asked the Minister of Public Building and Works what plans he has to apply common rates and conditions to road haulage workers employed as industrial civil servants irrespective of their employment before 1963 with service works organisations.

Discussions with the unions on rationalisation will be resumed after the report of the Prices and Incomes Board is received.

Is the hon. Gentleman aware that this anomaly causes very considerable irritation to those involved? Can he give an undertaking that the Government will take very speedy action when the Report of the Prices and Incomes Board is received?

Until depots were integrated there was only irritation, and it was not particularly serious. But I give an undertaking that once the Report has been received negotiations will be resumed.

asked the Minister of Public Building and Works whether he will reconsider the granting of future permission for the holding of May Day meetings in Hyde Park, in view of the public nuisance and disturbance created.

No, Sir. It is not the Government's policy to trample on democratic traditions.

Does the right hon. Gentleman realise that this year hundreds of people trying to rest and relax had their afternoons completely ruined by the amplified inanities booming across Hyde Park? Why cannot these May Day meetings be confined to the area of Speakers' Corner or the people concerned asked to manage without their extremely powerful loudspeaker equipment?

It has been a tradition for a very long time for May Day rallies to take place in Hyde Park. Although I can understand hon. Members opposite getting worried about the popularity of Left-wing ideas these days, I should not have thought that they would propose these methods for suppressing them.

Does my right hon. Friend realise that the Opposition are worried not about the May Day meetings but because the views expressed are anathema to them?

Yes. It is always open to them to try to organise May Day meetings of their own.

While successive Governments have allowed these meetings freedom of speech, may I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he will address himself to the point about the use of amplifiers? That is what causes so much complaint.

I think that amplifiers are necessary and usual at meetings of this sort. If what was said was too loud and carried too far, I should like to have details of it, because it might well be suggested, reasonably, to those concerned, whoever they might be, that they have the meeting elsewhere.

Did any Ministers of the present Government take part in any of these May Day meetings?

I would need notice of that question. I believe so. Certainly I have had the pleasure of taking part in them in the hon. Member's constituency.

asked the Minister of Public Building and Works what approach he has made to the Greater London Authority for the transfer of the Middlesex Guildhall to the control of his Department.

Exploratory discussions have taken place at official level.

May we have an assurance that finality will be reached in this matter before next May Day? When is it likely to be?

I cannot give a date. I have said that the discussions are exploratory, and they may take a little time.

asked the Minister of Public Building and Works if he will enumerate those building materials included in the early warning system; and if he will refer to the National Board for Prices and Incomes the rising prices in this sphere.

Bricks, cement, sand and gravel, flat glass and plasterboard are included in the early warning system. I do not consider any reference to the Board necessary at present. I shall consider any proposed price increases as they are notified to me.

Can my right hon. Friend say on what basis these commodities were chosen for reference to the Board? Does he recall the information from Fife County Council which I sent to him indicating that electrical wiring cables, which are not in the list he has given, have gone up by rather more than 50 per cent. in the last year? Does not he think that that is a case for reference to the Board?

The commodities were chosen in relation to construction, as they were in relation to other industries, because of their strategic importance and because these were commodities over which there is domestic control and in which imports do not play a large part. A number of items listed by my hon. Friend when he wrote to us were items in which the price of imported raw materials played a very large part indeed.

Will the right hon. Gentleman consider referring to the 13oard the effect of the Selective Employment Tax on the cost of construction?

No.

asked the Minister of Public Building and Works ',why he is proposing to demolish the houses built into the west front of Bury St. Edmunds Abbey; and on whose advice he judges the merits of these houses.

To show the abbey to the best advantage. On expert advice.

Is the hon. Gentleman aware that there is very strong feeling in Bury St. Edmunds about this proposal? Does he realise that those who live in these houses do not accept the Ministry's description of them as being ugly and lacking in facilities? So long as there is a housing shortage, will not he realise that it is better to leave people where they are in their homes and not knock their houses down in order to show off the ruins around them?

The aesthetics are a matter of opinion. The buildings are owned by the borough council. We have asked that the council should mitigate any hardship in taking the buildings down. But no representations have been made to us that there is an outcry.

Is the hon. Gentleman prepared to specify the expert advice, because in my view experts give opinions both ways?

The Inspectorate of Ancient Monuments in my Ministry is very well esteemed internationally. It is the Inspectorate's opinion which we have sought in this matter.