I beg to move, in page 4, line 4, after "person," to insert
Perhaps we may link this up with the following Amendment, for both Amendments are directed to the same point. We repeat here similar words to those which we were discussing on the previous Amendment. This Amendment is put down because the London County Council wish it to go down in this form, and I have in my possession a letter from the London County Council asking for this form of Amendment. As will be realised, this Clause is designed to meet the objection which was raised earlier that local authorities have powers in certain cases, particularly in the case of the London County Council, to licence and register massage establishments. As we desire to save them from the provisions of this Bill, we must save also the practising personnel in those massage establishments. The Amendment is designed precisely to meet the wishes and desires of the London County Council and all those other local authorities who have by-laws licensing and registering these establishments in which this very small part of hairdressing, like the massage of scalp, face and arms, is carried on. In view of the discussion which has taken place, I hope the House will accept this Amendment."(other than a person engaged in or applying the process of practice of physiotherapy)."
I beg to second the Amendment.
Amendment agreed to.
Further Amendment made: In page 4, line 5, after "hairdressing," insert "in any such establishment."—[ Mr. Sparks.]
12.38 p.m.
I beg to move, "That the Bill he now read the Third time."
In doing so, I should like to place on record my thanks to all hon. Members of the House, on both sides, for the help, encouragement and co-operation which I have received in promoting this Bill. It has not been an easy task to undertake because I have been deprived of the benefit of Government assistance. I have, at least, done my best to bring the Bill through to Third Reading in a form which I hope is generally acceptable to all sides of the House. I should be the first to admit that it may not be absolutely perfect in every dot and comma, but if, as we have already said, we can adjust the main items of controversy in another place we certainly shall do so to meet the wishes of the House. I would, therefore, like to place on record my thanks to the hon. and learned Member for Gloucester (Mr. Turner-Samuels) for the help and assistance he has given to me, to Members of the Standing Committee, on both sides, and to the Public Bill Office for the guidance and help they have given me in drafting the many Clauses and Amendments. The House will remember that the Bill received a unanimous Second Reading. We had six sittings of the Standing Committee and, as I have said, we were unfortunate in having the opposition of the Home Office both to the Second Reading and twice in Standing Committee. Both the House on Second Reading and the Members of the Committee felt that the view of the Home Office was wrong. There may have been criticisms against the Bill in its original form—certainly it was too pretentious. We listened to the objections of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and we decided in Committee to effect a considerable redrafting and reconstruction of the Bill to eliminate as far as possible all the objections which the Home Office had put forward. The Bill as it now stands is a very plain and simple Measure. It will harm no one, but it will do much public good. It will help to clear up some of the dirty establishments, unclean habits and untrained customs which now exist, and it will bring a very much higher standard of public service into this calling. I am very glad that my right hon. Friend is present this morning, but I am sorry to feel that he will ask the House to reject the Bill. I should much prefer to see him on our side, because in this matter, if he will pardon my saying so, the views of the Home Office are very old-fashioned and out of date. The Home Office ought to march with the time, especially in this era of progress and advancement in public health and social services. I hope very much that my right hon. Friend will join with us in helping to bring about these much-needed improvements in our hairdressing establishments. Whilst I cannot at this stage give to the House anything like a full description of the present position in hairdressing, I should like to refer to one specific case, which is typical of many. I have received a letter from a lady who three years ago paid two and a half guineas for a permanent wave at a very high-class hairdressing establishment. At that time she had a very fine head of hair, but when, some little while afterwards, she washed her hair, it all came off in the wash basin, leaving her scalp a mass of white needles. Not only was she physically shaken, but she is disfigured to this day, the whole of her hair has been completely lost and she shuns social intercourse with other people as a result of her embarrassment. It was discovered subsequently that the person at whose hands she had had the permanent wave had no previous experience or understanding of what was required, and was untrained and incompetent. There are scores of these cases which I could relate. At present the public have no protection whatever against untrained, unclean and incompetent hairdressers except by resorting to court actions and claims for damages. Hon. Members may be interested to know of the extent of actions of this nature. In the three years 1946, 1947 and 1948 approximately 6,000 claims for damages were made and some £62,000 was awarded as damages. Let me explain plainly and simply what the Bill really means. In hairdressing establishments, particularly in towns and cities, there is an almost constant procession of patrons for treatment of all kinds; they are all kinds of men and women, clean as well as dirty, and people whose health may be good or bad. I wonder what any Member of this House would say if, on sitting in the hairdresser's chair to receive treatment, he knew that the instruments about to be used upon him were used previously on the head of an unclean person or someone suffering from eczema, impetigo or some other form of skin disease, and that the same instru- ments were about to be used upon his own head? He would feel very uncomfortable, to say the least. That kind of thing is happening today because there are persons practising who do not understand the elementary principles of hygiene. It may be said that one needs to be a doctor to be able to detect eczema or impetigo. That may be so, but that is no reason why these people should not be properly trained, as they can be and as many of them, in fact, are. Trained people are better able to detect the risk of infection in the ordinary course of treatment and can take steps to sterilise their instruments or do what is necessary to prevent infection passing from one head to another. It is extremely difficult to trace the cause of infection when it has been transferred in this way from one person to another. Diseases such as eczema and impetigo do not reveal themselves overnight. Very often infection is not discovered until a fortnight or three weeks afterwards. When, in consequence, its source is unknown, it is a very difficult matter to prove that it came from a hairdressing establishment. Nevertheless, that is what happens. The Bill ensures trained standards for hairdressing establishments so that those engaged in the profession shall be better able to recognise the risks of infection. The Bill penalises no-one already practising in the craft. One of the complaints, for which there was some justification, against the original Bill was that it would put many hairdressers out of business with the result that they would lose their livelihood. Whilst we realise the limitations which are involved, we are very anxious that no one now practising in a hairdressing establishment shall lose his livelihood or be penalised by the Bill. We say, therefore, that existing hairdressers shall have the right to be registered under the Bill when it becomes an Act. On stating the nature of the work upon which they have been engaged they will be registered as persons authorised to carry out the same form of hairdressing. If, however, they need additional qualifications, they will be required to make further applications and to satisfy the Council that they are competent to undertake such added duties; but no one at present engaged in the craft is penalised and everyone so engaged will be allowed to register. There is an escape from the Bill by persons who practise only spasmodically. We had to meet a very formidable objection from hairdressers in rural areas. Perhaps I should not call them hairdressers, because they are not really hairdressers. In very small villages of a hundred or a couple of hundred inhabitants there is obviously not sufficient scope for full-time hairdressing, and the grocer, the blacksmith, or somebody else usually does a bit of hairdressing on the side. We do not propose to impose upon such persons the necessity of registering under this Bill. Indeed, it would be ridiculous to do so. We therefore say that the Bill shall be confined to establishments in which hairdressing is regularly practised. That will cover the large towns and cities, where hairdressing is carried on as a proper business, while allowing the man in the rural area to carry on spasmodically as he has done before. It must, however, be made clear that if such a person wants to take up hairdressing as a profession and come into a larger establishment in a town or city, he must become qualified under the terms of the Bill, in the same way as anybody else. It is intended that after the passage of this Bill new entrants to the craft shall demonstrate to the Council a reasonable and sufficient standard to qualify them to carry on the process of hairdressing. How can that reasonable and sufficient standard be attained? It can be attained, and is attained very largely now, by those who desire to be competent, by way of apprenticeship. That method is taken advantage of mostly by young men and women of 16 and upwards. The new machinery recently set up for this trade by the Ministry of Labour allows a period of at least three years' apprenticeship, after which adult rates shall be paid. We do not say in the Bill that anyone wishing to become apprenticed must wait three years before he is competent for registration. He may be competent in 12 months, and we have provided for that in the Bill. In 12 months' apprenticeship to the craft competence can be obtained. Local education authorities throughout the country are extending considerably the provision of evening classes. Even in some of the remote rural schools here and there, there is growing up a system of evening tuition for those who wish to enter this trade. I do not, of course, say that in a rural area an evening class in hairdressing can be run to train one person. But the facilities now provided by local education authorities and in technical colleges will enable most of those who want to obtain knowledge of what hairdressing really means and what it involves to do so. The Ministry of Labour also have training establishments for hairdressing, advantage of which was originally taken by ex-Service men in rehabilitating themselves into private life. These establishments are now taking civilians as well as ex-Service men, and they will be available to members of the public who wish to become competent in the craft. They can get through that course in nine months; and if they take that line of entry into the craft the Bill provides for their acceptance. Let me now deal with the Council. The original Bill established a board composed wholly of representatives of the craft—employers and employees. The Secretary of State raised substantial objection to that, which upon consideration we saw was valid. It would be quite wrong to hand over to the trade the complete control of the administration of this Bill. We therefore went out of our way to meet that objection, and to make quite clear that this was not to be a closed shop operated by those in the trade. We said, in effect: "We will have a Council, upon which there shall be nine persons nominated by the Secretary of State. Those persons shall have no financial interest in hairdressing, and will be there to represent the consumer and the public interest. We will also take four from the trade—two employers and two employees." There cannot be any shadow of doubt that the Council set up under the Bill will be weighted in the public interest. I now understand from my right hon. Friend that the objection is that the Council is now composed of people who do not understand the trade. It seems to be a case of "Heads I win; tails you lose." Although we try to meet my right hon. Friend's objections we are always wrong. Despite that objection, I believe that the Council as constituted in the Bill is right. It is absolutely right that the public interest should predomin- ate, and we take that safeguarding stand so that this cannot be said to be an attempt to create a closed shop controlled by the trade itself. The Bill also allows a right of appeal to an appeal tribunal against the Council by an individual whose application for registration is refused for one reason or another. My right hon. Friend appoints the personnel of that appeal tribunal, so that it is up to him to ensure that all interests are safeguarded. Not only can a man appeal to the tribunal against refusal of the Council to register him, but if he is removed from the register by the Council—and he can only be removed by failing to pay his annual fee—he can ask the appeal tribunal to reconsider the matter. The financing of the Council is dependent upon the registration fee. The Bill says that a maximum registration fee of 10s. shall be paid, with an annual fee of 5s. thereafter. We give my right hon. Friend power to do just as he likes about that. If he thinks the fee is too much he can reduce it; if he thinks it is not enough he can increase it. We do not want this body to accumulate a lot of funds; it is not there for that purpose. It needs only sufficient income to carry out the duties laid upon it by the Bill. My right hon. Friend also has to approve the auditors who are to audit the accounts of the Council. There has been some complaint that we are giving my right hon. Friend far too much power over the functions of the Council. I do not think we are, because we want to make quite sure that this body is properly run, and we want to give the Secretary of State, whoever he may be, power to effect any adjustment that he considers necessary. I want the House to realise that many other countries have statutory regulations in force for controlling the hairdressing craft. I cannot obviously give every country, but I shall content myself by saying that in the United States 46 out of the 48 States have statutory regulations governing the craft, which cover the personal element as well as the establishments. There are nine European countries which have statutory regulations, and Victoria and Australia, which are parts of the great British Commonwealth, have seen the wisdom of having a system of registration such as that proposed in this Bill. I hope the House will agree that we in this country should be brought into line with all these progressive movements in other countries, where legislation has, beyond a shadow of doubt, considerably improved the standard of public service in the hairdressing craft. Not one of them as far as I can gather has any intention whatever of repealing existing legislation, because it works very well. This Bill will achieve a better standard of public service for the people of our country. It will improve the status of the craft itself, and it will bring greater competence to those who participate in hairdressing as well as a higher personal standard of cleanliness and hygiene to the establishments. It will help to root out some of the dirty, filthy holes, where there are untrained, unclean and dirty people practising the craft. Who wants that to continue? Those who oppose the Bill apparently do, because there is no other remedy except by this Bill. Local authorities have not power over the personal cleanliness of the individual who operates in the establishment, and that fact should be made clear. Out of 1,500 local authorities not 10 per cent. have by-laws or have taken power to control hairdressing establishments as establishments apart from personnel. The powers even of that 10 per cent., are really a dead letter. I have letters here from the hairdressing trade in places where the local authorities have by-laws, and where they have never received a visit from a representative of the local authority to inspect their premises for as long in some cases as 20 years. Therefore, except for a few isolated cases, the existing power of local authorities to see that there is a certain standard of hygiene and cleanliness in establishments is going by the board, because they are not operating and in a vast majority of cases there are no bylaws. The local authorities are not interested in the matter. Let me emphasise again, there is no power whatsoever over incompetent, unskilled, dirty and unclean individuals who might have to carry out the work. This Bill will clean up that position, and it will see that those people who go into the hairdressing trade have some knowledge of elementary hygiene and that the personnel in the establishments will conduct themselves in a clean and decent way. I know that the passing of the Bill will not ensure that the whole lot of them are automatically raised to the best standard. Even amongst professional people there are black as well as white sheep. Nevertheless, it does endeavour to create that higher standdards by knowledge and training rather than that present conditions should continue because of ignorance on the part of the individual who has never been trained. In moving the Third Reading of this Bill I am afraid that I have been rather long, but I feel there is much to be said for that which the Bill provides. I hope that the House will see fit today, after all the discussion, consideration and examination that we have given to this Bill, to give it a Third Reading. It is generally acceptable to both sides of the House. I hope my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary, after three attempts by his Department to prevent the Bill going any further, will realise that it has been generally supported, and will recognise that it is the wish and desire of the House that this Bill should have the opportunity of tidying up the trade and bringing a better standard of service to the public.1.8 p.m.
I beg to move, to leave out "now" and at the end of the Question to add "upon this day three months."
In moving this Motion I want to pay my sincere tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Acton (Mr. Sparks) and the other sponsors of this Bill for the work they have put into it and for the manner in which their case has been presented. When I first saw the provisions of this Bill, it appeared to me that in general they could not be objected to. It seemed to have certain positive merits and advantages. But I have come to the conclusion that, as the Bill has proceeded through the Committee stage, it has been whittled down until it has got extremely few effectual provisions in it, and those provisions which are left and which are effectual, are extremely undesirable. In its amended form this Bill is nothing more than a Bill for the registration of hairdressers. The Register is to be maintained by a Council, and it is of primary importance to consider, first, what are the defects, if there are any defects, in the constitution and membership of this council. Straight away one comes across very serious objections to the constitution of the Council. It may be that the disadvantages, to which I now propose to address myself, have arisen as a result of concessions made by the sponsors of this Bill to meet the criticisms and objections that were made to the Council as originally it was to be constituted. Be that as it may, we have to deal with the Bill as it is now as amended. The Council has to consist of 13 persons, an independent chairman, two employers, two employees and eight representatives of the public, who are not directly engaged in the hairdressing craft. In succeeding Councils, employers' representatives are to be appointed by the employers' associations and the workers' representatives are to be appointed by the trade unions. There is no suggestion or indication anywhere in the Bill who are the unions concerned.There is only one union.
There is no word in the Bill as to who are the employers' organisations concerned.
That is a pettifogging objection.
My hon. Friend describes that as a pettifogging objection, but it seems to me to be an important objection. What is admittedly a more serious objection—
Suppose there were cogency in the point which the hon. Member makes, that is a matter which can be put right. Does he nevertheless say that because of that small matter the Bill ought to be rejected?
I would not dream of establishing a case for the rejection of the Bill entirely on that single point. None the less, it is a point of criticism of the Bill, and it stands. There is a far more important consideration. The quorum of the Council, according to the provisions of the Bill, is to be five. That is a very significant figure, because it means that a quorum of the Council may sit without any of the lay members being present. The converse is also true, that there is a quorum when there are only lay members present at the Council meeting. That last objection may, in certain circumstances, be very important indeed. It is one of the activities of the Council to ensure that persons shall only be registered as practitioners who have achieved certain standards of cleanliness in their craft. It is not very satisfactory that that standard may have to be determined by a Council sitting with a quorum of lay members representing the public, not one of them having any knowledge of the craft. Is not that a very real and important objection? That is one of the consequences of the provisions as they stand.
That was really put into the Bill out of respect for the Home Office, who felt that if we had a preponderance of consumer interest we should eliminate all prejudice.
That may have been the reason why it was done, but I am not for one moment concerned with that. I am entitled to point out that the provision as it stands is open to grave objection. I would go the length of saying that the consequences of that provision might be quite farcial. In practice it might well be that entrance to this restricted craft would be confined to certain individuals, and that the determination how it should be confined would be in the power of a legally and properly constituted meeting of the Council, without a single hairdresser present or any representative of the craft.
It makes one reflect that it is a good thing that it is provided that the hairdressing of an actor or actress in connection with a theatrical or cinematograph performance, does not come within the scope of the Bill. This is the century of the common man. But the result is curious here. If the Bill is to go through, the consequence will be that after the Council is constituted, a hairdresser who does not reach a certain standard of capacity will not be permitted to get anywhere near the heads of John Smith or Jack Robinson, but such a person can get at the heads of film stars or leaders of the theatrical profession. We have been told of the danger which exists if this craft is carried out by per- sons of unhygienic habits. I attach great importance to that matter, which is manifestly very serious, but when one looks to see what kind of protection is proposed in this Bill one discovers how entirely unsatisfactory that protection is. It appears that all present practising hairdressers automatically become registered by the mere fact that they are practising now. I understand that this again was a concession by the sponsors of the Bill to certain representations that were made. None the less, how can the public be said to be protected effectively by this Measure, at any rate for many years to come, if all present practitioners, clean or dirty, automatically become registered members?This is very misleading. The provisions of the Bill certainly admit to registration all hairdressers who are at present practising, but it specially stipulates that they shall be registered in the form of hairdressing that they have formerly been doing.
It seems to be taken for granted that they have been behaving cleanly and in accordance with the rules of hygiene, and they go automatically upon the register. It is a practical and real objection that the Bill cannot give effective protection to the public in that way. One can go further on this point. One would have expected explicit power in the Bill for the Council to ensure immediately that registration should be withdrawn from any hairdresser failing to observe the correct standard of cleanliness in the execution of his craft. It is a curious feature of the Bill that no such express power exists.
It is implicit.
I am quite prepared to concede that it may be argued to be implicit that the Council has the power to cancel the registration of any hairdresser who does not observe the standard, but, whether it is or is not so, it is an objection to the Bill that it does not contain any express provision whatever to empower the Council to withdraw from registration such a practitioner or to bring his activities to an end. It is not as if the Bill does not mention certain positive powers which the Council has. There is express provision in Clause 7 for the Council to withdraw registration in the event of a member failing to pay the registration fee. That is the one positive misdeed of a registered person which the Bill mentions. The Bill expressly sets out to empower the Council to see that he ceases to be a member.
That is entirely wrong.
In that case, perhaps the hon. Member will explain in what respect it is wrong.
The provision in the Bill about fees is that a person can be removed from the register for non-payment of fees but we did not want to give the Council arbitrary powers. All sorts of circumstances might arise. A man might be ill or unemployed and he should not be removed from the register for that. The discretion would apply in the case of a person who could not practise through illness, unemployment or similar reasons. Therefore, it is not possible to evade the provisions of the Bill and remain a registered person and avoid the payment of fees.
I fail to see how I am wrong by reason of what my hon. Friend the Member for Acton says. Clause 7 says:
Clause 10 refers to the payment of fees. Surely it is a defect of the Bill that this is the only express and explicit provision about the circumstances which shall entitle the Council to cause persons to be removed from the register."The Council shall from time to time cause to be removed from the register any person not observing the provisions of section ten."
What else does my hon. Friend want to do?
I would have much greater regard for the Bill if it contained powers for the Council at any rate to set in motion proceedings whereby persons on the register who were failing to observe certain standards of professional cleanliness or competence could be removed from the register. I stress this point because the sponsors of the Bill have all the time been pointing out the dangers which might arise through persons adopting unclean habits or dangerous methods, such as the use of dangerous chemicals without proper knowledge. How can they base the case for the Bill on such acknow- ledged dangers if the Bill does not contain even the commencement of a system to protect the public from those dangers? I should take a totally different view of the Bill if it contained positive measures of that kind.
There are strong and substantial objections in principle to the Bill. The fact remains that the general effect of the Bill will be to make it more difficult in due course for a person to start a business as a hairdresser than it has been in the past. That is the purpose of the Bill.It has nothing to do with that.
It introduces an obstacle.
It has nothing to do with starting a business.
My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Gloucester (Mr. Turner-Samuels) keeps up a running commentary. The Bill already possesses sufficient difficulties without his adding complications.
Do be accurate.
My hon. and learned Friend achieved prodigies of confusion in dealing with an Amendment which was considered earlier today on the matter of physiotherapy. I wish he would now allow the matter to be considered in a clear and reasonable manner. It is an undoubted feature of the Bill that it is designed to make it more difficult for any person to start up as a hairdresser. He has to attain the standard which is regarded as essential and necessary by this Council, a Council which incidentally—this must be borne in mind—may act with a quorum of members without a single representative of the hair-dressing craft being present. It is a ridiculous proposition. It is within the powers of this Council to limit the number of persons entering the craft for other reasons than their relative incapacity or want of training in the craft. When a situation develops in which we want persons to have every opportunity of finding useful work, we might find considerable pressure to enter this craft by persons wanting to make a decent livelihood out of it. The Council will have power arbitrarily to refuse such applicants.
I object to the Bill on grounds of detail and grounds of principle. I recommend that the proper course is for the House to reject the Bill. Originally I acknowledged that it appeared to have many satisfactory features and that at first sight it seemed it might achieve a useful purpose. On examination, however, I am convinced that it suffers from very great and important defects.I beg to second the Amendment.
1.26 p.m.
With all due respect, I cannot congratulate the Government on their choice of a spokesman in the person of the hon. Member for Edge Hill (Mr. Irvine). For one thing, he had not a very full acquaintance with the Bill.
I do not know what the hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Ayr Burghs (Sir T. Moore) means in his reference to a spokesman. My hon. Friend the Member for Edge Hill (Mr. Irvine) is a private Member. He is not a nominee of the Government.
The hon. Member for Edge Hill gave every indication of being one. I am sorry if I have misjudged the Government or the right hon. Gentleman, but as the hon. Member for Edge Hill was not on the Standing Committee—
I understand that the suggestion of the hon. and gallant Member for Ayr Burghs (Sir T. Moore) is that I set out to give every impression of being a nominee of the Government in this matter. It seems to me at first sight to be a most unsatisfactory and undesirable suggestion to make, and I ask him to withdraw it.
Oh, no, I cannot withdraw my opinion. My opinion is that the hon. Member was, possibly properly, selected or requested by the Government to oppose this Bill, and I am entitled to hold that opinion. If I am wrong, no one is responsible but myself. In any case, the hon. Member for Edge Hill should have studied the Bill more carefully and more meticulously before he took on the job of objecting to it or of inviting the House to register an opinion against it.
The Bill has had a rather strange history. On Second Reading it received a very lukewarm reception from the Government, but nevertheless the House decided to send it to a Standing Committee to examine it and to report its decision about the Bill in due course. At the first meeting of the Committee a representative of the Home Office appeared but offered no assistance—it was indeed rather resistance—to the Bill, and he then washed his hands completely of the Measure from that date to now. The Committee decided that as it was a Standing Committee of the House of Commons and as the House had reposed a trust and an obligation in it, that it must fulfil its obligation to the House. It did so, and in due course it returned the Bill to the House, which is now considering the Third Reading. There is something wrong about this business. This was one of the first Private Member's Bills we have had for 10 years and I feel the Government must have forgotten how to handle Private Member's Bills. In the old days when a Bill was passed by the House of Commons, no matter how unpopular it was to the Government, they sent a representative to all our Committees so as to ensure that the Committee should be advised on how to make the Bill as useful or as innocuous as it could be. On this occasion the Government have taken the bit between their teeth and are almost opposing the will of the people as represented by this House. That is a queer constitutional position that we have reached, and it is one that the Home Secretary will at some period of the Debate have to justify, though I do not see how he will be able to do it. Candidly my hon. Friends and I do not like this Bill as it stands. We sought during the Committee stage to make it a good, useful and workable Bill, and also a democratic one. We failed and, speaking personally—and possibly my view will be shared by a number of my hon. colleagues—I shall not vote, for two reasons. One is because, although the Bill is a bad Bill, it is the best that we can produce. Secondly, I believe that a number of those in the hairdressing craft want the Bill, limited though it is and ineffective though it may be. Therefore, I cannot do anything that will outrage or hurt the well-meaning, decent practitioners of this craft throughout the country. The Bill is deficient in one vital respect. It is autocratic and dictatorial and it is not democratic in that it insists that registration must be compulsory. We sought to make registration voluntary. We sought to create two forms of hairdresser—one a registered hairdresser whose name was on the register, and the other an unregistered person. The voluntary hairdresser was not registered and, therefore, did not enjoy either the benefits of registration or, possibly, its defects. In any case the decision was open to the hairdressers themselves. According to the Bill, everyone has to be registered or else his livelihood is taken away from him. We did not insist on that in the Architects Registration Measure. If an architect wanted to come on to the register, he could, but after that he had to call himself a "registered architect." If he did not want to come on to the register, but to remain free, he could call himself an "architect," and it was up to the public to decide whether they wanted to go to a registered architect, knowing that he would have all the qualifications, training and knowledge that is expected of a good architect. If they wanted cheaper architecture or did not feel inclined to go to a registered architect, they could go to an architect and possibly pay less, possibly even get as good a job done, but it was the right of the public to decide and the right of the architect to join or not. The great trades unions of this country do not insist upon compulsory joining of their unions—at least, not on paper. Therefore, why should we not give that same freedom in this Bill to the hairdressers as we have given to the vast millions of our decent trade unionists, and also to every other professional body for which a registration Act has been passed? For that reason we cannot give the support to the Bill, certainly in the Lobby, that no doubt the promoters would like. We had hoped to see a competent instrument to protect the interests of the craft and of the public, but that is not now before this House. Although I wish the Bill well and hope that it will perform the job which its promoters hope it will, speaking for myself and many of my colleagues, we cannot lend our support to the Bill in the Lobby.1.35 p.m.
I regret that the hon. and gallant Member for Ayr Burghs (Sir T. Moore) will not support us on this Bill because he took an active part in the Committee stage and I had hoped that he would carry that out here and see that the Bill was eventually put on the Statute Book. I regret very much that the hon. Member for Edgehill (Mr. Irvine) should have moved the rejection of this Bill. As he dealt with the constitution and was anxious to know what unions there are, I will tell him that there is only one union, of which I am a member. I had the pleasure and privilege 44 years ago of organising the hairdressers, and ever since then I have taken an interest in them.
The hon. and gallant Member for Ayr Burghs was anxious that everyone should be free to start business if he so desired. Has he no idea of what happened after the First World War? Men were cajoled into entering businesses of which they had no experience. They took over a tobacconists' shop, and used the back as a hairdresser's, with one soap bowl and one brush, and the result was often a foul shave. We want to prevent that sort of thing happening, and so we say that people should be properly trained. This Bill seeks, to a limited extent, to carry out what the best elements in the hairdressing trade have long sought to bring about. Tonsorial artists, whether they be employers or employees, take a pride in their profession and they have seen with some dismay the ill effects of untrained men undertaking jobs for which they are unfitted. Hairdressing is a skilled profession and should be practised by skilled persons. This Bill provides for proper training. It is significant—and the mover mentioned it—that almost every civilised country in the world has stringent laws with respect to the registration of hairdressers. In 46 States in America, and recently in France, the sale to the public of home kits is prohibited. It has been said by many that if this Bill becomes law other occupations like butchers and grocers may demand a similar law. But there is no analogy with that of hairdressing. Customers are protected by law against a trader selling dirty meat or using untrue weights and measures. Public prosecution follows if that happens, but there is no public safeguard against the foul shave or, in the case of ladies, a burned scalp or loss of hair. We have seen a few cases recently in the Press of actions taken because of loss of hair in certain hairdressing establishments. But those are civil actions by the individual. There is no public safeguard in this respect. What happens is that the hairdressing profession pays a high rate of insurance to cover against that, and in order to safeguard their business the companies tell the individual, when a case arises, "Well you had better pay; otherwise it is likely to ruin your business." My contention is that the public ought to be safeguarded against that, just as they are safeguarded against the sale of tainted meat or wrong measure. It is said that hygienic conditions in hairdressing rooms are a matter for local authorities, but all local authorities do not carry out their responsibilities properly in that respect. Usually an inspector has a variety of duties. He is the Shops Act inspector, inspector of weights and measures and inspector in connection with sanitation and so forth. A lot of jobs are put on one man and the result is that he cannot do them all properly. When I first organised the hairdressers 44 years ago I was surprised to find that in one branch there were no fewer than seven nationalities. Knowing the restrictions in other countries, I became suspicious, and I found that while they could not find work in their own countries, they had plenty of licence here. Employers and workers are united in support of registration as they were for registration in connection with the Sunday Trading Act, and today they are united over wage rates. If the Government want to do anything affecting this Bill they should allow it to be sent to another place.1.41 p.m.
Towards the end of his speech, the hon. Member for Edge Hill (Mr. Irvine) said that he objected to the Bill in principle. As I listened to him, I gained the impression that he was objecting to it in detail. I am sorry that he saw fit to object to the Bill in principle. He assured us in one passage of his speech that he fully appreciated the dangers to which the public are put by unskilled hairdressers and the kind of barber whose instruments do not come up to the necessary standard of hygiene. Nonetheless, he says that the Bill is conceived on wrong principles and does not think that the Council which is proposed will safeguard the public in any way from the evils which beset it. Surely the hon. Member would agree that we have to make a start. Although I cannot think that the kind of hairdresser stigmatised by him will still be able to ply his trade, we have to make a start and it is reasonable to assume that that kind of person will become continually a diminishing factor—
Assuming we start in the right direction. I think we are making a start in the wrong direction.
The hon. Member and I must be allowed to differ. It gives me pleasure on this occasion to support the hon. Member for Acton (Mr. Sparks) in his Motion for the Third Reading of the Bill. Like the hon. Member for Edge Hill and my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Ayr Burghs (Sir T. Moore), I do not consider it a perfect Measure—far from it. But I am so impressed by the evils which it seeks to remedy that I am prepared to vote for the Measure because I think it is going in the right direction and not in the wrong direction, as the hon. Member for Edge Hill seems to think.
The hon. Member for Acton chided the Home Secretary for opposing the Bill and said that he thought the views of the right hon. Gentleman and the Home Office also were somewhat old fashioned. He did not use the words, but they were implicit in the speech, that the Home Secretary was merely sitting back and allowing things to continue because, from a pedantic point of view, he did not think the Bill a suitable Measure designed to protect the public in this regard and must, therefore, oppose it. On Second Reading the Government did not see fit to oppose the Measure. I was not present on that Friday afternoon; I am rarely able to be here on Friday afternoons as I have to be in Scotland. The Government were so short of supply as regards Members, that they were not able to risk opposing the Bill and it went through to the Standing Committee by the unanimous will of the House. No one can deny that the Bill did not undergo very severe mangling and, as a result, it has emerged not the Measure many of us would like to see. I fully agree with my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Ayr Burghs that as it leaves us, the Bill is somewhat arbitrary, but nonetheless, I think it will go a considerable way to safeguard the public. The hon. Member for Acton said that we must have progress. The hon. Member and I would not always agree on what progress is. He probably thinks all change is progress and I would certainly not agree with that. But, in regard to the hairdressing profession or craft, a good deal of change is necessary in order that they and the public may make progress. The Home Secretary should be deeply impressed by the case which the hon. Member for Acton made about a lady who had a permanent wave and in two or three days found her head completely denuded of hair, so that it was impossible for her to take part in any social functions. That is one case, and it can be multiplied many fold not only in regard to women but also in regard to men. Stamping out that kind of thing is the primary objective of this Bill. I am glad that nothing will be done as a result of this Bill to prevent persons in remote rural areas carrying on hairdressing which they have done with cleanliness and considerable satisfaction to their clients for years. It would have been disastrous if they were prevented from carrying on their lawful enterprise beneficially to themselves, no doubt, by augmenting their incomes and beneficially to the people living there. I do not know how the hon. Member for Edge Hill, assuring us that he is fully aware of the dangers to which the public are subject, can take it upon his conscience to make the kind of speech he made. It is a matter for him to decide. I see him shaking his head, but I do not know what that indicates.I would ask the hon. Member to indicate what he regards as the protection afforded to the public by this Bill from the kind of danger he described, having regard to the fact that there is no power conferred on the council to have withdrawn from the register persons who adopt dangerous methods.
In referring to that matter I said that this Bill does nothing but, as the hon. Member said, it was implicit—and he used the word—that as time went on protection would come and that kind of hairdresser would be eliminated. I have no doubt that when he reads his speech in HANSARD he will see that that is what he said, or something very near to it.
There is one other important matter, namely, that a large majority of the members of the hairdressing profession want this Bill. It is an ancient profession, which in this country has been a long time in receiving any recognition, and if the Home Secretary can prevent it today nothing is to be done in that respect. It is an honourable calling. The medical profession and the dental profession have for many years been protected. Why should we not make a start in the protection of this one? In the Middle Ages and afterwards the hairdresser often pulled people's teeth. I am not saying that it was done in a skilful manner but I mention that to show what an old profession it is and the many activities which have in the past been connected with it. If we examine the position in the British Empire we find that in South Australia, Victoria or New South Wales recognition has for a long time been given. If that is the position in a Dominion it is about time we did something about the matter in this country. In the United States recognition has for a long time being given in 46 out of the 48 States. I do not regard the Bill as perfect, far from it. I was, however, a Member of the Standing Committee which considered it, and I was at every meeting except when I was prevented from attending by the pressure put upon me by the Government through having to be a Member of more than one Standing Committee. I had an opportunity of listening to the cogent arguments put forward in trying to improve the Bill. As a result of that experience, the futher we went the more impressed I was so that although the Bill is not all that I should have liked, I consider that we should, irrespective of party, give it a Third Reading. Accordlingy, if there is a Division, I shall take part in it and support the Bill.1.53 p.m.
I wish at the outset to join in congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Acton (Mr. Sparks) on having brought his Bill safely so far in its passage through this House. I wish to pay that tribute because I shall probably say things about his Bill in a moment or two which he will find extremely distasteful. I am extremely critical of this Measure. I do, however, recognise the great amount of time and hard work which he and my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Gloucester (Mr. Turner-Samuels) have put into this Bill. Even though I think it is an extremely badly-drafted Bill—is is a very feeble instrument for the purposes for which it is designed—I wish to pay that tribute to them.
It will be within the recognition of this House that when this Measure was before us and received a unanimous Second Reading, there was one general reason given by everyone who took part in the Debate as to why that support should be given. The overwhelming reason given for supporting the Bill as it then stood, was that it was completely and wholly necessary in the public interest and for the protection of the public. It is essential that we should look at this Bill today as it now emerges on Third Reading, and ask ourselves whether it now gives any effective measure of protection to the public against the malpractices with which this craft and trade is now ridden. That is the test which must be applied, and which I wish to apply, to the Bill. My hon. Friend the Member for Edge Hill (Mr. Irvine) was perfectly correct in drawing attention first to the provisions of Clause 4, by which, in paragraph (a) every single person in this country today who can claim to have been engaged in the practice of any branch of hairdressing must, on application to the Council that it is proposed should be set up, be admitted to the register. There is no power whatever in any part of the Bill, so far as I can see, which would allow the Council to investigate in any thorough way the claims and pretensions of people who claim to be exercising the craft, or some part of the craft, of hairdressing today. They are entitled, on application, to be admitted to the register and to continue to practise in the particular branch of the craft in which they are now engaged. The Bill goes further. So far as I can see neither in Clause 4 nor in any other part of the Bill is there anything to prevent John Smith, who up to now may have been shaving chins for a livelihood, and very occasionally cutting the hair of small girls, from saying to the Council once it is established, "I desire to be registered as a men's hairdresser and a women's hairdresser since I have been practising both." As I interpret the Bill, the Council will be compelled so to register him, and he will then be permitted to be turned loose on the public. That means all the people responsible for the more than 6,000 cases a year which my hon. Friend the Member for Acton told the House were now being settled by insurance companies on hairdressers' claims. Also, all the other cases which do not reach the insurance companies, which are hurriedly settled and hushed up by hairdressers who do not want even that limited publicity. All those people responsible for malpractices which all of us know about, and about which the House has been told, and about which we sometimes see rather grim evidence in our newspapers—there was a case reported a few weeks ago of a woman who was electrocuted in a hairdresser's shop because of the use of faulty apparatus—all the people responsible for all those cases which have so worried the House, will be left free to continue their malpractices without a single provision in this Bill being applied to them to prevent them from continuing. Worse than that, surely, is that in future they will do these things under the shield and protection of a registration certificate issued by the central Council, as it must be issued to these people. I said in Committee that this was quite indefensible, but the arguments which I adduced were not accepted by my colleagues. We are here faced with the result of that. We have first to make it perfectly plain to the public in this country that this Bill does not give them the measure of protection and security from malpractice which they are entitled to and which they have been led to expect. It is true that in future the Bill may do good in regard to new entrants, but on that point I would say that anyone who is familiar with this trade must surely realise that the provisions included in Clause 4 (b) are not likely to be very effective. It is laid down that new entrants shall satisfy the Council that they have "attained a reasonable and sufficient standard" in their craft, but a little further down it provides that a minimum period of 12 months' training will be required to acquire the necessary standard for registration. I know that in the old days in this craft, or at least in one section of it, there was a seven years' apprenticeship, and, at the end of that time, the man or woman who had gone through it, was an improver for an additional number of years before becoming really efficient and practising in some sections of this extremely complex craft. If hon. Members will look at the definition given in Clause 17, they will see that this is no matter of mere manual dexterity that may be acquired to a sufficient extent in six, nine or 12 months, but that, in many branches of this trade, the people who are engaged in it, if they are to work under proper safeguards for the public, ought to have an extensive knowledge of chemistry before they know what they are doing. They ought also to have a fairly extensive knowledge of the electrical apparatus which they so freely employ, in order to avoid some of the tragic mishaps that occur. Indeed, if we look at the figures, we will see that the suggestion that a minimum period of 12 months is in any way an adequate and sufficient training is purely ludicrous. I agree that the provision regarding future entrants may over a number of years make an improvement in the quality of practitioners in the trade, and that is in my view the one matter of solid advantage that is contained in the Bill. Let me now pass on to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Edgehill, who pointed out, amidst the objections of certain hon. Members who do not seem to understand their own Bill, that the only sanction which the Council can employ in order to regulate the conduct of people who are allowed to appear on the register is the sanction with regard to fees. Once a person, man or woman, is registered, that is, anybody who claims to be practising now, he or she can do anything they like; they can even commit murder, and their names cannot be removed from the register of the Council: but, if they commit the heinous offence of forgetting to pay their 5s. annual subscription, their names may be removed from the register. About 200 years ago in this country, there was a very famous, even notorious, hairdresser in practice; one by the name of Sweeney Todd, who afterwards became known as "The Demon Barber of Fleet Street." Sweeney Todd would have satisfied all the requirements for admission to the hairdressers' register. He was in practice as a practising hairdresser, he conducted an establishment mainly for the business of hairdressing. Sweeney Todd would have been admitted to the register, and, once admitted, Sweeney Todd could then have gone on for the rest of his life, not only shaving throats but cutting them, and the hairdressers' Council could do nothing about it, provided that Sweeney Todd always remembered to pay his 5s. annual subscription. Well, that illustration is purely derisory, but, in fact, it not only applies to this matter of expulsion from the register, but to other Clauses of the Bill in which any attempt is made to give sanctions which this National Council can operate. Let us look at Clause 11. Here we have a Clause dealing with the offences and penalties, and, in the middle of that Clause, there is this phrase:and so on. What that means is that the forms of registration will be at least a minimum of six, and I doubt if six different forms for different kinds of hairdressing will cover all those employed in the definition Clause, but, for the practical operation of the Bill, there will be at least six. We are laying it down in this Clause that any person engaging or purporting to engage in any class other than the class for which he is registered will be subject to certain pains and penalties, but there is nowhere in the Clause or in the Bill any right of inspection or entry by any public authority or representative of the Council. What goes on behind the closed doors of that place in regard to any person engaged in this business can only be known if somebody within discloses it. This is making a mockery of the purpose of the Bill. The pains and penalties Clause seems to me to be really inoperable, and, for a similar reason, Clause 15 is also inoperable and unenforceable. This applies to establishments where hairdressing is carried on, and it lays down a requirement which seems to me to be incredible in an Act of Parliament. It lays down, not only, of course, that all the employees in the place shall be registered in accordance with the provisions of the Bill, but that the proprietor of the establishment must exhibit a notice stating that fact. This seems to me to be a matter on which the proprietor can fulfil the provisions of the Bill merely by writing out a card in pencil stating that his shop is under the provisions of the Act. All this Bill says is that that notice shall be displayed in some conspicuous part of the establishment. There may be, and will be in practice, some dangerous establishments, and by dangerous I mean establishments where all the fancier side of the industry is carried on. Those are the really dangerous ones. It is not the fellow in the back street who may very occasionally be accused of giving somebody a foul shave, and, nine times out of 10, wrongly accused. He is not the gravest danger. It is the fellow in the main street, with the beautifully designed establishment, fitted up by the most expensive shop-fitters, with yards of glass cases and all the latest appliances which give his shop an extremely impressive appearance. It is there we have the greatest danger, because that is where people will employ dangerous apparatus which they do not understand and highly poisonous drugs which, in the hands of the inexpert, often have the effects of a lethal weapon. It is in the plate-glass establishments that the dangers really arise. What happens under Clause 15? The proprietor is required to engage only people who are registered for one or other of the specified forms of hairdressing which are laid down by the Council, and he thereupon exhibits a card to that effect. He will probably have it nicely printed and engraved and will stick it up, so that anybody passing by will say, "Ah, here is a shop properly registered under the Act and under the control of the Council, and therefore it is a perfectly safe shop to enter." But will it be? There may be a dozen people engaged, possessing all kinds of registrations for different forms of hairdressing, some elementary, some advanced. Who is to say that the less advanced people in the shop are not in fact allowed to carry out the prohibited forms? The Council has no right of inspection, no power to appoint anybody to investigate. It has no right to enter to find out what is really happening in that particular place. So, again, we get a Clause which has every appearance of doing something but does very little. It was said by my hon. Friend the Member for Acton, in moving the Third Reading, that the original Bill was pretentious. It is true that it was, and it was accepted as such by every hon. Member. But it was also strong, whereas this Bill is both pretentious and feeble, which seems to me to be a far worse combination. Therefore, although there is that very tiny nugget of good in paragraph (b) of Clause 4, it must be made perfectly clear to the public of this country that if this Bill is given a Third Reading today, there is nothing in it that will in any sense add to their protection for an indefinite period of time to come. Having said all that, I want to tell the House that I am going to vote for the Bill."any person engages or purports to engage in or to practise any class of hairdressing other than that specified in the said registration."
I have been under this difficulty about Clause 4 because if, as it seems, it accepts every person engaged in hairdressing before the passing of this Bill, why does that not include everybody who has brushed his own hair or shaved himself?
That is the kind of conundrum that my hon. and learned Friend can thresh out with the hon. and learned Member for Gloucester (Mr. Turner-Samuels) after the Bill has received its Third Reading.
I propose to vote for the Bill despite the very destructive criticism which I felt it necessary, as a public duty, to make. I propose to do so because there is a tiny element of good in paragraph (b) of Clause 4 which in an indefinite period of time may be expected to make, perhaps, an appreciable improvement in the general conditions and practice of the trade. My second reason for supporting the Bill is that I believe that if it were passed it would very speedily be necessary to amend it. I think its drafting is incredibly bad, and I have no doubt that it could be suitably amended in another place which would give an opportunity for removing the worst of the objections I have been making today. But my third and most important reason is that I have a very old associa- tion with this craft, and I feel that if I did not support the Bill, in view of all the criticism which I have felt compelled to make about it, and give the men engaged in the profession my own personal support and help, I would be letting down a body of people who deserve a little better than that of me. I know how for many years now they have struggled and fought for this recognition, for this right to do something to clear up the mess in their own industry. While, as I say, I had the public duty to speak of the weaknesses of the Bill, I feel, at the same time, that I must, notwithstanding what I have said and in view of the small amount of good in the Bill, give it my support on Third Reading.2.14 p.m.
I will only detain the House for a few minutes to explain why, although I have taken no previous part in the discussion of this Measure, I am unable to support it on Third Reading. I should not have intervened at all had it not been for some inaccurate remarks of my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Ayr Burghs (Sir T. Moore). I was in favour of this Bill receiving a Second Reading, though I was not present. I appreciate the trouble that many hon. Members have taken on the Committee stage, and I also appreciate the genuine aim of many hon. Members to improve the conduct and the status of an honourable profession.
The reason why I am unable to support this Bill on Third Reading is that it has been considered necessary to put in the criminal sanction in Clause 11, and here I want to deal for a moment with the inaccurate remarks made by my hon. and gallant Friend concerning the Architects Registration Act and this Measure, though he had a genuine difference between the two in mind. There was nothing in the Architects Registration Act which made it a criminal offence to carry on the profession of architect; there was only a limitation on the achitects' description of themselves. If this Bill had set up new standards for the profession and had said that unless they satisfied those standards they must not describe themselves in a particular way, I should have had great sympathy with it. But because the Bill goes on to say that it is a criminal offence to carry on the business unless the hairdresser is registered, and all the rest of it, I find it impossible to support it. I know, of course, how anxious the House is to get on to other business, but I believe it is very desirable that every hon. Member should study what are, and have been held by the deepest thinkers on the subject to be, the conditions which ought to be satisfied before we make anything whatever a criminal offence. Those conditions are set out in the second chapter of what is still a very well-known work, "The Outlines of Criminal Law" by Kenny. There are six requirements. I will only bother the House with one of them, but I suggest that that requirement was not satisfied before the criminal sanctions were inserted in this Bill. Having set out four previous requirements, Kenny proceeds as follows with the fifth:It is quite fantastic to suggest that the "current feelings of the community" suggest that it ought to be a criminal offence for a man to cut hair unless he is registered in this manner. For these reasons, I find myself unable to support this Bill, though that does not mean that I have not great sympathy and admiration for those who seek to improve the status of this profession. I think that they should do it in the way it is done in the Architects Registration Act, or in other ways, without making it a criminal offence to carry on the business."And even if an offence is found to satisfy all these intrinsic conditions of illegality, the lawgiver should not prohibit it, until he has ascertained to what extent it is reprobated by the current feelings of the community."
2.18 p.m.
It must be pretty obvious to every hon. Member that I personally have very little interest to declare in the subject of hairdressing. I can approach this problem purely from the point of view of the public interest. When I find myself in opposition to my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary, I always think twice, because I have the greatest respect for his judgment. In fact, since I came to this House, I can only remember two subjects on which I differed from him. One was the future status and powers of certain large non-county boroughs, and the other is this Bill.
As I see it, this Bill has been from the beginning a very well-meaning attempt to raise the standards in this trade, not only from the point of view of the public with regard to questions of hygiene, but also from the point of view of the status of the people engaged in the trade. As I understand it, my right hon. Friend's objection is based mainly on the grounds that, at any rate as regards public health questions, local authorities already have the necessary powers to enforce standards of hygiene; that as regards the status of the trade, were this particular trade to be given statutory recognition in this particular way, everyone else would want it, too and there would be a whole series of trades clamouring for such recognition. I am not sure that my right hon. Friend is right from either point of view. I am not sure that it would necessarily be bad if other trades did try to organise themselves with a view to raising their standards both from their own point of view and that of the public. But as regards the powers of local authorities, even if they have statutory powers, it is perfectly obvious from things which we read in the papers from time to time that many local authorities are simply not using those powers. That being the position, I very much deplore what appears to have been a completely negative attitude on the part of the Home Office. One knows that this Bill, when first introduced, was very pretentious, but surely it was perfectly open to my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary to try to cut out that pretentiousness and to make the Bill into a reasonable and workmanlike Measure, particularly as all those with any direct concern in the trade are anxious for some Measure of this kind. I would like to stress that they cannot be accused of having a personal or selfish interest, in view of Clause 2. That Clause describes the powers of a Council proposed to be set up under this Bill, and it makes it clear that the Council shall have no powers as regards prices, wages, conditions of employment and so on. In other words, it is not concerned with the financial position of those engaged in the trade, either as employers in regard to prices, or employees as affecting wages. In other words, it is fair to say that those responsible for this Bill have made a genuine attempt to do something in the public interest. I have listened to practically every word in this Debate, and it struck me as rather curious that all the critics should now be denouncing the Bill as ineffective. If it is now ineffective—and I think it is much less effective than it might have been—that is not the fault of the promoters. That is the result of the efforts of Members of this House upstairs in Committee who not only cut out the pretentious parts of the original Bill but considerably reduced its provisions; in fact, I think they reduced them far too much. It is claimed that the Bill is ineffective because everyone now engaged in the trade can have the automatic right to register, and therefore there is no protection to the public. But that in itself is simply an indication of the very modest aims of the promoters in not wishing to prejudice those engaged in the trade up to this point. If it is said that the powers of the Bill are ineffective except as regards the collection of fees, I need only remind the House that as originally conceived, the Bill contained a provision for a board, and that board would have had power to make regulationsIn other words, this Bill which is now criticised for its ineffectiveness was really effective when it first came to this House, and the diminution of its powers has been brought about entirely by hon. Members here. A further criticism of the Bill was that it is designed to prevent anyone from coming into the trade in future except on certain conditions as laid down in Clause 4 (b). It is objected that that is a limitation of freedom of entry into the trade. The question of penalties was raised by the hon. Member for the Combined English Universities (Mr. H. Strauss). I do not shy at that at all. I think that where questions of public health and hygiene are involved, it is perfectly in order and, in fact, is the practice to restrict entry into a trade and to impose penalties for infringement of regulations. Look at any of the food trades. There is no freedom simply to become a purveyor of meat and to observe no standards. There are very strict regulations controlling not only entry into but the carrying on of all sorts of occupations particularly in connection with food. Where we have, in that aspect of public health, controls and penalties, I see no objection whatever to having controls and penalties, if necessary, to safeguard public hygiene and public health in matters of this kind. I said that the Bill has been cut down rather too much compared with its original form, but, as my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich (Mr. J. Paton) said, it still contains that element of good which appears in Clause 4 (b), in that with regard to future entrants to this trade it will be possible to lay down standards. For that reason, and as there is still in the Bill, despite the mutilation which the Bill has had, an element which serves the public good. I propose to support its Third Reading."for prescribing the standard of hygiene and sanitation to be preserved in hairdressing establishments and schools, colleges and centres of training aproved by the board."
2.27 p.m.
The House has had an interesting and informed Debate on the Third Reading of this Bill, and will shortly have to give its views on the Measure. The views about this Measure which I hold were most clearly and vehemently expressed by my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich (Mr. J. Paton). By what process of mental gymnastics he is going to justify the complete somersault he turned in the last two or three sentences of his speech I must leave him to decide and justify with his own conscience, for I am bound to say that I have never heard so tremendous a bombardment of heavy artillery delivered against any private Member's Bill as he delivered against this Bill until the last minute of his speech.
I also object to the Bill for the reason which was given by the hon. and learned Member for the Combined English Universities (Mr. H. Strauss). If I were asked which profession in this country is really most powerful, I should say it was the doctors, but the doctors have not got the protection which this Bill gives to hairdressers. Anybody can practise medicine as long as he does not hold himself out as a registered medical practitioner. Once he does that, of course, he becomes subject to very severe penalties. There are all kinds of faith healers and others who undertake to cure all the bodily ills, and who are not registered medical practitioners, yet who seem to make a fair livelihood out of it; indeed, I believe on occasions they are even more successful than the registered medical practitioners. At any rate, they produce written testimonials from persons who claim to have benefited from their ministrations. This Bill will give to the hairdressers a more complete protection than is enjoyed by the doctors. As one who has no great appreciation of the professional skill of doctors, having studied science with them in my undergraduate days, I am bound to say that I think that is a great condemnation of this Bill. All the practices which the hon. Member for Acton (Mr. Sparks) quite rightly denounced in his speech, in moving the Third Reading of the Bill, are not affected at all by the provisions of this Measure. They still go on and nothing in this Bill protects a single person from them. All this Bill does is to say that only persons who are registered shall be allowed to practise as hairdressers. It is the practice and not the claim to be a skilled hairdresser that will bring people within the jeopardy which is created by this Bill. As far as I know, that is a protection which we have given in none of the registration Bills that have been passed within the last generation or so by this House. The Bill is giving to a calling which has no representative body inside the trade itself to set standards, a protection which no other trade in this country enjoys. That cannot be right. If there had been, in the last 10 or 20 years, the creation of a trade organisation representative of the best practitioners in the trade, who gave a standard of professional and scientific conduct to the trade, there might be something to be said for it. There was such a body as the Institute of British Architects which had long been recognised as a body which set a very high standard for the profession, and registration with that body and one or two other architectural bodies clearly would give a man standing, for they had established through their organisation and methods in the years that had preceded the architects' registration Measure a claim to be recognised as effectively setting a standard for the calling. I am told that there is no organisation among hairdressers which represents more than 40 per cent. of the people engaged in the trade. There is no organisation which even represents a bare majority. It is, therefore, quite impossible to accept the view that there is any recognised standard set by this calling itself which entitles it to the kind of recognition as a calling that this Bill would give to it. There is nothing in this Bill which secures hygienic conditions. That has been made quite clear by the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich. All that this Bill does is to say that unless a person is registered and has paid the 10s. registration fee and the annual fee of 5s. for the continuance of the registration, he shall not be allowed to practise this particular craft. I think that if that were all that could be said against this Bill it would be quite enough, but the Bill is quite a futile Measure when one comes to examine its wording. I shall give one example. Clause 16 applies the Bill to Scotland. The only thing it does is to say that the Secretary of State means the Secretary of State for Scotland. But the Secretary of State for the Home Department apparently has to appoint a Council; there is no provision for two councils, one for England and one for Scotland. There will be one Council and there is no power to appoint a second. As far as I can see, this Bill will give me such powers inside Scotland as would, I should have thought, have evoked the most vehement opposition of every Scottish Member and of every Scotsman representing an English constituency. The Bill also says that after two years the trade associations and the trade unions concerned are to nominate the four professional members of the Council. It does not say what the associations are. My hon. Friend the Member for Sedgefield (Mr. Leslie) said only one trade union was concerned, and let us hope that is so because it might save us from several complications that might otherwise occur, but there is certainly no indication as to what the trade associations are, as to where they are to be looked for or how they are to be selected. There is no control—and this is a very important failing of the Bill—over a person once he has got his place on the register. Once he has been placed on the register he is immune from all control either by the Council, or by anyone else for that matter. My hon. Friend the Member for Norwich suggested, I gather, that Sweeney Todd might almost have become one of the representative members of the trade and of the Council had he been alive at the time this Measure was introduced. Without carrying it to that length, I suggest that it is quite clear that, once a person is registered, no matter what malpractices he may engage in, whether they be malpractices that bring him within the criminal law or merely a refusal to conform to good professional standards, he can claim still to continue on the register and no one can remove him. The Council, on which some store is set by the promoters, is, according to the Schedule, a body whose powers are nowhere clearly set out. They will apparently have the power of deciding which are the different forms of hairdressing that any particular applicant shall be allowed to practise. There is no clear indication as to how their powers in that respect are limited. Apparently they will have some connection—but it is not defined—with the apprenticeship Clauses. It is clearly desirable that if this calling is to get any kind of recognition such as this Bill implies, then the period of apprenticeship and the standard to be attained by the apprentice should be clearly defined. I should have thought that it would have been far better in this matter to have attempted, through the calling itself and through some such body as the City and Guilds of London Institute, to establish a standard of competence, proved by examination at the end of the apprenticeship, which would entitle the person to recognition. I think that is a more hopeful line of approach than that of the Bill. I do not want it to be thought that the Government are unmindful of the dangers which have been so eloquently described both on Second Reading and today by the supporters of this Measure. But we suggest that as far as hygienic conditions are concerned, the most appropriate way would be to place in the next Public Health (Amendment) Act a duty on local authorities to ensure that these places shall be appropriately inspected for cleanliness and safety. That would be far more appropriate than relying on the powers which, I am bound to say, I do not see in this Measure to secure those ends.Is my right hon. Friend suggesting that local authorities should be entrusted with the control over personnel or merely over the establishments?
I was dealing with the standard of cleanliness and hygienic conditions in the establishments and the safety of the apparatus. Two points which have to be considered in a Measure of this kind are the hygienic condition of the establishment and the safety of the apparatus, and the personal qualifications of the people who work in the establishment and more or less control the apparatus.
I suggested with regard to the second of these two points that there should be some recognised examination, which should be recognised by the trade from now onwards as being an appropriate one, and that we should set a standard which will be recognised, just as architects and other people have set standards, and that the trade could then come to the House and and say, "Now recognise us, because the members of our craft are willing to submit themselves to this standard if they are to be regarded as registered members of our profession." With regard to the condition of the establishment, that is a matter that can be far more effectively dealt with by the public health authorities than by any council of the kind which is proposed by the Bill. I suggest to the House that this matter has had adequate ventilation through the discussion we have had, both on Second Reading, in Committee and on Third Reading. Some hon. Members have objected to the course pursued by the Government in the passage of this Measure through the House on the ground that the Government has not asserted itself sufficiently. That is a very unusual complaint to make against any Government. My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary intimated to the House on Second Reading that this was not a Measure that we thought was capable of being made into a good Measure. We gave our minds to its consideration. My hon. Friend the Member for Acton and his hon. and learned legal adviser the Member for Gloucester (Mr. Turner-Samuels) have been to my Department more than once and have discussed this matter with us. I do not think that at any stage they received from the officers of my Department or from myself any indications other than those I have given this afternoon. For the reasons I have given, I cannot advise the House to accept this Measure. It would lull the public into a quite false sense of security if it were passed, and that, I should have thought, was a very great condemnation of any Measure. Any Measure that I could commend to the House on behalf of this calling would have to be far less drastic in the powers it claimed for the prevention of people practising than this Measure. I could not assent to a doctrine that might lead to the prosecution of some person who was well qualified and carried on some one branch of this calling, merely because he had not registered with the Council. There is a body of people who are, apparently, not considered by this Measure at all. I have received a very strong document from the Stroud and District Hairdressers' Trade Association, in which they say:It must be common knowledge to all of us that throughout the country there are numerous people who are engaged in one-man hairdressing businesses who give quite efficient service—people who, as my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich said, work in shops in back streets, where they give quite good service—who are self-employed people, and yet, apparently, have been excluded from the considerations of the people who promoted the Bill. That gives it the appearance of being a Measure for the quite illegitimate protection of the people who are engaged in bigger businesses of this trade. I hope the House will be sympathetic to the suggestion that hygiene in these establishments needs consideration and that the standard of qualification needs to be considered, and will feel that this Measure does not provide for either of those things in a way that is workable. I hope that the House will reject the Measure but will expect that something shall be done through the Public Health Act to deal with hygiene and, through the trade itself, to set such a standard of admission as will entitle it in the not distant future to come back to us and to say that in the light of the experience they have had and the standards they have achieved, they are entitled to some registration measure not carrying the severe penalties and exclusions that this one does. I therefore, very reluctantly, after the time that my hon. Friends have given to this Measure, recommend the House not to give the Bill a Third Reading."We the undersigned members of the Stroud and District H.T.A., who are owners of one-man businesses, wish to protest most strongly against the proposal to exclude us from representation on the Council (Schedule I). The hairdressers' representation there consists of two employers and two assistants. We are neither employers nor assistants, and our needs are not necessarily identical with either."
My right hon. Friend has referred to the case of Stroud and the question of one-man businesses. They are already represented through their associations and on all the trade boards and wages councils.
I am reluctant to intervene again, but my hon. Friend must recollect that Clause 2 excludes all those matters from the consideration of the Council. This is a question as to whether these men are to be allowed to ply their craft at all.
2.49 p.m.
I am not surprised at the speech of my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary, for the attitude of his Department was made clear right from the beginning. I hope he will pardon me if I, as one who until quite recently was one of those to whom he referred in his final remarks—the one-man business hairdressers—take up the cudgels and point out to him that from beginning to end, his speech had no real bearing upon what is left of this Measure. His criticism might have been valid of the original Bill, but it is not valid of the present Bill, and in many respects what is left of the original Bill is the most important part. More than one aspect of this Measure has attracted the attention of the House. Hygiene, to which the Home Secretary referred, ought not to be controlled by the members of the profession, but should have been, and should be in future, controlled by the local health authorities.
I should like to explain why I say that what remains of the original Bill constitutes one of the most important prin- ciples. Until the passing of this Bill anyone can set up in business or may be employed as a "gents' hairdresser," and can undertake the cutting of hair and shaving. Generations of men have made their livings in that way; swarms of the completely untrained have come into the profession and made some sort of a living in that way, or used it as a part-time occupation. There are many of those still in business, who, as my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich (Mr. J. Paton) said, served from five to seven years as apprentices. The purpose of such apprenticeships was largely exploitation or the obtaining of cheap labour. Nevertheless, during that lengthy apprenticeship they received training which enabled them to start in business and work as skilled men. Hon. Members will find in hairdressing saloons in the City a standard of skill and experience that is eminently desirable. But at the other end of the scale there are thousands of humbler saloons conducted under conditions which can only be described as disgraceful and disgusting. Neither statute law nor by-law can interfere with those places at the moment; neither statute law nor by-law can prevent the unskilled proprietor of those little dens taking, as they do, apprentices, maybe for three or four years, who can then leave and start in business for themselves. Having scraped together some kind of business they, in turn, can take on apprentices. For those apprentices there is no future, because the untrained employer cannot teach his apprentices what he himself does not know. That is a blind alley occupation which operates at the moment, and which will continue to operate indefinitely if this Measure is rejected. If it were only for stopping that, this Bill will be a benefit, not only to those who are so employed and so exploited, but to the whole of the public they serve. It is on those grounds that I hope the House will give this Measure a Third Reading.2.55 p.m.
The House has listened to this Debate with patience, and I am anxious that that patience should not be tried by me. However, a number of speeches have been made, some favourable and some hostile, and I think it is my duty, within reasonable bounds, to meet the arguments raised against the passing of the Bill. I shall have to confine myself largely to what was said by the Secretary of State, upon whose intervention I must first make this comment. I do not disagree with quite a number of things that he said, but I cannot help feeling that all the arguments he put forward could have been crystallised, and even perhaps met, in the Standing Committee. I do not think it is right to the promoters, fair to the House, or the function of Government to tell us, at a time when it is too late to do anything, what could be done and what is wrong with the Bill, when it was in their power to come forward in due season and put it right. Even so, that does not necessarily condemn this Bill.
Let us keep some sense of proportion about this Measure. When we have examined all the criticism—a good deal of which was, I am bound to say, carping—let us see whether the result is such that the Bill deserves the support of this House. For myself it would be sufficient to point out that even the hon. Member for Norwich (Mr. J. Paton), after the furious attack he made upon the Bill, found enough good in it at the end of his speech to give it his support. The Secretary of State first of all complains that he has received a letter from Stroud, from a certain hairdressers' association, complaining that under the conditions that would prevail with this Bill they will not be allowed to be either members of or represented on the Council. I tell the Home Secretary at once that it is not intended that organisations of that kind should be covered in this Bill. This Bill makes no provision for any such thing. These traders are the people who supply the hairdressers; they supply the trade—Nonsense.
—and they are miles outside anything this Bill seeks to achieve.
The people I refer to are the small men who conduct businesses in the back streets, and in a small town like Stroud may very well conduct the businesses on the main streets as well. They are not the suppliers of the concoctions.
That is as may be. I understand that the only objections that have been raised to this Bill are by the manufacturers, and even that opposition is not very strong. If the Secretary of State says there is a small body of people who are unorganised and who should be in this Council, they can join the trade organisations which by the provisions of the Bill will have representation. That applies throughout industrial organisation. It is no use my right hon. Friend raising this point in this way. He should look at the pattern of the industrial system in this country, where he will find that employers and employees' organisations are the only people who get representation for the purpose of negotiating machinery. Therefore, no exception can or should be made in this matter. His argument does not seem to be a very substantial one at all against the Bill.
The Home Secretary said that he objected to Clause 11 for the reason that was given by the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for the Combined English Universities (Mr. H. Strauss). I should be intensely sorry for the Home Secretary if he rested his case solely on some argument made by the hon. and learned Gentleman on this point, because he is quite wrong on it. The Home Secretary said that even the doctors had not the protection that was to be afforded by this Clause. I cannot understand his attempt to draw an analogy between hairdressing under this Clause and the doctors under the B.M.A. organisation. First of all, it is perfectly true that once a person is a doctor he can practise in the medical profession. It is equally true, of course, that once a person becomes a hairdresser he is limited to practising in that form in which he registered. This may be different from the British Medical Association, but there there is statutory provision, which enables that body to discipline its members and to decide what is right and wrong in the practice of that profession. It is an entirely different matter with regard to hairdressing.Is not my hon. and learned Friend referring to the General Medical Council rather than the British Medical Association? I think he could make the matter clear.
I am very much obliged to my hon. Friend. That is the body I was referring to. It is merely a mistake in description. The position of doctors, as they are disciplined and regulated, and that of hairdressers as they are going to be registered under this particular statute, cannot be compared. Then the Home Secretary argued—and I was surprised to hear this from him—that while there are bad practices in the hairdressing trade, those bad practices are still to go on. If that is so, and if bad practices are there or are to continue, why do the Government not bring in a Bill to stop them? This Bill has nothing to do with that aspect at all.
This Measure lays down that certain people in the craft should be registered, but it has nothing to do with hygiene; that is the business of the Ministry of Health. As a matter of fact, the Secretary of State mentioned that we had been to the Home Office, and, therefore, I am at liberty to say that one of the things we were told was that it was not desirable to legislate for that under this Bill, because it was a matter provided for and under the responsibility of the Ministry of Health. It is not good enough to come along now in those circumstances and condemn the Bill on that particular ground. With regard to the question of Scotland, it may very well be that the Clause which is left from the original Bill may cause some slight confusion with regard to the duties of the Secretary of State for Scotland as against the duties of my right hon. Friend. Is that a reason for condemning the Bill? That is a simple matter that could be righted in another place if necessary? Certainly it is no argument against the Bill. Then it was said that once a person is registered there is no control over him at all. That is not accurate. Clause 11 provides that after hairdressers are registered they are not allowed to practise in any form of hairdressing other than that for which they are registered, and if they do so they make themselves liable to the sanction of Clause 11, which imposes certain penalties in such a case. Therefore it is not correct to say that there is no control. I would now like to deal with the point whether the trade wants the Bill. It would be a great drawback to the Measure if it were not wanted by a substantial portion of the trade. There are three organisations representing the employers: the National Hairdressers' Federation, the Incorporated Guild of Hairdressers, the London and Provincial Hairdressers. They all want it. They are the collective voice of the trade on the employers' side. They all support the Bill. With regard to the employees there is the U.S.D.A.W. which strongly supports the Bill and says that the Bill is necessary in the public interest. There is also the organisation which represents both the employers and the employed, known as the Hairdressers' Registration Council. It accounts for no fewer than 45,000 out of the 100,000 people in the industry. That is a considerable number. It is no argument to say that 55,000 are not registered. It is truer to say that there are 55,000 hairdressers at large who may be competent or incompetent. The reason for the Bill is that this Registration Council have no proper control and they cannot make all those who are competent for registration do what the 45,000 have done. There is also an educational committee, which has affiliated to it all the organisations which I have mentioned, and which is in favour of the Bill. It has a syllabus and curriculum for those who are learning the trade. The City and Guilds of London Institute make regulations to try to regulate the trade, but their action is defeated, because regulations without registration are ineffective. It has been said that the Bill will establish a close monopoly by limiting entry into the trade. It will do nothing of the sort. All the Bill seeks to do is to set up a reasonable test. If that test cannot be satisfied by any persons it is in the public interest that that person should not be registered, or allowed to practise hairdressing.
Division No. 197.]
| AYES
| [3.15 p.m.
|
Acland, Sir R. | Hutchinson, H. L. (Rusholme) | Sorensen, R. W. |
Agnew, Cmdr. P. G. | Leslie, J. R. | Sparks, J. A. |
Allen, Scholefield (Crewe) | Lipson, D. L. | Stross, Dr. B. |
Ayles, W. H. | Lipton, Lt.-Col. M. | Symonds, A. L. |
Barton, C. | Lucas, Major Sir J. | Teeling, William |
Braddock, T. (Mitcham) | McEntee, V. La T. | Thomas, D. E. (Aberdare) |
Brown, W. J. (Rugby) | McKie, J. H. (Galloway) | Thomas, I. O. (Wrekin) |
Bruce, Major D. W. T. | Mallalieu, E. L. (Brigg) | Turner-Samuels, M. |
Castle, Mrs. B. A. | Manning, Mrs. L. (Epping) | Viant, S. P. |
Cooper, G. | Mellish, R. J. | Wallace, H. W. (Walthamstow, E.) |
Daines, P. | Nicholls, H. R. (Stratford) | Warbey, W. N. |
Davies, R. J. (Westhoughton) | Paton, J. (Norwich) | Weitzman, D. |
De la Bère, R. | Rankin, J. | Wheatley, Col. M. J. (Dorset, E.) |
Dodds, N. N. | Ridealgh, Mrs. M. | Williams, J. L. (Kelvingrove) |
Guy, W. H. | Robinson, Kenneth (St. Pancras, N.) | Young, Sir A. S. L. (Partick) |
Hale, Leslie | Ross, William (Kilmarnock) | |
Hastings, Dr. Somerville | Silverman, S. S. (Nelson) | TELLERS FOR THE AYES: |
Haughton, Colonel S. G. (Antrim) | Skinnard, F. W. | Mr. Awbery and Mr. Kinley. |
Hudson, J. H. (Ealing, W.) | Smith, S. H. (Hull, S. W.) |
I now come to the question of the Council. There will be 13 members of the Council, consisting of an independent chairman, two members representing employers, two representing employees and eight consumers' representatives who are not in the hairdressing profession. A body of that kind is bound to be reliable because the eight who represent the consumers have no interest other than the public interest of seeing that what is done is just. Further, there will be a right of appeal. The three persons who are to hear the appeals will be appointed by the Secretary of State, and they will be independent people. Therefore, registration is bound to be fair and in no way restrictive. There is no limit to the number of registrations. As long as the test is satisfactorily undertaken and as long as there is proficiency, an applicant is entitled to be registered.
My hon. Friend the Member for Acton (Mr. Sparks) has already dealt with the question of safeguards. As regards the powers of the Council these are set out in Clauses 2, 3, 4, 6, 7 and 10, and the exceptions to these are also given in the Bill, and the position is therefore made quite explicit. Public health and sanitation are matters, as I have said, for the Ministry of Health, and it would not be desirable, proper or practicable to include them in the present Bill. As was said by my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich (Mr. J. Paton), the Bill has good in it, and it is because of this that I hope the House will give it a Third Reading.
Question put, "That the word 'now' stand part of the Question."
The House divided: Ayes, 53; Noes, 67.
NOES
| ||
Alexander, Rt. Hon. A. V. | Henderson, Rt. Hn. A. (Kingswinford) | Rees-Williams, D. R. |
Amory, D. Heathcoat | Henderson, Joseph (Ardwick) | Snow, J. W. |
Attlee, Rt. Hon. C. R. | Hobson, C. R. | Stewart, Michael (Fulham, E.) |
Ayrton Gould, Mrs. B. | Holman, P. | Strachey, Rt. Hon. J. |
Bevan, Rt. Hon. A. (Ebbw Vale) | Houghton, A. L. N. D. (Sowerby) | Strauss, Henry (English Universities) |
Blackburn, A. R. | Isaacs, Rt. Hon. G. A. | Strauss, Rt. Hon. G. (Lambeth, N.) |
Blenkinsop, A. | Jay, D. P. T. | Stuart, Rt. Hon. J. (Moray) |
Bramall, E. A. | Jeger, G. (Winchester) | Taylor, R. J. (Morpeth) |
Champion, A. J. | Jenkins, R. H. | Thorp, Brigadier, R. A. F. |
Cove, W. G. | Jones, Rt. Hon. A. C. (Shipley) | Tomlinson, Rt. Hon. G. |
Cripps, Rt. Hon. Sir S. | Key, Rt. Hon. C. W. | Wallace, G. D. (Chislehurst) |
Dalton, Rt. Hon. H. | Lambert, Hon. G. | Wells, P. L. (Faversham) |
de Freitas, Geoffrey | Lee, Miss J. (Cannock) | Whiteley, Rt. Hon. W. |
Ede, Rt. Hon. J. C. | Lindgren, G. S. | Wilkins, W. A. |
Edwards, John (Blackburn) | McAdam, W. | Willey, F. T. (Sunderland) |
Edwards, W. J. (Whitechapel) | Mack, J. D. | Williams, Rt. Hon. T. (Don Valley) |
Freeman, John (Watford) | MacLeod, J. | Williams, W. R. (Heston) |
Gaitskell, Rt. Hon. H. T. N. | Mann, Mrs. J. | Wilson, Rt. Hon. J. H. |
Ganley, Mrs. C. S. | Morley, R. | Younger, Hon. Kenneth |
George, Maj. Rt. Hn. G. Lloyd (P'ke) | Morrison, Rt. Hon. H. (Lewisham, E.) | |
Griffiths, Rt. Hon. J. (Llanelly) | Moyle, A. | TELLERS FOR THE NOES: |
Hall, Rt. Hon. Glenvil | Noel-Baker, Rt. Hon. P. J. (Derby) | Mr. Irvine and |
Hamilton, Lt.-Col. R. | Parker, J. | Mr. Frederick Lee. |
Harris, H. Wilson (Cambridge Univ.) | Proctor, W. T. |
Main Question, as amended, put and agreed to.
Third Reading put off for three months.