I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time.

This will give me a further opportunity to express my appreciation to the Minister for the interest and considerable amount of time he has spent on the Bill. I hope I may, through him, pass a very sincere expression of appreciation to his officials who have worked to improve certain aspects of the Bill and to enlist the support of other Departments, not least the Lord Chancellor's Office and the Scottish Office. I should like also to say how much I appreciate the efforts of my parliamentary agent, Mr. Colin Winser, who spent an enormous amount of time on the Bill. Its complexities have grown as we progressed. I could just about carry the file into the Chamber and I shall just about be able to carry it out again. That is a measure of the work involved.

I express my appreciation, too, to the sponsors of the Bill. Sadly, a number of them were not able to he with us today, but they have all played a part in the discussions. The Bill has been an excellent example of close co-operation across party lines to achieve common objectives. I say "Thank you", as well, to all the hon. Members who attended the Committee, not least the hon. Member for Erith and Crayford (Mr. Wellbeloved).

I have received an enormous amount of correspondence about the Bill. It is clear that there has been much misunderstanding about certain aspects of it and exactly how certain reasonable points were covered. The most common concern among site owners was that this would provide a licence for any resident, no matter how dishevelled or broken down his mobile home, automatically to be able to maintain totally unfit accommodation for up to eight years. I have tried to clarify that point and to show that there are proper safeguards.

It is always easy to make exaggerated claims about a measure with which one has been closely involved. All hon. Members recognise that the Bill goes some way to improve the situation existing under the 1968 Act. Some have asked whether it gives full security of tenure, and the honest reply to that is that it does not. It gives a qualified security of tenure—an improvement in the present situation. In the odd situation of mobile homes, where people may own their own dwelling but rent the site on which it stands, it is impossible to give the occupiers absolute rights over something which does not belong, to them. That is part of the problem.

I have one regret about the Bill. It is, with great respect to the eminent draftsmen who worked on it, that the language is not absolutely clear. It is significant that this week my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Huntingdonshire (Sir D. Renton) produced, with the help of his colleagues, a report on the problems of the wording of parliamentary Bills. The situation of the hon. Member for Derby, North (Mr. Whitehead) showed how one can be led astray by wording which seeks to achieve an objective, and which one thinks will make an improvement, but which is revealed by legal advice to disadvantage those whom one is trying to help. However, the Bill is as clear as we can make it. I hope that it will be backed by explanation by the representative bodies, so that all concerned will understand their rights and obligations.

The Bill will not be the final answer to all abuses, some of which are exaggerated. As both representative bodies have said, there are rogues on both sides who may exploit loopholes, but for the great mass of people who live responsibly and properly on sites, the Bill will be a further reassurance and confirmation of their rights and will give them that greater security which we all want them to have.

Like my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Oxon (Mr. Hurd), I hope that the Bill will help to make more respectable the whole concept of mobile home living. As I said on Second Reading, in the United States 5 million people live in mobile homes by choice. Apart from those, mentioned by the hon. Member for Erith and Crayford, who have no alternative, many people in this country make the same choice. I hope that the Bill will show that Parliament recognises the choice of these people and its own responsibility to see that they are properly treated under the law. I hope that it will open up an expansion in a useful field of housing provision.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Bridgwater (Mr. King) and those who have helped him to bring the Bill to this point. He is far too modest about his own rôle. If there is a lack of clarity in some parts of the Bill, the important thing is that he has brought a good deal of clarity to the relations between site owners and residents. In the last few weeks my own contacts in my constituency have borne this out. I have been asked to have a meeting with residents and owners to discuss the Bill. I, too, think that the Bill will bring about a new relationship between owners and residents.

Because of the social and geographical isolation of many people on caravan sites, it is important that proper information about the Bill should be disseminated. I was hoping that the Under-Secretary would be able to tell us that the Department would make publicity available, perhaps through local authorities, to ensure that occupiers know their rights. It is important that the details of the new agreements are known. Although this would involve some minor public expenditure, I hope that the Minister will ensure that it is not left to the popular magazines and the associations.

The associations cover only a limited number of sites. Like other hon. Members—I hope—at my meeting on Sunday I shall do my best to extend the activities of these organisations, which bring order and sense into the relations between owners and occupiers.

Once again, I congratulate the hon. Member and those who supported him, particularly my hon. Friends the Members for Derby, North (Mr. Whitehead) and Renfrewshire, West (Mr. Buchan).

I should like to extend my own strong congratulations to my hon. Friend the Member for Bridgwater (Mr. King): I and many others can testify from personal experience to the enormous care that he has taken to consult people and organisations, and to the good-humoured patience and acumen with which he has listened to what, at the beginning, were somewhat unclear observations from many of us who came to this area without, perhaps, the deep knowledge that some hon. Members possess. In a tangled matter of this kind, without such qualities on the part of the main sponsor the Bill would have foundered.

We should also thank the Under-Secretary for his attitude. I had previously known and heard of him in a more combative capacity, and it has been pleasant to hear him time and again doing his best to make the Bill a workable reality. Perhaps it is a little churlish to ask him not to weary of well-doing. He has been placed in charge of an important inquiry into these matters. I hope that he will confide in us from time to time how he is getting on and tell us when he will be able to bring forward something new. There are other aspects, such as holiday caravans, where real problems arise. I hope that he will keep an eye on these, although they are not strictly relevant to this debate.

In our constituencies we all hear of people who are in desperate difficulties, domestic, social and personal, because they do not have a satisfactory roof over their heads. Since I began to listen to these stories, I have come to the conclusion that the mobile home could provide an answer which was economical and independent, and which, in suitable conditions, could meet the needs of people who have never thought of a mobile home. I hope that the Bill will establish in people's minds the concept of the mobile home as a serious addition to our housing scene. The achievement of this Bill, I hope, will be not simply that of bringing order and security into existing sites; I hope that it will encourage individuals and particularly local authorities to get into this business themselves to relieve housing stress.

One of the things which have given me pleasure in the few years that I have been a Member of Parliament is the use which is made of our complex procedures in marshalling through useful Private Members' Bills, which have reached the Statute Book through the diligence and, sometimes, the courage of private Members.

The Bill which the hon. Member for Bridgwater (Mr. King) has steered through is very worth while. If not one of the greatest and most far reaching of Private Members' Bills, it certainly joins the ranks of those Bills which, in their own spheres, will have great impact. This one will benefit the owners of mobile homes and site operators and I believe will have the desirable spin-off described by the hon. Member for Mid-Oxon (Mr. Hurd) of encouraging people to live in the open in mobile homes.

My only regret is that our procedure means that we must move so quickly from Committee to Report to Third Reading without being able fully to study the impact of all these provisions. If I may say so, that is not a fault of the hon. Gentleman. The hon. Member for Mid-Oxon paid tribute to my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State when he said that he had seen him on previous occasions in the House as a combative politician. We also see the hon. Member for Bridgwater in the same position when he sits just behind the Opposition Front Bench making hard-hitting and pointed comments to my right hon. and hon. Friends on the Government Front Bench. However, when it comes to these occasions, when there is a degree of co-operation and understanding, the qualities that the hon. Gentleman and my hon. Friend possess come to the fore. They are able to join together on a non-partisan basis to get through such measures as the Bill now before us.

Far from being a disadvantage to anyone, I believe that the Bill can form the basis of an expansion not only of site facilities but of the mobile home industry itself. That would be a good thing. The hon. Member for Bridgwater has said that many people choose to live in mobile homes because they provide the sort of life that they want to lead. I have absolute sympathy and understanding with that point of view. Although I am not a mobile home dweller I am an active caravanner and camper. I know just how great a benefit can be conferred upon one's family by getting out into the countryside, away from the smoke and dust of a large town, and enjoying the beauty and the relaxation that should be open to us all and is, indeed, our heritage. I fully understand those mobile home occupiers who choose a form of existence in which they are very close to the open air and to the good living that can come from it.

I appreciate that not all mobile home sites are in the country. Many are adjacent to large towns and cities, such as the area represented by my hon. Friend the Member for Peterborough (Mr. Ward). I join with my hon. Friend in his plea to my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State to ensure that this worthwhile measure receives adequate publicity. It is not enough merely to get it on to the statute book; we must go further and ensure that people are aware of its existence. That applies not only to those who now occupy mobile homes but to those who will occupy them in succeeding years.

We can provide publicity in a number of ways. I shall briefly draw two methods to the attention of my hon. Friend. First, it is obvious that local authorities will be aware of the measure, because it is their duty to be so aware. However, I think they can be encouraged by a departmental circular to ensure that in their information offices a short document is available to convey information to interested parties. That can be done at minimum expense but with considerable benefits.

Secondly, I ask my hon. Friend to give consideration to encouraging publicity through the citizens' advice bureaux. I know that in my constituency an enormous number of people go to the bureaux and receive very good advice on a wide variety of topics. Certainly the bureaux are equipped to pass on a wealth of information on many complex subjects. They provide a friutful source of advice and they are known places where citizens can go when they are in trouble. People either go to the citizens' advice bureaux or to their Member of Parliament. Sometimes they can combine both those desirable sources of information. If the citizens' advice bureaux could provide information on this measures in a document in leaflet form they would assist in making information on the benefits of the Bill more widely known on a continuing basis to operators and site dwellers.

Does my hon. Friend not agree that he has been talking about passive publicity? People would have to take the initiative to receive that sort of information. Does my hon. Friend agree that there is a case for asking local authorities, which in most cases must have few caravans in their area—in my area there are about 500—to make some positive material available to caravan site owners and site dwellers?

I do not dissent from that. I hope that my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State has made a note of my hon. Friend's views. Certainly an initial splurge of publicity to get the Bill understood as quickly as possible is an excellent idea, but I must add a word of caution. When we are encouraging local authorities to reduce expenditure, would it be right, in a borough where there is widespread use of mobile homes, to incure any great expenditure? I would not like to comment upon that, but I am sure that my hon. Friend will take the point into account in any circular that he finally decides to send out.

I wholeheartedly welcome the Bill's Third Reading. I hope that it will open up a new era of opportunity and co-operation between the two parties involved—namely, the owners and the site operators—which will be mutually satisfactory. Above all, I hope that it opens up greater avenues for sites to be developed which are not only fairly profitable for the owners but enjoyable for the occupants.

I intervene briefly to add my congratulations to those of my hon. Friends and Members opposite to my hon. Friend the Member for Bridgwater (Mr. King) for the diligence with which he has piloted the Bill through all the hazards that any Bill must face and for having brought it forward successfully to Third Reading. In addition, as has been mentioned already, my hon. Friend has negotiated with outside interests and has reconciled what at times must have seemed to be the irreconcilable.

On Second Reading I expressed views on behalf of the Opposition as regards the value of mobile homes and the contribution they can make to alleviating our housing problems. I do not want to detain the House by going over that ground again and by making a second speech along the same lines.

The importance of the Bill goes beyond its application to mobile homes in as much as it is giving a charter to an occupier, a tenant as it were, of a form of residential accommodation without in any way imposing control and security of tenure in the full sense. It is seeking to achieve a new relationship between site owners and occupiers by means of a statutory form of agreement, an agreement that is impartial and objective in seeking to give help and protection to the one side and at the same time to recognise the rights of the other party.

Members on both sides of the House have expressed the hope that the Bill heralds a new era, that it will produce a new relationship between the opposite parties to a bargain which, in the past, has been soured for a variety of reasons.

Parliament has now brought forward an arrangement whereby the rights and duties can be balanced fairly and equitably between the parties. I hope that the House will study this arrangement in the light of experience to see whether it is a means whereby we can in future find a way of taking relationships as between landlord and tenant out of the era of asperity that we have seen for so many years in the past. I shall watch the situation very closely and examine the way in which this measure operates to see whether we can find a formula for bringing peace at long last between landlords and tenants.

The hon. Member for Hornsey (Mr. Rossi) has understandably widened on Third Reading the ground that we covered in the more detailed consideration which took place in Committee and on Report. Certainly I would hope that we can expand areas of good will in all forms of tenure. Whether this legislation and legislation that may follow from it will be exactly analagous to and comparable with other forms of legislation is perhaps open to question. That there will be lessons to be learned from it when it goes forward to the statute book and comes into practice I have no doubt.

The House will wish me from the Front Bench to voice to the hon. Member for Bridgwater (Mr. King) the congratulations of the whole House for the work that he has put into the Bill. He has spent an enormous amount of time and taken an enormous amount of trouble to get the Bill into the right shape, entering into the necessary consultations and in mastering his brief for the long Committee stage, which was unusually long, although I am sure that he and other hon. Members will agree that it was in no sense protracted.

My hon. Friend the Member for Bury and Radcliffe (Mr. White) said in Committee that that Standing Committee had restored his faith in the Standing Committee procedure. I am sure that he was speaking for others, too. Many of us on both sides of the House have often sat on a Standing Committee in which Members of the Opposition, whatever their party, have regarded it as their rôle to obstruct the Government, and Members of the Government, whatever their party, have regarded is as their rôle to evade the Opposition. In this Standing Committee arguments were put forward in order not to take up time but to get a view- point adopted, and in almost every case a debate on an amendment ended in agreement. There were few Divisions, and the House will recall that those Divisions that there were often took place at the instance of one hon Gentleman who was putting forward an individual but isolated point of view.

I am grateful to the hon. Member for Hornsey for his tribute to the officials of the Department of the Environment, who have worked very hard on the Bill and who willingly associated themselves right at the start with my wish to ensure that the Bill was a viable piece of legislation. We wished to take advantage of the hon. Member for Bridgwater's good fortune in the ballot, and there is no doubt that without the devoted work of the officials in my Department, to whom I should personally like to pay a very great tribute, the Bill would not reach the statute book in the viable and workable form in which it already finds itself.

I am grateful to the hon. Member for Bridgwater for what he said about other sponsors of the Bill. My hon. Friend the Member for Derby, North (Mr. Whitehead) is a pioneer in this legislation. He sought to introduce a Bill on this subject in the last Parliament but one. It is a mark of his devotion that he has been present today right to the end moving amendments and seeking to improve the Bill. He provided us with the one small crisis that the Bill has encountered, but we got over that and reached agreement on that, too.

On Second Reading I was glad to offer encouragement, on behalf of the Government, to the hon. Member for Bridgwater and his sponsors on both sides of the House. I am now glad that I can add to that encouragement, thanks to the highly constructive discussion of the Bill, particularly in Committee, but on Report as well. There is no doubt whatsoever that this Bill, as a result of the work of the entire House, is a notable improvement on the version which we were considering over two months ago.

At that time I felt it only prudent to qualify my encouragement on behalf of the Government by setting out certain misgivings that I had. These misgivings did not centre on the main principles of the Bill, which were common ground between the hon. Member, his sponsors and the Government. We all accepted the case for creating a statutory basis for the contractual relationship between site owners and site residents. There was never any difference over the need to provide a measure of security which would diminish the fears which many residents feel about an uncertain future and which would help to eradicate the exploitation which can and does occur where site owners do not observe the standards of the responsible among them.

At the same time I am sure that we all shared the aim of encouraging those many reputable site owners who already give a fair deal to the residents on their land. Above all, we knew that even if the Bill could not be a comprehensive, definitive measure, it could still, in the shorter term, do a considerable amount of good.

My doubts were concerned with more peripheral matters. In the main, I was not convinced that all the practical details of the Bill had been fully thought through, although I should add that I myself was far from able to produce final answers to the sorts of questions which occurred to me. For example, I suspected that extension of the jurisdiction of the county courts could provide perhaps not an ideal but probably the best available means of settling disputes between site owners and residents if private arrangements set out in particular agreements did not prove sufficient. On the other hand, I could not be confident of the precise way in which this jurisdiction should be framed, and I certainly had not been into the many ramifications which we were able to explore in Committee.

I was also anxious to ensure that even though the Bill was essentially an interim measure sufficient reserve powers should be left to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State to deal with unforeseen contingencies which might occur in the interval before comprehensive legislation could reasonably be introduced.

My initial suggestions as to the way in which this should be done received a mixed reception from the sponsors of the Bill. There was general agreement about the desirability of providing reserve powers, but no clear-cut unanimity at the outset on how widely these should be drawn. The balance which we have now achieved in Clause 6 reflects, I think, the recognition that there may well be circumstances in which Government intervention could be justifiable. If, for example, it became clear that totally extortionate levels of discount or premium were being levied on occupiers reselling their caravans on site, my right hon. Friend would be able to check the spread of abuse.

On the other hand, the useful work we were able to carry out in Committee resulted in a pretty clear majority opinion as to just where the Government reserve powers should stop. I frankly acknowledge that my own preference was for some extension of these powers beyond those now embodied in the Bill. But this Bill, as I made clear at every stage, is not, after all, a vehicle for the Government either to drive or to clamber onto. For that reason, we have made every effort to help improve it, if necessary by arguing out particular points in considerable detail. But I am sure that the hon. Member and his sponsors recognise that we have never attempted to impose any Government line, and that we have respected the fact of this being not only a Private Members' Bill but a Bill whose hacking comes from all parts of the House.

I have already, on Second Reading, paid tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Renfrewshire, West (Mr. Buchan), whose efforts have ensured that the provisions of the Bill will cover Scotland as well as England and Wales. But it would be easy to lose sight of the fact that my hon. Friend has managed to do considerably more than that. He has seen to it also that the Bill extends to Scotland the Caravan Sites Act 1968, another Private Member's measure, and has thereby achieved two results. He has, firstly provided mobile home residents in Scotland with the protection afforded by the 1968 Act, notably against harassment —and that in itself is a thoroughly worthwhile step. Secondly, his industry has ensured that once the Bill has been enacted and has come into force the law on mobile homes will be on the same footing throughout the whole of Great Britain.

From the moment I was appointed to the post I now hold my hon. Friend the Member for Renfrewshire, West, even when a member of the Government, never ceased harassing and harrying me to get further legislation on this subject. One fortunate consequence of the otherwise perhaps not so fortunate fact that he is no longer a member of the Government is that he has been able to play an active part in achieving for Scotland the legislation that he sought from me more than a year ago. What we have achieved in the Bill will certainly facilitate the work that I am conducting in my review when I shall be consulting fully my Scottish colleagues, among others.

It would be rash for anybody to claim that the Bill as it now stands is perfect and complete. To say this is not to deny the immense amount of work which the hon. Member has devoted to the Bill or the searching scrutiny which it received in Committee.

At one point after Second Reading, I recall that there were optimistic hopes in the air that one day would be more than enough for the Committee stage. The fact that four sittings were required is ample testimony to the kind of examination which the Bill properly received. Even so, preparation has necessarily been short, and it may well be that further scrutiny in another place will result in more improvements. I trust, if we can send this message along the corridor, that the main shape of the salient proposals in the Bill will not be seriously called in question.

There is one perhaps unfortunate but regrettably inevitable by-product of the process of improving the Bill. The initially simple provisions were seen to be insufficient, and the closing of loopholes unerringly leads to greater complexity. I imagine that the Bill as drafted would defeat the efforts of many non-lawyers readily to grasp its effects. If the Bill is to have its proper effect it has to be understood, and well understood, by both site residents and site owners.

If the Bill remains a closed book to them, they may too easily fail to take advantage of its provisions or to comply with its obligations, and I readily foresee alarmist and misleading rumours circulating about its purpose and effect. I have already offered such Government assistance as I can to the hon. Member for Bridgwater to facilitate the passage of his Bill through Parliament, and I hope that I have so far fulfilled my offer. I shall ensure that it applies to the Bill as it progresses in another place.

I say to my hon. Friend the Member for Peterborough (Mr. Ward) that he has shown to his constituents how speedily he has taken on board their problems during the time that he has been in the House. It would be only reasonable for me to extend a promise of Government help in explaining to the world outside Parliament what this Bill does and how it does it. I imagine that the organisations representing site residents and operators will be preparing their own guidance for their members. I am sure that the Government will be only too glad to discuss with them the factual context of any material which they devise. It would no doubt be timely also if the Government could provide some form of assistance and explanation to, say, citizens' advice bureaux, which are so frequently a source of local information and help.

The hon. Member for Mid-Oxon (Mr. Hurd), whose kind words I particularly appreciated, bearing in mind the relative roles we have occupied at one time or another, referred to the review which I am conducting. Naturally we have had to wait to find out exactly how this Bill would turn out. Now that we see the form in which it will, we trust, reach the statute book, we can proceed with the review and to the much more definitive and far-reaching legislation to which we are committed. I am sure that I have said enough to show that we shall continue to take a benevolent interest in the Bill in the same constructive way as has prevailed up to now. I hope that the House will give the Bill a Third Reading.

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

I have been in this House for what could be considered a considerable period. Hoping to be a modestly good and assiduous Member and thinking that with my Celtic background I would have a little bit of Irish luck, I have pursued my weary way year after year into the Lobby and diligently signed my name hoping that I would come top of the form and would be able to introduce some tremendous measure that would find its way to the statute book.

In 20 years this is the first time that I have had modest good fortune. I know the position. I know that No. 14 in the Ballot is not the same as No. 1. I wondered what sort of Bill I would attempt to introduce into the Mother of Parliaments. There are many Bills suggested by Departments and there are others in an embryonic stage. I put forward this Bill for a particular reason. We are all aware of the tragedy of cancer not only in our midst but throughout the world.

I came to this House from an industrial background, from an area in which I had held most positions since I began working on the Liverpool dockside at the age of 14. I had become the managing director of my own firm. But there was one constant worry in my mind. I always recalled the people, particularly the boys, with whom I worked, often in dreadful conditions. Often these boys had the worst of all worlds. In some way I felt a bit more secure because I came from a good, modest, clean and comfortable home.

All of these points are relevant to the introduction of this Bill. In introducing it I speak as a layman who left school at the age of 14 and became a scaler boy on the Liverpool waterfront. I noticed in my passage through life that many of the boys with whom I worked contracted cancer and died earlier than might have been the case if they had been more fortunate in their worldly positions. Perhaps there is help somewhere else for people who have to suffer in this way.

I do not want to be too pessimistic about this subject because I have learned not to be pessimistic. The subject can be approached in an atmosphere of hope. An eminent American medical authority said recently that while cancer is fatal if untreated or if treated late, the fact is that early cancer is among the most curable of major causes of death. My authority for that is Dr. Clifton R. Read of the International Union against Cancer. situated in America. That statement gave me hope.

Having moved all the way through local government and seen miracles happen there, I thought I would introduce this modest Bill in an attempt to ensure that the things that happened in my youth happen less often in today's society. That is all it is—a small attempt by the hon. Member for Bootle to bring more knowledge, hope, faith and achievement not only into my own environment but into the national environment. I hope that we shall be able to add to international knowledge on this subject, which affects everyone at some time or another.

I hope that hon. Members will understand if I quote some statistics. In 1924 my father had the privilege of coming to Whitehall—I recall this with some pride—to give evidence before an important body on the condition of boy labour in this country. At that time Parliament thought that they were being subjected to things to which young boys should not be subjected. Like myself, he knew about coal, oil, boilers, oil tanks and cofferdams, which were not beautiful places to be in, and rose boxes. The rose, box of a ship is the filthiest part but it has that beautiful name. I shall not go into the reasons for it, but it is called that for obvious reasons.

There were boys working in these conditions and there were other people who were working with slag wool and asbestos. They developed all kinds of conditions. I am quite sure that the hon. Member for Reading, South (Dr. Vaughan) would be able to analyse these conditions in great detail, because he is an eminent diagnostician. However, I shall keep to layman's language when talking about the things that cause the conditions that other men have to diagnose. It was insulation and asbestos that caused all these dreadful illnesses which my constituents have to suffer, and no doubt many others suffer from them in other parts of this industrial land.

People may say that this is old hat. I am assured by the best medical authority that this is not the case. It is possible that in modern industry there are more dangers than existed in old industry. That point has been made forcibly to me and I may mention an example later.

In my passage through public life I have discovered another inequality for working-class people. There are, of course, many. Is it not strange that the incidence of cancer among working-class people—a phrase that people do not want us to use any more—is far higher than it is among people who are better off, such as the middle class? Of course, I hope that that is always the case for the middle class, in all charity. However, it is obvious that a man in my situation, coming from the part of the land from which I come, can learn that this class distinction is relevant not only in financial, economic and social terms but even from the point of view of our personal health in the face of this disease.

The example for which I was searching is to be found in the rubber industry, which is a modern industry using additives and is principally concerned, in this country, with the production of tyres. It has been established and proved positively that to work in this industry does not cause cancer of the lung but can cause cancer of the bladder. I am delighted to have the full agreement, I see, of that eminent diagnostician, the hon. Member for Reading, South. It bears out the point I am making. It applies not only to people of my generation but to people of future generations in the same way.

I do not want to use too many business names. However, may we be sure that great international organisations, not only in this country but abroad, such as the great international Dunlop Company, recognise this and make adequate compensation? Will they, with their great wealth, be able to inform workers in their factories that they are in danger of contracting cancer of the bladder? Will they be able to use a screening process which will be beneficial to the workers to whom they have a responsibility?

I want people in this country to realise that we are anxious about these things. We are not all medically knowledgeable. I certainly am not, and I am sure there are many poor innocent people who do not know much about this subject at all. However, we must keep insisting that cancer can be cured and that the pessimism that affected other times must be driven away somehow. I believe that the whole thing depends, firmly, on education and the earliest possible diagnosis.

All hon. Members have a great affection and esteem for one of the greatest physicians in the world. I have been a friend of the noble Lord, Lord Cohen of Birkenhead for many years. Whether this story is apocryphal or whether it is true in every syllable I do not know, but in Liverpool University the great Professor Cohen, as he was in those days, began every lecture of any importance with this statement to the assembled medical students and graduates: "There are three important things in medicine. The first is diagnosis, the second is diagnosis and the third is diagnosis."

I believe that to be the case not only in medicine and cancer but in this country as a whole, economically and in every other way, where we have as yet been unable to diagnose our problems. Therefore, the diagnostic ability of people and the co-operation of people in the early diagnosis of cancer is essential.

Perhaps I may inject a note of hope. I have always been fortunate to have friends in the right places. As a layman I feel it essential to get expert knowledge to try to assimilate matters in any humble fashion possible. I have discussed this matter with an eminent cancer specialist. It was in Mr. Speaker's constituency—and I did not ask for his permission to go there. I went to this wonderful establishment and was given the information that in the Clatterbridge Hospital in the Wirral they have the highest cure rate for bladder cancer in the world. Is not that—were I not to say another word today—a wonderful thing to be able to say to people who think that every case of cancer is hopeless? That hospital has the highest cure rate for bladder cancer in the world. I asked how I could translate that fact as a politician. They told me that there has to be something to take the place of fear. The only thing that we can put in place of fear is hope. That hope has to be based upon achievements and on the knowledge of the people who work so hard.

It may be said to me today, "You are in the wrong Department." The Minister present is from the Department of Education and Science. I could have said with complete arrogance or lack of humility, "Where are the other two Departments? Where is the Minister from the Department of Employment and where is the Minister from the Department of Health and Social Security?" I do not know whether this fits in appropriately with my hon. Friend the Minister's true position.

Education in cancer has to start wherever cancer is found. If a little schoolboy does not start smoking until he is eight, he has to be told when he is eight, not when he is 16, that he will not be able to play in the football team or to run as fast as other boys. Education must start in childhood and continue in adolescence. The development of knowledge should occur naturally in industry, schools and universities according to the need for that knowledge, right through to maturity. I am sure the experts will be with me on that. When people reach maturity they tend to feel that the worst struggle of life is over, but they are the dangerous years.

We all remember what it was like to be 10 years of age. I can remember what it was like to be 21, but when I became 40, the age of 60 seemed a long time ahead, an eternity, but to me the years have gone by on velvet feet and I did not hear them going. I was hushed by the years as they elapsed and went my own way. In talking to the young, we must remember that they are young and do the best we can.

Every year, 32,000 people in the United Kingdom die from lung cancer—one every 16 minutes. Those are not my figures, but they are the most up-to-date figures that can be obtained. Here a note of sadness comes into my mind. I have always asked myself why my constituents have so much trouble. Why do they always get everything—bad housing, plus had health, plus bad environment, plus cancer. That is what I refer to as the plus factor. The theory that I have always held has been proved to be right. Which part of Great Britain has the highest incidence of cancer? Liverpool and Bootle. That is how I justify my Bill on behalf of my people. The plus factors include environment, atmosphere, diesel fumes and smoking. I am told that one can smoke with a freer mind in New Zealand because the air there is so pure that the same risks are not incurred.

People tend to think that the situation is hopeless, but I will inject a note of hope by saying that there has been an improvement over the years. When I first came into active public life in Bootle after the war, one responsibility which I was given was for housing. An eminent public health doctor sent for me and asked whether I had any idea of the dimensions of the assignment that I had been given. I said "I know it is fairly bad". He said "Do you know that you have the highest maternal mortality rate in the United Kingdom, the highest child mortality rate in the United Kingdom and the highest incidence of tuberculosis in the United Kingdom?"

That was immediately after the war. Hitler had done a vicious bombing job and had taken thousands of houses from us. We thought that the town would have to be written off. But by diligent work by all concerned, within a few short years those terrible statistics were reduced below national average. People had thought that their position was hopeless, but by hard work, devoted care and application by all concerned, those dreadful figures were reduced. If the same endeavour can be put into attacking cancer, people will have less reason to be pessimistic. We are just beginning to see the light, and if we follow this road great results may be achieved in a shorter time than we imagine.

Young people should be given information on how to protect themselves. When I went to work I did not know how to protect myself—and I was not unintelligent. After leaving a good grammar school I went down to the docks because I had no choice. I had no idea how to protect myself. But for the grace of God I should have had cancer, as did some of my comrades. People should be told how to protect themselves. If we do not tell them, who will'? Is it not fair for me to ask Parliament for protection for young people in industry and elsewhere? Is it not fair for me to ask local education authories to assist? They are responsible for the teaching of many other subjects. Why should they not he responsible for teaching children how to look after themselves? I hope that the Bill will get its just deserts, because it is a good Bill.

The Bill requires local authorities to provide information. Until recently a local authority was a health authority. I hope that I shall not be accused of leaving out health authorities. There has been a separation of the two, but that separation occurred with the reorganisation of local government and does not occur in my mind. I hope that the term "local authority" will not be taken to mean just a local education authority. It means every kind of local authority, including regional hospital boards and others. The Bill would be a nonsense if it were read in any other way.

I shall probably be told I should not interfere with the curricula of schools and that it is a mistake to force certain things to be done. What are we to do? I am not talking about people who live in Richmond or in Dorset or in Kent but of people who live in my constituency. There are people there who have never known the privacy of their own bedroom. Is that not a significant factor when everybody says that hygiene is important? Specialists tell me that hygiene is all-important and is becoming more and more so every day in the fight against cancer. There are people in my constituency who have never seen an inside toilet. In the 20 years I have been in the House, no Government have ever succeded in solving the housing crisis. I have always been disappointed on that score. The results can be seen in our streets.

If children and particularly young adolescent girls do not have the privacy which we all take for granted, how much harder is the situation that faces them. Perhaps, additionally, the girl concerned may have no parents, or indifferent parents, or may be a vicitim of a marriage which has broken up, and she is left on her own. Who is to tell her these important things, if Parliament is not to tell her through the medium of this Bill? Who is to tell her if teachers, nurses and doctors are not to do so?

Housing and hygiene are all part of the fight against cancer. My constituents are not getting a fair break—and they have never had a fair break. It is my duty as their Member of Parliament to say these things, even though it may bore the House. My constituents need more protection, and they need it from Parliament. That is the reason behind the Bill.

I shall no doubt be told that these matters cannot be included in curricula. However, most schools today have liberal studies, and I shall prove a little later that my proposals are being followed in other parts of the world. We are prepared to teach children of eight the exact situation of the equator, but we are not prepared to teach them about the equation between good health and bad. I do not want to be told about curricula because I have been the chairman of an education committee. I know that children could be taught about hygiene and the standards necessary to avoid cancer.

There is something more I should say. I wondered whether I should say this to the House, and I have decided to say it. The House will know of the stand I have taken on certain subjects in this House over the years. I have never liked the permissive society. I am a little sorry for the young today. I am certainly not envious of them. I believe that we have burdened modern youth with the permissive society. Who will tell the youth of this country that gross promiscuity brings cancer in its train—not in middle age or in old age but in youth'? Who will tell them of that tragedy? If we do not say these things in the Mother of Parliaments, where can they be said? I have heard these things said only in the colleges and medical schools.

When legislation has been enacted which has resulted in the permissive society those responsible have not told people of the dangers of the permissive society. The danger to which I have drawn attention is one of them. I believe that young women need to be protected by a Bill such as that which is now before the House. If they carry on in ignorance they will find themselves in an unfortunate state in a very short period of time. That needed to he said and I have now said it.

I have listened carefully to my hon. Friend's argument, much of which is valid, in seeking to tackle the question of education about cancer and the ways in which one should seek to prevent the disease. Certainly the Bill concentrates on the question of education and information rather than on the question of fear about the disease. Does my hon. Friend agree that if we emphasise the horror, rather than intelligent constructive ways in which young people can protect themselves, we shall not achieve our aims as successfully as we might otherwise do?

As a reasonable man of course I underwrite my hon. Friend's intervention. Certainly I expressed hope at the outset of my speech, and I said that I was not pessimistic. I said that in place of fear we must put hope, knowledge and achievement. The more information and education we can give the various age groups, particularly the young, the better it will be for everybody.

I shall come shortly to the provisions of the Bill and explain them in more detail. It is not hard to explain these things to people. I have had information from all over the world which suggests that although we may think the mountain is very high and that we are only at the foothills, we are well advanced at present towards a solution.

I referred to the curriculum in the schools. It has been said that this subject could not be included in the school curriculum. However. I recently received an article from a lady doctor in Finland which reads:

"Schools offer an ideal climate for the growth of a sensible and unemotional acceptance of cancer as a part of life. They give us the chance to eliminate old inherited prejudices and replace them with honest, matter of fact types of information about the various kinds of cancer and the successful treatment of important types of the disease."

She also mentions biology, chemistry, the environment, and hygiene, and health classes as being the natural places for the dissemination of this knowledge.

Referring to the Schedule, I was asked to provide information which would enable people to hope. I can provide that information. Paragraph 1 refers to the extent to which the various types of cancer are curable, especially if detected in the early stages. Reference is also made to the importance of early diagnosis and treatment. I am sure that hon. Members will support me in my plea concerning that matter.

I shall now give figures which will help all those who are interested in the problem. I refer to the extent to which the various types of cancer, to which the Schedule refers, are curable, especially if detected in the early stages. In one eminent hospital 25 years ago two cases of cancer of the tongue suitable for treatment with radium needles were diagnosed each week. In the same hospital they now only unhappily, discover six such cases each year.

I now refer to the existing treatment, the possible development of treatment and the improvement of the treatment of breast cancer. Mine is a layman's approach. However, I have consulted knowledgeable people, who have informed me that at the age of 30 ladies should take advantage of the screening available to them. The years in a woman's life between 40 and 50 are vital. Family history, and size of family must also be taken into account. People who are in the high risk groups should seek medical opinion.

If we try to build a house, school or hospital the question of cost must be considered. However, wars cost much money, lives, pain and wounds, and I make no apology for quoting these figures. The cost of screening women in hospitals is modest—between £5 and £6. However, total screening costs thousands of pounds per person. Even in those conditions, at a cost of perhaps £2,000 per person, the cancer pick-up rate for persons with no symptoms is 0·15 per cent. That is a costly exercise.

When women co-operate with the medical profession, the cure rate for breast cancer improves tremendously. There are many methods of examination. I have a note which tells me to try to avoid the use of long words. However, self-examination should be taught. We are arguing about the method by which it should be taught.

It is sometimes necessary for examinations to be carried out by doctors. However I am informed that, in this natural difficulty, women are more helpful to other women. Qualified nurses are successful when examining other women. That fact should be known. Many women are modest and fearful. Trained, diligent, devoted and knowledgeable women should be employed by local authorities to do this work, which would encourage women to seek examination. If a woman aged 30 to 50, who is modest, as most of them are, knew that she could be examined by another woman, she would be less fearful. However, if further advice were needed, that would have to come from the appropriate higher medical level. I am told that there is a very high "pick-up' rate by the nurses who do this valuable work.

I have done my best to present a Bill on this difficult subject. So difficult is the subject that at one time I thought that people were kidding me when they told me about the dangers of aerosols in ladies' hairdressing establishments. I believe that the particles emanating from an aerosol can be cancer-forming. Aerosols are used throughout the land in massive numbers. One eminent medical authority told me that they were a menace.

We are not doing sufficient to educate people about the dangers of smoking. I regard the notice on cigarette packets as hideous. The warning that cigarettes may kill may be justified, but is that all we can do to warn people of the dangers of smoking?

Could not the Government find time for my Bill? Who will stand in the way of the Bill? It is better than most Bills. I hope that no one will block it. It is a good Bill. My constituents and other people throughout the land will ask questions if it is blocked, because it is such a deserving Bill.

The Bill was not in existence until a few days ago. Considerable thought has been devoted to it. I am grateful for the considerable help of those in the House who help Members such as myself who have little legal knowledge. I am grateful to those hon. Members who have helped me and to my sponsors on both sides. I am grateful to all the doctors who patiently advised me. I hope that I have conveyed to the House at least some of the facts which it would wish to hear about.

In a recent article Dr. E. C. Easson, of Glasgow—he is a doctor of medicine and a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians—wrote:

"With present-day therapeutic measures many cancers are entirely curable. When we cure these cancers we know why we cure them."

That is tremendous.

"When we fail we know why we failed. The greatest single source of failure today is the patient who gives his cancer time to go beyond the measurable possibilities of cure. This is the problem, this is the tragedy we seek to control."

It gives me considerable pleasure to be called so early in the debate and to have an opportunity of welcoming this Bill. I am not one of its sponsors, although I would gladly have added my name to the Bill had the opportunity airsen. My attitude to the subject has been substantially confirmed by the able way in which my hon. Friend the Member for Bootle (Mr. Mahon) introduced the main provisions of the Bill. I hope also that I may be somewhat luckier than he in not having to wait 20 years before I draw a sufficiently high place in the Ballot to introduce a modest measure of my own, and I hope that such a measure will be as worthy of the attention of the House as I consider this Bill to be.

I imagine that one of the major objections which may be put forward to this excellent Bill is that here again is the Mother of Parliaments recommending legislation which it requires other authorities to implement; and that at a time when we are all conscious of local authorities creaking and groaning under the weighty burdens that we have placed upon them, and cognisant of our failure to offer them sufficient resources with which to meet those obligations, it might be thought that this Bill runs into son-le difficulties in yet again suggesting that local authorities should bear an additional burden.

I do not take that view. I sometimes think that local authorities inflict upon themselves burdens which are less meritorious. Many local authorities have certainly been prone in recent years to expend a substantial amount of money on rather grandiose civic centres and offices which I do not think have always been totally justified. Perhaps I may enter a caveat. I was privileged in the past week to participate in a ceremony in which the civic centre in my constituency of Enfield was opened by Her Majesty the Queen Mother, and I am not in any way suggesting that money expended on that civic centre is not completely justified. Indeed, I would emphasise that the development of those offices is in the area of an authority which has been operating for more than a decade under the reform of the London Government Act.

My criticism is more substantially reserved for those local authorities which have barely seen the light of day in terms of their new roles before there has been substantial expenditure of public money on what may not necessarily be regarded as the most beneficial resource uses on behalf of their communities. However, I do not place the obligations represented by this Bill, should it successfully negotiate the parliamentary obstacles, in the category of an unwelcome burden.

One is conscious that in recent years many pieces of legislation connected with health have greatly extended the obligations on local authorities. One thinks particularly of the example of the Chronic Sick and Disabled Persons Act. I do not think anybody in any local authority would wish that obligation to be removed or even reduced. What we are witnessing is a substantial transference of crucial areas of health care to the local communities. This philosophy of health in the local community is absolutely right. We should attempt to solve the problems of those who are suffering illness by as far as possible locating their support and help in the local community itself.

One thinks, for example, of the mental health provisions by which greater encouragement is given to the treatment of mentally-ill people at home with sufficient back-up resources from the local authority to ensure that people are nursed back to health so far as possible within the framework of their own community rather than being isolated in hospitals with special facilities.

Moreover, the advantages of this to local authorities are not to be underestimated. In many respects this represents the local authorities as having a human face. Whatever the strident cries for a reduction in the increase in rate expenditure and demands upon the rates, one always recognises that the community is eager to provide appropriate social service support for those in most need in the community, and I do not think that these resources are begrudged by anyone.

One should recognise that there are certain ways in which one can increase the participation of people serving in local authorities, so increasing the motivation towards public service, and it is my view that the increase in the obligation on local authorities in respect of health provisions makes the role of the councillor more satisfying and helps to recruit people to carry out that honourable service.

The Bill represents a small but significant step in the development of our thinking about medicine in our community. For a long time in our history, all our resources with regard to medical provision were concerned with the curative aspects of health. One calls to mind the eighteenth century emphasis on such matters and some of the more horrendous Hogarthian prints. One must recognise that the cure, if not more painful than the disease, looks to have been more horrendous. The movement from there was to- wards the area of the great public health reforms of the nineteenth century. Then it was recognised that the cure of the diseased patient provided no answer to the outbreaks of epidemics and that the community had to have a wider responsibility not of providing a cure but of preventing outbreaks of such epidemics.

The cholera epidemic of 1847, which led to the Public Health Act, was a clear example of the community realising that without the development of suitable sanitation, without the guarantee of clean water for our developing industrial cities, the curative response to the incidence of health could provide no solution.

We are now moving to a situation in which we are developing extremely high standards of public health. Through the National Health Service we have greatly increased the degree of sophistication in our treatment of patients. This is particularly so on the curative side, and the Bill emphasis what I consider to be highly desirable, namely, the need to develop the preventive aspects of medicine. It is cheaper to prevent the development of illness than to cure it, and for individuals it is better that they should never have the disease than that they should be cured after having contracted it.

It is the case in the development of our modern medical history that the fastest spreading diseases in advanced societies are those which people can be taught to avoid. The Bill emphasises the educational aspects of health in our society, and it is therefore appropriate that the Under-Secretary of State for Education and Science is present to reply to the debate.

The incidence of disease in a modern society can substantially be reduced by an increase in our educative facilities to spread an awareness of the dangers of certain practices leading to the development of cancer. This disease has had considerable publicity in recent years, certainly to that point where it is recognised that certain social habits are crucially related to it—particularly the habit of smoking. It is estimated that almost all human activities have within them the capacity to increase the possibility of cancer, and some activities like sun-bathing, smoking and making love, are regarded as more likely to increase that incidence than are other activities. These would seem to be the activities which people regard as particularly pleasurable.

I am not here to produce a Benthamite version of the felicific calculus or to produce a prohibited list of such pleasures. But if, to take the obvious extreme case of smoking, there is a problem in the development of educational techniques to overcome the natural tendency to indulge in smoking, this should be remedied. The relationship between lung cancer and smoking is well established and is supported not just by the advice of the medical profession but in the action it has taken in recent years, for example, by GPs being prepared to practise what they preached. Substantial numbers of them reduced their consumption of tobacco, and the result is that while lung cancer is increasing in our society generally there has been a significant drop in the incidence of the disease among doctors.

The problem of emphasising the dangers of smoking is not that the devil has the best tunes but that he has the biggest orchestras at his command to play them. This is why, in educational institutions, it is essential to concentrate our resources in combating the powerful influences in society which are working in the opposite direction.

The pressures in society are clearly enormous and should be reduced. We should particularly look again at the question of advertisements for cigarettes and tobacco. It is not that we want to deny pleasure to people who are already, unhappily, hooked on that habit. We are seeking to reduce the numbers of people who take up smoking, risking injury to their health. That is why the Bill is important in emphasising the educational institutions aspect. That is why we should look particularly closely at the increasing number of advertisements that are found at sporting occasions and events. In a modest way I participate in sport, in the parliamentary soccer team. The team has not been offered sponsorship by a tobacco firm and I doubt whether, after my speech today, it is likely to get one. However, it is important to distinguish the sharp correlation which exists between what I believe to be distinct opposites and which is highlighted by the presence of substantial cigarette advertisements at sporting events.

Restrictions on TV advertisements have been circumvented by the judicious placing of hoardings at sporting fixtures. This happens even on the glorious occasion of the Cup Final, and at motor racing, although one cannot distinguish the driver or tell one "mobile Hoover" from another, one can see the name of the advertiser.

In our educational institutions we should emphasise the development of powerful countermanding techniques against the pressures of the outside world. The Bill shows how local authorities can play a significant role. The outside visitor to a school is more readily accepted by the pupils than are their familiar teachers. This prestige can help to bring home the message. Doctors still enjoy considerable influence with the young.

Health is our most precious asset, and we must protect it. This does not mean interfering with the school curriculum. Physical education should be abolished in schools and replaced with health education, since it is meaningless without a full education as to the advantages of health. The Bill offers great opportunities for the extension of information to prevent the dreadful scourge of cancer. It is a step along the road to preventive rather than curative medicine and as such should be applauded.

I want to speak briefly about the Bill introduced by the hon. Member for Bootle (Mr. Mahon). I was about to call him "my hon. Friend" and that would not be so far from the truth. I agree with the hon. Member for Enfield, North (Mr. Davies). I cannot believe, I will not believe, that the Under-Secretary of State, an old friend of mine, will oppose a Bill which seeks to establish a method which will enable us to find out more about cancer and to notify it more quickly. The six hon. Members present assume that he will oppose the Bill but I do not believe that a Member of this great Socialist Government which is bringing so much pleasure and greatness to the British people will speak against this humble Bill.

Perhaps if the hon. Gentleman resumed his seat, he would find out what response the Minister intended to make.

With respect, I was not rude enough at any stage to interrupt the hon. Gentleman, although it would not have been the most difficult thing that I have ever done in the House.

I do not credit the story that is going around today that this little Bill, which will help to find out where cancer is arising, will become the subject of dispute when we decide whether we should help its passage through the House. It is not possible to believe that. The only reason for my contributing to the debate is my great feeling for the hon. Member for Bootle. I find it impossible to believe that such a distinguished and important Socialist from the North-West, a representative of this great Government of the Socialist Party, will be denied the right to introduce a Bill which will do some good in alleviating the suffering of the people of our nation.

After that passionate and forceful support from the hon. Member for Yarmouth (Mr. Fell) I shall bring matters to a slightly more subdued and medical view. I cannot believe that anyone who was present a short time ago could not have been moved by the sincerity and compassion with which the hon. Member for Bootle (Mr. Mahon) presented his case. I thought that he put it forward with a sincerity which all of us would want to support. I and my hon. Friends congratulate him and the other sponsors of the Bill.

The hon. Gentleman said modestly that he considered it a modest Bill. I believe that it could be a valuable Bill medically. We need a much wider appreciation of the risks of cancer within the community. We cannot achieve that by adopting only one line of approach. We need to adopt many different approaches. That is why I agree that we need a multitude of information channels. The Bill would provide fresh and valuable channels.

Understandably, cancer is something which we all regard as happening to the other person but never us. That is our attitude, until it is too late. We then wake up to the realisation that we are as fallible and as humanly vulnerable as our neighbours.

It is important that people should understand the risks. The hon. Gentleman took a wider view than I propose to take and he quite rightly spoke of commercial hazards which are not understood by many people. Very often young people work in industrial processes and they have no idea of the risks that they are running either immediately or in later life.

I agree with the hon. Gentleman that, quite apart from the importance of recognising cancer before it is too late for treatment—and this is very much in the medical tradition of the great Osler to comfort always—there is the need to recognise cancer at an early enough stage so that major anxieties and disfiguring or disabling surgery do not have to take place.

The hon. Gentleman referred to breast cancer and I shall return to two different kinds of cancer, both of which affect women. They both illustrate the possible value of the Bill. A greater awareness amongst women of the risks of breast cancer and cancer of the uterus would undoubtedly save a great many lives. My colleagues in this branch of medicine tell me that one in 17—in some surveys it is one in 16—of all women is likely to develop breast cancer in her life. A short while ago I was looking at the gallery. Statistically one woman of all the women listening to this debate is likely to develop breast cancer later in life.

Each year, about 10,000 women die from this complaint. It is the greatest single killer of middle-aged women that we face today. While the death rate for women generally is falling, the death rate for cancer of the breast has remained alarmingly the same; if anything, it has gone up slightly.

Would it help if the diagnosis of breast cancer were earlier than it normally is?

As so often, my hon. Friend the Member for Yarmouth is slightly ahead of us. The importance of the Bill and of the awareness it urges is that nine out of 10 cases, or 90 per cent., of cancers of the breast can be detected by the women themselves if they know the risks and what they should be looking for. There are a number of books on the subject which are not well known. They are expensive and difficult to get hold of, but they tell women simple ways of examining themselves. Every woman should know of the existence of these books and should have access to them.

We have already heard a little about the costs of medical screening, which is a far more elaborate process. It is expensive, but even so the benefit that we have had in recent years from screening has been increased. A falling rate, for example, of cancer of the cervix and the uterus, is probably directly due to the medical screening services, which are now better than ever.

For example, BUPA's medical centre—which provides only one form of medical screening—is providing in the private sector a form of regular screening. It is perhaps ironic, when we were discussing what, in the view of many, are the disadvantages of the private medical service this week, that this service is providing a pioneering activity in an area which needs more national attention. The centre has screened about 13,000 women. Of every 1,000 women screened it has picked out 7·5 cases of breast cancer and 3·2 cases of cancer of the cervix. It does this at a cost which is by no means prohibitive.

In these two significant areas where preventive medicine and greater understanding can actually save lives we have a situation in which 90 per cent. of women could detect breast cancer before it was too late if only they knew what to look for. The hon. Member for Bootle mentioned the age of 30. My advice is that every woman over the age of 20 should examine her breasts once a month. It is a very simple thing to do. In that way she is likely to detect the earliest stages of this illness. Nationally, we should provide full medical screening for every woman over the age of 50.

I have spent some time talking about those two medical aspects because from the medical point of view they seem so significant. A number of books have been produced by the BMA. One of them is about what to look for in cases of cancer. The Royal Marsden Hospital has produced a very good pamphlet on cancer of the breast.

I revert to the purpose of the Bill. There is one area about which I am slightly unsure. In the list of places where the local authorities should be required to provide educational facilities, schools are mentioned as being very important. I wonder whether we want to bring more of this kind of topic into our schools. I suggest to the hon. Member for Enfield, North (Mr. Davies) that children are not likely to be very concerned about an illness which is, as they see it, far into later life. Some anxious children might be made more anxious and others might be confused or simply regard it as irrelevant. While I welcome other suggestions for increasing educational facilities, I would put a big question mark beside the teaching of cancer risks within the classroom.

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that it would be possible to get over successfully to schoolchildren the relationship between poor physical performance and the consumption of cigarettes? That would be emphasising not the dangerous aspects of the disease but, rather, sporting performance in relation to smoking.

Perhaps the one exception I would make is the risk to health caused by smoking, which I do not think can be taught to people too early in their lives. I know that the Minister wishes to make some remarks, so I shall conclude by congratulating the hon. Member for Bootle on his Bill. I welcome what he had to say. I wish the Bill great success. I hope that it will appear on the statute book in the near future.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bootle (Mr. Mahon) on raising this important subject and taking advantage of his good fortune, after so many years in the House, to present this Bill. His speech, to which I listened most carefully, was a typically moving speech, concerned with the well-being of his fellow citizens and particularly with his constituents who, like mine, have more than their fair share of the incidence of this disease.

I thank the hon. Member for Reading, South (Dr. Vaughan) for speaking with such brevity and allowing me to say a few words. The hon. Member touched on the difficulty I am in, despite the passionate outburst of the hon. Member for Yarmouth (Mr. Fell), in dealing with this Bill. I would not disagree with very much that has been said by anyone. We have had some good speeches which have shown care and compassion and have revealed the House at its best.

I remind my hon. Friend, however, that this is a Bill to require local authorities to provide information in educational institutions under their control. It is not about the dangers of cancer. It does not deal with ways of bringing home to people the 'need for them to be examined for example. This is why—because the Bill seeks to place this requirement on local authorities—I am at the Dispatch Box rather than a Minister from the Department of Health and Social Security. I assure the House that I have naturally discussed the Bill with my colleagues at that Department and have received considerable help from them.

The Bill embodies a naturally laudable wish which is shared by the Government and all hon. Members. It may have been in my hon. Friend's mind that attempting an educational programme specifically intended for young people is one way of being sure of conveying the requisite message. It is well nigh impossible to attempt this with the adult population. There is an obvious drawback to which the hon. Member for Reading, South drew our attention in placing to much emphasis in the education of young children on the dangers of the disease, which, fortunately, is essentially one that strikes at the young only relatively rarely. My hon. Friend has had a lifetime's experience in the education service in local government and will no doubt have anticipated some of my remarks.

The obvious point that occurs to me is that in directing local authorities to ensure that information about cancer is made available in schools and colleges, the Bill is proposing something which, as he has admitted, is completely incompatible with principles underlying the way in which education is organised in this country.

Nonsense.

It is not nonsense. It is a fact. This is a criticism which transcends in scale of importance any question of merit or otherwise of the proposals themselves. I cannot emphasise that last point too strongly.

This system of decentralised control, of local authority autonomy, has its critics but it is one that is ideally suited to this country. In practice the responsibility is one which is almost invariably devolved to head teachers and to teaching staffs. That is why I have reservations about and, indeed, objections to the Bill.

However, I want to be positive in what I have to say because I was very moved by my hon. Friend's intentions and by the speech that he made.

The Government believe that information about cancer should feature in health education programmes. I think that the House has done rather less than justice—not purposely, because my hon. Friend had to move the Second Reading of his Bill in less time than he would have wished—to what is being done in the country about this matter. I want to outline some of the things which are being done—and which are being done in a more effective way than would be the case if we were to implement the provisions of the Bill.

We are concerned not only to keep the problem in the proper perspective but also to see that our inevitably limited resources are deployed in the most effective way possible. In our view, the greatest emphasis in cancer education is best laid on aspects of primary prevention—by advising on improved personal hygiene, on the dangers of smoking and on the need to observe specified precautions in certain industrial processes. My hon. Friend mentioned all these features. We also consider that cancer education ought to be pursued not in isolation but as an element—an important element—in a wider and co-ordinated approach to health education.

Here, perhaps, it would be appropriate for me to say something about the work of the Health Education Council, which is specifically mentioned in the Bill and which was formed as a result of the Cohen Committee Report in 1968. The council was set up some seven years ago as a national body responsible for the promotion of health education in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Not only does this council advise Government Departments on health education matters but it also provides advice and assistance to the National Health Service, to local authorities, to voluntary organisations and to other bodies concerned with health education.

This assistance can take a number of forms, but featuring prominently in its work are the making of financial grants, the training of health educators through courses, seminars and conferences, and the provision of health education leaflets and posters. I am sure that those of us who have been in any kind of educational institution have seen the various leaflets and posters.

The council also carries out its own national health campaigns. This involves the achievement of publicity in the Press, on television and on radio and through its posters and leaflets. It has built up a wide range of health education expertise and material and it regularly circularises area health authorities and others about the availability of this and other facilities. It has also undertaken or sponsored a varied programme of research and, in the Government's view, it can be fairly claimed that during its relatively short span of life the council has established itself as a focal point for everyone involved in the planning and development of health education on a rational or scientific basis. The hon. Member for Reading, South said that certain sectors of the population would not be covered if educational institutions were compelled by local authorities to take this action. I put it to him that the work that is already being done is all-embracing.

The Health Education Council is doing a tremendous job. One of the council's main priorities in recent years has been the anti-smoking campaign which hon. Members will recognise as a preventive area of the first importance to lung cancer. In the campaign, the public are also being informed about the risks of contracting chronic bronchitis and heart disease and of injury to an unborn child where women smoke during pregnancy.

The council is also arranging with the British Cancer Council a series of joint study days in different parts of the country and, during these, the discussions will cover not only the promotion of cancer education in general terms but the particular needs and views of the region in which they are held.

I have acknowledged that it would be necessary to consult the Health Education Council with a view to co-ordinating the publication of information if the Bill became law. I have not ignored the great work that has been done by the Health Education Council. I have not always been pleased with all that it has done in recent years, but most of it has been commendable.

I acknowledge what my hon. Friend says. I am not blaming my hon. Friend, who has his job to do in moving the Second Reading of the Bill. Through lack of time we perhaps have not recognised the tremendous amount of information that is being made available. I want it to be made available, but I do not think that the provisions of the Bill would improve communications in the way my hon. Friend suggests.

The first of the study days to which I have referred will take place in Nottingham on Monday next. A wide variety of professions interested in health matters have been invited, including teachers and other involved in education. There will be seven more such meetings in other parts of the country this year.

I have spoken about how the council has established a network of links with area health authorities, local authorities and others. It is important for hon. Members to bear in mind that that has been achieved entirely on a voluntary basis. I know that the council would not consider it helpful for such contacts to be made mandatory through legislation or regulation. Indeed, it would rightly feel that such a step would have a damaging effect on its relations with other bodies.

I want now to bring the attention of the House back to the subject of education in schools and colleges—which is what the Bill is about—and in particular to the health education programmes that are to be found in them. Many schools and colleges now provide health education programmes for their pupils and students in a variety of ways. I want to emphasise the phrase "in a variety of way", for the institutions that present the subject under that label in their time-tables are probably only a small minority. In most instances it is presented through other subjects or groups of subjects. There are sound reasons for this.

The aims of such education are to get young people to understand and to accept their personal responsibility for their health, to know when and how to call for advice or help, and to form attitudes which will help them to resist the many pressures which society or circumstances may exert upon them to live unhealthily. What is especially important is not that a particular body of information should have been put across to young people but that they should absorb and accept the implications for behaviour that go with this information.

Many teachers recognise that the young are particularly susceptible to suggestions that they are being "got at". Therefore, their aims in giving health education are more likely to be achieved where both information and its implications develop naturally out of other areas of work. There are, however, a number of difficulties which schools and colleges face in attempting such work. It is a relatively new area of education for them, although one which is developing rapidly.

The House realises that the Minister is trying to do his best, but he is a Minister on the educational side of things. Will he tell the House why there is no Minister from the Department of Health and Social Security present on the Government Front Bench when we are dealing with a Bill which is of deep concern in the health of the nation?

With great respect, that is not a very helpful intervention.

It is not meant to be.

It is typical of the hon. Gentleman. The Bill is aimed at requiring

"local authorities to provide information in educational institutions under their control relating to the dangers of cancer and the need for early screening".

I would also remind the hon. Gentleman that the title of the Bill is the Cancer Screening (Education) Bill.

Is cancer not to do with health?

Indeed it is.

Then where are the health Ministers?

We also deal with these matters in schools, colleges and institutions. What is important is not that a particular body of information should be put across to young people but that they should absorb and accept the implications in terms of behaviour and act on that information.

There are a number of difficulties which face the medical staff in educational institutions. Co-ordination of programmes—which are usually, of necessity, presented in an oblique or diffuse way—presents particular difficulties. An encouraging development in recent years has been the development in many local education authorities of comprehensive programmes of work in which health education plays an important or key rôle. Such courses appear under a multiplicity of different labels. In my visits to schools I have come across a number of courses—for example, "Education for Living", "Education for Parenthood" and "Education in Personal Relations", to name but a few.

The Minister is trying very hard, and I admire him for the way in which he is trying to build up from his humble situation. But this matter affects the nation and its health. What he is burbling about comes from an extraordinary brief which he has had from his boys at the Ministry. He should be able to give the House something better than this.

The hon. Gentleman says that I am trying very hard. That is what they kept saying in the educational institutions which I attended, "He must try harder". I am glad that I am carrying out the injunctions of my teachers.

I was saying, when I was interrupted, that some authorities are also providing or arranging in-service training courses for their teachers in this area of work. A number of voluntary organisations are able to offer them invaluable help. It is encouraging to note that both the Schools Council and the Health Education Council have curriculum development programmes in health education in progress at present.

I mentioned earlier the autonomy which authorities and teachers possess over the management of their schools and their curricula. It is they who decide what is to be taught and how it is to be taught. I suspect that the House would be very suspicious if the Government were to attempt to lay down that central Government had the right to say what should be taught and how it should be taught. However, it is clear that authorities and teachers generally consider that health education should be presented, not in isolated or fragmented themes, but as a coordinated broad programme, and that emphasis is placed on helping young people to understand how to keep healthy. This includes providing information and discussing attitudes and behaviour—

This is disgraceful.

Object.

Object.

What day? No day named.

Object.

On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I should like to place on record that the Government have frustrated the wishes of many hon. Members in that objection.

That is not a point of order.

Object.

Object.

Object.

Object.

What day? No day named.

Object.

What day? No day named.

Object.

Object.

I am indeed grateful to have this opportunity of raising this subject under the Adjournment procedure. I am sure that the Minister will welcome this opportunity to debate the problems connected with the use of high alumina cement.

Those words—or the abbreviation "HAC"—are rapidly and relentlessly becoming a combination of misery, apprehension, worry and fear for thousands of people in the United Kingdom. I must make it clear that I am not an engineer. Nor am I a design consultant. However, I have the responsibility, as do all Members of Parliament, of representing thousands of people from my constituency. Today I speak not only for my own constituents but on behalf of a far wider franchise.

Many hon. Members have sought information through the Parliamentary Question procedure and letters to the Department. I have no doubt that my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing, Acton (Sir G. Young) hopes to catch your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker, to speak for a short time, as does my hon. Friend the Member for Reading, North (Mr. Durant). I am sure that my concern over the problem which I seek to raise this afternoon is shared by hon. Members on both sides.

However, I was a little disappointed when I did not receive a reply from the Minister for Housing and Construction to my letter dated 18th April. Neither did I receive a reply to my letter dated 30th April—which again sought a meeting with the Department of the Environment —until I received a telephone call on 5th May from the Department of the Environment which recognised my desire to see the Minister to discuss HAC. I am sure that it was pure coincidence that this phone call came shortly after my success in the Adjournment Ballot was published. Indeed, this was followed by a letter a few days later. I hope—indeed, I am sure—that the Department is work- ing swiftly and confidently on the vexed problem of HAC

We know that high alumina cement has been used extensively in the United Kingdom as a construction material during the past 20 years. We know also that it has been in use in other countries. I understand that at the outset two of the great merits of high alumina cement—so the manufacturers claimed—was that it set quickly and, especially important, that it was resistant to salt water. These were no doubt two of the reasons for its tremendous commercial boom in this country.

What we now know is that concrete made with high alumina cement undergoes changes in its crystalline structure. This, among the construction and engineering fraternity, is known as conversion. This causes loss of strength, and this loss of strength can be generated by moisture or warmth.

Many professionals in the construction field have had growing concern about some of the methods and materials which have been used in design and construction for a long time. In February 1974 the collapse of the school roof beam at the John Cass School, Stepney, perhaps demonstrated their concern, and this near-tragedy sparked off the current alarm which is now so prevalent in this country.

It must be understood by those with anxiety about this matter that high alumina cement is a perfectly adequate cement when used properly, and it is generally accepted that houses built with HAC parts are not at risk. However, if high alumina cement is mixed incorrectly it can cause "rotting" and then the beam cannot take the strain. A recent letter from the Department of the Environment to local authorities advises that the risk of structural failure is small in buildings with HAC with spans of up to five metres, so that the risk of structural failure is probably confined to spans of more than five metres. Undoubtedly this crucial point is one of the dozens of questions which will have to be answered at some stage and to which the country will want to know the answers by the Department in due course, such is the anxiety at present.

Last week's Daily Express posed several pertinent questions in an excellent article which appeared over two days, but the most disturbing aspect was the fact that Professor Adam Neville of Leeds University, produced a published report in 1963 in which he warned of the possible dangers of HAC.

I see that, happily, Professor Neville is one of the five men appointed to the Government's emergency committee for drawing up the safety rules for HAC buildings.

I want to turn now to the reasons for the deep consternation which many people must feel. First, on 20th July 1974 the Department of the Environment wrote to all authorities stating that

"All existing buildings incorporating HAC must now be regarded as suspect, at least in the long term."

I cannot but help wonder if this circular triggered off a little unnecessary alarm which spread surreptitiously and unofficially, as always happens with certain elements of the mass media. Local authorities have now compiled lists of suspect buildings, the newspapers have reported this fact, and this, in turn, has done nothing to allay people's genuine concern. A little news item has assumed gigantic proportions in the minds of many.

Thousands of home owners in my constituency and throughout the country have tried to put their property on the market and have been greeted with an opening question from a potential buyer "Does it contain HAC?" If the answer was "Yes", it is distinctly probable that the negotiations ended abruptly.

A home is the biggest and most important thing the majority of us ever buy, and it is only natural that caution is exercised. At the moment I think that caution has become distorted by the wretched bandwagon effect which, alas, is so often a feature in society today.

Then there are people seeking a mortgage who find that not all the building societies like to see the phrase "high alumina cement" in the surveyor's report, and a fee is wasted. There are people working in buildings which have stood the test of time—for two decades, perhaps—with HAC, but suddenly they develop concern because of the bandwagon effect. At present rumour and concern are rife and I am convinced that the Government have a clear duty to hasten their findings and urge upon the Building Research Establishment that the direction of its investigations warrants a 24-hour day until its research and advice is made known to this country. The cost to the nation could be enormous when taking into consideration the loss of amenity. There is also disruption of education and the concern of parents for the safety of their children. It is estimated that Birmingham alone could cost over £10 million to strengthen or replace the buildings. It is estimated that 22,000 buildings could well be involved. Newspapers and the mass media carry the claim that this programme could cost £2,000 million to remedy. The speculation is endless, in private, in the local authorities, and elsewhere.

I ask the Minister to convey to his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State the fact that there are serious accusations against the length of time and the methods being used by the Building Research Establishment to finalise its report. It might be better to assume that all HAC beams in excess of the 5 metre span are suspect. If not, tell the nation they are safe and dispel the worry. I cannot help but feel that one of the schemes which the Department should consider is the use of glass reinforced polyester. A glass reinforced polyester U-shaped beam can be installed around the suspect high alumina cement beam so that the new beam carries the entire load. The GRP beam would withstand any HAC collapse. Glass reinforced polyester's many benefits and properties will be well known to the Building Research Establishment.

I close by expressing a hope which I imagine is one held by many Members. The Government must do and say something quickly. Further testing is merely postponement. Further delay enables rumour, innuendo and anxiety to spread like wildfire. Not unnaturally, the mass media has seized upon the frailty of the scene, and the Government have a clear duty to restore a rational balance and dispel the low morale of many people within the community.

rose—

Has the hon. Gentleman the agreement of the Minister?

Yes, Mr. Deputy Speaker.

The House is indebted to my hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam (Mr. MacFarlane) for this opportunity to debate the problems which have arisen from the misuse of HAC in this country, and I am indebted to my hon. Friend for allowing me two minutes of his time.

I wish to raise two points. The first deals with who pays for the structural alterations to the schools and other buildings owned by local authorities, and who will bear the loan charges and other costs which may have to be written off if those buildings can no longer be used in the way in which they were originally intended. In my own constituency, Ealing Mead school can no longer be used as a school because of structural defects, and provision has had to be made to accommodate the schoolchildren elsewhere. It is intolerable that the ratepayers in Ealing, who are reeling from the 63 per cent. increase in rates, should have to bear unaided the cost of remedying the structural defects which arose through no fault of their own and which are a national rather than a local problem.

I remind the Under-Secretary of State what happened after the Ronan Point disaster. The local authorities had built high rise accommodation to the technical satisfaction of his Department, but after the disaster structural alterations were required at great cost, and the Government recompensed the local authorities in that case because they recognised that it would be inequitable to let the burden fall on those local authorities which had built high rise accommodation. I urge the Department to adopt the same solutions to the problem of HAC as were adopted following the structural alterations which were necessitated by the Ronan Point disaster.

My next point concerns the 61,000 people in England and Wales living in accommodation in which HAC has been used. Those people find that their property is effectively blighted. They are unable to sell or move, and they face the evaporation of their life's savings. I urge the Minister to introduce as soon as pos- sible a system of certification so that those buildings which are not at risk can be authoritatively identified, and those properties which are at risk should be treated in the same way as properties which are affected by planning blight. The analogy is quite clear. Through no fault of their own but through the action of public bodies they find that the value of their accommodation is diminished. I therefore urge that they should be entitled to sell to the local authority or to the Government their properties at pre-blight value as in the case of properties affected by planning blight.

There is considerable concern in my constituency that the Department of the Environment Circular 271 referred to a working party set up to represent "all public sector interests", and made no reference to private sector interests. I hope the Minister will take the opportunity to reassure all the people living in these buildings that the Government will not sell them down the road and that they are urgently identifying solutions along the lines which I have outlined to solve the human and structural problems.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam (Mr. Macfarlane) for giving me the opportunity to come in on this short debate. I shall not detain the House for long, because we want to hear from the Minister.

I think I can summarise the information that we want by listing 10 points. First, we would like to know why the Department of the Environment continued to allow this cement to be used after the 1963 report, which we have heard mentioned today, and the experience of France. Secondly, why did the Department issue a circular on 20th July which caused considerable anxiety and panic? Thirdly, why is there delay on this report? We have heard that it is in the hands of the Building Regulations Advisory Committee. Could we not get this report sooner? Fourthly, when will the report be out? It should be issued so that people have some idea of the situation, particularly when they are trying to sell their properties.

Fifthly, how many alternatives have been examined for dealing with this situation? Have we taken all the advice that is available? Can we now free those beams which are less than 5 metres in length? Can we say that they are all right? If we can, that will help the situation.

Sixthly, why is there no system of checking these beams? There seems to be some argument about this. Surely the French experience should be brought here to see whether we can do the checking. Seventhly, do we know the size of the problem? After all, all sorts of buildings are involved—hospitals, offices, and so on—and many have been mentioned today. Eighthly, are the building societies refusing to grant mortgages on these buildings? There is some argument about this. Some societies are, and some are not. May we have an answer to that? Ninthly, can help be given, as was suggested by my hon. Friend, under the planning laws relating to blight? Tenthly, who will pay?

The Minister always gives us straight-to-the-point answers, and I hope that he will do so this afternoon.

With blandishments such as that, how can anybody resist?

The hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Mr. Macfarlane) and his hon. Friends the Members for Ealing, Acton (Sir G. Young) and Reading, North (Mr. Durant) have raised a matter of considerable topical interest and concern. The problems connected with the use of high alumina cement concrete are far-reaching, and I realise the concern that they are causing to property owners in both the public and the private sector. I welcome this opportunity, as the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam expected I should, of explaining what the problems are and what we are doing about them.

Concrete itself is, of course, a very old building material, and examples of Roman concrete still survive. Most concrete today is made from Portland cement of which the basic ingredients are limestone—or chalk—and clay. The cement is mixed with sand or aggregate and water in varying proportions according to the type of concrete required. Concrete made from Portland cement is durable but it takes some little time to reach its full strength. In high alumina cement, as its name suggests, the main compounds are calcium aluminates. Concrete made from high alumina cement reaches its greatest strength quickly, and so it has hitherto appeared an attractive material to use to help to produce much-needed building components.

But, as we are now finding out, concrete made from high alumina cement is liable to undergo changes in its crystalline structure even when it is used in a normal environment. This process is known as conversion, and it is accompanied by a loss of strength in the concrete. This loss of strength can take place slowly or quickly. and the ultimate strength of the concrete when it is fully converted depends on how strong it was to start with. Whether or not this loss of strength means that the building in which it is used becomes unsafe in turn depends on the way in which the concrete was used and on the overall design of the building.

In this connection I must point out that most buildings are designed with ample safety margins which would take care of any loss of strength. It is important to make clear, and for it to be fully and widely understood, that the mere fact that a building contains high alumina cement concrete must not be taken to mean that it is necessarily for that reason dangerous.

After the collapse of the roof of the swimming bath at the Sir John Cass School in February last year we thought it right to ask local authorities to identify schools and other buildings with roofs of the same sort as the roof that collapsed at Stepney, and to have them appraised, particularly where there were likely to be high temperatures in the roof. At the same time the Building Research Establishment was asked urgently to look into the cause of the Stepney failure. Its report showed that the weakening of the concrete beams in the swimming pool roof was not solely attributable to loss of strength but was also the result of chemical attack on the highly converted concrete. Some serious weakening of the concrete was also found in the gymnasium roof where the conditions of temperature and humidity were less onerous than in the swimming pool.

It was at this stage that we concluded that high alumina cement concrete ought not to be used for structural work in building until further notice, and we put in hand the amendment of the building regulations so that local authorities could reject proposals for work involving the structural use of high alumina cement concrete. We advised local authorities that we considered it inappropriate in general that high alumina cement concrete should be approved for structural use.

We also decided that the appraisal and testing of buildings containing high alumina cement concrete should be extended to all buildings with precast prestressed non-composite roof or floor members, or columns, with spans of more than five metres. "Precast" means made separately and not cast in the course of putting up the building. Precast members are often made in factories rather than on site. "Prestressed" means that the concrete was poured around steel reinforcement held under tension. "Non-Composite" means that the member is entirely dependent on its own strength and is not embedded in other material which carries part of the load. And, while I am about it, five metres is equivalent to 16½ft.

Identifying these buildings has not been easy. We are grateful to the cement suppliers who gave us names of many of the precast concrete manufacturers and to the manufacturers who have given us lists of buildings for which they have supplied members. We are grateful, too, to designers and, not least, to the local authorities who have searched their own records and have passed on to private owners all the information that is being obtained from various sources. Of course, this information could not be as selective as we would have wished. Some of the buildings will have spans of less than five metres for which our advice has been, and still is, that appraisal need not, for the time being at any rate, be carried out.

At the same time that we started this detailed work on identifying buildings and notifying the owners, we asked the Building Research Establishment to carry out more research. This has taken longer than was at first expected, and, although we have been able to send out a summary of its main findings and the conclusions to be drawn from them in our most recent circular letter of 23rd April, its full report will not be published until later this month.

I should like to repeat what these conclusions are. First, our earlier conclusion that precast prestressed isolated roof beams represent the main potential hazard is confirmed, and all such beams, regardless of span, should be appraised by structural engineers. Second, the risk of structural failure in floors with spans up to about five metres is small and the Department's earlier advice, that appraisal need not be extended to these floors, still holds good at this stage. In the meantime, as the circular letter also explains, we have set up a special subcommittee of the Building Regulations Advisory Committee to provide further advice on the subject.

Its first task is to determine criteria which structural engineers can use for checking the designs of buildings containing high alumina cement concrete structural members. These checks, supplemented in appropriate cases by visual inspection, would identify those buildings in which safety margins are acceptable without further investigation, and those which require further investigation. Its second task is to determine what categories of buildings contai flings high alumina cement concrete structural members need not be appraised. This subcommittee has been asked to report before the end of July. The sub-committee meets weekly, has already had four meetings, and is holding its fifth meeting today.

It is right that we should put the size of the problem in perspective. Altogether about 22,650 buildings have so far been identified, of which 13,250 are housing, 1,450 educational buildings and 7,950 other buildings. Of these about 11,500 are in the public sector. The greatest estimate of the total number concerned is about 50,000—and, at the risk of repeating myself I must say that even if the total number is as great as this, there is no reason to suppose that more than a few of these will require remedial work. The number so far identified has been only 350.

One of the questions that has been asked more than once and has been asked again today is why was high alumina cement permitted to be used here when its use was prohibited abroad? The examples of Germany and France are often cited. It is true that in Germany the use of high alumina cement was prohibited following the collapse of farm buildings in Bavaria in 1961. But in those cases the cause of the collapse was corrosion of the reinforcing steel and the high alumina cement used in the concrete was of a different composition from that used here. In France I understand there has never been any prohibition on the use of high alumina cement concrete in private buildings. Its use in the public sector was prohibited in 1943 but since 1971 it has been allowed, although subject to strict conditions.

The hon. Member for Reading, North asked why high alumina cement concrete was permitted to be used after Professor Neville produced his paper in 1963. As an immediate consequence of that paper, the Institution of Structural Engineers set up a committee to review the whole field and to prepare a report for the guidance of engineers. The report of that committee, on which Professor Neville served, was published in August 1964, entitled "The Use of High Alumina Cement in Structural Engineering" and included the following paragraphs:

"Ample evidence exists to show that this cement can be used satisfactorily to produce sound and durable concrete when proper precautions are taken during mixing, placing and curing, and due regard is paid to the temperature and humidity conditions to which it may subsequently be submitted.…

The stresses to be used for high alumina cement concrete are considered to be a matter for the Codes of Practice which deal with stresses and design criteria for structural concrete…

High alumina cement concrete can be used safely for load-bearing members of a structure provided that"

certain precautions relating to its mixing, placing, and curing were taken.

Again, discussion of possible Government responsibility—when people talk about responsibility they usually mean financial responsibility—has centred around the fact that the codes of practice that are deemed to satisfy the mandatory requirements in the Building Regulations have, until recently, provided for the use of HAC. Let me make it clear that no one has been required to use high alumina cement concrete against his better judgment if he did not want to do so. Expert opinion at the time these codes of practice were prepared was that, provided high alumina cement was used properly— this is important—it was a safe and useful building material. The committees which prepared the codes of practice laid down strict conditions about its use and, had these conditions always been followed, there might have been no need for this debate. I can understand the feeling that Governments can sometimes be mistaken in accepting even expert advice, but I am also aware of what the reaction would be if Government were deliberately to disregard the best expert opinion.

Apart from the crucial question of safety, the issue that is concerning both local authorities and private owners is, of course, money. Who is going to pay for testing buildings and, if necessary, strengthening them?

For the public sector, as has been said. we have set up, at the request of the local authority associations, a working party which includes representatives of Government Departments, local authorities and health authorities. This working party is looking into both the practical and financial aspects of the problem. An exploratory meeting has already been held. Local authorities are particularly concerned about the money that would have to be spent on schools. The Government greatly appreciate the hard work which local education authorities have done, and the resourcefulness they have shown.

In continuing the education of pupils whose schools have been closed or partly closed, authorities have had some difficult decisions to take but they have rightly had the safety of the children as their first consideration at all times. They have carried out very extensive checks on their schools and as a result of this work the basic information on educational buildings is well documented. Officials are examining the information which is available about how much money will need to be spent, when it will need to be spent —and by which authorities—and are considering what further information is needed. Until all this has been done we cannot usefully take the question of the ultimate financial responsibility much further.

We have had letters, both through hon. Members and direct from the people concerned, about the worries and difficulties of owners of private flats who have been told that their flats contain high alumina cement concrete. I very much sympathise with them. It is not much comfort to be told to wait until yet a further committee has made a report at a later date to find out whether one's flat is safe, particularly if, in the meantime, one wants to sell it. But, as we said in our latest circular of 23rd April, the risk of structural failures in floors with spans of up to five metres is small. Where high alumina cement concrete is used in flats, it is usually in the floors, and in most cases, the floor span is less than five metres.

Most people who buy flats do so through building societies. I am told that the Building Societies Association is continuing its policy of advising its members to treat applications in respect of properties that contain or are suspected of containing high alumina cement concrete on their merits and to lend in the absence of serious deterioration, although they advise that special care should be taken in the case of completed flats. Where flats are in the course of construction, the BSA is advising societies to defer lending by way of building finance until the borrower can produce a certificate of structural soundness. A number of building societies are known to be granting mortgages on houses and flats contain- ing HAC concrete. I must, however, emphasise that this is a matter for the individual building societies themselves. They are not obliged to follow advice given by the Building Societies Association, nor, of course, can we tell them what to do.

I should like to assure the House and the public that we are far from complacent about this problem. We recognise the serious concern it has aroused, and the practical and financial problems it has posed for innocent individuals, let alone for public authorities. But the opposite of complacency should be neither panic nor sensationalism but thoughtful rational action, directed first to a solution of the immediate problem and then examination of the action necessary to prevent similar situations arising. Although we have still to complete the first stage—