I beg to move,

That this House desires to abolish the statutory obligation to hold Town Meetings and Towns' Polls as at present defined in Section 255, and the 9th Schedule of the Local Government Act, 1933.

Before I begin my argument, I should like to apologise to right hon. and hon. Members, for, I think, completely "foxing" them on the afternoon of Wednesday, 4th March. I remember that, as the winning ticket in the Ballot was pulled out of the black box, and was handed to you, Mr. Speaker, a number of hon. Members, so I suspected, staked and lost their shirts, for I recall hearing at that moment one of my hon. Friends say, "I bet a 'bob' I know what he is going to propose."

The House, evidently, thought that I should be drawing attention to the need for world government. On this occasion, I did not run true to form, and I sincerely hope that neither the present hon. Member for Bolton, West (Mr. Holt) nor his predecessor, Mr. John Lewis, will think it necessary, therefore, to have me destroyed or refuse to pay my price.

I wish to draw attention to the absurdity of the town hall procedure and the voting procedure at the town meeting. It is the object of my Motion to urge the Government to bring in the necessary amending legislation to change these practices, which are now obligatory. Rather like my interest in world government, my view of the town's poll is a bee which has been buzzing violently, and for many years, in my bonnet. I am delighted, on this occasion, to give the beast its freedom.

I have never been a city father or city councillor myself, but I first had experience of a town's poll a few years after I became a Member of Parliament, representing the City of Birmingham, when, in 1948, the Birmingham Corporation produced its first post-war corporation Bill. I noticed that, on that occasion, two of the clauses which, I understand, the elected councillors in their wisdom have approved, were thrown out on the vote of the town's poll by a tiny majority of the Birmingham electors—in fact, less than 3 per cent.

Moreover, to provide the mechanism by which, to quote from a memorandum of the Association of Municipal Councils,

"a small interested body of people could defeat what would generally be considered a beneficial measure",

the ratepayers of the City of Birmingham were put to a cost of over £2,000 to provide the facilities for the town's poll where this farce was staged.

Since that occasion, in 1948, there have been three further corporation Bills prepared in Birmingham. On each occasion the story which has unfolded as a result of the provisions of the 1933 Act has been more lunatic. Recently, a correspondent of The Times, writing from Birmingham on 22nd December last, had this to say:

"Birmingham ratepayers have been saved a bill of £7,000, the estimated cost of holding a town's poll."

He went on to say:

"The project is Birmingham's most important single civic development for 50 years, and party leaders on the city council can remember no previous occasion when a major scheme received the unanimous approval of the members as this did. The council claim that there is negligible opposition to the Bill from the public. Such as there has been has been brought by Mr. Gregory Prescott, secretary of the Birmingham Ratepayers' Alliance. When the corporation held the statutory town's meeting to consider the Bill the draft of it was approved by a majority of six to one. Mr. Prescott, nevertheless, announced that he would continue the struggle and would collect the 100 electors' signatures needed to requisition a town's poll. Corporation leaders said that the city would be put to considerable expense and deprived of the services of 1,000 officials for a day to hold the poll, the outcome of which appeared to be beyond doubt to everybody but Mr. Prescott."

Nevertheless, Mr. Prescott continued with his objection and collected, so he said, 325 signatures to his petition. This was in a city of approximately 1 million inhabitants. I am glad to say that even the secretary of the Birmingham Ratepayers' Alliance appears to have fits of sanity and that during one of these he was persuaded to abandon his extravagant folly.

What a fantastic situation it is when, in the fair name of democracy, one exhibitionist with 100 signatures can force a town with a population as numerous as that of the sovereign State of Albania to conduct what amounts to a general election in order to overrule the objection of less than one-ten-thousandth of the electorate.

I am not against a corporation holding a public meeting so that its chairman shall explain to the citizens what is contained in a corporation Bill that it intends to present ultimately to Parliament. I am in favour of a general public meeting being held for that purpose. What I object to in the terms of my Motion is that this town meeting, as it is called, is not just a public meeting where an explanation is given and objections are listened to, but is, in effect, a kind of minor parliament where clauses are put, much as we do during a Committee stage in the House of Commons, and each of them has to be discussed and then can be voted on. It is the voting procedure which I am against.

I am not against the city fathers having to advertise and to explain to the citizens of their city what is contained in the Bill. I want the House to understand that there is that difference.

The reasoned criticisms of town meeting and towns' polls are many and various. Most of them can be read in the Report of the last Select Committee which examined the problem as recently as 1955. It would weary the House if I enumerated them all. I know that a good many of my hon. Friends propose to try and catch your eye, Mr. Speaker, and that they are much more familiar with this than I am.

I should like to touch upon one aspect of this problem which has not received sufficient attention. On 21st January, 1954, a letter which I wrote about towns' polls, although, curiously enough, it was headed "Towns' Meetings", was published on the centre page of The Times. The letter was also signed by the hon. Member for Birmingham, Stetchford (Mr. Roy Jenkins). I hope that students of the problem will examine the letter. I do not intend to quote from it, nor was it a tremendously important letter in itself. The value of the letter was contained in the quite delightful reply which it provoked, because on the following day there appeared in The Times a very beautiful letter, also headed "Towns' Meetings", which I will now read:

"Sir,

You publish a letter today from two Members of Parliament which contains the sentence, 'And few would now contend that too many checks cannot be at least as harmful to democracy as too few'. I have read this fifteen times: ten times silently, four times aloud and once to a psalm chant. I have written it out, in columns, in coloured chalks, in concern. I have tried the translator's trick of transposition—'few … cannot', therefore 'many … can'. And I am still defeated. I know what I think they are trying to say, but have they said it?"

Perhaps we did not make our point entirely clear, and it is that point which very briefly I want to try to make more clear today.

In a society where the franchise is universal and the number of electors is considerable, the demos cannot legislate. By that I mean that it cannot take part in what I might call the Committee stage debate. Such a mass of people can neither comprehend nor decide legislative detail. I think that we all agree upon that. To ask it to do so is to make a nonsense of democracy. Even 600 experienced Members of Parliament are generally regarded as too many to make sense of the Committee stage of a Bill. That is presumably why we generally send our Bills upstairs to a Committee which has a quorum of only 14. For that same reason, we reserve to the larger assembly the right to give a Bill Second and Third Reading decisions, on which occasions the House can only accept or reject the entire Bill.

Thus, in the House of Commons, we admit the importance of a general principle, namely, that details are best decided by small Committees. Entire Bills may be accepted or rejected by the entire assembly. Moreover, let it be noted, the more important is the issue of the entire Bill and the more it excites the interest of the whole House, the more the decision becomes, in practice, one about people and the less about policy.

In the last analysis, on a vote of confidence in the House we decide not upon the Bill at all. We decide the fate of the Minister who introduces it and of his Cabinet colleagues. In short, the House, in these circumstances, decides whether it will continue the contract of the existing Executive, or whether it prefers to replace that lot of people with another lot. We decide the fate of a Cabinet, whom we can see, and whose characters it is easy to judge.

By the same reasoning, one rejects the doctrine of the mandate in General Elections. The electors, the demos, it is argued, should choose people, certainly in the light of their professions, but people in the form of a political party and not a list of policy proposals. It is people the electors then dismiss if they disapprove of their performance. The demos can choose its political servants and then, after the appropriate contract is terminated, it can, and often does, and I hope will, properly dismiss them.

What the electorate cannot do, and should never be asked to do, is to decide an issue of policy detail. Democracy is superlative at hiring and firing its servants without having to shoot them, but it is manifestly incapable of drafting legislation.

I am following the argument which the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Mr. Usborne) is making. Surely that is what happens in the Socialist Party, when resolutions are passed at conferences and then they actually become part of its legislative programme at the polls. It seems rather strange that the hon. Member is arguing this line.

I do not see how the hon. Member can have followed my argument, since he was not here to hear it. If he does not object, I shall continue with my speech.

At this point, one may ask, what of the referendum which is so successfully practised in Switzerland and what of the ideal form of democracy of ancient Greece where everybody took part and even voted?

Only one-tenth of the population voted. The other nine-tenths were slaves.

I shall come to that. I agree that nine-tenths never could vote.

I want to make, very briefly, the two arguments against this, because those who support town meetings and towns' polls think that they are supporting them on the ground that this is ideal democracy. As to the referendum one need only say this. If the case for legislation by referendum could ever be made out—and I do not think it can—surely the case for the Gallup Poll would be made even stronger. Dr. Gallup can assess more quickly, cheaply and accurately anything that a referendnm can decide, but no one, I suspect, wishes to be governed by Gallup.

As for the Athenian ideal, consider the microphones in this Chamber. In the Committee rooms upstairs, we do not have them.

Since I have heard what the hon. Member has said, may I ask the same question, which is quite relevant, as my hon. Friend the Member for Exeter (Mr. Dudley Williams) asked about the trade unions and other things?

Surely the House will forgive me if I do not answer the question. I am not dealing with the practice of trade unions. I happened to be dealing with something which has been on the Statute Book since 1872 and which, I think, does not work.

I come back to the ideal Athenian democracy. In this House, which is the epitome of perfect democracy, we have in the big Chamber the microphones, whereas in the little chambers upstairs—the Committee rooms, where we send our Bills for detailed scrutiny—we do not have them. Athenian democracy held its fiat just as far as the human voice could carry. Fortunately for the ancient Greeks, they knew nothing of electricity and telephonics. I submit that as their knowledge of science has grown, their democracy has declined.

If the House has followed me thus far, it will, I think, agree that in the town's poll this first elemental principle of democracy is standing firmly on its head. In the town's poll, electors have to choose, not people, but detailed policy. For instance, on 9th January, 1958, three-quarters of a million Birmingham citizens ostensibly were asked:

"Are you in favour of: 'That the electors of the City of Birmingham hereby approve the promotion by the council of that City of Clause 10 (As to purchase of land for purposes relating to redevelopment of areas of bad layout and obsolete development) of the Birmingham Corporation Bill 1958 …'"

Eight other similar Clauses were presented to the citizens of the town which I have the honour to represent.

How could the general run of the citizenry know what that was all about? One might just as well have printed the questions in Sanskrit and presented them to the babies in their prams. Indeed, it might have been more sensible to do so. The consequent howl of indignation would have been far more audible. Let us be honest about this. It is by no means as simple a problem as it might seem, otherwise the Motion which I am moving this morning, and which has been before the House before, would most certainly have been passed and implemented long ago.

The abolition of the towns' poll has been recommended in the last thirty years on no fewer than three occasions by a Royal Commission, a Consolidation Committee and a Select Committee of this House, all unanimously. Indeed, as far as I can see, no body of people has ever investigated the problem without coming to the conclusions which are set out in the Motion.

It would be useful if I devote my attention, not to the argument for abolition, which must be surely evident, but to some of the reasons why it may be thought advisable to retain a system which certainly seems silly. Walt Whitman, in his Song of the Broad Axe," wrote of

"the never-ending audacity of elected persons."

There is, I suppose, a good deal in his complaint. I take it that the town meeting was originally designed to provide the citizens with the opportunity of discovering what new folly the exuberance of their councillors had produced and that the town's poll was a mechanism by which this folly could be repudiated.

When a corporation applies to Parliament for new powers, there are at least 10 check points between the moment when its Bill is mooted until the day when it gets the Royal Assent. I calculate that in eight of these instances, the views of the objectors can be heard, and must be overruled, if the Bill is to continue unaltered on its journey. Let me list these check points, because they are important. First, when the council committees prepares the Clauses which it desires to include, a vote must be taken; and, presumably, councillors represent their constituents. Secondly, when the council as a whole debates the whole corporation Bill, again a vote has to be taken. Thirdly, when the draft Bill is submitted to the Minister for approval, he can object to it. Fourthly, when the Bill is debated at the town meeting, it can be voted on. Fifthly, when the Clauses, then defeated, are put to the electorate at the subsequent town's poll, votes are again taken.

Then, when the Chairman of Ways and Means presents the same Bill for Second Reading in this House, any Member of Parliament can object to it on the nod. Then, if he does so, there is a debate at 7 p.m. on Tuesday or Wednesday evening on the Floor of the House, when the objections can be ventilated and Instructions can be moved by hon. Members and accepted by the House if it so desires. Then, the Bill goes upstairs to be carefully considered by a Select Committee, on which four Members of Parliament sit as assessors or whatever one likes to call them.

All these four Members of Parliament are known to all of us and, therefore, our constituents, making use of their local Members of Parliament, can get their objections and views through to these four Members of Parliament. I, representing part of the City of Birmingham, could have a word with any one of the four Members who happened to be sitting on the Committee dealing with the corporation Bill. Thereafter, the Bill has to have its Report and Third Reading in both Houses.

It is my submission that the fourth and fifth checks—that is, the voting at the town meeting and the holding of the town poll—can safely be eliminated. I do not deny that a corporation Bill should be advertised and explained to the citizens. I am arguing only that at that particular meeting there is no sense in taking votes. The object of taking the vote can be better achieved by putting the objection later in subsequent stages through which the Bill has to pass. I suggest particularly that use be made of Members of Parliament.

I should like to suggest, by an illustration, how that happens and how the checking can take effect without the need to use a vote. Some years ago, in a Private Bill, the Birmingham Corporation asked for powers to take over and to close a cemetery. To the city fathers, this decision apparently seemed obvious and was, in fact, unanimous. Then, when their intention was made known, quite properly, by advertisement and by explanation at the town meeting, a certain lady—I do not know who she was, but let us call her Mrs. Jones—protested bitterly because she wished to be buried next to her husband in that cemetery, which her family had used for a long time.

That was an important objection. As far as I gather, it had entirely escaped the attention of the council. Indeed, so emotional an issue was it that it was not, or should not have been, difficult to get 100 electors to sign a petition to requisition a town poll. Had the town poll been held, however, it is certain to me that the Clause to give power to the corporation to take over the cemetery, as well as to close it, would certainly have been lost. It would have been lost, not because Mrs. Jones and others like her desired to be buried in the cemetery, which was a perfectly legitimate objection, It would have been certainly lost because the tiny percentage of electors who were needed to do this and who would take the trouble to vote would probably be objecting to the practice of cremation or, alternatively, might be financially interested in the business of monumental masonry. I am, however, glad to say that that was not what happened.

What happened on that occasion, contrasted with what might have occurred, supports my argument for holding a meeting without the voting procedure. In fact, as a result of Mrs. Jones' proper criticism, the council agreed to modify its demands. It agreed to take over the cemetery, but not immediately to close it.

One other illustration will, I hope, suffice. In its 1958 Bill, the Birmingham Corporation asked to be allowed to in- vest the Civic Superannuation Fund in equities. This proposal, I understand, had been agreed by both the major parties on the council. It was criticised, and mildly at that, by only a small section of Liberal opinion.

In the same Bill there was another Clause seeking powers to sell petrol in municipal car parks. Also, there were some other controversial Clauses. At the town meeting on this occasion nine Clauses were voted down. All of them were eventually put to a town's poll because the council, naturally, wanted to defend them. There was, one admits, a considerable body of electors who objected to the municipality selling petrol in its car parks. This objection would obviously occur to the garage proprietors and it would be fair for them, under the present procedure, to vote against it.

To do so effectively in that poll the garage proprietors' lobby had to tell their supporters to put their crosses against all nine Clauses on the voting paper because it was quite impossible to explain to the average citizen which of the nine Clauses the garages wanted to defeat, and safety lay in defeating them all. Naturally, the garage lobby had no interest in the Superannuation Fund Clause. Indeed, I do not suppose that they knew what it was all about, but to eliminate the offending Clause 48 they succeeded, by the vote at the town's poll, in eliminating the whole lot. This cost the ratepayers of Birmingham £6,000.

There is little to be said for voting at the town meeting and less for the procedure known as the town's poll. To the extent that either institution provides an opportunity for an aggrieved elector to express his objection there are, I believe, better opportunities when the Bill comes before Parliament, if we are prepared to make use of them. Then the objection can sensibly be put either by a Member of Parliament, on behalf of his constituents, at seven o'clock, or by many other means. There is never, as far as I can discover, any occasion where a grievance which presently uses the vote at the town meeting or the ballot box in the poll could not be better put at one of the Bill's staging posts as it passes through the Palace of Westminster. This being so, there seems no valid reason at all for retaining the town's poll or the voting procedure at the town meeting.

I give just one more reason why I want to do away with these redundant checks. I have been told that one of the criticisms of the present Private Bill procedure is that it is so easy, through these dozen check points, particularly the town meeting and the town's poll, to apply the checks, and that that fact actually tends to increase and not to decrease the never-ending audacity which, presumably, it is designed to restrain. Just because so much of every corporation Bill is expected to be struck out long before it reaches the Royal Assent, many councillors may be sorely tempted—I trust that they never are—to play politics by including in their Bills measures which they know will never reach the Statute Book, mainly with an eye to party propaganda. If that be so then many checks are not always advantageous and they may actually he harmful to democracy.

It was in 1953 that my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg) and I decided to object systematically on the nod to every Private Bill which came up in this House. I did this because I wanted to draw attention to the points which I have had the opportunity to ventilate today. I suppose that partly as a result of this tactic the recent Select Committee was set up. Its findings, published in 1955, in paragraph 79, concluded

"that town meetings and polls cannot any longer be justified."

I am very conscious of the need vigilantly to restrain the powers of the Executive at every level. We are not yet in 1984, but we could easily approach it if we were not constantly alert to the danger. Let no essential check be lightly cast aside. I am with the hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Mr. Gurden) there. But far more dangerous, I assert, than the omission of one safeguard may be the possibility that Parliamentary democracy as a whole could become discredited by too many.

These are foreign and colonial students in Birmingham, as there must be in many of our large towns. These young people watch the towns' polls. Perhaps they come to Britain suspecting that Parliamentary democracy is, as Karl Marx suggests, merely a cloak under cover of which vested interests block progress. We in this House know that that is largely untrue, but let us never feed such a suspicion. Surely that is the best argument for supporting my Motion, and I hope the House will agree to it.

I beg to second the Motion.

I think the House will congratulate the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Mr. Usborne) on his good fortune in the Ballot, and some of us would commend his choice of subject. As he himself has said, the subject has been discussed on many occasions in this House. I think it is good to give it a periodic airing in the hope that at some time we may have amending legislation. I shall not concern myself with the first part of the Motion, which may engender some controversy among Birmingham and district representatives but which I shall regard as parochial.

It may be recalled that just two years ago, on 14th February 1957, I sought a Second Reading for the Local Government (Promotion of Bills) Bill, which sought to abolish town meetings and towns' polls. On that day a Second Reading was refused, but a week later some Member forgot to object, perhaps because I was not in my place here at that time, and the Bill got its Second Reading. Thereafter about five Committee meetings upstairs brought nothing more than a prolonged debate as to when the Committee should next meet, before, mercifully, the proceedings ended for lack of a quorum at successive meetings.

An organised lack of a quorum.

The arguments then advanced were not answered, and I make no excuse for repeating them very briefly this morning. The necessity for a town's meeting is a handicap which was placed on boroughs as long ago as 1872. The Association of Municipal Corporations, of which some of us are vice-presidents, and which represents practically every borough and county borough in England and Wales, was originally formed to work for the abolition of this handicap, and it still presses strongly for that amendment of the law. The Urban District Councils' Association, as well as the Association of Municipal Corporations, and, as the hon. Member has said, three important independent Commissions have recommended this very necessary alteration.

One of the strongest arguments for abolishing town meetings and towns' polls is that the requirements do not apply to all types of local authority. County councils and rural district councils can promote Bills without this handicap merely because those bodies were constituted after 1872 and they are not required to obtain the consent of their electors for the promotion of a Parliamentary Bill. Hence an obvious anomaly should be righted in the interests of uniformity in local government requirements. It is quite wrong, I think, that two types of local authority must obtain the consent of their electors at a town's meeting and perhaps by a town's poll before they can come to Parliament with a Bill while the other two types are not under obligation so to do.

It should never be forgotten that any Bill is subject, as the hon. Member has said, to the vigilance of Parliament. Parliament is the final arbiter and the final safeguard. I well recall the controversy three years ago when the Leeds Corporation promoted a Bill and a town's meeting was held and the objectors were overruled and that Bill came to this House. The irony is that I was one of those who organised the opposition to four Clauses which would have enabled the Corporation of Leeds to embark on municipal trading. I helped to organise the objections to those four Clauses, and yet I say that town meetings and towns' polls are useless. I only recall that in order that some of my hon. Friends will not think that I am not a Tory.

A local government elector has the opportunity to express to his local authority, to his Member of Parliament and to the Minister of Housing and Local Government his views about proposals for the promotion of Bills by his local authority. Such proposals are also advertised locally, and the Bill is always made available for inspection. Always, Parliament has to be satisfied that the proposed Bill ought to be passed into law.

I commend the suggestion made by the hon. Member for Yardley that in place of a town meeting there could well be a public meeting at which the proposals of any Bill could be explained and any objections tabulated and sent, if necessary, to this House. Another unanswerable argument for the Motion is that no council of a borough can ever obtain the real approval of the electors by a town meeting or town's poll. There is no hall in any borough that can accommodate those who would be entitled to vote. Indeed, I doubt if one per cent. of the electors of any borough could be accommodated in the largest hall in that borough.

We have had all this before in discussions upon this matter. There is no reason why the meeting should take place in a hall. Why not have it on a football ground?

I will answer that question by posing another question. How many people would go to the football ground?

Will the hon. and gallant Gentleman bear in mind that there is no football ground in the City of Birmingham large enough to accommodate the number of people who would be entitled to attend?

That is the answer to my hon. Friend.

The local elections should decide the choice of the electors. It is wrong that the considered opinion of a democratically elected council, advised by the town clerk and other council officers, should be overruled by a very few electors who bother to turn up at a town meeting. As the hon. Gentleman pointed out, the questions on a poll sheet are very often difficult to understand and the costs of a poll are heavy for a very small result.

I do not want to bore the House with a lot of figures, but I have some figures showing that in recent years there have been very small attendances at town meetings and that the highest percentage for a poll is 25. In Nottingham, the average over a period of 20 years has been as low as 7 per cent. In regard to town meetings, in three polls promoted by the Corporation of Sheffield, the attendances were 100 people, less than 100 and about 500 people, respectively. In Liverpool in 1933, 175 electors attended, and for a poll in 1949 only 20 attended. At Bristol in 1949, about 50 attended, and in 1950 less than 100. In Brighton, on two occasions, the attendances were 215 and 106. At Bradford, about 500 attended, and at Kingston-upon-Hull, on two occasions, 350 and 393, a very small percentage of those entitled to vote.

Finally, I ask that the conclusions of three independent Commissions be fairly considered. In the first instance, the Royal Commission on Local Government in 1929, after considering substantial evidence on the subject, expressed the view that a case had been made, in relation to meetings of electors and polls, for their abolition. Secondly, when the subject was considered by the Local Government and Public Health Consolidation Committee, whose instance the Bill which became the Local Government Act, 1939, was drafted, the Committee stated that it was—

"entirely in favour of the recommendation of the Royal Commission."

Thirdly, much evidence on the subject was given, as the hon. Gentleman said, to the Joint Committee of the House of Commons on Private Bill procedure, which reported in May, 1955. This Committee concurred with the views of the Royal Commission and recommended that legislation should be introduced to abolish town meetings and town's polls.

I repeat that I think the arguments are unanswerable. I know that a large number of my hon. Friends oppose this proposal, but many Tories also support my view. A final pertinent footnote is a letter from the town clerk of the Borough of Wembley, half of which I have the honour to represent in this House, and the Council of which is composed predominantly of Tories, who writes:

"The Borough Council strongly supports the efforts that are being made to repeal these provisions, and I have been requested to write to you to solicit your support in this connection."

I only hope that we may have the Government's support, or at any rate their benevolent neutrality, on this Motion. I commend the Motion with confidence to the House and ask for its support.

I beg to support the Motion. Seeing the hon. Member for Exeter (Mr. Dudley Williams) and the hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Mr. Gurden) in their places, and recollecting the length at which they produced arguments to the Committee on the Bill which the hon. and gallant Member for Wembley, North (Wing-Commander Bullus) introduced, I do not propose to speak long, because I would not wish to deprive them of the joy of hearing their own voices.

Me?

I did not include the hon. Member. I said the hon. Member for Exeter and the hon. Member for Selly Oak, who is sitting behind the hon. Gentleman. I am always more joyful over one sinner that repenteth than over the 99 who are so stubborn that they can never repent.

I believe that this Motion is reasonable in a country which believes in representative government. The electors elect a council and, in my experience, they generally get the council they deserve. At any rate, it is their act, and they have given these people this authority for the time being. After all, in boroughs there is an annual election, and in most urban districts there is also an annual election at which the electors can make their views perfectly well-known if, in their opinion, those whom they have elected have exceeded what the electors wished them to do. Therefore, just as I object to the referendum, which is not a success in Switzerland or anywhere else where it has been tried, so I object to this power, which has become quite unworkable in modern English local government, in the British climate, in the English climate, the Birmingham climate and the Manchester climate.

The hon. Member for Exeter suggests that if there is not a hall big enough a football ground would be the place to hold the meeting, which 750,000 people are entitled to attend. How does any one determine, when we have got 750,000 people there, that they are only electors who are entitled to vote? It has been known on occasion for people to have been introduced by one side or the other into a town meeting who were not electors and were not entitled to vote at it. There is no power to check that at all.

We have no football ground big enough.

I suppose that the answer would be to put up some sort of gallery over part of the ground and have some people above and some below and to be careful that one had those to whom one objected on top so that one could let them down.

Who would referee this event?

My hon. Friend is a qualified referee. I should leave it to him. If I were mayor I would umpire between the two sides and be careful that no one questioned my authority.

I understand that town meetings were first established in 1858 as a result of a local government Measure at a time when English local government was just beginning to develop. Before the Act of 1867 which enfranchised the working people in the towns, a very limited section of the community only were able to attend the meeting as of right. To try to perpetuate this 100 years later is to fail to take account of the increase in the electorate, of the increase in the demands on the services of local authorities, and of the great advantage that these Private Bills promoted by corporations have been in the development of local government.

It is the history of the matter that one borough after another and one local authority after another applies for a specific power to deal with a problem which has arisen in its locality. If a sufficient number of boroughs were successful in the old days, the Government of the day would promote a Public Health Act (Amendment) Bill, which would confer that power generally, or it would make it an adoptive proposal which local authorities could adopt after advertising and possibly holding a local inquiry so as to avoid the necessity of promoting further Bills.

I should like to comment on two matters in the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Mr. Usborne). When the proposal to promote a Bill comes before the town council it has to be carried, if it is carried at all, by an absolute majority of the council, irrespective of the number present on that occasion. When I was chairman of Surrey County Council, which had 104 members, I had to be sure and certify that the hands held up in favour of a Bill were 53, that is, an absolute majority of the whole council, no matter how many might be present.

I understand that that resolution must be passed on two separate occasions.

I was coming to that, but I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for being my memory as well as my mentor.

One thing which the hon. Member for Yardley said alarmed me. He said that an hon. Member could go and see one of the members of the Committee and nobble him. Whether it is within the Standing Orders or not, in my view that would be a highly reprehensible proceeding.

I understand that any evidence that may be sent to the Minister of Housing and Local Government is forwarded by him to the members of the Select Committee. Therefore, if there are any objections in that evidence, he nobbles the members. Why should we not be entitled to do likewise?

I regard information given to the Minister and placed before the Committee as a whole—not decided in the Smoking Rooms or the less reputable bars of the place—as in an entirely different category. The four hon. Members sit in a judicial capacity and they have to listen to evidence, which I understand is given on oath. Whilst I do not often frequent the Smoking Room, I hear a great deal of conversation in the Tea Room, which I doubt would be repeated if hon. Members participating in it were placed on oath before the conversation started.

It would be very wrong if the idea got out that there is no need to hold town meetings because one could see one's Member of Parliament and he would see one of the members of the Committee and make it all right from the point of view that one held. I do not think that is in accordance with either Standing Orders or the tradition of the House, and I should be very reluctant to have it thought that such influence could be brought to bear on the passing of a Private Bill through a Committee, which ought to be above any suggestion that it decides the matter on anything but the evidence which it hears.

I fully understand my right hon. Friend's point, but there is a curious anomaly attached to this matter. Hon. Members in the House are entitled to object to a Private Bill. If they do that systematically the Chairman of Ways and Means has to arrange eventually for a debate at 7 o'clock. It is open then to hon. Members to move Resolutions which are Instructions to the Select Committee, and in the debate they are entitled to express their views. Presumably, members of the Select Committee are expected to pay some attention to the views expressed by hon. Members in a debate of that kind in the House.

If the Committee receives Instructions from the House, it has to obey them. The Committee is merely a creature of the House. What is said in debate is said in public. Everybody hears it and it can be contradicted. I served on a Select Committee on Private Bills in my early days in the House. I would not regard anything said in debates on Second Reading, unless it were followed by an Instruction, as entitled to outweigh the evidence which members of the Committee hear on oath. That is the duty which those members have to discharge.

This provision is an anomaly which may have been useful in the early days of extended local government in 1858, but it has long outlived its usefulness. The figures quoted by the hon. and gallant Member for Wembley, North indicate that it is not anything that is greatly prized by the electorate, because they tend to ignore it. I have attended several town meetings, but I have never seen an audience even of the size which the hon. and gallant Member mentioned. I hope that the House will pass the Motion and that the Minister of Housing and Local Government will find it possible in the near future to promote a Bill to remove this anomaly from English local government law.

After the excellent speeches we have heard, I do not propose to detain the House long. However, it is important that on this matter we should have the opinion and experience of our various constituencies to enable the House to reach a proper conclusion on the points raised.

As a preliminary, may I say that I and all my colleagues on both sides of the House are anxious that nothing should happen which would detract from the rights of citizens to express their opinions and for those opinions to be properly considered by those who represent them. On the other hand, situations arise which result in the ridiculous position of having the view of a few who decide to attend a meeting, who in no sense represent a cross-section of the electorate, let alone the electorate as a whole.

Would the hon. Gentleman tell us the figure which he considers to be the minimum necessary to determine the opinion of the electors? Certain figures have been quoted showing that towns' polls represent only 3 per cent. or 4 per cent, Yet some councillors are elected on a poll of 16 per cent. or 17 per cent.

I know that in some cases people may be elected to councils on a comparatively small percentage of electors voting. Unfortunately, technically at any rate, we cannot do without local councils, so it may be that some councillors are returned on a small percentage of voting if the proper number of electors do not choose to vote. It is unfortunate, and it is wrong. In some countries a penalty is imposed on electors who do not vote. However, two sets of conditions which are wrong do not make a right.

The experience in Leicester leads one to the conclusion that it is useless to continue this formality of meetings and polls, which has become almost a farce. At the time of the promotion of the Leicester Corporation Bill, 1956, the total number of local government electors on the register was 202,787. It was estimated that 500 local government electors were present at the meeting. A number of these were members of associations. The meeting approved all the Clauses in the Bill with one exception. Subsequently requisitions were deposited for a poll of electors on four Clauses, one of which was the Clause disapproved of at the town meeting. The total number of electors voting at the town's poll was 2,860, which is approximately 1·4 per cent. The cost of the poll was £1,500 or 10s. a vote. The results of the poll confirmed the decisions at the town meeting.

That is a clear example of the absurdity of continuing this co-called democratic procedure. It is not really democracy when only 1·4 per cent. of the population are sufficiently interested to do something. It is a very different thing in the case of a town election, where in some cases 60 per cent. or 70 per cent. of people decide who shall be returned. Certainly it is never as low as 1·4 per cent. in that case.

Might it not be the case that the other people stayed away because they were apathetic and did not mind if the proposals went through? If there had been some Clauses which the public had not liked or wanted, might not a higher percentage have attended the meeting and have rejected the proposals?

I was trying to indicate that this position is general. The various commissions which have sat on this subject came to precisely the same conclusion, but I will not go into the details which have been dealt with already.

The hon. Gentleman has asked whether, in the event of an important matter being at issue, things might not be different. There is no indication of this, certainly from the meetings held during the period this procedure has been in existence, but even assuming that there is one righteous person in Sodom and Gomorrah—which is obviously his argument—it does not mean that either he or a large number of electors wanting something could not get that brought to the notice of the House or to the notice of their Members, or to the notice of whoever they wished to consider the position.

It is not a question of Smoking Room talk, as has been suggested. Incidentally, even a smoking room is not bad for this purpose sometimes. I go into the Smoking Room of the House of Commons only occasionally, but I gather that sometimes ideas emerge there of great use to the Government or to the Opposition and sometimes of great use to the country. The fact is that in this country there is open access to Members of Parliament and people take advantage of this. Hon. Members receive many communications on matters in which people are interested. Again, there is the evidence on the matters at issue taken before a judicial tribunal, which is important. I understand that there are four people on this tribunal. In our courts, of course, often one person, a judge, has great powers and exercises them judicially in a manner of which most people approve.

So there are plenty of safeguards and there is ample opportunity for the individual to exercise his right to express himself. I think it is gilding the lily to suggest that town meetings should be allowed to continue purely because they have been in existence for a long time and because that so-called freedom should not be taken away from us. I do not believe it is freedom to give licence to a few people. The House knows that sometimes only a few determined people will attend even trade union meetings and express their views on proposals which the majority do not want but are indifferent about. I have always been concerned about preserving civil liberties and rights, but the continuance of these meetings and polls is going too far. It is a waste of money and time and it does not serve any useful purpose.

I should like briefly to support the Motion. I think that anyone who has had years of connection with local authorities will realise how out-of-date the present regulations are. I think it would be fair to say that they are as much out of date as the old toll gates. I believe that their value has been diminished by the increased control of the central authority. Local authorities these days are so much controlled by Parliament that any major scheme is subject to Government sanction in one way or another.

The general experience of local authorities is that both town meetings and polls are no longer of value to the general ratepayer. They certainly do not now arouse any real public interest. Wherever a town meeting or a town's poll takes place there is an atmosphere of apathy and disinterestedness, which indicates that the idea of town meetings or towns' polls is something which has been outgrown by our development of national and local government.

Let me cite one case. In connection with the Bradford Corporation Bill which is now before the House, a town meeting was held in December last. The number of persons at the meeting was approximately 30. They were composed mainly of members of the council, the Press and officials. I ask the House quite frankly: why should busy people—I am speaking of the councillors who give their time free to administering local government—be compelled to waste valuable time on matters upon which the public have very little interest? I suggest that it is time that Parliament wiped away all this legislation which is so out-of-date and so out of accord with the ideas of modern government.

The hon. Gentleman says that there is a lack of public interest and that important, busy people have to attend these meetings. What would he say about city councillors who go to election meetings themselves and organise them? They get even less attendance. Is that indicative of a waste of time?

That is a frivolous argument. The hon. Member knows that a political meeting is organised at the decision of the people who want to hold the meeting. It is an entirely different matter to make it a statutory condition that because a responsible local authority is promoting a Bill it should necessarily have to hold a town meeting, have to go through the Bill Clause by Clause and take a vote at the meeting which in no sense of the word could be regarded as representative of the electors of the authority concerned.

May I remind my hon. Friend that the experience of everyone nowadays is that even meetings for political purposes are reduced to a minimum because people do not attend them.

I do not want to take too long, because there are other Motions for consideration today. To my mind, the points of substance arising from this Motion are whether these provisions are of public value and whether they really serve the purpose for which they were intended. These are points which I think we ought to take into consideration in coming to a decision this morning.

There are, I think, three substantial protections at the moment, adequate to meet all reasonable requirements. The first, the ratepayers can put forward their objections in writing to the Minister concerned. They can place their views before their Members of Parliament and their local councillors. Industrial firms have precisely the same facilities as ordinary ratepayers, except that they have an additional advantage. If they want to oppose a Bill, or a Clause in it, they have the financial resources whereby they can petition against the Bill and be represented by counsel when the Bill is considered by the Select Committee.

Secondly, if the Government feel that, either on the representations made by ratepayers or others or as a result of their own examination of the Bill, the Bill is undesirable, or requires Amendment, they can either ensure the rejection of the Bill or that the Amendments are made which are in accord with Government policy.

Thirdly, the Select Committee which examines the Bill considers carefully the representations which are made to it by counsel on behalf of the various interests. The Committee is, in the main, composed of Members of Parliament who have had considerable experience of local government. They are people with a very broad outlook upon these matters. Hon. Members who have sat on these Committees know very well the thorough way in which they examine Bills Clause by Clause. I do not recollect one case where the members of a Committee upstairs, examining a Bill, have not paid due regard to the representations which have been made to them.

We ought to be very proud of local authority administration. I have known awful rows to arise in local government over the purchase of even a carpet for the town clerk's room. The matter has become a very big issue. But in Parliament we agree on the nod to the expenditure of millions of pounds of taxpayers' money and hardly an hon. Member knows the purpose for which the money is to be used. In local government, in spite of all its faults and difficulties, we have a system whereby the spending of every shilling is carefully analysed by the councillors, and it is very important that it should be so.

If any radical changes are necessary in our governmental system, they are in respect of Parliamentary lack of supervision over expenditure which may be small from the Parliamentary point of view rather than restriction of the power of local authorities. I should like Parliament to consider some day how far it is possible for Members of Parliament to control the expenditure of Government Departments in a way similar to that in which local authorities control the expenditure of their departments. That would be of very considerable benefit to Parliament and the taxpayers.

I hope that we shall be told today that the Government are prepared to accept the Motion in the spirit in which it has been moved, and I hope that they will give an assurance that they will be willing, as soon as an occasion arises, to implement the principles underlying it.

I am glad the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Mr. Usborne) has returned to the Chamber after a temporary absence. He referred to me in his speech, and he also approached me on this matter the other day.

I appreciate the fairly moderate terms in which the hon. Member put his case, and particularly his reference to town meetings. I entirely agree with what he said about town meetings. It has never been part of my case, or the case of anyone I know, that town meetings should be decisive in their conclusion or should have any weight, although I think it is essential that the citizens should have the right to be heard by their aldermen and councillors before a Bill is sent to the House. I notice that his hon. Friends did not all agree with the hon. Member on that point.

The hon. Member went a stage further and said that he felt so strongly about this that he had indulged in objecting to Bills, both good and bad—those are my words; I assume there were some good ones as well as some bad ones—purely because of spite—

There is no question of spite at all. It is the privilege of a Member of Parliament, if he has something to say which is relevant to a corporation Bill, to object to its passage on the nod so that there may be a debate and he shall have the right to air his views.

Then I apologise to some extent to the hon. Member, because I understood that he did this to show his disgust for the way in which the matter had been dealt with at an earlier stage.

That brings me to my other point. The hon. Member voluntarily came to me and informed me—I am grateful for it; it is more than the hon. Member for Birmingham, All Saints (Mr. D. Howell) did—that he intended to object to a Bill sponsored by me. That is at any rate an advance on the attitude of the hon. Member for All Saints. The Bill to which I refer—it has reference to towns' polls and town meetings—was thoroughly agreed between the hon. Member for All Saints and myself at a conference with members of the Socialist-controlled City Council of Birmingham. It is a Bill which the Birmingham City councillors want. It is being objected to now purely, so I am informed, on personal grounds. When this sort of thing goes on in the House of Commons it is important to have towns' polls and town meetings.

What is the hon. Member talking about?

It is wrong that good Bills, completely non-controversial Bills which are agreed by all and which are very important to Birmingham, should be stopped simply because one or two hon. Members opposite—I admit there are only one or two—do not like my attitude to this matter.

I consider that I have a serious and sincere case on this matter, whereas in the instance of my Bill there is no case at all for venting spleen in this way. I mention this only because it has been said that it is intended at 4 p.m. today for the fourth time to object to Bills for no other reason than the fact that I take up the attitude which I do on this matter.

A perfectly valid reason.

I am prepared to put my case on this matter, for it is a sincere one, but in the other instance there is no case at all.

The hon. Member for Yardley has said that he objects to such Bills and intends to object to my Bill today so that he may put his point of view. He had a perfectly good opportunity to put his point of view during the Second Reading debate a few weeks ago. He was notified of the debate by the Order Paper and also by the town clerk. [Interruption.] It may well be, Mr. Speaker, that you think that my speech is getting rather wide of the remark, but it relates to a Bill which could well have been a Private Bill sponsored by the Birmingham Corporation.

It should be.

I presented the Bill for Second Reading because this represented the quicker method. There could well have been a town's poll on this matter. In fact, with the agreement of the hon. Member for All Saints—

No.

I presented a Bill on a Friday—

rose—

On a point of order. Is it in order for the hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Mr. Gurden) to indulge in a long argument about another Bill which is coming up later today?

I was wondering what Bill the hon. Member for Selly Oak was talking about, but if it is the Bill which I now understand it to be, it is an Order of the Day and it is out of order to anticipate discussion on a Bill which appears later on the Order Paper. The hon. Member should come a little nearer to the Motion.

Further to that point of order. Two or three times the hon. Member has referred to me and has said that I have agreed with him about something. That has not been true. Would you kindly ask him to speak for himself and not to speak for me?

I bow to your Ruling, Mr. Speaker. The point is arguable, but the matter is connected with the Motion and I thought that discussion of it might be acceptable.

I have tried to show that the hon. Member for Yardley and some of his hon. Friends, perhaps only a few, are not concerned with helping Birmingham—and Birmingham is named in the Motion—

Stick to the Motion.

I am seeking to show that hon. Members are not concerned with helping Birmingham or they would have facilitated the passage of a Bill which I put forward.

The public has several times rejected Private Bills of the Birmingham Corporation and some Clauses of such Bills, I think rightly. Although in many cases the polls were small, those taking part were the people who had taken the trouble to consider what the Bills meant. There were several thousands of them, and it was not a matter of a few hundred people, or a few city councillors, or M.P.s. The people who have voted have taken the trouble to go to the poll and register their objections.

It has been part of the case of hon. Members opposite today that this part of our democracy is out-dated and should be regarded in the light of modern circumstances. I concede that at once, and I agree with what the hon. Member for Yardley said about meetings. That is my personal opinion, and some of my hon. Friends would not go so far. I concede that, with the tremendous growth of borough councils, we must consider this old law in the circumstances of the day.

The Royal Commission took that view in 1929, and the position today is probably worse than it was then, since the populations of towns are now even bigger. However, since 1945 something has happened which has been of extreme importance, and if we throw away the procedure of town meetings and towns' polls, we must replace it with something to protect the public against the sort of Bill which has been brought forward since 1945.

Since 1945, for the first time, Bills of this kind have contained Socialist doctrine. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."]

Is that the objection? Is it that Conservatism is all right and Socialism all wrong?

No. Municipalisation, nationalisation through the back door, has been introduced, as I shall seek to show, and that is why the public has recently shown a greater interest in the requisitioning of polls. Before 1945, the requisitioning of polls was nothing like as extensive as it is today. There was no need. Polls were not requisitioned because the powers sought were thought to be reasonable. For the first time, towns' polls are of some use to the people in giving them a chance to demonstrate to the town councillors what they want done. That is their right and not ours and not the right of the city councillors. This aspect of democracy should not be removed without careful consideration.

The hon. Member is mixing two entirely different principles. A corporation Bill is a series of requests by one legislative assembly, the local one, to another, the superior and sovereign legislative assembly, namely, the House of Commons, for more delegated powers. The House of Commons decides whether to delegate those powers or not. It is not a matter of corporation Bills being a series of legislative acts in themselves.

That intervention helps my case. Let the hon. Member suppose that it is possible at some future date for some of his hon. Friends to take office. I remind him that some of them may be of the extreme Left.

Why not?

They might prefer the system used behind the Iron Curtain. One can imagine all sorts of things happening. Such a Government might tell a local authority that it could not put that authority's views on municipalisation and municipal trading in a General Election programme, but that if the authority submitted a Private Bill the Government would be prepared to pass it. Thus, if there were no longer a town's poll, there would be nothing to stop such a Bill coming before the House and being passed.

What about the Lords?

I have no doubt that the hon. Member for All Saints would try to see that that, too, was removed, since that would be the next step.

Whatever is said by hon. Members opposite about town meetings, let us recognise that it is a means of free speech which the electors do not normally have.

Why?

If the electors organise a town meeting for themselves to protest against corporation Bills, it would be fairly certain that the town clerk, the aldermen and city councillors would not attend, because they would not like the fair criticism which would be levelled at them.

I do not know what the hon. Member is talking about.

I remind the hon. Member that I have been to such meetings in the Birmingham Town Hall and that, as far as I know, he has never been to such a meeting.

I was saying that I could not understand what the hon. Member was talking about, unless he was trying to explain to me that Tory councillors were so frightened of the electors that they would not attend meetings to hear criticisms of themselves.

I was saying that if we were to take away the statutory obligation to hold meetings at which councillors and aldermen had to be present to listen to what was being said by the public, they would not attend. They would leave the public to their own devices, with Mr. Prescott and the like.

Let us consider some of the Bills which have been promoted by the Birmingham Council, which is under Socialist control, and see what the public have a right to object to at a poll or meeting. One Bill provided that the city council should have the power to trade in house furniture. It might well be possible for a city council to make an agreement with the tenants of municipal houses providing that those tenants could not install anything but municipal furniture in their houses. If that was not a possibility, why did the council want the power to trade in house furniture? What chance would it stand against the usual traders competing against it? The Co-operative society is a very big handler of furniture in Birmingham. If I happened to be correct about the intentions of the council, how many people in the furniture industry could be put out of business in Birmingham?

It may be that I should address my remarks more particularly to my hon. Friends in this matter, because hon. Members opposite probably agree that furniture should be sold only by municipal corporations.

I may agree with the hon. Member in some of the remarks he is making, but does not he agree that even if the Motion were accepted the people who object fundamentally to these practices would organise meetings and pay for them, in order to protest? Is not the real objection that, as things happen today—as I know from my knowledge of Bristol—corporations may be compelled to organise such meetings, at which about thirteen people turn up, and over £1,500 is spent in organisation? This works out at over £100 for each person attending. Is not that a far more serious matter than the one to which the hon. Member is now referring?

The hon. Member quoted a figure of £1,500. I have never heard of such a meeting costing anything like that. Birmingham is an extremely large city, but I do not think that the hon. Member for Yardley suggested that it costs £1,500 to organise one of these meetings. It has never cost £1,500 to organise a meeting held in the Birmingham Town Hall, which is the usual place for these meetings. I have never seen a bill presented by the city council for that amount. I do not know whether the hon. Member for Bristol, North-East (Mr. Coldrick) was in the House earlier, when I said that so long as there was a statutory obligation to hold such meetings, at which the councillors, aldermen and the town clerk had to listen to the various arguments, I was quite content that they should not be decisive.

Why punish the town clerks like that?

I am not naming Birmingham specifically, but in some cases the town clerk is the niggers in the woodpile. The fact that the Association of Municipal Corporations supports this Motion may be due largely to the influence of town clerks. I have seen representations from town clerks in support of the Motion.

My hon. Friend is quite correct. In fact, the Association put this matter clearly to the councils. They have not voted on it. It has not been on the agenda, and it is a racket by the Association to make it easier to put across Socialist legislation of the type referred to by my hon. Friend.

Do I understand the hon. Member to say that the town clerk of Birmingham supports the point of view that he is now putting forward?

The town clerk of Birmingham has to put it on paper that he supports the Motion, but he is doing so as town clerk under the instructions of the Socialist-controlled City Council. What the town clerk himself thinks I do not know, and I would not ask him.

I have already mentioned that one of the Bills promoted dealt with trading in furniture. Another dealt with the manufacture of motor-bus bodies. Just imagine a corporation manufacturing motor-bus bodies. Some of the workmen in the motor-bus body industry, and certainly the manufacturers of bus bodies, did not like this. They have always manufactured perfectly good bus bodies, so why should a municipality start to trade in them? Is not this just Socialist doctrine for nationalisation through the back door?

This House would not pass such a Bill. The Corporation tried to do it by way of the back door, through a Private Bill, and the Birmingham people said, "We do not want this," so the Corporation was not able to promote the Bill. One hon. Member opposite has said that the House votes thousands of pounds without a thought.

The hon. Member could not have heard the speech of his hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Wembley, North (Wing Commander Bullus), who was once a member of the Leeds Corporation. The hon. and gallant Gentleman told us how, after the citizens of Leeds, at a town meeting had voted to promote a Bill in this House, he organised opposition and managed to get four Clauses struck out here. I am not criticising the hon. Member, but the Government have had a majority since 1951, and without the expense of a towns' meeting those Clauses would probably have been struck out anyway.

That is true, but in some instances Clauses have got past this House. I am saying that if we had a Socialist Government at some future date, and the legislation that they were prepared to pass according to their programme at the General Election did not go far enough for the Socialists in a certain town—Birmingham, perhaps—the Government could say, "All right, send us a Private Bill. We are in a majority, and we will see that our chaps do not throw this out." It is a movement towards the Iron Curtain, prior to going through it.

A bus body is not an Iron Curtain.

I have instanced only two cases, and they are by no means the worst. There are lots more. In another case, the city council wanted power to purchase compulsorily land for redevelopment purposes without reference to this House. The Town and Country Planning Acts were in existence and the public did not want to delegate such important powers to a municipal corporation. The Birmingham City Corporation wanted this power and the public struck it out. What is wrong with that?

Birmingham also wanted powers to establish a reserve fund for the civic restaurant undertaking. What they really wanted was the power to make a loss and to subsidise it out of the rates.

It so happens that at that time I was chairman of the Birmingham City Council catering committee.

Indeed the hon. Gentleman was.

Perhaps the hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Mr. Gurden) will not speak inaccuracies. If he will contain himself for a moment, I should like to point out that the legislation on the Statute Book stipulates that civic restaurants cannot make a loss. If they make a loss for three consecutive years they have to be closed down unless specially exempted by the appropriate Minister. That is the law of the land. We could not in a local Bill change the statutory law of this land, as the hon. Gentleman knows.

What we are saying is that although we do not make a loss—we have never made a loss, and we have no intention of doing so—at the same time there is the ridiculous situation that when we make a profit we cannot carry it to a sinking fund in order to develop the business. According to the law as it now stands, we can make neither a loss nor a profit. We have succeeded in walking on that financial tightrope for ten years without the help of the hon. Gentleman or any of his hon. Friends. Perhaps he will speak about things that he knows something about.

There is the other point of view. I am saying that it was a deep-laid plot. I say that most municipal trading undertakings in Birmingham have lost money and are subsidised by the rates.

None of them has.

Indeed they have.

Mention one.

The civic restaurants sought to do precisely that.

That is utter bunkum.

One of the largest powers which the Corporation has is to be a landlord of municipal houses. The Corporation certainly loses enough money doing that. The ratepayers subsidise municipal tenants, at the expense of the less well-off people, to the extent of 10d. to 1s. in the £ on the rates. This is what the civic restaurant department, under the chairmanship of the hon. Member for All Saints, intended to do. It wanted to subsidise civic catering because the law said—

On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. May I seek your protection? The law is that civic restaurants are not allowed to make a loss. Is it in order for the hon. Member to impugn my motives as chairman of that committee and as a Member of this House by saying that by devious means I tried to defeat the law of the land?

I am somewhat at a loss in this eddy of Birmingham politics. The hon. Member who is addressing the House should be careful not to impute motives, but I do not think he did impute any motive of a dishonourable kind to the hon. Member for All Saints. He is really giving his opinion that there was a political motive, but a political motive need not be dishonourable.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

It is only muddleheadedness.

If I did imply anything dishonourable I certainly withdraw it. I agree that it would be wrong to do that. It is the political doctrine which I was opposing and to which I wish to draw attention.

A Clause in another Bill sought power to set up a Corporation insurance fund which the experts told us would certainly lose money for the Corporation and which would be an unwise power to have. Another power which was sought—

I do not wish to keep interrupting the hon. Gentleman, but perhaps this is a good time to do so as he is citing cases. Cases should be answered as they are mentioned. My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kettering (Mr. Mitchison) brought in a Bill to allow local authorities to set up insurance funds on behalf of the Urban District Councils Association. The Government of the day had that struck out. There is no doubt that if Birmingham had been advised to put this Clause in it would have been put in with the certainty that it would have been struck out. Parliament would not have allowed that Clause to stand.

That intervention is all very well, but I think I have already pointed out that the hon. Gentleman has more confidence in what is likely to be done by this House than I have. I prefer people to have their own rights which have been given to them under our democratic system. It is the people's rights that we are discussing. These were never the councils' rights. It is the people's right to express their opinion at a poll and at a meeting. We are not talking about our rights in this House or about councillors' rights.

Those who support this Motion wish to deprive the people of one of their rights. I have not the same confidence that some people may have in what is done in this House. I admit that if some of the hon. Members of the Opposition benches were a representative sample of the sort of people there would always be in the party opposite I might have a different opinion, but I have not got that confidence. I doubt very much, if hon. Members opposite searched their hearts, whether they would have such confidence in some of the elements to which I have referred.

May I refer to another very important power which the Birmingham City Council sought to have? That was to modify or even discharge existing restrictive covenants. This is very serious. Some very good citizens of Birmingham have given land to the city. The Cadbury family have given a lot of land to the city, more often than not free of charge, as a gift to the citizens. When some of these people have died they have been under the impression that the covenants they made would be honoured. But what did the Birmingham City Council want? It wanted the power to annul these covenants. Only a few weeks ago a case was mentioned in the Birmingham Press of a former Lord Mayor who referred to this terrible state of affairs, in which a man or woman enters into a binding covenant with the corporation to give land to the city and then the corporation wants to scrap the covenant as soon as the man or woman dies. Sometimes the corporation even says to such people while they are still alive. "May we scrap the covenant?" In this case the corporation wanted to do it by means of a Private Bill.

Do they want a bypass to the cemetery or something?

The Birmingham people say. "Away with this. We are not going to have these covenants scrapped by a Socialist city council."

Come off it.

So far as I am aware, the Birmingham people never wanted to do anything of the sort.

Would the hon. Member suggest that if a town meeting in Birmingham had rejected the idea of a municipal bank that would have been a good thing?

It may or it may not have been a wise thing. I must agree that the municipal bank has proved a good thing. There was no poll requisitioned on that occasion. Everyone thought it was a reasonable thing to do.

It was a Socialist measure.

There could well have been a poll, but the people agreed that it was a good thing to have. This municipal bank is not a bank in the ordinary sense of the term, something which trades against Lloyds Bank or the Midland Bank. It is a savings bank.

It was Socialist legislation.

It may well be that the hon. Member likes to call it Socialist legislation. I do not mind. It has proved a very good institution and something that nobody minds about. It has not affected the competitive influences in the banking worlds, and people, even the man who thought it up—Mr. Chamberlain—still banked with the other banks.

rose—

I will give only one more instance of the powers which have been sought by the Birmingham authority, if the hon. Member for All Saints can possibly contain himself instead of holding another meeting on the other side of the House, and if he will get up to make an interjection—

I tried to interject, but the hon. Member would not give way.

My hon. Friend has given way several times.

He has, and I pay tribute to him for that. But on this occasion he probably did not see me rise.

The hon. Gentleman said that Mr. Joseph Chamberlain thought up the idea of a municipal bank. For the record, I wish to say that he did no such thing. It was Councillor Eldred Hallas, the one Socialist member of the then Birmingham City Council who, in splendid isolation, thought up the idea which was taken over by the Chamberlains with the agreement of all parties in the city.

I shall have to concede the point, because I must admit that I did not look it up. Whatever the situation, and whoever thought up the idea of a municipal bank, I have no doubt that the intention—indeed it was laid down—was not to trade against the ordinary banks by the use of cheques and the like—

Mr. Gurden.

On a point of order, Mr. Deputy-Speaker. Will you tell me whether the hon. Member for Exeter (Mr. Dudley Williams) was included in the count of hon. Members before he left the Chamber? When you counted the hon. Members, did you count the hon. Member for Exeter? I am asking, with respect, for my own information, because some of us think it a rather questionable practice for an hon. Member to draw attention to the fact that there are not 40 Members present and then to leave the Chamber.

The practice is that after two minutes the Chair counts the House. I counted hon. Members as they came into the Chamber. I did not count hon. Members who were not in the Chamber.

Further to that point of order. If an hon. Member calls attention to the fact that there are not 40 Members present and then leaves the Chamber, is the Motion in order? Is it in order if the hon. Member who sponsored the Motion is not in the Chamber at the time when the count is taken?

I cannot count an hon. Member if I cannot see him.

But it was the hon. Member's Motion and he was not in the Chamber. I think, with respect, that that is a matter which should be considered, and I wish to give notice of it so that the Chair may consider it as a matter of order.

It is not a Motion.

If it is not a Motion, surely it is not in accordance with the traditions of the House? When a hon. Member calls attention to the fact that there are not 40 hon. Members present in the Chamber, surely it is bad form if he then leaves the Chamber and uses this procedure as a deliberate device to get the House counted out? Surely that is not in the best Parliamentary tradition?

Since the right hon. Member for Llanelly (Mr. J. Griffiths) has attacked me, I should like to point out before you give a Ruling, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, on whether there is any question of bad behaviour on my part, that this is repeatedly done and the right hon. Gentleman knows full well that it is done. I suggest that it is just idle pique on the part of right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite to take exception to my action.

It is true that very often on Fridays attention is called to the fact that there are not 40 Members present in the Chamber. My point was that when an hon. Member calls attention to that fact he should not then immediately leave the Chamber, because it shows that he is using this procedure as a device and is not desirous of seeing that 40 hon. Members are present.

May I mention that when I was moving the Second Reading of a Bill in this House three weeks ago an hon. Member opposite did precisely that very thing.

But did he leave the Chamber?

Who was he?

I counted every hon. Member I could see, whether he was beyond the Bar of the House, or wherever he was, but I cannot count hon. Members whom I do not see. The Clerk at the Table sets the clock going and if there are not 40 hon. Members present after two minutes, the House is adjourned.

My hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, West (Mr. C. Pannell) asked whether there are precedents in this matter. Would you, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, be good enough to consult Mr. Speaker to find out whether it is in accordance with order and with the best traditions of the House?

It happens constantly.

It should not.

That is not for me to say.

Would it be true to say that no conduct is questionable where the hon. Member for Exeter (Mr. Dudley Williams) is concerned?

For the information of the House and in order to help hon. Members, will you, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, tell us at what stage the counting begins? Does it begin at the expiry of two minutes? I am making no insinuations against the Chair, but it seemed to me, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that you went on counting and when you had counted 40 the business proceeded. May we be assured that while you are counting 40 hon. Members no one goes out of the Chamber? When do you start counting the 40 Members?

The way in which I did it just now—my practice is always the same—was that I checked with the Clerk that there were 20 hon. Members in the Chamber, including myself, and the next 20 hon. Members were counted as they were arriving from each end of the Chamber. I even counted hon. Members whom I could see outside the door until I came to 40. I am not a judge of manners or of anything of that kind.

Suppose, after you had counted him, an hon. Member left the Chamber for some reason or other. Would he be deducted from the total of 40?

Probably I should not notice the hon. Member leave the Chamber, because I should be looking for hon. Members who were coming in.

May I ask you, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, whether, when you began to count, you counted the hon. Member for Exeter who was present when he asked for the count?

I do not think so. I started on this side, the Opposition side. There were more here, and I counted them first. I think I made it about 13 on the Opposition side then. I think that there were about seven more when I began counting.

Would it not be a good idea to start with the hon. Member who calls for a count first to make sure that you include him, Mr. Deputy-Speaker?

That might be done. There is nothing laid down about it.

The hon. Member for Exeter would be at the top of the list.

When the count was called I was proceeding to show some of the instances in which Bills presented by the City of Birmingham have been rejected by towns' polls. One of the powers sought was power to authorise the sale by the corporation of petrol, oil, spare parts and repair service facilities at municipal garages and car parks. The public have been seriously criticised for voting down some of the Clauses in Birmingham's Bills. Because they have been criticised, hon. Members opposite wish to take away the public's power altogether. This power was sought—

rose—

Before I give way to the hon. Gentleman, may I ask him if he could stop some of the private committee meetings going on on his side?

This is not a matter involving Birmingham only. It affects all local authorities throughout the country. We are concerned about the principle, not about any particular authority.

I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving me that point. I was about to show that this is, in fact, just Socialist doctrine. It is Socialist legislation which hon. Gentlemen opposite would like to have so that corporations and municipalities could have power to run garage businesses. This is precisely what Birmingham corporation said it wanted. [An HON. MEMBER: "Why not?"] Exactly. That is the point I was coming to. The people of Birmingham do not consider that the corporation should have this power. They voted it out.

Is the hon. Gentleman's case now developing purely on the political argument, or is he proceeding on an argument of substance?

Could it not be of substance if it were political? It is hon. Gentlemen opposite and their friends who have made this a political matter. I sought to show earlier that this move began since the war; towns' polls and town meetings were challenged because it had become a political issue. Municipalities were seeking by backdoor methods to introduce nationalisation. That is why it is a political matter. It is none of my seeking. I dare say that before the war I might well have supported this Motion, but I cannot do so today because of the facts I am now putting before the House.

If it is purely a Socialist political matter, as the hon. Gentleman implied, how does it come about that his hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Wembley, North (Wing-Commander Bullus) seconded the Motion, with a Tory council in his area?

My hon. and gallant Friend is a delinquent in this matter. He is one of the few who have yet to be converted.

Is the hon. and gallant Gentleman a "Teddy boy"?

I said that facetiously, of course.

The power which was sought by the Birmingham authority was sought by them as a piece of Socialism. It was not disguised as anything else. That is why it is essential now to retain the town's poll and the town meeting, even if they have to be modernised to suit present events and conditions. They represent the only hope that people have of preventing Socialist authorities from putting through Socialism in the form of municipal legislation.

The people can chuck the council out at the next election if they want to.

That is the people's right, but, when they go to vote at a municipal election, they vote always with a clear understanding that they are voting for councillors who will be elected to act and work only within the law and powers given to them by Parliament, not outside. That is why the people at municipal elections do not take these things into account, and that is why these questions must be brought before them in a town's poll. It is a good part of democracy that it should be so.

rose—

Can the hon. Member for Bradford, East not leave my hon. Friend alone?

Is the hon. Member for Selly Oak suggesting that if these provisions are withdrawn local authorities will be able to do something illegal?

The Socialist councillors seek to make these things legal. That is the whole point. It is the people who, by their democratic right, have said that it shall not be legal for the Corporation of Birmingham to have such trading powers.

The people of Birmingham, like many other people, are very hard-working. The living of a man running a small garage, for instance, will be jeopardised if the corporation has such powers. I could cite many instances. There are those who trade in furniture shops and with furniture vans or who run local garages, and the people who do business with those concerns, those independent traders, do not want the corporation to have the power to shut them up and their business away. Some people like to have the right to go and trade with a local garage man.

The hon. Member for Bradford, East (Mr. McLeavy) said that this move may become nation wide, there may be municipal garages or even nationalised garages. He said that there may be legislation for the whole country. That is what I am visualising. This is the sort of things which the towns' polls can stop from the beginning.

On a point of correction, I should like to say that I said no such thing.

Of course my hon. Friend did not, but the hon. Gentleman wants to say that he did.

We should have the truth.

I want to come a little nearer home now. The hon. Member for Yardley, who introduced the Motion, put his case reasonably. He trades in oil-burning apparatus and heating equipment. Many of us in the Midlands know that he has a very good business and produces some very good products. I believe that the business is at Droitwich. I am sorry that the hon. Gentleman has left the Chamber for a moment.

How does the hon. Gentleman know that his business may not be jeopardised if this sort of thing goes on? If munici- pal trading is extended, may it not be that the corporation, and others perhaps, will wish to take powers to manufacture and sell oil burners and heating equipment. thus affecting his business and livelihood and the livelihood of people who work for him, who like to work for him and who have such a good job, perhaps? May the effects of what he suggests not come a little nearer home? What would his view then be about a town's poll which rejected a corporation Bill of the kind I have described?

That may seem a little far-fetched, but, in the light of what I have been able to show, is it so far-fetched? The corporation attempted to take powers to make bus bodies, to repair motor vehicles, and the like. I believe that the hon. Member for Yardley manufactures parts for motor cars. In that case. they may put him out of business.

I do not think that it is very farfetched to say that these powers have been too far reaching. This is only the beginning of what we may see. Had it not been for the town's poll, the Birmingham Corporation would have had the power to trade in petrol, oil, spare parts and the repairing of motor cars. It might well now have had a big business and have sent into bankruptcy many of the adjoining garages. Can we imagine what the next Bill may possibly bring forward—a Bill to make this a monopoly, as we had with electricity and gas services? May it well not be that Birmingham will seek to have complete monopoly for the sale of petrol and oil and the repairing of motor cars?

I warn the people of Birmingham that the House is discussing today the question of depriving them of the right to decide whether or not such powers can be taken by the corporation. They ought to consider whether or not they require town meetings and towns' polls procedure to be retained. I said earlier that, with certain modifications and with some modernisation in the light of present day circumstances—

On a point of order, Mr. Deputy-Speaker. The hon. Member for Selly Oak (Mr. Gurden) has just finished the first hour of his speech. Is there no way by which you can indicate to him that on a Friday, which is private Members' day, this is not playing cricket?

I have no power to stop speakers. I often wish I had.

There was a method by which hon. Members could have stopped my speech some time ago if they had not entered the House.

That would not have been playing cricket, either.

I should not have liked it, because I wish to put my case for the people of Birmingham, the thousands who have voted and will go on voting at towns' polls.

It has been said that it should not be possible for a poll to be requisitioned by 100 people. I must concede that. It is out of balance today that 100 people should have the power to requisition a poll for a city of 1 million people. When the number of electors has been counted, let us say at once that that figure does not represent the people who would normally be expected to go to a poll, because never in my memory have any-think like 100 per cent. or even 70 per cent. or 60 per cent, of the electorate gone to the polls in Birmingham on municipal matters. A percentage as high as that has been achieved in probably very few cities.

I concede the point that the requisition of a town's poll should be a little more serious. Perhaps it would not be out of the way if one had to find 500 or even 1,000 names to show that it was a serious requisition by a city of the size of Birmingham. I am only seeking to show that I have an open mind as long as we do not deprive the people of their right. It is a democratic right. In these days when we look at the East and the West and see what happens behind the Iron Curtain, it ought to make us realize—

On a point of order, Mr. Deputy-Speaker. The hon. Member for Selly Oak appears now to be returning to where he started. Is there not a rule of the House about repetition?

I am glad to say that I was not here when the hon. Member started his speech, so I cannot decide that.

You are very lucky, Mr. Deputy-Speaker.

It was not my intention to employ unreasonable methods in debate. I remind the hon. Member for All Saints that he has gone far beyond anything which I am attempting to do now, or have ever done in the past, in the matter of being unreasonable in the House.

When?

I have quoted it already. If I repeated it, it could well be said that it was repetition.

On a point of order. I must protect myself from the attacks which have been continuing intermittently over the last hour. Is it in order for the hon. Member for Selly Oak to say that I have gone beyond the bounds of reason in the House, without giving chapter and verse so that I can defend myself?

Hon. Members on both sides of the House say that to each other almost every day, do they not?

I do not say it, Mr. Deputy-Speaker.

If I am not ruled out of order, I can very briefly say what it was. Hon. Members who are friends of the hon. Member for All Saints have told me that they have been asked by him, for no sound or good reason, to object to the Private Bill which was put forward last Friday and the Friday before.

On a point of order. I am sorry to prolong the speech of the hon. Member for Selly Oak, because it is boring everybody to tears. However, it is necessary for me to defend myself. The hon. Member has given an instance of my unreasonableness in that I am objecting to a Private Bill. Before you took the Chair, it was ruled by Mr. Speaker, in answer to a question by my right hon. Friend the Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede), that it was out of order to refer to that Private Bill. If an hon. Member has been ruled out of order before you came into the Chair, is the hon. Member for All Saints not taking advantage of that, especially as he knows that, when I get the opportunity to speak, if he finishes before four o'clock, Mr. Speaker will be in the Chair and will not allow me to refer to it, because he has already ruled it out of order?

The whole point of the debate is that the towns' polls deal with Private Bills, do they not?

Yes, but the Bill which the hon. Member has said that I object to is down to be taken at the end of business today. Mr. Speaker ruled this morning that it was out of order for an hon. Member to refer to that Bill. If it was out of order for that hon. Member to refer to the Bill during his speech, the hon. Member is taking an unfair advantage of the House by criticising me in connection with a matter which it is out of order to discuss?

All the Bills which come on at four o'clock are Public Bills, introduced by private Members. They are quite different. The Motion deals with Private Bills as such, promoted by corporations following towns' polls and the like.

The Motion deals with town meetings and towns' polls, not with Private Bills.

Private Bills make them necessary. It is only because they deal with matters in Private Bills that they have them.

Mr. Speaker ruled an hon. Member out of order for alluding to it. Mr. Speaker said that the hon. Member was anticipating a Bill on the Order Paper for the day and he was not entitled to do it several hours—I forget how many hours ago it was said—before the Bill would be called from the Chair.

One is anticipating if one does that. It is in order to give an instance of a Private Bill when arguing that one does not want a town's poll. That is the whole point of the debate. A town's poll cannot arise except on a matter of that kind.

The Bill to which the hon. Member alluded is a Public Bill, not a Private Bill. We believe that the hon. Member introduced a Public Bill so as to dodge Private Bill procedure. Mr. Speaker ruled that out of order, on the ground that any discussion of it was anticipation.

I should not allow discussion of Public Bills on this. We do not have a town's poll. We do it without one.

I am sorry that the debate has taken this turn, but it was because the hon. Member for All Saints challenged my behaviour.

I have been trying to follow the argument of my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Mr. Gurden). There has been a great deal of interruption, and I am sorry to add to it. If I understand what he was saying aright, it was that he would not object to some revision of the rules about towns' polls. He suggested that it would be reasonable if 1,000 signatures out of a total population of 1 million were obtained. Does my hon. Friend appreciate that such a figure is a considerably higher percentage than the 40 Members who are considered to be necessary to carry on this debate?

That certainly is an important point. I am grateful for my hon. Friend for reinforcing my argument. Many things are done in this House and people are quite satisfied with them, so it appears, when the proportion is quite different from that which hon. Members opposite say is ridiculous.

Birmingham and other cities have managed very well in the past. Until all this idea of municipal trading came up, they had managed very well with a town's polls and town meetings. Southport says that it overcomes its difficulties quite well by negotiating with any member of the public who feels that he has a grievance, in the same way that we and the Ministries try to do when they have letters. Birmingham. as it has known quite well, before presenting Bills, has been told by my colleagues in Birmingham and by myself in the City Council that to present such Bills was only asking for trouble and we would only have to expect that the public would reject them.

If we are to give city councillors more and more power—and they have had a tremendous lot added to them—we must recognise that we are to some extent replacing this House. In the quotations from Bills which have been put forward by Birmingham, I have shown that that is exactly what is intended and that the City Council wants, and always wants, such extra power. It is a one-sided case. The case has been put by the municipal corporations, supported by the town clerks, writing to hon. Members, by the city councillors and by hon. Members opposite, but no one has been able to speak for these thousands of people who go to the poll and to the meetings.

I contend that we are dealing today with a matter which strikes at the very principles of democracy.

That is the twenty-first time the hon. Member has said that today.

It may well be that this matter should be the subject at a General Election as to whether the public are satisfied to have taken from them the right, which they have always had, to express their opinion at a town meeting and town's poll. If the party opposite put that into its glossy booklet and told the public just what it proposed to do—to take away, if only a small part, some of the democratic rights of the people—I would have no complaint. If hon. Members opposite put it in their programme and went to the country with that as their policy, the public could decide upon it. It might well be that if the party opposite was elected, it would then be able to carry it through and the whole matter would be cleared up. I would have no complaint. I have no complaint about any Member of the House objecting to one of my Bills. I have no complaint to make about anyone calling a Count against one of my Bills, or against anything I support.

I am unlike the hon. Member for Yardley, who would go to any lengths in spite to kill a Bill which may be a very good one. That is what the hon. Member has told me he intends to do. I am quite unlike that. I accept the democracy that we have and the rules of this House are quite satisfactory to me. All I ask is that when anyone objects to a matter, he should at least be able to put his case.

The argument has been advanced that the poll in these towns' polls is so low that it is negligible in size and should be completely disregarded. I do not take that view and I know that the people who go to the poll certainly do not take it. Here is my point about the modernisation of towns' polls. I think that it was the town of Farnborough where a decision was in doubt. Farnborough wished to have a decision of the electors on an important issue and it got a 76 per cent. poll on a local matter.

The hon. Member for Yardley should have gone further. He conceded to some extent the points about meetings, but he should have gone further and conceded the point about polls. Farnborough has already shown that it is possible to get a 76 per cent, poll on a purely local matter, because it was put to the people in understandable language why they were voting.

At the moment, the Bills and Clauses are complicated. The hon. Member for Yardley was quite right in saying that people do not know exactly for what purpose they are voting. They do not study the matter to that extent. The hon. Member rightly said that in present circumstances, people cannot do this. Farnborough, however, went to the trouble of simplifying the matter, as could well be done now by the proper legislation, and giving the people a poll which they could thoroughly understand, showing them the importance of it and, what is more, publicising it. These things are not publicised by the city and town councils. They like to keep them dark. The fact that Farnborough produced a 76 per cent. poll shows that it can be done.

We have also been told that the cost is very high. I would say that it is a low cost to preserve the people's rights of free speech and a democratic vote. In any event, in Birmingham it has never reached the cost of ¼d. rate, which is less than it costs to supply the people with subsidised golf, tennis, bowls and things like that. It is not expensive. To put forward the idea of the high cost as a legitimate argument is quite out of proportion to the case which has been put.

I could quote many more instances, but I will not do so. The time has come when we must recognise that this is a matter on which we should remember the words of Abraham Lincoln—

Do they have towns' polls in America?

Was it not Abraham Lincoln who spoke about

"government of the people, by the people, for the people".

or something like that? What about "government by the people"? Have not the people some right in this matter? If we take away only one small part of the people's rights, it should be a matter for a General Election and not a local election.

I had not intended to intervene in this debate, because there are important matters to be discussed afterwards, but I feel it necessary to make some reference to the charge which the hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Mr. Gurden) made against all the hon. Members who represent the City of Birmingham and who sit on this side of the House.

In opening his speech the hon. Member made a general reflection upon all those hon. Members. Perhaps the hon. Member would stop having his private meeting with hon. Friends and listen to what we have to say? He spoke for well over an hour, and his speech from the beginning to the end showed that the whole of his opposition to this Motion is based upon a petty personal attitude because somebody tried to block a Bill in which he was interested.

This all started long before that, before I had a Bill in this House. This matter was gone into very thoroughly, and I made the same objections then, at great length.

I am saying that today, up to the time he was called to order by Mr. Speaker, the hon. Member was showing very clearly that he had a personal objection to an action of hon. Members in preventing him from getting a Bill through.

During the fourteen years I have been a Member of the House I have always respected and honoured the rights of back benchers. I believe it is right that Fridays should be private Members' time, and for that reason I have never taken part in or subscribed to a count even when I did not agree with the proposal being debated or with the hon. Member speaking at the time of a count. What has taken place today is another example, perhaps a more reprehensible example, of an unfair attitude to the House and its Members.

The hon. Member's speech showed completely muddled thinking from beginning to end.

No thinking at all.

Yes, a speech of no thinking at all, as my right hon. Friend says. That is probably nearer the truth. The hon. Member made this statement: "Hon. Members opposite do not care about Birmingham."

Hear, hear.

The hon. Member admits it. Why? Because hon. Members on this side did not support a Bill in which he was interested. He has made great play with that. Let me remind the hon. Member that the same kind of recommendation came in regard to this Motion from the Birmingham Corporation as came in regard to the Bill in which he was personally interested. If the hon. Member claims that hon. Members on this side ought to respect the views of the corporation upon a matter in which he is interested, we are surely entitled to ask him to respect the views of the corporation on the matter now under consideration.

I was pointing out that Birmingham Corporation was Socialist-controlled and that, although I did not have to, I had, on occasion, gone out of my way to observe what the corporation asked me to do.

We are almost threatened that we are to have a circular from the town clerk of Birmingham brought to our notice. I bring to the notice of the House a circular from the town clerk to Birmingham Members upon this matter. Of course, he was writing on the instruction of the City Council. He pointed out that if the result of the poll or the decision of a town's meeting is against the promotion of a Bill or any provision of it the Council must take steps to withdraw the Bill or the provision, as the case may be. He explained that he was asked by the corporation's general purposes committee to inform hon. Members that the council strongly supported the abolition of meetings and polls of local government electors, and he asked us to give consideration to this matter.

The hon. Member for Selly Oak, who has accused us of not respecting the views of the council, now totally ignores the conclusion, which has been given after most careful consideration, by the council, and which has been recommended. The hon. Member was clearly not speaking in the name of the City of Birmingham.

Although I live in the constituency represented by the hon. Member, I did not know until today that our constituency was represented by such a petty-minded attitude. His argument is that the towns' polls are of use if a Socialist council decides to bring a Bill embodying Socialist proposals. Then it is all right to have a town's poll. He also subscribes to the view that if, when that town poll takes place, only four out of every 100 electors go to the poll that is a reasonable and democratic decision. Frankly, I do not believe that democracy could accept such a thing at all.

What figure does the hon. Member suggest?

The hon. Member talked about councillors being returned on a poll of 16 per cent. That is extremely low. If there were a vote of only 16 per cent. in the Selly Oak ward in a municipal election he would think it extremely disappointing.

All of us in the City of Birmingham would think it a disappointing thing if there were not 50 per cent. or 60 per cent. of the electors going to the poll in a municipal election. We in Birmingham consider that 20 per cent. in a poll is an extremely low percentage. The town clerk drew our attention to two cases. One poll cost £5,500 and only 3·8 per cent. of the electorate voted in it. The other cost £6,000 and only 3·2 per cent. of the electorate voted. I would point out to the hon. Member for Selly Oak that on those occasions a Tory Government were in power at Westminster.

The hon. Member is contradicting the views of his hon. and gallant Friend; he Member for Wembley, North (Wing Commander Bullus), who told us that he himself, as a Tory Member of the House, had organised opposition to a Private Bill promoted by a town corporation.

I cannot understand how the hon. Member can suggest that the proposal in this Motion would take away the people's right to decide whether they are for or against a Measure when he is prepared to leave the decision to four out of every 100 who could go to the poll when that takes place under a Tory Government. That argument is a ridiculous one. As I have pointed out before, one of the greatest examples of municipal Socialism is the Municipal Bank in Birmingham. It is one of the greatest successes we could possibly have. It is ridiculous to suggest that four out of every 100 should decide an issue like that.

I know that the hon. Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Mr. Yates) has been for many years a valiant fighter for the rights of minorities to express their opinions. But how does he reconcile with his traditional attitude to minorities his present view that 3 per cent. or 4 per cent. is too small a minority to express an opinion? It does not seem to match with his traditional attitude.

There are two points on this. There is first the gathering of the electorate to a town's meeting. I do not object to that. I would support having a town's meeting. I do not believe, however, that a meeting even of 1,000 people, held one evening, can achieve a really democratic consideration of a Measure.

For that reason, I think it is quite wrong to take a vote at a meeting. I have been attending party political conferences for years, and I will concede to the hon. Member that what he really means when he talks about free speech in an assembly is a meeting of 1,000 or 1,500 people, but it cannot be done. In this case, the only really democratic process would be to gather 750,000 people together, and, as I have already pointed out, there is not a football ground in Birmingham on which we could put them all together. Indeed, if we put them on all the football grounds in Birmingham, I doubt whether we should get them in.

What I am saying is that where there is a city council of elected representatives, those representatives ought at least to be able, by a majority, which is the constitutional method, to propose a Bill and recommend to Parliament that that Bill should be considered. Parliament itself has a perfect right to reject that Bill, but if Parliament has considered the matter, I think we should be more likely to protect minority rights, through properly constituted Committees, and so on, of this House, rather than throw the matter open to a poll, in which we get such a low percentage of votes, or even to a town meeting.

I was not trying to trick the hon. Member. I was trying to follow his argument to see how he reconciles his traditional attitude to the rights of minorities with his attitude on this matter. He has been quick enough to see—and I congratulate him upon it—the danger into which he is slipping when he says that the rights of minorities can be overrun on an issue of this kind, because such a minority does not constitute a democratic assembly. If he says that so few people decide things at party conferences, it makes nonsense of the claims of party organisations that they are representative of the democratic will of the people. If decisions taken on these matters are to be left to a comparatively small number of people, what is the point of having party conferences at all?

Ask the League of Empire Loyalists.

It is, no doubt, extremely difficult to operate, and the mere gathering of heads alone is not sufficient. What I want to try to put to the House and to the hon. Member for Selly Oak is this. I concede the point about meetings, but I am disappointed that he should argue the idea that if we reject the suggestion of a meeting deciding whether a Clause should go in a Bill or not, nevertheless, 100 or even 1,000 people have the right to prevent Parliament, which is the most democratic assembly of all, from considering the matter. [An HON. MEMBER: "No".] Oh, yes, it does, because a town's poll can take away a Clause in a Private Bill, as the town clerk of Birmingham says.

rose—

No, I do not want to give way. I want to conclude my speech.

The hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Mr. Gurden) is trying to spin this out.

I conclude by saying that the hon. Member for Selly Oak was inconsistent. He said, first, that he had no complaints, whereas he really has a personal complaint all the way through, and would not have made so many refer- ences to my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, All Saints (Mr. D. Howell) if he had not had some personal feeling in the matter. I think it is unfortunate, because he is chasing something which is not the principle with which we are now involved. It does not matter whether we have a Socialist Government or a Tory Government, I should still argue, as I have done on other occasions, what is the right principle.

The hon. Gentleman said that he does not want to take away the right of the people to decide, when, in fact, he is taking away that right. Although it may be unfortunate for us that there are local authorities with Tory majorities, he may think that it is unfortunate for him to have local authorities with Socialist majorities, but this is all part of our democracy, and we have to reckon with it. If an authority decides to put forward a Bill for consideration, it matters not whether it concerns motor cars, garages, furniture, or whatever it may be. It may be a Tory recommendation of the most reactionary kind, but if a council decides to put it forward a Tory Government might accept it, where a Socialist Government might not, but, at least, they should be entitled to put the matter forward.

I hope that the hon. Member will not press his objection too strongly, but will allow us to take a reasonable attitude towards this matter. I hope that the Government will consider this Motion most carefully.

I hope it will suit the convenience of the House if at this point I make what I promise will be a very brief intervention. I shall attempt to compensate for the marathon of my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Mr. Gurden), by speaking with my usual succinctness. I shall also try to avoid getting myself inveigled into the muddy eddies of Birmingham municipal politics, which sound to me almost as bad, if not actually as bad, as those of Liverpool, of which I have had some experience.

Several hon. Gentlemen on Opposition benches have invited me to give the House a promise on behalf of the Government that the Government might be prepared to incorporate the principle of this Motion in legislation. I do not think it is any secret that my right hon. Friend is pretty fully occupied with legislation at present, but what happened at Harrow yesterday is rather reassuring, and it may well be that the Government will have perhaps another five or six years for future legislation.

I should like to congratulate the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Mr. Usborne) on his good fortune in the Ballot, and also for the speech which, whatever one's view of the subject may be, was a very interesting and balanced speech, which I very much enjoyed. This question of town meetings and towns' polls, as the House well knows, is liable to affect not only Birmingham, but all borough councils and all urban district councils preparatory to their promoting Parliamentary Bills, and it has been a source of dispute ever since these meetings and polls were first made part of the Private Bill procedure by the Borough Funds Act, 1872.

It was in February, 1957, on the Second Reading of the Bill introduced by my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Wembley, North (Wing Commander Bullus) that the main arguments were deployed, and since then they have been fully developed. There is, on the one hand, the point of view expressed by the right hon. Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede) and his hon. Friends that these town meetings and towns' polls are an anachronism, and the contrary view, which has been expounded at some length by my hon. Friend the Member for Selly Oak, that they constitute a bulwark in defence of minorities.

As a general rule, I do not like sitting on the fence politically, but that must be my position this afternoon. I think the fashionable word is "disengagements". The Government view on this matter is the same as that which I very fully expressed in the debate on 15th February, 1957; that is to say, that a matter which deals with the legislative processes is essentially one for the consideration and for the judgment of the House of Commons. The Government are, therefore, content to accept the view of the House on this Motion, whatever that view may prove to be.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government referred to the fact that it might be possible as a result of the by-election held yesterday at Harrow, East that his Government would have a further period of office. I hope that if that eventuality comes about we shall have legislation from the present Government to abolish town meetings and towns' polls. I read that expectation into what the hon. Gentleman said and understood that the reason why he could not give a firmer answer for this Parliament was that his Minister was fully occupied with the legislation which is at present before the House. If that reading of what the hon. Gentleman said is correct, I am glad to have heard it, as I am sure are many of my hon. and right hon. Friends.

We have had a good deal of tedious repetition from the hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Mr. Gurden), and it would be quite improper of me to take up the time of the House for too long to go over the arguments which have been put not only this morning but on previous occasions when this matter has been under review. Incidentally, if I understood the hon. Member for Selly Oak aright, his chief reason for supporting town meetings and towns' polls is that some cities or towns, or even urban districts, might on occasion introduce into Private Bills proposals of a Socialistic kind. He quite forgot that places like Brighton and Southport and other seaside centres have more municipal Socialism than the City of Birmingham, one division of which he represents. Therefore, the fact that a city may not have a Socialist majority on its council is no protection from municipal Socialistic legislation promoted through Private Bills.

The debate, in spite of the long intervention by the hon. Member for Selly Oak, leads us to certain inevitable conclusions based upon the facts as we know them. The first fact is that whilst this procedure might have been adequate a century ago when the Local Government Act, 1858, was placed on the Statute Book, under modern conditions it is now quite impossible to implement. The calling of a town meeting is obligatory upon boroughs, county boroughs and urban district councils, but it is plain beyond a shadow of doubt—and no argument has been put forward today to show the contrary—that in these days of large electorates it is physically impossible, normally, to hold such meetings in any real sense.

What was feasible when the Borough Funds Act was passed in 1872 is clearly out of the question today when we have electorates as large, for example, as that of Liverpool which numbers over half-a-million. The hon. and gallant Member for Wembley, North (Wing Commander Bullus) cited an instance where Liverpool had to hold a town meeting and only about 20 people turned up—this out of a population of half-a-million. Incidents like that reduce this requirement to an absurdity and make it quite obvious that town meetings are an anachronism.

None of us on this side of the House objects to town meetings and towns' polls as such. In the old days, undoubtedly, there was reason for their institution. if it were possible to hold them, they would perform a useful function even now, but it is crystal clear that it is quite impossible to hold a town meeting these days. Only a small proportion of the electors can attend, even if the meeting is held on some large football ground, and if it were held on a football ground there would be no guarantee that all those present would be electors, and it would be quite impossible for the chairman, whose duty it would be, to explain in detail and in a reasonable way the often complicated provisions of the Private Bill which it was proposed to promote. Nor at the poll, in which only a handful of electors are interested, does the ballot paper help those electors to understand matters better. Whilst it is difficult for a chairman to explain the provisions of a Bill to a large meeting, it is normally impossible for the electorate to know what they are voting about from the resolutions which appear on the ballot paper.

Mr. Dingle, clerk of Manchester Corporation, presented specimens of such a ballot paper to the Joint Committee on Private Bill Procedure which reported in 1955, and one of these ballot papers has been incorporated at page 298 of that Report. When Manchester Corporation promoted the Manchester Corporation Bill in 1933, fifteen resolutions had to be. put to the electors.

I do not propose to read all of them. but, with permission, I should like to read Resolution 2 to indicate the difficulty which faces the voter when he has to judgment on the provisions of a Private Bill. It reads:

"Resolution 2—Acquisition of Lands for Street Improvements and Waterworks.

Clause 5 (a) and (b) (Power to take lands), and Clauses 6 (Acquisition of easements), 7 (Period for compulsory purchase of lands), 8 (Further powers of entry), 9 (Increase of Rent and Mortgage Interest (Restrictions) Acts, not to apply), 10 (Retention and disposal of lands), and 11 (Extension of time for compulsory purchase of lands) in Part II (Lands), and so much of the remaining parts of the Bill as relates to those Clauses."

Unless he knows exactly to what these references relate, and even then only if he has a plan which he can follow, I refy anybody to understand exactly on what he was voting. Clearly it would be quite impossible for an ordinary elector to know what he was voting on with a resolution of that kind. Voting papers of that size and resolutions of that sort are common when Private Bills are promoted and it is clearly impossible for the ordinary elector to pass judgment upon them.

The holding of a referendum of this kind has frequently been a very costly business. It means setting up polling stations: the appointment of officers of various kinds including a presiding officer; the printing and posting of numerous notices, and the printing of thousands of voting papers. The expense may well run into thousands of pounds when a poll is taken in a large city. My hon. Friend the Member for Leicester, North-West (Mr. Janner) pointed out earlier today that when a poll was taken in Leicester on a Private Bill which the Corporation promoted in 1956, only 1·4 per cent. of the electorate voted out of a total of 202,787 and the cost worked out at 10s. a vote. I suggest that in the end nobody was any the wiser as a result of that poll.

It has been asked, and I think that it may be asked again in the debate since the Local Government Act, 1933, is of recent date, and if conditions then were much the same as they are now, why Parliament in its wisdom put these provisions in that Act. The answer is simple. It is that these provisions were re-enacted from the Borough Funds Act, 1872, as amended by a similar Act of 1903, because at that time the Chelmsford Committee—which drafted the Bill that afterwards became the Act of 1933—felt that although it was in favour of leaving them out, the terms of reference under which it worked would not permit it. Following the Royal Commission of 1925, the Chelmsford Committee was nevertheless of the view that this provision should not be included. So we have today the astonishing fact that from 1925 onwards, every body which has looked at this matter—the Royal Commission, the Chelmsford Committee, and finally the Joint Select Committee which reported in 1955—has recommended that these provisions should be abolished.