I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment.

I should like to say just a few words, if I may, Mr. Speaker, about all four of the Lords Amendments, because they are all consequential upon each other. The object of the Amendments which were made in another place is simply to clarify the drafting of the Bill. It was discovered, when the Bill left this House, that the wording was somewhat cumbersome, and that it could be put to rights by this and the three other simple Amendments. They in no way alter the sense of the Bill; they are simply designed to make the Bill more easily understood.

:I beg to second the Motion.

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

This new Clause has resulted from a good deal of further consideration and consultation upon all the implications of Clause 3 as printed in the Bill. Clause 3 gave the Minister power to make regulations excluding the use of certain materials for thermal insulation purposes in industrial buildings which might be considered unsuitable on the ground that they might, in certain circumstances and in certain applications, enhance the risk of spreading fire. These materials were to be specified in the regulations.

Under the original Clause as drafted the Minister would be enabled to prohibit the use of many, if not most, of the materials commonly used at present for insulating purposes. It was thought that, perhaps, such a wide power might not be necessary, and that certain materials in an appropriately treated condition would not enhance the risk of fire as much as they might have done in their untreated state.

Strong representations reached me and those associated with me in the promo- tion of the Bill—and, I believe, the interested Ministries. Those Ministries are threefold—not only the Ministry of Power but also the Home Office, which is, of course, concerned with the prevention of industrial fires and the investigation of its causes, and the Ministry of Labour and National Service, which is concerned with escape if and when fire breaks out in industrial premises. All those Ministries have been interested, as well as those associated with me, and powerful representations on this point were received from the Structural Insulation Association.

Accordingly, the new Clause, as it is now drafted, empowers the Minister to make regulations to exclude the use of materials if they do not conform with a standard of resistance to the spread of flame. Those regulations would specify particular materials and particular standards of resistance. Thus the matter becomes highly technical in character. The regulations envisaged would, for example, permit the use of material such as fibre board only if it had been treated in such a fashion as to prevent any danger arising of a spread of fire in a factory once any fire had commenced.

Plans deposited with local authorities which showed that restricted materials were to be used in a building would be rejected by the local authority under the terms of this and associated provisions in other Clauses, unless it could also be shown that the materials were to be used in such a fashion as not to increase the risk of fire breaking out or spreading in the building. For example, even where inflammable materials were used in a building for the purpose of insulation, they would not increase the fire risk if used in such a way as, for instance, as not to be exposed to the air—for example, if they were sandwiched between layers of non-inflammable material.

In that case, the local authority would pass the plans, and the regulations referred to in this and associated Clauses have full regard to all these factors. The matter is not entirely new. There is guidance for the interested Government Departments in this matter, in that standards of resistance to the spread of flame could be based upon the classification in British Standard Specifications 476 of 1953, which are all very well known to architects and builders.

This matter is of substantial topical interest in view of the disastrous fire which occurred at the principal factory of the Jaguar Company, at Coventry, a few months ago. It will be recalled that production in that factory was almost entirely interrupted for a period of several weeks. Fire broke out, and its spread was assisted and enhanced by bitumenised board which had been erected as a roof liner in the latter war days and had remained there ever since. The Home Office investigation established beyond any doubt whatever, that the spread of the fire was assisted by the character of that roof lining.

Moreover, similar roof linings may be found in other factories, and it is important, in the context of this Measure—which will require that all new factory buildings erected after next year are thermally insulated to prevent heat losses—that we do nothing inadvertently to cause a recurrence or repetition of the circumstances which led to the spread of that disastrous fire at Coventry.

I beg to second the Motion.

I think that this new Clause is essential to the Bill. In point of fact, this Measure could have been attacked, as the hon. Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Nabarro) has pointed out, on the ground that it could conceivably increase the risk of fire; because it is possible to have very effective thermal insulation and yet to be using materials which are very inflammable. This new Clause prevents that happening and, therefore, to that extent, the Bill is improved by it.

It may be of help if I say that our advice to the House is to accept this new Clause, which provides a satisfactory solution to a very difficult practical problem, and also to a difficult problem of drafting. This is, I think, the draftsmen's fourth attempt to overcome the difficulties inherent in drafting a Clause of this kind for which, incidentally, I understand that there is no precedent.

Further, the House may wish to know what would be my noble Friend's attitude towards the power to make regulations which this new Clause grants. On his behalf, I undertake that appropriate regulations will, in due course, be laid.

I beg to move, in page 1, line 12, to leave out from "authority" to "shall" in line 13.

I trust that it will be for the convenience of the House, Mr. Speaker, if, at the same time, we consider the next Amendment, in page 1, line 15.

These are drafting Amendments to make it absolutely clear that it is the responsibility of the local authority, before passing or rejecting plans for the thermal insulation of buildings as provided for in other Clauses of the Bill, to establish that they either do or do not conform with the provisions in the regulations. The use of the word "satisfied" was considered inappropriate, in view of the provisions for an appeal to the Minister who, in this context, is the Minister of Power.

I beg formally to second the Amendment:

I beg to move, in page 2, line 4, to leave out Clause 3.

This Amendment is, of course, consequential on the adoption of the new Clause entitled, "Power to make regulations for restricting use of certain materials", which was fully explained a few moments ago, and which the House agreed should be added to the Bill.

I beg formally to second the Amendment.

I beg to move, in page 2, line 16, to leave out from "use" to first "the" in line 18 and to insert:

",in the construction thereof, of restricted materials otherwise than in such a way as not to enhance the risk of fire's breaking out or spreading therein,".

It might, I suggest, be for the convenience of the House if the Amendment in page 2, line 20, were considered in conjunction with this one.

These Amendments are consequential on the replacement of Clause 3 by the new Clause, "Power to make regulations for restricting use of certain materials", which the House voted a few moments ago should be added to the Bill.

I beg formally to second the Amendment.

I beg to move, in line 43, after "building", to insert "(i)".

It might be for the convenience of the House if the following Amendment standing in my name, to line 45, to insert the new sub-paragraphs (ii) and (iii), were considered at the same time.

These Amendments are consequential on the new Clause added to the Bill a few moments ago, and are needed to extend the right of appeal to cover matters arising in that new Clause.

I beg formally to second the Amendment.

I beg to move, in page 3, line 5, to leave out "jointly".

It might be for the convenience of the House if the following Amendment standing in my name, to line 5, to leave out "and the local authority", were considered at the same time.

These Amendments delete the requirement that any appeal to the Minister should be made jointly by the parties concerned, and substitute for it a right of separate appeal by the intending builder. The matter was raised during the Committee stage, and I think that this further Amendment will command general support in the House.

The provision for joint appeal was based on a precedent created by the Public Health Act, 1936, but as an appeal under the Bill will normally only arise if a builder or intending builder is dissatisfied with the decision of the local authority concerned, and is unlike the position under the Public Health Acts, where the direct interests of the local authority are not likely to be concerned if the Minister's decision is taken in favour of the builder, it seems reasonable that in the circumstance of this proposed legislation we should depart from the Public Health Act in this material regard and create a precedent in the matter.

Further, it can be argued that the necessity for a joint appeal might amount to depriving the intending builder of any right of appeal in any case in which a local authority refuses to join in such an appeal. I envisage circumstances in which an industrialist might wish to extend a building or put up a new building, and, while he might have wished to appeal against the denial of his intention, the local authority may not wish to be joined with him in that appeal.

An extraordinary situation would then arise, and I think that that in itself is sufficient justification for giving an aggrieved person, or a person likely to be aggrieved, namely, one who has been refused permission under the appropriate Clauses of this Bill for insulation purposes, to proceed independently to appeal in the matter directly concerned. This is a point about which the Federation of British Industries has been very much concerned, and the Federation has pressed upon me and others associated with me the desirability of an independent appeal by an intending builder if that situation should arise.

I am very pleased that the hon. Member has seen fit to move this requisite Amendment. In fact, I do not think that the Bill would have gone through had that not been the case.

It seems to me that it is fair and reasonable that there should be provision here for what are really separate appeals. At least, it does not prevent agreement between the parties before the appeals take place. There are here ways and means by which there could be a smooth application of this Bill. I well recollect cases, many years ago, in my trade union experience, particularly where arbitration decisions were concerned and in the sending of cases for arbitration, in which, unless the two parties agreed to the terms of reference, it was impossible to get them to arbitration, with the result that there was not only a hiatus but often the cause of very serious dispute. Such a position will not arise if this Amendment is accepted, and I therefore hope that the House will see fit to accept it.

There is only one thing that worries me about this Amendment, and it is whether it is conceivable that the local authority itself might wish to appeal. Has the hon. Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Nabarro) considered that point, or is it fully covered by the Amendment? If this Amendment is accepted, will it not cut out the right of the local authority to have access to the Minister? Can the Minister tell us?

Perhaps I should start by answering the point just put by the hon. Member for Accrington (Mr. H. Hynd).

The position is that the direct interests of the local authority are not likely to be concerned if the Minister's decision is taken in favour of the builder. The Minister has to be the guardian of the public interest and the judge of whether or not it is being observed in regard to thermal insulation, and the local authority only comes into this to help in the administration of the Act.

The Ministry of Housing and Local Government has, of course, been consulted about this, and my right hon. Friend is satisfied that the departure from the principle in Section 67 of the Public Health Act, that there should normally be a joint appeal, is fully justified in this case. If the builder himself is dissatisfied with the local authority's decision, it is right that he should have a right of appeal to the Minister of Power on the matter. If the local authority is not satisfied, when the Minister himself has been appealed to, then they have no interest because it is the Minister of Power who has to judge the thermal insulation issue.

I should point out that, whereas the enforcement machinery of Part XII of the Public Health Act, 1936, is to a great extent being used as the enforcement machinery under this Bill, we feel that this is a proper exception to make from the general provisions of that part of the Public Health Act.

I beg to move, in page 3, line 16, to leave out from the second "the" to the end of line 17 and to insert:

"first day of January, nineteen hundred and fifty-nine, or such earlier day as the Minister may by order (made by statutory instrument) appoint".

This is a very important Amendment indeed, which occupied the attention of the Committee upstairs for some while. A good deal of adverse criticisim was expressed in Committee, in that whereas the original intention of the Bill as printed for Second Reading was that the provisions relating to the thermal insulation of new industrial buildings should become effective from 1st January, 1958, an Amendment introduced in Committee deferred that commencing date to 1st January, 1959, by the substitution of the words "after the year 1958".

My hon. Friends the Members for Chichester (Sir L. Joynson-Hicks) and for Harrow, West (Sir A. Braithwaite) both adversely criticised this further delay, and my hon. and learned Friend the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Power explained that the legislation concerned is unique in character. The framing and drafting of the regulations, largely of a technical nature, will be exceedingly complex and difficult and will require consultation with a large number of different bodies representing manufacturing interests, trade unions, professional bodies such as the Royal Institute of British Architects, the Structural Insulation Association, the Chartered Institute of Surveyors and others, and would, therefore, be likely to occupy a considerable period of time even if this Measure reaches the Statute Book before we rise for the Summer Recess.

In those circumstances, it was thought advisable to try to reach a compromise, and the compromise is enshrined in the Amendment that I am now moving. It says, in effect, that the Bill will become effective and the thermal insulation requirements implemented for all new buildings after the year 1958 or any earlier date that the Minister may decide upon, in the light of progress which he is able to make in his consultations concerning the drafting of the orders, made by Statutory Instruments.

I think that all Members will agree with me, as there is general support for the Measure, that every effort should be made to bring these provisions into effect without any lengthy or undue delay. The position was very similar in the clean air legislation, when a great deal of consultation was needed, and there was some controversy at various stages of that important Bill as it passed through both Houses as to how early it would be possible to implement its provisions.

My right hon. Friend the Minister of Housing and Local Government, on that occasion, was able to do a good deal better in implementing the provisions of the Bill than he originally indicated to this House, and I feel confident that my hon. and learned Friend the Parliamentary Secretary and the Minister of Power will be able to do a good deal better than 1st January, 1959, once we have passed the Measure and once there is thus full opportunity provided for the lengthy and complex consultation to which I have referred, to take place between the Minis- terial staffs and those interested parties and bodies in the country.

I beg to second the Amendment.

I do so in order that I may express my appreciation of the adoption of a suggestion which I made in Committee upstairs. I think that this is a happy solution of the problem, because one can see quite clearly the two sides of the conflict.

On the one hand, there are those of us who are exceedingly anxious to get the provisions of the Bill brought into operation at the earliest possible time, and, on the other, there are those of us who not only recognise the complexity of the regulations to which my hon. Friend the Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Nabarro) has referred and which, being complex, have got to be simplified for the benefit of those who are going to use them, but also recognise that when imposing an obligation upon industry to do something to their buildings one also accepts the moral obligation to ensure that the means whereby they can do it are known by them to be effective and economic. It is that side of the proposals which probably will require a fair amount of detailed work to be done between the professionals involved and the Ministry.

Therefore, we came to the conclusion that it would not be fair to impose an earlier date for the operation of the Bill than 1st January, 1959, but, at the same time, we expressed in a practical way the unanimous hope of the Committee that means should be found whereby these matters would be agreed sooner so that the Minister could by order bring the Bill into operation at an earlier date than that provided. I therefore commend this compromise to the House and hope that it will be accepted.

In spite of the difficulties involved, we willingly agree with this Amendment and advise the House to accept it. We shall make every effort to bring the Bill into operation before 1st January, 1959, but I do not think that we should lose sight of the difficulties. As my hon. Friend the Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Nabarro) has so rightly pointed out, the regulations which have got to be made defining the prescribed standards and dealing with what I would call the fire risk which we mentioned earlier this morning, will be very complicated indeed. There is no precedent in the world, I understand, for either of them.

Of course, very considerable consultations have got to take place not merely before the first draft of the regulations is made but as the drafting of the regulations proceeds; and, as hon. Members know, this is a very thorough process. There are several Departments concerned here as well as many non-Governmental organisations, whom we have the duty to consult and some of whom my hon. Friend mentioned.

Are the regulations to be subject to the negative Resolution procedure?

My recollection is that these are subject to negative Resolution procedure and not to affirmative resolution. The fact that they are subject to the negative Resolution procedure is in itself a time-saving factor, unless, of course, hon. Gentlemen decide to pray against them. I hope that the regulations will be well enough drawn by us not to make that necessary.

That is one factor—the complexity of the regulations and the elaborate nature of the consultations which have got to take place. There is another factor and it is this. We cannot expect people to start complying with the regulations the day after they are published. A reasonable time has got to be allowed for builders, architects and local authorities to study these regulations even if they have been consulted before, because it is only the representatives at the top of each of these industries and organisations who will have taken part in the consultations.

The people on the job, and actually having to bring them into operation, will not have taken part in the consultations. They will need time to study and digest the regulations, and it is they who will need to be given reasonable warning.

Yet another factor is that work on building new factories cannot stand still while we have these discussions and while the regulations are being drafted. All the time there will be factories being planned, and it would be unreasonable to expect all those plans to be scrapped as soon as the Bill is passed or, indeed, as soon as the regulations are approved. That is another reason for having a reasonable period of time between the passing of the regulations and their being brought into operation by bringing this Measure into force.

However, the whole thing has to be done before 1st January, 1959, and if we can bring that date forward we will most certainly do so. I give the House the undertaking that we shall make every possible effort.

The Parliamentary Secretary's speech was a very wise one. It was cautious. There are great difficulties in this matter. I would remind him of difficulties of a similar nature in making Post Office technical regulations. I conducted the Wireless Telegraphy Act, 1949, through the House. It contained provision for making regulations about electrical interference from motor vehicles. It was easy to make regulations in respect of new cars, but it was difficult in the case of old vehicles. There were further complications in respect of industrial plant. Because of the difficulties, the regulations have even yet not been laid.

In the case before us there are difficulties, but as the hon. Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Nabarro) pointed out a little earlier, we are at least operating and know the standards to which we can work. Therefore, it is a question of finding accommodation between the professional and industrial organisations which will of necessity be consulted.

I am on both sides this morning. I think that the Parliamentary Secretary was very wise to make a cautious speech. On the other hand, as one of the supporters of the Bill, I think it necessary to ensure that there is some "pep" in a Measure of this sort, which, after all, is important in respect of the saving of coal. As the hon. Member for Chichester (Sir L. Joynson-Hicks) said, the date proposed is a reasonable compromise.

I beg to move, in page 4, line 18, at the end to insert:

"the prescribed standard" has the meaning assigned to it by subsection (2) of section one of this Act; "restricted materials" has the meaning assigned to it by subsection (2) of section (Power to make regulations for restricting use of certain materials) of this Act.

This is a drafting Amendment. It is intended to define the standard of thermal installation referred to in Clause 1. It also defines the expression "restricted materials" used in the new Clause which replaces the former Clause 3.

I beg formally to second the Amendment.

I beg to move, in page 4, line 36, to leave out from "plans" to "that" in line 37, and to insert "unless they show".

I suggest, Mr. Speaker, that it would be for the convenience of the House to consider, at the same time, the four remaining Amendments on the Notice Paper. All five Amendments are consequential upon the replacement of the former Clause 3 by the new Clause which we approved at the beginning of our proceedings today.

I beg formally to second the Amendment.

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

The Bill has had a relatively rapid passage for a Private Member's Measure through its earlier stages and in Standing Committee. It was introduced under the Ten Minutes Rule on 30th January, 1957, it received a Second Reading on 15th March, it took one morning to deal with, in Standing Committee on 28th May, and I have hopes that this morning, in addition to the Report stage, we shall complete our Third Reading proceedings.

As the hon. Member for Keighley (Mr. C. R. Hobson) wisely observed a few moments ago, this is an urgent Measure, having regard to national fuel deficiencies. I should like the House today to endorse the fact that it is legislation of an entirely unique character, being without parallel anywhere in the world, notably in industrial countries.

The reason for this is not far to seek. There are few, if any, industrial nations which are faced with the fuel problems which confront our country during the next few years. I thought that that fact was brought out admirably in a speech by the Paymaster-General during the debate on energy resources on 30th April. It is inescapable that, during the next ten to fifteen years we shall face a continuing and a continuous deficiency in respect of the fuel required to match our energy needs.

In saying that this legislation is unique in character, I think we underline the fact that it will be somewhat difficult to frame the necessary regulations. In that connection, we have not too much reliable statistical data to guide us. One of the handicaps with which I have been confronted in this matter throughout the last four years in putting the Measure together—for, I assure the House, it has not been hastily conceived—has been the lack of reliable information as to the thermal insulation of buildings in this country, notably factories.

It is extraordinary that, for instance, when I asked the Board of Trade, a few months ago, to tell me what was the square footage of factories in the United Kingdom, it could not tell me, not even to within 50 per cent. of accuracy. Of course, with the absence of such an essential statistic, it became nearly impossible to arrive at any reliable conclusion as to what would be the fuel, in terms of tons of coal or coal equivalent per annum, which could be saved by efficient and proper insulation of industrial buildings.

This is the Third Reading debate, and I may apply myself only to what is in the Bill. An essential element of the Bill is that, after 1958, or such earlier date as my noble Friend the Minister of Power may decide, all new factory building will be required to be thermally insulated to minimum standards. What we can obtain from that simple fact is approximately the amount of fuel that the Bill will save in the years ahead. In that connection, I think that we may claim that it will be complementary to the earlier Clean Air Act which passed through the House during the last Parliamentary Session.

That was a bit "phoney."

The hon. Gentleman says that it was a bit "phoney". It is certainly analogous to what we are discussing today in this important respect, that it is essentially a fuel conservation Measure. Although many concerned with medical matters would prefer to put the emphasis on the health of the nation, I always, in matters of clean air policy, prefer to place the emphasis upon the vital and urgent need to conserve our national fuel resources.

When we were legislating for clean air, a fuel efficiency Measure, we had to guide us the precedents of many large American cities which had adopted policies of that kind. We could go to Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, or St. Louis, Missouri, and study their city ordinances, as I did, extract from them which sections had proved efficacious and those which had proved failures, and it was then relatively easy, with the aid of the Beaver Committee Report, to prepare legislation for this country. But here, in the matter of thermal insulation, we have nothing at all to guide us other than the experience of enlightened industrialists, aided by the manufacturers of insulating materials in this country, of which there are many, the great majority of such insulating materials, of course, being indigenous in preparation and manufacture.

This Measure will save coal. The fact is that it is estimated that, in the first year of operation, it will, applied only to new industrial buildings, save 175,000 tons of coal, worth, in terms of imported fuel, £1 million to our balance of payments. The following year, the saving will be the same amount, provided we continue building new factories at the rate of 40 million square feet per annum, which is the rate maintained in the last two years and which, I understand, is likely to be the rate maintained during the years immediately ahead.

Thus, in the first year, the nation will save £1 million worth of imported fuel; in the second year, £2 million worth; and in the third year, £3 million worth; and so on, in arithmetical progression. By the middle 'sixties, we should be saving about £10 million worth of fuel per annum, all of it as marginal supplies imported.

I claim, and I have always taken the view, that, had the House of Commons applied itself to Bills of this kind, dealing with clean air or thermal insulation, eight to ten years ago, when the grave fuel shortage first became apparent, we should not have found it necessary to import a single ton of American coal.

Although it is late in the day, I hope that the House will bear in mind that it is not only a question of bringing in American coal, paid for in dollars. We must consider also what is used in substitution for coal so widely today in industrial establishments in this country namely, oil. On 30th April last, my right hon. Friend the Paymaster-General rather startled the House, I think, when he said that, notwithstanding the huge investment in atomic energy during the next few years, and notwithstanding the fact that by 1965 we shall have built 12 or more large atomic energy generating stations, the whole contribution made by nuclear power to our energy needs by 1965, eight years hence, will be only 18 million tons of coal equivalent. In 1965, we shall still be reliant as to 80 per cent. upon indigenous coal for meeting our fuel needs.

Here, also, is the significant fact which my right hon. Friend brought out and which, I consider, will bear repeating this morning, since it has a direct relevance to this matter. He said that, whereas, this year, we bring in 26 million tons of oil, in 1965, to balance our energy account, we shall have to bring in 40 million tons of oil, an additional 14 million tons of oil a year, that is, largely in substitution for coal in supplying our energy needs.

I claim that the huge capital investment required to build pipe lines from distant places in various parts of the world, to build all the pumping installations needed, to construct the vastly expensive oil tankers to bring the fuel to our shores, and to provide the installations necessary for discharge, refining and processing in this country, should surely be judged in relation to a Measure of this kind which is based upon the simple concept that it is far cheaper, far better, and far more efficacious to save a ton of coal or a ton of oil by greater efficiency in the combustion of fuel in our factories than to have recourse to these enormously expensive projects which are now in view. Of course, we cannot meet all our energy requirements or the gap in our energy needs by greater fuel efficiency, but I claim that this Measure we are now considering makes a direct contribution towards it.

On 1st July, coal prices are to go up. This time, they are to be raised by an average of 6s. 6d. a ton. Last year, they went up by 18s. a ton. They have gone up on thirty different occasions since nationalisation, ten years ago, and, while I do not wish to introduce a controversial element into the debate, I should point out that the dearer coal becomes the greater is the need for efficiency in the use of it. There are, of course, schools of thought in this country, notably among economists, which say that the way to save coal is to make it so dear that it will become scarce, and everybody will have much greater regard to efficiency in the combustion and use of it.

I am not a dear coal "fan". I would have coal as cheap as possible, compatible with good standards in the mines and high wages for miners, in view of the nature of their work and other factors which the House has debated on so many occasions.

There is an increasing urge for greater fuel efficiency in industry and elsewhere, as a result of the many increases in the price of coal and the continuing rise in cost of both coal and oil for industrial fuel purposes. All I say to all my fellow industrialists up and down the country who will need new buildings and installations in the course of the next few years—and they are legion—it is much cheaper, in the long run, to look to combustion appliances and methods of using fuel than to continue, as we have done in the past, to use costly installations and wasteful methods, endeavouring to recover increased costs by raising prices. I claim that this Measure will have a marked effect in conducing to greater industrial efficiency and stabilising prices.

Further, the Bill is exactly in consonance with established Government policy. The House will recall that three years ago, following the Pilkington Com- mittee's findings, the then Minister of Fuel and Power—it is my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr. Geoffrey Lloyd) to whom I am referring—arranged that a Government loans scheme should cover fuel efficiency in industry and the cost of insulating buildings, and that such loans should be available to industrialists on favourable terms, for that purpose. That gave the insulation of industrial buildings an official stamp and ring.

Also, it is significant that, in the Finance Act, 1956, investment allowances were specifically retained for industrial fuel efficiency equipment, and they were retained in a separate provision of the Act for industrial insulation capital costs. That has all added to the interest in insulation. Now, by this Bill, we are seeking to make it compulsory in all new factories put up and completed and brought into use after 1958, or such earlier date that the Minister of Power may be able to arrange.

I do not intend to dwell any further upon the risk of fire because I think I dealt adequately with that matter, earlier this morning. It was thought when I first brought the Measure to the House that it would be dangerous, in that it might enhance the risk of factory fires. I think that those fears have now been dispelled. We were all greatly distressed by what occurred at Coventry, by the Jaguar fire—especially are we now, in view of the Le Mans performance last week, when British Jaguar cars led the world. And they were all stock models. I should think that should increase the number of Jaguar cars sold in the United States of America and elsewhere. However, we cannot afford that type of fire in industry, and it is for that reason, in adding the terms of the new Clause to the Bill this morning, we were particularly stringent in dealing with any suggestions that fire risks might be enhanced by this Measure.

I wind up by expressing my appreciation and thanks, first, to 11 Members of this House, six Socialists, and five Tories, who have joined with me in the promotion of this legislation and who have assisted me so greatly in carrying through its various stages.

Secondly, I express my appreciation and gratitude to my noble Friend the Minister of Power, to my right hon. Friend the Paymaster-General and to my hon. and learned Friend the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Power, who have provided so much help of a technical character during the last few months in assisting the passage of this Measure, which is complex, of course; and without the enormous fund of knowledge and experience which reposes in Government Departments in matters of this kind I doubt whether it would have been possible to have evolved such a satisfactory general proposition.

Thirdly, I express my thanks to those professional bodies and industrial undertakings—for it is an industrial matter this—who have joined with me in the last two or three years in devising how best we could give legislative effect to our desires to secure insulation of industrial buildings. I refer to such bodies as the Royal Institute of British Architects, the Chartered Institute of Surveyors, the representative manufacturing organisations and the firms and trade bodies connected with them, which are responsible in great part for the manufacture and production of thermal insulating materials.

I hope that the House will give an unopposed Third Reading to the Bill as a constructive and genuine effort to conserve our fuel resources and as a complement to the generally accepted legislation on clean air which we passed earlier in the lifetime of this Parliament.

As one who, two or three years ago, persuaded this House, on a Private Members' day, to accept a Motion calling attention to the immense importance to the economy and security of this country of conserving its existing fuel resources. I am very glad to give the hon. Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Nabarro) what support I am able to give in getting this quite important and very useful Bill upon the Statute Book.

As a result of the Motion which I moved in the House a few years ago the then Minister of Fuel and Power made an offer to industrialists of loans for improving their thermal installations with a view to conserving heat. I do not think that very much came out of that, for Questions put to him later showed that the response was not quite what one hoped it would have been.

This Bill now goes a step further. It imposes a certain element of compulsion on industry, with adequate safeguards, of course, and with time provided, and insists upon a certain standard of insulation which will have the effect of conserving fuel. The hon. Member for Kidderminster cited a number of figures, but he said that he was unable to get from the Board of Trade the number of superficial feet and cubic content of industrial buildings, so it is very difficult to estimate what will be the result of the provisions of the Bill. I am a little hesitant about accepting figures as estimates of the results of this Bill when it comes into force. Nevertheless, I entirely agree with the hon. Member that it does look as if a quite important contribution will be made by it towards fuel saving, even though we do not know the figures.

But this we do know, that the position in which this country is placed today is such as to make it absolutely vital to do everything we can first to secure adequate fuel resources throughout the world for our expanding industries, and, secondly, to conserve what we can of them, and the two things go together. We have had in the last year a good example of the kind of danger the country faces in depending, and depending to an increasing extent, upon oil lying in the most politically disturbed part of the world. A gentleman called Nasser, in Egypt, can hold us up for months, make us go back to rationing and all that, and it may happen again. Who knows?

Therefore, it is very desirable to look about for all means possible to get, first, the oil here by means other than the Suez Canal and, secondly, to conserve our fuel resources and to use them as efficiently as possible. We have nuclear power coming, which will make an important contribution. Even so, there is still very much room for a Bill of this kind. We have absolutely no right in domestic or industrial heating to waste in any way this enormously valuable raw material for our industries.

The Bill has undergone considerable change since it was introduced. The hon. Member for Kidderminster has been quite wise in agreeing to those changes, in withdrawing the first six Clauses as they were originally drafted and substituting for them those others which we now have in the Bill, because they bring the Bill into line with the Public Health Act, 1936. That was concerned with health factors in domestic and industrial buildings, and it does not cover insulation, but I think it desirable that the Bill, which is an addition to the provisions of the Public Health Act, 1936, should not stand entirely on its own but should be worked into the provisions of the previous Act under which the Minister lays down regulations and local authorities have the duty of enforcing them.

I think it right that the provisions of this Bill should be worked into the framework of existing public administration, both national and local. Therefore, I think the hon. Member was quite right to agree to those modifications which have now been made to the Bill, so that the Bill is a worthy Bill and has the blessing of the Government. I have very great pleasure, as one of the six hon. Members on this side of the House who gave the hon. Member support in promoting this Bill, in asking the House to give it a Third Reading.

I should like to add a few words in commendation of the Bill, not so much to the House because I think the house is already prepared to commend it, but particularly to the industrialists in the outside world. This really is a great day for my hon. Friend the Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Nabarro), not only because of the passage of this Bill but because of circumstances which, I understand, have taken place in the West Country. Everybody, I think, is likely to be very happy, at any rate on this side of the House, and I hope that as this is such a non-controversial Bill we shall be happy on both sides of the House.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Kidderminster not only on his pertinacity in the work that he has done to make the Bill possible before it was printed but particularly on the work he has done in piloting it through the House. It is not always easy to persuade twelve people that their interests are identical, but on this occasion he has succeeded in doing so. I think that he is greatly to be congratulated and thanked on behalf of those people in industry who will benefit when the provisions of the Bill come into operation.

I would say to the hon. Gentleman the Member for Gloucestershire, West (Mr. Philips Price) that when he was speaking of days which now seem to me almost a previous incarnation, when I was in a different position, I recalled the efforts that he himself was making to try to gain greater recognition of the benefits and merits of insulation in industrial buildings.

There has undoubtedly been a great deal of mutual feeling throughout the House in order to achieve the results now contained in this Bill. My hon. Friend and the hon. Member for Gloucestershire, West dealt with the advantages of the Bill rather from the national standpoint. I should like to stress very shortly indeed that I believe that the advantages are even greater from the individual standpoint of industrialists because the Bill will achieve three things from their point of view: first, economy, second, efficiency, and, third, comfort.

These three things are all very meritorious. Economy will directly result from a saving of fuel consumption in the heating of buildings. We are continuously urging industrialists to reduce their costs of production, and I think that it is gratifying to feel that we here in Parliament have at last taken one step which will enable them to do something towards achieving that object.

So far as efficiency is concerned, the Bill is a fuel saver in that it means that the fuel that is used is used more efficiently and not wasted. It frequently happens, particularly in old buildings, that the amount of heat generated by appliances in order to heat a building passes almost straight through the building and out through the roof. Nothing is so wasteful as burning fuel in order to heat the outside air.

If one is wasteful in that way in a factory, one has generally no incentive not to be wasteful in other ways. We find very often, in practice, that where there is waste in a factory in one way there is automatically an atmosphere in that factory which encourages, or does not discourage, waste in other ways. Therefore, I believe that, simply through the introduction of greater efficiency in this one direction, it will be a very real and practical encouragement to industry as a whole to be more efficient in the operation of its factories in other ways as well.

Thirdly, and by no means less important, is the element of comfort. Draughts are horrible things to sit in, whether one is intent on listening to other people talking or whether one is talking oneself, as we know very well in this Chamber. But they are even worse things to work in if one is in a factory. It is thoroughly bad for people to have to work in a badly ventilated and heated building.

One of the first essentials, which I think everybody now recognises in theory and a very great many people recognise in practice, too, is that if we are to have an efficient factory it must be a happy factory and it cannot be a happy factory unless there is a reasonable and proper standard of comfort for those who are employed in it. The first essential towards a standard of comfort is proper heating and ventilation. The first essential towards proper heating and ventilation is to provide a standard of insulation. I believe that the Bill will help in that direction very considerably indeed.

I am glad that neither my hon. Friend nor the hon. Member for Gloucestershire, West claimed that this was a useful little Measure or anything of that sort. I do not believe that it is. I believe that it is a Measure of considerable substance and great importance, because it is the thin edge of the wedge and we shall get to the point, after this Bill has become an Act of Parliament and after it has been in operation for a time, when the standard which will result from the conditions provided under the Bill will become general standards, probably of the minimum quality, which will be recognised throughout industry as a whole both for old and new buildings—and not only throughout industry.

When an industrialist, whether a manager, a director or an employee, learns of the advantages of good insulation in the place where he is working, and when architects learn the advantages of good insulation in the buildings they are putting up, they will be very remarkable people if they do not apply those advantages in their own homes as well. Therefore, I foresee that the effects of the Bill will be to make a very substantial impact upon the efficiency, economy and comfort of our community as a whole, and I congratulate my hon. Friend on having introduced it.

Very little can usefully be said at this late stage in the passing of this important Bill, but as one of its supporters I should like to add my meed of congratulation to the hon. Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Nabarro) on the way in which he has taken this Bill through all its stages.

It is not easy to get a Private Member's Bill through this House. There are very few Ten Minutes Rule Bills which reach the Statute Book, but I feel convinced, even in anticipation of what may happen in another place, that this Measure will be placed on the Statute Book. That is a tribute to the way in which it is drafted, apart altogether from the ideas behind it. I am very pleased to speak in this strain because there have been many occasions both in the House and in Committee when the hon. Member for Kidderminster and I have been at daggers drawn. I recall the hours spent in almost violent controversy on the Electricity Act. Nevertheless, on this Measure we all readily agree.

Its main recommendation is that it saves fuel, and anything that we can do to save fuel for the country we should do. We ought to introduce legislation to compel people to save fuel. It will be found from statistics that we shall be short of fuel for many years. That is something that people do not realise because we have all been brought up and taught at school to believe that there is a sufficiency of coal here. We have always been told that there is plenty of coal in the ground and plenty of fish in the sea, but we have been a coal-importing nation now for quite a while, apart from the difficulties that we have experienced with oil.

Apart from the saving of oil and other kinds of fuel, there is an indirect effect of the Bill which will ultimately show itself in the saving on the production of tankers to bring in the fuel. That is a considerable consideration, because the amount of steel-plate which goes into the building of these tankers is something which could be very well used for other essential purposes. This is a useful Bill and I am sure that the House in its wisdom will give it a Third Reading, with the result that by 1959 we shall at least begin constructing factories thermally insulated which will add not only to in- dustrial efficiency but to the comfort of workpeople, which is also essential. I again congratulate the hon. Member for Kidderminster on his success.

I should like to reinforce what has been said in support of the Third Reading of the Bill, of which I am also one of the sponsors. It has been a disappointment to all of us that the production of coal has been so little increased during the last few years. As everybody knows, the country is a very big importer of oil and unhappily we have so little natural gas that it is not worth speaking about.

The whole fuel situation was very neatly summed up by my right hon. Friend the Paymaster-General on 30th April when, speaking of the nuclear programme he said of nuclear stations:

"By the end of 1965 … these stations should be producing electricity equivalent to that produced from about 18 million tons of coal a year, though in 1965 itself it will be about 14 million tons. So, if we look again at this gap of 60 million tons of coal equivalent in 1965, we have towards it 20 million tons of additional coal, and 14 million tons from nuclear energy—leaving another 26 million tons of coal equivalent to be made up by imported oil."

My right hon. Friend added that this would involve an increase of over 50 per cent. on our present imports. He also added that he was speaking of coal equivalent, when, in reply to an interjection by my hon. Friend the Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Nabarro) he said:

"I was talking in terms of coal equivalent. A ton of oil works out at 1.7 tons of coal."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 30th April, 1957; Vol. 569, c. 42–3.]

Therefore, it is common ground between all of us that the need for fuel conservation is very great indeed. That means that the more efficiently we use all the available sources of fuel and power the better. There is, furthermore, a constantly rising demand, at the rate of about 10 per cent. per annum in arithmetical progression. In those circumstances, it must be agreed that we simply cannot afford any waste whatsoever and any Measure which the House can produce which will avoid waste is obviously to the good.

It was said earlier that about nine out of ten of even the new factories built last year have no satisfactory thermal insulation. It is with that in mind that this Measure is now passing through its Third Reading. It is a matter of regret to me, and undoubtedly to some other hon. Members on both sides of the House, that the rather more ambitious ideas which my hon. Friend the Member for Kidderminster had earlier are not able to be carried out fully. The reasons for that are clear to all of us, but the result of those ideas not being included in the Bill is that the saving is not anything like as great as some of us had originally hoped it might be. Nevertheless it is very worth while indeed.

The possible saving estimated, at a reasonable guess today, is between 150,000 tons and 200,000 tons of coal a year which, roughly speaking, is the amount that can be dug in one year by 600 to 700 miners working on the basis of 300 tons a year per man. Not so long ago this country was a fuel exporter. It is now a very heavy fuel importer and therefore the contribution that the Bill will make towards the solving of our balance of payments problem is of real importance.

My hon. Friend the Member for Chichester (Sir L. Joynson-Hicks) spoke about the importance of increased comfort for those who worked in factories. This is something to which too little attention has been paid in the past. In the great majority of factories in these days there are extremes of temperature, too darned hot in one half and too darned cold in another, with draughts as well. Greater comfort and better working conditions for those at the factory bench will result in more production at lower costs in happier circumstances, and efficient low-cost production is the key to our industrial future and indeed to the raising of the standard of living in this country.

If the Bill makes a contribution, and not such a modest contribution at that, to that end it will have performed a very useful function. In new factories men and women will be working in conditions not dissimilar to those in this Chamber, where we enjoy the benefits of what has been described as a cool spring day, be it hot or cold outside. That others should enjoy working conditions as good as those we enjoy here seems to me a perfectly reasonable suggestion.

To heat a new factory properly and then fail to give it proper thermal insulation is just as stupid as to go to bed in an icy cold room with no central heating and use hot water bottles with no sheets or blankets on the bed. The hot water bottles would not remain hot for very long in those circumstances. Heating without thermal insulation, thus allowing up to 50 per cent. of the heat to escape, is like going to bed with hot water bottles and then failing to put any covers on the bed.

My hon. Friend the Member for Kidderminster is to be sincerely congratulated on bringing in a pioneer Bill of this kind which may well provide a model for many other countries. I regard the Measure, as do other hon. Members, as very sensible and well-thought-out and as having been very well-piloted indeed. I therefore congratulate my hon. Friend on his successful work, on the tenacious way in which he has set about it, and on the able way in which he has guided the Bill through the House.

I am glad to take the opportunity also briefly to congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Nabarro) on his enterprise in introducing this extremely valuable Bill, and on the way he has brought it to this stage.

The Bill is of a somewhat technical character, but even to one who is not expert in those matters it is obvious that it does some important things. Perhaps the most important is that it saves fuel, as it undoubtedly will do on an immense scale. It will thereby save the country millions of pounds in the cost of imported fuel at a time when that is so vital to our economy. The Bill will reduce the costs of production to industry where this Measure is put into effect in the new factories, and thereby it will also increase our opportunities of selling our exports abroad in what is becoming a highly competitive world. Also, as my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Lewes (Major Beamish) said, it will add much to improved comfort in factories, in which there is a great deal of room for improvement.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Chichester (Sir L. Joynson-Hicks) pointed out, if that is done in factories it will have the further effect of encouraging people to take similar steps in their own houses. I do not know the figure, but I believe it to be a fact that every year millions of pounds go up in smoke in our traditional open fire places. Few of the older houses in this country are free from draughts, and I believe that the Bill will have the effect of removing that discomfort.

The other thing one hopes it will do will be to prevent disastrous fires such as that which took place at the Jaguar works and the one which took place earlier at a works in Crewe. Undoubtedly, the Jaguar fire would not have taken place on the scale it did if this Bill had become law some years ago and the factory had been built according to the specifications provided by the Bill. There was no doubt that it was a disaster, although the firm made an astonishing recovery. I support what my hon. Friend the Member for Kidderminster said about the great success of that firm not only at Le Mans, but in the way it recovered from the disaster and turned out new models with astonishing rapidity.

It is, therefore, not in the least surprising that my hon. Friend has had the co-operation of hon. Members on both sides of the House and also of my right hon. Friend the Minister of Power and of my hon. and learned Friend the Parliamentary Secretary. He is to be greatly congratulated on what he has done, and the best way to congratulate him and to show our appreciation is to give the Bill an unopposed Third Reading.

I want to join with those hon. Members on both sides of the House who have congratulated my hon. Friend the Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Nabarro) on his initiative in introducing this Bill and also, if I may say so, upon the most able and co-operative way in which he has piloted it. Needless to say, on behalf of the Government I commend the Bill to the House and I hope that it will have a smooth and rapid passage through another place.

As has been said, this Bill is a valuable step forward towards the better use of fuel. In the discussion we have had, Mr. Speaker, you have been good enough to allow hon. Members to describe the background to the Bill, and it is, indeed, necessary for us to bear that in mind. The Bill has—one cannot get away from it—a somewhat limited object. It applies to the thermal insulation of new industrial buildings, but of its kind it is a pioneer effort, and one hopes that it may point the way to further efforts towards fuel efficiency and fuel economy. In saying that, I hope I will not be held to indicate that a great deal of legislation is necessary. There are various steps short of legislation which can do much in that direction.

For example, my hon. Friend the Member for Blackley (Mr. E. Johnson) rightly said that we should encourage people to take similar steps in their own homes. I fully agree, and last year I had the pleasure of opening an exhibition at the building centre which was built around the theme—and there was a pamphlet which bore this title, "Make your homes cosier in winter." There is so much that can be done not only to achieve greater comfort but, in doing so, to find that one can do with less fuel than one has been in the habit of using.

It is interesting to speculate how much fuel this Measure will save. What are likely to be the practical results of the Bill? As I understand, and based on information supplied by the National Industrial Fuel Efficiency Service, my hon. Friend has said that it is likely to save 170,000 tons of coal equivalent in the first full year of operation, and that this is likely to increase as the years go on and be an impressive cumulative total. That may well be so. The truth is that nobody can tell with complete accuracy and certainty.

I should point out, however, that my hon. Friend's estimate of 170,000 tons a year in the first year, increasing later, makes no allowance for those buildings which would have to be exempted under the Bill, or for buildings which, in any event, would have been insulated by voluntary action on the part of the building owners if this Bill had never been passed. Nevertheless, do not let us quarrel about that; do not let us quarrel as to whether this Bill will produce a splendid result or a very splendid result. It is a Bill worth having from every point of view.

I do not know whether my hon. Friend was trying to bait me when he mentioned, for example, coal prices, a cheap coal policy and a dear coal policy. All I wish to say about that is that I would have thought the criterion which my hon. Friend himself applied to the price of coal is the one which is being followed by the National Coal Board. What he said was that the price of coal should be sufficient to cover wages and other costs and to ensure the solvency of the industry, and that is what the prices are based on.

My hon. Friend also referred to the clean air legislation in which, it is well to remind ourselves, he also played a notable part in using his initiative with the Government of the day. We can all agree that clean air and fuel efficiency are Siamese twins. They stand still together or they move forward together. What this Bill perhaps does is to give a bit of power to the elbow of that member of the Siamese twins which is labelled "fuel efficiency."

The hon. Gentleman the Member for Gloucestershire, West (Mr. Philips Price) referred to the fact that several years ago he had suggested that there should be loans for securing fuel efficiency, if I understood him rightly.

What I said was that as a result of the Motion which the House accepted from me the Minister proposed to give loans to industrialists for this purpose. I think that something was done about it.

A lot has been done. I think that in his speech the hon. Gentleman indicated that not enough has been done, but what has been done is impressive. These are loans interest-free for two years, although there are certain conditions which obviously have to be satisfied as to the ability of the borrower to repay. Also, there is necessarily a means test. If the person or undertaking has sufficient capital or cash in hand to do the work, loans would not be granted. Bearing those things in mind, I think that it is good that, so far, £4 million have been advanced. It is interesting to note that very few of the loans advanced have been for structural insulation of factory buildings, which the Bill will cover. In fact, we have had only about fifty such loans, and the total amount involved is about £50,000.

My hon. Friend the Member for Chichester (Sir L. Joynson-Hicks), whom I venerate as my predecessor in office, referred to three important and, in a sense, separate factors—economy, efficiency and comfort. Comfort was also referred to by my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Lewes (Major Beamish). We ought to get our minds clear about this. For many years now the necessary standards of comfort in factories have been assured under the Factories Acts. My hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade, whose Department still has some responsibility in regard to the Factories Acts, will no doubt bear me out when I say that the standards of heating, both minimum and maximum, and the standards of ventilation which have to be obtained in factories are governed by the Factories Acts.

The Bill will not, in any event, vary those standards, and to that extent it may fairly be said that the Bill will not necessarily increase comfort; but what the Bill will do is to ensure that the standards of comfort which by law have to be obtained will be obtained by means of greater economy in the use of fuel.

Perhaps I might suggest that the standards will be obtained in a more comfortable way.

That may well be so. I will not dispute that with my hon. Friend.

I have dealt with the principal points which hon. Members have raised today. However, one or two points arose in Committee, and when they arose I felt obliged to intervene to assist the Committee, and I gave undertakings to look into one or two matters. I hope, Mr. Speaker, you will give me a small amount of indulgence just to mention those points.

First, there is the question of the sanction provided by this Bill. This is not a Bill which creates new criminal penalties, and about that we can all rejoice. It will be enforceable as follows. If a building which is erected fails to comply with the prescribed standard, those who erected it may be compelled to pull it down provided that they are ordered to do so within twelve months of erection.

It was that limitation of twelve months which was questioned in Committee. It is a period which is used in relation to the building byelaws procedure under the Public Health Act, and it has been found to be the right period in practice, and we observe it not only for the sake of continuity and consistency but also because we think it is necessary to have a limitation of time of about that length. Therefore, I hope that hon. Members will feel that there is nothing wrong in having that limitation.

The Bill presents a sanction which has only to be placed on the Statute Book for it never to be used. Obviously, people will be so afraid of having money thrown away by being compelled to pull down an expensive building that they will take very good care to ensure that the building complies with the prescribed standard. Therefore, although the sanction is there, we hope that the fact that it is there will in itself be sufficient to ensure compliance and that this somewhat unpleasant sanction will, consequently, never have to be used.

Two Scottish hon. Members who were on the Standing Committee have apologised for their inability to be here today. Out of respect to them, I think I ought to mention why it is that my noble Friend the Minister of Power is made solely responsible, and not jointly with the Secretary of State for Scotland, for drawing up regulations under the Bill. The answer is a simple and straightforward one which I trust the House will accept.

The Minister of Fuel and Power under the 1945 Act, from which his authority is derived, has a general responsibility for co-ordinating fuel and power matters and for ensuring fuel efficiency and fuel economy throughout Great Britain, which includes Scotland. The only way in which that power is limited is under those statutes which deal with electricity in Scotland. The North of Scotland Hydro-Electric Board and the South of Scotland Electricity Board both come under the Secretary of State, but other Scottish matters come under the Minister of Power. For example, my noble Friend appoints the Scottish Gas Board. There is a Scottish Division of the National Coal Board, and my noble Friend has an overall responsibility for helping those who are trying to achieve fuel efficiency in Scotland.

There is a further reason why it should be the Minister of Power and not the Secretary of State who should have the responsibility for making regulations under the Bill, and that is that in the Ministry of Power we have a number of fuel engineers and other experts who are the best and most appropriate people for taking part in the consultations which will precede the regulations and, finally, for drawing up the regulations. The Secretary of State for Scotland would either have to take advice from outside or add to his staff if that responsibility were placed upon him.

With all those factors in mind, after very careful consideration, and with the greatest deference to those north of the Border, it has been decided that the Minister of Power should be the responsible Minister under the Bill.

We all hope that this country will have the power which it needs to increase the standard of living, to provide for increased industrial production and for everything to which we have looked forward in the years to come but our success in obtaining it will depend mainly upon following an old American maxim, "It is what you do with what you have got that counts." We have to make the best possible use of our own indigenous coal supplies, and to do so for the rest of our lifetime. It is because the Bill will help us to make a better use of those supplies than we are doing that we are grateful to my hon. Friend and glad to commend the Bill to the House.

I beg to move, in page 1, line 11, to leave out "words indicating" and to insert "an indication".

I suggest that it might be for the convenience of the Committee to discuss with this Amendment the following Amendment standing in my name, also in page 1, line 11.

Since the Committee stage of the Bill it has been pointed out to me that a trader might not necessarily be caught by the Bill if he advertised his hire-purchase deposit without using any words indicating that a deposit was payable. For instance, he might place an advertisement in a window saying "Cash price £50, or £5 deposit and 24 instalments." This and the following Amendment will ensure that such advertisements will be covered.

I beg formally to second the Amendment.

I beg to move, in page 2, line 12, to leave out from "advertisement" to end of line 14.

Clause 2 directs that

"An advertisement to which this Act applies shall not be displayed or issued unless it includes"

certain information which is set out in the rest of the Clause and that this information is "displayed clearly" in the advertisement. The Clause continues—and these are the words which my Amendment seeks to leave out:

"in such a way as not to give undue prominence to any part of it in comparison with any other part"

It is my desire to leave out those words because I feel that they will cause very great difficulty in the drafting of advertisements and because I think that they are superfluous following after the words "displayed clearly". If, in fact, this information is displayed clearly in advertisements, that would seem to me sufficient without introducing the phrase "undue prominence" which is a very difficult phrase to construe.

I ask hon. Members to put themselves in the position of the artist or the copywriter of a hire-purchase advertisement. He will, first, have to consider what is meant by prominence. Let us suppose that he is given some information about the terms on which the goods are to be offered for hire purchase, terms which, perhaps, are better than those offered by rival firms, and that he wants to indicate that in the advertisement. It may be, perhaps, that a smaller deposit than that required by rivals is offered or that more and, therefore, smaller instalments are offered, or some such fact as that. If the artist or copywriter wants to give any particular information of that sort prominence—let us leave out the question of whether it may be "undue"—he would do so by positioning that information in the advertisement where it would catch the eye, or by the use of different type, for instance, by the use of italics or heavy type.

Prominence to any part of the information required by the Bill may be given in a perfectly ordinary way and not necessarily deliberately. The position of information in an advertisement creates, in itself, a prominence as I understand the meaning of the word in this Clause. Even the angle at which the type may be set, the sort of type used or the colours used if it is a colour advertisement, and so on, creates a prominence.

The artist or the copywriter has to put himself in the position of the magistrate and come to a sort of judicial decision as to whether he is giving prominence to any particular part of the required information over any other part. Having decided whether he is giving prominence, he has to decide whether that prominence is undue. He has to consider what prominence is due to the statement of the deposit payable, what prominence is due to the number of instalments payable, and so on. In fact, he has to consider what is meant by "undue prominence". It is a phrase which is nowhere else defined in law or in the Bill, and I presume that it will have to be defined by the courts in due course if it remains in the Bill.

In Committee my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Rochdale (Lieut.-Colonel Schofield), the promoter of the Bill, said that we could trust the courts to give a sensible decision. If I may say so without offence to my hon. and gallant Friend, that is a stupid and dangerous thing to say. The courts have to construe the actual words of a Statute whether those words are sensible or not, and if we put into the Bill the words "undue prominence" the court will, first, have to decide what is meant by "prominence" and then what is meant by "undue." It seems to me that it is setting the court a very difficult proposition for no purpose at all because in the earlier part of the Clause the object is perfectly well achieved by the statement that the information must be

"displayed clearly in the advertisement."

As I understand the aim of the Bill, it is that the prospective purchaser under a hire-purchase or credit-sale transaction shall be fully informed of all important details of the transaction into which he is entering. It is not its aim, as I understand the Bill, to forbid inducing people to enter into hire-purchase or credit-sale transactions. Indeed, I do not think that one could legislate for that. It is merely a Measure to put before the prospective purchaser the information about hire-purchase transactions so that he may know to what transaction he is binding himself. Therefore, if the information is displayed clearly that should be sufficient without the words "undue prominence" which will give the artist and the copywriter of advertisements extreme difficulty and which will undoubtedly bring about unnecessary litigation.

I beg to second the Amendment.

I support what my hon. Friend the Member for Crosby (Mr. Page) has said and I hope that my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Rochdale (Lieut.-Colonel Schofield) will find it possible to accept the Amendment. I understand that this is one of the points in the Bill which has presented difficulty to many of those in the advertising industry, including the Advertising Association and other of the other responsible organisations who are by no means ill-disposed to the objects of the Bill or to its provisions as a whole.

The Clause, without the words which the Amendment proposes to delete, would provide that the information required to be given should be given clearly. What more could reasonably be asked than that the necessary information which it is felt should be given to safeguard the customer should be given clearly?

On the question of giving

"undue prominence to any part of it in comparison with any other part"

we enter a sphere which will present great difficulties, not only to those who construct, compose and lay out the advertisements, but to those who have to interpret what is meant by "undue prominence"

An advertisement is not a contract. It is not a prospectus. It is not even a catalogue. It is something which is designed to attract the eye of the purchaser and to lead on to the stage at which a contract may subsequently be made.

The question of what is "undue prominence" in one part of the advertisement as against another must depend upon a number of considerations, including the standard of judgment. The man who writes and composes the advertisement and lays it out has his view of what would be the right prominence of each part of it according to its attractive qualities. Other people may have differing views from quite different points of view.

The expression

"in such a way as not to give undue prominence to any part of it in comparison with any other part"

is not necessary for the purpose of the Bill. It is not necessary for the essence of what my hon. and gallant Friend is trying to do. It presents a difficulty to many of those who are sympathetically inclined to his object. I hope, therefore, that he will find it possible to accept the Amendment.

I hope the House will reject the Amendment. When the Bill was in Committee upstairs, we had a fairly long debate upon it, and when we divided the hon. Member for Crosby (Mr. Page), who now moves the same Amendment on Report, got only one supporter. The whole of the Committee, from all quarters, was solidly against him on this issue. I think that as we had a long discussion in Standing Committee, the House would be well advised not to accept the Amendment now.

For one thing, in the view of, if not all of us, certainly a majority in the Committee, if we accepted the Amendment it would stultify one of the main objects of the Bill. We are trying to ensure that advertisements offering goods on hire-purchase terms should be plain in their meaning and that a person reading those advertisements should know exactly what the offer is and what he is expected to pay.

For that reason, in the past it has been the custom with some advertisers—certainly not with all of them and not, I think, the majority—to put certain items of information in very small type and for some to miss them out altogether. What will happen, it seems to me, is that if the Bill becomes an Act without these words therein, it will mean that although a person is obliged to insert the information which the Act will stipulate, he will put some of it in such small type that many of those reading the advertisements will miss it.

Surely the words "displayed clearly" avoid the difficulty that the right hon. Gentleman foresees.

The hon. Member made play with the fact that the courts might find it difficult to interpret "undue prominence". If that is so, they would also have, according to the hon. Member, difficulty in interpreting "clearly". So long as the print is clear, there will be no stipulation in the Bill, if these words are omitted, that the type shall be adequate to such other type as is also in the display. "Undue" is the operative word.

A display artist can set forth an advertisement and not feel at all limited in his artistic conception of how the advertisement should be laid out if we leave these words in the Bill. He will know, and, I think, the courts and everyone who brings common sense to bear on this issue will know, that "undue prominence" means what it says. It may well be that the hon. Member for Crosby feels that there is ambiguity in the wording, but he is about the only one.

As it is our view that the Amendment would stultify one of the main objects of the Bill, I hope that the House will share the view expressed so clearly upstairs and reject the Amendment.

One of the principal objects of the Bill is to prevent misleading advertisements, advertisements which highlight certain parts of the terms and make it almost impossible in many cases to read other parts of the terms. The whole essence of the Bill is to prevent these misleading advertisements.

If we accept the Amendment, we shall go right back to the position in which we are today. We should find, "Yours for £1", with a great big "£1", and then, tucked away somewhere, "plus £10 deposit and 24 monthly payments of £1." It may be clear to my hon. Friend the Member for Crosby (Mr. Page), if he wants to make it clear—he may be able to see better than I or somebody else—but I have seen so many advertisements in which it is impossible, even wearing my spectacles, for me to read some of the terms. To omit this stipulation would be to leave the position back to where it is today.

An exaggerated fear has been expressed today about the difficulty and trouble that the copywriters will have by complete equality of treatment being required. Complete equality of treatment is not asked for. The Bill merely asks that there shall not be "undue prominence". As the right hon. Member for Colne Valley (Mr. Glenvil Hall) has said, the operative word is "undue". In spite of what has been said by my hon. Friend the Member for Crosby about his opinion of the courts, my opinion of then is much higher. I believe that they would not put upon these words the narrow construction that he himself has tried to put upon them. I hope that the Committee will resist the Amendment.

I beg to move in page 2, line 15, to leave out:

"actual figures as to price"

and to insert "details of payments".

Perhaps it would be for the convenience of the House if with this Amendment we discussed those in the same page, in lines 20, 23, 25 and 33; in page 3 lines 5 and 6, and that in page 4.

I think that that would be to the advantage of the House, because all the Amendments relate to the same point, and what I am about to say will apply equally to them all. As these are purely drafting Amendments, I do not propose to speak at length.

In the Standing Committee hon. Members on both sides saw difficulty in the use of the word "actual", and I gave an undertaking that, on Report, I would do my best to get rid of that word wherever I could, and also to find an alternative phrase for the expression "actual figures as to price". The Committee felt that the use of that word and of that phrase imported an indirect obligation on traders to enter into transactions only on the terms contained in the advertisement, whereas, in practice, we know that customers often wish, say, to put down a deposit larger than that advertised. Again, they may wish to complete payments in a shorter period. It does not happen that every transaction in a shop is in exactly the same terms as those stipulated in the advertisement. It was because of that undertaking that I gave to the Committee that I have put down all these various Amendments.

I beg formally to second the Amendment.

On behalf of the Government, I should like to support the Amendment, because I think that the Bill should go out from this House with its intention absolutely clear. This Amendment, and those that the House is taking with it, make it quite clear that it is not the intention of the Bill to link, absolutely and directly, an advertisement with any agreement that may subsequently be entered into. I believe that that purpose will be achieved.

I should like to emphasise that departure from advertised terms commonly happens in the course of perfectly proper trading. A customer may wish to pay more quickly, either by putting down more than the advertised deposit or by paying larger instalments than those advertised. On the other hand, a trader may, quite legitimately, refuse to supply goods to some customer whose credit is doubtful without his first receiving a deposit larger than that advertised. Furthermore, a change in the Government's credit restrictions or in the rates of Purchase Tax, or indeed—where a trader does not carry stocks—a change in the manufacturers' price, will necessitate quite a substantial departure from the advertised terms.

Quite rightly, the Bill does not seek to interfere with recognised trade practices by requiring all hire-purchase contracts to follow exactly the advertised terms. To do so would be to introduce an entirely new conception of advertising, with implications going far beyond hire purchase. In short, the Bill, as amended, will leave unaltered the present position that a hire-purchase advertisement is, as are other advertisements, only an invitation to treat, and not an offer. These Amendments will put that beyond all doubt.

I am sure that hon. Members will realise that if this Measure tried to tie hire-purchase agreements to advertisements, it would, in effect, become a Bill dealing with agreements rather than with advertisements. It would become an entirely different Bill, one bristling with practical difficulties. For example, there would be difficulty in determining which particular advertisement was relevant to a particular agreement; how long an advertisement remained effective; by which of a trader's advertised terms he was actually tied, and so on. Application and enforcement would present very great problems.

I am very grateful to my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Rochdale (Lieut.-Colonel Schofield) for introducing these Amendments. I hope that the House will be able to accept them, as they will make the Bill the useful Measure it is designed to be, and will not leave any doubt in the minds of the public or traders concerned.

On behalf of my hon. Friends, I accept what the Parliamentary Secretary has said. He was himself present in the Committee when the hon. and gallant Gentleman undertook—I think largely at the request of the hon. Member for Crosby (Mr. Page)—to submit Amendments of this kind when the Bill reached this stage. I should like to say how glad I am that the hon. Member for Crosby pointed out in Committee some of the ambiguities that might arise if the words at present in the Bill were used; notably, the word "actual," in certain places. As I understand it, the Parliamentary Secretary was not dealing with the final Amendment on the Paper, that in page 6, line 7, which, I assume, will be taken separately and spoken to separately.

That will be dealt with separately.

I say that because some of the hon. Gentleman's arguments might, perhaps, refer in particular to that Amendment, and I should not like to feel that we were prevented from discussing it in due course.

I beg to move, in page 2, line 28, to leave out "and".

Perhaps it would be for the convenience of the Committee, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, if with this Amendment we discussed that in line 30, and that in page 3, line 2.

Yes, I think that would be convenient.

There was some argument in Committee as to whether or not it was advisable to include in the particulars that must be given in any advertisement—whether in a shop window, periodical or newspaper—the cash price of the goods that were offered for sale. There was some difference of view upstairs, although in the end the majority of the Committee quite definitely formed the opinion that it was wise and proper to insert amongst the information that must be given in any advertisement a statement as to the price.

The reason was that until and unless the cash price of a suite of furniture or other goods is known, it is very difficult to realise just what it will cost an individual if he buys on hire-purchase terms. Some of us were fortified in that view by the fact that traders' associations, which are fairly expert and knowledgeable in these matters, were anxious that we should include the cash price in the information which ought to be given in any advertisement.

The hon. and gallant Gentleman who is promoting the Bill undertook in Committee to try to persuade the House when we reached Report stage to include words which would insist that when information is given in any advertisement it should also include the cash price. Other hon. Members, and certainly my hon. Friends on this side of the House, feel very keenly on this matter, and I am sure that they will have something to say. Without wishing to delay the House, I think we should be well advised, even if it means spending a few minutes on it, to consider favourably the inclusion in the Bill of the words proposed.

I am glad to have the opportunity to support my right hon. Friend the Member for Colne Valley (Mr. Glenvil Hall) in his contention. It was not my good fortune to be a member of the Standing Committee which considered the Bill, and I have read with great interest the debate which took place on this subject.

While the hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Rochdale (Lieut.-Colonel Schofield) himself did not make a promise that he would endeavour to insert such an Amendment on Report, he did indicate on more than one occasion in the Committee stage that he was prepared to give the idea serious consideration, with a view to inserting an Amendment at this later stage. I must therefore express my severe disappointment, as one of the backers of his Bill, that the insertion of these words has not been suggested by the promoter at this stage.

This is a very important feature of what is being attempted by this Bill. The hon. Member for Crosby (Mr. Page) in his speech a few minutes ago on another Amendment, said that the purpose of the Bill should be that prospective purchasers should be informed of all the details of a transaction. I agree with him completely, and I suggest that that information is not complete in the transaction if the prospective purchaser has no knowledge of the actual value of the item which he proposes to buy.

I hope that the hon. and gallant Gentleman will ultimately accept the Amendment, because then there will be some clarity if the value is placed in the advertisement. That is the only way in which we can approach this very important subject. If there is no way in which the prospective purchaser can compare the price for which he might buy the goods outright with what he is being asked to pay week by week and month by month, and the total of those payments, he has no clue in very many cases what rate of interest he will have to pay or the ultimate amount of interest which he will be called upon to pay.

I should like to give one illustration which has come to my notice in very recent times. A constituent came to see me less than a month ago. She was a poor woman, the wife of a man who was receiving a very small wage, and who had a large family. The husband was a man who did not enjoy the best of health, and he was compelled in the evenings to spend his time at home. His wife, concerned about him and the way in which every evening of his life he sat in a chair at home, decided without consulting him to buy a television set for his entertainment.

Being an ignorant woman—and the House knows in what way I use the term ignorant—she went to a shop where an advertisement was displayed for a television set, in no way showing what was its value in terms of outright purchase. The poor woman found, after getting the set home, that it was quite unsatisfactory, and it had to go back to the makers. Even then satisfaction was not obtained. I totted up for her the amount she would have to pay over a period of four years. It came to about £120 for a television set which had never given satisfaction and the cost of which, if bought outright, certainly would not have exceeded £60.

This is the kind of thing about which we are concerned. If from the advertisement in the shop that woman could have clearly seen that the value of the set was about £60 or less, she would have been in a position to compare that figure with what she would have to pay over a period of four years, and the situation would have been much clearer to her.

It is the duty of this House in considering legislation of this kind to protect every member of the community, however innocent or however ignorant, when undertaking transactions of this kind. I want to know what the trader has to lose. Why is anybody, no matter who it may be, prepared to defend the trader who does this kind of thing? I suggest that it is only honest trading to state in the advertisement the value of the set if purchased outright, as compared with the alternative way of selling it by paying nine shilling a week for a period of four years or whatever the amount may be. That would be honest trading.

I have been in business on my own account for the whole of my life, and I should not regard myself as being a worthy member of my trade if I did not come forward with the most honest method of trading that I could think of. Therefore, I turn to my fellow traders and ask them to take that line and to make perfectly clear when they are selling an article what its real value is. What is to be lost by it? I hope that the hon. and gallant Gentleman will see the force of these arguments and agree to accept the Amendment, and thus clear up what at the moment is a very undesirable practice.

I have a particular interest in this matter because, like my hon. Friend the Member for Salford, West (Mr. Royle), I felt that this was a fundamental point to achieve the purpose of the Bill.

I recall that at an earlier stage the promoter of the Bill made some very favourable comments on this Amendment. Consequently I was interested and glad to see that he had put his name to it. This morning as I came into the Chamber I obtained a more up-to-date copy of the Amendment Paper, and to my regret I find that his name is now missing.

I hope that the hon. and gallant Gentleman will explain why this is so and why he has changed his mind. I shall be interested to know whether the reason is adequate. I cannot for the life of me see what reason there could be. Perhaps the hon. and gallant Gentleman will give us some insight into the mysteries of this matter and tell us what influences have been brought to bear on him to persuade him to change his mind.

I fully appreciate the views which have been so ably expressed by hon. Members opposite. The matter was raised not only in Committee but on Second Reading as well. I said then that, while appreciating the intentions behind it, I thought that such a requirement would be of very doubtful value.

I have thought over the subject very carefully since then, and I remain of the same opinion for the following reasons. As I pointed out at the time, the Bill does not set out to make advertisers show what is being charged for credit. Even if this were one of its purposes, the Bill would not necessarily achieve that purpose by requiring the cash price to be quoted.

The hon. Member for Salford, West (Mr. Royle) talked about showing the value of the article, but we are concerned here actually with the cash price as distinct from the value. In many cases, particularly in the second-hand field—and more especially with second-hand motor cars—the cash price which is quoted in an advertisement has very little meaning. It is essentially an offer to treat. When the would-be purchaser approaches the vendor, a bargain is finally struck which might be substantially different from the cash price actually shown in the advertisement.

There is another difficulty of which I think the House should be made aware, and that is that the trader who is mainly concerned with credit trading could so inflate his cash price as to make it appear that he was charging little or nothing for the credit facilities. I know that the majority of traders in this country are honest, but we have also to deal with the sharp trader. Indeed, one of the principal purposes of the Bill is to deal with the trader who sets out to mislead. We have to consider how easy it would be for such a trader to mislead the would-be purchaser into thinking that he was getting his credit facilities perhaps entirely for nothing. He would succeed perhaps in persuading some customers, who would otherwise buy goods for cash, to acquire these goods on hire-purchase terms, thinking that they would not be saving much if they did make a cash purchase because the cash price was practically the same as the credit price offered.

There are quite a number of traders whose hire-purchase trading is far more important to them than their cash trading, and therefore they would not reckon to be losing very much by advertising a cash price which was inflated to take account of what I have just said and which really bore no relation to the cash price appropriate to normal cash trading. The result of this would undoubtedly be to prejudice the trader who has a large cash business compared with the trader who specialises in hire purchase. I feel that it is important for the House to appreciate these points.

I wonder what the hon. Gentleman means by "the trader who specialises in hire purchase." What he really means is the moneylender—not the really honest trader who wants to sell a suite of furniture or a radio set or some other article which people can only afford to buy on hire-purchase terms.

Will the hon. Gentleman explain why 95 per cent. of the retail traders in this type of business want this Amendment to be made? It is only the 5 per cent.—the crooked ones, those who are money-lenders and not dealers in goods for sale—who support what the hon. Gentleman wants us to do today.

I do not think it appropriate that those whose business is in hire purchase should be called money-lenders. What I was trying to make clear was that such traders who do little cash business—and there are quite a number of them—would not find themselves at a disadvantage if they quoted a cash price which was higher than they would be normally prepared to deal in if they were dealing normally for cash. They would thereby be able to mask the true cost of their credit terms by showing higher cash prices—

Would not that give the prospective purchaser the opportunity of comparing that cash price with the cash price in another shop where a cash transaction was offered—which does not apply at the moment?

I believe that is a possibility, but it is not always easy to compare one settee, for example, in one shop with a settee in another shop on the basis of the cash prices offered. The object of inserting the cash price in the advertisement, as I understood the hon. Gentleman, was to enable the would-be purchaser to see how much the credit was costing.

That is one reason.

All I am pointing out is that if the House decides to insert this Amendment in the Bill, that object will not necessarily be achieved. In fact, it may have another and deleterious effect of enabling the trader who predominantly trades in hire purchase to mask the true cost of the credit facilities by showing higher cash prices than he would otherwise do.

Surely, if the cash price is left out these traders will have an equal—indeed, a better—opportunity of masking the amount of the cost of their hire-purchase facilities.

In my submission, a number of traders are in the habit of showing on their advertisements the credit terms or the hire-purchase terms because they are not really interested in doing cash business at all. I only wanted to make these points to the House so that hon. Members might realise that they are not necessarily achieving the object which they desire. I believe that the information already required by the Bill is all that is necessary to enable a customer to calculate from the advertisements the total amount payable for the goods. I do not think there would be much to be gained by the addition of this further information which could be of little use to the customer and might in fact be positively misleading. I should like particularly to stress that.

If, however, the House feels that it would like to see the Amendment in the Bill, if hon. Members feel that it adds a valuable provision to the Bill, I would not seek to oppose it—having made quite plain that I see some serious disadvantages in accepting it.

I am sure we are all most grateful to the Parliamentary Secretary for his last few words. He is giving the benefit of the doubt to those who favour this Amendment, and I am sure he is right. It was very clearly the intention of the Standing Committee that this Amendment should be inserted. Only two out of thirty-five members of the Committee opposed the Amendment, and as they had opposed every comma in the Bill, their opposition was neither very surprising nor very effective.

If the hon. Member is referring to me, would he turn to the Report of the Standing Committee and show me where I opposed this Amendment?

If I were given the time I could certainly do so.

The hon. Member could not.

Since then, we have received widespread support for our point of view, particularly from the reputable hire-purchase traders and notably from the main organisation of the reputable firms, the Hire Purchase Retail Traders' Association, who are most emphatic that this Amendment will help them and will injure the bad boys if it is inserted. Since then, too, probably the largest hire-purchase undertaking in the country, the Co-operative movement, has also given support to the Amendment. I feel certain that the Bill would lose half its value if the Amendment were not inserted.

I want to make it quite clear that I am in no way opposed to hire purchase. For many people with low incomes, hire purchase is an absolute necessity if they are to set up home when they get married. What many of us are opposed to is the exploitation which occurs in connection with hire purchase and, in particular, the extortionately high rate of interest charged. It is a fact that more profit is made on the money-lending side of the business—because that is what it is—than from the sale of the goods themselves. I know of a case in which a television set costing £79 cash price cost the consumer, ultimately, £172. That happened to one of my constituents.

The Amendment is one of the strongest safeguards against that kind of thing. It will ensure that the consumer can compare the cash price with the price which he will have to pay by buying through hire purchase. What is the objection? I think the Parliamentary Secretary has stated it as clearly as it can be stated. He said, "This is of doubtful value because the trader will so inflate his cash price as to make it appear that he is charging little or nothing for credit facilities."

This argument was advanced in Standing Committee and I think it was completely disposed of there. What is the point of an unscrupulous trader raising the price for his television set to £110, in order to make it appear that the consumer would pay little more by buying on hire purchase, when the shopper can walk ten yards down the street and see the same television set on sale for £80? Clearly such a practice will not be followed. The Parliamentary Secretary says that unscrupulous traders would adopt this practice, but that is not so.

The Parliamentary Secretary said that the Amendment would enable the trader to mask the true cost. The answer is that which has already been given: today most of the reputable traders state the cash price, and it is their belief that it is in their interests and in the interests of the buyer that this should continue. I therefore warmly support the Amendment, and I am very glad that there is not to be official opposition to it.

I have been asked why I withdrew my name from the Amendment on the Order Paper. As I explained in Committee, ever since the Bill was published I have been beset by all sorts of members of the trade on the question of the cash price. I have received many arguments in favour of showing the cash price and many arguments against it. In Committee I expressed my own views. I do not care whether the Amendment is included in the Bill or not because I do not attribute to it the full importance which has been attributed to it by hon. Members. Like my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary, however, I shall not oppose it if the House wishes that it should be made. I removed my name merely in order to leave me with a free hand to put one or two points which are opposed to the Amendment.

We have to consider that when the would-be hire purchaser looks at an advertisement or an article in a window, invariably he has not the ready cash with which to do a cash transaction even if he wants to do a cash transaction. In many cases he sets out with the firm intention of doing hire-purchase trade. If he is to do hire-purchase trade, it is very important that the details of the terms upon which he will do the business shall be clearly shown to him on the advertisements which advertise the goods.

That is why I did not wish to include anything which might obscure that information. I want nothing to go into the advertisement which would make it more difficult for the customer to be shown the essential information, which is the deposit, the amount of the installments, the number of instalments which have to be paid and the period over which they have to be paid. Those are the details essential to a would-be hire purchaser.

I agree that the purchaser may walk along the road and see similar articles elsewhere, but it has been said that although about 95 per cent. of the hire-purchase advertisements already include the cash price, very often it is an inflated cash price. We must remember that the Hire-Purchase Act, 1938, lays down that before a transaction takes place the seller must inform the buyer of certain facts, one of which is the cash price. He must do it either by means of writing to him or by showing it on an advertisement or a label or in a similar way. I think that many of the reasons why the cash price is shown—and in many cases it is completely fictitious—is in order that the seller can say that he has already informed the would-be purchaser of the cash price, without having to go into more detail. Nevertheless, I shall not oppose the Amendment if the House wishes to make it.

I am sorry that my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Rochdale (Lieut.-Colonel Schofield) has adopted that attitude, because I hoped by speaking for a few moments to be able to express my agreement with him in one of his views on the Amendment. I am opposed to the Amendment, in the first place for the reasons given by my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary. Indeed, I felt so strongly on the matter that I took the trouble of bringing into the Chamber with me a heavy volume in order to be able to quote to him what he said on this subject on Second Reading had he shown any sign of weakening in his view.

I think there is a danger that the additional piece of information which the Amendment demands—the cash price—may have the effect not of clarifying the situation in the mind of the would-be purchaser but of fogging it more than need be.

May I give another reason which I think is of some importance? If a man is in business, doing trade on a hire-purchase basis, and if he does not want to do business on a direct, immediate-sale basis, why should he be forced to do so by Act of Parliament?

Surely the hon. Member knows that it is already prevented under the 1938 Act.

The 1938 Act requires that when the contract is written, the purchaser should be handed in writing the information showing, among other things, the cash value of the goods. As I said in an earlier intervention, an advertisement is not a contract.

Although, when delivering the terms of a contract which somebody is being asked to sign, a man may be required to disclose this information, why should he be required, in an advertisement which is merely an invitation to people to deal with him and do business with him, to make an offer in a way that he does not wish? It is almost as though nobody were to be allowed to advertise a house for letting unless he were required at the same time to offer it at a fixed purchase price.

That is not a fantastic comparison. I remember very well between the wars, when there were more houses to let than there are now, being offered a house and being given the choice of buying or renting it. When speaking to the agent about it, my first reaction was to ask, "Why is the purchase price apparently so high in relation to the rent that is being asked?" The agent shrugged his shoulders and said, "It is because the owner does not really want to sell".

If in this case, as my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary has said, the man who is seeking to do business and is putting the terms into the advertisement is compelled to put in a price for cash when what he wants to do—because it is his normal method of business—is to do it on hire purchase, surely the likely effect is that he will put in a cash price designed to discourage the cash sale instead of the hire-purchase arrangement. If that is so, what my hon. Friend has said will come to pass and the cash price quoted in the advertisement will have the effect of fogging instead of clarifying the real cost of the hire-purchase terms.

The hon. Member believes that the insertion of the cash price will fog rather than clarify the terms. How will the insertion of three words—"Cash price £X" confuse rather than help the buyer?

I suggest that the cash price quoted may in itself be an artificial figure which is not the information that will help the purchaser.

Surely, that point has already been dealt with a few minutes ago.

That is the view I am expressing in support of what my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary has said and that is one of the reasons I am opposed to the Amendment.

I am also opposed to the Amendment on the general ground that it appears to me to add to the amount of information that the advertiser must get into what may be a very small advertisement. We should keep the essentials down to the very minimum and I do not regard this as an essential.

I beg to move, in page 2, line 40, to leave out from "of" to "sum" in line 44 and to insert "a price or."

It will be remembered that in Standing Committee the hon. Member for Lewisham, North (Mr. MacDermot) queried the use of the expressions "hire-purchase price" and "total purchase price" without going to the lengths of defining them later in the Bill. As these two expressions appeared only in Clause 2 (3, a, i), it has since been proved possible to simplify the Bill and to get rid of these two expressions entirely without detracting from the purport of the requirement concerned. That is the reason for the Amendment.

I beg formally to second the Amendment.

I beg to move, in page 3, line 14, to leave out "where an advertisement relates" and to insert:

"in the case of an advertisement of goods."

I think it would be convenient if the following two Amendments were taken at the same time.

I beg formally to second the Amendment

I should the Amendment and follow it. Several times of the day I have been maligned—

I am sorry, the hon. Member is too late. I had already collected the voices.

rose

On a point of order. Mr. Deputy-Speaker. I rose on each of those Amendments which the House has just passed, but I failed to catch your eye before you collected the voices

I am sorry. The hon. Member was unfortunate.

I beg to move, in page 6, line 7, at the end to insert:

(3) For the purposes of this Act it is immaterial whether any information included in an advertisement does or does not correspond with the terms on which goods to which the advertisement relates are in fact disposed of; and accordingly—

(a) for the purposes of subsection (2) of section one of this Act, and of subsection (4) of section two of this Act, an advertisement shall be taken to specify the amount of a deposit or instalment if it specifies an amount as being the amount of the deposit or instalment in question, and

(b) in so far as any provision of this Act requires information as to an amount or number, or the length of a period, to be included in an advertisement, that provision (subject to compliance with any requirement of this Act as to the manner in which any such information is to be expressed or displayed) shall be taken to be complied with if the advertisement specifies an amount or number, or length of period, as being the amount or number in question, or the length of the period in question, as the case may be.

This Amendment was discussed in Committee, and it was negatived, but on second thoughts we see an absolute necessity for its being made. It is designed to meet doubts which have been expressed about the relationship between hire-purchase advertisements and subsequent hire-purchase agreements. As the Parliamentary Secretary has said, the Bill does not attempt to require that the terms on which goods are offered for disposal by hire-purchase or credit sale in a shop should, of necessity, be identical with those contained in the advertisement.

I beg to second the Amendment.

Both in Committee and subsequently some of us had some doubts about the desirability of making, this Amendment, but we have been persuaded that if words such as these are not inserted in the Bill it may be considered that an offence, even a criminal offence, is committed by advertisers who, for one reason or another, most of them good, vary the terms of the offer from the terms of the advertisement.

The argument which has appealed to me almost more than any other is that of the difficulty of knowing how long an advertisement shall subsist. When an advertiser puts an advertisement in a periodical it may be assumed that that is an offer open to everyone who likes to take advantage of it. One question that would arise would be: how long does the offer subsist? Does it subsist until another advertisement is put in by the same individual who put in the original one? Although some hon. Members of the Committee felt that the matter should be left to the courts, and to the gradual building up of case law upon it, we feel that it is perhaps reasonable that words such as these should be put into the Bill. We feel—and I hope that we are right in so feeling—that the fact that they are inserted will not detract from the efficacy of the Bill when it becomes an Act.

This Amendment means the collapse of the Bill and shows how impossible it is to legislate for what my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Rochdale (Lieut.-Colonel Schofield) wants to legislate. The Amendment puts the position thus. An advertiser can advertise any figures or words he chooses as long as he calls them those things which are set out in Clause 2. Of course, if one went any further than that and said the advertiser must be bound to sell at the terms set out in that advertisement, that would be a very substantial change in the law.

The advertisement is in no way an offer. As the law stands at present, it is merely an invitation to treat. Only when the prospective purchaser responds to that invitation and goes into the shop or otherwise contacts the prospective vendor and makes his offer to purchase and the vendor accepts that offer is a contract formed and are the two parties bound. So this Amendment quite rightly confirms the existing law that the advertisement shall not be part of a contract.

Therefore, the misleading advertiser is still left free to advertise whatever terms he chooses and then say he will not be bound by them. It is, of course, quite simple for the prospective vendor of the goods to inquire as to the prospective purchaser's means and then to say, "I am sorry I cannot sell to you on the terms advertised. The terms for you are so and so." They may be much more onerous terms. The misleading advertiser can attract the customers into his shop or attract them to communicate with him through the post by setting out completely misleading figures.

My hon. and gallant Friend said that the object of the Bill was to prevent misleading advertisements. This Amendment encourages misleading advertisements. The Bill itself imposes great obligations on the honest advertiser, but it in no way prevents the dishonest advertiser, the man who is determined to mislead the public.

Is my hon. Friend not overlooking the fact that if a shopkeeper consistently misled people to attract customers into the shop he would not be able to carry on like that for very long, as it is impossible to carry on business for long in that way? A man who attempted to carry on business in that way would find himself out of business very quickly.

That shows that the Bill is not necessary at all.

My complaint against the Bill is that it imposes heavy obligations on the honest advertiser, but does not do what my hon. and gallant Friend has tried hard in his drafting of the Bill to do—catch the dishonest advertiser; and when this Bill becomes law, if it becomes law, there will be many misleading advertisements all uncaught by the Bill, misleading advertisements deliberately set out to attract customers who, having thus been attracted, will be asked to sign contracts on quite other terms altogether. The prospective hire seller can keep entirely within the terms of the Bill by setting out false figures and calling them deposits, instalments, and so on.

These, perhaps, are Third Reading arguments against the Bill as a whole, but what I want to point out is what this Amendment does. It allows the advertiser to put anything he likes into the advertisement and then to sell on other terms altogether.

I should not like any words of mine against the Bill to be taken as any words against my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Rochdale (Lieut-Colonel Schofield). I want most sincerely to congratulate him on his piloting of the Bill through its several stages, on the great ability which he has shown first in drafting the Bill and later in drafting the Amendments he has proposed. I think that it is a rotten Bill, but that is all the more reason why I should compliment him on his proficiency in getting it through to this stage.

I think that the Bill is bad because it is founded on two false assumptions, first, that a substantial number of people enter into hire-purchase agreements without knowing the terms of them, and secondly, that it is advertisements which induce such people to enter into hire-purchase agreements in that ignorance. Those are the assumptions which have been made by many hon. Members throughout our discussions on the Bill, and without any evidence being produced to prove them.

There was certainly no evidence produced on the first point, that a substantial number of people enter into hire-purchase agreements without knowing the terms. Certain examples have been given in the course of debate—examples in which there has been great hardship to those who have purchased goods on hire purchase and who have found that they cannot keep up the instalments. I wonder whether those examples would have stood up to examination as to whether the hire purchasers had been induced to enter into those contracts by any advertisement

A person is apt to make wild and irresponsible statements when he finds himself embarrassed by being unable to pay the instalments, and is apt to blame both the salesman and the shopkeeper and the advertisement for having misled him into it. I would be the first to admit that there are many cases of hardship arising from hire purchase, but I would not admit that those cases arise from people having been induced by advertisements to enter into hire-purchase agreements. They have entered into them with a sort of reckless optimism, without realising the burden which future instalments will be to them and without appreciating the difficulty of meeting those instalments. The Bill will not cure that.

The Bill will not cure the foolish, those without foresight, from entering into hire-purchase agreements. The evil is not lack of knowledge, but lack of appreciation of what a hire-purchase obligation means. All that this Bill sets out to do is to provide knowledge of the terms of the agreement and not appreciation of its future burden. The Bill certainly aims to give that knowledge, to give information on the various terms of the proposed hire-purchase agreement, but I doubt whether it will achieve its object, for a reason which I will explain in a minute. What it will not do is to stop the foolish from entering into hire-purchase transactions and bringing hardship upon themselves. In Committee my hon. Friend the Member for Louth (Mr. Osborne) said that what the Bill would do would be to save the fool from his folly. I do not think that it can possibly do that. At the same time, I think that in endeavouring to do that it is placing a great burden on the honest trader and the honest advertiser.

On the second point, which I suggested was a false assumption—that it is the advertisement that induces people to enter into hire-purchase agreements in ignorance—I cannot believe that that is so. No examples have been produced in any of the debates that we have had on the Bill. Perhaps it might happen in the very rare occasions where goods are advertised for hire-purchase sale in a newspaper or magazine and the prospective purchaser is invited to apply for them through the post. There may perhaps be a direct inducement there, and no other persuasion intervenes. But even then the prospective purchaser will not get the goods until he has seen and signed a formal agreement under the 1938 Act which sets out the particulars, and, indeed, sets out more—it has to set out the cash price which hon. Members opposite have required to be inserted in the particulars required in this Bill.

Usually, what happens from the advertisement is that the prospective purchaser goes to the shop or a salesman is on the doorstep of his house. It is surely the salesmanship which induces the transactions eventually. The advertisement does no more than bring the parties together. So even if the Bill succeeds in its aim of putting before prospective purchasers all this information, I cannot feel that it will succeed in preventing hardship to those who are financially careless in entering into hire-purchase transactions.

But will the Bill succeed in giving this information? Clause 2 is very elaborate and it is difficult to understand. It has, indeed, been improved since it first appeared in draft—some of the ambiguous words have been removed—but it is still a difficult Clause to understand. I think that the reaction of those who wish to sell on hire purchase will be, "We had better not put anything into the advertisement at all other than that hire-purchase terms are available." If they merely put, "Hire-purchase terms available," then they escape the rigors of the Bill.

That is not giving the public any information at all. It is probably attracting the prospective purchaser into the shop where he will be subjected to high-pressure salesmanship, the glossing over of the number of instalments and of the hire-purchase price compared with the cash price, and so on. Surely it would have been far better to have had those terms announced to him in the advertisement, as, indeed, is generally done today, than to attract the customer into the spider's web of the high-pressure salesman. It is my view that there is likely to be less information put into hire-purchase advertisements than there is at present.

The main objection, surely, is to the last Amendment which has been inserted into the Bill in the last few minutes. It makes the whole Bill quite impracticable. The misleading advertiser, the advertiser who is determined to mislead the public, is, after all, the man we are trying to catch by this Bill. I understand that we are not endeavouring to catch the honest advertiser who wants to put before his customers all the information. By this Bill we are endeavouring to catch the man who is trying to deceive. If he is determined to deceive his customers, he will certainly still do so despite the Bill. He can say in the advertisement that the deposit is £X, the instalments so many and so much and then, for any reason he may choose, he can decline to enter into a transaction on those terms and persuade a prospective customer to sign an agreement in other terms altogether. I am afraid that that may be the result of this Bill.

Therefore, I have opposed the Bill throughout and I still oppose it. I hope that the House will not give it a Third Reading, because I do not think it does what it sets out to do, namely, to provide full information for the prospective purchaser. In trying to achieve that result, it places a very great burden on all those connected with advertising—the manufacturer who wants to advertise his goods, in a general way, on hire purchase, the retailer who wants to advertise that he can sell on hire-purchase terms, the newspapers accepting hire-purchase advertisements, and the advertising agents composing those advertisements. It merely imposes a great burden on them for no purpose whatsoever.

I should like to congratulate the hon. and gallant Member for Rochdale (Lieut.-Colonel Schofield) on the excellent work that he has done in connection with the Bill. He has made an honourable and gallant attempt to deal with the hardships which arise through misleading and deceptive advertisements. Because of that, and because of the rather unhelpful attitude which has been taken throughout by the hon. Member for Crosby (Mr. Page)—

The hon. Member speaks of an unhelpful attitude, but if he will look at the Notice Paper today he will see that almost all the Amendments in the name of my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Rochdale (Lieut.-Colonel Schofield) are Amendments which I suggested in Committee.

The hon. Member for Crosby concluded his speech today by saying that he had opposed the Bill throughout. I will amend my remarks by referring to the opposition adduced by the hon. Member. Because of that opposition, I regret to appear in any sense to agree with what the hon. Member has just said. I certainly do not agree with his description of the Bill as a rotten Bill, but, unfortunately, I have to describe it as a weak Bill.

I agree with the hon. Member for Crosby when he says that the weakness of the Bill has been increased or demonstrated by the last Amendment with which the House has just dealt. It appeared to me, on first reading, to take the meat out of the Bill as originally drafted. I am not quite sure that this is the case, or whether it merely demonstrates that there was not a lot of meat in the Bill in any case.

What the Bill now appears to do is to establish new standards in advertising hire-purchase arrangements which all honest and good traders will quite rightly endeavour, and in some respects be compelled, to adhere to, but I am very uneasy at the thought that the Bill will do very little indeed to catch the rogue. That leads me, in these final stages of the Bill, with the thought that despite all that has been so well done in the proceedings on the Bill the problem has not been solved. The Bill is still a weak one and, indeed, as it now stands is even a weaker one.

I hope that the hon. and gallant Member for Rochdale, who has done such good work in this connection, will still consider it to be his particular task and that he will be successful in future Ballots and will take up the struggle again. If he does so, and he succeeds in drafting further safeguards for customers, I shall be most happy to support him. I am sure that my hon. Friends will do all they can to help him and one hopes that even the hon. Member for Crosby will join in that endeavour.

I should like to join in the congratulations to my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Rochdale (Lieut.-Colonel Schofield) on bringing the Bill so successfully to the point which it has now reached. I should also like to add a word of congratulation to my hon. Friend the Member for Crosby (Mr. Page), who has been criticised for his attitude to the Bill.

The hon. Member declared his attitude on Second Reading and, if I may judge from reading the Report of the Committee stage—and I was not a member of that Committee—he fought a lone hand steadfastly throughout the Committee and he has had some success, at any rate, in achieving the points that he was trying to make. He has had a perfect right to declare his attitude and to fight for it, and he appears to me to have done so with great good humour in a position in which not very many hon. Members appeared to be with him.

On Third Reading of a Bill on which I have taken no previous part, I find that the point of view of my hon. Friend the Member for Crosby is very much nearer mine than is the point of view of my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Rochdale. I have had long experience in the past in this matter of trying to regulate and control misleading advertising. It is about thirty years now since I was appointed, by the Advertising Association, chairman of the first committee that was set up by the industry itself to deal with patent medicines. We had with us representatives of the British Medical Association, the manufacturing chemists, and so on. After long and careful investigation, we worked out a report which ultimately led to legislation, though that legislation never went so far as our report in laying down the rules to govern these matters. In the years between the wars a great deal more was done on these lines.

There is a time for legislation in these matters, but very often legislation does not achieve the objects that the Legislature has in mind. I have a fear that the Bill will not achieve all that the promoters hope for and that it will also do a certain amount of damage to those who are perfectly honest and straightforward traders. There are one or two points in the Bill which cause me some concern. It happens sometimes that when a Bill goes to another place some of our errors of omission or otherwise here are corrected. I hope that that may be so in this case.

My first point refers to Clause 2, which deals with giving undue prominence to this or that piece of information in an advertisement. It throws an unnecessary burden on those who construct advertisements and misunderstands the nature and purpose of an advertisement compared with a contract or a straightforward catalogue of goods. I will say no more on that now. I am more concerned about the list of items of information that are required to be put into every advertisement by Clause 2 (2).

The details required will have a serious effect on some forms of advertising which are quite prominent at present, particularly small advertisements. Anyone who studies the columns of some newspapers, particularly the provincial and local newspapers in all parts of the country, will find that a great deal of space is taken up by classified advertisements which contain a list of articles for sale. Very often a single line is devoted to one article with perhaps a cash price or it may be a first payment. There is room only for that amount of information. Advertisements of motor cars for sale are a typical case. The information may not be 100 per cent. complete, but it is not misleading, and it seems to me that there is no reason why difficulties should be put in the way of the small man who wants to advertise in that manner.

The trouble is that this Bill, with its requirement of the additional information, may have the effect of making uneconomic some forms of advertising in this country, and it is not a time at which we should be imposing additional burdens upon those who are so dependent upon the business of advertising. In that I venture to include the newspapers themselves, which are going through such difficult times. I do not know whether it is accurate, but I am told that, in the case of the television advertisements, if the "15 minute shorts" are called upon to give all the detailed information required in the Bill. they will have to be doubled in length and, therefore, doubled in cost.

There is one other matter which has not been referred to but which was the subject of an Amendment during the Committee stage and which, I am sorry to say, the Committee rejected. I am referring to the provision to safeguard the innocent publisher of an advertisement who is simply acting in the normal course of his business in accepting and publishing the advertisement. Over a long period the newspaper organisations have had to deal with this problem in a variety of forms, and there is now a more or less standard Clause which has appeared in several important Acts of Parliament, namely, the Merchandise Marks Act and the Food and Drugs Act, which it was proposed should be included in Clause 3 of this Bill. I do not know why the Amendment was rejected, nor do I think it was a sound decision by the Committee, and I hope that the matter may be looked at again in another place.

I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Crosby about the effect of the last Amendment which we considered a few minutes ago on Report. Not knowing the background of this matter, not knowing the immediate purpose of the Amendment, when I first read it on the Notice Paper I could not imagine what was its purpose and I read it over and over again. I see clearly now the purpose and why it has been found necessary. It has been found necessary to make clear that an advertisement is not, and cannot, be the kind of binding offer which by acceptance can be turned into a contract. Unfortunately, in making the Amendment to clarify that position it comes about that the essence and purpose of the Bill is undermined, because although we require the advertiser to put into his advertisement all the different figures and statements, we end by saying that it does not matter whether the figures are right or not, because whatever is put in the advertisement can always be varied when it comes to making the final contract upon which the sale depends.

That appears to cut the ground from under this Bill. Therefore, while I sympathise with its purpose and motive, I feel that here is another of these cases where much more careful thought and study of the facts is called for before legislation is wise. I do not think that the Bill is necessary. In some respects, it is vexatious for those who have to conduct their business in difficult times as best they can. I still hope, therefore, that it may be possible that some of its blemishes may be removed before the Bill reaches the Statute Book.

Normally, occasions of this kind are rather delightful. In all quarters of the House hon. Members vie with each other to congratulate the promoter of the private Bill that has been under discussion and is about to receive its Third Reading. This afternoon the hon. Gentleman the Member for Crosby (Mr. Page) has cast quite a gloom over our proceedings. In fact, he has intimated that all our work will go for nothing, that this is not only a rotten Bill but that it will not achieve the things it sets out to achieve.

The hon. Gentleman may be right, and, if so, I hope that the hon. and gallant Gentleman who promoted the Bill will follow the advice of my hon. Friend the Member for East Ham, South (Mr. Oram) and have another shot next Session if he is so fortunate as to win a place in the Ballot. We can only see what the effect of this Bill will be should it become an Act. For my part, I think that although it does not go all the way that some would like it to go it will perform a useful function.

In any case, the position cannot be worse than it is now, and it is likely that the mere fact that this Measure reaches the Statute Book will make certain that the gentry against whom we are legislating think twice. They will, in any case, if they issue advertisements, have to put into those advertisements the facts and not hide any of them.

It may well be that when it comes to the actual sale, when the two sides meet and a bargain is struck, the terms of the final offer will not be those that were in the advertisements. We cannot help that. That is the law and we are not altering the substantive law on contract. That was perhaps one of our difficulties when we considered this Bill. We are dealing with advertisements, not with hire purchase agreements and the law affecting hire purchase.

It may well be, therefore, that as and when we see how this Measure functions, changes may be necessary. It may be that the changes will have to be made in favour of advertisers. I do not know. None of us wishes to be unfair to those who advertise, but we are unanimously anxious, I think, that the mischief now inherent in the hire-purchase market should be dealt with by Parliament to protect the consumer as far as possible. The ordinary seller of goods is not the individual we are after. It is that small section which is more concerned with getting the interest on the hire purchase that goes with the goods sold. They ought to be called moneylenders, because they are nothing else.

Therefore, I add my congratulations to those already voiced to the hon. and gallant Gentleman who has got so far with this Bill. It is interesting that the original Bill on this matter was promoted by a private Member, the late Ellen Wilkinson twenty years ago. Obviously, during that time certain gaps in the legislation have come to light, and it is our duty, as a Legislature, to do our best to put them right.

I would like also to extend congratulations to the hon. Gentleman the Parliamentary Secretary. It is obvious that there are one or two things in the Bill which he, and perhaps some officers of his Department, do not like, but they were willing to bow to the general will of the Committee upstairs in the view it took on certain things in its desire to have Amendments made in the Bill. Therefore, I thank the hon. Gentleman both for his help and for the fact that he has been so accommodating to the members of that Committee on both sides in their anxiety to see this Bill reach the Statute Book in a proper shape.

Perhaps I may be allowed to thank the right hon. Member for Colne Valley (Mr. Glenvil Hall) for his gracious remarks about the help which I have tried to give the Bill. I should like to add my congratulations, too, to my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Rochdale (Lieut.-Colonel Schofield) who has piloted the Bill so skilfully through its various stages to what I think we can confidently expect will be an unopposed Third Reading.

In view of the disparaging remarks made by two of my hon. Friends, I should like to make it plain that in the Department we have thought over carefully the weaknesses which they claim to have discovered in the Bill. We admit that under the Bill as it stands a trader will, in theory, be able to advertise fictitious terms on which he has no intention of entering into agreement or doing any business, but we have had no complaint of any trader actually going in for this practice and I do not believe that such practice would have any practical commercial advantage. A customer who could see that the advertised terms were purely fictitious would probably not buy, and the goodwill of the business would suffer.

On the other hand, the Bill will stop the very real mischief about which hon. Members have complained in the past. It will prohibit the misleading type of hire-purchase advertisement which quotes only a part, and usually only the most attractive part, of the terms or which deliberately confuses the terms applicable to hire purchase and to credit sale and so induces people to enter into negotiations or agreements under a false impression. The Bill requires full details of hire-purchase terms to be set out clearly.

Several of my hon. Friends have said that it represents some hardship, particularly in the case of small classified advertisements, but it is surely right that the full terms should be clearly displayed in any hire-purchase advertisement so that a customer may see the full nature of his possible commitments. The Bill has perhaps a limited objective, but in my view it is a very useful one.

First, I should like to thank all hon. Members who have assisted in the passage of the Bill through its various stages. I hope it will be well received when it reaches another place. In my opinion, the Amendments which have been made as a result of long discussions have improved the Bill, and I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Crosby (Mr. Page) that many of the Amendments which I put down are a result of points which he raised in Committee.

At times there has been some confusion on the part of some hon. Members who seemed to think that the Bill was designed to change the law of hire-purchase and credit sales. That is not so. Hire-purchase and credit sale transactions are governed by the Hire-Purchase Acts of 1938 and 1954. All that the Bill requires is that where an advertisement contains any figures, whether they be the amount of a deposit or the amount of an instalment, those items shall not be given in isolation, but that the full details for that transaction shall be included so that it is possible to calculate approximately what the goods will cost.

One of the things the Bill is designed to stop is that class of advertisement which says "Five shillings weekly" and nothing else. Many hon. Members know that "Five shillings weekly" means just nothing. It is impossible to calculate from such an advertisement—and there are many in shop windows and news—papers at present—how much any article will cost. It may mean five shillings for two weeks or five shillings for a much longer period. If I were to be frivolous I might suggest that it might mean five shillings for the rest of the purchaser's life.

I submit that the Bill should put a stop to misleading advertisements of that kind, and if it does nothing else than prevent some of these advertisements which read, "Yours for £1", or "Yours for 5s.", which are so misleading, I believe that it will serve a useful purpose, and I hope that it will be given an unopposed Third Reading.

I beg to move, in page 1, line 6, to leave out "the bar of a registered" and to insert "any bar of the."

This is merely a drafting Amendment which, I think, considerably improves the wording of the Clause. My attention has been drawn to the fact that it is possible that there may be more than one bar on the premises of a registered club, and I think that that eventuality is better covered by the Amendment than by the Clause as originally drawn.

I suggest that in considering this Amendment it might be to the convenience of the Committee if we considered, at the same time, the later Amendment in the name of the same hon Member for Wimbledon (Mr. Black) in page 1, line 9. to leave out "the" and to insert "any."

Before dealing with the Amendment, I should like to congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Wimbledon (Mr. Black), the promoter of the Bill, in that today, I believe, he is becoming a freeman of the Borough of Wimbledon. I am sure that the Committee would wish to join with me in congratulating my hon. Friend on what must be a great occasion in his life and that of Wimbledon.

Before we part with the Amendment, I think it is important that we should know what the promoter and supporters of the Bill mean when they speak of a bar. As I have said, my hon. Friend the Member for Wimbledon has been made a freeman of the Borough of Wimbledon, and I hope that he will not think it facetious of me when I say that I am very anxious that he should not unnecessarily impair the freedom of clubs. He may have overlooked the fact that in trying to limit the age below which any person can enter a bar, he is also limiting the age below which a person can go into a club at all.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Billericay (Mr. Body) pointed out on Second Reading, there are some clubs which consist of just one room. It may be that there is a bar at the end of the room and, as a result of the Bill, it would mean that no child, whether accompanied by a parent or not—a matter which, I understand, we shall be discussing later—could go into that club room if the function which it was attending happened to be held during licensing hours.

This will have a very serious effect on a great many of the smaller clubs throughout the country, particularly British Legion clubs. It is a point which we have to bear in mind, because many British Legion clubs are leased to other organisations in the villages. Very often, the club room is the only room available. If we are to make it impossible for parents to take their children to functions held in such clubs just because they have a bar in them, and because the function happens to be held during licensing hours, then we are unduly restricting the freedom of the members of those clubs and of those who wish to use them.

Many of the working men's clubs in the country are extremely perturbed on this point. Some of them are political clubs, while others are not. I understand that there are 3,424 working men's clubs and institutes in the country, the vast majority of which have no political affiliation at all. They are very perturbed indeed. It seems to me that my hon. Friend ought to tell the Committee what he has in mind. If I am right in my deduction from what he said on Second Reading, what he really has in mind is to prevent young persons below a certain age obtaining alcoholic liquor on premises which are primarily designed for adult use. I can well understand his desire to do that. None of us wishes to add the adjective "reeling" to "screaming" in connection with children.

I think that the intention of my hon. Friend is a very worthy one. Indeed, I know very well that many church organisations of all denominations are extremely anxious that there should be some legislation to improve the situation, but I feel sure that they would not desire to do what the Bill seeks to do, namely, unfairly to restrict the use of clubs for purposes not solely concerning the members of those clubs. In other words, I do not think from what I know of them and of the work they do that they would wish to interfere with the operation of clubs in such a way that they could no longer be let for other village functions at which children would normally attend, usually accompanied by their parents.

For the reasons I have stated, I am a little loath to accept my hon. Friend's Amendment even though he says that it is only a drafting Amendment, because I believe that it contains something of far more substance than drafting. I hope that my hon. Friend will be able to give a satisfactory answer to the point raised.

Would the promoter and supporters of the Bill say whether they have considered the matter of bars on wheels and how they affect the matter? I am sure that many of us do not differ very much from my hon. Friend the Member for Wimbledon (Mr. Black) in what he is seeking to do, but only differ from him concerning the means by which he seeks to do it. We are only concerned to see that what is suggested is practicable and would not inconvenience the ordinary users of such clubs.

I should like to know for how many hours a bar on wheels would have to be in a club room before that room is interpreted as being mainly used for the dispensing of alcoholic liquor.

I should like to know what is a bar because there are rooms in which drinks are served which have none of the recognisable pieces of furniture which you and I, Mr. Hynd, would recognise as belonging to a bar. There are some clubs in which there are no bars as such, but which are licensed and in which drinks are served in other rooms. How does the Clause apply to such cases? I should like my hon. Friend to clear up that point.

It seems to me that, shortly, this matter can be stated by posing the question in the old terminology, "When is a bar not a bar?"—and I will not give a very rude answer to that one. Often, in cricket clubs, tennis clubs, working men's clubs and British Legion clubs, to which my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for the Isle of Ely (Major Legge-Bourke) referred, there is no bar as such. What happens is that a man appears from the depths with a pint of beer, or some cider, from behind a little lobby where he keeps it, and he brings it into the room. None the less, I think that anybody trying to construe the Bill would come to the conclusion that, for for ordinary purposes, the whole of the room is a bar.

As I understand, the promoters of the Bill are anxious that children should not be able to consume alcohol. I do not believe that the Bill will do anything to assist in that purpose. All that the Bill, and, in particular, this Amendment to this Clause, will do is merely to restrict children from going into any premises which are clubs, where drink is ever consumed at all.

For those reasons, I find the drafting of the whole of this part of the Clause, particularly in relation to this matter, wholly unsatisfactory, however admirable may be the objects which the promoters have in mind, because one is quite unable, under the Bill, to define when a bar is not a bar.

I should like further definition of the word "bar". What I have in mind is the position of British Legion clubs, to which reference has already been made. There are two such clubs in my constituency, and the premises of each consist of one room only. There is, admittedly, what one might call a bar, I suppose, in one corner, a very small bar in relation to the whole of the room. Both rooms are often used for children's parties, Christmas parties and functions of that kind. As I understand the Clause, if such functions happen to take place during permitted hours, because of the bar in the corner children under fourteen will not be allowed in. I do not think that my hon. Friend the Member for Wimbledon (Mr. Black) would wish that to be the result.

There are other times when parents sometimes come in to such clubs with their children. They may go in during permitted hours, on a hot day like this, for example, to have a soft drink. A club, after all, is an extension of one's home; it is a privileged place, not like the ordinary public house. I cannot see why children should not be allowed to come in in such circumstances with their parents, but they would, I believe, be prevented from so doing by this Clause.

My hon. Friend should, at least, define rather more clearly than has been done so far what is a bar, or, at any rate, give some indication that he would consider at a later stage some Amendment which would provide for the one-room club not being affected by this provision.

Contrary to the experience of most of my hon. Friends, I have a fairly extensive knowledge of bars, and I think I can recognise them. But that is not the point I wish to raise during the few moments for which I wish to detain the Committtee. Would my hon. Friend the Member for Wimbledon (Mr. Black), when he rises to reply to the many points which have been made by my hon. Friends, at the same time give some explanation as to what is meant by this Amendment to leave out the word "registered" so that the words would read,

"any bar of the club".

What is the intention behind leaving out the word "registered"? I should like some explanation about that. As I say, I have a fairly extensive knowledge of bars of various sorts, not only where drink is sold but bars at the end of rivers and so on, but I cannot quite understand my hon. Friend's purpose in deleting the word "registered".

indicated assent.

I see my hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (Mr. Remnant, nodding his head, and he has an extensive knowledge of this subject also, I understand.

Not in registered clubs.

Does the right hon. Gentleman wish to intervene? He said something, but I missed his words.

As I understand it, all clubs which sell alcoholic refreshment have to be registered; otherwise they are barred by Statute from selling such refreshment. It has been suggested to me by one of my hon. Friends with whom I was discussing the Bill a short time ago, that it may be the intention of my hon. Friend the Member for Wimbledon to bring within the scope of the Bill bars which, in fact, do not sell alcoholic refreshment at all. He may wish to stop children going into bars where "Cidrax", for instance, is sold, which is a form of refreshment similar to cider but which is not, I understand, alcoholic. I understand that "Cidrax" is not alcoholic.

indicated dissent.

I understand so; I shall be corrected if I am wrong. Surely it is not the intention of my hon. Friend the Member for Wimbledon (Mr. Black) to stop children going into that sort of bar, but under this proposed Amendment if a club has a bar to sell ice-cream children cannot enter—a club which has not any alcoholic refreshment on sale on its premises.

I should have thought that there was no justification for leaving out the word "registered". If my hon. Friend wishes to include any bar, I can see the point of his Amendment, but I should have thought that the words should have been "any bar in a registered club", in which case I think he would have achieved his object—although I am sure that he will not object when I say that I do not agree with his proposal. I should be grateful if my hon. Friend would examine that point and see if it is possible to give a satisfactory explanation for leaving out the word "registered".

I should like to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Blackley (Mr. E. Johnson) in asking if my hon. Friend the Member for Wimbledon (Mr. Black) can give a further definition of when a bar is not a bar. I can think of many occasions in my part of the world when registered clubs have a bar tent—shows, point-to-points and the like. Those tents are very often the only shelter there is at a point-to-point meeting or at a ploughing match. The day might be very cold and wet, and if the Amendment were accepted parents who took shelter in the tent to get some warmth for themselves would be forced to leave their children in the wet and in the cold. I do not think that that is my hon. Friend's intention.

I should like to join my hon. Friends in asking my hon. Friend the Member for Wimbledon (Mr. Black) to elaborate a little more on this definition of a bar. I appreciate the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Exeter (Mr. Dudley Williams), but I will go a little further in saying that to me it seems of some significance that the word "registered" is proposed to be left out. It may be that my hon. Friend has left it out as a result of what was said on Second Reading.

I think that on that occasion I mentioned the position of unregistered clubs. It may be that I then made a false point, because every club should be registered, and the committee of management of a club that is not registered is committing an offence. Nevertheless, there are such things as unregistered clubs. Section 123 of the Licensing Act, 1953, has a number of provisions relating especially to the unregistered club, and I should like to ask my hon. Friend if he thinks that it is altogether wise to leave out the word "registered."

My hon. Friend will know that there is a further Amendment in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Blackley (Mr. E. Johnson) and myself, in the form of a new Clause. It is an interpretation Clause, and includes a definition of a bar. I frankly say that I purloined that definition—

The hon. Member cannot discuss that Amendment yet.

I only intended to ask whether my hon. Friend the Member for Wimbledon would be good enough to say, at this stage, whether he would accept that later Amendment. It relates to this one and that would clear up this point altogether. Perhaps he could say that he agrees with it—

It would be quite out of order to discuss that Amendment in any way at this stage.

Then I say no more, Mr. Hynd. Perhaps I have already made my point, and perhaps my hon. Friend will be able to say, "Yes" or "No."

I feel some confusion after hearing the recent speeches, though I have been following their trend very carefully. May I ask the promoter of the Bill if the conclusion to be drawn from the Clause is that it is the intention that children under 14 years of age shall be excluded entirely from such premises where there is a bar? Children are not excluded at present from such places. Therefore, this seems to be a major alteration of the law, if my assumption is correct, and I think it would be helpful to the Committee if the promoter of the Bill would clarify the position so that we should know a little better where we stand on this question.

Since you, Mr. Hynd, did not rule out of order my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for the isle of Ely (Major Legge-Bourke), may I follow him in joining in the congratulations to my hon. Friend the Member for Wimbledon (Mr. Black) on his great and amply deserved honour?

With regard to his Amendment, I entirely agree with him that it is a drafting Amendment. It does not in any way alter the sense of the Clause, but it does improve it from the purely drafting point of view. The Clause follows a Section in the Licensing Act, 1953, and on the general principles of drafting, it is clearly desirable that the wording should be the same as between both. As between "the bar" or "any bar," the latter terminology is preferable, because some clubs have no bar and some have more than one bar. I think that that to some extent answers the point raised by the hon. Member for Bradford, South (Mr. G. Craddock), when he asked whether the intention is to exclude children under 14 years of age from all clubs. As I understand it, the answer is no, but only from the bar rooms of clubs.

That follows, it seems to me, the point made by several of my hon. Friends, which is a cogent one, that where there is only one room, which contains a bar, as in sports clubs and so many British Legion Clubs, the effect of the Clause is to exclude the child from the club altogether.

During permitted hours?

Yes, during permitted hours. As I said, this is a drafting Amendment, which seems to me to effect an improvement in the Clause, and I should therefore advise the Committee to accept it. That does not mean that the Government necessarily agree with the principle of Clause 1. I say nothing as to the rest of the Bill, but I made it clear on Second Reading that there are serious disadvantages in Clause 1 regarding its operation in British Legion clubs, which I mentioned at the time, and a great many sports clubs.

May I now answer one or two other points made by hon. Members? First, there was the question whether the effect of the Amendment would be to include within the scope of the Clause unregistered clubs, whereas formerly it was limited to registered clubs. As I read it, it has no such effect, but is a purely drafting Amendment, and the secretary of a registered club should not allow a person under 14 years of age to be in any bar of the club during permitted hours. The effect of that is that the club is a registered club, so that I think that my hon. Friends the Members for Billericay (Mr. Body) and Exeter (Mr. Dudley Williams) need not feel any qualms about that, as the effect is still that it is a registered club to which the Clause applies.

With regard to definition, a bar is defined already in the Licensing Act, and my hon. Friend the Member for Billericay got very close to saying this. I think that under the Licensing Act, 1953, "bar" is defined as any place exclusively or mainly used for the sale and consumption of intoxicating liquor. Irrespective of any new Clause which may be put down by way of Amendment, that definition would, in the absence of other definition, cover the use of the term in this Clause.

As I say, the view which I put before the Committee is that whether Clause 1 is to be passed or not is a matter that can be discussed on the Motion, "That the Clause stand part of the Bill." If it is passed, it is obviously desirable that it should be passed in the most workmanlike form possible, and I therefore advise the Committee to accept the Amendment.

I suggest that we should take the next two Amendments together.