I beg to move, in page 1, line 5, to leave out from the beginning to "which" in line 6 and to insert:

"This section applies to any lottery (not being a lottery which is deemed not to be unlawful by virtue of any other enactment)".

On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, May I seek your guidance? Could you advise us as to what Amendments you are likely to call? I do not know whether this is customary, but it would be helpful if we could know.

If it will help the House, I am glad to comply with that request. The three Amendments not selected are the following, to Clause 1:

In page 2, line 5, at end insert:

"and no commission either in cash or in kind shall be paid to vendors of the lottery tickets".

In line 22, at end insert:

"and their sale shall be limited to the members of the society in whose interests the lottery is being promoted".

In line 35, at end insert:

"and in the case of members, no unsolicited tickets shall be sent through the post".

All the others we will deal with in the proper order as we come to them.

Thank you very much, Sir.

It may be for the convenience of the House if we discuss with this Amendment the next one to line 18, also in the name of the hon. Member for Enfield, East (Mr. Ernest Davies).

Yes, Sir, that is a consequential Amendment.

At the outset, I apologise to the House for the number of Amendments standing on the Notice Paper in my name and in the names of some of my hon. Friends. To a large extent they are drafting Amendments and have arisen from the speed with which the Bill had to be drafted in view of my good fortune in drawing the first place in the Ballot.

This one is a drafting Amendment, but the second one to line 18, to leave out "lottery" and to insert:

"lottery to which this section applies."

is of more substance. Its purpose is simple. It seeks only to ensure that the lotteries which are legal under the 1934 Act remain legal and are not affected by this Measure. This Bill creates a new kind of lawful lottery and we want to make it clear that those which are already lawful are in no way made illegal by its terms.

Of course, it is possible for a particular lottery to be legal both under this Bill and under the 1934 Act, and in that case it is not affected. However, there are cases where it has been realised that, as the Bill is drafted, lotteries which are legal under the 1934 Act might also have to comply with the conditions of this Bill. We do not wish that to be the case, because those are already protected, particularly in regard to the persons to whom tickets can be sold.

I beg to second the Amendment.

I am not clear what my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, East (Mr. Ernest Davies) intends by the words

"… to any lottery (not being a lottery which is deemed not to be unlawful by virtue of any other enactment) …"

which appear in his Amendment. He explained that some of the small lotteries which are legal under an earlier Act might fall outside the scope of the Bill. Perhaps he would explain it in a little greater detail.

I must reply to my hon. Friend by repeating what I have already said. As the Bill now stands, lotteries which are legal under the 1934 Act might have to comply with the terms of the Bill, including registration with local authorities. Under the 1934 Act the lotteries which could operate did not have to register with the local authority. Those lotteries are confined to people working in the same offices or living in the same building and there are certain other minor provisions. That being so, we did not see any reason why we should extend the terms of the Bill to cover those lotteries.

I beg to move, in page 2, line 11, to leave out from the first "purposes" to the end of line 12 and to insert:

"of the society, being purposes described in paragraphs (a), (b) or (c) of subsection (1) of this section."

The Amendment tightens up the provisions of the subsection. The intention is that funds raised from the lotteries shall be used only for the purposes of the society as defined in subsection (1). It may well be that certain societies have other purposes than those defined here, and it is necessary to make it clear that any proceeds of a lottery shall not be used for any other purposes than those stated by the Bill, such as charitable purposes, athletic sports or games, cultural activities or other purposes not for private gain.

The Amendment merely represents a further protection to ensure that the proceeds of lotteries are used for the purposes which the House approved on Second Reading.

I beg to second the Amendment.

I beg to move, in page 2, line 15, to leave out "seven and a half" and to insert "ten."

When the Bill obtained its Second Reading it contained the figure of 5 per cent. During the Committee stage an Amendment by the hon. Member for Faversham (Mr. P. Wells) was accepted, altering it to 7½ per cent. Since then I and other hon. Members have received representations from persons interested in the Bill to the effect that 7½ percent. for expenses is, in all the circumstances, not adequate.

The main reason for this is the considerable costs of printing. I will not weary the House with details, but I have had a number of quotations for the printing of lottery tickets of various sizes, and the percentages for printing alone of the likely receipts vary between 5 and 8 per cent. There are also various expenses such as postage, clerical assistance and bank charges. In almost every case the expenses would amount to more than 7½ per cent. One of the problems is that one cannot be certain of selling all the tickets that are printed and that raises the percentage of costs. In those circumstances, it is felt that 10 per cent. is the minimum if the Bill is to work satisfactorily.

I need not elaborate the matter very much. I would merely point out that the object of the Bill is to ensure compliance with the law, and it would be most unfortunate nowadays, when prices are tending to rise, if the effect of setting too small a percentage for expenses led to people evading the provisions of the Bill and returning to the existing situation in which no one is quite certain whether or not the law is to be enforced.

I beg to second the Amendment.

After the clear and concise way in which the Amendment has been moved by the hon. Member for Aldershot (Sir E. Errington) the House may feel that it is not necessary for me to say very much about it.

However, we shall no doubt be asked why the original figure was 5 per cent., why it was altered in Committee to 7½ per cent., and why we now seek to make it 10 per cent. The House will need to give some consideration to this point. It may well be argued, as it was in Committee, that the increase will necessarily reduce the net amount going to the charitable purposes for which the lottery is conducted.

I suggest that those who will be conducting these lotteries on behalf of their organisation will, naturally, not wish to have expenses any greater than need be for the lottery to be conducted efficiently. If they can run the lottery for an expense of 5 or 6 per cent., they will clearly do so, because they will be seeking to assist their organisations as much as possible. It cannot, therefore, be validly argued that there will be extravagance in promotion to take advantage of the extra expenses.

The hon. Member for Aldershot put his finger on the main point behind the Amendment. We hope that we are here legislating for lotteries for a considerable time. The House will recall that the last time this matter was before the House was in 1934, and one can well wonder what a percentage fixed in 1934 would have been worth today had it been based on costs then obtaining for printing, postage and other considerations. Clearly, we do not want the Bill to be completely unworkable in two or three years' time. I do not want to make a political point, but costs are obviously going up. Printing costs have risen during the time that the Bill has been before the House. Any time now there may well be a considerable increase in postal charges over and above those already announced.

It will be very foolish for the House to put the Bill on the Statute Book while containing a provision which might later make it unworkable. We should then come back to the position, which we all wish to avoid, that the lotteries will be conducted in places where for one reason or another the police are less interested or less vigilant, but it will not be possible in other places for the same bodies to use the same means of raising money. I beg to the House to accept the Amendment. The hon. Member for Aldershot has already given figures and we could supply detailed figures of the cost of printing tickets which is the necessary first step in the promotion of a lottery.

The House will appreciate that obviously these costs are much greater pro rata for those who are running a small lottery. None of us has any objection to lotteries being run by organisations where the total amount involved is £60 or £100 or even less, but in those cases the cost per ticket is higher. One can print many tickets more cheaply per ticket than one can print a few tickets. It is doubtful whether even today a lottery can be promoted with a figure of 7½ per cent. expenses.

In Committee, I put down an Amendment, which I later withdrew, to increase the figure to 10 per cent. for small lotteries to give assistance to those promoting lotteries involving £50 or less. However, the more I thought about it and the more representations I received the more I thought it was undesirable to have a complicated arrangement of that sort. This is a Bill which will have to be operated by a great number of people without much legal knowledge and the figure of 10 per cent. for all lotteries is the best and fairest arrangement.

I hope that the House will decide not to accept the Amendment. It confirms the apprehensions which many of us felt and expressed in the Second Reading debate. We made the point quite clear and said that we regarded the Bill merely as the first instalment towards achieving a much wider purpose, and that we considered it as the beginning of the opening of the door towards something very much bigger than was proposed in the Bill in its original form.

Five per cent. was the permitted amount for expenses when the Bill was given its Second Reading. In Committee there was an Amendment to increase that figure to 7½ per cent. The matter was given prolonged consideration in Committee. Many hon. Members, of whom I was one, expressed some concern at that proposal and some of us went to the length of dividing the Committee against it, because we felt that 5 per cent. was adequate and that the case for an increase to 7½ per cent. had not been made out. In its wisdom or otherwise, the Committee came to the conclusion that the points brought forward by various hon. Members could be met by accepting the increase to 7½ per cent.

One thing leads to another and the increase from 5 per cent. to 7½ per cent. has encouraged other hon. Members to wish to have a larger percentage which will reduce the amount which will be available for the charities. Emboldened by their success, at this late stage they have come to the House and suggested that 7½ per cent. should be increased to 10 per cent. I hope that the House will register its disapproval when the opportunity comes of both the tactics involved in the matter and the merits of the proposal.

The hon. Member for Enfield, East (Mr. Ernest Davies) emphasised a number of points on Second Reading. He made it clear that he was mainly concerned with making it possible for small lotteries to be held for the purpose of benefiting charities and other public objects and that it was his desire that all elements of commercialism or private profit should be removed from the scope of what he was advocating. I want to examine the matter for a moment or two from that point of view. The hon. Member made the point that he conceived the Bill as following the recommendations of the Royal Commission on Betting, Lotteries and Gaming, which reported in 1951.

The Royal Commission made it clear that it considered that the Betting and Lotteries Act, 1934, which at present governs lotteries, was working satisfactorily where lotteries were concerned and it did not advocate any change in the law. It went on to say that if Parliament was to decide that there should be a Measure to legalise small lotteries for charitable and other public purposes, there were various conditions which should be incorporated in it. One of the conditions recommended by the Royal Commission, in page 122 of its Report, was that no administrative expenses should be allowed except for printing and stationery.

Many of us held the view, and do so still, that 5 per cent. should be adequate to cover printing and stationery, which were the only items for which the Royal Commission said provision should be made in an expense allowance. I maintain that 5 per cent. was much more in line with the recommendation of the Royal Commission than 7½ per cent. and certainly much more in line than 10 per cent. In the Committee we had the benefit of a fairly prolonged consideration of the matter and we also had the benefit of the advice of the then Joint Under-Secretary to the Home Office, who gave the Committee the view of the Home Office on this matter.

I want to detain the House for a moment by reading what the then Joint Under-Secretary said in the advice which he gave to the Committee. The right hon. Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede) had asked that the Home Office should indicate its view and the Joint Under-Secretary said:

"If the right hon. Gentleman invites me to speak, I will express the view of the Government. The discussion has revealed that the Committee agrees that a figure of 7½ per cent. is about right. The Government are concerned to see that an excessive figure is not adopted, but it is for the Committee to decide on what is a reasonable figure. I should say that 7½ per cent. appears to the Government to be reasonable and, if the Committee see fit to accept that figure, I shall raise no objection."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Standing Committee C; 7th December, 1955, c. 24.]

11.30 a.m.

I think that the Committee was largely influenced, and, I think, properly influenced, by the view of the Home Office on this matter and although some of us remained dissatisfied with the increase, the majority felt, in the light of the advice of the Home Office, that they could support the figure of 7½ per cent. Certainly, no case has been made this morning, and I do not believe that one can be made for the proposed further increase to 10 per cent. I hope, therefore, that the House will reject the Amendment and adopt the view of the Government and the Home Office that 7½ per cent. is sufficient.

The hon. Member for Wimbledon (Mr. Black) has rendered good service by reminding us that this matter is not being considered for the first time this morning and that the House, through its Standing Committee, gave serious consideration to it at an earlier stage. We shall make ourselves ridiculous if we are to have this leapfrogging of increased costs allowed to the promotors of these lotteries. The sum of 2s. in the £ is a lot of money to allow for expenses in running a simple lottery.

What expenses are incurred? It has already been made clear that:

"… no remuneration shall be paid in respect of the lottery to the promotor or to any person employed by him in connection therewith who carries on a betting business or is otherwise engaged by way of business in the organisation of betting."

An allowance of 10 per cent. would open the way to an evasion of the law. It would be an incitement and encouragement to people to evade some of the earlier provisions of Clause 1. We shall make ourselves ridiculous if we cannot stand by a figure which was reached after reasonable deliberation in Committee.

Few other organisations in our social set-up are premitted to charge up to 10 per cent. for expenses of this nature. The cost of printing is known to every hon. Member, because we have our own printing bills at Election time; but we also know that the cost when running small lotteries is very much smaller. I assume that 6d tickets or even 3d. tickets will be sold—we all know the sort of thing where five tickets are offered for 1s. just to encourage people to buy them, and we all know how much money is made. We are being dishonest if we pretend that a lot of money is not made through lotteries.

There is no need for an allowance of 10 per cent., because the profit made now is shown after deduction of expenses, and we know that the promoters do very well. That is why they want the position legalised. I do not like the Bill at all, quite honestly. To me a small lottery is no more worthy in principle than a big lottery. The principle is exactly the same, and we ought to face the fact that if the House is to acknowledge the principle of gambling as part of our way of life we shall open the door to something very much wider indeed.

I do not expect my hon. Friend the Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede), who thinks of Epsom every other moment, to go very far to meet me on this point, but I expect him to say, from his long experience, that an allowance of 7½ per cent. is enough for any promoter and that to ask for 10 per cent. really proves the case for our uneasiness about the whole business. I certainly am prepared to go into the Lobby to vote against the Amendment.

I was not a member of the Standing Committee, and my reason for taking an interest today is that I have had a communication from my constituency from people who run these small lotteries expressing apprehension that 7½ per cent. is not enough. I have no conscience in the matter at all; I voted for the Bill. The important question is that of the cost of printing. My hon. Friend the Member for Wimbledon (Mr. Black) asked what had happened since the Bill was considered in Committee. One thing has happened. We have had a printing strike and, although the London printers have gone back to work, they are still negotiating on the findings of a Court of Inquiry which recommended substantial increases in pay.

Perhaps I ought to declare my interest. I am the proprietor of certain trade and technical journals, and I know how much the cost of printing has gone up. We also have to send out circulars, etc., and the cost there has also increased. I should be extremely surprised if before the next General Election a request for candidates to have increased expenses allowed because of printing charges is not necessary.

I agree with the hon. Member for Sheffield, Park (Mr. Mulley) that we want to make the Bill workable. I am doubtful whether 7½ per cent. is enough. All who are interested in the matter have had circulated to us some specimen charges for printing, and one can see that with an allowance of 7½ per cent. there would be very little left to cover other expenses. It is to the small lotteries, much more than to the big ones, that the printing costs percentage will be of great importance. I do not believe that anybody will get rich on this extra 2½ per cent., but we ought now to make the figure 10 per cent. This is our last opportunity. We cannot bring the Bill back again in another year. Once it is on the Statute Book it will have to survive for a long time. I heartily support the Amendment.

This is a narrow issue, and I hope that hon. Members who are opposed to the Bill itself and to betting generally will not seek to divide the House on it. I share the opposition of the hon. Member for Wimbledon (Mr. Black) to betting generally, and I hope that when he promotes a Bill to abolish the Stock Exchange he will ask me to sign it, too.

My hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, West (Mr. G. Thomas) can be assured that there is no danger of these expenses being used for any other purpose, because the Bill itself protects the moneys involved in lotteries from being used by the promoters for their own personal interest. Moreover, no lottery promoter will wilfully add to his expenses. He wishes either to benefit the charity or the prize money, and obviously he will keep his expenses down within the 10 per cent. if he can.

I support the Amendment, because I think it benefits the little lottery. The promoters of small raffles with a total income and expenditure involving some £2 or £3 will have to buy tickets which I am assured cost more than 4s., and they will find themselves unable, because of the terms of the Bill, to proceed with what they have been doing regularly week by week. I think that 7½ per cent. is reasonable for the lottery or raffle involving £200 or £300, but if we leave the figure at 7½ per cent., we may make illegal the very small lotteries—the only kind of lotteries in which I am interested—which this Bill is designed to protect. I hope that the Amendment will be accepted.

I wish to give an example which may influence hon. Members who are opposed to this Amendment. Suppose a small raffle has been organised, either by a church or a charity or whatever it may be. The promoters go through the normal process of preparation; they get their printing done, and so on. Then suppose that a General Election is suddenly announced and the whole idea of the raffle has to be abandoned. The expenses already incurred would represent far more than the figure of 7½ per cent., assuming that the promoters were calculating that they would obtain £400 or £500. Such a case is one in which a figure of 7½ per cent. would be totally inadequate to meet their obligations.

For the sake of the smaller kinds of lotteries, and in view bf the fact that the difference represents only 2½ per cent., I hope that the House will accept the Amendment.

I feel that there has been some misunderstanding about this matter. Why were not these views put forward earlier during the Committee stage?

The hon Member was not a member of the Committee.

The information was known to the Committee. The hon. Member for Lewisham, North (Sir A. Hudson) referred to the cost of advertising. What kind of advertising will be necessary? I know it has been said that the promoters have their minds on running at a small expense, but I do not think that that is so. I am of opinion that those people who want to gamble will exploit the situation and advertise as much as possible. This was all known during the Committee stage of the Bill.

I know that I am not permitted to discuss other parts of the Bill, but there is a request for bigger amounts of prize money—[HON. MEMBERS: "No."]—bigger funds, and there we see the same point of view. I hope that the Committee will reject this Amendment. What has been said this morning reveals a desire for publicity, and I shall oppose the Amendment.

I am sure that all hon. Members, whether they are in favour of the Bill or whether they oppose it, will agree that if this Measure is to be placed upon the Statute Book, it should arrive there in a workable form. Strong representations have been made to me from my constituency that the Bill will be unworkable unless the figure of 7½ per cent. is increased. The promoters of a lottery involving a sum up to £50 would be able to expend only £3 10s. under the 7½ per cent. figure. It would not be worth while to have a lottery for anything under £50 and, therefore, small lotteries would not be held. That would constitute an invitation to organise larger lotteries, but even then the figure of 7½ per cent. would be inadequate.

Suppose an organiser sent out tickets of a maximum value of £500 and not all the tickets were sold, what would happen then? The organiser would probably have spent the £37 10s. which he is allowed to do and then would discover that he had broken the law although he has done so quite unconsciously. What would happen to him? Unless we increase the figure to 10 per cent., we shall be inviting people to break the law. I agree with the hon. Member for lichen (Dr. King) that we should protect the smaller lottery and if we put a Bill on the Statute Book which proves to be unworkable we shall merely confuse the situation.

The hon. Member for Wimbledon (Mr. Black) said that the supporters of this Amendment were doing so because they received encouragement during the Committee discussions, when an Amendment was successfully moved to increase the permitted amount for expenses from 5 per cent. to 7½ per cent. I moved that Amendment, and at that time I did so because I was pressed by promoters of lotteries in my constituency to seek to increase the expense allowance to 12 per cent., 15 per cent. and even to 20 per cent. I obtained particulars regarding a long-established and well-conducted lottery which is held in my constituency, and on the facts supplied to me I was satisfied at that time that 7½ per cent. for allowances would meet the situation.

Since then, as has already been stated, there have been considerable increases in the costs of printing, and I now find that to run the lottery about which I obtained information before moving my Amendment during the Committee stage it would be necessary to increase the permitted expenses to 10 per cent. For that reason I shall support this Amendment.

May I remind the hon. Member for Faversham (Mr. P. Wells) that he says now that he supports an increase from 7½ per cent. to 10 per cent. because of increases in the cost of printing? Has the hon. Member overlooked the fact that during the Committee discussions he said:

"… since that time there has been a great increase in the cost of paper and printing, and in the wages of compositors and other printing workers. Consequently, the cost of running a lottery has increased tremendously."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Standing Committee C. 7th December, 1955; c. 24.]

The hon. Member has taken that factor into account once in gaining the increase to 7½ per cent. and now he wishes to take it into consideration a second time in order to increase the figure of 7½ per cent. to 10 per cent.

Since that time there has been at least two increases in the price of paper and one substantial increase in the cost of printing.

The hon. Member for Wimbledon (Mr. Black) and my hon. Friends on this side of the House who have opposed this Amendment have been speaking under some misapprehension. They need entertain no fear that money will be made out of lotteries if the people running them can charge legitimate expenses of £50 on the maximum figure instead of £37 10s. The position has changed since we debated this matter in the Standing Committee three months ago. I suggest that if the hon. Member for Wimbledon reads through the proceedings again, he will find that a number of hon. Members were even then doubtful whether the amount of 7½ per cent. was sufficient. The hon. Member for the Isle of Thanet (Mr. Rees-Davies) suggested that it should be 10 per cent. or 15 per cent.

All hon. Members interested in this Bill have received correspondence, not only from constituency parties but from supporters of clubs of all sorts and other organisations, making representations that the figure of 7½ per cent. is inadequate. But even were 7½ per cent. adequate now, it would be the bare minimum, and within a period, it may be in twelve months' time, it would prove inadequate. We are now in an inflationary period when costs are rising, and apparently it is not possible to keep them down. As a matter of fact, some claim that it costs them 20 per cent. to run these lotteries at the present time, and I have had representations made to me to that effect. Of course, so far as the pools are concerned, with which we are not dealing today, the expenses are as high as 20 or 30 per cent.

I would remind hon. Members who oppose this Amendment that these lotteries are to be run by charitable societies or organisations purely for the sake of raising moneys for those societies, and not for private gain. The people concerned give their time voluntarily. If it is necessary to convince the House of the expenses involved in running such lotteries, many of us can quote figures in support. I will give the House some figures which reached me only this morning in a letter from Dover. There, a society ran a lottery on the Grand National. The total income was just under £100 and the expenses came to £10 5s., of which printing represented eight guineas.

If there are other expenses in addition to printing of less than £2and that is just about 10 per cent. how is anybody going to make any money out of running such a lottery? Again, the same society ran a lottery on the St. Leger. In that case, the proceeds amounted to £98 and the total expenses to £9 13s., of which printing represented £7 10s.

I suggest that this is a reasonable Amendment, and, as the promoter of the Bill, I am quite satisfied that a case has been made out for it. I suggest that the Committee should accept it. I hope that hon. Members will not find it necessary to take the matter to a Division. I do not believe that it is a point of sufficient substance to justify dividing the House on it.

The sum involved is not very great. There are restrictions on the size of the lotteries and on the way in which they can be operated. Conditions have changed considerably since the time of the Royal Commission's Report. The hon. Member for Wimbledon (Mr. Black) said that we had stated that we were not going beyond what the Royal Commission had recommended. But I would remind the hon. Gentleman that considerable changes have taken place since 1934, the chief one of which is that a large number of lotteries which were intended to be legalised under the 1934 Bill were found, by certain law decisions, to be illegal.

I beg to move, in page 2, line 22, to leave out "five hundred" and to insert "seven hundred and fifty."

I suggest that we should discuss, at the same time, the following Amendment, in line 22, standing in the name of the hon. Member for Ayr (Sir T. Moore).

That, I think, Mr. Speaker, would be very convenient to the House if it is agreeable to my hon. Friend the Member for Ayr (Sir T. Moore).

This Amendment does, of course, raise the whole principle of the Bill, but I see no need to waste the time of the House by repeating the arguments which were put so well from both sides of the House on Second Reading and during the Committee stage. I wish to submit, quite shortly, that in my opinion, £500 is too small a sum after deducting expenses—now allowed at 10 per cent. and prize money, to achieve the objects of the Bill.

Personally, I should have like to make it £1,000. I share the views of my hon. Friend, but I thought, out of deference to the feelings of some hon. Members opposite who, I know, feel strongly on this matter, that £750 might be accepted by them as a reasonable compromise, and if they will take it in that spirit I am prepared to close the deal on that.

If we are to keep the figure at £500, and allow for a deduction of 10 per cent. for expenses plus the prize money, the main object of the promoters will not be achieved. I know that many hon. Members object in principle to this Bill altogether. They do not like lotteries. But I think that even they admit that the law at present makes nonsense, and has been brought into considerable disrepute as a result. They do not like lotteries; I do. I like small lotteries, I like medium lotteries and I like big lotteries; and I hope to live to see the day when we have State lotteries. At the present rate of progress of inflation. I believe that that day cannot be far off.

I appreciate that certain hon. Members opposite do not fully share my views on this matter; and I would only add that if we are going to introduce a Bill dealing with lotteries in any shape or form then, surely, those hon. Members would agree that we might as well do it on a scale that makes it worth while. If we restrict the sum to £500, with the expenses involved, then I do not think that all the trouble to which the House was put on Second Reading and in Committee will have been worth it. I think that £750 will make it just worth while, and that is why I move this Amendment. I confidently hope that it will receive universal acceptance.

I beg to second the Amendment.

This Amendment has been so ably moved by my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeenshire, East (Sir R. Boothby) that all I wish to do is to remind the House that both my party and the party opposite have had great difficulty during the last ten years in stabilising the value of money. Therefore, if £500 is considered even by the opponents of the Bill to be a reasonable figure, and if we do not want to have this matter rehashed again in a few years' time, it would be a wise thing to make the figure in the Bill at this stage sufficiently large in order to be a worthwhile figure in the years to come.

When we consider that Warwick the Kingmaker had an income of £200 a year and realise that whatever Government has been in power money has dropped in value considerably over the centuries, I think it wise, when passing a Bill of this sort, to fix the figure at a reasonably high level.

I do not share the views of the hon. Member for Ormskirk (Mr. Glover)—much as I dislike his Government—that between the Committee stage and the present stage of the Bill the cost of living has risen by 50 per cent. and thus necessitates an increase in the prize money of £250. I hope that the House will dig in its heels. This is certainly not an occasion on which to raise the figure.

We are talking about small lotteries and from the very beginning we have had in mind the little people. I hope that in spite of the blandishments of the hon. Member for Aberdeenshire, East (Sir R. Boothby), we shall dig in our heels, proceed to discuss more important matters and leave the prize money at £500.

As will be seen, my name is down as supporting this Amendment and it is also down to a further Amendment to raise the sum to £1,000. I happen to be associated with a number of charities of which, in two or three cases, I am the hon. treasurer. There is no doubt in my mind that the chief source of income of many worthwhile charities today comes from running these more or less small raffles. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] Oh, yes, it does, and also through the kindly assistance of the people as a whole doing what their consciences tell them to do, that is, to support such societies and, at the same time, to have a little fun out of it by having a raffle. That is a perfectly human and natural emotion. Some of our churches and many admirable charities are really dependent on this method of raising money.

Which churches?

We are faced with three sums £500, £750 and £1,000. I think, as my hon. Friend so admirably put it, that £500 is obviously too low.

The hon. Gentleman has made a very serious statement. He said that many of our churches were dependent upon this sort of lottery. Would he be good enough to give the House an instance?

Certainly not. I am not going to be carried into an argument about the moral qualities either of the Methodist Church or any other Church. There are churches which very properly support the various building programmes and other methods of extending their work by the aid of charity bazaars in which raffles take place. I cannot see any reason for any hon. Member of this House getting hot about this, because it is doing no harm at all.

It does not happen in Wales.

I believe we are all agreed that £500 is too low. Some may think £1,000 is too high. Personally, I do not believe that it is. I think that the more money we can rake in for admirable purposes of this kind the better, especially as it has been pointed out that the expenses are going up and that an inflationary period, if not altered, will mean that they may go on increasing. But as I see that the temper of the House is now fixed on £750, I would be prepared to agree to that figure and not press for £1,000.

Speaking entirely for myself, I supported the Bill on Second Reading because it was to deal with small lotteries. While listening to the speech of the hon. Member for Ayr (Sir T. Moore), I began to wonder, when he reached the figure of £1,000, whether he would ask the question, "Any advance on £1,000?" I still feel that £500 is about the right figure for a small lottery, and I want to see the people supporting the small lotteries given an opportunity of remaining within the law.

I hope, if I catch your eye, a little later, Sir, to deal with my hon. Friend's reference to Epsom. Let me say that this Bill will not add or subtract anything from the glories of Epsom, but I feel that we are now getting on to the slippery slopes which some people feared from the first. If there is a desire to go beyond the small lottery—and £500 is quite big enough for that—there ought to be a Government Measure and it should take into account the whole of the issues raised by the hon. Member for Aberdeenshire. East (Sir R. Boothby).

I do not say that I would be opposed to such a Measure when I saw its details. This, however, is a Bill to deal with small lotteries, and I do not want to see it so inflated that, no matter what may be the fate of general inflation, this will be allowed to run away. I hope that the House will not support the Amendment of the Hon. Member for Aberdeenshire, East or the more ambitious, but I thing, rather more sincere, Amendment of the hon. Member for Ayr.

I wish to support the objections to both these Amendments, voiced by the right hon. Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede), because I find myself in most complete agreement on this occasion with the reasons he has advanced for objecting to them. Before I go on to my main argument, may I express a sense of regret, which, I think, many hon. Members will feel, about what was said by my hon. Friend the Member for Ayr (Sir T. Moore) concerning the practice of the churches in this matter.

It is not my purpose to suggest that there are no churches which take part in raffles or lotteries for the purpose of raising church funds for building projects or other church purposes, but I think it is only right and fair, seeing that the matter has been raised, to say that a large majority of the churches of various denominations look with the greatest disfavour upon the use of these methods for the purpose of raising money for church or other Christian work. It is quite wrong to suggest to the House or to convey the impression that these kinds of practices are general or widespread among the churches, or are indulged in by more than a small minority of them. I think that it is right that I should have an opportunity of saying this to try to put the matter right.

The right hon. Member for South Shields spoke of getting on to the slippery slope. I was going to refer to the fact that this is further evidence of the thin end of the wedge which many of us foresaw when the Bill was introduced. We are now having revealed to us the real and ultimate intentions of some of those who, up to the moment, under the guise of innocence, have given their support to a Bill to regularise the position in regard to small lotteries. They are not really concerned with maintaining these lotteries within the category of small lotteries, but are merely concerned with using one advance as a springboard towards a further advance—to go on from 5 per cent. to 10 per cent. in the case of the expenses and from £500 to £750 or £1,000 as the total value of the tickets that may be sold.

I am very glad that my hon. Friend describes it as an advance. That is very important.

One can advance towards the darkness as well as towards the light. That is the error into which my hon. Friend and those who think like him are falling.

The way in which the argument has been developed this morning is rather significant. One of the arguments advanced in favour of increasing the total value of the tickets is that, now that the percentage expense has been increased to 10 per cent., £500 is no longer adequate and ought to be raised to some larger figure. My hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeenshire, East (Sir R. Boothby) suggested £750. This is an example of using one departure from the original purpose of the Bill in order progressively to justify other departures as we go further into this matter.

The arguments which have been advanced in favour of this Amendment—I do not think that those who approve of it will disagree with this—are arguments which would be equally relevant if we made the figure £1,500, £2,000, £5,000, or £10,000. There is no kind of merit in the argument which says that because of the reasons given the figure ought to be £750 instead of £500 or that it ought to be £1,000 instead of £500. If we accept the arguments advanced they would be just as relevant to any larger figure, however great that figure may be, over and above £1,000, which is the highest figure which has been put before the House today. I hope that we shall stick to the figure of £500 for the reasons given by the right hon. Member for South Shields.

I think that the putting down of two Amendments at two different figures is rather naive. I could not help thinking that when my hon. Friend the Member for Ayr (Sir T. Moore) saw that an Amendment to increase the figure to £750 was on the Order Paper, he thought, "I will put down an Amendment to increase it to £1,000. That then makes £750 the mean figure between the £500 in the Bill and the £1,000 which I am seeking to achieve in my Amendment, and would give me the opportunity possibly of achieving a very typical business compromise and the mean difference between £1,000 and £500."

What is the matter with that?

There is nothing the matter with that as long as hon. Members realise exactly what methods are being adopted to achieve this purpose. I cannot think that hon. Members will fall for anything so naive as that. I hope that we shall adhere to the idea of small lotteries with a limit of £500.

I hope no attempt will be made to arouse any feeling over the fact that some churches—and possibly chapels, too—

Which chapels?

I think there are some.

Give the details.

I think it is a pity to try to arouse feeling in this way. This is a serious matter and we must not try to arouse religious prejudice. We all have a right to our opinions on this matter. Some religious organisations do raise money in this way and do not think it wrong, whilst others think that it is wrong. It is a common practice in this country for religious organisations to try to raise money for purposes connected with their organisations in this way, and the House is trying to deal with that subject. I hope we shall be tolerant and not raise these matters in the course of the debate.

I do not think there is the thin end of the wedge here, but that this is merely a question of trying to keep pace with inflation. Unfortunately, the value of money has been dropping in recent years, and it may continue to drop. We hope that it will not, but it has gone down and it is a fact that the proceeds of £500 from a lottery for a purpose connected with some public object are worth less now than a year or two years ago. Surely there is no ulterior motive here and no question of trying to extend lotteries all over the country when we take note of that fact. In the same way as we have just dealt with the question of expenses and the House has accepted the principle there because of inflation, we should now agree to increase the total amount. I see no earthly reason why the same principle should not be applied in the case of the total amount.

I was not on the Committee which dealt with the Bill, but when I heard that the limit was to be £500 I must say that I felt some apprehension because, from personal experience, I knew there were many draws of a perfectly usual nature in which the amount was £600 or £700. My wife was a secretary of a club which had a draw at Christmas time, which she organised. Quite often it raised more than £500. Unfortunately, she was appointed a justice of the peace and was advised to have her name removed from the tickets.

In my constituency, I am told, there are no fewer than 323 societies of one type or another, all kinds of sporting clubs, dramatic and musical associations, etc., and a few of them run draws of a reasonable nature in which the total amount is more than £500. If we have a limit of £500 the total amount raised will be really about £450. The promoters would have to be cautious to see that they did not go beyond £500 if that was the legal limit, whereas, if the limit was £750 the total sales of tickets would, in practice, not exceed about £650, and I think that would be very reasonable.

There has been some talk about the fall in the value of money. It is said that it is about a third of what it was before the war. If we relate that to the position in 1938 we find that the total of £650 would be equal to just over £200 before the war.

Is the hon. Member suggesting that the value of money has gone down one-third since this Bill was in Committee?

I am not suggesting that at all. I am speaking of the position about twenty years ago, and suggesting that a draw which before the war would raise £200 would require today about £650 to raise an equivalent amount. To raise £650 for a charity a total of £750 would be needed. This proposal would be very helpful to many organisations, and I hope that the House will accept the figure of £750.

I belong to that class of people referred to by the hon. Member for Ayr (Sir T. Moore) who do not like lotteries, but my dislike of them is not uniform. The bigger they are the more I dislike them.

When we were discussing this Bill on Second Reading the promoters went to some lengths to assure those of us who were not favourably impressed that it was only the small lottery with which they were concerned. They spoke of little lotteries held in connection with bazaars run by political organisations, to collect relatively small amounts of money which otherwise were difficult to collect because many people—I do not say all—were not ready to put their hands in their pockets unless there was some chance of a reward for doing so. As I see it, if we increase the stakes, as is now proposed, we shall be changing the whole character of the proposals of the Bill.

Many of us have relatively small objections to little lotteries, but when big lotteries, organised in a big way to collect £1,000 are involved, the matter is entirely different. I hope that the Amendment will not be accepted.

I wonder whether the House is making unnecessarily heavy weather about an extra £250. The hon. Member for Enfield, East (Mr. Ernest Davies) made the point that expenses had gone up to or were slightly above the 10 per cent. mark. I certainly have had evidence sent to me from a variety of organisations all tending to emphasise that contention.

If we accept that, and look at what would be done if we put up the total value of tickets which may be sold from £500 to £750, that would allow for an increase in the prize money from £250 to £375 and an increase in the amount that the promoters can take out of the draw from £200 to £300. In fact we are arguing about whether a society or charity can or cannot make up to a maximum of another £100. With due respect to the right hon. Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede), I cannot see that to increase the profits to be made from £200 to £300 can possibly take a lottery out of the category of a small lottery and make it a large lottery.

rose—

If the right hon. Gentleman will allow me, I think I shall probably cover the point that he has in mind.

One could, of course, apply that argument until the figure was £400, £500 or £600. That is not what we are trying to do. We are agreed that there is to be a limit to the gross proceeds of either £500 or £750; some will be satisfied with the one, and some will be satisfied with the other. None of us, I am sure, want to go further than the latter figure.

Fundamentally, we are arguing now about an increase of £100 in the amount that a charitable organisation can hope to make, and we may, therefore, be arguing about whether such organisations will sit back and hold only one lottery a year or whether they will perhaps hold two or three in an effort to make more money.

The hon. Member for East Aberdeenshire (Sir R. Boothby) is always a pleasant speaker. He makes unattractive propositions look attractive; he makes black look white. He did his best to do the same this morning, and I congratulate the hon. Gentleman. I agree that there is no need for us to get "het up" about the matter. I agreed with my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucestershire, West (Mr. Philips Price) when he used almost the same words, though I think that he was not exactly reasonable himself.

We need not get excited about this matter. It is a question of arithmetic. Sometimes arithmetic affects principle, and it does this morning. There is room for honest disagreement between us on this question. When we discussed a figure of 10 per cent., we heard about the poor little people worrying about £20 or £50. We have forgotten them now: they are not the people we are now concerned about; we are dealing with much bigger fish, thinking in terms of big money. A figure of £500 is a lot of money where I come from. We do not call £500 a small lottery—we retire on about £500. Of course, it may be true that money has lost its value. None the less, £500 is still a very attractive sum. Who is there, what organisation is there, who would not say, "Thank you very much" for £500? However, we shall be leading ourselves nowhere if we pretend that £500 is not the very limit that we can possibly accept for something which is supposed to be a small lottery.

The value of money has been brought into account this morning. These Friday debates are very interesting. It takes a Friday non-party issue for us to find hon. Gentlemen who support the Government falling over each other to tell us how much money is falling in value these days.

I particularly mentioned that it had happened under both Governments since the war, and, in fact, during the last 250 years.

Warwick the Kingmaker did not live under a Labour Government.

It is curious how these issues make strange bed-fellows; they cross all party boundaries. We are agreed, of course, that in this period of inflation money has lost its value. But where is the faith of hon. Gentlemen? Is the £ never to be restored in value? Shall we always have a Government who have no faith in the future of the £? Are we always to have a Government who say that the £ will be worth still less next year.

Is the hon. Gentleman suggesting that the £ should be revalued?

Not officially; but it is being revalued every day.

The Amendment really lets the cat out of the bag. It exposes the whole reason behind the activities of some hon. Gentlemen. I want to be reasonable to them as I know they will be to me if they speak after me. I cast my bread upon the waters. Why put a limit at all on the amount that can be gained? Why stop at £750? Why not £751, or £749? What is the special virtue or merit of £750? There is, of course, no merit other than its being £250 more than £500. Hon. Gentlemen are out to wrest as much as they can from this Measure.

I do not want to raise the temperature of the House, but reference was made to the activities of the churches and chapels. Everyone must speak for the Church which he knows best. I am a Methodist. I say to the House and to anybody who reads these words that what the hon. Member for Ayr (Sir T. Moore) had to say about churches depending upon gambling does not apply to the Methodist Church.

I did not say that.

We are here dealing, of course, with gambling. We can call it a lottery—sweet euphemism. It is gambling that we are talking about. We are here considering people who try to get something without effort, people who will not give 6d. to a charity unless there is a chance of getting a lot more than 6d. back again. That is the real issue we are concerned about now.

That is the sort of people the British are; they are always trying to do that.

I like the confidence of the hon. Gentleman. He is like my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Park (Mr. Mulley). He thinks that he speaks in this House for everyone in the rest of the country.

They cast their bread upon the waters, which I think the hon. Gentleman recommended.

It is not always that one finds a listener as quick to take up a point as is the hon. Gentleman. I was right; I was justified in casting my bread upon the waters.

I suggest that we leave the churches out of this discussion. I am quite sure I can say in strict truth that when my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucestershire, West referred to the activities of churches and chapels, he was not speaking for the chapels of the Forest of Dean. I should like that to be made perfectly clear. By all means, let us debate this matter with good humour and good spirit, disagreeing on principle; but let us not try to bring in our respective religious organisations in some sort of competition to show who is broadminded and who is narrow-minded.

Of course, I am narrow-minded. Any man worth his salt is narrow-minded about some things: there are limits which we set ourselves for our conduct on certain specific occasions. A man who is not narrow-minded in some matters is not a man at all. Of course I am narrow-minded: some hon. Members may say that I am a narrow-minded bigot. I do not mind; it is not hurtful, so long as they do not tell me.

If we vary this amount, we change the character of the Bill. We are going away from the declared intention of the promoter; I hope that he will stand firm, and that the House will reject the Amendment.

There are some hon. Members, and certainly many people in the country, who are not prejudiced one way or the other about small lotteries and this sort of gambling. All we are concerned about—hon. Members ought certainly to be concerned about it—is the legalisation of what some of us feel to be an innocent pastime.

If we are to legalise it, we ought to be very realistic about doing so. A small lottery should not be judged entirely by the amount of money involved. A small lottery covering a large area often involves a lot of money. In the case of a church bazaar or similar function a lottery may realise £20 or £30 and may be regarded as small or large according to the number of people attending. A similar lottery held by a cricket or football club covering a city the size of Birmingham, which has more than one million people, may still be a small lottery even if the amount involved is £750.

To be realistic, I feel I must support the Amendment. I do not think it should in any way harm the conscience of those who want to limit the size of lotteries. In any case, in the course of a few years the figure of £750 will have to be reviewed as it may then be too small, because the value of the £ always goes the same way whether we have Labour, Liberal or Conservative Governments.

We have had an interesting debate on the value of the £ and the extent to which the churches participate in gambling. Unlike the hon. Member for Aberdeenshire, East (Sir R. Boothby), I am not a lover of lotteries and that was not the reason why I introduced the Bill. In fact, the only lottery that I have ever won was the lottery which allowed me to be here this morning. The only lottery tickets which I have ever possessed have been those which I am more or less compelled to buy in my constituency, and I have never won any of those lotteries. Indeed, if one did so, one would feel compelled to return the prize.

The House ought to recall the Second Reading. The Bill was given an unopposed Second Reading on the basis of its being a Small Lotteries and Gaming Bill. During Second Reading it was not suggested on either side of the House that the amount of the proceeds should exceed £500, and it was not so suggested in Committee. The Second Reading took place in November, and it is true that the value of the £ has declined since then, but not even the present Government has succeeded in reducing it to such an extent as to justify the proposed increase of 50 per cent. in the total amount of proceeds permitted.

While the matter is clearly one for the House to decide, I, as the promoter of the Bill, after consultations with my colleagues, came to the conclusion that £500 was a reasonable sum to select in order to define a small lottery. I am unconvinced by the arguments put forward this morning in favour of increasing the amount to £750. I share the view expressed by my right hon. Friend that if larger lotteries are to be legalised, that is something for the Government to do. The Government have assured us that they are going to implement some of the recommendations of the Royal Commission, and when that legislation is brought before the House there will no doubt be opportunities for extending the scope of lotteries if the House so desires.

Whereas hon. Members will have received considerable representations about expenses, I very much doubt whether

The next Amendment is that in the name of the hon. Member for Sheffield, Park (Mr. Mulley). The hon. Member has a number of other Amendments which go with this one, and I think that we can deal with all of them together.

I think that that would be for the convenience of the House, Mr. Speaker.

I beg to move, in page 2, line 22, at the end, to insert:

"and if on any day on which tickets or chances in the lottery are on sale tickets or chances are on sale in another lottery to which this section applies promoted on behalf of the society, the total value of the tickets or chances sold in those lotteries taken together shall not exceed five hundred pounds".

The words "five hundred"—the last three words of this Amendment—will have to be changed to "seven hundred and fifty" in consequence of the Amendment which has just been made.

This is largely a drafting Amendment. Paragraph (m) of this subsection was inserted as an Amendment by my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, East (Mr. Ernest Davies), the promoter of the Bill, to avoid a difficulty very properly indicated by the hon. Member for Wimbledon (Mr. Black), the possibility of the provisions of the Bill being circumvented by a society's running three or four lotteries concurrently. We want to ensure that in a rather different way, and it is the purpose of this series of Amendments to ensure that a society shall not run two or more lotteries together if the total value of the lotteries exceeds the maximum prescribed in the Bill. The reason for doing it in this new form is a practical one. Many societies have a regular clientele for a weekly lottery, but they may want to have in addition a Christmas draw.

I would draw attention to the last of this series of Amendments. It requires that a return which has to be made under the Bill by a society shall include the dates between which the tickets in a lottery were sold, to make it easier for people to check to see that the amount involved did not exceed £750, the amount which the Bill now permits. The Amendment in page 3, line 33, provides that the various dates between those on which tickets are first and last sold shall be effective dates from the point of view of legal proceedings, and so there will not be any necessity, in the event of a prosecution, for the police to prove the sale of tickets on any one of those days.

The Amendments will permit two or more lotteries to be held by a society concurrently provided the maximum permitted amount is not exceeded.

I beg to second the Amendment.

I do not think that I need to go into this matter in very great detail. The effect of the Amendment in page 1, line 5, which the House has accepted, together with this Amendment and the consequential Amendment in page 2, line 44, make it unnecessary for me to move an Amendment which stands in my name and the names of my hon. Friends in page 3, line 5.

The Amendment which we are now considering will achieve the object which I have in mind, namely, to avoid a situation wherein if one of the lotteries is being held under this Bill when it becomes an Act at the same time as a legal lottery is being held under another Act, the lottery held under this Bill is illegal. That is an undesirable position.

I beg to move, in page 3, line 5, at the end to insert:

"and

(n) no child or young person of under eighteen years of age shall be permitted to undertake the sale of tickets".

I think that it would be for the convenience of the House if we considered, with this Amendment, the Amendment to the proposed Amendment in the name of the right hon. Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede), to leave out "eighteen" and insert "sixteen".

I submit to the House that this is by far the most important Amendment involving a principle which the House will consider today. I hope to introduce the Amendment with a minimum of heat and a maximum of reason. I feel sure that if we approach the matter in that way there is only one conclusion to which the House can come. I think that it will be generally agreed by hon. Members, however diverse their views may be on the general merits of the Bill, that there is a wisdom in keeping children and young people away from betting and gambling activities so far as we possibly can. Whatever views one might hold about it being right or wrong for adult people to engage in betting and gambling, I do not think that there is any serious doubt that it is other than wise for children and young persons to be subjected to this temptation.

Two main matters seem to arise from the Amendment. The first is whether there should be a prohibition at all against children and young people undertaking to sell lottery tickets. Secondly, if so, what is the appropriate age at which to draw the line? In Committee, I introduced an Amendment in terms similar to those of the Amendment which we are now considering.

After the matter had been discussed for some little time, the then Joint Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department suggested that there had been no opportunity for consultation with the various youth movements of the country, and that it would be unwise, in his opinion, for the Committee to reach a decision until such time as that consultation had taken place. His advice to the Committee, therefore, on behalf of the Government, was that if I could be induced not to press my Amendment in Committee, inquiry would be made in the meantime about the attitude of the youth organisations, and that if I or any other hon. Member saw fit, the Amendment could be discussed on Report in the light of the greater information which would then be available.

Consultation has taken place with a wide range of youth organisations, and it is right that I should tell the House of the result of those consultations. The following organisations favoured a prohibition of children and young people being allowed to undertake the sale of lottery tickets: the Boy Scouts Association, the Girl Guides Association, the Boys' Brigade, the Girls' Life Brigade, the Girls' Guildry, the Young Men's Christian Association, the National Association of Boys' Clubs, the Sea Cadet Corps, the St. John Ambulance Brigade, the National Sunday School Union—and I point out that there are still 3 million children in regular attendance in our Sunday Schools—and the British Council of Churches, representing all the main denominations other than the Roman Catholic Church.

All these organisations, having been consulted, have expressed themselves in favour of a prohibition. There is a certain difference of opinion among some of them about the age at which the prohibition should operate, and I will come to that in a moment, but on the principle of there being a prohibition all these organisations are unanimous.

The hon. Member mentioned the Catholic Church. Was it consulted?

I am not aware of that. The consultations were conducted in the main by the Home Office.

I understand that the Home Office approached the youth organisations but not the church organisations. The opinion which has been expressed by the British Council of Churches was not, I think, expressed as a result of it being invited to express it, but the Council attached such importance to the matter that it felt it wise to make its views known.

What were the considerations which led these very impressive and influential youth and church organisations to express such a united opinion in favour of the prohibition? I should like to read three letters—they are not unduly long—which I think fairly sum up the views of the organisations on this matter.

1.0 p.m.

The first letter was written by Lord Rowallan, the Chief Scout, to the Home Secretary. In it he gives the view of the Boy Scouts movement as follows:

"The Small Lotteries and Gaming Bill has been carefully considered by the Committee of the Council of the Boy Scouts Association"—

so we are not dealing here merely with the personal opinion of Lord Rowallan, important and valuable though that would be. He continues—

"and they were unanimously agreed on supporting Mr. Black's Amendment."—

that is, the Amendment which I am now commending to the House—

"We have always believed that one of the great temptations to young people is the temptation to get something for nothing. There are innumerable ways in which they can earn their funds by giving something in return. Raffles and similar methods, however popular they may be, have been forbidden in Scouting since the early days, and we earnestly hope that nothing will be done which will in any way encourage the boys to take part in such activities."

The second letter comes from Major General Wilson-Haffenden, the General Secretary of The Boys' Brigade. It was addressed to the Home Secretary, and reads as follows:

"I see from HANSARD dated 14th December, 1955, columns 57 and 58, that you are proposing to consult with youth organisations on this question of young persons selling lottery tickets. May I say at the outset that The Boys' Brigade, with its 200,000 members wholeheartedly supports the Amendment put forward by the hon. Member for Wimbledon. It is difficult enough to explain to boys the inherent evils of gambling when, in many of their homes, this is an everyday pursuit. This in its turn breeds a belief that there are easier ways of obtaining money than working for it, with results to our nation of which you, as Home Secretary, are only too well aware.

If the Amendment is not approved, our position will be considerably undermined, and some of our Companies may be tempted to adopt this method of raising funds. One of the main reasons why God has so abundantly blessed The Boys' Brigade, and enabled two million of our finest citizens to pass through its ranks, is because we have firmly set our face against less desirable methods of raising finance. We therefore hope that the Government will support this Amendment."

The third and last letter is from the Secretary of The British Council of Churches, which, as I have mentioned, represents all the principal Christian churches of this land with the exception of the Roman Catholic Church. This is what the Secretary writes in his letter which, unlike the other two, is addressed to me and not to the Home Secretary:

"I enclose a copy of a statement adopted by the Youth Department of the British Council of Churches which supports in strong terms your Amendment to exclude young people from the provisions of the Small Lotteries and Gaming Bill. We have sent this resolution to the Home Secretary, and it is also being communicated to the Press.

We would very much like it to become known that although many youth organisations have been unable to express an opinion on this question we, representing the youth work of all the non-Roman Catholic Churches in this country, are entirely convinced that the Bill will prove to be morally harmful to young people unless some such Amendment as that proposed by yourself during the Committee stage is adopted by Parliament."

The terms of the Resolution passed unanimously by the British Council of Churches and enclosed with the letter to me, are as follows:

"At its half-yearly meeting on 15th March, 1956, the Youth Department of the British Council of Churches considered the Small Lotteries and Gaming Bill now before Parliament, and particularly the Amendment proposed … by Mr. Cyril Black, M.P. during the Committee stage on 14th December, seeking to exclude young people under 18 from the provision of the Bill.

The Youth Department, deeply concerned for the spiritual and moral well-being of the young people of the nation, wishes to record its conviction that this Bill, whilst removing certain indefensible anomalies in the present law"—

I feel sure that the promoter of the Bill will be gratified that this purpose of the Bill has been recognised by the British Council of Churches—

"will undoubtedly lead to an increase of gambling, to the enfeeblement and impoverishment of national life. Further, the encouragement of lotteries for charitable purposes is destructive of the basic Christian principle of direct giving which we wish to see preserved among the young people growing up.

In considering Mr. Black's Amendment in the light of the above observations, the Youth Department of the British Council of Churches, is convinced that the planning of a lottery may prove to be as great a moral danger to the young as the actual selling and buying of tickets. The following resolution was accordingly unanimously passed:

'No child or person under 18 years of age should be permitted in any way to be concerned with the promotion of such a lottery either in organisation, sale or purchase of tickets.'"

Whether hon. Members of this House agree entirely, or not at all, with the opinions of the organisations to which I have referred, and with the reasons given for those opinions, they cannot fail to recognise two things: first, the extremely influential and comprehensive character of the organisations who have expressed themselves on this matter; secondly, the sincerity of the opinions advanced. It is open to any hon. Member to come to a different conclusion from those expressed in the letters and resolutions, but as to the sincerity and the public spirit of the organisations concerned, I am sure that hon. Members will agree there can be no question.

Now I pass to the second matter to which I want to direct the consideration of the House, namely, what is the appropriate age at which to draw the line? I know that the right hon. Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede) has tabled an Amendment which seeks to substitute the age of 16 for the age of 18 years in my Amendment. In matters of education and youth work, as in other matters, I have the greatest respect for the experience and the wisdom of the right hon. Gentleman. However, I want the House to consider two or three powerful arguments in favour of 18 as the age of prohibition in preference to the age of 16.

First, however, I will tell the House which of the national organisations supported the age limit of 18 and which preferred another age limit. Support for the age limit of 18 comes from the Boy Scouts, the Boys' Brigade, the Girls' Life Brigade, the Girls' Guildry, the Young Men's Christian Association, the National Sunday School Union and the British Council of Churches. There is support for an age limit of 16 from the Girl Guides, the National Association of Boy Scouts and the Sea Cadet Corps, whilst the junior section of St. John Ambulance Brigade apparently prefers the age of 15, which is the present school-leaving age.

I support and am asking the House to support the 18-year limit in preference to 16 or 15 years for several reasons which appear to me to be overwhelmingly convincing. The first is that among the youth organisations themselves there is a far greater body of support for the age of 18 than for a younger age. In Committee, the former Joint Under-Secretary of State evidently had in mind the view that the House should pay serious regard to the youth organisations and their opinion in this matter, otherwise there would have been no point in deferring the matter to ascertain the views of the youth organisations. We have obtained those views, and there is a tremendous preponderance of opinion among the youth organisations and the church organisations in favour of the age of 18 in preference to a younger age.

The second point is really one of convenience and practicability. At present there is a prohibition on young persons under 18 years of age being engaged in the selling of flags in the street on flag days and in taking part in house-to-house collections for charitable purposes. Therefore, that would appear to me to suggest that the view has been taken by the Home Office in the past that the right point at which to draw the line in regard to these activities is 18, and not a younger age.

If the House were to adopt the age of 16, as the right hon. Member for South Shields desires, we should have the entirely anomalous position that young people between 16 and 18 years of age could sell raffle tickets for charity while between those ages they would be debarred from collecting money from house to house for charitable purposes and would be debarred from selling flags on flag days for charities. To create that anomaly—to say that it is right for a young person aged 16 or 17 to be engaged in the sale of lottery tickets but wrong to be engaged in house-to-house collection or the selling of flags on flag days—is an anomalous position that cannot be justified.

If the House decides that the line should be drawn at 16 years of age in regard to the sale of lottery tickets, it seems to me inevitable that an early opportunity must be taken of lowering to 16 the age below which young people cannot take part in the selling of flags or in house-to-house collections. I think that on every ground of reason the age should be the same for the different purposes. This constitutes a very strong argument on practical grounds and on reasons of expediency for fixing the age at 18 and not at a lower age.

There is the third point—this is not an analogy but it is a point worth making in passing—that the limitation in regard to children and young people in respect of licensed premises is drawn at 18. There is ample support in the existing law of the country for saying that 18 is the age at which the line is normally drawn. I therefore commend to the House the view that the age be fixed at 18, if my Amendment is adopted, rather than at 16.

It is clear from what I have said that there is overwhelming public support on the part of both individuals and organisations most concerned with youth that this prohibition should be written into the Bill. It seems to me extraordinary to have achieved such a large measure of common agreement among a large number of organisations which on other matters might not agree one with the other. But here is an overwhelming consensus of opinion by those in touch with youth and engaged upon the many problems with which we are familiar which relate to children and young people that this prohibition should be written into the Bill. I suggest that we ignore such a wealth and body of opinion at our own peril; and only if there were the strongest possible reasons for doing so should we be justified in ignoring opinions coming from such sources.

1.15 p.m.

Do not let us make it more difficult for those who, in a voluntary capacity, are giving of their time and their sacrificial service to the development of habits of sound citizenship among children and young people, by ignoring such a unanimous request on their part that this safeguard be introduced into the Bill.

I think that hon. Members know that on general grounds I dislike the Bill, and I should have preferred that it had not been introduced because I believe it will do more harm than any good that it does. So far as the promoters and supporters of the Bill are concerned, however, they ought at any rate to meet the views of those of us who share the kind of apprehensions which I have expressed by giving way and accepting my Amendment. I am quite certain that it would be to their advantage to do so. They want the co-operation of all sections of the House in achieving the main purpose that they have in view.

The Bill is likely, perhaps, to get on to the Statute Book at an earlier date and more easily if, on an important question of this kind, one of—in the views of many of us—its more objectionable features can be cured by the Amendment. I hope that the necessary co-operation and good will may be forthcoming so that the matter to which so many people attach such a high degree of importance may be safeguarded before we part with the Bill.

I beg to second the Amendment.

The Amendment has been moved in a manner to which no one could take exception. The hon. Member for Wimbledon (Mr. Black) has spoken for a wide public indeed in voicing the sentiments which he has just expressed on the question of young people being concerned in the sale of lottery tickets. I have always taken the view that this House is the custodian of the best interests of the nation, and that anything affecting or likely to affect the national character should receive absolute consideration before Members walk into the Division Lobbies and cast their votes.

There is not the slightest doubt that the national character can be influenced by the attitude which we adopt on the Bill, for in the nation's schools, the day schools as well as the Sunday schools, honest, decent people are trying to teach our young folk how to give generously, how to live by principle and how to think of others rather than themselves. They are engaged in the task of teaching the value of honest work and of getting on in life. It would make the position of both the day school teacher and the Sunday school teacher almost impossible if this House made it permissible for children to be engaged or caught up by people who have an interest in lotteries in which as much as £750 may be at stake.

I regard this as a very serious issue. If I had a son, I should not like to think that in his immature years, due to his loyalty to some movement, he was connected with things which in later life might decide his attitude on bigger issues. From these lottery interests, we might find young people developing a taste for gambling on a much bigger and broader scale. We cannot evade our responsibilities in this matter. The age of 18 is likely to be challenged by folk who are known to hold a very deep concern for the well-being of young people, I submit that if there be any element of doubt in our minds as between the ages of 16 and 18, we should, since we are dealing with the well-being of young people, play for safety. We should act with caution. Caution is justified when we are dealing with the character of young people.

They are immature at 16. They are immature at 17. Of course, youngsters of 17 would not like to be told that, and I should not like to tell them. They do not believe it. I did not believe it. I was much more confident of my knowledge of the world when I was 17 than I am now. The youngster in his early 'teens will be willing to take a chance and risk that he might be exploited. The House must erect as many bastions as we can to protect young people. If there is a doubt, we should come down on the side of safety and say that the age should be 18.

The hon. Member for Wimbledon has read a most impressive list of organisations which are in favour of keeping the age at 18. They are not people who have any vested interest, other than the well-being of the youth of the nation. When Lord Rowallan writes on behalf of the Scout movement, when the Sunday school movement makes an appeal to the House, when the British Council of Churches speaks with one voice, we are acting foolishly if we think that our judgement is wiser on issues on which they are specialists. We might damage where we do not seek to damage; in seeking a small advantage for the Bill, we might find that we have hurt the nation in its most sensitive place.

It is a matter of concern to us all that the law, which has many anomalies, shall not be made to look still more ridiculous by steps which we take in the House today. It is ridiculous, if young people cannot go round collecting for the Salvation Army until they are 18, that they should be allowed to sell lottery tickets from door to door. We ought not to lend the dignity of the House to creating consciously further anomalies which have no advantages. What advantage can there be to the promoters of the Bill and the promoters of lotteries to be able to have young people helping in lotteries before they are 18?

All my instincts lead me to say that we should hearken to those people who specialise in caring for the youth of the nation, people who get no financial reward, but who receive a moral reward; whose only reward for service is in seeing a healthy development of the character of the rising generation; people who will give unbiassed advice. When I say unbiassed, I mean unbiassed on everything but the well-being of the young person.

As we have been guided in this way by organisations outside, I hope that the promoters of the Bill will accept the age limit of 18. We are all concerned these days that the British people should have a due sense of the dignity of work and of their personal responsibility for the well-being of the community. In future years the attitude of the British people towards work could be changed if we encouraged this sort of thing among our young people at too early an age. The question of the small lottery in the club or other organisation does not appear to be very harmful, but there are some things with which we cannot deal lightly, and principle is one of them. We cannot play with the interests of young people. I have great pleasure in seconding the Amendment moved so cogently, so sincerely and so effectively by the hon. Member for Wimbledon.

I beg to move, as an Amendment to the proposed Amendment, to leave out "eighteen" and to insert "sixteen".

I do not want to assist in the destruction of the Bill by talking at undue length on small points. I accept all that the hon. Member for Wimbledon (Mr. Black) said about the impressive nature of the bodies he cited as being in favour of his Amendment and resisting my Amendment. I point out that one of the unfortunate things in this country is that about the time boys and girls leave school, they leave most of the organisations which the hon. Member listed. It is one of the things which give me most misgiving. When boys and girls leave school, they leave the Scouts, the Guides, the Life Brigade and all those other influences. They go out into the world where they work, in factories, workshops and all sorts of industries and callings where they mix with other people.

1.30 p.m.

I want to see this Bill a workable Bill which will not lead to the kind of difficulty that now confronts us where some chief constables are more vigilant than others and people are caught within the meshes of the law while others in adjoining areas escape. A county borough chief constable may operate the existing law in all its severity and in the surrounding county area the same view may not be taken. It will be very difficult indeed, when these young people are at work in the circumstances that I have described, for this law to be enforced against them. Some people may act almost as common informers. They may have a grudge against a certain youth or a certain firm or even against the organisation promoting the lottery, and information may be given. In those circumstances, the new law will be brought into the same contempt as the existing law.

Let us be quite firm. These young people who go out into the forms of occupation I have described—and, after all, they are the bulk of our young people—very soon get into contact with a good many things with which we would not desire them to get into contact. I regard all gambling as folly. I do not regard it as wickedness until it reaches a certain stage; I regard it as folly. People in the workaday world ought not to be unduly protected from folly. They should have the opportunity to learn what folly costs.

In this matter I adopt the principle enunciated by Lord Hugh Cecil, as he then was, as long ago as 1909, in his inaugural address as President of the Associated Societies of the University of Edinburgh. He said:

"The principle which I venture to suggest to you ought to be substituted for that which Mill lays down, the sound ground for maintaining liberty is that liberty is the condition of human progress and that without it there cannot be in any true sense virtue or righteousness. Virtue is attained in proportion as liberty is attained: for virtue does not consist in doing right, but in choosing to do right."

These young people, when they go to work, will be faced with choices. Do not let us make the choice whether they shall run the risk of being caught by the policeman or not, because that makes it worth while. Let us make the choice the reasonable one between folly and wisdom. I say quite frankly that I do not yield to the hon. Member for Wimbledon in my desire to see young people protected, but they must be protected in a way that leaves some responsibility on them. Where it is unnecessary to do so we do not want to make the feeling, "If we do this we shall be getting one up on the policeman," one of the determining factors.

That is where I draw the distinction between the street collection, the house-to-house collection, and the kind of thing that my Amendment would permit. The policeman can see all the house-to-house collections. He gets the returns. He can see this sort of operation being carried on on a flag day—on certain defined days—and it is done in the street; but these lottery tickets will not be sold in the street. They will be sold in the factory, the workshop and the office.

If the age of 18 is put in the Bill for this purpose we shall very soon revive some of the difficulties that we are trying to avoid. Young people nowadays are inclined to be older in their knowledge of some of these matters than young people were years ago. Certainly, when I discuss some of the things of this world with nephews of mine who are now 16 years of age I find that they know their way round in the world a great deal better than I did at that age. The cinema, the wireless and television bring them along at a far earlier age than was the case 40 or 50 years ago.

I hope that the House will feel that it does desire that this Measure, for which I have a great deal less enthusiasm now than I had earlier this morning, should be effective. Throughout the Committee stage I was concerned with making the Bill workable. I believe that the hon. Member for Wimbledon, with the spirit of whose Amendment I have complete sympathy, would be making the Bill more difficult to work if he insisted on the age of 18, and that is why I suggest that the age of 16 is a suitable one to insert.

May I put one question to the right hon. Gentleman? Inasmuch as the great majority of Children leave school and go to work at 15, would not the whole logic of the argument which the right hon. Gentleman addressed to the House apply more strongly to an age limit of 15 rather than 16?

No. As a matter of fact, children do not leave at the age of 15. They leave at the end of the term in which they reach the age of 15, and I am glad to know that in the secondary modern schools an increasing number of them are staying until they reach the age of 16. For practical purposes I regard the age of 16 as about the age which marks leaving the shelter of the school to go into the workshop and the factory.

It might be convenient if I intervene now. I had expected to intervene because of the undertaking, which my predecessor gave when this matter was discussed in Committee, to obtain the views of the youth organisations. My hon. Friend the Member for Wimbledon (Mr. Black) has anticipated my skirmish in this respect, and it will save the time of the House if I do not repeat what he quite accurately gave as the findings of the youth organisations—

Can the hon. Gentleman say whether the young farmers' clubs were consulted? An undertaking was given.

Perhaps I ought to give a very quick summary.

The following organisations support the Amendment making it illegal for young persons to handle tickets under the age of 18: the Boy Scouts Association, the Boys' Brigade, the Girls' Guildry, the Girls' Life Brigade and the Young Men's Christian Association. Those who support making it illegal for young persons under the age of 16 to handle tickets are: the Girl Guides Association, the National Association of Boys' Clubs and the Sea Cadet Corps. The National Federation of Young Farmers' Clubs recommend that no limit be placed upon the age at which young persons should be permitted to sell tickets.

I must make one reference to the point made by my hon. Friend about the comparison of limitations imposed on young persons selling lottery tickets and young persons making house-to-house street collections. I am sure that he did it quite unwittingly, but he did not get his facts quite right. The regulations applying to house-to-house collections have been made by the Home Secretary and by the Secretary of State for Scotland. They prohibit the making of such collections by young people under the age of 18 in the Metropolitan Police district and under the age of 16 elsewhere. Regulations applying to street collections can be made in England and Wales by the police authorities and in Scotland by the local authorities. The Metropolitan Police district and big centres of population have fixed the age at 18 below which collections may not be undertaken. Most other police authorities have adopted the age of 16.

I am obliged to my hon. Friend and I accept at once his correction. I was familiar with conditions in the Metropolitan Police area and I am afraid that I assumed that they were general throughout the country. As I understand it, what my hon. Friend is now saying is that within the big centres of population 18 is the usual age and elsewhere it is 16. If that be so, would it not be correct to say that so far as the great majority of the population is concerned, inasmuch as they live in the big centres of population, they would live in areas where the age rule of 18 applies?

May I point out that there are more children educated by the county councils of this country, excluding the London County Council, than by county borough councils, and that the county borough councils are those in the big centres of population?

My intervention was merely to get the record straight. I did not wish to join issue with my hon. Friend.

What will concern most hon. Members is whether it is morally harmful for young persons to undertake the sale of tickets, and if so, at what age? In this respect I am sure that hon. Members will be grateful for the lead which has been given on this point by the right hon. Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede). I was interested in what he said about police supervision, because that is a matter to which particular attention has to be paid at the Home Office.

If we are to include in this Bill anything which the police either cannot enforce or which they can enforce only by incurring a great deal of odium, that would not represent an advance on the present position. I do not wish to take up more time on this point, but I think that many hon. Members will probably feel that the proposal of the right hon. Member for South Shields would cover a situation which we are all agreed should be dealt with.

The words of the present Amendment may raise some difficulty. I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for Wimbledon will feel willing to accept the proposal of the right hon. Member for South Shields and will be prepared to withdraw his Amendment. I have a form of words which I might, with permission, submit to the House in the form of a manuscript Amendment to this effect: In page 3, line 5, at the end to insert:

"and

(n) no ticket or chance shall be sold by a person under sixteen years of age."

I put that forward only for the convenience of the House, and it remains to be seen what the mover of the Amendment now feels that he should do.

I wish to add my plea to that of the Joint Under-Secretary to the hon. Member for Wimbledon (Mr. Black) and other hon. Members who support his Amendment. I do so because when I first saw the Amendment which proposed to prohibit the sale of tickets by children under 18 I had considerable doubts about its wisdom. I doubted whether it was enforceable, and one of the main purposes of this Bill is to make the law enforceable.

Having heard my right hon. Friend the Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede), I am convinced of the wisdom of including some such restriction as this, and that 16 would be the right age. I hope, therefore, that the hon. Member for Wimbledon will co-operate in this respect and agree to the suggestions of the Under-Secretary. Clearly, it is the wish of the House that there should be some restriction, and it is essential that it should be a practical restriction and one which can be enforced. We have heard from my right hon. Friend the Member for South Shields and from the Under-Secretary that 16 is the age at which they consider the restriction should be enforced. I ask hon. Members to accept that figure rather than the figure of 18.

I wish to support my right hon. Friend the Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede). We all feel that it is undesirable that young persons should take part in the sale of these tickets below a certain age and the question is what that age should be. There now exist regulations which cover children while they are at school. I happen to know that the Gloucestershire County Council has forbidden the sale of raffle tickets by children at Christmas draws, and I have no doubt that there are other county councils which do the same. The question is whether young persons should be released immediately from this sanction when they leave school, or whether there should be an interim period.

I was impressed by the argument of my right hon. Friend the Member for South Shields and what was said by the Joint Under-Secretary. I think the age should be less than 18. My hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, West (Mr. G. Thomas) said that we ought to build as many bastions as possible for the protection of the young. That is true up to a certain age, but I am concerned with teaching these young people to build their own bastions. There is good reason for protecting them up to the age of 16, but beyond that we must try to teach young people to help themselves and not keep them strait-jacketed.

We must try to draw the line between schoolchildren, adolescents and adults. There is a period of adolescence and during that time we should try to educate young people by giving them responsibility and teaching them to be good citizens. I hope, therefore, that the House will agree to accept the age limit as 16.

I beg to move, in page 3, line 35, after "shall", to insert:

"be made to the local authority in whose area the office or head office of the society is situated and shall".

This Amendment should really be read in conjunction with the next Amendment in my name. The reason for this Amendment is that subsection (1) says what an application for the registration of a society is to contain, but is defective in that it does not say to whom the application should be addressed. Subsection (6) defines the local authority as being the one in which the office or head office of the society is situated, but subsection (1) does not say, in terms, that the application is to be addressed to this local authority.

This Amendment, therefore, specifies in subsection (1) that the application is to be made to the local authority in whose area the office or head office of the society is situated, leaving it to subsection (6) in the proposed Amendment simply to define the local authorities which are to exercise this function of registration. I think it will be seen that it clears up an ambiguity in this part of the Bill.

The next Amendment in the name of the hon. Member for West Lothian (Mr. J. Taylor), falls, owing to the acceptance of the Government Amendment.

I think, in fact, that it does fall as a technical matter, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, but wishing to bring in the most local authority in Scotland—it only applies to Scotland—that is to say, a district council, would it not be possible to submit the principle that the most local authority should be considered?

The hon. Gentleman has caught me rather unawares. I do not know what the promoter says about it, because he is not here. I think it might, perhaps, be left for another place. It is quite simple, I gather. I have just come into the Chamber and just do not know. All I can say is that, the Government Amendment having been carried, the hon. Gentleman's Amendment falls.

I had foreseen that possibility.

The matter can be put right in another place.

I beg to move, in page 4, line 41, to leave out "month of January next" and insert "third month".

I have been asked to move this Amendment on behalf of my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, East (Mr. Ernest Davies). It is virtually a drafting Amendment, but has some substance in that, if it is carried, it will mean that returns will have to be made quarterly rather than on an annual basis. The reason for the Amendment is that the provisions of the law require prosecutions to be undertaken within six months of the offences being committed. If annual returns are made, it may be that it will be too late to undertake prosecutions after the offences are discovered. In order to regularise matters, therefore, I hope that the House will accept the Amendment.

I beg to second the Amendment.

I beg to move, in page 4, line 44, to leave out "a" and insert "an audited".

I think that the next Amendment, in the name of the hon. Member for Paddington, North (Mr. Parkin), might be considered with this one.

This is not an unreasonable Amendment, as a return has to be made of these very large lotteries which could amount to £750, and as the character of the Bill has been altered by the substitution of £750 for £500, I think that the House would be right to ask that the accounts should be audited.

I beg to second the Amendment.

In Committee, I moved an Amendment on the lines of that standing in the names of my hon. Friend the Member for Paddington, North (Mr. Parkin) and of myself, and since then the Home Office has been very helpful to us in getting it properly drafted. It is desirable, I think, to specify in what form the audit should take place. This Amendment ensures that it shall be an audit in respect of which responsible people will make themselves liable to a penalty if they do not carry it out in a proper manner. It is not desired that for some of the very smallest lotteries a chartered accountant or a person who might charge a substantial fee should be employed, but it is desirable that the public should have every assurance of good faith in the way in which their money is being handled.

So far as I sense the feeling of the House, I do not think that there is any difference of opinion here as to the object which we want to achieve. The only point that may arise is what is the best and most convenient means of achieving that object. This matter was considered at some little length when a somewhat similar Amendment was moved in Committee. On that occasion, both the right hon. Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede) and I very strongly supported the idea that there should be an audit.

2.0 p.m.

Probably the only question that is likely to arise in hon. Members' minds is as to what form the audit should take and by whom it should be done. I think that we were agreed in Committee that it would have been unreasonable to stipulate that it should be a professional auditor because a professional audit would involve the employment of qualified chartered accountants who would obviously have to be paid for the services they rendered. In the case of the small lotteries, I think that we felt that that would have been an unreasonable burden to impose. Whether the Committee would have taken the same view had the total permitted value been £750 when the matter was considered in Committee is, of course, another matter because the more we increase the total amount for which the lottery may be held the stronger becomes the case for having an audit of a qualified character by some one who is experienced in these matters.

I do not want to develop that paint at any length, because I do not think that, even with a figure of £750, to insist on a professional auditor would in all circumstances be reasonable. On the other hand, I am a little interested at the proposal that the audit must be carried out by two other members of the society. I see no objection to the audit being conducted by two individuals in preference to one. I think that there is good reason for that, which is quite a normal procedure, but why is it necessary that they should be members of the society which is to benefit from the lottery?

If, for instance, two perfectly experienced and competent individuals can be found who are willing to act as auditors but who do not happen to be members of the society, I cannot understand why we should put upon the society the obligation to find two individuals from its own membership and willing to undertake the duty when there may be two other individuals far more competent to do it but who do not happen to be members.

I do not know whether any information can be given to us for the exact reasons for confining the auditors to the membership of the society which is to benefit from the lottery.

I think that the answer to the hon. Member for Wimbledon (Mr. Black) is contained in the Reports of the Standing Committee's proceedings. He will recall that there we had a discussion on this matter, and it was agreed not to press the Amendments which had been moved in order that there should be another examination of the problem and proposals brought forward.

The proposals contained in the Amendments in the names of my hon. Friend the Member for Paddington, North (Mr. Parkin) and my right hon. Friend the Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede) are a result of discussions which have taken place in order to try to devise a way whereby the accounts are presented in a form which can be accepted and considered as accurate. It is thought that to insist on a full audit will be unduly onerous on the many small voluntary societies which wish to take advantage of the Bill. The inclusion of the word "audit" rather implies that there is to be a full audit which would, in our view, be too onerous on the small societies.

As we have frequently stated during our debates on the Bill, the main purpose of the Measure is to assist the small voluntary societies. Many of these are very small indeed. If they are put to the trouble of having a full audit for every one of their lotteries, or periodically even for their lotteries, then they will be put to considerable expense, inconvenience and administrative cost, and I suggest that the proposals which are in the Amendment in the name of my right hon. Friend are adequate to meet the case. Perhaps the Home Office would be so good as to give us its advice on this matter, and an indication of whether it does not consider that the Amendments in the name of my right hon. Friend are adequate. I think that it would be helpful to the House if the Parliamentary Secretary could give us his advice.

I am very glad to give the advice asked for by the hon. Member for Enfield, East (Mr. Ernest Davies). In our opinion, the necessity of a full audit in the manner proposed by one Amendment would be unduly onerous on many small—and I stress small—voluntary societies which wish to take advantage of the Bill. There will be many small societies to which the Bill will become applicable. In our opinion, the Amendment in the name of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede) very adequately meets the situation which we require to cover. That is the Amendment which we would recommend hon. Members favourably to consider.

I beg to move, in page 5, line 24, to leave out paragraph (a) and insert:

(a) the charges made or stakes paid by any player in respect of the day on which the small card or gaming party is held shall not exceed five shillings;

May I suggest Mr. Deputy-Speaker, that the following Amendment in my name and the names of hon. Friends of mine should be debated at the same time? I refer to the Amendment, in page 5, line 28, leave out paragraph (b) and insert:

(b)the total value of the prizes or awards distributed in respect of the day on which the small card of gaming party is held shall not exceed twenty pounds;

The purpose of this Amendment is to include the game known as "Housey-housey", "Tombola" and "Bingo" within the ambit of Clause 2. It will also have the advantage of including a few other small games of identical character. During the Committee stage of the Bill, Clause 4, a most admirable Clause, which was moved by the hon. Member for Enfield, East (Mr. Ernest Davies), includes the game of whist. That Clause was taken "on the nod" in Committee, and it was entirely in accordance with the recommendations contained in the Report of the Royal Commission.

Since I tabled the Amendments, six or seven weeks ago, I have had a great many representations from those who enjoy the small game known as "Housey-housey," "Bingo" or "Tombola"—which are precisely the same game, I may say for the benefit of those who do not understand the intricacies of the matter. Those representations have come primarily from British Legion and working men's clubs and institutes. "Housey-housey" is a game played in humble circles in local societies, clubs or institutes and involves putting 1d., 3d., or, if one is playing in very expensive style, 6d., into the "kitty" and trying to fill a line with the lucky numbers. At the end of the game, or as it goes on, there is a distribution of prizes.

Under Clause 4 there are three clear safeguards. As Clause 4 stands—and it will not be altered in any way—it says that this game shall not be played for private gain. That is absolutely plain. Secondly, it says that it shall only be played for up to a total amount of 5s. That is in the case of the game of whist. In working men's clubs, British Legion clubs and ordinary fetes held by party organisations throughout the country this game of "Housey-housey" has been played regularly and illegally. If we are to make the small whist-drive legal, as Clause 4 so admirably does, it seems to me that we should go a stage further and also make lawful games which are played in a similar manner, but subject to the same terms and conditions.

The reason why these two Amendments are being moved now is that whereas whist is played for one stake which shall not exceed 5s., "Housey-housey" and the other games are played for a number of stakes, 1d., 3d. or 6d. Furthermore, in both cases considerable sums are derived by societies from the playing of a regular game of "Housey-housey" once a week. When I was a Parliamentary candidate in that great industrial city of Nottingham the game of "Housey-housey" was played in a very large British Legion institute once a week, and 25 per cent. of the proceeds were taken every week to provide an outing for the children to Skegness in the summer, or for a similar attraction. I have never seen "Housey-housey" played as what one might call a real gambling game.

There is one matter that I shall have to face this afternoon. If in those circumstances this Clause were not too wide and only covered the objects which I have in mind and a game like "Housey-housey" could be played under stringent conditions, I warmly suggest to the House that it is clearly within the ambit of this Bill.

On Second Reading, the Joint Under-Secretary of State to the Home Office made certain observations. He dealt with the aspect of lotteries and pointed that in due course there would be a Clause dealing with whist. He drew attention to the fact that in due course there would also be a Clause to deal with "Housey-housey." The reason why this Amendment is being moved on Report stage and why it was not moved during the Committee stage is that it was not until the hon. Member for Enfield, East (Mr. Ernest Davies) had moved his Clause to cover whist and that had been clarified that it was possible to put down the necessary Amendments to include the game of "Housey-housey" and the like.

On Second Reading, the Joint Under-Secretary said:

"Clause 2 introduces a completely new element"—

that is the present Clause 4 which we are discussing—

"in the sense that it was not before the House when we considered the Bill introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Aldershot. It seeks to implement a recommendation of the Royal Commission concerning whist drives. I think that that was the primary intention in the mind of the hon. Member for Enfield, East (Mr. Ernest Davies)."

The hon. Gentleman went on to say:

"The House will no doubt have noticed that Clause 2 does not refer particularly to whist. Indeed, as it is now drafted the Clause would cover any game, for example bridge."

He then gave conditions which would be imposed as follows:

"first, that the only money paid should be a single charge for entry; and secondly, that there should be no stakes in the course of play."

2.15 p.m.

Later, the hon. Gentleman turned to the matter which I had indicated I would raise by moving an appropriate Amendment, and said:

"There may be an Amendment moved during the Committee stage to extend the Clause to cover such games."

The hon. Gentleman had just previously said that, for example, it would be difficult to play "Housey-housey" or other games of that kind without stakes being laid and taken as the game proceeded, and he went on to say:

"If the Bill receives a Second Reading, I think that the Committee would then be well advised to look narrowly at any Amendment to that effect. The questions raised now are, is it desirable to legalise small whist drives, and is it desirable to legalise, for charitable, sporting and similar purposes, a larger class of small lotteries than is allowed under the present law?

The Government do not wish to interfere with the voting of hon. Members according to what they believe to be right in this matter. If the Bill receives a Second Reading a number of important questions will remain to be dealt with during the Committee stage."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 25th November, 1955: Vol. 546, c. 1853–4–5.]

He then offered his assistance.

It seems to me that at that stage, while the Government were inviting the House to consider with great care an Amendment to include "Housey-housey" they were indicating that they would not have opposed the principle in this Clause, provided it was carefully drafted.

I should point out that the hon. Member omitted to read certain words in the speech of the Joint Under-Secretary in which he said that to extend the Clause to cover such games would be embarking on a much wider and more controversial subject. That is very relevant.

I missed that in going back to "Housey-housey," but I do not think that affects what was said, that this was a matter for the conscience of hon. Members, and, whilst they should look at it narrowly, there was no opposition to the proposal at that stage. I venture to think that that was a matter of importance.

In drafting this Amendment I went to the doyen of gambling law in this country, Mr. Gilbert Beyfus, Queen's Counsel, who advised the Royal Commission so brilliantly in its efforts, and I am indebted to him for this drafting. He and I drafted it together. I have looked at the evidence and found that the whole Report of the Royal Commission on gambling is punctuated with statements as to the excellence of his evidence, which was accepted. I am not for a moment suggesting that because that particular Queen's Counsel has drafted this Amendment that should have an effect on the consciences of hon. Members; of course not. What I am saying is that I think it does show that this has been properly drafted and has been drawn as narrowly as can be to cover the objects which we have in mind.

I do not believe, apart from those whose consciences one respects in this matter and who in any event would vote against anything designed to widen the scope of gambling, the country, generally speaking, would oppose this Amendment. There is really no doubt that trade unionists and those who play these games in their homes or at fetes would favour extending the scope.

The objections, as I understand them, are not to extending the Bill to cover 'Housey-housey", "Bingo" and other games. First, I think it can be argued that roulette could be played. It would certainly be a very queer sort of roulette, because, if there were a spinning wheel, the total amount of money which could be staked would still be only 5s. for the whole of the game in question and the total amount of any prizes distributed could not exceed £20. Therefore, the only form of roulette which could be played would be the sort of game already played in the various "Dreamlands" of Margate or Blackpool and other places—which I personally know so well—where there is a merry-go-round, horses are chosen, and a prize is given if a player happens to back the right one.

If the limitation of 5s. be right, then I submit it cannot conceivably be contended that the whist-drive player is entitled to his whist drive, a game of chance, at five bob, and yet a person who wants to play "Housey-housey" cannot do likewise.

There are two other arguments. It is, of course, true that any matter of gaming raises the difficult and intricate question of the enforceability of the law by the police. Obviously, it is not easy to enforce the law where it is determined by the total amount of money staked. That applies to the present situation in the case of whist where there are the limits of 5s. and £20. Let us look at the other side of the case. Equally, at the present time, the law is being flouted all over the country. It is being flouted in the case of whist just as much as it is bein3 flouted in the case of "Housey-housey", and vice versa. In all these little fêtes—certainly in the last six I have been to—"Bingo", as it is known in that place, has been played, and on each occasion it has been played in contravention of the law.

For that reason I do submit to the Minister that if he feels impelled to cast any aspersions on this proposal, he should none the less weigh most carefully in the one scale his difficulty and that of the police as regards enforceability, and balance it against the present flouting of the law on the other hand. Balancing the one with the other, I find it hard to support the argument that difficulty of enforceability makes this proposal difficult to accept. I believe that it would not make the law any worse than it is at the present time. It would make these games legal, and further, I believe that the overwhelming majority of the country supports it.

One final word. Plainly, the nature of the game is clearly covered to the extent of the stake of 5s. I would ask the House to give this question careful consideration. If today we accept the scope of this Bill on the one hand for small lotteries, which we have now so successfully dealt with, and, on the other, for what is really the small card or gaming party, and if we include in that field only those games without making the same provision under similar terms and conditions for the other games, we shall be creating yet a further anomaly in the law.

I beg to second the Amendment.

There is no doubt that recently there has been an effort by the police in some districts to abolish "Housey-housey" particularly in my own Medway towns area. I know from conversation with the authorities that they are doing so fundamentally very much against their will. May I say that I have enjoyed a game of "Housey-housey."

Hear, hear.

It is obvious that my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeenshire, East (Sir R. Boothby) has also enjoyed a game of "Housey-housey." I think we can also say that neither of us felt extremely guilty at having broken the law in so doing, as we obviously did.

I ask the House to look at the other aspect. The legal aspect has been very ably presented by my hon. Friend the Member for the Isle of Thanet (Mr. Rees-Davies). I believe that the function of many of these clubs is largely to allow members' wives and families, once a week, to enjoy the company of their men-folk on these particular occasions. I know that in my own constituency, on certain nights of the week, husbands and wives spend a very pleasant evening at extremely low cost. I know also that it is not so much the idea of winning a few shillings that attracts them, but that, by playing "Housey-housey" they were enabling many of the clubs to remain in being, to build up a certain reserve which, oftentimes, was spent for the benefit of parties of children, in many cases parties of poor children not even connected with members of the club, so that they could be taken to the seaside for outings and other pleasant excursions.

Personally, I hope that the House will agree to allow this Bill to be amended as suggested. If it does not, and if "Housey-housey" is to be excluded, I would certainly ask the Home Secretary whether the Government propose to initiate a drive against "Housey-housey" and abolish it from the Armed Forces. "Housey-housey" is played very extensively in Service messes and N.A.A.F.I. clubs; it has become almost as much an institution as the Navy, Army, and Air Force Institute itself.

I would ask whether the police are to be instructed to apply a general rule against "Housey-housey" and enforce the law in all quarters of the country to ensure that it is not played. At the moment, the police do so in some areas, while at the same time, in a next-door county, the police totally disregard the playing of "Housey-housey." The best and simplest way out of this difficulty, in my view, is to allow the Amendment and enable this very innocuous and pleasant game to be continued to be played in clubs and institutes.

May I ask just one question? I myself went through a very intensive course on "Housey-housey" last summer at Bognor Regis, where it is called "Bingo." My hon. Friend has suggested that every time I played I was, in fact, breaking the law. I played it day after day.

For money?

Certainly. I am very worried. Is it a fact that I was breaking the law?

In reply to my hon. Friend, I must admit—and I am sure the Under-Secretary will agree—that my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeenshire, East has committed a most heinous offence. He broke the law every time he played the game.

As the House will have seen, the effect of these Amendments will be to go some way—some hon. Members may feel it is too far—beyond the original purpose of Clause 4. I should call the attention of hon. Members to the fact that Clause 4 is in the form of an exception to the second of the first two paragraphs in the summary of recommendations of the Royal Commission on the subject of gaming. It is an exception primarily to assist the holding of whist drives, and as such, it is an exception to the present law. It is the view of the Government, and I know it is the view of the promoter of the Bill, that it is practicable to make such an exception, that such an exception can be enforced, and the law continue to make sense. The consequences of these two particular Amendments, however, would be much more far-reaching.

I want to answer my hon. Friend the Member for the Isle of Thanet (Mr. Rees-Davies) in this way—and this is one of the main reasons why I cannot recommend that hon. Gentlemen should support these two Amendments. First, there is the question of enforceability, to which he did refer. Under the first Amendment, it would be necessary, in order to enforce the law, to make a check on the total stake placed by each player during the course of an evening's entertainment to make sure that each stake did not exceed 5s.

2.30 p.m.

Whatever the present state of the law may be considered to be, that would impose an impossible and intolerable task on the already overburdened police forces. In the case of a game of "Housey-housey," it might be possible—indeed, I am advised it would be possible—to organise the game so that this check was automatically made, and I do not dispute this. There is, however, nothing in the Amendment which confines it to "Housey-housey" or requires that the game be organised in that way. A promoter might seek to have a quite different game and it might be one in which it was impossible to keep a check on the total stakes placed by the players.

One condition on which the Royal Commission laid great stress, particularly when discussing exemptions, was that there should be enforceable conditions. If one accepts the principle of enforceable conditions, any attempt to widen the Clause would be going contrary to an important principle enunciated by the Royal Commission.

The second objection to the Amendment is that it provides no over-riding control on the type of game which is to be played. Many types of game could be allowed within the prescribed conditions, including such games—here again we come to a principle of the Royal Commission's Report—as would be totally forbidden under the Royal Commission's findings as those

"in which by reason of the nature of the game the chances of all the players are not equal"

and, again,

"in which a toll is levied on the stakes as the game is played."

I appreciate, from the speeches of both my hon. Friends, that the intention of the Amendment is to permit the playing of "Housey-housey" in working men's clubs. Before deciding upon this, however, hon. Members should know that the two Amendments would also open the door to the playing in village halls of games more usually associated with casinos. It is appreciated that there is a desire to relax the law, and I take note of what my hon. Friend the Member for Gillingham (Mr. Burden) said about action by the police.

We do not feel that it is practicable to make this exception to the existing law of gaming within this context. Comprehensive legislation on gaming has been foreshadowed from the Dispatch Box on another occasion, and we hope that hon. Members may be prepared to await such comprehensive legislation in order that this aspect should be tackled.

The hon. Member for the Isle of Thanet (Mr. Rees-Davies) made a very plausible case, but I feel sure that after listening to the Joint Under-Secretary he will realise that this is not the place in which to insert these Amendments and to provide the legalisation of these other games. The Bill has a very limited purpose. As far as card games are concerned, as the Under-Secretary pointed out, its limited purpose is to enable whist drives, which are so widely held throughout the country, particularly by charitable organisations and societies, to be legalised and to be free from the fear of intervention by the police. As hon. Members know, they have been left alone for a long time on the advice of the Home Office, and whist drives are not interfered with, but it is an anomaly to have on the Statute Book laws which make whist drives illegal and which could be enforced at any time were it the wish of any Government to do so.

As the Under-Secretary pointed out, it is practicable to enforce the provisions which are laid down in the Bill in regard to whist drives. If the Bill were extended in the way that the hon. Member has suggested, it would go beyond the scope of the Bill to which the House gave a Second Reading without a Division. It would be extending the Bill in a way which would not commend itself to a large number of Members who accept it in its present form. I am second to no one in my desire to make "Housey-housey" in its innocuous forms legal—that is what we all desire. In fact, I prefer it to whist or to going in for lotteries.

The whole question of gaming, however, is too wide a subject to be incorporated in a Private Member's Bill. Private Members' opportunities are limited and it would not be right for us to attempt to revise the whole of the gaming laws, which are in great need of being overhauled. The hon. Member for the Isle of Thanet has served a useful purpose today in directing attention to the fact that these games are illegal. We all know that they should not be illegal, but they should be subject to some overriding restriction on excessive gambling which, presumably, will be the object and purpose of the Bill which the Government have promised to introduce in due course.

The hon. Member has shown the need for revision of the law and the Government have undertaken that in due course the law will be revised—sooner, I hope, than later. In those circumstances. I ask the hon. Member whether he would be so good as to consider withdrawing his Amendment.

In the light of the very comprehensive statement which has been made by the Minister and the remarks made by the proposer of the Bill, the hon. Member for Enfield, East (Mr. Ernest Davies), and having regard to the fact that my hon. Friends and myself who support these Amendments are none the less very much in favour of doing nothing which would in any way derogate from the proposal of this admirable Bill as a whole, it is my intention to ask for the Amendment to be withdrawn. Before doing so, however, there is one point I should like to put.

I listened with gerat care to the three effective points made by my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary, but not a single one of them derogates from the fact that apparently the Government would like games such as "Housey-housey" to be played in similar terms and conditions provided that the law can be satisfactorily amended to do so.

As there has been an indication of future Government legislation in the sphere of gaming, I ask my hon. Friend to give an undertaking that this matter will be looked at very carefully in the review of gaming legislation and will be borne in mind in the framing of any future legislation.

As far as I can see, there is nothing in Clause 4 which expressly precludes the playing of "Housey-housey" provided it is played on the basis of a single payment and a single distribution of prizes. Is that correct?

That is the position but, in practice, it is not played that way. It would be very difficult to play it to rules in that way.

Of course, in the review of the law of gaming that we have promised, all these games will come under review and "Housey-housey" will be among them.

If a single payment were made at the beginning of an evening for "Housey-housey," spread over several games, would that legalise the playing of the game in a club?

After what has been said on the subject of the game, I should certainly not give any off-the-cuff ruling as to what would make it legal or illegal.

I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.

I beg to move, in page 5, line 30, to leave out "value" and to insert "cost to the promoters."

I feel sure that I am interpreting the intention of the promoters of the Bill in moving this Amendment. Obviously, it would be quite impossible to limit the value of prizes to £20, for to do so would immediately limit the generosity of tradesmen, shopkeepers and others who donate prizes to be won at the raffle or whatever the event may be. Although my hon. Friend the Member for Aldershot (Sir E. Errington) has his name to the next Amendment, which proposes that £100 should be the limit, not even that figure would meet the case.

I remember an instance when a man who had used his motor car to the limit of its capacity and had managed to save sufficient money to buy another car, donated his old car to the club by which the raffle was conducted. Of course, it was worth more than £20, and in view of changes in costs and charges it would, perhaps, be worth more than £100.

I am sure that the intention of the sponsors of the Bill is to limit to £20 the cost to the promoters in the purchase of gifts, not the value of the rewards or prizes themselves which are given. I do not move this Amendment to interfere with the purpose of the Bill. I do so merely because I am sure that the intention of the Amendment was in the minds of the sponsors.

I beg to second the Amendment.

It may be convenient if, at this stage, I say a word about this Amendment. While fully appreciating the motives of my hon. Friend the Member for Ayr (Sir T. Moore) in moving the Amendment, I would point out that in our view it would go rather wider than he thinks, and wider than, perhaps, hon. Members now appreciate. It certainly would involve the rewriting of the Clause. It would lead to possibilities of goods in kind as prizes being offered beyond the principle which, I think, the promoter of the Bill has in mind.

I do not want to go into any further details now, but I think that before hon. Members decide on the Amendment they should realise how far it may take them from the intention of the Clause, the intention which the sponsors of the Bill had in mind.

Since the hon. Member for Ayr (Sir T. Moore) has attributed to me one purpose and the Under-Secretary of State has attributed another, perhaps it would be as well if I made it clear to the House that I agree with the Under-Secretary's interpretation of the intentions of the Clause and of the sponsors of the Bill.

We followed the recommendation of the Royal Commission about whist drives, that they should be limited to that extent. Once we extend beyond £20 the limit on the prizes in the case of single whist drives, by allowing prizes to be given in kind, we go beyond the recommendation of the Royal Commission. In this respect, I do not think that it is desirable to do so. The Amendment introduces a complication, and it adds to the difficulties of enforcement, and it opens the way to abuse.

I appreciate the motives of the hon. Member for Ayr in moving the Amendment, and I realise that there are cases where, of course, there would not be any abuse, but the fact that the Amendment would open the way to abuse makes it, in my view, undesirable for us to accept it.

I would submit a third consideration which is of some importance. If we are to determine whether there has been an infringement of the law by reason of the value of the prizes we should have to call in aid a valuer to determine the valuations of the prizes, and in view of that difficulty I should have thought that the words proposed by my hon. Friend the Member for Ayr (Sir T. Moore) would have been an improvement on the word "value" in this context. The words "cost of all prizes" would cover not only the cost of the prizes, but also the costs to the promoters.

The point which the Under-Secretary of State forcibly made was about the cost to the promoters when they have prizes given to them, thus, perhaps, altering the total value of the prizes on offer. The hon. Member for Enfield, East (Mr. Ernest Davies) was concerned with their value. There is a difference between their value and the cost to the promoters. If there are to be valuations that will be rather difficult, so I prefer the words of the Amendment to the present words of the Bill. I think that they would fully cover the case. It is true that, were there to be a free distribution of prizes, their total value might exceed £20, but I am not at all sure that that would do any harm.

The hon. Member for Enfield, East talked about what the Royal Commission said. That is all very well, but the Report of the Royal Commission is punctuated by difficulties of draftsmanship. The members of the Royal Commission are not parliamentary draftsmen, but ordinary men of common sense, and we ought not to bind them inflexibly to the terminology of their Report.

I think that it may be that the word "value" may be reconsidered by the Under-Secretary of State and that, if need be, rewriting could be done in another place, but I would ask the House to resist the Amendment because it could mean that prizes to the value of £10,000 or £20,000 could be offered if they were all given. While I am prepared to admit that the present wording is not perfect, I think that the Amendment is not one we should accept.

In view of the implication that this matter may be reconsidered, and that better wording may possibly be found in another place in substitution for the word "value," I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.

I beg to move, in page 5, line 31, at the end to insert:

Provided that in the case of a small card or gaming party which is the final entertainment in a series of two or more such entertainments and in which the players can only participate as a result of their success in a previous entertainment or any previous entertainments there shall be substituted for the words twenty pounds herein the words one hundred pounds.

In the previous Session I introduced a Bill to apply to small lotteries but was not wise enough to include therein any provision relating to whist drives, and I congratulate the hon. Member for Enfield, East (Mr. Ernest Davies), the promoter of this Bill, on including provisions in it for whist drives. In Committee, there was little if any discussion of the subject of whist drives, and Clause 4 went through virtually on the nod. Since then, and that was some time ago, a large number of representations have been made to me and others pointing out that in the Clause no distinction is drawn between a whist drive and what is called a whist tournament.

The distinction, which I had not appreciated, is, apparently, that a whist drive is held in one place on one day, whereas a whist tournament is held in stages at different places at different times. Apparently, various county organisations, charities, constituency organisations, and the British Legion hold what are known as whist tournaments. The object of the exercise is that there should be a number of small whist drives which are held all over, say, the county. The people who are successful in those whist drives get a small prize each, and then go forward to the next stage of the tournament which, presumably, is held in the county town. It is the custom at the end of these tournaments, which are quite social occasions, to award some prizes of greater value than those which are awarded in the normal whist drives.

I am told that it would be a great disaster for many of these organisations which run these whist tournaments if the total value of the prizes at the final entertainment were limited to £20. I am told that a figure of £100 would adequately limit these final entertainments. I hope very much that the House will appreciate that, according to their Report, there is little doubt that the Royal Commission on Betting, Lotteries and Gaming took the view that whist drives were a popular form of gaming, but

"as ordinarily conducted were generally recognised as an innocent form of amusement and free from the elements of mischief which accompany gambling."

I know that the Devil can quote Scripture to support his own case, but opponents of the Bill have made many quotations today from the Royal Commission's Report and I hope, therefore, that I have not done wrong in praying in aid the Commission's Report to make my point about whist drives.

I beg to second the Amendment.

It seems to me that we should not want the Bill to put people who enjoy whist drives in a worse position than they are at the moment, through the indulgence granted by the operations of the police. If people have to play four or five times to get into a final it is only reasonable that the final prize should be higher than the £20 limit which is otherwise imposed. This is a reasonable Amendment to enable people who enjoy whist to continue to have the facilities which are now open to them.

I beg to move, in page 6, line 14, at the end to insert:

"but except as aforesaid those conditions shall apply separately to each entertainment which forms part of a series of entertainments whether or not some or all of the persons taking part in any one of the series are thereby qualified to take part in any other".

This is in the nature of a drafting Amendment to ensure that people who enter for one competition can go forward to another competition without the payment of an additional entrance fee.

I beg to second the Amendment.

I beg to move, in page 6, line 14, at the end to insert:

(5) Nothing in this section shall be construed as affecting the operation of any of the following enactments, that is to say—

(a) section one hundred and forty-one of the Licensing Act, 1953 (which penalises the holder of a justices' licence who allows gaming or unlawful games in his premises);

(b) section fifty-three of the Licensing (Scotland) Act, 1903 (which penalises the holder of a certificate within the meaning of that Act in respect of any breach of the terms and conditions of the certificate, including terms and conditions as to permitting unlawful games);

(c) section thirty-two of the Refreshment Houses Act, 1860 (which penalises the licensee of a refreshment house who allows unlawful games or gaming therein).

Hon. Members will appreciate that it is not the intention of the Clause to make any change in the law restricting the playing of games on licensed premises. The point is not beyond doubt, but our legal advisers think it possible that the terms of the Clause might be construed by the courts as affecting the provisions regarding gaming in licensed premises. While hon. Members may have strong views about such gaming, the Bill is not the vehicle for nor is this the time for a discussion on the widening of the provisions of the law on that subject. Such a time may come for comprehensive legislation on gaming. I hope that the House will accept the purpose of the Amendment.

I beg to move, in page 6, line 29, to leave out subsection (3) and to insert:

(3) For the purposes of section six of the Finance (No. 2) Act, 1947 (which imposes the pool betting duty) the expression "bet" shall not include the taking of a ticket or chance in a lottery to which section one of this Act applies and in the case of which all conditions specified in paragraphs (b), (c) and (g) of subsection (2) of the said section one are observed.

(4) Any pool betting duty payable in respect of a lottery to which the said section one applies shall be included in the sums which may be deducted from the proceeds to be applied in accordance with paragraph (d) of subsection (2) of that section, but except as aforesaid the references in that section to expenses shall not include references to any such duty.

As the subsection stands, a lottery promoted under the Bill would still be exempt from the pool betting duty, if it broke any of the conditions prescribed in subsection (2) of Clause 1. This does not seem to us reasonable in the case of some of the more important conditions. If hon. Members require more detail, I shall be happy to give it, but that is the intention of the Amendment. It has no other.

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

We have now reached what I hope will be the last stage of the Bill in the House. We had a full day's debate when the Bill received an unopposed Second Reading. We have had nearly a full day's debate today on Report, after two days in Committee. Therefore, I do not feel that the House needs to spend much time on further discussion now.

I should like briefly to express thanks for the support given to the promoters of the Bill by the Home Office. During the Second Reading debate the predecessor of the present Joint Under-Secretary made a generous offer to the supporters of the Bill, namely, that the draftsmen would give all the help required to make it fit to appear on the Statute Book. That help has been given generously, and on behalf of myself and my colleagues I thank the Department, which has come to our assistance. I wish also to express appreciation to a former hon. Member of this House, Mr. Geoffrey Bing, whose presence here we miss, and who assisted me in the original drafting of the Bill.

I make no great claims for this Measure. I do not think that it completely lays the ghost of Henry VIII, thought it might restrict him in respect of the haunts which he frequents. At least it keeps him away from the church hall and, even more important, from the women's institutes. Also, it will enable the local priest in future to run lotteries and to raise funds for his church organ without having a guilty conscience. And, perhaps unfortunately, it will allow the local Tory constituency parties to raise money for their insidious Tory propaganda. I do not suggest for a moment that we, on this side of the House, are at all interested in raising money for our political objects by this means.

The Bill has not been greatly amended during its passage except today by one Amendment which has increased the permitted total proceeds of a lottery from £500 to £750 and, by another, by which permitted expenses have been raised to 10 per cent. from 7½ per cent., which was in itself an increase from the 5 per cent. at which permitted expenses stood originally. Apart from those two major changes, however, only minor Amendments have been made.

The Bill has two main objects. The first is simply to legalise the small lotteries run for sporting, cultural or similar purposes, to make legal those lotteries which have the genuine purpose of raising money for deserving objects.

Its second purpose is to make legal small card games, particularly the whist drive. I am sure that the House will agree, therefore, that no great social harm can result from this Measure. For instance, I do not think that any home has been ruined by people engaging in small lotteries or that the absence of a housewife at a whist drive has broken up her home.

When a private Member embarks upon the introduction of a Bill of this nature he finds out how complex and complicated is the law, and how easy it is for him to burn his fingers. If this Bill reaches the Statute Book, I suggest that in conjunction with the Bill of my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Park (Mr. Mulley), for whose assistance I have been grateful, as much as possible has been done to reform the betting, gaming and lottery laws as can be done by private Members.

Therefore, I suggest that the Government must honour their undertaking to bring before the House at the earliest opportunity a comprehensive consolidating Measure for overhauling the out-of-date laws which govern betting, lotteries and gaming today. They are complex, they are complicated, and many of them make a lot of nonsense. In fact, reading through the ancient Statutes makes the account of the Mad Hatter's tea party appear almost sane.

The Bill has endeavoured to overcome those difficulties which the Royal Commission foresaw would result from trying to legalise small lotteries and whist drives. I think we have done so in the case of the small lotteries by limiting the proceeds to £750. Even the larger amount is not sufficient to open the way to lotteries on a national scale and to large-scale gambling. I do not think that any hon. Member will believe otherwise. I am sure that the restrictions imposed are adequate to prevent abuse of lotteries.

I hope that these will be my last words on the Bill, for I trust that the Government will facilitate as much as possible the passage of the Measure in another place, and that any Amendments which may be made there will not require further consideration in this House. I hope that the House will now find it possible to give the Bill an unopposed Third Reading, just as it gave it an unopposed Second Reading.

I beg to second the Motion.

I want to do what my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, East (Mr. Ernest Davies), the promoter of the Bill, could not do, and that is to pay a tribute to him for the way in which he has handled the Bill throughout its stages. The Bill started well by having success in our own House of Commons lottery, but a great deal of its progress has depended upon the patience and skill shown by my hon. Friend.

My hon. Friend assessed the position of a private Member a little too low when he said that there were very great limitations on what a private Member can do. We know that that is so, but my hon. Friend's achievement with the Bill, although it may be only a temporary stage in the overall revision of our gambling laws that we hope the Government will carry out, will provide in many quarters relief from the difficulties in which charitable and other organisations find themselves. I hope that the House will now send the Bill forward so that it may shortly become law.

In anticipation of the Bill obtaining a Third Reading, unopposed, I hope, I should like to offer my congratulations, and those of a great many hon. Members who cannot be called to speak at this late hour, to the hon. Member for Enfield, East (Mr. Ernest Davies), the hon. Member for Sheffield, Park (Mr. Mulley), my hon. Friend the Member for Aldershot (Sir E. Errington), and other hon. Members who have helped bring the Bill to its present stage.

It is an interesting fact that an hon. Member should get more letters about a small Bill of this kind from his constituents than about many important matters of State which fall to be considered and decided by the House. I have not had many, but I have had a few from both sides. Many things happen in this House about which one hears nothing at all from one's constituents. In this instance, curiously enough, religious bodies, which I will not name, have written to me, some hoping that I would oppose the Measure and others hoping that I would support it.

An hon. Member finds himself in the curious position of either evading his duty of being somewhere else, or of being here and having to make up his mind on the basis of his conscience and capacity to think and judge, and always remembering that he is a representative. I suppose that where an hon. Member has no strong conscientious view of his own on a matter he will be guided very largely by the views of his constituents. It is the sort of case in which an hon. Member can exercise his representative function to the largest possible extent.

I myself—I speak of myself as probably an example of a great many other hon. Members—have no strong conscientious feelings about the matter one way or the other. I should be a very great humbug if I were to oppose the Measure. I now have a bet with a colleague that I will catch more salmon than he will between now and the end of September. Along with colleagues on both sides of the House, I have frequently paid 2d. or 1s. to have a stake in a cake, pig, goose, or a bottle of whisky and from time to time I have bet on a race. I cannot believe that these things are so wrong or so wicked that they are likely to break up homes, or upset the morals of our people. It is all a matter of moderation and reasonableness. It is because the Bill makes legal the ordinary and decent things and the healthy customs which are commonplace among us that it should have a Third Reading.

I doubt whether much more than that needs to be said. I am glad that young people under the age of 16 have now been inhibited from selling tickets, because it is undesirable that they should be used to any great extent in the selling of tickets for substantial and organised sweepstakes of £500, £600, or £700. However, that my own grandchild, who is aged 10, or anyone else's grandchild, should be stopped from selling a 2d. ticket at a church bazaar for a cake, seems to be foolish. I suppose that we can hope that, in the good old British way, this is one of the minor anomalies which will not be noticed by the police.

To those of my constituents who have written to me sincerely and genuinely thinking that this is a grave matter, I should like to say that I take most earnest note of their representations. I respect their view, but I do not share it. On the contrary, one is acting in a more widely representative capacity and I am at the same time following my own bent when I say "Good luck" to those who want to have a minor flutter.

I intervene very briefly to add my congratulations to the hon. Member for Enfield, East (Mr. Ernest Davies) and to acknowledge the very kind words he used about the assistance given by the Home Department. I intervene for only one reason. He referred to the wider implications of the law now that he has finished with his Bill. As the subject has been raised more than once today, perhaps I should say that the main subject matter of the Royal Commission's Report quite neatly divided itself into four different subjects: bookmaking, gaming, lotteries, and pool betting.

The hon. Member for Sheffield, Park (Mr. Mulley) dealt with pool betting in one Measure and the hon. Member for Enfield, East has now dealt with lotteries. He feels that the limit of endeavour by private Members has been reached. I hope that we have shown that we accept that point of view by the assurances I have given and which I should reiterate, that the law of gaming and the question of bookmaking generally are to be the subject of legislation in the near future. I should emphasise that in view of the state at which we leave the law with the passage of this Bill.

I do not want to detain the House for more than two or three minutes. I certainly want to take the opportunity, along with other Members, of congratulating the hon. Member for Enfield, East (Mr. Ernest Davies) on the result which he is about to achieve, although hon. Members will understand that that result is one on which I do not look with any pleasure or satisfaction. He has piloted the Bill with a very considerable degree of skill and persuasiveness, and even those of us who cannot agree with most of the arguments which he has addressed to the House and Committee, can nevertheless, with consistency, pay a tribute to him for the way he has handled the Bill.

I think that I have made my position on this matter clear at various stages of the Bill. I dislike the Bill, and I am sorry that it is likely to become an Act, but at any rate it has been improved in two or three significant details during its passage through its various stages. In particular, the Bill has been greatly improved by the Amendment which the House has seen fit to accept today prohibiting the sale of tickets by young persons of under 16 years of age. That, I think we all agree, has been a notable addition to the provisions of the Bill.

In two smaller particulars it has been improved—by the necessity for the statement of accounts to be audited before presentation to the local authority, and also by the provision, which was inserted in Committee, that an organisation can have only one lottery at a time and cannot have a number of concurrent lotteries being conducted at one and the same point of time by the same promoters and on behalf of the same organisation. In those three respects the Bill has been improved, and to that extent, I suppose that those of us who dislike it should feel a measure of satisfaction.

I regret that the Measure is likely to reach the Statute Book. It does not accord with the recommendations of the Royal Commission, and I should have preferred the subject of lotteries to have been dealt with in a much more comprehensive manner when the Government bring in the much larger Measure which we are told is in contemplation, and which will, of course, deal with greater issues.

Having said that, it appears clear that a majority of hon. Members feel more in support of the Bill than I personally find myself; and in those circumstances, as a good democrat, I think it would be wrong for me, by any further measure that might be open to me, to hinder or to block further its passage.

I intervene briefly for one or two specific purposes. First, I should like to join with all other hon. Members in congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, East (Mr. Ernest Davies) not only on his initiative in choosing this subject for a clarification of part of the statute law, but on the manner in which he has piloted the Bill through the successive stages of its passage through the House. I join with him in expressing thanks to the Home Office for the valuable help it gave. After leaving the House, on Second Reading, quite free to take a decision in principle, the Department was then extremely helpful during the subsequent stages of the Bill.

I think, also, that I should be speaking for many hon. Members on both sides of the House, and, I am sure, for my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield East, if I were to say how much those of us who support the Bill have welcomed the attitude of the hon. Member for Wimbledon (Mr. Black) and other hon. Members. I express appreciation of the very helpful and reasonable way in which the hon. Member for Wimbledon has just addressed the House.

We are well aware that a considerable number of hon. Members, chiefly those who like myself, are Nonconformists, have opposed the principle of this Measure. In my own case, for reasons which I indicated on Second Reading, I support the Bill, but, of course, we all recognised that there are some quite strong views held by those who are opposed to it. I am sure that the whole House will agree that those who have opposed it have opposed it constructively and have been extremely helpful and reasonable.

The main reason why I support the Bill rather stems from the argument which took place across the Floor of the House between the hon. Member for Aberdeenshire, East (Sir R. Boothby) and my hon. Friend the Member for Barking (Mr. Hastings). The hon. Member for Aberdeenshire, East, liked small lotteries, medium lotteries, and, best of all, big lotteries. My hon. Friend the Member for Barking did not like any of them, and he liked the big ones least of all. I am between the two. I see very little harm in small lotteries, but the bigger the lottery, the bigger the element of gambling, the more suspicious I become

The right hon. Gentleman will do so when he is Chancellor of the Exchequer.

That is extremely hypothetical. Although I have no doubt that the party on this side of the House will nominate the next Chancellor, it would be wrong to speculate about who will hold that position.

I should be going wide of the terms of this Bill were I to refer to other forms of gambling, such as speculation on the commodity markets and elsewhere. The problem that this Bill sets out to remedy is that the law has become unenforceable. When laws become unenforceable, and are held in derision, it is the clear duty of Parliament to alter them and to correct the position so that the laws can be enforced and the police are not faced with the kind of problems with which they have been faced over the past year or two.

That gives me an opportunity to correct an impression I gave when referring to this point during the debate on Second Reading, when I said, referring to the activities of the police and the Roman Catholic Church:

"I notice that the police have also been active in closing pools run by the Orange Lodges and the rest."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 25th November, 1955; Vol. 546, c. 1858.]

This has led to protests from the Grand Master of England of the Loyal Orange Institute of England. He tells me that the Orange Institute is opposed to all pools and lotteries and, also, that the two cases I had in mind, those of the Loyalist Pool in Belfast and the Star Pool in Liverpool, have no connection with the Orange Movement; and that the Movement is not associated directly or indirectly with either of them. I must accept that statement made by the Grand Master and I welcome this opportunity to put the matter right, even at the risk of being ruled out of order.

The third point I wish to make refers to Clause 5 of the Bill, which makes certain Amendments regarding the Finance (No. 2) Act, 1947. It clarifies the position regarding the Betting and Lotteries Act, 1934, so far as pools are concerned. I notice that the Government resisted that particular change in the law, but I wish to warn the House that many of the lotteries about which hon. Members have been concerned in the passage of this Bill may be in danger as a result of assessment for Income Tax on their profits. This point is partly taken up in the Clause, but not completely, and if any of the promoters of these pools, whether run for charitable purposes, political purposes or for anything else, should suddenly find themselves assessed—as one or two have been recently—for Income Tax at 9s. in the £ on their takings for the previous six years, it may well be that the desires of Parliament as represented by this Bill will be frustrated.

To suggest any remedy for this situation would be to go outside the terms of the Bill, and it would be out of order for me to do so during this Third Reading debate. But I thought it right to make clear to the House that this particular Amendment of the Finance Act in Clause 5 does not do what I am sure the whole House would wish to do. I may add that I have brought this to the attention of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who has told me, with a remarkable lack of originality, that he cannot anticipate his Budget statement. But I hope that it will be dealt with in the next Finance Bill.

Speaking for myself and, I am sure, for a number of my hon. Friends, I would say that we welcome this Bill and the fact that it has made so much progress. We hope that it will receive a Third Reading without opposition and we associate ourselves with all that has been said about my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, East and those closely connected with him in all the work they have done in bringing this Bill to its present stage.

There are two or three points which I should like to make, having regard to future legislation. The pith of this matter was put by the right hon. Member for Huyton (Mr. H. Wilson) when he said that we have to legislate in these matters because the law is unenforceable and has been brought into contempt. That is clearly the background to this admirable Measure promoted by the hon. Member for Enfield, East (Mr. Ernest Davies), to whom I, too, wish to express my congratulations.

In the matter of lotteries we have virtually completed what is necessary in order to arrive at a satisfactory position regarding small lotteries. The only remaining issue in that field for the future is the highly speculative and difficult question of State lotteries. We believe that the present field, which is, after all, the main purpose of the promoter of this Bill, is to tie up lotteries in a satisfactory way.

The matter does not rest there. Equally unenforceable and equally troublesome in the future will be the question of the small card or gaming party. Although I did not press my Amendment dealing with "Housey-housey", "Bingo" or "Tombola" to a Division, it really is no answer to the question for the Royal Commission to say that it was unable to devise a method to incorporate these games and therefore did nothing about them. I want to make it quite plain that if the Royal Commission cannot do anything in the matter, I and my colleagues certainly can. We shall revert to this matter and fight it during the course of Government legislation.

I believe that we can find a satisfactory solution to ensure that the ordinary small game, subject to the limit of a few shillings and pence, can be played in this country in the same way as whist can now be played. When whist was outlawed in the Isle of Thanet a matter of a few months ago by the Deputy-Chief Constable nothing, I can assure the House, caused greater mental anguish in my constituency than the fact that the old ladies there could not have their game. I received over three hundred letters, some of them really heartbreaking. It is some satisfaction, I am sure, to my hon. Friend the Member for Wimbledon (Mr. Black) that these old ladies belonged to all denominations. They were quite upset at the thought that they could not play the game.

A great benefaction has been bestowed on these old ladies, living in what I call the retired constituencies, by Clause 4 of the Bill. If Clause 4 can be extended in due course, as I believe it can, to cover similar games in the British Legion and working men's institutes it will be very welcome, because I think they deserve to have similar treatment. When Government legislation is brought forward in the future it must cover these cases. It is no argument to say that the Government cannot meet the point because their Parliamentary draftsmen are not good enough. If they are not good enough, then we will table our own Clause and try to effect this purpose.

Further, at the moment we are going to be left with the anomaly that whereas we can play whist in the village or church hall we shall not be able to play it on licensed premises. I quite agree with the Minister that this is not the Bill in which to deal with licensed premises. But it is really a ludicrous situation that in the most comfortable hotels in the country people cannot play whist, but can do so in the village hall.

We shall have to tackle and look into this question of small card and gaming parties. I believe that this is the first Government in history that is going to meet the real domestic need of legislation not only in this field of gaming, but in regard to sex offences, prostitution, licensing and other matters. These are serious matters affecting the domestic lives of the people. I hope that we can couple our congratulations both to the Home Office and also to the promoter of this Bill in the hope that the Bill will be the forerunner of legislation in the domestic field bringing the greatest benefit to the people of this country.

I join with the hon. Member for the Isle of Thanet (Mr. Rees-Davies) in thanking my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, East (Mr. Ernest Davies) for promoting the Bill. I hope that the old ladies of the Isle of Thanet will remember that it was a Labour Member who promoted the Bill, and that at the next Election we might get their support. I realise that in the Isle of Thanet we should need a lot of old ladies to do that for us.

There is one matter I wish to put on record. I say to the hon. Member for Wimbledon (Mr. Black), with every respect, that there has been throughout this Bill some criticism or comment made with regard to the fact that one of the churches—the Catholic Church—was very anxious for this Bill to become law. It ill-becomes any hon. Member of this House to criticise that Church for the stand which it takes, because it is a fact that this House imposes on that Church the restriction of having to find 50 per cent. of the money for every school which it has established. The result is that the Church is in debt at the moment to the extent of about £60 million, and it has to levy from every one of its members who goes to its Church 1s. a week and, on top of that, find other ways of getting the money.

That Church takes the view that small lotteries create no great harm, and that they are not an iniquitous evil, because, obviously, if they were, the Church would not support them. It says that there is nothing wrong in these and other churches all over the country promoting small lotteries, many of which have now been closed down.

The Bill makes it possible for them to run these lotteries. I know that they will be most grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, East, who has done a great service in promoting this Bill. The House of Commons ought really to remember that it is because of certain restrictions which have been placed on the Catholic Church that it supports this Bill, and for that and no other reason. I say to the hon. Member for Wimbledon that if he or any of his hon. Friends could devise ways and means of promoting legislation to ensure that gambling as a whole could be entirely abolished in this country, I and my hon. Friends who support the same faith as I do would be only too willing to join them.

The hon. Member for Bermondsey (Mr. Mellish) has referred to me twice in connection with what he has been saying, and I should like to make one point quite clear to him. I have at no time in the course of the discussions on this matter said anything that has been critical of the action of any church whatsoever. I am quite certain that if the hon. Member will study everything that I have said, he will not find a word of criticism about any church in connection with this matter. All that I have endeavoured to do is to rebut the kind of general charge of inconsistency which has been made towards those churches which dislike the Bill and which it has been said have been engaging in lotteries. Anything that I have said has been directly simply to rebutting that unfair allegation. I have said nothing critical of any church.

If I have imputed to the hon. Gentleman something personal, I will willingly withdraw it. I was making a general statement. I know his personal views, and I was explaining why I, who do not hold the same religious views as he does, take the entirely opposite view. We regard these lotteries as a means of getting money which we have to find because of the policy which Parliament imposes. If the hon. Member could think of any other way of getting the money, I should be glad to know of it, because this is a very irksome and burdensome business.

I believe that the Bill makes it possible for ordinary people to have a small gamble without causing any hardship, and I bitterly resent those who get up and talk about what a shocking thing gambling is and who never refer to the Stock Exchange and suggest wiping that out. There is gambling on the Stock Exchange, but that is not regarded as gambling. The moment we talk about a bet of any kind, a hideous background is raised behind it. One feels ashamed to become associated with those whom some regard as committing a great evil, and one feels that one is being put in the category of being an un-Christian sort of person.

I think it is time that the betting laws were cleared up. Everyone knows that the police have a shocking job in trying to control these lotteries. Promoters state on the tickets, "For sale to members only," believing that that will save them from any trouble with the law, but that is not always the case. I have spoken to policemen in many parts of the country about this. They have said that they have a shocking job trying to control and look after the decent people as distinct from those whom they regard as "spivs." We owe a great debt to my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, East for promoting this Private Member's Bill and to the support which has been given by the Joint Under-Secretary.

I am looking forward to the time when the present Government will be replaced, but let us give credit where it is due. On two occasions in regard to this matter the Government have shown that they are prepared to do something worth while. We are all looking forward now to new legislation on gambling. If the Home Office takes the same progressive view that it has taken on this Measure, and as it took on the Bill introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Park (Mr. Mulley), we shall have gone a long way towards clearly up a great many anomalies in this country.

I wish to add, not a speech, but a footnote, largely prompted by a leading article in The Times on the subject of Private Members' Bills which gave the impression that Private Members' Bills, with the single exception of Sir Alan Herbert's Divorce (Law Reform) Bill, had been of little use or value. I have sat in this House for thirty-one years, and have seen a great many Private Members' Bills of great significance and importance. Fortunately, I have not got the list with me for it would take a considerable time to read all the titles of Private Members' Bills which have had a marked effect on the lives of all the people in the country.

I would say to the hon. Member for Enfield, East (Mr. Ernest Davies) that very few of them will have a more definite impact on the ordinary lives of ordinary people than the Bill which he has introduced. The Bill will have an immediate effect on the humdrum lives of ordinary people who do not hit the headlines, and that is extremely important. When the hon. Member claimed that under his guidance, and—I may say—inspiration, the House had taken the reform of the gambling laws as far as it could be taken without direct Government action, I do not think he was overstating the case.

I think that we have now taken the reform of the gambling laws right to the point where the buck must be passed fairly and squarely to the Government. It is a matter for satisfaction to hon. Members on both sides of the House that the Government have shown no disposition to shirk that responsibility. They have taken it on their shoulders and, as the hon. Member for Sheffield, Park (Mr. Mulley) said, we shall look forward very much to the comprehensive legislation which must be produced.

Meanwhile, as against The Times, I would say that the hon. Member for Enfield, East has been instrumental in getting through all stages in the House a Bill which will make a great difference to the lives of a great many people, which will clarify the law to a large extent and stop quite a lot of quite unnecessary crime—or what would be crime if the chief constable decided to take action in the matter. I most sincerely and warmly congratulate the hon. Member on a very useful piece of work.

I welcome the Bill as much as does any hon. Member who has spoken. It certainly helps to remove some of the haphazard stupidities which have cluttered up the Statute Book and which make criminals of quite ordinary, innocent people.

One small doubt, however, remains in my mind. It relates to whist drives. In London and other large towns whist drives are organised on a commercial basis with the knowledge of the police—and, presumably, with the approval of the Home Office, because there have not been any prosecutions of promoters of such functions for a considerable time. The doubt in my mind is whether, as a result of the Bill, in the case of commercial whist drives we may be making something definitely illegal which the Home Office and the police have allowed to continue for many years.

Those commercial whist drives are not organised on a gigantic scale. I do not suppose they provide any large number of people with a very remunerative livelihood. On the other hand, they do provide much innocent amusement to old people in large urban areas, who may not belong to any particular organisation I hope that the Home Office, the Government or the police will not take advantage of the greater precision provided in this House Bill to make something definitely illegal which has been allowed for some years past.

Subject to that one observation, I should like to associate myself with all those who have contributed to bringing the Bill to the stage which it has now reached. I hope that their efforts will be crowned with success when, in the not too distant future, the Bill reaches the Statute Book.

I should like to say one word, and it is literally only one word. [HON. MEMBERS: "The hon. Member has said it."] I think perhaps there will not be very much more.

I wish to pay my tribute to the promoter of the Bill in the sense that he has succeeded where I failed. I believe that, as a result of efforts which have been made and changes which have been introduced, we shall have a Bill which will make possible the enforcement of the law for the first time in our history.

Very briefly also, I want to make one or two points. First, although I have been in opposition to him, I would like to say that my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, East (Mr. Ernest Davies) has shown a fair-minded approach. I will go with him this far and say that by bringing forward this Private Member's Bill he has focussed attention on the Royal Commission on Betting, Lotteries and Gaming, and, as a result of that, he has done good in other directions.

I did hope that even at this late stage the House would not give a Third Reading to the Bill, but I know that is a forlorn hope. There are some of us none the less who have deep feelings on fundamental standards. I am certainly not a killjoy; I have as great a zest for life as any man. In many and varied activities I get a great deal out of life, and I have no need to resort to gambling, lotteries, or anything of that sort.

My fear is that this Bill is opening the door wide, particularly to young people, and encouraging them to try to get something for nothing. Something for nothing is a dangerous aim in our moral life. I know it has been said that we have done our little best and secured some improvement in the Bill. We have not got all we wanted, but we are satisfied to have made some improvement. I again compliment my honourable Friend the Member for Enfield, East for the fair-mindedness he has shown, and for the attention he has focussed on the work of the Royal Commission.

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

It is, perhaps, a rather peculiar juxtaposition in our business that, having discussed lotteries for some time, we come now to the—I hope—more secure matter of trustee investments. The object of the Bill is to deal with the situation which exists in regard to the Trustee Act and trustee investments. The last Trustee Act was the Act of 1925, and in the 30 years which have elapsed since then the situation has greatly changed.

It can be said that it would be a good thing if in any event the Trustee Acts, categorising, as they do, a list of investments, should from time to time automatically be reviewed, say at intervals of 10, 15, or 20 years. Since 1925 the situation concerning currency has become so extremely different that the considerations of the proper investments for trustees are entirely different to what they were prior to the last war.

The position has been well summed up by a Report of the Institute of Chartered Accountants, which, dealing with the change that has taken place, states:

"If a long view is taken, inflation appears to be a natural tendency of currencies and the trend of the last fifty years may be regarded as merely an acceleration of this natural tendency. The acceleration has, however, become a matter of grave anxiety; the real value of some currencies has been entirely lost and that of even the soundest greatly reduced.

There is no evidence that the inflationary tendency of currencies is likely to be reversed and this forms the major problem of the trustee whose range of investment is confined to money stocks. The restrictions, which were intended as a safeguard, have become a source of danger."

The object of this Bill is primarily to give an opportunity to trustees to invest in what are called equities, and, secondly, to invest in building society deposits. It is the belief of myself and those who support me that that would bring the situation more in accord with the modern conditions.

When one thinks that there is authority to invest in certain Indian railways and, indeed, in certain water stock ordinary shares under certain conditions, and even certain colonial stocks which may be very unsatisfactory, and if we remember also the situation in regard to pre-nationalised railway stocks, it will be realised that the trustee arrangements at the moment, whatever may happen in future, are unsatisfactory.

I should like briefly to summarise. I have only a minute or two in which to do so, because I should like my right hon. Friend the Financial Secretary to the Treasury to have the opportunity of saying a word or two. It is very easy to talk in terms of millions, but one of the financial papers has worked out that between 1st January, 1919, and 1st January, 1955, a period of thirty-six years, if £1 million had been invested in 1919, in equities, it would, with the addition of bonuses and various interest payments, have become £25 million. If however, the same figure of £1 million had been invested for the same period in Government securities, instead of becoming £25 million it would have become only £4 million. That indicates the immensity of the figures.

I do not pretend that it is particularly desirable that trustees should invest entirely in equities. I am asking that they should have the opportunity of doing so subject to certain reasonable safeguards, and the safeguards which I have put in the Bill are only an indication of the sort of possible safeguards. They include the requirements that the paid-up capital of the company concerned must exceed £5 million, that the Ordinary share dividend paid for the past ten years be not less than 5 per cent., and that the quotation must be accepted on a recognised stock exchange in this country.

It may be thought desirable that there should be some limitation on the amount invested in equity stocks, in relation to the total amount of the fund of a trust, and since the Bill was printed I have been able to find some particulars for a Clause which might meet that situation.

I understand that some take the view that the passing of the Bill would give an opportunity for incompetent trustees to lose their trusts or at any rate to avoid making the best arrangements, but I do not believe that, generally speaking, people appoint trustees who are not reasonable and sensible people. The operation which, I think, in other circles is known as "hedging," namely, putting a portion of the money in one kind of security and the other portion in the other type of security, is a reasonable operation which is appreciated by those who have the handling of money, even if they are not necessarily very experienced in investment on the Stock Exchange; and provisions to that end could be incorporated in the Bill.

I am bringing forward the Bill because I believe that, due to the circumstances that I have indicated of the way in which our money situation is developing, the time has now come for something to be done about these matters. It may be that the opportunities for a private Member to do much by means of a Private Member's Bill in April at five minutes to four o'clock are limited, but having brought the Bill to the notice of the House and, in consequence, to the notice of the Government, I hope that some consideration will be given to the matter, if not immediately, at least in the very near future.

I beg to second the Motion.

I shall not detain the House for more than a minute because I want the Financial Secretary to the Treasury to have time to say something about the Bill before we reach the Adjournment. I support the Second Reading for the reasons which have been mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Aldershot (Sir E. Errington).

I think I ought, in respect of Clause 2, to declare a personal interest, because that Clause relates to building society shares and deposits, and I happen to be a director of a building society. The attitude of the building society movement towards Clause 2 is, in the main, favourable, although I think that if the Bill were to get a Second Reading certain matters of detail of the limits and the restrictions which should be imposed would need to be considered in Committee. But on the general question of trustee status being granted to investment in shares and deposits in building societies, there is no doubt that the attitude of the building society movement is favourable and has been for many years past.

I am very sorry that such an important subject as this should come up so late on a Friday afternoon, because there are big issues here which we ought to have time to debate at length. The time this afternoon is so short and the proposals in the Bill diverge so radically from the statement of Government policy on the matter which I made to the House on 27th July last year that I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for Aldershot (Sir E. Erring-ton) will feel that I am being as helpful as I am able to be in the circumstances if I say that I will give careful consideration to all that he has said this afternoon in support of the Bill.

My hon. Friend and my hon. Friend the Member for Wimbledon (Mr. Black) have indicated that they are not wholly satisfied with their own Bill and will have Amendments to suggest themselves. I fear that if the Bill was to receive a Second Reading today, it would not be possible, after this short debate, to get it into workable shape in Committee, but I recognise that the matter deserves the attention of the House. Indeed, the Government themselves authorised me to make the statement last July which foreshadowed legislation, though much less far-reaching legislation, to amend the Trustee Act.

The Bill would appear at first sight to be founded upon the recommendations of the Nathan Committee on the Law and Practice relating to Charitable Trusts, which in Chapter 8 recommended that the range of investment allowed by the Trustee Act, 1925, should be widely extended and should go even so far as to include the equity shares of industrial, financial and commercial companies quoted on the Stock Exchange, subject to certain conditions, one of which was that no less than 4 per cent. should have been paid on the equities for the previous ten years.

The Nathan Committee itself stipulated that not more than 50 per cent. of the trust fund should be invested in equity shares. The Bill would permit, though my hon. Friend the Member for Aldershot said that he would not encourage it, the investment of 100 per cent. of the trust fund outside the present trustee list. Surely, everybody would agree that that is going much too far. The main question which Parliament will have to decide at some future date, however, is whether investments in equities should be permitted to trustees in cases where the testator or the settler had not included a wide investment clause in the trust.

In the case of new trusts, it is entirely within the power of the testator or the settler to give what investment power he likes. The trustee of an existing trust can obtain extended powers of investment by agreement of the beneficiaries in certain circumstances. In other circumstances, trustees may apply to the High Court under Section 57 of the Trustee Act, 1925, for an extension of their power, though I grant that that possibility is limited by certain recent decisions.

The great question is how Parliament should seek to protect both trustees and beneficiaries against the various risks of investment—the risk of the effect of economic forces and the risk of incompetence and dishonesty, which cannot be entirely ignored. To invest successfully in equities demands a high degree of skill and also continuous expert scrutiny of the investment portfolio throughout the period of the holding of the stocks and shares—

The Coldham story is not a pleasant one, and certainly not pleasant for the Treasury to listen to or for the Board of Inland Revenue to read about or to think of. I think it can be said with little fear of contradiction that, though they may present to the public a front which is definite and unworried about the consequences of their action or inaction on this case, I am certain that their consciences and their minds, if they search them, cannot rest easy upon the case of Mr. Coldham as he has so far been treated.

In the short time at my disposal I will tell the story of this small one. Coldham was an ordinary man. He had not been particularly well educated. What there was of his education was cut short because, at the age of 15, he volunteered for the R.F.C. in the First World War. After the war I suppose he got what education he could and he became a valuation officer, working for local authorities well and honestly for 25 years, with one period of intermission. That was when he volunteered, much beyond the age when he need have done, in the Second World War to serve in the Army, which he did.

That is a brief review of his career. I have mentioned his war service because it shows that although Coldham may have been a small man, he is a man not without some courage, as will be seen as this rather hurried story unfolds.

This little man ran into difficulty. Up to 1950 he had worked as a valuation officer for the local authorities for 25 years. In 1950, he was approached by the Board of Inland Revenue and asked, because of the tremendous work it had to do on revaluation, whether he would transfer to the Board of Inland Revenue, and Coldham agreed so to do. Then, not because Coldham had applied for the job of looking after an office or had suggested to anybody that he would like it, Coldham was put in charge of the Yarmouth valuation office by the Board of Inland Revenue. He was there until 1954 before anything very serious happened.

The only interesting thing during that period was that he was working like a nigger. That is agreed on all sides. It has certainly never been disputed by anybody with whom I have come in contact. He was working 60 to 70 hours a week. During that period he was visited by Sir Eric Bamford, the then chairman of the Board, who impressed upon him the urgent need to get on with the job, not worrying too much about filling in forms but rather doing the job that was needed.

On the occasion when Coldham asked for assistance from the Board of Inland Revenue to help him with the work, no assistance was forthcoming. He asked for legal assistance from the Board and no legal assistance was forthcoming, but, ironically enough, it did not take the Board very long to find legal assistance to prosecute Coldham when it came to a case a little later on.

What was the substance of the case, and what happened in 1954? The first thing that happened was that Coldham's right-hand man—that is an ironical term—apparently got some suspicion that Coldham was not being truthful about his return of expenses. I am not saying anything against this right-hand man and I shall not mention his name, but it should be remembered that he had been in the Civil Service much longer than Coldham, that he himself wrote out all the claims forms and that he was the man who first approached the Board of Inland Revenue, saying that he thought his chief was not being truthful about his expenses.

Might I say straight away that it was not that officer who approached the Board of Inland Revenue? I did it myself.

I am most interested to hear this. It is a revelation which I have been seeking for a very long time. It is a little strange that when the hon. Member for Sowerby (Mr. Houghton) previously spoke to me he was not sufficiently forthcoming to tell me that and, indeed, tried to suggest that the case was not worth taking up. At no time did the hon. Member suggest to me that the first person to go to the Board of Inland Revenue was not the man to whom I have referred.

I deny that straight away. Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

I cannot give way. I must carry on with my speech.

Why should my hon. Friend have told the hon. Member for Yarmouth (Mr. Fell) that it was he who approached the Board of Inland Revenue?

The hon. Member for Cardiff, South-East (Mr. Callaghan) will realise why as the case unfolds. We now have to modify the story slightly.

The general secretary of a union to whom the man had gone for advice apparently got in touch with the Board of Inland Revenue or the Treasury, I know not which. The man himself wrote a letter. This was done either on the advice of the general secretary of the union or on the man's own initiative. If I am to believe what the general secretary of the union told me, it was on the advice of the general secretary. I should never have mentioned this had the hon. Member for Sowerby not interrupted me just now.

On the advice of the general secretary, the man went back and set up his own little Gestapo system using not only himself but anyone else, including a very junior, female temporary civil servant, to spy on Coldham without his knowledge. The position, unfortunately, is very much worse than that. Not long after this little private Gestapo system had been set up, apparently with the connivance of a trade union—that to me is an astonishing revelation—a further Gestapo system was set up in the valuation office at Yarmouth, but this time apparently on the direct instructions of the Board of Inland Revenue.

An investigator was sent down in early 1955—one cannot get the exact date, and I cannot get the letter this man was supposed to have written to the Board of Inland Revenue. I was told by the Board of Inland Revenue that it had a letter from this man. I suppose that the hon. Member for Sowerby does not deny that the man wrote to the Board of Inland Revenue. Apparently he does not.

I have no knowledge of any letter written by this man to the Board of Inland Revenue. My knowledge is concerned only with a man who dealt with it.

That is very interesting. When I asked the Chairman of the Board of Inland Revenue whether he would show me the letter, he refused to do so. Surely that shows that there was some such letter. It is interesting that the Chairman of the Board refused to show it to me, if there was nothing in that letter of which he was not a little ashamed.

The Gestapo organisation was set up in Coldham's office. It apparently included his chief assistant, the two assistant valuation officers who were next under his chief assistant, the telephone operator who tapped his telephone calls, and, as far as one can see, it included anybody else in the office who could be persuaded to spy on his chief without his chief's knowledge.

That is a part of the story of Coldham which has not been denied by the Board of Inland Revenue, or by the Treasury. Let us see what happened. Finally, on 22nd March, an investigator invaded Mr. Coldham's office, I believe without any prior notice whatsoever, with a companion. He shot a number of questions at Coldham which, in fact, covered four foolscap pages or more. I am not sure that it was not eight pages.

For the sake of the record. March of which year?

March, 1955.

If Coldham had had any sense at that inquisition, of course, he would have said, "No, I shall not answer any questions" or at least he would have said that he wanted someone with him while answering the questions. However, he sat there and tried to answer questions relating to four years previously, at least two or three years previously. He got into the most shocking muddle, and, because he got into the most shocking muddle, one day later he was suspended. Worse than that: three weeks later, without any one going to Coldham other than the official investigator—a kind of "get your man" attitude—on 14th April he was dismissed with retrospective effect to 24th March, the day of his suspension.

He was dismissed, because he had broken certain rules. I do not deny that there were some rules in the rule book which Coldham had broken. It is also true that the Treasury could have dismissed Coldham for breaking the rules and could have left it there and nobody would ever have said anything, because the Treasury is in a special position with regard to the law and cannot be sued for wrongful dismissal, or anything of that nature.

However, the Treasury did not leave it there. It instituted criminal proceedings against Coldham on the very grounds for which he was dismissed. The criminal proceedings were heard at Yarmouth and on 6th July last year at Yarmouth Quarter Sessions, after retiring for less than quarter of an hour, the jury found him not guilty on every single charge mentioned.

In answer to my various questions the Treasury says, "We have to be careful with Government finance." Of course it has, but has it ever stopped to say, "We also have special responsibilities towards our employees because we are specially protected against the law."? Has the Treasury ever said, "Here was a man who could not in any circumstance sue us for anything at all, because we, the Treasury, are specially protected by the law."? Did the Treasury ever say, or did the Board of Inland Revenue, "What about this man? What about his history? What about the fact that we took him on at our wish and not at his? What about the fact that he has only been with us for a few years, and that he has a perfectly good record in local government service for 25 years?"

Never did the Treasury, apparently, say any of these things to itself, yet my right hon. Friend the Financial Secretary to the Treasury will dispute my next statement. Let me dispute it with him before he disputes it with me, for I had an interview with the Chairman of the Board of Inland Revenue, who said to me in no uncertain terms, "I want you, Mr. Fell, to understand that all throughout we have given every possible consideration and made every possible allowance from the human angle where Coldham is concerned." I did not say at the time, "Then why was it that Coldham was not paid the salary owing to him from the beginning of March, 1955, until 24th March, 1955, until I had forced you into the position of paying it on 4th October of last year?" If the Treasury has given consideration to the humanities of this matter, why was it that I received a letter from the Board which said:

"… to questions about whether the Board knew what they had done to Mr. Coldham, I replied …"

This is written by an official at the Board—

"to the effect that the Board realised that the consequences could hardly be more serious (entailing among other things the loss of position and prospective pension) but they did not know what Mr. Coldham had done following his dismissal, nor had they had either reason or right to inquire."

I know very little about the facts, like most hon. Members, except for what has been revealed in the Questions which the hon. Member has asked from time to time. Why was this man dismissed? What was he alleged to have done?

It is extremely difficult to put the whole of the case. Shall I put it in really colloquial English which, at any rate, the hon. Gentleman and I will understand perfectly? He was alleged to have "fiddled" his expenses.

Is not that a good reason for dismissal?

If the hon. Gentleman will bear with me, I will try to tell the rest of the story. I have not much time. Nobody has argued about the question of dismissal.

On the question of the "fiddling" of expenses, is not it a fact—I think that my hon. Friend has said this already—that the expenses claims were prepared by Coldham's right hand man, because he himself simply had not the time, as he was working about 20 hours a week overtime?

That is not true.

That may or may not have been so. The fact is that his right hand man wrote them out for him—he made out the expenses. One imagines that they sat down together and said, "How do we do this?", and he wrote them down. I am not alleging anything against him.

What I am arguing about—and I have been doing it for the last nine or ten months—is this. Here was a man with almost 30 years in local government service and Government service. He had a spotless record and worked tremendously hard. He was then investigated by this Gestapo set-up, was dismissed peremptorily with, as far as one can judge, very little consideration being given to his past, or to the man himself; certainly not being interviewed by a chief or a superior of any sort whatever.

Then he was taken to court for the very offences for which he was dismissed and the point is that he was acquitted on all charges. Because he had been dismissed rather than suspended before the bringing of criminal proceedings, he lost all his pension rights, his job and his good name. But because he was a man of courage and "guts" he went to work on the night-shift at a factory in Yarmouth for a number of months. Now this man, whom the Treasury say is unfit for employment, is now a temporary rating officer to the Berkshire County Council. Where do we go from there?

I have a lot more to say, but I have only time to put straight questions to my right hon. Friend. First, I wish to ask about the dismissal before criminal proceedings. Could my right hon. Friend tell me the nature of the 14 cases quoted as precedents? Can he tell me why, in quoting one of these cases as a precedent, he said, on 29th March:

"When we have a case, such as in another of the fourteen cases to which I referred, where an officer admits that he has helped a member of the public to prepare a false Income Tax return, one cannot suspend a man like that pending proceedings."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 29th March. 1956; Vol. 550, c. 2331.]

I do not understand what all that is about. Can the right hon. Gentleman please tell me how many of these men whom he cited in the 14 cases of precedents had jobs to go to; how many of the cases were acquitted at the trial and if any of them were acquitted were they paid anything in restitution for loss of pension rights?

On the question of the Gestapo investigation, may I ask what were the exceptional circumstances to which the Chancellor referred on 29th November, 1955, because I cannot find them? What consideration was ever given to the story of Coldham himself? May I see a copy of the Poulter letter? Will Coldham be paid what salary is due to him? Where a board has special protection from the law, what is the duty of the board? What is the attitude of my right hon. Friend to the fact that both the Chairman of the Board of Inland Revenue and the last Chancellor of the Exchequer said that they considered that this man had been penalised much more than the case deserved? A learned counsel, who looked at this case especially for me, has referred to this remarkably harsh decision. I appeal to my right hon. Friend to reconsider this matter and do something in the interests of justice for this man.

My hon. Friend the Member for Yarmouth (Mr. Fell) has taken 22 minutes out of an available 30 minutes to set forth his case, and has left me with eight minutes in which to reply. He said that this was not a pleasant case for the Treasury or for the Inland Revenue to listen to. It is not a pleasant case for anybody to listen to, because it concerns a man's mistakes. I use a neutral word. But I want to tell my hon. Friend—I know that he accepts me as a man of honour—that my conscience is clear about this.

I have investigated this matter personally with the utmost care, and I am convinced that the decisions taken by the Board of Inland Revenue have been correct. My hon. Friend has had the opportunity of personal talks with the Chairman of the Board of Inland Revenue and with the former Chancellor of Exchequer my right hon. Friend the Lord Privy Seal. I have spoken to both of them since my hon. Friend's remarks in the House just before Easter as to their attitude at those interviews. Neither of them has been willing to accept the interpretation that my hon. Friend put on their attitude on that day and again today by suggesting that they thought that Mr. Coldham had been harshly treated.

The fact is that Mr. Coldham, who was referred to as a small man by my hon. Friend, was, in fact, not a junior clerk, but an official in a highly responsible position. He was in charge of the valuation office, and he was drawing a salary of about £1,200 a year. It is exceedingly important in the public interest that men of that position in the Civil Service should be entirely free from any suspicion of "fiddling" any figures at all. In fact, he has admitted that he did "fiddle" these figures, and that is really a central fact of the case.

My hon. Friend suggested that it was impossible for Mr. Coldham to remember clearly what had happened three or four years before. In fact, he was interviewed in March, 1955, regarding journeys in the summer of 1954 and in the winter of 1954–55. The evidence showed that many of the claims made were clearly inaccurate, and that he must have known that they were inaccurate. Mr. Coldham did not deny this evidence at the time nor subsequently at the trial at which he was acquitted of a criminal offence.

I think that my hon. Friend's difficulty is that he cannot quite grasp that this case has come up under two separate and distinct codes. The first is the Departmental disciplinary code and the second the criminal code, by which Mr. Coldham was publicly acquitted of any offence. But I want to make one reference to what happened on that occasion because my hon. Friend has made great play with the "Gestapo methods" that he has alleged. In fact, all that was done there was done under the direction of the investigating officers of the Board of Inland Revenue when the matter came to their attention.

I think it is important for me to get on the record here what the Recorder at the trial was reported in the Eastern Daily Press of 7th July, 1955, as saying on the matter. The Recorder is reported as saying:

"We may not like the idea of a subordinate interfering with our affairs, but the results were right, because in the end here is Mr. Coldham coming into the witness box and saying that all the evidence given by typists and other people we have heard is quite right and that the journeys were bogus entries:

'Which I put in because out of office hours over weekends in the Spring and Summer of last year I did in fact do work for which I travelled and never claimed'."

The position here was that this senior officer in charge of the office had admitted that he had done what he ought not to have done.

In a case like that, I must put it to the House that it is not right for the Inland Revenue to suspend a man when the actions complained of have been admitted. Mr. Coldham admitted his faults, and he was dismissed. It is not the case that action of that kind by the Board of Inland Revenue prejudices subsequent proceedings. In fact, it may well influence subsequent proceedings in the man's favour because people may think that he has had his punishment already. He had made these statements, on his honour, in his travelling claim which were not true. My hon. Friend suggested that these figures had been put in by somebody else, but here is a man in charge of the office signing—

It was admitted in court that they were written in the hand of the other man.

I think that my hon. Friend's case was that Mr. Coldham was signing figures which had been put on to the form by somebody else. That may be so, but he was signing them, on his honour, as correct. One is entitled to ask that people in responsible positions, when they do that sort of thing, shall take responsibility for their action.

Mr. Coldham has suffered very severely: I know that. It is a fact of life—it may be a tragic fact of life—that the higher one gets in a position of responsibility, the more is at risk if one makes a mistake. Mr. Coldham has sacrificed his pension rights. He has lost heavily in the financial sense. I speak of nothing else, but that is the risk which we all carry when we assume, willingly or otherwise, positions of high responsibility.

My hon. Friend made great play with the way in which this claim came to light. The fact is that Coldham's actions were scandalising the office and that members of his staff took action. If there is to be any complaint about what happened, Mr. Coldham could have avoided it by not committing the acts he did. My hon. Friend suggests no solution. If a senior person watches over his junior, that, apparently, is all right, but my hon. Friend objects when a junior watches over a senior.