is in the dual-purpose boat that we should invest our money, faith and enterprise. If there are to be dual-purpose boats will the Under-Secretary of State for Scotland tell me what is to be the administrative link between the building of new boats under this Bill and new boats under the recent Herring Act? The boats under the Herring Act were also to be largely dual-purpose boats, and it seems to me that the two will dovetail into each other. I hope that point will be cleared up.

My second point arises out of the price of these boats. I think it was the hon. Member for Banff (Mr. Duthie), in his most attractive maiden speech, who first drew attention to this matter. I believe the figures he quoted are underestimates of the danger. I am told by those who understand the facts in Scotland that for a new boat of the kind we have in mind, the 60 ft. dual-purpose boat, the estimated cost is at present £8,500. That is a ridiculous price. Fishermen could not possibly face liabilities attached to a figure of that kind. You could lend what you like, one-third, or two-thirds, but you would still leave the fisherman with an intolerable burden. The Government must face up to that at once before going a step further with this Bill. They must get the facts about the cost of building these boats. I am told that in Sweden such a boat can be built for under £7,000 and that in Ireland the figure is still lower. I do not know what the actual figure is, but I do know that until the question of price is tackled all that we are trying to do to-night will be wasted effort. I ask the Under-Secretary to assure us that robust steps will be taken to cut down these excessive prices. There are rings in the boat building industry, and they have to be broken, and in asking for them to be broken I am not preaching Socialism. [Hon. Members: "Oh!"] No, that is plain sense, and I ask that that should be done.

With regard to nets and gear, I was told by a prominent fisherman in Scotland that nets which before the war cost £3 10s. now cost £8 10s. We all know about the scarcity of material and labour, but something is happening there that needs investigation. Free enterprise does not mean that any one enterprise has the right to exploit the rest of the community. If there is exploitation going on in these matters it ought to be tackled. I have confined myself to those few questions in the hope that by asking only those the Under-Secretary will be able to give me a definite reply.

One of the attractive features of the Debate is the unanimous and good reception which has been accorded to this little but useful Measure before the House. Hon. Members have spoken from all parts of the coast of the United Kingdom. We started off with the famous fishing port of Lowestoft, went from there to Cornwall, along that rugged coast up to the North-East of Scotland, and heard a maiden speech from the port of Aberdeen; from there to the Moray Firth, that famous fishing ground, on to Berwick-upon-Tweed, to the vicinity of the Cinque Ports, to the Western Isles, Orkney and Shetland, and then to the coast of the Kingdom of Fife.

From all these ports this little but useful Measure has met with a good reception. As the right hon. Member for Don Valley (Mr. T. Williams) pointed out, there are two good reasons at least why the inshore fishing industry is specially worth Government assistance at the present time. The fishing villages along the coast of Britain are nurseries for the Royal Navy and for the Merchant Navy. The younger men in the industry are almost always, or at least often, naval reservists who are the first to be mobilised, and, unless they leave partners behind them, they leave their boats and their gear to deteriorate. The older men have carried on magnificently, facing the new dangers of the mines and the machine-gunning aeroplane, and sometimes of the U-boat, in addition to the age-old perils of the sea. The fisherman served his country well in time of war. He deserves a decent livelihood in time of peace.

The second reason why the inshore fishing industry is worth encouragement at this time is the plain but simple fact that we need fish. Shortage of meat and of cheese creates a fine opportunity for expanding the markets for white fish and, although it is not particularly germane to this discussion, for that wholesome fish, the herring. From every point of view it is desirable, as the right hon. Gentleman has said, to create in this country a contented body of fishermen and to ensure a plentiful supply of fish. The inshore fishing industry lacks capital, it lacks the right type of craft, and, what is more important, it lacks confidence in itself. The Measure which this House is discussing to-night will do much to help the industry to regain confidence in itself and its rightful place in our national economy. In order that it should do that, it needs more young men, it needs new craft, and it needs guaranteed markets for the fish which will be caught by the new entrants in their new boats. That is really the crux of the problem. It is no good giving grants or making loans unless you can ensure that when the fish is caught there will be a remunerative market for it.

I have spent a good deal of the last two week-ends among fishermen in my constituency. I had the pleasure of talking things over with many men who have recently come out of the Royal Navy and the Merchant Navy, and they told me about their difficulties, some of which this little Bill is designed to ameliorate. They told me that it costs them now £40 to equip themselves with oilskins, sea-boots, sea jerseys and lines. It would have cost them about £20 before the war. A small line which cost £2 2s. 6d. before the war costs £10 now. A cod net which cost 10s. to 12s. 6d. before the war to-day costs 32s. 6d., and motor boats, as more than one speaker has pointed out, which before the war cost £1,500 to £2,000 now cost about four times as much—£6,000 to £8,000.

It was advertised in the Press last week that surplus naval craft are being offered for sale. My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Orkney and Shetland (Major Sir B. Neven-Spence) who made such a great contribution to the inshore fishermen's well-being by the care and attention which he gave to his task as chairman of the White Fish Committee, has spoken of the type of craft required by the inshore fishermen to-day. That craft must be fast, it will probably have a diesel engine, it must be sea-worthy, and it must be capable of accommodating the family unit of three men and a boy.

I want to make one constructive suggestion to my right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries, if he will allow me to call him that, before I give way to the Under-Secretary of State for Scotland, and I do hope he will take up this suggestion, because it is one, I think, which will be of great benefit to the fishermen round our Coasts. I hope that, after taking the best advice available to him, he will select one or two types of these surplus naval craft which would be most suitable to the inshore fishermen and send them on tour, after due advertisement, round the Coast of Britain, with someone in them who can point out their advantages and disadvantages, and who can give the fishermen, of our fishing villages ample opportunity of trying them out and seeing whether they are the kind of craft they want. It is quite impossible for the fishermen in my own constituency in North-East Scotland to visit the Director of Small Craft Disposals in Surrey. They might try the boat, out if the right hon. Gentleman would adopt my suggestion. I am sure he would agree with me that it would be quite wrong that assistance should be given under this Bill to enable a fisherman to buy a new boat if suitable types of auxiliary war vessels could be obtained for less money.

The Government has announced its intention of taking all necessary steps to promote the well-being of the fishing industry. This legacy of the National Government is the first step in what we all hope will be a long-term policy for the fishing industry. It is a welcome one, and one which will be well received along the coast of Britain.

Hon. Members in all parts of the House have this evening given this Bill their blessing. Some have said that it is a very little Bill, that it does not go quite far enough, but all of them, without exception, have said that it is a very good Bill so far as it goes. My right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries also said at the outset of the Debate that it was a little Bill, that it did not deal with all the ills or all problems of the fishing industry, but that it was a very urgent Measure, that it dealt with a problem which had to be dealt with immediately, which is the reason why we have this Bill before us so early in this Session. Many hon. Members put questions to me which I am afraid would take far too much time to answer this evening, and we have not got too much time. Most of the hon. Members who put those questions this evening appreciated at the time they put them that they fell pretty wide of the Bill, and that in consequence it would not be necessary for me to answer them when winding up this Debate.

There were some questions put which bore relevance to the Measure before us, and I propose to do my best to give an answer to them. First of all, not one but two or three hon. Members spoke about the length of the craft of which we are to facilitate the purchase or repair. They referred to the limit of 70 feet to which we had gone, and one or two Members said it would be desirable to extend this limit to 75 feet. We had to draw a line somewhere, and from the best advice I can get it seems to have been wise on our part to draw the line at 70 feet. I am advised that if we had gone to 75 feet we should have been getting into the realm of the trawler men, and that there was no need to go to the 75 foot length in this Bill. I believe that if there are vessels of that length, or if it would be otherwise desirable to procure vessels of that length, and with the corresponding weight which would inevitably go with it, it might very well be that assistance towards the purchase of such vessels could be obtained under the Act applying to the herring fishing industry which was passed by this House in 1944, so there would seem to be little need to extend the limit beyond 70 feet.

One or two hon. Members also asked questions about the price of loans to be given under this Measure. My right hon. Friend in opening the Debate said that we had not yet decided on the price of any money we proposed to lend under the provisions of this Measure, but he gave an assurance that we would not be ungenerous, that we would not be unreasonable, that we would see to it that the Treasure agreed with us to give money for the purposes provided in this Bill at a reasonable price. Hon. Members can have confidence in the promise made this afternoon by my right hon. Friend. Some hon. Members also asked me about harbours, and said that it was no use encouraging the building up of a decent fleet for these inshore fishermen if we did not give them better facilities at the harbour, I do not think that any of the hon. Members who raised that issue to-day really expected that when we introduced this Inshore Fishing Industry Bill we would include within its provisions a provision for improving existing harbours or laying down new harbours. We already have legislation applying to England, and other legislation applying to Scotland, that enables the respective Ministers concerned to give some assistance in the renovation and the building of harbours for this purpose. Of course, we will continue to pay attention to the need for providing adequate harbour facilities.

One or two hon. Members raised the question of the Admiralty craft that may very soon become available. We have, as one hon. Member indicated, some 61 footers and 45 footers constructed and employed by the Admiralty during the war years that may very well be used later by fishermen connected with the inshore fishing industry. I very much hope that inshore fishermen will take advantage of the provisions of this Measure by procuring for themselves some of these Admiralty vessels. It would be shameful if we should find ourselves in the position of having suitable Admiralty vessels doing nothing while the inshore fishing industry was crying out for new vessels.

Suitable vessels.

So long as they are suitable. I understand that many of them may very well be suitable for this purpose with adaptation. I put it no higher than that. The price is something which will be negotiated at another time. That is another matter which obviously does not fall to be dealt with in the Bill before the House.

I was also asked some questions by my hon. Friend the Member for the Western Isles (Mr. M. MacMillan) about the amount of the grant. I think he was the only hon. Member who did, in a measure, if only in a measure, criticise the Bill because of the amount of grant contained therein. He was foreseeing the very greatly increased cost of vessels in the immediate future. But the amount of grant we are giving is 33⅓ per cent. of the total amount. It must be granted that if these fishermen are to be asked to pay an unreasonably enhanced price for the vessels, the grant will be less advantageous than it would otherwise be. That again is another matter with which we could not possibly deal in this Bill. I agree also that we must pay some attention to the price to be paid for the vessels. I am indebted to the hon. Member for East Fife (Mr. Stewart) who has called our attention to the need to exercise the strictest control over the manufacturers, to see to it that they are not charging more than a reasonable price for their vessels. I hope we will pay the strictest regard to it, and I do not think hon. Members in any quarter of the House need at this stage, so early in the life of this new Government, call the attention of the Government to the need for exercising more and increasing controls over industry.

My hon. Friend the Member for the Western Isles and the hon. and gallant Member for Orkney and Shetland (Sir B. Neven-Spence) asked me about the allocation of moneys as between England and Wales, and both of them mentioned the eleven-eightieths formula as a system we sometimes have applied when allocating granted moneys to Scotland. Of course, it would be quite fantastic to apply the eleven-eightieths rule in this case, but it would be very unwise of me and of any Minister at this early stage to try to determine the allocation of moneys as between England, Wales and Scotland. I hope we will deal with applications from inshore fishermen in Scotland as they will be dealt with in England and Wales. It would be quite stupid at this early stage to try to determine any rigid apportionment between one country and another. I hope that as a result of this Bill we will be able to put the inshore fishing industry in both countries on to its feet.

I do not think very many other points were raised in the course of the Debate with which I need deal this evening in furthering the argument in favour of the Bill before the House. One or two hon. Members did, however, say that it would be a very good thing if, when inshore fishermen were acquiring new vessels, heed were given to the desirability of building a dual purpose vessel. I am not aware that we in any way restrict the use of the vessels used by the inshore fishermen. I believe it is true to say that the inshore fishermen in Scotland even now sometimes go 20 or 30 miles out to sea in pursuit of their calling. It would perhaps be wrong to recognise them strictly as inshore fishermen if they should do that, but, so far as I am aware, they will still be able to do that with the vessels we hope to assist them in procuring under the terms of the Bill at present before us. I think that is as far as I can go this evening.

Would the hon. Gentleman answer the question that I put? It was very important. The question was, how to avoid the confusion between the administration of the loans under this Act and the almost similar loans granted under the Herring Fishing Act?

I am not aware that there will be any confusion. They will be quite different people, I think, who apply for loans. The men who are engaged in herring fishing may, of course, make application under the Herring Industry Act. Men who are engaged mainly in inshore fishing may make application for a grant under this Act. I do not think there is any likelihood of some fishermen falling between the two and getting nothing out of either of them.

I think that all fishermen engaged in one or other type of fishing will find themselves in the position of being able to get the sort of assistance we are proposing to give them, this Bill being not dissimilar to the Herring Industry Act in the assistance given.

As my right hon. Friend said in opening this discussion, the Bill does not purport to do all that is required for the inshore fishing industry on a long-term basis. Many hon. Members have said that what we want is a long-term policy. Of course we all want to get a long-term policy. The Government have not been in office a very long time, and I am hoping, as many hon. Members have hoped, that this will merely be the first of many Measures calculated to give encouragement and assistance to the fishing industry. Hon. Members have spoken with a good deal of feeling, and I think it not inappropriate that I should pay a little tribute to many of the maiden speakers who have spoken in the Debate. All of them spoke with a great deal of knowledge and understanding of this industry. My experience in this House is that that is usually so. Hon. Members making their maiden speeches invariably choose a Debate in which they can speak with knowledge and understanding of the subject under review. To-day was no exception. Every one of those hon. Members who were speaking for the first time spoke with the greatest knowledge of the fishing industry.

We have brought this Bill before the House knowing that we would get universal support for it. Many hon. Members have referred to the fact that it was prepared by the Coalition Government and is a legacy from them. That is true, and it seems to me to augur well for the future that we can have on all sides of the House such ready agreement to a Measure which is calculated to give encouragement to one of our basic industries. I hope that the same sort of encouragement will be given to many other industries which must inevitably be covered by Bills brought before the House in the very near future.

The hon. Gentleman has not dealt with questions raised as to "cases of need." I asked for an assurance that "cases of need" will not be grudgingly interpreted. I also asked how "cases of need" are to be assessed and by whom.

I think the hon. Member is asking for quite a lot. We had to come before the House to get permission to spend a certain amount of Government money on helping the inshore fishing industry. Of course we will be careful, while not being ungenerous, in the administration of this Measure. We will not give money easily, and I hope, on the other hand, that we will not be too grudging in the assistance we give. I cannot describe in minute detail the form of machinery we shall use to examine applications. I can give an assurance, however, that applications will be investigated and dealt with strictly on their merits.

I do not want to delay the Committee for more than a few moments, but I would like to point out that we have not been given a great deal of information either by my right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries or by the Under-Secretary of State for Scotland as to precisely how these moneys are to be spent. I welcome the Bill in principle, but I think it is a little odd that we should have it put before us without some indication, for instance, of the rate of interest which will be charged—many hon. Members have asked that question but no answer has been given—or of the manner in which the question of need will be decided. We have not been given the slightest indication of the grounds on which that question will be decided or of the machinery to be used, or whether any means test is to be applied. We have only been told that a good and all-powerful Government will decide in the interests of the fishermen as a whole, and that we must leave it at that. I was a little astonished to hear the Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries say that in cases where no grants are asked for loans would be granted up to some figure—I think he mentioned 54 or 55 per cent. He said it would be above that, but he could not tell how much in excess it would be. I want to suggest, if in cases where a grant is given additional loans can be made by the Government up to 90 per cent., that in cases where no grant is asked for loans should be made up to the same figure. I do not understand my right hon. Friend when he said he could not give any accurate information as to how much beyond the 50-odd per cent. the Government would go in cases where an outright grant was not asked for or conceded. I do not see why this Committee should agree to the money Resolution without a little more information on these questions. We have simply been told, "Here is a Bill to help inshore fishermen, and you can take it or leave it." Many questions have been asked and many of them have not been answered.

My final point is this. I believe that for the next two or three years, or perhaps a little less, the prices of boats and gear will be very much higher than they will be a little later on, and I am desperately afraid that a great many of these fishermen will receive loans against craft and gear on the basis of prices which may fall quite precipitously, perhaps in a few months, certainly within a year or two. What will their position be when those prices fall? No attempt has been made by the Government to answer that particular point. It is a really important point, and I do not see why we should not press for an answer. I know the Government are pressed for time; all of us are pressed for time, and will continue to be, but we must raise matters which affect our constituents. I like the principles of the Bill, but I am disappointed at the total lack of detailed information on how they are to be administered by the Government.

If I were to take the logic of the complaint of the hon. Member for East Aberdeen (Mr. Boothby), who feared that the value of the article in a year or two's time may so descend that the loan granted now may be actually in excess of the value of the vessel in a year or two's time—

I beg to move,

"That the Primary and Secondary Schools (Grant-Conditions) Regulations, 1945 (S.R. & O., 1945, No. 636), dated 6th March, 1945, made under Section 100 of the Education Act, 1944, a copy of which Regulations was presented on 7th June in the last Session of the last Parliament, be annulled."

This Prayer is supported by many hon. Members belonging to all parties. I am grateful to the Minister of Education for being in her place this evening to deal with what some of us regard as a very important educational issue. I do not wish to make too heavy weather of this particular item in the Regulations, or indeed of the Regulations themselves, compared with some much more important issues, such as the lack of emergency training colleges and the lack of school buildings, but I think it is now evident that the Education Act, 1944, which was unanimously approved in a former Parliament, depends entirely on the spirit of its administration and on the Regulations made under the various Sections. We all gave more than lip-service to the general principles as they were enunciated by the Coalition Government and finally confirmed in the Act. Among the most important Regulations must be reckoned Primary and Secondary Schools (Grant-Conditions), which contain 67 Regulations and three Schedules. I wish to concentrate the greater part of my attention on Regulation 23 and to a minor extent on Regulations 8 and 56. My hon. Friend the Member for the University of Wales (Professor Gruffydd) wishes to raise many other of these Regulations. Clearly this is no party question; otherwise the present Regulations would not be supported as I understand they are going to be—though I hope not—by the present Minister of Education, and also by the ex-Minister of Education, my right hon. Friend the Member for Saffron Walden (Mr. R. A. Butler). We had a little evidence of a party question the other night, when, for the first time, we ceased discussing things which were general and vague, and got down to the realities of the actual implementation of the Act by the local education authorities.

A compromise was made between the Churches and the National Union of Teachers on the subject matter of the Regulations to which I wish to direct attention. That compromise was made by my right hon. Friend when he was in office and most of us supported it because it was the only way of getting an agreed Measure through this House. In its original form, the Regulation like so many others is a carry-over of the old elementary code into the new and widened secondary school field. Let me remind the House that before this Act only about 10 per cent. of the nation's children attended secondary schools. Now 100 per cent. attend schools which are called secondary. We are attempting to extend to something like 3,000,000, what previously belonged to about 450,000 children. It will take many years to accomplish this great end, but we have set our hands to it, and I do not believe that there is any hon. Member in any part of the House who wishes to draw back. If, however, in this process we are going to set up arbitrary denominational distinctions, if we are going to reduce standards and lose the ground which has been so gallantly won for 40 years by the grammar schools, aided and maintained, then, in fact, we are going to widen the division between "the two nations," to which my right hon. Friend referred when he was Minister of Education. We forfeit the unique and distinctive qualities of variety, freedom and standards, which, with all our deficiencies, are the envy of European and, I would add, American and Dominion systems of education.

These Regulations will be attacked from many angles by different speakers. My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Devizes (Squardon-Leader Hollis), who delighted us the other evening, and is to second this Prayer, will do what I have not time to do—recall to us something of the history of this Regulation. It will be dealt with by others, not only because they care about religious education, but because they care about the precise religious issue which this Regulation contains, and by some who care about differentiation between types of secondary school. My sole purpose in raising the question is the one of freedom. I led the minority during the Education Bill Debates against compulsory worship in schools. I protested against the Anglican domination in single-school areas. To-day I protest against the disqualification of the teacher, not because he is incompetent or immoral, but solely because he has the extra qualification of being either a clerk in Holy Orders or a minister possibly in my own faith—the Presbyterian faith. It may be that, if he is a Methodist, he can get through because of specific differences in that denomination. I cannot do better on this point than quote the words of Sir Percival Sharp as they were written in the "Teacher's World," because he happens to be one who, as my right hon. Friend knows, resented very much the bitter attacks made against the national schools of this country, when they were described as "godless," and he has a very wide experience. Chiefly, however, I want to quote him because of his concise statement:

"By Departmental Regulations, the teacher who is duly qualified to teach, by satisfying all the criteria necessary for recognition as a qualified teacher, who is willing to give religious instruction, who believes in what he is expected to teach and is especially qualified to give that teaching, is to be barred from teaching, simply because he is specially qualified to do so."

No wonder the Association of Education Committees, on 12th July, 1945, passed a resolution unanimously condemning this Regulation. I noticed that, earlier, when I said this was a compromise arrived at between the Churches and the teachers' organisations, there was some shaking of heads among a few hon. Members on the other side of the House. My experience at the old Board of Education, was that when you were either framing Regulations or dealing with new problems, it was a normal routine to consult that great body the National Union of Teachers, or, in the case of secondary schools, the Joint Committee of the four secondary school associations, and the Association of Education Committees. These were the three parties concerned. At any rate, the Association of Education Committees unanimously passed a resolution condemning this Regulation.

Among other things, this Regulation deprives the local education authorities and the governing bodies of the right to exercise their own judgment in selecting their staffs. It places in the hands of the Minister of the day arbitrary powers. To my mind, it smacks of prejudice; in fact, it merely re-enacts an ancient code some 85 years old, and originally introduced for entirely different reasons as my hon. and gallant Friend who is to second the Motion will make clear. What is behind this fear among the teachers? I have been for many years a friend of the primary and secondary school teachers, and I certainly would not wish to do anything which was going to saddle clericalism on them, or introduce something which is alien. When one looks at the Act, one finds that there are scores of safeguards, on which, during the passage of the Bill, many of us spoke, and which, I think, completely safeguard not only the conscience of the teacher but the parent and the child. I particularly mention Section 28. If this is interference, what is the justification for the fear? I sometimes wonder whether we are not, at the moment, going through the growing pains of a new order in education. If so, I think one ought to have patience, for in such a case there are bound to be anomalies. But I have come to the conclusion that that is not so. I have come to the conclusion that we are whittling down standards, and degrading secondary and grammar schools to a level which is quite unnecessary. If I may quote what I said in the Debate on Second Reading:

"Fees ought to be abolished in the genuine secondary school system, but fees are linked with freedom, with religious teaching, with, the ratio of masters to boys."

In some cases, at the present moment, in areas not very far from this House, there is a tendency for parents to send their children, not to the old grammar schools, but to the independent and direct grant schools." As I said then:

"Would it not be rather a tragedy if the very purpose of this Bill, which was to universalise and democratise secondary education should be defeated."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 20th January, 1944; Vol. 396, c. 446]

We are in desperate need of teachers, especially teachers with a sense of vocation. In the Debate on the Education Bill, nobody condemned the public and secondary schools on the grounds that they had a religious background. They might be condemned for their exclusiveness, but they were not condemned on that score.

May I give three examples which have come to my notice in the last few weeks. Recently, some friends of mine, all of them enlightened and progressive school masters, have elected to take Holy Orders. If they were in any modern school they would have to apply to the right hon. Lady the Minister in order to continue their teaching. They happen to be in independent schools, and, therefore, no problem arises. Another friend of mine, I found in the course of my electioneering, in the North of England, in a State secondary school, a born teacher with a certificate from the old Board of Education, a diploma, with distinctions in theory and practice, and a good record, again a schoolmaster before he was a clerk in Holy Orders, and by that very act he puts himself in the position of a special case and he would need to ask if he could continue to teach in a modern secondary school. Why should he have to do that? Have we arrived at the day when a man may set to qualify himself as an assistant in many other spheres, in politics, in law or anything else, and remain a schoolmaster, but not if he becomes a minister? Actually, as I said before, there is a further discrimination with regard to the ministerial function, because there is a differentiation between denominations. I admit that the Minister of Education has to approve, if the special circumstances of the case justify the approval. But what do special circumstances mean, and why should this person have to submit to what may very well be the arbitrary decision of a Minister of the Crown?

I will give a third example which came to me only the day before yesterday. My own nephew, who is in the Army, happened to win a very high distinction at Oxford, an open scholarship in mathematics, and the very highest degree in physics. He rang me up about demobilisation, but he said, incidentally, "Good luck to your Prayer." I asked him what in the world he knew about it, and he said, "It just happens that the man who taught me mathematics is a clerk in Holy Orders, and I would not have attained the standard I have to-day, if it had not been for him." This was in a school which catered for sons of doctors, not a rich man's school. I do not quote that instance for any other reason than to illustrate the possibility of combining mathematics with theology, and that is how things have been done for hundreds of years. Indeed, for 930 out of 1,000 years in our history, the State had nothing to do with education. There is a long history behind this story. The man to whom I have referred was, of course, in an independent school, and he is going to get value for his university degree, which has already been denied in the Burnham Scales. He is going to get a reasonable holiday to enable him to keep up his intellectual standards—and the standards of a man teaching at that level need those holidays.

There is, of course, another of those Regulations which divides the year into four terms with holidays which are liberal enough as a maximum, but even London within the last few months has decreased the holidays in grammar schools by two weeks. My hon. Friend the Member for the University of Wales hopes to mention that point later.

There are other Regulations which show the same tendency to level down. I want to refer to one small point while I am on this question. It deals with the question of keeping a school register. That might seem to hon. Members a very small thing. I have a copy here of this elaborate document which now has to be kept. Actually, its precise form has been taken from the old elementary code, and, side by side with it, I have the simple register now in vogue in secondary schools. This is not what I say. Mr. Salter Davies, who is one of the most experienced directors of education in this country, has said:

"It was to be expected that with the passing of the new Education Act uniform rules for the keeping of registers and records would be laid down for all types of secondary schools. The Ministry had in fact an excellent opportunity for a thorough revision and simplification of the rules required by the old elementary code, which was based on the assumption that children would seek to evade attendance at school and which for years has been a burden and petty irritation to teachers in elementary schools."

The whole of this system has been based on education for the labouring poor, and it has been taken over from the elementary into the secondary pretty well intact. Many of my hon. Friends were hoping that the effect of this Act would be to level up throughout the whole sphere of secondary education, and bring the senior schools into line with some of the freer and, I must admit, greater opportunities for education which have prevailed in the grammar schools over the last 40 years. Mr. Salter Davies ends:

"The Ministry's inspectors are likely to hear more of this memorandum. It is to be hoped that it will be soon withdrawn."

—that is, the circular which has been drawn up under these regulations. Here is another quotation from a very experienced schoolmaster which was in the "Times Educational Supplement" of 8th September. He writes:

"What is the purpose behind these destructive regulations? There are several disquieting possibilities. First, they are consistent with the cynical disbelief that the Act can never be implemented and a scepticism about parity of esteem."

I will not read the whole, but simply the last sentence:

"A condition of success is the removal of these restrictive regulations and the granting to all forms of secondary education at least that degree of freedom which has been enjoyed by the grammar schools in the past."

I do not want to enlarge on that, although I could give many other quotations. All I want to say is this. When we were discussing this question the other night, I said that secondary schools were in a parlous condition. The hon. Member for Cheltenham (Mr. Lipson) thought that was an exaggeration. I want to tell him this, and I can only speak from my experience in my own constituency. I went to twelve big cities, eight of them university cities, and I found something approaching an unofficial strike going on in the secondary schools of this country. It is no good my right hon. Friend (Mr. Butler) smiling at this; it does not alter the facts. We have for too long been dealing with generalities. The teachers feel that this accumulation of grievances—the Burnham Scale, this disqualification, the petty restrictions dealing with registers, with holidays and the rest—are not calculated to improve the schools from which alone the poor child in this country can get to a university. The only avenue by which a poor child can get to a university in this country is through the grammar schools of England, through which 90 per cent. of them go. Therefore, anything which brings down the level is only widening the gap we have had between these schools and the direct grant and independent schools—the very gap which the Education Act sought to bridge. It is turning out the other way round.

In all these cities I was told the same thing. I have here a memorandum from the headmasters of every maintained school in Liverpool signed by the whole lot. I have a memorandum here from the whole of the Derbyshire secondary schools, and 150 letters which have come in since the Education Act was passed.

One cannot just say that these are the idle views of an individual Member; they are the views of a large number of people throughout the country. In last week's "Times Educational Supplement," a writer, unknown to me, said:

"The situation remains lamentable. The present policy is madness. It is the result of a policy based on pretence and confusion. Schools which rival the best independent schools are now threatened."

I end with these words to the Minister. My conception is a. first-class system of public education, with every variety and quality so that no parents will be compelled to spend £100 or £200 on their children's education. For this principle I have fought for 25 years. England has a unique chance now of showing the world how this can be done. It has not been done in any other country. Equality of access, to an agreed standard of physical provisions—we can all agree upon; cubic space of class rooms, the ratio of pupils to teachers, yes, but after that the freedom of the headteacher and his assistants, so that the school can become a spiritual community—otherwise, it is nothing. Schools with their own governing bodies—that again is not being adhered to. There must be a reduction of clerical work to the minimum, freedom in all those details which constitute the personality of a school, instead of a dull and bleached uniformity.

I ask the Minister, who has never lacked courage, originality and resilience, to take back these Regulations. They were not framed by this Government, and there is no reason why they should accept them in their present form, even though the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary played such a great part in the passing of the Education Act. I ask her to give us a new set, based on modern thought and the 20th century. I ask her to make that her first contribution to the very great Act which received the unanimous assent of this House.

I beg to second the Motion.

We have been assured many times during the last few days from every quarter of the House that it is a gross libel to suggest that any of us believe in control for control's sake. I suggest that we could not have a better opportunity of proving our sincerity in that opposition to control for control's sake, than that which is presented by this Motion. By it, we are not seeking to upset in any way the delicate compromise about what degree of religious instruction is to be permitted in Government schools. Nobody, as a result of this Motion, will receive one iota more or less of religious instruction. We are asking for no sort of privilege for clergymen, for no sort of increased right of entry for clergymen. We are simply asking that when a gentleman happens to be qualified, and is willing to become a teacher, in a period of great shortage of teachers, he should not be prevented from becoming one simply through the accident that he may have committed the indiscretion of taking Holy Orders. If we have any devotion to liberty at all, we must surely admit that the whole burden of proof rests upon anyone who is so foolhardy as to oppose freedom. Supposing that in reading the rules of cricket, I suddenly came across a rule which said "No greengrocer shall be allowed to keep wicket," surely there would be no obligation on me to search through the records of cricket to discover if, on balance, greengrocers had proved themselves better wicket-keepers than other people. And so our contention is not that clergymen, on balance, are either better school masters or worse schoolmasters than other people, but simply that there is no reason at all for this interference with liberty.

As I understand it, this Regulation has been defended solely on two grounds. The first is this: We are told that certain parents have an objection to their chidren being taught by clergymen because they imagine that clergymen are sometimes biased. There is, of course, a possibility that you will find clergymen, teaching certain periods of history and discoursing on certain authors in English literature who might take an improper opportunity to give a twist to their lessons. If so, the individual clergyman would be behaving very improperly, and deserving of reprimand, and, if necessary, of dismissal; but no one surely is going to ask the House to believe that this is a vice confined to clergymen. Members of the Primrose League, supporters of the Douglas credit scheme, and all sorts of people have bees in their bonnets without having dog collars round their necks. To take an example from our own profession. Here are we as politicians who have to make speeches inside this House and outside this House. Sometimes we make speeches in which it is perfectly proper for us to border on party arguments. At other times we make speeches in which it would be highly improper to introduce party arguments. Do we not think ourselves possessed of sufficient public spirit and common sense to know, without direction, when we can make speeches of the first sort and speeches of the second? Should we not think it highly insulting if, for instance, the Home Secretary issued a regulation saying "No Member of Parliament is to speak to anybody on a bus, because if he does he will almost certainly talk politics and possibly biased politics at that"? So with this highly esteemed clerical profession the, assumption is to be made a priori that Christian clergymen are the only people in the country not capable of behaving like Christian gentlemen.

The second point on which this Regulation is defended is that it is merely a continuance of the existing system. In the first place that is not wholly true because it is an extension of the existing system. This ban which has hitherto reigned in a certain number of schools is now to be extended to further schools, as is the custom with Government Regulations. What previously was a ban existing in certain schools is to be extended. That I suppose is how

"Freedom slowly broadens down

From precedent to precedent."

I should be very surprised if to Members of the present Government, including the right hon. Lady, it should be sufficient evidence in support of a Regulation that it is merely a continuation of an existing system. I have been told by hon. Members opposite that they have not been sent here merely to continue the existing system. Let every Member understand what is the existing system which these Regulations are seeking to continue. What is the original Regulation from which these Regulations derive their comparatively illegitimate consent? These Regulations derive from the original Regulations of 1860. What are those Regulations and why were they passed? The world of 1860 [Hon. Members: "1870"]—I am subject to correction, but certain Regulations were passed by Mr. Robert Lowe in 1860.

What was the world of 1860? In 1868 the second Reform Bill was passed, by which the franchise was extended to the working classes. That franchise was vigorously opposed by Mr. Robert Lowe. In 1860 he was still optimistic about the working classes being barred from the franchise and from education. However, he said that if they must be educated at all, it was essential that Government education should be of an inferior type to that at paid schools, and that therefore they should be taught nothing but what were called the "three Rs."—reading, writing and arithmetic. At the same time, he regarded it as necessary to degrade the status of the teachers, and to bar clergymen from teaching in schools, not particularly through any anti-clerical prejudice, but because there was an off-chance that they might be able to teach, that they might raise the tone of the school and put ideas into the pupils' heads.

This Regulation is, I fancy, the only one which exists whereby people are forbidden to do a thing solely on the ground that they are capable of doing it. I remember—it has been in my mind for 20 years since my school days—a ditty written by the Junior Burgess for Oxford University (Sir A. Herbert):

"And as my father used to say,

In eighteen sixty-three.

When once you start

On all this art,

Goodbye, moralitee.

And what my father used to say

Is good enough for me."

I am surprised to find that this excellent ditty should have been erected into the theme song of the D-day of the new England. It is perfectly true that there was another motive behind these Regulations; that was, the opposition to clerical teaching, teaching by clergymen of the Church of England—opposition which at that time came from members; of the Nonconformist bodies. On that I will simply say that that world has gone. It is not our business to-night to pass any judgment on anybody's religious views. The Nonconformist world of 1860 was a very different place from the world of 1945. People then did think with great sincerity that the whole destiny of the immortal soul rested upon belonging to exactly the right form of sect. Therefore, with their eyes open they opposed the cause of education in the cause of sectarian orthodoxy. I am not passing any judgment, but hon. Members who are students of Matthew Arnold will remember in his "Culture and Anarchy" he made that the basis of his attack. Rightly or wrongly Nonconformists to-day have come to a different point of view. There are to-day very few among them who think that the whole future and destiny of the immortal soul depends upon the particular sect to which one belongs. On the other hand, they are, naturally and rightly, a great deal more afraid than their grandfathers used to be that the whole Christian heritage will be lost, if religion plays no part in the educational system. Therefore, as we all know, the Nonconformists have to-day taken a very different attitude towards religious education, and have agreed to co-operate in agreed syllabuses and to insist that religion should form an essential part of the education of the country.

In that new atmosphere, I suggest that this Regulation has become entirely irrelevant. I noticed the other day that the Methodist Union of North Lancashire passed a resolution exactly to that effect. It would, therefore, be impossible to defend this Regulation by sheltering oneself behind the prejudice of the Nonconformists, because the Nonconformists are no longer able to defend it. In the name of liberty we are entitled to ask by what reason can an interference of liberty be justified, and we are entitled to say of this Regulation that it cannot be justified.

I remember that last time I had the great honour of debating before the right hon. Lady, who has been kind enough to come down and hear us to-night, was shortly before the war at the Oxford Union. My hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Major Fraser), as it were, in a previous incarnation, presided over our deliberations. I remember well an eloquent speech by the right hon. Lady in which she denounced the palsied hand of reaction—a flattering role for which I myself was cast. I appeal to her in all sincerity to take this opportunity again to show herself the unwavering foe of the palsied hand of reaction, and to bring honour to the great office, upon which we all gladly congratulate her, by making one of her first acts in it the abolition of this fantastically reactionary Regulation.

I have had some difficulty in trying to size up what the mover and seconder of the Motion really want. The hon. Member for the Combined Universities (Mr. K. Lindsay) roamed widely over the Regulations. The hon. and gallant Member for Devizes (Squadron-Leader Hollis) came a little nearer to what he desires. I ask the hon. Member for the Combined Universities whether he wants to break down the negotiations which took place on the 1944 Act.

The answer is, "No, nor do I think it necessary."

But if the hon. Member's Motion is carried, that, in effect, is what it will mean. [Hon. Members: "Why?"] It is very difficult in a short speech to get this over clearly; it is so full of technicalities. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Saffron Walden (Mr. R. A. Butler) will agree with me. I have read the propaganda which has been put out on this business and what does it say? That the right hon. Gentleman's Act gives a free play for atheism to be taught in the schools of Britain. As a matter of fact, the House did not then realise, as the hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. C. Davies) and some of us did, that that Act was a complete revolution as far as English education is concerned. For the first time in British history, the right hon. Gentleman made it compulsory that religious teaching and a collective act of worship should take place in every school throughout the country. That is a revolution from the position of 1870. The State kept out of it before. The right hon. Gentleman made it the substance of his Act; in fact, there was more religion than education in it. There was statutory compulsion for religious teaching throughout the schools. I want to say bluntly in a broad way that the Churches made a bigger intrusion into State schemes through the Act than they had ever done before. The Archbishop of Canterbury of that time said—I do not think I am paraphrasing him too widely—that if these proposals of the right hon. Gentleman, brought forward in 1944, had been brought forward ten years ago, they would have been absolutely staggered at the progress they had made. By that Act religion was firmly established in the State schools. The State has come actively into the schools on the religious side.

I want the hon. Member for the Combined Universities to deny this if I am wrong: If these Regulations are annulled and he gets what he and his friends want, is it not true to say that you will open the flood-gates of denominational strife throughout the State schools? In the Act passed in the last Parliament, the basis of the religious agreement, throughout the State schools above the primary schools, was the agreed syllabus. That Act made certain that the dual system would last, that the Church schools would remain, even in single-school areas. The hon. and learned Member for Montgomery and I tried to persuade the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Saffron Walden otherwise. The right hon. Gentleman's Act has preserved the dual system. His Act brought into the State system not only compulsory religious teaching, but what is technically known as controlled schools. It even brought in denominational teaching at the expense of the State. What more does the Church want? All that the Church can now demand is the abolition of the State and complete Church control of the schools. Why on earth the Church should be dissatisfied, I do not know. If these Regulations are annulled, you will let the Church parson come into one school, you will let a Nonconformist minister come into another school, but will you let a Unitarian come into another school? Will you let an atheist come in? [An Hon. Member: "They are there."] That is not true. As far as statutory provision can make it certain, the Act has made certain that there shall be Christian teaching throughout the schools and that the State shall inspect that religious teaching. That is a revolution. It is a complete reversal of the position we have taken up since 1870.

Does the hon. Member contend that atheists are barred from schools because they are atheists?

What I say is that even if the hon. Member were an atheist—

But I am not.

—he would have no State sanction behind him to teach atheism in schools. Under the Act there is State sanction to teach the Christian religion, Hon. Members must realise that. I know that some of the Members of my own party did not realise it when the Act was passed. What happened under the Act was that the State came in and said that the Christian religion must be taught to every child in the country. If more than that is demanded and obtained, it will mean throwing into the schools a feeling of contending sects. If these Regulations are annulled, it will open the floodgates to denominational pressure. Therefore, I hope the right hon. Lady will reject the Prayer that these Regulations be annulled. I hope we shall stand by the agreement that was made in the Act that was passed in the last Parliament.

Will the hon. Member enlighten me on one point? I am one of the persons described by the hon. and gallant Member for Devizes (Squadron-Leader Hollis) as a Nonconformist of the old type, who does not believe that the State has any business to be engaged in religious instruction. That is one thing. I understand that is what the hon. Member for Aberavon (Mr. Cove) is challenging. This is a totally different Prayer. This Prayer is to prevent discrimination.

Is the hon. Member asking a question or making a speech? I did not call upon him to make a speech.

This is the question I wish to put, Sir. The purpose of the Prayer is to remove discrimination as against a particular class. How does the hon. Member, who is in favour of liberty in the schools, as I am, object to the discrimination being removed against a specific class?

If this is removed, it will simply allow in every denominational person that you can think of.

It is difficult enough to make a maiden speech in any circumstances, but when I have to follow from this side my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Devizes (Squadron-Leader Hollis), I feel rather like saying to the House, "Please assume the status quo, go on talking to one another, and let me get on with my speech." The only confidence I have in addressing the House for the first time, comes from my feeling that the matter under discussion is in no way controversial. I maintain that the principles involved go beyond the realm of politics, let alone party politics. I maintain that these principles were accepted by our country even before our present political system was devised. I can see a very strong case for preventing clergymen from teaching their own particular denominational doctrine in schools. I feel that if this came into effect, it would only be slightly less dangerous than the introduction by the State of party political doctrine for the young. If that happened we would say not that our liberties were endangered, but that for the most part they had disappeared. To judge or even to regard this Prayer in that light, is completely to misinterpret the function of the clergy in the teaching profession. The function of the clergy is primarily to increase the knowledge and the practice of the Christian ethics. That comes first and is above any particular denominational creed to which they may belong.

All young men who enter Holy Orders do so because they have behind them a certain urge and belief that in that way they can best serve not only their own community, but the whole of mankind. Very often—and I think quite understandingly—a clergyman finds that in his ordinary routine life as a clergyman he has inadequate scope for his particular talents; in fact, he appreciates that the job is not exactly what he himself wants and he turns very often to the teaching profession not in any revocation of the principles to which he was originally dedicated, but rather to find wider fields in which to practise his calling. Furthermore, almost all of these what I would call displaced clergy are fully qualified, quite apart from anything else, to teach any of the curriculum in our schools. Take the case of history, a very important matter in our curriculum. It is a very generally accepted fact that anyone who claims to have had a general education must have acquired a background knowledge of history. If that particular subject is taught rather as a time table, with a series of facts and dates which are in no way correlated by human developments and human emotions, I believe that the study of history is of very little value. Under these conditions I believe it is little more than a mental exercise. Those of us who are possibly more philosophically inclined, may take the view that the whole of history is really the history of the struggle of good against evil. We may ask ourselves often which side is winning, but I maintain that, if we take that view, the clergy have peculiar qualifications for teaching the subject in relation to mankind—the struggle for liberty, justice and progress of one kind or another. So in my opinion Regulation 23B is depriving the teaching profession of a very considerable number of certified teachers, and consequently depriving the children themselves of people particularly qualified to be in their midst to instruct them.

There is another point with which hon. Members may not agree, but I believe it is a good thing for the clergy themselves to get down from their pulpit now and again and mix with the common folk. I put it this way. Surely, an intelligent discourse on history, which really comprises all the essential striving and aspirations and, possibly, failures, of mankind, is really of more use in teaching than, possibly, the rather dull sermons which we too often hear from the pulpit. Yet in supporting this Prayer, I feel it is also very important to point out that the clergy, as I think everyone will agree, are men of peculiarly high moral standing. I feel that, for young people to have as their teachers people who set themselves up as examples in this matter, is very essential. I think there is one new danger creeping into our educational system, and, indeed, possibly pervading the whole of our national life. The danger is that the more the State takes a hand in the matter of education—while it brings certain benefits—the more teaching tends to become too doctrinaire. The formula for teaching becomes altogether over-simplified, the curriculum becomes too confined, and the qualification for the teacher becomes too narrow. I maintain that the introduction of people who have the peculiar qualifications which a great many of the clergy possess would be a very large enrichment of the ordinary lay teaching in schools. I am in no way referring to denominational religious teaching.

I think that, in the same way, undue importance is always given to the matter of examinations in the minds of those dealing with young people or even people seeking a job. I believe I am right in saying that the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition was peculiarly bad at examinations, and, surely, he is a very good example of the undue importance that can be attached to that matter. Hon. Members who may have studied educational matters in France, will appreciate that, there, the educational system is essentially rigid. As a matter of fact, the boys and girls in school work far harder than we do, but I think that any enlightened Frenchman would agree that our system is preferable to theirs because it allows us more latitude in the curriculum, and it gives more attention to the development of character, and, if you like, to citizenship than the mere acquisition of knowledge, and, surely, the point of education is not to stuff people with a lot of facts but to bring out the best talents in those people. I think this is very relevant to the question of introducing clergy to teach lay matters in schools. I believe we won the war, for instance, not on our superior knowledge entirely, but on the character of our people and, together with that, an implicit belief that our own cause, closely associated with the Christian cause, was the right one.

I believe that most people today, possibly sub-consciously, seek a practical faith. The Germans adopted National Socialism as their faith, and, fortunately for the rest of mankind, it crumbled and decayed. The Russians have adopted Communism as their faith. I am quite sure that Communism, as a faith, in itself is totally insufficient to act as even a sop to the troubles of mankind. I believe that any doctrine based entirely on materialism is doomed to failure. If we believe that the Christian faith is the best faith in this respect, I should have thought—and I submit it to the House—that the most practical way of introducing the matter in an attractive form, would be to allow clergymen who are well qualified to teach in the first place, to practise education in lay matters in the schools of this country.

In one way, Mr. Speaker, I would have preferred it, had my maiden speech been on any subject other than education, because I came direct to this House from more than 20 years' service in local-authority schools, the elementary school, the modern senior school, and the secondary school established by the 1944 Act. In addition, I was the elected representative of many of my fellow teachers on national and local bodies. I feel, therefore, that my judgment on matters which so recently were subjects of deep personal and professional concern to me, may appear to lack perspective, but I hope the House will bear with me because I believe it is my duty to try to reflect here the attitude of thousands of my former colleagues and many of the parents of the children whom I taught.

My colleagues, in the main, I regret to say, regarded the Education Bill of 1944 with scepticism, and they have seen no reason since to alter their attitude. As the hon. Member for Aberavon (Mr. Cove) said, many of us thought there were 14 ozs. of religion and 2 ozs. of education in that Bill. In fact, it was crudely perhaps described to me by an experienced headmaster as an Act to make England safe for the Archbishops. Whether that criticism was right or not, I must say that that suspicion which motivated it remains, and this Prayer before the House to-night will, in no way, serve to diminish that suspicion.

I regard some of the things that have been said as a reflection on the many thousands of devoted men and women who have entered education primarily with the idea that the job of education is the formation of character. And I unhesitatingly deny that the great majority of the teachers of England are anti-Christian. Indeed, they are Christian in a very true sense. I have been very much impressed with our way of commencing the daily business in this House with an act of worship, and I may say, without fear of contradiction, that in every school which I have served, a similar act of worship opened every day's work, and, in some cases, closed it every evening, with just as reverent an attitude, and, perhaps—if I may venture a criticism—with the pupils and the masters and mistresses taking a rather more individual share in it. This can be proved to this House by the attitude of returning soldiers and serving women. Very often their first act after going back to their homes is to come to their school, and they ask to be allowed to stay for the service and to stand in the master's line in order to recapture something the memory of which was very dear to them in Burma, in Germany, or elsewhere, during the war.

That is the spirit which I have found among my colleagues for more than 20 years with regard to having clergymen, whose training is primarily in theological exposition, coming to teach us who are trained in the psychology of childhood, and are training pupils to be good men and women in the world in which they are growing up. It is a very bad reflection on my very good friends still happily in the teaching profession.

I may have already wearied the House with my maiden speech, but I must go on, because there are one or two other points which may not have occurred to hon. Members opposite. First, the Act has not been entirely welcomed, to put it mildly, by the main body of those of us who have served in what used to be the schools under the elementary code. I for one was sorry to see the old Part III authorities disappear. We have been impatient about appointed days, but we do not in the main object to the insistence upon a daily act of worship, because it was a normal thing in the vast majority of schools under local authorities, in the elementary, senior, modern and secondary schools that I know, and I have had a pretty wide experience up and down the country. Schools have also had, over a much longer time than appeared, an agreed syllabus. In many large areas there has been an agreed syllabus for many years. What is more the teachers themselves know that the visiting clergy whose habit it was to visit us once a year in order to see whether we had done the job, gave enthusiastic reports, as a general rule, not only on the fact that the Scriptures were known, but that the pupils had gained a reverent attitude through the teaching in the schools. No clergyman could give us more than we have had already from teachers of all denominations.

Clergymen who came in for the examinations proved themselves rather poor at understanding the minds of the children. I have writhed time and again as some young clergyman or Nonconformist parson—and I speak quite fairly, because I am a Nonconformist—would ask one of the boys of 13 to explain the chronology of the Pentateuch, to put in order of sequence the Messianic prophecies of some obscure New Testament prophet, to explain the pessimism of Jeremiah. I am quoting actual cases in my own experience. Believe me, the pessimism of Jeremiah was nothing to the pessimism of my classes when questioned like that by learned clergymen, who, hon. Members opposite tell us, will be very good additions to the teaching profession.

There has been much clouding of the issues to-night, I am afraid. I have a document on Regulation 23, issued by the Church Education League. We are asked not to exclude from the schools men of high academic qualifications for the teaching of history, geography and what you will, but this brochure of the Church Education League says:

"Clergy and ministers are liable to the same tests as other teachers and by their special training are particularly qualified for the work of religious instruction."

What is wrong is that many of my colleagues in the teaching profession would feel themselves deprived of a large part of their work if they were to be ousted from teaching during the little periods of worship because someone "more qualified" had come on the staff. I am a trifle suspicious that it is because we have a new order in education that the clergy want to come in. I have noticed that they have not been so anxious to assist in training with classes of 50 or 60 in the primary schools. I ask the Minister to stand firm on the reasonable compromise in Regulation 23 and to remember that, while a very eloquent case has been made out for the unfortunate clergymen—who appear to have mistaken their vocation and must come into the schools as a consolation prize—there are the men and women with a true vocation who have stuck to the schools and formed the characters which have helped to win this war.

As the hon. member has just said, there has been considerable clouding of the issue in this Debate. There is no disposition on the part of the supporters of the Prayer to raise any difficulty or any question with respect to the religious settlement set out in the Act which will always be associated with my right hon. Friend the Member for Saffron Walden (Mr. Butler). The issue raised on this Prayer is very short and very simple. It does not, as the hon. Member for Aberavon (Mr. Cove) suggested, raise any question as to religious instruction or syllabus. It merely raises the question of whether, in the national schools of this country, one class of man alone shall be disqualified from acting as teachers and that they shall be disqualified for no other and no better reason than that they belong to a calling which for more than half our history was alone responsible for the education of the poorer classes. Therefore I invite attention to the fact that that, and that alone, is the issue raised.

One matter has been touched upon which I should be very grateful if the Minister, when she replies to the Debate, would deal with. As I understand it, one of her many anxieties is centred round the question whether she will be able to provide enough teachers to implement, fully and adequately, the Act of 1944. One would appreciate it if she would assure the House that even with clerical teachers banned she is in a position, without any difficulty, to supply an adequate number of teachers. If she is not and this historic Measure is to be held up through lack of teachers it seems rather strange that she is going to deprive herself of a source of trained teachers. The exclusion in the Regulation covers not only Clerks in Holy Orders but regular ministers of other denominations. I do not know if the right hon. Lady will enlighten the House on the precise distinction between regular and irregular ministers. At any rate, the fact is that a Clerk in Holy Orders who desires to make himself employable in the national schools has only, as the Regulation now stands, to commit an act of such gross impropriety as to cause himself to be unfrocked to become immediately a suitable person to be employed in the national schools—a provision which would have enabled a certain notorious character formerly in Holy Orders, who in later life resided in a barrel in Blackpool, to become employable as a teacher in the schools.—[Mr. EDE: "No."]—The prohibition is precise—Clerks in Holy Orders. If he is unfrocked he ceases to be a Clerk in Holy Orders. Therefore, as I see it, a Clerk in Holy Orders who has never given cause for any trouble is debarred, whereas the occasional black sheep is given the freedom to be employed in the schools.

It does appear that this legislative discrimination against one and only one class in the community is contrary to the spirit of broad-minded toleration which is expressed in Section 30 of the Act itself. It is in the light of that consideration that I would ask the right hon. Lady to consider whether she really feels that this discrimination, for which, as has been pointed out, she herself is not responsible, is really to be maintained. The hon. Member for Aberavon asked what the supporters of the Prayer really wanted. May I, as one of them, answer that in one sentence. What we ask is this: that the clergyman, the Clerk in Holy Orders, the minister of a regular denomination should be placed neither in a better nor a worse position than anybody else; but that those responsible bodies that have the duty of selecting teachers for our schools should be free, if they wish, to employ such a person equally with anybody else. I do not think that to support this Prayer it is necessary to go as far as the hon. Member for East Surrey (Mr. Astor) went, and to suggest that clergymen make the best teachers. All that it is necessary to do is to submit to the House that they have the right to be considered jointly with other people for employment in our national schools.

May I make, with great respect, an appeal to the right hon. Lady and to the House. Hon. Members are only too well aware that in these days the darkness of pagan materialism is to be found all over the world—[Interruption.]—and hon. Members opposite are themselves often very eloquent in their denunciation of it. It is a fact that the light of Christian culture, which is of the very heart of European civilisation, has been put out in many countries. Against that background, would it not be a very proper and fitting thing for this House to-night to make it abundantly and blindingly clear that it will neither permit nor tolerate any discrimination or prejudice against those faiths and freedoms which have guided for centuries the footsteps of our race?

I did intend at first to speak against the regulations as a whole, not only this particular Regulation 23, but other regulations which are contained in this paper. That is not because they are wholly bad, but because they have made a new jumble of the old collection of servile restrictions which at one time applied only to primary schools, but are now laid as a burden on the shoulders of the secondary schools as well. I have no basic objection to having the same regulations for the secondary as for the primary school, but I do object to a continuation of the bad features of the old regulations, and especially to giving them a new life by fastening them on to the secondary schools as well.

I now come to Regulation 23, which, I prophesy, cannot possibly work, and I will briefly show why. I belong to a religious denomination called Congregationalist and I know something about the congregational theory of the ministry and the Baptist as well. The Baptist or Congregational minister is technically only a minister when in charge of a church; in other words the ministry is purely functional and not sacerdotal. The moment he ceases to be in charge of a church he is not a minister, and I am certain that it would be established in a court of law, therefore, that that very person under Regulation 23 could, if he is not in charge of a church, be a teacher, but no Presbyterian or Anglican, owing to the nature of his ordination, could be. Is that fair? I ask the Minister, is it fair? It seems clear to me that the Regulation will break down on that very point.

Does it not look really ridiculous to discuss a Regulation which, out of the whole of the population of this country, picks out the Anglican or Presbyterian or Wesleyan clergyman and not, shall we say, the greengrocer, or the journalist, or publican or bookmaker, or even the public hangman? They can all be teachers on one condition, that they are full-time officers during the period they are at the school. That is all we ask here for the parsons. We do not ask that any clergyman or minister shall be a teacher in a school, so long as he is in charge of a church. We are only asking that a man who happens to be a Clerk in Holy Orders should be allowed to carry on his work as a teacher, and not be deprived of what is possibly his main interest in life.

By the way, there is an important point here for those interested in grammar schools. As we know, unfortunately classical learning is getting less and less in this country. Even in the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge the amount of Latin and Greek required is less and less, and I can see the time coming when it will be almost impossible in England for a person to get an adequate training in Latin or Greek except from some person who has taken up Latin or Greek professionally as a subject and the only person who does that is the clergyman or minister.

As I have already said, this is not the only ill-considered Regulation. Now 14D provides that there shall be no more than 40 pupils in every primary class. I say to the House that it is impossible that any teacher in a primary school, or any other school, could do justice to a class of 40 pupils, and the number 40 is a ridiculous maximum.

The next point is in Regulation 15, which seems to me to be very obscure, and I would ask the right hon. Lady, the Minister of Education, for an explanation of it. Up to now it has been possible for a teacher in a secondary school on account of special qualifications to enter the teaching profession in what were then called secondary schools and are now called grammar schools, without having undergone what is technically called training. I ought, I suppose, being a university professor, to stand up for universal compulsory training. But I do not. Many people who have not been trained in the past have been first-class teachers, and made great reputations for themselves in the public schools of England, which are all staffed with people who were not "trained," and there are no better schoolmasters in the world. Now this new Regulation, as far as I understand it, makes it necessary under 15 (2) that all teachers, whether secondary or any other, must have gone through the training department before they can become teachers. Well, if the training is good, they will benefit by it, but if it happens to be, as it sometimes is, bad it may take them a long time to unlearn the absurdities of their "training."

There is another point, to which I would like to call attention in the new Regulations. Though I am in favour of the same just treatment for primary and secondary schools, there is one point on which they cannot be treated alike; and that is in the matter of holidays. In accordance with this document, they will in future have the same holidays. But the holidays which are adequate for teachers in the primary schools are entirely inadequate for teachers in the secondary schools. The secondary school teacher every night has to take home a large pile of copy books and correct exercises; and if a sixth or even fifth form teacher wishes to keep up with his work he has to devote a large part of his holidays to making himself more efficient in his own subject by research and study or even by going to the Continent, or in other ways.

The last Regulation to which I would refer is the rule about misconduct. I would like to ask the right hon. Lady here, because the matter has been raised many times among my constituents, whether the divorce of teachers is going to be regarded as misconduct subjecting them to dismissal. If so, it is a grave reflection on our honesty as administrators. I can see the possibility of divorced legislators (of whom there is a considerable number) requiring of those for whom they legislate a stricter morality than they are able to practise themselves.

I am opposed to this Motion, and I stand by the Regulations as originally drafted, and as they have been presented by the right hon. Lady the Minister of Education. The first impression I gain from this Debate is that the new House of Commons is experiencing, perhaps for the first time as a corporate body, something of those problems which we discussed on the Education Act, at any rate in its preliminaries. I hope that the one lesson which the new House of Commons has learned on the subject of education is that logic is not a virtue in politics. I am quite certain that if we were to approach this question from the purely logical angle, we should come to the conclusion that it was quite natural that clerks in Holy Orders, or recognised ministers of any denomination, if they were to be allowed in one type of secondary school, should be allowed in all. That is the logical approach and that is the approach which appeals, quite honourably, to many of my hon. Friends on this side of the House, particularly those who do not, I think, agree with me on this occasion.

I repeat, that logic in these matters, especially in educational history of this island, is not a sure guide. If I had followed that purely logical course in drafting not only the religious settlement, as it has been called, but the Act as a whole, with the aid of the Home Secretary and others involved—had we followed that path we should not have been successful. The fact that we have been illogical, and have been guided by the intimate desires and personal beliefs of those who were associated in this, has, I am sure, been the reason for our success. There is no doubt that the course of the history of English education has been beset by the religious difficulties. This is, I am sure, the only occasion in which an Education Act has been passed through Parliament and has not left behind it a trail of religious bitterness and intolerance. That fact is one which this country should not be in a hurry to erase from the pages of its history.

The witty, able and in many ways delightful speech of the hon. and gallant Member for Devizes (Squadron-Leader Hollis) was however contrary to that faith and belief which I and the others associated with me in that Act hold. I am definitely of the opinion that if I were to depart to-day from the terms of Regulation 23 and of the Regulations as a whole, I would be prejudicing the religious settlement. I agree that the religious settlement happens to have come before this House after the passage of the Education Act, but I confess that when I originally drafted these Regulations and redrafted them in the light of discussions with the leaders of the denominations—and that should be realised by the House to-day—I did it in the same spirit and in the same atmosphere as that in which the religious settlement was originally made. I feel certain that if we were to decide this issue as a separate one, we should prejudice the spirit of the whole.

At this stage, having referred to some of the arguments made, it is my pleasing duty to congratulate the hon. Members for East Surrey (Mr. Astor), East Harrow (Mr. Skinnard) and Kingston-upon-Thames (Major Boyd-Carpenter) on the quality of their maiden speeches. They were, in each case, inspired with sincerity and each speaker approached the question not only with a passionate belief in his opinions but expression of his own ideals. I am sure we are very grateful to them. I think in reply to the hon. Member for East Surrey and the hon. and gallant Member for Kingston-upon-Thames I must say that I recommend a study of the politics of education in the past. All Ministers of Education, including the right hon. Lady opposite, probably get haughty and cultural in the course of their tenure of office, and I am sure that the Secretary of State for the Colonies and also the former President of the Board of Education would not disagree with me about that. I am going to maintain that reputation by recommending what is, I think, one of the most learned works on religious history of this country, one written by Halévy, the French historian. If these hon. Gentlemen who spoke with such sincerity would read that history they would realise the invidious task of anyone who undertakes educational reforms and will learn that the clergyman—to use the longest term—is as a red rag to a bull when he enters the ordinary State school. That is why his entry has always been regarded as one of the most difficult problems in the whole question of educational history in this country.

I use this expression on purpose, in order to direct the attention of the House to the fact. I entirely endorse the views of the hon. Member for East Surrey that a clergyman or a regular minister of any denomination is a man of the highest moral character and very often brings to the art of teaching very special gifts. But that does not take away from the simple political fact that the past history of education shows that there is associated with the clergy not only of the Anglican Church but of all denominations a certain political taint, which it is impossible to remove from any settlement or any consideration of the educational problem. I am stating this matter quite bluntly in order that the House may be in possession of the whole facts as they were before me when I came to my decision. The advance that we made involved the giving of religious education, and special arrangements whereby denominational instruction can be given in schools of various types, and, in effect, the qualified right of entry for the most important thing of all, the giving of religious instruction itself.

When I came to discuss with the partners in education—the same partners that the right hon. Lady has—the teachers and the authorities, I found that were we to abrogate the original regulation which prohibited the clergy and ministers of denominations from acting as teachers in ordinary schools we should immediately begin to create a lack of confidence. When I came up against that fact I decided that we had got so far in avoiding religious bitterness and in solving some of these problems in the past that it really would be wrong of me in drafting the Regulations to go any further and that was the unanimous view of the partners in education with whom I have discussed the matter. I know that it is the case now that certain of the authorities do not take the view that they did at that time and are now taking a more lenient view. Certain of the local authorities are taking that view, but, in my opinion, the teachers, as a whole, have not altered their view and therefore the balance should remain as it was originally struck and we should retain the Regulations as they stand.

I must draw the attention of the House to the fact that this Regulation is an improvement on the past draft. Take the hypothetical case of a man teaching in a modern school who has done useful service, and still is prevented by these Regulations from continuing if he becomes a clerk in Holy Orders. That would be a very hard case. But it would be possible under the terms of the Regulation to provide for the Minister, if he or she is satisfied that the special circumstances of the case justify it, to permit that man to continue teaching in the modern school or in the technical school, or in any secondary school where a parson was not previously permitted to teach. I believe that is a distinct advance on the Regulation as originally drafted, to which the hon. and gallant Member for Devizes referred. Therefore, the House may feel that there has been an advance made. In logic, it would have been natural for a complete advance to be made and for clergymen to be permitted to teach in all secondary schools. That has not proved to be possible, and I would conclude by borrowing the words "La politique, c'est l'art du possible", which, as a former Minister of Education, I will translate as "Politics is the art of what is possible." Let us then make a sensible decision and accept the Regulations and see that they are passed here to-night.

To-night I have been in rather an unusual position for a Minister, because I feel in a way as though I am an arbitrator in a very fierce and most entertaining discussion. As the previous speaker has said, I had no part in framing these Regulations. They were framed by my predecessor, the right hon. Member for Saffron Walden (Mr. Butler), with the help of my colleague, the present Home Secretary, so that I have no maternal pride in them at all. But one thing has struck me as curious. Passionate protests have been uttered, saying how terrible it is to discriminate against one set of people, those unfortunate beings, the clerks in Holy Orders. It is over twenty years since I was first elected to this House, and in the whole course of that time I have never once heard any speech passionately protesting against this House making exactly the same discrimination in refusing to have clerks in Holy Orders as Members of this House. If this House will not have these unfortunate clergymen as Members, I do not see why they should be more extensively admitted to the schools. Really, charity begins at home in this matter. I am sorry Members do not seem aware of this fact but, as I say, for the sake of younger Members here, that is nevertheless the fact. Many speakers have urged me to re-draft this Regulation because they say there is a very great shortage of teachers, but I am equally overwhelmed by letters and resolutions pointing out that there is a very great shortage of clergymen. Really, I cannot understand why these gentlemen who are highly trained to do their own particular job—the most responsible post that anyone can aspire to, I am told, the cure of souls—do not get on with the work for which they have been trained. The hon. and gallant Member for Devizes (Squadron-Leader Hollis) made the joke, which sounded so funny when it was made, that it would be absurd to say in the rules of cricket that no greengrocer should keep wicket. How easy and cheap to make an argument like that. Surely the answer is that there is no area that I know of, entirely dominated by one greengrocer, and by a greengrocer with a firm conviction that you cannot go to Heaven unless you buy from his shop.

And that is really the distinction, as far as I can see it. It seems to me that there is a distinction between a greengrocer and a clerk in Holy Orders. There is this point, too. One of the speakers—I think it was the same hon. and gallant Member for Devizes—said we could not trust a clergyman to be a Christian gentleman and play the game as regards his teaching and his particular denomination. Surely the whole point is that if the gentleman is a Christian, is a pastor, he does passionately believe in what he is teaching. If not, then he cannot fully believe in the very things he professes. Why is he a member of that particular denomination then? It seems to me that that is the obvious logic of the case. We have large numbers of areas in this country where the only school to which the Nonconformist or even the Catholic can send his children—I am using Nonconformist and Catholic on the one side and Church of England on the other, but you can turn it round for argument—Ithink it is not fair that the parents should be forced to send their children to a denominational school where the clergyman of that denomination can be a teacher in that school and very possibly, in those circumstances, the Headmaster.

The right hon. Lady could carry it a stage further. If she put herself for a moment in the position of a Conservative who had to send her child—

There are very large numbers of Socialist parents who have to send their children to schools which are dominated by Conservatives. They are in exactly the same position.

The logical thing to do is to prevent anyone teaching belief in anything at all?

The thing is a little different, I think, when you come to beliefs which are classed under the heading of religious beliefs. Very largely that same thing would be regarded, I think, by one of our gallant Allies in whose country they take their politics more or less as a religion—we do not—as Marxism versus Capitalism. It has not arisen in that form in this country. I would urge that this point should be kept in mind—I think it was put by the present Minister of Health: that the religious tolerance which exists in this country at the present day is very largely the happy result of denominations not pressing their claims too hard. I urge hon. Members who clearly and very honestly feel very passionate about this matter that they would really be doing a grave disservice to the cause they advocate if they pressed their claims too hard and this whole issue had to be reopened. I ask them to face up to what, really, all this fuss is about. My predecessor very carefully balanced the issue as far as possible: that is to say, to allow clergymen in grammar schools, which had never had the ban, and in technical schools. It has always applied in elementary schools and will continue to do so. Therefore the issue narrows down to that section of schools which were previously known as senior elementary schools.

The right hon. Lady will realise that that is a conservative estimate. Something like 60 per cent. of the total secondary schools are under the Act.

I will not quarrel with that. It is certainly not the total of the school-going pupils of this country. I am now talking not about adding the primary schools to the modern schools but just taking the number of children in the modern schools.

So am I. That is the issue where these particular schools have always been under the difficulty of not having denominational teaching and that situation is going to be continued.

I really think the issue is not one which ranges over the whole school population but is restricted to this particular section of schools. I want to issue one word of warning on this. These Regulations are not my Regulations—and I do not mean me as an individual. They are not Regulations which have been put forward by the majority party in this House. They were put forward in the Coalition Government by a Member who represented the majority party in that Coalition Government. They were accepted by my hon. Friends in that Government.

Will the right hon. Lady, in the interests of accuracy, note that I have objected to all these Regulations and my right hon. Friend in front will confirm that I put my objections to him.

It was my party I was alluding to as having accepted, not the hon. Gentleman. I said the right hon. Gentleman put them forward as Conservative Minister of Education. In the discussions that followed with the Labour Party, as far as we were concerned, they were accepted. I think that will clear away any misunderstanding. But the point I want to clear up is that it is not possible for this House to vote this Regulation 23 out of the other Regulations. The Prayer is against all the Regulations. Therefore, if the Prayer is carried then all the Regulations fall to the ground. I ask hon. Members whether they fully realise what that means.

The Regulations, once made, must lie on the Table for 40 days. Of course they could be changed if the House turned them down. But if they were annulled the first thing that would happen would be that the primary or secondary schools would be thrown into chaos, because there would be no Regulations under the Act under which they could work. [Interruption.]

rose—

rose in his place, and claimed to move, "That the Question be now put."

(seated and covered). On a point of Order, Mr. Speaker. Is it not the case that the mover of a Prayer has the right of reply, and that the Question was put at a point that prevented the mover of this Prayer having the right to reply?

It is perfectly true that the mover has the right of reply, but the hon. Member did not rise to exercise it.