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

With this we may take amendment No. 10, in clause 5, page 4, leave out lines 23 to 28.

Subsection (1) of the new clause adds a power of arrest in circumstances where a constable suspects someone of having committed an offence and where that person refuses or fails to give his name and address or is suspected of having given false particulars.

The provision is closely modelled on similar powers in section 2(1) of the Indecent Displays (Control) Act 1981 and schedule 3 to the Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill. As in those measures, the power would be particularly useful in dealing with the so-called front men—the individuals who are left in charge of a sex shop or cinema and who, when asked for their names and addresses, may refuse or give false particulars. If the police are forced to return the next day with a summons, experience shows that the front men may well have disappeared and the police action will be frustrated.

Although the power of arrest in the circumstances that I have described is unlikely to be used often, it will be a useful aid in law enforcement. I should add that the provision does not need to be extended to Scotland, because there is already a general power under Scottish legislation.

Subsection (2) includes the powers of seizure and removal, which are presently provided by clause 5(4). The latter is accordingly deleted by amendment No. 10. I hope that these amendments will meet with the approval of the House.

This will be my only intervention on Report, because I strongly support the new clause and all the 32 amendments that have been tabled, surprisingly, by the hon. Member for Fareham (Mr. Lloyd).

I have no desire to delay the progress of the Bill. However, the hon. Gentleman mentioned the Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill, and before we give unanimous support to the new clause I should like to ask once more, as I did in Committee, for his view of the relationship between the Bill and the new clause and the Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill new clause that was tabled by the Minister.

That clause has not been discussed in the House, and the Bill has gone to the other place. I asked the hon. Member for Fareham that question in Committee, but he did not reply. The Minister intervened to say that the Home Secretary was still considering the interaction between the two measures. Does the hon. Member for Fareham feel that the new clause and the Bill are compatible with the new clause in the Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill? Their aims are similar, but the details are different.

The hon. Member for Fareham has produced a good Bill, which deals with the whole subject of sex cinemas. Everyone seems to agree that sex cinemas should be dealt with separately from sex shops. However, a new clause has gone to the other place. Perhaps the Minister will tell us whether the Home Secretary has considered the interaction between the two measures. I hope that he has considered it, because it looks as though this Bill will complete its passage through the House before the Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill.

Does the hon. Member for Fareham intend to compete with the Government Bill? His Bill covers aspects that are not included in the Government measure. Moreover, the fine that the hon. Gentleman proposes—a maximum of £10,000—is different from that proposed by the Government. We were told in Committee that the Government Bill would provide for a fine of only £5,000. Therefore, there are basic differences in the two Bills. Will the hon. Gentleman drop his Bill if the other Bill reaches the statute book, or will there be two Acts on the same subject, but with different provisions, on the statute book?

I hope that the hon. Gentleman will tell us his reason for adding a new clause to the Bill and making it even longer than it was. I hope also that the Minister will tell us how he intends to deal with the problem.

I greatly appreciate the support that the hon. Member for Halifax (Dr. Summerskill) has given to the Bill. With the amendments that I have tabled the Bill will be a thorough, complete, satisfactory and watertight measure. I cannot say much about the Government Bill with which I have had not been directly involved, and I shall leave those points to my right hon. Friend the Minister. My assumption and expectation is that if there are to be any further changes the Government Bill will be adjusted rather than the other way round.

I understand that Government Bills normally take precedence over Private Member's Bills. Hon. Members are usually coerced into dropping their legislation if the Government see fit to introduce their own. A Government Bill has the advantage of the advice of parliamentary draftsmen and the general support not only of the Government but of the House. It would be most unusual if the hon. Gentleman were to persist with his Bill in opposition to another Bill that is in some ways different from his own. However, I was interested to hear the hon. Gentleman's comments and I admire his perseverance. I am sorry that he does not seem to have consulted the Government and that there could not have been just one Bill. It is confusing to have two Bills that are similar in aim but different in content.

I do not share the worries expressed by the hon. Member for Halifax, but I shall leave the matter to my right hon. Friend the Minister.

I shall be brief. I seek reassurance that the reference in new clause 1 to "apparatus or equipment" includes video cassette recorders and video films. I have received personal confirmation that new clause 1 includes video apparatus, but it might help if that point were officially confirmed.

In Britain, the video market has grown even more quickly than the film industry has shrunk. In a brief period, the video market in Britain has shot up from almost nil to £160 million per annum. I have been prompted to raise this matter because, of that £160 million, no less than £100 million is reckoned to be pirated video tapes. The House should know that the production of a video tape is expensive, but extremely simple.

In counterfeiting, the illegal duplication of existing tapes is simply a matter of copying the existing product. The pirates can be quite creative when it comes to direct film theft. It is surprisingly simple to set up a duplication suite to produce pirate video tapes, although it can be very expensive. All that is needed is a master tape, made from a cinema print of a film, which is recorded on to a special 1 inch cassette using a telecine transfer machine. It is then merely a matter of connecting a professional video recorder of the type used by television companies—at an average price of about £5,000—to as many domestic recorders as can be afforded. The market has mushroomed out of all proportion since the Bill's introduction.

Will the hon. Gentleman explain what his remarks have to do with new clause 1?

Line 8 of new clause 1 simply states:

"seize and remove any apparatus or equipment."

I seek a formal assurance that video apparatus and tapes are included in those seizure powers.

Although it can cost up to £20,000 to set up a duplicating suite, the pirates can easily afford it in view of the massive profits. The hon. Member for Halifax will recall that the pirates' chief target was once pornographic material. However, in the past 18 months the situation has changed so rapidly that hardly any video pirates bother with pornography cassettes because of the huge profits that can be made from pirating video films.

This week, a Northampton couple agreed to hand back no less than £¾ million after one of the three anti-piracy squads in Britain had apprehended them. Video piracy in Britain had been taken up by major criminals. Three anti-piracy squads have moved into this twilight world of subterfuge and anonymity. They rely, first, on a tip-off about the activities taking place. They then infiltrate the organisations which may be engaged in the production of pirated videotapes and spend many weeks scrutinising their activities. They engage in what are known as "stakeouts", sitting in cars near pubs or coffee bars armed with cameras equipped with telephoto lenses to record all suspicious comings and goings.

10.30 am

The ludicrous aspect is that after all this effort and massive expenditure the maximum fine that can be imposed on the pirates is a meagre £50. If the pirates' distribution organisation is large enough the investigators will open their own video shop and attempt to buy and sell——

Order. The hon. Gentleman is really dealing with licensed cinematograph premises. I do not follow how that is relevant to new clause 1.

As I have said, the point relates to the words in line 8 relating to "any apparatus or equipment".

It does not refer to seizure on cinematograph premises, so the hon. Gentleman is dealing with something quite different.

I think that I am right in saying that clause 1 of the original Bill relates to video materials and tapes. So rapidly has the situation changed in the video market, particularly the illegal or pirate video market, that it is right and proper that the House should be assured that the Bill will cover these aspects.

I shall try to be brief, but I think that I am right to draw attention to the three anti-piracy squads run by the British Videogram Association, the Motion Picture Export Association of America and the Society of Film Distributors, which are financed by the film and video industry.

Many pirates use cheap imported video casettes from Taiwan, Singapore or Hong Kong. I hope that the Bill, and particularly new clause 1, will provide power to confiscate any apparatus or equipment used for these purposes.

I appreciate the importance of the issue that the hon. Gentleman raises. Many cinemas have been, as it were, knocked out as a result of pirating. As I understand it, however, the purpose of the Bill is to extend to film clubs a system of licensing which at present relates to ordinary commercial cinemas and to ensure that the films shown have been passed by the British Board of Film Censors. As I understand it, the board does not care whether a film is pirated so long as the version shown has been approved by the board, so I do not quite understand how the hon. Gentleman's remarks relate to the Bill.

As I have said, I seek to draw attention to a major abuse of the present law. It is my hope, and I think that it is the wish of my hon. Friend whose Bill we are lucky enough to be discussing today, that the House should be aware of those factors and should take whatever action it can to take account of the rapidly changing pattern of video piracy in this country, a pattern that has only recently come to light.

All the most famous films are available legally at a retail price of about £40 and a wholesale cost of about £30. Copies of similar quality are available from pirate sources at less than half that price. I refer to films such as "Time Bandits", "Watership Down", "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest", "The Long Good Friday", and so on. The House should be aware that all are available in pirate editions. I hope that my hon. Friend will do all that he can to reassure us that the Bill will go some way towards meeting that threat.

It might be helpful if I intervene at this stage to pick up some of the points that have been made so far. On the point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Harborough (Mr. Farr) about video, I think that the House is aware that cinematograph exhibitions in the United Kingdom are controlled by the Cinematograph Acts of 1909 and 1952.

Under the 1952 Act, a cinematograph exhibition is defined as

"an exhibition of moving pictures produced on a screen by means which include the projection of light".

That definition includes all the normal means of film projection, but probably does not apply to video exhibitions where, for example, a video cassette recorder is linked with a standard television monitor, where the picture is produced not by the projection of light but by the firing of electrons. Other video exhibitions involving the magnification of the image on to a screen are probably covered by the current definition.

As I think the House understands, one of the major purposes of the Bill introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Fareham (Mr. Lloyd) is to remedy that situation. I can confirm that the problem raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Harborough is met by the Bill. In particular, the power of seizure is covered by clause 6(4).

I should like to deal carefully with the important point raised by the hon. Member for Halifax (Dr. Summerskill). She has raised the matter before, and I hope that my explanation will satisfy her.

I think that the House generally feels a sense of debt to my hon. Friend the Member for Fareham for the 'way in which he has handled the Bill so far and the way in which he has set out his provisions. As he has explained, the new clause and amendment, taken together, are intended to strengthen the enforcement provisions of the Bill.

Clause 5 provides for power of entry, search and seizure and has been carefully drafted to balance the legitimate rights of the ordinary licensed operators against the equally legitimate needs of the police and officers of the local authorities to ensure that the statutory arrangements are all working properly. It is essential that in an area such as this the authorities should be able to take firm steps to catch the ingenious people who attempt to get round the new provisions.

We believe that the balance in clause 5 is about right. The new clause and amendments strengthen the powers of the police in circumstances where an officer suspects an offence and where there is a failure on the part of someone to give his proper name and address.

I very much agree with my hon. Friend that we need a power such as this in dealing with front men. This is a common operating device, and I see no reason why provision should not exist to counter it. We do not want a situation in which a front man can defy the police one day and be gone the next when the police return with a summons. Once the proposed provision is in the Bill, I do not believe that it will be used all that often, but its inclusion will undoubtedly close a loophole and provide a useful aid to enforcement. I therefore believe that it is desirable to accept it

It is understandable that there is confusion between this Bill and the provisions on sex cinemas in schedule 3 to the Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill, as the hon. Member for Halifax said. We have always acknowledged that this is a complex matter and I am glad to have the chance to explain the Government's thinking.

Perhaps I should begin by saying that the Bills do, of course, have different origins. My hon. Friend's Bill was prepared and introduced before it was decided to add provisions on sex shops and sex cinemas to the Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill. Equally, the GLC's General Powers (No. 2) Bill—on which the relevant parts of the miscellaneous provisions Bill are broadly based—was drafted in ignorance of the proposals in my hon. Friend's Bill. The initial overlap between the Bills in relation to sex cinemas is therefore accidental.

When I announced in Standing Committee on the miscellaneous provisions Bill that the Government would bring forward amendments on Report to enable local authorities to introduce licensing arrangements for the control of sex shops, I made it clear that the Government had reservations about applying those arrangements to sex cinemas, as the GLC's Bill had proposed. I suggested that this might be unnecessary in view of my hon. Friend's intention to introduce a Cinematograph Bill, the primary purpose of which would be to require sex cinemas to apply for a cinematograph licence. I repeated those reservations when the Government tabled their amendments on Report and they were reiterated by my noble Friend Lord Belstead on Second Reading in another place. On both occasions we said that we were continuing to consider whether it was necessary to retain the references to sex cinemas in the miscellaneous provisions Bill.

In Committee in another place my noble Friend explained the conclusions that we had reached and moved amendments to give effect to those conclusions. These were, briefly, that the primary means of control over cinemas should continue to be through cinematograph legislation as amended by my hon. Friend's Bill; that the provisions in the miscellaneous provisions Bill should nevertheless be retained as a long stop; and that the timing of the coming into force of the respective provisions should be so ordered that there would be no awkward interval between the two. The last point would be ensured by a commencement order to bring the sex cinema provisions in the miscellaneous provisions Bill into force on the day that my hon. Friend's Bill comes into force.

If both Bills are to come into force on the same day, how do we get over the discrepancy, say, about the maximum fine to be imposed? How is the court to decide which Act to charge someone under?

If I proceed with what I was saying it might help the hon. Lady to understand. There are proposals to align the fines between the Bills.

We reached these conclusions for the following reasons. We continue to think that my hon. Friend's Bill provides the most satisfactory means of exercising control over the commercial sex cinemas in Soho and elsewhere, which presently operate outside the cinema licensing arrangements. I note that in Committee, at column 11, the hon. Lady concured with that view.

Contrary to what the hon. Lady has just said, we give a certain priority to my hon. Friend's Bill rather than to the Government's measure. As we have always said, my hon. Friend's Bill is directly designed to deal with the problem that concerns the House. I shall come back to the reason why we are pursuing the other provisions.

As the hon. Lady has said before, the cinema licensing recognise the unique impact that can be exerted by the medium: point that was attested to by the Williams committee in its report. In particular, they afford the cinema licensing authorities complete discretion over what may be shown in their areas. This is achieved by attaching conditions to a cinematograph licence, which usually take the form of a requirement to show only those films which have been approved by the British Board of Film Censors or specifically by the licensing authority.

10.45 pm

What distinguishes a sex cinema from the ordinary high street cinema is simply that the former, like the latter, does not comply with the usual film censorship conditions and is able to show uncensored films. If the sex cinema were brought within the cinematograph licensing arrangements, the licensing authority could impose censorship conditions and the sex cinema would be on the same legislative footing as the ordinary high street cinema.

As the House is aware, the principal purpose of my hon. Friend's Bill is to bring about that situation. By qualifying the present exemptions from cinematograph licensing by a test of whether an exhibition is promoted for private gain, it will ensure that commercial sex cinemas—even those that may operate as a genuine club—have to obtain a cinematograph licence. This, in turn, will give cinema licensing authorities control over what may be shown, which, in practice, as I have said, means that they will have absolute discretion in deciding whether the cinema may operate as a sex cinema.

I hope that it will be clear from that explanation why it would be unnecessary to supplement that control by the kind of arrangements proposed in the miscellaneous provisions Bill in respect of sex shops. Local authority control over the number of sex cinemas would be achieved by the cinematograph licensing arrangements: if the local authority does not want a sex cinema, it can simply impose the appropriate licence conditions. Accordingly, to avoid the duplication of licensing arrangements, schedule 3 to the miscellaneous provisions Bill provides that if a cinema is licensed under the Cinematograph Acts it is automatically exempt from the licensing arrangements in that schedule.

Why, then, have we retained the provisions in the miscellaneous provisions Bill? As my noble Friend explained in another place, our decision followed consultations with representatives of the local authority associations. They were concerned, in particular, that there might be circumstances in which the requirement to obtain a cinematograph licence would not apply and in which the provisions of the miscellaneous provisions Bill could be brought to bear if necessary.

The sort of circumstance that they had in mind was if an exhibition was given free of charge in the back of a sex shop, supposedly with a view to the sale of the cassette or film. As my hon. Friend said in Committee, at column 7, we are confident that his Bill would apply in this situation. But we recognise, of course, that it would turn on the facts of the case and whether the court was satisfied that the exhibition was indeed promoted for private gain. In view of the local authority expressions of concern, we saw no great harm in retaining the provisions in the miscellaneous provisions Bill as a long stop.

We have therefore taken steps, as I have said, to ensure that the respective provisions come into force at the same time. It would be pointless to require these premises to apply for a licence under the miscellaneous provisions Bill if, on the coming into force of my hon. Friend's Bill a few months later, they had the opportunity of automatic exemption from the licensing arrangements in the former Bill.

I recognise that the situation in London will differ to some extent from that in the rest of the country. This is because the GLC is the cinema licensing authority in Greater London, although the London boroughs will be the licensing authority under the miscellaneous provisions Bill. I do not see that that should give rise to any substantial difficulty. It is not unreasonable to look to cooperation between the GLC and the London boroughs over the numbers of sex cinemas in Greater London. Moreover, the great advantage of the cinema licensing system is that, while the proposals in the Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill are concerned with numbers and location, it would give the licensing authority complete control over what may be shown.

I hope that the House will forgive a somewhat lengthy explanation of the matter, but it is something that has occurred on previous occasions, and it is right to place formally on the record the reasons why we believe it is desirable to have on the statute book not only my hon. Friend's excellent Bill but the relevant provisions of the Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill. I hope that the House will accept that there are good reasons for what we are doing. Beyond that, I very much hope that the House will accept——

Is it not right that when those who prosecute issue a summons they name the Act under which they are prosecuting, so that accordingly the penalty can be imposed only under the particular Act, and the magistrates are not faced with a decision on which class of penalty to impose? They are restricted to the Act mentioned in the summons.

The hon. and learned Gentleman is, by definition, a distinguished lawyer and I assume that what he has said is right, but there is also the question whether the penalties may be aligned anyway. I should have thought, on technical grounds, that what he has said is entirely plausible.

I am very grateful to you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, for the fact that within the limited parameters of new clause 1 you have enabled the Minister to give a somewhat technical explanation of the interface between the Bill, the GLC's measure, and the vigorously debated schedule 3 to the Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill, which has now gone to another place. I followed the Minister as best I was able. No doubt you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, understood the Minister's argument entirely. I cannot say that I did.

My concern in commenting on new clause 1 arises very largely from my connection, which the House knows well, with the police service. I hope that my right hon. Friend the Minister will be able to produce a potted explanation of what he has just said, for the benefit of members of the Metropolitan Police in the first instance, and also for members of other police forces, so that they will have some simple operating note in their stations and will know what they are supposed to do.

I am clear about what the police are supposed to do under my hon. Friend's lucid Bill. I think that there might be some difficulty among some of the junior members of the force in knowing at what point their powers arise from my hon. Friend's Bill—especially under the new clause—and in what particular, if at all, they will have a duty to act under the Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill when it finally makes its way on to the statute book, if not into their notebooks.

My hon. Friend's Bill will be very welcome to the police service, in particular in the London area, so I hope that he will make it his business to assist by providing to the Commissioner, for the use of his constables, a clear-cut note so that they will know precisely what are their powers and in what circumstances they are required to apply them.

It is well known that one of the least agreeable features of police work in the London area is to be required to act in the distasteful circumstances of the blue film world of Soho. For a young police officer to be thrust into that disagreeable environment and expected to enforce complicated law, in the face of some fairly sleazy characters—some of whom have access to some fairly sleazy legal advisers—is extremely difficult, so the first request that I make is for clarity, for the benefit of the ordinary constable.

I am glad that my hon. Friend has seen fit to include in his new clause—no doubt after discussion with the Home Office—the power for a constable to arrest without warrant any person who, in the particular circumstances, refuses to give his name and address. The Minister. in speaking for the Government—and, indeed, my hon. Friend as the promoter of the Bill—will know that the Royal Commission on criminal procedure has given much thought to the possibility of allowing police officers to arrest without warrant those who refuse to give their name and address in a wide range of offences.

It is likely that later this year the Government will see fit to bring forward legislation to implement some of the powers recommended by the Royal Commission on criminal procedure. I hope that one of the powers will be the ability to arrest where there is refusal to give the name and address. This can apply in many circumstances—in political violence, racial riot and many instances of street crime, where the police are sometimes inhibited by their inability to do very much when people either refuse to give their name and address or give a false one.

My hon. Friend is right in pinpointing by his new clause the problem that can arise when a constable, going into a private club in Soho, is faced with one or two "wide boys" who will not give their name and address and who then disappear, so that no further action can be taken. But I suggest to the Minister that in so far as the idea has, rightly, been accepted in the Bill—as, indeed, it has in some other areas of the law—it should give encouragement to the Government to move on the same front in those other areas in which the Royal Commission has said that there should be power of arrest without warrant when there is refusal to give a name and address. That is a matter of some importance, and I congratulate my hon. Friend on paving the way for what will be a very useful addition to police powers in areas apart from this one.

I should like my hon. Friend to explain why subsection (1) of the new clause does not extend to Scotland. I take it that subsection (2) extends to Scotland, but I cannot see why the first subsection does not, unless the powers are already available to the police in Scotland to do what is stipulated in the Bill. If that be the case, I remind the Minister that this is not the first time that the Scots have been ahead of England in providing useful powers to the police to enable them to carry out their duty.

The police in Scotland have, for example, the power to stop and search football hooligans whom they suspect of carrying offensive weapons. That power does not exist in the rest of the United Kingdom. The provision proposed by my hon. Friend is very useful, but I should be interested to know why the Scots have a power that the police in the rest of the United Kingdom do not have. Should we not in future try to ensure that the powers of the police are the same throughout the United Kingdom?

The Bill provides that when an officer has seized and removed apparatus it may be forfeited. I shall be grateful if my hon. Friend the Member for Fareham (Mr. Lloyd) or my right hon. Friend the Minister of State will tell me how that provision will work.

11 am

Can a police officer who is satisfied that those concerned can be charged with having committed an offence send for a police van and load into it whatever is found on the premises, or can he take away only apparatus connected with the showing of the obnoxious film? I am not sure whether the police can seize only items connected with the showing of the film or whether they can clear out the whole place.

The doctrine of forfeiture is complex and, as a non-lawyer, I should not wish to cross swords with those who are better informed. However, I presume that forfeiture means that the owner loses his property for ever. What are the police to do with films that are forfeited? Will they have to destroy them? What is the limit of the responsibility of the police?

We all know that the police already have more than enough to do, and the House should be careful about loading them with additional responsibilities unless we make it clear how those are to be carried out.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Fareham on adding useful clarifying provisions to his already effective Bill and I hope that my right hon. Friend the Minister of State will provide a simplified code for the police.

By leave of the House, I should like to reply to the points made by my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Mr. Griffiths). I expect that my hon. Friend the Member for Fareham (Mr. Lloyd) will also wish to comment on them.

My hon. Friend the Member for Bury St. Edmunds stressed the need for clarity and asked for a potted explanation. If the police are to do their job effectively they must know exactly what that job is, and it will be necessary to give them a clear explanation. They will not need to be encumbered with the points that I made earlier about why we are proceeding as we are.

My hon. Friend is knowledgeable about all matters concerning the police and he will know that the normal follow-up to legislation that imposes new duties on the police is a circular from the Home Office. We expect that after the passage of the Bill there will be a circular to the police and to local authorities setting out clearly how we see the legislation being operated.

I said earlier that we saw the Bill as, in a sense, a primary piece of legislation in this area, but I explained that there were doubts about whether certain activities would be caught by the Bill and that in those circumstances the Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill would come in handy. The Home Office will use the familiar machinery to make it clear to the police what we think to be the position.

I cannot say much more about the arrest provisions. The area covered by the Royal Commission on criminal procedure is under review. I have no doubt that arrest provisions are being considered carefully by the commission, and the House will not expect me to say more than that.

The assumption of my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St. Edmunds about the position in Scotland is correct. There is a general power under Scottish legislation, and therefore there is no need to include in the Bill such a power for Scotland. He asked why the Scots were different from the English, but that question strays beyond the confines of the Bill and is probably unanswerable. They are different, and in some areas they are pioneers.

The Scots lag behind in other areas.

That may be so, but I am cautious about saying sharp things about the Scots, even if there are none in the Chamber.

I was born in Scotland.

The hon. and learned Gentleman is not merely a legal luminary, but an expert on Scottish culture and I shall not cross swords with him on that.

My hon. Friend the Member for Bury St. Edmunds mentioned forfeiture. Items that are ordered to be forfeited may be dealt with in such a manner as the court may order. That is prescribed in clause 6(4) and I think that it is certain that pornographic films and cassettes will be destroyed.

The idea that chairs and tables could be destroyed is going a little wide, because the clause requires that items must relate to the offence. That will be a matter for the courts to decide, but I doubt whether they would rule that all the furniture should be taken away and destroyed. It is expected that equipment directly concerned with an offence could be taken away and would normally be destroyed.

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Mr. Griffiths) for his supportive comments, which were well taken. My right hon. Friend the Minister of State has replied to my hon. Friend's substantive points and I have nothing to add.

My hon. Friend spoke about the time of the police that is taken up in dealing with such offences and said that as the clause enabled equipment to be forfeited that would add to their time and labour. That may be true in the short run, but it is designed to help the police to enforce the law, because it will remove the ability of those who commit offences to continue to do so, at least in the short run.

I believe that the police will find it useful to be able to take not only the films but the equipment on which they are shown. That will make it more difficult for the offence to be repeated and will be another penalty added to the fine proposed in the Bill.

I beg to move amendment No. 1, in page 2, leave out lines 8 to 11.

With this we may take amendment No. 27, in schedule 1, page 8, line 45 leave out 'in section 9(1) of the 1952 Act' and insert—

`(1) For subsection (4) of section 5 of the 1952 Act (exempted organisations) there shall be. substituted the following subsections—

"(4) In the last foregoing subsection the expression `exempted organisation' means a society, institution, committee or other organisation as respects which there is in force at the time of the exhibition in question a certificate given by the Secretary of State certifying that he is satisfied that the organisation is not conducted or established for profit; and there shall be paid to the Secretary of State in respect of the giving of such a certificate such reasonable fee as he may determine.

(5) The Secretary of State shall not give such a certificate with respect to any organization—

(a) the activities of which appear to him to consist of or include the giving of cinematograph exhibitions promoted for private gain; or

(b) the objects of which do not appear to him to consist of or include the giving of cinematograph exhibitions to which the public are admitted;

and the Secretary of State may revoke such a certificate at any time if it appears to him that, since the certificate was given, the activities of the organisation have consisted of or included the giving of cinematograph exhibitions promoted for private gain.

(2) Any certificate given by the Commissioners of Customs and Excise under that sub-section before the commencement of this Act shall have effect as if given by the Secretary of State.

6A. In section 9(1) of that Act.'.

These amendments have no direct bearing on the main objects of the Bill. Their purpose is to make a number of changes in the administrative arrangements for issuing exempted organisation certificates under section 5(4) of the 1952 Act. Such a certificate enables a non-profit-making body to put on exhibitions to which the public are admitted on payment on up to three days a week without having to obtain a cinematograph licence or comply with regulations or conditions.

At present, certificates are issued by the Commissioners of Customs and Excise, but I understand from my right hon. Friend the Minister of State that it has been agreed that in future this work should be carried out by the Home Office and the Scottish Office.

I am also taking the opportunity to make three further changes of a minor character.

The first is to enable the issuing authority to recover its costs in issuing these certificates by charging a fee. This is effected in the new section 5(4) of the 1952 Act, which is added by amendment No. 27.

The second is to provide that certificates shall not be issued to bodies whose objects do not appear to include the giving of exhibitions to which the public are admitted. Since such bodies do not require licences, there would be no purpose in issuing them. The amendment ensures that unnecessary work is avoided.

The third change, which is effected by the new subsection (5), is to provide that a certificate may be revoked if its issue is no longer appropriate. Provision is also made for the continuation in force of present certificates.

As a Home Office Minister who sometimes thinks that both he as an individual and his Department carry an already formidable and wide enough list of responsibilities, I am always a little reluctant to add further to those responsibilities. When the Commissioners of Customs and Excise have been carrying out a responsibility for a good many years, normally it is not the desire of the Home Office to seize hold of it. However, my hon. Friend the Member for Fareham (Mr. Lloyd) has explained that there are good reasons for the proposal in his amendment to transfer from the Customs and Excise to the Home Office the function of issuing certificates to the effect that organisations are not conducted or established for profit.

My hon. Friend described the broad significance of this piece of machinery. Section 5 of the Cinematograph Act 1952 provides for a number of exemptions from the licensing and regulatory controls which apply to the generality of commercial exhibitions. One of the exemptions concerns exhibitions given by what are called "exempted organisations" on up to three days a week. This exemption was designed expressly for the myriad of small local organisations, including film societies, education institutions, cultural organisations and so on, which might want to charge for admission to exhibitions in order to cover their costs but which could not remotely be considered as commercial—that is, profit-making bodies. The 1952 Act enables such an organisation to operate free of controls on up to three days a week, provided that a certificate is in force to the effect that it is not conducted or established for profit.

As the House has learnt, at present these certificates are issued by the Commissioners of Customs and Excise. The proposal is that henceforth the responsibility should lie with the Secretary of State—in England and Wales, the Home Secretary and, in Scotland, the Secretary of State for Scotland. In my view, this proposed change is right in principle. The present responsibility of the Commissioners of Customs and Excise is an historical accident which arises from their one-time function of collecting entertainment duty, which was abolished in 1960. They have no general policy interest in this legislation, even though the certification procedure is central to the mechanism of exemptions under the 1952 Act. Clearly it is sensible, therefore, that the Department charged with operating this procedure should be the same as that which also has responsibility for the general law relating to cinematograph exhibitions—that is, the Home Office. On this main issue of principle, therefore, I can say readily that the Government concur wholly with these amendments.

I also commend the other minor changes proposed in the amendment. A fee-charging power is consistent with our general approach of seeking to recover the reasonable costs of specific services performed directly for the public by the Government. It is a power which will be exercised responsibly and with due regard to the nature of the organisations which request those certificates.

I also agree with the proposed subsection (5), which seeks to avoid the unnecessary work which would be involved in issuing certificates to organisations which did not really need them or to organisations run for private gain which sought to evade the other provisions of the Bill by attempting to represent by some ingenious device that they were not run for profit.

Finally, there is provision for the revocation of a certificate, which would be appropriate, for example where the activities of an organisation had changed or where a certificate would not have been granted if the new criteria in the Bill had been in force.

I hope that the House will accept the amendments.

I am grateful for the Minister's explanation of and support for the amendments. I wish to ask three questions.

I do not think that I shall be alone in being glad whenever the Customs and Excise people give up any function. Although I have much admiration for many of the individuals who serve in that organisation, over recent years, notably in respect of value added tax, they have not enhanced their reputation among my constituents as public servants who would be "Top of the Pops". Therefore, I for one am glad that they will cease to have anything to do with this function, which they obtained only by an historical accident. In any event, they have not had very much to do under this heading since, happily, entertainment tax was abolished.

None the less, although I am glad to see the Commissioners of Customs and Excise giving up any function, I do not automatically throw my hat in the air at the prospect of the Home Office taking on any further functions. I have a good deal to do with the Home Office, though not as much as my right hon. Friend, and again I declare a great regard for many of the dedicated and frequently unthanked civil servants who inhabit and manage the Home Office. However, it was well said of Home Office officials by a former distinguished Minister in a Conservative Government that they were on occasion the original inhabitants of square one. That is a perfectly proper description, and I hope that now that they are to take on this new and not very onerous task the Minister will assure me, first, that they will be able to operate with dispatch and without costing the applicant for a certificate too much and, secondly that we shall not have a proliferation of people in the Home Office who need to be recruited to handle the job.

Those are not animadversions which are thrown out recklessly. I invite right hon. and hon. Members to examine what is to be done. Henceforth, I assume that applications for certificates will be made by small private organisations, many of them, for example, In the villages of Suffolk which I represent and in many of the other communities so admirably represented by the large number of Conservative Members present today—I do not think there will be many from Labour constituencies, because no Labour Member is here to speak for them. But let us suppose that there is now to be a considerable amount of correspondence arising from small local organisations which want certificates of exemption so that they can quite properly show films to children, over-sixties clubs or the British Legion in their villages. I assume that they will write to the Home Office. I know of no other way in which they would be able to seek a certificate, because, unlike local government and the Customs and Excise, the Home Office, happily, does not have a local organisation. It does not have an extensive regional organisation, except perhaps for civil defence.

The Studlands Park residents association near Newmarket does a splendid job of showing films occasionally for the benefit of children who, because we lack buses in our area, are unable to go to the towns to see them. The association's secretary, being a law-abiding person, would be bound to write to ask about the position. If my constituents think that there is the slightest possibility of infringing the law, whether on bingo or anything else, they always write in advance, usually to me, to ask whether it will be all right. In future I shall have to tell them that they should write not to me but to the Home Office.

What happens when a series of letters from the Studlands Park residents associaion and numerous other organisations around the country arrive at the Home Office, saying that they want to show a little film about an agreeable local topic to their children, the Boy Scouts, the WI or the over-sixties? I have no doubt that forms will be sent back. The forms will have to be written up. When will they be produced? How will they be sent out? When the completed forms arrive at the Home Office, how are they to be dealt with?

There is, rightly, an element of discretion. That is common sense. I suppose that in most cases broad criteria will be drawn up within the Home Office so that officials can deal with these matters sensibly. What are the criteria to be? Will the Home Office decide that there is no need for a certificate for a small village hall under a certain size, where the showings are to be fewer than two a week and the type of videotape film to be shown has been put in a harmless category by the censors? Alternatively, will a blanket certificate be given to run unless the local police have reason to believe that under the guise of the certificate some nasty fellow has slipped a blue film into the village hall?

Those are administrative details which cannot entirely be dealt with in the House. However, I hope that the switch from Customs and Excise to the Home Office will not result in my villagers writing letters that get lost and having to deal with forms, while weeks elapse, and at the end of the day paying a fairly sharp fee—£5 or so—to show "Bo-peep" to a children's party in the village hall. I ask my right hon. Friend to give some attention to this little difficulty of how the Home Office will handle the matter.

My hon. Friend the Member for Fareham (Mr. Lloyd) proposes in amendment No. 27 that

"(2) any certificate given by the Commissioners of Customs and Excise under that subsection before the commencement of this Act shall have effect as if given by the Secretary of State."

That allows retrospection, so that henceforth it becomes a Home Office rather than a Customs and Excise matter. That is clear, but I should like to ask something about the certificates that the Commissioners of Customs and Excise have already given. What do they consist of? To whom do they apply? What is the position in respect of the kind of small village organisations of which I have been speaking? The stipulation of the amendment is that the existing certificates, no doubt properly given by Customs and Excise, will be carried forward as if under the authority of the Home Secretary. That is a logical development, but the House should know what kind of certificates are already outstanding.

I hope that my right hon. Friend the Minister of State will take into account the need for a speedy service. A number of charitable and other small organisations tend to discover far too late in the day that a certificate is required. When a new process is introduced, such organisations can be caused much heartache if they discover to their horror, possibly only a few days before their special event is to take place, that they are required to obtain a certificate from the Home Office, which will take a considerable time. I hope that there will be special provision for a simplified process for such organisations, so that they will not be frustrated in trying to provide a service to the local community.

In my admiration of the Home Office I yield only to that shown by my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Mr. Griffiths). I have always found those in the Home Office to be most diligent people, but they are perhaps a little less than able to react at short notice in the public interest. That is what this matter of the issue of certificates is all about. There are occasions when a little elasticity is needed.

How will the procedure work? My right hon. Friend the Minister of State might consider delegating this important responsibility to local authorities, no doubt after issuing them with guidelines so that there is a national procedure. The powers to issue some certificates which used to be issued centrally by the Home Office have already been delegated to local bodies. I think, for example, of the storage of dangerous and inflammable materials. The local authorities which now carry out examinations in relation to that matter are reasonably flexible and can respond to public demand with reasonable alacrity.

What will be the charge for the certificates? Will they be renewable annually, bi-annually, or every five or 10 years as one would hope, to reduce overheads? The main factor in the cost of issuing certificates, which in this instance will be borne by the public purse, is the frequency of issue. One would not imagine that certificates of this nature, which will be issued by the Home Office, would have to be renewed all that frequently.

11.30 am

Finally, how many licences will be involved? The procedure is to be transferred from Customs and Excise to the Home Office. Presumably Customs and Excise has records of the number of transactions that it has engaged in from year to year. The House will be interested to know what the total is and whether the number of transactions is declining or increasing annually. Having said that, I welcome the amendment.

I shall not attempt to answer questions about the way in which the Home Office will discharge its new responsibilities. However, one question was put to me direct by my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Mr. Griffiths) and indirectly in the questions posed to my right hon. Friend by my hon. Friend the Member for Harborough (Mr. Farr). My answer is that there are about 47 or 48 certificates outstanding. They relate to community associations, cinema and film clubs and charitable organisations. I shall leave my right hon. Friend to deal with fees and the frequency with which certificates will have to be renewed, should he catch the eye of the Chair.

With the leave of the House, I shall pick up the various significant and practical issues that have been raised by my hon. Friends and try to answer them.

My hon. Friend the Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Mr. Griffiths) had kind words for the Home Office but they were not unalloyed. He hinted that occasionally it is rather leisurely or conservative in its approach. He accused the Home Office of being the original inhabitant of square one. It is in the process of celebrating its bicentenary, and I suppose that it may claim entitlement to some slight conservatism in its ways. Experience counts for a good deal in these matters, and the Home Office does not want to be rushed. To be serious, I do not think that the Home Office will be disposed to deal with this matter other than with dispatch.

My hon. Friend the Member for Fareham (Mr Lloyd) said that the number of certificates outstanding is only 47. It is relevant to consider the scale of the operations in other spheres. In terms of immigration, for example, for which I am responsible, 47 certificates is as nothing compared with the massive inflow of paperwork with which we try to cope. The certificates will be sent to community associations, clubs and societies. I assure the House that they will be absorbed. There will be no need for additional civil servants or more bureaucracy.

The total of 47 seems extraordinarily small. As the new legislation bites there is likely to be a much larger number of organisations that will seek and probably require exemption. The video cassette revolution is developing and many small organisations can cheaply and properly obtain cassettes. What will be the position of Conservative, Labour or Liberal clubs? They may wish to put on film shows for their members at no cost and certainly not for profit or gain. I hope that they will put on such shows. What about the local clubs, which recently have shown, for example, the BBC's programme entitled "The War Game" to help the CND? I do not ask my right hon. Friend to deal with these matters in precise terms now, because I understand that he may require advice. I merely say that I shall be surprised if the numbers remain within the 40s and 50s. I ask him to bear in mind especially the position of political clubs.

I would not argue that because there are 47 now there will always be 47. However, it is worth remembering the context in which the scheme operates. I remind the House that the need for an exempted organisation certificate will arise only if an organisation gives exhibitions to which the public are admitted on more than six days a year. Occasional exhibitions are exempted from the need to obtain a licence under section 7(2) of the 1909 Act. That means that a one-off special event is exempted under that Act. That may help to put aside doubt about a tremendous proliferation.

There will be no change of substance in the procedure now operated by Customs and Excise. The function is merely being transferred, it is not being created. As I have said, a certificate will be required only if an organisation wants to admit the public on payment. If it does, and on not more than three days a week, it will write to the Home Office. We do not contemplate a procedure that will be any lengthier than the present one. We shall deal with any applications with all possible dispatch. The most that we are likely to ask for will be a set of accounts to satisfy ourselves that the organisation concerned is not being run for profit.

My hon. Friend the Member for Harborough (Mr. Farr) asked about delegating these activities to local authorities. I think that he will probably accept, after my explanation of the scale of the operation, that it would not be worth the bother of delegation. It is a small-scale operation. If we had to advise local authorities how to handle it, no doubt they would worry about which department would be involved and many other matters. It will be simpler to pick up the present procedure and transfer it to the Home Office without any significant alteration in the procedure. We must ensure that the criteria remain consistent, and it will be marginally easier if everything is done within the Home Office rather than by handing procedures to a variety of other departments.

My hon. Friend the Member for Bury St. Edmunds asked about the period for which certificates will run. At present they are issued by Customs and Excise to run for two years. When the Home Office has this power, one of the things that it will consider is whether two years is appropriate. I appreciate my hon. Friend's submission that a longer period might be better. I cannot give an undertaking, but the matter will be considered.

I have said that it is our aim to ensure that the fee is reasonable. The rough and ready yardstick of what is held to be reasonable is a level of fee that is related to the cost of the operation. If the cost of the operation is small—we do not envisage that it will be necessary to create a larger bureaucracy to administer it—it should be possible to keep the fee low. I accept that it is desirable to keep the fee to a minimum.

The determination of a "reasonable fee" causes many of us concern. Once a fee gets into the hands of the Home Office, a "reasonable fee" tends to be scrutinised every year in the light of inflation. If the Home Secretary or the Minister of the day forgets to exercise that proper scrutiny, he will receive a severe reminder from the Treasury. Some stability in the level of the fee will mean a great deal to those concerned.

I know that licence fees increase. I am responsible for radio regulation and for nationality. In those areas, fees are charged. I cannot conceal from the House the fact that I have had letters about fees increases in those areas over the last year. It would be hypocritical of me to get into the business of giving assurances that fees are not rising. If the certificates run for a longer period than one year, there will not be an annual increase in the fee charged for the certificate. It is our desire that the fees should be kept to a minimum. No one can see this as a revenue-raising area or an area for disguised taxation. We have no desire for fees to be any higher than they have to be.

The need for certificates should not be affected by the Bill. The Bill bites on commercial bodies. The certificates are, by definition, issued only to non-profit-making bodies. Clubs are not affected. A certificate is needed only where an exhibition is given to the public on payment.

I hope that I have picked up the valid and genuine points that have been made during the debate. I commend my hon. Friend's amendments to the House.

There is one point that I might usefully add to what my right hon. Friend the Minister has said. There is an amendment that empowers the Home Office not to give certificates to organisations which do not regularly give film shows to which the public are admitted. The rest of the Bill takes care of the point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Mr. Griffiths). As long as a body—be it a political society or any other—which shows a film such as "The War Game" is not run for private gain it will be within the law in showing the film without such an exemption certificate.

I beg to move amendment No. 2 in page 2, line 38, at beginning insert—

'An applicant for the grant, renewal or transfer of a licence shall give to—

(a) the licensing authority;

(b) the fire authority; and

(c) the chief officer of police,

not less than 28 days' notice of his intention to make the application.

(1A) The licensing authority may in such cases as they think fit, after consulting with the fire authority and the chief officer of police, grant an application for the grant, renewal or transfer of a licence notwithstanding the fact that the applicant has failed to give notice in accordance with subsection (1) above.

(1B) In considering any application for the grant, renewal or transfer of a licence, the licensing authority shall have regard to any observations submitted to them by the fire authority or by the chief officer of police.

(1C)'

.

With this it will be convenient to take the following amendments:

These amendments are designed to make some important changes in the procedure governing the grant, renewal or transfer of cinematograph licences.

On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I take it that there will be a debate on clause 2 stand part.

This is the Report stage, not the Committee stage.

Section 2(4) of the Cinematograph Act 1909 provides that an applicant for a licence or the transfer of a licence should give not less than seven days' notice in writing to the licensing authority and to the chief officer of police of his intention to make such an application. There is also a proviso which makes it clear that notice is not required where the application is for the renewal of an existing licence held by the applicant for the same premises. The effect of these amendments would be to repeal that provision and to introduce into the present Bill provisions corresponding to certain provisions contained in schedule 1 to the Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill which is being considered in another place.

The new provisions which are proposed would require an applicant for a new cinematograph licence, or for the renewal or transfer of an existing licence, to give to the licensing authority, the first authority and the chief officer of police not less than 28 days' notice of his intention to make the application. Thus the notice requirement would cover applications for renewal as well as applications for the initial grant, or transfer, of a licence; the notice would need to he given to the fire authority as well as to the licensing authority and the chief officer of police; and the period of notice would be 28 days instead of seven.

These changes would affect, in the main, cinematograph licence holders and potential licence holders. Two other changes which would be brought about by the amendments would affect the licensing authority. The first of these would enable the licensing authority, after consulting the fire authority and the chief officer of police, to grant an application notwithstanding the fact that the applicant had failed to give the required notice. That, would import a necessary element of flexibility into the procedure. The second would require the licensing authority, in considering an application, to have regard to any observations submitted to it by the fire authority or the chief officer of police.

It is sensible, I think, that advantage should be taken in this Bill—another opportunity may not occur for many years—to bring up to date procedures which were introduced almost three-quarters of a century ago. That would be particularly timely in view of the statement made by my hon. and learned Friend the Minister of State on Second Reading that the Government are contemplating an early consolidation of cinematograph legislation. As there was some confusion on Second Reading about the status of the consolidation measure, I hope that right hon. and hon. Members will find it helpful if I explain what is intended. The Minister will correct me if my explanation is not right in detail. The 1909 and 1952 Acts are already difficult to follow, largely because they have been so heavily amended. My Bill will not improve matters in that respect, although I am confident that it will do so in others. A consolidation Bill, as its name implies, would consolidate into one measure the 1909 and 1952 Acts and my Bill, if enacted. That would be of enormous help to those who regularly have to consult this legislation.

The fact that responsibility for the licensing of cinemas rests with district councils, which will also have responsibility for licensing places of entertainment covered by the Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill—dance halls and boxing exhibitions, for example—is a further argument for harmonising the procedures involved. A practical consequence is that fire authorities for the first time would be statutorily involved with cinema premises, in an advisory capacity, and would have an opportunity to consider the fire safety of such premises from the outset and at regular intervals after that. That seems to me to be a very important consideration. While I accept that cinemas in this country have a good fire record, I believe that there is in principle no reason why they should be treated differently from other premises of public entertainment.

I am sure that hon. Members will accept the complicated rationale behind these amendments. I commend them to the House.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Fareham (Mr. Lloyd) on the flexible way in which he has dealt with these amendments, which are complex. I reinforce what he has said and look forward to hearing what my right hon. Friend the Minister of State says.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Fareham (Mr. Lloyd) for his exposition, which the Minister will confirm, of the intended consolidation measure, although I cannot imagine that it will occupy a high priority in the Government's forthcoming legislative timetable. It will be all to the good if it does. The consolidation of the 1909 and 1952 Acts and the Bill, which we hope will be enacted shortly, is good news.

Cinemas have been going down like flies mainly because television and the revolution of video cassettes available in the home make it almost impossible for cinemas, certainly in small towns such as Bury St. Edmunds, Newmarket and Haverhill to stay in business. It is therefore important that, when we examine the consolidation of these various Acts and the application of my hon. Friend's admirable Bill, the Government should have some regard to reducing the burdens and restrictions placed upon local cinemas wherever reasonable. This is hardly killing the goose that lays the golden eggs because cinemas in rural areas have not been laying golden eggs for a long time.

The restrictions implicit in the Bill are sensible. They have been necessary for a long time. I should like, however, to make the general caveat that if there is the opportunity shortly to consolidate the legislation, it should be done in a manner to assist and not to restrict and damage the prospects for an industry which provides harmless pleasure to large numbers of people and which, especially in rural areas, is no longer able to operate viably.

I welcome the tidying-up that has been suggested by my hon. Friend the Member for Fareham (Mr. Lloyd), but I share the anxiety expressed by my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Mr. Griffiths) about cinemas. My anxiety extends to other areas of entertainment such as the small amateur theatre and small premises occupied by adult education classes which are not maintained by public education authorities but which are regarded, I believe, as places of entertainment for licensing purposes and which would presumably come under this provision.

It is well known, but not widely challenged, that those responsible for fire regulations and for suggesting what fire precautions should be taken in cinemas, theatres and other public and private places often place enormous burdens on those responsible for the premises. That is an extra concern that I would add to those already expressed by my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St. Edmunds. Without flexibility for district councils administering the licensing of cinemas, theatres and cinematograph premises, as suggested in the amendment, cinemas and small premises will face large financial burdens. I refer to the sort of flexibility that will not require huge escape routes for small premises such as those required for large premises. Often there are ridiculously demanding requirements for small premises.

I wonder whether it can be impressed upon district councils licensing premises for fire purposes that the flexibility that I have described is essential. There should be a minimum of statutory requirements on cinemas and other ailing places of entertainment covered by the amendment. If a fire notice is sufficient, that should be accepted. If an extra escape route is necessary, it will have to be provided. I believe that a great deal can be achieved in fire safety in most premises through occasional fire drills and regular staff training. With that caveat, I support the amendment.

It may be true to say that I support the amendments of my hon. Friend the Member for Fareham (Mr. Lloyd) even more strongly than some of my hon. Friends. I raised on Second Reading a number of points about the fire services and the type of cinema that my hon. Friend seeks to control more tightly. These are just the cinemas to which the safety regulations should apply. I paid tribute on Second Reading to the fire services and pointed out that one of their important roles is to visit cinemas and other public places. I am delighted that my hon. Friend has included in the amendments specific references to the fire officer when consideration is given to an application for a licence or for renewal or transfer of a licence.

I support flexibility for the licensing authority. If, for instance, an application has not been made within the due 28 days, I support the idea that the licensing authority should have the flexibility to waive the time scale. I also support the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Fareham about consolidation of the various Acts——

Before my hon. Friend leaves the issue of fire and safety regulations, may I say that it occurs to me that my words may have sounded critical of the regulations and of fire officers. I wish to make it clear that the safety record in many premises is testament to the value of the work of fire officers.

I was not seeking to criticise my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing, North (Mr. Greenway). I should like to take up the point he made about an increase in the number of fire drills. Fire drill is important in an office where the same people are working day in and day out. But a cinema is a place to which a person may go once in his life. There is, for instance, a wide choice of cinemas in London. It would be impractical to have fire drills in cinemas involving the people most at risk, namely, the audience——

Is my hon. Friend making a case against fire drill in cinemas? It would not matter if an individual was caught by a fire drill on his only visit to a cinema. It is possible for him to be caught by a fire drill on one occasion at a place that he has never visited before or will visit afterwards.

That does not negate the point. It would not be a bad thing if the public became accustomed to regular fire drills in cinemas. We should do more than show the safety curtain in theatres. Perhaps the theatre could be evacuated in the interval. It is much less expensive to be properly conducted down wide constructed staircases than to require such premises to install new staircases and tunnels as a means of escape that may never be used.

I understand my hon. Friend's point, although I do not agree with it. If I were watching "Chariots of Fire", I am not sure that I would be pleased to hear the fire bells and had to run for my life.

There is a clear distinction between the use of fire drills in an office or factory and in a public building such as a cinema. I should prefer to leave fire safety to the continuing checks of the appropriate fire officer rather than to rely upon periodic fire drills which, as my hon. Friend admits, may never catch anyone in his lifetime of going to the cinema. As we all know, Members of Parliament rarely go to cinemas and may never be subjected to the same inconvenience as the general public.

There is a need for consolidation in this area. At the moment we have the Cinematograph Acts 1909 and 1952. Now we shall have a third Act and there is a possibility of further legislation, currently being discussed in another place, covering the same ground. There is a clear need for consolidation as and when it can be slotted into the Government's timetable.

With those brief comments, I welcome the amendments.

It might be helpful if I intervene shortly, especially to answer the points about fire safety. I am glad that my hon. Friends accept the need for a consolidation measure, which was outlined by my hon. Friend the Member for Fareham (Mr. Lloyd). I take the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Mr. Griffiths) about the disappearance of cinemas from rural areas. As far as I know, they have already disappeared. It is very rare to see cinemas in rural areas, but even in substantial conurbations we have seen the conversion of cinemas into bingo halls and for many other uses. There is no doubt that the development of video has had much to do with it. In Southall in West London there is a large Asian population, which, by and large, is keen on the cinema. However, even there cinemas are disappearing because so many people have bought video recorders and can watch the same films at home. It is very much a pattern of our times.

I take the point of my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St. Edmunds that we do not wish to impose any more restrictions on cinemas than are absolutely necessary. However, it is clearly accepted by the House that we must be sure about fire safety in cinemas.

I say to my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing, North (Mr. Greenway) that the Bill applies only to premises that require a cinematograph licence. Therefore, it would be most unlikely to affect theatre groups or adult education institutes. The Bill, as its title implies, relates to cinemas. As to the burdens imposed by fire authorities, the amendment does not alter the present position adversely. Fire authorities are already involved heavily in the inspection of cinemas and the amendment formalises the position. We can be sure that district councils or fire authorities are well aware of economic considerations and will ensure that no more is done than is necessary in the interests of public safety.

That phrase is the rub—that no more will be done than is necessary. I accept the good faith of the Minister. I have known him for many years and there is no question but that if he had control over the position he would ensure that the minimum was required. However, I draw it to the attention of the House that some fire authorities, in my view and in the view of many both inside and outside the House, are unduly extravagant in their fire safety requirements and put bodies that are struggling for funds to massive and undue expense. All that I can do is to ask my right hon. Friend to underline what he said so that it is firmly on the record, namely, that we wish to have a statutory minimum and no more.

We are not seeking more than is necessary, but I must stress the words "is necessary". This is an area where the fire and licensing authorities must be sure that the proper fire and safety precautions exist. That must be paramount. If one is in doubt, it is better to err on the side of caution than to minimise restrictions. It is difficult to be more precise, but we are talking about an extremely serious matter, and a little caution is justified.

When I say "a statutory minimum", I mean what is necessary and no more. Of course I should err on the side of caution, even if it meant extra expense, but I do not wish to err on the side of extravagant provision, which I suggest has occurred occasionally. There has been an open conflict of opinion between experts on fire precautions and fire authorities over what those authorities have required. I accept what my right hon. Friend says.

I understand my hon. Friend's point. It might be helpful if I spend a few moments explaining the Government's view on fire safety. I hope that I can take my hon. Friend with me.

My hon. Friend the Member for Fareham said that an important consequence of the changes in procedure if his amendments are accepted will be that the fire authority will receive notice of an application for the grant, transfer or renewal of a cinematograph licence and so have an opportunity at any of those stages to inspect the premises. If it is thought fit, it may submit observations to the licensing authority on the suitability of the premises from a fire safety point of view. The licensing authority will be obliged to have regard to those observations in determining the application. In other words, the fire authority's views must be taken into account, although the final decision will rest with the licensing authority.

It is perhaps worth remarking that to involve fire authorities in cinema licensing arrangements is nothing new. In many parts of Britain, fire authorites already inspect cinema premises, at the request of licensing authorities, and give advice on fire safety. In their application to fire authorities the amendments try to give statutory recognition to an existing practice and to encourage the adoption of that practice country-wide.

This modest attempt to rationalise licensing procedures will be welcomed by the authorities whose responsibility it is to carry them out. They might be less palatable to cinema proprietors, who might wonder why they should be asked to give 28 days' notice of an application when seven days has sufficed for more than 70 years. They might also ask why it is proposed that the notice provisions should extend to applications for a renewal. Proprietors will be concerned about the prospect of greater demands being made upon them, but it is unlikely that they will be placed under great strain by what is proposed, and they will want to be assured that there are good reasons for what is being done.

There is good reason for suggesting that the period of notice should be extended, quite apart from the arguments in favour of rationalisation. It is particularly important that the fire authorities should have generous notice of an application. As I have said, it might be necessary for the fire authority to inspect the premises. A fairly detailed inspection might be necessary if premises have not previously been used for cinematographic exhibitions, and on the basis of that inspection a report may have to be prepared for the guidance of the licensing authority. Bearing in mind the many statutory responsibilities of fire authorities, it is asking a great deal to expect the work entailed to be completed in less than a week.

The arguments for requiring notice of the renewal stage are also concerned with fire safety considerations. A licensee may feel that once his premises have been inspected by the fire authority, and its recommendations have been carried out, there should be no need for further inspections, and therefore, no need for the fire authority to be notified of an intention to apply for a renewal of the licence. Unfortunately, nothing can be further from the truth.

Fire safety in public buildings is dependent as much on good day-to-day management as on structural considerations. The ease with which bad practices can develop, often undetected by management, makes it important that there should be an opportunity for fire safety procedures to be independently assessed by experts from time to time. However, I emphasise that the fire authority would not be required to submit its observations on receiving notice of an application for a renewal of a licence. For example, in the case of a well-managed establishment it might well decide, on the basis of a recent spot check, that it was unnecessary to do so.

I hope that what I have said will reinforce what my hon. Friend the Member for Fareham said. I hope too, that the House will feel that what we are doing is reasonable and will support the amendment.

I beg to move amendment No. 3, in page 3, line 1, after 'Act', insert

`unless the contrary intention appears'.

With this it will be convenient to take the following amendments:

These are all drafting or technical amendments. Therefore, by definition they are obscure and difficult to follow. I shall simply commend them to the House.

I welcome my hon. Friend's alacrity and brevity. There are one or two points that I should like to raise with the Minister and with him. No doubt he was absolutely right to allow hon. Members to make their points to which he can then respond. I doubt whether he will do so quite as briefly, although no doubt he will do so adequately.

The amendments appear to relate to the 1909 Act. Earlier we debated the merits of the Home Office and its inhabitants. My admiration for its officials is second only to that of my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Mr. Griffiths). Nevertheless, one cannot help but feel that on this group of amendments my hon. Friend has been got at by Home Office officials.

12.15 pm

No normal person—I refer to my hon. Friend in this context with great respect—would suggest an amendment in 1982 containing in line 14 of amendment No. 26 the words "cinematograph exhibition". They went out of date with the 1909 Act. We are being asked to approve the same old wording which is not relevant today. I suggest that the correct phraseology is either "home video show" of "home movie" rather than these hackneyed old phrases which have been drawn out of some dust-ridden Home Office cupboard. That is the jargon which people can understand. "Cinematograph exhibition" gives an impression of age to the amendment, which is entirely wrong.

I agree with my hon. Friend that most of the amendments in this group—for example, Nos. 3, 7, 22, 23, 24, 31 and 32—are drafting amendments. However, amendment No. 26 has a little more substance inasmuch as it changes the wording of the 1909 Act to what one would have hoped would have been more up-to-date wording. Unfortunately, it is still couched in the phraseology of the early days of the twentieth century.

In line 14 of amendment No. 26 my hon. Friend refers to

"any cinematograph exhibition which—

(a) is given in a private dwelling-house; and

(b) is one to which the public are not admitted."

I take it that exhibitions run by political clubs, the Round Table and other semi-private organisations would be covered by the amendment.

It does not matter who gives the cinematograph exhibition—to use the term that, apparently normal people would not use. What matters is whether it is given for private gain. Clause 2 of the Bill gives the detailed test to be applied to determine whether that is so.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that lucid explanation. One would assume that cinematograph exhibitions—to use the term in the amendment—in aid of the Church or a charity would not be for public gain and therefore would be approved.

I support the amendment with the one caveat that I had hoped that the wording of it would not be so transparently Home Office jargon. Perhaps, even at this late stage, it could be brought a little more up to date.

I shall respond briefly to the interesting points made by my hon. Friend the Member for Harborough (Mr. Farr). I hope that the consolidation measure will make the situation clearer even if the language used is not necessarily that used in my hon. Friend's household. He rightly described the term "cinematograph exhibition" as an antique phrase redolent only of the Home Office. However, I was interested to note that he could not produce a single phrase that covered all the forms of projecting moving pictures in the Bill. If such a phrase occurs to him, I hope that he will write it down and send it to my right hon. Friend the Minister of State. It would be useful to have a simple, easy handle.

My hon. Friend is worried that we should be concerned not only about the traditional cinematograph exhibition but about video exhibitions. Perhaps I can give him some comfort in terms of what the Bill will do rather than in terms of the language in which it is expressed. Clause 1 makes it abundantly clear that video is covered. That is one of the important effects of the Bill.

There has been some discussion about what the Bill should be called. I have some sympathy with the feeling that the term "cinematograph exhibition" has a slightly archaic ring about it. However, the Bill relates to other Acts on the statute book. The 1909 and 1952 Acts both use the phrase "cinematograph exhibition" and, therefore, it is impossible to inject a new phrase. Perhaps we could reconsider the question when we look at the consolidation measure. I am not sure what the answer will be. Many different words are used to describe "cinematograph exhibition". People talk about "the cinema", "the movies", "the pictures" and "the flicks". Various other expressions are used and there is a notable lack of consensus about the right description. Perhaps "the movies" corresponds most closely with the Bill's intentions. The hon. and learned Member for Bradford, West (Mr. Lyons) looks rather appalled. He might think that "the movies" is an Americanism that should not be incorporated in a Bill.

In knocking down some of the ideas that he has put up, I hope that my right hon. Friend will also knock down the expression "the flicks".

I shall certainly knock down that expression, which I used only to illustrate the lack of consensus and the fact that several phrases are used to describe "cinematograph exhibition" which might be even more repellent to my hon. Friends than the polysyllabic phrase "cinematograph exhibition". However, for the reasons that I have given, we cannot resolve the matter this morning.

I shall fill out the somewhat sparse outline of the amendments given by my hon. Friend the Member for Fareham (Mr. Lloyd). I confirm that the amendments simply maintain the policies in existing legislation. With the exception of amendments Nos. 12 and 20, their purpose is to ensure that the appropriate references are made in the Bill to exempted exhibitions given in licensed premises. It may help if I give an example of such an exhibition.

It is common for ordinary cinemas to be hired out of hours by private bodies, such as ethnic minority groups, to give a "members only" exhibition. Because the public would not be admitted to such an exhibition, it does not require a licence and is exempted by section 5(1) of the 1952 Act. However, section 5(3) of the same Act provides that, when such an exhibition—an exempted exhibition—is given on premises in respect of which a licence is in force, safety regulations and conditions have to be complied with.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Fareham said, the amendments are purely technical, but amendment No. 26, which replaces section 7(4) of the 1909 Act by a new provision, requires some comment. The proposed provision is considerably longer than section 7(4) but has the advantage of clarifying two points. The proposed subsection (4)(d) would make it clear that exhibitions of the kind that the provision is concerned with do not count towards the six occasional exhibitions permitted under section 7(2) of the 1909 Act before it is necessary to obtain a cinematograph licence. Subsection (5) removes an ambiguity in section 7(4) as to whether it is admittance to the private dwelling house or admission to the exhibition which is at issue.

I hope that the House agrees that the amendments make several improvements to the Bill which, although minor, are to be welcomed.

I beg to move amendment No. 8, in page 3, line 37, after 'kind', insert—

`(aa) any premises in respect of which a licence under section 2 of the 1909 Act is in force are being or are about to be used for an exempted exhibition;'.

With this we may take the following amendments: No. 9, in page 3, line 42, leave out `the 1909 Act' and insert 'that Act'.

The amendments are largely technical. With the exception of the fourth and final amendments in the group, their purpose is to correct an oversight in the Bill concerning exempted exhibitions on licensed premises. They make no change in the position under present legislation, but simply ensure that the provisions in clauses 5 and 6 in respect of powers of entry, inspection and offences, achieve the intended result.

Exempted exhibitions or exhibitions to which the public are not admitted, or to which they are admitted free, do not require a cinematograph licence. That will be qualified by the private gain test introduced in clause 2. However, when such an exhibition is given on licensed premises—for example, when a non-commercial body gives a private exhibition in a cinema that it has hired—the safety regulations and conditions must be complied with. Unfortunately, as drafted, the Bill fails to ensure that safety conditions must be complied with in those circumstances. That defect is corrected by amendments Nos. 14 and 16.

The Bill also fails to provide for the necessary powers to enter and inspect licensed premises in connection with the giving of an exempted exhibition. That defect is corrected by amendments Nos. 8 and 11. Amendment No. 9 is simply a consequential drafting amendment.

Amendment No. 19 provides a definition of "exempted exhibition". The remaining two amendments are really consequential on the others and on earlier amendments concerning procedures to be followed in applying for licences.

The various references to exempted exhibitions and to the fire authority would be otiose if, as section 12(11) of the Fire Precautions Act 1971 provides, safety matters in cinemas were controlled under that Act instead of under the Cinematograph Acts. That provision has not yet been brought into force, but the references need to be added to the list in clause 5(8) of provisions which would be repealed in the event of that happening. As the additions go beyond the scope of clause 5, however, the amendments wuld delete clause 5(8) and replace it by a suitably expanded new subsection (3) to clause 9.

With that explanation, I commend the amendments to the House.

I wish to ask my hon. Friend the Member for Fareham (Mr. Lloyd) one brief question. I am not sure whether it arises from the amendments, but no doubt he will tell me whether I am right.

My question relates to a comparison of the statements in subsections (1) and (2). Subsection (2) requires the authorised officer of the fire authority to give not less than 24 hours notice of entry to cinema premises. In subsection (1), however, no time limit is specified. Presumably, therefore, under subsection (1), a constable or authorised officer of the licensing authority or the fire authority may enter the premises without any notice at all. I hope so, as that would clearly be the right way to proceed. Perhaps my hon. Friend would address himself to that narrow point.

I think that I can answer my hon. Friend, but I shall check afterwards to make sure that my memory is correct.

The powers of entry ensure that if an exhibition is being given, or if there is reason to believe that an exhibition is about to be given, the appropriate officers have the right of immediate entry. If there is no immediate prospect of an exhibition, the fire officer, for example, must give 24 hours' notice. That is the kind of courtesy that one likes to give unless there is a very pressing reason, such as the immediate holding of an exhibition which may be in breach of regulations, for not doing so. In this way, the courtesy is normally extended except in an emergency which requires the immediate exercise of the right of entry.

Perhaps I might press my hon. Friend a little further. Is he saying that a constable or authorised officer of the licensing or fire authority may enter the premises if, in his opinion, the circumstances are such that he should have immediate access, but that in subsection (2) a courtesy is written into the Bill for non-emergency situations?

That is my understanding. That is the intention. My only slight qualification is that the officer should have reason.to believe that an exhibition is being held or is about to be held. He cannot simply give that as a reason unless he has reason to believe that it is valid.

I thank my hon. Friend for his explanation of this group of amendments, which, as he said, are largely drafting amendments.

Perhaps my hon. Friend would satisfy my curiosity about amendment No. 19, which is quite important and relates to exempted exhibitions. In introducing the amendments he said that an exempted exhibition meant an exhibition which, by virtue of section 5 of the 1952 Act, did not require a licence under section 2 of the 1909 Act. I am very grateful to my hon. Friend for explaining that point briefly to us. To a layman, however, there is again an early twentieth century ring about the amendments, with the perpetual return to the 1909 Act. As I know that my hon. Friend is very alert and up to date, this leads me to suspect that some of the amendments have come direct from the Home Office archives.

Section 5 of the 1952 Act is also relevant. I repeat that the situation has changed vastly in a few years. Acts of Parliament that were passed 70 or 80 years ago bear on the matter. Over the past five years the video films industry has mushroomed from zero to a turnover of about £200 million a year. We must not ignore that fact. Will "an exempted exhibition" in the amendment include all events organised by bona fide social societies, all events of a private nature and church and political matters?

The trade in sex films has also mushroomed. Will amendment No. 19 affect the improper sale of sex films and videos for screening in private homes? It is now a multi-million pound business. We cannot close our eyes to those ugly features of society. Will my hon. Friend deal with those problems?

My hon. Friend has raised similar points before. We need a consolidation measure to show easily and precisely how the three enactments affect the cinema.

The term "cinematograph" in the Bill does not mean what people normally take it to mean. It means what is defined in the Act. In clause 1 it is made clear that the term covers video reproduction of moving pictures as well as old-fashioned film exhibitions. My hon. Friend need have no fear there.

My hon. Friend asked whether private organisations, churches and so on would be able to give exhibitions that were exempt or outside the effect of the Bill. It does not matter what the organisation is. The deciding factor is whether the exhibition is given for private gain. Exemption certificates are meant for organisations that do not give exhibitions for private gain but use the funds obtained for the purposes of the society. If money changes hands for the profit of an individual, the exhibition will automatically fall within the scope of the Bill.

My hon. Friend said that there was a burgeoning business in making and selling sex videos and films and that fortunes were being made. The Bill will not affect that trade, as the proposed legislation deals only with the exhibition of films for gain and not with making or selling them. It will have the effect, perhaps, by reducing the opportunities for exhibitions, of reducing the profits and the extent of the trade, but it will not deal directly with the particular point my hon. Friend raises because, real problem though it is, that is beyond the scope of the measures.

I confirm what my hon. Friend the Member for Fareham (Mr. Lloyd) has said in reply to the points raised in the debate.

With regard to the point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Basildon (Mr. Proctor), I understand that clause 5(2) provides for general inspection for which it is reasonable to require 24 hours' notice. Clause 5(1) provides for immediate entry when an exhibition is being given or is about to be given.

With regard to the point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Harborough (Mr. Farr), I understand that, provided that the exhibitions are private, or exhibitions to which the public are admitted free, they would constitute "exempted exhibitions" under section 5 of the 1952 Act. The amendment makes no difference to piracy, which is not a matter dealt with in the Bill. That confirms what my hon. Friend the Member for Fareham said in that respect.

I started to anticipate in an earlier debate one or two of the points covered by my hon. Friend's amendments, but it might be desirable for me to put on the record a slightly fuller picture concerning the current group of amendments. They basically maintain policies that we have already in the existing legislation. With the exception of amendments Nos. 12 and 20, their purpose is to ensure that the appropriate references are made in the Bill to exempted exhibitions given on licensed premises. As I have said already, an example of that kind of thing would be the hiring of an ordinary cinema out of hours by private bodies which might want to give a "members only" exhibition. As such, an exhibition would be one to which the public were not admitted, and it would not require a licence; it would be exempted by section 5(1) of the 1952 Act. However, section 5(3) of the same Act provides that where such an exhibition—that is, an exempted exhibition—is given on premises in respect of which a licence is in force, safety regulations and conditions have to be complied with. That is obviously sensible.

If, in order to obtain a cinematograph licence, the cinema concerned has had to go to the trouble of meeting all the requirements concerning safety, it would clearly be foolish not to require those conditions to be observed just because the premises are being used by other organisations for the giving of cinematograph exhibitions. As my hon. Friend mentioned, the Bill at present fails to ensure that that will continue to be the case.

Clause 6(1)(c) ensures that where an exempted exhibition is given on licensed premises, safety regulations have to be complied with, but clause 6(1)(b), which is the equivalent provision in respect of licence conditions, applies only to exhibitions which require a licence—which, of course, exempted exhibitions do not. That is remedied by the new sub-paragraph (bb) in amendment No. 14 and by amendment No. 16, the latter providing for the licence holder's liability where he has not exercised due diligence.

Clearly, in addition to providing for the relevant offences in respect of exempted exhibitions on licensed premises, it is important to ensure that the appropriate powers of inspection are provided. That is the purpose of amendments Nos. 8 and 11. The former provides that the constable or an authorised officer of the fire or licensing authorities may enter and inspect licensed premises where an exempted exhibition is being given there or is about to be given there. Amendment No. 11—in particular the new sub-paragraph (b)—provides that the purpose of such an inspection is to ensure that the relevant safety regulations are being complied with.

Amendments Nos. 9 and 19, which also concern exempted exhibitions, simply make a drafting change and provide a definition of 'exempted exhibition'.

As my hon. Friend explained, the remaining two amendments in the group—amendments Nos. 12 and 20—are consequential on the amendments concerning exempted exhibitions, and also on the group of amendments that we have just discussed concerning the procedures for dealing with licence applications. Their purpose is to ensure that, if fire safety matters in cinemas are controlled under the Fire Precautions Act 1971, instead of under the Cinematograph Acts, unnecessary references in the Bill to fire authorities and "exempted exhibitions" are automatically repealed.

Clearly, there would be no further need for the fire authority to be involved if all that were really at issue under the Cinematograph Acts was the question of film censorship. It also follows that since the cinema licensing system impinges on exempted exhibitions only when they are given in licensed premises—and then only in respect of safety matters—there would be no need to refer to them in the Bill if safety were controlled under the Fire Precautions Act 1971.

12.45 pm

That is a slightly complicated explanation, but if hon. Members examine the provisions carefully they will see that they are sensible. Just because something is exempted from the general need to license cinema displays that does not mean that it is desirable to exempt it from conditions covering safety, which must apply whatever is being shown in the exhibition.

I beg to move amendment No. 13, in page 5, line 23, leave out from 'licence' to end of line 25 and insert

`under section 2 of the 1909 Act is not in force are used for an exhibition which requires such a licence;

(aa) any premises in respect of which a consent under section 4 of the 1952 Act is not in force are used for an exhibition which requires such a consent;'.

With this we may take the following amendments: No. 15, in page 5, line 35, leave out from 'offence' to end of line 36.

These are important amendments. A number of hon. Members emphasised on Second Reading and in Committee that it was vital to ensure that the penalties in the Bill were an effective deterrent. It was pointed out that those who run bogus clubs are engaged in a lucrative business and are unlikely to be deterred unless the fine is substantial.

Similar arguments have been voiced both here and in another place about the maximum penalties for unlicensed use of a sex shop or sex cinema under the Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill. The Government have already proposed a maximum fine of £5,000 in that Bill and I understand from my right hon. Friend the Minister of State that they intend to table an amendment on Report in another place to increase the figure to £10,000. Therefore, it is only sensible to ensure that the penalties in my Bill match those that are expected to be provided in the miscellaneous provisions Bill. I believe that my right hon. Friend supports that view.

Amendments Nos. 13, 15 and 17 increase from £1,000 to £10,000 the maximum penalty for giving on premises in which no cinematograph licence is in force an exhibition that requires such a licence. However, there is no similar justification for increasing beyond £1,000—the usual upper limit in a magistrates court—the maximum penalty for the remaining offences covered by clause 6. For example, it would be extremely harsh if a minor breach of the safety regulations or of a minor condition attached to a licence attracted a higher maximum penalty.

The purpose of amendment No. 18 is to ensure that the provisions in clause 7 concerning offences by bodies corporate should apply to the obstruction offence under clause 5(3) as well as to the principal offences in clause 1. If, say, the manager of a company plays a part in obstructing the exercise of the powers conferred by clause 5, it seems right that he, as well as the company, should be liable to prosecution.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Fareham (Mr. Lloyd) for moving the amendment, which increases the penalties available to courts dealing with this kind of abuse. There is the usual problem that arises when one anticipates the passage of a few years and the possible, though I hope not, consequential inflation and the possible increased benefit to unauthorised or illegal operators of the establishments with which my hon. Friend wishes to deal. I should be grateful if he or the Minister of State could say whether the level of penalties can be kept under review and whether some guidance can be issued to those imposing penalties on those found guilty of offences to the effect that the imposition of a very high penalty would be expected by the public and would be the intention of Parliament.

Bearing in mind the spread of these establishments through London and other cities, it is clear that substantial profits are being made. Many establishments previously in other trades are being converted into unauthorised cinemas and video lounges. If the profits are high enough, people who cannot get licences may decide that they are willing to pay, in effect, the tax of penalties imposed by the courts. I hope that we can be confident that people who are convicted will suffer substantial penalties for trying to avoid the licensing provisions in the Bill.

I shall be interested also to know whether the provisions about forfeiture are adequate. I recognise that they are not touched directly by the amendments. However, we are concerned in the amendments with the penalties on operators. Is the definition of items relating to the offence which are to be produced in court sufficiently tight to make sure that the forfeiture provisions are adequate? Will all the equipment have to be produced in court? I have in mind video screens and the machines which project the material for which there is no licence. Does that have to be produced in court? In the case of a large-scale establishment with 40 or 50 video screens, will it be possible to make a court order for the forfeiture of all the equipment, or are the words in the Bill drawn too tightly? I should be grateful for some guidance on that.

In general, it must be right to provide for substantial penalties when there is greatly offensive abuse. I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for Fareham has got it right in the drafting of the Bill, but I should be grateful for some reassurance both about keeping the penalties in line with possible profits to illegal or unauthorised operators and, if possible, about giving attention to the forfeiture provisions which, in my view, can be just as important in deterring abuse.

rose——

Mr. Alex Lyon. I beg the hon. Member's pardon—Mr. Edward Lyons.

None of the remaining 240 Labour Members have bothered to be present for this important series of debates, Mr. Deputy Speaker.

On Second Reading, there were demands from some right hon. and hon. Members that there should be inserted into the Bill a provision for a custodial sentence as well as for a financial penalty. I opposed that view, and I am pleased to see that there is no reference to a custodial penalty in the amendment.

I said on Second Reading that where the motive for the kind of operation that the Bill sought to catch was financial, the best way of dealing with any culprit was to punish him in his pocket. The amendment increases the penalty for one offence from the originally proposed £1,000 to £10,000.

That is important for two reasons. First, it achieves the target of punishing in the pocket rather than by incarceration when our prisons are already very overcrowded. Secondly, the maximum penalty is seldom imposed. What magistrates look at is the maximum laid down in the statute as an indication of the gravity with which the legislature regards an offence, and then, particularly for a first or second conviction, they impose considerably less than the maximum.

Therefore, if one envisages a fine of £1,000 one is more likely to achieve its imposition if the maximum is £10,000 or a higher figure. It is absurd to pretend that maximum fines are frequently given for any offence. They hardly ever are. Seldom do we even approach in the courts a figure anywhere the maximum permitted.

I welcome the way in which the promoter of the Bill has met the criticisms made on Second Reading. I am glad that he is sticking to financial penalties, but is making them more realistic in the circumstances of today.

I fully support what the hon. and learned Member for Bradford, West (Mr. Lyons) said. He told us that he was the sole occupant of the Opposition Benches. That makes a change. Usually it is not the Labour Party that is absent but the SDP or the Liberals. At least we have one hon. Member on the Opposition Benches to look back at us, and it is nice to see such a friendly face.

In percentage terms the SDP has been represented to a far greater degree than the Conservative Party throughout this debate.

That may well be, but in the recent important debate about new towns—I am a new town Member—I was astounded that we managed to get through all parts of the New Towns Bill, dealing with hundreds of millions of pounds of public money, without a single representative of the Liberal Party or the SDP being present.

Order. Will the hon. Gentleman kindly return to the amendment?

I welcome the amendments increasing the penalties for contraventions of the provisions of the Bill. On Second Reading a number of right hon. and hon. Members expressed their concern that the maximum penalty of £200 under the 1952 Act had not been raised for 30 years. That proves the point of my hon. Friend the Member for Woolwich, West (Mr. Bottomley) about the inroads of inflation on fines. I would not hazard a guess at the inflation between 1952 and 1982, but it must be considerable.

We had a lot of Labour Governments in that time.

I am not an advocate of the indexation of anything to the rate of inflation, if we can avoid it, because that is the route to continuing to live with inflation. I would rather see us bring inflation under control and get it down to single figures, as the Government are doing. That, and not indexation, is the correct way to go about the matter.

However, we must be aware of the erosion of fines by inflation over the years. To increase the maximum from £200 to £1,000 and now to £10,000 goes some way towards meeting the strength of opinion expressed on the subject on Second Reading.

1 pm

My hon. and learned Friend the Minister of State, Home Office, intervened in my Second Reading speech to say that there was no limit to the level of the maximum fines that we could put into the Bill. However, in Committee my hon. and learned Friend said:

"the Magistrates' Courts Act 1980 applies to the general power of magistrates to impose fines for breach of the criminal law."

Apparently there is a power that for summary offence conviction magistrates

"shall be limited to a maximum fine of £1,000."

My hon. and learned Friend added:

"Whether that maximum should be raised is an issue that goes beyond the scope of the Bill."—[Official Report, Standing Committee C; 3 March 1982, c. 15.]

It may be an issue that goes beyond the scope of the Bill, but I hope that my right hon. Friend will explain the inter-relationship of what we are doing. If the amendments are passed, as I hope they will be, they will increase the maximum fine to £10,000. Is there any bar under the 1980 Act that will stop fines of over £1,000 being imposed?

Secondly, is there a possibility of having minimum penalties or is it felt that one has to leave discretion with magistrates from 1p to £10,000?

I support the amendment moved by my hon. Friend the Member for Fareham (Mr. Lloyd) and I hope that it will receive the support of the House.

When my right hon. Friend the Minister replies, I hope that he will tell us how the figure of £10,000 was arrived at. I realise that it is consistent with the fines set out in the Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill, but I am not aware of any other legislation which has provided for fines of quite this level. I take the point of the hon. and learned Member for Bradford, West (Mr. Lyons) that it does not necessarily follow that a court will impose the maximum fine. It is a great deal of money, but it is consistent with the offensiveness of the practices that we are discussing. As the Bill is directed to those who make considerable gain from obnoxious practices, I see no reason why they should not suffer in the pocket. It is the only way to get at them. On the other hand, there needs to be a measure of consistency in penalties in our legislation.

Does my hon. Friend agree that they are inconsistent because the other penalties are too low?

That may be so.

We must examine the impact of inflation on penalties over recent years. However, as recently as 1977, when as a Minister I was involved in a number of Bills that became Acts, high fines were provided. It proved extremely difficult for fines to go as high as £5,000 for serious offences, particularly for transport and pollution offences. The House was right to be a little cautious about advancing by a high amount the levels of fines. I am not cavilling with the amount of £10,000—perhaps it will be appropriate in the circumstances—but I reiterate that there must be consistency about the way in which we apply the penalties of the criminal law to our citizens.

Therefore, I would value some advice from my right hon. Friend the Minister on why the figure of £10,000 was thought to be appropriate. I hope that he can give us a sideways look at some of the other legislation that has been recently passed or is in prospect of being passed—for example, the Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill—in which that level of fine is to be levied.

Many of the provisions in the Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill deal with offences that are not likely to be copied by others. For example, if an illegal sign is displayed, thousands of people are not likely to try to make vast profits. Another example is when someone serves bad food. Not many people are likely to copy that, so the punishment would be straightforward. This penalty, however, must be a deterrent as well as taking away the profits made by people who are running unauthorised establishments.

I take my hon. Friend's point that the penalty is a deterrent. It is there to dissuade wide boys from entering into an obnoxious business for private gain. Faced with a possible fine of £10,000, they will think twice before taking that high risk. The £10,000 would in most cases amount to a terminal penalty. It would close the business, which is what is intended. However, that does not answer my question, which is not a criticism. We need some consistency in the criminal law in the levels of penalties. Granted that the penalties are a deterrent in this case, they may need to be a deterrent in other cases.

I shall give a specific example. I have been involved in penalties that are imposed for polluting the environment. That was in respect of the pollution of our water supplies by discharges to rivers, and noxious emissions to the air that could damage public health. It took a great deal of doing to raise the fines to as much as £5,000 for those who noxiously pollute the general environment.

We are dealing here with another kind of pollution, seeking to impose another sort of deterrent. I support what is intended. None the less it is right to ask my right hon. Friend the Minister to reflect, by looking at other areas of the law, whether £10,000 is consistent with the Government's general philosophy.

I am impressed by the hon. Gentleman's argument about the need for consistency in the penalties. However, the Bill contains a maximum fine of £ 1,000 which is considered to small. The only proposed amendment seeks to raise it to £10,000. If one rejects the amendment, one is back to £1,000. One has to make a choice.

I have no intention of rejecting the amendment. I am asking my right hon. Friend the Minister to tell us of the origins of the figure of £10,000 and to say whether he thinks that it is consistent with other penalties for offences of similar or comparable character.

I am glad to have the opportunity to make a short contribution to the debate on this important group of amendments.

I am concerned about amendment No. 17 and the level of penalties. Earlier in the debate I made it clear that I felt that the House would be doing no good unless we related the Bill, which we hope will be passed, and its penalties to the twentieth century, particularly to the 1980s, and to what is happening about cinematograph exhibitions and home videos. I have already stated that the home video business today had a turnover of £160 million a year, of which over £100 million is pirated material. This is important when we are discussing penalties. We cannot discuss penalties in a meaningful manner unless we know the figures involved in the profits that are made.

I live in Northamptonshire. A Northampton couple the other day handed back £750,000 profit which they had made from pirated video tapes. They are not regarded by the experts as major operators. There are reckoned to be bigger operators than those who were apprehended by what I call the gang of three—the three companies engaged in tracking down the pirates. The couple were not regarded as one of the bigger fish in the pool. Yet they were required to return no less than £750,000. When one considers that this sort of figure reflects what is happening in real life, it makes the level of penalties proposed by my hon. Friend look farcically low. The average profit to a pirate for one video tape is reckoned to be about £30. With a turnover of £100 million a year, there is tremendous scope for a large illicit profit to be made.

A number of my hon. Friends, and also, I believe, the hon. and learned Member for Bradford, West (Mr. Lyons) have expressed the hope that the Minister will make some effort to keep the level of penalties under constant review. My right hon. Friend the Minister of State, with his expert knowledge, will no doubt say whether the provisions of my hon. Friend's Bill fall within the scope of successive Criminal Justice Acts that have lifted the level of penalties in Acts passed in earlier years. I should like to know whether the proposals in amendment No. 17 will be subject to this periodic scrutiny, which leads to subsequent action in a Criminal Justice Act. A number of penalties have been altered at regular intervals by such Acts.

Hon. Members, especially those who were here at the time, know the major part played by my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Mr. Griffiths) in making the polluter pay. When my hon. Friend was a Minister, his role was recognised by hon. Members as a leading and valuable one in trying to provide an appropriate penalty for the many types of environmental pollution that were taking place but which are now, I am happy to say, much less frequent. There is no doubt that that is due largely to the activities of my hon. Friend when he was all too briefly in office.

1.15 pm

My hon. Friend the Member for Bury St. Edmunds touched on an important matter when he said that maximum penalties were not often imposed by the courts. Very often, courts are reluctant to use the range of powers given to them by Parliament. That has never been fully recognised or properly discussed in the House. Parliament may, in its wisdom, decide the proper fines and penalties to be imposed and hon. Members go home and believe that they have done their job for society, but how many of us look back a year or two later and compare the level of penalties imposed by the courts with those that Parliament believed to be correct? We never do that, but if we did the result would shatter my hon. Friend the Member for Fareham (Mr. Lloyd) and probably my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St. Edmunds.

I did that exercise, with some difficulty and much research, in relation to the 50 offences laid down in the Firearms Act 1968. Those offences range from trivial offences heard by a magistrates' court right up to serious triable offences such as shortening a weapon. The penalties in the 1968 Act rang from fines of £50 to imprisonment for an indefinite time and a maximum fine of £400. Some of the offences are the most serious that one can imagine, such as shortening firearms and using them in a public place.

An analysis was made of all the convictions under the Firearms Act 1968, from 1970 to 1974. The percentage of the maximum fine imposed by courts was so derisory as to be beyond belief. It was not even in double figures. In the table that I compiled, the average penalty was no more than 7·5 per cent. of the maximum laid down by Parliament five or six years earlier. The statistics were not easy to obtain. The avenue that I used to obtain them has since been blocked by the powers that be, and I cannot obtain the the information by way of questions on the Order Paper, as I could at that time. It is difficult to know the up-to-date position.

In 1968 Parliament expressed its wishes about a whole range of serious offences relating to public law and order and laid down maximum penalties for the various offences. The discovery years later that the courts had regularly been imposing fines well under 10 per cent. of the maximum required that the whole matter be examined in a different light. When we talk today of a maximum fine of £10,000 and wonder whether we are being nasty to the people who may be subject to it, we should live in the present and find out how often the courts choose to give any recognition whatever to what is said in the House—never mind what is put on the statute book—about penalties of this nature.

What can we do about this situation? I and a number of others were so concerned about the way in which the courts were ignoring the wishes of both Houses in relation to the 1968 Act that we approached the Home Secretary and invited him to call the attention of both upper and lower courts to the wishes of Parliament. We did not think it right to lay down a maximum structure of penalties for firearms offences, only to find that it was regularly being ignored to the tune of 90 per cent.

My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary, understandably, was reluctant to issue any form of guidance to the courts. We suggested that a letter or an article in the Magistrates' Association magazine illustrating some of the features of the 1968 Act might be of interest to the general public and certainly to magistrates discharging their obligations with regard to summary offences under that Act, but my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary felt it inadvisable to issue any form of public guidance to those imposing the penalties. A similar approach to the Lord Chancellor, suggesting that the 1968 Act provided a good network of penalties but that the upper courts were perhaps not paying as much attention as they should to the maximum penalties laid down by Parliament, received an equally dusty answer.

In this respect, a few years ago, in response to an outcry about a particular crime involving a firearms offence, the Home Secretary announced the addition of a new clause to the 1968 Act, to be accompanied by a maximum fine, which at that time was quite substantial, of £800 or £900. The House and the country were satisfied that an energetic Home Secretary and the Government had recognised the public interest and seemed to have done something. They never knew, and the statistics were never revealed, how persistently the not extravagant penalties provided for serious offences in important measures such as the 1968 Act were ignored by the courts, both high and low.

I felt that this was an opportunity to point out to my right hon. Friend the sorts of figures that have been produced by persistent questions on the Order Paper over a number of years, in a way that would be impossible now. I hope that when he replies to the debate he will bear this in mind and consider whether the level of fines in amndment No. 17 is adequate.

Once again it is penalties that have concerned the House, as they did on Second Reading and in Committee.

My hon. Friend the Member for Woolwich, West (Mr. Bottomley) asked about forfeiture. He questioned whether it related to apparatus directly concerned in the offence that was liable to be seized. That is the case. It is apparatus and equipment that is used in the commission of the offence that is liable to be seized. It is right that it should be left at that. If there were a general power for the authorities to strip any building in which an offence took place, although there might be advantages in some cases, in most cases it would lead to many more problems and injustices than it would solve.

The second point raised by my hon. Friend was whether the items seized had to be shown in court. The wording in the Bill is "produced to the court". That is what I have intended. However, I leave it to my right hon. Friend the Minister to give the exact legal meaning of that phrase. If the authorities do not remove equipment at the time of the visit that results in prosecution, anything that they might have liked to lay their hands on would have assuredly disappeared.

It was suggested that the present fine may not be sufficient in several years' time, and index-linking was suggested. That was a problem that worried members of the Committee. It is a real problem with fines across the board. I hope that my right hon. Friend will confirm what I believe to be the case, that the provisions in the Criminal Justice Bill for adjusting fines generally from time to time will cover the fine in this Bill.

My hon. Friend the Member for Basildon (Mr. Proctor) suggested a minimum penalty. In practice, that would not get us much further—at least, not nearly as far as he would like. That penalty would need to be set very low if an appropriate penalty were to be found for those people found guilty of either a minor infringement or of a minor involvement in a major infringement. If it were set low enough to deal with those cases, it would not be relevant to more serious offences.

The hon. and learned Member for Bradford, West (Mr. Lyons) commended the fact that the procedure by summary jursidiction is being left in the Bill even though the penalty has been raised. He is right to say that this is the method by which we should proceed. It is important in cases like this that the court should be able to act speedily and effectively. The speedy and effective way of acting is in a magistrates' court by summary jurisdiction.

All three Conservative Members who have spoken today asked whether £10,000 is a high enough fine. My hon. Friends the Members for Woolwich, West and Harborough (Mr. Farr) suggested that the profits were so high in the business with which the Bill deals that the fine might be seen as a type of turnover tax or a parking ticket which is accepted in the normal course of business. I concede that there would be a danger if the £10,000 maximum were the only penalty available to the courts for repeated offences, but that is not so. I hope that my right hon. Friend the Minister will confirm that. I promoted the Bill on the understanding that if there were repeated offences of a similar nature an injunction could be applied for and if that were not obeyed, gaol would be possible and even probable. Prison is the final sanction, but it would require an injunction first.

1.30 pm

The only element of consistency that I sought was with the similar offences in the Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill. I am glad that the important consistency exists. I should be interested to hear the comments of my right hon. Friend the Minister.

This has probably been the most important debate of the day. The level of penalties is important and it is right to devote some time to considering it. Valuable contributions have been made.

However carefully legislation is drafted, and however watertight it is made, it will not be effective unless the penalties are severe enough to deter those who might otherwise be tempted to ignore the legislation. We have discussed whether £10,000 is the right amount. Ultimately we must make a value judgment. It is simply a question of assessing the right penalty for a particular set of circumstances. The considerations are clear. The deterrent aspect is crucial. It is vital that a high fine should be available, because those involved can make a lot of money from their activities. That is why we agreed to pitch the penalty higher than normal.

I confirm that if there are repeated offences an injunction can be applied for and, if it is broken, it is possible ultimately to resort to imprisonment. The only factor to make one think carefully about such a high penalty is that such cases are normally not tried summarily. Normally, the fines in magistrates' courts are lower than those in the higher courts. My hon. Friend the Member for Basildon (Mr. Proctor) was concerned, and I should point out, that the Magistrates' Courts Act 1980 refers to offences that are triable either way. The present offences are summary-only offences, and under that Act there is no bar to a higher figure than £1,000 in respect of these offences. Therefore, the Magistrates' Courts Act is not contradicted by the amendments.

Normally, higher penalties are thought appropriate for the higher courts, but speed is important when dealing with such offences. It is important to be able to act quickly, and that is the justification for allowing such cases to be handled by the magistrates' courts. I confirm that it is our intention to table an amendment on Report in another place to the Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill to increase the maximum penalty in schedule 3 in respect of the use of an unlicensed sex shop or sex cinema to £10,000. We have reached that decision in the light of the concern expressed in both Houses that the present proposed maximum penalty of £5,000 in the Miscellaneous Provisions Bill would prove an inadequate deterrent.

I cannot literally say that we are aligning the provision in this Bill with the Miscellaneous Provisions Bill, because at present the latter contains a penalty of only £5,000, but it is our intention that that should go up to £10,000. I welcome my hon. Friend's desire to have the penalty in this Bill in line with that. It has for some time been our intention to reconsider the penalty proposed in my hon. Friend's Bill in the light of discussions about the Miscellaneous Provisions Bill. The case for making the two uniform is clear.

It is an exceptional penalty, but we are talking about the maximum. It is up to the court to make a judgment on what is right in the circumstances. I do not believe that to have a minimum penalty, too, is desirable. The law should provide penalties to deter people from committing offences repugnant to public feeling and morality, but we should avoid telling the courts in too precise detail how to deal with particular offenders. We go to the trouble of having a great system of courts, we take great care to ensure that our judges and magistrates are people capable of exercising justice, and we provide the apparatus of advice from social workers and others. If we then go too far in inhibiting the courts' freedom to make decisions on the right penalty in the circumstances, we are not serving justice as we should.

I accept what my right hon. Friend says about minimum fines and interference with the courts, but is he aware of the widespread worry that magistrates and judges are not using their powers to the full to deter crime? Will he respond? I am not sure how he can lean on magistrates and judges, but will he advise them of the strength of public opinion, which is passed on to Members of Parliament, although perhaps not to magistrates and judges?

My hon. Friend is widening the debate beyond the amendment. I am aware that such views are held, but I cannot say that the Government are prepared to lean on magistrates. If the law sets a high penalty—we acknowledge that by the standards of magistrates' courts £10,000 is high—that shows that Parliament considers that these are serious offences and that those who commit them deserve to be hit hard.

I agree that it is wrong to prescribe how the courts should administer penalties.

Before the matter goes to another place will my right hon. Friend give a little more thought to the question of consistency? It gets the public's goat if a person is violently assaulted and knocked about in a ghastly way or a police officer in the execution of his duty is badly assaulted and the fine is only a couple of hundred pounds.

Equally, when there is some massive pollution of a river, affecting large numbers of people, the maximum fine which can be imposed on the firm in question is £5,000.

I am in no sense dissenting from the figure of £10,000, but it is of enormous importance that the Government should consider the relationship between the fine and the nature of the offence. Parliament is fully entitled to show its abhorrence of this particular iniquity by putting in a very high figure, but it is of enormous importance that offences of personal assault and violence against the individual should not appear to be treated by Parliament in a less severe way than offences of the kind dealt with in the Bill.

As the Minister said in relation to a previous intervention, the discussion of such matters would widen debate well beyond the scope of the Bill. They may be very important, but they are not relevant to the Bill.

With your authority, Mr. Deputy Speaker, you have said what I was about to say.

We agree that the proposed penalty of £10,000 should be confined to the offence of giving an unlicensed exhibition. I am sure that legitimate cinema exhibitors and their employees would be greatly concerned—and rightly so—if they thought that some minor breach of the safety regulations or conditions in licensed premises could make them liable to a fine of this order. It would also be inconsistent with the penalties for similar offences in respect of other premises where public entertainment is provided.

I think that my hon. Friend the Member for Fareham (Mr. Lloyd) was right in his comment that the Criminal Justice Bill will make it possible for the fines that we are discussing to be increased from time to time.

My hon. Friend the Member for Woolwich, West (Mr. Bottomley) talked about forfeiture, which my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Mr. Griffiths) had discussed in an earlier amendment. It is the case that the goods have literally to be produced in court. I gather that the courts have arrangements for handling large objects. I am not quite sure how large they can be; whether it would be possible to accommodate an elephant I do not know. But in any event, the sorts of things that we are talking about can be handled perfectly well by the courts.

We support the purpose of amendment No. 18, which will ensure that officers of a body corporate can be prosecuted if they bear responsibility for the obstruction of the exercise of the power contained in clause 5.

We have had an important and valuable debate on the group of amendments, and I strongly commend them to the House.

I beg to move amendment No. 21, in page 7, line 20, after 'Cinematograph', insert `(Amendment)'.

With this we may take the following amendments: No. 25, in schedule 1, page 8, line 25, after 'Cinematograph', insert '(Amendment)'.

These amendments seek to alter the short title of the Bill to "Cinematograph (Amendment) Bill". The purpose is to reserve the title "Cinematograph Act 1982" for the consolidation measure which, as has been explained, it is hoped will be introduced early next Session. As consolidation Bills simply re-enact existing legislation, in substance if not in precisely the same form, they go through a special parliamentary procedure. I understand that the consolidation measure, if introduced early next Session, could become law this year. Therefore, it would be sensible to reserve the title "Cinematograph Act 1982" for that measure. Although the measure looks as though it has only a short independent life before it, I readily commend the amendment, which will facilitate its demise.

I am not sure whether to support the amendments. I shall gladly do so if we can have an assurance from my right hon. Friend the Minister of State that the Government intend to introduce a consolidation measure early in the next Session. However, if that is not the case, I believe that the Bill should retain the title that it carried when it was printed on 2 December and should have its full title in its own right, as did the 1909 and 1952 Acts.

I am anxious to hear what my right hon. Friend the Minister of State has to say and I shall be glad if he will tell us whether he thinks that the consolidation Bill will be through both Houses by Christmas. If not, it will become the Cinematograph Act 1983. Unless I can have an assurance from my right hon. Friend, I shall be inclined to vote against the amendments.

I hope that when the consolidation measure is introduced the word "Cinematograph" will not appear in the title. I heard suggestions earlier that filled me with horror and were not accurate in their description of what they sought to describe, but there is an old-fashioned ring to the word "cinematograph". However, if the promoter of the Bill is satisfied with the amendment I shall not seek to stand in his way.

It is a bit much for the hon. and learned Member for Bradford, West (Mr. Lyons), representing the SDP—much the most polysyllabic of our political parties—to complain about the simple phrase "Cinematograph Bill". We discussed the terminology earlier and I have nothing to add to what was said then.

Today's debates have been marked by a high degree of consensus. The Bill and the amendments have not come under attack, but I suppose that it was inevitable that my hon. Friend the Member for Basildon (Mr. Proctor), who is not renowned for supporting consensus politics, would threaten the harmony that has characterised our proceedings. He went so far as to say that if I could not promise that the Government would introduce the consolidation legislation early in the next Session he would be tempted to vote against the amendments.

It is not possible for me or for any other Minister to tell the House flatly that there will be legislation in the next Session. My hon. Friend will realise on reflection that he will probably never hear those words from any Minister. However, we desire to bring forward a consolidation measure. Anyone who has even dipped into the 1909 and 1952 Acts will appreciate the desirability of consolidation, but I hope that my hon. Friend will understand that that is as far as I can go at present.

It is possible that a consolidation measure could be enacted this year. It is always clumsy to have to include the word "consolidation" in the title of the Act and it is sensible to leave open the possibility that the consolidation measure could be called the Cinematograph Act 1982. That would be achieved by altering the title of the Bill to the Cinematograph (Amendment) Bill.

I wonder whether my right hon. Friend can help us a little further about the likely date of the consolidation measure and say whether it will be in the next Session of Parliament. He said that it was the Government's intention to have a consolidation measure at some time in the future, but he did not say whether that might be in the next 20 or 30 years. What sort of time scale has he in mind?

We are extremely desirous of having this consolidation measure, and I assure my hon. Friend that we are not thinking of the kind of depressing time scale about which he talked. We want to get on with it. But he will understand that I am not in a position to say categorically that there will be such a measure in the next Session of Parliament.

I do not think that I can go beyond that, other than to say that the change proposed by my hon. Friend the Member for Fareham (Mr. Lloyd) is desirable, and I hope that the House will accept it.

My hon. Friend the Member for Basildon (Mr. Proctor) ought to accept the Minister's reply. Whether the consolidation measure is dated 1982 or 1983 is not material, and, even if it becomes the Cinematograph Act 1983 rather than 1982, it will still be wise to have a different title, and I think that we ought to make an amendment to this one.

My hon. Friend the Member for Basildon will recognise, I am sure, that no Minister can anticipate the contents of the Queen's Speech. I hope that he will accept what the Minister said. It is important that he does, so that the progress of the Bill is not threatened.

Like all my hon. Friends, I am desperately anxious to accept the reassurance that has been given by my right hon. Friend the Minister of State. Unfortunately, however, I have heard a great many promises from successive Ministers, though none of them as distinguished as my right hon. Friend—I thought it opportune to say that. I have heard Ministers in Governments of both parties give serious undertakings of this nature. If, on Tuesday, my right hon. Friend consults the Home Secretary, it may be that he will find what some of us suspect, which is that the Government's legislative programme for this Parliament, assuming that the Parliament runs for two more years, which is by no means certain, is hopelessly congested. Moreover, he will find that there are a number of very popular Bills and measures which are proposed and very much needed. I have no doubt that my hon. Friend the Member for Fareham (Mr. Lloyd) has introduced a very popular Bill, but he will agree that there are other measures which may attract the Home Office in the next couple of years and that they will take priority over any Bill relating to cinematograph exhibitions.

Is the hon. Gentleman aware that consolidation measures have a very swift and abbreviated passage on the Floor of the House and take up virtually no time? The real issue is the queue of statutes awaiting consolidation which have to be considered by the Joint Committee on Consolidation &c. Bills, on which it was my misfortune to serve for a number of years.

The real issue is the number of other statutes which the Government intend to consolidate and which will be given priority over this set of statutes about cinematography. That will be the deciding factor, I imagine. It will not worry the Prime Minister that a consolidation measure may clog up the progress of business in the House while the Conservatives produce their vote-winning measures just before the next general election.

I was trying to point out that many of us believe that it is not appropriate to proceed with a measure, whether consolidation or otherwise, until the dreadful nineteenth century Home Office jargon that has been selected as the title for the Bill is brought up to date.

"Cinematograph" means nothing today to anyone except a few troglodytes in Whitehall. It is very important that in the next few months a proper description of any consolidating Bill is decided upon. That being so, and as several Government Departments in which I have an interest already have a queue of attractive measures that they want to have enacted in the next year or two, I accept the word of my right hon. Friend the Minister, but with the greatest reluctance and many misgivings borne out by personal experience.

My hon. Friend the Member for Basildon (Mr. Proctor) has been admirably supportive, but combative. Therefore, I take seriously his threat to vote against the amendments. However, it would not help the Bill and its effect if he were to do that. There is widespread opinion that the term "cinematagraph" is unsatisfactory. I ask my hon. Friend to accept that my right hon. Friend the Minister is doing all in his power to see that the consolidation measure is introduced as soon as possible. If my hon. Friend and other hon. Members who do not like the term "cinematograph" can think of a suitable alternative term, I shall treat them to a cup of House of Commons Tearoom tea and ensure that that new term is rapidly passed to the sponsor of the Bill in the other place.

I have no wish to challenge the whole basis of the Bill or to threaten its passage through the House, which has been so skilfully conducted by my hon. Friend the Member for Fareham (Mr. Lloyd). Therefore, I shall not divide the House on the amendment. In a sense I was campaigning on my hon. Friend's side out of a feeling for him, as he had had this title for the Bill throughout its passage, and it seemed that outside pressure might have been brought to bear on him to change the title, and that might have been unfair. Therefore, I shall not press my objection to the amendments.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend.

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

I thank all those who have helped in the passage of the Bill—in the Home Office, in the House and outside it—and particularly my right hon. Friend and my hon. and learned Friend the Ministers of State, Home Office, who have both been very supportive of the measure from its inception and have in turn given clarity and illumination to our debates on Second Reading and in Committee and today.

I have been impressed by the unanimous support for the principle of the Bill shown by hon. Members who have spoken throughout all stages of its consideration; it has been most helpful. The complete absence of partisan attitudes, although plenty of independence of mind, has made the experience a refreshing one.

I direct my thanks especially to the hon. Member for Halifax (Dr. Summerskill), who has been searchingly supportive in defending me and my measure against encroaching Government legislation. The hon. Lady told me last night that she would be in the Chamber for only part of the morning. She regretted very much that an unavoidable engagement would take her away. She wrote to me to that effect when she left the Chamber. I wish to place on record the fact that she has taken a great interest in the Bill. She has been extremely helpful in guiding it towards the statute book and in raising constructive and important matters.

I do not claim that the Bill is ambitious. It does not seek to offer comprehensive answers to the considerable problems of freedom and morality that are raised periodically in the House and outside. If I had to criticise the content of any of the speeches which have been made during our debates, it would be on the ground that too much seems to be expected of the Bill. It was designed to meet several problems which have arisen in the workings of the cinema licensing system, which has operated for many years. The legislation upon which that system is based dates back to 1909. It was modified in 1952 and it was only to be expected more than 30 years later, with the technological progress that has taken place, that it would be considered highly desirable to make further changes.

One of the main aims of the Bill is to bring the Cinematograph Acts into the video age. That is something that rightly worried my hon. Friend the Member for Harborough (Mr. Farr). A central aim of the Bill is to ensure that Parliament's intentions in its earlier pieces of legislation cannot be flouted because an exhibitor is using video equipment rather than a conventional film projector. That is one of the major reasons for bringing the Bill to the House.

Such public attention as the Bill has received has been concentrated upon another aspect, and that is quite understandable. Commercial video exhibitions to large audiences are not yet—I emphasise "yet"—commonplace. However, the blatant evasion of licensing control by the so-called cinema clubs has been increasingly noticeable in central London and in a few other major cities. The system of cinema licensing which governs the exhibition of films is widely acknowledged to be fair and to reflect the standards which are generally acceptable in society.

I said something on Second Reading about the nature of the material that is shown in clubs. But now I will confine myself to emphasising that the existence of those clubs makes nonsense of the system under which the legitimate cinema is regulated by laws passed by Parliament.

Cinema licensing is not only a mechanism for the censoring of films. It is equally concerned with the physical safety of those who attend cinemas. The provision of adequate fire precautions is a condition upon which local authorities will insist before licensing a cinema. Frequently there are inadequate safeguards for the members of what are presently unlicensed cinema clubs, which are often set up in cramped back rooms or cellars that are reached by passing up or down narrow staircases. I am sure that no one wishes to see the horrors of the Dublin discotheque fire re-enacted in one of these clubs.

The exemption of the clubs from the normal licensing requirements is an anomaly arising out of the drafting of the Cinematograph Act 1952. In a commendable attempt to ensure that bona fide film societies such as those run by film enthusiasts would not be caught by provisions intended to regulate the commercial cinema, the Act provided that exhibitions to which the public are admitted without payment, are exempt from regulation.

However, the abuse of the concession by commercial operators is not a particularly easy matter to remedy in legislative terms, as we have found during our debates in the House and in Committee. The owners and managers of the clubs have shown themselves to be extremely adept at evading the requirements of the law. A commercial cinema may organise itself as a club offering immediate membership to prospective patrons and thereby claiming exemption from the licensing requirement. If that loophole is blocked there is a risk that patrons will be allowed in free, but paying a disguised entry fee in the shape of grossly inflated charges for ice cream or confectionery or for the privilege of hanging up their coats.

The Bill will alter that present unsatisfactory state of affairs and will guard against new abuses by introducing a new test. If the exhibition is organised for private gain, it will not be exempt from the licensing requirements laid down in present legislation. However, there may be circumstances in which the prosecution will find it difficult to prove that a given exhibition was promoted for private gain.

One possibility that the Bill specifically counters is that a non-profit making front company may be set up which takes money from the public for admission to a film show and which forwards that money to the real organiser under the guise of payment for the facilities used. In that case the front company may try to claim that the exhibition has not been promoted for private gain.

That example may appear to be far-fetched, but I am concerned that the Bill should be watertight, unlike its predecessors. That means that, wherever it is possible to anticipate the dodges that will be used, the prosecution should be given the means of dealing with them.

Accordingly clause 2, which was discussed at considerable length in Committee, takes great care to specify the circumstances in which an exhibition will be considered to have been promoted for private gain. Those changes will be particularly useful for the area in which my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Mr. Griffiths) is interested. They are useful not merely for the courts but for making it easier and more straightforward for authorities at the sharp end, such as the police, to take the action necessary to enforce the law.

The redefinition of cinemas that will be subject to cinematograph licensing is the nub of the Bill. After the Bill comes into force, private cinema clubs, organised for profit, will need to be licensed by the local authority in the same way as any other commercial cinema. Assuming that the owner or manager is successful in obtaining a licence, he will be subject to the regulations and conditions made by the local authority, whatever they may be. It will be for the local authority to decide, as it does at present in relation to other cinemas, what conditions it should attach to the licence in respect of the sort of film that may be shown.

On Second Reading the reaction of several hon. Members to the proposals was that they were admirable in principle, but the methods of enforcement that were available and the sanctions against breaches of the rules required close scrutiny. It was said in that debate and in Committee that the sex industry was highly lucrative. As I said when I moved the amendments to Clause 6, I accept that it is necessary to ensure that the courts have adequate powers to deter potential offenders. As a result of those amendments, the more serious offences under the Act will now be punishable on summary conviction by a fine of anything up to £10,000.

With the exception of the penalties provided in the Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill for breach of the regulations concerning sex shops, such a high fine for offences triable only summarily is unparalleled. It reflects a determination, which has been supported by the Government, to ensure that it will not be financially advantageous to flout the licensing laws. If the offences are continually repeated, it will be possible to proceed by injunction with the sanction of prison as a last resort.

The Bill also takes the opportunity to rationalise powers of enforcement. Clearly a balance needs to be struck between the need to ensure that licence conditions and regulations are being complied with and the right of legitimate and scrupulous cinemas to go about their business without too much interference that was stressed by my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing, North (Mr. Greenway). I believe that the Bill succeeds quite well in striking that balance. Three different bodies have responsibilities for enforcement—the police, officials of the local authority in its capacity as a licensing body, and the fire service. The police, local authorities and fire officials will have general powers of inspection in respect of licensed premises where an exhibition is about to be given.

In addition, a fire officer will be able to inspect licensed premises—I return to the concern expressed by my hon. Friend the Member for Basildon (Mr. Proctor)—on giving not less than 24 hours' notice of an intention to ascertain whether the terms of the licence are being complied with. Entry to unlicensed premises will require the police or licensing authority to obtain a warrant. As is usual with other powers of this type, it will be a criminal offence to obstruct any person in exercising these powers of enforcement. I believe that no scrupulous cinema operator will find the powers onerous and that they are the minimum necessary for effective enforcement against the less scrupulous.

The final aspect of the Bill to which I should like to draw attention is the revised procedures governing applications for licences and appeals against licensing decisions. The House agreed earlier that fire authorities should be given a clear opportunity to comment when applications are received. I believe that this is a proper recognition of the important role of the cinema licensing system in ensuring fire safety.

Clauses 3 and 4 make a number of other specific reforms. It has long been the case that a licence holder who appeals against revocation of his licence may continue to have the benefit of the licence until the appeal is determined. There is at present no such provision for a licence holder whose application for renewal is refused. There seems to be no good reason for this difference of approach. My Bill will rectify the anomaly by providing that, if a person appeals against refusal to renew his licence, the licence shall remain in force pending the outcome of the appeal. This small but salutary change has been recommended by the licensing authorities and the Cinematograph Exhibitors Association.

Similarly, clause 4 provides for the automatic extension of a licence pending and during an appeal against refusal to renew or transfer a licence. Several hon. Members, especially the hon. Member for Isle of Ely (Mr. Freud) in Committee, were concerned that these provisions might be exploited. I think it would be helpful to say why I believe these provisions will not have this result. Subsections (3) and (4) of clause 4 that provide for the continuation of licences pending appeals apply only to those premises that have already been issued with a licence. They will not therefore assist the sex cinema proprietor who currently runs unlicensed premises and who applies for a licence. Nor will they assist any person who attempts to ignore the licensing requirement or who breaches a licence condition.

At the beginning of my remarks, I said that this was not a particularly ambitious Bill. Nevertheless, I believe, especially from the comments that have been made outside and during its passage through the House, that it will be widely welcomed. I am encouraged in that belief by today's debate. The Bill will form an addition to what is already a complex body of legisation. That has been made clear in the exchanges today. A complex system of legislation now regulates the cinema trade. In the interests of simplicity and ease of reference, I am glad that my right hon. Friend the Minister has repeated that, with all convenient and deliberate speed, a consolidating measure will be brought to the statute book. In the meantime, I commend the Bill to the House.

I have great pleasure in congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Fareham (Mr. Lloyd) on his Bill. I am no great authority on the matter, but it seems to me an extremely complex Bill for a private Member to have successfully steered thus far through the House. I am sure that it is an important measure, and it has received support from both sides of the House. I was especially heartened by the response of my right hon. Friend the Minister and I believe that that augurs well for its future.

Safety is an important issue and although many of us would wish to see elements in the Bill related to other aspects, such as pornography, the question of safety probably overrides everything else. Undoubtedly many of these quasi cinema operators tend to take advantage of various parts of the law to ensure that they can skirt round the requirements that are generally applied in public places. The strict rules that we have laid down ever since the great fire of 1666 have been utilised to ensure the safety of the public, especially in central London.

Although we are aware that many operators find those stringent regulations extremely costly, in the vast majority of cases they are very necessary. In cinemas, which are largely dark places, some difficulty would arise if the public could not easily find their way out during a fire or some other emergency.

However, I wish to add a word of caution, because we are all well aware that much money is involved in this business, especially in Soho. As soon as such a worthy measure is introduced, rather as with taxation measures, we find a portion of the legal profession turning its attention to ways of getting round the new legislation. I hope that it is not beyond the wit of the Home Office to observe the matter continuously so that if any problem should arise it can be dealt with fairly quickly, perhaps in the amending legislation that has been promised. However, I understand from the hon. and learned Member for Bradford, West (Mr. Lyons) that that may be only a consolidating measure rather than a genuine new legislative measure. If that is the case, there would be no such opportunity for us to make good any loopholes that the skilful lawyer may manage to find in the Bill.

I appreciate my hon. Friend's concern. However, he should agree that there is a clear test of whether an organisation or establishment is licensed. That is one of the most advantageous parts of the Bill. The only way in which people can get round it is by claiming that they come in one of the exempt categories. That would become much more difficult than at present, where there seem to be two dangers. The first is the possibility of corruption and the second is that corruption arises because of definitions of pornography or obscenity. The Bill at least has the advantage of bringing in the clear test—is there a licence, or not?

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. I did not wish to give the impression that I was not in favour of the Bill's provisions. They are admirable and go as far as any hon. Member in the Chamber today would consider possible in closing all the known loopholes. However, from my knowledge of taxation and other matters, I am aware of how hard people work to try to get round regulations as soon as they are brought in.

I was merely trying to draw to my right hon. Friend's attention a matter of which I am sure he is already aware, that because of the vast sums of money involved in the operation of unlicensed cinemas and what they have to offer, as soon as the Bill is passed there will undoubtedly be lawyers and others who will do everything possible to find a loophole.

I am delighted that, as far as possible, my hon. Friend the Member for Fareham has closed the known loopholes, but I should not like to think that we would close our minds to the possibility that some loophole will be found, because undoubtedly that can and does happen. If it does happen, I hope that my right hon. Friend will readily bring forward some measure to make it not worth while.

I mention this matter at some length, because I feel that if at this stage we can say that that is our intention it will be less productive for people to spend a lot of money on expensive legal advice to discover ways in which they can get round the legislation. If my right hon. Friend can give the assurance that to do so will give such people only a short-term advantage, that will deter them from even bothering to look. In view of the way that my hon. Friend's Bill has been received, it is clear that that would be the wish of the House. I hope that my right hon. Friend will be able to give such an undertaking.

I also congratulate the hon. Member for Fareham (Mr. Lloyd) on having got his Bill thus far. A major result of the Bill when it reaches the statute book will be to extend censorship. The British Board of Film Censors will take control of the sex film clubs. I am unhappy about the extension of censorship generally. When I first heard about the Bill I was exceedingly uneasy. I was driven to support it because it seemed to me that hard pornography—the attitude that sexual satisfaction could be derived by inflicting great cruelty on women—was becoming so prevalent that the clubs had to be brought within the remit of the British Board of Film Censors. It is not a proud day when one extends censorship, but it seems to me that the reality of the situation demands that we have some standards of conduct for this sort of situation. That is why the Bill has received all-party support on Second Reading and since.

I join my colleagues in congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Fareham (Mr. Lloyd) on the introduction of this timely Bill and on his skill in piloting it through all its stages to Third Reading.

This is a big Bill for a private Member to introduce, with its 10 clauses and two schedules. Its impact on society will have a narrow frontage but will be important. As has been said by my hon. Friend, it extends the 1909 and 1952 Acts. It is 30 years since the House addressed itself to legislation in this area.

The need for the Bill was outlined by my hon. Friend under two headings. First, he referred to the new technological developments that have taken place in the last 30 years or so, particularly with the invention of video. Secondly, he referred to the emergence of the distasteful, bogus private clubs which have mushroomed in the past 10 or 15 years, particularly in London and our other big cities. Therefore, those twin developments were the motivating force behind the legislation.

My hon. Friend the Member for Fareham made it clear that he did not seek to catch, or make life more difficult for, genuine organisations, such as film clubs and societies. Many such clubs and societies are popular in my constituency and, no doubt, in the constituencies of all hon. Members. My hon. Friend has tried to ensure that he would not catch the genuine film clubs and societies in the strictures of his licensing scheme and we are grateful to him for having skilfully avoided that pitfall.

My hon. Friend the Member for Fareham has introduced a licensing scheme. As my hon. Friend the Member for Woolwich, West (Mr. Bottomley) rightly said, the possession or non-possession of a licence is at the heart of the Bill and all else flows from it. My hon. Friend the Member for Fareham has considered more than the licensing question and we are all grateful to him for that. He has paid particular attention to the fire service, and that is important. It is vital to consider the safety of cinemas, particularly as there have mushroomed in London certain clubs that tend, by their nature, to be small and to have been set up at as low a cost as possible in order to extract the maximum profit in the shortest period of time. Cutting corners on safety may be the hallmark of some of those bogus private clubs.

Does not my hon. Friend agree that it is a question not only of the establishments in the centre of London and round the main railway stations of our big cities but also—and even more important—a question of ensuring that operators do not have a chance to move into areas such as Basildon and Eltham to spread their attractive filth and dangerous conditions? We must ensure that they do not attract schoolchildren, students and ordinary people who, if the opportunity exists, may occasionally be tempted into these obscene firetraps.

My hon. Friend is quite right. It is not only physical safety that is important, but moral and mental safety too. We are all grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Fareham for his safety provisions. However, in addition the Bill makes provision for increasing the fines on summary conviction. It has been pointed out that, under the 1952 Act, the maximum fine is now a mere £200. We are grateful to my hon. Friend for having given way to the clear pressure on Second Reading and in Committee to increase the maximum fine on summary conviction for serious offences from the £1,000 that was in the Bill on Second Reading to the £10,000 that was inserted on Report. That is much more sensible and more in keeping with public feeling on these matters, and much more in keeping with the economic climate of the day.

I am therefore delighted to support my hon. Friend's Bill and I congratulate him on having, as a private Member, almost placed on the statute book such an excellent measure.

I, too, wish to support my hon. Friend the Member for Fareham (Mr. Lloyd), and to congratulate him, particularly——

Object.

Object.

Object.

Object.

Debate to be resumed what day? No day named.

Object.

Object.

Second Reading what day? No day named.

Object.

I am grateful for this opportunity to raise in the House the Government's response to the Wilson report on public records. I begin by quoting the view of Lord Acton, which the Government should constantly bear in mind, that

"to keep one's archives barred to historians is tantamount to leaving one's history to one's enemies."

I believe that that is what the Government's response effectively does.

I pay tribute to Sir Duncan Wilson and his committee of three for the tremendous amount of work that they put into their substantial report. I do not feel able to pay so much tribute to the rather thin and intellectually unworthy response by the Government to that report.

First, I make one general remark. The preservation of our archival heritage is a sacred duty on any Government. It involves preserving records from being either destroyed or allowed to deteriorate through neglect or inefficiency, or, even worse, being deliberately destroyed or withheld either through misguided concepts of security or through a determination to ensure that the flagrant abuse of Government power should never see the light of day.

It is now commonly accepted that much material relating to Suez disappeared with Sir Anthony Eden's resignation. It is also generally agreed that when the Falkland Islands crisis is over a very full inquiry will be necessary. It would be a scandal if, even now—I do not say that this is happening, but if Suez is anything to go by, it may be—files are going missing to save embarrassment to those politicians whom the inquiry may well find guilty of grievous political misjudgment. It is worth saying that to put the matter in context.

I wish to speak about selection, access and resources in discussing the response to the report. The Wilson committee was broadly critical of the system for the preservation of records. That should not be seen as a criticism of civil servants generally in Departments or in the Public Records Office.

The response to the criticism contains two of the tetchiest paragraphs that I have ever read in a White Paper. I understand that the Wilson committee did not give specific instances, not because it did not have them, but because it did not wish to embarrass people. Paragraph 10 of the response states:

"The Report conveys the general impression that there has been substantial destruction of valuable material, although little specific evidence is adduced to support this view. This theme was taken up in press reports at the time of publication of the Report and by the general public, some of whom made this the main plank of their comments."

Quis' excuse s' accuse. There appears to be a sense of guilt in those words.

The response continues:

"It is not possible to assert with confidence that the implementation of the Grigg system has or has not led to serious losses of valuable material, because 30 years have not yet elapsed since it was introduced in 1954. Nevertheless, since then, over 40 miles of records have been transferred to the PRO and the number of visits by readers has risen from 25,000 to 99,000 in 1980–81."

I am glad about the increased number of visits, but I am not impressed by the 40 miles of records. Have the right 40 miles of records been transferred?

The Wilson committee made various suggestions to that end, such as sector panels—panels of acknowledged experts outside the Civil Service to co-operate with civil servants, particularly in Departments, to ensure the right selection. The Government's response was a blank "No". The excuse is lack of resources. Trotting out the lack of resources as a regular excuse when one knows that it is not the real reason is intellectually dishonest. It is eyewash to suggest that lack of resources is the inhibiting factor. The reason is the fear of an inward-looking Civil Service that its methods, and sometimes its incompetence, will be exposed.

The Wilson committee talks of particular instance papers. That is important. The whole academic trend has changed since the Wilson committee and it is still changing quickly. Computers change the nature of academic research. Our academics could produce a new and tremendously useful insight into our immediate history if they could have a proper look at the particular instance papers.

I give one example from the last few years—epidemiology. That makes it essential to survey a wide range of medical records, whereas the whole thrust of selection at the moment is to keep particular records and there does not seem to be any real policy for papers relating to particular instances.

Over the next few months I want to do some testing of the Government on this question. I shall ask the Solicitor-General a question, which he will not be able to answer now, but I hope that he will write to me about it. I am very interested in the records kept in the Home Office concerning miscarriages of justice. I am interested because of my involvement with the Confait case.

I was told that every year the Home Office receives about 4,000 allegations of miscarriage of justice. All these are what might be described as particular instance papers. I want to know how they are dealt with. When shall I be allowed to learn the real story of Confait and how that miscarriage of justice took place? When will the public at large be able to review the way in which the law works, by studying the allegations of miscarriages of justice that flow into the Home Office? When will academics be able to look at them? Where can I find a description of how the Home Office deals with that subject? It is only one of about 1,000 in the Government. May I go and look at them? If not, why not? That is one example of the sort of question that I ask now and shall pursue later.

The response to access to withheld papers is the most flagrant in the entire White Paper. The Wilson committee, particularly for papers held over the 30-year limit—and those which never find their way into the Public Record Office in the first place because of so-called security or embarrassment problems—made a very modest proposal. It suggested that Privy Council members of the very eminent Lord Chancellor's advisory committee—people such as Lord Trend, a Privy Councillor and member of the Lord Chancellor's committee—might form themselves into a small sub-committee and review the need to keep papers secret, and advise the Lord Chancellor accordingly. What could be fairer than that? What possible objection could there be to Lord Trend looking at some of those papers?

The response of the Government once again was "No, we are not having that". In paragraph 40 there is an extraordinary sentence, which the person who wrote it cannot have meant. It says:

"It has been decided that the most suitable arrangement for supplying the Lord Chancellor with independent advice"—

I am sure that "independent" must be a misprint, because it cannot be right—

"would be for the Secretary of the Cabinet to assume this role."

From what earthly point of view can the Secretary of the Cabinet be thought to be independent in this area? He is not remotely independent. The Solicitor-General knows that and the Government know it.

It is a disgraceful response. I understand that it was prepared by a couple of Cabinet Committees composed purely of officials, with no Ministers involved. We are told that they included "Misc 3" and "Misc 58", with an undersecretary, Mr. John Dempster, as its chairman. That is a rotten way to treat Parliament on such an important issue. Ministers ought to have been far more closely involved.

The Government's cynical response is that Sir Robert Armstrong can look at the records, but Parliament's representatives on the Lord Chancellor's advisory committee, the hon. Member for Staffordshire, South-West (Mr. Cormack), my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton, West (Mrs. Taylor) and the hon. Member for Colne Valley (Mr. Wainwright)—all respected hon. Members—are not allowed to look at the records. That is a paradigm of how the Civil Service regards Parliament, and there must be a parliamentary response to that.

Section 5(1) of the Public Records Act allows records to be released within the 30-year rule. The Government have purported to accept that provision, but have added that records can be released only when they are put in the Public Record Office—which is after 25 years. They have introduced a Catch-22 rule. That is wholly against the spirit of the Croham rule and the way that Governments were responding a few years ago.

Lord Teviot has requested me to ask a specific question. May we have an announcement about the feasibility study on the PRO building in Chancery Lane?

I pay tribute to the staff of the Public Record Office, wherever they are. They need more resources, and the Solicitor-General must address himself to that. All that the PRO wants is peanuts. A tiny amount of money would preserve many records.

The Select Committee on Education, Science and Arts recently had to consider film archives, because we are losing records that can never be replaced. The same is true of the building in Hayes where records that are crucial to the history of this country are rotting away and pieces of the social and political fabric of our national heritage are disappearing.

I support the Wilson committee's view that these matters should remain with the Lord Chancellor's Department. If the Lord Chancellor drew himself up to his full height he could be quite tough in Government, He has an advisory committee chaired by Lord Denning, who, it is rumoured, has written a tough letter to the Government on this issue. I hope that the Solicitor-General will tell us something about that.

I said that there has to be more parliamentary action. The scandal of the Select Committee system is that no Committee was set up to look after the Law Officers. However, the Select Committee of which I am chairman is extremely interested in the issue, because of the academic matters involved. I have consulted Conservative Members on the Committee and I hope that we will be taking more evidence on the subject.

The Chairman of the Select Committee on the Treasury and Civil Service, the right hon. Member for Taunton (Mr. du Cann), has authorised me to say that he also feels extremely strongly about the inadequacy of the Government's response and hopes that the Solicitor-General's response to the debate will be more robust.

The hon. Member for Lewisham, West (Mr. Price) has raised a number of important and interesting points. I have no hope of dealing with them all. I shall reply to as many as I can, but whatever selection I make is bound to be wrong and I ask the hon. Gentleman to bear with me.

I echo what the hon. Gentleman said about the nature of our duty to preserve the records of our history. He will know, though the public may not, that the Government have endorsed that view clearly in the White Paper which states in paragraph 3 that we

"endorse the opening statement in the Report that 'the public records of England and Wales form one of the single richest archives in the world and a most precious part of the national heritage' … The Government accept their obligation to ensure that this invaluable national asset is safeguarded not only for the present generation but for posterity."

I want to deal first with the feasibility study, because I know from debates on the subject how important it is to right hon. and hon. Members. I can assure the hon. Member for Lewisham, West that the Government regard it as important as well.

I begin by announcing the results of the feasibility study, the study being into the possibility of concentrating the Public Record Office on a single site at Kew. It is quite insufferable at the moment that most valuable records, some in quite delicate condition, have to be kept in four different places and moved from place to place. The Government have made no secret of the fact that they make it a high priority to get the records together as soon as possible.

The report of the study was received by the Lord Chancellor at the end of December last year. Right hon. and hon. Members will be glad to know that it demonstates that it is physically feasible to concentrate the Public Record Office on a single site at Kew. That would be in place of the office being split between four sites, which is inefficient and uneconomic. The feasibility study shows that in the long run it would be cheaper as well as so obviously better to have the records on one site. However, it can be done only after substantial building work at a cost of about £12 million. Expenditure of that order cannot be justified in the present economic climate, and the proposal for total concentration at Kew is therefore now in abeyance.

The resource point made by the hon. Gentleman has to be reviewed in a wider context than that of the report. There are definite competing priorities for such money as can be made available. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman takes the view that, to the extent that resources are available, the getting together of the records in one place enjoys a higher priority in the competition for those resources.

As I say, the proposal for total concentration must remain in abeyance. But it has been agreed that the Public Record Office may maintain its present staff level of 406 without further reduction. Although this will constrict the office if the demand for its services continues to increase, it will permit the office to plan ahead for the level of activity that it can hope to maintain in the various areas of its work.

There are no immediate plans for discontinuing public access to records in the reading rooms at Chancery Lane. I am glad to be able to announce that because I know how much that will be valued by those who use the reading rooms at Chancery Lane. At one stage it looked as though they might lose that facility.

Separate consideration will be given to the maintenance work needed on the Chancery Lane building, to the extension of records storage accommodation at Kew, which will in any event be full by the early 1990s, and to the transfer to the Public Record Office of the 100-year-old records of births, marriages and deaths from the General Register Office. Though the full plan must remain in abeyance, I hope that those lesser measures about which I have been able to tell the House will bring satisfaction to the people concerned in the use of the Public Record Office and the preservation of the records.

I have to decide now which of the remaining points I should seek to deal with. I take one about which I can agree with the hon. Member for Lewisham, West in a very few words. He said that he intended to put to me a question which I could not answer. I have to agree with him. I shall have to send him a written reply about it.

The hon. Gentleman asked me about access to Home Office records about complaints of miscarriages of justice and similar documents. I cannot answer that specific question, which touches on the fringe of an important distinction which must be drawn and which is very relevant to the most important other point that the hon. Gentleman put to me, that about section 5(1).

We are dealing with two separate matters with regard to accessibility of documents. One is the steady release of information from Government all the time, improved, I think the hon. Gentleman would agree, by the implementation of the Croham directive in 1977. There will never be full agreement on whether the right amount of information is being given. Some will say that it is too much and some that it is not enough. But there is that steady flow of information, which is in no way affected, one way or the other, by the Public Records Act or section 5(1).

Therefore, the idea in some people's minds that section 5(1) puts a limitation on the release of information is wrong. The section relates only to documents that have already reached the Public Record Office. Those are only the ones that have been selected and transferred, and even in relation to them the Lord Chancellor may direct that they be released within the 30 years.

Apart from those documents, there is all the body of information, all the documents, released before being transferred. Those documents are not affected by section 5(1), a fact that is not fully understood. Lack of that knowledge and understanding leads to people believing that, as the hon. Gentleman suggested, section 5(1) in some way imposes a restriction on the release of information. It imposes no limitation, except in so far as the documents concerned have already reached the Public Record Office.

The general release of information is not affected by anything in the Wilson report, a report that refers to the parallel procedures designed for a different purpose—not really for the making available of records but for their preservation. The steps necessary for their preservation having been taken, and the time and circumstances in which they should be made available having been stated, it is then that the very important question that the hon. Gentleman raised about selection arises—the selection of documents for permanent preservation.

I do not have time to follow up that matter. I shall deal with it afterwards, because I want to say something about what I think to be the hon. Gentleman's other most important point—the proposal that there should be a Committee of Privy Councillors. It is important to fit them into the context of what we are talking about. There is, first, the information to which the preservation provisions do not apply. Then we come to the question of the selection of documents for permanent preservation.

Once documents have been preserved they must go to the Public Record Office, and the general rule is that they must not be released to the public until 30 years have passed. There are two important exceptions. There are provisions under which the Lord Chancellor can authorise a Department to retain documents, and therefore they do not have to go to the Public Record Office, and the statutory provisions about opening them do not apply. The other exception, which concerns the hon. Gentleman and all of us, is that the Lord Chancellor is authorised to say that even when 30 years have elapsed the documents will not be opened to the public.

It is in connection with both of those delaying procedures that the question arises whether we should have a committee of Privy Councillors. The Government's view is that it is right that there should be a change in the procedure. The Lord Chancellor would welcome further advice on those difficult and important questions, but it is felt, for reasons stated in the report, that the means suggested are not appropriate.

The hon. Gentleman spoke about asking the Permanent Secretary for advice. "Independent" here means independent of any Department and therefore not influenced by any departmental considerations in deciding whether the documents should be retained or sent to the Public Record Office. The word has significance in that context. It is not the kind of independent body that the hon. Gentleman would want, but it will be independent of all departmental considerations and influences.

I hope that I have made it clear that we regard the process of selection as being important. Of course it is. It could lead, intentionally or unintentionally, to the loss of documents that should be retained. It would be remarkable if we could be assured that we had a system that did not have those risks. The only question is what it is practical to do to improve the present system. The report deals with that matter as well. Notice is taken of what is said about the importance of that part of the operation. Tests will be carried out from time to time. There will be sampling to try to get a better idea whether the system is working——