The hon. and learned Member for Warwick and Leamington (Mr. John Hobson) has a consequential Amendment in page 2, line 11, to leave out Clause 2. He can discuss that with his new Clause.

I beg to second the Motion.

I welcome the opportunity of supporting the new Clause, which seems to carry out the logic and intention of the promoters of the Bill. My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Warwick and Leamington (Mr. John Hobson) has very clearly explained how the Clause will operate. I understand that he seeks merely to implement the intention of the Bill by increasing the scope of the benefits that are not to be taken into account when assessing damages. I must confess that I did not have an opportunity of attending the Standing Committee, but I believe that this matter was referred to at. some length. I think that the House would be well advised to accept the new Clause, unless some very valid arguments to the contrary are advanced.

While I am greatly obliged to the hon. and learned Member for Warwick and Leamington (Mr. John Hobson) for the explanation that he has given. I do not think that we should allow the Clause to go through the House without an explanation from the Solicitor-General. While very desirable things are done in this way, this form of legislation is not altogether satisfactory when we consider what has been happening in the House and in Standing Committee concerning Private Bill legislation.

I noticed, for instance, that when the new Clause in its original form was in Standing Committee the Chairman's attention was called to the fact that 12 Members were not present and he thereupon suspended the proceedings. It was not until another hon. Member entered the room that the proceedings could continue. If we are not careful, and if we do not react more responsibly to our duties as private Members, taking advantage of this very useful facility which we have got, we shall bring Parliament into disrepute.

I rise to ask the Solicitor-General to make a statement on this new Clause, because I think that it would be proper for him to do so. He kindly advised the Committee about the original new Clause. It is obvious that it as a consequence of his advice that we have got the new Clause in its present form. I think that the whole House is greatly obliged to the right hon. and learned Gentleman for the advice which he has given, but he ought to reaffirm this advice publicly in the House so that the House may treat its responsibilities seriously.

I invite the Solicitor-General to do what he did in Standing Committee. He referred to private conversations and he then made public those private conversations. I think that the same should happen again. The Government should assure us. I have no reason to doubt the explanation which the hon. and learned Gentleman 'has given in support of this Clause, but I should like to have the support of the Solicitor-General before we agree to it.

With respect, I agree with what my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Warwick and Leamington (Mr. John Hobson) said about his new Clause. As for private conversations being made public, I might add another revelation, which is that since my hon. Friend the Member for Hitchin (Mr. Maddan) produced his Clause in Committee we have, after conversations, been able to provide him with the assistance of Parliamentary draftsmen. Hence this new Clause.

I join in welcoming this new Clause, and in doing so I should like to comment on the fact that it extends very considerably the scope of the Bill. This is a factor to be welcomed, but I think my hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland, North (Mr. Willey) is right to emphasise that these changes which are being made and will have far-reaching consequences have been considered by very few hon. Members both in Committee and, it would seem, here today.

The hon. Member for Hitchin (Mr. Maddan) is undoubtedly to be congratulated. because he is primarily responsible for the fact that this extension is being made in the scope of the Bill. It would be fair to say that he had the courage to rush in where, perhaps, the lawyers feared to tread. He got very little support in Committee. I. was not on the Committee myself—I did not have that pleasure but he got very little support in Committee from the lawyers when he introduced his new Clause, which was finally written into the Bill.

My hon. and learned Friend the Member for West Ham, South (Mt. Elwyn Jones) in the end voted for the new Clause, saying that he did so only because he felt sure that the new Clause was going to be defeated, which was not a very enthusiastic form of support. I believe the hon. and learned Member for Warwick and Leamington (Mr. John Hobson), who has handled this Bill so ably, voted against that form, at least, of the new Clause. I am very glad to see him supporting the principle of it today by moving this new Clause which is intended to take its place.

11.15 a.m.

What the Clause does, as I understand it, is to extend considerably the class of benefits which accrue to the claimant—that is to say, the dependant of the deceased person—which are to be excluded from consideration in assessing damages. If we are to be frank, I think we must recognise that there is no great logic to be found anywhere in this matter because the original statutory exception in the 1908 Act, of what I may broadly call insurance moneys, undoubtedly drove something of a wedge into the general principle upon which Fatal Accidents Act damages are based—namely, that they are to compensate the dependant for the pecuniary loss which he or she suffers as a result of the death.

Of course, that loss is assessed by taking into account, firstly, what the person has lost, usually in the way of maintenance, as a result of the death, and then setting off against that such pecuniary benefits by way of legacy or otherwise as accrue to the claimant from the death. Saying that one class of benefits, namely, insurance moneys, is to be excluded undoubtedly drives a somewhat illogical wedge into the whole of the common law approach to this problem.

However, there was much to commend the statutory exception, and it continued to operate without any great difficulty or trouble being felt, and, indeed, was extended by the 1948 Act to include National Insurance benefits under the National Insurance Act as a further class of benefits to be excluded. The real trouble arose as a result of a decision of the courts in a case known as Bowskill v. Dawson, where it was held that the benefits which accrued to a widow under a group life pension scheme were benefits within the 1908 Act which had to be excluded from consideration.

It happened that this group life pension scheme of the deceased's employer, like many such schemes, was connected with and based upon a group life insurance policy. It was because of that that it came within the 1908 Act. Then immediately that gave rise to a feeling that this produced a most anomalous situation, namely, that where a widow received benefits under a scheme of this kind those benefits were to be left out of account, whereas there were plenty of other pension schemes and superannuation schemes of one kind and another under which benefits were payable on death which were not taken into account.

For example, in the case of Smith v. B.E.A. there was set up in the industry a statutory scheme under which payments were payable to the widow very similar indeed to a private employer's group life pension scheme. It was held there that because there was no insurance policy involved, the benefit which the widow received was to be taken into account. It is because these anomalies arose that the hon. Member for Hitchin had such a very strong argument to put before the Committee in extending the scope of these privilege benefits. What was said in Committee, and with some force, was that whatever explanations are made further anomalies will arise, and I think that is undoubtedly the case. Perhaps when we come to discuss some of the Amendments to this proposed new Clause, if it is given a Second Reading, we shall run up against those difficulties and see what they are.

For my part, I strongly welcome this new Clause. It is very desirable that if we are going to exclude from consideration benefits under insurance policies there are substantial classes of kindred benefits which ought also to be excluded.

I am glad to hear from the Solicitor-General that the mover of this new Clause has had the assistance of the Parliamentary draftsmen. Certainly, the wording of it would seem to be a very great simplification and a general improvement upon the wording both of the new Clause which it replaces and also of some of the provisions in the earlier Acts. I think that we can consider the detailed wording better when considering the Amendments. I make these remarks only because I think it right not to allow this important development in this branch of the law to come about without some comment being made to show that the House appreciates the full significance of what it is doing.

This Clause, which stands in the name of my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Warwick and Leamington (Mr. John Hobson) and myself, does, of course, put into more effective legal language what I attempted to do in Standing Committee C. We had a close run in Standing Committee, and I suppose that any layman who puts his head into the lawyer's mouth must expect that.

It is very gratifying to me today to have learned hon. Members of the House approving the Clause as it now stands. It is certainly important that the House accepts this Clause because, otherwise, the widows of people who happen to get killed and who worked in companies or nationalised undertakings which run their own pension schemes instead of contracting out that function to an insurance company, as most small companies do, are penalised.

As I said in Standing Committee, although, of course, in any matter where we try to draw a hard and fast line we always find an anomalous situation just either side of the line, it seems to me important that the disadvantage of an anomaly should not fall on the widow whose breadwinner had been. killed. Should there be an anomaly operating to someone's disadvantage, it should not lead to the disadvantage of the widow. I therefore hope that the House will accept the Clause.

The hon. and learned Member for Warwick and Leamington (Mr. John Hobson) may be assured that the House will accept his new Clause, but before it does so I should like to press the Solicitor-General on the point put to him by my hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland, North (Mr. Willey).

The Solicitor-General will recall that in Standing Committee C he gave a promise that if the hon. Member for Hitchin (Mr. Maddan) would withdraw his proposed new Clause, he, to use his own words,

"… could give an undertaking, a personal one only, that I would invite the attention of the Lord Chancellor to this discussion and to the problems raised by all the proposed new Clauses of my hon. Friend."—[OFFicIAL REPORT, 18th February, 1959, Standing Committee C, c. 26.]

That is, the hon. Member for Hitchin. As the assistance of the Law Officers of the drafting department has been given to the hon. Member for Hitchin on this new Clause, may I assume that this was done with the authority of the Lord Chancellor and that his attention was, in fact, drawn to the points raised by the hon. Member for Hitchin? If so, that relieves me of a great deal of the anxiety 1 had, that the right hon. and learned Gentleman has implemented the promise, as I anticipated he would, that he gave in Standing Committee.

I cannot answer the hon. Gentleman the Member for Deptford (Sir L. Plummer) without the leave of the House and I hope that it will give me that leave. To be extremely lawyer-like, my promise was conditional upon my hon. Friend withdrawing his proposed Clause. That condition was never fulfilled, but, being interested in this matter, I had the point brought to the attention of the Lord Chancellor.I understand that he was not in disagreement with the view that this whole topic which the hon. Member for Lewisham, North (Mr. MacDermot) has been talking about was a proper one for the consideration of the Law Reform Committee.

Of course, what priority is given to it is slightly affected by the matter that this Clause is now sought to be put into the Bill. I hope that satisfies the hon. Member that all things proper have been done.

I beg to move, as an Amendment to the proposed Clause, in line 3, after "pension", to insert "gift".

When the hon. Member for Hitchin (Mr. Maddan), in Committee, was advancing the arguments for his Bill, he was most clear and specific that the benefits should always be to the advantage of the dependants of the deceased person and should not be counted against them. I want to put to the hon. Gentleman the reason for the Amendment which I have put on the Notice Paper to insert the word "gift" after the word "pension".

Let us suppose a relative or a friend, touched by pity for the plight of the widow of the man who has suffered a fatal accident, is so far moved as to give the widow a house. Is the value of that property—a house given to the widow so that she can live in decency and perhaps away from the circumstances surrounding the death of her husband—to be computed against the damages awarded? A gratuity, insurance money, benefit or pension would not be. I think that we should be absolutely specific on this point.

It seems to me most important that gifts, which are natural to circumstances surrounding a fatal accident of this kind and given for a proper and desirable reason, should not be counted, as it were, against the dependant in the computation of the benefits to be arrived at. This may be a matter of small importance but, nevertheless, it is a matter which needs most careful consideration by the House, and it is for that reason that I move the Amendment.

I beg to second the Amendment.

I respond to the last words of my hon. Friend the Member for Deptford (Sir L. Plummer) and I say once again that this has demonstrated the irresponsibilty of the House. I should have thought that one of the hon. Members who sat in Standing Committee would have been here to raise a point such as this. Neither my hon. Friend nor I were on the Standing Committee. I was not particularly aware of this point until I heard my hon. Friend, who has made a plea which seems, on the face of it, unanswerable. I hope that those responsible for the Bill will accept the Amendment.

The new Clause is quite clear, but I think that its purpose would be better served if we accepted the word "gift" for the reasons which have been given and included under this umbrella, gifts in such circumstances as my hon. Friend has illustrated. I hope, therefore that the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Warwick and Leamington (Mr. John Hobson) will be able to accept the Amendment and that the House will be able to improve the Clause in that way.

I fully appreciate the point which has been made by the hon. Member for Deptford (Sir L. Plummer) and his hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland, North (Mr. Willey). Frankly, I regard this Amendment as a good one. However, having studied the new Clause, it occurs to me, as a lawyer —I have no doubt that we shall hear from the Solicitor-General on this specific point—that the word "benefit" would include gift. I may be wrong. My own view is that if there is any doubt about the point at all, then, clearly, the word should be inserted.

As at present advised, I should have thought that "benefit" would cover gift. I entirely agree with hon. Members who say that the matter should be clarified. To a large extent, I suppose, one could describe this as a drafting point, but it is certainly extremely important. Plainly, if an unfortunate widow were given a house, in the example which the hon. Member for Deptford gave, by a well-meaning friend, if that were to be taken into account in assessing damages, that would, as I understand it, be quite contrary to the intention of the Bill and quite contrary to any view which I would wish to support. It certainly should not be so.

The Amendment may be described, perhaps, as a probing Amendment to clarify the intention behind the Clause, but it has put doubt in my mind, and I hope that we shall have the matter cleared up, or that the House will accept the Amendment. I can see no objection to the insertion of the word "gift". If there is any doubt at all, for goodness' sake let us have the position clear. As at present advised, I support the Amendment.

It might save time if I submitted a view to the House now. We take the view that the Amendment to the new Clause is unnecessary. Sometimes—I say this without discourtesy —my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Cheltenham (Major Hicks Beach) puzzles me greatly. As the new Clause expressly defines what is meant by the word "benefit" in terms which exclude gift", I do not quite follow why my hon. and gallant Friend has the impression that "benefit" may include gift.

In assessing damages, the court is concerned with the consequences of the death, and the intervention of the giving mind is something which breaks the chain of consequence between the death and the gift. That has been held as a matter of law, and I can conceive no reason why it should be otherwise here. In a lawyer's phrase, it is a novas actus interveniens. The mind choosing to give, although, no doubt, the death is the occasion for the gift, the gift is not a consequence of the death.

In our belief, it is not innocuous to put the word "gift" in as the hon. Member for Deptford (Sir L. Plummer) suggests, because to put it in would at once cast doubt upon the general principle on which damages are to be assessed in relation to what are the consequences of the death. For that reason, I advise the House that it is better not to amend the new Clause in the way proposed.

I approach this subject with hesitation in view of the advice which the Solicitor-General has just given to the House, but I confess that I am not altogether convinced by his arguments and I think it only right that I should express my doubts in the matter.

I imagine that the case to which he referred when saying that it has been held by the courts that, where there is a gift, it breaks the chain of causation so that no gift can be regarded as a consequence of the death, is the case of Peacock v. Amusement Equipment Co., decided in 1954.

indicated assent.

With respect, I do not think that that is what that case decided. It was a very unusual case. The plaintiff was the husband of a woman who had died as the result of an accident. She had under her will left the whole of her estate to two of her children by a former marriage. She was a woman of considerable substance. The two children by the former marriage decided to make out of the moneys which they had received some provision for the widower. They did this by gift.

The courts held that, in those very unusual circumstances, that gift was not a consequence of the death, and the two learned Lords Justices—it was a case in the Court of Appeal—who gave reasoned judgments both stressed the fact that the reason that they thought that the chain of causation had been broken was that this kind of gift was not in any way a foreseeable consequence of the death: no one had anticipated that, if the widow had been killed, this would result.

In my view, their wording clearly showed that they thought that some gifts could well be regarded as a consequence of the death within the meaning of the Act. I will read two very short passages from the judgments which show the point. The case is reported in (1954) 2 All England Law Reports, at page 689, and I shall quote first from a passage in the judgment of Lord Justice Somervell on page 692:

"I think the clue to this problem is, first, to consider the facts of Baker's case, and without saying that that is a line beyond which no voluntary payment would be taken into account—and I do not express that view at all, but I think it would be only in very unusual circumstances that a voluntary payment would be taken into account when there was no expectation of it at the time of the death. It seems to me that that indicates for itself that there is a nova causa interveniens and, therefore, the payment was not made in consequence or as a result of the death. I would say that this payment was not made as the result of the deceased's death."

Lord Justice Birkett, summing up his views, is reported on page 693 as saying:

"For my own part, I am satisfied that this payment by the stepchildren to the plaintiff was a voluntary payment which ought not to be taken into account. It is quite clear from all the facts that he had no expectation that any such payment would he made, and it was not a payment—this is where my mind is quite clear—which was made as a consequence of the wife's death."

With respect, I think that those passages show that the law is not as clear on the point as the learned Solicitor-General indicated, and some gifts may be held by the courts to be a consequence of the death, particularly where, as often happens. some intimation has been made by a relative that, in the event of anything happening and one of the parties dying, that relative will look after the survivor. There is no contractual liability there and it would undoubtedly be a gift.

There remains the question whether on the wording it is necessary to include "gift" in view of the fact that the word "gratuity" is already contained in the new Clause. As far as I am aware, "gratuity" is not a term of art in the law and I do not think that there have been many cases in which its meaning has fallen to be precisely decided. For my part, I would have thought that the conception of a gratuity was clearly that of a monetary payment and that anything which was not a monetary payment could not be considered to be a gratuity. If that be so, clearly there can be many benefits in the form of gifts which would not be gratuities.

From that point of view, I would have thought that the wording is not necessary. Clearly there can be overlapping. Some things could be both gifts and gratuities, but that applies to the existing wording. Some things can be pensions and also gratuities. Some things can be insurance moneys and also pensions. There is plenty of overlapping, but that is not an argument against including the word "gift". I agree that the word "gift"by itself is perhaps a little too wide. It may be held to include, for example. a legacy made by a deceased person in favour of the claimant—a gift in his will. I do not think that any hon. Member would wish to include that among the exempted benefits when assessing Fatal Accidents Act damages.

It may be that we shall need to have recourse once again to the expert skill and ingenuity of the Parliamentary draftsmen, but I urge the hon. and learned Member for Warick and Leamington (Mr. John Hobson), who, I think, is handling the Bill, to give an undertaking to look at this matter further and to take the advice of such experts as he may have. If such an undertaking were given, perhaps my hon. Friend the Member for Deptford (Sir L. Plummer) would see fit to withdraw the Amendment. It seems to me that there is great force in the arguments which my hon. Friend has put forward for an Amendment on the lines he suggests.

I am very grateful to the hon. Member for Lewisham, North (Mr. MacDermot) for the way in which he has deployed the arguments about the inclusion of the word "gift". I am perfectly willing to give further consideration to this matter, although I am bound to say that at the moment I feel more impressed with the argument of my right hon. and learned Friend the Solicitor-General that it would be dangerous to include the word "gift" for, at any rate. two reasons.

First, it was suggested by the hon. Member for Lewisham, North that there were circumstances in which it would be possible to have a gift other than money which would not be a gratuity, but by including the word "gift" in the Clause we would not cover such cases, because it would have to be a gift which has been or may be paid. One cannot pay over houses or chattels; one can only pay over cash. Therefore, we would still leave the position that if the word "gift" is included only gifts of money would be covered by the word "gratuity".

Secondly, if the word "gift" is included there is a great danger that we may leave the court with a discretion to hold that a gift coming under a trust or will as a result of death is to be taken into account, and we would therefore be opening far more widely than the Clause intends the benefits which are to be excluded.

While I am not satisfied that the word "gift" should be included, I am always willing to listen to further argument, and on that basis I hope that the hon. Member for Sunderland, North (Mr. Willey) will withdraw the Amendment. He has said that the House is not as representative as it perhaps might be and that many Members of the Committee are not here. However, I had hoped that it was the excellent work of the Parliamentary draftsmen that had convinced all those interested in the Bill that no further discussion was necessary.

I would remind the hon. and learned Member for Warwick and Leamington (Mr. John Hobson) that I moved the Amendment and that therefore the decision to withdraw it rests with me and not with my hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland, North (Mr. Willey). The score seems to be one hon. and learned Gentleman who is against me, one hon. Member connected with the law who is neutral, and my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, North (Mr. MacDermot) who is also neutral. In face of this barrage and lack of support, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.

I beg to move, as an Amendment to the proposed Clause, in line 3, after "paid" to insert:

"by lump sum or by periodic payments ".

I am again asking for information. As the result of an Amendment moved in Committee by the hon. and learned Member for Warwick and Leamington (Mr. John Hobson), the words

"and whether the same is received or to be received by lump sum or by periodic payments "

were inserted in Clause 2. The Solicitor-General advised the Committee that that was a helpful addition, but agreed that the drafting would require a little attention later.

In the new Clause, it seems that the later drafting has resulted in the deletion of the words. If it was in order in Committee to insert the words and if that step had the support of the Solicitor-General, I should like to know why they have now been left out of the new Clause. Is there not as great a need for them now as there was in Committee? If I could have an assurance on that point, I should be obliged.

I beg to second the Amendment.

I second the Amendment largely for the same reasons as I seconded the first. I should be very interested to hear what the Solicitor-General can say about it. We are discussing a proposal against which the Solicitor-General voted in Standing Committee. That is why I consider that this is a matter of responsibility for the House. It is completely inadequate to say, "I voted against this proposal but with the assistance of the Parliamentary draftsmen it is now all right."

In Standing Committee, the hon. Member for Hitchin (Mr. Maddan), who moved the new Clause said—there had obviously been discussion about this—

"My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Warwick and Leamington (Mr. John Hobson) has an Amendment down to the proposed new Clause, at the end to add:

'and whether the same is received or to be received by lump sum or by periodic payments '.

I shall be very glad to accept that Amendment."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 18th February, 1959. Standing Committee C, c. 28.]

As my hon. Friend the Member for Deptford (Sir L. Plummer) has said, when we came to the Amendment it was moved by the hon. and learned Member for Warwick and Leamington and the Solicitor-General advised the Committee to accept it as a helpful addition. Again, he offered the assistance of the Parliamentary draftsmen, but I hope that we will not have the same operation in reverse. In Committee we moved in an Amendment which was accepted by the Solicitor-General, but it does not appear in the new Clause as drafted.

I think that we should behave in a more responsible way than this. I hope that this is merely an oversight by the draftsmen and that the hon. and learned Member for Warwick and Leamington, who successfully promoted the Bill, will be able to accept his own Amendment, and that the Solicitor-General will be able to reinforce it with his acceptance.

It may appear to be mysterious that I should move an Amendment in Committee to insert the words and then should promote a Clause that does not include those words. I should like, however, to assure the hon. Members for Deptford (Sir L. Plummer) and Sunderland. North (Mr. Willey) that I am satisfied that by reason of the new form of wording of the new Clause it was unnecessary to include those cautionary words which had seemed necessary to include in the Clause as it stood in Committee.

The Fatal Accidents Act. 1908, contains the words:

"any sum paid or payable on the death of the deceased ".

In the course of giving judgment in a case in 1957, Mr. Justice Hallett said that he thought that that form of words meant that only a lump sum could be excluded from benefits and that periodic payments could not. It was not necessary for him to come to that conclusion on the decision of the case. What he said was only obiter. Nevertheless, it is quite plain that on that state of the law it was essential that if the words—

"sum paid or payable on the death of the deceased "—

were to stand, it should be made plain that period payments were also included.

Was all this information at the disposal of the hon. and learned Member and of his right hon. and learned Friend the Solicitor-General on 18th February, when the Committee stage was being discussed'?

I do not say "at my disposal". I have a certain knowledge of the law and I was aware of that decision in that case. It was in view of my knowledge of that and no more that I thought it better to clarify the position. At that stage, I had only by own native wit and moderate skill to guide me in tabling that Amendment. On the draft as it now stands, the vital words

"any sum paid or payable on the death of the deceased "

no longer appear and the words which now appear are "any insurance money ". It is quite plain that "any insurance money "would include insurance moneys paid by way of periodic payments in bits and pieces or at any intervals of time and in any quantities.

"Benefit" is expressly defined and plainly covers periodic payments. Pension, obviously, is a periodic payment and it has been held in another case that the word "gratuity" can be cut up into slices and that a gratuity is still a gratuity even though it falls in several parts, in the same way that a cake is still a cake even though it is cut up into slices. Therefore, we have authority that all the words which are used in the present Clause will cover periodic payments. It was for that reason only that I thought it was not necessary to include in the present draft the words

"by lump sum or by periodic payments ".

I hope that that will satisfy the hon. Member for Deptford and the hon. Member for Sunderland, North and particularly the former, who moved the Amendment, and that in view of this explanation he may consider it proper to withdraw the Amendment.

A good deal has been said on the question of the matter being settled by Parliamentary draftsmen. I do not dispute that in general, they are people of extreme skill, but I do not regard it as an explanation of a Clause or a defence of a Clause to say that it has been settled by Parliamentary draftsmen, however much we all appreciate their skill.

As a humble solicitor, I know too well that a great part of litigation which arises these days comes from the fact that in certain cases, a number of Bills have been drawn by Parliamentary draftsmen and that what they intend should be carried out is not so interpreted by the courts. Therefore, this Amendment. like the previous one, has the useful purpose of seeking to clarify the exact position.

When I first read the Amendment, it seemed to me that it was probably a wise addition to the new Clause. After the explanation of my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Warwick and Leamington (Mr. John Hobson), however, I am beginning to waver, Nevertheless, the fact remains that the Amendment makes me wonder whether we are doing exactly what we want to do. I shall be interested to hear what my right hon. and learned Friend the Solicitor-General has to say.

As the Solicitor-General is not accepting that invitation, I should like briefly to say that on this matter I support the hon. and learned Member for Warwick and Leamington (Mr. John Hobson) on the ground that under the new wording it will inevitably be the result that any sum that is to be paid will include sums paid either by lump sum or by periodic payments.

I did not find the first part of the argument of the hon. and learned Member for Warwick and Leamington quite so convincing, because the words of which he was afraid in the 1908 Act—

"paid or payable on the death of the deceased "—

had already gone in the new Clause of the hon. Member for Hitchin (Mr. Maddan). There remains the equivalent of "paid or payable" but not

"on the death of the deceased."

The whole basis of Mr. Justice Hallett's opinion was, I understand, that because the sum was payable on the death of the deceased, it must be a lump sum. Be that as it may, there is a clear decision of the courts that "gratuity" includes either a lump sum or periodic payments and that that is the only one of these words about which there could be doubt. The others, obviously, by their nature, could include both lump sums and periodic payments.

I beg to move, as an Amendment to the proposed Clause, in line 5, after "section," to insert:

"insurance money ' means money paid or payable under any contract of assurance or insurance."

I move this Amendment because of the exhaustion and disappointment of my hon. Friend the Member for Deptford (Sir L. Plummer) and I do so with some confidence. I am sure that the Solicitor-General refrained from speaking on the last Amendment because he felt that he was disappointing the House and would rather reserve himself for an occasion on which he could advise the House to accept an Amendment.

This is not a matter to cause controversy. The Amendment would improve the new Clause. It provides a definition which I consider to be of advantage and I hope that both the hon. and learned Member for Warwick and Leamington (Mr. John Hobson) and the Solicitor-General will be able to advise the House to accept it.

I beg to second the Amendment.

I do so with no optimism that I will be supported by the occupants of either Front Bench—the Solicitor-General or my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, North (Mr. MacDermot) —who have united today in casting a good deal of derision on my Amendments. This, nevertheless, is a serious Amendment.

To use a phrase uttered by my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, North in his Second Reading speech on the Clause, "insurance money is not a term of art. What does it mean exactly? I know that the legal field that I am about to enter is covered with tripwires and that case after case will be hurled at me in denunciation of anything that I as a layman bring forward in support of the Amendment. Nevertheless, I refer the hon. and learned Member for Warwick and Leamington (Mr. John Hobson) to the case quoted by my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, North, also in his Second Reading speech, of Bowskill v. Dawson in the Court of Appeal, in which there was doubt whether the money paid out was insurance because it was paid out by trustees under a group insurance scheme.

A short while ago, when arguing the case for the Amendment concerning gifts, I said that it was necessary that we should have absolute clarity on all Clauses of the Bill. There should not be any confusion as to what insurance money "means. The Clause ought not to be produced in such a form that it makes for a lawyers' holiday in the courts and in the Appeal Court. We ought to know what we are doing and what we are writing into the Bill. It is because I feel that there should be a clear definition of the true meaning of the words "insurance money "that I have tabled the Amendment and I now second it.

Once again, I find myself in agreement with the proposers of this Amendment to the new Clause. When one drafts a Clause, one wants, if there is any doubt at all about its meaning, to put in words to clarify the meaning exactly. Here, as the hon. Member for Deptford (Sir L. Plummer) so cogently said, if there is doubt, let us clear it up. To be quite honest, I have not studied this matter very carefully. No doubt we shall hear from my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Warwick and Leamington (Mr. John Hobson) who will be able to clarify the matter in my mind, but, frankly, as at present advised I cannot see why these proposed words should not be put in.

Subject to what we may hear from the Solicitor-General, who, perhaps, we shall hear upon this matter, or from my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Warwick and Leamington, I personally feel that at this stage it would be wise to insert these words.

I am sorry again to disappoint the hon. Members for Sunderland, North (Mr. Willey) and Deptford (Sir L. Plummer), the proposer and seconder of the Amendment to the new Clause in that I cannot welcome it with open arms—

But with derision.

—because I know that they are actuated, as we all are, only by a desire to improve the Bill. However, the inclusion of these words "insurance money "in the new Clause is intended to pick up and carry on the provision of the 1908 Act and that Act included some of the words which the hon. Members now propose should also be put in, namely,

"money … payable under any contract assurance or insurance".

On that point there was a distinction in 1908 between "policies of assurance," which was normally applied to life policies, and "policies of insurance," which normally was applied to policies of fire, marine, accident or other types of policy. That distinction has now gone with the passage of time. Hardly anybody nowadays ever refers to policies of "assurance "and life policies, marine, fire, accident and other policies would be covered by the simple use of the word "insurance ". Therefore, "insurance money payable "would be covered, and there is no advantage in defining it as covering both assurance and insurance.

However, the chief objection, I would respectfully submit, to the proposed Amendment is that it includes in the definition "money paid or payable under." We have already got that in the new Clause which says:

"insurance money … which has been or will or may be paid as a result of the death ".

The Amendment, therefore, duplicates and slightly alters the words which define the occasion upon which benefit can be excluded.

It is for those two reasons that I would respectfully submit to the House that the proposed Amendment does not, in fact, assist, and may lead to some difficulty in interpreting the new Clause. I realise that the new Clause as drafted effects a change from the words of the 1908 Act, and if the intention is to carry forward what has been the law but to extend it, one would have thought that one ought to use precisely the same formula as appeared in the 1908 Act. Nevertheless, I am bound to say that I cannot at the moment think of any case which could have come under the 1908 Act which would not come under this new Clause. On that ground, I would suggest that the Amendment is unnecessary.

I am desolated that my hon. Friend the Member for Deptford (Sir L. Plummer) should feel that his earlier Amendments have been received with derision. Certainly, for my part, I never intended to convey anything of the sort. I think the Amendments he put down have led to some most helpful discussion, and one of them, as I indicated, assisted in eliciting an undertaking from the hon. and learned Member for Warwick and Leamington (Mr. John Hobson) that he would look at the matter again, because there is much point in that Amendment.

I certainly think that there is great force in the argument to support this Amendment to the new Clause. There is not much, it would seem, between us about intention. The question is how to achieve that intention. The hon. and learned Member for Warwick and Leamington said that the intention of the new Clause is to pick up and carry on the wording of the 1908 Act. The great pity is that that is not what it does. It substitutes new wording, and I think I can confidently say that lawyers know and have experience that the courts are most astute, where they find that Parliament has changed the wording in a new Act, in trying to ascertain what was the change in meaning and in sense which Parliament was intending in changing the wording.

That is a very well-established principle of construction in construing Statutes, and, rightly or wrongly, judges go to the most ingenious lengths at times to try to discern the supposed intention of Parliament when, it may be, all that Parliament intended to do was to replace ten words by two words because it thought two words would be clearer than ten. That intelligence, or that kind of intention, is very seldom ascribed to Parliament, I am afraid, by the courts. It is always assumed that if there is a change of wording some change of sense is intended.

I think that there is great danger of that here. I think that the hon. and learned Member was right in saying that in 1908 there was a distinction in general parlance between contracts of assurance and contracts of insurance, and now the term "insurance "is used to cover both. That, no doubt, is what the Parliamentary draftsman had in mind in introducing the new phrase—I think it is a new phrase in the statute law—" insurance money." But there are further dangers which I see connected with the case to which I have already referred, Bowskill v. Dawson.

In that case it was held that these moneys which were paid to a widow under a group life pension scheme were moneys paid or payable under a contract of assurance or insurance. It is far from certain in my mind that a court would hold that these payments would be insurance moneys. The reason is this, that under the scheme moneys were paid by the insurance company to a trust fund, and then the widow received the money from the trustees.

The trustees had a certain measure of discretion about the payments which they made, and, of course, it was because of that that the defendants, the insurance company who were handling the case on behalf of the defendants, argued that these were not moneys payable under a contract of assurance or insurance. The widow was not directly a party to the contract. Nor was the deceased. He was in a group pension scheme between the employers and the insurance company. But these were held to be moneys indirectly paid under that contract.

I take the view that it would be difficult for the courts to hold in the same way that such a payment by trustees under such a scheme would be insurance money. I think, therefore, although it may look a little inelegant and may involve introducing a few more words into the new Clause, that the House would be very wise to re-enact the words from the 1908 Act so as to make quite sure that all decisions which have already been taken by the courts under that Act will be applicable under the new one and the claimants will not be forced to litigate, at times very expensively, up to the higher courts, with a wealthy insurance company against them, to establish that Parliament intended to achieve the same result as was provided for by the 1908 Act.

As to the second argument put forward by the hon. and learned Gentleman, that there is a difference between the words "paid or payable "in the Amendment and the words

"insurance money … which has been or will or may be paid as a result of the death"

in the new Clause, I do not feel that would present any difficulty, because I think that the word "payable "in the Amendment is apt, and obviously apt, to cover a payment which "will or may be paid as a result of the death "in the wording of the new Clause.

However, this is a purely drafting point, and if the Amendment were accepted there would be opportunity, of course, for the matter to be looked at again and any necessary alteration of the wording of the Amendment to be made. For my part, I would urge my hon. Friend the Member for Deptford not to be disheartened by his lack of success to date and to press this matter. There is great substance in the points he has raised.

I am glad that the argument has evoked such a powerful response from my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, North (Mr. MacDermot). It is not, however, powerful enough to persuade us to force this matter to a Division. I am satisfied that this Amendment to the new Clause in its present form is not entirely satisfactory. It is obviously under criticism, but I hope that as a result of the debate an opportunity will be sought in another place to seek to devise words to meet the point of substance that has been raised. Resting on that assurance, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.

I beg to move, in page 1, line 6, to leave out Acts. 1846 to 1908 "and to insert "Act, 1846 ".

The hon. and learned Member has Amendments also in page 1, line 10, in page 2, line 2, and in page 2, line 25. They probably all go together, if the hon. and learned Member can cover them.

I respectfully agree, Mr. Speaker.

These are all merely drafting Amendments, consequential on what has now happened as a result of the inclusion of the new Clause, namely, the repeal of the 1908 Act, which is included in the Schedule which we shall be coming to discuss. The Fatal Accidents Act, 1908, must naturally now be repealed and, in consequence of that, it is very much meater and tidier throughout the Bill to refer merely to the 1846 Act and to pick up the point later and define it as including the 1846 Act and the 1864 Act. This, therefore, is a purely consequential and drafting Amendment.

I beg to second the Amendment.

I beg to move, in page 2, line 6, to leave out subsection (4).

It would be convenient also to take the Amendment in page 2, line 10.

The Amendment is consequential on the widening of the classes of dependants who can claim under Clause 1 (2). In consequence of that, it is necessary to amend the words in the Law Reform (Married Women and Tortfeasors) Act, 1935, because under Section 6 of that Act the persons affected are confined to the wife, husband, parents or child and there are now numerous persons who ought to be included and who have the benefit of the Section. The convenient way of doing it, instead of adding a long list of persons to be included, is to use the word "dependants"and define it. That is what it is proposed to do.

I beg to second the Amendment.

I beg to move, in page 2, line 26, at the end to insert:

(2) References in this Act to the Fatal Accidents Act, 1846, are references thereto as amended by and read together with the Fatal Accidents Act, 1864.

(3) The enactments specified in the Schedule to this Act are hereby repealed to the extent specified in the third column of that Schedule.

I think that this applies to the new Schedule. I do not know whether it would be convenient to discuss them together.

It is more convenient to discuss the Amendment with the new Schedule, Mr. Speaker.

Subsection (2) of the Amendment is a drafting subsection. We have already discussed the point. It means that throughout the Bill we refer merely to the Fatal Accidents Act. 1846, and include by definition the Fatal Accidents Act, 1864. Subsection (3) deals with the repeals set out in the Schedule. They include the Fatal Accidents Act, 1846. The words "stepfather", "stepmother", "stepson "and "stepdaughter "are no longer necessary because of Clause 1 of the Bill, which has widened the extent and meaning of persons who are dependants.

As already explained, the new Clause makes the 1908 Act unnecessary. The Law Reform (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act, 1934, was previously dealt with in Clause 1 (4) and it has been thought more convenient to include that amendment in the Schedule of repeals rather than have a special Clause dealing with the repeal. The Law Reform (Personal Injuries) Act, 1948, deals with benefits under the National Insurance Act. It is no longer necessary to have provisions excluding benefits under the 1908 Act to be brought into account, because we have already done that this morning by definition of benefit in the new Clause. It is for these reasons that the various repeals are set out in the Schedule.

I beg to second the Amendment.

I beg to move, in page 2, line 28, to leave out from "the "to the end of line 29 and to insert "commencement of this Act "

The purpose of the Amendment is simply to prevent the Bill having an undesirable retrospective operation. It operates at the moment from the date when it was introduced in November last year. The difficulty about that is that it creates a completely new liability in tort, in so far as it adds to the list of dependants on whose behalf an action can he brought or, as it may he, who can bring an action themselves. One would have thought that it was manifestly undesirable to introduce a new liability in tort with retrospective operation.

There is another difficulty. Owing to what we have been doing about excluding certain kinds of benefit from the computation of damages, we have been increasing the amount of damages, and it is perilous to do that retrospectively. In the first place, it discourages potential plaintiffs from settling their actions on the grounds that if they hang on long enough they will get a higher scale of damages, and it also has the unfortunate effect of distorting the possibility of defendants making appropriate calculations of what should be paid into court. All that represents a second reason for securing that this Bill operates only from the dale of its own commencement, as a matter of law, and that is what the Amendment does.

May I ask the learned Solicitor-General to look at the drafting of the Amendment again and to drop the word "commencement"and use instead the word "beginning"? We get all sorts of words in the English language in these days that are wrong. The word beginning" has a good Anglo-Saxon root, while the word "commencement" has not. Most people say" in the beginning"and not" in the commencement ", and it would improve our phraseology if we could e only simple words in the drafting of a Bill.

I should not like the opportunity to pass without putting on record the fact that I entirely support this Amendment moved by my right hon. and learned Friend the Solicitor-General, in so far as it prevents retrospective effect of this Act. However much we may support the effect of this Act, it would be quite wrong to make it retrospective, and, from the practical point of view, and I can speak from some knowledge of insurance matters, it would create a very difficult position indeed if it were to work retrospectively. I therefore give my full support to the Amendment moved by my right hon. and learned Friend.

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

We have not discussed the general principles of this Bill on the Floor of the House. The Bill went through its Second Reading "on the nod ", and was discussed in Committee, and so far today we have been engaged entirely in drafting Amendments in, I hope, an attempt to improve the Bill. I commend the Bill to the House as a small but useful improvement in the law.

It is concerned only with those cases in which a person has been killed in such circumstances that his dependants have a claim against the person who is responsible for the death of the deceased. There are very numerous occasions when this concerns both those killed in industrial accidents and those killed on the highways, and we who practise in the courts and deal with such cases know that death in such circumstances brings great hardship on the fatherless and the widows, and that the claims which they have are of great importance to them.

The Bill attempts to improve the position of such persons in two respects. First, the only people nowadays who can claim as dependants when their breadwinner has been killed are grandparents, parents, step-parents, husbands or wives, children, grandchildren and step-children. If one does not bear one of those relationships to the deceased person, one cannot claim anything for his death or for the loss which one may have suffered by reason of his death, despite the fact that one may have been wholly and absolutely dependent upon him and may be left destitute.

The Bill, as it now stands, by means of Clause 1, extends the class of person who may now claim if they have been dependants and have suffered loss. It extends it to brothers, sisters, uncles and aunts, and to relationships by marriage, by half-blood, by adoption and even by illegitimacy, because it is now provided that an illegitimate person shall, for the purposes of this Act, be treated as the legitimate child of his mother and of his reputed father.

Therefore, we find that under the Bill many persons who could not previously claim will now have a claim, and it goes so far as to include the illegitimate child of an aunt by marriage or the adopted child of a sister-in-law. While there may not be many cases in which persons of these remote relationships would want to claim, nevertheless, they may occur, and the intention of the Bill is to create classes of persons wide enough to include anybody in the household of the man who was unhappily killed. Anybody who can trace such a relationship must still show that they were dependent, because the foundation of their claims is that they have suffered severe loss by the death of the deceased.

That is the principal result of Clause 1, and I hope that the House will think that it is a useful improvement, and that we have done something to mitigate the hardship which previously fell on a small class of persons who, because they could not establish a close enough relationship, were unable to claim where they had suffered loss.

The second effect of the Bill is to deal with the position, which we have been discussing this morning, regarding benefits which ought not to be taken into account when loss has been suffered. As I explained in the debate on the new Clause which the House has just adopted, under the law as it now stands, against any loss that may be suffered, a claimant must state if any benefits have been received as a result of or in consequence of the death. There are only two exceptions to that, namely, moneys paid under a contract of insurance and National Insurance benefits. It is plain to the House that, as the result of the discussion this morning, we are extending these to cover also the cases where benefits are received by the dependant because the deceased was a member of a trade union, a friendly society, or because he received gratuities or other sums of money or pensions, which are paid as a result of the death.

All those are now swept in, and many of the anomalies have been abolished which existed previously between whether people were or were not receiving moneys under a contract of insurance, and the general class of benefits which now have to be taken into account has been greatly widened.

I agree with the hon. Gentleman the Member for Lewisham, North (Mr. MacDermot) that this is a wedge which initially in 1908 was driven into the general principle that previously had to be taken into account, and it is difficult to find a principle upon which we should define what benefits ought to be, and what benefits must not be, taken into account. I foresee that this matter may require consideration in the future when the operation of this Clause has been working for a little time, when the courts have had time to study it, and when no doubt many cases will have arisen which in this House, in drawing up the Clause, we have not foreseen.

I think that these two small improvements in the law relating to the claims of widows and dependants for the death of their breadwinner will be a benefit. and I therefore commend the Third Reading of the Bill to the House.

I have no wish to detain the House because the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Warwick and Leamington (Mr. John Hobson) has given a lucid and precise explanation of the purposes of the Bill, but I might be deemed uncharitable if I did not take the opportunity to congratulate him on the work he has done. The hon. and learned Gentleman said modestly that this is a small but useful improvement in the law. That is putting his claim very modestly indeed, because he is making an exceedingly useful contribution to improving the law.

I also congratulate the hon. Member for Hitchin (Mr. Maddan), who took his opportunity in Standing Committee further to improve the Bill. I also congratulate the Solicitor-General—since I may have been construed to have been a little critical—who has assisted the hon. and learned Gentleman in framing the Bill. This is an admirable example of the use we can take of our opportunities to promote Private Members' Bills, and I wish to do no more than congratulate those who have done so.

I also take this opportunity to add a few words of my own. I do not wish to discuss Clause 1 except to say how much in agreement with it I am, but I will make some comments on Clause 2, with which I have been primarily concerned.

It was said to me at one time that the Clause which we have now incorporated in the Bill or one to that effect, would be against the interests of the insurance companies. This was not said to me by an insurance company and indeed the matter was first brought to my attention by the director of an insurance company. Whilst it is true that the Clause might in a narrow way be said to operate against insurance companies in two ways, it certainly does not do so in the broad view.

The two ways in which it might be said to operate against them are these. First, insurance companies might have to pay out larger sums as a result of this Bill. Secondly, there is less attraction for a company to turn over its pension scheme to be run by an insurance company now that we have added this Clause to the Bill. So whilst in the narrow view there are two scores on which it might be said insurance companies lose, on the broad view, as I said in Standing Committee, insurance companies thrive on the generally fair attitude towards their clients—indeed, one might say their opponents—that they have adopted down the years. No representations have, in fact, been made to me by people in the insurance world against that Clause.

Again, companies running their own pension schemes should now be aware of, and make known to their employees, the advantage this Bill would bring to their dependants should they suffer a fatal accident. Also, we all, on both sides of the House, are encouraging the provision for old age and the development of pension schemes, so by making them a little mare attractive, we are contributing to commonly agreed policy in that respect.

I conclude by paying my own tribute and adding my own thanks to people who have helped me in my interest in this Bill. First I thank the barrister, not a Member of this House, who encouraged me to go ahead into this difficult legal jungle, and whose guidance I followed, I am glad to say, with success. I also thank my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Warwick and Leamington (Mr. John Hobson) who, after an interesting debate in Standing Committee, came to my aid because, without him, we should not have had such a good Bill as we now have.

I must also thank my right hon. and learned Friend the Solicitor-General and his Department for a great deal of help, and I welcomed his assurance this morning that the question involved in deductions from damages will be considered in due time by the Law Reform Committee, because we have not come to the end of the road and to a logical position on this subject. Standing Committee C was kind to me and approved my Clause, the House has been kind to me today, and it is a great pleasure to me to see the Third Reading going ahead now.

Before we part with the Bill, I would like to direct some of those barbed shafts of congratulation to the hon. Member for Bristol, West (Mr. Robert Cooke) whose Bill it is, and to congratulate him, in his absence, on the use he has made of his good fortune in the Ballot, because all the good things that others of my hon. and learned Friends have done could not have been done without his essential luck, aid and judgment.

I also congratulate my hon, Friend the Member for Hitchin (Mr. Maddan), because it is true that all the lawyers, after much consideration, had despaired of tackling the jungle into which he plunged. Indeed, the original Title of the Bill had suffered some change as a result of that pessimism. My hon. Friend, however, courageously persisted in Standing Committee and by that device, if I may say so without impertinence, became on consecutive days the father of his first child and the father of his first new Clause, a very magnificent bracket in operations.

I should like further, to congratulate both my hon. Friends referred to on their personal charm and success in securing, unpaid, the valuable services of so skilled, lucid, and graceful a performer as my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Warwick and Leamington (Mr. John Hobson). I was going to call him a helper, but then I remembered that the hon. Member for Deptford (Sir L. Plummer) wants me to use short English words so I will say, an excellent coadjutor. I am very glad to waft this Bill on its way on Third Reading.

In joining in the congratulations which have been bestowed, I think that we should be grateful to the Solicitor-General for correctly ascribing the paternity of the Bill to the hon. Member for Bristol, West (Mr. Robert Cooke); but I think it would be only fair to say that as the hon. and learned Member for Warwick and Leamington (Mr. John Hobson) has become the adopted father of the Bill, in allowing him to adopt the child the hon. Member for Bristol, West should have been mindful of the words in the Bill itself, that an adopted child

"shall be treated as the child of the person … by whom he was adopted and not as the child of any other person."

Perhaps that is why the hon. Member for Bristol, West has so modestly stayed away today. I certainly wish to congratulate them both most warmly and also, once again, the hon. Member for Hitchin (Mr. Maddan), who has been the father of the new Clause which has so radically altered, and in my view, improved the Bill.

I suppose that, like the hon. and learned Member for Warwick and Leamington, I ought to declare an interest at this stage, because anyone who practises in the common law courts undoubtedly has an interest in this Bill and, with the substantial changes which have been made in this branch of the law, I think that there is no escape from the conclusion that it is bound to lead to further litigation until the meanings of these new terms are established finally by the courts.

The Bill makes two important changes in the law by extending the class of dependents and extending the benefits to be excluded in assessing compensation. On the first, I think that, broadly speaking, what the Bill achieves is to ensure that any member of the deceased person's family who was living in his household or otherwise was his dependant will, in fact, be entitled to claim. The term family "is not a term of art in the law. It was used in the Rent Restrictions Acts and led to an enormous amount of litigation. We know a very closely defined, although in itself wide, class of persons who may benefit. Nearly everyone who could conceivably be considered a member of the family of the deceased will now be included.

There will still be numbers of people, however, who, properly speaking, would be dependants of the deceased who will not be entitled to claim, perhaps the most obvious and meritorious being his ex-wife. She perhaps has divorced him and has been receiving money under a maintenance order on which she has been living ever since she obtained her divorce. She undoubtedly was a dependant of the deceased, but she is not within the class of persons entitled to claim. Nor, of course, is a man's mistress. There will still be many dependants who cannot claim, but I think the most meritorious will be able to do so.

We have discussed at some length the extension of the class of benefits which are to be excluded when assessing compensation. Probably it is the intention of us all that primarily those benefits should help persons of small means. For the most part they will be, but it is perhaps right to comment that there may well be cases where very large benefits indeed will be excluded from the assessment of compensation. One has only to think of the managing director of a large company who has rights under some superannuation scheme by which a very substantial sum will be payable on his death to his widow—running, as some of them do—into many thousands of pounds. The widow may be enriched by that, but, nevertheless, as the result of the new Clause, as I understand it, that will be left out of consideration.

As has been pointed out by the hon. Member for Hitchin, the Bill may result in insurance companies having to pay out very substantially increased sums by way of damages. We say "insurance companies," because in nearly all cases the defendants in this class of claim are insured, but we should remember that there are still cases of uninsured defendants of this kind. Those cases which result from accidents on the highway are, of course, always covered by insurance, because there is compulsory insurance. Even where a person has broken the law and has not insured the claimant is still protected by the provisions of the Motor Insurers Bureau Agreement.

In those frequent cases where people die as a result of accidents in employment, usually payment is made by an insurance company, either on an employer's liability policy or an occupier's liability policy, or a policy of that kind. Regrettably, sometimes cases occur where small employers have not insured. They are either faced with ruin by the claim or, alternatively, they are such men of straw that the claimant receives no compensation to which he or she is entitled. It would be out of order to develop the theme, but it points to the fact that one of these days we should perhaps consider whether or not there should be an extension of the principles of compulsory insurance into the field of employers' liability.

I do not think that the insurance companies need have any reason to complain if they find themselves having to pay out more as a result of the Bill. It was pointed out by the hon. and learned Member for Warwick and Leamington, in an extraordinarily interesting speech in Committee, that the historical origin for this exemption of certain benefits was action taken by insurance companies which were insuring passengers against risks of railway accidents. In a series of Private Bills they managed to get the benefits of their insurance policies excluded from the provisions of the Fatal Accidents Acts. That certainly has come home to roost now because, quite rightly, we have seen fit to extend this class of benefits to many other kinds of benefits.

There is another reason why the insurance companies, not only will not want to, but will not, complain. The greater the liability to pay compensation which we in Parliament impose, the greater likelihood there is that people will insure against those risks. If insurance companies find that they have to pay out greater sums by way of damages, I do not think that they will be very slow at the next annual renewal of policies to increase premiums. One way or another, I do not think that insurance companies will suffer, but many dependants will benefit as a result of this Measure.

Both my on. Friend the Member for Hitchin (Mr. Maddan) and the hon. Member for Lewisham, North (Mr. MacDermot) have referred to the position of insurance companies under the Bill. Perhaps, as a director of a big insurance company for a very long time, I might be allowed to put on record that, so far as I am aware, insurance companies are not in the slightest worried about the terms of the Bill.

Approaches have not been made to me on that subject. The only comments I have had from those engaged in the insurance world have been that they welcome the Bill. Insurance companies, whatever the public say, want to have a contented clientele and to serve the public well. So far as I know, there has been no criticism of the Bill from any responsible insurance company.

I was very glad to hear the hon. and learned Member for Warwick and Learnington (Mr. John Hobson) say that he would give us a careful and detailed account and survey of this Bill on his Third Reading speech because there had been no discussion on it on the Floor of the House. I welcome that statement very much, because I am on record as having said on previous occasions, and I shall continue to say, that I think it is wholly wrong for legislation to go through the House simply "on the nod "without an opportunity for discussion. I am sure that I am speaking for all hon. Members when I say we welcome the approach of the hon. and learned Member for Warwick and Leamington in this matter when he said that it was his duty to give a full, fair, and clear explanation, as indeed he did.

As regards usurping the position of the hon. Member for Hitchin (Mr. Maddan) in seconding the new Clause, may I just mention that I did not usurp it; it was thrust on me. I should like to congratulate him, and I am pleased to say that his action in Committee is worthy of congratulation because by his vigorous action he was largely responsible for getting the new Clause through. He has my full support in this matter and every possible congratulation.

We must not, as has been said, forget the hon. Member for Bristol, West (Mr. Robert Cooke). He told me how sorry he was that it was impossible for him to be here today. He certainly is to be congratulated not only on his luck, but his tact and skill for the way in which he has got even the Parliamentary draftsmen to support him. This, I venture to say, is no mean achievement.

The Bill has my full blessing and I want to place on record that so far as insurance is concerned it has the blessing of the insurance companies also.

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

Under present law, there is a legal presumption that any child born during marriage is legitimate unless the spouses are living apart because of a court order. But there are unfortunately gaps in this legal presumption.

I should like to raise a difficult case which will illustrate my point. A man was married at the beginning of the war. He joined the Army and was abroad for the greater part of the war on war service. While he was out of the country a child was born to his wife. There was no doubt that it was not his child.

When the wife went to the Registrar to register the child she "hummed and hawed "about filling in the name of the father on the birth certificate. She was asked point blank by the Registrar whether her husband was the father of the child. She again "hummed and hawed "before giving an answer and the Registrar told her that it would be best to leave the father's name vacant and when he returned from overseas he could decide whether he would accept the child and fill in the space in the register as the father of the child. When the husband returned he at once accepted the child. He was anxious to make a success of the marriage and build it up again after this lapse by his wife during his absence, and ever since that date he has done his best to try to get the child registered with his own name as the father so that it would be legitimate.

The position now is that under legal presumption the child remains legitimate until some action is taken to prove it illegitimate. The child is now 14 years of age and has not been informed of these difficulties. There are other children of the family, undoubtedly the children of the husband and wife, who have been born since and who treat this child as an elder brother and as part of the family.

The husband feels that this position is unsatisfactory because the child's position has not really been cleared up. At some later stage the younger members of the family might take action to prove the so-called elder brother illegitimate. They would know the times when the father was out of the country and the date of the elder brother's birth. Other interested parties might at some time in the future take such action, and undoubtedly if the matter were taken to court they would be able to prove their case. The father feels that it is unsatisfactory to have that hanging over the happy relations in his family.

There is another unfortunate matter. The child's birth certificate has no entry under "Father's name ". If at any time the child wants a copy of the certificate for a job or any other reason that fact will be revealed and the child will want to know why the father's name has not been entered on the birth certificate. That again is very unsatisfactory for the child.

The legal authorities have advised the father that the best way out of the difficulty would be to adopt the child. Had that been done when he came home originally it might have been an easy way out. If he were now to adopt the child, the child would want to know why it had been adopted, questions would be put and the illegitimacy would be revealed. The child would know that the man he thought was his father was not his father. The father does not want an upset of that kind in the family. The Clause I am suggesting is necessary to clear up and prevent this kind of difficulty arising. At present there are a great many cases where it may well be that the husband is not the father of the child in his family. In fact, the husband I have referred to was told of a number of such instances.

Another man serving during part of the war in this country found that his wife had a child in somewhat similar circumstances. In that case, because access to the wife was possible, even though he was stationed in some other part of the country during the period of gestation, that was considered an adequate reason for the husband's name being entered as the father.

We know that many attempts have been made in the courts to try to give the benefit of the doubt in regard to legitimacy where the period of gestation has been accepted to be as long as in one case over a year and in other cases as short as six months. The courts are doing their best to reduce the number of illegitimate children and to give as much help as they can in the difficult cases by such decisions, but decisions of this kind should be made by Parliament and not by the courts. A Clause of this kind to clear up the matter and fill in these gaps is desirable, and I hope that the House will be prepared to accept it.

On the general point, I stress the fact that such an addition to the law would help family life because it would help a husband to rebuild a marriage in very difficult cases. We all want to prevent a marriage going on the rocks and breaking up, and anything we can do to help to hold a marriage together and rebuild it if there have been difficulties in the marriage is desirable, and Parliament should do its best to help. It is undesirable to have within the same family unit some legitimate and some illegitimate children, or some who may have doubts as to whether they are legitimate or not. That does not make for happy family life or for strong family feeling.

I should have thought that by passing a Clause of this kind we would be doing justice and helping the child who is not in any way responsible in the first instance. Secondly, we should be doing our best to help the husband, who, after all, has done what I think most people would consider to be both generous and right, to try to rebuild his marriage and make a success of it. I think that Parliament ought to do whatever it can to help in such cases when the opportunity arises.

I beg to second the Motion.

My hon. Friend the Member for Dagenham (Mr. Parker) has made a powerful plea for the adoption of this proposed new Clause, and most of the arguments for it were made in his speech. When my hon. Friend introduced the Bill, after having been fortunate in the Ballot, he had it in mind to wipe out from our language, as far as possible, the term "illegitimate child". I have said before that the time has arrived when that term should cease to be part of our language. In all our considerations of this matter, I have been on the side of the child. Children in our society still grow up with this tag attached to them throughout their lives.

There are still prejudiced people and these things are brought up and thrown at the child as it grows into an adult. Anything we can do towards removing the term is desirable. Throughout our consideration of these things, cases such as those which my hon. Friend mentioned have come to our notice and it has been realised that in spite of what Clause 1 does there are still gaps, of which this is one.

If a man is prepared to forget and to set out to re-establish his association with his wife and to re-establish family associations and to go forward with a united family, the House has the responsibility of seeing that he has the opportunity to do so. This is one more step towards wiping out a term which is obnoxious to many people and its wiping out will be an advantage to those unfortunate enough to start life in this way. I hope that the Home Office will agree that this provision is desirable, but whatever the Home Office decides I hope that the House will agree to take this step forward.

On a point of order. Is it in accordance with the best Parliamentary tradition that an hon. Member should call attention to the fact that 40 Members are not present and should then immediately proceed to leave the Chamber? Is not that an abuse of the privileges, procedure and traditions of the House?

My duty is to see when 40 Members arrive, and if 40 Members do not arrive after two minutes—the clock has been started—the House is counted out.

But do you not agree that it is not in accordance with best Parliamentary tradition that, when we are discussing a non-party Bill dealing with a very important social problem an hon. Member should adopt this procedure and prevent us having an opportunity to discuss the matter?

Although there are attractive reasons of sentiment in favour of the new Clause, it constitutes a serious departure from the principles of the Bill. It is my duty to tell the House that there are strong objections in principle against the new Clause and that I must advise the House not to accept it.

Leaving aside the technical and drafting reasons—although there are some—the Clause would have to be substantially redrafted when it went to another place. I invite the attention of the House to the objections of principle, which in the opinion of the Government should cause the House to reject the Clause.

Legitimacy depends upon natural paternity, and can be achieved under the present law in two ways, either by the normal process of birth in lawful wedlock, or by subsequent marriage of the natural parents and legitimation under the Legitimacy Act, 1926.

The opportunities are extended by Clauses 1 and 2, but in each case they are extended by the marriage of the natural parents. Clause 1 deals with the case of the child born when one of the natural parents is married to a third party and when there is a later marriage of the natural parents. Clause 2 provides that if a marriage was void ab initio, children born of it should be legitimate if either parent was ignorant of the impediment to the marriage.

Cases under the present law and under the Bill are based on the same principle, namely, that where possible a child should become the legitimate offspring of its natural parents. The new Clause introduces an entirely new principle based on different considerations. It would enable someone who was not the father of the child to have the child fully legitimated, even to the extent of inheriting any hereditary title which the man might have. If the man died intestate, that child would have equal rights of inheritance with the man's own children born in wedlock. That might not necessarily conduce to that marital happiness to which the hon. Member for Salford, West. (Mr. Royle) referred.

On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker, The right hon. Member for Llanelly (Mr. J. Griffiths) from the Opposition Front Bench referred just now to the courtesies and traditions of the House. I have never before had the experience of addressing the House while a Member of the Opposition Front Bench was standing with his back to the Chair.

My apologies. I was turning to talk to my hon. Friend.

This Clause introduces a far-reaching change and there is no evidence that it would command wide public support. It would be a short step from this to the legitimation of all children whatever the circumstances, and marriage would lose much of its purpose. I appreciate that the hon. Member for Salford, West has had in mind that we should wipe out the term "illegitimate child", but that it not what the Bill seeks to do. The Bill seeks to extend the opportunity whereby the natural parents of a child may have that child made their legitimate child. The new Clause goes beyond that.

I have consulted my right hon. and learned and noble Friend the Lord Chancellor about this new Clause and I have also taken the advice of the Law Officers. We could not advise the House to accept the new Clause, especially in view of the fact that it is tacked on at a late stage to a Private Member's Bill.

However, it may be some consolation to the hon. Member for Dagenham (Mr. Parker) and others who are sympathetic towards the motives underlying the Clause, which are understandable on grounds of kindness to the children concerned, to know two things. First, a husband and wife—for instance, the husband and wife in the case mentioned by the hon. Member for Dagenham—can make a joint application to adopt the child, with all the consequences which follow from that, which go a very long way towards legitimation. Secondly, the child can be provided with a birth certificate in the short form, which shows the date and place of birth and the child's name. About half of all birth certificates issued are in that form, probably because they are cheaper.

The hon. Member for Dagenham said two things which, I think, could be susceptible of misunderstanding, and I hope that he will forgive me if I comment upon them, not in any controversial sense, but in the hope that there may be a clear understanding of what the hon. Member said. First, the hon. Member said that a child remains legitimate until action is taken to make it illegitimate. That is very strictly so, but is not so in the circumstances which the hon. Gentleman had in mind. The position is that a child born in wedlock is presumed to be legitimate, but that presumption is immediately rebutted as soon as the mother goes to register the birth of the child and either does not insert the name of any father or inserts the name of somebody other than her husband. The House must be clear about that.

Secondly, the hon. Member said that the courts are doing their best to clear up cases of this kind. I doubt very much whether that is so, because the courts have no power whatever to grant a declaration of legitimacy in a case which the hon. Gentleman has in mind and which would be covered by the Clause.

I do not think that the words which the Joint Under-Secretary of State attributes to me were quite mine. If I said so, I made a mistake. The point which I was trying to make was that, if a question of doubt about whether a child is legitimate arises—not merely of this particular type—the courts do their best to find any possible ground for holding that the child is legitimate. They give the benefit of the doubt.

I think that the hon. Gentleman is merely saying, which is in accordance with what we all know, that legitimacy is presumed until the prima facie presumption of legitimacy is rebutted, and in cases of doubt the presumption is not rebutted and, therefore, legitimacy stands. That is very far from saying that the courts have attempted to clear up cases of the kind which the hon. Gentleman intends should be covered by the new Clause.

The House will have observed that there are some procedural arrangements suggested in the second part of the new Clause affecting the registration of the birth. Those provisions in the second half of the Clause seem to be required if the principle of the first part of the Clause were accepted. But before accepting the principle of the first part of the Clause, I must point out to the House that the proposal in the second part of the Clause would undermine the value of the register as a true record of the facts of the paternity of the child, and we are dealing with children born in wedlock. It would mean that a fictitious entry—it would be nothing less than that—would have to be made in the Register.

1.15 p.m.

I hope that I am not using extravagant words when I say that it would in effect be a legalised forgery of the register. The register exists to give the true facts about our births, marriages and deaths. Whatever is the soundness or otherwise of the principle underlying the first part of the Clause, the second part could be justified only on the basis that the end justifies the means.

I say this for the information of the House, but I do not want to rest my case upon it. It is doubtful whether the Clause as drafted would achieve the hon. Member's object, because the Births and Deaths Registration Act provides for the name of the actual father to be entered in the register, and the Clause does not seem sufficient to make the mother's husband the father for this purpose.

I am very sorry to have had to mar the so far fairly uncontroversial proceedings on the Bill, which received the warm endorsement of the House in principle on Second Reading, by having to advise the House, somewhat strongly, against the Clause. We think that to extend the law in this way would be artificial. It is to be hoped that the Bill will have a good future. It may one day be known as "Parker's Bill"and I hope that it is a Bill to which he and all concerned with the administration of law will look with pride and satisfaction. I must say that I could not imagine that desirable result occurring if we were to accept the new Clause, because it would involve an artificial extension of the law and to do so it would mean that we had to subvert the whole purpose of registration.

I regard the Clause and the principle behind it as of paramount importance. I am surprised that we find ourselves discussing on a Friday an alteration so fundamental to the responsibilities of marriage. I do not disagree with the fact that it is competent and right that the House should deal with these matters. The only question is whether we have representative views on what is a very important subject.

I have no doubt whatever that the hon. Member for Dagenham (Mr. Parker) feels most sincerely that this, as he himself said, would hold together family life. I take a contrary view, and I hope that the hon. Gentleman will do me the justice of believing that I hold my view as sincerely as I have no doubt that he holds his view.

It is interesting to note that the real point behind our discussions is not the happiness or welfare of an individual, but how far it contributes to the solidarity of family life. The point is whether it makes the family a better unit. The point is not whether it makes it easier or more comfortable for people to live together, but whether it makes the family, with its vow of faithfulness and honour, a better unit. Does it encourage people more to carry out their vows?

There are two things in the Bill which are revolutionary, though again I should like to congratulate the hon. Gentleman on all the other Clauses, except possibly the other Amendment which deals with publicity.

We must face the fact that Clause 1, which was passed in Committee, and the new Clause raise fundamental issues. The first Amendment which went through was to strike out the qualification clause in Section 1 (2) of the Legitimacy Act, 1926. Section 1 (2) says:

"Nothing in this Act shall operate to legitimate a person whose father or mother was married to a third person when the illegitimate person was born."

When that is struck out, the first Section operates. The first Section has in it these provisions, that the legitimation under any Section—under Section 1 or under the new Clause—is to be effective "whether before or after"—that is, whether the marriage was before or after—"the commencement of this Act".

This Amendment, therefore, would not only purport to achieve a legitimation by a future acceptance but by any past acceptance of the child into the family. It would have a retrospective as well as a future effect. That is a strong objection to the new Clause as it is drafted—and perhaps I might now refer to the drafting of the Clause before saying a further word or two on the principles behind it.

The words:

"…accented as one of the family…"

are very loose, very vague. They give no indication of a starting date. They give no indication of whether that acceptance has to be made in full knowledge of the facts, or whether it is one that the husband might make without knowing the true facts. A child born to a married woman and accepted as one of the family by her husband might be accepted by him by mistake. It might be a fraud on the husband.

What sort of acceptance has it to be? Has it to be final or can it be revocable? Can it be conditional? Can the husband say, "I will accept this child but no others, and if there are others I will reverse my acceptance of this child?" Must the acceptance be absolute? And how are we to define the date of acceptance?

The Clause goes on:

"…provided she was married at the time of the child's birth …"

I am not sure whether that means married to her first husband or to someone else. It seems possible, by this wording, that the child might have been born to a third man—that is to say, neither to the first or second husband—but might be passed off on the second husband although it had nothing to do with him.

My hon. and learned Friend the Under-Secretary has pointed out the technical difficulties involved in registering birth. The Clause concludes:

"…upon acceptance by the husband, the birth certificate shall be amended to provide that the said child is the legitimate child of the marriage,"

What happens if the certificate is not amended? Is amendment to be a condition of legitimation? Is there to be any time limit on the amendment? Can the amendment of the certificate be done on the application of the wife? Can it be done by the husband? What happens if there is a dispute about acceptance? How are all these matters to be decided? On those grounds it seems to me that it would be ineffective and dangerous to accept the Clause.

It is also possible that this provision would put a very heavy weapon in the hand of the husband. He might well say that he intends to accept the child to the family and use that as an instrument to prevent the woman getting her freedom and taking her child to the paramour or the person she hoped to marry. The significant thing about this Clause—and, indeed, of Clause 1—is the extraordinary power it seems to put into the hands of men.

The first power is that if the paramour marries the wife—which, after all, he is free to decide—he can, by that act, legitimate their child. So it is his decision, and he is in that powerful position. Again, the husband, if he accepts an illegitimate child into his family, makes that decision. Curiously enough, those two powerful decisions are left, not entirely but almost entirely in the hands of the man.

In our affairs there is often a desire, prompted by hard cases and by irritation, to take short cuts. We see it in all forms of legislation. It is attractive in that it remedies a particular pain. We may think that that is a good thing, but I fear that we sometimes miss the ultimate object which, in this case, as the hon. Member said, is the holding together of family life.

Steps such as this—and we see the same thing in regard to such evils as prostitution—are but palliatives. They have nothing to do with the main problem. The real trouble with family life now is that it is breaking down. Here one thinks of the divorce laws. Can anybody say that the institution of marriage is better founded or stronger as a result of all the divorce laws? Can anybody say—or will anybody be able to say—that the interests of children and of the family group are made better by confusing the real barriers which nature and which all civilisation has accepted up to now?

These are short cuts. The real answer is not to remove every restraint there should be upon a mother or upon a father by saying, "Even if you have an illegitimate child nothing will happen to the child. It can be put into a position equivalent to that of your lawful children." There is still, and there should be, some restraint on people giving way to their passions, and one restraint is the consequences on other people.

Magistrates often say to those before them, "Did you ever think of your family when you broke into the house? Did you ever think of the disgrace on your parents?" Or, "Did you ever think of your wife and children when you took these steps?" All the time, the appeal is to think of other people before making decisions, and in my view it would be unwise, in our present situation, to take from husbands or wives—on whatever specious and well-intended grounds—their sense of responsibility to their children.

Parents must not confuse their progeny, and I believe that confusion of progeny —disputes about legitimacy and illegitimacy—would be a bad thing for family life. It is true, as the hon. Gentleman said, that it would be—or could be—very nasty in family life to have some legitimate and some illegitimate children. The answer is for husbands and wives to remember that before they indulge their passions.

To change the name from illegitimacy to legitimacy is not the answer—it is only changing the name. The wife or husband remains dishonoured. It is no good their saying that the child is legitimate—in the circumstances foreseen someone has been dishonourable, and no change in name can change what was an act of dishonour into an act of honour.

Nor, nowadays, does an illegitimate child, in my view, suffer any social discredit or social handicap. In many statutes—including those dealing with National Health Insurance and National Health compensation—they are put on equality but, in nature, there remains a difference between someone born of a loyal and honourable union and the unhappy person who is not. We should face that fact.

I am sure that the hon. and learned Member for Bolton, East (Mr. Philip Bell) will not mind my asking this question: could he tell the House when, as a bachelor, it is his intention to improve the family life of the country?

Hope springs eternal.

I apologise for not having been present earlier, as I would have liked to have heard the earlier speeches. I listened to what the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Bolton, East (Mr. Philip Bell) said, and with a great deal of it I quite agree. I agree with him entirely about the importance of family life and the responsibility of parents. I agree, also, that parents should remember the effect on the happiness of their children that their acts may have. Bearing all that in mind, however, how is it affected by this Clause?

The deed has been done. The child has been born. I do not think that anybody would suggest that any of these children could have been prevented from being born merely because some one would have had a discussion about the responsibilities and the holiness of family life. We are dealing with actual cases, and consideration of the child's position goes to the heart of everybody. That is the real consideration. If there is the slightest chance of unhappiness in family life, if there is likely to be discord between children because in a family there are illegitimate children living with children that are legitimate, it should be the object of Parliament to alter that state. The tendency nowadays is to look at these matters realistically.

1.30 p.m.

Remembering everything that the hon. and learned Gentleman said—and I recognise that there is a great deal in what he said—is this not a very simple matter? Let us not bother about the wording of the Clause for the moment. It is true that one can criticise the looseness of the words

"accepted as one of the family."

That ought to be tightened up in some way. I am concerned with the principle. The important words are:

"Any child born to a married woman, and accepted as one of the family by her husband.…"

Where there is an illegitimate child in that position, accepted by the husband, why should we not do everything to regularise the position so as to prevent the slightest chance of unhappiness to that child?

I regard this as a very simple Clause which puts right a wrong that has been done to the child. I agree that the mother is to blame, and so is the paramour. But, after all, do we not all recognise the principle relating to children, enshrined in the Guardianship of Infants Act, namely, that it is the welfare of the child that is of paramount importance? From that point of view, I plead that the House should do something on the lines of this Clause.

The Joint Under-Secretary of State said something about registration and said that this would be a sort of legalised forgery. 1 do not mind if it is a legalised forgery, assuming that it is possible for such a thing to exist. Let us have something in the register correcting it. Surely there is no objection to that.

I return to the one simple point with which I am concerned. If this Clause does anything to remove unhappiness from a child, let us accept it. I trust that the House will accept the Clause, and if there are any points in it which need to be dealt with—and I agree there may well be some—surely this can easily be done.

I made it clear on Second Reading that, in my view, anything which sought to interfere with the sanctity of marriage should be abhorred. At the same time, I said that by far the most important consideration in all these questions concerning marriage was the interest of the children.

We have listened to two very impressive and sincere speeches from my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Bolton, East (Mr. Philip Bell), who holds very strong views, for which we all respect him, and the hon. and learned Member for Stoke Newington and Hackney, North (Mr. Weitzman), who made out a case for the Clause in very strong terms. I was impressed when he said that the matter of paramount importance was what is best for the child. At the same time, we have a duty in such a matter to a vast number of people who profoundly disagree with the terms of these proposals.

It would be proper to remind the House what was stated in the Report of the Royal Commission on Marriage and Divorce, 1951–1955, on the question of the legitimisation of children. Paragraph 1182, which contains some of the conclusions of the Committee, says:

"We have been unable to reach agreement on the proposal that all children should be legitimated by the subsequent marriage of their parents. Twelve of us are opposed to it, for the reasons set out in paragraphs 1179–1181;"

to which I shall refer in a moment.

"seven of us consider that the law of England and of Scotland should be altered to give effect to the proposal."

I do not want to go into the difference between the law of Scotland and the law of England, but I think I am putting it fairly if I say that the law of Scotland is rather more flexible in the matter than is the law of England, and I personally favour the law of Scotland.

The basic arguments against the proposal are stated in paragraph 1179 as follows:

"The basic argument against the proposal that in all cases children should be legitimated"—

On a point of order. Is it in order for the hon. Gentleman to refer to the principle of Clause 1, which is quite different from what is being discussed in this proposal?

I apologise. I should have said "the principle in Clause 1." The principle is that by a subsequent remarriage the child should be legitimated. I hope the hon. Member will withdraw this Clause, although in principle I hope the Bill will get a Third Reading. We are making a sweeping change in the law, contrary to the wishes of many people—I think rightly so—but the views of those people are entitled to be respected.

May I now continue what I was saying about the basic arguments which were put before the Royal Commission:

"The basic argument against the proposal that in all cases children should be legitimated by the subsequent marriage of their parents is that it would result in a serious weakening in respect for marriage. It is no doubt possible to cite particular cases in which, when viewed in isolation, the present law may appear to work harshly against the children."

That I entirely accept and I believe it will be accepted by both sides of the House. The Report goes on to say:

"But against the benefit which relief might afford to existing cases of hardship must be balanced the possible effects of removing the present impediment. Measures designed to relieve present hardship may result in future social evils which far outweigh any immediate and temporary benefits which they create."

That is a sweeping statement. Certainly we should not underestimate what we are doing. This proposed new Clause goes much further than the main terms of the Bill. I think it goes much too far. I was very impressed by the speech of my hon. and learned Friend the Joint Under-Secretary on the general principles and in what he said about altering the register. Therefore, though I support the proposals in the Bill, simply because I believe that they will be in the interests of illegitimate children—and it is the interests of children which are of paramount importance—I would not support the proposed new Clause. For my part, if the hon. Member is not prepared to withdraw it I should be prepared to vote against it in the Lobby.

My hon. Friend the Member for Dagenham (Mr. Parker) is to be congratulated not only on his fortune in the Ballot but on the courage which he has shown in introducing this Bill, for it is a very courageous Measure. The Bill as it emerges from Standing Committee offers Parliament—and I use that word rather than "the House"—an opportunity to do something that ought to have been done a few years back when this matter was last considered.

I take no exception to the speech of the hon. and learned Member for Bolton, East (Mr. Philip Bell), for this is a free country and this is a place for free discussion. Its integrity can only be preserved if people who differ violently from any proposal will state their views cogently, clearly and without any imputation of personal motive or unworthy design against those who make the proposal—in this case the promoters of this Bill. The hon. and gallant Member for Cheltenham (Major Hicks Beach) has given us some indication of the weight of opposition that may yet be brought to bear on this Bill in its progress. The Under-Secretary appeared to give a hint that, even if the Bill survived this afternoon, we might anticipate that the meteorological reports on the weather which it would have to encounter might he very difficult.

I want Clause 1, which I do not intend to discuss now, to be put through Parliament as a single and definite issue. I do not want the opponents of Clause 1, who may use legitimate arguments against it and who may seek to sink the ship for many reasons, to be able to say that the vessel is so overloaded that the plimsoll line has been ignored and it is unsafe for any voyage to be taken in it.

I hope that the hon. Member for Dagenham, in bringing forward this new Clause, will feel that he has shown that the Bill does not clear up all the difficulties which confront this section of the law, and will not feel that it is necessary to press for this new Clause in a way which might ultimately jeopardise the success of the Measure, which he has so bravely brought before the House and the public opinion of the country.

As one who had the privilege of supporting the Bill on Second Reading, I agree with all the views that have been expressed on both sides of the House and, in particular, with the concluding views of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede).

If one takes the words of my hon. and learned Friend the Joint Under Secretary, and wishes the Bill well, one is driven away from argument to Parliamentary tactics. I think that the sentiments expressed by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for South Shields were centred on Parliamentary tactics. We knew what that meant in 1926. The outcome then was the reason which prompted the hon. Gentleman the Member for Dagenham (Mr. Parker), with good courage, to produce this Measure.

It is interesting to recall that between that time and now four who supported the hon. Gentleman's views in 1926 were subsequently placated by the Minister. I would hate to see this excellent Measure, enshrined mainly in Clause 1, shot down elsewhere merely on Parliamentary tactics, because it raises issues ancillary to, but rather away from, the intentions expressed by this House both on Second Reading and in Committee.

In these circumstances, I would beg the hon. Member for Dagenham to consider whether it would not be wise to withdraw the Clause because the exceptional number of cases it represents could form the subject of another small Private Member's Bill on another occasion.

In view of what has been said by the hon. Member for Manchester, Withington (Sir R. Cary) and the Joint Under-Secretary, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Motion.

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

This Clause replaces Clause 5 in the Bill. I should like to thank the Home Office for suggesting this new draft, which is a distinct improvement on my original one.

I understand that it was felt that Section 56 (1) of the Magistrates' Courts Act, 1952, is already rather complicated and that this new Clause would simplify the position and prevent anomalies arising from different proceedings for affiliation orders and maintenance orders. As a result of this Clause, an application for an order—in both cases—would be held in privacy, but proceedings for enforcement or variation, that is to say, proceedings for the payment of money, would not. It is desirable to have proceedings with regard to maintenance orders and affiliation orders on the same lines. I understand that the wording of this Clause would do that.

I beg to second the Motion.

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

I commend the Bill to the House as a useful contribution to deal with the problems of illegitimacy. Firstly, it seeks to reduce the number of illegitimate children which is a very important factor. It will thus help to strengthen family life, particularly in difficult circumstances where a new family comes together after a divorce, by reducing the number of cases in which we have illegitimate and legitimate children in the same family.

Secondly, I commend the Bill to the House because it eases the position of those children who remain illegitimate. Much still remains to be done to help the problems of the illegitimate, particularly in the field of intestacy and of inheritance. I hope that in due course constructive proposals will be brought forward—and that the Government will bring them forward—to deal with these problems, because I am quite certain that opinion in the country is growing in favour of some action being taken.

I should like to thank all those who have assisted me with the Bill. First, I should like to thank the person who gave me legal assistance outside the House and the hon. Member for Manchester, Withington (Sir R. Cary) who seconded the Bill, for all the help he has given me in trying to pilot it through to this stage; and the hon. Member for Salford, West (Mr. Royle), who suggested this Bill to me when I was looking round to find a useful subject after I was fortunate in the Ballot. I thank him for his help. I thank the Home Office for the very ready help which it has given me in drafting the Bill and the Solicitor-General for the great efforts he has made to marshall the cohorts behind him in Committee. I also thank the Joint Under-Secretary for the assistance which he has given me in discussion and in correspondence on various points.

In commending the Bill to another place, I would point out that there has been a very wide measure of agreement in this House on this Measure. I feel that opinion in the country, as well as in this Chamber, is rather different from what it was thirty years ago on a number of these issues. I hope that the Members of another place will bear that point in mind and be as agreed on this matter as this House has been. The Bill does justice to many innocent people, particularly children. The principle behind it is that it is wrong that children should suffer for the wrongs of parents. Inasmuch as the Bill makes a contribution in that matter, I commend it to the House.

I should like to say to the hon. Member for Dagenham (Mr. Parker) that it has given me very great pleasure indeed to co-operate with him in the passage of the Bill to its present stage. As has been said, it can be regarded as an all-party Measure. For many years, the step now taken by the hon. Gentleman was wished for by many Members of the House, and there have been previous trials. He has brought his Bill to this stage. To use the words of my hon. and learned Friend the Joint Under-Secretary of State, I hope that the Bill will have a good and happy future.

The title is the Legitimacy Bill. On Second Reading, I described it as a children's Bill. I wish that some emphasis could have been given to take the Bill away a little from the divorce courts and the other matters which have been explored in our proceedings. It has much to recommend it. Although illegitimacy has lost some of its stigma, it is an unpleasant and odious thing to impose upon a young child. I hope that the words of my hon. and learned Friend will come true and the hon. Member for Dagenham will ultimately see his intention enshrined in an Act upon the Statute Book.

Finally, I support what the hon. Gentleman said about the help, kindness and forethought shown by the Home Office and its officials in aiding him in this matter.

I join with the hon. Member for Manchester, Withington (Sir R. Cary) in congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Dagenham (Mr. Parker) on his Bill reaching this stage in the form it now has. In our debate on a previous proposed new Clause, I expressed myself with regard to the term "illegitimate child."any interest I have been able to show in the Bill has been with that idea in mind. I know that we are not going the whole way, but I hope that the Bill will achieve in another place the success it has achieved here. It will go a long way towards filling some of the gaps.

The new Clause which the House has just accepted, which is in a form different from the original Clause 5, I regard as a very important piece of legislation, apart from the main point of Clause 1. Anyone who has been concerned with the working of the courts of this country in recent years appreciates the tremendous advantage that domestic proceedings and, in a lesser degree, proceedings in our children's courts have been held in semi-privacy instead of before a large public in the gallery listening to the case, the whole story being drawn through the mud.

Steps are taken by the new Clause to provide that in the case of affiliation orders hearings shall be heard in circumstances of privacy. This is most desirable. All the girls who bear illegitimate children are not "bad lots." In many cases, even if a man is accused unjustly of parentage in these cases, it is desirable, I believe, that what is said should be said in the quiet of a small court. This object is accomplished by the new Clause and I am sure that it is a step forward in our social legislation.

I welcome the Bill at this stage, and I join with other hon. Members in wishing it well in its further progress.

I congratulate the hon. Member for bringing the Bill forward. I introduced a Private Member's Bill dealing with the subject matter covered by Clause 1 of this Bill a few years ago, but I did not have the good fortune to persuade the House to give it a Second Reading. We have had to wait for this further Bill which is very much more extensive than the one I wished to put before the House.

When I was dealing with my Bill, I received a voluminous correspondence, and I assure the House that there is great feeling among people generally that something must be done along the lines of Clause 1 to rectify the wrong which, over thirty years ago, the House hoped to put right but was baulked in so doing by action in another place. By withdrawing the controversial matters, the hon. Member for Dagenham (Mr. Parker) will have given the Bill a much greater chance of success. I commend it to the House and to another place. I hope that the volume of support which has been evinced for provisions of this type will ensure that the Bill will shortly reach the Statute Book.

When I intervened on Second Reading, I pointed out that, although all my hon. Friends who had spoken from this side had been in favour of the Bill, it was the fact that an equal number of hon. Members opposite had spoken in favour of the Bill. It was quite clear that it was in no sense a party matter but one which had the general support and interest of the House.

Progress since then has shown that this is so. I very much hope that in another place this fact will be taken into account so that we may not only congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Dagenham (Mr. Parker) on the success he has had with the Bill so far but we may congratulate him also on living to see the Bill regarded, as the Joint Under-Secretary of State suggested, as "Parker's Act."

I see no reason why the Government should be left out of this chorus of congratulation, but I do not wish to add to the eloquent words which have already been used to praise the hon. Member for Dagenham (Mr. Parker) except to say that I think that his finest moment in the passage of the Bill was when he withdrew his new Clause this morning. I congratulate him upon the very good Parliamentary judgment which he then showed.

When the House adjourned on Friday, 10th April, we were in the middle of discussing what I should describe as one of the most important Amendments on the Notice Paper. The hon. Gentleman the Member for Lewisham, North (Mr. MacDermot) had just moved the Amendment and we had heard some interesting views. When the House adjourned, we were listening to some interesting observations from my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Mr. Kimball) who, I am sorry to see, is not able to be here today. We shall all very much miss the contribution we were looking forward to hearing. However, there are other supporters of the Bill present, and no doubt they will deal with this very important matter in their usual clear way.

Put quite briefly, the effect of the Amendment, which has my full support, would be to ensure that particulars of the payment of Estate Duty or particulars of Estate Duty which has been levied are published in the newspaper. It would be fair to say that different views are held in this House about the incidence of Estate Duty, but I cannot see, from the point of view of the promoters of the Bill, how it can possibly be suggested that the publication of particulars of Estate Duty, whether one approves of it or not, is not in the general interest of the public.

I am one of those who believe that Estate Duty is one of the most virulent in existence. It has always been my wish that at a future date a Conservative Government will abolish the incidence of Estate Duty altogether. On the assumption that I am right or perhaps that I have a good cause, surely it must assist the cause if the Press are allowed to publish these vast sums which are being levied in Estate Duty.

I have two real objections to Estate Duty. First, it is unsound to have a form of taxation under which capital is taxed and used as income. In putting forward this proposition, I should have thought that I would have full support of all my hon. Friends. I am only speaking from memory, but the amount which is seized from the public through Estate Duty every year is approximately £180 million. That is being used as income where it is capital and should be used in some form of discharging the capital indebtedness of this country today. I should have thought that the more publicity given to this position the better it would be for assisting my cause, which is the eventual abolition of Estate Duty. As I have said, it is likely that hon. Members opposite will not agree with my view on this problem.

The other economic unsoundness of the present assessment of Estate Duty is that it is contrary to encouraging saving. I think that every economist agrees with that, whatever political party he may belong to. I was proposing to give a few extracts from the Press illustrating the vast sums of Estate Duty which is paid, but I have not them with me to give to the House. Whenever one opens The Times or the Daily Telegraph one reads about the vast sums which are being taken from the general public in Estate Duty and I feel strongly that it is right that those sums should be published. Other principles may be involved. Some hon. Members opposite may think it right that people's savings should be taken to pay Estate Duty. If they think that, surely there should be full publicity given to it.

I do not see how any real objection can be taken to the proposal that the figures of Estate Duty should be published in the Press. As I said, I regret the absence of the hon. Member for Gainsborough because he was in the middle of making some interesting observations. I do not know which promoter of the Bill will reply, but I hope that we shall have a detailed answer on this specific point. In referring to this Amendment, the hon. Member for Gainsborough said on 10th April:

"Acceptance of this Amendment would undermine the whole principle of the Bill. In this debate we have, perhaps, rather lost sight of the simple purpose of the Bill. It is that the reporting of wills must be accurate. If we were to accept the Amendment the reports could not be accurate, as they would publish only half the truth about someone's will."

I confess that I do not quite understand what that means. The purpose of the Amendment is to ensure that one quite simple issue is brought to the attention of the public, namely, that particulars of Estate Duty paid by individuals when they die are published so that the public knows what is going on. I do not suggest that the hon. Member for Gainsborough was not perfectly sincere in what he said. I think that he merely misunderstood the position. I do not think that he appreciated the purport and object of the Amendment.

The hon. Member went on to say:

"If we were to accept the Amendment the reports could not be accurate …"

Why not? If, as is often the case, reports of duty paid are published, everyone knows that they are always subject to adjustment when the estate is administered. What is known as a corrective affidavit has to be put in. Sometimes more debts or more assets come to light. The hon. Member went on to say:

"That is a fundamental principle of the Bill, so it will be appreciated that I cannot possibly accept the Amendment."

Then the hon. Member made a better point. He said:

"Another very simple principle, and one that has certainly been forgotten, is that our purpose is to give to everyone who lives in this country the right to the same privacy over their affairs when dead as they had when they were alive."

I suppose that the hon. Member means that because a person does not have to publish in the Press the amount of an estate annually or half-yearly while he is alive, he should not have to publish details of the estate when dead. That is not true, because if by any unfortunate occurrence a taxpayer is involved in a dispute with the inspector of taxes which eventually goes to the court, which we all know constantly happens—as a lawyer perhaps I should say fortunately, because it is apt to happen in certain taxation matters—straight away the details of a person's estate can be published through the medium of the courts. Therefore, there is nothing to worry about there.

The hon. Member for Gainsborough continued:

"I will not refer now to the debate on Second Reading, but if the hon. Member for Lewisham North (Mr. MacDermot) looks at column 784 of the OFFICIAL REPORT "—

which I have no doubt the hon. Member has done—

"he will see that all these points were then fully discussed. He has said that a probate figure is published as soon as probate is lodged "—

in fact, it is published three or four days later, but in general terms the hon. Member is correct—

"but is there a record of any paper at the end of, say, five or seven years, when eventually the value of a large estate is ascertained, publishing a correction "—

Here the hon. Member for Lewisham, North intervened and said:

"The hon. Member himself quoted an example on Second Reading."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 10th April, 1959; Vol. 603, c. 603–4.]

As we proceed with the debate on this very important Amendment, I have no doubt that the hon. Member for Lewisham, North will have some observations to make on that point.

I cannot see any valid argument why details of Estate Duty figures should not be published. 1 support that by saying that, in my political belief, it is quite right that the general public should know how this Estate Duty taxation is working—quite unsoundly, I believe, from the economic viewpoint. I also believe, on the other side, that if we have Estate Duty, the ordinary taxpayer should realise what is being taken from people and what will be used as revenue.

We have had a long discussion on the Bill and it looks like going on for a long time on Report, so long as the rules of order allow. We have, however, been discussing a number of Amendments, all of which raise extremely good points. The present one is one of the most important for discussion on Report. I very much hope that after the lapse of time from 10th April until today, the promoters of the Bill have had an opportunity of thinking the matter over. We all recall that from Committee to the beginning of Report they had a number of changes of mind. On Report, we found that a number of Amendments which had been put down had been adopted by the promoters. Although the present Amendment originally stood in my name, I hope that we shall have another example of sinners repenting and that the promoters of the Bill will acknowledge the need for it and commendably accept it.

I, also, hope that, in spite of what my hon. Friend the Member for Gains-borough (Mr. Kimball) said last time this matter was discussed, it may still be possible for the promoters of the Bill to accept the Amendment. The hon. Member for Lewisham, North (Mr. MacDermot), who moved the Amendment, pointed out that paragraph (b) of subsection (1) has no relation to the main purpose of the Bill. Its main purpose, understand, is to make it illegal for newspapers to publish particulars of the dispositions made under a person's will.

Paragraph (b) has nothing whatever to do with what may be the dispositions made in a person's will. It deals with something quite different and much wider in scope. It seeks to make it illegal to publish any estimate of the amount of the estate of a deceased person or of any duty or estimated duty payable in respect of such estate.

I suggest to my hon. Friends that in seeking to include a Clause like this in their Bill they seek to do something that violates human nature too severely. It is quite impossible to attempt to prescribe by legislation that nobody should be allowed to publish in a newspaper any estimate of what a deceased person's estate may be or the extent to which the revenue—which means the taxpayer—may benefit in consequence.

I realise that paragraph (b), in the same way as paragraph (a), is subject to the proviso that it applies only

"in any case in which any will executed by such deceased person contains an express wish that such particulars or such amounts should not be so published".

That, however, creates an additional difficulty and a serious one. Obviously, until a will is admitted to probate and is registered and is available for inspection at Somerset House, it cannot be known whether it contains such a request. Therefore, it would be impossible for anybody who wants to publish an estimate or make a guess at the estate of somebody who has died, to know whether he may be committing a crime by publishing such an estimate until the will itself is available for inspection after being admitted to probate.

2.15 p.m.

I put this hypothetical case to the House. Imagine that a person known to be very wealthy dies. It might be the head of one of the great international banking companies, or of one of the great landowning families. The newspapers may publish paragraphs about his life story, his background and his good works during his life. In addition, there may be a paragraph to say that on the best-informed estimates, the disposable estate which he has left must be at least of the order of £10 million, and that if this is so the taxpayer will benefit to the tune of so many millions as a result of the disposal of such a vast estate.

It is asking rather a lot of human nature to demand that it shall be made illegal for anybody to publish guesses or estimates of that kind when a person of very great wealth dies. There is, however, a further point, to which I hope one or other of the hon. and learned Members who are much more experienced in the law than I am, will reply. Perhaps my right hon. and learned Friend the Solicitor-General himself may be able to help. What would be the position if, when such a person died, a newspaper published that kind of paragraph, which would be prohibited by subsection (1, b) of the Clause if the will executed by the deceased person contained an express wish that such particulars or amounts should not be so published?

The newspaper publishing that paragraph could not possibly know at the time it was published whether it was committing an offence in publishing such an estimate. Nobody could know. Not even the executor of the estate could know whether an offence was being committed until the will was admitted to probate and it then became apparent whether the will contained a definite request by the deceased person that such particulars or amounts should not be so published.

What is the position of the newspaper which has published such a statement in those circumstances? When the statement was published, it was certainly not an offence—it could not be, because the conditions making it an offence could not then have been realised. It is an extraordinary provision in the law that we can by statute create a situation in which a person can do a certain act but cannot possibly, at the time he does it, know whether it is an offence against the law. That becomes apparent only many months later when the will is admitted to probate and it is known whether the condition laid down in the Clause applies. I should like to ask my hon. Friends or any of the hon. and learned Members who are taking an interest in the Bill if they can relieve my mind on that question, as to what the situation would be in such a case.

Beyond that, I agree with those who have supported this Amendment on the broad principle that it is desirable in the interests of the public as a whole that particulars of estates of the kind which I have just been referring to and the possible effect of death duties on such estates should be published and should be made known. We are all of us beneficiaries in such cases.

My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Cheltenham (Major Hicks Beach) has referred to cases which are reported day by day in The Times and the Daily Telegraph, and, indeed, in other papers, and I myself, in earlier stages in our discussions of the Measure, have referred to many such cases. There was one just the other day in The Times, of 30th April, under the headline:

"£1,016,000 in estate duty".

It referred to a widow who had left an estate of £1,278,000, and the paper said:

"Because of the 80 per cent. duty on fortunes substantially above £1 million, the Treasury receives £1,016,683."

All that, £1,016,000, out of a net estate of £1,278,000!

When it says that the Treasury receives this benefit, it means that you and I, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, and all taxpayers of the country are the beneficiaries. It seems to me to be quite ludicrous to say that the Press should be forbidden to publish facts of this kind. It is obviously, to my mind, desirable that we as beneficiaries should know what benefits we are deriving from an estate of this kind.

I understand perfectly well the view of my hon. Friends who are promoting this Bill about the desirability of preventing pain and distress to people who leave small estates and to the beneficiaries under such small estates. We must recognise that there are such cases and that there can be such difficulties, but we in this House have to consider what is the balance of advantage to the community as a whole, and I have no doubt at all, apart altogether from the technical, legal problem which this paragraph seems to raise, and about which I hope someone will be able to give me an explanation, that the balance of advantage to the community as a whole is that the publication of facts of the kind I have been referring to should be permitted. For that reason I support the Amendment.

I intervene because I do not know why the hon. Gentleman the Member for Harrow, Central (Mr. Bishop) expressed such a hope in his concluding sentences. I have been studying the Bill and I notice that it was presented by Mr. Kimball. He, presumably, is responsible for the Bill, but I cannot see the hon. Gentleman present. I see that he is supported by Mr. Russell, Mr. Speir—[HON. MEMBERS: "Order."] I am merely citing the words at the front of the Bill. He is supported by Sir P. Joseph, Mr. Mellish, Mr. George Jeger, Mr. Pargiter—

Order. We must speak about the hon. Members by the names of their constituencies. The hon. Member is out of order.

I am obliged, Mr Deputy-Speaker I was merely calling attention to the hon. Members who presented the Bill.

I have already, in an earlier discussion, complained about their lack of responsibility. I do not think that it is treating the House properly at all to bring forward a Measure and expect it to be discussed in the absence of its promoters. I would avoid any invidious reference to the promoters of the Bill, but I would generalise. None appears to be present—except the hon. Gentleman the Member for Billericay (Mr. Body). While we are obliged to the hon. Member for his attendance, I do not think that the House ought to treat seriously a Measure which is brought forward through the Private Member's Bill machinery if those sponsoring it are not prepared to be hereto see the Bill through. I can only by a process of elimination suppose that the hon. Member for Billericay is in charge of the Bill.

Is he?

I do not know whether he is or not.

On a point of order. Is it in order to ask who is in charge of the Bill, as the hon. Member for Gains-borough (Mr. Kimball), who, I understood, was in charge of it up to now, is not here?

The Member in charge of the Bill has the right to reply, which other Members have not—

I hope, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, I have the right to reply to the debate on the Amendment, which I moved. I thought that an hon. Member who moved an Amendment had the right to reply to a debate upon it if he wished, and to speak twice.

The hon. Member has the right to reply, too, but the point is that it is only one Member in charge who has the right to reply. The hon. Member for Lewisham, North (Mr. MacDermot) has that right upon his own Amendment.

Perhaps I may raise the matter on a point of order, since it would certainly assist us in future discussion, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, by inquiring who is in charge of the Bill? In view of what you have said, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, it would obviously assist us to know, and it would assist you to know.

The hon. Member for Gainsborough (Mr. Kimball) has explained that he would be unable, since he has another engagement which he had to keep, to be present here this afternoon, and I undertook to look after the Bill far him. To that extent, I suppose, it can be said that I am in charge of the Bill.

That merely illustrates how confusing this is. We now have the hon. Member for Windsor (Sir C. Mott-Radolyffe), who is not one of the Members backing the Bill, telling us that he is in charge of the Bill. It seems to place the House and the Chair in an extraordinarily difficult position, because I had assumed that the solitary Member here from the ranks of the supporters of the Bill, the hon. Member for Billericay, would now be in charge of the Bill. Apparently he is not.

I was waiting to answer in due course the very few arguments which have been adduced in favour of this Amendment.

When there are two contenders representing themselves as being in charge of the Bill, it becomes particularly important to know who is in charge of the Bill.

As far as the Government are concerned, one Member can speak for another, so that the whole Front Bench can be in charge. Only one Member can be in charge of a Private Member's Bill. I do not know for certain who it is, so I cannot answer.

When the House was last considering the Bill, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, the hon. Member for Gainsborough (Mr. Kimball) was speaking when the debate stood adjourned. He was giving an answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, North (Mr. MacDermot). He was in process of arguing against the Amendment when the debate stood adjourned. It is a very odd thing that he is not here to continue the argument. We are left up in the air, as it were.

He may be here yet. I do not know. I have not had notice that he would not be here.

Do I understand, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, that your Ruling is that there is no one in charge of the Bill at the moment? I do not understand how, in the course of considering one Amendment, which we are discussing, two different hon. Members in succession can be in charge of the Bill.

I understand that the hon. Member for Windsor (Sir C. Mott-Radclyffe) has been put in charge of the Bill at present. If the hon. Member for Gainsborough (Mr. Kimball) were to come back, no doubt he would take his duties up again, but it is only one hon. Member at a time who has the right of reply.

Further to that point. Will you accept a Motion to adjourn the debate, Mr. Deputy-Speaker?

No.

I was discomfited by the fact that it is not clear who is in charge of the Bill. Nevertheless, I will resume the point which I was making. I take it that two hon. Members opposite will reply on behalf of those who put forward the Bill. There is a great deal in the argument and that is why I wanted to hear what the promoters had to say about it. I do not go the whole way with the Amendment, but there is a substantial point behind it. The words that worry me are "or estimated." I should have thought that this was a difficult matter to define and that it puts those who publish at unnecessary risk.

It makes things said up to the point of death unlawful if they are said after the point of death. One could say something about a deceased person which might be construed as an estimate of the amount of the estate of that person. I think that that is undesirable. That is why I think it improper to proceed with discussion of the Bill unless those who are promoting it are here to answer such a point. A case has been made out that even if one accepted the purpose of this provision it goes unnecessarily wide and ought to be amended.

There is also possibly a distinction between the amount of the estate and the amount of the duty. I concede at once that Income Tax is not disclosed but, rightly or wrongly, Estate Duty is disclosed and this affords information of public interest and public advantage. If we are to legislate about something like this affecting the Estate Duty we ought to be advised by the Government about it. We ought to have a reply from the Solicitor-General. We are not asking for a reply here about interpretation but about substance.

The information which is accorded about the instance of death duties in a particular case is important. It is proper information which ought to be made available. For that reason, I should have expected a reply from those responsible for the Bill, on these two points. The first is the important point that this could bring unnecessary risk and probably a risk which the promoters themselves have not envisaged. Secondly, if we are dealing with the question of publication of information about duty payable on an estate, it is a matter which goes wider than the responsibility of a private Member and we ought to be entitled to the Government's views about it.

I think that all hon. Members will agree that the Amendment is one of the most important that we have to discuss. I, too, regret the absence of my hon. Friend the Member for Gains-borough (Mr. Kimball), though I quite understand that he was unable to be here today. I regret his absence because of the rather curious short speech which he made on 10th April when we last discussed the Bill, and the paragraph from it which my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Cheltenham (Major Hicks Beach) quoted.

My hon. Friend the Member for Gains-borough objected to the Amendment on two grounds. This was the first speech that he made against the Amendment and, therefore, I assume that these were the general grounds on which it was not acceptable to the sponsors. First, my hon. Friend objected because, as he said.

"… the simple purpose of the Bill … is that the reporting of wills must be accurate."

I find this a very curious state of affairs in which it is possible to argue semantically that by not reporting wills one is accurate—because there are no reports and there cannot be inaccuracies—but if the subsection is left in the Bill one is liable to inaccurate reporting, because people may make a guess.

This brings us to the second of the two principles which my hon. Friend enunciated, when he said:

"… our purpose is to give to everyone who lives in this country the right to the same privacy over their affairs when dead as they had when they were alive."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 10th April. 1959; Vol. 603, c. 603–4.]

The Bill does not do that. It gives greater privacy when people are dead.

While I am alive, anyone is entitled to guess the amount of my capital and my income, and they probably do not have to guess very hard to find the answer. But once I am dead they cannot make a guess. Incidentally, I, too, would like some guidance on the words "or estimated". Does that expression mean a correct estimate, or an incorrect estimate? Is the man who guesses right fined £100, whereas if I guess wrong it is all right because I have not guessed the estimated amount of the estate? Apparently, one can still guess when the person is dead, provided that the guess is wrong, whereas when I am alive anyone can guess right or wrong and is safe. Nobody can stop him. He can publish his guess, but the provision in the Bill stops his publishing a guess when I am dead if that guess is right.

I do not know whether the words have been construed by Act Parliament and interpreted in the courts. We do not know whether they mean an accurate or an inaccurate estimate. Is a guess within 5 per cent. of the right figure correct and, therefore, within the ambit of the Clause? If that is so, there is nothing to stop a newspaper making a guess incorrect enough to be outside the provisions of the Bill, which would give the newspaper the protection it would require. It seems to me that the promoters are getting into;very deep water with this subsection. I hope that they will reconsider it.

The main point made on Second Reading was that the object of the Bill was to spare grief and pain caused to small people by the knowledge that money was being received by somebody, much more than the pain and grief which could hardly be caused to someone who was dead by public knowledge of what he had left. Though I am opposed to the Bill, I concede that the arguments of the promoters are fully met by the Bill as it stands on the question of pain and sorrow caused by publication by keeping in paragraph (a).

There is the further point, which my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Cheltenham made so ably, about the need to expose the evil of Estate Duty in the country. I see no better or fairer way of doing so than by publishing the amount. To my horror, my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow, Central (Mr. Bishop) mentioned a sum of £1,016,000 in Estate Duty on an estate of £¾million, and I am sure that he wishes the public to know the amount of money taken by the Treasury in these cases. Unless we get some more substantial argument than those which my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough gave, we shall have to ask the House to divide on this Amendment.

While I agree that this is a very important Amendment, I would also say that it is a wrecking Amendment, because the amount of the estate is one of the salient omissions from Press publication which the Bill requires. We who support the Bill take the view that the publication of the amount, or, indeed, an estimated amount, may be completely misleading to the public and to anybody else interested, and that is one of the things which the Bill will permit by the omission of subsection (1, b).

After all, quite large sums of money may be said to be bequeathed by someone, but, in fact, as a result of the debts and liabilities being worked out and taken into account, the whole amount may be vitiated and there may be a debit balance, so that in the end the recipient of the legacy may receive nothing in cash at all. This Amendment would wreck the whole Bill, to which, after all, we have given a Second Reading in principle, and would vitiate its whole purpose if we left out subsection (1.b)

As my hon. Friend has said, the publication of details of small wills could be embarrassing to the people concerned, since the details of the will may relate, for instance, to someone who may have kept up a very good position, though he may have had some difficulty in doing so. When it is seen that he left only a few hundred pounds, that is likely to cause considerable embarrassment and pain to his family. I cannot help feeling that the omission of the subsection would wreck the whole concept and principle of the Bill, and I therefore hope that the House will reject the Amendment.

May I, first of all, apologise, on behalf of my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Mr. Kimball) for his absence? Several hon. Members have commented on the fact that he is not here today, and also on the fact that he was speaking when the House adjourned when dealing with this Amendment on the last occasion. He asks me to say in his absence that he had said substantially all that he intended to say on that occasion, and that it is through no discourtesy to this House that he has to be elsewhere today on an engagement which is of importance to him and his constituents.

2.45 p.m.

My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Cheltenham (Major Hicks Beach), at the beginning of his speech said he supported the Amendment, because of the virulence of Estate Duty, and because he felt that the virulence of that duty should be made known to all of us. I am surprised that a solicitor of such tremendous experience as he should put forward that argument, because he must know that these estimates of the duty are more often than not quite wrong. He knows as well as any hon. Member in the House that the application for the grant of probate is made at the earliest opportunity.

That is a very grave slur on the profession to which I have the honour to belong. When a solicitor submits an application for probate, he does so on the basis of all the information then available, and it is not correct to say that they are often quite wrong.

My hon. and gallant Friend also knows that there is a later corrected affidavit, and that the corrected affidavit discloses the agreed figure, which, in nine cases out of ten, I would go so far as to say is greater than the figure set out in the original one.

I thoroughly disagree with my hon. Friend. Taking these cases by and large, I think that the figures submitted on application for probate are in a very large number of cases very nearly accurate, but one cannot always get them absolutely accurate. The whole thing has to be done on oath by the person making the affidavit, and the figures are usually accurate. I think I can claim to have at least as much knowledge as my hon. Friend in this matter, and I say that it is grossly misleading the House to suggest that in nine cases out of ten the figures are inaccurate.

I should like to take the argument a stage further. My hon. and gallant Friend's point would be a valid one if the figure set out in the first affidavit were correct, because then he would have some estimate of the incidence of Estate Duty, but, even so, that is only some partial help to him, for this reason. Each year, we know the total amount of Estate Duty that is collected, and I would have thought that anyone who wishes to oppose Estate Duty—and I share the sentiments of my hon. and gallant Friend in the matter—can find enough facts in the annual returns which set out the total amount of Estate Duty paid each year.

But they do not show the incidence on a particular estate, or how greatly it varies from one estate to another.

I agree that it does not show the individual duty.

May I come back to the original point that the original affidavit is so frequently wrong? Only this morning, on leaving a court, I was giving an explanation why I was leaving, and the solicitor to whom I was speaking, who is one of great experience, told me that his estimate was that nine out of ten affidavits had to be wrong, for the very good reason that one cannot, in the very early days immediately after a death, make a wholly accurate calculation, and that is accepted by the Revenue authorities as being the position. That particularly applies in cases when we have any business or profession or the sale of any goodwill held by the deceased.

I think that it was my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow, Central (Mr. Bishop) who said that we had some right to have this information, because we were the beneficiaries of Estate Duty, and I notice that my hon. Friend the Member for Gravesend (Mr. Kirk) agrees with that. What that right is was not amplified, but if my hon. Friends are to be logical about is I should have thought that they would have also to extend it to the incidence of Income Tax. I know that this is an argument which has been brought forward already several times in the debates on this Bill, but if the public, as the beneficiaries of Estate Duty, have a right to know the individual amounts of Estate Duty paid by different people, likewise, if one is to be logical, one should apply that to the payment of any other class of revenue, be it Income Tax or any other kind of taxation imposed upon individuals.

I oppose the Amendment, because as my hon. Friend the Member for Surbiton (Mr. Fisher) said, it goes to the very roots of. the Bill. It is a wrecking Amendment, and it is for that reason also that I oppose it.

In exercising my right of reply, I must say to the House that I feel I must press this Amendment. In saying that, it is only right that I should try to state the reasons why I would urge the House to reject the arguments put forward against it.

We are all sorry not to have with us here today the hon. Member for Gains-borough (Mr. Kimball), who has up to now handled this Bill in his usual courteous and modest fashion. I was somewhat surprised to hear the hon. Member for Billericay (Mr. Body) telling us that the reason why the hon. Gentleman could not be here was that he had to fulfil an engagement in his constituency. It was the hon. Member for Gainsborough who opted for this day for the adjourned debate to continue, and I can only think that, if he made an engagement in his constituency, he had lost heart after our proceedings on the previous occasion and was not envisaging that this adjourned debate would be resumed. Otherwise, I find it difficult to understand why he would have made an engagement in his constituency for today.

The hon. Gentleman will bear in mind that my hon. Friend left only a short time before this debate began.

I am afraid that does not advance the explanation. The hon. Gentleman knew, when he selected this day, that there were two other Bills before his, and he can hardly have thought they would be Bills which would go through on the nod, particularly as the first one had not been discussed on the Floor of the House until today. So the mystery deepens, but, whatever be the reason for his absence, we all regret it.

I am placed in the difficulty that I cannot understand who is now in charge of the Bill. Perhaps it does not matter so much on this Amendment because, as I have intimated, I propose to press the matter. Frequently when discussing Amendments, if one is given assurances at times from the person who is really in charge of the Bill, one is prepared to take a certain course, but how can we do that today? Two hon. Gentlemen opposite have risen to intimate to us that they consider themselves to be in charge of the Bill. We do not know which of them really is in charge, nor do we know whether either has any authority from the hon. Member for Gains-borough to give any assurances or to bind him by any undertaking.

The hon. Gentleman is slightly misrepresenting my hon. Friends in the discussion which took place earlier on this point. In fact, my hon. Friend the Member for Windsor (Sir C. MottRaclelyffe) said clearly that he was in loco parentis today in regard to this Bill, and I can confirm this is correct because I heard the hon. Member for Gains-borough (Mr. Kimball) asking him to do what he could to look after the Bill for him in his absence. My hon. Friend the Member for Billericay (Mr. Body) did not claim to have any control over the Bill. He is merely a supporter of it, as I am.

I understood that the hon. Gentleman the Member for Windsor (Sir C. Mott-Radclyffe) was in local parentis, in the sense that he had been handed the baby, but he did not give us any indication of what authority or what parental powers had been conferred upon him, and it was to that point my remarks were directed. The hon. Member for Billericay is the only hon. Member whose name is on the back of the Bill who is present today, and he has told us that he proposed to answer my arguments on behalf of the sponsor of the Bill. Be that as it may, it may be more helpful if I turn to the arguments adduced by the hon. Member for Gainsborough on the previous occasion, in his short reply to my opening speech in support of the Amendment.

The hon. Gentleman put forward two arguments. He said, first, that if this Amendment were accepted the result would be that the reports which the newspapers could publish would not be accurate as they would publish only half the truth about a will. That argument is based on a misconception. Paragraph (b) of Clause 1 does not deal with the contents of the will. The amount of the estate, the amount of the estate which has been left, the amount of Estate Duty which may have to be paid are not part of the contents of the will. They have nothing to do with the will. The will merely states how the person proposes to dispose of such property as he may leave, and often the will is drawn at a time when his assets may be far different from what they are at the time of his death.

The Bill sets out to do two things: to place a prohibition on publication of the contents of the will and to place a prohibition on publication of the amount of the estate and the amount of Estate Duty. We who support the Amendment say that the two things need not be interdependent, and if the House is disposed to accept the argument in favour of restriction or prohibition of the publication of the contents of the will, there ought not to be prohibition of publication of the amount of the estate or of the Estate Duty. So the suggestion that, by limiting publication in some way, the newspapers will be able to give a false report by giving only a half truth about the contents of the will, is misconceived.

The second argument put forward by the hon. Member for Gainsborough was what he called another very simple principle which he said had been forgotten, that everyone who lives in this country has the right to the same privacy over his affairs when he is dead as he had when alive. Again this argument is based on a misconception. If the Bill is passed in the form in which it stands without this Amendment, the answer is that a privacy will be conferred upon a person at his death which he did not enjoy when alive.

For example, the newspapers are entitled to publish an article showing that Mr. Blank is a millionaire, that Mr. Blank is believed to be worth £2 or £3 million, that Mr. Blank owns such-and-such properties and estates, that Mr. Blank is the owner of such-and-such a company. If the Bill is passed without this Amendment, the newspapers will not be allowed to state that. If Mr. Blank has expressed a wish in his will that these matters should not be published, the newspapers will not be allowed to state that Mr. Blank, who died the other day, was a millionaire. Everyone may know it, but they will not be allowed to state it.

What the newspapers will be allowed to state is a matter of considerable conjecture and great difficulty for the newspapers. Will they be allowed to state that Mr. Blank's property is believed to be worth six figures? Will that be an estimated amount of his estate or will it not? This would produce a farcical situation. In any event it certainly would not be merely preserving a right of privacy which existed during Mr. Blank's life, it would be conferring a new privacy which does not now exist.

I challenged the hon. Member for Gainsborough when I moved this Amendment by saying that I thought the Amendment in many ways provided the acid test of the true intentions of the sponsors of the Bill, or at least some of their intentions. I thought one of their main objects was to try to prevent publicity being given to the fact that very large estates are still passing on death and also of the amounts which are being paid by way of Estate Duty. I also thought they wanted to conceal at times the extent to which Estate Duty was avoided by people making the arrangements they can make to dispose of property during their lifetime deliberately to avoid death duties. I believe this is a matter of great public importance.

3.0 p.m.

These arguments have not been answered and no attempt has been made to answer them, except in a very indirect way. The hon. Member for Surbiton (Mr. Fisher) said he considered this would be a wrecking Amendment. Perhaps in the sense in which I put it forward it would be a wrecking Amendment if that is the true intention of the sponsors of the Bill, but this argument accusing me of making a wrecking Amendment was by the hon. Member related to the argument of the hon. Member for Gainsborough with which I have already dealt, the half-truth argument. This is a quite separate issue, the publication of details of the estate and Estate Duty. If the hon. Member wants us to believe that this is a wrecking Amendment, I take that as an admission that one of the true intentions of the sponsors of the Bill is to prevent people knowing the fact that large estates are being passed and to prevent people knowing what sums are or are not being paid by way of Estate Duty.

Not at all. I drew attention in the few remarks I made just now to the position of small estates, which I bracketed with big estates. There is no desire to prevent the publication of details of large estates as such, but we object to the publication of details of any estate, large or small.

Again, there was an opportunity to test this matter in Committee when there was an Amendment suggesting that the Bill should be restricted to small and medium-sized estates and to exclude its operation from large estates. That Amendment was rejected by the sponsors of the Bill. I am not impressed by this argument about small estates. I do not believe it answers the gravamen of the charge I am putting forward in support of this Amendment as to the true intentions of the sponsors.

Finally, we had resurrected by the hon. Member for Billericay the argument about the misleading nature, or alleged falsity. of the information published and derived from the original provisional affidavit put in by the solicitor at the time of application for probate. There is nothing misleading about this. When it is only an estimated amount of the estate that is stated in the Press as an estimated amount. When it is a question of the estimated amount of Estate Duty, that is stated, too. Very often there is only one affidavit and it is the final one, but in cases where it happens that after some years in the case of a large estate the amount is different, that figure is also given. If the relatives are worried and think there has been a misunderstanding as a result of what has been published, they can make arrangements to have the matter corrected in the Press. That seems an argument without force.

The hon. Member compared the position about the publication of the amount of Estate Duty to that of the amount a person pays by way of Income Tax. This raises the interesting question of whether that should be published at all. In some States of America and in Sweden the amounts which all citizens pay are available for all members of the public to learn. They do not consider that the amount of a person's income should be a matter of privacy. There is a great deal to be said for that argument, but let us confine ourselves to this question in hand, of what should be published in the Press. If the Press find what my income is and what I have paid by way of Income Tax they are perfectly free to publish it—

Or to guess at it.

—or to guess at it. Sometimes they do guess at what is to be paid. There is no restriction on that.

Do not let us be misled. What the sponsors of the Bill are trying to do is to obtain privacy for a man as a corpse which he does not have when he is alive.

I cannot accept this argument and I must press my Amendment to a Division.

I do not think that the hon. Member for Lewisham, North (Mr. MacDermot), or my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Cheltenham (Major Hicks Beach), need make too heavy weather of the absence of my hon. Friend the Member for Gains-borough (Mr. Kimball), or of the question of who is in charge of the Bill in his absence. As I explained in an interruption earlier, I undertook on behalf of my hon. Friend to be in loco parentis of the Bill when he had to leave shortly after one o'clock to undertake an engagement that was quite inescapable, and which, to the best of my knowledge, he could not have known about when he selected this particular day for the Report stage of the Bill.

I do not think the hon. Gentleman can complain that my name is not on the Bill as one of the promoters. All hon. Members know that I supported the Bill on Second Reading and in Committee, and I am supporting it now. I want to tell the House briefly why my hon. Friends and I cannot accept the Amendment. As my hon. Friend the Member for Surbiton (Mr. Fisher) said, if the Amendment were accepted it would cut right across the principle of the Bill which, briefly, is that when a testator makes his will he should have the right to choose whether or not he wishes the contents of his will to be published when he dies.

The Amendment has nothing to do with the contents of the Bill.

If the total size of the estate, or the amount of Estate Duty, were published, which is what the Amendment would allow, that would be a considerable inroad into the privacy which we think a testator ought to have if he so wishes. The mere fact of publishing either a gross amount, or the amount of the Estate Duty, can in

I beg to move, in page I, to leave out lines 18 to 20.

The intention of the Amendment can be simply stated. It is to ensure that, if by an unhappy chance the Bill reaches the Statute Book, all persons will be in exactly the same position as regards [he publication of particulars of their wills. The Bill as drawn provides that, to prevent the particulars of one's will being published in the Press, one has to state that specifically in one's will. By my Amendment I suppose that I am, to a limited extent, assisting the hon. Member for Gainsborough (Mr. Kimball) and the promoters of the Bill by rather enlarging its scope.

I do it for this fundamental reason. It cannot be right to have one law for the person who happens to make a will and remembers to provide that particulars of his will shall not be published, and another law for the unfortunate person who dies intestate or, when making his will, omits to state specifically that he does not want particulars of his will published.

Will forms can be purchased from almost any stationer, and it is beyond dispute that the number of people making their wills without assistance of a solicitor is increasing. Let me hasten to say that from the legal point of view that is no disadvantage because, by and large, there are very few home-made wills that do not, at some stage, lead to litigation.

There is the story of the distinguished practitioner in my profession who was told by his articled clerk, in great despair, "Do you know that Mr. So-and-so, one of our biggest clients, has just told me that he has made his own will? "The reply was, "Thank heavens for that." I may say that that is an absolutely true story, coming from a member of a very distinguished firm.

If the purpose of the Bill is right, it must apply universally—although, as I say, I hope very much that it will not apply at all. As drawn, the Bill would mean that full particulars of the estate of an intestate would be published by the Press. That seems rather hard. A person might make a will in which lie expressed the wish that the details should not be published. The will might later be held by the court to be void—and there are quite a number of reasons for declaring a will to be void. The estate would then become intestate, and then, in spite of the testator's expressed wish that he did not want publication, the particulars could be published.

This all shows how hopeless the conception of this Bill really is. I only hope that the promoters will say that they are prepared to accept the Amendment, which is only tabled to try to help them in case, by an unhappy chance, the Bill reaches the Statute Book.

I beg to second the Amendment.

I am a little at a loss to known just where we have now reached. The last Amendment, which has just been carried by the House, was described by one—I am not sure whether he is now the sponsor in loco parentis, or what loco he is, but at least, by a supporter of the Bill —as a wrecking Amendment. If that is so, we are now discussing an Amendment to a Bill that has already been wrecked.

If, in their own eyes, the promoters consider that the Bill has been wrecked, I wonder whether they might not think this a proper time to reconsider whether further debate on this Measure would be profitable. There are other Bills in which I know a number of my hon. Friends are very interested, and which they would like to discuss. If it truly is the sponsors' view that the Bill is wrecked, I appeal to them to take a course that would enable the time of the House to be spent, perhaps, more profitably. If not, we must persist in our consideration of the Measure in the form, wrecked or otherwise, in which it now stands.

It may seem curious that this Amendment should have been tabled by an hon. Member who, in general, has been opposing the general spirit and tenor of the Bill, as it would omit completely the requirement that before any ban would operate on the newspapers the testator should have expressed in the will the wish that particulars of its contents should not be published. That may at first seem very illogical, but what we are seeking to do is to point out the illogicality of the Bill as originally drafted. If the sponsors really think that some evil is being caused to dependants and relatives of deceased persons as a result of this publication, ought not the evil to be swept away completely? Why should the protection be dependent upon the whim of the testator? If harm is really being done to poor widows and children by the publication of these details, the harm will be there where the testator has remembered or has been advised to include a provision in his will.

We expressed the view on Second Reading that if the Bill were passed it would be common form to find in wills a clause expressing the wish of the testator that no particulars should be published. The promoters of the Bill ridiculed that idea and thought that it would not be common form at all. The hon. Member for Cheltenham said that these printed form wills are becoming much more common, and I should have thought that if the Bill were passed we would find that this provision would be put in those printed wills and that the vast majority of wills would have such a provision.

If protection is to be given to beneficiaries under wills, it seems to me most illogical that the existence of that protection should be dependent upon such chancy factors as whether or not a person made his own will, which particular type of form he happened to purchase from the stationers or what solicitor, if any, happened to advise him in drawing up his will.

This is a thoroughly bad Bill from start to finish. If, regrettably, it does appear on the Statute Book, we think it is better that it should appear with some semblance of logic rather than leaving such an anomalous state of affairs.

I can tell the hon. Gentleman briefly that my hon. Friends and I cannot accept this Amendment. The whole principle of the Bill, as I have said before, is that a testator should be allowed to opt as to whether or not he wishes his will to be published. If we were to accept this Amendment it would straight away exclude the testator's right to opt to make that choice. For that reason, we are not prepared to accept the Amendment.

I have been in some difficulty in deciding whether or not I ought to support this Amendment. I have come to the conclusion that I must do so if it is pressed.

My difficulty has been that I recognise that my hon. Friends, in bringing forward the Bill, have included this condition requiring the deceased person to put an express wish in his will in order to make it illegal for the particulars to be published. They have sought to overcome one of the difficulties and objections connected with the Bill in its earlier form. On the whole, and on balance, it seems to me that the effect of this provision is to create a very bad principle indeed. It must involve the wish of the testator being the deciding factor as to whether the publication of particulars of this kind should be illegal or not.

It appears to me that it does not rescue the Bill from the objections which I, in common with other hon. Members, have felt against it from the beginning. Indeed, it rather adds to the difficulties created by the principle of the Bill itself. So, while recognising the effort that has been made to meet the objections taken to the Bill in its earlier form, when it was previously presented, I must say that I find that I shall have to support the Amendment.

I am glad that, earlier, I took the course which led me to discover who actually was responsible for the Bill. We have had an explanation from the hon. Member which we can now assume represents the view of the promoters, and with that I wholly agree. I think that this is a stupid Amendment and I hope that those who put it forward will shortly withdraw it and let us get on with the Bill. If we take out these words, surely the hon. Members who have been opposing the Bill will realise that this will make it, from their point of view, worse than it is. I hope that they will be reasonable about this and withdraw the Amendment.

I can appreciate the point that if we are legislating in this way we should decide how far an individual himself should take a decision which affects these matters. We cannot put that forward by way of this Amendment; it would have to he a consequential Amendment. I think that, having made the point, we should agree that this Amendment should he withdrawn.

On the general point as to whether a person should have power to decide whether there should be publicity or not, I have an open mind. I do not think that it is a matter on which one can generalise one way or another. If we accept the case of the promoter of the Bill. I think that we can quite properly argue that the deceased himself should leave an expression of his intention about this because he may have felt that there were reasons why, in a particular case, there should be publicity.

Surely the whole case for the publication of a will is that the publication is in the public interest. In that case, it should not be the person most closely concerned who should decide what is in the public interest.

My hon. Friend has not his usual lucidity in approaching this problem. What we are dealing with is not that, but the position which would he altered if the Bill became law. We cannot argue from such a principle on this Amendment. We are presupposing that the law has been changed. If the law were changed, I can see that it might be right and proper to allow a person to opt. I do not wish to be drawn any further. I hope that those who have put forward the Amendment will be content with the expression of view that they have made and allow the Amendment to be withdrawn.

I cannot follow this argument. We were told by the promoter of the Bill, in his Second Reading speech, about the daughter of a very wealthy man. The newspapers had published the fact that she had been left a large sum of money. That rich heiress had been plagued by the publicity which resulted from this and he wanted to protect her from that situation. If she needs protection, why should that pro- tection depend on whether or not the testator chose to put a Clause like this in his will?

I have an affection for the hon. Member responsible for the Bill. I have no responsibility for it. There are two hon. Members opposite who accept some responsibility, one of whom has spoken and exhausted his right to speak again on this matter; but, no doubt, the hon. Member for Billericay (Mr. Body) will answer my hon. Friend's question.

I find myself in some difficulty here. I appreciate the case made for the Amendment, but if we take out the words we make the ban on publication absolute and it will not be possible to publish anything at all. This is something I do not want. I wish to see everything published.

In the circumstances, if the Amendment is pressed to a Division, I shall have to abstain. I hope that my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Cheltenham (Major Hicks Beach), having aired his views, will withdraw the Amendment so that we can pass on to other Amendments which go more to the foundation of the matter.

I regard the Amendment as a good one but, as the matter has again been aired, and there is virtually no chance of the Bill ever reaching the Statute Book, I shall be only too pleased to withdraw it. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.

I beg to move, in page 1, line 18, to leave out "such deceased person"and to insert:

"a person dying after the passing of this Act."

This is not one of the more important Amendments on the Notice Paper and no doubt we can deal with it at no great length. The point is this. As from what date is the Bill to operate, in other words, in respect of what wills? At the moment, if a person, at the time of the passing—

Order. This is really consequential and there is no point in dealing with it. It is consequential on a previous Amendment.

It has been discussed on a previous occasion?

Yes.

If you please, Mr. Deputy-Speaker. I have formally moved it, and I will leave it there.

I beg to second the Amendment.

I beg to move, in page 2, line 2, to leave out "twenty-five "and to insert "twenty."

May we discuss at the same time, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, the Amendment in my name to leave out "twenty-five "and insert "ten "?

Yes, if that is convenient.

The purpose of the Amendment is comparatively simple. The proviso to Clause 1 reads:

"Provided that this Act shall not apply—

(a) if the publication takes place not less than twenty-five years after the death of the deceased person; or …"

All I seek to do is to substitute for twenty-five years a period of twenty years, and I understand that the Amendment being discussed at the same time is designed to reduce the period of twenty-five years to ten years.

In Committee, there was considerable discussion on this matter. The hon. and learned Member for Liverpool, Edge Hill (Mr. A. J. Irvine) moved an Amendment to reduce the period to five years. It is interesting to consider the reply of the promoters of the Bill when they refused to accept that Amendment. My Amendment today is intended as a compromise to meet the point raised in that reply. My hon. Friend the Member for Gains-borough (Mr. Kimball) said:

"We have looked very carefully at this Amendment because we should like to be able to accept it. I feel I must tell the Committee very clearly the reasons why, after consideration, I cannot accept it. The first reason is that it is not always possible to settle an estate within five years."

That, I think, is a matter of argument.

"That probably happens most frequently in the case of larger estates, in which often there is locally much public interest, but one of the main points of the Bill is to try to insist that we have some accuracy in reporting on people's estates, whether they be large or small, and it is not always possible within a five year period to assess the true amount of an estate."

As I say, the Amendment seeks solely to try to overcome the difficulty which the hon. Member felt. He went on to tell us about a story which was told to him by a distinguished Scottish solicitor which I will not repeat.

Then we come to the hon. Member's other argument. At the bottom of col. 58 he said:

"There is another argument I ask the Committee to consider. One of the main purposes of the Bill, as I have said all along, is to protect some girl who receives a sum of money, perhaps from a God-parent or a near relation, at a very early age. I think it fair to give that child the chance to clock on the age of 21 or even her 25th birthday. Someone said it would reduce her marriage prospects if she did not know what money she had been left …".—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Standing Committee C, 21st January, 1959; c. 58.]

The whole purport of the hon. Members argument, as I understand it, was that he thought that the period of five years was too short. Therefore, I have ventured to suggest the period of 20 years. I should have thought that that was, if anything, much too long a period. However, I am quite prepared to meet hon. Members and I very much hope that they will feel able to accept the Amendment.

I feel very strongly on this point, and, unless my mind is changed in the course of further discussion on the Bill, I should be inclined to press the Amendment to a Division if it is not acceptable.

rose—

Does the hon. Member rise to second the Amendment?

I beg to second the Amendment.

That was my chief object in rising, Mr. Deputy-Speaker. I would not wish it to be thought that it was my only object, but it was certainly my primary object.

I am glad to have the opportunity of seconding the Amendment so ably moved by the hon. and gallant Member for Cheltenham (Major Hicks Beach). It raises a point of considerable importance and principle in connection with the Bill. I have not previously had an opportunity of saying that I am wholeheartedly opposed to the Bill. It is a mischievous Bill and is thoroughly ill conceived. It is contrary to the public interest and to the interests of freedom and information in which I believe. I therefore gladly seize the opportunity of seconding any Amendment which, like so many others which I have not had the opportunity of either seconding or supporting, seeks to mitigate the mischief of the Bill.

If we look at Clause 1 as amended in Committee, we are faced with a proposition which I find abhorrent, namely, that there would be an absolute restriction on the publication of the contents of wills and the amounts of estates. I object to that. If we turn to page 2, we find a series of provisos couched in a form calculated to reduce the mischief of the operative parts of Clause 1.

3.45 p.m.

The Amendment seeks to carry a stage further the mitigation of the objectionable features of the Bill. As I understand it, the Bill would impose a period of 25 years before publication of the details of a will was permitted. The hon. and gallant Member for Cheltenham said that 25 years was far too long and that the period should be 20 years. I gather that my hon. Friends the Members for Deptford (Sir L. Plummer), Lewisham, North (Mr. MacDermot) and St. Pancras, North (Mr. K. Robinson) would go even further. They think that it should be not 25 or 20 years but 10 years. In my opinion, ten years is far too long. It ought to be 10 months or even ten weeks or ten days.

Whatever the period, I support the Amendment because the shorter the period, the better. I am against any delay in this respect.

If my hon. Friend is against any delay at all, does he appreciate that by seconding the Amendment he has deprived himself of the opportunity of seconding the Amendment to reduce the period to ten years?

I certainly had not appreciated that. Until my hon. Friend intervened, nobody had pointed that out to me. Nor can I understand why it should prevent me from seconding the later Amendment.

They are being discussed together.

In that case, when my hon. Friend's Amendment comes to be moved, as I hope it will be, in the unlikely event of there being nobody else to second it I shall be happy to do so. At the moment, I am seconding the Amendment of the hon. and gallant Member for Cheltenham because this is the first opportunity I have had.

I desire to take the opportunity, either on this or on anybody else's Amendment, of saying that it seems quite fanciful to suggest that there is any magic about a period or 25 or 20 years or even 10 years. Either a will should be published as soon as the normal procedures have been followed of making it available in the Probate Registry for publication, or it should not be published. I am in favour of publication. That has always been the rule in this country. It is a matter of public interest. I am against any interference with the freedom of the Press and the freedom of the subject as we have hitherto enjoyed it.

I regard the Bill as misconceived and couched with a view to preventing publication. If we have to descend to a discussion of what is the most relevant period of waiting before we get publication, I think that 25 years is far too long. Twenty years would be preferable, but I much prefer the Amendment of my hon. Friend the Member for St. Pancras, North for ten years. My only regret is that, as far as I had been able to study the Order Paper, there was no Amendment which proposed reducing the period to fifteen years, ten years, five years or, as I have said, ten months or ten weeks. My position on the Bill is faute, de mieux. I support and second the Amendment and I hope that in the course of our discussion other Amendments will be proposed which I can support with equal, if not greater, vigour.

I am sure that we all welcome this formidable accession of strength to those of us who oppose the Bill, the accession of strength which has conic in the person of the hon. Member for Islington, East (Mr. E. Fletcher). Like him, I find myself in slight difficulty, because the Amendment proposed by my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Cheltenham (Major Hicks Beach) comes before that of the hon. Member for Deptford (Sir L. Plummer). I understand that we are considering both together, but it seems unlikely that we shall get much further today than considering them and that the discussion will have to be resumed on another occasion, when we may have separate Divisions upon them.

This matter was discussed in Committee, on a proposal by the hon. and learned Member for Liverpool, Edge Hill (Mr. A. J. Irvine), to bring the time down to five years. The first answer by my hon. Friend the Member for Gains-borough (Mr. Kimball) was that five years was quite often not long enough to wind up an estate. The second was the curiously Victorian argument that young ladies' marriage prospects might be affected if they were not protected by the Bill. His argument was that if a young lady's parents died when she was in infancy she needed to be protected by the Bill until she had reached an age at which she could hook a man on her own merits, without consideration of the amount of money she had been left.

While once again regretting the absence today of my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough, although I quite understand it, I hope that we shall have from the sponsors of the Bill a fuller explanation than that as to why the time should be twenty-five years. The number of estates which it takes more than ten years—or less—to wind up must be minimal. The number of estates about which within that period one cannot get a fairly accurate idea of their size, and of the amount of duty to be paid upon them, a detail which, with other details, it is now possible to publish, must be very small indeed.

I incline to support the Amendment of the hon. Member for Deptford, rather than that of my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Cheltenham, not out of any lack of respect for my hon. and gallant Friend, but because the shorter the period may be the better I shall be pleased I think that there is an important point of principle here. If the only arguments against the Amendment are, first, the length of time for winding up an estate and, secondly, the difficulty over the marriage portions or marriage possibilities of what must be a very small number of young ladies who were infants at the time that their parents died, it seems to me that there can be very little serious argument against the Amendment at all.

I am reluctant to forestall my hon. Friend the Member for Deptford (Sir L. Plummer), but the hon. Member for Gravesend (Mr. Kirk) made a statement which needs a certain amount of elucidation. He said that when we resume discussion of the Bill at another time we shall be able to have two Divisions upon the Amendments. What I should like to ask you, Mr. Speaker, is, what happens if both Amendments are carried by those Divisions, the Amendment to reduce the period from twenty-five to twenty years, and the Amendment to reduce it from twenty-five to ten?

The Question I shall put is, "That 'twenty-five' stand part of the Bill." If it is decided that "twenty-five "stand part, that will exclude any other number.

But suppose that "twenty-five "does not stand part?

In the event of "twenty-five "not standing part it will be for the House to turn its attention to what figure should go in.

Surely, Mr. Speaker, if the first Amendment is carried, so that the word "twenty" is written into the Bill, the words "twenty-five" will no longer exist in the Bill but be left out. Is not the true position that if the first Amendment is carried on a Division it will be impossible for the House to vote upon the second Amendment?

There are two Questions. The first thing to decide is whether or not the words "twenty-five "shall stand part of the Bill. If it is decided that they shall stand part of the Bill, that is the end of that. If, however, it is decided that they shall not stand part of the Bill it will then be for the House to decide whether "twenty" or "ten "should go in. Those in favour of twenty would probably vote for that, and those in favour of ten would vote against it. It can be decided by the normal process of a Division which figure should be used to fill up the blank which the House will have created. I hope that that is clear.

I am obliged to my lion. Friend the Member for St. Pancras, North (Mr. K. Robinson) for having elucidated the position and saved us from getting into some trouble. I would make an earnest appeal to the hon. and gallant Member for Cheltenham (Major Hicks Beach) not to press his Amendment and to let mine stand. We have shown a great spirit of co-operation on the Bill. An earlier Amendment moved by the hon. and gallon Member for Cheltenham was attempting to do something with which I did not agree, nevertheless, I did not want it thought that we were trying to hamstring the Bill or were showing a spirit of non co-operation with its sponsors. I do not assume that we shall get very far in the next four minutes, but when this matter comes up again I would ask the hon. and gallant Member—and I put it no more strongly than that—to consider whether he will withdraw in favour of my Amendment. I should be very grateful if he did so.

The reason why I say this is that between the Amendment moved so ably in Committee by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Liverpool, Edge Hill (Mr. A. J. Irvine) and the twenty-five years contained in the Bill there is a considerable gap. My Amendment to reduce the period from twenty-five years to ten years is an attempt to find a compromise between the two. The hon. and gallant Member's Amendment is not. I think that he has been a little naughty and has proposed to reduce the period of twenty-five years to twenty years to give himself an opportunity of expressing his views.

I do not believe that anybody is concerned about what happens in the ten-year period. It will be within the memory of the House that my hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey (Mr. Mellish) made a great deal of play at one time about the effect on the legatee who inherited £800. He mentioned the queues outside the house and the Press interest and so on. It is inconceivable that over a period of ten years a continued interest would be shown.

Furthermore, in a ten-year period the people responsible for probate would have room for manceuvre and time to produce a second affidavit, because there would be no great hurry. It is true that in the case of a great estate there would be still some interest up to ten years, but I think that ten years is the suitable time. Therefore, I hope that this suggested compromise between the two extreme points of view will be acceptable and that the hon. and gallant Member for Cheltenham will give sympathetic consideration at the appropriate time to the point I have made.

I had not intended to intervene in the debate, but I have been considerably surprised that on a Private Members' day a Bill of this importance is being discussed and Amendments of such a nature are being put forward. I agree with the hon. Member for Deptford (Sir L. Plummer) when he suggests that ten years is a much more suitable time than twenty-five years to be regarded as the time after which publication of a will shall take place. I certainly think that even ten years is an exceedingly long period. The hon. Member has rightly said that the interest exhibited by the general public in what has been left by certain individuals is great at the moment of the death of those individuals, but it seems inconceivable that the public would sustain that interest for a period of ten years.

I have known the hon. Member for Deptford for a long time, and I am surprised at the modesty of his Amendment. It may be that he has been extremely modest in the Amendment because he hopes to take with him in his views hon. Members on both sides of the House who might have strong feelings on the subject. I very much doubt whether—

My aim this evening is to show that many domestic tragedies are arising out of the call up. In particular, I want to ask that, on humanitarian grounds, two particular categories of men should both be exempted from the call-up, or if the men are already serving, that they should be released on compassionate grounds. The two categories I have in mind are, first, those men who are married, with a child or young children, and, second, those who are living with a widowed mother, who is living on her own or with young children.

I hope it will be understood that I am in no way accusing the Minister of harshness in this matter. In fact, the hon. Gentleman the Parliamentary Secretary has a justified reputation on all sides of this House for the opposite of harshness, because in his previous position he did all he could to relieve hardship. I am, therefore, not blaming the Minister, but the present system.

It is a striking fact that today young people are maturing sexually much earlier than they used to do. Very large numbers are married and have children by the age of 20. I have done a little research, and, I find that out of 163,000 National Service men, no fewer than 21,000 are married. That is a figure of one in eight, and very many of these have children.

Members of Parliament have many unfortunate and unhappy people coming to their advice bureaux. One of the saddest cases I can remember recently was the visit of a young National Service man and his wife to my advice bureau, each carrying a sleeping baby.

The father was away in the Army and the mother was quite incapable of looking after the home and her babies without his help. In addition, she could not manage financially on the allowance, and the debts and bills were beginning to accumulate. She was going frantic with worry. This National Service man has been absent without obtaining leave three times in order to be with his wife. The police knew exactly where to find him. They went straight to his home and found him in the back kitchen with his family, where in my view he should have been instead of being away in the Forces peeling potatoes or square-bashing or generally wasting his time. This man had to go to a military jail for that offence.

I remember another occasion when I was asked to meet a young Service man at 10.30 at night in the dark on a street corner at Salford because he was on the run. The police were after him and I advised him to catch the midnight train back to his unit, which he reluctantly did. I know of another case where a National Service man had been absent without obtaining leave no fewer than six times in order to be with his family, and for no other purpose. He served a considerable period in an Army jail.

I maintain that these men are not criminals but victims—the victims of the present unfair and unnecessary rules. I know personally of nine cases of men who went absent without leave in Salford. There must be many other cases in the city of which I am not aware. How many cases must there be throughout the country if that is the position in only one place? I believe that insistence on the call-up in such cases is breaking up many happy homes and happy marriages. I am sure that, without my going further into this point, the natural and obvious dangers will be apparent to the Minister when there is this separation of young people.

Now for the widowed mothers, who are often elderly, unwell and in a highly nervous state. Then the breadwinner is taken out of the home. I know that in 1,200 cases young men were given their release last year, but in my experience it is only if the widowed mother is seriously ill that the son will get exemption. I am asking that it should not he necessary to prove serious illness on the part of the widow for relief to be given because in some cases when the young man is taken out of the home the widowed mother cracks up.

I will quote a case of which I have personal knowledge. The father was dying of cancer of the liver and there were doctors' notes to this effect. I am blaming the Under-Secretary of State for War in respect of this case because he had the facts before him. The mother had had a serious internal operation and yet she had to lift the dying man from the bed on to the commode, which the doctor said she should not do. In addition, there was a young girl of eleven who had been sent to an open air school because of lung trouble. Despite those conditions, I failed to get the young man either a compassionate discharge or even a compassionate release. The best I could achieve was to get him moved to a barracks near his home. The father died, now the mother is seriously ill, but the son is still in the Forces. I say that that is altogether wrong.

Nor should financial hardship be ignored, but, strangely enough, this is one of the factors which the Ministry completely ignores. Its argument is that financial hardship is cared for by the hardship grant, but is it? Take the case of a widow and two young children. The financial grant is roughly on National Assistance levels, which are not good enough. The widow will get £2 5s, herself, 18s, for each child, 10s. 6d. family allotment from the son in the Forces and. say, 14s, rent allowance, a total of five guineas. Some of these men, particularly those who have completed their apprenticeship before going into the Forces, are skilled men who might have been earning £10, £12, or £14 a week. Overnight, the income is more than halved. There are serious financial reasons why exemption should be granted.

I must admit that yesterday I was discussing this matter with an hon. and gallant Member, a certain well-known colonel. He told me I was "letting my bleeding heart run away with my bloody head ". My view is that if there were a few more bleeding hearts in this House there would be fewer weeping widows in other houses. We are sent here to look after these people who are helpless. If we were at war there could be an argument for calling these men up, but we are not at war and the last National Service man is due to come out in December, 1962—in my view, not before time.

As most of them would tell us, they are wasting their time. Thanks to improved recruitment, there is no longer a need for these men. Most of the generals have more men than they know what to do with. In the last few weeks certain classes of teachers have been exempted. If we can exempt certain classes of teachers, I cannot see why these people, who may he in far greater need, should not also be free. What I am seeking is in my view completely practicable. It is the exemption or discharge of these two categories of men.

I want to stress that five similar categories already exist. It is not widely known—I wish it were—that two years ago the Government made certain relaxations. They stated that on the face of it there were certain qualifications which would provide grounds both for exemption and for discharge. I shall mention one or two of them: where a man is a widower or is separated from his wife and has children dependent upon him—that is a very good ground; where a man has relatives constantly dependent on him; or where a man has a family business which cannot be carried on under alternative arrangements.

I must hasten to add that there are thousands and thousands of National Service men, or potential National Service men who are completely unaware of these qualifications. I urge that they should be brought to their attention, either by posting notices in their units or in all employment exchanges. All I am seeking to do is to add two categories to those five existing categories. I think this could be done administratively. I am only a private Member and have no experience of these matters, but surely the Minister of Labour and the Minister of Defence could get together and work out a way of arranging this. I believe that if men really want to do a thing they will find a way of doing it.

Why should not a letter be sent by the Ministry of Labour to the tribunals adding these two categories and making it clear that there should not be call-up in these cases? This real reform would not cost the country a penny. Indeed, it would save the country very large sums of money. Some of us are determined to stick at this problem until the Government give way.

If the Minister gave his consent this afternoon I would naturally be delighted. If he cannot give his assent now, would he at least consider meeting me and other hon. Members who are concerned about this so that we might go into the matter and see whether something could not be done? It would bring tremendous relief to many homes in our country.

This is a matter in which the hon. Gentleman the Member for Salford, East (Mr. Frank Allaun) has taken a very close and continuing interest over many months, as I have seen from the Questions he has asked and the letters he has written to my right hon. Friend. I agree with a great many things in his speech, but I did not agree with his suggestion that National Service men were doing nothing but wasting their time during their two years' service. When I served in the Army I took the view that I was wasting quite a lot of my time, but I am sure that, in fact, it was not all completely wasted.

It is important, at the beginning of this debate, to point out that there are three ways in which the compulsion of National Service is relaxed. No doubt the hon. Gentleman knows what they are, but they are not clear in some minds, and I admit that they were not particularly clear in my mind fourteen or fifteen months ago before I came to the Ministry of Labour. There is exemption, there is deferment, and there is postponement of military service. We are discussing this afternoon the question of postponement.

As the hon. Gentleman knows, the National Service Act, 1948, provided for men to apply for postponement on the grounds of exceptional hardship. The principles on which this hardship should be determined have been set out in statutory regulations. The hon. Member drew our attention to the amendment of those regulations which was made just over two years ago and which made certain important changes in the direction which he no doubt welcomed very much.

The first was one that he mentioned of allowing postponement in cases of business hardship when it was not reasonable to make other arrangements for carrying on the business. As he knows, that was an extension of the original view of this question which merely allowed time during which the reorganisation could be carried out. The second important one was the extension of the maximum period of postponement from six months to two years on initial application and a year on renewal application.

The third is important in view of what the hon. Gentleman said, because these categories, some of which he mentioned, are not categories which automatically receive a grant of postponement. But under the amending regulations of 1957 out officers at the Ministry of Labour were told to make a favourable assumption in certain cases. The case of the widower, or the man who is separated from his wife and has children living with him; the case of the young man having a major responsibility for the care of younger brothers and sisters, and other cases which the hon. Gentleman mentioned, came under this category and our officers were asked to look favourably and particularly sympathetically at each of such cases and consider whether it was a special case for postponement.

Perhaps I can say a word about the procedure. As the hon. Member knows, every man who registers for National Service can apply for postponement. He is given a leaflet when he attends for his medical examination, and he can apply for postponement, generally within a couple of days of his medical examination, although, in practice, we do not very often refuse late applications. My right hon. Friend can grant applications for postponement, but he cannot refuse them. If he does not allow an application, it must be referred to the military service hardship committee. There are various other changes which were made in later amending regulations about the hearing of those applications.

The hon. Member has appealed to my right hon. Friend from time to time, and has done so again this afternoon, for what he defined as automatic exemption or compassionate release for certain categories of men who are married with a child or children, or men living with widowed mothers.

I am not asking for automatic exemption. I am asking merely that it should be announced that they will be considered in the five similar categories as having prima facie good grounds for postponement.

I was assuming that the hon. Member was going further than that and I hope that I shall be able to make it plain that there is absolutely no doubt that the categories he has mentioned are sympathetically considered by our officers.

I understood the hon. Member to be arguing the wider question of whether these people should ever be called up. That would place us in considerable difficulties because, as I think he will agree, it is extremely difficult in these matters to balance the degree of hardship. I think that he would agree that certain people in other categories, for instance, men who are married without children, may on certain occasions—if their wives happen to be very nervous or anxious about their being called up for National Service—suffer more greatly than other men who are married with a child or children.

It would be difficult to specify certain categories which should be automatically exempt from National Service, quite apart from the practical difficulties of putting it into operation. If the hon. Member is asking what he just indicated in his interruption, I can assure him that I will take further steps to make quite clear to those who have to decide these matters—although I think that they are already clear about it—that if there are cases where any question of hardship arises, especially in the categories which the hon. Gentleman has mentioned, then they should be considered sympathetically.

I understand that I take the hon. Member with me in saying that I am convinced that every case must continue to be considered on its merits and that where there is shown to be hardship we have been ready to consider postponement, as I think the hon. Member would agree. I took a look at the figures of applications and applications granted over the last two or three years. The figures show remarkable increases. In 1956 out of just over 4,000 applications, 2,400 were allowed, a percentage of 59. That figure increased in 1957 and in 1958, there were 6,300 applications of which 4,300 were allowed, that is, 67 per cent. That means that two out of every three applications were granted in 1958.

I hope that I have said enough to convince the hon. Gentleman that I take a very sympathetic view of this question. Whatever the categories are which our officers are asked to look at particularly sympathetically, I am convinced that every application is looked at sympathetically. If the hon. Gentleman is in any way dissatisfied about any case, he knows that if he writes to my right hon. Friend or myself we will look at it as carefully as we can. I understand that a number of letters which the hon. Gentleman has written to my right hon. Friend have brought desirable results, but if he would like to meet me with some of his hon. Friends who feel like him about this I should be only too willing to do so. We can then have a further discussion about it and the hon. Gentleman can make suggestions by which these occasional cases of great hardship which he seems to be convinced escape through the procedure can be looked at and the objective which we all share, of trying to avoid hardships, can be attained.

I thank the Parliamentary Secretary very much for saying, first, that he is prepared to meet some of my hon. Friends and myself to discuss this matter, and, secondly, for his statement, which I welcome warmly, that these categories will be looked at sympathetically by his officers. In my experience these two categories have not been accepted up to now in cases I have quoted.

I want to make clear to the hon. Gentleman that a great many National Service men who happen to be in these two categories have received postponement because of hardship. I am not suggesting that every National Service man has, and I understand that the hon. Gentleman does not want that. Perhaps it would be easiest if the hon. Gentleman and I meet, and we can discuss this further. I am sure that we have the same objective in mind.