On a point of order. I do not know whether the Motion is debatable, but if it is, I should like to take the opportunity of asking the Home Secretary what information it is proposed to include in the certificate. Would that be in order, Mr. Speaker?

This is a Motion for an Address from the Minister's own Department. It is, therefore, an unopposed Return. It has been ruled by several Speakers that for any hon. Member to object to it or to discuss it would be out of order because it is information to which the House is entitled and which is necessary for its future proceedings. Therefore, I must overrule any objection to the Address.

I was not intending to make any objection of any kind. I respectfully agree that these are circumstances in which the House is entitled to the fullest information, and the purpose of the Motion for the Address is to provide it. My purpose in rising was, in pursuance of that very desire, to make sure that the certificate, when presented, will contain all the facts.

I do not know whether it is proposed that the facts contained in the certificate will be limited to the nomination and the voting results—the numbers—and to the circumstances which, in some people's opinion, raise a question for the House subsequently to decide. What I want to make sure is that we are given information about the date of any alleged offence, the circumstances of any alleged conviction, whether there was a plea of guilty, whether there was a trial, whether there was a verdict by a jury, who the nominators were, and whether the facts concerning this gentleman were known at the time of nomination and on polling day.

The information contained in the certificate will be in accordance with the Address which is presented, namely, it will deal with the conviction and sentence at the assize court. That is all the information that is asked for. It will not include matters about the Election at all. It is merely a matter of getting a certificate of the conviction and sentence. That is all the House is asking for. Other matters are quite outside this Address at the moment.

With great respect, I submit that the House is entitled to much more information than that if it is to be asked at a subsequent date to take any action upon the certificate. This is rather a different question from that where the conviction of a Member takes place after his election to the House. In those cases, I understand, the custom is that the judge in charge of the trial affords a certificate to you, Mr. Speaker, and you communicate that certificate to the House, and the House takes action upon it.

If we are correctly informed so far, the facts in this case are quite different. The conviction about which we are to be told is a conviction which preceded the man's election and did not follow it. I suggest that that gives rise to very different questions, because the whole question here is whether the man was ever entitled to be elected at all. Where a man has prima facie been properly elected, where the returning officer has made the proper return, and where other questions have subsequently arisen as to whether the man was entitled to be elected, whether the election was void or not, the House has considered the matter, sometimes with a Select Committee and sometimes without, with, in every case I think, the participation of the man whose election was questioned.

Therefore, these seem to be relevant facts which the House ought to know, and if the Address does not ask for it, it ought to be amended to include the date of the conviction, whether it preceded the election or followed the election, and the general circumstances.

All these matters may be relevant to a future discussion, but they are quite irrelevant to the Motion before the House. We are asking only for these particulars. The House needs these particulars before we can proceed further and raise questions, if they are in order, at a later stage.

In view of what you have said, Mr. Speaker, I should not want to object to the Address being made. But may I ask the Home Secretary whether it would not be convenient for him also to call for a return to be made of a precisely similar kind in the case of Mr. Clarke, who was elected for Fermanagh and South Tyrone, in order that the House may at the same time have before it the facts regarding that conviction?

The hon. Member has made his suggestion, but it is certainly irrelevant to this Motion. The Question before the House is that this Address be presented, and I must put it to the House.

Question put and agreed to.

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

I am particularly pleased to see my hon. Friend the Member for Holland with Boston (Sir H. Butcher) in his place, because this Bill is founded on a Private Member's Bill which he introduced in the last Parliament. My hon. Friend was fortunate in the Ballot, and he used his good fortune to bring forward an excellent Bill for extending the powers of friendly societies. But it was one of the casualties of the Dissolution, because the Friday which was to be devoted to its Second Reading was not reached in the last Parliament. The Government—I think I can say with the good will of my hon. Friend—have taken over his Bill, introduced certain improvements into it, and now present it to the House.

We felt that this was the right course. The friendly societies had seen the Bill a good many months ago, and had been kept waiting for it all this time, and it would have been hard on them for it to have been left once more to chance in the Ballot for Private Members' Bills. We think this is a Bill worthy to be placed on the Statute Book, and so the Government have taken it up.

We do not often discuss the affairs of the friendly societies in this House, and therefore, before I come to explaining the Clauses of the Bill, I think hon. Members will pardon me if I go briefly over the history of the friendly society movement so that we may see the present day problems of the friendly societies in their true perspective. The first society which we know of that included the word "friendly" in its name was the Goldsmiths Friendly Society, founded as far back as 1712. But there is evidence that the term "friendly society" was in common parlance and readily understood by people before that. Indeed, one body which was undoubtedly a friendly society in the modern sense, though it did not include those words in its title, was founded some 400 years ago.

This is a very ancient product of the native genius of the British race. Ordinary people, friends and neighbours, got together in groups and thought out how they could combine for their mutual benefit. They bound themselves to make certain contributions to a common pool out of which funds for the benefit of individuals could be made available in certain circumstances.

From the beginning, the main purpose has been the payment of sickness benefit which has been extended by many societies to include provision for old age, death benefits and a wide variety of other kinds of payments made under the society's rules, if certain contingencies or misfortunes occurred to a member. The main Act of Parliament to which we should look back is the Act for the Encouragement and Relief of Friendly Societies which was passed by Parliament in 1793. The movement developed a great deal in the nineteenth century. It was fully investigated by a Royal Commission in 1874, and I think I am right in saying that is the one official and comprehensive investigation of the friendly societies movement that has ever been made, although, of course, we have valuable reports published every year by the Registrar.

The names—old-fashioned names we may think—have survived very pleasantly into this modern day. There are the Oddfellows, the Foresters, the Shepherds and many others. There was usually some good reason why the original name was adopted. Often it originated in some quite small local meeting from which a society has subsequently grown and spread widely. It is believed that the Loyal and Ancient Shepherds Friendly Society was actually founded by a small meeting of neighbours which took place on Christmas day, 1826. They needed a name for their society, and they called themselves "ancient shepherds" because of the date of the birth of the society. They called themselves "loyal" to show that they were non-political and meant no harm to the State. At their peak number, the friendly societies were covering at least one-fifth of the whole population of Britain against sickness or other misfortune.

In 1911 came the development of National Health Insurance, as distinct from that individual private arrangement which people had made for themselves previously through the friendly societies. In 1911 the Government of the day adopted the approved society system to administer National Health Insurance and obviously, the impact of that Act had far-reaching effects on friendly society development. But the reason why I think it well to consider the position of friendly societies today—and I hope and have every reason to believe that we can do so with good will from all parts of the House—is that when in 1946 the then Government brought in its all-in scheme of compulsory National Insurance, including sickness insurance and covering in its compulsory provisions the whole of the population, quite clearly, the friendly societies were put in a position where they had to think hard about their future.

I am not for one moment criticising the National Insurance Acts. Let me say in passing that all this history seems to me an excellent example of the way we do things in this country. Individuals have the initiative to get together to do something for themselves which is necessary. They do that, and the work grows. It becomes so well established that it is suitable to be taken over and extended more widely, indeed universally, by the State; and that releases—and this is my point—individual energy for fresh pioneering work in other directions.

The effect of the 1946 Act was threefold. The range of compulsory insurance was increased, the administration of insurance was taken away from the friendly societies and the contribution which the individual had to pay for State insurance was also greatly enlarged. To put it quite bluntly, the friendly societies had to take a knock, and since that time a number of people in the friendly society world and outside it have been thinking what new place the friendly societies can usefully find for themselves in the modern world.

The numbers of members of friendly societies have fallen by about one-quarter since the time of the 1946 legislation, but when I say that there are still over six million members of friendly societies in the country, the House will see that this is not by any means a movement that has been killed. It is rather one that is quite clearly deep-rooted in British life, and I feel quite sure that most hon. and right hon. Gentlemen would like to look at the law to see whether it can be improved so as to give friendly societies wider opportunities in the future.

I know that the Minister does not want to be misunderstood, but it seems to me that what he has just said might quite possibly be misunderstood. He spoke about the movement not having been killed. I am sure the right hon. Gentleman does not wish to give the impression that the object of the National Insurance Act was to kill the friendly society movement, but that suggestion might be read into what he said. I hope that he will make that point clear.

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that observation. I took great care to say that I was in no way criticising that legislation. Indeed, I indicated that this was what I considered a normal, sensible development of voluntary provision in this country. When voluntary provision becomes so extensive that the job can be done by State administrative machinery, then the law can be altered, the State can relieve the pioneers of a great deal of routine work, and the pioneers on whom we so much depend in our common life can free themselves to take new opportunities.

This Bill seeks to give the friendly societies new opportunities. I think that a number of hon. Members are likely to have read the important book entitled "Voluntary Action" which Lord Beveridge wrote some seven years ago. He was assisted to write that book by the support of the National Deposit Friendly Society. Its outstanding importance is that it is the one modern study of the friendly society movement as it exists today. I think that my hon. Friend the Member for Holland with Boston, if he speaks later in the debate, as I hope he will, will not mind my saying that this Bill must clearly owe a number of its ideas to the suggestions of Lord Beveridge.

Parliament did not create the friendly societies, and neither can it breathe new life into them. The friendly societies are very much alive, but they are restricted in certain respects which I shall describe. What Parliament can do, and, I submit, should do, is to open up to them new opportunities by removing certain legal obstacles which now restrict them. That is what this Bill seeks to do, and I ask the House to keep that in mind while I run through its Clauses.

Clause 1 needs to be read in conjunction with Section 8 of the Friendly Societies Act, 1896. That is the principal Act, and it permits five separate kinds of societies to be registered under it. They are friendly societies, cattle insurance societies, benevolent societies, working men's clubs and what are called specially authorised societies, that is, societies authorised for some purpose by the Treasury.

The important point is that under the law a registered society cannot normally combine two of those purposes. It must, with only one small exception, stick only to one of them. A friendly society cannot start running a working men's club, and so forth. Moreover, only the first of those classes registered under the Friendly Societies Act, that is, friendly societies themselves, enjoy Income Tax exemption. I think that the House will readily begin to realise, therefore, what complications there may be when one seeks to extend the scope of friendly society work.

Clause 1 allows a society or branch of any description, whether it is a friendly society, club, or what, to lend its surplus funds to a society or branch of any other class. I stress "surplus funds" because quite clearly it would be wrong if people who had been paying in money for sickness benefit purposes were suddenly to find that the funds had been reduced because the money had been applied for some other purpose.

A well conducted friendly society will have a surplus, and we have reason to know that friendly societies will, in certain cases, appreciate the opportunity of going outside the present restrictions placed upon them. If this Bill goes through, any society with a surplus will be able to set up a subsidiary society to run a club or an old people's home, or several societies will be able to combine in so doing.

Clause 1 is designed primarily for friendly societies, but there is no reason in principle why it should not work in the other direction, and why, for instance, a working men's club should not use its surplus funds to conduct a friendly society. We shall see what happens.

At this point, I will say something about the tax position. I know that there is one change in the law which many friendly societies would like to see made. Indeed, many of us would like to see it made in our own cases. It is that we should get additional tax relief. But this Bill does not propose to give additional tax relief. Friendly societies at present enjoy an exemption from Income Tax. That dates from the last century, and it means that registered friendly societies can claim exemption from tax if they do not assure to any person more than £500 or if they do not assure an annuity exceeding £104 a year. Provided that they keep within those limits they are entitled to exemption from Income Tax under Schedules A, C and D. It may be that some societies would like an increase in those limits, which were last raised in 1948. If I remember rightly, the annuity limit was doubled, and I believe that the lump sum limit was increased from £300 to £500.

There seems to be a measure of agreement between the political parties that a further extension of Income Tax exemption could not be afforded. In a debate in another place in 1949, Lord Pakenham, speaking for the then Government, made it clear that he could not hold out any hope of a further extension of Income Tax exemption for friendly societies. Since that time the whole Income Tax structure has been reviewed by the Royal Commission on the Taxation of Profits and Income. Its report made no recommendations in favour of a change in the tax exemption to friendly societies, and I understand that the friendly societies themselves made no representations to the Commission for a change in that respect.

In these circumstances, I want to make it clear to the House that I cannot hold out any hope of an extension of the friendly societies' Income Tax exemption. At the same time, I can give a firm assurance that the Government have no intention of curtailing in any way the present exemption enjoyed by the societies. The Bill is so drafted as to ensure that if societies wish to undertake the new activities which the Bill will make possible, they will not be in any danger of losing tax exemption in respect of their existing activities.

Clause 2 allows a friendly society to invest, to the extent of its surplus, in the share or loan capital of a housing association, whereas the present law confines a society's investment to trustee securities, savings bank deposits, real property, and certain other limited classes of security.

Clause 3 extends the range of friendly society benefits to include unemployment benefit and a marriage grant. Unemployment benefit is not at present among the benefits which friendly societies can provide under Section 8 (1) of the principal Act, though it is a specially authorised purpose under subsection (5). Some specially authorised societies have been registered for this purpose, and, by a concession which has no basis in law, the Inland Revenue has for a long time allowed them the same tax exemption as friendly societies. Incidentally, Clause 3 regularises their position and provides for them to be re-registered as friendly societies. The marriage grant represents a slight extension of the provident business which friendly societies can engage in free of tax.

Clause 4 may attract the attention of the House, because it provides for a new class of old people's home societies to be registered under the Friendly Societies Acts. At present, friendly societies can provide old-age homes only for their own members, and only by way of mutual insurance against possible need. The new class of society under the Clause will be able to provide such homes for all-corners, on what I might call a "pay-as-you-use" basis. I hope the House will agree that the provision of homes for the aged is a field very much akin to the traditional purposes of friendly societies and that, with the benefit of the Clause, friendly societies will find that they can do valuable work in meeting a need which is acknowledged by us all to be of growing importance.

In passing, I should say that a home for old people run by a friendly society under the Clause would come within the scope of Part III of the National Assistance Act, as I read it. In discharge of its functions under that Act, therefore, a local authority could, if it wished, make an arrangement with or directly assist a friendly society running such a home.

Are we right in assuming that these old people's home societies will be exempt from Income Tax, as the others are?

No. They will not be exempt from Income Tax.

Clause 5 raises from £100 to £200 the amount of which a member may dispose at his death by nomination without the formalities of a will. This Clause also applies to members of registered trade unions. A similar increase was given to co-operative societies by the Industrial and Provident Societies Act, 1954, and this provision brings the friendly societies into line.

Clause 6 is a little complicated. At present, broadly speaking, a society which collects premiums on life assurance contracts is subject to the special obligations imposed by the Industrial Assurance Acts. The Commissioner can already exempt a society from its obligations if it does not collect on life contracts more than 10 miles from its registered office, but he cannot do so if it collects on any form of life contract outside that radius. Some of these contracts may be 90 per cent. sickness benefit and only 10 per cent. life assurance, and we have been seeking to find a means of safeguarding friendly societies from extra restrictions if they wish to press forward with this type of benefit, which, although a combined benefit, is in the main a sickness benefit. Clause 6 will allow the Commissioner to exempt societies which collect on combined life and sickness contracts outside a 10-mile radius, provided that at least 60 per cent. of the premiums under such contracts are for sickness benefits.

Clause 7 corrects a mistake made in the Adoption Act, 1950. That Act inadvertently repealed a provision in the Industrial Assurance and Friendly Societies Act, 1948, which said that an adoptive parent was to be deemed a parent for all purposes of friendly society and industrial assurance law. The Clause puts the law back, beyond doubt, to what it was before 1950.

Clause 8 deals with a small point—increasing from 1s. to 2s. the charge which a registered society may make for providing a person with a copy of its rules. The charge of 1s. was fixed in 1896, and prices have gone up since then.

A similar increase was given to industrial and provident societies in the 1954 Act, and here again we are bringing friendly societies into line.

The right hon. Member will realise that this is another increase in the cost of living.

Clause 9 is an important one, and the only costly one from the point of view of public funds. It will entitle anyone claiming benefit from a registered society or trade union to get from the Ministry of Pensions and National Insurance a copy or abstract of any medical certificate supplied to the Ministry for National Insurance purposes. This right is subject to any exceptions or conditions which the Minister may prescribe by regulations.

Some hon. Members may be familiar with the story behind this. In practice this facility has been granted to members of registered friendly societies and trade unions in accordance with a pledge which was given at the outset of the National Insurance Scheme, but there is no statutory authority for doing it, and it costs money. The Public Accounts Committee in one of its Reports has drawn the attention of the House to the lack of statutory authority for these payments. I hope that the House will agree that it would be appropriate to provide statutory cover for what is already the practice.

I think I have—I hope at not too great a length—run over the main purposes of the Bill. If I have the permission of the House to speak later, I will willingly answer any questions.

The friendly societies have made a unique contribution to British life throughout the centuries. We ought to recognise an obligation, as Members of Parliament, to see that people who still have the same pioneering, benevolent and mutual spirit as the members of friendly societies have shown that they possess are given by us full opportunity, within any reasonable safeguarding limits, to find new directions into which their energies and activities for mutual benefit can be channelled.

That is all the Bill does. I express the earnest hope that, if the Bill commends itself to Parliament, the friendly societies will take the fullest advantage of it and Will think and think hard how they can extend their activities and offer new attractions to their members, so that they may have as glorious a chapter of history in front of them as they have written in the past.

11.43 a.m.

The House is indebted to the Financial Secretary for taking us carefully through the Bill and making it clear to us. I agree with him that the friendly societies have made a unique contribution to the social welfare of our people.

One of the great attributes of the British people through the years has been a great reservoir of good will. There have always been people ready to combine with others in the public interest and give their time and energy voluntarily to doing something for somebody else. It is a great characteristic of our people and it is one of the reasons why this country is great. It is the sort of thing that we ought to encourage. I find no lack of people ready to do things. What they do not know is what they ought to be doing.

I hope, with the right hon. Gentleman, that the friendly societies may take on a new lease of life under the provisions of the Bill, which we will subject to careful examination. I hope they will not say, "Our life as friendly societies is over." but rather, "A chapter is over." The State is now doing the things which the pioneers of the friendly societies tried to do for themselves and for the people around them as long as 400 years ago.

There is still a great field of voluntary work to be done—a good field. It may well be that in the past, when a number of people have produced an idea and shown that it has been successful, the State has said "We will apply the idea to the whole of our people." It may also well be that the friendly societies, with the new liberties that they will get from the Bill, will find some new field of pioneering work. They may develop this work, and perhaps some of us who may be in the House at that time will be able to thank them for the work they have done, and for their experiments which have proved successful, and to say again, "We can now take this over as a State service."

I join with the Financial Secretary in paying tribute to the friendly societies for the great work that they have done. They derived from the old guilds, and were an expression of revolt against the social conditions of the time. This is political history. At about the time of the Industrial Revolution, the country was very upset. The old arrangements between workers and management changed very much and became completely wrong. Therefore came the rise of trade unions, which were groups of men who organised for industrial purposes, and of the Cooperative movement, which was started by groups of men and women who organised for economic purposes and for protection against the tied shops. We saw also the development of the friendly societies for social purposes. These three aspects of our lives, the social, the industrial and the economic, were taken care of by a spontaneous uprising of the people, very largely as the result of their changed social conditions.

Years have gone by. Everybody now accepts the idea that the State must take care of people who are no longer able to take care of themselves. The work, for example, that the local authorities have done in the provision of homes for the aged is remarkable. To anybody who wants to know whether the people of Britain are caring for their old folk, I say, "Go into a local authority area and ask to see some of the very lovely places for the care of the old people." It is not something which is talked about a lot. I have visited many of these places. It strikes me as the one great characteristic of our people that they can put so much into a wonderful job of work without wanting publicity, praise, or any other acknowledgment.

If, arising from the Bill, friendly societies can, with the local authorities, develop the work of caring for the aged under these new conditions, the old institution and workhouse atmosphere will be completely abolished. They will be able to provide for old people in conditions rather more like those of retired gentlemen and gentlewomen in private houses. It is rather wonderful to see the new look about the care of the aged.

The friendly societies may be able to show us how a group of people can experiment with new ways of looking after old people without interfering with their freedom. They may be able to give them the feeling, which we want them to have, that they have worked all their lives and that, in the evening of their days, we shall take care of them without intruding ourselves upon their privacy and upon their individual liberty. I hope with the Financial Secretary that the friendly societies will take advantage of the Bill to see what they can do along those lines.

The right hon. Gentleman was good enough to go through the Clauses of the Bill, and I do not want to spend much time upon them. We can deal with them much more carefully in Committee. I would suggest, however, that between now and the Committee stage the right hon. Gentleman might look at Clause 2—which provides that a friendly society may subscribe to housing associations from its unapplied surplus funds—to see whether friendly societies might not be entitled to invest in some co-operative enterprise. I think that that is worthy of consideration.

The objects of many of the co-operative enterprises are similar to those of friendly societies, which might, in fact, in some cases form themselves into a co-operative enterprise. Of course, I do not expect the right hon. Gentleman to make up his mind immediately on hearing my suggestion, but I would ask him to consider whether it could not be made possible for friendly societies, if they so wished, to invest in a co-operative enterprise.

The provision in Clause 1 to enable a friendly society to perform loan functions is eminently desirable. When the Financial Secretary was speaking of the days of the working men's clubs, I reflected on how very hard the old names die. It is not very long ago since the annual conference of the Working Men's Club and Institute Union was held in, I think, Leicester. Presumably to modernise the title, the executive recommended to the 900 delegates that they should delete the words "Working Men's." Out of 900 delegates only four were in favour. That was a very healthy sign. We should not be ashamed of having working men's clubs. It was a sign of a very healthy democracy—and a very good indication that we do not lose our affection for names as we go through life—that these delegates did not want their clubs elevated in any way at all. They liked "Working Men's Club" and were determined to keep it.

Surely it would be better if all clubs were working men's clubs.

I think that the number of people who are not working men is getting fewer and fewer. Whether as a chief executive in a great firm or just a junior in an organisation, everyone, broadly speaking, has come into the ambit of the term "working men."

They should.

Friendly societies were started to help the lower income groups. At one time we thought only of the manual workers as the lower income group—as indeed, they were. Today the manual workers—the skilled workers, engineers, miners, steel workers and the rest—are moving very much into the higher income groups, and in the lower income groups we are finding people whom we never thought of in terms of friendly societies. Those, of course, are what are called the white-collar workers.

That brings me to the right hon. Gentleman's point about the insurance Clause. That Clause, I agree, is technical. The exemption from taxation was designed to assist the lower income groups in relation to endowment and life assurance policies and that, obviously, cannot be permitted to continue extending indefinitely. What were the lower income groups are now no longer so. They are an entirely new section of society. I am glad that the Financial Secretary made it clear to the friendly societies just how far the Government had been prepared to go, and how far his predecessor had been prepared to go, and that there was really not much hope, if any at all, of further extending these Income Tax concessions. Their purpose still continues, but the type of people who were involved in the old days are not necessarily the same people now. What we want to do is to try to cover the same income level.

On this side of the House we shall give the Bill a friendly welcome, and we can examine the details together. Friendly societies have had a very long, valuable and most interesting history. In their day and generation they have made a great contribution to the building up of this British way of life. The introduction of the Welfare State and of the various Acts of Parliament dealing with social insurance and the like have meant change, but, I repeat, for the friendly societies that does not mean the end of the day but the beginning of a new chapter.

In other words, the societies are now at the cross-roads. If we help them in a Parliamentary way now, and if they are driven again by the energy and desire to do voluntary work, as they have been through the years, they will explore the fresh fields presented to them. We wish them well.

I do not wish to divulge what those fresh opportunities are, but I hope that if my hon. Friend the Member for Sowerby (Mr. Houghton) catches your eye, Mr. Speaker, he will deal most extensively with the fresh fields available for friendly societies to conquer. With his forty years of personal experience of those societies, I am sure that he would interest the House very much indeed. There lies ahead an exciting and experimental period which will bring a great reward of personal satisfaction to those taking part in the work.

As I say, we welcome the Bill. It is a tribute to the hon. Member for Holland with Boston (Sir H. Butcher) that the Government have taken what was his Private Member's Bill into their own hands. We shall help the Bill and the friendly societies as much as we can, and we shall examine the Measure in a cooperative way. Let us hope that we shall produce an Act of Parliament which will enable the friendly societies to go on exploring these new fields and make a further contribution to our British way of life and democracy.

11.58 a.m.

I wish first to offer my sincere thanks to the two right hon. Gentlemen for the kind words they have used about this Bill, which is not so entirely different from that which it was my pleasure to introduce as a Private Member's Bill in the last Parliament. I am also extremely grateful to my right hon. Friend the Financial Secretary for the care he has taken to explain the Bill. Had that task fallen to my lot, I am quite satisfied that I should not have done it half so well, nor with such clarity. The historical part of his introduction made it evident that he and I had been engaged on the same kind of research. In my notes I also had the story of the shepherds. I thought that the way they adopted the adjective "loyal" was either a hang-over from the Christmas lunch or, alternatively, was one of the things which were done in those days.

This is not one of the great Bills that come before Parliament and create an enormous amount of interest. Certain Clauses are very much of a machinery character, and my right hon. Friend dealt with them adequately. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Blyth (Mr. Robens) put his finger on the spot when he devoted quite a substantial amount of time to the opportunities which Clause 4 gives to the societies. It is very difficult to find words to express the good work being done by local authorities in establishing homes for the elderly people within their area. At the same time, those of us who visit those homes know very well that in the care of the aged—which is now receiving a larger share of our thoughts—there are other and useful directions in which friendly and sympathetic experiment can and should be made. Clause 4 clears away any obstructions which may at present hamper the friendly societies in moving forward, and it presents them at one and the same time with an opportunity and a challenge. I believe that the good will and neighbourliness which have inspired them for so many years will continue to do so.

It would be most ungrateful of me if I did not pay tribute to the societies for the help I have received from them in gathering my thoughts in preparing the Bill. I should like to pay tribute also to the Report prepared by Lord Beveridge, at the instigation and with the assistance of the friendly societies, and one society in particular, as well as to the constant consultations which have taken place between those responsible for the day-to-day work of the societies themselves, and the skilled and sympathetic officers of the registry department of the friendly societies.

It may be that this Bill should have been brought forward earlier. The fact, however, that it has come forward in such a spirit of good will is another tribute to the way in which this country does things by consultation at all levels so that when a Measure reaches the High Court of Parliament it receives, I hope, a unanimous welcome and the details can be examined on a basis of good will.

I hope that this will be a useful Bill. I know the friendly societies would like to have seen the Income Tax provisions carried rather further than they are, but, as has been said, Income Tax is one of the matters from which we always feel we would like more relief than we are likely to receive.

I am most grateful to my right hon. Friend for the way in which he has adopted and improved this Bill which it was my privilege to present in an earlier Parliament. It is nice to think that the Government are not so pressed with Parliamentary business, so that they have been able to find time so early in a new Session to bring forward this small but useful Bill. I am most grateful.

12.3 p.m.

I should like to pay my tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Holland with Boston (Sir H. Butcher) for his initiative in introducing this Bill as a Private Member, and I should like also to express my gratitude to the Government for taking it up. This is a most valuable Measure which will have the support of the whole House. Anything which helps to extend the field of activities of the friendly societies is to be encouraged in every way.

I think hon. Members will recall the Beveridge Report—I refer to the earlier Report and not to Lord Beveridge's book—which referred to the need for encouraging the scope for voluntary insurance. With prophetic foresight, Lord Beveridge said in that Report that probably the war saving movement would be continued in some way or other after the war, and he added that the same purpose could and should be served by the development of organs of voluntary insurance. That is precisely what the friendly societies have done throughout their long and very glorious history. I am sure we are all glad of this opportunity of saying how much we value their work in the past. It would be true to say that the admirable scheme of National Insurance which we enjoy today might not be as good as it is without the pioneer work of the friendly societies.

In common with other hon. Members, I would like to say a word or two about Clause 4 which adds to the list of registered societies mentioned in the Act of 1896, societies for providing homes for old people. I must confess that I am not quite sure about the tax position. Perhaps my right hon. Friend will make it a little clearer, because it seemed to me on reading the Bill and the Act of 1896 that the old people's homes societies would be added to the list of friendly societies, and as such would become exempt from Income Tax. That apparently is not so, but perhaps my right hon. Friend will be kind enough to clear up that point for me.

This is a most valuable Clause because it enables the societies to make a useful contribution to the provision of houses for old people. This is a difficult and serious problem, especially in a great city like Manchester where we are faced with slum clearance. We have great difficulty in finding new sites for building new houses. In my constituency we have a first-class home for old people in Nuthurst House. The right hon. Member for Blyth (Mr. Robens), referring to the question of old people's houses, paid tribute to the local authorities. If the right hon. Gentleman ever comes to Manchester—I know he still takes an interest in that city—I shall be very pleased to show him Nuthurst House in my constituency which I am sure he will be interested to see. The accommodation is excellent.

There is, however, another side to the picture. We have also Springfield Hospital, which is really a mental hospital, part of which is set aside to provide accommodation for old people. That is a most regrettable state of affairs. Quite apart from anything else, it is most undesirable for old people to be given accommodation of that type. I am not criticising the hospital in any way. Everything possible is done to make the old people happy and comfortable. None the less they have a dread of being put into an institution of this kind.

Here it seems to me that this Clause will be especially valuable. I was glad to hear my right hon. Friend say that the old people's homes societies would be able to work very closely with and get some valuable help from the local authorities in providing such accommodation, and the help which the Bill will give to the old people's homes societies will make a great contribution to the solution of this difficult problem of accommodating old people. I feel sure that this Clause alone would justify the Bill and would bring support from the whole House, and I am glad to have had this opportunity of adding my few words of praise and welcome to a most valuable Measure.

12.9 p.m.

I welcome the Bill and, like my colleagues, I should like to pay a tribute to those who have worked for so many years in the friendly society world.

It seems to me that the most important Clause in this Bill is Clause 2. The greatest danger to all friendly societies and voluntary societies is inflation. People who subscribe to pensions and funds for support when they grow old find that the money which they subscribed, say in the 1930s, will now buy about one-third of what they had thought it would buy. Inflation is the greatest danger to this type of voluntary organisation.

I ask my right hon. Friend whether it is not possible to widen the investment scope in Clause 2. I welcome the fact that under Clause 2 societies will now be able to invest in shares, other than those not fully paid up, in the housing associations. I think that is a good thing. The day of thinking that funds are safest because they are in trustee securities has gone—and, I think, gone for ever.

Trustee securities today are about the worst investment that this type of society can hold. There is no hope whatever of giving real security to the members of societies like these if inflation continues. So far as I can see, political parties on both sides of the House and throughout the Western world have made up their minds that if they are faced with the old choice of unemployment and deflation or full employment and inflation, they would rather have full employment and inflation. We ought to face that idea.

If the friendly societies are to have their funds tied to securities which have a fixed rate of interest, they cannot give to their members, when the time comes, the benefits, in terms of real purchasing power, which they were entitled to expect. Therefore, I plead with my right hon.

Friend—glad as I am to welcome this extension of investment power—to realise that this is nothing like big enough.

May I recall to his mind what the Church Commissioners did only a few years ago? I believe they sold some millions of their gilt-edged securities and invested them in first-class equities, to the immense benefit of the Church and the purposes for which the Church Commissioners hold their funds. What has proved so wise in that case is something which should, I think, be made available to all friendly societies.

We face the fact that the purchasing power of the £ today is about one-third of what it was twenty years ago. So far as I can see, inflation is going on slowly year by year, whichever party is in power in this country, and will continue throughout the whole of the Western world. Therefore, to say to the friendly societies that they shall have a much wider field in which to operate and collect funds for their members and make certain promises to them of benefits in their old age, knowing full well that the money which is taken from them is to be invested in securities which twenty years hence will be worth only half or two-thirds their present value, is a legalised type of fraud. We should face that.

I ask my right hon. Friend, not necessarily now but at some time, to consider giving powers to such societies as these to put their funds into the fully paid-up shares of the banks and insurance companies. If the "Big Five" banks and the great London insurance companies were to fail—companies that have survived 200 years of experience—then securities themselves would be worthless. We saw this in the case of German trustee securities in the early twenties, when inflation ran away with all real values.

If my right hon. Friend considers giving the friendly societies the power to invest in the banks and insurance companies and similar first-class equities, he will do two things. He will increase the income which that type of investment will automatically produce through the working of inflation, which will not happen through trustee securities, and, what is more important, when the members of those societies want to claim their benefits he will have something useful to give them because, if there is anything certain on this side of the investment grave it is that banking and insurance shares must increase in value. I beg of him to look at this matter from that angle.

The right hon. Member for Blyth (Mr. Robens) pleaded with my right hon. Friend to extend Clause 2 to include cooperative enterprises. I would welcome that, but I think it would only be playing with the problem. The problem which we have to face is that the inflationary effects upon our financial structure are here and will continue, and if we are to help those people, who are perhaps the most deserving of our voluntary workers in the country, and the people who support them—who are the best of our citizens—then we ought to see that their funds are not frozen, their income is not fixed, and that they are not be defrauded of their capital when repayment is made.

If my right hon. Friend will look at that matter I think he will be doing the greatest possible service to those who are working so well in the friendly society world. I should like once again to say how much I welcome and support the Bill.

12.16 p.m.

My heart sank when I heard the trailer—I think that is the word in the film world—given to my speech by my right hon. Friend the Member for Blyth (Mr. Robens) when he spoke from the Front Bench on this side of the House. I do not claim to be an authority on friendly societies. I certainly claim a long membership of one of them—a most enterprising society and the one mentioned by the right hon. Gentleman himself. That society was the stimulus behind the interesting and comprehensive survey made by Lord Beveridge in his book "Voluntary Action." I shall come back a little later to a suggestion that perhaps a fresh inquiry is now needed having regard to the years which have passed since Lord Beveridge did this job and the very short lapse of time between the introduction of the comprehensive scheme of National Insurance and the beginning of this work in 1949. The years have passed and we are able to see the implications of the Welfare State and the wider and more comprehensive social provisions and their bearing on voluntary effort and on additional social provision in many directions.

Let me turn now to the Bill. Have not the Government been a little unfair to themselves in trying to give full credit to the hon. Member for Holland with Boston (Sir H. Butcher)? Is it true that the Government were so indifferent to this problem that they were prepared to leave it to the chance of the Ballot for Private Members' Bills before doing anything? Surely something was done about this after the Beveridge inquiry. The Government were surely giving thought to these problems. The impression which one gained from the speech of the Financial Secretary was that the hon. Member for Holland with Boston had rendered a public service by going into these matters most deeply and conscientiously, which I am sure he did, and that since his Private Member's Bill had been lost in the last Parliament the Government now thought it incumbent upon them to take up the Bill and present it as a Government Measure. I think that the truth probably is that there was a combination and a harmony of efforts between the Government and the hon. Member for Holland with Boston.

I do not think that the hon. Gentleman was in his place when I spoke. I said that I had a substantial amount of conversation on these matters, and I certainly made no claim for the exact and precise details of the Bill.

I am grateful to the hon. Member. I was in my place and I heard what he said, but I am trying to save the Government from a possible misunderstanding of the facts.

Do not let us beat about the bush. We know that when Beveridge wrote his book the Departments concerned gave close attention to a great deal of what he said. Thoughts were put on paper, suggestions were made and proposals for legislation were in the air. That is perfectly proper. Possibly due to the crowded state of Government business towards the end of the last Parliament, legislation was not introduced, and if the opportunity arose of a private Member taking some of private Members' time to sponsor a Government Bill, so much the better. I think that puts the matter in a truer perspective.

I am not begrudging either the Government or the hon. Member for Holland with Boston the credit for having taken the initiative in this matter. It was clearly desirable that someone should take it. All I have in mind in making my observations is to suggest that the Government had a responsibility for the legislation and probably more responsibility for it than the Financial Secretary's speech would lead us to suppose.

The three important Clauses of the Bill from the point of view of friendly societies are Clauses 5, 6 and 9. Clause 5 increases from £100 to £200 the amount which a member of a registered society may dispose on death by nomination. It is always very important among people with small resources to be able to dispose by nomination of benefits lying to their credit in a society without encountering the difficulties of will-making and intestacy. It is an important Clause and the friendly societies undoubtedly welcome it.

Clause 6 is welcome because it clears up perhaps some existing doubt or even some existing irregularity in the matter of the power to collect contributions and subscriptions without coming into conflict with the provisions of the Industrial Assurance Acts. It clarifies the position and makes it very reasonable from the point of view of the societies.

Clause 9 is also important because it gives statutory authority to a practice which has been carried out over recent years, which has been a great value to the societies and which it is desirable should continue. We must regret it if some Government Department has been spending public money on something for which it had no statutory authority, but I am sure that in such a good cause the House will overlook this fact and speedily regularise what has been done. Obviously it is important, not only from the point of view of the society but also from the point of view of the member, that we should avoid requiring too many certificates and duplications of evidence of sickness and claims to benefit. I am sure that the Clause will be welcomed.

The other Clauses relax present prohibitions on the use of funds and the scope of the activity of the societies, and as far as they go they are undoubtedly welcome. It is not easy to predict to what extent use can be made of these new opportunities. I think we shall have to wait to see how they develop.

The hon. Member for Blackley (Mr. E. Johnson) intervened in the Minister's speech and asked a question about Clause 4 and the tax liability of the new class of societies called old people's home societies. I was astonished when the Financial Secretary gave a negative reply when his hon. Friend asked whether these new societies would enjoy the benefit of tax exemption along with the old friendly societies. I do not see why they should not. As I understand it, the tax position of these new societies will be, first, that they will pay tax on profits they make, if they make any; and, secondly, and perhaps more important, that they will pay tax on property they own and interest they receive from investments.

They will suffer tax probably on the same basis as the trade unions, so it may be important that they should be exempt from tax on income from property and from investment. We must ask a little more about why the Bill does not propose to put the new class of society on the same footing as that on which the registered friendly societies now stand.

Other opportunities are given to the friendly societies to invest in housing associations or in classes of societies which have special purposes. I feel certain that they will take every opportunity of using funds and of extending the scope of their work.

When they have done all that, the real issue of the future of the friendly societies remains to be dealt with. As the Parliamentary Secretary and my right hon. Friend the Member for Blyth said, this movement has a long and noble history in society. The friendly societies were the pioneers in the provision of social security. It is interesting to recall that those of us who are over 55 years of age were born at a time when there were only two measures of social security in this land—workmen's compensation and the poor law. The rest was voluntary effort—the money box, the friendly society, the thrift society——

The churches.

—the trade unions; there was a wide assortment of voluntary effort of one kind or another, including the building societies when they really were building societies and when a man could not get his house until he had saved in the building society a substantial proportion of the cost. When he had done that he was able to borrow the remainder. Today he deposits the smaller amount and borrows the large remainder, the reverse of the original conditions of the building societies. There is no doubt that those who founded them, worked in them and were members of them were the salt of the earth.

Reference has been made to my own long membership of a friendly society. I remember the despondency which came over our house when my brother and I were both rejected in the first instance by a doctor for admission to the National Deposit Friendly Society. My mother thought the end of the world had come. There we were, on the threshhold of life, and yet, because we were thought not to be as fit as required, we were not to have an opportunity of making that essential provision without which the future could hold the prospect of destitution and, worst of all, indignity and humiliation. Later, apparently, with the aid of dumb-bells and Indian clubs, I got enough muscle on my arms to pass the doctor and I have been a member of that society ever since.

The work done then laid the foundations of the desire for social security and the knowledge that it could be accomplished to a higher degree with the aid of State enterprise and administration. There is no doubt that as national provision through State schemes extended in scope and in adequacy of benefit the need to do the same thing through friendly societies appeared to diminish. Yet, when we consider where we have got so far, we have to ask, have we really got social security in its fullest measure, or even in adequate measure?

I believe both the National Insurance Scheme and the friendly societies are approaching the crossroads at the same time. This House has yet to decide and the country has yet to decide whether it wants the National Insurance Scheme to go on or almost to stand still. At the moment neither party in this House has promised to carry National Insurance benefits beyond the restoration of 1946 purchasing power and, on our side of the House at all events, a promise to keep it at that—to keep benefits abreast of the cost of living. As I have said before in this House, the present level of benefits is based on the Beveridge inquiry of 1942 and on our experience of the inter-war years. All we have really got in our National Insurance Scheme is the translation of Poor Law standards into present purchasing power.

Would not the hon. Member agree that even the 1946 level cannot be maintained if the funds which have to maintain it must be invested in trustee securities which themselves, under the continuing force of inflation, must depreciate in value? When he was rejected 50 years ago, I managed to get in to the society. If he and I were given the benefits to which we then looked forward, in terms of today's purchasing power those benefits would look ridiculous. The real problem is of inflation and investing of funds.

I fully take the point, which was developed by the hon. Member in his speech, but I was referring to the maintenance of the purchasing power of National Insurance. That has an important bearing where supplementary provision is necessary in order to achieve adequate social security. If the country decided that it wished provision under the State scheme to become more adequate, to lift the benefits substantially in order to bring them more into the line with the present level of wages and incomes—if that were the purpose and course of National Insurance, with, of course, an accompanying increase in contributions or, alternatively, higher cost to the Exchequer—then the National Insurance Scheme and the State scheme would probably leave the friendly societies behind. But there is no indication at the moment that that is to be the course of the National Insurance Scheme.

Certainly as things are no one can say that the present level of National Insurance benefits is an adequate safeguard to the family against a long period of sickness. Still less can we say that it is adequate protection against difficulties and hardship in old age. When we have discussed the possibilities and fresh scope for friendly societies' investment in old people's homes, in housing societies and kindred bodies, I still come back to the central activity of the societies, which is the provision for sickness, disability and old age. The question is, are those three main objectives of the friendly societies still to be encouraged and expanded? I think they ought to be.

I do not believe that one can have too much provision for the hazards of life, especially when one is adding at the same time to the investment resources of the country. They are a form of saving with provision against certain risks. In present circumstances anything that contributes to the diversion of national resources from higher consumption to greater investment is worthy of the full support of both sides of this House.

Therefore, I think the Government—who especially espouse those economic purposes—should review the whole field of thrift and saving with a view to finding a greater encouragement for people to save. I think there is no doubt that the friendly societies would say as I do that much of that encouragement in the societies and outside has an important bearing on taxation and tax reliefs. I believe the Government will have to come to this sooner or later.

Everyone is looking for the advantage of tax relief, of tax-free income, of tax-free interest. The building societies base their strong appeal to invest money among classes of the community on being able to say, "Tax is paid by the society." We are familiar with the basis upon which building societies pay a compounded rate. We know also the greater appeal which insurance companies and societies have in inviting investment in life assurance, in endowment policies and the benefits of the tax concession for premiums paid on policies which have an element of death benefit. That is a very old relief given in the Income Tax Acts. It goes back many years and it has been maintained to the great advantage of those in the insurance business.

I know that tax relief on insurance premiums does not give the full equation of the rate of tax. That is because the insurance companies do not themselves pay the full rate of tax on a great deal of their incomes. A bargain had to be struck some time or other. I think it was during the war when the rate of tax went up so high that insurance companies felt that to pay at that level might imperil their financial stability. Concessions were given in the rate of tax and, in return, life insurance relief was held at something substantially less than the full rate of tax. That can be reviewed in present circumstances with ways and means of maintaining small savings at their current purchasing power.

There is no doubt about what the hon. Member for Louth (Mr. Osborne) said. I feel very uneasy about all the small investors and the future of the money they are saving and putting away. If full employment and an expanding economy is to make a steadily moving inflation, there is no doubt that nearly all fixed interest bearing securities will lose their purchasing power. Only industrial investments and the like would stand any chance of keeping the value of the investment abreast of the fall in the purchasing power of money.

I think it is a very important factor in this connection. If the Government say, "We will give tax relief to all payments to friendly societies for supplementary sickness benefits," that would be worth something. In fact, it would be worth a great deal more than is in this Bill. I think also that the friendly societies might be relieved of some of the restrictions on the limit.

How much would that cost?

Quite frankly, I could not give an estimate of that. I realise that, as the right hon. Gentleman said at the beginning of his speech, if we begin to push back the boundaries and introduce into the Bill concessions to friendly societies, life will become very complicated indeed. I realise that. I realise also that the compulsory contribution for the sickness benefit in the National Insurance Scheme is not exempt from tax. The sickness benefit is not taxable, so that that part of the contribution which goes towards sickness benefit is not given the benefit of tax relief.

I realise that it may have to be comprehensive, but how are we to encourage savings at a time when people can see the value of their savings falling year by year? That is the fundamental issue. It spreads over the whole field of voluntary effort, friendly societies, thrift clubs, banks, savings banks, National Savings certificates and the rest, and it all comes very close to the purposes of this Bill.

The peroration of the right hon. Gentleman was most moving, and one felt that we ought to arise and go somewhere to do something about it, and move into this promised land of the new friendly society. But when we turned our eyes back to the Bill, important and valuable as its provisions are, we realised that they are only bits and pieces, after all, and that the right hon. Gentleman had no real foundation for this grand vista of the future.

I believe that the fundamental issue here is how to provide wider scope for friendly society activities and to give adequate attractions within the true purposes of the society. That is the task which confronts this House a little bit in this Bill, but to a much greater extent in subsequent consideration of the problem in its wider aspect, and I certainly think that a fresh inquiry would be a rewarding undertaking. Let us know more about how the friendly societies are faring in present circumstances, and what they think would best help them to continue and expand their traditional mission. We are without that information in the House today.

The right hon. Gentleman has not told us, for example, what the friendly societies have been saying during the last three years while this Bill has been under consideration. He has not told us what the friendly societies themselves would offer as a recipe for the solution of their problem, but I think, if I may say so, that I have got pretty near to it myself. I think the clue to it is encouragement in tax concessions to members of the societies. That may have wider implications, but I do not shrink from them at all. I believe that, if they have the will, there is no reason why the State should not take deliberate action to encourage the small saver, who, after all, has a big contribution to make to the investment resources of the country.

I trust, therefore, that while we welcome this Bill and will give it every facility in its passage through the House, we shall not rest content with our work when we have finished it, but that we shall re-read the peroration of the right hon. Gentleman, come back to it later and ask for some stronger indication of its fulfilment than he has felt it possible to offer today.

12.44 p.m.

With your permission, Mr. Speaker, and that of the House, I should like to comment very briefly on the points that have been raised. I will undertake straight away to read very carefully all the speeches that have been made, and to consider whether any of the suggestions that have been thrown out could be used to improve the Bill. I do not think that any hon, or right hon. Gentleman wishes me to say more than that, because these matters do require careful thought.

Some of the suggestions concern the widening of the investment powers in Clause 2, and I have a great deal of sympathy with what my hon. Friend the Member for Louth (Mr. Osborne) said about the effect of inflation on those who invest in fixed interest securities. At the same time, I think my hon. Friend will grant me that there is a difference between small friendly societies, and, say, the Church Commissioners, and that those who conduct the affairs of small friendly societies might not be as well qualified as, say, the Church Commissioners to invest widely in the kind of equity securities which he described. We have to keep in mind all the time the protection of the members of the societies, as well as the wider considerations which he brought forward.

Most of the debate touched at one point or another on the question of tax exemption. The right hon. Member for Blyth (Mr. Robens), for whose speech I should like to express my thanks, was absolutely right when he said that tax exemption was originally given to friendly societies because the ordinary member of a friendly society in those days almost certainly was not within the Income Tax field. Things have changed since then, and, however generous-spirited we are, we must pause to think before any additional tax exemption is given to certain classes of people because they have joined this or that society, who themselves by reason of their incomes may be liable to Income Tax in these days at quite a substantial rate. We must take care to be fair to everybody.

Reference was made by my hon. Friend the Member for Blackley (Mr. E. Johnson) and others to the impact of the tax on old peoples home societies. My reply to my hon. Friend was surely quite right when I said that these new societies would not be in the category which, under the principal Act, would escape tax, because my hon. Friend will remember that it is only the first category—the registered friendly societies—which enjoy the tax exemption.

In Clause 4 of this Bill, we are placing these old peoples home societies into a separate category and in a separate subsection from that dealing with the registered friendly societies. But I will certainly look into this matter further. What occurred to me when my hon. Friend spoke was what occurred also, no doubt, to the hon. Member for Sowerby (Mr. Houghton)—that anyone who made a profit out of running an old peoples' home might be so pleased that they would not mind so much paying tax on it.

I hope I did not mislead my hon. Friend the Member for Blackley or anybody else in what I said about the relation between this Bill and Part III of the National Assistance Act. Quite clearly, nobody can compel a local authority to give assistance to a home of this kind, and the point that I wanted to make was the simple one that, if this Bill goes through, there will be nothing to debar a local authority, if it thinks fit, from co-operating with a friendly society in exercising its powers under Part III of the Act.

The hon. Member for Sowerby, whose knowledge seemed to be extensive, despite his original disclaimer, asked why the Government had been so indifferent in not bringing forward a Bill like this before. He wanted to know what we had been doing these last three years. I do not know what the Government which he supported were doing in three of their years, because Lord Beveridge's book was published in 1948, but I can say what we have been doing.

Very soon after I was appointed to my present post a year ago there came to my notice the work which was in progress on this subject, and the moment that I heard that my hon. Friend the Member for Holland with Boston (Sir H. Butcher) was interested in using his good fortune in the Ballot to introduce such a Bill, I did what I think any Minister would do in similar circumstances. I told him that as far as I was concerned I wished the resources of my Department to be at his disposal so that his effort could be as productive as possible.

But the person who deserves the most credit for what we are doing now, if it is indeed good, is, I say quite frankly, not my hon. Friend, not myself, not anybody in this House, but Lord Beveridge. All this really springs from that fertile brain, and this is not the least of the contributions that that remarkable man has made to the development of our ordinary affairs in ordinary life to meet the ordinary problems of the day. I hope when this Bill goes to another place he will be by no means ashamed of the debate that we have had here this morning.

Whether what I am going to say in conclusion is something of which——

Before my right hon. Friend comes to that, may I ask him one question? I understand him when he says to me that some of the smaller societies may not have the expert knowledge of the Church Commissioners and the great societies for the investment of part of their funds in first-class equities, and, therefore, it might be dangerous to give them the power to do so since they have not that expert knowledge. But, between now and the Committee stage, could my right hon. Friend consider the advisability of establishing some central advisory committee to give to these smaller societies the necessary technical advice for this purpose and, therefore, the power for wider investment which, I think, is so vital for them?

I will consider everything said in this debate, but the main point which my hon. Friend is making is one part of a very large subject which is dealt with in the Nathan Committee Report, and cannot be considered apart from the much greater question of the investment powers of trustees generally.

I was just about to conclude my speech by remarking that I was not quite sure whether what I was about to say was a fact of which to be proud or ashamed, but it happens that this is the seventh Bill to which I have invited the House to give a Second Reading in the twelve months during which I have been a member of the Government.

Congratulations.

I do not know whether it is a record or not.

The right hon. Gentleman must have some pull with the Leader of the House.

Financial Secretaries have always been thought to be in a peculiar position, but I should like to conclude by saying that the nature of the subject and the kindness of the House have made this the most pleasant occasion of all.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read a Second time.

Committed to a Committee of the whole House.—[ Mr. Godber .]

Committee upon Monday next.

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

This is a modest though not unimportant Bill, to which I invite the House to give a Second Reading. Although it is a Government Bill, the House will recall that the initiative for it belongs to my hon. Friend the Member for Morecambe and Lonsdale (Sir I. Fraser). He had intitnated his intention in April to seek the approval of the House to introduce a Private Member's Bill, but circumstances made that impossible, and the view of the Government was that the House would wish this Bill to proceed at the earliest possible moment. Accordingly, it is introduced as a Government Bill.

In 1926, again on the initiative of my hon. Friend through a Private Member's Bill which he piloted through the House, it was decided to remit the wireless licence fee in those households which included a blind person. At that time and up to 1946 there was but one licence fee, the sound licence fee. In the form in which legislative effect was given to that desire, the Postmaster-General was empowered to remit the licence fee. He was not empowered to remit part of it. He was left with the power to remit the whole of it or none of it.

So the phraseology of the 1926 Act was satisfactory until 1946, and the difficulty arose with the introduction in that year of an omnibus television and sound licence fee side by side with the sound licence fee. The omnibus fee at that time was £2, but those persons, even if they were blind persons within the meaning of the Act, who took out an omnibus fee were unable to enjoy any remission because the Postmaster-General had no power to make such a remission.

The simple purpose of the Bill is to restore the concession to those who have lost it, to make it possible for those households—and I deliberately use that phrase because that is the exact position—where there is a blind person coming within the definition of the subsection concerned and where an omnibus television-cum-sound licence fee of £3 is paid, to enjoy the same remission, the remission of £1, which has obtained since 1926, but which has not been available since the introduction of the omnibus fee to those who have paid that fee.

The Bill is very simple in form as well as in intention. It modifies Section 2 (2) of the Wireless Telegraphy Act, 1949, so as to enable the Postmaster-General to dispense with the payment of the whole or part of any sum which is payable as a licence fee.

I am sure that the House, though recognising the limited character of the Bill, which does no more than restore a concession which had been lost through other circumstances, will regard it as something worth while doing, and will join with me in acknowledging the part played by my hon. Friend the Member for Morecambe and Lonsdale at the inception and in stirring us to restore the position which had been lost.

1.1 p.m.

On behalf of the Opposition, I welcome the Bill. As the right hon. Gentleman said, it is a small one, but it nevertheless means a great deal to the people who are affected by it.

Those of us with experience in local government work, the welfare of blind persons and the like know how gratefully the original concession was received. None of us wanted it ever to be withdrawn, but the drafters of the original Measure could hardly have foreseen a situation in which there would be a combined television and sound radio licence, and so no account was taken of such a happening.

I am glad that the Government have found opportunity and time to remedy the accident, for that is what it really was. We are very happy indeed to welcome the Bill and facilitate its passage through the House.

1.2 p.m.

I am very pleased indeed to follow my right hon. Friend the Member for Blyth (Mr. Robens) and say a few words in support of the Bill. As my right hon. Friend said, it is only a small, simple Bill, but it is a great Bill in that it expresses the humane feelings of the House towards blind people. It helps the most unfortunate section of the community.

Apart from the social services in the twentieth century, the wireless has been one of the greatest friends, if not the greatest friend, of blind people. When one reflects that the wireless brings to them the news of the day, music, plays, politics and talks, one realises what it must mean to them.

The blind are mainly the poorest section of the community; they are poor because they are handicapped in comparison with other members of the community who have greater opportunities to enter trades and professions. I am certain that the restoration of the concession will have the support of all, and I am very pleased indeed to give it my support.

1.5 p.m.

Television is primarily a visual art. Anyone who listened carefully to what the Postmaster-General said might have deduced that it would have been within the power of the Government to make television licences wholly free to the blind. The blind people themselves—at any rate, those who speak for them in the committee of the Wireless Fund for the Blind Fund, the Royal National Institute for the Blind, and St. Dunstan's—do not feel that that is a gift which Parliament ought to make or, indeed, a gift that ought to be asked for, because the art is mainly visual, and so many good things are done for the blind that there is a limit to what we think should be asked for and given.

Nevertheless, an anomaly arose because of the circumstances which have been explained, which I will not elaborate. However, I should like to express the gratitude of the blind community to the Postmaster-General, the Government, and hon. Members on all sides of the House for the original Act and for this modest, but nevertheless most valuable, restoration of the concession.

As more and more families obtain T.V. sets—no one must imagine that a blind man's family should necessarily be without a T.V. set: T.V. is part of our way of life, and, if a set can be afforded, the blind man's wife and children should not necessarily be deprived of it—it is important to emphasise that the blind man should continue to have his sound radio and that it should not be put out of his house by the television, because the television gives him only a very small part of what the sound radio gives him. As the hon. Member for Feltham (Mr. Hunter) said, the sound radio is the blind man's entertainment, newspaper and friend.

One of the reasons why I especially welcome the emphasis in the concession to the blind man in respect of his sound radio is that I want it to be felt to be an obligation upon every family containing a blind person which obtains a television set to make sure that the blind man continues to have his sound radio. The fact that a concession of E1 is given for that purpose will, I hope, be an encouragement to that end.

I should like to add briefly, for the purposes of the record, a few facts. There are 103,000 blind persons in the land. There are about 11,000 new blind persons each year, though that does not mean that the total number necessarily goes up, because the additions are balanced by deaths. The Wireless for the Blind Fund, which the B.B.C. has so generously supported, and to which the British public subscribed at Christmas, has during the last 25 years supplied free wireless sets to all blind persons in the land known to be in need of them. It has issued 44,000 sets, which are in current use. The discrepancy between the figures which I have given is accounted for by the fact that many blind persons are old and perhaps too ill to listen, others live in homes for the blind, others are children, and a few can, perhaps, afford not to apply for a set.

I thank Parliament and the Government on behalf of the blind community for this kindly, generous concession, which will be greatly appreciated.

1.9 p.m.

I wish to support the Bill, which I feel sure will be welcomed by all blind people in the country in that it restores to them a privilege which they enjoyed before sound and television licences were combined.

I think that, generally speaking, the standard of intelligence of blind people is above that of other people. It would seem that, having been deprived of their sight, they have another power which they have developed. If one looks at the various accomplishments achieved by blind people, one finds that the percentage is very high compared with those of us who, fortunately, have our sight.

I know that blind people appreciate the sound radio more than anything else, because the last thing a blind person wishes is to be a nuisance to anyone else. If blind people can listen to the radio, where they can obtain such a wide variety of programmes, it enables them to feel that they are completely independent. They can obtain their news, listen to sport, and enjoy the arts. That prompts me to mention of a number of blind people who through the years have been attracted to the arts, particularly music. I regret to say that today I cannot play a note, but when I was a child, my music master was a blind person and a first-class musician. Today, living in my constituency at Shaftesbury, there is a blind man who is no mean composer. He is greatly thought of, not only locally, but over a wide area.

I am pleased to give my support to the Bill, and I hope that it will pass very quickly through the House, and that there will be given to the blind people this simple concession, which I feel sure that all of them will enjoy to the full.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read a Second time.

Committed to a Committee of the whole House.—[ Mr. Godber .]

Committee upon Monday next.

I wish to call the attention of the House to the shortage of science teachers in the country and to ask the Government what they propose to do to meet that shortage. As the debate has begun a little earlier than some of us anticipated, may I take the opportunity to thank the Ministry of Education for the courtesy which is always shown to hon. Members in search of information, even though that information may be going to be used against the Ministry?

I wish also to express, as I am sure many hon. Members would wish to, our thanks to the Library research staff for the help they are willing to give to hon. Members at all times.

The seriousness of this problem has been so often stated recently that it becomes almost platitudinous to state it again. The danger is that we are becoming used to statements about the gravity of the situation and are doing little to meet it. Briefly, we are living in an age of science. We compete in the markets of the world for trade which is our life blood. In such an age, and against such competition, we need more and more scientists, technicians and technologists. Our schools contain the human material from which all the scientists demanded by industry and commerce, by research and by the schools themselves have to be drawn. The child population has expanded rapidly since the war, and I believe that it can provide all that we need. But the number of scientists whom we are recruiting to meet this ever-increasing need lags woefully behind. The greatest shortage is in science teachers. In the long run that can mean only the drying up of the nation's human scientific material.

Incidentally, one healthy sign is the keenness of the interest shown by British industry in this and other educational problems. I am glad that British industry is showing an ever-increasing keenness in education. In my own town—and I am sure that this experience is met with elsewhere—keen practical help has been given by many industrialists to the growth of technical education during the last 20 or 30 years.

Those who have expressed concern about the shortage of scientific teachers include the Federation of British Industries, which set up a committee to examine the matter; the Association of Scientific Workers; the science teachers themselves and the Central Advisory Council for Education in England, under the chairmanship of my distinguished friend, Sir Samuel Gurney-Dixon, whose report on "Early Leaving" I will refer to in a moment.

Some universities have examined the problem, notably the Senate of the University of Nottingham, and "The Times" Educational Supplement has done yeoman service to this cause month in and month out in recent years. Attention has been directed to this matter by hon. Members on both sides of the House and indeed in both Houses, notably by Lord Cherwell in another place.

The Ministry of Education has a committee—the National Advisory Council on the Training and Supply of Teachers—which has reported on the shortage of scientists, and the Advisory Council on Scientific Policy serving under the Lord President of the Council has also dealt with the matter. There is no excuse whatever for ignorance about the gravity of the situation. Indeed the country and the Ministry have suffered almost from a plethora of information and suggestions to meet the problem.

Now for a few disquieting facts. Nearly a thousand science teachers left the country's grammar schools during the last ten years in search of better paid jobs elsewhere. Yet a headmaster writing in "The Times" Educational Supplement last year said: It is easier for a second-rate Arts man to find his way to Oxford or Cambridge than it is for a first-rate scientist. In 1954 Oxford and Cambridge awarded 906 scholarships and exhibitions. Of these, 174 were in classics, 189 in history, 104 in modern languages, 46 in English, 29 in music and 48 in miscellaneous subjects, a total of 590 scholarships for the humanities. On the other hand, they awarded only 211 in science and 105 in mathematics. If the "red brick" universities of this country followed the pattern of Oxford and Cambridge, the present position would be far more parlous than it is.

I am not anti-humanities, but I seriously question the wisdom of our ancient universities in awarding nearly as many scholarships in Greek and Latin as in the vast, expanding field of science. Though I am an arts man myself, I sympathise with the pungent comments of Lord Cherwell, who ventured to doubt whether Juvenal and Cicero should in this day and age take pre-eminence over, say, Eddington, or Cockcroft, or even Lord Cherwell himself. According to Professor Robert Pears, the science courses in the universities are roughly 10 per cent. of the total.

Let us examine the grammar schools. The National Advisory Council on the Supply and Training of Teachers reported: First class honours men in mathematics and science fell from 14.7 per cent. of the total in 1938 to 4 per cent. in 1954. The joint Report of the Women's Science Teachers and Science Masters Association complain of a fall in the ratio of science teachers to the rest of the staff. They examined a number of schools and found 115 unfilled science teachers' posts. They found that 84 science departments had been closed down in grammar schools because there were no appropriate teachers and that other science departments were curtailing their teaching programme. Yet, 4,200 boys and girls capable of taking advanced courses in science and mathematics entered our grammar schools in 1946 and left without going into the sixth form.

In 1953, of the graduates who left universities with science degrees, only 18 per cent. went into teaching; 46 per cent. went into research, and the general pattern suggests that most of those who went into research did not afterwards go into teaching but went into industry and commerce; and 27 per cent. went straight into industry and commerce. From the figure which the Minister gave less than a fortnight ago, only one in five of the graduates in science and mathematics is entering the teaching profession. Take away the maths men, and the figure would be even more alarming.

One other word on the general position. I believe that science is an integral part of the education of every child, of the child in the secondary modern school as well as of the child in the grammar school. The demand that we have to meet is not only the production of enough science teachers to train brilliant young boys and girls to make their way as scientists to the universities, but also less academically qualified science teachers to give a general education in science to the 70 to 80 per cent. of our children whom we send to the secondary modern schools of the country.

I understand that the Scottish people have also been discussing this problem, and I gather from the Press that some alarm has been expressed by the humanists in Scotland that we are overdoing this question of the importance of science. I remember that when we discussed technological education, the humanists of the country were worried lest the student of technology in the technological college lost his liberal education because he missed all the human studies of a university. Yet they tend to regard it as a heresy if one suggests that the arts boy who throws away science the moment he has his certificate of education, or even before that, in our grammar schools, public schools and independent schools can also lack a liberal education by concentrating merely on the humanities.

One is worried about the place of science in the educational system of the country. On the whole, our secondary technical schools are filled by boys who fail to get into the grammar schools. We treat them as second-best. We follow the pattern of the famous, or infamous, Norwood Report which divided our children into three classes, the élite who go to the grammar schools the common or garden children who go to the secondary modern schools, and the second-rate intelligences for whom we patronisingly provide secondary technical education.

In our attitude to the whole question of science in education I think that we still have something of a hangover from the century which regarded only the humanities as the true content of education, and which 130 or 140 years ago would not allow Shelley to study chemistry at Eton except in secret in his own room.

I want now to look at some of the possible remedies for the shortage of science teachers. First, it cannot merely be a question of buying out scientists from industry, commerce and research. They are needed there as never before. America is spending far more on young scientists in industry, commerce and research than we are, yet I heard a senator in Washington lamenting the fact that America was lagging behind the Soviet Union in the sums which that country was devoting to scientific education, on the one hand, and to science in industry on the other. In any case, if we set out to outbid industry for science teachers, industry could put up the price and could outbid the State once again.

Having said that, it is abundantly true that the paramountcy of the claim for science teachers is that, in the long run, all other supplies of scientists depend on the teachers. If there are no teachers, there will be no scientists for industry, and if the quality of science teaching declines, as it is doing, then the quality of the scientists who will be supplied to industry will also decline. We need many more scientists, but, having said that, one must also say that, whatever given number of scientists we have, we ought to see that they are used to the best advantage.

We need many more. The Barlow Committee underestimated quantitatively the need of scientific manpower. One can understand it doing that because 10 years ago nobody could foresee the geometrical progression of the rate of scientific development in this modern age. Therefore, we must recruit many more scientists from the children in our schools.

If the purists and the academicians in the universities, and, indeed, sometimes in the grammar schools, say, "But we are already scraping the barrel," and if they talk about the dangers of lowering standards by admitting more young scientists to the universities, such talk in the last analysis—as the Report of one of the Minister's own Committees I believe somewhere points out—is an admission of utter defeat. If we say that we cannot recruit more young potential scientists from the children who are pouring into our schools, then we are saying that Britain cannot match the demands of this age.

I certainly do not believe that. The Report entitled "Early Leaving," which I have already mentioned, gives a figure of 4,200 potential young scientists who left the grammar schools before going to the sixth form. Fortunately, they are not all being wasted. Some of them continue their education in a variety of other ways outside. But one of our greatest educational tragedies at the moment is the early leaver from the grammar school, and that is something which we must check.

I like to be fair, and before I look at the general figure it is worth remembering—one wishes that one had time to expatiate on this—that the position is better now than ever in our history. In 1938, more than 30 per cent. of our children left the grammar school under the age of 16, and at that time there were only 65,000 children in our grammar schools. In the last year for which I have the figures, only 16 per cent. of our children left the grammar schools under the age of 16, but then the grammar school population had grown to 95,000. Therefore, it is a much lower percentage leaving-age of a much larger school population. But it is still far too high.

It is worth remembering that, even now, 36 per cent. of grammar school children leave school without taking the Certificate of Education. To those who believe in the canalising and rigid tripartite division of our three kinds of secondary education, that fact ought to give food for thought. It seems to me that, sooner or later, we shall have to prevent the whole of this bitter wastage of children in the grammar schools who should not be there and who leave because they find that they should not be there. It is bitter, too, because sometimes children who want to go to grammar schools are excluded and the places are taken by children who are unable to profit by grammar school education, and who leave for that reason. I have not the time to discuss that now.

I want to say a word about the able children who leave grammar schools before the age of 16. According to the Report on "Early Leaving" there are 10,000 who, in the opinion of grammar school teachers, ought to have stayed on to the sixth form, and gone on to advanced courses, leading to the universities in one way or another. Among them were 4,200 potential scientists. An examination of a number of schools has revealed that, of those who leave the grammar schools prematurely, 11 per cent. do so because of poverty at home; 23 per cent. because they are offered a good job outside, and 33 per cent. because they say, "they wish to be independent." We can reduce these percentages at once by increasing the maintenance grant. I know that we cannot compete with the flashy attraction of well-paid dead-end jobs outside, but we can more nearly approach competition than is done at present by the meagre maintenance grant, which varies in size according to the enlightenment or meanness of the education authority.

I want to look a little further at the 33 per cent, of our boys who leave grammar schools early because they "want to be independent." I sympathise with them.

I spend most of my life trying to understand children. Sooner or later we shall have to regard sixth form work as a kind of apprenticeship, and treat it as such. An apprentice does not earn as much as a child in a dead-end job, but he does earn. He is a young man; he helps to keep home, and to keep himself. If a grammar school boy, especially one living in a poor home—whether or not his parents are unwilling that he should stay at the grammar school—mingles with his old street mates from primary school days during the weekends and sees that they are earning money during the week and are working no harder in their apprenticeships or dead-end jobs than he has to work, the inclination to leave must be a strong one.

People sometimes fail to realise just how hard grammar school children work. As a grammar school master, one of my tasks for 25 years was to prevent some children from working too hard. Many conscientious children overwork at their home work. The difficulty always was to strike a balance and set that amount of homework which would not make the conscientious child work itself into a nervous breakdown but which would, at the same time, persuade the lazy chap to do something.

I do not think that we shall ever abolish the sacrifice that a long education means to all parents. I know the sacrifies that are made by middle-class parents, and the real sacrifices made by people such as the bishop who recently spoke about devoting two-thirds of his income to the education of his children. I also know that these sacrifices are nothing to those made by poor parents—such as mine were—to send me to grammar school and then to the university. I know many a poor parent who, even with the help of the maintenance grant, the payment of examination fees and the maintenance which is given if the child reaches the university, is making a tremendous sacrifice for his or her child. We must build up that spirit of sacrifice among parents. This is the great example in morale which middle-class parents can give to the rest of our parents.

We can mitigate that sacrifice by adequate allowances. We can step up the allowances we make to the boy at the grammar school if he has some young brothers and sisters coming along. Especially can we step up the allowances for a boy in his 17th or 18th year—his second or third year at the grammar school—when he is in the sixth form. We can also do much more to educate parents. We need a positive public campaign—to recruit scientists to recruit more children for courses leading to the university—and we need that campaign at Ministerial level, local education authority level, and, above all at staff level in the grammar schools.

We need conscious recruitment for the sixth form. Many teachers do steadily recruit and inspire their bright pupils. Many teachers find it difficult to carry out this recruiting with enthusiasm when they reflect upon the lowly financial position of the teaching profession to which they belong. We had a nurses' recruiting campaign which produced many nurses. We want a parallel recruitment of young scientists, in grammar schools, universities and in the nation at large. I find it difficult to express what I feel about the service which the newspapers could render to causes like this from time to time—if only they would. They could do a tremendous job.

But we need more grammar schools. The variation in provision of grammar schools runs from 50 per cent. or 60 per cent. in some parts of the country to as low as 9 per cent. in others. The paradoxical fact is that there is less wastage from schools in areas which make the most generous provision than in those which' make the meanest and lowest provision. Unless we are building secretly far more grammar schools than I think we are the percentage provision of grammar school places is likely to drop rapidly during the next two or three years. Indeed, the process might already have begun this year. By 1962, the secondary school population will have risen by 1¼ million—the famous 1¼ million upon which some of us have addressed the House frequently. Every local education authority should by now have built or be building 25 per cent. more grammar school places than it had in 1950. There should be one grammar school more for every four which existed in 1950.

I doubt very much whether that provision is being made. If it is not, are local education authorities making comparable alternative provision for the education of this expanding potential grammar school pupilage which will be coming up into the secondary schools?

Unless they are, one in five of the lads of this generation—and if I speak of boys I mean girls, too—is going to be deprived of the educational opportunities which his elder brother had, and some of us are by no means content with the opportunities which that elder brother had.

The position is more serious than that. There are 400,000 children, being educated in all-age schools, who are deprived of all but a vestige of secondary education. Among them are some of the potential young scientists that we need in order to match the demand of this age, but nothing is being done to complete the reorganisation of all-age schools in urban areas. There are also children of ability in our secondary modern schools. Those who condemn comprehensive schools out of hand—excluding the public schools—have to justify themselves by making sure—as I hope the Minister is making sure—that provision is made in every secondary modern school to see that no child who is good at science or anything else is deprived of his opportunity of pushing on towards the university if he later reveals the ability which he did not show in time to satisfy the 11-plus examiners.

I urge the Minister to look at the science laboratory provision in secondary modern schools. Every secondary modern school ought to have a science lab. I said that at a meeting a year or two ago and someone cynically pointed out that every grammar school ought to have an adequate laboratory. Not every grammar school is provided with the laboratory equipment that it should have. I went to a training college, an excellent one, where I was struck by the capacity and the calibre of the young men I met and spoke to, but was also infinitely disappointed at the laboratory provision.

Perhaps the most important problem in connection with the shortage of science teachers concerns salaries. The F.B.I. Report gives figures for 1953 which show that a science graduate with a good honours degree in teaching comes out at the age of 24 or 25 and starts at £612 per year, can rise to £851, and if he is lucky gets a special allowance, and can then get up to £941. That is his maximum for life unless he is fortunate enough to become a headmaster.

The comparable figures for the graduate going into industry—these are not propaganda figures from an educationist like myself—show that he gets £605 when he begins and can rise to a maximum of £1,740.

The Minister's answer to a Question which I put to him yesterday suggests that he thinks that the new special responsibility allowances will put things right. They will not. They will go only to some science teachers, and they do not make the maximum figure much over £1,000. I am certain that the figures which the F.B.I. quotes for 1953 in respect of science teachers in industry are already out-of-date and that there has been a further step up from £1,740. The allowances which the Minister recommends to local education authorities will not raise the salary of any science teacher to that figure—perhaps one or two at Eton and Harrow, but I doubt it. It will not raise any science teacher to the £1,740 which he can look forward to in industry.

Moreover, the special responsibility allowances to which the Minister referred are not only for science teachers. As my hon. Friend the Member for Rugby (Mr. J. Johnson) pointed out, the teaching profession is bitterly opposed to differentiation according to subject taught. Here "The Times Educational Supplement," which is interested in this problem, steadily puts the sound view. We cannot put a price on subjects: "Sixth-form science, 30s.; six-form geography, 25s.; sixth-form Latin, half a crown." It just has to be mentioned to show how fantastic it is.

It is right to pay for extra qualifications, extra duties and extra-responsible work, but if the Minister wants the heads of the grammar schools or local education authorities to use the new allowances merely to pay extra to science masters he will have not only the teaching profession, but educationists everywhere about his ears.

One of the real troubles is the decline in the financial status of the teacher. Again, the F.B.I. Report has comparable figures for graduates. There has been a 71 per cent. increase for graduate teachers over the pre-war figure, as against an increase of 100 to 120 per cent. for industrial workers. If we are to give the science teachers sufficient inducement to buy them out of industry, or at any rate to check the drift into industry, we must adequately recognise all graduate work in all subjects and also the non- graduate work which laid the foundations for the superstructure.

We have never yet either in this House or in the country faced the cost in buildings, equipment or teachers, of an adequate national system of education. On the whole, all we are doing in our educational system is holding on, keeping pace, making the schools smaller to keep the price down, cutting our trimmings, as some even boast and adding to our educational budget merely the rise in the cost of living. We are not even compensating for the rise in the population of our schools.

The hon. Member for Louth (Mr. Osborne) has been asking for exemption for young scientists from National Service. There is a lot in that. Lord Cherwell has made similar suggestions. I only wish those who plead the cause of exemption from National Service would not go out of their way to denigrate somebody else, and would not take the opportunity to sneer at young merchant seamen, forgetting that, in war-time, merchant seamen did wonderful national service.

There is a positive case for the exemption of science teachers from National Service but it is not to attract young people into careers. I resent the suggestion that exemption from National Service is some kind of bribe to dangle before someone to get him into a job. We normally exempt farmers, seamen and others, and we should exempt scientists, because they give better national service in the job for which they have been trained than in a job inside National Service itself.

If the Minister of Education or the Minister of Labour cannot grant complete exemption, they might release science teachers who have completed their initial stage of training, or after their basic training, when they might be allowed to come out to do the job which the schools of Britain so desperately need.

I asked yesterday that State scholarships might be earmarked for intending teachers. I can understand the Minister's turning down what he regarded as a retrograde step, but the position is desperate and requires desperate measures. If he will not do what I asked him to do yesterday, he could at least earmark some State scholarships for science and add an extra number for this specific purpose. He could ask the universities to consider stepping up the number of their science awards or to increase their provision for science studies.

I know the spirit of independence of our universities, but the Minister might send them copies of the excellent report which the Senate of Nottingham University is getting out and in which the Senate, overwhelmed by the case based on the infinite number of reports about the shortage of science teachers, has told the world what it proposes to do. It says that it will ensure that guidance is given to students —a reference to positive recruitment of scientists into the universities—and that it will release some research students for part-time teaching and increase the numbers in those science departments whose building and staffing make this practicable. The universities can help a lot, but the Nottingham University Senate wisely concludes its report by saying that, whatever the universities did, the main contributions must come from the local education authorities and the Ministry.

That is what I am asking for—a bold and imaginative campaign in every field; the use by the Minister of every method suggested by the various committees which have reported to him or whose reports he has before him, so that we can increase the supply of science teachers in time to face the most critical moment which will occur in 1960–61–62, and supply, in the years ahead, a steady supply of scientists to man British industry, commerce and research, and above all to provide all our children with something of the wonder of scientific education.

1.51 p.m.

I shall address the House for but a few moments, although this is a very serious subject, and I shall be intrigued to hear the Minister's answer. In our Western democracies we are sometimes a little naïve in our belief that our sceptical, scientific society can ultimately solve all our difficulties. In the realm of social and human relations we have something very difficult of solution. As I see it, this sort of impasse—this tunnel with a dark ending—in education seems inherent in a capitalist society.

I do not make any political points here, but the present Government's tendency—to put it no higher—to swing over to laissez-faire economics is emphasising to our people that it is better to go for the jobs with the most money, and that life somehow has a materialistic or cash nexus. I am, therefore, not at all surprised that what has for quite a long time been a tendency for people to leave teaching for industry has been accentuated in the last few years. The Parliamentary Secretary nods his head, but I shall be glad to hear him quote some figures later on.

In the teaching profession that tendency is becoming serious. I think that the same thing applies to our womenfolk; we have fewer domestic science workers today and more working as typists because of the more attractive return. For the same reason potential science teachers are going to Courtaulds, British Thomson-Houston and other concerns where they can earn £100, £200 or £300 a year more than they can expect on the Burnham scale.

I believe that there is a limited future supply of people who can take on jobs as doctors, lawyers, scientists, technologists and teachers at the top level. We are getting near the point when it is becoming difficult to find a sufficient supply for all these demands. In other words, if, by the present wages policy or lack of one, a certain number of men and women are pulled out of teaching into Courtaulds and other industrial firms teaching will obviously suffer, because it is difficult to find in the larger world outside a sufficient number who will train to take their places.

We see the same thing in sport. Not all of us can score goals like Stanley Matthews or hit centuries like Denis Compton. There is only a certain potential at the top in the world of sport. In the wider economic society, there is only a certain number of people with the necessary intelligence quotient, and the "stickability" needed for this particular subject of advanced science teaching; and beyond them a much larger number who are not equipped and will not come into this field of recruitment. If we have a campaign for more doctors and dentists, there are thus fewer men left for training as scientists or science teachers.

This is a big question, and by some means or other, either through secondary modern, bilateral or comprehensive schools, or by some different approach in our teaching methods we have to tap this wider pool of people who, in the past, we thought not good enough for the top level but some of whom could be made today into technologists or science teachers. If we say that democracy in the twentieth century means that the working class of some years ago now desire middle-class standards, we must apply the same principle to job classifications. In the more complex economic society of today, we want to get more people out of what were formerly the unskilled labouring jobs and into the higher posts of technology and science teaching.

One way is to offer more money, but where is the money to come from? The local education authorities' "kitty" is limited, as is also the national Exchequer. Those of us who have been on local education committees, have found in the past that we were always handicapped by the competition of higher wages from Courtaulds, I.C.I. and other big business combines. Such firms, producing cars, textiles, and other commodities, trading in a seller's market, get more and more money into their "kitty" to pay the higher wages which they can offer.

I do not wish to interrupt my hon. Friend, but he should mention that those firms do not pay rates either.

Because of our earlier debate this week, that had not escaped me, but I welcome my hon. Friend's intervention.

Is there any way by which industry can help teaching? The former Secretary of State for the Colonies, now Lord Chandos and Chairman of Associated Electrical Industries Limited, has looked into this matter from his firm's angle. He has put forward the imaginative suggestion that those suitable persons now working in the British Thomson-Houston firm in my own constituency, or in English Electric, under Sir George Nelson's aegis—those science graduates working in industry—could perhaps be lent for some hours a week to the local college of technology, or to work at the specialist level of the sixth forms of the grammar schools.

There again, one faces this unfortunate fact. Many of us who were lucky to do well, and to get honours degrees at the universities, were perhaps not so hot at teaching—perhaps that is why some of us are now in the House of Commons.

The man with first-class honours or the senior wrangler perhaps cannot teach; and, therefore, many of those earning big salaries in industry might find difficulty—particularly in "coed" schools—in keeping order among, never mind imparting knowledge to adolescents of 15. 16 or 17 years of age.

This is one of the most difficult questions that I have met in education. There is no easy way out. As I say, I am intrigued to find out from the Minister's answer whether he has any approach to a solution of what I think is the most difficult problem in our modern educational field.

1.59 p.m.

This subject is vitally important to the whole United Kingdom. In Scotland we have just had a very interesting Report on the shortage of science teachers. A Committee, which sat under the chairmanship of Sir Edward Appleton, puts the issue very bluntly. It says in its summary: Thus a shortage of science teachers strikes at the very root of national safety and prosperity. There could be nothing plainer than that.

The position in Scotland, as in England and Wales, is exceedingly serious, and not only is it serious at the present time but it is getting worse. We are told that by 1961 the situation will be twice as bad as it is now unless immediate steps are taken to improve the situation.

I have no wish to recapitulate the many recommendations of the Appleton Committee. I have no doubt that Scottish Members, at any rate, will have an opportunity of discussing them, particularly as they concern the Secretary of State for Scotland more than the Parliamentary Secretary who is to wind up this debate. They cover a number of points raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Itchen (Dr. King).

There is, however, one point which was mentioned by my hon. Friend which is of immediate importance. The Report concludes by mentioning three proposals which were selected by the Committee for special mention to meet the immediate urgency of this problem, and it is interesting to note that the first and most important recommendation is the deferment from National Service of specialised teachers in mathematics and science. It says that this is the only sure means of getting more teachers quickly. That is a United Kingdom matter and it comes under a United Kingdom Ministry. We must consider whether we are serving the national interest in the best possible way by putting these men into the Forces, where many of them spend a lot of time doing a number of things which frequently do not seem to matter very much. It is even doubtful whether, by robbing ourselves of a sufficient number of teachers in the future, we do the best thing in the interests of defence. If what the Appleton Committee says is correct, namely, that a shortage of science teachers strikes at the very root of national safety and prosperity it seems that by taking these people into the Forces we are endangering national safety in the future.

There can be no doubt that, after long experience of the operation of this scheme, the time has arrived when the Government ought to face the fact that the effect on our national economy, on the teaching profession, and on this problem of the shortage of science teachers, ought to be examined.

I do not wish to deal with the other matters which are raised in the Appleton Report. As I said earlier, no doubt, Scottish Members will have an opportunity of discussing them. I intervened because of the importance given to this matter by that Committee, the Report of which received a great deal of commendation in the Press when it was published. The first immediate requirement is to deal with this question of National Service, and I ask the Minister to approach the Minister of Labour to see whether something can be done. The Report says that this is the only sure means of getting more teachers quickly. Nothing could be more positive than that. As this is such an important matter, I hope that the hon. Gentleman will draw his right hon. Friend's attention to it with a view to making some approach to the Minister of Labour, in order to have the whole problem considered.

2.10 p.m.

I should like to begin by thanking the hon. Member for Itchen (Dr. King) for the tribute which he paid to the Ministry of Education when he referred to its supply of information to hon. Members. I only hope that the facts with which he has been supplied agree with those which have been supplied to me.

I agree with the hon. Member for Edinburgh, East (Mr. Willis) when he stresses the importance of this subject. It is possibly the most important subject with which my right hon. Friend the Minister of Education has to deal at present. I think this is a subject which merits fuller discussion than is possible on the Motion for the Adjournment, even when, as today, we have rather more time than is customary. I am sure that the hon. Member for Itchen has been wise to seize this opportunity of ventilating this matter, and I hope that what has been said, and possibly what will be said, will reach a wider audience than is assembled here.

It is recognised that this problem concerns many bodies other than the Ministry of Education. During recent months there has been a growing realisation that the future prosperity of this country depends upon our ability to train an increasing number of scientists, technologists, and technicians, but what I think is possibly not so generally realised is that the first step in this process is to ensure that the conditions are such that a sufficient supply of teachers becomes available. It is a first step in this process, because if we do not have the teachers we shall not be able to train what I believe to be the increasing number of pupils who will take science or mathematics in their secondary schools.

This debate, therefore, will perform a valuable service in bringing once again to the notice of the public the importance of that first step. It is a matter which has engaged the attention of my right hon. Friend and his colleagues for the last few months, and continues to do so. On this occasion I cannot do more than emphasise the importance of the subject, note what has been said, and comment on some of the steps that have been urged upon the Government.

First, it is important to understand the size of the problem. I do not dissent from any of the figures that the hon. Member gave, but I think it is a fact that the size of the present shortage can be exaggerated, and except in some girls' schools there is no evidence that there is a significant shortage in the numbers of science and mathematics graduate teachers. Recruitment has been better than was expected and I expect the hon. Member for Itchen will remember that the National Advisory Council on the Supply of Teachers, in its 1953 Report, forecast that there would be an increase of about 50 graduate teachers in those subjects each year. In fact, the number for the succeeding years has exceeded their forecast.

I think the House will be interested in the actual figures because I do not think these have been made available before. They are the figures of graduate science and mathematics teachers in maintained primary and secondary schools in England and Wales. The figures are as follows: March, 1952, 11,022; March, 1953, 11,287; March, 1954, 11,615. It will be seen that there has been an increase from 1952 to 1953 of 265, and from 1953 to 1954 of 328.

Would the hon. Gentleman sort those figures out into, so to speak, good class honours degrees and those not quite so good? I think he will agree that we are thinking of sixth form teaching for the future university men who will go into industry. Therefore, it is important to get the best scientists for university teaching, as opposed to others who are not so good.

I am coming to that point. That is why I emphasised the word "numbers."

These figures refer to graduate teachers of science and mathematics of all types. We must not forget the non-graduate teachers in these subjects, although they are at the moment few in number. I propose to say a word about the future in that respect presently. I agree with the hon. Member for Rugby (Mr. J. Johnson) that perhaps the quality at present is the real trouble. I do not dissent from what he has in mind, that the proportion of first-class and second-class honours degree men who have taken up teaching has fallen considerably. The hon. Member for Itchen made that point earlier in his speech.

That means that the choice of school governors is very limited. We all know of cases in which only one applicant of low-quality degree presents himself. Therefore, the position at present is that there is not so much a shortage of numbers but a shortage of the right type of graduate. I must go further than that. The real gravity of the problem arises from the fact that by 1960 the number of senior pupils is likely to rise by 650,000 over the 1954 figure. These extra seniors in schools in 1960 will require an extra 3,200 graduate science teachers. That represents an average increase of no fewer than 500 a year. That is before we allow for any reduction in the size of classes, any improvement in staffing arrangements, or any increase in the proportion of non-graduates, who, we hope, will take up science in the next few years.

To meet these deficiencies, even the favourable recruitment of the last two or three years is not good enough. It would leave, even at the present rate of recruitment, a deficiency of 1,400 teachers by 1960, and that is a formidable number. That is the problem as we see it.

I now come to the second half of the story. What can be done and what is being done about it? I think that the hon. Member for Itchen divided his remedies into short and long-term remedies. I propose to some extent to do the same. Let us take first the question of pay and allowances, which is both short and long-term. I have looked at the supplementary reply which my right hon. Friend gave to the hon. Member for lichen yesterday. I think that it would be wrong to suggest that my right hon. Friend thought that the recent Burnham decision was the complete answer to this problem. We think that it is an answer, but only one of the many answers that are necessary.

Hon. Members are probably well aware of the recent decision of the Burnham Committee, confirmed by my right hon. Friend, to pay additional allowances to teachers of advanced work, and that will entail science and mathematics masters, among others receiving up to an additional £200 a year. My right hon. Friend—and this is an important point—approved these allowances on the understanding that the local education authorities would implement them fully. No one expects that they will produce the complete answer. But my right hon. Friend believes that they hold out more hope of a reasonable career prospect in teaching for well-qualified graduates. They relate to teaching of advanced work of all types.

The hon. Member came to the same conclusion as the Burnham Committee—that it was not possible to discriminate between teachers of advanced work in science and mathematics and those teaching other subjects. This additional allowance is therefore made available to all teachers of advanced work. It is far too early to judge the effect of this decision. My right hon. Friend is about to ask the local education authorities for a report, to be made in October of this year, giving details of the way in which they have carried out the proposals.

As a result of this return, which we should receive before the end of this year, it will then be possible for him and for the Burnham Committee to discover how far their expectations that this step would be of some benefit have been realised. The hon. Member for Rugby will, I think, remember that at the same time as that decision was announced it was also stated that the Federation of British Industries had asked its members to refrain from raising salaries in competition with this proposal, and also to review the use which they make of science graduates. I mention that because I think that in some quarters the adverse effects of that suggestion have been exaggerated. While those proposals will help, I do not think they will adversely affect the rôle of scientists and technicians generally.

Before the hon. Gentleman passes from finance, will he not agree that even with the £200 special allowance the best-paid science master in the grammar school, getting everything he possibly can, will not get £1,100, compared with the £1,750 paid in industry?

I do not suggest that there is parity even now, but that the gap between teaching and industry has been narrowed to some extent by these proposals. I think that the hon. Member will agree with me that perhaps the gap is widest, not at entry—in the early years—but in the later years, and that is a problem which we have particularly in mind.

The hon. Member for Edinburgh, East and the hon. Member for Itchen mentioned National Service. I do not want, on this occasion, to be drawn into a debate on the future of National Service. I will, however, put these points for the consideration of the House. I think that the teaching profession itself is divided on the merits of the proposal that certain teachers should be deferred. I have no evidence whether the majority are in favour or opposed to that suggestion.

The second point is that it would make only a comparatively small contribution to our problem. No one should have the idea that it is by any means a complete solution. The third point is that it is a breach in the principle of universality. Hon. Members know the difficulties which that raises. All I can say today is that these points have been noted, but it is a proposition that needs very careful examination. I do not think that we should attach too much importance to it when trying to solve the larger problem.

I should like to say a word or two, particularly in reply to the hon. Member for Itchen and the hon. Member for Rugby, about the deployment of scientists. They will recollect that when my right hon. Friend announced the Burnham proposals, he said that Her Majesty's Government had under review the problem of the deployment and use of scientists. Industry, the Services, and other Government Departments, are well aware of the importance of making the very best use they can of the limited number of scientists available. Of course, there is an overall shortage, and we need many more. While that review will in itself make a contribution, it is by no means the complete solution.

To reply to the point which was made about part-time teaching, I think that something is and has been done in that direction. Again, I think that it is of limited effect. It applies more to the technical colleges than to the secondary schools. I think that this is the occasion to mention what has not been mentioned—that the teachers, full-time or part-time, in the technical colleges, are just as important in this respect as are the teachers of science and mathematics.

Passing from this particular problem to the possible long-term problem, I think that it is generally agreed that its solution lies, first, in inducing more and more pupils to stay on at school and study science. The hon. Member for Itchen was right to concentrate on that aspect of the problem. I was glad to hear him say what he did, because I do not think it is generally realised that the position has been improving steadily over the years.

Many people think that fewer pupils are staying at school after the school-leaving age. That is not the case. I have not the complete range of figures, but among 17-year-olds the number has increased from 24,000 in 1949 to over 27,500 last year. The number of 18-yearolds is even more impressive, but those figures are likely to be slightly misleading. My right hon. Friend and I accept that many more could profitably stay beyond the leaving age, and I hope that the proposal announced recently in the Gracious Speech to extend the family allowances will be a considerable help in this direction. It does not, of course, rule out a further reconsideration of the maintenance allowance. The hon. Member will understand that that proposal must be reviewed in the light of the increase in the family allowance age.

As the hon. Gentleman rightly stated, finance is not the only way of solving the early leaving problem. He referred to the climate of opinion in local education authorities, and I think that particularly those in charge of the schools can assist here. He knows more about this than I do, but I have a firm belief that, given the right climate and conditions, the headmasters and masters of grammar schools can do even more to persuade their pupils to stay at school for the vital extra year. We at the Ministry can help to a limited extent but, having persuaded pupils to stay at school, those in charge of the schools can help to persuade more people to take up science and mathematics.

Hon. Members have also mentioned the alternative ladder alongside the grammar schools. We certainly do not rule out the provision of teachers from the secondary modern schools and considerable efforts are being made—I cannot say more than that—to improve the supply of non-graduate teachers from the training colleges. The new training college grant system, announced a few weeks ago, will help there. More supplementary courses in mathematics and science are to be provided in 1955––56, and I hope that, as a result of the provision of these extra courses an increasing number of students will take them and that from this source, which at the moment is very limited, we shall obtain an increasing supply of non-graduate teachers in science and mathematics. The possibility of providing courses to enable non-scientists to take science degrees is also under consideration.

The hon. Member for Rugby mentioned the assistance which industry can give, and I appreciate the assistance which many large industries are able to give to education not only in this but in other fields. To what extent industry will be able to help us further in the provision of laboratories and other facilities is something which I cannot say at the moment, but we are grateful for the assistance which has been and I am sure will be given.

One of the last points with which will deal is that of making the conditions for teachers in science and mathematics more attractive. One or two points here are worthy of mention. First, the question of laboratory assistance is one on which my right hon. Friend hopes soon to be able to make an announcement, as a result of discussions now going on. Secondly—and this has not been mentioned today—it is frequently alleged that there is a need for refresher courses for teachers to keep abreast of modern scientific development, and the universities are at present exploring the possibility of providing these on a larger scale.

My right hon. Friend agrees that it may sometimes be justifiable to give paid leave to teachers to take part in research, as is sometimes done in further education. He hopes shortly to be able to advise local education authorities to this effect.

The hon. Member for Itchen devoted part of his speech to the universities. He will realise that I cannot speak on their behalf today, but I am sure that the views which he expressed are well known to them and it may be that his words will come to their attention. I do not wish to add to the reply which he received yesterday about the provision of separate scholarships in science and mathematics.

The Minister's reply yesterday was confined to those earmarked for teaching. I take it that the Minister's objection was to their being earmarked as teachers and not to their being earmarked for science and mathematics.

I am sorry if I did not make that clear. I think it is so. The objection was to earmarking them particularly for teaching.

The hon. Member referred to the rather wider problem of the provision of grammar schools. I will not develop that argument today, beyond saying that my right hon. Friend has stated that he considers that the provision of grammar schools should be between 15 and 25 per cent. He accepts that some local authorities are under-provided at present, and the approval of the building programme is carried out to level up the position of these authorities who do not provide sufficient grammar school places at the moment. For me to develop the argument beyond that point would be to go well outside the scope of the debate.

That also applies to the point about all-age schools. We accept that there is still a problem to be tackled here, and we hope that action will follow shortly on the heels of rural reorganisation. It is not true, however, to say that nothing is being done or has been done about it, because during the last few years a considerable amount of reorganisation has taken place in the urban areas in the normal course of events. The reason priority has been given recently to rural reorganisation is that the same trend has not been experienced in the rural areas.

Many other points could be mentioned, because the solution to this problem lies in dealing not with one particular point but with a number of points. The suggestions made during the debate will, I am sure, make a contribution to the solution of the problem, but I believe—I think this was also in the hon. Member's mind—that the solution is much more fundamental. It lies more in the public's appreciation of the teaching profession. I do not accept what I think the hon. Member for Rugby stated—that the status of the teaching profession was on the decline. If that is his view, I think he is wrong.

I did not say that at all. I said that under this Government the increasing tendency was to emphasise wage packets, finance and material rewards. I said that the teaching profession is therefore bound to suffer in competition with industry and with the bigger wage packets and financial rewards paid outside the profession.

The answer to that question lies in the very encouraging increase in the strength of the teaching profession during the last three years. That increase far exceeds the increase in any year under the Administration the hon. Member supported. I am glad that he shares my view that the status of the teaching profession is not on the decline, because I am certain much importance lies in appreciation by the public of the work of this profession.

Again, as the hon. Member knows, there has been an encouraging response during the last three years to the call for more and more teachers. This year the pressure on the training colleges is almost an embarrassment. I realise that that in itself is no complete answer to the special problem we have been considering this afternoon, but I mention it because fiscal and legislative or administrative measures are not the only answer we require.

I believe that the general supply position of teachers has been improved by the change in the climate of opinion and the increased interest which is being shown towards education, which has helped to establish teaching as a profession of importance and a career well worth following. This is a task in which hon. Members have helped and can continue to help by taking a close interest in schools and teachers in their constituencies. I fully realise that those who have taken part in this debate already do that. It would be a great help if hon. Members in all parts of the House would continue to take an interest in these problems.

I noted the reference the hon. Member made to a publicity campaign. We shall consider that—indeed, we have been considering it—but I can see some defects in the kind of campaign the hon. Member has in mind. I should prefer that continuous pressure and interest of the kind of which I have spoken, which would be more beneficial in the long run.

In conclusion, may I make it clear that my right hon. Friend accepts the fact that a serious deficiency in honours graduates in science and mathematics is liable to arise. For that reason he has already taken energetic action. Together with his colleagues, he is contemplating further measures, many of which have been mentioned in this debate. Taken in conjunction with what I believe to be a better climate of opinion towards teaching and education in general, and an increasing public awareness of the needs of science, I should like to end the debate on a note of optimism, that we shall be able to attract the men and women of quality that we need for this particular task.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at twenty-eight minutes to Three o'clock.