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

In order to explain the principles of the Bill, I hope the House will give me its indulgence if I go back in retrospect to discover what has happened with regard to the marriage laws. I give the assurance, however, that I shall not deal with the enactments right from the beginning.

Two centuries ago, there began a period of 83 years when marriages of dissenters were neither tolerated nor legalised. Nonconformists were compelled to marry in the Church of England or pay a visit to Scotland. In 1834, a Bill was considered to authorise justices of the peace or magistrates to perform marriages, but, as the Government of the day went out, nothing more was heard of it. It is well to recall that when dissenters were later allowed to marry, there had to be supervision by poor law authorities and notices of application had to be read before the boards of guardians. Thank goodness we have become a great deal more reformed since then.

Exactly 100 years ago Petitions were brought forward in this House. There were deliberations, conferences and consultations of all kinds, pressing for action to reform the laws, and particularly those affecting Nonconformists. The present law in principle is based upon the laws of that time. Many anomalies have been done away with in a piecemeal fashion and during the first half of the present century great strides have been made.

In 1949, a consolidating Measure dealt with the marriage law. Nothing much was said in this House, but in another place there was a debate upon it. That Measure, I am glad to say, was, however, examined by a Joint Committee of both Houses, but for some reason or other there was not a great deal of deliberation on Section 35, with which the present Bill is concerned. This little Bill which I am introducing could, perhaps, have been thought about at that time. Notwithstanding that, it is well to note that in June, 1949, the then Lord Chancellor stated that there had been 40 enactments on marriage laws since 1540. No Measure has gone into law since 1949, and this little Bill of mine seeks to improve the 1949 Act.

The principle which is laid down in the existing law upon marriages with regard to Nonconformists is that either of the parties to the marriage must be married in the district where he or she resides. There are two exceptions. First, the marriage can take place in the usual place of worship of either party if it is not more than two miles outside the registration district in which one of the parties resides. This exception is dealt with in the Bill today.

The other exception is that if neither of the parties resides in a registration district containing a church of his or her own denomination, they may marry in any church of their own denomination. This gives a greater advantage to the small sect or denomination than to the larger denomination, for whom I hope that the Bill will achieve a measure of a reform.

The Bill mainly provides, in Clause 1 for the removal of the two-mile restriction; in other words, it repeals subsection (2) of Section 35 of the 1949 Act. It does not repeal the Section altogether, but repeals the latter part of the subsection, as the Explanatory Memorandum, which I hope all hon. Members have read and have been able to understand, explains. I want to make clear how this Bill will assimilate subsections (2) and (3), and may I say that, before I came to the House of Commons, I made up my mind that one of the first things I would try to do was to make Bills or Acts of Parliament more understandable by the common man; but that is one of the promises I have not been able to fulfil. If I adapt a slogan with which to explain the purpose of this Bill, and say "Away with the two-mile limit," everybody will understand its purpose perhaps better than they will be able to do from the Explanatory Memorandum.

The reasons for the Bill are these. There is no case in these days for retaining the two-mile limit, first of all, because modern transport has done away with difficulties of travelling in many areas, and it is not to be expected, except in Wales, that anyone would walk two miles to a place of worship. While this limit was a handicap, at the same time I suggest that it was purely an arbitrary figure, and that, instead of two miles, it could well have been three or even four miles. Under the present law, that two-mile limit remains, but in fact, because of the means of travelling, the extension of our large cities and towns, the building of housing estates and new towns, the problem exists just as much as it did before.

Those who know something about the duties of registrars—and I have a large number in my constituency; probably more than there are in any other constituency in Wales—will not be able to understand how it was that people were ever expected to walk two miles over the mountains in Wales. We have only to look at a map to realise that, while they might cover two miles by walking over the mountains, if they went by road instead the distance they might have to cover might well be 10 miles, and that is a very important consideration.

In order to illustrate the purpose of the Bill, may I bring forward one or two specific instances? Let us take the case of the Bloomsbury Baptist Chapel in London. I understand that the daughter of the minister there is to be married before very long, and this restriction will mean that she will have to travel from Golders Green, which is outside the area of the chapel, and stay with a friend or in an hotel within the district of the chapel, before she can be married in the chapel where her father is the minister.

That is the restriction which I seek to remove, and we can all understand the difficulty which it presents in the case of people who cover great distances to the places of worship which they have been accustomed to attend and in which they would like to be married. My hon. Friend the Member for Abertillery (Rev. LI. Williams), who will second this Motion, will speak of his own experience at a church in London, and I am sure the House will be interested to hear something from him.

I should like to illustrate my argument with my own experience when I was married. At that time, I resided in Brecon, and my wife had temporarily gone away, because of the death of her father, to Hull. In order that we might be married in the place of worship of our choice, and where she had worshipped, she had to come back from Hull to Talgarth and reside there for the stipulated period before the marriage. Therefore, I declare my own interest in this Bill.

There is another consideration which I should like to put before the House. I wish myself, and I am sure that all hon. Members will agree, to do away with the practice of leaving one's pyjamas or suitcase in an hotel in order to make the registration, because that is what is happening. In other words, let us legalise what is now illegal, particularly for the benefit of young people.

If nothing else happens under this Bill, I want to give real encouragement to young people to get married in places of worship, and I am sure I need not advocate the case for that. It is rather strange for young people to find that at Caxton Hall film stars and people of nobility—or perhaps I should say notoriety—get married, while young people attending Westminster Church close by can only be married in a district in which one of them has resided. We therefore want to do away with that restriction.

I have given an explanation of Clause 1 of the Bill, and perhaps hon. Members will be glad that there are not many more Clauses in it. May I say that some people who have got in touch with me are under the impresssion that this Bill will make it easier for people to get married, but that is not so, and there are two important assurances which I want to give to the House.

First of all, the Bill will not lessen the security of the registration regulations; and secondly, notices of marriage must still be posted in the districts where the two parties live. There is, therefore, no question that this Bill gives support to hurried marriages or anything in that direction at all. I hope that one thing it will not do will be to place extra work on the registrars, and I am assured that that will not be the case.

So far, I have not heard of any opposition to this Bill, and I can say that it has the blessing of the Free Church Federal Council. I am now looking to the Government Front Bench in order that I may receive the blessing of the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health. We all know the hon. Lady's status, and I hope that she may find this Bill of some assistance herself. I hope she will be kind to this Bill, and that, if she finds there are any drafting errors in it, she will agree that we can correct them together in the Committee stage. That is all I want the hon. Lady to do, and if she can give the Bill a better send-off than I can myself, I shall be delighted. May I add that, if there are any other legal points which occur to hon. Members, my hon. Friend the Member for Anglesey (Mr. C. Hughes), who is a lawyer, will try to deal with them?

Finally, I should like to say that on 29th June, 1835, a deputation waited upon Lord Melbourne, and this is what he was told:

11.20 a.m.

I beg to second the Motion.

In doing so, I pay my tribute to the very sincere, humorous and humane way in which my hon. Friend the Member for Brecon and Radnor (Mr. Watkins) intro- duced the Bill. We who are the sponsors of the Bill have a reasonable sense of proportion with regard to its limits and importance. We do not claim that the Bill is, by any stretch of imagination, a major Bill. Hence our speeches will be correspondingly brief and our exhortations will be correspondingly moderate. We do not need a sledge hammer to crack a small nut.

The Bill deals with a petty, irksome and pointless restriction. We speak with confidence, because we believe that the Government will show, as indeed all recent Governments have shown, that they realise that the Clauses in past legislation although justified when they were framed may, in different times and in different circumstances, become quite anachronistic. I suggest to the Parliamentary Secretary of the Ministry of Health that the particular feature of the Bill which we seek to emphasise belongs to that category. Enlightened Governments usually see to it that anomalies and anachronisms are removed by amending Bills when time is available.

As my hon. Friend has pointed out, the Bill seeks to redress grievances which are felt particularly by Nonconformists, with regard to the Marriage Act, 1949, and previous Marriage Acts. I doubt whether anyone is actuated today by zeal or enthusiasm to perpetuate the remaining civil disabilities from which Nonconformists in particular have suffered. During the last 50 years we have seen those civil disabilities disappear one by one, in Burial Acts, Marriage Acts, and Education Acts. This is one of the few remaining disabilities which we hope the Government will immediately remove from the Statute Book. The whole basis of our argument is that the social pattern of life has changed so considerably during the last 50 years that to speak in terms of a two-mile limit is absurd and completely irrelevant to the contemporary situation.

My hon. Friend referred to the fact that I have had personal experience of the irksomeness of this petty restriction. He spoke the truth. I had the privilege of being the minister of a very large metropolitan church in London before I entered this House. That church was situated in the Finsbury registration district, and was adjacent to King's Cross railway station. It may seem strange, but it happens to be true that in that church, situated in that not very salubrious quarter, were 12 members who were farmers. There were people from Kent, Essex, Hertfordshire, and Buckinghamshire who farmed in a very prosperous way and who were active and faithful members of the church. If I were to tell the Parliamentary Secretary that the membership of the church was drawn from a radius of 30 miles in all directions, east, north, south and west, it would give her some idea of the tremendous area covered by a metropolitan church. What was true of the church at which I ministered is true of the Bloomsbury Baptist Church, and of many other churches in the London area, and, because of the changing social pattern, is true also of hundreds of churches throughout the length and breadth of the land.

Because of the availability of cars, people now seek to live as far as they can from their place of occupation—or their "place of work" as my hon. Friend put it more succinctly—but they cannot sever the sentimental ties and attachments which they have for the churches in which they or their parents were brought up. It is natural that those sentimental attachments should be maintained, and any legislation which makes that easier should be welcomed by this House.

I have personal experience of the unnecessary irksomeness of the circumscribed restriction of the 1949 Marriage Act. At a moderate estimate, two-thirds of my congregation in King's Cross were composed of young people. London Welsh churches are social centres as well as places of religious worship. Naturally one would officiate at dozens of marriage ceremonies practically every year. On many occasions one prospective partner has come along at the very last moment to complain about the irksomeness of this anomaly, this pointless two-mile limit.

I am not attempting to say anything new by remarking that the superintendent registrars of this country are charitable and imaginative enough to interpret and administer the minutiae of the Marriage Acts in a very reasonable way, although on the fundamentals of marriage and the legal enactments relating to marriage they are, of course, rigid and strict, as it is right and proper they should be. I am not saying this in any criticism of superin- tendent registrars, indeed I am paying them a very sincere tribute when I say that they have made things easy for young couples in churches such as mine when they were placed in this very anomalous and silly position.

But the point is that young people who want to get married in the place of worship which they have habitually attended should not be at the mercy, or caprice, or otherwise of superintendent registrars, some of whom can be awkward. If "awkward" is not the right word, let me say that they can be more rigid than others. We then get some of the strange positions to which my hon. Friend has already referred. Young people just about to get married are not very concerned with legal formalities. Usually these are the last things they bother themselves with. I speak from my experience of many young couples. Very often a wedding has been made unnecessarily complicated because of petty restrictions such as the one which the Bill proposes to remove.

These residential qualifications may have served a useful purpose when they were originally put into the Marriage Acts, but I submit that they have long outworn their usefulness and are now outmoded, antiquated and irrelevant to the times in which we live. Their usefulness has long since ceased to exist.

In a very simple way, and without making a major issue of this matter, I wish to support my hon. Friend in his submission that the practical effect of this Bill is to remove these petty, trivial, unimportant and unnecessary restrictions from the path of those who desire to get married in the church in which one or both of the parties usually worships.

11.30 a.m.

I join with my hon. Friend the Member for Abertillery (Rev. Ll. Williams) in congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Brecon and Radnor (Mr. Watkins) on the selection of the Measure which he has introduced today. My hon. Friend who moved the Motion is a Baptist, my hon. Friend who seconded it is a Congregationalist and I am a Methodist. We live in that part of the United Kingdom where people know each other's religious denomination equally as well as they know each other's political distinction, and we are accustomed to refer to people as much by the chapel to which they belong as by reference to the occupation which they follow.

My hon. Friend the Member for Brecon and Radnor has once again indicated to the House the value of the Private Member's Bill. It gives us the opportunity, in a non-party spirit, to remove anomalies and injustices of which we are all aware, but in respect of which the Government find it difficult, with their busy programme, to give the necessary time.

At present, it is easier in many parts of the country for Nonconformists to get married in a register office than in their own chapel, and that is something to which they take exception. The anomaly which we seek to remove today was conceived in prejudice, and this Measure is another milestone on the road away from religious prejudice and bias in this country. There is now a new atmosphere in these islands, and a broader spirit of toleration. But Nonconformists no longer ask for toleration. We claim our rights and our equal place with those who feel the call to worship in other ways.

My hon. Friend the Member for Abertillery, who was a distinguished luminary of the Welsh pulpit, has referred to the love of one's church. We all realise that in life there is room for sentiment, and that without it life is a rather drab business. Sentiment reveals itself in the sphere of religion on many occasions. We all have a special regard and affection for the place of worship in which our parents were married or to which our forebears have gone through the years. It is true that it is an affection for the building as well as for the institution itself, but it is something which is very real in the life of our people.

We have only to think of our great Methodist halls in our cities. At the Westminster Central Hall, Dr. Sangster's congregation of 3,000, Sunday after Sunday, is not drawn from the environs of Westminster. I suppose that not 2 per cent, of his congregation would be entitled to be married in that church without having to stay overnight in a hotel within two miles of the building.

Dr. Soper draws his own crowd to the Kingsway Hall, but he attracts his con- gregation from a very wide circle indeed, and under this Bill we shall be giving to the congregations of these churches equality with those who worship across the way in the Abbey, of which all denominations of this country are so proud.

The problem is not confined to the Metropolis. I think of the growing city of which I have the honour to represent in this House. We have our housing estates creeping out into the Valley of Glamorgan and into Monmouthshire, stretching far more than two miles from the centre of our city where so many of our chapels in Cardiff are to be found. The people of West, North, East and South Cardiff will all come within the ambit of this Bill.

I earnestly hope that the Bill will be given its Second Reading today, so that we may congratulate each other on having been present on an occasion when another injustice has been removed and when another stride towards real democracy has been taken by this honourable House.

11.36 a.m.

I join in congratulating the hon. Member for Brecon and Radnor (Mr. Watkins) on bringing forward this very useful Bill which, I know, will give particular satisfaction in Wales, where the operation of the restrictions which the Bill seeks to remove has been particularly irksome. I must confess that I cannot claim a vested interest in the matter because I happen to be a member of the Church of England, and this Bill does not alter the position of my church.

I wish to say straight away that Her Majesty's Government will be very happy to support the passage of this Bill through its various stages. At the same time, perhaps I should say a few words on points raised by those who thought that this Bill might perhaps alter their position, and try to make it quite clear what its effect will be on the various denominations.

The Bill does not apply to the Church of England or to the Church in Wales, where the situation will remain as at present. Nor will it affect those who are Quakers or those of the Jewish faith, who are already fully covered under the 1949 Act. Regarding the two restrictions which apply to those who wish to marry in a registered building in England and Wales—which marriage must at present take place within the registration district of either party to the marriage and where notice has been given to the registrar—there are the two exceptions, the one covered by this Bill and the other not affected by it.

As the hon. Member for Brecon and Radnor has said, the first exception was the usual place of worship which had to be not more than two miles from the boundary. We accept that, with the much more rapid transport of the present day, this exception has become impracticable. It has been particularly difficult for those who might have their own church or chapel just beyond the two-mile limit of their registration district. Yet within that registration district, and possibly more than two miles away from their home, there was a church of the same denomination, but because of this they were denied the use of their normal place of worship.

It is certainly not the desire of the Government or of hon. Members who wish to maintain the religious side of marriage—who desire those who wish to be married in churches of their own faith and according to their own denomination to be able freely to do so—that such a restriction should remain. Therefore, as I have said, we shall be very happy to support the passage of this Bill through this House. There may be some very minor drafting Amendments to be made in Committee, but, on the general principle, we congratulate the hon. Member for Brecon and Radnor on his success in the Ballot, and are very happy indeed to support the Bill.

11.40 a.m.

I am quite sure that we all wish to congratulate the hon. Member for Brecon and Radnor (Mr. Watkins), not merely for his selection of this Measure but for the truly delightful way in which he presented it to the House. I should also like to congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, West (Mr. G. Thomas) for venturing to enter into a debate on the marriage laws. I can only hope that this means that shortly we shall have the opportunity of contributing to a wedding present for him.

What about the Parliamentary Secretary?

The hon. Member for Brecon and Radnor has already indicated exactly where she fitted into the picture.

This Bill marks one of the milestones along the road to securing complete religious equality for all denominations. I was very glad to hear the remarks offered by the Parliamentary Secretary when she moved—

The last word that I used before the interrupation we have just suffered was one which was not quite justified. The hon. Lady was not engaged in moving but in more or less accepting the proposal laid before her and, after all, that is what one would expect on a Marriage Bill of this kind.

My hon. Friend the Member for Brecon and Radnor dealt with the history of the marriage laws. It is as well on an occasion such as this that we should examine the subject, as he said, not in detail but in the general way in which he did. He alluded to the fact that the first Marriage Act was passed in 1540, in the reign of Henry VIII, who could certainly claim to be an expert on ways of getting married when a great many people thought that it was wrong and inadvisable for him to do so. Then we had a period, even after the Act of Toleration had been passed, in which the only place where marriages could be solemnised was the parish church. The Jews and members of the Society of Friends were the only people who were exempted from that provision.

My hon. Friend the Member for Brecon and Radnor also alluded to what was one of the historic meetings between a Prime Minister and representatives of people outside Parliament when, in 1835, the Dissenters of the country sent their representatives to see Lord Melbourne. They pointed out to him that while the Dissenters had consistently supported the Whigs during the long period that had elapsed since the passing of the Act of Toleration they had never managed to get anything out of them and it was the Tories who had granted Roman Catholic emancipation.

They also pointed out that although Lord John Russell had managed to secure the repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts he had managed to insert in the repeal Bill a declaration to be made by Dissenters which was almost as objectionable as the original test.

This is a matter that has played a considerable part in English life and it is good that this morning we should meet to discuss it without the violent feelings that this now apparently quite innocuous subject caused in earlier days. I want to support this Measure very largely for the reasons given by my hon. Friend the Member for Brecon and Radnor and my hon. Friend the Member for Abertillery (Rev. Ll. Williams), because the dissenting community has a life of its own which is not always the subject of very close geographical limitations.

That is particulary true after the great shifting of population that has taken place during the last 10 years, whereby people who lived in neighbourhoods adjacent to a place of worship to which their families had belonged for a great many years, and with which they had many sacred associations, moved out perhaps 10, 12 or, as my hon. Friend the Member for Abertillery suggested, sometimes an even greater number of miles away but still regarded themselves as part of the religious community that centred on some well-established place of worship

It is astonishing how in the Nonconformist communities this feeling has always remained very strong and what a length of time some families have been associated with a particular place of worship. When the Congregational Church in which I was brought up celebrated its 250th anniversary, my mother had been connected with it for 83 years—a third of that quarter of a millenium covered by one life. She was by no means the first generation of that family who had been connected with that place of worship.

There are historic ties which bind Non-conformists with places of worship with which their families have been associated for a great many years and whose little burial grounds often contain the last remains of those who founded and maintained the church. To make it difficult for this religious community, even in denominations which do not regard marriage as a sacrament in the ordinary way but as a very sacred and binding obligation entered into between the parties, surely is not to make easy the continuation of those ties which are very essential if the sound family life of this country is to be continued.

The difficulties and anomalies mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Abertillery are things which we ought not to allow to continue. In these days it is a bad thing to continue anything which attempts to put a badge of inferiority or specialisation upon any of the religious communities. We are all so strenuously engaged in the fight against the spreading flood of materialism that it is unwise to do anything which perpetuates some of the divisions which may have had political and other meanings in bygone ages, but which are no longer anything but reminders of unhappy times long ago.

I therefore welcome this Measure. I sincerely hope that it will become law as soon as possible and that we may, in this way, be able to make it plain—as it needs to be made plain, in these days—that we desire every community tie that strengthens the spiritual and cultural life of our nation to be afforded opportunities of striking its roots deep and of spreading to give shade to those who, in this modern age, all too frequently find that materialism and the things that are not of the spirit have too much influence with us.

12.2 p.m.

I am emboldened to enter very briefly into this discussion by the words of my right hon. Friend the Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede), who has addressed to us views, which I am sure deserve a much wider audience than we have been able to give them, on a matter of religion and seriousness in connection with the solemnisation of marriage. Those views need increasingly to be put in the days in which we live.

The hon. Lady excluded the Society of Friends from this Bill because it was unnecessary to give them the facilities that my hon. Friends from Wales are seeking, since their case has been covered already, in the codification Measure of 1949 and a still earlier Measure. It was very necessary that they should be covered, because the Friends' meeting houses were very widely scattered among the homes of their memberships, and it is still quite a usual thing for a member of the Society to travel a score of miles to his meeting house to worship with co-religionists. In the old meeting houses we can still find the paddocks for the ponies, which were almost as important a part of the comforts afforded at the meeting houses on Sundays as those for the participants in the meetings for worship.

The marriage ceremony presents a difficult problem if any finery on the part of the bride needs to be carefully safeguarded. The Quakers learnt in time to go a little beyond the dove grey of their grandmothers, and I have seen very nicely prepared brides in Quaker communities. Quakers have always felt unhappy that they should have an advantage which was denied to members of other communities, and they will receive with special satisfaction the news that the last disabilities in the marriage laws are being removed from the Statute Book by this Bill.

I entirely agree with my right hon. Friend that everything should be done to make people realise that entering into a contract which involves not only themselves but children yet to be should be treated as a matter of the greatest seriousness, and, if they have any religious views, as a matter of the greatest importance. We should do everything we can to encourage people back on to the path of religious observance—and we have to say "back" in these days—and to help them to realise its importance in our general lives. I am glad to have been able to take part in this debate.

12.6 p.m.

I also wish to congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Brecon and Radnor (Mr. Watkins) on the lucid and informed way in which he introduced this Bill. It is quite clear that my hon. Friend has given great thought, time and study to the marriage laws generally and to the historical background of the Bill. His historical introduction was of very great interest. My right hon. Friend the Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede) also dealt in a most interesting fashion with the historical theme. The house is always glad to hear him dealing with history, and I am quite sure that if he had not chosen to make his distinguished career in this place he would have made an outstanding professor of history.

My hon. Friend the Member for Brecon and Radnor made a very important point when he said that we should do everything we can to encourage young people to marry in a place of worship. That point is of an importance which transcends legal considerations. My right hon. Friend the Member for South Shields underlined that argument when he said that we should do everything we can to counteract the tendency towards materialism, which is so strong today. I would add that we should also set an example of tolerance and religious toleration at a time when in many countries to the east, west, and south of us there is intolerance, religious persecution and oppression. The peoples of the world look to this country and to this honourable House for an example in these matters, and even in this small Bill we are showing the way.

I also congratulate my hon, Friend the Member for Abertillery (Rev. Ll. Williams), who made a most valuable contribution. He speaks with authority on this subject, as one who has had a very wide practical experience as a Minister in a Congregational church in London. I agree with him that the anomaly with which we are dealing operates very much to the disadvantage of people living in the Metropolis, and in our great cities, but even in country towns and villages people who travel some distance to their place of worship experience great inconvenience and difficulty under the present law.

As hon. Members will be aware, this Bill does not seek to effect any fundamental change in the marriage law. Its sole purpose is to remove an anomaly. The Bill seeks to enable Nonconformists to be married in the church at which they are regular worshippers. It is quite monstrous to think that men and women have to go to all sorts of shifts and expediencies in order that they may marry in the chapel in which they have worshipped all their lives. This law, as my hon. Friend rightly said, was formulated in the atmosphere of a century ago to suit the conditions and meet the needs of a different age.

It is rather interesting to note that it was a Baptist who moved the Second Reading and a Congregationalist who seconded the Motion, and that it has been supported by a Methodist and by a member of the Society of Friends already, whilst I who am attending to its concluding stages am a Presbyterian. It is strange to think that I, a Presbyterian in Wales, the son of a Presbyterian manse, have to suffer a disability that Presbyterians do not suffer in Scotland where, of course, the Presbyterian Church is the established Church.

A century ago the residential qualification in the marriage law was regarded as of first importance. Its purpose at that time was to prevent clandestine marriages. During the last century two concessions have been made which tended to make things much easier for Nonconformists. The two-mile rule was introduced, and this enabled them to marry in a church which was within an area two miles outside their normal registration district; and also those who belonged to a denomination that had no church in their district were allowed to marry in such a church outside the boundaries of their registration district. This benefited the small sects but not the larger denominations, and that for reasons that are quite obvious.

By today customs have changed and distances have dwindled, and the limitations that the present law imposes are quite indefensible. I cannot imagine that there is anyone who would wish Nonconformists to be at a disadvantage compared with others. I would reinforce what my hon. Friend the Member for Brecon and Radnor said, that this Bill in no wise lessens the security of the registration regulations. They still remain as a precaution against hurried or clandestine marriages, and notice of marriage must still be posted in the district where the parties reside. My hon. Friends and I are glad that the Government have decided to support the Bill, and all that remains for me to do is to wish the Measure a very speedy passage through all its stages.

Question put, and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read a Second time, and committed to a Standing Committee.

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

When a Member of Parliament has the good fortune to be lucky in the Ballot for Private Members' Bills, there is a wide field of legislation open to him from which he may choose, and there are always a large number of powerful organisations anxious to make some change in the law which will benefit the causes they were formed to promote. Many of those organisations are devoted to the protection of the interests of the animal world. One is sometimes tempted to think that pit ponies, dogs and cats elicit a greater degree of sympathy in misfortune than do certain categories of human beings.

I know, for instance, of no powerful organisation, fortified by Royal Patronage, and which has rank upon rank of famous names on its notepaper, whose object it is to promote the interests of persons with small incomes who face the problem of maintaining themselves as citizens with self-respect on an income of £104 a year or less. If, therefore, in support of this Bill I am able to rely upon the assistance of only certain of my hon. Friends and am unable to bring to my aid the powerful publicity organisations which aid other Bills, I hope that none the less the Bill will commend itself to the House as a modest reform worthy of the support of all men and women of good will of all parties.

The category of individuals with whom I am concerned are the self-employed and non-employed persons of working age whose income from all sources is less than £104 a year or an average of less than £2 a week. Under Section 5 of the National Insurance Act, 1946, this category of persons is excepted from the payment of contributions during the period that their incomes remain below that level. Perhaps it would be worth mentioning that at the present moment there are strong arguments for increasing the £104 a year income limit. Because of the fall in the value of money, I should think that the right limit for the present time would be about £126 a year.

The House will recognise that, while in some respects it is an advantage, whether at the level of £104 a year or at the level of £126 a year, to be relieved of the obligation of making contributions of up to 7s. 5d. a week, this category also suffers from the grave disadvantage that, unless during their contribution life they are able to obtain an average of more than 13 contributions annually, they are entitled to no retirement pension, and in all probability are not entitled to most of the benefits, with the exception of sickness and unemployment benefit, to which the normal contributor is entitled.

It is true that by Section 5 (2) of the National Insurance Act these people may be credited with contributions during the period in which they are excepted from paying contributions for the purposes of obtaining sickness and unemployment benefit, but the regulations are so drawn as to make the qualification for the crediting of these contributions extremely onerous. In accordance with paragraph 10 (3 B) of Statutory Instrument 1417 of 1948, contributions shall not be credited to such a person until 26 contributions, whether as an employed or as a self-employed person, have been paid in respect of him for the weeks commencing not earlier than the week in which the certificate, that is, the certificate of exemption, ceased to be in force. I am doubtful whether these regulations im- plement Section 5 of the Act of 1946 either in the spirit or in the letter.

I mention this so as to explain and support the purpose of the Bill of making a definite condition, that is, that a person who has paid 156 contributions at any time since 5th July, 1948, shall thereby automatically become qualified for crediting with the contributions for all purposes, either when he ceases to become exempted or on reaching the age of 60 or 65, respectively.

I also see no reference in the regulations, which are issued in respect of Section 5 of the 1946 Act, to non-employed persons, and it is perhaps some evidence that these regulations have rendered nugatory the provisions set out in Section 5 that I am informed that there are no people credited with contributions in the area which I represent.

It seems to me that if the House of Commons passes an Act making certain provisions to credit contributions in order to enable a certain category of persons to obtain benefits, the regulations should be careful not to hedge those qualifications round with such provisions and exceptions that the Act becomes nullified. I hope that if he intends to intervene later in the debate, my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary will explain why it is that the regulations have been drawn in this way.

I realise that under the existing regulations and under this Bill the person of small income will not be entitled to a pension at the full rate, for it is clear that the exact size and level of the pension to which he or she will become entitiled must be laid down by regulation and must be based in some degree upon the varying scales of pension which are at present in force, based upon the average of the contributions made during the contribution life. Nevertheless, this Bill will enable the person of small income, who is excepted from having to make contributions, to obtain a pension on reaching pensionable age, as of right, provided, of course, that the 156 contributions have been paid.

I realise that in the present circumstances it may be possible for such a person to apply for National Assistance. Indeed, the additional calls which this Bill will make upon the total of the public funds will not be very great. They will be relatively small, because a person who at present has to rely on National Assistance will, under the Bill, move into the category of those dealt with under National Insurance.

Anyone who is acquainted with the point of view of the type of person who falls into the small category to which I refer will agree with me that the opportunity to obtain a pension of right rather than to rely upon National Assistance is an advantage which would be not only greatly welcomed but also greatly treasured by those people. The number of people who may be affected by the Bill is by no means negligible. At present there are 200,000 certificates of small income exceptions current in the country. I hope the House will feel that that position does not warrant complacency, for it means that 200,000 people are trying to live on less than £2 a week, trying to maintain normal life, to pay rent, to buy food and clothing out of that small sum. The truth is, as any hon. Member knows, that that is almost an impossibility.

Generally speaking, therefore, the people with whom I am concerned form the poorest section of the community. May I try to give some examples? There are, for example, the widows dependent upon a 10s. pension or in receipt of industrial death benefit. In many cases there are single, unmarried women of late middle age, for whom regular employment is difficult to obtain and who have few qualifications for earning their own living. There are also people whose livelihood is extremely uncertain and spasmodic, such as street traders, and there are others—perhaps the biggest category of all—who are handicapped by some disability, either mental or physical, and for whom the range of work available is extremely limited.

A great many, indeed I would say the vast majority, of these make a courageous effort to maintain their self-respect and independence. As I have said, they are often extremely reluctant to apply for National Assistance, even though they are entitled to do so and although it is right, as I know all hon. Members agree, that we should emphasise to them that the object of National Assistance is to support those who are in need, and that there is no social stigma whatever in going to the National Assistance Board.

Nevertheless, it would be a humane and proper thing to try to enable this group, who are faced with most difficult social and economic problems, to achieve as a right an income for their old age which will give them a sense of independence and self-reliance which I know they wish to attain. It would be wrong, I submit, to continue the present position in which they must look forward in their old age to dependence upon National Assistance as their only source of income or their main source of income. Even though there are criticisms at present that sections of the public are too easily inclined to turn to the public purse for assistance, it seems to me that they do not apply to those who are on the margin of subsistence and about whom I am speaking. These are people who deserve the help of the community, and I suggest that this is one of the ways in which we can give them that help.

The House will notice that the Bill does not break the principle that the benefits can be obtained only as a result of contributions. What it does is to provide a contributory basis which is within the financial reach of a group of people who would otherwise be unlikely to earn even the smallest level of retirement pension.

I said earlier that the cause of those who fall into the small income group has not the support of any powerful organisation. Although I have taken the best advice at my disposal, I realise that in drafting the Bill I may not have conformed entirely to the rules of what is a very exact and complicated procedure, but I am sure that if the Bill received the support of the House on Second Reading I should have the assistance of the Minister and of my colleagues in Committee in making any alterations which would properly achieve the object which I have in mind.

Let me summarise that object. It is to meet the needs of those who are exempted from the payment of contributions on the ground of small income, and, in addition to the present unemployment and sickness benefit which they may obtain as a result of the crediting of contributions under Section 5 of the Act, to extend to them, in return for a small contribution on their part—the minimum of 156 contributions since the introduction of the 1946 Act—the other benefits so that they may in due course achieve as a right the status of insured persons receiving benefits rather than of persons permanently dependent upon National Assistance.

I hope that, on the basis of the case which I have made, the House will consider this a modest but helpful reform. I hope the House will also consider it in accordance with the ideas of social reform which I think are accepted on both sides of the House. Indeed, in the Committee stage of the 1946 Act, a colleague, who has now left the House and who at that time represented Ormskirk, moved an Amendment in very much the same terms as those set out in the Bill. It was withdrawn only on an understanding that the Minister would go further into the matter.

I am not sure that he found it possible at that time to meet the views which were set out in that Amendment but it seems to me that now, when we have had further experience of the working of the 1946 Act, the time has come to put right what appears to me to be an anomaly. Therefore, I ask for the support of the House for the Second Reading of the Bill.

12.30 p.m.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Colchester (Mr. Alport) has so clearly set out the considerations why the Bill should receive the support of the House I will not weary the hon. Members by reiterating any of the arguments.

12.31 p.m.

It will perhaps be convenient if I intervene at this stage and explain the background of this problem, which is rather complex and deserves considerable attention from Parliament either now or at a later stage.

To deal, first of all, with the size of the problem, as my hon. Friend the Member for Colchester (Mr. Alport) said, the number affected in this category is 200,000. Our researches show that 150,000 of them are women and 50,000 are men. Again, 180,000 of them are in Class 3 and about 20,000 are in Class 2 insurance. To break the total down into different categories is not easy, but as long ago as 1950 a small-scale survey was undertaken of those who were exempted on the ground of small income, and while I should not ask the House to regard that as a true and reliable analysis—it was only a very small-scale survey and is four years out of date—it might interest hon. Members to know that at that time, of those excepted, one-third were either women acting as unpaid housekeepers to relations or were invalids who were being looked after by relations.

Fourteen per cent were living on superannuation or very small pensions, and 8 per cent were members of religious orders. The most striking fact that emerged during that small survey in 1950 was that of the total of those excepted only 10 per cent, were obtaining National Assistance. Therefore, it is not quite accurate to state, as my hon. Friend stated, that these people were the very poorest section of the community. It is a rather more difficult problem than that. A great proportion of them are living in reasonably comfortable surroundings as unpaid housekeepers to relations.

Another factor which we must consider is that some are in this group because we are still in the early days of National Insurance. There were men who were not insured before 1948 and who died before they made 156 contributions, and some of the persons in the group which we are now considering are, therefore, widows who have failed to qualify for widow's pension because their husbands had not paid sufficient contributions. That class will, fortunately, disappear in time, as it is now rare indeed for a man to die before he has paid 156 contributions.

The other class in this group now which will not be in it in future consists of those who were excepted before 1946 because their salary was more than £420 a year, and who then suffered an accident or illness and have become permanent invalids. They are a type of case deserving of great sympathy and they are undoubtedly included in this category.

I hope that what I have said about these various categories will make hon. Members realise the diversity of the problem, and in some ways the difficulty of it, because whereas the type of case which I mentioned a few moments ago will move out of this group when the National Insurance scheme is a little older, there is a most deserving type of case which will still remain. I refer to the case of the child who is an invalid from birth, who can never contribute and never obtain credits and, therefore, can never obtain any benefits from the National Insurance scheme.

The final categories that make up this 200,000 are a large body of people who are constantly drifting in and out of this small income exception group. They fall on hard times and claim small income exception. Then times get better, they obtain employment in Class 1 or Class 2 and move out of the group. There are, finally, a group of people who, either by force of circumstances or sometimes by choice, pursue a not very gainful occupation.

When the Act of 1946 was being discussed and difficulties of this class of people were recognised and Section 5 (2) of the National Insurance Act had the effect of dealing with the problem of those men or women who moved out of the small income exception group into Class 1 or Class 2 employment. It was felt by Parliament at that time that everything should be done to encourage persons to move away from the small income exception class into employment, and, that to help them when they had moved into employment, they should be given sufficient credits to enable them to claim successfully sickness or unemployment benefit once they had paid the initial qualifying 26 contributions.

That provision was duly inserted in the Bill which is now an Act. Therefore, I challenge my hon. Friend the Member for Colchester when he says that the Regulations made under Section 5 (2) do not fulfil the requirements of that subsection. Indeed they do. Those who are in this class of persons drifting in and out of small income exception are, in fact, being helped to get the short-term benefits once they have paid the initial 26 contributions. My hon. Friend said that that does not apply to non-employed persons. Naturally, it does not: because they are not eligible to obtain sickness or unemployment benefit. These are not among the benefits obtained by Class 3 contributors and that is why they are excluded. That is the position today.

I recognise that my hon. Friend has put forward a strong case why this matter should have further consideration. The difficulty of doing anything on the lines he suggests in this Bill is that we must remember that National Insurance is based on the contributory principle. In the 1946 Act Parliament devised a contributory policy for National Insurance, but also provided the net of National Assistance for those who could not afford to pay the contributions. When my hon. Friend says that his Bill does not break the contributory principle all I can say is that it bends it so far towards breaking point that I think it will ultimately have that effect.

This Bill provides for anyone in this class of small income exception, once they have paid 156 contributions, to be entitled to all benefits. The first objection, as I see it, is that under our present Regulations it is possible to pay three years' contributions in arrear in one sum and the consequence would be that once three years' contributions had been paid a person would be safe for life for all benefits. That would not encourage people to move from this class of small income exception into employment in Class 1 or 2, as I am sure would be the desire of all hon. Members.

As drafted, the Bill would also prove unfair to the low wage earner. Those with small income exception are all those in Class 2 employment or who are in Class 3, non-employed. The low wage earner is in Class 1 and provided that he has worked for more than four hours a week, or, in the case of domestic service eight hours a week, a Class 1 stamp must be paid in respect of him. If the wage is over 30s. a week he must pay his full share of the Class 1 stamp. If it is 30s. a week or less he still has to pay a share, though a smaller share, of the cost of the stamp. That being so, it would be unfair if we gave this very generous system of credits to those excepted on grounds of small income and not to the low wage earner in Class 1. Any benefit we give to any class in a contributory pensions scheme must be provided by the rest of the contributors.

My hon. Friend said there was great benefit in this to those excepted on grounds of small income, who would get the credits to obtain the pension as of right. But it is a curious form of right. Except for the 156 contributions that is all they would pay. They could pay in a lump sum. Is it very different therefore from obtaining national assistance based on need? For that reason, I do not think that the Bill, as drafted, can be accepted as a satisfactory solution.

There is here, however, a problem which requires investigation and I will try to explain it by giving two parallel cases. Let us take the case of someone who has paid 156 contributions in his working life and then falls ill and remains ill for the rest of his life. He receives credits for the whole period until he reaches minimum retirement age. Another person, such as the invalid child who has been mentioned, who has not had three years in Class 1 and yet is very nearly as deserving as the first case, gets no help at all towards pension or sickness benefit, and is, therefore, completely outside the insurance scheme.

These matters require investigation. I also think that the whole question of whether the limit of small income exceptions should be £104 a year, with the normal disregards, requires further investigation. In view of those facts, my right hon. Friend has recently referred to the National Insurance Advisory Committee the problem of credits and of liability for contributions by persons with small incomes. I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for Colchester will feel, therefore, that his Bill has had some effect, even though it does not become law, because it is one of the factors which has led to the remission of these important problems to the consideration of the National Insurance Advisory Committee.

It is the custom in National Insurance not to embark on subordinate or relatively minor legislation until the matter has been investigated and reported on by the National Insurance Advisory Committee. I believe that has proved a wise precaution in the past and I hope that the House will take that view today. For these reasons, and with an assurance to my hon. Friend that all the points he has made will be examined by the Committee as well as by my Department, I hope he will agree to withdraw his Motion. This is not the end of the chapter but the beginning, because we are going on to have an investigation and a report by the National Insurance Advisory Committee.

12.47 p.m.

I think that someone from this side of the House should make a few observations upon this Bill. The hon. Member for Colchester (Mr. Alport) explained it extremely fairly and we have now had a lukewarm reception of it from the Government, coupled with the plain indication that the hon. Member should withdraw it in view of the fact that the National Insurance Advisory Committee is considering this and similar matters.

As I listened to the Minister, I came to the view that it would be wrong for us to pass this Bill. There is here a very difficult problem. It is true that it covers only 200,000 people, which may not be considered a great number in a population of 50 million. But they are a section of the community, and, like anyone else, are entitled to have their position considered.

The 200,000 are not all in the same category. Some would never qualify, even were this Bill passed. It has been made clear from what has been said by the Joint Parliamentary Secretary, and from what we know, that a percentage of them would not be able to take advantage of the proposals contained in this Bill. A fair proportion of the rest would not need the money even though they qualified. They are obviously daughters or sisters in fairly easy circumstances living at home and having no intention ever of going out to work. They are fortunately never likely to be in a position where it is essential that they should receive the old-age pension. A few others, and perhaps the most deserving cases, will disappear as the 1946 Act gets into its stride.

As the National Insurance Scheme is based on actuarial calculations and as it was never intended that people who did not subscribe should benefit automatically, I hope that the hon. Gentleman will accept the advice given by his own Front Bench and withdraw the Bill. If he does not feel able to do that, we on this side will not divide against it today, but when we come to the Committee stage we shall feel in duty bound to attempt either to defeat it, if we can, or to amend it in a number of respects. I say this because, as the Minister has stated, this matter is under review, is an extremely complicated one and when the House comes to legislate it should do so with all the facts before it.

In view of the assurance given by the Parliamentary Secretary, but with a reluctance which is natural to an hon. Member who has introduced his own Measure, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Motion and also the Bill.

Motion, by leave, withdrawn; Bill withdrawn.

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

This is a small and modest Bill which would permit a limited experiment. It is an experiment limited in the maximum number of ways that I could devise. It is limited to one constituency, which is my own, and to one change in the method of voting, namely, the introduction of the alternative vote. It is limited to a duration of 10 years, so that perhaps at the most it would cover three or four Elections. The Bill does nothing else apart from that.

The purpose is to permit an experiment in alternative voting, to allow a number of people to express their opinion who feel that under the present electoral system they are not able to cast an effective vote. The Bill does not do a number of things which may very well be alleged against it. It does not encourage the formation of splinter groups or small parties. Essentially, it will preserve the two-party system to which I think all of us in this House are committed as being suitable to us.

It does not answer all the criticisms, whether or not they are justified, which are levelled against our present electoral methods. I do not claim that it would cure all the evils which are alleged against our system. It would be purely a limited experiment. The Measure would not introduce a method of voting which is new at home or abroad, in the Commonwealth. This alternative system of voting was in operation in the university constituencies when they returned members to this House until quite recently. The method is well tried and well understood by those who would have to administer it.

The Bill would not invalidate any vote which is at the moment valid. Any voter who did not understand the system could still continue to put a cross against a name on the ballot paper, as he or she always has done in the past. That would continue to be a valid vote. What the system would do would be to enable those people who want to use it to do so; and those who do not want to use or do not understand it could ignore it.

I do not think that it would mean that other hon. Members would be subject to increasing pressure from their constituents to introduce similar Measures. The whole purpose is to have a 10-year experiment to see whether the claims made for alternative systems of voting are an improvement or not on the system which we now have.

The reason why I introduce the Measure is that I believe that there is a genuine feeling of frustration among a number of people who hold minority views that any vote they cast is a wasted vote. In our constituencies we are all familiar with that argument. The Bill is proposed in an attempt to meet that complaint. It seems to me that this alteration in the voting system is the only way in which one can meet those feelings of frustration without jeopardising the two-party system.

I said in my Election address at the last Election but one that if I had the good fortune to win in the Ballot I should introduce this Bill. I can claim that I am not in any way log-rolling personally. A Bill of this kind must be limited to a Member's own constituency because its only possibility of survival is to place one willing Member's seat in doubt. I believe that the St. Albans division is the ideal one for the experiment. The two great parties in the State, the Labour and Conservative Parties, are equally divided in the division.

In the last five years it has returned Members representing both sides of the House. In the 1945 Election a Labour Member was returned and he served until 1950 since when there has been a Conservative Member. In the next few years 40,000 or so new electors will come into the division. How they will vote no party can claim today to know. Consequently, it is a gamble which would be taken equally by both parties if they supported the Bill. It is certain, too, that the division will be redistributed within the next 10 years and so, again, as there is complete doubt as to where the boundary line will be drawn, no party can say whether or not the seat is a safe one for its cause.

Therefore, I feel that it is an equal gamble for both the main parties to allow the experiment in my division. It will be noted that Members of all parties have been good enough to support the Bill. If for a moment I may attempt the rôle of prophet, I would say that I do not think that this change would necessarily alter the political allegiance of the Member who would be returned. Its sole result would be to emphasise the swing of opinion, and it may well increase the majority of the Member returned.

In the 1945 Election, when I was defeated in the division, I feel that had the vote been under this system the majority against me would have been much greater than it was. Equally, at the last Election but one, when there were three candidates, probably my majority would have been slightly bigger. First, I think that the result of the Bill would be likely to emphasise majorities and the swing of opinion. The second result would be that it would encourage independently-minded candidates to offer themselves and, none of us would think that that was a bad thing.

Further, it would make the influence of the thinking middle-of-the-road part of the community greater than it is today. A Member who had been returned under this system would, I think, take greater note of changes of opinion of that middle section of the community which would have a greater say in his return than perhaps it has at the moment. On the other hand, it would correspondingly influence the strongly partisan party feeling to adopt perhaps more moderate ways. That, too, is not a bad thing in these managerial and complex days.

I think, also, that it may well strengthen the hand of the local candidate who, in any dispute of opinion with his local organisation, finds himself able to put up in competition with another member of his own party, knowing that they will will not split the vote and so return a member of the other political party. This is an important point to encourage the local candidate at the expense of the carpet bagger.

I hope that in criticism of the Bill we will not hear anything of the type of argument which describes it as dangerous—

Notice taken that 40 Members were not present;

House counted, and 40 Members not being present, the House was adjourned at Three Minutes past One o'Clock till Monday next.