When I began my remarks last Friday afternoon I was trying to point out to the House that one reason for the greatly increased demand for telephones was caused by the extremely bad postal service which is provided today. Postal delays are one of the main causes for the increased demand for such services. In his speech last Friday, the Postmaster-General praised the rural deliveries carried out under difficulties, but I am more concerned with urban deliveries which are badly carried out under quite reasonable conditions.

There are two main failings today in urban deliveries. First of all, the timing is at such inconvenient hours as to necessitate increased demands for the use of the telephone. In my own division, which is largely if not entirely a dormitory for Manchester, most people have to leave for work before the first morning delivery at their homes. Similarly, when they return in the evening the last collection has already been made. If a man working in Manchester wants on Monday to get in touch with his friend when he gets home on Monday evening, he writes a letter to him which is collected from the letter box on Tuesday morning, delivered to his friend on Wednesday morning after that friend has already left for work. When he gets back from work on Wednesday he writes out a reply which is not collected until Thursday and is delivered on Friday. Thus, the man who wishes to communicate with his friend on Monday does not, in fact, receive a reply until after he has returned from work on Friday night. Naturally he wants a telephone and applies for one, bearing in mind that it costs about half as much to make a telephone call as to write a letter.

Would the hon. Gentleman tell us more precisely what are the times for the departure of his friends to business in the morning and the departure of the last collection in the evening? It is pretty nebulous.

Full details would make my speech long, but I will give one instance of which I wrote to the Postmaster-General. In that particular case the timing of the first delivery was 9.45 a.m. whereas the man left for his work shortly before 9 o'clock. He returned between 6.30 and 6.45 p.m., the final collection from the letter box being at 6.15. That is a specific case, but typical of my area.

There are also practical difficulties in the case of a secretary of a football club, for example, who cannot make any last minute changes by letter. He must use the telephone. Before the war he was able to fix everything by quickly delivered postcard. Now he must use the telephone, and in many respects it might be an advantage for him to have the telephone. Hon. Members opposite should not attribute the increased demand for telephones to the present upsurge in economic activity, because it is due to the worsening postal deliveries in this country.

Apart from the bad timing, there are, of course, slack collections outside the advertised timing, and that is more serious. Again I can produce an example from my own constituency. I have here a letter which was published in the "Altrincham Guardian" from a constituent who is not afraid to put his name to the letter. It was written last Friday, the very day when the Postmaster-General was making his eulogistic remarks about the service. This constituent says:

"Can nothing be done to improve the postal service between Altrincham and Sale? On Friday last"—

that is the Friday previous, 10th March—

"I posted a letter at Altrincham Head Post Office and saw it collected at 5 p.m. It was delivered in Sale on Monday afternoon."

Sale is the other half of my division, and is only three miles away.

"About a month ago, I posted a letter in Sale on Sunday at 4 p.m."—

the average collecting time on Sunday is 5 or 5.30—

"this reached an address in Timperley—a distance of less than two miles—on Wednesday. By comparison, I received an air mail letter from New York, which travelled 3,000 miles in less than three days."

I do not wish to turn this Debate into a purely parochial affair, and I should like to quote from a letter received by my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston-upon-Thames (Mr. Boyd-Carpenter) about the extremely slow deliveries to London business houses, where they do not get their letters until between 11.45 and 12 noon on a Saturday morning. One of the reasons for the slow deliveries is the reluctance of Post Office workers to work on Saturdays. It is not always easy to get post office staff to turn out and do a job of work on Saturday morning.

Would the hon. Member be good enough to let me have the letter which was sent to his hon. Friend the Member for Kingston-upon-Thames (Mr. Boyd-Carpenter), and I will have the matter investigated? I would also ask that general allegations should not be made. If there are particular cases I am only too pleased to look into them, but please do not make general allegations.

I will make a general allegation only if it can be supported by specific examples. We are all aware of the practice of "trouble shooting," which is the name given to the shooting down of particular examples in order to show that there is no general trouble behind them. In this case there are any number of examples which well justify the complaints which I have sent to the right hon. Gentleman, particularly in regard to the service between London and Manchester. One of the main troubles is that Post Office staffs are not prepared to do work on Saturday morning.

I am sorry to press the hon. Gentleman to give me an answer to the request I made that he would let me have the letter from Kingston-upon-Thames.

I am sorry. I thought that my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston-upon-Thames to whom the letter was sent had indicated assent from behind me. Now let me turn to the capital expenditure involved in the delivery of letters.

I thank the hon. Member for giving way to me for a moment. I should like him to produce the evidence for his statement that Post Office staffs will not work on Saturday morning and that letters are delayed because they will not do their work.

I did not say that they will not do so but that they are often reluctant, and in many cases do not turn up. The hon. Member knows that perfectly well.

I want to go on to refer to the somewhat careless use that is made of Post Office equipment, showing some of the slack methods employed. Why is it that Post Office vans are nearly always in a bad state of external appearance? Why are they nearly always scratched along the sides, showing how carelessly they have been parked or driven in and out of garages? The majority of Post Office delivery vans, except the newest of all, are in a bad state of external appearance. One has only to go to the head sorting office in Manchester to see the deplorable way in which Post Office vans are handled. There is also a public garage in London adjacent to where some of these delivery vans are kept and which I have had occasion to use myself, and I have had an opportunity of seeing the way in which these vehicles are driven, a way that would not he tolerated by a private firm.

I now turn to the reason why there is such a grossly inflated demand for telephone service and to some of the great frustrations that people are experiencing in getting an adequate telephone service. The delay in providing sufficient equipment in exasperating. In the Sale area many subscribers have been waiting months, and in some cases years, for the installation of a telephone. I brought forward individual cases to the predecessor of the right hon. Gentleman or his junior colleague, and I have had the benefit of full and courteous replies, which have been some consolation to my constituents.

Nevertheless, there are some very hard cases. There is one about which I have just written to him. It concerns a businessman who has to spend a great part of his working day in a public call box making his telephone calls. That is no real substitute for having a telephone of his own, for the good reason that he cannot receive any incoming calls in the call box. I am surprised that the Postmaster-General made so much point in his speech about the installation of public call boxes. They are a very poor substitute, particularly in the rural areas. After the telephone has been taken out of a sub-postmaster's shop and placed on the village green, it means that nobody can get hold of the sub-postmaster by ringing his number as they did formerly when the telephone was in his shop.

Would not the hon. Member agree that when a telephone is placed outside a shop, it is available for 24 hours and not simply during the hours of duty of the shopkeeper?

Yes, but only one way, and I do not think that it is wholly an advantage. It means that there can be no incoming calls. In a small village community informal arrangements are often possible. The advantage of having the telephone in the village sub-postmaster's shop or house was that he could accept a few incoming calls and perhaps pass them on to his neighbour as a purely informal arrangement. That should not be forgotten before a decision is taken to rip out a telephone from a shop and put it 100 yards away on the village green. It is sometimes stated that in a residential area such as Sale, telephones are largely a social convenience and amenity and not a necessity, but today it is more than ever an urgent necessity to have a telephone in one's own house. That is particularly true in a moderately well-to-do area. Those are the areas which are most liable to armed attack and robbery. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] Certainly, by the very nature of the property.

I thought we were going to the dogs.

Those are the areas where the telephone is an urgent necessity for the purpose of calling the police, or in other emergencies. It is particularly significant that in such areas where there is a shortage of telephones and far too few public call offices, there are also no police alarms and fire alarms. I would urge the Postmaster-General to remember the importance of installing telephones to provide sufficient coverage for emergencies. It is no use telling a woman who has been "coshed" by an intruder that she can go to the public telephone box and ring for assistance. There have been no cases in Sale, but the way things are going, it looks as though there might be; and not only in Sale but other parts of the country as well.

In the case of Sale in particular, will the right hon. Gentleman tell me whether it is not possible to arrange for some temporary overlap of the exchanges? Is there not spare equipment in Altrincham or at the neighbouring Ringway exchange which can be used to relieve the overload at Sale? In some of the replies which the Minister has been good enough to send me from time to time it is stated that the underground cables are full in a particular section or street. Very often there is a bottleneck of only a few yards. Houses further down the road are receiving telephones while houses up the road are not.

There is very strong feeling on this matter in Sale, where everybody is watching to see where the poles are going up and who is getting the lines into his house. Where the bottleneck is only a few yards or a few streets in extent, could not the right hon. Gentleman put temporary cables overhead to relieve it? There always seem to be so many good reasons for doing nothing. I see the Assistant Postmaster-General shaking his head, but I think it could possibly be done as a temporary measure. Some other amenity might be temporarily interfered with, but it would enable telephones to be installed. I now want to come to the general question of installing an increased amount of telephone equipment.

rose—

I do not think I should give way.

It is a point about Sale which I want to make.

In his opening speech the right hon. Gentleman was good enough to point out very frankly that he was new to his job and that he had not acquired a full understanding of his Department. Might I offer a little advice to him and say, "Do not believe all the excuses you will be given in your Department. Do not believe all the difficulties about which you will be told." Many of the people who are called upon to advise the Postmaster-General have a gramophone record of excuses and they just turn on the gramophone record regardless of changing circumstances. A good example of that occurred last Friday when the right hon. Gentleman referred to the shortage of equipment and raw materials. He pointed to the need for exports. That is a good old excuse which we have been hearing for the last four and half years, and we are now getting tired of it, partly because it is not now quite so apt and partly because production capacity has undergone a good deal of change.

Let us turn first to the export of cables. Cables are certainly being exported, but are they going to the right countries? Is it really important to send such large quantities of telephone cable to Egypt only to have them paid for out of sterling balances? According to the 1949 figures we sent £250,000 worth of telephone cable alone to Egypt. We also sent nearly £1 million worth of rubber insulating cable to India, all paid for out of sterling balances. Is it really necessary? In the case of cables other than rubber insulating, £2,500,000 worth was sent to India in 1949 and nearly £300,000 worth to Norway. If this export is really a part of Government policy, is it not time that the Postmaster-General put his foot down and said, "Do not send any more of this stuff abroad to those countries. We need it in this country." The Postmaster-General should not put up with these excuses any longer but should insist on a fairer allocation for British telephone services.

What about the markets?

We could still keep the markets with a smaller export. That has been done very successfully in the field of textile marketing. In the case of telephone equipment, the annual return of the Trade and Navigation Accounts shows that we sent nearly £1 million worth of telephone equipment to India in 1949 and nearly £4 million to Australia. I agree that we ought to help Australia in the provision of telephone equipment, but we should remember how much smaller the population is in Australia than in Great Britain. Surely Australia is not entitled to nearly £4 million worth of telephone equipment at a time when we so desperately need some more for ourselves.

It is interesting that in all the figures given in the Trade and Navigation Accounts there is not a single sub-heading relating to a dollar country. Although there should be exports, it is questionable whether they are going to the countries which are most important to us. Very little telephone or cable equipment is going to America or Canada and it is not considered necessary to put it under a separate sub-heading in the Trade and Navigation Accounts. I submit that there is very little shortage of cable if only the Post Office would go ahead and buy it.

Where?

The right hon. Gentleman must be very ignorant of the truth. Only two days ago we had the chairman of Aberdare Cables complaining that he had a large number of orders cancelled. I am not suggesting that one type of cable is strictly interchangeable with another, but they all use similar raw materials, and in many cases they start with bare copper wire, which is something the Post Office is always in need of. The right hon. Gentleman should have another look at the excuses given to him and see if they are really applicable any longer.

Another excuse of which he made a good deal was: What are we to have—homes or telephone exchanges? I know we have a limited building programme but we could quite easily get the extra floor which is required at the Sale telephone exchange if we lopped it off one of the unnecessary new Government offices being built in Manchester. Let us have fewer Government offices and more telephone exchanges. We could do with a little economy in Government building of a non-productive nature.

The Postmaster-General spoke appealingly about trunk telephone cables and said that when they were installed there were a number of spare lines but that they were now full. Of course they are They are now full of Government trunk lines.

Nonsense.

I have the figures here. Only last July, when answering a Question I put to him, the right hon. Gentleman's predecessor said that of about 19,000 telephone circuits over 25 miles in length now in use, no fewer than 2,500 were for the exclusive use of Government Departments. That is well over 10 per cent. just for Government Departments. It is a terrible state of affairs that one-tenth of the long distance telephone equipment of the country should be for the exclusive use of Government Departments. I do not know what the figures are for PBX boards and hand microphone installations, but I should think that it is even higher than 10 per cent. Let us try to cut down the unnecessary use which Government Departments are making of our telephone service. If we do that we should be able to improve the service to the public.

However, the real way to get over the difficulties—I know that there are difficulties in providing a full service; I appreciated many of the points made in the right hon. Gentleman's speech—is to try to get better value for the money we shall spend as a result of the Bill. I urge the right hon. Gentleman to look at the type of equipment which will be purchased. Let us see that it is really up-to-date and not shocking old stuff. The hand microphone was a good design when it was introduced, I think under a Conservative 'Government. 15 or 20 years ago, but there has been progress since then. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] I knew that hon. Members would respond to that one. They are very much in need of a little encouragement these days. What about having a cheaper, more efficient and up-to-date hand microphone? They are installed in millions. Every penny we can save on the hand microphone will save huge sums of capital expenditure in the long run.

Look at the clumsy coin boxes which are installed in public call boxes. My right hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, West (Mr. Stanley) apologised to the House on behalf of the Conservative Party for not having installed public telephone boxes before the telephone was invented. However, we made some progress before the war. We hope that there can be progress in the field of telephone engineering in the same way that there is progress in fields of engineering more open to private enterprise.

There have been plenty of technological developments in other fields during the last 15 years, but one field where there has been no progress at all is that of the clumsy old boxes with buttons labelled A and B. Cannot we have progress there? In other countries one sees far more modem, more efficient and cheaper installations, such as call boxes where there is no need for buttons A and B because the coin returns automatically if the call is not connected. Such boxes are smaller, thus economising in raw materials and labour. They are very efficient in operation, and they spare the user the necessity of having to resort to the initials A and B, which are always so difficult to get across on the sort of lines we have to use these days.

What about changing from porcelain insulators which crack in frosty weather and thereby cause delays to modern glass ones? The latter, I think, do not cost more and they are more efficient. And what about getting into the telephone exchanges themselves and seeing if we cannot economise in the amount of machinery required to operate each exchange? I am sure that there is room for great economy there, particularly in regard to the counting units used for recording local calls. Is it worth the trouble any longer, under post-war conditions, of laboriously logging up all the penny calls and charging them to separate subscribers?

When a person has decided to instal a telephone, does the right hon. Gentleman think it really matters much to him whether his penny calls come to 7s. 6d. or 6s. 6d. compared with the advantage it would be just to pay a flat rate? Particularly when one remembers that this would enable us to dispense with the installation of new counting units in the telephone exchanges, and that the labour and materials thus saved could be used for producing more of the selector mechanisms so urgently required. As my hon. Friend has suggested, it would also greatly simplify the accounting and many other processes which tend to make our service expensive.

I suggest that the right hon. Gentleman looks at this as being quite an important contribution to an improved telephone service. Furthermore, it would make a great contribution to the attractiveness of a shared line. The tendency during the last four years has been to regard people who were not willing to share a line as selfish. It is not a question of selfishness. There is the material point, mentioned last Friday, that the rebate is not sufficient to attract a person into sharing a line. There is the even greater difficulty in present circumstances that if one shares a line, one has to share the local calls equally, and there is always the feeling that the other person will be totting up more calls on the counting unit. If we could abandon the system of individual counts for local calls, it would be much easier to make shared lines practicable.

I believe there is much to be said for shared lines and I was disappointed to observe from the speech of the right hon. Gentleman that the great research station at Dollis Hill—whose activities are not to be reduced fortunately—has devoted so little of its time in the last four year towards perfecting a system of shared lines. In these days of technological progress in other fields surely it is not beyond the ability of the Post Office engineering staff to devise a system of shared lines without being overheard as a permanent feature of our telephone system? I do not think they ought to be regarded as stopgaps to overcome a temporary shortage.

When one considers the immense amount of capital equipment behind every number in the telephone directory, it is obviously of great importance to evolve a good system of sharing if we can provided the saving can be passed on to the subscriber. So I hope the right hon. Gentleman will issue an urgent directive to Dollis Hill to that effect. If we could be the first in that field we might develop an important and valuable new export trade, and it might be possible in the course of time to share three subscribers on one line or perhaps four, and that would be valuable in rural areas.

There is yet one other important way in which the Post Office could economise in capital expenditure on telephone services, namely, to encourage the use of V.H.F. radio communication. The Post Office is zealous in its monopoly of communication over the surface of this island and does not like interlopers, and it has been quite easy hitherto, with land line communication, to insist on the monopoly because of the difficulty of running lines. Now, we have the new factor of V.H.F. communication made possible by technological advances, and the Post Office does not like it because this new method threatens its monopoly. So people who would like to instal V.H.F. radio communication between, say, two offices situated 20 miles apart, are having difficulty in getting Post Office licences, because the Post Office wants all such communication to go through its own monopoly network.

I have a case before me of a firm of shipping owners who wish to arrange for ship to shore communication to connect with the trunk telephone system of this country. The Post Office will only allow it, provided it has complete control and ownership of the land and of the installation. I suggest to the right hon. Gentleman that he could get much capital expenditure carried out by private enterprise if he would allow private enterprise to do it. Thus we would get an even better system of tele-communication within this country without the need for expending so much money as is proposed in this Bill.

I appreciated very much the approach of the right hon. Gentleman to television. I thought his statement marked a big step forward, and I hope we shall get the television transmitters erected as quickly as he announced last Friday. No doubt the right hon. Gentleman has been impressed by the case put up to his predecessor and we on this side are grateful for the enlightened and bold programme of television construction which he outlined last week.

A great deal of ground was covered in the Debate last Friday, as has been the case today, and many of the points I had hoped to deal with have been ticked off on my notes. First, may I congratulate the Postmaster-General on his enthusiasm in introducing this Bill? I hope that that almost lyrical enthusiasm will sustain him during the months he is in office and that much progress will be made in solving the problems in his Department. There are many problems for him to solve which will give his many headaches.

My two main points are on the transmission of letters and the telephone ser- vice, bath of which are far from satisfactory. I know it is easy to take a few difficult cases from one's own constituency and try to prove from them that the entire system is at fault, but I will not take such cases and I hope that the Postmaster-General will give further earnest consideration to the question of earlier collections and deliveries in the London and near London areas, because, undoubtedly, there is great delay there.

Last week, I was rather perturbed to get the impression that the 2½d. stamp was likely to be permanent; indeed, that if the cost of living went up, there might even be a rise in the cost of postage. I hope that was a wrong impression, because postage is very expensive already. I speak feelingly on the subject, and I expect I shall have the support of every hon. Member, because I have been dealing in the last few weeks with my letters of thanks as a result. of the Election. I find that some hon. Members have written 200 or 300 letters. One told me that he had written nearly 3,000. I wrote over 1,000 and that cost me well over £10. Of course, in the bad old days of the penny post it would have cost me only just over £4. We call that progress. I hope that is not the kind of stability we shall get from this Postmaster-General.

The expenditure on telephone service envisaged by the Bill will, I hope, help to remove much of the delay in the creation of telephone facilities. In my constituency I get almost as many letters complaining about the shortage of telephone facilities as I do about the shortage of housing accommodation; delays, which seem to have stretched from months into years, continue. I must say that when I took up cases of hardship with the predecessor of the right hon. Gentleman, he was very good about them, and many were settled in a comparatively short time. That is true mainly of the shared line principle.

I do not altogether agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Altrincham and Sale (Mr. Erroll) in hoping for a tremendous extension of shared lines facilities. I do not believe it is a popular arrangement with any telephone subscriber. Everyone want his own telephone, and I hope that this arrangement will be only a temporary expedient. I do not mean temporary in the same sense as "temporary" rank in the Army, which can go on for years. I hope that shared lines will be really a temporary measure and not be continued for a very long time.

I should like to put one or two questions to the Postmaster-General. First, what amount has a new subscriber to put down by way of deposit for a new installation, and what is the cost of the deposit when that installation is shared by other people? I was very interested in the Debate last week, and to learn the divergent views of hon. Members on the shortage of materials. We were told by the right hon. Gentleman that there was a shortage of copper, tin and cables. My hon. Friend the Member for Croydon, East (Sir H. Williams), however, said that there was no shortage and that these raw materials were in plentiful supply. I do not know the real answer, but I suspect that the supply of these materials to the Post Office is short because of the export drive, which has included even telephone instruments.

Can the Postmaster-General tell us the proportion of raw materials which is exported which would otherwise come to his Department, and the proportion of telephone equipment which is exported in comparison with that which is used at home? Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman can also give us some idea as to how long the existing delay in the supply of telephones will continue. There is still an ever-growing waiting list, and I think that we should have some idea of when this demand is likely to be met.

Finally, can the right hon. Gentleman give the figures of new telephone installations and shared lines for each of the last four years? The answers to these questions would be very helpful, and I hope that the Assistant Postmaster-General will be able to give them in his reply. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will bend his energies and enthusiasm to making this service, which I believe to be a good service, even better by a more capable and competent administration.

I should like to congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on his first speech as Postmaster-General and also to say that I have always found his predecessors most helpful and agreeable in dealing with personal cases. I do not doubt that the new Postmaster-General will follow their good example.

I want, very briefly, to made one or two observations about telephones and television. From the two admirable speeches to which I have just listened from my hon. Friend the Member for Altrincham and Sale (Mr. Erroll) and my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Richmond, Surrey (Sir H. Watt) there appears to be some confusion about party, or shared, lines. My hon. Friend the Member for Altrincham and Sale wants the shared line to become a permanent feature and to be greatly developed technically, while my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Richmond, Surrey, hopes that that will not happen because of the disadvantages of this system.

I want to make a particular plea and to ask a particular question about shared lines. The present disadvantage of this system is that the shared line is not available for both parties all the time; one partner cannot use it when it is being used by the other. There is also the suspicion that a person's private business may be overheard. I think that that fear is greatly exaggerated, however, and I often persuade my constituents that shared lines are better than none.

Technically, however, there is no reason whatever why there should be any overhearing, nor is there any reason why five or ten people should not be able to use the same line at the same time. It is all a question of whether the cost of the line is so great that it pays to provide high frequency apparatus, in each of the subscribers' homes, to separate the several circuits. There could be five or ten people talking on the same line at the same time without any of them overhearing the others or interfering in any way.

I should like to know whether experiments in the economy of lines by the use of high frequency circuits are being made at Dollis Hill or elsewhere. If not, I should like an assurance from the right hon. Gentleman that experiments of this kind will be made. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Altrincham and Sale that a considerable advance can be made in this direction, perhaps to the permanent advantage of our telephone system. Indeed, the waiting list figure of 500,000 people is so extraordinarily high that something must be done along these or other lines, otherwise it will be years before a reasonable provision of telephones is made to meet the existing enormous demand.

I am told that 7,000 farmers are awaiting the installation of telephones. I cannot help thinking that that number must be very much greater. I should have thought there were 7,000 in my constituency alone. [Laughter.] That is, perhaps, an exaggeration, but there are certainly very many farmers who are awaiting telephones.

In this connection, I want to make a suggestion about the system of using a number of circuits over a single line. There is no reason why the electricity wires which are now being provided for more farms and which, we hope, will soon go to every farm, should not at the same time also carry a telephone circuit and a radio circuit. If it is the long distances over which the wires and the poles have to be installed which is the main factor, then all three of these services could be transmitted over the same installation. It is really a question of the balance of the cost of lines as against that of the apparatus. I should like the Postmaster-General to say whether any inquiry or research is being made in this direction.

I wish to say a word of praise of the B.B.C. and of the radio trade for their contribution to television. I join with the right hon. Gentleman in praising his Department, but let us not forget that the B.B.C. and the trade have played a very great part in bringing television to its present state. We were the first country to have a public television service. But for the setback of the war years, I do not doubt that we would now have been leading the world and would have a tremendous export trade. We must do our best, however, to overcome the difficulties which were imposed upon us by the war.

There are one or two questions, technical and otherwise, which I should like to ask about television. First, can the Assistant Postmaster-General assure us that the fullest possible consideration has been given to the definition which it used in television? The definition used in American television is higher than ours. By this I mean that the number of lines per inch is higher in the American system and gives better definition. A similar comparison might be made with printed pictures where one screen will give a better picture than another because, technically, it is a finer job. It may be that we were forced to continue with our system, which is inferior in this respect to the American system; on the other hand, ours may have its advantages. I do not know of them, but I should like to know.

Even now there are only some 250,000 television viewers in this country. If television is to be really successful, we must get 2½ million or 5 million viewers. Before we extend our development by 10 or 20 times, however, we ought to be assured that, looking ahead over, say, ten years, the technical standards which are in use are really the best. Enormous capital expenditure will be involved in half a million, a million or five million television sets. One day they will have to be scrapped and perhaps the best thing is to wait until colour is really available and then contemplate scrapping the lot. I would like to know whether the Postmaster-General has given this matter some consideration.

Another point affects my constituency and the whole of the North-West of England. I am not satisfied that the plans that have been projected will really give television to the very substantial number of people who live in Workington, Whitehaven, Blackpool, Ulverston, Morecambe and Heysham, Kendal, Lancaster and Preston, to mention a few of the principal towns on the western side of the Pennine Range. I do not know exactly where Holme Moss is, but if it is really on the top of the Pennines, there may be a clear sight from the top of the television masts to a town like Morcambe, 55 miles away. But, if it is to the east of the Pennines, as I suspect it to be, and at a lower level than the highest point of the Pennine Range, the waves will not jump over the mountains. They cannot go over the top of mountains; they are like the beams of a motor car's headlights.

It is not enough for the Postmaster-General to say that we should wait until Holme Moss is working, in 1951 or 1952, and see how we get on. It is already possible, technically, to have re- lay stations which can pick up television signals and transmit them at reasonable cost over small areas. We in the North-West would like to be assured of at least a relay service being given us. I ask the Postmaster-General, or the Assistant Postmaster-General, to give us that assurance.

The right hon. Gentleman may say he cannot afford to guarantee, at this stage, that the whole of the population, or even the large and important number living in the North-West, shall have television, which brings me to the question of financing television. At one time I was connected with the B.B.C., for 10 years or thereabouts, and I was in a position to share with others in the study and thought about television in its early stages as it was developed. We always said among ourselves that the technical problems were not really problems which would make the advance of television slow in Britain—the technicians would get over those difficulties, but that finance was the real problem. None of us could see how television could be paid for.

In Britain we have succeeded in paying for radio out of licences so that we do not have to bring advertisements to the aid of the financing of radio. They are a commonplace in America, in Canada, to a large extent, in Australia and are beginning in South Africa. Some of us wondered whether radio could be paid for on a proper level by licences alone. We have succeeded in doing that in Britain, and I am very proud of that. I would not like to see our Home Service using advertisements. But there is a balance here, let it be understood. If we get another £5 million or £10 million into sound radio at home we could get considerable improvement in the programmes, but, of course, at a cost of reference to advertisements, which would, no doubt, offend the susceptibilities of many people.

I am one who wants home radio to remain advertisement free. But I am not so sure about television. About 12 million listeners pay £1 per year and the R.B.C. gets nearly all that money, after some deductions by the Post Office for collection, and so on. In addition, the Government have to make a grant of £4 million or £5 million for the overseas services, which are recognised to be services not so much for the home listener but for the Colonies and Empire and in their general interest. Out of those 12 million licences sound broadcasting and television broadcasting have to be paid for. The present situation is that the 12 million sound listeners are really paying for the quarter of a million television viewers. Perhaps that is necessary in the early stages, and not unfair, because television will one day become available to all. But even if we got a million television viewers, or five million television viewers, we would only get an extra £1 million, or, perhaps, an extra £5 million of revenue, and the cost of television is many times the cost of sound broadcasting. The cost of a quarter of an hour's programme in sound broadcasting may be one-tenth of the cost of television.

I cannot see how an adequate television service can be financed in this country unless we allow sponsoring in the television field. What are the real Objections to sponsoring? Perhaps the artist—I do not necessarily mean the particular singer, or person of that kind. but the person with artistic sensibility—does not feel he would like a serious programme, a play or operatic programme, constantly interrupted by cheap advertising. The case has always been presented in this country in that form, that one can only have sponsoring if one allows cheap advertising; but that is not true.

It is possible for sponsoring to be done in a dignified manner. The reference to the firm paying for the programme may be made at the beginning, or at the end of the programme. It may be, "This play comes to you by the courtesy of Nuffield Motors Limited." That is all one is obliged to hear and it does not offend all through the programme. It may be better to do without it, but I cannot see how we can do without it in television.

We want many millions to do this job properly not merely for our own entertainment, but in order that what we do shall be of advantage to the world, affecting our prestige and affecting our sales of equipment to other parts of the world. At least two, and possibly more, important public inquiries in the last 20 years, on which the newspapers were represented, while maintaining that sound broadcasting should o operate without advertisements, have recommended that sponsoring should be allowed in the case of television. I ask the Government not to close their minds to this matter because I do not believe a television service, taking full advantage of modern technological advances, can be paid for in this country unless advertisements are brought in to help.

There is also a case for allowing advertising to make a contribution to some pants of the burden of our overseas programmes. We are paying £4 million a year to subsidise the B.B.C. overseas programmes. I dare say that some of them have Foreign Office implications. Others go out to our Colonies and Dominions, and there is no reason of which I can think why British products, British motor-cars, for example, should not be advertised on those programmes. Indeed, there is every reason why they should be. It is monstrous that the listener in Sydney or Johannesburg should tune into the United States and be advised to buy a Ford or a Chrysler, but that when he tunes into Britain he should not even hear the name of any British motor-car. It is unfair to our trade and is quite an unnecessary artistic piece of snobbery to put this ban upon advertising in our overseas programmes.

I should like, therefore, to ask the Postmaster-General carefully to consider the introduction of sponsoring both in our overseas and television programmes. As one who has for so long cherished and fought for the integrity of our home programme I affirm that I should not regard such a development of sponsoring as being the thin edge of the wedge, which would necessarily or even be likely to break down the integrity of our home programme. I conclude as I began, by congratulating the Postmaster-General on his speech in moving the Second Reading of the Bill, the first speech in his term of office, and by wishing him good luck in his period of office.

I listened with great interest to the speech of the hon. Member for Morecambe and Lonsdale (Sir I. Fraser), and with the exception of his last point, about introducing sponsoring to the television programmes, I found myself largely in agreement. I would resist the idea that overseas programmes should be sponsored. Indeed, I should have thought that it was in those very broadcasts that we ought to maintain the dignity which has been achieved in our home broadcasts.

I am sorry that the hon. Member for Altrincham and Sale (Mr. Erroll) is no longer in his place. I hope that the length of his speech has not unduly exhausted him. Some of the points he made ought to be answered from this side of the House. I hope that my right hon. Friend the Postmaster-General will not lend too ready an ear to some of the points he made. For example, I thought that the hon. Member was suggesting that we should not export to those countries in whose debt we are, in respect of sterling balances, commodities such as telephone equipment, of which we stand badly in need at home. This is just another variation of the Conservative theme that we should repudiate the sterling balances.

The phrase that those of us who have worked overseas became very familiar with in the past, that "an Englishman's word is his bond" is something of which many of us on both sides of the House have been very proud. I cannot help feeling that the sort of speech made by the hon. Member for Altrincham and Sale will be misconstrued in other countries where we do considerable trade. If we are to get the reputation of going back on the promises we made during the war by saying now that we shall not export to those countries in whose debt we are, those goods which they badly need, we shall be doing a great disservice to the traders and manufacturers of this country, quite apart from the question of our national integrity.

The hon. Member, speaking about telephone cables, referred to the fact that approximately 10 per cent. of such cables in this country were for official use. I wonder if the Postmaster-General or the Assistant Postmaster-General, in replying to the Debate, can tell us what portion of that 10 per cent. is in the hands of the Services? I hope that my right hon. Friend will resist any pressure to reduce the number of cables in the hands of the Services. I for one should not like this country to go back to the state of un-preparedness in which it was at the outbreak of war, when the telephone communications of this country were in such a bad state, from the strategic aspect, that our defences were in a serious condition for a long time until that matter was put right.

Nonsense.

The hon. Member says "Nonsense," but I wish that some of the brigadier's fifth column on the Opposition side of the House were present today—

I was privileged to show some Americans round our fighter defence system in the early years of the war, and they were staggered by the wonderful telephone communications we had. Radar stations in the North of Scotland were connected to Fighter Command, and it would be most unfair to say that telephone communications were not good.

That is interesting, and I am sure that the hon. Member knows what he is talking about in relation to the subject he has mentioned. I am talking about anti-aircraft defences in East Anglia, and the state of telephone communications in that respect was deplorable. I am not blaming anyone for that. I am merely saying that we should not go back to the state of affairs which prevailed in 1941, and should learn a lesson from the past.

The hon. Member for Altrincham and Sale made a general accusation of slackness and reluctance to work against postal workers. That is characteristic of the attack on the workers which we are learning to expect from the other side of the House. His experiences are at variance with my own experiences and impressions in the country. Many of these postal workers work difficult hours and have most difficult jobs to perform. If the hon. Member is saying that we should go back to the conditions of work which prevailed before the war I would say to him that when there is full employment, as is virtually the case in this country, it will be a difficult proposition to convince postal workers that they should go back to what I must describe as having been, in many cases, very bad conditions of work before the war.

We must not try to get things on the cheap. If we want to improve the service the nation must be prepared to pay for it.

I am only anxious that we should get the service for which we are paying and which we are entitled to receive.

That is another way of saying that the workers are slacking and not giving of their best. It is a gibe which we hear from the Conservatives time after time. The trouble is that the Conservative Party goes to the country and makes a lot of glib promises to attract the workers and then comes to this House and insults the workers, presumably basing itself on the fairly safe assumption that the sort of speech which the hon. Member for Altrincham and Sale made this morning will not be reported in the servile Tory Press.

The subject of conditions of work leads me to my final point. I have in mind a postman in the little Essex village where I live. He is, I believe, an auxiliary postman, though he may be in the classification known as allowance deliverer. According to my calculation he cycles between 12 and 16 miles daily and one can set one's watch by the time he turns up at the post box on his round. He is over 60 years of age and he does a magnificent job. I wonder whether we should continue to depend upon men of that age cycling in all weathers on that sort of round, and whether we should not provide them with more modern equipment to do their job?

There are on the market excellent small horse-power motor cycles equipped with large panniers capable of taking quite a reasonable quantity of letters and parcels. Why could not the Post Office consider providing rural postmen with that sort of equipment. I do not think that the capital expenditure would be exorbitant. It would provide a means of.giving efficiency of service and would not, I say frankly, mean continuing to exploit the devotion of these rural postmen. Lastly, I wish to dissociate myself from the repeated accusations of slackness and reluctance of the workers which we are getting a little tired of hearing from the other side of the House.

We have heard some interesting observations not only from this side of the House but from the 'hon. Member for Lichfield and Tamworth (Mr. Snow), but I do not think that anyone has drawn attention to the fact that this is yet another Supplementary Estimate. In February, 1948, the Postmaster-General asked for another £75 million which was to last until the end of this year. We find that in practice it will only last until July, 1950. Are we, in spite of the capital cuts, to have this repeated coming back to the House for increases in the amount which the Post Office requires?

The hon. Member should appreciate that we have now to pay more for our materials.

I can only hope that now that we have dismissed bulk buying and returned to competitive methods, we shall be able to get our raw materials at a more economic rate. I was surprised and delighted at the reference by the right hon. Gentleman to television. I had studied the Bill most carefully and had not been able to see that television was in it. It is very perplexing to a newcomer to this House to find just where the responsibility lies. I read in the OFFICIAL REPORT in July that the Assistant Postmaster-General, speaking in a Debate, said:

"So far as the actual development of television is concerned, it is the responsibility of the B.B.C. as to whether they develop their stations, and that is very important"— [OFFICIAL REPORT, 30th July, 1949; Vol. 467, c. 2962.]

At that time of course public indignation was at a high pitch and the Assistant Postmaster-General was under fire from hon. Members on this side of the House. Now that the Press and others have kicked the people responsible into a little greater activity and we see that the Postmaster-General is claiming responsibility for the development of stations, I am delighted, but I do find it perplexing. On Friday last the Postmaster-General said:

"It is an appropriate occasion, therefore, for me to announce that its provision should enable us to ensure that in a little more than two years time television should be made available to about 70 per cent. of the population."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 17th March, 1950; Vol. 472, c. 1465.]

Then he explained the programme. That does not seem to be in keeping with the previous statement. Perhaps we may have it made quite clear, for the benefit of humble back benchers such as myself, where the responsibility lies. It reminds me of the song:

"Yes, sir, that's my baby;

No, sir, that's as may be,

Yes, sir, that's my baby girl."

The Postmaster-General claims no responsibility when the child is unpopular but now rushes to claim paternity. I understand he is unquestionably responsible for the centimetre links and I should like a little more information on these. I understand he has had to be a little conservative—if I may be excused using that word—about the links on the first occasion, between London and Birmingham; he has put them every 17 miles. I believe, in the light of operational experience, that distance could be increased, particularly as we could site them on the hills, like the Pennine Range, in the North of England.

We have had no reference to the capital cost of the television cable being laid between London and Birmingham. I am mindful of the fact that this cable will also carry the multi-channel telephone circuit; but are we to continue that cable, not only to Birmingham, but right up to Scotland, because it must be an enormous capital expenditure? One inch tube is to be used and wisely used in view of the very high definitions and the possibility of colour in 20 years' time. But it is very expensive and we should like to know what it will cost; and what rental the B.B.C. will be charged for that cable on a yearly basis. Because if the Scotsmen have to pay an economic rent for their cable they will feel the draught.

Is the hon. Member suggesting that Scotland should not get the benefit, although they are paying taxes?

No, I am not suggesting that, but I should like to know what the cost is to be, because it must be quite a high proportion of the total grant. Perhaps the Minister would also say if he is proposing to proceed with the centimetre link to the Continent. He may consider that to be a far cry, but it is in keeping with the thought of the cultural ties of Western Union, that we should have links in this country with continental countries.

I was also delighted to note the reference by the right hon. Gentleman last Friday to television licences, and his encouragement to people to take them out. Being associated with the industry I keep a fairly careful check, and it does appear that one in three people are extremely forgetful. We have in fact sold 370,000 television sets and installed them in homes and so far there are only 285,000 licences.

indicated dissent.

The right hon. Gentleman shakes his head, but I have made allowance for 50,000 sets in the shops.

We have had a reference to the commercial television and I should like to reinforce the view expressed by the hon. Member for Morecambe and Lonsdale (Sir I. Fraser). Please do not shut the door to the possibility of the commercial television programme. I had some responsibility for televising the Derby in 1938 and 1939, and there must be many people in this country who saw the recent announcement in the newspapers that yet again the Derby would not be televised. They must have wondered when we shall get these big sporting events into the home. We have missed all the big boxing matches and the Derby. Originally they were, in form, sponsored, because they were projected into seven cinemas, and those cinemas each paid £500, making a total of £3,500. Now the B.B.C. are not in a position to offer this sum of money for this event; and I cannot see the vicious chain being broken unless we do open the door to sponsored programmes.

All of us must have been impressed by the enthusiasm displayed by the right hon. Gentleman for his new task, and I hope that he will not be restrictive in stopping commercial radio links from operation. Years ago this House invested in the Postmaster-General, through the Wireless Telegraphy Act, the control of our frequencies. That was very necessary in those days, because there was so much interference. Now that we have gone down into the ultra-short waves the interference is much less acute and far more channels are available. Therefore we should allow commercial interests who wish to operate a radio link from A to B, or wish to operate a television link from C to D, to do so, provided they are not interfering with other interests. Surely they should be allowed to do so because we are thereby further developing the radio industry and acquiring additional know-how which in the long run will pay enormous dividends in world prestige and in exports; and also probably in the strategic field. If we do not continue to develop these V.H.F. links we shall have to put out big development contracts to the companies for Service equipment. If we can encourage them, then we shall have the designs, prototypes and probably the machinery in the factories; and the equipment would be ready so that if we were in need we could immediately make use of it. I would appreciate an answer from the Minister to those points.

I would not have intervened in this Debate but for the reference to Scotland by the hon. Member for Hendon, North (Mr. C. Orr-Ewing). I regret very much that the hon. Member, with his associations with Scotland, should make the suggestion that in some way Scotland should not have the benefits which are to come to England as a result—

I did not make that suggestion. I wish to make it quite clear I did not suggest that Scotland should not have the benefit. I merely wanted to know what would be the cost of the centimetre link extension to Scotland and the co-axial cable extension to Scotland.

I suggest that the hon. Member has unwittingly tried to prevent Scotland from benefiting. He has raised a very sinister question, as to what would be the cost. By directing that trend of thought into the mind of the Postmaster-General or into the mind of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, I can hardly think that the hon. Member is performing a very useful service to Scotland. Does the hon. Gentleman think that Scots are not interested in the television of the Derby and the boxing matches which he arranged?

I should like to express gratitude to the Postmaster-General for giving the assurance that next year Scotland will have the opportunity of seeing television programmes. It was in the last Parlia- ment that a Scottish Member of the Opposition was fortunate enough to be able to put the case of television for Scotland on an Adjournment Debate. The former Member for Central Glasgow would be horrified at the kind of argument which has been advanced by the Conservatives in this Debate.

We have not put forward the argument which the hon. Gentleman suggests. We are well mindful that John Logie Baird was a Scot. My great-grandfather and one of his sons both sat for a Scottish Division in Dunbartonshire and I would hate to have it thought that I was in any way suggesting that Scotland did not want television. We on this side of the House had an Adjournment Debate on that subject and we showed our support for television.

I am sure that I have done a service by eliciting that explanation from the hon. Gentleman. I shudder to think of the feelings of the former Member for Central Glasgow if it had been thought that on the Benches opposite there was opposition to television for Scotland. The right hon. Member for Dunbartonshire, East (Mr. Kirkwood), who unfortunately is not with us today, has previously made the point that in the Scotland, which gave the inventor of television to the world, there was less facility for seeing television programmes than there was in New York. The Postmaster-General is entitled to a hearty vote of thanks from Scottish Members for the way in which he has responded to the request made in that Debate. I am sure that the hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland (Sir D. Robertson) endorses what I have said. We are anxious to have the television service developed because we realise the benefit it will bring to the more remote parts of Caithness and Sutherland.

I am sure that the hon. Member will agree that we should have had the television service in operation this week, because in Wick there has occurred an incident which should be broadcast and televised to the world. A resident in the hon. Gentleman's constituency, Private Hugh McPhee has been awarded the Military Medal. If we had had a television programme it would have done a twofold service. It would have given this private who has operated in Malaya the opportunity of appearing in a television programme, and it would also have enabled it to be made public that this private has just announced that his housing conditions in Wick are worse than they were in the jungle in Malaya. There are great opportunities in television programmes for the development of features including comments on events of the week.

I am sorry that the hon. Member for Kingston-upon-Thames (Mr. Boyd-Carpenter) is not here, because last Friday, when an eloquent appeal for the broadcast of the proceedings of this House was made, he put up a concrete and definite argument why it should not be done. I fail to see why an experiment with television should not be made in the other place. I am sure that the hon. Member for Kingston-upon-Thames would have endorsed my comment that there should be television of the proceedings of the other place. If we did that, I am sure that it would finish the argument as far as Scotland is concerned.

I, too, would like to say how refreshing I found the speech of the Postmaster-General. I have some hope that in the not too distant future the postal services of Great Britain will be as efficient as they were just before the war. I should also like to pay tribute to the postal workers of every grade and class for the work they have done, not only as part of the national service in war but in the difficult days they have had to face since the end of the war. At the same time. I join issue with the hon. Member for Lichfield and Tamworth (Mr. Snow), who said that my hon. Friend the Member for Altrincham and Sale (Mr. Errol) made an attack upon the postal workers. Far from it. He made a justifiable comment that in all industry and in all branches of service today, there is a minimum percentage of people who do not pull their weight. I think that that was the import of his remarks.

On the subject of postal operations generally, I should like to ask the Postmaster-General whether he is completely satisfied—and I do not suggest that there is anything wrong—that the maximum use is being made of the British firms who have pioneered and specialised in the operation and construction of automatic telephone exchanges. I should like to be satisfied that there is a complete interlinking between these firms and the manufacturing side of the postal service, which itself is of no small dimensions. I should also like to ask the Postmaster-General to make a careful investigation of the interlocking of research done by private firms and the postal service's own very high standard of research which, I think, enjoys a world wide reputation.

Coming down to the mundane, I sense that there is dissatisfaction among the general public with the telephone bills which they receive and which do not seem to coincide with their own recollection and, very often, careful calculation of the number of calls they have made. I can only assume that it is the inaccuracy of the apparatus—which one hon. Member suggested could be dispensed with in favour of a standard flat charge for all calls—which is responsible. My other point is one on which I may be stopped by you, Mr. Speaker. I should like to refer to relief for old age pensioners by permitting them to enjoy free wireless licences.

That is out of Order on this Debate.

I am sorry, Sir. I am sure that what I had in mind is clear to the Postmaster-General. In lighter mood, I would comment that in the forthcoming General Election many more votes might be secured by the party in office if they took care to see that the service on local toll calls from telephone booths was made much more efficient. The delay in these calls cause a great deal of frustration and irritation. Sometimes when I look at the telephone booths I am not a bit surprised at the way in which they are scratched and torn about. I have experienced delays of 10 minutes in trying to get through on a toll call.

One last word about a new type of user of the telephone—people of modest means and working class folk. I should like to follow up what has been said by other speakers about shared lines. If the Postmaster-General could do something in the way of a positive reduction in the charges for shared lines, he would be conferring a great benefit both on the people who use them and on the postal service itself, and particularly on those of small income, who would be able to avail- themselves of this service with greater satisfaction to themselves and advantage to the revenues of the telephone service.

I want to raise only one very short point and ask a question. When can something be done about the interference caused by the Daventry commercial broadcasting station? This station interferes with television reception in Northampton and district, and there is something which is referred to locally as the "Daventry pattern," which appears on the television screen and makes it almost impossible for viewers to follow what is going on. While that interference continues, television viewers in Northampton are really being defrauded and are not getting value for their money. We in Northampton would be very grateful indeed to have some assurance from the Postmaster-General that this Daventry interference will be dealt with and that the "Daventry pattern" will be removed from our television screens.

We have had a very interesting and long Debate, and the criticism which has been expressed has been very fair. This criticism can be divided into two parts—criticism of the delay in supplying telephones, and, secondly, criticism of the postal services. I think the House generally has appreciated the many difficulties with which the Post Office is confronted, but I propose just to reiterate those difficulties and make a few general observations before I deal seriatim with the points raised in the Debate.

The chief difficulty, of course, is the fact that we have to face the control of investment. There is only a certain allocation of capital investment available to the Post Office, and this has to be so. Without the priorities that we have for capital investment, there would undoubtedly be widespread unemployment in this country today. The Government have allocated this year the sum of £44 million for the Post Office. Let me hasten to assure the House that, because there is the greatest need for the development of the telephone service, the bulk of that £44 million will be spent on that service. What are the causes of the shortages? They are, firstly, the fact that many of the cables are full, the shortage of exchange equipment and the fact that no less than one-fifth of the buildings of our telephone exchanges are already full. The reason why a person is not able to get a telephone may be a combination of any of these three reasons.

Further, we are faced with the fact of a growing demand. People are becoming more telephone conscious, and men and women returning from the Forces, who were accustomed to using the telephone repeatedly during their service, feel when they come home that they want a telephone installed for themselves. This is also an outward and visible sign of a buoyant economy. Let there be no doubt about that. Faced with this situation, what has the Post Office done? I am going to submit to the House that, although the criticism has been fair, it has not produced any practical alternative which the Post Office is not already employing.

For instance, one in three of the telephones in this country have been provided since 1945. That is no mean accomplishment, having regard to the shortage of raw materials. Something like 1,400,000 telephones have been provided in the last two years, and even then there are still 500,000 people waiting for the telephone today. The question which hon. Members will require answered on this point is what the Post Office has done about it. Firstly, we evolved a scheme of priorities, which was laid before the House two years ago during the discussion on the Post Office and Telegraph (Money) Bill, 1948. There was no criticism of it.

These priorities are, firstly, for public utilities, industrial premises, doctors, midwives and farmers, and the residential subscriber comes last. I think that is fair in the circumstances, and let me hasten to assure the House—since this point has been referred to quite frequently—that the disabled ex-Service man and the ex-prisoner of war receives preference, and quite rightly so. After the priorities, we then introduced—

Could the hon. Gentleman answer the question which I raised last week on the subject of priorities for ministers of religion?

Yes, I am going to answer it. I have made a note of the hon. Gentleman's question.

The second thing which the Post Office did was to introduce shared service. In view of all the criticism which has been made of this service, it is a fact that it is becoming more popular. The number of people who now use a shared service is 200,000. I think there is quite a genuine misconception amonst people when they are asked to share a telephone that it is going to be a great inconvenience to them. I want to say this about sharing. First of all, the person has a separate number, and, in many cases, there is a separate account. With regard to trunk charges, if they have trunk calls, the charges are always put down on a separate account.

It is perfectly true that, with a shared line, if one person happens to want to use the telephone at the same time as the other person is speaking, that person may be overheard. It is also true that that defect could be obviated, but it can only be obviated at great expense, and, therefore, we do not propose to do it. There is nothing new about this shared service, because in many States of the United States there are up to 36 people using one pair of lines. I hope that in those residential areas where there is no immediate hope of separate telephones, the introduction of a shared service will help a great many people to have the telephone.

Next, we have proceeded apace with the installation of telephone kiosks, and, in the last two years, nearly 5,500 have been installed, over 2,000 of them in the rural areas. I think it would be relevant to say that we have had a lot of criticism in the House with regard to the rural areas and the contribution that was exacted from the local authority of £4 for five years. This has now been done away with, and the allocation of telephone kiosks in the rural areas is now done in conjunction with the Rural District Councils' Association.

Having given that as an introduction in order to point out the difficulties and show what the Post Office has done in order to face up to the situation, I will now proceed to answer the various points which have been raised in the Debate. The hon. Member for Westbury (Mr. R. V. Grimston) who made a very fair speech, asked me many questions which I will endeavour to answer. His first question was in regard to the number of applications dealt with for farmers' lines. In the year 1948–49, 12,000 applications were dealt with. He then asked what was the capital cost per application. That is very difficult indeed to assess, because obviously the cost of installing the telephone in a rural area as compared with in an urban area is infinitely greater, and if the figure were arrived at, it would not give a fair picture. I hope to give him some information when I come to the point raised with regard to the expenditure of £300 million of capital in order to liquidate the number of people on the waiting list.

The hon. Member then asked about the reduction in postal rates. That is a fair question and one in which we are all interested. The hon. Gentleman knows, because he has had far greater experience in the House of Commons than I have, that the postal rates are always reviewed in connection with the financial position of the country. Let me hasten to assure him of this fact—that if the postage rate was reduced by ½d. from 2½d. to 2d. it would practically wipe out the surplus on the postal service.

He then asked some technical questions—and I know that he is very interested in the technical developments of the Post Office—with regard to the automatic dialling of trunk calls. I cannot hold out any hope for many years that a subscriber will be able to use his own telephone and dial another subscriber in another city without the intervention of an intermediary operator. I can tell him, however, that equipment is about to be ordered for London which will enable the operator to dial direct to a distant subscriber without the assistance of an intermediary operator. With regard to telegraph development, we are already installing a switch system whereby a teleprinter operator can dial another teleprinter office and then signal the message direct. That should reduce mistakes, effect economy in manpower and be a considerable saving in time.

He also asked a question about the submarine cable repeater. I know that he is interested in this matter because I think that it was during his term of office as Assistant Postmaster-General that the first was installed. It was installed in 1943 to the North of Ireland. In 1946, we installed one in the Borkum cable for the Control Commission, the longest submarine telephone cable in the world, and I am happy to say that we have had no failures. In 1950, we are to instal four submarine repeaters in the two old Dutch cables, which will increase the number of circuits from 18 to 120. We hope to construct valves which will last for 20 years, and, in some period of 1951, to introduce into the deep sea cable from Portugal to South America, which goes down to 2,500 fathoms, another submarine repeater. I think that the hon. Member can rest assured that real practical development is taking place in the submarine repeater.

Will the repeater be at that level.

I did not say that it would be at that depth, but it must be remembered that in going across the South Atlantic a cable is bound to go through great depth of water. It is a tremendous achievement and one which the British Post Office as the pioneer of it can be proud.

A question was asked about the helicopter. The present experiment is about to come to an end. We have had experience of the use of the helicopter in carrying mail, and at the present moment it is far from economical. As the hon. Gentleman knows, the present-day speed of the helicopter and its lifting power mitigate against it being a practical proposition for the carrying of mails generally.

As to the greetings telegram, that has been under review several times. It is a form of social service which appeals to anyone who happens to hold the position of Postmaster-General. I must say, after the most careful examination, that far from reducing the deficit on the telegram service it would actually increase it. The reason is that the cost would increase in proportion to the traffic. The main factor is the tremendous increase in the cost of delivery. There are now no boy messengers, but junior postmen, and, therefore, it is very doubtful indeed whether by the reintroduction of the greeting telegram we should be able to reduce the deficit on telegrams.

The hon. Member for Rossendale (Mr. Anthony Greenwood) and the hon. Member for Walthamstow, East (Mr. H. Wallace), raised the question of the condition of postal buildings. It is true that many of them are out of date; they are a legacy of the past. We need not inquire into the reason, but certainly it was not the responsibility of the present Government. What has been done? One-sixth of the total building expenditure of the Post Office is to be spent on new postal buildings, and in the next two years we hope to spend £1½ million. Extensions are already taking place, and new offices are being erected in Battersea, Exeter and Hull.

With regard to welfare, that is always receiving the attention of my right hon. Friend and the officials in conjunction with the Union of Post Office Workers, and it will be our earnest endeavour in the light of the capital available to go on continuously improving the welfare of the postmen. The hon. Member for Croydon, East (Sir H. Williams)—I regret that he is not in his place—thoroughly enjoyed himself. He made one or two very amusing observations, one of which, of course, was an account of his adventures whilst dialling and endeavouring to get a telephone number. This so-called difficulty has been raised by many other hon. Members opposite. The fact is that there is today far greater efficiency in the automatic telephone service than there was before the war.

As to equipment, I can say that it is being continuously overhauled and all the back log of work arising from years of war is almost completed. He then went on to criticise the methods of accounting in the Post Office. There is nothing new about it. It is a method adopted by previous Governments. I submit that as we are carrying out work for other Government Departments we should make a charge for the work carried out. All private business firms, would do the same, and we are quite right in doing likewise.

One other point which must be answered which was raised by several Members. That was about rental payment by the Government. One hon. Member quoted the figure of £.6,789,000 notionally paid by Government Departments, and he assumed that thereby almost one-quarter of the telephones were in Government hands. What the hon. Gentleman did not take cognisance of was the fact that the bulk of the Government Departments use private lines, including the Army, Navy and Air Force, for which they pay a total of £5½ million per annum. For local lines the Government Departments pay £1,274,221 or one-twentieth of the rental paid by private people.

Reference has been continually made to the transference of a telephone to a person taking over a house in which an instrument is already installed. The position is that if there is equipment available and no shortage in the area, the person automatically gets the telephone. But if a person coming from another area buys a house in which there is a telephone, it will be taken out if there is a waiting list, and quite rightly so, because it is manifestly unfair that a person coming from one district to another should get a telephone when there is a waiting list. There is a perfectly fair analogy in the case of housing. A person coming from one district to another does not jump from the bottom of the housing list to the top.

The question of sub-post offices and payment to sub-postmasters has also been raised. Let me hasten to assure the House that the remuneration to sub-postmasters is always on the scale agreed with their Federation.

We come now to the question of how we arrive at the £300 million required to cancel out the telephone waiting lists. This represents nearly an eight-year programme, involving an expenditure in the order of £40 million a year. It involves not only the clearance of the waiting lists, but also improvements to the trunk network. Trunk calls at the present time are going up by 5 per cent. per annum, and there has been a 100 per cent. increase in trunk calls since 1938. Therefore, trunk lines are bound continually to be installed. It involves also a tremendous expenditure on buildings. Already one-fifth of them are full. There is also the question of equipment and the ducting and laying of the cables. Therefore, to the best of my right hon. Friend's knowledge, the sum of £300 million will be required to wipe out the waiting lists, and at the same time to keep pace with the demands on the trunk services, as well as all the work that goes on in chang- ing telephones from one house to another where there is a change in occupation.

Does that include the fresh applications that will come along during that period?

Yes, Sir, together with the work that is going on.

The hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland (Sir D. Robertson) raised a number of questions. He asked how much telephone equipment was being exported. At the present time 50 per cent. of our telephone equipment is being exported. Some of it goes to the dollar area, but most of it to the sterling area. It is by virtue of the fact that we are supplying this telephone equipment that we are maintaining the market and indirectly saving dollar expenditure.

The hon. Member thought that the farmers were being neglected. I think that the farmers have been exceptionally well looked after. We are installing lines for the farmers at the rate of 1,000 a month, and 25,000 farmers have had a telephone in the last two years. That is a tremendous achievement of which we are rightly proud. He then went on to raise the question of the decentralisation of the telephone headquarters at Aberdeen. I gather that he does not like Aberdeen. I do not know why that is, because I find it a very beautiful city and the people exceedingly generous. I do not know why he has suddenly got this Aberdeen phobia.

I did not say anything derogatory to the great city of Aberdeen, of which I am very proud, as is every Scotsman. What I said, with the greatest possible clarity, was that it was absurd to take one-third to one-half of Scotland and make it one telephone area, when there are four areas for the remainder of Scotland and 44 areas for England. Does the hon. Member realise that Aberdeen is 320 miles from Wick and nearly 400 miles from Cape Wrath, and even further from Orkney? Does he want any more information than that to realise that the position is absurd?

Let me assure the hon. Member that my affection for Scotland and the north of Scotland is second only to my affection for my native county. If he will contain himself for a moment, I am coming to this question. Two-thirds of the telephone staff are stationed in Aberdeen, and the remaining third are in Elgin, Wick and Inverness, and are quite sufficient to carry out what is necessary in those areas. The hon. Member cannot be suggesting that the headquarters should go out into some of the remote villages and crofter areas. The hon. Member tried to conjure up the picture that because of this great centralisation in Aberdeen, people in the north, could not get an adequate service. We have had singularly few complaints in the north in regard to our services. I appreciate his interest in his new constituency, to which I am sure he will bring the same zeal and energy as he did to his Streatham division in the previous Parliament.

The speech of the hon. Member for Londonderry (Sir R. Ross) was very complimentary to the Post Office. Apparently, the requirements of Northern Ireland are now entirely satisfied. He made a complaint about the parcel post. Let me hasten to assure him that we have had very few complaints, except when there was the strike in the cross-channel steamers a few weeks ago.

I now come to the speech of the hon. Member for Kingston-upon-Thames (Mr. Boyd-Carpenter), which I do not think was up to his usual standard. It was more a question of quantity than of quality. He was particularly anxious 10 see that he did not sit down before 4 p.m. Nevertheless, he did raise one or two pertinent questions.

And I did sit down before 4 o'clock.

He asked whether the Union of Post Office Workers were preventing later collections.

I did not use the word "preventing." I was very careful in what I said. I asked whether it was done on the representations of the union.

I gather the implication was that the Union of Post Office Workers were preventing a later collection. I can assure him that this is not the case. We know there is a tremendous amount of criticism because there is not a later collection, but my right hon. Friend is examining the position with a view to considering what improvements can be made in the light of present circumstances. As the hon. Member knows, we are governed by a manpower ceiling. It is a matter that is being actively considered. The hon. Member also dealt with the shared service and referred to clergymen. Where possible, we give clergymen a private telephone. There may be cases, due to shortage of equipment, where clergymen have had to be put on the shared service, but it is only done in these circumstances.

Will the hon Member direct a few arguments to the point I raise in connection with the case where two applicants have been waiting nine years for the installation of a telephone?

My right hon. Friend is writing to the hon. Member about these cases. Let me hasten to assure the hon. Gentleman that they are exceptional and the reasons will be given. I ought to digress a moment to say that when hon. Gentlemen write to my right hon. Friend about a shortage of telephones and we give the reasons why that should be, it is open to any hon. Member to go and check those reasons for himself. We give specific causes why telephones cannot be supplied.

The hon. Member for Altrincham and Sale (Mr. Erroll) criticised postal deliveries. There was a time when the service between Manchester and London was subject to delay, and representations were made. We have had no recent criticisms about the service between these two cities. It would be far better if the hon. Gentleman would give us specific information immediately so that we can check up and rectify a matter such as that of which he complained. It is not good enough to come to the House of Commons and display an envelope which has been subject to delay, and assume that every letter posted in Britain is misdelivered or delayed. When we recognise that 8,000 million letters are annually sent through the British Post Office the amount of delay is very small indeed, in fact, almost infinitesimal. We will look into cases of mis-sorting or of delay. Let us have the information and we will deal with it. I have sufficient confidence in the British postal service to say that we shall be able to overcome the delays to which the hon. Gentleman referred.

I do not think the hon. Member for Altrincham and Sale really meant the drastic criticisms he made of the postal workers and slackness. I did not like it. There is one thing very significant about the British postal worker, and it is common to all those workers who are in public utilities. They do not say that they are going to work but that they are going on duty, and the use of that word "duty" rather than "work" is very significant indeed. It pre-supposes a loyalty to the community and a desire to serve. I do not think the hon. Gentleman's strictures were quite fair.

He then went on to criticise the telephone service and he referred to the number of applicants outstanding in Altrincham and Sale. I have the figures here. In those two centres 1,138 applicants are waiting for a service. An extension is planned for that area but, as the hon. Gentleman said, it is a residential area, and, if we are going to choose the telephone exchanges we are going to extend, we should obviously select Old Trafford before Altrincham and Sale because of its industries.

Why not both?

We cannot do both for the reasons which have been given both by my hon. Friend and myself during this Debate, and it is a pity that the hon. Member was not in his place to hear those reasons given.

The question of the shared service was also raised by the hon. Member for Altrincham and Sale. The position is being continuously reviewed. We are always seeing in what way we can improve it, and I thought he made a practical suggestion which will receive the consideration of my right hon. Friend and the Department. We then had an interesting speech by the hon. Member for Morecambe and Lonsdale (Sir I. Fraser). It is impossible for my right hon. Friend or I ever to be able to say what area is actually going to be covered by television. It is safe to say that around the television station an area up to 50 miles radius can be covered, but beyond that we are not prepared to go. It is impossible for me to say that the Holme Moss station will cover Morecambe or Heysham, and I cannot give any undertaking when the television service will be available to these places.

I did not ask the hon. Gentleman for an undertaking that his present plans would cover those areas, but for an undertaking that he would look into that question and see whether there could be a relay.

Certainly I will look into-it, but, as the hon. Gentleman knows, it was laid down by my right hon. Friend's predecessor that there were to be five high powered stations and five low-powered stations for television purposes. When the five high-powered stations are complete, it will not be possible for television to be received in that part. of Lancashire as far as we are advised. It is a very difficult part of the country to cover. I can give an assurance that the matter will be looked into. On the question of sponsoring television programmes, I am not prepared in this Debate to enter into a controversy on those programmes. For one thing, it is not the responsibility of my right hon. Friend, but there is nothing to prevent the interested parties submitting evidence and ideas to the Beveridge Committee, which is sitting at the present time to inquire into the B.B.C. I think we had better leave it at that.

What does the hon. Gentleman mean by saying it has nothing to do with his right hon. Friend? Surely the Postmaster-General is the Minister who has the last word?

No, the question is not quite as simple as that. If the hon. Gentleman cares to study the licence to the B.B.C. from the Postmaster-General he will see that my right hon. Friend's powers are very small. In any case, it is a question for the Government and not solely for my right hon. Friend. I am, trying to be helpful to the hon. Gentleman. and I am saying that those people who are interested in sponsored programmes should give their evidence to the Beveridge Committee, which is sitting at the present time.

We had a very interesting contribution from the hon. Gentleman the Member for Hendon, North (Mr. C. Orr-Ewing). He wanted guidance as to what were the powers of my right hon. Friend. I cannot tell him the number of the Command Paper in which those powers are laid down, but if he looks up the Debate on 16th December, 1949, he will see a reference to the powers which my right hon. Friend possesses. The hon. Gentleman also asked a question about the coaxial cable. It is perfectly true that the co-axial cable is exceedingly expensive. We have one installed between London and Birmingham and one between Birmingham and Manchester. The covering of these islands for television will be done by radio link, and only in very few cases by co-axial cable.

I cannot give a reply to the hon. Gentleman on the question of relaying programmes to the Continent. That depends on the people on the Continent, and it is a matter on which I can give no assurance whatsoever, nor can I give him any estimate of what the cost of the rental of the co-axial cable by the B.B.C. will be. His contribution was very interesting, and when we have time to study it we shall consider the very constructive proposals which he made to the House.

The last point is in regard to television for Scotland. It is a pity that the hon. Member for Ayrshire, South (Mr. Emrys Hughes) is not in his place, because my right hon. Friend said that he hoped they would have television in Scotland. That is a considerable advance upon the last few months. The point was raised about interference by the Daventry broadcasting station with the people of Northampton. There is a Question on the Order Paper on the subject. It is a real difficulty and we are looking into it. We hope to obviate it.

Does the hon. Gentleman say that there will be a satisfactory answer to that Question?

I cannot say. It is not a simple matter, and no one knows that better than the hon. and learned Member, who took a very active part in discussion of the Wireless Telegraphy Act and its regulations. It is unfair when we are dealing with a technical problem such as radio interference with television screens to suggest that we could stop it immediately. If we could have done so it would have been stopped already. All that can be done will be to reduce unnecessary interference.

I would re-echo the words of nay right hon. Friend and pay tribute to the splendid work that is being done by the Joint Production Committee of the Post Office. We get greater co-operation among all classes of the staff, and the relations between the trade unions and my right hon. Friend is excellent. It will be the earnest endeavour of my right hon. Friend and of all in the Department to make the British Post Office in all its branches the most efficient of all Post Offices in the world.

We had a very interesting speech from the Assistant Postmaster-General, but he did not say that when he is spending all this money he will look into the question of the delivery of letters. I have sent him an interesting example in which it took five days for a letter to travel 20 miles. I hope that when he gets his £75 million he will do something about it.

I beg to move, in page 1, line 22, to leave out from "representatives," to the end of line 24, and to insert:

"to the Consultative Assembly of the Council of Europe and their substitutes."

I hope that the Government will look favourably upon this Amendment, which does nothing more than carry out the intention that they expressed upon the Second Reading. The Under-Secretary of State then said that the object of the Bill was to protect the rights and privileges of those who attend the Council of Europe as members of the Consultative Assembly. He said that at the beginning of his speech. If the Amendment is accepted, it will give effect to what he said. As the Bill now stands it goes far beyond the Council of Europe and the agreement which is set out in the general agreement of privileges and immunities of the Council of Europe.

When one looks at that agreement, one sees that the privileges and the immunities are in two categories. The first is the category of representatives of the Consultative Assembly and their substitutes, and the second is of officials of the Council. There is no reference to staffs or officials of the representatives. Therefore, there is no need for the Bill to go beyond that point, if it is the intention, as the hon. Gentleman said, to protect the rights and privileges of those attending the Council. As the Bill now stands it extends the earlier Act to cover representatives, whether of the Governments concerned or not, or

"on any organ of such an organisation."

What does that mean? If our Amendment is accepted it is clear that representatives from this country, whether they are representatives of the Government or not, will be entitled to the protection given under the Bill. I ask the hon. Gentleman whether he will now give me the answer to the question that I put to him on the Second Reading: If the Bill is intended to apply to any other organisa- tion than the Council of Europe and the Consultative Assembly, what organisations have the Government in mind? If they have none in mind, then the extension of the Bill beyond what is necessary is wrong. If they have any in mind we should at least be told what they are, and why, in the Government's view, they are not covered by existing legislation.

I have never received a satisfactory answer to the question: What is meant by an organ of an organisation? It is a term which was first used—I may be wrong about this—in the agreement referring to the United Nations, but there was no definition of it. Is it something which has a corporate capacity? Is it something quite distinct from a committee? What constitutes the organ of an organisation? Has that expression any legal significance? We ought to be told something more about the matter.

I would draw the attention of the Committee to this matter: Whereas the Agreement relating to the Council of Europe refers just to those two categories of representatives and their substitutes, and officials of the Council of Europe, the Bill not only covers

"representatives (whether of Governments or not) on any organ of such an organisation,"

but also

"members of any committee of such an organisation or of an organ thereof."

The Bill is, therefore, drawn to cover both representatives and members, which obviously implies that we shall have not officials but members of the organisation or of an organ thereof who are not representatives of this country; not representatives, whether they are of Governments or not, but something quite distinct. What is meant by the expression "members of any committee" as distinct from "representatives"? If the "representatives" are "members of the committee" the words in line 23 "members of any committee" are unnecessary because they are already covered.

I suggest that the Bill as drafted means that under it diplomatic privileges and immunities can be given to people who are on committees as members of the committees, but who are not representatives of this country or of any other country. There is nothing in the general agreement to that effect. Why is the hon. Gentleman seeking in this respect to go beyond the terms of the Agreement? I should be glad if he will deal with that point.

I note that there is no reference in that Agreement to committees of the Council of Europe or the Consultative Assembly which sit when the Consultative Assembly is not in session. There is no reference in that Agreement to any extension of diplomatic privileges or immunities to people who attend such meetings on such committees. It might be that the intention of the words to which I have referred in subsection (2) is to enable protection to be given to those serving on such committees when the Consultative Assembly is not in session, but I do not think that can be right because even though they would be "members of the committee" they would still be "representatives," and therefore the words "members of any committee" are really unnecessary. Either they are completely unnecessary or they are intended to cover something which has not been disclosed to the Committee or to the House. As the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Gloucester (Mr. Turner-Samuels) will agree, a distinction is drawn in subsection (2) between "representatives" on the one hand and "members of the committee" on the other.

rose—

The hon. and learned Gentleman will, no doubt, have an opportunity of making his own speech in due course. If "members of any committee" also means "representatives", the words "members of any committee" are completely unnecessary.

1.45 p.m.

I now come to the penultimate point on the Bill as it is now drafted. It reads:

"Members of any committee of such an organisation or of an organ thereof …"

Apparently we can have an organ of a committee of an organisation. What is meant by that? It goes on:

"and their official staffs."

There is no reference at all in the Agreement of the Council of Europe, Command Paper 7780, to the official staffs of representatives of this country on the Council of Europe. There is only a reference to the official staff of the Council of Europe. As I hope to be able to point out later, there is no reference in the Bill to the official staff of the Council of Europe, and in that respect the Bill does not carry out the Agreement into which His Majesty's Government have entered. Why do we find the words "official staffs" here? We were told on Second Reading that the object of the Bill was to carry out the Agreement which had been entered into.

I have endeavoured to point out some respect in which the Bill clearly goes beyond the Agreement. The Opposition are in favour of the implementation of the Agreement, but no case has yet been made out by the Government for extending diplomatic privileges and immunities beyond the limits set in that Agreement. It is for that reason that we move our Amendment, which will have one effect alone and that is to bring the Bill completely into line with the Agreement into which the Government have entered.

I asked a question on Second Reading. I did not receive a reply to it, but I am getting quite accustomed to that. I wanted to know if, with the Bill as drafted, diplomatic privileges could be extended to our representatives on the Joint Postal Union. Can they be? Would the principal Act as extended by the Bill enable diplomatic privilege to be given to representatives on international organisations such as the International Federation of Trade Unions? I think the answer to that is in the negative, but I should be glad to hear what the Government's answer is. We did not hear it during the Second Reading Debate. If the hon. Gentleman meant what he said on Second Reading he ought to accept the Amendment, which does nothing more or less than carry out the intentions expressed by the Government on Second Reading.

An Amendment of mine which has not been called was in a completely opposite sense to the one I am now supporting. I tabled my Amendment in an inquisitive form because I wanted to find out what the Bill meant. I did not discover it last Friday when I had not had the advantage of reading the interesting document to which many references were then made. I am not quite certain that I admire that document as much as does my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Northants, South (Mr. Manningham-Buller). We want to be quite clear to whom we are giving these important advantages. We do not yet know their range. We shall not know that until we have the Order in Council. We do not yet know how far "C.D." will be extended. The document is a little misleading. It is an international document, and in it are used phrases which we may understand but which foreigners may not understand in the same sense.

There is a reference in paragraph 14 to freedom from official interrogation and freedom from arrest for anything that may be said at meetings of the Consultative Assembly. If other countries all play their part and some of my right hon. and hon. Friends on both sides of the House go to Strasbourg, they will naturally expect to have all these privileges in the countries through which they travel. I hope we shall have some explanation of what privileges they will have, because if ever I should have the misfortune to be appointed to Strasbourg, and I am travelling through Belgium in my motor car with G.B. on one plate and C.D. on another, and I am stopped by a constable and I produce a copy of this Bill, which will then be an Act—

It seems to me that the hon. Gentleman's remarks would be more effective on the Question, "That the Clause stand part of the Bill."

I am sorry, Sir Charles. I did not mean to go so wide but I was dealing with the point of who are affected and, particularly, delegates to Strasbourg. However, I was wandering, and I apologise because I never like breaking the Rules. [Laughter.] Well, I am seldom called to Order at any rate.

My hon. and learned Friend raised the question of the scope of the Bill. He talked about the International Federation of Trade Unions and the International Postal Union—a body which seems to survive every war. There is also the International Copyright Conference. I am not certain that that is ad hoc on each occasion. In 1928 it was my duty to instruct our delegates to the conference then held in Rome. If people travel on an occasion like that, are they to be given these privileges? It is a matter of great importance Throughout the year a great many international gatherings take place in which governments and parliaments are involved, and we want to make sure who will have the great privileges which this Bill will confer unless the Amendment, which I support entirely, is carried, as it ought to be.

My hon. and learned Friend referred to an organ. In the Interpretation Act—which I am certain hon. Gentlemen representing the Foreign Office have studied—there is no definition of an organ. My hon. and learned Friend tried to find out what an organ was but did not seem to get much encouragement from hon. Gentlemen opposite. I looked up a dictionary which said that an organ is a thing used

"in Quires and Places where they sing"

I do not know if that is what is meant—

indicated dissent.

It is no use the Under-Secretary shaking his head, because that does not impress me. There is no definition Clause in this Bill, so we do not know what an organ means. Supposing it happened, to give a frivolous example, that my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Northants, South and myself were appointed to serve as public relations officers to the Consultative Assembly. We should then become an organ and if we asked hon. Gentlemen behind us to act as our staff we should all receive this privilege It is no use hon. Gentlemen opposite trying to smile their way out of the difficulty in which they have involved themselves. In Acts of Parliament we have to be precise. We want to know what the Bill means, what the words we propose to leave out mean and, until we are satisfied, it may be the case that hon. Gentlemen opposite will not get the Bill in the form in which they have presented it to the Committee.

I wish to support the Amendment. In this subsection the Government have taken power to do almost anything by Order in Council and have justified it by the declaration that they intend to do practically nothing. It is a steam roller, admittedly to crush a gnat, but it is a steam roller.

This Amendment seeks to convert the subsection into an instrument more appropriate to its purpose. It is alleged by the Government that the purpose of the subsection is limited as regards the organisation concerned—namely, the Consultative Assembly of the Council of Europe—as regards the scope of the privileges to be conferred—which are those set out in Articles 13 to 15 of the General Agreement—and as regards the period during which those immunities are to run—which, in the case of two out of three of them, is only the period of sitting of the Consultative Assembly.

It is our contention that those limitations should be written into the Bill or else, if further purposes are to be served, that they should be clearly stated to the Committee and written into the Bill. After all, in the two Acts which this Bill is amending the purpose served, though not circumscribed in the terms of those Acts themselves, was clearly stated either in the Preamble or in the Title. In this case there is no such circumscription.

I would point out one difficulty in which the Government have involved themselves in the drafting of this subsection by not adhering to the provisions of the Agreement which they are purporting to implement. The Agreement says that these privileges are to be accorded to representatives and their substitutes whereas, as I read the subsection, there is no power under it for the substitute of a representative to receive any privileges or immunities whatever. Perhaps the Minister of State would refer to that difficulty, if it is one, and would also take it as an illustration of the problems which arise in going wide of the purpose which the Measure overtly aims at achieving.

I had not intended to take part in this Debate, but in the course of the observations of the hon. and learned Member for Northants, South (Mr. Manningham-Buller) he seemed to be seeking my assistance for the form of interpretation that he was trying to apply to this matter.

I have been looking at the wording of Clause I (2) and also scanning the terms of the Amendment. Apparently, the intention of the hon. and learned Member is a precautionary one, and to that extent I sympathise with him. One wants to distribute diplomatic privilege and immunity with great care and with the necessary restrictions, in order to ensure that it should not operate where it is not intended, and particularly that it should not lead to abuses of a nature which might be singularly detrimental to this country and to the work that it is seeking to assist.

The hon. and learned Member, so far as his forensic interpretation of the present position is concerned, does not disagree that organisations, and the specific organisation envisaged now, should have these diplomatic immunities and privileges.

If the hon. and learned Gentleman wants to be quite accurate, as I am sure he does, may I say that we do not disagree in the least with the representatives on the Council of Europe and their substitutes having the privileges and immunities set out in the General Agreement, Command Paper 7780.

So I follow.

But that is not the same as the privileges set out in the existing Acts.

So I follow. But then we are working on premises already existing, which the Amendment does not seek to remove in any way. Those premises are these: that under the previous Acts, those of 1944 and 1946, which are already operating, certain organisations are brought in; there is no doubt about that. As I follow it, the hon. and learned Member is not in any way objecting to that. Therefore, I am wondering what distinction he sees in regard to the particular Assembly which he has in mind and these other matters that are already covered by the Acts of 1944 and 1946.

I cannot see the distinction, and I should like to say why. The Statutes already in force give cover to representatives and members of committees—there does not appear to be any doubt about that; and, of course, it is commonsense. If we are to say that we can use an organisation for certain work, and that by that very user diplomatic privilege and immunity are to be conferred upon it, it obviously follows that all the instruments or organs—

What is an organ?

I will come to that in a moment—or agencies, representatives, committees or members of committees, who are to carry out, and who necessarily must carry out, the functions of this organisation, which, after all, is only a name, just as a corporate body has to employ its representatives and agents; if they are to carry out those functions at all, it follows necessarily that they can only be carried out through certain human instruments and certain agencies and organs.

Would the hon. and learned Member say where he finds anything in the Bill giving any privileges or immunities to the officials of the Council of Europe?

It is in connection with subsection (2), if I may say so, with respect, that the hon. and learned Member's mind is a little obscure, as is that also, I think, of the hon. Member for Croydon, East (Sir H. Williams), about "organ." From its introductory words it is perfectly clear that subsection (2) sets out to say that the same privileges as are envisaged there as being contained in the two Acts of 1944 and 1946 are now to be transferred in the way that the later words indicate; and that undoubtedly embraces committees and members of committees.

Is a committee an organ?

Just one moment—noise does not improve the argument. That, of course, is a logical, businesslike, commonsensible and inevitable method of implementing and administering this organisation. There is no other way of doing it.

If I thought for a moment—and if I may say so with the fullest sense of responsibility—that this was at all a higgledy-piggledy, irresponsible way of dealing with the matter, or even if there were a risk, and if the hon. and learned Member could indicate clearly and emphatically that there was a risk, that the language being used might be so flexible, so wide or so accommodating as to bring in people or instruments whom it was never intended, and who ought not to be allowed, to be brought in, then I would begin to see the point which the hon. and learned Member, apparently, wants to make by his Amendment. But there is really no case for saying that. As I see it from its practical angle, all that the subsection seeks to do—and it seems to me to be a perfectly proper purpose—is to confer, where it is essential to do so, upon certain instruments, agencies, committees or persons, the power and the right, the immunity and the privilege to carry out certain functions that are absolutely sine qua non to the administering of this organisation and its work.

The hon. Member for Croydon, East, has asked me several times about the definition of "organ." I am quite satisfied that the hon. Member is just making heavy weather for nothing. He knows very well what the word means and a fortiori he knows what it means in this context, because it is a perfectly clear dictionary in itself as to what the word "organ" here imports.

Will the hon. and learned Member tell me what it means?

Let me finish my answer. What it means, of course, is obvious to anyone who wants to see it and is even clear to the hon. Member himself, who does not want to see it. The wording of the subsection says:

"or of an organ thereof and their official staffs. …"

The context makes it clear, beyond any doubt at all, that it is merely—

rose—

If the hon. Member would contain himself for a moment—this is not a bubble to burst; it is an argument to reason out. The meaning is obvious. The term "organ" here means agency, instrument. The mere fact that the hon. Member pretends that he does not understand it, and obviously dislikes it, does not alter the collocation of the term.

Therefore, on all those grounds, I think that the hon. and learned Member for Northants, South, whose forensic capacity I admire very much, whose discernment is usually very well worth following, must himself see that the Amendment which he seeks to put forward really is not a very substantial one and in those circumstances the Committee ought not to accept it.

May I ask the hon. arid learned Member one question before he sits down? I have gathered some idea of the meaning of "organ" from what he has said. I now also understand that an organ is known as a wind instrument.

I was going to suggest that to the hon. Member, but I thought it would be so obvious to him that there was no need to do so.

It seemed to me that the hon. and learned Member for Gloucester (Mr. Turner-Samuels) was carrying us farther and farther out to sea on the question of what is meant of the present wording of the Clause. As I understood the effect of his remarks, he was suggesting that an organ might be a committee. If, however, a committee is, by definition, an organ, then what is a committee of an organ? If there is to be such an endless succession, there is no limit to the extension of derivative bodies to which this privilege may be extended by Order in Council.

The reason why we have moved the Amendment is clear. We object to the principle of diplomatic privilege being extended by Orders in Council based upon wording which, in itself, is incoherent. The hon. and learned Member for Gloucester said that if we could show him that the existing words were so flexible or wide in their meaning that there was doubt about the Orders in Council which might properly be based upon them, he would support the Amendment. But what wider kind of flexibility could there be than obscurity?

One very natural and usual meaning of the word "organ" a meaning attributed to it almost daily, is, for example, a newspaper. Hon. Members on this side might, and commonly do, refer to the "Daily Herald" as the organ of the Socialist Party. Are we to assume that, for example, a periodical or a newspaper of some kind which is issued by a committee of the Council of Europe is an organ to which diplomatic privilege could be extended by an Order in Council under the Bill?

Those are the kind of uncertainties which have prompted us to move this Amendment because, while we are reconciled as a matter of inevitability to this privilege being extended by Order in Council—which seems to be the way things happen nowadays—it seems necessary that those Orders in Council should be based on words which are specific and ascertainable in their meaning so that we know the legislative foundation for future extensions which may be remote in time and logic from what we are passing today. This legislative foundation, which is more or less the last opportunity this House has of deliberating the matter, should be clearly understood by hon. Members whenever they see these draft Orders laid on the Table of the House.

I urge on the Government another reason for accepting the Amendment. Last week the hon. Members who represent the Foreign Office invited us to consider, within the terms of the Bill, the context of the Agreement of last September. I would remind them that although that memorandum is clearly in their minds in putting forward this Bill and drafting it, it is in no sense a part of the law on the subject, unless in some way we embody it in this Bill. I appreciate that at the moment the two things are naturally seen together. But, once the Bill is passed and Orders in Council are made under it and become the law of the country, they are interpreted in courts where this agreement would not be referred to, and where certainly it could not be embodied in any way in argument on the meaning of this Clause. I appreciate that it is unlikely that any particular Order in Council made under the Act will be challenged in the courts, but we must legislate on the assumption that at some future date some real significance will attach to the precise scope of the Clause and someone will want to challenge in the courts whether an Order in Council was properly and legally made under this Clause.

It is our duty today to see that anything which ought to be included in the actual law on the subject, namely, the terms of this Bill, is put in. It is no good leaving the Agreement as something vaguely in the background, which explains to us today why something is being done but which will not be available for argument in court on a future occasion if any of these Orders is challenged.

There is one point which the hon. and learned Member for Gloucester (Mr. Turner-Samuels) made, and with which we can all agree. That is that when we grant diplomatic privileges it is no light thing. It is, therefore, important that we should all know precisely to what bodies or persons we are granting those privileges. That was underlined by my hon. Friend the Member for Buckinghamshire, South (Mr. Bell). When one looks at the wording of this Clause it is quite impossible to understand how far we are empowering Orders in Council to be made in respect of different bodies. If I may say so with respect to the hon. and learned Member for Gloucester, when he had finished clearing up the matter I found myself in complete confusion as to what the Clause meant. So I now turn to another lawyer, the Minister of State and I am happy to do so when I recall that he and I became members of our circuit at the same time. Now, for the first time, I am able to ask his legal opinion without paying anything for it.

What he must tell us is what precisely these words mean. How far are we extending the provisions of the Act of 1944. which we are extending,

"to representatives (whether of governments or not) on any organ of such an organisation and members of any committee of such an organisation or of an organ thereof and their official staffs."?

Cannot that mean, taken with the 1944 Act, that Orders in Council can be made to cover such non-Parliamentary matters as an international organisation of beekeepers, or poultry keepers, who happen to come together as members of different countries and meet either in this country, France. or other places?

I appreciate that Orders in Council need not be made to cover such bodies, but in fact we are giving power for such Orders in Council to be made and for the Executive to make them, if they are so minded. I am not suggesting that they would do so, but it is an important power which we ought to regard most jealously. It might well be that a foreign gentleman would be meeting an English gentleman here at an unofficial conference to discuss international affairs and would ask for exemption from taxation, or something of that nature. Cannot that be done under this provision? The wording is completely obscure; I cannot tell whether it can be done, or not.

I would like to know from the hon. Gentleman whether, in his view, it might extend to such completely non-governmental bodies. I have mentioned two such bodies and hon. Members can mention many others. I see the hon. Member for Norwich, North (Mr. Paton) present. He might suggest a conference of hairdressers. Might it not extend to them? If the hon. Gentleman thinks it will not extend to them, will he tell us why not, so as to make it quite clear? Unless he can make the subsection quite clear I shall press that it be clarified, as I think it will be, by 'the introduction of the Amendment.

I think the hon. and learned Member for Gloucester (Mr. Turner-Samuels) knows that I personally look forward to his interventions, but I was a little afraid lest the discussion, at least for part of this afternoon, might become what might be called a lawyers' field day. It is rather important that we should try to express in less technical legal language what the Amendment seeks to do. My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Northants. South (Mr. Manningham-Buller) made it quite clear that there is no difference of opinion in the Committee as to the obligation, the need and the desire for carrying out our undertakings in respect of members of the Council of Europe. Indeed, the Under Secretary of State himself put the matter perfectly plainly on Second Reading. when he said:

"At the outset I should make it quite clear that it is only in connection with the Consultative Assembly of the Council of Europe that any additional powers are now required and are now being sought."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 17th March. 1950; Vol. 472, c. 1410.]

That is perfectly clear and no one has any possible objection to the granting of those powers in respect of the Council of Europe. But I still do not understand why we cannot determine for what reason these obscure phrases appear in the Bill. I hope that the Minister of State at least will agree that what is proposed in the Amendment, namely, in line 22, to leave out from "representatives," to the end of line 24, and to insert:

"to the Consultative Assembly of the Council of Europe and their substitutes."

makes the Bill a great deal clearer than the extraordinary phrase:

"on any organ of such an organisation and members of any committee of such an organisation …"

Why cannot the Bill refer specifically to the Council of Europe as in the words of the Under-Secretary? That is all that this Amendment seeks to do.

The only other point which ought to be cleared up relates to the fact that there is perhaps some uncertainty about the position of members of the various committees. The Minster of State referred to this point on Second Reading, but not very specifically. I think I am correct in saying that the General Affairs Committee of the Consultative Assembly meets next week at Strasbourg. I take it that my hon. and learned Friend is perfectly right in suggesting that without any further Amendment any member of that Committee would be covered under the agreement contained in Cmd. 7780 because he is a member of the Assembly, although the Assembly is not in session? [An HON. MEMBER: "No."] That is the point I wish to have cleared up. It is not in accordance with the spirit of the Agreement if we grant privileges and immunities to representatives to the Council of Europe when the Assembly is sitting and not to those same representatives who attend committees at the time of the year when the Assembly is not sitting. I hope that the Minister of State realises that we are not being contentious in proposing this Amendment and that all we wish to do is to make the Bill carry out the terms of the Agreement, no more and no less.

My hon. Friends have been a little hard on the hon. and learned Member for Gloucester (Mr. Turner-Samuels), who made a speech so much in support of our case on this Amendment. Our argument is that the language of this Clause as it stands is unintelligible. It was to a large degree unintelligible before the hon. and learned Member contributed to this Debate. After he had done so it became utterly unintelligible, which is the whole point which we have been making. We seek to clear up, by our Amendment, the obscurity of this Clause. It will be recalled that the hon. and learned Member for Gloucester said that as the Clause stood it was a sine qua non that the words which are already in the Clause should be included and that, therefore, a fortiori they should be included. I do not think that the obscurity of the English in the Clause has been in any way repaired by the irrelevance of the hon. and learned Gentleman's Latin.

We have the perfectly laudable object of making this Clause say what it is intended to say. In moving the Second Reading last week the Under-Secretary of State assured us that the purpose of the Bill was to give diplomatic immunity to representatives attending the Council of Europe. This Amendment has precisely that effect and nothing else. On that occasion I pointed out to the Minister of State that unless some words of this kind, which gave the Bill this very object, were included we must draw the sinister conclusion that there was some further object behind this Bill than merely to give diplomatic immunity to those persons. The Clause, as drafted, is obviously much wider. My hon. Friend the Member for Belfast, South (Mr. Gage) has referred to some kinds of organisations which could be covered.

I want to be assured that this Bill will go no wider than giving the immunity which is sought for the representatives to the Council of Europe, an object with which we on this side of the Committee sympathise and in achieving which we are prepared to support the Government. But we are not prepared to support the Government in going wider than that. I hope that our Amendment will be accepted as carrying out what the Under-Secretary said was the very purpose of the Bill.

It is accepted that we should set some limitation to the extent to which diplomatic privilege is granted to people, particularly in this country, and the Bill can only deal with diplomatic privilege so far as it affects people in this country. There has been an alarming increase in the extent to which diplomatic privilege has been granted in the last few years. One has only to see the vast number of cars driving around London with "CD" at the back of them. I would not for a moment ask that that identification should be taken away because it is an advantage; it does help one to distinguish, in many cases, which is the back and which is the front. Otherwise, I can see no advantage in it at all. I hope that the Government will accept this Amendment to ensure that limitations are imposed in the sense in which we seek to impose them.

I hope that I shall be able to satisfy hon. Members opposite why it is that in seeking to achieve what I think we all appreciate is the same object—we are all agreed broadly on the object—we prefer the method we have adopted in this Bill rather than the method which is proposed in the Amendment. In Clause 1 (2), coupled, as it is with consequential Amendments in the Schedule, which go into the matter in detail, we seek to remove certain words from the existing legislation and replace them with certain others which we think are more appropriate to cover not merely the Council of Europe but other bodies previously covered by the old wording.

The Opposition Amendment seeks to retain the old wording and merely to add to it the brief phrase:

"to the Consultative Assembly of the Council of Europe and their substitutes."

I should like to explain why we do not want to retain the old wording and merely add that phrase to it, and why we think that the old wording should be brought up to date, because that is what it is sought to do. Hon. Members will appreciate that the basis of the present text dates from 1944, when the very earliest international organisations were just coming into being. I think I am right in saying that U.N.R.R.A. was the body mainly in contemplation. As soon as that was broadened into a large number of other organisations connected with the United Nations which were being formed in 1946 it was found that amendments were needed. As we go along and see the type of organisation which is coming into being it is not surprising that we should from time to time find that particular phrases have become out of date.

I would refer to the phrases we are seeking to replace and to what we are seeking to put in their place. In present legislation there is a provision—I am paraphrasing—under which His Majesty may by Order in Council confer immunities upon a number of people, and then come these words:

"… upon any person who is the representative of a member government on the governing body or any committee of the organisation …"

I should like to take the two parts of that phrase separately. I take first what I consider to be rather the secondary point, which relates to the second half of the phrase:

"on the governing body or any committee of the organisation …"

We are seeking to replace those words by some of the words which have been rather severely criticised in the Debate, by using the much more general words:

"on any organ of such an organisation …"

We then refer to committees.

2.30 p.m.

May I ask hon. Members to consider, in relation for instance to the Council of Europe, the applicability of the existing words:

"governing body or any committee."

I do not think it is very easy for any of us to see, and it certainly does not appear on the face of the words, what would be the governing body of the Council of Europe. An organisation of the type of the Council of Europe was not envisaged when those words were used; and even in 1946 those words from the 1944 Act had already become somewhat obscure in relation to the United Nations. So it was necessary in Section 2 of the 1946 Act to put in a detailed provision explaining what in relation to the United Nations organisation would be the governing body. Already at that stage the words had become obscure, because of the entirely different type of body, and it seems to us that these words have become an anachronism.

The phrase, "the governing body" is not really material. The Council of Europe would come in under the title of an organisation. The reference by the hon. Gentleman to "governing body" does not in the least meet the arguments from this side of the Committee against the present words.

With respect, I cannot agree with that. The organisation is the Council of Europe, and we have to make it clear what subordinate constituent parts of that are involved. What was attempted in 1944 was to use words which were reasonably applicable to the organisation then in contemplation. Already that requires a further definition in order to meet the case of the United Nations bodies in 1946, and that is why Section 2 (a) of the 1946 Act was put in. I would suggest that now it is quite inappropriate to use those words in relation to the Council of Europe.

It has turned out to be equally misleading in relation to the International Labour Organisation, because in the charter of that organisation, which dates from well before all this legislation, the term "governing body" is in fact used in an entirely different sense from what was contemplated in relation to U.N.R.R.A. "Governing body" in these new series of Acts is intended to mean—I do not know how to describe it—the major organisation which in the case of the United Nations was said to be the General Assembly. But in the case of the I.L.O. the term "governing body" is in use for the sort of executive committee. It is not used for the conference, which is the full organisation of the I.L.O., but for the smaller body. I think I am on firm ground in suggesting that the old words as they stand, and as they would stand if the Opposition Amendment were accepted, are in fact misleading in the new circumstances.

Where does the hon. Gentleman say that the words "governing body" appear in the earlier legislation?

They appear in Section I (2) of the 1944 Act as amended. Hon. Members will remember that when the 1946 Act was brought in we consolidated the 1944 Act with the Amendment in the Second Schedule. If hon. Members will consult the 1946 Act they will find contained in the Second Schedule of the 1946 Act this consolidation of the 1944 Act and the 1946 Act. It is at the bottom of the second page of the Schedule.

I am obliged to the hon. Gentleman. I thought that was the only reference, but he will see if he reads on that the words are:

"and upon any person who is the representative of a member government on the governing body or any committee of the organisation."

Obviously we have to extend that to representatives who are not representatives of the Government. But we should bear in mind that we have here already reference to the committees of the organisation. Why should we want to change it now to introduce the organisation of the committees?

In replacing these words all we are seeking to do is to find a formula which will cover the constituent elements of the relevant organisations. They are known by different terms an assembly in one, a council in another and a sub-committee in a third. There are many different terms which can be used, and what we are seeking to do is to find a formula which would be apt to cover all the constituent elements of these international organisations, by whatever term they may happen to be called in the particular statute.

Those hon. Members who are familiar with international organisations since the war will agree that the term "organ," of which so much has been said today, is one which is now pretty fully accepted in the world of international organisations as being a generic term to cover all possible elements—whether it be sub-committee, committee, council, assembly, or whatever it may be. It is a generic term.

As I say, these are rather minor points, compared with the larger point which concerns the earlier words I quoted, namely, the conferring of immunities "upon any person who is the representative of a member Government." Those are the words in existing legislation which we wish to change. So far as the Council of Europe is concerned, that phrase is sufficient to cover the representatives on the Committee of Ministers, because they are representatives of a member Government. But it is not, and I think this will be fully appreciated, sufficient to cover the representatives on the Consultative Assembly who are not representatives of the Government.

In their Amendment the Opposition seek to cover that by adding the words on the Order Paper. I am being perfectly frank when I say that we seek to do it by altering the existing general phrase and putting it in a new form which will cover representatives on the Consultative Assembly of the Council of Europe but which does not, in turn, entirely tie us to that particular body. The proposal is that whenever it is desired to add any group, whether it be general representatives on the Consultative Assembly or any other set of people there will be an Order in Council where the terms of definition will be precisely set out, and that will come before this House.

rose—

Perhaps I might be allowed to continue, because this is a rather complicated argument. In addition to covering the Consultative Assembly the words which we seek to use,

"representatives (whether of Governments or not)"

will help to clear up the ambiguity which has become very awkward, on account of the creation of this new body the Council of Europe, in connection with certain other bodies, and in particular the I.L.O. There are already persons who attend the I.L.O. who are not in fact governmental representatives. This is a very complicated point, but they have a different status according to whether they are on the I.L.O. in the major or minor body. In one case they are representing their States and in the other they are not, so that it is a very complicated legal point.

It has been considered possible in the past to interpret the phrase in the present legislation very broadly so that it should cover all the members of I.L.O. I am advised that lawyers believe that to be a legitimate interpretation although it seems to me a somewhat long-stretching of the words used.

Would that affect the meaning of "official staffs" which appears twice. Could the I.L.O. staff be included as "official staff"?

I think that would be the effect. We are trying to get more precise definitions than we had in the past. It has been considered in the past just legitimate to stretch the words as I have suggested. Now, with the necessity, in connection with the Consultative Assembly, of making a really clear distinction between those who are representatives of Governments and those who are representatives of their countries but not of Governments. we would meet a real difficulty in con- tinuing to stretch the meaning of the words. The proviso to the Schedule of the Act, 1946, states:

"Provided that the Order in Council shall not confer any immunity or privilege upon any person as the representative of His Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom or as a member of the staff of such a representative."

Now that there is a distinction to be drawn between immunities which we wish to make available to people in the United Kingdom who are representatives on the Consultative Assembly, while still excluding under this proviso the granting of any immunity to a representative of His Majesty's Government, it becomes most important to clear up this definition.

I do not think that we can hope to continue to interpret in a broad sense the words "representative of a Member Government" in one case so as to cover these people at the International Labour Organisation, and at the same time interpret the same phrase when we come to the proviso in a different way. We must attempt to clear up this matter. We hope that, by the alteration to the wording which we propose, we shall be able to clear up the matter. It is for those reasons, very largely, that I cannot advise the Committee to accept this Amendment, which would preserve the old and, as we think, wholly inappropriate wording and would simply add to it this one phrase to refer to the Consultative Assembly.

I should like to give other reasons why we think that the method proposed is not suitable. If this Amendment were accepted, we should be tied not merely to the granting of facilities to the representatives on the Consultative Assembly, but we should also be tied precisely to the nomenclature used at present. Any change of name in any of these organisations which are, after all, in their very early stages of development, would not be covered by this Bill. Some of the organisations have their constitutions under review at the moment. Indeed, that is the case with the Council of Europe. If there was even the smallest change—in the name of the Consultative Assembly, for instance—we should be compelled to have a new Act of Parliament before we could cover the position.

If there were to be any change suggested in the agreement for immunities and privileges upon which we would propose to base the Order in Council, a new Bill would be required. If, for instance, it was decided to cover the point raised by the hon. Member for Windsor (Mr. Mott-Radclyffe) that the present Agreement does not touch committees sitting between the sessions of the Consultative Assembly, and it was suggested that the International Agreement should be modified to cover the committees, I do not think that many hon. Members would think it unreasonable to agree. Once again, we would have to have a complete Act of Parliament.

I very much doubt whether any hon. Member, however keen he may be to ensure that, on each occasion, these matters come before us, really thinks that we should have a Bill passing through all its stages in both Houses. I should lave thought that from that point of view the position was amply covered by the present procedure whereby an Order in Council is laid and is subject to the negative Resolution procedure. I was asked whether in fact we contemplated any other body in addition to the Council of Europe. I cannot say that we are aware of any new Parliamentary body of precisely the nature of the Council of Europe to which we might in any early future wish to extend these immunities and privileges. But I would point out that there is at present, particularly in Western Europe, a proliferation of new organisations with various functions, some of them if not overlapping, at any rate very close to one another.

It is far from certain that there might not be developments in the sphere of organisation in Western Europe which might certainly alter titles and might possibly transfer certain functions from one to another. I think that it would really be an exaggeration on our part to insist every time one of these adjustments occurs that, in order to cover new organisations, or newly named organisations, we should have to have a new Act of Parliament.

2.45 p.m.

I would remind hon. Members that even as regards these Orders in Council made in the interval since 1946, there have been a number of instances where then existing organisations have gone out of existence but their functions have not. Their functions have been carried on, having been transferred to another body, and it had been necessary to have a new Order in Council not really in order to extend the matter at all, but simply to cover the new body which is doing the same work which was done by the earlier body. An example of that is much of the refugee work which was originally done by U.N.R.R.A. and, when U.N.R.R.A. wound up, it was transferred to the International Refugee Organisation. An Order in Council was made in respect of that organisation.

Does that mean that if somebody comes to relieve refugees here he ought to be labelled "C.D." so that he can go into night clubs without further trouble?

That intervention indicates that the hon. Gentleman has not entirely followed all the details of this admittedly complicated Bill.

I agree. Nobody can.

It was put to me that perhaps the World Federation of Trade Unions, the International Postal Union, or indeed some bee-keepers' association in which the hon. Member for Belfast, South (Mr. Gage) is interested, might qualify for immunities and privileges under the legislation as we propose to amend it. This would not apply to bee-keepers or the trade union organisation, but it would apply to the International Postal Union which is already a specialised agency within the orbit of the United Nations. It is a specialised agency brought into relationship with the United Nations, and it could be covered—I do not think that in fact it has been covered—as a matter or law under the 1946 legislation. It is quite unaffected by this Bill.

The hon. Gentleman realises that that organisation was set up under the Treaty of 1874, long before the United Nations was thought of?

The hon. and learned Member has not appreciated the point. There are many organisations of that kind, including the International Labour Organisation, all of which ante-date the United Nations but have now been brought into relation with United Nations. I think that in all or nearly all cases the United Nations have co-ordinated many of the provisions referring to them such as the Convention on Immunities. In any case, that has nothing to do with this Bill, because the International Postal Union could perfectly well be covered under the older Acts. It was precisely that type of organisation which was envisaged at the time of the 1946 Act.

I think I have convinced the Committee that, for all these reasons, there is a very strong case for maintaining flexibility, because of the uncertainty of the precise structure of international organisations which are coming into being very frequently and which are being constantly modified, and because of the need to preserve as far as possible a measure of reciprocity, so that if there is an alteration in one of these agreements we can play our part in conjunction with other nations who will be playing theirs. For these reasons, the Government feel they cannot accept any Amendment which would simply retain some old and out-of-date formula, and they ask the Committee not to accept this Amendment, but to agree with the proposals of the Government.

The hon. Gentleman has indeed changed the ground from that which was adopted by the Under-Secretary in moving the Second Reading of this Bill. On that occasion, we were told in terms what was the object of this Bill—and he did not say that it had any other object at all. It was:

"… to protect the rights and privileges of those who attend the Council as members of the Consultative Assembly That this Bill is introduced."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 17th March, 1950; Vol. 472, c. 1409.]

It was upon that basis that we considered this Measure on Second Reading. We are in agreement with that object, and it is interesting to note that the Minister of State has indeed departed from what is the usual custom of Ministers when discussing Amendments. He has never sought to suggest that our Amendment does not carry out the Under-Secretary's expressed object. It clearly does, but the hon. Gentleman has not sought to criticise, and indeed could not criticise our Amendment at all, because it does exactly what the Government said they wanted this Bill to do, and that was to implement this Agreement.

That being so, it is not without interest that we are today, for the first time, being told that the real intention behind this Measure is to go much further than the Council of Europe. Today is the first time that we have heard any reference to the needs of the I.L.O. It has not been made clear to me, although I was listening very carefully, that this Bill seeks to give statutory protection to legal interpretations in respect of the I.L.O. I think it quite clearly emerges from what the hon. Gentleman has just said that this Bill goes a good deal further than codifying the existing law and a good deal further than extending it to the Council of Europe. I think it is clear, from what the hon. Gentleman and myself have both said, that we are in agreement that, if this Bill passes in its present form, it will mean that any Government of the day will have the power by Order in Council to extend diplomatic privileges and immunities to any kind of organisation to which this country is a party.

That, quite clearly, is going far beyond the 1946 Act, because that Act was limited to organisations of which the Government of the United Kingdom were members. It is also going far beyond the 1946 Act in the respect that, under this Bill as now drafted, international organisations of which this country is a member need not have upon them any representatives of His Majesty's Government at all, because the Bill in terms is extended to every organisation of which this country is a member, and to persons, whether representative of this country's Government or not. Therefore, it follows that under this Bill in its present form, we could have protection for any organisation of which this country is a member, and also protection for all the representatives of this country on that organisation, without one of them being a representative of the Government.

I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will agree that that is going a great deal beyond the 1946 Act, and that it is also going a great deal beyond what is required for the Council of Europe. Why is it that we are asked to take that great step forward along the path of progress in giving more privileges to different people? What is the argument for it? The hon. Gentleman has really advanced only two arguments. The first is the desirability of flexibility, and the hon. and learned Member for Gloucester (Mr. Turner-Samuels) should lead him on that, and, if a Division comes, should vote with us, because the one important thing which the hon. and learned Gentleman said about it was that he did not agree with flexibility. By that observation, the Minister has possibly lost his only supporter on that side of the House.

What was the other argument? The hon. Gentleman said that he wanted to bring in a new formula which did not, in terms, tie up with any particular body. I suggest to the hon. Gentleman that, if he wants an easy passage for this Measure, he should not take powers which he does not really require. When he tells us that he has no other particular organisation in mind, he is admitting that he is really trying to take powers which he does not really require for the main purpose for which this Bill was introduced. We can surely deal with the case of the I.L.O. by particular reference if that is really necessary, but this Bill goes right beyond that.

The hon. Gentleman's second argument was that we must have something pretty wide and flexible in its terms, because otherwise he would not be able to make Orders in Council, but would have to come to the House of Commons and introduce fresh Bills. The hon. Gentleman went on to suppose that there was a change of name of the Council of Europe. Is he really suggesting to the Committee that there would be any difficulty in amending this Bill if, for instance, the Council of Europe had its title changed to the Grand Council of Europe? It is true that it might require the introduction of a Bill, but I should have thought that even the hon. Gentleman would have realised that such an Amendment would not occasion any delay in the passage of a Bill of that nature.

I ask the hon. Gentleman to consider this matter further and more fully, for the reasons that it is now quite clear that this Bill is intended to go a good deal further than the existing law and a good deal further than is required merely to implement the Agreement on the privileges and immunities of the Council of Europe. He has really made out no case whatever for that. I therefore ask him—since it is obvious that the Committee stage of this Bill will not be completed today—at least to say that he will give further consideration to this matter between now and the Report stage. Both sides of the Committee are agreed on what they want to achieve, namely, the implementation of the White Paper, but they are not agreed that any case has been made out by the hon. Gentleman for taking wider powers than that.

I am very disappointed with the speech of the Minister of State. I admit that I missed a little of it, because I was studying another document which I thought might have some bearing upon it. I asked a question about the meaning of "the organ of an organisation," but the Minister of State did not answer it at all, except to say something about proliferation. I do not know what he meant by that.

I am sure the hon. Gentleman knows that he is misrepresenting what I said. I said that he could not have been here when I answered the question.

I am sorry and I apologise that I missed it, but I asked the hon. and learned Gentleman who was next to me, and who had heard the whole of his speech, and he said that he did not hear the definition. We are not always in the House all the time, for a great variety of reasons, and before I made my note to ask that question I took the precaution of asking someone whom I regard as entirely reliable. I still hope to learn what an "organ" really means. I was very confused last Friday when we heard the opening speech of the Under-Secretary of State. I was interested to see that one of the evening papers thought that I had made a violent attack on him. I did not. I said that the essay which he gave to us was unintelligible; and it remains so. I say the same thing about the speech of the Minister of State.

May I make a suggestion which may help the hon. Gentleman? Is not an organ a thing which has stops for use at suitable moments; unlike this Debate?

When the hon. and learned Member for Gloucester (Mr. Turner-Samuels) was speaking, he promised to give me a definition. He failed to do so. I thought that the hon. and learned Gentleman, to whom I have just given way with great pleasure, would supply me with some information. I still do not know what these words mean. I think that we are entitled to know. Words in an Act of Parliament are of grave significance. That is why we have to take great care about the words that appear in an Act. I think it has been pointed out that we have now been told by the Minister of State something quite different from what we were led to believe last week. Last Friday, the whole point of the Debate was that this Bill was designed to deal with those persons chosen to go from this House or from another place to Strasbourg. That was announced quite clearly; there was no ulterior purpose; the Government had nothing in mind beyond that. It is strange that after the not very happy experience of last Friday—

Why did not hon. Members opposite divide?

We did not divide because we wanted to find out what it all meant. I do not think that it is wise for hon. Members opposite to suggest that we have Divisions. I do not suppose that they are any more anxious to have unsatisfactory Divisions than we are, and their physical disability in the matter of frequency of Divisions is much greater than on our side. We have been told that this Bill is designed to make provision and, later, will make provision for an extension of privileges to persons who belong to bodies now non-existent. I think that that is a most dangerous doctrine. It is catering for the future in a very large way with regard to all sorts of organisations, many of which we may not like. I think that it is most dangerous to give these far too extensive powers either to the present or to a future Government. Look at the International Postal Union. That body is now more or less part of the United Nations. I think that the Minister of State was a little careless in his remark—

I said "an organ brought into relation."

Now we know what an organ is. The International Postal Union is in no way subordinate to the United Nations. The fact that it was "brought into relation" establishes no real contact, because knowing the activities of Mr. Gromyko, Mr. Molotov and Mr. Vyshinsky we know that a whole lot of nations are excluded from the United Nations that belong to the International Postal Union.

It is rather strange, having something brought into relation with a body whose membership is being excluded. The Minister of State ought to learn a little more about these international organisations before talking about them in the House of Commons. Perhaps he can tell us precisely what he meant by the International Postal Union being in relationship with the United Nations in regard to this Bill. Perhaps he will develop that argument a little further, because we really want to know where and how it comes into this Bill. He said the reason was because they had been brought into relationship with the United Nations. He really ought to give us a little more information, or was he just "chancing his arm" without realising the significance of the words he was using'? If he does not speak now we shall not know—none of us will know when we go home this afternoon.

I was astonished by the speech of the Minister of State. We all respect him, but he might have taken the trouble to have a little elementary co-ordination with his colleague, the Under-Secretary, so that we did not have two different speeches contradicting one another on what the Bill seeks to do. The Under-Secretary chided us for not dividing on Second Reading. We did not divide because we paid some attention to the speech the Under-Secretary made on Second Reading. We paid attention to the categorical assurance that the application of the Bill

"is, therefore, limited to those who attend the Consultative Assembly."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 17th March, 1950; Vol. 472, c. 1416.]

Nothing could be more different than what the Minister of State told us in his speech just now. It is perfectly clear that he has read the Bill again and has had another interpretation put on the curious phrase, "any organ of such organisation."

It is clear that he has come to a different conclusion at this eleventh hour, and that the Bill is capable of a much wider interpretation than he thought. It put it that way to give him the benefit of the doubt. It is clear that the floodgates are now open. He referred to all sorts of organisations, and said that because of the transference of functions from one body to another we might wish to bring certain officials within the scope of this Bill. That is what we object to on these benches.

It would be extremely unfortunate if this discussion were allowed to finish on the acrimonious note introduced by the last three speeches. These speeches have served to cloak the fact that there is a large measure of agreement on this matter between both sides of the Committee. Until those speeches, this discussion was proceeding in a reasonable tone on the important matter at issue. It is true that there may be an apparent inconsistency between what was said on the last occasion and what has been said on the Government side today. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] But I think not. As I read it, what we have had to do is to enlarge on the arguments we had last time. It is a desirable enlargement in order to explain properly the meaning and the purpose of the Bill.

There is agreement between both sides of the Committee upon the fact that the wording of the original Bill is now no longer suitable. There is no agreement between the Government and the Opposition on the precise wording of the Opposition's Amendment, but there is agreement about the intention of their Amendment and how it should be covered by the Bill itself. Therefore, the intention, the purpose of what the Opposition want is, in fact, agreed to by both sides. The Government, however, have expressed their intentions in a form of words which the Opposition believe to be ambiguous and dangerously vague in meaning. I am not going to argue about the merits of that case, but I would make a suggestion to my hon. Friend. [Laughter.] I fail to see where the humour lies in this statement, which seems to tickle the hon. Member for Croydon, East (Sir H. Williams).

I thought the hon. Member wanted to bring in the Durham Miners' Federation. I thought he was a Durham Member.

That kind of remark is in keeping with the air of irrelevance which the hon. Gentleman always imparts into a Debate of this kind.

What I was about to say was that if the words as they now appear in the Bill are possibly ambiguous in meaning or vague in application, it is something at which my right hon. Friend might agree to look. We are dealing with a Bill which will become an Act of Parliament, and it is essential in all Bills that have been agreed to by both sides that meanings and terms should be as precise as we can make them.

I would suggest to my right hon. Friend that it is undesirable for a Division to take place on a matter of this kind, when we have such a large measure of agreement, and that he might be prepared to look at this again to see if something cannot be done on a further stage of the Bill to meet what I believe to be a legitimate point made by the Opposition. It might be done by means of a definition Clause in the Schedule. I am not suggesting that that is the appropriate way to do it, but I would appeal to my right hon. Friend to give the undertaking to look at this matter again.

I should like to reinforce the appeal which has been made by the hon. Gentleman the Member for Norwich, North (Mr. Paton). [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] I do not know why that observation should meet with ridicule from the benches opposite. To me it seems to be a reasonable observation. Hon. Gentlemen opposite appear to think that if one of their Members make a suggestion which is in keeping with the plea of the Opposition then it is a ridiculous suggestion, but I think it is a very good one and worthy of consideration by the Minister of State.

There is no doubt that there has been a complete divergence between the way this matter was handled last week and the way it has been handled today, but nothing could be clearer than the words used by the Under-Secretary last week, which have already been quoted, and in which he said that the application of this Bill was limited to those attending the Consultative Assembly. Today, the Minister said the converse. He has made the point which we took up for last week when we adopted a view different from his. We felt that the application was of a much wider nature than that.

We were led to understand that that was not so, but that the application was merely for the one purpose. It ill-becomes the Under-Secretary to taunt us for not having divided against the Bill in view of the information which he then gave us. We were all agreed that diplomatic immunity had to be granted to those attending the Consultative Assembly, and it would have been rather ridiculous for us, having that agreement in mind, to divide on the Second Reading, in view of the hon. Gentleman's statement.

3.15 p.m.

Now that we have been told precisely the converse our suspicions appear to have been well founded that it is intended that immunity should go far wider than the Consultative Assembly; and the Bill assumes a very different aspect. I hope the Minister will consider the suggestion that was made, that he should bring in words such as are contained in our Amendment—if he does not like these particular words he will be able to find others—which will have the effect which the Under-Secretary assured us last week was the intention, namely, to limit the Bill to members of the Consultative Assembly. I dealt with this very matter when I spoke last week. I said then that it would be possible, if we want to limit the Bill to those delegates, to bring in a Bill which said so. I hope that the Minister of State will give this matter further consideration.

I want to say a few more words on this matter. I am sorry that the hon. Member for Norwich, North (Mr. Paton) thought that we were getting a little more acrimonious on this subject. He did not draw attention to the cause of the slight increase in temperature. We have a legtimate ground of complaint, in view of the speech made by the Under-Secretary in moving the Second Reading of the Bill. I know that it was his first appearance at that Box, but I am also sure that everything he said had been most carefully considered in advance.

I paid a great deal of attention to what he said, and I thought, when we started this Committee stage, that my Amendment was more or less in the nature of a drafting Amendment because, as the hon. Member for Norwich, North, has said, both sides of the Committee are agreed that we want to extend diplomatic privileges and immunities to the Council of Europe and the Consultative Assembly, and to carry out the agreement which was made. We were told that that was all that the Bill was intended to do. On Second Reading I drew attention to the fact that the Bill appeared to be too widely drawn for that object, and that it would enable diplomatic privileges and immunities—rather extensive ones—to be given to other organisations of which this country was a member and on which there was no representative of His Majesty's Government.

The Minister of State wound up that Debate. I must say that to my mind he did not put forward any idea at all that there was anything more between the two sides of the House than merely a question of drafting. He certainly did not give me the impression that it was part of the Government's desire to extend the law so that it should apply to other organisations on which representatives of His Majesty's Government were not present. I asked him specifically about the International Federation of Trade Unions. He did not answer, but I think he shook his head in a negative fashion at the time. It seems a pity that there should be this division of view, particularly when we are agreed upon what still remains the main object of the Bill, to give privileges and immunities to the Council of Europe and to the Consultative Assembly.

Therefore, I shall reiterate my request because I think it is reasonable. Indeed, I do so with greater confidence since the hon. Member for Norwich, North, thinks that it is reasonable. I ask him whether he will consider this matter before a further stage of the Bill is taken. When we are both united on the main object it is a pity that this point should divide us, and I therefore ask the Under-Secretary at least to get up and say that further consideration will be given to the matter.

There is an obligation on the hon. Gentleman to tell us why, in his Second Reading speech, he made no reference at all to what the Minister of State now says is one of the objects of the Measure. All he does today is to interject, from his seat, without rising, the question why we did not divide. I can tell him straight away. We did not divide because we thought that, apart from drafting, which could be improved, the Bill was solely intended to relate to the Council of Europe and the Consultative Assembly, the very thing that he told us. If he was aware of the fact that it was intended to go beyond that I must say that I think some explanation from him is called for now.

Before we move from this part of the Bill I hope that the hon. Gentleman will at least explain why he did not tell us anything about this object of the Bill in moving the Bill's Second Reading. In view of his speech it comes ill from him to ask us why we did not divide when it was not until this afternoon that we had clearly from the Minister of State that the Bill is intended to do a good deal more than merely provide diplomatic privileges and immunities to the Consultative Assembly and the members of the Council of Europe.

The question is—

On a point of Order. Are we to have no reply from the Government?

That is not a point of Order.

I submit that a point of Order arises when a Minister makes a categorical statement and then his senior Minister comes along next day and completely contradicts him. I submit that in these circumstances a personal explanation at least is due from the Under-Secretary.

That is not a point of Order.

On a point of speech, Sir Charles. It is quite monstrous—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] "Monstrous" is a Parliamentary expression. We had a speech last Friday in which we were told that the purpose of the Bill is one thing and we have had a speech today from a senior Minister who says that the purpose is wider than that. From his own side there has been a suggestion that he should—

On a point of Order. You were already on your feet, Sir Charles, and putting the Question, but we are now having another speech. I submit that that is out of Order.

Hon. Members may speak as often as they catch my eye.

You were almost on your feet to put the Question, and I contend that this is now completely out of Order.

I very often stand up and have to sit down again.

The hon. and learned Member for Gloucester has not yet had much experience of a Committee being conducted in the proper way. Until the Chairman has collected the voices, speech is still in Order. However, he has wasted a certain amount of the Government's time by his unnecessary intervention, for which, no doubt, the Minister will be duly grateful.

It is nothing compared with the time the hon. Member is wasting.

We had a considered statement last Friday, which was written out and read carefully, about what the Bill meant. I did not understand it then, but I read it afterwards and came to the conclusion that the Bill was designed entirely for one purpose, namely, to give certain limited protection to hon. Members of this House who travel to Strasbourg and those whom they take with them, their organs and their staff.

A plea is made from the other side of the Committee that the Minister should give the matter further consideration. That is reinforced by the Opposition. The Chairman rises to put the Question, and the Government are asked to reply but they will not. I suppose the real reason is that they have had instructions from above and those who gave the instructions are not here to authorise them to modify their view. It is a most unfortunate thing for a junior Minister to be on the Front Bench with strict instructions which he dare not disobey.

I wonder why the Minister is unwilling to get up again. Perhaps he is trying to get instructions from the Home Secretary, who is sitting beside him—he is a very good tutor; I have known him for many years—to add a little to what he has already said and agree to reexamine the problem again. If he does not, it will take him a long time to get the Bill through Committee. That may be a new thought in his mind. Up to now he has only experienced a Parliament where the whip cracked, the Closure was applied and the Government got on with it. We are now living under entirely different conditions, and I would advise the Minister of State to be a little more conciliatory in this matter. There is an old saying that you catch far more flies with sugar than with molasses and the right hon. Gentleman ought to look for his sugar.

I reinforce the request to the Under-Secretary—[HON. MEMBERS: "Repetition!") I was not aware that anyone had yet reinforced the request of the hon. Member for Croydon, East (Sir H. Williams) that the Under-Secretary as well as the Minister of State, should rise and enlighten us as to the true reason for resisting our Amendment. The hon. Member for Norwich, North (Mr. Paton), who made so conciliatory an appeal, implied that the wording was unsuitable for the purposes now intended. The whole point is, what are the purposes now intended? This matter raises the widest question of principle—

On a point of Order, Sir Charles. I understand there is a Rule on tedious repetition, and we have had a series of speeches which have said almost in the same words precisely the same thing. Indeed, it has been admitted by the hon. Member for Croydon, East (Sir H. Williams) that the purpose was to waste Government time and to prevent the passage of the Bill.

It may be helpful if I read the following Standing Order to the Committee:

"The Speaker or the chairman, after having called the attention of the House, or of the committee, to the conduct of a member, who persists in irrelevance, or tedious repetition, either of his own arguments, or of the arguments used by other members in debate, may direct him to discontinue his speech."

I am much obliged, Sir Charles, and I shall take great care not to infringe that Ruling. The reason why I rose, not for the first time, seeking to catch your eye after the Minister of State had sat down, was that I felt the speech of the hon. Gentleman raised quite a wide question of principle. The hon. Gentleman said that the object of the Government in adopting the words "organisation" and "organ" in this subsection was to make it unnecessary to come back to the House on any future occasions if some redistribution of functions should occur among various organisations in Europe, or if some new organisations should arise performing functions vaguely analogous to those already carried out by U.N.R.R.A. or United Europe.

I fully appreciate the inconvenience of coming back to the House on frequent occasions for extensions of existing powers, but if this Bill goes through without this Amendment it is clear, from what the Minister of State has said, that he and the Government are thinking that they need never come back to this House for any extension of diplomatic privilege. The hon. Gentleman told us specifically that the reason why the words "organisation" and "organ" had been chosen was because they were so vague that they would take in any new development which might occur.

The hon. Gentleman instanced the inconvenience which had been experienced with the International Labour Organisation, and said that had been overcome by an optimistic interpretation on the part of the lawyers which had caused him some scruples, though he had managed to overcome his scruples. The hon. Gentleman said that the Government did not want that to occur in future. They did not want to have to rely upon wide interpretations and, therefore, in the present Clause, words had been selected—"organisation" and "organ"—which were so completely general in their meaning that any foreseeable extension of activity, or any new activity in the future, would be covered by them.

3.30 p.m.

In my opinion, that raises a question of principle of which the Committee must take notice. We are being asked for a sort of lex regia on diplomatic immunity and privilege which will give to the Government the power to make Orders in Council without its being possible to challenge them on one ground at any rate; that is, that they apply to organisations not covered by the terms of the Act. That is a matter upon which the Committee must feel the most profound disquiet, and I ask the Ministers to take the Bill back to their Department and to consider seriously whether they ought not to try to meet this legitimate anxiety on the part of the Opposition.

I beg to move, in page 1, line 26, at the end, to add:

"Provided that no Order in Council made under the said Act of 1944 in relation to the said Consultative Assembly shall confer any exemption from taxes or rates upon any person who is a British subject and whose usual place of abode is in the United Kingdom."

I move this Amendment in the confident hope that the Government will be able, if not to accept this exact form of words, at any rate to undertake to insert in the Bill a proviso which will achieve the same effect. As regards the object of the Amendment, unless there has been a further change of opinion since last Friday, we have the definite undertaking of the Minister of State, who said:

"I can answer the first question quite definitely. There is no proposal to exempt any British subject or anyone, from taxation under this Bill."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 17th March, 1950; Vol. 472, c. 1455.]

Presumably, therefore, there is no disagreement on the object of the Amendment.

It may, however, be argued by the Government that for some reason or other the proposed new proviso is unnecessary; but I suggest that such a proviso is necessary, for this reason. It will be within the recollection of the Committee that in the 1944 Act there was a proviso to the effect that that Act should not confer immunity from taxation or from rates upon a British subject normally resident in the United Kingdom. When the 1946 Act came before the House of Commons, the situation had so far changed that there were then two categories of persons under consideration. One category was the representatives of His Majesty's Government on these various bodies; in the second category were officials of the organisations in question. Consequently, in the 1946 Act there was inserted a provision that representatives of His Majesty's Government should not benefit from the immunities conferrable under the Act. It was maintained that we were under an obligation to extend those immunities to officials of the international organisations, whether they were British subjects or not.

In the Bill now before us we have yet a third category in addition to representatives of His Majesty's Government and the officials of the various international organisations, namely, persons who are representatives but not of His Majesty's Government. It would appear reasonable that persons attending these organisations as representatives, although not of His Majesty's Government, should be placed in the same position as representatives of the Government and that, therefore, the limitation of the immunities extended to Government representatives by the 1946 Act should be continued under the Bill to representatives whether of His Majestys' Government or not.

All the Amendment seeks to do is to close a gap which has been opened in the structure of the 1946 Act by the creation of this intermediate category of a representative who is not a Government representative. It seeks to ensure that those non-Government representatives shall not be in a more favourable position than Government representatives have hitherto been.

I appreciate the anxiety which lies behind this Amendment, but I hope I shall be able to convince the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Mr. Powell) that it is not necessary. Certainly, I do not think it would be appropriate, at any rate in this form. As I understood his argument; he was anxious that the proviso under the 1944 and 1946 Acts, that an Order in Council shall not confer

"any immunity or privilege upon any person as the representative of His Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom or as a member of the staff of such a representative"

should be widened so as to prevent the granting of privileges to persons not representatives of His Majesty's Government. We could not do that baldly in that form because, as no doubt the hon. Member has appreciated one of the reasons why the Bill has to be introduced is that under the agreement in relation to the Council of Europe we are being asked under Article XIV to grant a privilege in the United Kingdom to those who are not representatives of His Majesty's Government—

Not from taxation.

Not from taxation; I am coming to that. We could not incorporate a reference to those who are not representatives of the Government under the old proviso. We are allowing the proviso to stand in the existing form to cover representatives of His Majesty's Government. As regard the suggestion that we should put in the further proviso which would prevent the further immunity, exemption from rates and taxes, it has been made clear and we have given an undertaking in this respect that the immunities which would be granted under this Measure are only those immunities it is necessary to grant in pursuance of the international obligations under the agreement. Even such things as granting immunity to members of committees, which might have been thought quite reasonable, we are not including unless, at a future date, it is decided by agreement that they should be incorporated.

If we were actually to single out this one particular immunity I should think it would throw doubt on what has been the understanding throughout the Debates, that no immunities, whether as regards rates or taxes, or anything else, are to be granted unless they are required by the agreement.

It would seem to me, as a matter of Parliamentary drafting and procedure, a rather odd thing to pick out this particular thing, which it is said we might not grant, while leaving all sorts of other things which we have no intention of granting, but which we do not put in the Statute. I appreciate the motive behind the Amendment and I can assure hon. Members that we have no intention of granting this exemption. There is no need for it whatever; it is exceedingly unlikely that any such immunity should be suggested by an amendment of the agreement and, if it were, we would have an opportunity to object to it and not to agree to it.

I become more and more surprised, particularly in view of what has just happened. I should have thought it important that Acts of Parliament should express the Government's intentions. What are Government's intentions with regard to taxation and rates? On Second Reacting I asked the right hon. Gentleman two questions. The first was:

"Can he say specifically that no relief from taxation will be given to any British subject under this Bill, …?"

The Minister of State replied:

"I can answer the first question quite definitely. There is no proposal to exempt any British subject, or anyone, from taxation under this Bill."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 17th March, 1950; Vol. 472, c. 1455.]

I think the Committee will agree that that was a clear question, firmly answered. Then we have the Minister of State getting up and opposing the incorporation of that assurance in this Bill.

In view of the departure from what the Under-Secretary of State said on Second Reading about the object of the Bill, it is even more important that this assurance of the Minister of State should be embodied in the Bill. I would remind the hon. Gentleman that this form of proviso is no new one, it is nothing very novel. If he looks back to the 1944 Act he will see that it appears there in a much more general form because there the proviso was not limited to the Consultative Assembly; it was unlimited in its area. Under the 1944 Act no exemption from rates or taxes could be given by Order in Council to any British subject whose usual place of abode was in this country. This Amendment is narrower than that. It applies this proviso only in relation to the Consultative Assembly. I must say that I really cannot see any logical argument whatever for not putting into this Bill what the Minister himself said on Second Reading was the intention in regard to this Bill.

I would ask him to remember also, how it was that the proviso to which I have referred came to be inserted in the 1944 Act. There was then a much better Parliament. The seats opposite were better occupied, particularly on Fridays. I was sitting on that side then.

That did not improve it.

What happened then? I am speaking from memory, but I think I am right in saying that in the Second Reading Debate on the Diplomatic Privileges (Extension) Act. which was the first of the three Measures, an assurance was given from the Government Front Bench that there was no intention of relieving from taxation any British subject whose usual place of abode was in this country. That was quite as clear as was the assurance which the hon. Gentleman gave last week. That did not satisfy the present Minister of Health and the present Minister of Works. Both of them pressed, with the utmost vigour at their command, for the inclusion of the proviso in the Measure. They said that they were not content with any assurances from any Government, that when a Government gave an assurance there could be no valid reason for not putting that assurance in the Bill to which it related. That forms a good precedent for us today, and is a good precedent for the right hon. Gentleman.

3.45 p.m.

I say to the Minister again that he should meet us at least in this respect by putting into this Bill words which the right hon. Gentleman himself said embodied the intention of the Government. The proviso as tabled does not go so far as the statement made by the hon. Gentleman last week because that statement applied not only to the Council of Europe and the Consultative Assembly but to any new organisation and the members and representatives of any new organisation in respect of which an Order in Council is made when this Bill becomes law. This proviso is limited only to the Consultative Assembly. I suggest to the hon. Gentleman that it is a very novel argument to introduce, that a proviso of this sort would create confusion. What does create confusion is the contradictory statements of Ministers.

To suggest that merely putting a clearly drafted proviso in a Bill of this sort is something which will create confusion is a suggestion not worthy of further consideration. I will conclude by asking the hon. Gentleman to give further consideration to these matters, to follow the precedent set in 1944 at the instance of his right hon. Friends and to embody in the Bill this proviso which, he says, carries out his intention.

I am rather surprised at the attitude of the Minister, because he is certainly not making it easier to get his Bill through. I should have thought that the arguments were very clear and that what is suggested in the Amendment carries out the intention which he himself has said he wishes to see carried out. But he adopts the rather common form attitude taken by the Government nowadays of asking us to rely on their good faith. It happens so frequently when an Amendment is moved that a Minister says, "We quite agree, that is what we want, but leave it to us to put it in the Order in Council it due course. We will not have it in the Bill." I suggest that is not the way that Parliament should legislate.

Here is a suggested Amendment which does achieve the object which the hon Gentleman says he wishes to achieve. Therefore what is the case against putting in the words? The hon. Gentleman says—I think he used the word "invidious" or some similar word—that it would be invidious to put this particular exemption in the Bill, because, he says, it might cause doubts. I suppose he meant doubts upon other privileges, as to whether other privileges were to be considered or not. I cannot imagine what other doubts he has in mind.

indicated assent.

The hon. Gentleman nods his assent. That is not a good argument when it has already been done in the previous Bill. Is the hon. Gentleman prepared to tell the Committee of any difficulties or doubts which have arisen as a result of the inclusion of similar words in the previous Bill?

They were included in the 1944 Act and it was because they proved impossible to operate satisfactorily that they were not reproduced in the 1946 Act.

That was not the argument advanced at the time. In any event, the specific question I put to the hon. Gentleman was whether any instance had occurred where doubts had arisen? The hon. Gentleman interrupted me to say that there had been difficulties. I do not know what he means difficulties. Is he prepared to tell the Committee that there have been one or more specific cases in which somebody has claimed exemption from tax and that there has been some dispute about the interpretation of the words in the 1944 Act? Unless that has happened I do not think his suggestion about doubt being caused carries very much weight, and I would ask the hon. Gentleman to reconsider this point.

I am glad to see the Minister of State in conversation with the Home Secretary. I assure him that the Home Secretary could give him some good lessons in oiling the wheels of Debate and in getting a Bill through with a measurable amount of conciliation. I noticed that when the Minister of State was speaking the Home Secretary removed himself away from the Front Bench and sat below the Gangway. I think that it was a sense of agitation which moved him because he thought to himself, "How much better I would handle these matters if I were at the Despatch Box."

I went there so that I might admire my hon. Friend who had served with me for a considerable time at the Home Office, because I get a better perspective at that distance.

I am sorry if I misinterpreted the right hon. Gentleman's motives. Having had considerable experience of the right hon. Gentleman's manner in getting a Bill through, it passed through my mind that had he been in charge of this Bill, he would have adopted a rather different line on this Amendment.

Another reason why it is particularly desirable that these words should be included is that it is possible that doubts may arise if they are not. The Minister of State will remember that last week he related this Bill to Article 14 in the Strasbourg Agreement, and there is no mention of taxes in that article. I would draw his attention to that article. I think the same remarks apply of Article 15. There is no mention in either of those articles of immunity from taxation. As taxes are not referred to in the articles, it seems to me most desirable that they should be referred to in the Bill. Otherwise, the hon. Gentleman is asking us merely to accept his assurance that when an Order in Council is introduced the matter will be dealt with in that way.

I overheard the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs reporting to the Prime Minister that we on this side of the Committee were filibustering. The hon. Gentleman has said many unintelligible and unjustifiable things today, but certainly that is the most unjustifiable. I do not think we can be accused of filibustering when we have an occasion such as this with the Under-Secretary on record in the Second Reading last week as having said one thing, and the Minister of State today saying precisely the contrary. However, that is a matter which I will not elaborate. I do not wish to embarrass the new boys too much in the presence of the headmaster.

I think that the hon. and learned Gentleman is going back to the previous Amendment.

Yes, I think I was, Sir Charles. I will refrain from that because that might justifiably lay me open to the charge of filibustering which is the last thing in the world I want to do—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."]—not beyond four o'clock, anyway. I want to make it plain that, in any event, if we are filibustering we seem to be doing it with some measure of success, as masses of senior Ministers keep arriving on the scene to deal with this very difficult situation.

I trust that the Minister of State will reconsider this matter and that he will realise that there is a perfectly legitimate suggestion in this Amendment. It meets a point which he agrees is one which ought to be met. He says himself that, in due course, he will be putting it in the Order in Council which will be laid before the House. I ask him to do us the justice of putting into the Bill what legislation he wishes to see effected and not leaving it to a mere undertaking that he will do it later in the Order in Council. It seems that we are at one in intention, and I ask the hon. Gentleman to accept the Amendment.

I think the Home Secretary was very unkind to the Minister of State in his very brief observation, because he implied that the further away he was from the Minister of State the more he liked him. Unless his observation meant that it meant nothing at all.

I was also surprised at the intervention of the Minister of State in answer to my hon. and learned Friend. He said that the proviso in the Act of 1944 had proved to be impracticable. I think those were the terms he used. How did they prove to be impracticable? Here is the provision in an Act of Parliament that no person who got immunity under the 1944 Act could obtain exemption from rates and taxes. That, he tells us, proved to be impracticable. It is a very strange remark to make. Does he mean that someone said to him that, in his judgment, he ought to have exemption but could not get it because of the Act of 1944? If that is so, he should give us an example. The mere statement that it proved to be impracticable is not good enough, and we ought to know what the hon. Gentleman meant, if, indeed, he meant anything at all, on which point I am becoming more and more doubtful.

Now he has given us an undertaking that Orders in Council can be made under the Bill when it becomes an Act, and he gives an undertaking that no immunity or exemption from rates and taxes will be granted. But that does not bind any future Government, just as the Government's declaration on devaluation was presumed to bind them but rather broke down. Even assuming that it does bind this Government, it does not bind any future Government, and it is not binding on a court of law. When a case goes before a court of law, the court interprets the wording of the Act and is never in the slightest degree influenced by what Ministers said in the Debate. These undertakings seem to me to be really valueless. The right hon. Gentleman has given us no reason why he should not put into the Bill what he agrees is the intention of its promoters.

All this shows what a badly drafted Bill it is. There is, apparently, a desire to grant a small number of people, for a short time, certain specified immunities, and I should have thought the right thing would have been to insert some provision to the effect that, notwithstanding anything in the previous Act, delegates going from this Parliament to Strasbourg should have certain specified protection and nothing more than that. It would be quite clear that they would not get any exemption from rates and taxes. Instead of that, all we have here is this very unintelligble Bill.

My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Northants, South, has spent a good deal of time in drafting these Amendments, which are designed to give effect to declarations made by Ministers in the House last week. There is not one of the Amendments which does not embody a declaration made by a Minister last Friday. Nobody can say that we are adopting an obstructive attitude. It seems to me that the rather innocent-looking face of the Minister of State covers up a very obstinate, pig-headed will, and that he will find that in dealing with legislation his is not the easiest way to get it through. I should have thought that he could have raised no objection to inserting in the Bill these words of the Amendment:

"Provided that no Order in Council made under the said Act of 1944 in relation to the said Consultative Assembly shall confer any exemption from taxes or rates upon any person who is a British subject and whose usual place of abode is in the United Kingdom."

These words are in existence in the earlier Act, and they have given rise to no defined difficulties. The Minister of State said that they had now proved impracticable, and I hope that when we resume this Debate next Friday, as I presume we shall, he will have looked up the precedents and records and will be able to tell the Committee what he means by these words, instead of the vague statement, unsupported by facts, which he has given us today.

I want to raise this afternoon the question of the housing situation in Worthing. My first point is the impact of the 10 to I ratio on a community such as exists in Worthing. I want the hon. Gentleman to realise that the community of Worthing is composed very largely of retired people and of people who earn their living in London. I suggest that the need of such a community is entirely different from that of people living in industrial areas and large centres of population. The only way in which to judge a situation like this is on the basis of need and demand.

The 10 to 1 ratio has produced an anomalous situation. There are on the housing list at Worthing a large number of people who do not want to occupy council houses. There are many who have served in the Forces and who have families. They have risen to the top of the housing list, but because there are no other houses available they have to accept council houses. I make the point that these people can afford, and well afford, another type of small house, and yet they are forced to occupy, through lack of any other type of house, a council house. In a council house they are being subsidised by the Government and through the rates by many people who are living in far worse accommodation, and who would gladly live in a council house. That is the sort of anomaly that is arising.

There is another aspect of this matter. Owing to the fact that there is a virtual prohibition on the building of small houses, there are in Worthing a large number of large houses occupied by people who would like to get out of them if they could only build small houses in which to live. These large houses could then be readily converted into flats, and, at small expense in manpower and material, housing units could be speedily provided. These are some of the effects of the 10 to 1 ratio on the community of Worthing where the greater demand is not for council houses.

The result, as I have said, is that many people, some of them young married couples with children, both of whom have probably been in the Forces, and who are at the head of the housing list, do not want to live in council houses and can well afford to live in small houses which they are ready to build, buy or lease. They are keeping out of council houses the very people for whom these houses are designed.

Another aspect of this matter—and I hope that I shall get an answer to it—is in relation to Circular 92/46, under which a council is permitted to build a certain number of houses. The Minister clearly stated at the Dome in Brighton in November, 1949, that he had no objection to people being permitted to purchase these houses. That statement has not been implemented. I urge today that permission should be granted to my local council to sell these houses to either incoming or existing tenants. In the first place, the Government are immediately relieved of £16 10s. a year subsidy and the local rates of £5 10s. These, of course, are borne by the local ratepayers in both instances, the ratepayers being taxpayers at one and the same time. The tenant purchaser is relieved of his share in the housing management expenses, and finally it would strike a severe blow at the high prices being asked at the moment for pre-war houses. For all these reasons, I hope that we shall have a favourable reply.

The housing position in Worthing is as follows. As a result of a check, carried out on ministerial instructions 12 months ago, the waiting list was reduced to 1,966. Since then, it has risen to 2,373. There were 600 applicants last year, which is two and a half times the number of houses of all sorts that are being built. There were 174 applications for private licences, mainly from young married couples who want to start having a family. In a large number of cases the husband and wife are not even living in the same house. There are also older people without children who are living in large houses that could easily be converted into flats. Neither of these two categories has an earthly chance of getting a house, as things stand at the moment, because there are others on the list with far greater qualifications. It will be ten years before the housing list is cleared, and that is without taking into account any further additions.

I want to emphasise at this juncture that we are not pleading for palaces for the rich or super-cinemas, as the Minister has so often said, but for small houses. If only the Parliamentary Secretary had to go through some of the things I have to go through in my interviews and heard some of the pathetic cases that are put to me ! In one case five families are living in a six-room house. It may be said that I should blame the local council and ask them why they do not do something about it, but in every one of these cases both the local council and myself have tried to do everything in our power to see what can be done and to ensure that there is fairness all round. I have given some of the solutions which I consider would alleviate the situation.

There is another matter which is even more important, and that is the implementation of the housing scheme in the Limbrick area. Under circular 152, 1945, which is after the Labour Government came into power, the council, with the knowledge and approval of the senior officer of the Ministry of Health, agreed to a long-term programme of new municipal houses. A plot in Limbrick was purchased at £25,000, and, again with the approval of the regional officer, the council entered into negotiations for land to the west of Limbrick for the erection of municipal houses and the provision of educational facilities and community centres on a planned basis. A covenant was entered into for drainage, road work and so on. The owner of the Field Place Estate, which comprises the land, has spent in the past few years a sum of no less than £98,000 in building roads and putting down sewers. They actually built a railway bridge, which they are now having to maintain, and they transferred overhead cables to underground cables.

I want to emphasise that all of this land was zoned by the Minister of Town and Country Planning as a residential area. It is no good the hon. Gentleman shaking his head because I have proof of the fact. He may have been misinformed on the subject. These plans received the approval of the Ministry of Health officer, and the education authorities were assured that all recreation and educational facilities would be incorporated in the plan. A very experienced architect was employed to design the whole layout.

After all this money had been spent, in June, 1946, the council were informed that the Ministry of Town and Country Planning would not view with favour the development of this land, and as an alternative they suggested that small areas of land within the borough of Worthing should be developed instead. Is that what is known as modern, good planning? Are we to take little bits of land here and there and build three or four houses on each? Where are these people going to send their children to school? Is that the basis to modern planning? Surely we should have a balanced estate with all the amenities like education, community centres, railways and so on.

The most ridiculous aspect of this was that some of these areas suggested as suitable for houses within the borough of Worthing were marked green on the map. They are in fact, market gardens, the oldest industry in Worthing. It is highly cultivated, fertilised agricultural land. Is it suggested that these are the areas which should be used for house building?

I think the hon. and gallant Member is now speaking of the land that was refused clearance, and the particular site which the local authority had hoped to use for housing, but unfortunately it could not be proceeded with. That is the best agricultural land of all.

The position is precisely the opposite. Permission was refused on the grounds that there were other areas within the borough of Worthing which were ripe for development. The hon. Gentleman cannot have been listening to me, Is it good planning to put three or four houses here and there on small sites within the borough boundaries? As I have said, some of these sites are, in fact, right in the middle of the town and market gardens have been there for several years. It is not suggested surely that they should be removed outside Worthing in order that houses should be built?

At this juncture a new nigger appeared out of the woodpile—and this is the point about which the Parliamentary Secretary rose—when the utilisation officer of the Ministry of Agriculture stated that the land under discussion was good agricultural land. It was his objection which influenced the Ministry of Health in this matter. This land having been zoned as residential land, why has it taken all these years to discover that it is good agricultural land? I further ask that question because just south of the railway there is exactly similar land where houses are to be built at the order of the Ministry. Why did the utilisation officer not object to that land being used, land which was exactly on the same level and of the same nature as that which has now been declared good agricultural land?

I have taken a great deal of trouble over this matter, and I am not quoting anything that is not a fact. All I am asking is that this matter should be looked into. There is just one further matter, the effect on the owners of the land. It must be realised that they are risking everything that they have ever put into the property, which has been scheduled for re-development for a long period. It is apparently not the intention of the planning authority to apply to the Minister for revocation of the permission which they give. They wait for individual, detailed plans as and when they are submitted; they then refuse them. I want to quote some words of the Minister himself on this matter, he stated the general principle as follows:

"Where a permission for development which has been granted subject to a time limit is lost through circumstances beyond the control of the developer—e.g., where it becomes impossible to carry out development during the period specified owing to a war intervening—if an application for renewed permission is made at a later date the local planning authority should not then refuse permission so as to deprive the developer of any right to compensation, even if their views as to the development in question have altered. The correct procedure in such a case is for the authority to grant planning permission and then if on planning grounds they consider the development should not proceed they should revoke the permission and thus enable the developer to claim compensation."

In other words, that is a technical method which has been produced by the Minister for getting out of the difficulty. I hope that in the case I am raising these circumstances will be taken into account.

Into the middle of this groaning machinery another spanner has been flung in the shape of an instruction relating to the importation of a large number of Inland Revenue officials. The result has been that the whole question was re-opened. This matter of the Lim-brick Lane Estate was examined in the presence of the Regional Housing Officer, Mr. Charlton; the Town and Country Planning Officer, Mr. Ward-hill; and an official of the Ministry of Works, Mr. Egerton Banks. The whole matter was gone into, in detail, and it received their complete support. Since then, two further meetings have taken place and it has now been made clear that the development will not be sanctioned. I think my story has revealed a typical example in which five Ministries are all pulling in different directions. This matter has been hanging fire ever since 1945, and the only people who are really suffering are the poorer people of Worthing. I hope that the Minister will give me his attention and that he will not continue his conversation. This is a very serious matter.

The hon. and gallant Gentleman is doing me an injustice. I have been paying attention to his speech all the time.

I am coming to the most important part of my speech and it is a little disconcerting to see the hon. Gentleman carrying on a conversation with his colleague. I want him to hear every word, because I have cut down my speech to the bones.

There is another aspect of the matter to which I hope he will give attention. The West Sussex County Council are opposed to the development of this land. I hope the hon. Gentleman will remember that the expansion of Worthing is not in the interests of the West Sussex County Council, for reasons which may have something to do with the future county borough status. I shall say no more than that. When the hon. Gentleman receives an objection from the county planning authority I hope that he will bear that point in mind.

I wish to conclude by saying that I hope that there will be a review of the 10 to 1 ratio, as it affects a specialised community such as Worthing, and that permission will be granted for the sale of houses built under Circular 92/46. I hope also that the Minister will receive a deputation from the council, who will put the whole of this case to him about the Limbrick Lane housing estate. It is a curious reflection on Socialist centralisation that, apart from the amount of money already spent, an enlightened council such as Worthing, which has done everything in its power to implement the Minister's own long-term policy in regard to balanced communities, is now frustrated through having done so.

The hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Worthing (Brigadier Prior-Palmer) has made two main points in raising this matter. In the first place, he is asking for special consideration for the needs of Worthing, particularly in regard to the 10-to-1 ratio of houses built for rent by the local authority as against houses to be built for sale by the private builder. I should like to draw his attention at the commencement to the fact that so far from a 10-to-1 ratio having been established for Worthing, Worthing is clearly having special consideration. Since the end of the war the local authority has been responsible for some 640 houses and the private builder some 370 houses for sale.

Has not the 10-to-1 ratio been in operation only since last October?

The hon. and gallant Gentleman is raising the point that Worthing requires special consideration, and he is presumably dealing with the whole question of the needs of that area over these last years and its needs in the future. It is absurd to look merely at the allocations for an individual year without looking at the allocations for the whole of the period under review. He must accept the fact that the local authority has built 640 houses as against 370 by private builders. In addition, as he admits, the waiting list for council houses in Worthing is just over 2,000, including, I understand, a little over 1,700 of those who have no separate homes of their own.

In contrast to the figure which he gave of 180 applications for private licences to build houses, the figure I have is something under 400. Whichever it is, it i6 perfectly plain that, even making some allowance for some on the council house list who may be willing to purchase a private house, the main need in Worthing is houses to rent. Until more progress is made with houses to rent it would obviously be quite intolerable to devote a disproportionate amount of the building labour and materials available to building houses for sale where the need is perfectly clearly for houses to rent

The hon. and gallant Gentleman said that people who do not want to occupy council houses are forced to occupy them I have already pointed out that a very large number of houses for sale have been built privately in Worthing since the end of the war, and even now, particularly in connection with the transfer of a section of the Inland Revenue Department to Worthing, we are making, a special arrangement so that Worthing shall have a higher proportion than only one in 10. I assume that the hon. and gallant Gentleman knows that something over 50 extra private licences have been granted, which means that the ratio is nearer one in five than one in 10. I assume that he knew that before he came to the House to raise this matter today.

The other point is that hon. Members continually say that it is intolerable that those who can afford to purchase small houses should continue to receive State subsidies. I have pointed out continuously to hon. Members in all parts of the House that, if it is felt to be intolerable, there is no reason why the local authority should continue the practice, because subsidies for local authority houses can be used in whatever way the local authority desire. They can either spread the subsidy equally over every one of their houses or, if they prefer, they can provide special rebates to particular groups of their tenants, as many local authorities do. It is up to them to decide.

rose—

Hon. Members opposite should deal with the practical problem. They say at one time that they do not think subsidies from the State should be made available to those who can afford to pay for houses, and at another, when it is pointed out that the council does not need to apply the subsidy to those people, that it is a means test. They cannot have it both ways and it is no use their interrupting on that issue. It is clear, therefore, that the local authority do not need to pay out those subsidies to those who feel they ought not to be receiving them. They can use them to bring down further the rents of those houses—

I really must ask the hon. Gentleman to allow me to interrupt. I gave way to him.

But he wants an answer to the other point.

Would it not be much better to allow those people to move to small bungalows which are for sale and to allow those who cannot afford small bungalows to move into the council houses?

The real issue is that from the waiting list it is clear that there is an urgent need for more houses to rent, and we insist that as that need is much more urgent than the need of those who wish to purchase houses it should be met first. We have given permission to the local authority under Circular 92/46 to enable small private builders to build houses which they then sell to the local authority in order that the local authority shall have full control.

The tenants are not allowed to buy them.

The tenants are certainly not allowed to buy them. There is no provision in this circular for the buying of houses. I pay great tribute to the local authority for what they have done to use this circular to enable small builders to build houses which would otherwise not have been available for Worthing people, and I am glad that has been possible. In Worthing there are no building trade workers unemployed today, so it is perfectly clear that if the hon. and gallant Member wants more houses built for sale, there must be fewer houses built to rent. He must face that alternative.

The hon. and gallant Member was particularly anxious that I should say something about the position of the Limbrick Lane West site. I know the difficulties which the local authority have had to face. I hope the hon. and gallant Member will pay some attention to this since he was particularly mettlesome about my remark on the Front Bench while he was speaking. I hope he will pay the same courtesy to me. The Limbrick Lane West site was refused clearance in 1946 for the reason that we still maintain is the reason today, namely, its high agricultural value. It is just not true to suggest that we have brought up this excuse of high agricultural value within these last few months or years.

It is true, as the hon. and gallant Member has said, that some of the houses which are being erected in Worthing on the adjoining site are also on land of high agricultural value. That does not mean that we should go on building houses in our present economic position on land of high agricultural value. Indeed all hon. Members have rightly insisted that both in housing and in water schemes we should pay careful attention to the agricultural needs of the community.

Is the hon. and gallant Gentleman saying now that if it is true that that land is some of the highest agricultural value in the country, it would be right to destroy that value by building houses upon it? It is certainly true that in the past, without any planning control, much of our finest agricultural land was used for house building, but it is equally true that there are other sites in Worthing, inland from the coast as well as on the coast line, that are much more suitable for housing and which can be developed.

It is true there are difficulties as there are with almost every site, and my own officials are most willing to discuss with the local authority the possibilities of other sites that might be made available. I suggest that here, as in so many other cases, we must pay attention not only to the needs of housing but to the needs of agriculture. Otherwise we shall be sacrificing the basis of our life in this country. In Worthing as elsewhere, we shall find that there are other sites of much greater value for housing that can be developed without danger to our agricultural needs.