When the Debate on this Bill was adjourned last Wednesday week, I was calling attention to the necessity for enabling authorities to borrow such money as they may require in the cheapest possible market, and was submitting to the House that the provisions of this Bill do not altogether enable that to be done. As the interruption of my speech has been a little longer than usual, perhaps I may be permitted, briefly, to remind Members of the provisions which we are discussing. The object of the Bill is to provide local authorities with the means of obtaining their post-war financial requirements in an orderly fashion. I think nobody could cavil at that object. It is of the utmost importance that we should be able to ensure, as the Chancellor has said, that any scramble for money should be avoided. In moving the Second Reading of the Bill the Chancellor indicated that it was primarily designed for the benefit of local authorities, and no doubt it does, in principle, confer a substantial benefit upon them.

The situation at the moment is that where local authorities require a loan, and it has been sanctioned by the appropriate Department of the Government, and the money is available in the Public Works Loan Board, the Board themselves have not power to grant the loan for the particular purpose for which the local authority requires it. This Bill does away with that restriction, and enables the Public Works Loan Board to grant money to local authorities for loans for whatever purposes are sanctioned. To that extent the Bill conveys to them a very substantial advantage, but in granting that wider power and that advantage to local authorities, the Treasury have—I think, very unfortunately—imposed a consideration. The quid pro quo which is exacted is that local authorities shall cease, in future, to borrow money elsewhere than from the Public Works Loan Board. Hon. Members will be aware that, in the past, these authorities have been free to borrow from whatever sources, generally speaking, were available to them.

The Chancellor referred to two particular advantages which this proposal would confer upon local authorities. The first was that it would enable them to receive and obtain loans as and when they need them. In the past, I do not think there has been any great difficulty about that. The hon. Member for Ipswich (Mr. Stokes), in his speech the other day, referred to one particular and extraordinary case in which, evidently, the local authority concerned must have experienced great difficulty in financing their requirements. That must be very exceptional, and not a state of affairs which can readily be met by any form of legislation. Generally speaking, in the past, there has been no difficulty on the part of local authorities in obtaining loans, and during the limited period with which these proposals are concerned, it is hard to imagine that there will be any difficulty in local authorities obtaining loans, as and when they need them. This primary advantage, which is urged by the Chancellor, does not appear to be one of very great substance. The second advantage which my right hon. Friend urged is that it will enable local authorities to borrow money more cheaply than would otherwise be possible. That is the crux of the whole matter.

I suggest there is an alternative opinion. In actual fact, although this Measure is not yet in operation, the policy which it contains has been in operation for many months, and to my limited knowledge there are two actual cases in which local authorities, requiring to borrow money, were required to do so from the Public Works Loan Board at a rate of interest which was higher than the firm offers which had been received from the market. Therefore, the second advantage which is suggested in favour of this Bill does not at the present time hold good. The Chancellor referred to the post-war period, but, even there, I have no reason to suppose that during the limited post-war period with which we are dealing, there should be any ground for believing that local authorities will be unable to borrow as cheaply as and possibly more cheaply in the open market than from the Public Works Loan Board.

I want to refer to a statement which was made, that local authorities, generally speaking, are in favour of this Measure. There is a great deal in it of which they are in favour, but I believe that their approval is subject to certain reservations, the principal one being that to which I have just referred, namely, that they should be entitled to borrow money elsewhere than from the Public Works Loan Board, if they can obtain it on more favourable terms. I happen to be in a position which may surprise some hon. Members, in that in the area which I have the privilege to represent, there are no fewer than 10 local authorities. Members who sit for constituencies of small geographical dimensions may be somewhat surprised that the larger constituencies embrace such wide areas, and it may puzzle some Members when I mention that no fewer than six different types of local authorities are among the 10 which I have the honour to represent. Not one of those local authorities has positively expressed itself to me as approving this Measure without any reservation.

The largest authority I represent is not actually concerned, because it happens to be one which does not have any loans at all. It does not borrow money; it has not done so in the past and it looks forward to being able to meet all its necessary requirements and fulfil its programme without borrowing any money in the future. That is a happy state of affairs but one which, I realise, is not of universal application throughout the country. Of the remaining local authorities, some have expressed to me their serious disagreement with the principle of the Bill, which limits their borrowing to the Public Works Loan Board, subject to the limited exceptions referred to in the Bill. I should like to ask my right hon. Friend to deal with the question whether there is included in the exceptions, whereby local authorities may continue to borrow outside the Public Works Loan Board, the practice which has held good with a large number of substantial municipalities and which is sometimes known as "over-the-counter" or "cash-and-carry" borrowing—that is, where ratepayers and residents in the municipality come to the offices of the municipality and hand their money over the counter, and it is accepted on loan, generally in small amounts, multiples of £25. This is a form of borrowing which is elastic and flexible, and very helpful to the local authority and to local residents. It engenders and enhances local interest in the affairs of the local authority. It would be a great pity if the much wider and bigger intentions of the Bill were such as to put an end to that comparatively small but very useful system.

It has been urged in support of the Bill that the proposals, particularly those contained in Clause 1, will put an end to any possibility of a scramble for finance after the war. I doubt whether there can be a scramble. We are dealing only with a very limited period. The Chancellor of the Exchequer has given an assurance that the matter will be reviewed at the expiration of four years after the cessation of hostilities in Europe. Therefore we are dealing, generally speaking, with a five-year period. Prior to the provisions of the Bill coming into operation—they do not come into operation until the end of the war—local authorities will have ample time in which to assess in round figures, if not actually to estimate, what their requirements are likely to be in this period and they can make their arrangements well in advance. There should, therefore, be no necessity for any scramble for money at all. In addition to that, there are other brakes automatically imposed upon any possibility of a scramble, brakes such as the control of issues, which already exists and will be continued, and there is also the brake imposed by the sanctioning department of the Government, without whose consent the local authority cannot make application for a loan. For these reasons I cannot anticipate that there will be any substantial possibility of a scramble at all.

But the proposal does one thing which is a very positive danger indeed. The market available for loans may, generally speaking, be divided into three parts—the market for Government loans, the market for local authority loans and the market for industrial loans. They are carefully balanced and each influences the rates of the others. That is to say, if the rate for Government loans goes up, correspondingly that will influence the rate for loans to local authorities, and will so influence the rate for loans to industry. If you remove the central section of this system, and take it out altogether, you are going to interrupt and disrupt the balance of the money market, particularly for industry. The ability to lend money to local authorities in the market, provides a competitive element against the rate at which the market is prepared to lend money for industry and, if you remove that competitive element, it may have a very adverse effect on the rates at which industry is able to borrow money in the market. Therefore, I maintain that the Bill, while good for credit, as it will undoubtedly enable the Treasury to borrow money at a cheaper rate, is bad for industry and bad for the ratepayers. It has been said that it would be a good Bill if Clause 1 were left out. I do not go as far as that, but I believe it would be a very much better Bill if Clause 1 could be amended in principle, so as to enable local authorities to borrow from the Public Works Loan Board for all purposes, but not to the exclusion of borrowing from any other source. Let them retain the element of competition in their borrowing, which will have a steadying influence on all loans throughout the market. I am convinced that there cannot be any scramble but, as it is, ratepayers may well be asked to pay more than they otherwise would have to pay; they will not be asked to pay less than they otherwise would have to pay and therefore I urge that my right hon. Friend should consider very carefully, whether or not this principle should not be amended, so as to avoid the Bill being one whereby the Treasury is obtaining cheap money at the expense of the ratepayers.

I do not think there will be any criticism of the principles on which this Bill is founded. Everyone recognises that control of the market after the war is essential. What is in hon. Members' minds at the moment is that the regulations which the Treasury proposes to make under the Bill, seem in many cases likely to press very harshly on the larger local authorities. Not only are very large sums of money likely to be involved but it is a very stringent limitation of the freedom hitherto exercised by these authorities in their lending powers. For that reason it is highly desirable that we should scrutinise very carefully not only what is in the Bill, but what we have already gathered of the type of regulation which the Treasury proposes to make. The Chancellor of the Exchequer said that borrowing from the Local Loans Fund was not at times altogether satisfactory. That was a very moderate statement. Perhaps a more accurate statement would have been that the financing of the Local Loans Fund was a monument of ineptitude. It probably represents the maximum of Treasury bungling that has ever happened.

It was a good long time ago.

No, it was not. I hope the House will forgive me if I look at the history of this Fund, not for the purpose of raking up the past sins of the Treasury, but as a background to some of their proposed iniquities. A number of major consequences flowed from the blunders the Treasury made in financing the Fund, and they propose to perpetuate them under their regulations. As the Chancellor said, this Fund has hitherto been financed by the issue of 3 per cent. annuities, which are redeemable at par. That was a perfectly legitimate method of financing when the original Act was passed in 1875 because money was very stable. In fact, for the previous 40 years, 2½ per cents. had not varied more than 5 points either side of their mean price.

The major amount of the money borrowed under the Fund was borrowed after the last war, and the Treasury still continue to borrow on 3 per cent. annuities issued at a discount. In 1922 they actually issued 3 per cents. at a discount of 50, and borrowed £120,000,000 for the Fund at a discount of over 40. They have borrowed this money in a way which makes it practically irredeemable, because it is outside the bounds of possibility that there will ever be a profitable conversion. The Government themselves have, on some £300,000,000, a permanent interest of £4 7s. per cent. Of course, that was passed on with an additional kick to the local authorities. The hon. Member for Ipswich (Mr. Stokes) bitterly complained that Ipswich had borrowed £25,000 at 6¾ per cent. The Local Loan Commissioners have still got £45,000,000 lent to the local authorities at 6½ per cent. and another £27,000,000 at 6 per cent. These loans have still something like 30 years to run, so that 6£ and 6 per cent. are riveted on the local authorities who borrowed from the Local Loans Commissioners for another 30 years. The majority of those loans were housing loans. The results of borrowing by local authorities from the Commissioners were that, on £300,000,000 which was owing by the local authorities in 1938 they were paying an average interest of £4 19s. 2d., practically 5 per cent.

Let us compare what the Treasury have done for the local authorities in the past with what the local authorities have done for themselves. Take Manchester for example. I quote Manchester because I happen to be a Manchester man, and know its finances better than I know those of any other town. Manchester had also in the twenties to borrow at 6 per cent. but instead of borrowing permanently they borrowed on a 10 years' basis. The result is that Manchester has been able to convert, and whereas local authorities are paying to the Local Loans Commissioners 5 per cent. for their money, Manchester's debt of £47,000,000 stands at an average rate of £3 6s. 4d. I compare that with a similar figure of £45,000,000 owing to the Commissioners at 6½ per cent. I am not complaining about the original high interest charged to local authorities. Obviously, if the Government cannot borrow at less than 6 per cent. they cannot lend to the local authorities at less than 6 per cent. What I complain of is that the Government have lent on long terms to the local authorities and that, under the terms of these loans, the local authorities cannot repay without having to pay a fine, which is actuarially equal to the saving in interest that they would make. So that not only has the Local Loans Fund been loaded up with permanent 6 per cent. money, but the local authorities have been loaded up for the next 30 years with money at 6½. It is the permanence of the loans which is the main objection to the activities of the Commissioners in the past.

The rates of interest have fallen during the last 15 years. Would the hon. Gentleman have suggested, if the rates had risen, that the local authorities should be called upon to pay more?

I do not suggest anything of the kind. What I am complaining about is the Treasury borrowing practically on permanent terms, when the rate of interest is 6 per cent. That is the grave blunder which the Treasury made for which the local authorities are now paying. If the Treasury had borrowed on short terms, they would have been able to convert and to pass the reduction on to the local authorities. If the Treasury borrow on long terms when money is low, nobody will complain. The Treasury has learned its lesson so far as its own borrowing is concerned. It is not going to borrow under the old 1875 Act any more. It is to nourish the Fund under general borrowing, which, in the case of high interest rates, will be on short terms. Although the Treasury is going to take advantage of its past experience and blunders for its own borrowing, it is not proposing to pass that advantage on to the local authorities.

Oh, yes.

Oh, no. The local authorities will only be able to borrow at the rate that the Government pay, but for the maximum term appropriate to the type of borrowing. That means that when local authorities borrow from the Local Loans Fund for housing purposes, they will have to borrow for 40 years. When they borrow for the purpose of purchasing land, they will have to borrow for 80 years. The Treasury is going to borrow short, in periods of high interest rates, but it is not prepared to allow the local authorities to borrow short from the Treasury. They must borrow long. That is all right while interest rates are low. No local authority will cavil at borrowing for 40 or 80 years if it can get the money from the Treasury at 3 per cent.

There is, however, no guarantee that the Treasury will be able to pin rates of interest after the war. I know that this is part of the machinery by which it is going to try, but whether it succeeds is an entirely different matter. The House is interested in interest rates. When we discussed this Bill previously a large proportion of the time was taken up by a discussion of interest rates. Hon. Members will remember that the hon. Member for West Fife (Mr. Gallacher) and the hon. Member for Gateshead (Mr. Magnay) addressed each other in the language of Old Testament prophets. The hon. Member for Ipswich put forward the theory that if Ipswich could borrow at 1 per cent. instead of 6 per cent. it would pay less interest, and he produced figures to prove it. The discussion of interest rates did not leave me convinced that either the House or the Treasury knew exactly how they were going to control interest rates in the future. We have had a low interest structure ever since the conversion of 1932, but that structure has never yet been under pressure. The great conversion of 1932 took place in the depths of a slump. Right through the thirties industry, which normally should have absorbed large sums of capital, was, instead of doing so, pouring hundreds of millions into the gilt-edged market and thus helping to maintain low rates. Then the war came, and everything was put in a strait-jacket. So far, our low interest structure has never had to stand any strain whatever.

The strain of the war.

The war is not a strain. The war has enabled the Treasury to control interest rates even more effectively than it could have done in peace-time. The Treasury will be able to control interest rates while the Government are in a position to ration raw materials and capital goods, but that is not likely to go on for ever. It may go one for two or three years. In view of our past experience, it may seem easy to control interest rates, it may seem easy to borrow at three per cent. Let me turn the problem round and restate it in another way. To maintain low interest rates, means that we have to maintain the market value on the Stock Exchange of £20,000,000,000 worth of Government securities, because if Government securities drop, if we cannot maintain the price of these £22,000,000,000 worth of Government securities, it means that interest rates go up. That is the problem, and it is not an easy one.

Suppose a high interest period does arise. Suppose the Government fail to peg rates. Under the regulations the local authorities will be borrowing at high interest rates for periods of from 40 to 80 years. What is the justification for that? When Manchester borrowed at 6 per cent. it borrowed for ten years. The result is that Manchester is paying, on its debt, £3 6s. 2d. per cent. as against 5 per cent. paid by those local authorities who fell into the hands of the Local Loans Commissioners. Nobody has any objection to control. No local authority, so far as I know, has raised objection to control. The small local authorities must be controlled for their own sakes; the great local authorities, such as Manchester, Sheffield and Birmingham, must be controlled for the sake of the money market and general maintenance of rates.

What I object to, and what the local authorities object to, is that the Government are proposing by their regulations to rivet on the local authorities the long-term borrowing which has proved so disastrous in the past. They are putting the local authorities in a strait-jacket, although they have had the wisdom not to do that for themselves. They can control local authorities by other methods than compelling them to accept long-term loans. I am talking about large local authorities, who can borrow on as good terms as the Treasury, and sometimes better. The Government can control the borrowing of local authorities; they can retain in their own hands the last word with regard to any loan; they can regulate the maximum amount that any local authority can borrow; they can regulate the maximum interest the local authority may pay; they can regulate the timing, as they have been doing during the war. But I ask, on what grounds do they claim the right to rivet the possibility of long-term borrowing at high rates, upon the local authorities? The large local authorities have shown themselves far more perspicacious and wiser in their finance than have the Government in their financing of the smaller local authorities. I think they have earned the trust of the Government and are entitled to be consulted on this question of whether they shall borrow long or short.

I know there is a promise that this business shall be reviewed in four years. What does that promise mean? If the Government have any valid reason for refusing the local authorities a "break" clause in their loans, if they have any valid reason for insisting upon borrowing being for the maximum appropriate term, that promise to review after four years means nothing. Why do they refuse a "break" clause? Why do they insist upon the maximum term? Why do they object to local authorities having the right to horrow on medium terms? If they are so adamant now, on long-term borrowing, has this House and have the local authorities any guarantee that they will change their mind after four years? None whatever. There is no period in the Bill itself. We have merely a promise that the matter will be reviewed in four years, or rather that the regulations will be reviewed in four years.

The whole situation will be reviewed.

Naturally you do not review regulations, without a review of the whole situation.

Naturally.

There is no term set in the Bill itself. We have a verbal promise from the Chancellor that the whole situation will be reviewed in four years. Once again I ask why, if the Treasury are likely to change their mind in regard to a "break" clause in these loans, are they insisting on their present attitude towards a "break" clause now, when money is likely to be cheap, as it probably will be in the first two years, when the local authorities will be willing to borrow for long-term periods? At the end of four years—I do not know whether that means four years from now, or four years after the termination of hostilities—the damage may have been done. It is possible that the Government will succeed in pegging interest rates for the two or three years during which they will have to ration, not merely money for finance, but actual physical capital goods. But sooner or later there will, inevitably, be a relaxation of Government control of physical assets. Sooner or later, the pressure on our low-interest structure will develop enormously, in view of the inevitable world-wide demand for capital, and that may develop within the period of four years after which the Government promise this review. If that happens then the local authorities under the Bill, under the Regulations that the Government have already indicated, will have been tied up with long-term loans at high rates of interest.

I want to know what justification there is for that. If the Treasury are to be reasonable in four years, if the Treasury are prepared to grant "break" clauses if and when the interest rates rise, why cannot they say so now? Why cannot they relieve the local authorities of this threat that is overhanging their heads owing to the Treasury's rigid attitude in refusing a "break" clause and promising nothing more than that if and when high interest rates do come, they will consider what can be done? If there is any valid reason for compelling the local authorities to borrow long-term, let the House be told now what it is.

I think that I can claim to know something about the matter under discussion—not a claim I can make nearly so often in this House as I should like to—because in the past I have been responsible for advising local authorities in these matters, and, indeed, for raising, through public issues, very considerable sums for them. That method of raising money will of course be prevented in the future by the Bill. I believe the Bill will facilitate borrowing, because it will prevent that scramble of issues from which we have suffered in the past, and which has led to indigestion in the market and consequent delay in raising money at the lowest possible rate. I think it will also benefit local authorities, because it will enable them to borrow money at the same rate as Government issues, subject to two condi- tions to which I shall refer later. Also the Bill will save local authorities a certain amount of expense, as they will have to pay an even smaller commission to the Government than they used to pay to people like myself.

I hope that the Financial Secretary to the Treasury will be able to elaborate a little more the terms on which local authorities will be able to borrow. According to the Bill they will have to pay the rate current on local loans, that is, at the present about 3¼ per cent. The Chancellor in his speech last week explained that there would be certain Amendments, to enable local authorities to borrow from the Local Loans Fund at the same rate that the Government themselves can borrow for the same term. Naturally, in the open market even the very best local authorities cannot borrow, generally speaking, quite so cheaply as the Government for the same period, but they can borrow for medium-dated stock at cheaper rates than the Government can borrow for irredeemable, in certain cases. I remember once raising a public issue for a corporation, at the cost to them of £2 17s. per cent. per annum. Had they gone to the Local Loans Fund they would have had to pay about £3 4s. There is a clear anomaly there in that although Government credit is even better than the best local corporation credit, it is not necessarily better for securities of different maturities. I hope that the Financial Secretary can give us some clear assurance on that point.

The second condition to which I want to refer, is in relation to those new issues which are to be permitted. I understand that local authorities will be allowed, and in fact encouraged, to convert existing issues when they mature and to raise the money by stock issues; but that they will be limited to an appeal to existing holders. It is clear that the price at which they can issue a stock, if they are limited to existing holders, cannot be so high as if they had the whole market to appeal to. Let me give an actual instance. The London County Council have recently repaid their 4½ per cent. loan, and raised a new loan at 3 per cent., but they were only able to offer that to existing holders. Consequently they had to do it at the price of 99. I have little doubt but that under peace-time conditions, if they had been able to make a public issue to the whole country, they could have done it at a higher price, say 99½. Therefore, I suggest that if the Government are going to encourage local authorities to issue strictly to existing holders stock to replace their matured securities the Government ought to underwrite the issue, not at the price at which it could be taken up by existing holders, but at the price at which it would have been taken up, if the local authority had had the whole market on which to depend.

I would now like to refer to the point raised by the hon. Member for East Stirling (Mr. Woodburn) in his speech last week. I know that he cannot be here to-day because he has had to go to Scotland. He said that the fundamental point in his speech on the Bill was the question of the rate of interest to be paid and then he said:

"The question arises: Is the cost of money still too dear? There is a great deal of wastage in this country in the running of our banking system. In a small agricultural town one sees five or more banks, cheek by jowl, all doing the same type of business. That cannot be justified on the grounds of efficiency."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 24th January, 1945; vol. 407, c. 922.]

I quite agree that it is very material to the Bill, because it governs the rate of interest. I know how very exercised and concerned treasurers of local authorities are as to the price they may have to pay after the war. They remember that they had to pay as much as 7 per cent. after the last war. However, I suggest that my hon. Friend need not be concerned about the procedure adopted at the present time. He asked that the Chancellor of the Exchequer should look into the matter and make clear to the House that he is satisfied as to the cost in this connection. I would like to tell him that I do not think the present system of running the banks is adversely affecting the cost of money to the country at the present time.

The hon. Member says that it is very inefficient to have several banks in one town, but I would point out to him that in South Kensington and in other parts of London, he may find, for example, two branches of the Westminster Bank within a few yards of each other. They have been running in that situation for a great many years. That is an example to show that a well-managed bank does not consider that costs are increased materially in that way. They would say that each branch is just about the right size for one man to look after, and that any small economy achieved by taking several branches into one building would be more than offset by the cost of the new building. Though that cost is little, the cost of removing all competition might be very great indeed. If a borrower had only one bank to go to, he might very well find that he did not get satisfactory terms. It very often happens that one bank will give a loan while another will not. I suggest further that even in cases where the borrower was not credit-worthy, and could not get a loan at all, a great deal of unnecessary bitterness would be produced if he had no alternative, because he would think, no doubt wrongly, that there was some personal prejudice in the matter.

Very briefly, I would now like to go over the question of costs. I think the view of my hon. Friend would be that the increase is due to State action, in creating bank money, that is, the increase in deposits. They actually have gone up between December, 1940, and December, 1944, from £2,800,000,000 to £4,540,000,000. His contention would be that that increase of £1,740,000,000 means huge profits to the banks, and that if the profits were cut down, the country and the corporations could borrow more cheaply. I suggest to him that the vast percentage of that increased deposit, over 80 per cent., is taken up by Treasury deposit receipts. Those Treasury deposit receipts earn 1⅛ per cent. Therefore the total amount that the bank gains from it is 1⅛ per cent. on £1,350,000,000. That is to say, their gross increase of profits amounts to under £15,000,000. Out of that, they have to pay a rate of interest to depositors and a huge increase in management costs, because all this war expenditure does not create one deposit, but innumerable deposits, payments to contractors, sub-contractors, salaries and so on. They also have to allow for a very considerable diminution in the income earned by their other assets, for example the reduction in their advances. So I do not think that we have got to be concerned on this account. It was suggested that the banks had succeeded in evading Excess Profits Tax by what would amount to hoodwinking the Inland Revenue. I suggest that a much more plausible explanation is that they are not making the money.

I would like to refer for a moment to what was said by the hon. Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Benson). He was uneasy about this Bill, if I understood him rightly, because he said that we shall be forcing corporations to borrow for an indefinite period and thereby paying very much more than they would if they were able to borrow for two or three years.

I did not say that I was asking that local authorities should be able to borrow for two or three years. What I said was there is a very big difference between borrowing for 20 years, and borrowing, as local authorities have done, for 10 years, which is a medium term.

I quite accept that correction, but my hon. Friend would, no doubt, agree that forcing local authorities to borrow for a longer period would not matter, if we were reasonably sure that there was not going to be a big difference between long-term rates of interest and short-term rates. If my hon. Friend's anxiety is that that is likely to take place after the war, I suggest to him that it is well within the power of the Treasury to keep down rates of interest after the war, as well as during the war. We remember that, at the beginning of the last war, the country was paying interest at the rate of about 3¼ per cent., and that, after borrowing vast sums, we ended up by paying 6 or 7 per cent.; while, in this war, we have borrowed something like £20,000,000,000 and are paying a smaller rate of interest now than at the beginning. I do not think that is due to chance. It is due to an entirely fresh technique of monetary control, which I am quite sure it is well within the power of the Treasury to maintain after the war. And it is most important, looking at it from the point of view of the corporations, that they should do so.

I should like to refer to what the Chancellor of the Exchequer said last week in answer to the hon. Member for South Croydon (Sir H. Williams). The right hon. Gentleman referring to the two new institutions said:

"They will provide additional facilities. The amount of capital available for investment is, in fact, limited."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 23rd Jan. 1945; Vol. 407, c. 648.]

I hope the right hon. Gentleman meant by that statement that, as we all know, the physical resources are limited, and the amount that can be spent is limited by the capital and labour available. I hope he did not mean to imply any limit in the amount of capital that can be created, because, it he did mean that, I should have shared some of the anxiety of my hon. Friend the Member for South Croydon. In the past, before we learned the new monetary technique, the Government thought it necessary, in order to avoid the risk of inflation, to fund a very considerable proportion of the floating debt and to limit the supply of bank money; but I suggest that these two methods are inconvenient and, indeed, entirely ineffective ways of checking inflation, and I hope that they will not be employed. I hope that the Treasury, in regard to the amount of bank money created, will be guided entirely by what they think necessary to achieve that rate of interest which they think desirable; I think this is entirely under their control, provided always that the export of capital is controlled.

I think the Debate on the Second Reading of the Bill has not indicated any desire on the part of hon. Members who have spoken to oppose a Measure, the general scope and idea of which have been accepted, with some important reservations, to which I shall refer. We are all agreed, I think, that the Bill is useful and necessary, but the first simple question that I want to ask is: Why was it necessary to introduce the Bill, when the Government have, apparently, for some time past, been operating its provisions? I have a letter from an urban district council dated 19th October, 1944, which says:

"With regard to the loan of £4,024, I regret to inform you that the Ministry of Health have given sanction to the raising of the loan, but with a condition attaching to it that the money shall be borrowed from the Public Works Loan Board. I regret that this is the case."

In that case, apparently as long ago as last September, the Ministry of Health informed this council, although the council themselves were able to arrange a loan at a rate of interest of £3 2s. 6d. per cent., that they would not be allowed to accept it, but must accept a loan from the Public Works Loan Board at a rate of interest of £3 5s. per cent. I am rather curious to know whether the Ministry of Health has been acting illegally in operating this Bill, before it has had its Second Reading in the House of Commons.

My next question is with regard to the following passage in the speech of the Chancellor of the Exchequer on 24th January:

"It has been confirmed that the new scheme will continue in operation only for so long as it is necessary, and that it will be renewed, in consultation with the local authorities, in any event, four years after the end of hostilities in Europe"

The Chancellor may not be Chancellor in four years' time, and what I want to know is whether his assurance binds his successors. Will it be possible, at the end of four years, for someone to get up on these benches and ask the Chancellor, whoever he may be, about this assurance and to be told that the right hon. Gentleman's successor is not bound by it? What I wish the right hon. Gentleman to make clear is this: If he is so definite in giving that assurance that it may be necessary to review the provisions of this Bill in four years' time, why not put a definite time in the Bill? Later in his speech, the Chancellor said:

"Secondly, local authorities have been assured that the Treasury will always be ready to consider any representations which they wish to put forward about the working of the scheme, and that if, for that purpose, the associations of local authorities wished to appoint small standing committees, one for England and Wales and one for Scotland, to maintain contact with the Treasury, such a procedure would be acceptable."

The next question which arises is that these standing committees may find that, in certain cases, local authorities would be able to borrow on cheaper terms. What then? It has been suggested in this Debate that, under this Bill, there is no question of any local authority being able to borrow more cheaply than through the Public Works Loan Board. If that is so, why not give them the chance to borrow? The right hon. Gentleman went on to say:

"The Treasury may, by regulation, allow exceptions from the operation of the Clause,"

that is, Clause 1—

"and regulations will in fact be made to permit of certain exceptions of a general character."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 24th January, 1945; Vol. 407, cols. 909–910.]

Would the right hon. Gentleman, when he replies on that point, answer the very simple question which has been put already this morning by at least two Members, and which was put on the last occasion? It is obviously the principal ques- tion on which the House would like to have an answer before passing the Second Reading of the Bill. Why not include in the exceptions which are going to be proposed under the regulations a simple provision providing that they can borrow on more advantageous terms than they can be offered by the Public Works Loan Board? What is the objection to giving them the opportunity?

My final point relates to the lack of understanding about this matter. From a fairly long experience of local government, this question interests me. It has been said in the Debate that local authorities may obtain the permission of the Ministry of Health. The Ministry of Health has a very tight control over local authorities now, and no local authority can borrow money without the sanction of the Ministry of Health. There has been a good deal of comment on the necessity for housing loans. As one who is a member of a local authority, with experience covering a number of years, I would say that what worries me is this. In the past, when we had come to the position at which we had all our housing plans and housing schemes ready, and all we wanted was money to enable us to proceed, we asked for tenders. We got tenders, and it has been the case not only in my local authority, but in numbers of others, that when tenders amount to £50,000 or £100,000 and even more there have been only a few pounds of difference between the lowest tender from a local firm, and the lowest tender from a firm perhaps 20 or 30 miles away. Therefore, the local authority, out of sheer local patriotism, has appealed to the Government, through the Ministry of Health, and asked to be allowed to accept the local tender, even though it is higher, on the ground that it is a local firm employing local labour and that they ought to allow an exception to be made, instead of following the usual practice of giving the contract to the firm with the lowest tender. In every case the Ministry of Health definitely said, "No, certainly not. You are to accept the lowest tender." Why then are local authorities to be told in this case, irrespective of whether they can obtain money, say from a friendly society or any other source at lower terms, that the Government insist that they should take the money at the price fixed by themselves?

My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Chichester (Lieut.-Commander Joynson-Hicks), in his criticism of the Bill, advanced the argument that anything that was going to interfere with the free competition between borrowers and lenders was to be deprecated. In the old days of laissez faire finance, the same principles were applied to the rate of interest for borrowing money, as were applied in all matters of trade. Local borrowers at that time competed with each other, and indeed, against the Treasury also, but from 1931 onwards, from the time we went off the Gold Standard, we have moved, as my hon. Friend the Member for Scarborough (Mr. Spearman) pointed out, into a world of managed currency. That that has been very much more successful from the national point of view is shown by the fact that, whereas in the last war, the rate of interest that the Treasury had to pay rose from 3¼ per cent. to 6 or 7 per cent., here we are, in the sixth year of this war, borrowing at between 2½ per cent. and 3 per cent. I feel, therefore, that this Bill does not represent any change of policy, nor indeed any very radical advance in that technique, but does, in some degree, simplify the method of control.

There is at the present time, first, the need for the local authority which wishes to borrow money to obtain the consent on matters of policy of the appropriate Department, usually the Ministry of Health. Ever since 1931, in some degree, but especially since the war, there has been a control exercised by the Treasury to prevent a local authority going into the market in a way which would be inconvenient to other local authorities and especially to the Treasury itself. But I should have thought that it would make for simplicity and order, in the exercise of control for all borrowing by local authorities to be done through one single funding department from money which is at the disposal of the Government. It must also, in the vast majority of cases, cheapen the rate of interest at which the local authorities are able to borrow.

Last week the hon. Member for The Wrekin (Mr. Colegate) said he believed that there were cases where local authorities were able to borrow money more cheaply than from the Local Loans Fund. I had the curiosity to look up the returns upon different Government securities last week and I found that, whereas the yield upon local loans was £3 3s., that upon War Loan was £2 18s. My hon. Friend the Member for Scarborough has rightly brought out the point that, as the Local Loans Fund is now financed, the yield upon that money has been higher than upon other forms of Government security. I cannot believe—and I was interested to have my hon. Friend's confirmation of the fact—that it is the case that any single local authority can borrow more cheaply than the Treasury for a comparable period of time. If they cannot borrow more cheaply than the Government, for a comparable period of time, surely, no local authority stands to lose by this new procedure, and those whose credit has not been very high, must stand to gain by it.

I was not quite able to follow the logic of the reasoning of the hon. Gentleman the Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Benson). He complained that in the days when the rate of interest upon money was high, the local authorities had been required to enter into long-term loans, and borrow through the Local Loans Fund, and he pointed out that if they had been able to borrow for a shorter period of time, they would now be able to obtain the same money more cheaply. I venture to point out that, if the rates of interest upon money in the last 20 years had risen instead of fallen, then, to borrow for a long period of time would have been to the advantage of the local authorities and not to their disadvantage. But I could not follow the logic of his argument when he went a little further and suggested there was a great danger that the rates of interest upon money after the war would rise again. In that case, I do not see why he should deprecate local authorities now borrowing for a long period of time.

I did not.

In that case I mistook the hon. Member's argument, but it seemed to be difficult to argue that it had been to their disadvantage to borrow for a long period of time, when rates of interest were falling, and then to deprecate the provisions of this Bill, although saying that after the war, there may be a considerable rise in interest rates.

I do not think the hon. Member quite realises that under the regulations the local authorities will have to borrow at high rates of interest if interest rates for long periods go up. No local authority will object to borrowing for a long period at 3 per cent., but so far, the Treasury have been adamant in refusing the requests of local authorities that if interest rates go up they shall be enabled to include in their terms a "break" clause. It is that to which I was objecting.

Obviously the "break" clause would have to apply both ways, and the local authorities would then have to be called upon to pay a higher rate of interest for the further currency of their loan. They cannot really expect to have it both ways.

I am sorry to interrupt, but this is the crux of the whole matter. The Treasury, having burnt their fingers once by borrowing long, propose in future to feed this fund by short- and medium-term borrowing, so that they will get the advantage of short-term borrowing in cases of a high interest rate but are not passing that advantage over to local authorities. That was the gist of my complaint.

If the hon. Member will refer to what the Chancellor of the Exchequer said—reported in column 194 of HANSARD last week—he will see that the right hon. Gentleman indicated that an Amendment would be moved to this Bill which would enable low rates of interest to be charged to local authorities where the loan is for a purpose for which it can properly be raised over a shorter period of time. What the hon. Member for Chesterfield was advocating was that local authorities should be allowed to borrow short for purposes like housing. He referred, for example, to a period of 40 years for housing and 80 years for roads. Surely it is a fundamental principle of good finance that if the purpose for which the money is being raised is housing or roads then the period must be the period of life of the house or the road. I should have thought it was completely against all sound principles of finance to allow local authorities to enter into financial liabilities for a shorter period than is appropriate to the purpose for which they are borrowing.

In the third place, if it be the case that by tapping special local sources, local authorities have on occasions been able to borrow money more cheaply than could the Treasury, it still appears to be desirable that those sources should be made available to the Treasury. If it be the case that by means of mortgages or sinking funds, or by means of municipal banks, to which the hon. Member for West Walthamstow (Mr. McEntee) referred, it has been possible for local authorities to obtain money on what was called, I believe, a cash-and-carry basis by one of the earlier speakers, it still appears to me to be desirable in the national interest that such sources of borrowing should become available to the Treasury for the general use of the country as a whole and not be available only to a particular local authority.

For these reasons it seems to me that this Bill is a means of bringing the financial system of the country more directly under the control of the Treasury, and on that ground I welcome it. It does not appear to be a purely machinery measure, although most of these controls do already exist and are exercised by the Treasury, but that it is a simplification of the machinery which will enable the Treasury to carry out the purpose that is indicated in the White Paper on Full Employment. In that paper special importance is attached to the borrowing programmes of local authorities in order to maintain total capital expenditure at a high and stable level for the purpose of maintaining employment at a high and stable level. Surely it must be easier to do that if the whole of the borrowing of the local authorities comes through a single conduit pipe from a single pool.

It is not only a matter of maintaining the borrowing at the right level but also a matter of timing, and in spite of what was said by the hon. and gallant Member for Chichester I should have thought it was obvious that by this means it would be possible to control the timing more accurately than in the past. The hon. Member for Scarborough, with his expert knowledge on this subject, did say there had been many cases where, in order to avoid congestion in the capital issue market, some local authorities had been kept waiting, and it has certainly happened that local authorities which have raised large sums of money which were intended to be Spent over a number of years have at the beginning had more funds available than they were immediately able to use. Therefore I believe that this Bill will improve the Treasury machinery for the control of the money market and will enable them after the war more accurately to control the level and timing of capital expenditure by local authorities, and that being so it is a definite and practical contribution to maintaining full employment.

Having listened to this Debate both to-day and on the previous occasion, I do not think it can be said there is a great deal of opposition to the Bill. Some hon. Members have raised the question of the taking away of certain liberties from local authorities in so far as they will not have the opportunity to continue to borrow where they wish. That point was raised in the main, perhaps, by the hon. Member for The Wrekin Division (Mr. Colegate) and also by the hon. Member for Tamworth (Sir J. Mellor). Personally I do not regard this as a taking away of the liberties of the local authorities if a way can be found of getting money at a cheaper rate. I have been a member of a county council for a number of years and for some years made it my business to try to get money as cheaply as possible, but the view was held that our security was not as good as that of certain other authorities with the result that we paid pretty heavily. Some hon. Members object to Clause 1 on the ground that certain authorities would be able to raise money a little more cheaply if they retained their liberty. I think we must look at the case of the local authorities of the country as a whole to see whether the Bill will give them an advantage generally rather than at the few exceptions among local authorities. On the whole local authorities have paid rather heavily, and I would like the House, in the midst of this more or less technical discussion on finance, to have some regard for what will be the effect of the rates of interest that will have to be paid.

There is a programme for building 4,000,000 houses in ten years. The cost of those houses will vary, I suppose, from £500 each to something approximating £1,000—nobody can say at the moment. All that money will have to be borrowed. If the houses are built at an average cost of £500 per house the total expenditure will be round. about £2,000,000,000, a very substantial sum, which will be a burden upon the local authorities and the people who occupy the houses, and we ought to have regard for that, though little mention has been made of it. We have talked of this as a purely financial problem. It is all that, but it is something very much more, a human problem as well. This interest will have to be paid for, and the rates of interest will determine what will be the rents of the houses. I have tried to work out the effect of the rates of interest upon the rents.

Before I come to that let me say that at the end of the last war we had experience of housebuilding with absolute freedom for local authorities to raise the money as they wished. Lots of them paid 6 or 7 per cent. for the money. I remember rejoicing greatly when the first two houses were completed. They cost £1,200 each and have been a burden on the people of the district ever since. We really must avoid that state of things arising in the future. As I see the end of the war period, there may be a great demand for all available finance—demands for finance for the reconstruction and development of industry, and the like. There will be need, undoubtedly, for thousands of millions. It has been said in this House that the mining industry alone needs an expenditure of £300,000,000 in order to put it on a proper basis, and there has also been talk of the needs of the cotton trade and shipping. I think the hon. Member for Scarborough (Mr. Spearman) referred to the possibilities of a scramble for money at the end of the war. If there is a shortage of money, as there may well be, there will certainly be a scramble, and if there is no control rates of interest will be very high. It will create a situation such as we had at the end of the last war. Then we sent sums of money abroad to help to build the Gdynia railway and the new port of Gdynia. We must make none of those mistakes at the end of this war.

Let me return to the housing problem. I estimate that if the houses are built at a cost of £500 each the housing programme will involve an expenditure of £2,000,000,000. What will be the effect of that upon the rates of interest and upon the people who live in those houses and upon the ratepayers who will have to subsidise them and upon the taxpayers who also will have to subsidise them? It is of very great importance that we should keep the cost of interest as low as possible, as I hope, also, that we shall control the cost of materials, in order that the houses may be built at a reasonable price and let at reasonable rents. If this housing scheme of 4,000,000 houses when it is completed works out at a cost of £500 per house, which is a very low cost, it will mean that 1 per cent.—the difference between 2 and 3 per cent.—upon that capital investment will amount to £20,000,000 a year. This will have to be raised somehow. The loan will be for 60 years, so that over the whole period that difference of 1 per cent. will amount to £1,200,000,000 sterling. When we put this financial question in that way, we see what a human problem it becomes.

It is, therefore, of very great importance that the Chancellor should introduce a Bill of this kind in order to control the rates of interest, to take away from the people who control our finance the liberty to invest it as they will, and at as high a rate of interest as they can. I hope that the Chancellor will endeavour to do something like we have done during the war. The hon. Member for The High Peak (Mr. Molson) said this morning, as I thought quite rightly, that we have changed our financial technique. The financial technique of the last war led us into about 5 per cent., on an average, for the money involved in fighting the war, whereas, if I read the figures accurately, during this war we have done it on an average of about 2 per cent.—a saving of 3 per cent. on £20,000,000,000 or more. The saving is enormous. That has been done by a new technique of finance. Can we apply that method to the future? Shall we apply it to the future? Is the Chancellor, or the Financial Secretary to the Treasury, in a position to-day to tell this House that he is prepared to continue the technique used during the war for the purpose of aiding local authorities to carry out this vast housing scheme?

I am always getting into difficulties in this House when I hear the financiers talk. For instance, the hon. Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Benson) led me into difficulties this morning. I am not quite sure that I agreed with much he said. But on the general question of the rate of interest on loans if the Chancellor is not ready to make a pronouncement to-day I think he should assure the House that every possible effort will be made in order to get these loans granted to the local authorities as cheaply as possible. If there is any doubt about the application of the methods we have used for the past five years, we should have an inquiry to find out whether or not it is possible. I am a bit tired of this usury that is practised on the local authorities all the time. My hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich (Mr. Stokes) said last week, if I understood him rightly, that 25 per cent. of the rate-borne expenditure of that city was used in payment of interest on loans and repayment of them. In my own county 15 per cent. of the rate-borne expenditure is used for the same purpose.

May I interrupt my hon. Friend? Can I take it that his complaint of usury, and the high rates local authorities have to pay, applies only to the past and not to recent years?

It is rather better at the present time. It is true that some loans are being raised at present at 2¾ per cent., perhaps at 3 per cent., but for the nation we have raised money at 2 per cent. during the war. Can we do that in peace-time? I have already told the House that the difference between 2 and 3 per cent. on this housing scheme will amount to £20,000,000 a year. I want to save that money if I possibly can and we could. It would mean an average decrease in the rent of each house of 2s. per week, but it would also reduce the subsidy from the local authorities to that house, and the subsidy from the State. All of us would derive advantage if we pursued that policy and, therefore, I suggest to the Chancellor that this matter should be looked into very carefully indeed.

Now about the usury of local authorities. There has been a curious practice for many years in this country by which we refuse to allow local authorities to raise more rates at any given period—the year or half year—than they estimate to spend. Therefore, most of the schools that are built and the roads that are made, and various other things, have to be carried through on borrowed capital. It is an astonishing fact, and a somewhat depressing one to me, that the amount of the outstanding local authorities' loans in this county at the present time is well over £1,000,000,000, and out of the rate- payers and out of the grants we are taking £78,000,000 a year to pay for it. Surely the Chancellor realises—I am quite sure the Minister of Health does—what a clog that is, how it clutters up the activities of the local authorities. There have been instances where local authorities have actually had to increase the rates, when they raised a loan, in order to make payments upon that loan. There are some authorities who are rich enough and wise enough to carry out as much of that work as they possibly can out of revenue, but it is done more or less by a trick.

I have suggested for years that we should have a development fund account into which there should be paid the product of a 6d. rate, or whatever is the required amount in order to meet capital expenditure as required. Under the system of borrowing now operating, in the case of every school we build on borrowed money costing say £100,000 at the end of the period we have paid £200,000 for the school. That is, we pay £2 for every pound's worth of value that we get. It is bad. It clutters up local government. It prevents us progressing as rapidly as we should, and it makes it difficult for us to carry out schemes. I am not suggesting that the policy should be put into operation in a very short period; a policy of that kind should cover a long period, but it would be very helpful and it would be a saving to the State, to the local authorities and to the ratepayers. I do want this House to realise what a large effect the rate of interest will have upon house rents unless it is kept at a very low level. Since we changed our technique of finance in this war, as compared with the previous war, and saved roughly 3 per cent. by so doing, there is no reason in the world why we should not consider the application of that technique to granting loans to local authorities, thereby getting the money at the lowest possible interest. Unless we do this, we shall have great difficulty in fixing the rent of the houses. We shall go on arguing year after year about the rate of subsidy that must be paid from the local authority and from the State.

Therefore I ask the Financial Secretary to give this matter his attention. I do not expect him to make a definite pronouncement to-day, but it is so important that it should receive full consideration by the Chancellor himself. There, should be an inquiry to find out whether or not it is practicable to get these houses built on borrowed money at a very low rate of interest. There are people who say that it must be 3½ per cent. or 3¼ per cent.; other people say it can be done for 3 per cent.; others think it can be done for 2½ per cent.; but there is a strong body of opinion contending that it can be done at the present time for 2 per cent. The House should take advantage of the opportunity that is offered to us to-day to find out whether or not that 2 per cent. can be fixed and controlled for a long period. We have left behind the laissez faire days, we are now under a measure of control, and we ought to be able to control finance in order to use it as an instrument for social betterment, instead of allowing it to be used by certain people to exploit the taxpayers.

I raised a point last week about the small local savings banks. I asked the Chancellor whether they would be protected, and the Chancellor nodded his head. But when an hon. Member nods his head the fact is not recorded in print, and the Chancellor gave no assurance otherwise that these banks would be protected. Personally, I do not think there is much doubt about it, but there is some doubt and I would like the right hon. Gentleman who replies to-day to make clear whether the small local savings banks will be fully protected so that they can remain in existence—because that is what it really means.

Possibly the right hon. Gentleman knows their origin and the work they do, but as I happen to be the chairman of one of them—I am not quite sure that it is not the only one in England—I am rather concerned about it. They were started originally, I think, by the right hon. Gentleman who is now Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. T. Johnston). The first, as far as my knowledge goes, was started in a little place called Kirkintilloch. It was a small but very successful experiment, and as a consequence many other places in Scotland followed the example of Kirkintilloch and a number of these municipal banks grew up. They had only one object, to encourage the people to save money, and they had available to them only one means of investing that money, namely, to loan it to the local authority in whose area the bank was situated. Those banks, therefore, were very circumscribed. If the only place from which a local authority can borrow money under this Bill is the Public Works Loan Board in future, it may happen, unless some guarantee is given, that these banks will no longer be able to lend money to the local authorities and therefore will go out of existence altogether.

Whenever I see a good thing in Scotland or anywhere else, being an Irishman myself, I always take advantage of it, and try to get it adopted where I happen to reside at the moment. Some years ago it happened that the borough treasurer and the clerk of the council of Walthamstow and myself spent our holidays together, and we went round those banks in Scotland to find out their experience and to apply it, if possible, with advantage to the borough in which we live. As a consequence we established one of those local banks in Walthamstow. I was made chairman, and I am still chairman of it. We started that bank with a capital of 22s.—not a very big start for a bank—in 22 1s. shares, for there were 22 members of the local authority who were prepared to subscribe a shilling each for a share. Our bank has gone ahead, and we have, in fact, lent to the local council between £50,000 and £60,000, all arising out of that 22s. subscribed a few years ago. We loan it to the local authority at a rate of interest lower than the Public Works Loan Board have been able in, I think, any case to loan it.

Incidentally, the people who deposit their money there get a somewhat higher rate of interest than they can get in the Post Office or similar places. I would like an assurance that nothing will be done by this Bill to prevent those banks in Scotland, and certainly my own bank—I call it my own bank, but I get nothing out of it; nor does anybody else associated with it get payment—from continuing. It is an advantage to the people who deposit their money, because they get a higher rate of interest, and an advantage to the local authority, because they pay a lower rate of interest than they would pay if they borrowed in the public money market or from the Public Works Loan Board.

I am concerned also with the Small Dwellings (Acquisition) Acts. In Walthamstow, for a number of years, we have lent considerable sums to people who desire to buy their houses. We have borrowed the money from the Public Works Loan Board, and the rate of interest has, on the whole, been satisfactory. My recollection is that at one time the rate was 3¼ per cent. If there were a "break" clause, and we were able to take advantage of recent borrowings in the public money market, we could borrow at 2¾ per cent., and redeem the loan from the Board. If we are compelled to borrow from the Public Works Loan Board only, there is no guarantee that 3¼ per cent. will not be exceeded: we may be compelled to pay 3½ per cent. Then, some time after it may be possible to borrow in the public money market at 2½ per cent. Why should we be compelled to continue paying 3½ per cent. if, by having a "break" clause, we could pay off that money by borrowing at a lower rate of interest in the public money market? I am also concerned as to whether money will always be readily available if the Public Works Loan Board is the only source from which we can borrow. There have been times when the Government have prevented local authorities from borrowing at the moment when the local authorities wanted to do so. We have obtained sanction to borrow from one Department, who have said that the purpose for which we wished to borrow appeared to be a very good one, but the Treasury would not sanction the loan at that time; and long delay has occurred. Can we have a guarantee that there will not be very long delays in allowing local authorities to borrow for any good purpose, and particularly for the purposes of the Small Dwellings (Acquisition) Acts?

Housing loans have been referred to. I remember that in the last war, during part of which I was chairman of the finance committee of the local authority of which I am a member, we borrowed money for housing, and we had to pay as much as 7 per cent. interest. I was very insistent that our local authority should have a "break" clause. We were able to redeem some of those loans, which had been raised at 7 per cent., 6 per cent., and 5½ per cent., by borrowing money at a lower rate; and, in consequence, we saved considerable sums. It appears that, under this Bill, we should not be able to do that. I think that any local authority should be able, through the instrument of a "break" clause, to get money at a cheaper rate than they have been paying, if opportunity offers. On the whole, I think the Bill is a good one, and that it will operate in almost every case to the advantage of the local authorities. But one aspect of considerable importance has not yet been mentioned. If you borrow in the open market, you generally pay a considerable commission to the agent from whom you borrow. These agents apparently have such a hold on the money market that it is difficult to get money without going to them. They are middlemen in the money market, and they take considerable pickings, which do not have to be paid to the Public Works Loan Board. There are those doubts in my mind; and if the right hon. Gentleman can assure me on them, I shall have no objection to the Bill.

In these days, when "none is for a party and all are for the State," it is more usual to hear speeches in criticism of His Majesty's Government and their proposals than speeches in their support. Therefore, on the whole, we may consider that this Bill has had a favourable reception. Certainly hon. Members have not been divided on party lines; the differences have been as much between Members of the same party as between Members of opposite parties; and hon. Members, out of their great fund of experience in this field of municipal borrowing, have made most valuable contributions, which will be examined with great care in the Treasury before the regulations are framed and these proposals assume a final form. The hon. Member for East Stirling (Mr. Woodburn), on the opening day, raised the same point as has just been raised by my hon. Friend the Member for West Walthamstow (Mr. McEntee), in regard to the position, under these proposals, of municipal banks. We have examined this matter, so far as we have been able to do, and it appears that there is more than one type of municipal bank. There is the municipal bank which is, in fact, the corporation itself, and there is another type which is a separate undertaking, in which the shareholders are very often the councillors, who hold their shares on trust. So far as the former class is concerned, I think Birmingham and possibly Motherwell are the only two of which we have definite knowledge. I am told that with that type of bank a very satisfactory arrangement has been current during the war.

With regard to the latter type, which is, I think, the sort of institution in which the hon. Member is most interested, we shall endeavour to prevent them falling within the mischief of Clause 1 of the Bill. We shall have to examine the matter a little further. We do not think it right that local authorities should borrow at short-term for long-term purposes. It would be very unsound finance to accept money at short call and to invest it in long-term schemes. But, subject to that proviso, we will try to come to some agreed arrangement with these admirable institutions, to ensure that they are not affected by Clause 1. Clause 1 contains a general power of exemption, by means of regulations, and also a particular power of exemption, reserved to the Treasury; so there are ample powers in Clause 1, which, I hope, will enable us to embody within the framework of the Bill an agreed solution of the problem of these municipal banks.

The hon. Member for East Birkenhead (Mr. Graham White), who is not in his place to-day, asked a very important question, which ought to be cleared up. He asked, "Will the rates of interest be the same for all local authorities?" The answer is, "Yes." Ipswich, for example, will be able to borrow on precisely the same terms as London or Birmingham. I think that, as the hon. Member for Pontypool (Mr. A. Jenkins) indicated, there is a good deal of advantage in that. Some of the more depressed areas—the Special Areas as we used to call them, and the Development Areas as we propose to call them in future—had to pay rather more for their money in the past than did the richer localities. I am sure it will be an advantage for all authorities, if the purpose of the loan is sanctioned by the Department concerned, to get their money on the same terms. In this respect I would like to draw attention to the fact that the Chancellor's speech was clear on this point; but, unfortunately, a misprint has crept into HANSARD, at the top of column 915. The Chancellor is reported as having said:

"Under the new scheme rates will vary according to the purpose of the loans."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 24th January, 1945; Vol. 407, c. 914–5.]

The Chancellor, in fact, said:

".… rates will vary according to the periods of the loans"—

which, hon. Members will see, is rather a different matter.

The hon. Member for North Battersea (Mr. Douglas), who is a great expert in these matters, raised a number of points. He asked whether the administrative arrangements would be as simple as possible, and the answer is "Yes ". We shall do all we can to avoid delays and complications. As Members are aware, three Departments will be concerned with these applications. There will be the sanctioning Department, usually the Ministry of Health, concerned as to whether the object is a good and desirable one, and whether it comes within the powers of the authority. There will be the Capital Issues Committee, which will be concerned with the quite different and very important question of priorities. It would not be right, for example, even although they have powers, for a local authority to build a new town hall when they were in desperate need of new houses for the working classes, and this question of priorities, which is bound up with the supply of raw materials, is, of course, one in which the Capital Issues Committee has to view the whole field.

Would that Committee determine the priority in the case which has been stated?

I should not like to give a definite answer on that point. It might well be that the sanctioning Department would say, "At this stage we cannot give you borrowing powers for an object of that character." The Capital Issues Committee has to survey the whole field of priorities, not only so far as local authorities are concerned but also as far as industry is concerned. The third authority concerned will be the Public Works Loan Board, which will be concerned with the question of security for the amount to be borrowed. The Chancellor described the machinery by which one application will go to all three authorities, who will consult together before any reply is sent from any of them to the applying local authority. I think the arrangements will work well, but should they fail in any respect to do so there will be the two standing committees, to which my right hon. Friend referred, representative of local authorities in England and Wales on the one hand, and of Scotland on the other, which will keep a watchful eye on this procedure and see that there are no unnecessary delays or red tape. The hon. Member for North Battersea also asked whether there was anything in the Bill to prevent expenditure of revenue upon capital purposes. The answer is, "No". It is true that the hon. Member for Pontypool suggested that some trickery was necessary for the local authority to spend revenue on capital purposes. It appears that the London County Council have been doing this from what the hon. Member for North Battersea said, but I myself should not care to give any expression of opinion on that question.

I did not call it "trickery."

If the hon. Member will read HANSARD to-morrow I think he will find that he said that it can only be done by a trick. At any rate, nothing in the Bill will prevent a local authority applying revenue to capital purposes.

I think it prevents capital expenditure being incurred out of revenue. The point is to accumulate sufficient revenue to carry out a scheme without borrowing.

I appreciate the hon. Member's point. The hon. Member for North Battersea also asked whether authorities would be obliged to expend all their available funds before they were given permission to borrow anything more. The answer is that they will not be so compelled, but, of course, if they have large sums of money at their disposal, which they have not spent on some purpose for which they might have had sanction before the war, that will be looked at and they will be expected to take a reasonable attitude and not to come into the market for large sums under the new scheme, so long as they have other sums of a substantial character available.

My hon. Friend the Member for Tamworth (Sir J. Mellor) and my hon. Friend the Member for The Wrekin (Mr. Colegate), respectively, raised a very important point. They said: "Why not make Clause 1 permissive; why not allow authorities, if they can, to borrow more cheaply elsewhere?" I think they had in mind that the current minimum rate chargeable by the Public Works Loan Board would continue, and would be the minimum rate for the future. But the Chancellor, in his opening speech, made it clear that the terms proposed for the new loans would be approximately those at which the Treasury itself is able to borrow.

Can the right hon. Gentleman tell us exactly what "approximately" means? The provisional spread is usually anything up to three-quarters of one per cent.

The word "approximately" is intended to cover the small fee which will be added to the interest charged to cover the expenses of the Public Works Loan Board.

There is no differential interest?

If the hon. Member will wait a little while, I will give the precise table of the initial rates of interest which it is proposed shall be charged. I think that when hon. Members hear the figures, they will realise that, in practice, it will not be possible for local authorities to borrow for similar purposes on lower terms than those which are to be fixed.

Why prohibit them from doing something which it is impossible for them to do?

The scale of rates will be as follows: For loans not exceeding a period of five years, 2 per cent.; not exceeding 10 years, 2½ per cent.; not exceeding 15 years, 2¾ per cent.; not exceeding 30 years, 3 per cent., and upwards of 30 years, 3⅛ per cent. Those are almost precisely the rates at which the Government borrow at the present time for a corresponding period, and those rates will assure local authorities that they are to get substantial advantages through the proposals in the Bill. The hon. Member for North Tottenham (Mr. R. C. Morrison) says that if these rates are so low that there will be substantial advantage to the local authority in adopting the procedure laid down in the Bill, why should they be stopped from going elsewhere? We do not want them to go elsewhere. There must be some advantage for the Treasury, as well as for local authorities, in this scheme. We do not want foolish and unwise borrowers to go into the market, and spoil it for everybody else, by offering something substantially in excess of these rates.

The right hon. Gentleman's argument was that it would be quite impossible for local authorities to borrow on better terms than are to be given by the Government. Why prohibit people from doing something which it is impossible for them to do?

It will be impossible for them, in my view, to borrow more cheaply for corresponding periods, but some might care, for all sorts of reasons—such as preserving their goodwill in the market, and having an eye on the future—to borrow outside this scheme. From the point of view of the Treasury, seeking to control rates for money during this very difficult post-war period, it will be a substantial advantage to have all the borrowing canalised in this way, through a single channel, and not to have outside competition.

If there is a substantial improvement in the price of Government stocks I take it that these rates would fall?

The rates I have stated are provisional; they are not fixed for all time; they are subject to variation from time to time. Those are the rates which we have in mind for loans when the scheme is initiated.

In addition to that there will be a slight charge. Can the right hon. Gentleman indicate what that will be?

I think it will be something like 4s. per cent.—not per annum—over the whole of the loan. That is intended to cover the expenses of administration. My hon. Friends the Members for Tamworth and The Wrekin asked why there is no time-limit in the Bill. If it is only a temporary Measure, why not put in a time-limit? The assurance given to the local authorities is a twofold assurance, first, that the scheme will continue only so long as it is necessary and, secondly, that there will be a review, in any event, at the end of four years from the cessation of hostilities in Europe. The local authorities themselves have never asked for a definite time-limit to be placed in the Bill, on this scheme. They asked for the assurances that we have given, and that, in my view, is the best course to adopt. It is quite impossible to forecast now what will be the period of years for which this scheme will be necessary. It may be four, five or six years, and it therefore seems best to give local authorities the assurances they have asked for; that the scheme will continue only so long as it is necessary, that there will be a review at the end of the fourth year, and that standing committees of the local authorities will be in touch with the Treasury on the working of the scheme from its commencement to its finish.

Does my right hon. Friend suggest that the assurances are binding on future Governments? If local authorities are to review the matter with the Treasury four years after the end of the war in Europe, why should not the House also review the matter at that time?

We have given local authorities what they desired to have, which were these assurances. That seemed to me to be a reasonable course. My hon. Friend asked whether the undertaking will be binding on a future Chancellor of the Exchequer. I should have thought that it would be quite out of the question for any Chancellor to dishonour a definite undertaking given to all local authorities in the country, in combination, four years previously. That seems to be a situation which it is quite impossible to contemplate. I should not envy any Chancellor, when Members on all sides are interested in local authority matters, having to stand at this Box to try to defend a complete breach of a pledge given by his predecessor to local authorities four years previously. I do not think that that is a situation which we need contemplate.

Why should we not have an opportunity of discussing the matter? If a limit is put on the duration of Clause 1, it would require only a one-Clause Bill to extend the duration in four or five years' time, should this House consider this appropriate.

I honestly do not think that that is a very good reason for putting a time-limit into the Bill, which has not been asked for by the parties concerned, just to give hon. Members a chance of raising the matter in the House. I have been in the House a good many years, and I have found that if there is any subject which Members desire to discuss at any time, there has never been any real difficulty in an occasion being found to discuss it.

Could it not be raised on the Expiring Laws Continuance Bill?

This Bill has no time-limit in it and would not, therefore, come under the Expiring Laws Continuance Bill. The pledge is quite definite that the scheme will only continue as long as is necessary and it seems to me much better, as no one can forecast the period of years with any precision at all, to leave the matter open. However, that is a point that can be further discussed in Committee.

Several hon. Members have suggested that the Bill puts local authority finance into a strait-jacket. The statement of the Chancellor of the Exchequer made it clear that a considerable measure of freedom is preserved to local authorities. They can continue to borrow on mortgage, as hitherto, up to the amount outstanding at the end of the financial year 1943–4. I should like to make it clear that the date is the financial year which ended in the Spring of 1944, and not the financial year that ends very shortly. They can renew existing issues which fall due for repayment, or which they have an option to convert. I think that is a very valuable thing. Many authorities want to keep their names in the market. They want to keep the goodwill of the persons who have invested in their stocks, and it is therefore provided that, when the loans fall due for repayment, they may be renewed; and we are going to introduce an Amendment to Clause 4 which will enable the Treasury to underwrite these conversions, and will give us rather wider powers than does the Clause as at present drawn.

The hon. Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Benson) attacked the Treasury for its past sins, starting in 1875 and continuing until a fairly recent date. As far as I am aware, no Local Loans Stock has been issued, at any rate since 1935, when a new form of borrowing for the Local Loans Fund was sanctioned by Parliament. The first part of the hon. Member's speech evoked considerable sympathy in my breast. I went to the Public Works Loan Board about 1924 in order to put up working-class houses, and borrowed, not at quite such a high rate as he mentioned, but at 5 per cent.; and I have been rather gloomily discharging my debt on the annuity method ever since. I entirely agree with him that the methods proposed under the Bill are far better methods of financing this form of expenditure than those adopted after the last war. In fact, if I were not a Member of the Government, I might go even further in that matter.

The hon. Member gave us a considerable dissertation upon long and short-term borrowing. Though I am not very experienced in these financial matters, we can all agree that long-term borrowing at low rates is good, and that long-term borrowing at high rates is bad. I think we can also agree that borrowing short at low rates is a gamble, especially if you do it when you intend to spend the money for long term purposes. It is clear that under the Government's cheap money policy, the next three or four years will offer peculiarly advantageous terms, for long-term borrowing, to local authorities, and I do not think we need fear the situation the hon. Member envisaged, that high rates of interest would quickly supervene, and that local authorities might be saddled with high rates of interest for a long period of years. If anything of that kind occurred, which I think most unlikely, that would be an occasion for a review of the scheme.

No promise.

There is a definite promise that the scheme will be reviewed at the end of four years, but I cannot envisage a situation in which local authorities will be coming forward seeking to borrow money at high rates of interest. I have already announced the provisional rates for the initiation of the scheme, and I should consider it most probable that those rates will continue in operation for some time. The scheme of the Bill is, in my view, mutually advantageous to local and central financial authorities. Combined demands on the capital market will be very great in the first post-war years. As the gates are opened, there will be great pressure to get in, and we do not want an ugly scramble. It is vital that we should have cheap money for reconstruction purposes, especially for housing, and that money must be immediately available. The Bill provides that it shall be, and it provides an equal opportunity and equal rates of interest for all local authorities. I think I can claim that, as an interim Measure, it will make a substantial contribution to an orderly conversion from war to peace conditions and it may enable a large part of the essential reconstruction expenditure to be undertaken and financed, on terms which will confer a great public benefit for more than one generation.

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

In moving the Bill in another place my Noble Friend began by saying that its purpose was to promote safety on the roads. It is for that purpose—and that purpose alone—that the Government have asked Parliament to approve it. Before the war pedal cycles had to carry either a red rear light or, if they preferred it, a red reflector and a white patch. During the war, because of the conditions of the blackout, cyclists have been required to carry a red rear light. If they wished, they were allowed not to carry reflectors and white patches as well, and in fact many new cycles have been made during the war without them. The obligation to carry rear lights was imposed by an Order made by my right hon. Friend the Minister of Home Security under the emergency powers conferred for the period of the war by Defence Regulation 24. Clause 1 of the Bill contains an obligation on pedal cyclists to carry a red rear light in future, after the war time obligation has lapsed. It does so by repealing the provisions of the Road Transport Lighting Act, 1927, and of the Road Traffic Act, 1934, which relieved the cyclist of the obligation to carry a light, if he carried a reflector and a white patch instead. This first Clause, the most important in the Bill, will come into immediate effect if and when the Bill becomes law.

Clause 2 provides that a cyclist must not only carry a red rear light but must carry a red reflector and a white patch as well. This is for greater safety in case the rear light should fail or be obscured without his knowing that it had happened. The reflector and patch must comply with the Regulations which the Minister lays down. My Noble Friend does not intend to alter the substance of the Regulations about reflectors and patches which were drawn up in 1936, though the form may change in certain ways. The Regulations must be laid before both Houses of Parliament; and the obligation of Clause 2 will not come into operation until the day my Noble Friend appoints. That is because, as I have said, many cycles have been made without the reflector and patch. The necessary equipment is not now available to provide them, and that there may be some delay before it is, and therefore my Noble Friend will not appoint the statutory day until adequate supplies of reflectors and patches are available.

Clause 3 provides that, until the day appointed by the Minister, no rear light need be shown if the vehicle is stationary in the road, owing to traffic signals or other similar cause, provided that the cycle is as near as possible to the left hand edge of the carriage way. That is because many wartime dynamo lighting sets have no batteries which keep the light burning when the cycle is at a standstill. New fittings will be needed to overcome that difficulty, and we are doing all we can to ensure that they shall be made available without delay; but, until they are, the Clause allows this necessary relaxation. The Bill does not alter the provision of the Act of 1927 that, if the cyclist's lights should altogether fail, he may wheel his bicycle without lights along the left hand edge of the road. That, again, is an obviously necessary rule, to allow the cyclist to reach a repair shop or to reach his home, and we propose that it should go on.

That is the Bill. The Government believe that the case for it rests on the lessons of experience and the dictates of common sense. I think I can best establish the case by answering objections which have been brought against it in recent times. May I, to begin with, deal with a point of prejudice? We have been accused of rushing the Bill through in an ungenerous and an un-British spirit, without proper consultation with the people who are principally concerned. It is said that cyclists have patriotically accepted rear lights for the period of the war, and, now that tens of thousands of their young colleagues are fighting overseas, we are pushing this through, taking them unawares, without any valid reason and, in our haste, giving them no chance to make their real defence. I admit none of those charges. There is a valid reason why we should have acted swiftly. During the war, there has been this legal obligation imposed by Order, and it was imposed under Defence Regulation 24. The moment the war in Europe ends, that Regulation might be withdrawn.

Is that an undertaking that the Emergency Powers Act will be brought to an end when the war in Europe ends?

My hon. Friend knows very well that it is not; but I expect that he will be one of those who will demand that No. 24 shall be withdrawn with the utmost speed. If the Government intend, as they do intend, to continue this obligation on cyclists in time of peace, it is desirable that there shall be no hiatus, no gap of time, between the lapsing of the war-time Regulation and the entry into force of the long-term legislation which we have in view. Such a hiatus would be inconvenient to everybody concerned, and perhaps, most of all to the cyclists themselves. I think the House will agree, therefore, that we have not acted with undue despatch in bringing this Measure forward now.

What about consultation? Frankly, the cyclists have told us everything they have to tell us long ago. This is not a new issue. It has been vigorously debated, at least since the General Election of 1929. It has been submitted to expert and impartial examination three times in the last seven or eight years. It was carefully examined by the Alness Committee of the House of Lords in 1938–9. The cyclists' organisations all gave evidence. Their evidence was dealt with in the greatest detail. We have a verbatim record, which we have constantly referred to in our preparation of the Bill. The Alness Committee unanimously recommended what this Bill contains.

The matter was examined further before the war by the Transport Advisory Council of the Ministry. Again, the Council went into every detail; they had the cyclists' views most fully laid before them, representatives of the cyclists helped them, and they recommended by a large majority, nearly two-thirds, that rear lights should be required. Lastly, the present Road Safety Committee, who have just presented their interim Report to my Noble Friend, discussed the matter fully.

Has that Report been published?

No, not yet.

On a point of Order. Is it not very improper for the Minister to refer to a Report which has been presented to his Noble Friend but which has not been presented to this House?

I hope not; my Noble Friend referred to it in another place.

Surely no Minister can refer to a Report which has been presented to him on a matter which is the subject of Debate in this House unless the Report is presented to the House?

Presumably the Minister will see that it is laid before the House, because it is usual, if a Minister is quoting from a Report, for the Report to be available to the House.

I have every hope that it will be.

Surely we must have some undertaking before the Committee stage of the Bill is taken that this document will be made available to the House.

I will consult my Noble Friend who, I think, has every intention of publishing the Report, although I am not aware that he has yet made a decision on it.

It has nothing to do with his Noble Friend. No Minister is entitled to quote from a document without presenting it to the House. I am not in the least interested in his Noble Friend.

If the hon. Gentleman is quoting from this document it really will have to be presented.

I was not quoting from it. I was saying that, in the Report, there was a recommendation which, as my Noble Friend announced in another place, he has accepted. I have quoted nothing from the Report itself, and he quoted nothing.

May I clarify the position? If the hon. Gentleman quotes from a document, the document will have to be presented to the House. If he is summarising from a document, the position is not the same, but it must be a summary and not a quotation.

I am only summarising the proposal which the Road Safety Committee made to my Noble Friend, a proposal which, indeed, before the Report was completed or presented to him, he had already decided to accept. This Road Safety Committee is a very competent body. Apart from the representatives of the Government Departments, it has three representatives of the police, all very highly qualified, and two of them among the greatest traffic and road safety experts in the world; it has also an admirable team of representatives of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents, one of whom, Mr. Whall, happens also to be an officer of a cyclists' organisation. There could not be a better spokesman, from the cyclists' point of view, than Mr. Whall. He gave the Committee the cyclists' arguments against this Bill, but the Committee unanimously, except for himself, endorsed the proposals of the Alness Committee, the proposals, that is to say, of this Bill.

When we drew up the Bill, therefore, we were not in any doubt about the cyclists' views. They have had ample opportunity of telling the Government in general, and my Ministry in particular, anything and everything they have to say. Moreover, since the Bill was introduced in another place, I have had the pleasure of meeting a deputation of representatives of cyclists and cycle manufacturers. Our discussion was extremely useful to me, but I cannot in candour pretend that they said anything new, or that they brought forward any fact or argument which was unfamiliar to those who framed the Bill. I hope, therefore, that the House will not think we have behaved unfairly by the cyclists.

What is the case that they bring forward? First, and most fundamental if it were a valid objection, they urge the mechanical difficulty of finding a satisfactory rear light which is adequately reliable, and which lasts for a reasonable time. Twenty years ago, or even ten, I think that that argument had a great deal of force. There is more vibration on the frame of a cycle, and there is less room for power to run a light, than there is on a motor car. Oil lamps are hard to keep alight in a gusty wind. But I think that that argument has lost most of its force to-day. There are now cheap and efficient battery sets, and more than one type of dynamo set. The dynamos are constantly improving. We have had five years of compulsory lighting during the war, and the cyclist—and I say this with great assurance—has had no great difficulty in complying with the law.

Oh.

Magistrates have been complaining up and down the country about the inability of cyclists finding batteries or adequate sets.

Of course, in war circumstances the supply of batteries has sometimes been tight, but when cyclists have had the batteries, it cannot be maintained that these have not been efficient or have not worked reasonably well, in spite of the war difficulties.

Is my hon. Friend aware that in my own division engineers have been prosecuted when they have not been able to buy batteries, and that although they have been able to prove to the magistrates that there were no batteries and that the retailers had none, they have been fined?

It may well be that it has happened that there has been a temporary shortage of batteries in some places and at some times during the war; but does my hon. Friend think that that is a valid objection to a peace-time obligation? Of course it is not. The lesson of the war on this point is that the lighting sets are adequately efficient, and that is the point that I am trying to put.

Is my hon. Friend going to give an undertaking that the Order will not be applied until he is assured by the President of the Board of Trade that there are adequate supplies available in the shops?

I have dealt with that on one point. I said that the obligation on the cyclist with a dynamo set to keep his light burning, while he is stopped by a traffic signal or other similar cause, will not come into force until there is sufficient apparatus to make that possible. There is further evidence on the matter. The Alness Committee pointed out that, although the cyclists' organisations urged the mechanical difficulty of getting an adequate light, there were seven other countries in which, before the war, rear lights on cycles were compulsory. These countries include France and Italy. They included Belgium, where the vast army of cyclists used to be led by the great King Albert. Many hon. Members will have seen him cycling through the streets of Brussels. They included also Holland, the foremost cycling nation in the world, where the proportion of motorists to cyclists is far lower than it is here, and where the cyclists must form the great majority of the total electorate. Can it be believed that, in such a democratic country as Holland, rear lights would have been compulsory, if cyclists had been against them, or if they had had any difficulty in finding an adequate or efficient system of lighting?

Can my hon. Friend give the proportion of motorists to cyclists in this country?

I have not the statistics here, but if my hon. Friend has visited Holland he will be aware that my comparison is valid.

Has the hon. Gentleman the accident figures?

I have not the accident figures for Holland. I will come to statistics later.

Can the hon. Gentleman say in regard to Holland, which he particularly quotes in his support of his case, whether the white strip and the red reflector are in operation?

I cannot answer now, but I will give my hon. Friend the answer a little later in the Debate.

It has a great bearing on the case.

I think not, for my argument has been on whether it is possible or not to have an efficient rear light. There must have been an efficient rear light in Holland, or else the provision there would not have been tolerated, because the cyclists are the great majority of the electorate.

I come to the second argument, that the Bill involves discrimination against cyclists. It is called class legislation against an old and numerous class of road users. It is constantly asserted that this is so, but I have never been able to fathom what it means. If to be obliged to carry a rear light is a burden, the cyclist has hitherto had a discrimination in his favour, because he has been exempt while nearly all other kinds of vehicles have been obliged to carry one. There is another alleged discrimination which I have succeeded in tracking down. It is said that under this Bill we shall compel cyclists to carry three protective gadgets—the light, the reflector and the white patch—whereas motor vehicles are obliged to carry only one. If I may, with the permission of my hon. Friend the Member for South Croydon (Sir H. Williams) summarise another of the recommendations of the Road Safety Committee, they suggest—and I feel sure that my Noble Friend will adopt it—that in future motor vehicles should have two red rear lights and a red reflector on the extreme off-side of the vehicle. That is based on experience, because it has often happened—it has happened during the war—that a man whose rear lights have failed has stepped down from the driving seat to go to the back of the vehicle to tinker round, trying to mend them, and has been run into from behind by another vehicle and killed. There are many deaths, particularly of lorry drivers, every year from that cause. That is why the Road Safety Committee propose, and I think my Noble Friend will decide, that there shall in future be three safety gadgets for motor vehicles, as there are under this Bill for cycles.

But the main argument by which the whole case of the cyclists stands or falls is this. If cyclists, so the cyclists say, do carry red lights, then motor drivers will go faster; will hit cyclists from behind, and will destroy their light; then when they get to court—if they ever get there, if they are not dead—the cyclists will not be able to prove that their light was on. Therefore, the court will find against the cyclist and he will get no compensation. I have tried to state the case as fairly as I can, and I will try to answer it reasonably and without undue heat.

First, about the speed. I do not think that anyone can prove anything about that; hut, if I understand the argument of the cyclists, it is that at present, or before the war, motor drivers, because they knew that there might be cyclists on the road without lights went more slowly than they otherwise would have done. That is a very kindly view of the morality of motor drivers for cyclists to take. It is very unusual for different classes of road users to think so well of each other. I am not sure that there is anything in it at all. In any case, it is pure hypothesis. None of us can say he knows. But I ask hon. Members to consider whether it is not true that the motorist drives, as he himself believes, safely, within the range of the vision that he is given by his headlights; and that when he sees a tail light ahead, he slackens speed in order to pass. The sooner he sees the tail light, the sooner he begins to slacken speed. But often he can only pick up the reflector at the last moment. In any case, it is certain that a tail light can be seen further off than a reflector. If that is so—I beg the hon. Member for South Croydon to think that this is a valid point—it must mean that the motorist who has begun to slacken speed when he sees the tail light will arrive near the cyclist, the danger point, at a slower speed than he otherwise would have done. None of us can know, but I suggest that my hypothesis is at least as probable as the contrary hypothesis, which rests on no evidence of any kind.

What about the onus of proof? The cyclists attach tremendous importance to it, so much so that the deputation the other day asked me to consider whether we could not put a Clause into the Bill which would lay it down that the Bill in no way affected or diminished the Common Law obligation of the motorist to drive with proper care. I have considered that proposal with the greatest care. I have taken legal advice, and I am assured that the Bill, neither directly nor by implication, in any may absolves the motorist from his duty to drive with due care and within the field of his vision. My advisers say that, for this reason, any Clause on the lines suggested by the cyclists would be absolutely meaningless and out of place. They say more than that. They say that if such a provision were inserted in the Bill it would have to be included in every other similar Bill, and that the effect might be to weaken and not to strengthen the binding force of the Common Law.

Is there anything in the cyclists' point that when they get to court the onus of proof will be on them to show that their light was burning when the accident occurred? I have here some very care- fully drafted language on this point, and I propose to read it to the House:

"The objection which is made that the cyclist would be at a disadvantage, if his rear light were put out by a collision with a motorist, in having to prove that it had been alight, is entirely misconceived. If the motorist who has collided with a cyclist alleges, as part of his defence, that the cyclist's rear lamp had not been alight, the onus would fall on him to prove to the court's satisfaction that that was the case. It is a clear principle of our law that a person who alleges a fact must prove it. It is not necessary for the other party to disprove it."

I have submitted this statement to the Attorney-General, who agrees that it is right, and I hope that it finally disposes of the cyclists' point.

As there would be only one witness before the court, the motorist—the cyclist being dead—unless there is rebutting evidence the court has to accept the evidence given on oath.

I hope that the Attorney-General may be here a little later. Perhaps the hon. Member would be good enough to put that point to him when I hope he may be able to make an authoritative answer. May I put another consideration to the House? If this argument were valid about the increase of speed by the overtaking vehicle as the result of cycles carrying rear lamps, and the onus of proof falling on the man who is run down, then it would apply not only to cycles, but to other vehicles as well.

And to persons.

Persons are different. If my hon. Friend likes I will talk about that point. There are a great number of accidents in which one motor vehicle runs into another from behind. If the argument were valid about cycles it would be valid about motor vehicles which were overtaken. That is surely true. What is the conclusion? The argument would rule out rear lights altogether. It would rule out the white patch and the reflector which cyclists carry now. And, in fact, when I put this to my deputation, they said; "Certainly abolish all these reflectors and patches and rear lights on all vehicles. That suits us better."

Well, that may be their point of view, but it is contrary to the whole experience of this country and of all other countries, where elaborate legal provisions have been drawn up for the carrying of rear lights by vehicles of every kind.

Now one word about statistics. I will not say very much. I remember once hearing a Welsh miner say, when I quoted some figures, that a statistician was a man whom the Government called in when their figures would neither stand up nor lie down. Certain it is that statistics of road accidents are a very imperfect science. I would not try to prove very much from any statistics I have ever yet been given. I want to make only two points, and I do not want to press them too far; but I think they are both valid. The first point is about the efficacy of the reflector and the white patch as protection. In 1937 448 cyclists were killed on the roads; 133 of them were killed by collisions from behind. Of those 133, 65 per cent. had their reflectors and white patches in order, and of 26 per cent. the particulars were not known. There is no evidence to show that reflectors and white patches of the 26 per cent. were not in order. It is extremely probable that they were, because otherwise they would have been had up for not observing the law.

Were those accidents by day or by night?

These were at night. The total for day and night was 1,300, that is to say about 900 in the day time and 440 at night. That was about the proportion.

So it is safer to ride at night.

Fewer people ride at night, of course. I think it is safe to say that the majority of the 26 per cent. had their reflectors in order and that, therefore, at least 80 per cent. or 90 per cent. of the people killed from behind were carrying reflectors and patches which were in order. That shows that the reflectors were not enough protection and that something more was needed.

My only other statistical point is this: It has been said very freely that the figures of accidents during the war have proved that the rear lights are no good and that they have failed in their purpose. That conclusion I rebut, though I do not want to draw any other conclusion from what I am about to say. In the year 1936–37, and in the three war years, 1942, 1943 and 1944 the total number of fatal accidents on the road per annum was approximately the same. I am only talking of deaths. Those accidents are very much easier to verify and you are sure that there are no errors in reporting. The total number of cyclists killed in daylight was approximately the same in the pre-war year, as in the three war years. But the total number of cyclists killed at night was a great deal less. It was 270 odd in each of the three war years, compared with 448 in the peace year. That is a very striking fall, and it happened in spite of the fact that, as we believe, there are more cyclists on the roads at night during war time than there would be in peace.

No.

There are workers going to and from their work.

There are fewer cars.

There are fewer cars, of course, but these were black-out nights; and the fact that there were fewer cars applies to all the figures I have given. There was a very substantial reduction in the figures of those cyclists who were killed at night. I am not saying that that was due to lights. Let no one interpret this statistical argument to mean that; but I do say that the statistics do not prove that rear lights have failed.

I do not like being in dispute with cyclists. Many of their leaders are my friends. Among the deputation who came to me the other day was an old and distinguished cyclist who has been one of their leaders for many years.

How does one become a distinguished cyclist?

In several ways. If my hon. and gallant Friend desires to do so, he might try to win an Olympic cycling race, or he might become an officer of a cycling organisation and serve it for many years as its president. There are many ways by which he could earn distinction in the cycling world.

If anybody had cycled for 30 or 40 years and still kept alive, would that not be regarded as a distinction?

The man I am speaking of has cycled for more than 40 years. I have a great regard for him and his work. He ended his speech to me by saying:

"By this Measure you are condemning hundreds of cyclists a year to certain death."

If we believed that, of course, we would not go on with the Bill. But we believe that by the Bill we shall be saving from death hundreds of cyclists whom our opponents would condemn.

I beg to move, to leave out "now," and, at the end of the Question, to add "upon this day six months."

I regard this as a most reactionary Bill, and I am frankly amazed at the speech of the Parliamentary Secretary. He has based the Bill on two documents, neither of which has been presented to the House. It is perfectly monstrous that the Government have jumped ahead of the publication of the statistics and the publication of the Report. It is treating Parliament with disrespect—

I am not conscious of having quoted any statistics that have not been published.

There were the statistics about accidents during the war. The Government are so full of secrecy that the statistics have never been published. Will the Parliamentary Secretary give me the reference with regard to the figures of deaths in 1942 to which he referred? He has masses of assistants here to tell him. Surely to come to this House and give the number of deaths of cyclists by night—[Interruption]. In what document have they been published? Has that document been published recently? We should know now so that we can get that document from the Vote Office, and use it for the purpose of this Debate. We have been told that the number of cyclists killed on the road at night is less than in pre-war days.

The figures have been published in the Press.

That is not good enough, if the Minister is quoting documents. In 1934, when we had a Bill before us, the then Minister was courteous enough to present to Parliament a report on road accidents before the Bill was considered. Lots of things are not pub- lished because the Press has little space. I think it is monstrous to present an analysis of statistics which is not available to Members of this House, and a copy of which is not even on the Table here. What does the Parliamentary Secretary say? That there have been 286 deaths in war-time as against over 400 in peace-time, or something like that. What is the position? Most people go home from their work, and in the black-out they stay indoors. The traffic is negligible. In peace-time there are thousands of people on the roads on their bicycles after dark. To-day, in fact, the risk of exposure is that one hour in winter-time alone, when people are going home from work after the black-out, so that the degree of exposure to risk is not one-tenth of that in pre-war days. No account is taken of that. No, we have a few statistics trotted out by the Parliamentary Secretary, with no documents before us to enable us to examine them.

Here is a Bill that has nothing to do with the war. The Emergency Powers Act will continue, certainly until the war with Japan ends. The powers are there for so long as they are necessary. Why use this power, which was brought in in war-time not primarily because of the black-out but because of the masking of headlights? We know the extraordinary difficulty of driving. I have driven since normal headlights were available, and it is an entirely different matter, as we know. This war-time obligation on the cyclist was due to the masking of the headlights. The situation is now entirely different. The Minister has appointed a committee on lighting in connection with traffic. One recommendation has been picked out of that Report and incorporated in this Bill. They have not had the courtesy to present the Report to Parliament before acting on it. It has been summarised. We do not know who these experts are from whom the Parliamentary Secretary quoted. Their names were not mentioned to us. I could mention certain expert advisers on traffic to His Majesty's Government who ought never to have held that office. There was the question of putting the wheels of buses under the chassis so that the back wheels should not kill people. That was held up for ten years by the experts who advised the Minister and Scotland Yard. This Bill was introduced in another place just before Christmas. It attracted very little notice. Apparently there was very little debate in another place. I found it on the Order Paper, and because of the part I took in Standing Committee in 1934 on the Road Traffic Bill, as soon as I saw it, I put down a Motion for its rejection. It is only in the last few days that the bulk of cyclists, and I doubt if even the bulk of them, have discovered that the Bill is under consideration by Parliament.

Let us see what happened in 1934. The Bill did not contain any provisions for a rear light. The hon. Lady who was then the Member for Willesden and is now the Member for Frome (Mrs. Tate), moved that "such vehicles" should carry a lamp showing to the rear a red light visible from a reasonable distance. I find I was the first speaker to follow her in opposition to the Amendment. Then an hon. and gallant Member whom I saw here yesterday, but who is away on service most of the time, said he had added his name to the hon. Lady's Amendment, but that when he came to examine the Report on Traffic Accidents—the then Minister had been courteous enough to give us the Report before he introduced the Bill and I think we have been treated with the most gross discourtesy in this matter, when statistics and a Report are quoted and are not available—he completely changed his mind, and opposed a rear lamp. Then a Liberal Member said that if he thought the Minister was going to accept that Amendment, he would detain the Committee by making a long speech but that he took it that there was not the slightest chance of the Amendment being accepted. That was after we had studied a well-thought out report on traffic accidents. The hon. and gallant Member for Clitheroe (Sir W. Brass), who is perhaps the outstanding supporter of the motoring fraternity in this House—a distinguished motorist—opposed the proposal. Then came the Minister of that time, who had the advice of all the experts to whom the Parliamentary Secretary has referred, those marvellous people, those distinguished—or extinguished—experts. I do not know which they are. They have apparently all been extinguished—

These were all outsiders.

I do not know whether they were insiders or outsiders. But at the conclusion of that Debate the hon. Lady who is now the Member for Frome said:

"Although I am still convinced that my Amendment has much to be said in its favour, in view of the fact that I think the Minister has what I think is a really novel experience, the support of the entire Committee behind him, I do not intend to press the Amendment."—[Standing Committee C, OFFICIAL REPORT, 31st May, 1934; c. 2026.]

That is a very remarkable thing. Here was a Standing Committee upstairs. I see there was a very good attendance that day, about 50 Members, and only one Member supported, in that Committee, the terms of this Bill, out of the people who had studied the report on accidents, an opportunity which has been denied to this honourable House in regard to the most recent figures.

I do not believe that this Bill, if it becomes an Act, will ever come into operation. We shall have a General Election before long. I know what will happen. Candidates will be asked, "If elected will you vote for the repeal of the Road Transport Lighting (Cycles) Act?" Then we shall see the running. It is all very well in war-time, when there is a mixed bag, representing every hue of the rainbow, sitting on the Front Bench, and Ministers can treat deputations without a great deal of respect, because if one party will not back them another will, and they will have a majority. It will be different when we get a good party Election. [Interruption.] If the cyclists of Derby say, "Do you agree with that Measure?" then I do not think the Parliamentary Secretary will be quite as confident as he is to-day.

I have always been favourable to this.

If so, the Parliamentary Secretary took very little trouble about it, when the matter reached the Floor of the House. He was not in the House then, but none of his friends intervened. When the Bill reached the Floor of the House, the Amendment was not even tabled. It was defeated by 50 to one upstairs, without a Division, and downstairs was not even raised.

There are no new facts. The real basic problem is that the cyclist has not got an eye in the back of his pants, to put it quite bluntly. He does not know whether his rear light is on or not. [An HON. MEMBER: "What about motorists?"] The motor driver has a lamp which, from the very nature of things, is much more stable. In addition to that, if the rear light of a motor-car is off, it is not nearly so important, because the front lights illuminate the road very efficiently, and one can tell that there is a motor vehicle ahead, whether there is any rear light or not. These rear lamps will fail. It is grotesque to pretend that the bulk of cyclists on the roads to-day have a rear light on. Of course they have not, they cannot get them. My family own five bicycles, and I do not think we have on any of them a rear lamp that works. I take the precaution of not using mine in the dark. I do not care much about using it in the day-time. The last time I did so a neighbour's dog tore my trousers and pulled me off the cycle, and that is not provided for in this Bill. It is no test in war-time, when vehicles are driving with masked headlights and there is difficulty in seeing, when there is no street lighting and every kind of peril. If the motorist thinks that every bicycle ahead of him is carrying a lighted lamp, and at any given moment that lamp may have gone out, it creates a false sense of security, and risks of accidents increase. That is the outstanding case.

The Parliamentary Secretary read out some words drafted for him by the Attorney-General. I have a great respect for the Attorney-General, but I do not attach a great deal of importance to legal advice, for this reason. In every case in the courts one set of distinguished lawyers have advised their clients one way, and another lot have advised another way, and one-half are invariably wrong. There is a higher degree of error in legal advice than in anything else. I know of no case where legal advice is less than 50 per cent. wrong. It is no good saying, "That is all right." Quite clearly a man's rights are diminished if he has failed to obey the law. This Bill will impose a new law on the cyclist, and if the cyclist fails to obey that law, and because it will be alleged he has failed to obey that law, when he suffers an accident, any court will award him less damages because he has broken the law, or because the presumption is that he has broken the law. If, as a result of having broken the law, you suffer an injury, it may be that you get no compensation at all. To take an extreme case, if I am engaged in a felony, and if by accident somebody is killed, I am guilty of murder.

I see the hon. Member for Oxford (Mr. Hogg) is apparently disagreeing with me. It so happens that one of my constituents was condemned to death in such a case, and I got him reprieved. The hon. Member is more expert in the law of property than the law of crime, so I was not paying much attention to him. It is obvious that the cyclist will be prejudiced in legal proceedings if, after this Measure, his rear light is out, and an accident occurs, and it is represented that there was contributory negligence on his part, because he had failed to obey the law. We had some words read out by the Parliamentary Secretary which do not impress me very much, even though he assured me that they were prepared by the Attorney-General.

Not prepared by him, but approved by him.

That makes it even worse. When I want drafting done by a lawyer, I like him to do it, not approve somebody else's. When you do your own drafting, you take more trouble than if you look at somebody else's. I think the Attorney-General might do a bit of drafting on his own.

I am quite willing to do it on that point. In my opinion, there is not the slightest doubt that, if there is an accident and an action is brought against a motorist, and the motorist alleges that the bicycle rear lamp was out, the onus is on him to prove that fact and not on the cyclist. [Interruption.] Certainly, it is.

I am delighted that the Attorney-General said that, but it was not the point I was discussing. The point I was discussing was—Did he lose his Common Law rights? We are assuming that it is proved that the cyclist's light was out. The Parliamentary Secretary led us to believe that, in that event, there was no point in the contention of the cyclist that a cyclist who was the victim of the accident loses any of his Common Law rights, and my hon. Friend proceeded to read out those words. I am saying that those words have misled the House, and that they have no bearing on the subject-matter. The Attorney-General says that the motorist would have to prove that the light was out. Let us assume that there was independent testimony which proved that the light was out. What is the position of the cyclist then? It is worse than it is to-day, without the slightest doubt, so far as compensation is concerned.

Of course, that is a fact in the case, but the fact of the bicycle rear lamp being out, although that is a breach of the law, does not relieve the motorist of his obligation to take due care in driving. They may both be negligent, and, of course, no one will suggest that the position of the cyclist should not be affected, when, knowing his light is out, for example, he goes on, recklessly and not caring.

We are on something really interesting now. It is clear that the Parliamentary Secretary has deceived himself. He read out those words and said "I have taken every precaution over those words and I have had them approved by the Attorney-General." He read them out in rebuttal of the allegation of the cyclists that they would lose certain Common Law rights if this Bill becomes law. I have great respect for the Attorney-General, but he has been on his legs twice, and has got the situation worse than when he started. He is clever enough not to do that when he is on a good wicket. It is clear that the cyclist is going to be prejudiced. Let us say that the cyclist's lamp is out when he is run down by a motorist, and there is independent testimony to show that the lamp is out. Suppose he suffers severe injuries, and sues for damages. He will get less sympathy than he would if the Bill was not passed, though it was not his fault that the lamp was out. The Parliamentary Secretary read out words which implied the contrary, and I think he should get some legal advice before he makes another speech.

I did not imply anything.

I have been asked by my party to support the Second Reading of this Bill, and I do so with great pleasure. I was much interested in the speech of my hon. Friend to whom we have just listened. He reminded me of a good many people who think they know much more about law than most lawyers. My hon. Friend revealed his anarchistic disposition. He dislikes all regulations, hates control, hates all legal arrangements and wants to do as he likes and thinks everybody else ought to do the same. Unfortunately, we are living in a world that has to be regulated and organised, and in which proper safety provisions have to be made and a good deal of law and order provided for. My hon. Friend made considerable play with the fact that he had a lot to do with this matter in 1934, but that was over 10 years ago and the world keeps changing. Every year, things become different, especially on the highways, and they are going to be very different after this war, so I do not think we need concern ourselves too much about what may have happened in 1934.

The point has been made that the cyclists may be unaware of the existence of this Bill. Well, the Bill has been in existence during December and January, and we all know that the cyclists have a very vigilant and capable organisation, which is officered and run quite competently. They have plenty of advice and plenty of people looking after the interests of the cyclists. I refer, of course, to the Cyclists Touring Club. This House is often gibed at by outside people as being too slow, but it is never unduly hasty, and I do not think it can fairly be pleaded that the people concerned have not had a fair chance of becoming aware of the existence of this Bill. As for the coming General Election, I should think it would be wise to avoid having it before the German and the Japanese wars are both over, so that we can have an Election unprejudiced by any war circumstances, but, whenever it may come, I should hope that no one in this House, who is looking forward to that event, will be unduly worried by any threat of what cyclists, or anybody else, may do. So long as we know that we are doing what is right we need have no fear or concern about people who do not quite understand what they are complaining about.

As I say, I have been asked to support this Bill, and I do so as an old cyclist. I began cycling on an old boneshaker long ago in an English village. When the "penny-farthing" machine came into the village, I got on that, and soon came off again, and I know what it is to have little accidents with both old and new bicycles. Later, we got the safety bicycle, made of steel, which was terribly heavy and with solid tyres. When you rode on it, it was like holding down a road-breaking drill, or so it seemed on the cobbles of the city of Leicester. Then we had the cushion-tyred machine and then the modern pneumatic bicycle, which has become very popular. My hon. Friend said that he had five cycles in his family. We have four in ours, and I ride myself, so that I think we are a fairly representative cycling family.

The cyclists' organisation talks about 10,000,000 cyclists in the country. It seems an awful lot. Fortunately, they cannot all get on the roads at once—or they do not—but I should doubt whether very many of the 10,000,000 are members of the Cyclists' Touring Club. I think it is a very small minority, and, against that, we have to take into account other people who have to get their living on the roads, such as working motor drivers, about whom I am concerned, and for whom I have been asked to plead to-day. I am sure that everyone has given careful and sympathetic consideration to the letters we have had from the cyclists' organisation, and have taken into account the pleadings they put forward, but, in my view, the relaxation on the dimming of headlights—spoken of as an oncoming change which they welcome, because of the longer distance in which the motorist can see ahead what there is in front of him—will not be enough for the safety of cyclists or for those working on the road.

The rear lights of cyclists will be just as necessary to enable the motorist to see the cyclist away on his left as far ahead as possible. A white patch and reflector, referred to in these letters and pleaded for as being sufficient, are quite insufficient. Not only is the reflector a poor little thing, which does not reflect much until you get near to it, but it gets dim, dirty and dusty and the white patch does the same, and, while both are useful auxiliaries, in the absence of a proper red light, you have to make more adequate provision for safety on the roads. I am concerned, not merely for the safety of the cyclist, so that he should not get run over, but for the driver or working motorist, in order that he should not run somebody down and suffer mental pain and agony over what happens. We should help both to avoid accidents. Therefore, we think the white patch and red reflector are not sufficient, and that the red light should be continued.

The letters we have had suggest that every road on which traffic is running is a straight road, and, at that, a level road, but most of us know that roads have many turns and hills and hump-backed bridges, and that there are side roads which come into them, and gateways from which cyclists push out straight away on to the road, and where the motorist, however good his lights, cannot always see the cycle as far away as he would like himself, but comes upon it suddenly. It is in such a situation that, unless the cyclist has a red light, the motorist does not have a fair chance. I think that, for that reason, and because of the nature of the road itself and the risk involved, it is very desirable red lights should be continued.

If my hon. Friend will exercise his imagination a little, I think he will agree with me that, after this war, there is going to be vastly more motor traffic on the roads, and more cycle traffic than we have ever had before. I am not in the motor manufacturing trade, but I am sure there will be more. More working people will get cars. In America most working men have cars. The car traffic unquestionably will increase on the roads, and I should imagine that the cycle traffic will also increase. I believe it has increased during the war and that the demand for cycles has been enormous, and the difficulty of getting them very great. More have been wanted, but after the war there will be far more still.

No.

I am very fond of young people, and I know that boys are looking forward to getting cycles, and that girls are, too. Boys and girls will go on the road, and they will not always come in after dark. They will be out on the road after dark. I am quite sure of that. We talk of 10,000,000 now in being; we may have a great many more than that. The Cyclists' Touring Club and the Pedestrians' Association talk about 10,000,000 cyclists and say that 1,770 have been killed by night in the last five years. That is their statement and not mine. I reckon that to be something like one person being killed each night, which is a very high rate. I think that the figures are put rather higher than they need be. Had there been no red rear lights on cycles there would have been a great many more fatal casualties. [AN HON. MEMBER: "Why?"] Because of the black-out, and the risks are greater than they used to be. The Cyclists' Touring Club believe that it would involve "unconscionable hardship" to continue the use of rear lights on cycles. This is most exaggerated language. Cyclists have already got used to the practice of providing red rear lamps. They manage to get them and I notice them on every machine I see at night. We have had an assurance that arrangements will be made to ensure a greater abundance of these lamps when the war is over, and no real hardship will be involved in continuing the use of red rear lamps.

A good deal has been said already about the onus of proof, in the case of accidents, being on the overtaking vehicle. That is stated in these letters. It shows an even greater need for the driver of every oncoming vehicle to be able to discern those who are in front of him as early as possible. The red light helps in that. If there is no red light, those who are in front cannot easily be discerned. I am sure that, from practice and observation, a reflector and a white patch are not sufficient to enable an oncoming driver to see the cyclist. A cyclist is difficult to see, and is sometimes almost invisible.

The difficulty of seeing a cyclist on the road is the worst difficulty one experiences when driving. I am rather surprised that there has been all this hullabaloo on behalf of cyclists against the proposed arrangement. The present position reminds me of the passenger in a railway carriage who has taken out his pocket knife and is trying to scrape off some of the netting placed over the window as a protection against the risk of damage from bombs. Some wag of an advertising artist produced a poster, which the railway companies use, depicting the passenger trying to tear off the protective covering on the window and another passenger saying:

"I trust you'll pardon my correction:

That stuff is there for your protection."

I suggest that this Bill is being brought in with a view to putting it on to the Statute Book for the protection of the very people who are making this complaint. It is for them and, one might almost say, for them only. But they are not the only people who should be taken into consideration. They are rather unfair to motorists. It is natural that some pedestrians do not like motorists; I have heard them curse them very severely, and they would like them to be obliterated altogether. In the letters I have received, some motorists are described as "reckless road hogs." That is reckless language indeed. No one who is driving a car can afford to be reckless. The very nature of what he is doing makes him careful. Motor drivers are very careful indeed.

I know of my own knowledge that the working motor drivers—the taxi drivers, the bus drivers and the lorry drivers—are among the most careful drivers in the country, and it is for them that I plead that this Bill should be carried. It is a most heartbreaking and upsetting thing to be present at an accident. A few months ago I got run over myself. [An HON. MEMBER: "Where was your red light?"] It was in broad daylight. I was knocked over and pushed along for 15 yards before I recovered. After I had managed to pull out from underneath the car and had staggered across the pavement to the railings of Westminster Abbey, up came the poor driver. He was in a terrible state, and I had to say to the poor chap, "Never mind." He said, "Where is a policeman?" and I replied, "Do not worry about a policeman. I am alive all right. Do not worry, I have only my shoulder broken." I was terribly impressed by the awfully drawn white face of that chap who had run over me. I have been told by other drivers that that is the usual thing which happens to drivers when they have hurt another person.

I hope that this Bill will be carried with good will and without any nasty obstruction. These drivers are a most exemplary body of men, those for whom I have spoken especially. They are quite as good as railway engine drivers, and we make the railway track as safe as possible for our railway engine drivers. We have many red lights, green lights and white lights to tell the driver how to go on and for that reason railway accidents are exceedingly rare having regard to the enormous number of passengers and the amount of traffic carried. Wu must have adequate lights for the sake of everybody on the road. I hold no brief for the "jay walker," but for the ordinary motorists who have to go from place to place, whether on business or pleasure, whether bus drivers or lorry drivers, we must do the best we can in order to help them to avoid accidents and prevent cyclists from being run over. We should do everything possible to pass this Bill which our "sea-lawyer" Friend, the hon. Member for South Croydon (Sir H. Williams) has been trying to obstruct.

I want to speak only for a few minutes in support of the proposals put forward by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of War Transport. Naturally one asks why they have been put forward, and I presume that they have been introduced for no other reason than that of saving life. Everybody will appreciate the tragedy and toll of deaths of some 1,700 cyclists who have been killed since the beginning of the war. I am asked to believe by my correspondents that improved precautions for cyclists, in their own interest, of the type suggested are wrong. I am asked by two of my correspondents the question, "Have you had narrow escapes of colliding with cyclists at night which would have been lessened or avoided if the cyclist had displayed a rear red light?" The answer is obviously "Yes." I am astonished that such a question could be asked at all. However careful one might be—and I have driven motor cars since 1905—one is very often faced with the grave difficulty of seeing a cyclist. Over and over again I would have given anything to have felt more sure whether or not there was a cyclist ahead of me.

My object in getting up is to draw the parallel between the problems of what occurs on the roads in this country and what I and all seamen have experienced at sea. Exactly the same problem was posed to seafarers from the day on which fast craft, mechanically propelled, began to frequent the sea. In the early days little or nothing was done. There were no regulations of any kind regarding whether ships should carry lights or not, and it is only in the last 40 or 50 years that ships at sea have been forced by regulations and law to carry lights and subjected to a fine if they did not. If it was not for the laws and regulations, as laid down by the Board of Trade and carried into effect, I do not hesitate to say the small craft—the cyclists of the sea—would not carry lights. Their contention, with which, not unnaturally, I have some sympathy, is that "it is your business to look where you are going." Ships do not carry headlights and therefore the argument is not an exact parallel. They carry searchlights in certain instances in the Suez Canal, the Panama Canal and similar places, but the normal procedure is not to have any such lights at all. The result is that you have to trust entirely to the lights of small craft which frequent the seas and close inshore waters round our coast. I do not hesitate to say frankly that, if it were not for the regulations and the fines inflicted, the small craft at sea would not carry their lights. I can say from my professional experience that it is a hair-raising affair to be in a ship in confined waters when you are not sure whether there may not be some small craft knocking about and when you may be sacrificing somebody's life by running into them. I mention that because it seems to be something that is very nearly parallel.

Therefore, anything that we can do to improve the chances of survival of the cyclists on the road should be done. There are millions of them and they deserve every conceivable protection we can give them. They ought in their own interests to realise that the Bill before us is in order to help them to save their lives and lessen the anxieties of people who use the roads. I therefore wish to support the Bill.

The House always listens with respect to the hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Lewes (Rear-Admiral Beamish) and I am the very last person to say that we ought not to have the most wisely-devised regulations for the safety of those who use the roads. I think it is obvious that if the promotion of safety on the roads is the object of this Bill the persons who are most concerned are the cyclists, and cyclists as a whole are really concerned about this Bill and have made their opposition very clear even in the short time that has been allowed. Anyone who reads the little pamphlet which has been prepared at short notice by the Cyclists' Touring Club will see that the opposition is not unreasonable, that it is based on evidence giving very clear instances of the way in which injustice might arise to the cyclists if the provisions of this Bill become part of the permanent law of the land. I think everything in this pamphlet and in the circular of the Pedestrians' Association goes to show that there is need for further time for consideration, and that before any proposals are made by the Government to alter the law permanently there ought to be the fullest opportunity for public inquiry. There has been an inquiry, but the Report is not available. My hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary said in his speech that it was important to have this Bill now because there might be an awkward interval if we relied upon the regulations made under the Defence of the Realm Act. Surely, however, there is no need for any interval. The legal ending of the war will only come when an Order in Council is made, maybe a year or a year and a half after the cessation of hostilities. In the case of the last war, I believe the legal end came in the summer of 1920.

Of course, it may become eminently desirable that Defence Regulation 24 should lapse long before then, and, in fact, I am quite certain that there will be a very strong demand for that on grounds quite unconnected with cycling.

In that case nothing would be easier, if the Minister were convinced that for a further period this Regulation was desirable, than to have a new Regulation confined to that point. He has the power. It would then be for the House to challenge the new Regulation in the way that is open to us, by means of a Prayer. The Minister would not have his power removed, and there would be ample time for very serious consideration of all the objections that have already been raised here to-day and which are being raised in the country. There would be opportunity for public inquiry and, if the Minister's view is the right one, surely that would be justified by the inquiry and cycle owners would be convinced. However much their personal opinion might weigh on one side, if, after careful inquiry, an impartial Committee decided against it, they would accept that verdict. I do beg the Government not to rush through, at the present time, a Measure which is not needed now. They have their Regulation and it can continue as long as the emergency lasts, and they will have ample time for an adequate inquiry. I would beg the House to remember the very real difficulties that arise, even now, under this war-time Regulation. I have come across them as a prison visitor. I can think of a young miner who was imprisoned under the provisions of this Regulation because he could not get a battery for his lamp. He was some miles away from the mine, and he took the risk—I suppose he ought not to have done it—of going without the necessary light which he could not procure, and, of course, he had to be punished. It is regrettable that should happen now; it would be still more regrettable if cases like that were multiplied exceedingly.

What about the temporary expedient of putting a candle end in his lamp?

If he had an electric battery, he could not always have put it in.

It is possible, because I have done it.

I have no doubt that my hon. Friend, who is very ingenious and mechanically-minded, could do it, but not every person who has a bicycle has the mechanical knowledge and ingenuity to meet a difficult situation of that kind. Then there is this further reason. As every cyclist knows, when you have a rear light and are cycling in the dark, and you have to look round to see if the light is still burning, you incur not only the danger of collision but the danger of a sudden skid on a frosty road. It happened to me years ago, long before any Regulation of this kind was proposed. The reflector causes none of these difficulties, and I believe that the peace time Regulation of the white patch and the red reflector provided a very real measure of security whenever the motorist was as careful as, happily, the great majority are.

The case put forward so movingly by my hon. Friend the Member for South Bristol (Mr. A. Walkden) is, I think, covered by this Regulation because, if a motorist is driving exceedingly fast and suddenly comes over the top of a hill, he is upon the cyclist in a moment and whether the cyclist has a reflector or a lamp makes very little difference. The real remedy is that motorists should drive with caution, and, when they are approaching a bend or a top of a hill, should re-double their caution. Happily, we can count on the humanity and the good sense of the great majority of motorists to take that additional care, but I would plead with my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary seriously to consider deferring the further stages of this Bill until there has been an opportunity for an adequate public inquiry.

I shall be very brief, as is my custom. I understand that there are some 10,000,000 cyclists in this country, and to-day I want to speak on behalf of some of them, at any rate against the Bill which is in process of being discussed now. As I understand this Bill, all these 10,000,000 cyclists have to provide for themselves a red light which works, and a white patch and a reflector which also work. The point which has not yet been raised—and this is the only point I want to make—is this: What proportion of those cyclists will have all these three gadgets in perfect working order at the time they meet with an accident? That has been gone into with a view to seeing how they stand at law, but the paint I want to make is, How do they stand as regards insurance? I doubt very much whether an insurance company would feel itself liable to pay up on the claim of a cyclist who had an accident if one of these three devices was not in proper working order. I think that is a reasonable point of view, and one fit for the consideration of the House. The hon. Member for South Bristol (Mr. A. Walkden) has himself said how easy it is for the white patch or the reflector to become covered with mud and dust, and so not show up. It is indeed easy and, in that case, how do these wretched people stand with insurance companies? The House should remember that there are 10,000,000 of them. A speech that is short should not be so brief that it is mistaken for an interruption. In order that any of our friends who are reporting for HANSARD may not fall into an unfortunate error, I make that point at the end of my speech.

Like my namesake the hon. Member for South Bristol (Mr. A. Walkden), I speak as a cyclist, but I oppose strongly the idea that this Measure should reach the Statute Book. My family and that of my hon. Friend seem to be of the same size, but there are not four supporters for this Bill in my family. One of my family is in the Fighting Services, and I do not think he agrees with it. I know that my son does not, my daughter does not, and father does not. I do not know whether many of those Members who say that they are cyclists realty ride bicycles at night. I imagine that they are, in the main, day-time cyclists. I wonder whether they know, as cyclists, what happens on the roads? There is no greater security to-day for a man with a red rear light than there is for a man with a red reflector. There are so many discs and odds and ends on the road that the average motorist is not sure whether what he sees is a moving cyclist or not. Recently we have had the lifting of the hoods on motor-car lamps. I believe that if we went into the figures quoted by the Parliamentary Secretary, and the comparison with pre-war days of the number of persons injured on the roads, we should find that there was no greater safety for the man who had a red rear light than for the man who had a red reflector.

I do not think that the number of cyclists is quite so great as 10,000,000, but there are 1,500,000 in the Fighting Forces to-day, 99 per cent. of whom, I believe, would oppose the idea contained in this Bill. This is a controversial issue, and I beg the Government to defer the Measure for further consideration—in fact, to push it back so far that we cannot get it returned to us until after the next General Election. The hon. Member for South Bristol suggests that there are only a few thousand members of the C.T.C., but there are hundreds of thousands of members of wheelers' clubs, whom he probably has not taken into consideration at all. But we are concerned also with the average citizen, who uses a bicycle and is not connected with any organisation at all. Many of us believe that this Measure provides safety neither for the majority of other road users nor for motorists. If we are going to be logical, what about the pedestrian in the country lane, who has no pavement to resort to when there is a scorcher or a road hog coming along? Is he to be compelled, in the next Bill from another place, to carry a rear light? I agree with the hon. Member for South Bristol that 90 per cent. of motorists prefer a steady safe speed: most of them regard speed as a secondary consideration at night. But those who have a desire for speed should not ask Parliament to protect them: they should protect themselves by having efficient headlights, so that they can pull up if there is any risk of colliding with an object or a person, whether a cyclist or a pedestrian.

The Minister referred to the Acts of Parliament which have been passed in Holland and the conditions that prevail in that country, If he is going to quote statistics from Holland, I would point out that there are more roads exclusive to cyclists in Holland than in any other country in the world. I question whether the Dutch would ever have agreed to this Measure. I think the Dutch Government will confirm my statement that the Dutch never used oil, acetylene, or battery lamps: they went straight from candles to dynamos. Most of the cycles in Holland have both headlights and rear lights dynamo-lit. Dynamo-lit lamps on pedal cycles are a very difficult proposition. If the cyclist prefers, as many women do, to ride slowly, a very poor light comes from the dynamo, because the power of the light depends on speed. A dynamo-lit rear light would be inefficient. I question whether it would be as good as those very good red reflectors. Then there is the question of a man with a puncture. I do not know whether the hon. Member for Oxford (Mr. Hogg) disagrees with me—

I was coughing.

The hon. Member for Oxford (Mr. Hogg) is not a road-hog.

I have tried to find reasonable evidence that this proposal is for the safety of the cyclists, but I remain unconvinced. I believe that there is a risk for the cyclist who is pushing his cycle because he has had a puncture. He invariably has to push it on the kerb, and the dynamo set then gives no light at all.

If he has a puncture he can wheel his bicycle on the left-hand edge of the road without lights, as he can if his light has failed.

But on country roads, where punctures almost invariably happen, there are seldom footpaths. He may be pushing his bicycle on his own side of the road, and it is likely that somebody coming along behind will overtake him before he knows it, because those big vehicles go so silently. In that case there is grave risk, because he has not a light at all.

He will have a reflector and a white patch, which is all the protection he has now.

The comfortable rider, returning home from work, usually does so at little more than walking pace. If a red reflector is sufficient in the case of a man who has a puncture surely it is sufficient if he is riding.

If a man is walking because he has a puncture he will have a reflector and a white patch. He will have the protection which cyclists now say is sufficient for them. If he is riding—I will speak later about dynamos—he will have a lot more light than he has now.

I am wondering whether it is too late to consider using luminous paint, which has been used by various local authorities during the war to lighten our darkness, and to mark lines which can be seen in the dark. Could we not reach a compromise on this matter? Why not have a white rear mudguard? A red disc reflector, with white luminous paint, would be a satisfactory and reasonable safeguard against the terrible slaughter which is going on on the roads to-day.

Is my hon. Friend aware that local authorities in London have used luminous paint on the rear mudguards of their employees' bicycles?

Yes, and the Army have also used it. I ask motorists, and those who might become a little heated about this Bill, to remember that if it reaches the Statute Book it will be a penalty on ordinary, humble citizens, people with small incomes who will not always be able to afford the necessary lamp, bulb and battery for their bicycle. There are four bicycles at my home, and when I have wanted to go out at night I have never yet been certain that any of the lights on those machines was efficient. I suggest that we can reach a compromise at this late hour by giving those cyclists who are in the Fighting Forces an opportunity to say something about this matter after the war, when, I believe, they would not agree with the Government. I therefore suggest that the Government drop the Measure altogether.

The speech made by the hon. Member for Doncaster (Mr. E. Walkden) was hardly worth making, because it reiterated all the points which have reached us during the last few days in pamphlet form. It was a repetition of those points, many of which have no validity at all. His specious suggestion that we should not go on with this Bill in the absence of cyclists in the Services is really an appeal to cheap sentimentalism which has no relation at all to the question. It is the same point which the doctors have been taking in relation to national health insurance. All the hon. Gentleman has done is to follow the point made by the hon. Member for the Combined English Universities (Mr. Harvey) and say, "Let us put this off; let us have an inquiry." My first lesson in any political matter at all was as a child, when I inquired why cyclists did not have rear lamps and I was told that no party would ever dare to put such a regulation into operation because it would cost them 10,000,000 votes. Well, this seems to be an occasion, now we have a Coalition Government, to run that risk. The speeches which have opposed this Bill are not really politically honest. They have been merely vote-catching attempts—

That is ridiculous.

—because of the fear of the speakers of expressing their own views on this matter.

On a point of Order. Is it proper, Sir, for my hon. and gallant Friend to impute motives in this matter?

I think it has often been the case that speeches have been made in order to attract votes.

I cannot acquit Members of having some apprehensions that somebody, at the next General Election, will say to them, "Did you vote for rear lamps or not?" I am not afraid to say, if it comes to a vote, that I voted for rear lamps. The point made by my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for King's Norton (Major Peto) on the question of insurance showed that he does not appreciate that the first nature of insurance is to be insured against negligence or default. That is the whole object of insurance, and anybody in the circumstances he envisaged is covered by insurance. The rather pathetic picture which was painted of cyclists having to ride acrobatically with their backs to the handlebars, in order to see whether their rear light was on or not, is also quite fallacious. To my mind it rather linked up with the speech of my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Lewes (Rear-Admiral Beamish), although at this stage I do not want to go into the vexed question of which is the starboard and which is the port side of a bicycle. He rather conveyed the impression that we should go even further and every cyclist be required to have a look-out, fore and aft. The opposition is really too ridiculous, because if the arguments which have been put forward against this Bill are valid any cyclist not bothering to see whether his rear light was alight would know in a short time because he would be knocked off and would then know for sure.

The hon. and gallant Gentleman means that the mortuary people would soon know.

I want to deal shortly, however, with what is the legal position in this matter. It is quite absurd to put forward the suggestion that any cyclist would in any way be prejudiced by this Bill. I have had considerable experience in these matters, and I want to assure the House that liability must remain the same, that is an obligation on the motorist to see what is in front of him. It does not matter whether the cycle has a rear lamp, reflector or white patch, that liability remains the same. No cyclist, knocked down by a car because he has no rear light, will fail in any action if the circumstances are such that the motorist ought to have seen him. The legal liability remains untouched by this Bill. The Bill does nothing except to try and add one further element of safety to the cyclist riding in the dark. It appears to be resisted by a very strong body of cyclists who do so, apparently, on the ground of alleged liberty. It will not be much comfort to the widow of an unfortunate cyclist who is killed to know at least that her husband died in the name of liberty because he did not carry a rear lamp.

It reminds me very much of an American epitaph which used to appear at a place where a jay walker always crossed the road at a certain place regardless of the traffic. After his demise, which inevitably came, a notice was put up at the point where he had been killed bearing these words:

"Here lies the body of Andrew Jay,

Who died maintaining his right of way.

He was right, quite right, all along,

But he's just as dead as if he'd been wrong."

There will be many cyclists who will save themselves if they will only take the advice of what I hope will be the majority in the House and will safeguard themselves against this sort of disaster by providing themselves with rear lamps.

Will my hon. and gallant Friend give us the argument on safety grounds, which is the real argument against the Bill?

I should have thought it was a very simple answer. A lighted lamp shows at a considerably greater distance than a reflector, particularly when no headlight is shining on the reflector.

The real point at issue in my view is whether the rear lamp adds to the security of the cyclist. The cyclist maintains the contrary. I can take quite a detached attitude on the question because I first rode a bicycle about 63 years ago, long before the invention of the pneumatic tyre, and subsequently I became a motorist, in the early part of 1897. I have been a cyclist until a few years ago, when a disability compelled me to abandon the pastime, but I am still a motorist.

The great body of cyclists, numbering some 10,000,000, feel that an urgency has been brought into this question which is not justifiable. I have heard the word "clandestine" used. The Measure was introduced in another place and is brought down here on a Friday afternoon. I recall the observation of the hon. Member for Bridgeton (Mr. Maxton) that a Friday afternoon is nonsense day. This is no nonsense for 10,000,000 cyclists. For the most part they are wage earners. They have had no voice in the matter, and no opportunity of expressing their point of view. It is true that organised bodies of cyclists, notably the Cyclists' Touring Club, have expressed their view, but those organisations are concerned principally with cycling as a recreation and a pastime. They form quite a small proportion of the 10,000,000 to whom a cycle is an instrument which is necessary in following their daily vocation. They are not interested in cycling as a sport. Their machines for the most part receive little attention and they have little knowledge of mechanics to keep these delicate dynamos properly adjusted, or of elementary jobs such as maintaining efficient rear lights by means of a battery.

It is proposed to place a burden on cyclists which they are not convinced will bring to them a greater degree of safety. Indeed, from neither the Parliamentary Secretary nor from any supporter of the Bill have we heard evidence that the red light will give a greater degree of safety. In 1934, after a very thorough consideration of the whole question upstairs, and reports of very competent Committees, the House in its wisdom decided that the white slip and the red prism reflector would be a sufficient safeguard. We have had six years' experience of them. The Parliamentary Secretary said the proposals of the Bill were based upon experience, but he adduced nothing to discredit the efficiency of the red reflector and the white slip, beyond certain statistics produced from documents which have not been placed before the House. I plead with my hon. Friend to give the House an opportunity for further consideration of the matter and to allow for an expression, out of their own experience, of the views of these 10,000,000 cyclists who are unable to voice that experience through an organisation which exists mostly for the safeguarding of the pastime side of cycling. Have the great trade unions been consulted? This is a matter which affects them very considerably.

The principal union of the transport workers is very concerned that the Bill shall be passed, because they do not like running over cyclists.

I am glad to hear that. It forms a precedent for expressions of opinion from other trade union organisations who are concerned more with members of the wage-earning class who require cycles for the purpose of their daily vocation. We should like to have an expression of their opinion and their experience of these lamps and, above all, their opinion on the value of these proposals, which are directed to secure their greater safety.

Does my hon. Friend say that in his experience as a motor driver he does not find a red lamp a great asset for the protection of all concerned on the roads?

Under war conditions, certainly, but none of us have had the opportunity of testing the advantages claimed for the red light under these conditions. The restrictions were removed only a few weeks ago, and that is one more reason why the whole matter should be delayed. There is no urgency whatever. It has been said, perhaps unjustly, that it is a bureaucratic attempt by the Department to get complete tidiness on the roads without regard to the consequences of what is proposed to be enacted.

Like the hon. and gallant Member for Brighton (Lieut.-Colonel Marlowe) I have heard it murmured once or twice in the last few days that cyclists have got more votes than motorists, but, unlike him, I would certainly not accuse of any dishonesty of purpose those who have opposed this Bill. On the contrary, I thought that their speeches in many respects were very telling, and I am the more reluctant to accuse them of any wrong or unworthy motive because I myself, until this afternoon, was very much in two minds about which side I ought to take in this controversy. I therefore approached the Debate with an open mind. If anything, my disposition was to vote against the Bill, because I am a motorist, and, other things being equal, one ought, I suppose, to vote against what may appear to be one's own interest. But in the course of the Debate it has seemed to me that the Parliamentary Secretary succeeded in answering in advance most of the points that were made by the hon. Member for South Croydon (Sir H. Williams) and his friends. In particular, I think that the point made by an hon. Member, who referred back to the decision taken by this House in 1934, is not really a valid point in view of what the Parliamentary Secretary said and in view of the assurance he gave that there had been technical developments and progress in the construction of lamps within the last 10 years which make it irrelevant to refer back so far. I assume that the Parliamentary Secretary would not have made that statement lightly and that he meant what he said.

Will the hon. Gentleman indicate in what way batteries are better now than they were 10 years ago?

I have no technical knowledge of that matter and I have to accept the assurance of the Parliamentary Secretary, who would surely not have made such a statement without due consideration and expert advice. Perhaps if he speaks again in reply to the Debate, he will go into the point a little more fully and give a few technical points which may satisfy the hon. Gentleman. One point which seemed to me particularly cogent in the representations which were made to us all by the cyclists' organisations was the legal point about the possible difficulty of getting compensation if the rear lamp was destroyed or put out in the accident. Again, I feel bound to say that I thought the legal statement which the Parliamentary Secretary read out so carefully answered that point quite substantially. I would like from him, however, some further assurance on the point on which I ventured to interrupt him, about whether there will be sufficient supplies in the shops of the rear lamps that may be needed, in addition to those now in use, on the date on which this Order is put into effect. We certainly must safeguard our constituents, and cyclists in general, from the monstrous and ridiculous prosecutions and penalties to which reference has been made, particularly by my hon. Friend the Member for the English Universities (Mr. Harvey). Like other Members, I had a number of cases some time ago of men who had to bicycle to work because they lived six or seven miles from their work, who simply could not get batteries, who were obliged to be at work before daylight or run the risk of prosecution under Essential Work Orders for being late, and who yet were being fined for cycling without lights. That is an anomalous situation, and we must be assured that there will be no risk of any extension of it under this Bill.

In the last few days I have, so far as I could, taken soundings of opinion among various sections of people in various parts of my constituency, and I have found, on the whole, that there is no great opposition to the Bill, either among cyclists or among motorists or among the general public. I have a fairly large and rambling country constituency, and I do a good deal of motoring about it, very often after dark. To my mind, there is one important small point which has not yet been mentioned. The maximum danger point for accidents is when you are in a car and another car is approaching you with its headlights in your eyes. You perhaps dim your lights, and the other car may or may not dim its lights. Then there is a moment of almost complete blackout through which you cannot see what is on the road immediately ahead. If a cyclist is there it is extraordinarily difficult to see him if he has only a reflector, and I am convinced that in a situation such as that a good red rear lamp provides an extra safeguard for the cyclist. For this and other reasons that have been argued in the Debate, I shall, if there is a Division, do what it is always a great pleasure to do, vote for the Government.

The hon. Member for Maldon (Mr. Driberg) has made a persuasive contribution to the Government's case. At the same time, I am inclined to agree with the hon. Member who said that this Bill comes under contentious legislation which the Government have pledged themselves solemnly not to introduce.

My hon. Friend is dragging up that old idea about the pledge. The pledge was about contentious legislation as between the parties, but this issue obviously divides all the parties.

I am not at all certain of that. I understand that my hon. Friend opposite supported the Bill on behalf of the Labour Party.

I spoke for the Labour Party.

The hon. Gentleman spoke for the Labour Party, which is in favour of the increased regimentation of the public at all times, whereas the party I represent is not. Therefore, I think this is contentious legislation and I must adhere to my point. I ask my hon. Friends on this side to support that point of view. I have had a larger postbag on this subject than on any since the spontaneous expressions of gratitude over Munich. Mine may be an exceptional case, and my constituents may bicycle more regularly than the rest of the public, but the fact is that the cyclists in this country do not want this Bill. It is all very well for hon. Gentlemen opposite to say that that is not true. I believe it is true and that cyclists are 90 per cent. against it. If that is so, and I claim it is, we should take it into consideration. There is some spontaneous objection to the Bill, sincere and overwhelming, on the part of cyclists, and they should be considered.

My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Brighton (Lieut.-Colonel Marlowe), in his breezy and witty fashion, said that anybody making a speech like this is doing so in search of votes. That is a most unworthy suggestion. One might reply, I am sure with complete inaccuracy in his case, that as there is a large Conservative majority my hon. and gallant Friend may have decided to make a speech which will assist in his leaping the Becher's Brook from the young Tories to the Government Front Bench. It may be that his speech was intended to please the Government and that he took a chance of sacrificing the interests of his constituents and whoever is going to oppose him at Brighton next time.

I suggest that the supplies available to carry out this new measure of safety will not be ready for a long time, and that with the tremendous needs we have in the months ahead of us we ought not to inflict this thing upon the country now. We are told that this is the only way of increasing the measure of safety, but I say, Let us hold up this Measure for the time being. I do not think that the House or the public want it. It is being rushed without sufficient consideration. I also think that we should have a free vote on it. My hon. Friend the Member for South Croydon (Sir H. Williams), myself and a few other hon. Members find ourselves in a very difficult position. The last time I voted against the Government the Government were defeated by one vote. Ever since then, I have understood that war-time slogan, "It all depends on me." It is a dreadful responsibility, and in the present circumstances I do not want to vote against the Government on a Vote of Confidence connected with rear lights on cycles. Unless the Parliamentary Secretary will concede the points that the Bill is premature, that we are not certain that it is the best way of doing things, and that it is against the feelings of the public and the House, I shall have to abstain from voting. I trust that in doing so I shall not precipitate another political crisis.

I am less troubled than my hon. Friend about the dangerous possibilities, should they arise, of voting against the Government, more especially as I do not propose to take that course on this occasion. My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Brighton (Lieut.-Colonel Marlowe) referred to the well-known epitaph of Andrew Jay. It is perhaps little known that the tomb of Andrew jay lies not in America, but in South Croydon. I happened to be walking beside it the other day in the pretty little churchyard in the constituency of my hon. Friend.

Which church?

The one to which my hon. Friend goes every Sunday. On a neighbouring grave, beside the grave of Andrew Jay, there was another little tombstone which was inscribed with the following epitaph:

"Our Member's friend, young cyclist Stamp

Died for want of a red rear lamp.

He was right, dead right, as he pedalled away,

But he's just as dead as Andrew Jay."

I have ridden a bicycle habitually, night and day, since I was ten years old. During peace-time I can claim to have driven a motor-car more than 10,000 miles a year. In addition, I can claim, like my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Brighton, to have examined professionally some hundreds of motor accident cases. I can say with complete sincerity that I believe the only thing which matters in the case is to reduce the total number of tragedies on the road, which seem to spring out of the blue, and bring misery, mutilation and death to so many innocent and happy lives. I do not believe that the money question matters very much. I quite agree that it would be a matter to raise on a Bill of this kind, if it were considered that the cyclists' claim to compensation was affected by the proposed new regulation. I am quite satisfied, with my hon. and gallant Friend and with the Attorney-General, that the cyclists' claim to compensation is completely unaffected.

The Attorney-General did not say that. He only said it was completely unaffected if certain things were established. But they are not established and the cyclist is left in a state of complete confusion.

I am quite clear upon this, that my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Brighton was completely right when he said that the right to compensation would be completely unaffected by the new legislation.

Even if it were not so, I should still say that the real nub of this case was not whether somebody was going to be compensated at a particular rate or not, but whether or not the proposed legislation would reduce the number of accidents to cyclists during the course of the year. I am absolutely persuaded that it will do so. I know that neither would I think of going out at night on a bicycle without a rear lamp, nor, if I had anything to do with it, would I let anyone I loved use a bicycle without a rear lamp. That seems to me the real test of this matter. I am not concerned about the small extra sum of money to buy a rear lamp, which I should look upon as a kind of insurance. I agree with my hon. and gallant Friend that the question is whether the Measure will save cyclists' lives, and if it will, it is worth while. It is because I am absolutely convinced, as a cyclist and as a motorist, and as one who has had considerable experience of motor accident cases, that it will save lives, that I support it.

I want to add only one further word. I have listened to all the arguments which have been used against the Bill. There is not a single argument which I have heard this afternoon, or seen used in any document, or heard used on any previous occasion, against a rear lamp for cycles which could not equally well be used against the rear lamp for a motor car. There is not a single argument which can be used in favour of a rear lamp for a motor car, which could not be used with equal force, in favour of a rear lamp for a bicycle.

Does the hon. Member realise that a rear lamp on a bicycle goes out much more frequently?

I do not realise that. I have used a bicycle with a rear lamp throughout the years of the war. It was one with what an hon. Member described as a delicate dynamo. Why "delicate" I do not know. I have not looked at it during six years, nor, I suppose, does any other cyclist look at his dynamo, but the thing has worked perfectly. It was left untouched during the years of my service in the Middle East, and it worked just as well when I came back. It works just as well when you push the cycle as when you ride it. There is no reason why an ordinary working person should not afford the few extra shillings for one of these lights. If he buys life for the money or wholeness of limb, it will be money very well spent and he will not begrudge it.

Many years ago I gave a pledge to the Cyclists' Union that I would oppose compulsory rear lamps on bicycles. More mature reflection, consideration and experience have taught me the wisdom of changing my opinion. I agree entirely with almost the last statement of the hon. Gentleman who has just spoken, that the only thing which ought to influence one in this connection is whether the Bill will save life and limb. I am convinced as a cyclist for very many years, and one who has used other vehicles, including motors, on the road, that it is in the interest of the cyclists that they should have rear lamps. It is in the interest of the motorists that the cyclists should have rear lamps. It is in the interest of the pedestrians that the cyclists should have rear lamps. An accident caused by a motor-car running into a cyclist, may be a danger not only to the cyclist and the motorist, but to any member of the public on the path or in the road at the time and there may be loss of life as a consequence. From any point of view, the whole case is on the side of the Government. I would like to congratulate this Government on having had the courage to do something which previous Governments have feared to do, because of the reason given by the hon. Member for South Croydon—(Sir H. Williams)—10,000,000 votes.

I really must protest. It is perfectly clear. We examined the report on road accidents in 1933, and unanimously turned down the proposal.

That may be, but the hon. Member referred in his speech to the fact that there were 10,000,000 cyclists and said that, judging apparently by his own feelings on the matter, when the next General Election comes, the rest of us would run away when we received that letter from the Cyclists' Union asking what we intended to do with regard to rear lights on cycles. The hon. Member must not judge other people by his own fears.

I say to the cyclist, as I have said to everybody else at every Election I have fought, "I have a set of principles, a point of view which I present to you. Whether in literature or in speeches, I present to you my opinion and the convictions I hold. I do not present half a dozen different points of view—one for you and another for somebody else." Let us stand up for a thing if we believe it to be right, and not be influenced by this fear, which the hon. Member for South Croydon apparently has—perhaps he imagines that all of us are like himself—when we are asked by the cyclists in our area whether we will do something because they want it, irrespective of whether it is right or wrong, because we fear to lose their votes. I will not do such a thing. I say to the cyclists now that, in my opinion, from the experience I have had, it is in their interests, and in the interests of motorists and pedestrians, and it is for the safety of the public generally, that a Measure like this should be passed. Therefore, I hope we shall give it a Second Reading to-day, and ultimately pass it.

With regard to the rear light, I do not see any mechanical reason why a cheap and efficient unit that would embrace all three safeguards that are mentioned in this Bill cannot be put on the market. Why should there not be a unit containing the lamp, white patch and reflector? The motor trade is sufficiently well-organised and efficient to produce a unit of that kind. The hon. Member for South Croydon asked what improvement there had been in rear lamps and batteries. There is an improvement in the batteries. I have one in my pocket now, that is infinitely better than any battery I could have bought a year or two ago. There is an improvement also in the strength of the elements that go to make up the lamp—in the bulb, so that it stands greater vibration than was the case formerly. Everyone knows that the cyclist's lamp will keep alight under greater strain and for a longer period than the lamp which a cyclist could have bought 20 or 30 years ago. I was using a rear lamp 25 years ago. I believed it was for my own safety. I used it, and I was willing to use it.

Even if the Government took off the Whips and allowed the commonsense view of the House to be expressed, and allowed the views of its individual Members to be the only means of testing this matter, I think the great bulk of Members would vote for this Bill in the interests of public safety. I do not think the cyclist ought to be afraid of this proposal. It will cost him a little more. Somebody asked what the trade unions were doing. I do not think it is a matter on which they have ever been asked to express their opinion. I wear a little badge which indicates I have had 50 years' membership of a trade union, and I think I am as competent to judge trade union opinion as the hon. Member opposite, who referred to it. My experience, as a trade unionist, teaches me that the bulk of trade unionists are ordinary commonsense people, and I am sure that they would vote in favour of this Bill. I hope the House will give it a Second Reading, and that it will become law.

It is not my intention to offer any observations of my own on this complex question of the relative merits of reflectors or red lamps. Nor do I intend to enter into a controversy with my hon. Friend the Member for West Walthamstow (Mr. McEntee) on the subject of the virtues of bulbs or the shortcomings of batteries. It is evident from the speeches to which we have listened this afternoon, that this is a very controversial topic. It is, indeed, one of those subjects which seem to go right down into the depths of the heart of the great British public. I want to ask why such a topic as this should be treated as a matter of Government policy? I should have thought that if there was a subject upon which the House should have been permitted to express its opinion, this was just the subject. I do not believe that the Government would be embarrassed in the councils of the world, if the House of Commons decided that a red reflector was better than a red lamp, or that a red lamp was better than a red reflector. That being so, and many Members this afternoon having expressed a laudable desire to be free of the influence of their constituents, and to express an opinion of their own upon this subject, I should have thought that the Government would have been well advised to allow us to take that course, and permit that commendable spirit of independence to display itself, unfettered by other considerations, in the Division Lobbies.

I recognise that it matters very little what I say at this stage of the Debate, and that it will matter very little whether the hon. Member for South Croydon (Sir. H. Williams) persists with his Amendment or not. Since my hon. Friend the Member for South Bristol (Mr. A. Walkden) informed us that this Bill was supported from a certain quarter, it is quite evident what the result will be. Therefore, I conclude by making this suggestion: I believe this is the sort of commonsense issue on which the House of Commons is the best possible judge. I much prefer the opinion of this House to the opinion of the experts at the Ministry of War Transport. I prefer the opinion of this House to the opinion of any number of distinguished, or undistinguished, cyclists. I have a great respect for my right hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary, but, on such a topic as this, I prefer the opinion of the House to the opinion of my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary, because I know what are his sources of information. I suggest that, when a topic of this nature comes up for decision, the Government should take the House of Commons into their confidence. Let us decide it for ourselves. If we do that, we shall have no cause to complain afterwards and, what is, perhaps, more important still, the public outside this House will have no cause to complain, either of the Government or the House of Commons.

I have very great sympathy with the view put before the House by the hon. Member for South Croydon (Sir H. Williams), and I have a great repugnance against multiple offences. I feel quite convinced that, if this Bill is passed, a number of cyclists will be hauled before the bench for quite minor offences, and even for offences which they will be unaware they have committed. But there is another, and, to my mind, an irresistible factor. It is my necessity to motor many miles over country roads and dark country lanes, in a part of the country where mists are apt to lie at all seasons of the year. From that experience, I am quite convinced that there is necessary a further measure of protection than that afforded by the rear indicator and white mudguard now used. Every motorist must be painfully aware of the fact that he may be on top of a cyclist, even when driving with great care and at moderate speed, before he realises where he is. For that reason, much as I dislike these additional penalties and regulations, I feel that, in justice to the cyclist and the public, this further measure of protection is necessary.

There is another class of the community entitled to further protection, and that is the motorist. I listened to the hon. Member for South Bristol (Mr. A. Walkden) when he gave that very vivid description of the distress of mind of the driver who propelled him some 15 yards along the road. Can anybody imagine a greater distress or agony of mind than that of the motorist, who has driven with great care and at reasonable speed, and is then involved in an accident which ends either in the death of the victim or his serious mutilation? I am terrified of cyclists on the road—absolutely terrified—because I know that, if I run into a lorry, I am going to be the chief sufferer, and, if I run into another motorist, it is fifty-fifty, but, if I run into a cyclist, it is 99 to 1 against him. That is a source of worry to me, and, much as I dislike these additional regulations and penalties, I feel that this House ought to give support to the Government in reducing these risks.

I apologise for intervening without having heard all the speeches in the Debate. I have great sympathy for what was said by the hon. and learned Member for Ilford (Mr. Hutchinson). I am a great defender of the procedure of this House and have also made speeches in defence of the party system, but, on a point like this, it is very galling to people who, unlike myself, have sat throughout the whole Debate, to find when the Division bells ring, that everybody comes in—as they are quite entitled to do—to vote against them. On this quite unconstitutional and unpolitical point, I support my hon. and learned Friend who said that this is a case for a free vote.

I am pro-pedestrian and pro-cyclist. I have been described, rightly or wrongly, as anti-motorist, and I am nearly always pro-the hon. Member for South Croydon (Sir H. Williams). I am sorry to be against him on this occasion, but I cannot see why cyclists should not be required to take the same precautions as motorists. I have for many years navigated a very small vessel on the Thames in very narrow channels—a vessel which corresponds to the cycle on the roads. We have to observe precisely the same Board of Trade regulations as the 20,000-ton Cunarder. It is not so easy in my little vessel, 29 ft. long, to maintain stern lights and mast headlights, but we must do it. I should not proceed very far, if my stern light was out. We have to do it, and we are very proud that we are governed by the same regulations as the mighty liner. If we are unable to maintain these regulations, we are stopped, or, if we proceed, we do not expect to be able to blame anybody if we are run down. On balance, I should have thought that cyclists would have been proud to say, "We are on the same level, and must do the best we can to observe the same Regulations," but I do feel, while agreeing with the hon. Member for Oxford (Mr. Hogg) that there is more than the question of compensation.

Might I refer to a point on this question of compensation? I do not know if it is in Order to refer to a Government Bill now being considered in another place, which has not yet come down to us. I daresay that, strictly speaking, it is not, but, if it is, I hope I may refer to the Law Reform (Contributory Negligence) Bill, which relates the law of contributory negligence on land, to the law at sea. I am supporting my hon. Friend the Member for Oxford. This Bill proposes—and we know that all Government Bills must become law in these enlightened days—that where a cyclist who fails to maintain his lights is run down by a speeding car, it will not be enough to say that his light was not lit. It will be important evidence that, in addition, the motorist was speeding round a corner at 50 miles an hour on the wrong side of the road, as very often happens. In that case, as far as compensation is concerned, the views of the cyclist will be met if this Bill becomes law, but I must say, if I may do so respectfully, that there seems to be a little lack of co-ordination in the Government's proceeding, in bringing this Bill before the House to-day without any reference to the Bill which follows and is part of the same big subject.

I am not however in agreement with those who suggested that these proceedings should be adjourned in order that these things might be co-ordinated. If the proposals of the Law Reform (Contributory Negligence) Bill had been inserted in this Bill, I think that, on the compensation point, there would be much less objection, though I imagine I should not be very popular in proposing anything of that kind. Perhaps the Minister, when he replies, will develop that point a little better than I have done? Having said all that, with some reluctance and with some doubt upon it, I support the Bill.

I regret that I have not been able to be here to hear the majority of the speeches, but I have been engaged upstairs on other business. I share the views expressed by the hon. and learned Member for Ilford (Mr. G. Hutchinson) in so far as I rather regret that the Government are making this a matter of confidence in the sense that their supporters will be expected to go into the Lobby in support of the Bill, irrespective of its merits. The House ought to be at liberty to declare its opinions in an unfettered manner in a matter of this kind. I have been a cyclist, and at times I drive a car. During the early days of the blitz I was compelled to move to the country and I had a considerable amount of experience of driving in the dark from this House to near Berkhamsted, where I had to reside at that time. I was able to assess the value of the red rear light to the cyclist. My mind and attention were invariably riveted upon the red light in the distance. There were occasions when I was inclined to forget the fact that there were likely to be pedestrians between my car and the red light ahead. As a result of that experience, I felt that the idea of safety arising from the red rear light was likely to cause one to overlook the safety of the pedestrian. If the motorist obeys the Highway Code and drives at a speed within the limit of the range of his headlights accidents are not likely to happen.

I feel that we are pinning our faith in regard to safety to a wholly fallacious idea, and it is for these reasons that I intend to vote against the Bill. There is an obligation upon the motorist; the motorist is in charge of the vehicle that can kill. I am not completely exonerating the cyclist from his responsibility, but I appeal to the House to consider the position of the pedestrian. If it is necessary for the cyclist to carry a red rear light, then it will become incumbent upon the pedestrian also to carry a red light if safety is to be secured.

Would my hon. Friend logically have all red lights removed from all vehicles?

I would not go to that extreme. I am putting, as I am entitled to do, the case for the pedestrian; I do not want the pedestrian to be overlooked. I want to emphasise the obligation that we must impose upon the motorist. It is the motorist and not the cyclist who is likely to cause the trouble for the pedestrian. If it is essential for a red light to be used by the motorist or the cyclist for safety purposes, according to the logic of this Bill, then the pedestrian should carry a red light. It is not desired to go to that extreme, but I suggest that, as a result of the Debate, it is desirable that the Government should reconsider the whole proposal. We are not likely to get safety for the cyclist, but we are likely to jeopardise the safety of the pedestrian, and on these grounds the Bill should be withdrawn.

We have had a very agreeable and good tempered Debate, and I hope the result will be to carry this Measure with the full support of public opinion in general throughout the country. I would first answer my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Ilford (Mr. G. Hutchinson), who asked why we made this a matter of Government policy and why we should not leave it to a free, unfettered vote of the House of Commons. With great respect, road safety is a matter of most important public policy. For many years the Government have been engaged on the investigation and consideration of the problem. They have for many years been accused, and my Ministry in particular has been accused, of having no policy on the matter. It was an issue on which we felt bound, in view of the evidence we have had, to take a Government line, and to put through a Government Measure, and to do it now. My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Oxford University (Petty-Officer Herbert) asked why we could not wait until the Bill, now in another place, in regard to accidents and compensation had been dealt with. It is because we want this Bill now, for the reasons I have already explained, and I think, if he will examine the matter, he will come to the conclusion that negligence is really quite a separate affair. We are now deciding about lights; later on Parliament can change the law on negligence, if it so desires, but whether we have red rear lights on bicycles or not will not affect the issue of what is done by the other Bill.

I said that it met a good many of the arguments of the opponents. What I meant was that there should be an act of co-ordination to link things together.

We need this Bill now; but I am advised that we are getting along with the other Bill as fast as we can. The hon. Member for the Combined English Universities (Mr. E. Harvey) asked why have this Bill, and why, when the present Defence Regulation lapses we should not have a new Defence Regulation. I think the House of Commons would take very grave objection to such a course as that, and that, on any reasonable consideration of the matter, a Bill is by far the better plan.

The hon. Member for South Croydon (Sir H. Williams), who moved the Amendment, quoted largely from the Debate of 1934. I read the speech then made by the Minister of Transport to mean that at that time the case for rear lights on bicycles had not been made out; they were not yet reliable, and would be a burden on cyclists and perhaps unfair. We had not then had sufficient experience of the reflector and the white patch. But we have now had enough experience. Both he and my hon. Friend the Member for the Combined English Universities argued that adequate protection was provided by the reflectors and the white patches required before the war. I think the statistics which I gave, and which were published in a special report long ago, are really conclusive on that point.

On what date?

In 1937. I do not think either of my hon. Friends took into account the deficiencies of the reflector on a winding road or on an undulating road, or the case put so well by my hon. Friend the Member for Maldon (Mr. Driberg) of the two cars with headlights meeting, and the difficulty of picking up a reflector then. Really, there are many cases where the reflector is inadequate and, in the experience of us all, is not enough.

The hon. Member for South Croydon made a very strong point about the publication of the relevant documents, and said that it was monstrous that the House was being asked to pass this Bill without having furnished to it the evidence upon which it had been drawn up. Well, I said this afternoon that, in the course of the last seven years, there had been three independent expert inquiries into this matter. The first of them was by the Transport Advisory Council; they are not members of my Ministry. They had an inquiry in 1938, and their Report on Accidents to Cyclists is published in a White Paper, which has been available to my hon. Friend for more than six years. Then there was the Alness Committee, which published a Report in 1939, and this has been available to him for more than five years. I believe, if he desires it, that he can also have access to the evidence that was taken by that Committee. There is also the recommendation of the present Road Safety Committee, of which I spoke.

I want, if I may, with the indulgence of the House, to make a rather clearer explanation than I gave before of what has really happened. This Road Safety Committee has existed for nearly four years, but only last January did it begin the task of drawing up a report on a comprehensive road safety policy. Acting in its first capacity, considering, problem by problem, matters of road safety that arose, it decided that the cyclists ought to carry a red rear light, the reflector, and the patch; and, without waiting to complete even its interim report, it made a recommendation in that sense to my Noble Friend. The recommendation, of course, was subsequently embodied in the interim report which my Noble Friend has just received; but the recommendation was made before my Noble Friend had received the report; and before he received the Report, my Noble Friend had acted on it. I have given that recommendation to the House. It is contained in the Bill which is now before us.

Surely we are entitled to see the reasons and the evidence. The fact that somebody says, "I recommend so and so" does not convince me.

The reasons and the evidence are all contained in this Report of the Transport Advisory Council and in the Report of the Alness Committee. The recommendation endorses what the Alness Committee put forward. I do assure my hon. Friend that there is no evidence, whether from the cyclists' side or from the other side, which is not available for him to use, if he desires to have it.

Let us come to the statistics which he said had not been published. I quoted from two sources—from one of the three Reports on Road Accident Statistics made before the war—from the last pre-war report, published in 1937—and also from the monthly statistics which my Ministry now publishes and gives to the Press. In these monthly statements, the figures are analysed and broken down. The Report I quoted is a White Paper, available to my hon. Friend since 1937. The monthly analyses which we publish now are given to the Press. They are not, I admit, published by the whole of the Press in full, there is not the space; but the important features are always brought out. Moreover, in response to a Parliamentary Question a considerable number of months ago, I promised that these analyses should be placed month by month in the Library of the House, and there they are if my hon. Friend desires to consult them. I venture to think that his charge under this heading does not really hold.

Can the hon. Gentleman tell me of any paper which he knows has published these figures showing the accidents to cyclists in any detail?

Yes, they are often published. The transport papers publish them constantly, often very nearly in full, and the daily Press always gives considerable attention to them, so that my hon. Friend must have his attention drawn to them month by month; and, if he had followed up this matter, he would have known that the figures were in the Library and he could have had access to them. He made a long argument about cyclists being prejudiced in legal proceedings. I do not think, after what has been said in the House to-day, I need argue it again in detail. My right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney-General and my hon. Friend the Member for Oxford (Mr. Hogg) have given me full support. I only sought to reply to the two points which cyclists have put to me. The first is that the Common Law obligations of the driver would be unaffected by this Bill. The second is that the onus of proof that his light was on would not fall on the cyclist in court proceedings. Both those points emerge absolutely unscatched from the Debate, and I believe that, when the cyclists read their HANSARD, they will think that they have obtained a great deal of satisfaction in what has passed to-day.

I will come now, if I may, to considerations of a different order. I will take the points about the power of dynamos and the supply of batteries raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster (Mr. E. Walkden) and my hon. Friend the Member for Maldon. The hon. Member for Doncaster said that the dynamos gave no light when the cycle was going at a moderate speed. I have here a memorandum on the subject from the firm of Lucas, which I think will be accepted by the House as a high authority. This firm assures me that:

"When the dynamo is being pedalled at two miles per hour there is a visible light. At three miles per hour there is ample illumination."

The dynamos are not in the least experimental, they are far past that stage. There was a production before the war of 350,000 a year. There is a present production of 150,000, with provision for an increase to 500,000 as soon as facilities can be made available.

Is that per annum?

Yes, Sir.

It will take 20 years.

Not everybody will buy dynamos, and they have been available for a very long time already. I am also assured that the heavy dynamos of the past have been abandoned, that the new light dynamos are much more efficient, and that as the aluminium alloys become available the weight will be constantly reduced. The quality also is improving. I would point out to my hon. Friend that we do not insist on dynamos. The cyclist is perfectly free to have a battery set if he so desires.

Can he get batteries?

Of course, in wartime, with the raw materials which the manufacturers have to use, the efficiency of the battery is seriously reduced—it is reduced by not less, perhaps, than 40 per cent.—but, when we return to peacetime conditions, I believe it is true to say that the batteries will be satisfactory and sufficient. I will read again, if I may, from this memorandum from the Lucas firm:

"It will be seen that part of the trouble to-day is from the use of the cheap and therefore less satisfactory size battery. Even under war conditions, a reasonable life can be obtained from the larger battery, and when pre-war quality is reinstated, the life will be entirely satisfactory."

On the question of the supply of batteries, I am assured that, at the present time, no cyclists have difficulty in getting a battery. I shall be very glad to hear of any difficulties of which hon. Members may hear, and I will try to put them right; but, in general, at the present time there is an ample supply.

On that point, I had complaints in my constituency last week of the miners having considerable difficulties on account of the shortage of batteries.

If my hon. Friend will let me have the facts, I will do my best to have things put right, but I am assured that, broadly speaking, there is no shortage at the present time. On the expense of the dynamo or battery for the cyclist, of course it will cost something. However, I agree with what I understood my hon. Friend the Member for West Walthamstow (Mr. McEntee) to say, that this is a cost which the cyclist should really welcome. I would add this con- sideration, that the cyclist gets the use of admirable roads and he pays no tax. I do not think this is an unjust burden, if, as we believe, it is a real contribution to safety in the land.

Perhaps I may say one word on the suggestion made by my hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster about luminous paint. I am assured that, under normal lighting conditions, luminous paint does not show up at any distance, and that it would be no improvement on the present reflector and the white patch which we have now.

I come to the comparison, made by my hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster and my hon. Friend the Member for West Willesden (Mr. Viant), between the pedal cyclist and the pedestrian. Because the cyclist has a light, they say, the pedestrian must have one too. I do not think that that can be maintained. The pedestrian is not a vehicle.

Neither is the cyclist a vehicle.

He is on one; and it is the vehicle that has to have the light. The pedestrian, in the vast majority of places, both in town and country, where there is much pedestrian traffic, has a footpath; and he ought to use it. It is the policy of my Ministry to increase the number of footpaths as rapidly as that can be done. The pedestrian, where there is no footpath, can do what the cyclist cannot do: he can avoid an accident by climbing up the bank. He is much more mobile than the cyclist. The other point about the pedestrian, that he will be in danger because this business is going to increase the speed of the average motorist, I dealt with when I spoke first. I do not believe that anybody, in the course of the Debate, has begun to bring a scrap of evidence for that view. On the contrary, the point has emerged with perfect clarity that when motorists see a rear light at a greater distance, they will retard their vehicles in order to pass, and they will arrive near the cyclist at a lesser speed than they would have done if there had been no rear light. Therefore, the very point about which the cyclists are most anxious has been amply met.

I end by saying how much I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for South Bristol (Mr. A. Walkden), who said that he paid a lot of attention to the views of the lorry drivers and the bus drivers, who earn their living on the roads. Statistics prove that they are a very careful class of drivers. They have to be. An accident, if it is their fault, means that they lose their livelihood, perhaps for good. An accident, even if it is not their fault, may be a very serious matter indeed for them. If the cyclists are right about this, these drivers are going to have a lot more accidents, and fatal accidents at that. Ask the drivers, and see what they will say. I will read a letter from a lorry driver to a newspaper:

"As a transport driver, I would like to take a few of your anti-rear light correspondents for a ride some nice dark night, when it is a bit misty and drizzling with rain. I have a good idea that they would change their minds."

So have I; and it is because we believe that this Bill will save life and injury that we ask the House to pass it now.

As my hon. Friends and I desire to retain Clause 2 of the Bill, and our objection is to Clause 1 and to Clause 3, which is consequential, I beg to ask leave to withdraw my Amendment.

I desire to draw the attention of the House to the conditions under which education officers of the Royal Air Force are now serving. It is a regrettable fact that these conditions have given rise to widespread dissatisfaction among these officers themselves. Questions have been repeatedly addressed in this House to my right hon. Friend upon this subject, but hitherto they have elicited no satisfactory reply. These conditions have also recently been the subject of unfavourable comment in a leading article in "The Times."

The arrangements for education in the Royal Air Force are different, in certain material respects, from the arrangements in the other Services. The education officers of the Royal Air Force are, I understand, graduate teachers, who are engaged under the terms of a Service agreement for a short period, at the conclusion of which it is contemplated that, under normal circumstances, they will return to the service of the local education authorities. They receive a salary which, in peace-time, corresponds to the remuneration which they would receive under the Burnham scales in the service of the local authorities, together with an additional allowance, which is, I am informed, a fixed sum.

I am quite prepared to agree that under the conditions of peace that system may possess very great advantages; indeed, I should be ready to concede that it was superior in many respects to the system which exists in the other Services. But I hope the House is not going to allow itself to be drawn into a discussion of the relative merits of these different forms of education service. My criticism is that, with the coming of war and mobilisation, the conditions were altogether transformed, and arrangements which may have been quite suitable in time of peace, have become inappropriate in time of war, and have in fact been a source of great hardship to the officers concerned. The Air Ministry themselves recognised at one time that that was the case, and in April, 1939, a circular letter was issued to the officers concerned, inviting them to accept commissions in the administrative and special duties sections of the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve. That letter—I have a copy of it here, but I will not trouble the House with it now—clearly contemplated that, whilst all those officers who might accept commissions in the R.A.F. Volunteer Reserve would not be solely employed on educational duties, a very large number of them would be so employed. I think I can fairly say that the letter also contemplated that, upon the outbreak of war, these officers would be mobilised in the same manner as other officers of the R.A.F.V.R., and would receive, in the same way as other officers, pay and allowances on the scales which were appropriate to their ranks.

On the outbreak of war these education officers, serving under the conditions which I have just described, were, in fact, mobilised by the Air Ministry in the same manner as other officers of the R.A.F.V.R. But within a very short time the Air Ministry, for some reason which has never been apparent to me, or, I think, to the officers themselves, changed their minds, and these officers were then demobilised, or dis-embodied; at least, they were put back on something like their civilian status, and resumed their service under the terms of the agreements which had been made with the Air Ministry before the war. Thenceforth, although these officers continued to wear the uniform of the Royal Air Force, and to perform certain duties at air stations other than their duties as education officers, and—as I hope to show before I have finished—on occasions, even bore arms and although, generally speaking, they presented to the world the appearance of officers in the R.A.F., their status was, in fact, the status of a civilian. Since that time they have remained civilians, and they are to-day civilians. I say emphatically that that is a most anomalous and unfair arrangement, which involves these officers in quite unnecessary hardship.

In the time which is available to me this afternoon I can do no more than enumerate the consequences which this peculiar arrangement has upon the position of these officers in the R.A.F. As I say, although they wear uniform they are not entitled to accommodation in R.A.F. stations; they are, in most cases, not in all, obliged to find lodging for themselves and for their families outside the station, and it has happened—and I think it happens in most cases—that the charges they have to meet for lodging accommodation of that sort are high. In the cases where they have been accommodated in Government quarters in R.A.F. stations they have had to pay charges for that accommodation which are based upon the scales of allowances paid to combatant officers in the R.A.F., which are much higher than the allowances which these officers receive. They are not entitled to ration allowance, accommodation allowance, or family allowance. I am told that the pay of a Grade III education officer, who has the rank, in the R.A.F.V.R., of flight lieutenant, may be as much as £250 a year less than the pay and allowances of a flight lieutenant holding a combatant commission. So you have, serving to- gether in the R.A.F., at the same air stations, two classes of officer who are to all intents and purposes on the same footing, and who are yet being remunerated at rates which are entirely different.

I come to another point. These officers, because they have this civilian status, are not entitled to free travelling facilities which all officers of the Armed Forces enjoy; again—and this is no unimportant matter—they are taxed upon the whole of their allowances, although, as I think the House is probably aware, the allowances of an officer are not all subject to tax. In all these matters the position of these education officers in relation to their fellow officers in the R.A.F. has been very seriously prejudiced by the decision to revert them to their civilian status.

Now I come to a matter which seems to be the greatest anomaly of all. If these education officers, in the course of their service, receive an injury, or lose their lives, the scales of compensation which are available to them are much less favourable than the scales of compensation available to combatant officers. Because of the civilian status which the Air Ministry insisted upon enforcing upon them, they are compensated in respect of Service injuries or loss of life under the terms of the Personal Injuries (Civilians) Order. The House is, no doubt, familiar with the general terms and conditions of that Order. It applies to Civil Defence and National Fire Service personnel, and others who may receive injuries in the course of their war service. But the rates of compensation payable under the conditions of that Order are very much less favourable than the rates of compensation which are payable to combatant officers. Let me take two examples. I am told that an education officer married, with two children, who suffers 100 per cent. disability as a result of his war service will receive compensation at the rate of £165 per annum, while the corresponding rate for a mobilised officer of the same rank is £336. Here is the other example. In the case of death the widow of an education officer, entitled to compensation under the terms of the civilian Order, will receive a pension of £112 per annum, whereas the widow of a mobilised officer will receive a pension of £237 per annum.

I am told that these officers are now beginning to go abroad to carry out their duties in various theatres of war overseas. They embark upon the same troopships as combatant officers; they are exposed to identical risks and perils by land and sea, and yet if misfortune overtakes them, the compensation to which they or their relatives are entitled is very much less favourable than it would be if the Air Minister had granted them the status of mobilised officers of the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve. By what argument can my right hon. Friend justify such an arrangement as that?

I am informed that when these education officers proceed to a theatre of war overseas they not only wear the uniform of the Royal Air Force but carry military equipment, and I am told that they are issued with revolvers. If, as the Air Ministry maintain, they are civilians, how comes it about that they are permitted to bear arms? In fact they are civilians. But they are a strange variety of civilian indeed, wearing uniform, carrying military equipment and having arms, as they do! What happens if they shoot someone with their revolvers? Will they be indicted under the civil criminal code of the country to which they go? Sir, the fact that they proceed on overseas service and that it is thought necessary that they should be equipped with arms shows very clearly that they should, from the first, have been given the same status as their fellows.

Now I come to another point. Many of these officers joined the educational service of the Royal Air Force since the outbreak of the war and since it was decided that they should not be given the status of mobilised officers. I have had communications from some of them. I am far from satisfied that, when they accepted the arrangement offered them, they fully appreciated what the effect of non-mobilised service was going to be. But, whether they understood the conditions or not, it is surely abundantly clear that you cannot have two classes of officers in the same Service serving upon different conditions and, if it is thought right and just that those officers who were serving at the outbreak of the war and accepted the conditions offered by the Air Ministry and became officers of the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve should now be given mobilised status, I should have thought it inevitably followed that those brought in afterwards should get the same status.

I understand that my right hon. Friend has appointed a Committee, about which many questions have been addressed to him. He has been invited to publish their report but has declined to do so. I do not press for the publication of that report. I am quite prepared to accept his view that he appointed the Committee in order to offer him advice, and that there is no obligation upon him now to publish it. But I appeal to him, if he has not already done so, to allow this Committee, which was appointed for the express purpose of advising upon the future organisation of the education service in the Royal Air Force, to investigate the grievances which these officers feel. I invite him to direct that this service shall visit the larger air stations, where a number of these officers are stationed, and take evidence from them about their feelings in the matter. Having done that, I invite him to publish their report upon it.

Let me appeal to my right hon. Friend, in conclusion, to approach this matter in that broad and generous spirit of which we all know that he is capable. I appeal to him to put right that which everyone outside the Air Ministry knows to be wrong. The reputation of the Royal Air Force education service is really at stake. I beg him to bear in mind the services which these officers have already rendered and not to be unmindful of the importance of the duties they will be required to perform in the difficult period of reconstruction and demobilisation which lies ahead.

I am obliged to my hon. and learned Friend for the very clear way in which he has stated the case on behalf of these education officers. He has saved the House considerable time, as it is unnecessary for me to go over the ground again. That is not to say that I am not au fait with all the facts of the case. For four years the disabilities, I might almost say the humiliation, which some of these education officers have suffered have been the source of correspondence between professional organisations and the Ministry.

The outcome was that, after a series of interviews with the Ministry, a committee was set up. It had to inquire into all the anomalies and irregularities which the educational officers had to put up with. Surely the Minister can give the House some indication of what the report of that committee contained. He says that it is a confidential report which affects the Department alone. I should have thought, however, that, having received deputations such as that from the National Union of Teachers, and invited them to submit a memorandum putting the case of these officers, the least the Minister might have done is to have indicated to that body what the findings of the committee were.

Does it, for instance, recommend mobilisation? It would not be displaying any secret to say that. It would give some indication how the new education service after the war is to be set up. What sort of system is it to be? That is an all-important question. A lot of these men who are now in the Air Force are entitled to ask themselves very serious questions. I make no bones about one thing. The men who received the letter of invitation from the Air Ministry to take up these commissions were suddenly told on 5th October, 1939, that they would be demobilised and reduced to civilian status. Officers have told me and written to me of the sense of humiliation they felt in the officers' quarters and how certain other officers in the quarters looked down upon them as men who were merely playing at soldiers. I regard the decision of 5th October, 1939, as a complete breach of faith with these officers. The Minister may give me some terminological equivalent, but, as far as the educational organisations are concerned, they definitely feel it to be a breach of good faith.

The conditions of service as a result of that decision are unfair and unreasonable, and they have given rise to justifiable discontent throughout the R.A.F. educational service. I understand that the Minister rather disagrees that there is grievance among these officers. I can assure him that we have ample evidence of a considerable feeling of disgruntlement among them. This is the worst way in which to build up an effective educational service. As my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Ilford has said, there is no greater task confronting the Air Ministry after the war than the setting up of a body of officers to carry out educational work in the R.A.F. in the great times that lie ahead.

I want to make one other point. These men have been seconded from different schools. They are all well-trained and qualified people. They have been taken out of the schools for something like five years and they miss great opportunities of going ahead and ascending the ladder in their own Departments.

They told me that under their terms of agreement, or letter of invitation, they could give notice of resignation, but I understand that if they took the opportunity of resigning, they would then be at the mercy of the Minister of Labour, and could be directed to any employment that that Ministry thought fit. That is a most absurd position, especially in view of the fact that there are vacancies in the different schools, which are denuded of teachers. These men who are using their rights to resign should not fall into the hands of the Ministry of Labour—which seems to be adding insult to injury and doing a great disservice to the country, particularly when teachers and workers are wanted in the schools.

Lastly, let me say to the Ministry that in other walks of life, in other businesses and, in spite of what the hon. and learned Member for Ilford said, in other Services, there is a well-directed system of educational service, in which promotion is open. I hope that as a result of the report, which is guarded with so much secrecy, the Minister will see that there is a new system of promotion in the educational service such as might be an attraction to any well-qualified young man. Such a man should see that there is a place for him and be able to say, "Let me join that service, with all its new traditions. I have an opening there. I can see a goal in front of me, a ladder to climb." I ask the Minister to let us have some idea of what is going to be presented to us in this report which has been compiled with so much care.

My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Ilford (Mr. Hutchinson) has, with his usual clarity and cogency, put a most impressive case before the House, and I wish, in a sentence or two, to give my earnest support to his plea on behalf of a large number of my constituents. I know that my colleagues, the other University Members, are in a similar position. We have among our constituents a large number of graduates who are engaged in this very important service, and we receive letters from one and another, speaking of the grave sense of injustice which a number of them feel with present conditions in the Education Service of the R.A.F. I am certain my right hon. Friend will wish to remove that sense of injustice.

I will not go into any of the points that have been made by my hon. and learned Friend and by the hon. Member for Stourbridge (Mr. Morgan), further than to emphasise the great hardship that is imposed upon many in having to appear to be officers, and in having to perform the duties of officers in a very large number of cases, and yet to be in a position which, in many cases, involves real financial hardship, as well as a sense of rankling injustice. It surely cannot be that the high authorities of the R.A.F. look upon the education service in the way in which an eighteenth century nobleman looked on his chaplain—with mingled respect and contempt. I am sure that is not the attitude of the Minister. It is an invaluable thing for the life of the Service, that education officers, who can do so much for the mental and spiritual life of the members of the R.A.F. should feel that they have no sense of grievance. They should feel that they are being treated in every way as members of the same great body and know that they are not looked upon as an inferior set of men, who are not, in the full sense, regarded as equals by other officers. I am certain that that is the wish of the Minister, and I hope that in his reply, he will remove this sense of injustice. If he is not able to give everything that has been asked, I hope he will be able, in large measure, to meet the claims which have been put with such impressive power by the hon. and learned Member for Ilford.

I wish to reinforce the very clear and cogent speech made by the hon. and learned Member for Ilford (Mr. Hutchinson). I wish also to say to my right hon. Friend, for whom, as he knows, I have had for many years a great respect, that I am most disappointed with the cavalier way in which he has treated this question. One of the few enjoyable things one has been able to do, from time to time, has been to go and talk to R.A.F. groups in different parts of the country. I have not sought out this problem. My right hon. Friend always puts us in the position that we are trying to raise some awkward question. It has come to a head now, but it has been going on for years. Sir Frederick Mander, who is a very reliable person, recently wrote in a letter to "The Times" that he had raised this question as far back as 1939, and had constantly made representations to the Air Ministry. That is a serious matter.

When some Questions were asked in the House about this, I was told that 62 of these officers had given notice to terminate their engagement. Since then—and my right hon. Friend will doubtless correct me if I am wrong—I have been told that over 100 have resigned since the summer. They have not actually left, and perhaps the question about redirection was a little out of place on both sides. I think there is a period of three months which has to be worked off. We were also told then that 34 new appointments had been made. I thought that possibly some of these men had come back, but I understand that these are appointments from the ranks, or very largely so, and that even some of these men have since resigned. Not only have some resigned but a new order has come out since the New Year to make the length of service one year.

These are, it seems to me, pointers to prove that, when my right hon. Friend said last Wednesday that there was no ground for dissatisfaction, he was out of touch with opinion. How is it that Sir Frederick Mander and the N.U.T. could say that for four years they have been aware of dissatisfaction? How is it that those who go round, not to find fault, but to give talks to the R.A.F., get these complaints? How is it that we get these letters? I will read only one, but they come from unknown people who happen to know my interest in education:

"I consider my qualifications are almost entirely wasted. I have tendered my resignation, and have received one reply that it could not be accepted, and another that, if I persisted in enforcing the terms of my contract, the Air Ministry would have to consider applying to the Ministry of Labour for my redirection."

We get this time after time, and I under- stand now that some of these men have gone back to teaching. That is about the best thing I have heard so far. Regarding the unequal scale of compensation and the serious disabilities, which my hon. and learned Friend has catalogued, there is no need for us to go over that ground again. Those of us outside, who have such a profound admiration for the R.A.F. and the A.T.C., are not happy about these men in the Royal Air Force. It may be that the Minister has been so busy with the more operational side of the war that the Minister has not been able to give his attention to this question, but he knows that I have been to his Ministry, which has, on his own initiative, appointed this Committee. I went to see his officials because I was interested. There is no secret about it. I know the arguments which will be used, but it is high time this question was settled. It may be said that there are important implications for the post-war period. We are in that process now. There is that huge demobilisation, vocational instruction scheme in the Royal Air Force which has to be put into practice; some of us are rather nervous because we would like to see that scheme a great success. I beg the Minister to give very serious consideration to publication of the Report and the removal of disqualifications.