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

It is, I am informed, an ordeal for an experienced hon. Member to present and pilot through the House a Private Member's Bill. It is, therefore, a double ordeal for a new hon. Member who has this honour and responsibility. This is a rather technical Bill which makes some minor but important adjustments to the law of Scotland. It is, therefore, necessary for me to consult my notes rather closely, and in doing so I ask for the understanding of the House.

In 1958, the hon. Member for Chesterfield (Sir G. Benson), who is a member of the Home Secretary's Advisory Council on the Treatment of Offenders, was successful in promoting a Private Member's Bill carrying out one of the recommendations of that Council in its Report on short-term sentences of imprisonment. That Bill became the First Offenders Act, 1958.

The effect of that Act is to require a court of summary jurisdiction in England and Wales, before it passes a sentence of imprisonment on a first offender, to satisfy itself by due inquiry that there is no other method of dealing with the person. Although it is perhaps too early to assess the effects of that Act, I am sure that it will be a valuable safeguard against the imposition of unnecessary sentences of imprisonment.

That Act applies only to England and Wales. The Bill now before the House has as its main purpose the extension of similar provisions to Scotland. This is not a case of the Scots slavishly following the English. I am satisfied that a case for the Bill can be made out on purely Scottish considerations. I am strengthened in that view by the recommendations of the Scottish Advisory Council on the Treatment of Offenders, of which my hon. Friend the Member for Dunbartonshire, West (Mr. Steele) is a member.

Since I announced my intention to introduce a Bill on the subject of first offenders, the Secretary of State for Scotland has received from the Scottish Advisory Council a Report on the subject of short terms of imprisonment. There has not been time for that Report to be printed, but, because of its bearing on the Bill, the Secretary of State for Scotland has placed copies of it in the Library. It would be out of place for me to comment on the Report generally, but when it is published it will give us plenty of material for thought. At this stage I must deal only with those aspects of the Report which have a bearing on the Bill.

The most important parts of the Report are the paragraphs in which the Council makes its considered assessment of the value and effects of short terms of imprisonment. The Council has undoubtedly gone to great trouble to assess fully the effect of short sentences of imprisonment and their value in preventing further offences.

With your permission, Mr. Speaker, I should like to read paragraph 28, in which the Council sums up its conclusions. It says:

"After carefully weighing the value and effects of the short sentence we find ourselves in agreement with the English Advisory Council's view that it has 'a definite and necessary place in our criminal law.' But we are convinced that it is too widely used in present practice. For some offences, such for instance as child neglect, it can seldom be justifiable, particularly if grave consequences would ensue for the family. And for some offenders, notably those under 21 or who have not previously been found guilty of an offence, we think that short-term imprisonment should only be ordered in the last resort, since in all probability the effects on the offender will be harmful rather than beneficial."

I was glad to see that one of the Council's practical recommendations was that there should be a first offenders Measure for Scotland. Having reached the conclusion that short terms of imprisonment are too widely used in present Scottish practice, it was only necessary that the Council should regard first offenders—those persons who, in the past, had not committed any serious offence against the criminal law—as being a class of persons who should be singled out for special consideration.

The Council obtained statistics, which it has published in the Appendix to its Report, showing that, in 1958 1,086 persons who had no previous convictions of any kind were sentenced by the Scottish courts to short sentences of imprisonment. I do not wish to criticise the courts. I am sure that all hon. Members will agree that they carry out a most difficult task both justly and well. Nor do I say that first offenders must never be sentenced to imprisonment. Clearly, there are cases where imprisonment, even for a short term, is the most appropriate method.

However, taking the figure of 1,086, together with the considered opinion of the Council that short sentences of imprisonment are too widely used in present practice, I am sure that there is a case for saying that some of the sentences of imprisonment on first offenders could have been avoided. As its Title indicates, the purpose of this Bill is to

"Restrict the imprisonment of first offenders in Scotland."

The Bill first prefers to Section 18 of the Criminal Justice (Scotland) Act, 1949, which provides that no court shall impose imprisonment on a person under 21 years of age unless the court is of opinion that no other method of dealing with him is appropriate, and it requires the court to obtain, from a probation officer or otherwise, and to consider information about the person's circumstances before it determines whether imprisonment is appropriate. It provides, too, that a summary court, other than the sheriff or stipendiary magistrate's court, if it decides to impose imprisonment on a person under 21, shall state the reason for the decision that no other method of dealing with the offender is appropriate.

Clause 1 (1) states that

"A court of summary jurisdiction shall not impose imprisonment on a first offender of or over the age of twenty-one …"

that is an extension—unless it is of the opinion that no other method of dealing with the person is appropriate. It will be seen that that provision, like that in the First Offenders Act, 1958, is limited to summary courts, but it may be that such a provision will one day be appropriate to High Court, sheriff court and jury cases. This is experimental.

That subsection, and subsection (2), provide that the provisions of Section 18 of the Criminal Justice (Scotland) Act, 1949, relating to inquiries by the court and to the recording of reasons by the court, other than a sheriff court or a stipendiary magistrate's court, shall apply in the case of first offenders.

Subsection (3) defines a first offender. The definition follows that in the English Act, by disregarding previous convictions for offences not punishable with imprisonment and offences committed before the age of 17. I think that the reasoning behind the definition is clear. It would be unreasonable to exclude an accused person from the safeguards of the Bill because of a conviction for a petty offence, or because of an offence committed before reaching maturity.

With subsection (4), we come to a point of difficulty. The difficulty arises from the principle of Scottish criminal law that only previous convictions for cognate offences—that is, offences of a nature similar to the offence of which the person before the court has been convicted—may be brought to the notice of the court before it decides on sentence.

I shall not comment on the merits of this principle, which is one of the many examples of the provisions of Scottish criminal law designed to ensure that the position of the person before the court is not prejudiced. It will be seen, however, that the provisions of the Bill necessitate a minor breach of this principle. I would not say that a first offender was a person against whom no previous convictions for offences punishable with imprisonment had been libelled, because that would mean that a court might find itself dealing with a person with a long criminal record as a first offender. But if we accept the definition of a first offender, contained in subsection (3), we have to establish machinery by which the court can be made aware of convictions for non-cognate offences, which are not, in the normal course, brought to the attention of the court.

Subsection (4) does this. It entitles the prosecutor, should a person who has previous convictions of offences of a non-cognate nature claim treatment as a first offender, to bring such offences to the notice of the court. Provision has to be made to enable the convicted person to challenge the previous convictions adduced by the prosecutor, and for this purpose subsections (2) and (3) of Section 31 of the Summary Jurisdiction (Scotland) Act, 1954—which deal with procedures for proving, and challenging, previous convictions—would apply.

The breach of principle to which I have referred has caused me some concern. I was, therefore, glad to see that the Report of the Scottish Advisory Council on the Treatment of Offenders accepted the breach as being justified. In this connection, I should like to quote from paragraph 34 of the Council's Report. It reads:

"We are satisfied, however, that the rule regarding cognate offences should not be allowed to stand in the way of the desideratum that a court should inform itself fully about a first offender's personality and circumstances when it has under consideration the drastic penalty of imprisonment. Already an accused person's criminal history emerges in court when a probation officer has been required to provide a background report or when a report is submitted on his suitability for borstal training or corrective training. It is strictly relevant to the question whether the offender should be given a short term of imprisonment that he has previously been found guilty of an offence for which he could have been punished by imprisonment, whatever the nature of that offence may have been."

I believe that this Bill will make a worth-while, though modest, contribution to criminal justice in Scotland. I feel that its provisions will command general acceptance, and it is, therefore, with some confidence that I ask the House to give it a Second Reading.

I am sure we all congratulate the hon. Member for Glasgow, Scotstoun (Mr. Small) on the very clear and detailed analysis he has given of his Bill. At the same time, I think it might, perhaps, have been wiser to submit with the Bill an Explanatory Memorandum. That would have saved the hon. Gentleman a great deal of trouble, and also saved us a lot of trouble in looking up the various relevant Acts which form the basis of his Bill.

I imagine that the House will agree with me when I say that there are three phases in the life of a first offender. The first is the home, where he is subject to the control of his parents. The second is when he is at school and subject to the discipline of his masters. The third is when he reaches the age which is dealt with in the Bill and becomes subject to the ordinary common law.

I imagine, also, that all of us here today and probably others elsewhere have at some time or another been first offenders, at any rate in regard to the first two categories which I have mentioned. I imagine, too, that the attitude of all reasonable, intelligent people towards the problems of life after the age of 17 and in the future is, to some extent, guided, controlled and directed by their experience both at home and at school.

There are, of course, many who are swayed by extraneous factors, emotion, theory and sentiment, but I should like to describe briefly, and I hope the House will bear with me for a minute or two, my experience as a first offender. I should like also to state the consequences of that first offence and the effect that those consequences had.

When I was about 10 years old the jam had just been made for the season and we were all warned not to touch it until it had, what is called, "set". At that time I was very partial to black currants, whether fresh or in jam, so I fell. I demolished most of a pot of jam before I felt that I had had enough. The crime was discovered and we were questioned. We were quite a big family. I suppose that if I had confessed straight away I should probably have been denied jam for a week or a month or so, but I did not. I lied. I denied my offence.

It was in the summer and I was wearing a white shirt which, I admit, had lost some of its pristine freshness, but it was still fresh enough to disclose some traces of the blackcurrant jam. The consequences were fairly obvious. My father was an upright and kindly man, but one with, in my opinion at that time, an exaggerated regard for truth. He gave me twelve of the best with the cane which was always kept at hand for that purpose. Oddly enough, one never sees canes about nowadays. It seems a pity. The caning was applied to that part of one's anatomy where it hurts but does not harm, and from that day I gave up lying—in a big way, I mean.

The second time was at school. Smoking was forbidden at my school in term time. Unfortunately, I had got into the habit of smoking at home, and so one afternoon I was smoking a cigarette in a place which we called the "bogs" in the hope that the prevailing odour of the place would dispel the aroma of the cigarette. It did not, however, do so in the nostrils of a passing master who was entering the place for a more legitimate purpose. So I was caught again, and once more I got twelve strokes of the cane, this time from the headmaster, and on this occasion with considerably greater strength. I never smoked at school again. These are the consequences and the effects of the treatment of the first offender in those two stages.

Now we come to the age group with which the Bill deals. I suppose that sentences to be served in detention centres, remand homes, Borstal institutions and the like may have an effect—it may be good or it may be bad—in changing the behaviour of an adolescent who, through weakness, accident or design, has embarked upon a course of law breaking. But, for myself, I agree with the hon. Member for Scotstoun; I am strongly opposed to imprisonment of any kind for first offenders, or, indeed, for any young offenders until other methods, already proved efficacious at home and at school, have been tried.

As the hon. Member for Scotstoun has quoted from the Scottish Advisory Council's Report for 1958, perhaps I also may be permitted to refer to it. I was shocked to read the figure of first offenders. Of the 11,184 who were sent to prison in Scotland for six months or less, as the hon. Gentleman said, 1,086 of them were actually first offenders. I do not think that there can be any excuse for that. We are merely cluttering up the prisons which are already cluttered up too much.

I was even more shocked at an incident which was brought to my notice not very long ago and about which I wrote to the Secretary of State for Scotland. A youth was sentenced for an indefinite term to Borstal, and, of course, there was no room for him at the institution. Believe it or not, that youth was actually sent to Barlinnie Prison, and for two months he was associated intimately with hardened, cynical and depraved criminals. What hope had that youth of emerging undefiled or unscathed? Therefore, I strongly hold the view, which I have frequently expressed in the House, that, with one exception which I will mention in a minute, all first offenders should be warned, fined or put on probation.

The one exception, of course, as the House will probably appreciate, is that of crimes of violence against the person, or in this case, I think, even against animals. I believe that for these offences the young law breaker should receive summary corporal punishment on the premises of the court. I admit that that would seem to infringe a basic principle of our common law, the right of appeal, but I believe that it would be well worth while to take that risk rather than incur the six weeks' or two months' delay which is inevitable if the right of appeal is accorded.

I imagine that the sponsors of the Bill, including the hon. Member for Scotstoun who introduced it, will not agree with me, but I suggest that my proposals are worth a trial and might well prevent even more serious offences from taking place later. They would also solve the present almost insoluble problem of prison space, which I have just mentioned. They would have one more effect, a very important effect. They would remove the permanent taint of being branded as a criminal with a police record.

I think that is one of the most serious effects of sending young people to prison. Their home life and every possible job is influenced by the prison record. Every young woman to whom a first offender may pay attention and hope ultimately to make his wife is influenced. The family is influenced as well. To my mind it is a degrading thing that a young person, who has perhaps stolen some fruit or broken an electric light bulb in a railway carriage or committed some similar offence, should be dealt with in that way. Such offences should be removed altogether from the category for which a sentence of imprisonment is imposed.

There is another benefit which would follow from my proposals. It is that they would prevent, or at any rate lessen, the risk of a youth being permanently defiled in body and mind by mixing with the sophisticated and probably depraved criminals whom he would be bound to meet and mix with in prison. I support the Bill, with the reservation that corporal punishment would be a better solution still.

On behalf of my hon. Friends, I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Scotstoun (Mr. Small) on the manner in which he has introduced the Bill. He was exceptionally lucky in securing a place in the Ballot at his first attempt. I have never yet been so successful. He was equally lucky in securing a position which enabled him to bring in his Bill sufficiently early in the day to enable it to be discussed adequately. I am sure that the Bill will commend itself to hon. Members on both sides of the House.

My hon. Friend deals mainly with the criminal aspects of this proposed legislation and the hon. Member for Ayr (Sir T. Moore) brought the House back to the human aspects. It is in its human aspects that this Bill is important and in that respect it is not quite such a modest Bill as my hon. Friend the Member for Scotstoun may think. It contains great possibilities. It is likely to have an effect on the moulding of the lives of people, and in my view that is exceedingly important, much more important than a number of other things which we undertake in this House. Anyone who can take action which will help to mould and make better people's lives is doing a valuable job, even though the legislation involved may appear to be detailed and unimportant.

The important thing is to give the first offender a chance. It is possible that quite an ordinary person, with the usual mixture of good and bad, may commit an offence, appear before a court and find himself sentenced to a term of imprisonment. No one can tell what the effect of that punishment may have on such a person. It is a great ordeal. We all know how a boy may enter the Services at 18 and return home at the age of 20 quite a different boy.

Anyone who knows the conditions of our prisons today and the manner in which they are grossly overcrowded—we dealt with this subject recently when we discussed conditions in Barlinnie Prison—knows the effect which is likely to follow from a term of imprisonment and the change it may bring about in a young person. The provisions of this Bill would make it possible to avoid that. In fact, we are saying to the courts, "You should not do this in the case of a first offender. You should punish him in some other way." I think that that is desirable.

The figure given by the Advisory Committee, 1,086 first offenders sent to prison in 1958, is astonishing. Far be it from me to criticise the courts, but it seems to me that possibly not too much thought is given to the way in which first offenders are treated by the courts. If that be so, it would seem desirable that we should assist them to treat first offenders in the manner which we consider best.

The provisions of the Bill would contribute also to preventing the overcrowding of our prisons. If we could reduce by half the number of first offenders referred to by the Advisory Committee we should be doing something to relieve the pressure on prison accommodation and to ease the difficult job of prison warders. Therefore, from the humane and the practical point of view, the Bill is a thoroughly good Measure.

It is true, as was said by my hon. Friend, that it would breach a principle of Scottish law. But I do not think that is a serious breach and it is not of a character likely to cause any danger. It would be necessary to make that breach if the Bill is to work, but I do not think we should have too many headaches about it. If the breach went further, of course, we should have to consider it seriously.

I do not wish to detain the House further, in view of the fact that there is another important debate to follow, but I thought it right that we on this side of the House should extend our congratulations to my hon. Friend on his good fortune in securing this opportunity to introduce his Bill and on the manner in which he took advantage of the opportunity.

I do not always agree with the hon. Member for Edinburgh, East (Mr. Willis), but I do this morning, particularly in relation to his observations about the hon. Member for Glasgow, Scotstoun (Mr. Small). Hon. Members on this side of the House will recall our companionship and friendship with the predecessor of the hon. Member for Scotstoun. Glasgow has been described as "no mean city." and I submit that the hon. Member for Scotstoun has already proved himself to be no mean Member of Parliament. He described this Bill as a modest Measure but the modesty was not so much in the Bill as in the personality of the hon. Gentleman. I believe this to be a Bill which all will welcome.

When we are discussing legislation which applies to Scotland, we often say, if there has been similar legislation in respect of England—the hon. Member for Edinburgh, East has intervened in this way on many occasions—that again Scotland is following at the tail of the bulldog of England, or words to that effect. There are differences in Scottish law compared with the law south of the Border and we have often had discussions about them. In the case, however, I do not think that there will be any atmosphere of controversy. I was among those hon. Members who were present when the hon. Member for Chesterfield (Sir G. Benson) introduced his Measure in 1958. He introduced that Bill in the light of his many years of experience of prison matters, and particularly his understanding of, and regard for, first offenders. Many of us who did not take part in that debate were impressed by the sincerity with which he spoke and with the knowledge he commanded. The hon. Member who has introduced this Bill may have had similar experience, but he is newer to us in the House. However that may be, he introduced the Bill well.

The hon. Member for Edinburgh, East said that the Bill might be moving from the normal course of the application of law in Scotland. It is my belief that the courts of Scotland must apply the law as it is. In my opinion, the Advisory Committee has proved that there is a weakness in the law of Scotland in relation to first offenders, particularly young first offenders. It would not hurt us to change the law so that those who apply it should apply it in accordance with the conscience of the people.

In the centuries which have elapsed since our democratic system was first evolved, the laws of the country, especially those relating to confinement of the individual, have progressed with the increased education of people. Those of us who sit in this House are prone in the main to speak in the sense that we represent the conscience of the people of the nation. Whereas we may disagree in detail—as some will disagree with my hon. Friend the Member for Ayr (Sir T. Moore), in some of the things he said about corporal punishment, which is not included in this Bill—in the main we still express the feeling and the conscience of the people.

The conscience of the people about this Bill surely must be expressed in the question, is it right that first offenders who are dealt with in the manner described in such large numbers in Scotland should be subjected to all the things which affect their minds and physical well-being, and probably their future life?

That is the point with which the Bill deals. If passed, as passed I believe it will be, the Bill will apply to those over 21. It will afford that protection for the offending individual that is already afforded in Scotland under Scottish law to first offenders under 21. I believe that is a good thing. I agree also about the size of the numbers which have been adduced by the Advisory Committee in its Report Speaking second or third in a debate such as this on a rather brief Bill, one is inhibited by facts and figures, but those of us who have done some research in order to make an individual and intelligent contribution to the debate were shocked at the figures which have been given. We would have used them ourselves.

They have been sufficiently deployed to make it clear that there is something wrong, which the conscience of the people of Scotland would wish to see rectified. Of course, the people of Scotland, as in all civilised communities, would wish that there were not these first offenders at all, but sometimes young people become first offenders because of some spirit of adventure. They may live in the more gloomy parts of large cities in Scotland. Access to other forms of fun and games is perhaps not so easy for them as it is for those who live in countryside and in small burghs. They are naturally inclined to go with other young people and they get into trouble. That is where the danger begins: it is a form of leadership.

From my early youth I have been associated in various ways with youth training and young people, in the Scouts and particularly in the Navy. According to Admiralty instructions, I have had to deal with young people in a summary way and, in a certain degree, have had to sentence young people. One learns that that degree is probably as important as anything else, but, with the limited knowledge that it now gets, how can a court assess the character of an individual who comes before it as a first offender? If the court be inhibited from taking another course by the nature of the law, it tends to impose a penalty on the individual which may do great damage to that person. The Report of the Advisory Committee said:

"We thought it generally significant that proportionately fewer fines are imposed in Scotland than in England and Wales; that there is more imprisonment without the option of a fine in Scotland than in England and Wales—5 per cent. of all sentences as against 3·5 per cent. in England and Wales; that more sentences of imprisonment passed in Scotland than in England and Wales are short sentences—about 90 per cent. of all sentences of imprisonment in Scotland are for six months or less as against under 70 per cent. in England and Wales; that probation is less used in Scotland than in England and Wales—in 3 per cent. of cases as against 4 per cent. and that more fines result in imprisonment in Scotland than in England and Wales—about 4 per cent. as against under 1 per cent."

That last part of the quotation is significant and should perhaps be related to the higher incidence of unemployment in certain parts of Scotland. In those parts where unemployment is highest, crime is likely to be proportionately dense.

Reference has been made to the overcrowding of goals. Let us look at that point from another Scottish aspect. I understand that the average cost of keeping a man in prison is about £1 per day, but it is considerably higher for a short-term prisoner. These short sentences of imprisonment are, therefore, a considerable burden on public funds. I do not believe that those of us who are considering this Bill and those of the thinking public who will observe what we have said, will be so much concerned with the financial aspect, but it is a fact of life.

The hon. Member for Edinburgh, East and my hon. Friend the Member for Ayr referred to overcrowding. Both said that when first offenders are in prison associated with hardened and vicious people they are prone to become affected and infected by the thoughts and manner of life of hardened criminals. I suppose the fact is that some of these hardened and rather despicable characters are there in that hardened and despicable atmosphere in prison only because, as first offenders, they served sentences of six months or less for something which they felt was unfair to them and which society had imposed upon them.

The Advisory Committee went further in its Report and made the following points. The serving of short sentences in many cases makes it more rather than less likely that a first offender will give in to further criminal impulses. The immediate impact of prison tends to rob a man or woman—especially a young man or woman—of self-respect. One of the great elements for good in human life is one's own self-respect. If that be lost early in life, it is unlikely to be reconstituted in one's being and may therefore lead from a minor crime to crime of a serious character throughout life. It is further said that a sentence carries with it the loss of personal identity. That is true, for in a prison one ceases to be an individual, except in one's heart and thinking. Combined with loss of self-respect, that must have a devastating effect on young minds.

Many other points were made, but I suppose most of us present have read the Report. We welcome the Bill and support the hon. Member in his able introduction of it. When the Bill reaches its Committee stage, if it needs extra polish—though I doubt that it will need very much—I hope we shall continue there as much in harmony with the purpose of the Bill as we have been in this debate which was so ably opened by the hon. Member this morning.

May I, very shortly, add my words to the general congratulations which have been so properly offered to my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Scotstoun (Mr. Small)? He has accomplished a difficult task well.

The purpose of the Bill is to make certain that those who have the difficult task of assessing the proper sentence to be passed on a person, of whatever age, will require to give reasons for their sitting in a court of summary jurisdiction. We already have extensive legislation to deal with young persons, but the Bill applies the provisions which require consideration of sentences of imprisonment on young persons to be applied to persons more than 21 years of age.

Congratulations should also be offered to the Secretary of State for bringing forward at this stage the Report of the Scottish Advisory Council on the Treatment of Offenders, to which so much reference has been made in the debate. I hope that when that Report is published as a White Paper, as I presume it will be, it will be compulsory reading for all magistrates in Scotland.

The Report contains a great deal of valuable information and a great many very valuable comments. The most valuable is in the statistics, part of which have already been quoted by the hon. Member for Ayr (Sir T. Moore), who pointed out that 11,000 persons are imprisoned each year with sentences of less than six months and that of those rather more than 1,000 are first offenders.

I agree with the hon. Member for Ayr that the brand of prison is a bad thing with which to start life and that many persons are contaminated in prison. I agree with the hon. and gallant Member for Roxburgh, Selkirk and Peebles (Commander Donaldson) that in many cases imprisonment means loss of self-respect and that a person who is sentenced, perhaps to a short term of imprisonment, has great difficulty in getting back into society.

For those reasons, imprisonment should be avoided in all but the most difficult cases, and I hope that the effect of the Bill will be to reduce the prison population in Scotland and do so by requiring magistrates and others to think most seriously and to give adequate reasons before sentencing a first offender to imprisonment.

It is suggested that Clause 1 (4) is to some extent a breach of the common law rules relating to previous offences in Scotland. It is a breach, but, to my way of thinking, a very sensible breach. This is a rule which was founded as a protection to persons accused and found guilty of crimes. It came about in this way. In sentencing a person who was convicted of a previous offence, it was possible to refer to that previous offence as an aggravating circumstance only if that previous offence was a cognate offence, if it was of a somewhat similar character.

That was done as a protection to convicted persons, because, in the days when that came into being, most penalties were fixed penalties. The penalty was fixed on the offence and judges had little or no discretion. It dated from the time when the punishment fitted the crime.

Over the years, and by a series of Statutes, we have tried to get away from the concept of trying to make the punishment fit the crime and we now try to make the punishment fit the criminal. The theory of cognate offences should be considered in the near future and the Government might bring in a Bill, if examination showed it to be necessary, to abolish that theory and to substitute an attempt to make the punishment fit the criminal in all cases.

For those reasons I have great pleasure in supporting this most admirable and useful Bill.

I, too, support the principle of the Bill and I join hon. Members who have congratulated the hon. Member for Glasgow, Scotstoun (Mr. Small) on using his good fortune in the Ballot to introduce a Measure which, we feel, is likely to be beneficial in Scotland. The hon. Member himself explained the object of the Bill most admirably. In joining in the congratulations, I can, as a new Member also myself, comprehend something of the task which he must have had in preparing the Bill and the ordeal, to which he referred, in presenting it. He has acquitted himself very well and I am sure other new hon. Members will feel an envy for the way he has done so.

The principle of the Bill has received independent endorsement from the recent report of the Scottish Advisory Council on the Treatment of Offenders, which has been mentioned several times. That shows that, as a result of a great deal of study and investigation, the Council has concluded that more restraint in the imprisonment of first offenders would help to reduce the total number of offences. In other words, this is something which should help to prevent crime.

The chances are that many first offenders will not commit offences again, particularly if they are treated in the right way. It is with that in view and not motivated by any vague and general feelings of leniency towards crime that I approach this subject. What are the advantages which are likely to accrue to the community as a whole from a Measure on these lines? First, there is the hope that we shall avoid the risk of first offenders losing their self-respect and feeling themselves to be criminals when they find themselves in prison for the first time. I believe that the psychological effect of that is very great. What the hon. Member for Edinburgh, East (Mr. Willis) said about the human aspects of the problem was very important.

Secondly, I presume that it is hoped to avoid the risk that the first offender will find himself associating with hardened criminals in prison. It is very difficult to separate different kinds of prisoner in prison and a first offender may leave prison with very low moral standards and with an anti-social and irresponsible attitude to life. He may leave prison feeling that he will try to get what he can out of life by dishonest means, and he may emerge as a "spiv" with an anti-social outlook.

Thirdly, there is the undoubted stigma which attaches to someone who has been in prison. While a first offender is in prison, his family, his wife and children, may feel utterly ashamed that he is there. That may upset his home. When he returns he feels that he is a marked man. He may have difficulty in getting a job. If he has a special skill, of course, he may have no difficulty in finding employment, but there is no doubt that it is difficult for somebody who has been in prison to take up work again.

In a way, that is right. A future employer ought to know something of the background of his employee. There is no doubt that some employers would choose someone who had not been in prison, and it is difficult for someone who has just come out of prison to find work. There are societies which are voluntarily doing work to try to help prisoners by rehabilitating them in life, and I feel that that work should be commended, for it is helpful to the community, but let us try to keep the numbers of such people as low as we can.

Fourthly, several hon. Gentlemen have mentioned that the prisons are very full, and this is another reason why we should try not to add to the numbers there any more than we need. It simply brings more pressure upon the prison staffs and more expense to the general public. These four points seem to me important ones in favour of the principle of the Bill.

Arising out of the last one, the full prisons, I note that the incidence of crime in Scotland has increased in recent years. It has not increased, I see, as much as in England and Wales. I hope that this does not mean we are more canny, north of the Border, in avoiding detection, but it is a serious matter that crime is increasing, and I think that there must be no misapprehension outside the House that in the Bill there is any question of condoning offences or of generally reducing sentences.

The wording of the Bill does make that clear. The restraint on the imprisonment of first offenders is to be only if the court is of the opinion that there is no other method which is appropriate. There will, of course, be cases of such gravity or of so special a character that the courts must be given full discretion to commit a first offender to prison, when that is clearly fitting.

A single offence does not make a criminal, and we should work on the principle that in many cases a lapse will not recur, particularly if our system helps in this desired direction. But, if we find the same person coming up with a second or third offence, that offender must, of course, face the full rigour of a prison sentence, if that is the appropriate sentence.

The Advisory Council has also recommended wider use of probation in Scotland in place of the short prison sentence. No doubt the expansion of the probation system must be gradual, because it depends upon the supply of trained probation officers, but I believe that such an expansion could go hand in hand with the results of this Bill.

Then there is another question which I should like to mention briefly, and that is that of the suspended sentence. It has been suggested—and it has been practised—that a sentence upon a first offender be postponed for a period of grace, and if the offender does not commit another offence during that period then the sentence is mitigated or perhaps removed. I presume that this was not in the mind of the hon. Gentleman the Member for Scotstoun in drafting this Bill.

I note that the Advisory Council, on the whole, did not favour it, though it recognised that in certain cases it might be salutary, because a certain kind of offender may be influenced very much by the fact that a sentence is hanging over him. As a general rule, however, I believe that the principle should be that the punishment should follow quickly upon the offence, and, therefore, I would agree with the Advisory Council that suspended sentence should not be the general rule, and I prefer the general lines of the proposals in the Bill.

If the Bill can carry out the purposes of which I have spoken, then I think that it will make a useful improvement in the law to meet the conditions and requirements of the present day.

It would ill become me in any way to disagree with this Bill, since Scotland is only following England and Wales in this matter, and were I to do so I might be completely misinterpreted as saying that in some way Scotland should be treated differently from England and Wales. I do not think so in any way at all.

Next, I should like to congratulate the hon. Member for Glasgow, Scotstoun (Mr. Small) upon introducing the Bill and upon his luck in the Ballot, a luck which has never befallen me, and also upon the manner in which he did it. If one is to get a Private Member's Bill through the House, sometimes a difficult operation, sometimes an easy one, one must be careful in the manner one does it, careful not to offend anyone, if possible. The manner in which the hon. Member introduced his Bill is one which should be a model to other Members who have the same task with other Bills.

Having said that, and having said that I support the Bill, that I agree with the general principle of it, I must point out that it does not necessarily follow that I agree with everything that has been said by every hon. Member in this debate. To begin with—and I repeat that I support the Bill—I still say that I do not think that the Bill will get anybody very far, and I say so for two reasons.

There has been a lot said by hon. Members on both sides of the House about first offenders, people who commit trivial offences because they are led astray by the drabness of their surroundings, and so find themselves in prison. I think that whatever part of the House that talk comes from it is mere rhetoric.

First offenders who are sent to prison are—I was going to say, in every case—certainly in nearly every case people who ought to be there. We need to see what offenders who are young are like nowadays. I advise hon. Members to read the excellent Report, "Disturbances at the Carlton Approved School", an approved school being for quite young people. That Report says with commendable frankness that one of the difficulties of approved schools nowadays arises from the greater amount of lawlessness, the less respect for authority, the greater roughness, toughness and violence of the people who go there. Let us keep that type of person in mind, not the type of person who commits a childish offence which the courts are quite able to deal with without drastic penalties.

Secondly, I do not agree with Members who think that the thousand persons—approximately—of all ages sent to prison in Scotland is a shocking figure. Hon. Members know what the population of Scotland is. Let them work out what proportion of the population that number of prisoners represents.

There was an inquiry into it and it was thought that the proportion was rather high.

Hon. Members are entitled to their views, as I am to mine as well.

I am not suggesting for one moment that the whole population of Scotland is criminal. In any population there is a proportion of criminals, and in looking at the proportion which that number of convicted persons in Scotland bears to the population of Scotland I am not shocked by the figure.

Nobody here has said a word in favour of those who sit in the courts of summary jurisdiction who will be affected by the Bill. I shall, therefore, be the first Member to do so. I wish to speak in favour of them. I am quite certain that in those courts they take their responsibilities very seriously, if I may say so, and that they consider their responsibilities and duties very carefully in every case, whether it be a case of obstruction with a motor car, or a case which must be sent for trial.

The suggestion which has been hinted at in the course of this discussion that they send people to prison as first offenders rather indiscriminately is one which is entirely wrong, and I am quite certain that they know quite clearly in their own minds the reasons why they should do so and before they do so. Incidentally, if they are wrong, the offender has ample right of appeal and ample time in Scotland. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] Not in Scotland? In that case, if the hon. Member will insert a provision into his Bill to give powers of appeal, I would support him even more. If they do not have that right of appeal, I think it time that they did have it.

They have certain powers of appeal. A convicted person has a certain right of appeal in Scotland, I think I am right in saying, in courts of summary jurisdiction, but they are extremely limited.

I do not want to enter into a discussion of the law of appeal in Scotland, but perhaps may be allowed to suggest that another private Member might well bring in a Bill to extend that right.

That being so, the only effect of the Bill will be that, instead of saying to themselves in their private room, "We think that this offender ought to go to prison, for these reasons," they will come out into the open and say it on the bench. That is the only effect which the Bill will have. Does the hon. Member want that? Why not? There is too much talk about other penalties to be imposed, and the suggestion, in particular, of the imposition of fines. There are ample powers for that, and it is so in the vast majority of cases, but even where magistrates think that a fine is inappropriate to the circumstances of a case, by reason of the serious nature of the offence, they do not fine. In any case, there are criticisms of the fining system, because a fine affects different people differently.

Again, offenders can be put on probation, but can we put a person on probation when the probation officer has said that he is not a suitable person for probation and will not co-operate with the probation officer? Are we to allow the court to say to the probation officer, "Despite what you say, we shall put the offender in your care"?

My hon. Friend the Member for Moray and Nairn (Mr. G. Campbell) suggested that we could have a suspended sentence, but a probation order is a suspended sentence, because if it is not obeyed the probation officer can bring the offender back to the court, or if a further offence is committed, in certain cases, he automatically comes back to the court and can then be sentenced for the original offence. Therefore, I do not think that suspended sentences would have any effect.

If what the hon. Member for Scotstoun and his supporters require is that those who sit in courts of summary jurisdiction must state their reasons for sending first offenders to prison in open court rather than in the privacy of their own room, then, so far as I am concerned, they are fully entitled to do it. I welcome that part of the Bill and give it my support, but do not let us think that the Bill will go any further than that.

I learned with some interest what is meant by previous convictions in Scotland, but I am still wondering what is a cognate offence. We find, in subsection (4):

"For the purposes of the last foregoing subsection the prosecutor shall be entitled to inform the court of any relevant previous conviction of the person to be dealt with,"

I am still not clear what the hon. Gentleman means. I think that probably he means that the court should be informed of any previous convictions. In that case, I suggest that, in Committee, the hon. Member should move an Amendment to leave out the word "relevant," so far as defined in the previous subsection of the Bill, and simply say that the prosecution may inform the court of any previous convictions, so that a person who has a string of convictions for one type of offence, and came before the court for another type of offence, does not have this string of convictions hidden from the court, when it should not be.

1 appreciate the extremely limited extent to which the Bill goes, I thank the hon. Gentleman for introducing it, and promise him my support.

I should like to say how sorry I am that a previous appointment prevented me from hearing the hon. Member for Glasgow, Scotstoun (Mr. Small) introduce his Bill, but I should like to welcome it very much. I feel, however, that we should be doing a disservice to society by giving the impression that the Bill was in some way a criminals' charter and that a criminal should be allowed, like the dog, to have a first bite before he receives a sentence.

Very many people in this country are perturbed by the incidence of crimes of violence, and feel that offenders should be dealt with more severely, rather than less. Indeed, society has a duty not only to cure and rehabilitate the offenders, but to protect the victim of the first offender as well. I think that retribution and deterrence should be part of the punishment of someone who commits a crime, as well as the rehabilitation of the offender. I am very glad, therefore, that the Bill in fact makes no difference in the penalties which can be awarded to an offender. It merely means that the court has to be of the opinion that no other method of dealing with the person is appropriate before it sends him to prison.

It is interesting to note that of all first offenders who have been sent to prison, approximately 70 to 80 per cent. have not offended again, however they were treated. At the same time, if we were to push this figure up to 90 per cent., it would mean that there would be far fewer victims of second offences, and, therefore, the interests of society would be protected. There has been a tremendous revolution in the last two hundred years in the way in which we have dealt with criminals. For instance, 200 years ago, about 100 crimes were punishable capitally. I think that in Perthshire they still remember the "kindly gallows" at Crieff, which were kindly, not because they let the offender off, but because there was such a long drop that it put the offender out of his misery very quickly.

Again, William Pitt, talking about transportation to America and Australia, said:

"There is no cheaper wav of getting rid of criminals than transportation."

Indeed, in about 1837, two boys in Edinburgh aged 8 and 10 were convicted of petty theft and were condemned to transportation for periods of 7 and 10 years. These methods had one great advantage, and that was that there was no need for any after-care of criminals. They were out of sight and out of mind. The magistrates who gave these sentences were interested only in administering the law from the point of view from which society looked upon crime in those days.

Since then, we have come a long way forward, and today the accent is on humanity and on bringing the criminal, or social misfit, whether a mental case or whatever he may be, back into society. In these days, most offences are dealt with by fines, and fining can indeed be very effective. At the same time, with the lowering in the value of money, fines often seem merely derisory to the offender, because if a magistrate imposes a fine which is suitable to the means of the offender himself, he will probably have lost his job as a result of being convicted and he will be unable to pay the fine, and so will end up in prison. In such a case, fining will not have been of any use.

As to imprisonment, this is a most costly way of dealing with first offenders. For example, it costs about £350 to keep a man in prison for a year. Prisons tend to be overcrowded, and instead of there being a reformative value in sentences of imprisonment, a first offender may get is with a lot of hardened criminals and become contaminated and therefore more likely to commit a second offence. There is very little reformative value in short sentences of imprisonment, which in many cases also cause suffering to the man's family and may well leave a stigma which will attach to him throughout the rest of his life.

Recently a man came to me looking for a job. He was about 35. When he was 18 he worked on the railways, became mixed up with some older men, and was found guilty of pilfering from the railway company. As a result, he was sent to prison at the age of 18. After that he went into the Army and was eventually discharged, his conduct having been exemplary. He worked for many years for one employer to his complete satisfaction. But when he tried to get another job the stigma of imprisonment was brought up against him and he had a very difficult time indeed. I am very glad to be able to say that in the end, through the personal intervention of the Minister of Supply, he got a job at the local Ministry of Supply base in my constituency. That man should never have been sent to prison in the first place.

Compared with imprisonment, probation has many advantages. First, it is cheap; and it costs only about £35 a year to keep a person on probation as opposed to ten times that amount to keep a person in prison. It is not a let-off for an offence, and I think this needs emphasising. After all, a person subject to a probation order is placed under discipline. Conditions as to residence and as to reporting may be put in the probation order. He also has visits from the probation officer to see that he is leading an orderly and disciplined life. What is more, he is being rehabilitated in his own surroundings and environment, almost certainly without losing his job, which happens so often if somebody is sent to prison.

At present over the whole of the country magistrates do not make enough use of probation. Although the figures have increased and now approximately 30 per cent. of juvenile offenders are put on probation, only about 6 per cent, of adult first offenders are put on probation. Even so, this is about three times more than it was ten years ago. One good thing that the Bill will do will be to bring before magistrates the possibility of putting more first offenders on probation.

An interesting fact is that since the Criminal Justice Act, 1948, brought in rather similar provisions to these for juvenile offenders, 60 per cent. fewer juveniles have been sent to prison than was the case before that Act came into force. If this Measure has half the effect in Scotland, it will be a very good thing indeed.

Turning to the Bill itself, I mean no offence when I say that in substance it is the same Bill as was introduced for England two years ago. I note that subsection (4) has been added to Clause 1, which I think deals with what are called in Scotland cognate offences, and I hope that if my right hon. Friend the Solicitor-General for Scotland replies he will say something about this provision.

I should like also to ask about subsection (3) of Clause 1 which appears to me not to deal with the case of an offender who has been put on probation by a court of summary jurisdiction. After all, if an offender is put on probation on indictment he is convicted. If he is put on probation by a court of summary jurisdiction the court does not proceed to convict. As I understand subsection (3), if such an offender came before the court again, the fact that he had been put on probation would not be brought to the notice of the court, because he would not have been convicted on a previous occasion. I think that if an offender has had the advantage of a probation order already, he should no longer be regarded as a first offender for the purposes of this Bill.

I am very glad to see that paragraph 35 of the Report of the Scottish Advisory Council on the Treatment of Offenders states:

"… an offence which has resulted in a probation order should be deemed for this purpose to be a 'previous conviction,' although in Scotland no conviction is recorded when an offender is put on probation in a summary court. It seems to us that a person who has reverted to criminal ways after having been tried out on probation ought not to be given the advantage of legislation designed for the needs of first offenders."

I wish to bring that to the notice of the Solicitor-General for Scotland and ask him whether such a person would be regarded as a first offender if he had already been put on probation by a court of summary jurisdiction.

I welcome the Bill. I think it is a contribution, albeit a modest one, to the rehabilitation of criminal offenders, and if it helps to fit social misfits into society it will serve a very useful purpose indeed.

I should like to begin by apologising to the hon. Member for Glasgow, Scotstoun (Mr. Small) for not being present during the whole of his speech when he moved the Second Reading of this Bill. What I did hear satisfied me that he performed his task extremely ably. However, I wish to apologise because I always like to hear the opening speech in such a debate.

I well remember when the First Offenders Act, 1958, was introduced by the hon. Member for Chesterfield (Sir G. Benson) and I gave my support to that Measure. In fact, if my recollection is correct, I made a short speech in the debate. I did so with some doubt, I must confess, because I felt that we were getting rid of a deterrent against crime. I know that this argument on whether or not a prison sentence is a deterrent has been going on for years and, no doubt, will continue. My personal view is that the possibility of a prison sentence is a deterrent. However, it is a matter which we shall probably never determine to everybody's satisfaction. I welcome this Bill because, as far as I understand it, it follows in the main the terms of the Measure introduced by the hon. Member for Chesterfield.

There are one or two points of detail which I should like my right hon. and learned Friend the Solicitor-General for Scotland to explain. I am not a Scottish lawyer and I do not pretend to understand Scottish law, and there are one or two points relating to the wording and drafting in this Bill which I cannot understand. My hon. Friend the Member for Ayr (Sir T. Moore). in the course of his interesting speech, made a very useful contribution in one respect, although I do not suppose it will receive agreement from all hon. Members. I fully support him in the view that if we are to abolish the deterrent of the threat of imprisonment it would be wise to restore some form—I do not necessarily say it should be the birch or anything like that—of immediate corporal punishment. Whenever one suggests that—and I have suggested it on several occasions—one is always told that that would mean giving up the right of appeal, because it is essential that corporal punishment should be administered straight away and there is usually in Scotland a period of twenty-eight days in which to appeal.

I hope that the authorities will consider this matter very carefully, because there is a great body of opinion in this country that the reason why these young hooligans indulge in the sort of conduct which we all deplore is that it is a form of conceit. I have no hesitation in saying that. I believe that some form of corporal punishment—and I am not advocating the reintroduction of flogging—should be introduced, and it would be a much greater deterrent than the possibility of imprisonment under the law of Scotland before it is amended by the present Bill.

My hon. Friend the Member for Ayr has made a very useful suggestion which I hope will commend itself to both sides of the House. As a practising solicitor in England, and one who had quite a lot to do with criminal work in my younger days, I have no hesitation in saying that short prison sentences are no deterrent at all. In fact, they are a fundamental mistake. They get the first offenders into wrong company. I have always thought that, if a sentence is deserved, it should be a long one. That is my experience from a practical point of view.

Much has been said about the recommendations of the Scottish Advisory Council which I have studied with care. In my opinion the Council is to be congratulated on producing its report in a comparatively short time. I understand that it recommended that the English practice should be followed on this matter. However, I do not want to be controversial so I will not go further into that point.

Occasionally I have to venture into Scotland on business and on one occasion I read in the Scotsman about an officer who is called a magistrate in England and, I believe, a sheriff in Scotland. He was reported as saying openly in court that if any person was convicted of being drunk in charge of a car, he would automatically receive a prison sentence. That shocked me as an Englishman because I believe that every case should be judged on its merits. Therefore, if this Bill prevents sheriffs or magistrates making such statements and taking such an approach, it must to a good Measure.

When, as I hope, this Bill reaches the Statute Book, it will set a valuable precedent. I hope this will encourage Scottish private Members to consider if they cannot make English Law apply to Scotland in other respects. I am thinking particularly of the Variation of Trusts Act, 1958. That Act has proved to be a most useful Measure for England in enabling—

Order. With the best will in the world I cannot relate variation of trusts to first offenders in Scotland.

I apologise, Sir. The argument I was trying to put was teat I support the Bill because to some extent it will set a good precedent for Bills affecting England to be applied to Scotland. I apologise if I have transgressed the rules of order. Perhaps I may say that I hope those Scottish Members who are lucky enough to draw a place in the Ballot will consider whether they cannot make the Variation of Trusts Act apply to Scotland, since cases of great hardship have arisen because it applies only to England.

Earlier I said that there were one or two points of detail to which I would refer and I do this now with all humbleness. Clause 1 (1) reads:

"A court of summary jurisdiction shall not impose imprisonment on a first offender of or over the age of twenty-one, unless the court is of the opinion that no other method of dealing with him is appropriate;"

The word that worries me is "appropriate." Then it states that subsection (2) of Section 18 of the Criminal Justice (Scotland) Act, 1949—

"… shall apply for the purpose of determining whether any other method of dealing with such a person is appropriate as it applies for the purpose of determining whether any other method of dealing with a person under the age of twenty-one is appropriate."

To develop my argument I must refer to Section 18 (2) of the 1949 Act. In my view, this is a drafting point. The wording could be improved. That subsection reads:

"No court shall impose imprisonment on a person under twenty-one years of age unless the court is of opinion that no other method of dealing with him is appropriate;"

Then follows the important passage:

"and for the purpose of determining whether any other method of dealing with any such person is appropriate the court shall obtain from a probation officer or otherwise and consider information about his circumstances, and shall take into account any information before the court which is relevant to his character and his physical and mental condition."

That is a wide definition which at the time was probably the best that could be produced. I suggest, however, that instead of the words "is appropriate," which from the English point of view are difficult to define, there should be inserted the words "in his or her best interests" which would be easier to interpret. However, I will leave that point to the promoters of the Bill and to my right hon. and learned Friend.

My hon. Friend the Member for Galloway (Mr. Brewis) referred to Clause 1 (4). I have not the slightest idea what this means but I hope that we shall have an explanation from my right hon. and learned Friend. This subsection must refer to some form of Scottish law about which I do not know, and I think we are entitled to a short definition.

I apologise for intervening in a Scottish debate, a thing which I do not recall doing before, but I have done so because in principle I support the intention of the Bill. I hope very much that it will work, because everyone here wants to further the cause of getting first offenders back on the right road. We have to discover the best way to do this and I sincerely believe that the Bill is a step forward in that direction.

I intervene at this stage to do two things: first, to say that the Government, like every hon. Member who has spoken today, welcome the Bill; secondly, again like almost every hon. Member who has spoken today, to congratulate the hon. Member for Glasgow, Scotstoun (Mr. Small), not only on his good fortune in securing a high place in the Ballot in his first Session, but also for the good use he has made of it in bringing forward the Bill and on the way that he presented it to the House.

I will try to deal with the various points which have been raised by hon. Members in the course of the debate. As the hon. Member for Scotstoun pointed out, the Bill implements one of the recommendations of the Scottish Advisory Council on the Treatment of Offenders in its recent Report on short terms of imprisonment. As hon. Members know, a copy of that Report was placed in the Library, by a happy coincidence, in time for this debate and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland will be publishing the Report at an early date. Indeed, it is a happy coincidence not only that the Report has been laid in the Library this week, but that it should come out so strongly in favour of the principle embodied in the Bill.

Here, I wish to pay a tribute to the Council, in particular to the Committee which prepared the Report, for its extremely good work. As the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Paisley (Mr. D. Johnston) pointed out, it might well be, if not compulsory, at any rate prescribed reading for those of us who have to deal with criminal matters.

It has been pointed out that the Bill will assimilate the law of Scotland to that which has applied in England since the first Offenders Act, 1958. I know that when I make such a statement as that, and say that it is a good thing, I lay myself open to attack, because I was attacked on that point only two days ago at this Box. However, I am glad that hon. Members on both sides of the House take the view that by following England in this respect we are, on this occasion, doing the right thing.

There is no doubt that while we must see that punishment provided by the law continues to be an effective deterrent, there are very good reasons for doing what we can to secure a reduction in the number of short sentences of imprisonment, particularly those which are being served by first offenders. As the Advisory Council Report points out, 92 per cent. of the prisoners received into Scottish prisons during 1958 were serving sentences of six months or less, that is to say, short sentence offenders, and rather over one-tenth of that total were people against whom no previous convictions had been recorded.

From a severely practical point of view, the number of short sentence prisoners is a major factor in the present pressure on prison accommodation. I think that the hon. Gentleman the Member for Edinburgh, East (Mr. Willis) pointed that out early in the debate. Apart from that, it leads to the increased risk, which was also mentioned today, of the contamination of a first offender who has been sent to gaol by the more hardened prisoners who are there.

It is even more important that when a prisoner has not yet embarked upon a career of crime the efforts of the law should be directed towards seeing that, if possible, he does not do so. From this point of view, it is certainly right that every expedient other than imprisonment should be explored, particularly in view of the risk of contamination to which I have referred.

The hon. Gentleman the Member for Scotstoun was good enough to consult my right hon. and learned Friend the Lord Advocate and also my hon. Friend the Joint Under-Secretary at the Scottish Office about the Bill. As he appreciates, the exercise here is not quite so straightforward in Scotland as it is in England. That is largely because of our old friend the cognate offences. I should like to say a word about that, because I think that that doctrine has puzzled not only hon. Members representing English constituencies, but also hon. Members representing Scottish constituencies who are laymen rather than lawyers.

The position in Scotland, broadly, is that offences are divided into three main classes, those involving dishonesty, those involving violence, and those involving lewd and indecent conduct. If a man is charged with an offence coming under one of those categories, it is only previous convictions in that particular category which may be libelled and brought to the notice of the court and be considered as an aggravation of the offence when the court is passing sentence. Apart from that, there is the provision that a previous conviction under a Statute or an Order may be libelled as an aggravation in any subsequent charge for the same kind of offence, or any analogous offence.

We are tied at the moment to the cognate offences. The result is that a person may, on the face of it, seem to the court to be a first offender whereas, as the hon. Member for Scotstoun pointed out, he has a string of previous convictions, possibly sentences of imprisonment for offences of a different character. It would be clearly wrong, in those circumstances, to treat the person as a first offender when, indeed, he might well have been imprisoned several times before.

That is where the difficulty of the machinery arises, and that is really the reason for subsection (4). As regards the breach of the general principle, which is inevitable if we are to make this a workable and reasonable Measure, it has been breached already under the 1949 Act with regard to young offenders under 21. The same thing applies when there is a probation report. Quite a lot of past history comes to light that would not be relevant or competent had the court merely been passing sentence at the end of the trial on the information available in the court.

I think that hon. Members on both sides of the House have agreed that this breach of the principle is right and that probably, at the end of the day, it would help rather than hinder the prisoner in the dock. To make this work we had to provide some machinery and that machinery is in Clause 1 (4). The object of that subsection is to enable the prosecutor to inform the court of any relevant previous conviction, and "relevant", of course, means an offence punishable by imprisonment, whether it is a cognate offence or not.

The cognate offence would, in fact, be before the court, because it would be libelled on the complaint and it would be there for the court to see when it came to pass sentence. To get in the non-cognate one, we must have this machinery under subsection (4), so that if a man claims to be a first offender when, in fact, he is not, the procurator fiscal may bring to the notice of the court and prove, if need be, that there were other previous convictions, even though they were not cognate.

On the question raised by the hon. Member for Galloway (Mr. Brewis) as to the position of a person who had been put on probation without a conviction being recorded, the position is, as he thought, that such a person is not treated as a previous offender. That is to say, he has the advantage of the legislation, even although the court has found that he had committed a previous offence and was put on probation. Similarly, if the court found that he had committed an offence, and had given him an absolute discharge, he would be treated as a first offender, assuming, of course, that was the only earlier blot on his copy book.

The position is different in regard to probation after a charge has been made on indictment, because, in that case, the court must convict. The probation follows on conviction and the conviction is there, as it were, as a bar to the offender claiming that he is a first offender under the Bill.

I think that there were one or two drafting points raised by the hon. Member for Cheltenham (Major Hicks Beach) about the word "appropriate." It is the same as in the English Act and, no doubt, we shall consider in Committee whether it is the appropriate word.

In reply to my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Surrey, East (Mr. Doughty), I would point out that the Bill does not impose on all summary courts the duty of giving reasons, but merely on the courts other than the sheriff court and the stipendiary magistrate's court. That is to say, in the magistrates' courts or burgh courts where there are lay magistrates, they must give their reasons if they impose imprisonment, but that does not apply to the sheriff substitute or the stipendiary magistrates because they are sitting regularly and have legal training and are much more accustomed and experienced in dealing with this sort of matter.

I again congratulate the hon. Member for Scotstoun upon introducing the Bill, and I commend it to the House.

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

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Scotstoun (Mr. Small) upon what seems to be the successful birth of his legislative child. I hope that other similar Bills will be successful. I trust that the appearance of the Joint Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, the right hon. Member for Runcorn (Mr. Vosper), on the Government Front Bench does not mean that he intends to strangle my legislative child at birth today.

The Bill is a very short and simple one, which everybody can understand. It has no elaborate Clauses or Schedules. It is very much to the point. However, it appears to have excited some degree of controversy. I cannot claim that it is a non-controversial Bill. I had hoped that when I introduced it I should have been able to make it in the full sense of the term a non-party Bill, because I thought that hon. Members on both sides of the House, and especially the young hon. Members, would be prepared to back it.

I had hopes of the Liberal Party, but, after asking a veteran Privy Councillor belonging to that party whether he would support my Bill, and having been told that he was in favour not of bringing the age of eligibility to vote down to 18 but of raising it to 25, I gave up the Liberals in despair.

I wanted to have some dignified names attached to my Bill, so I consulted a Labour Party Privy Councillor who sits on the Opposition Front Bench. Curiously enough, he had the same opinion as the Liberal, so I gave up the Privy Councillors in despair.

Then I turned hopefully to the Young Conservatives. I knew that my name would he rather apt to frighten them off, so I sent an emissary. I sent the youngest member of the Labour Party that I could and made him my "unusual channels". There was no response. I expected to get support from the younger Conservatives in the House, because I have every reason to believe from consultations which I have had that very many Young Conservatives in the country support the Bill. Indeed, one of the ablest cases for votes at 18 was made at a conference I attended, and which was addressed by a young Conservative barrister from the Bow Group. I will not mention his name, because that would damn his chances of ever getting here as a Conservative Member of Parliament. I am all in favour of the Bow Group, but I understand that it has not much influence in the House at present. The real power behind the Conservative Party is in the hands of the "bow and arrow" group.

I do not, of course, expect a great deal of support, except on affectionate grounds, from the hon. Member for Ayr (Sir T. Moore). However, I remember the Young Conservatives operating in Ayrshire very powerfully. They even operated in my constituency, but not so powerfully. What is the function of the Young Conservatives in the country today? I know the point of view of the hon. Member for Ayr. He wants there to be a strong Young Conservative party in the constituencies in order to drag in reluctant voters to support him at the next General Election—and, of course, he will require them.

I am greatly interested in the Young Conservative organisation. What is more, the Young Conservative organisation will be interested in what the hon. Member for Ayr does today. As far I can gather, the hon. Member looks upon the Young Conservatives as useful people to support his organisation at election time so that he may be returned to Parliament. At elections the Young Conservatives are mobilised and sent round at the last minute to pick up veteran electors of 82, 83 or 84 who have not turned up to vote. At the end of the day the Young Conservatives are told, "Nip off into the back streets and see whether any centenarians have not voted, and then bring them along to vote for the Conservative candidate."

However, if there is a Young Conservative who says, "We have brought these electors to the poll. Are we ourselves not entitled to exercise the right of voting?", there is no answer. I have no doubt at all that as a result of this debate the Young Conservatives will be saying "If we are so important to the Tory Party, why are we not given the right to vote at 18?".

I have been told that the Bill is "flying a kite". It is, of course, the beginning of a new agitation, or, rather, the renewal of an old one, because it seems almost to have escaped attention that on a previous occasion the House gave votes to people under 21. We had a very great democratic Prime Minister, Lloyd George, and during his Government, prior to the General Election of 1918, there was put on the Statute Book the Representation of the People Act, 1918, which provided that soldiers who had served during the war should vote as citizens. The Conservative Party supported that Measure, being far more democratic and liberal than it is today. There was also a small Act in 1922 which embodied the same principle, and that seems to have passed through the House without any discussion.

Therefore, I find that I am not doing anything very revolutionary at all. I am merely asking the Government to give a little consideration to a principle which was embodied in legislation as far back as 1918 and then allowed to lapse. Lloyd George was a great democrat, and it was rather curious that thirty or forty years later we should get another Lloyd George as Home Secretary, but when he was asked in the House about the possibility of votes at 18 he repeated that one speech we have heard from him so many times—very short, very eloquent. He said, "No, Sir."

That Lloyd George, who is now Lord Tenby, was a Liberal who became a Conservative. He was a Liberal-Conservative or a Conservative-Liberal and he was a "yes-man" who said, "No, Sir." He did not leave many footprints on the arid desert of Parliamentary time, except this short answer. Then he went to another place and joined the board of Associated Cement. We have never heard of him since; he is forgotten already, except for leaving behind him nothing but a series of "No, Sirs." That is an awful warning to the right hon. Gentleman the Joint Under-Secretary of State. There will be no statue to this Lloyd George, not even in cement, either in this place or anywhere else.

I do not know much about the right hon. Gentleman the Joint Under-Secretary of State. He does not feature in debates in which I am interested very much, but it is an awful warning to him that, if he says "No, Sir" in this debate, he will, in my view, be remembered in history as a sort of footnote to the representation of the People Act, 1949 (Amendment) Bill. There is time for him to secure immortality by tearing up his brief and giving votes to the young Tories.

The vote was given after the 1918 war because it was thought that "fit to fight, fit to vote" was a reasonable principle for the franchise. Indeed, it is. It was the whole idea behind that Act of 1918. Although it has been allowed to be forgotten, today the argument still holds good—that if we take a young man at 18 and put him in the Army, or the Navy, or the Air Force, then he is entitled also to the franchise and to full citizenship. If there were nothing else to back the case for my Bill then I submit that the phrase "fit to fight, fit to vote" concentrates, into a simple phrase and unforgettable slogan, a great democratic appeal. Since 1918, we have had another great war and a number of little wars. Young people have been called up to fight in Cyprus and Korea and against Mau Mau and in all sorts of smaller wars and yet, at the same time, we have refused them the right to vote. That is wrong.

Only a short time ago I asked the Secretary of State for Air at what age an airman was allowed to be a member of the crew of a V-bomber, the bomber which is likely to carry the hydrogen bomb, if the necessity arises—and we hope it never will. The answer was that at 19½ a young airman could be a member of the crew of a V-bomber, which could go out and destroy a city. Yet the argument may be put from the other side of the House that that young man is not responsible enough to have a vote; not responsible enough to put a cross on a ballot paper, but responsible enough for dropping a hydrogen bomb and destroying civilisation. Therefore, I say that this argument is absolutely unanswerable and alone would sufficiently justify the House passing my Bill.

There is far more to it than that, however. There is a growing—I would not say a burning—interest in the new generation. The right hon. Gentleman's name was on the Albemarle Report. That Report is a very good study of the younger generation and contains some interesting conclusions. There is another Report, "The Younger Generation," which was compiled by the Youth Commission of the Labour Party. I read it with great interest and I believe that it is a very notable contribution to the sociological literature of our time. The Commission was presided over by Mr. Gerald Gardiner, a very eminent Queen's Counsel, and I advise all hon. Members, before this Bill is discussed in Committee, to peruse its conclusions.

Will the hon. Gentleman let us have a copy of it now, so that we can peruse it while he is speaking?

Certainly. I am always ready to oblige the younger generation, even to the point of lending my brief.

This Report really is interesting and I am glad to see that it is quoted in today's leading article in my old friend, The Times. I must say that The Times has turned the other cheek and has given me more space than I would have had at advertising rates. The Times has thought it wise to analyse the case for the Bill and, of course, finally to reject it. This shows that this is a subject which will be of interest in future.

It may be that as a result of this debate there will be discussions in every kind of organisation throughout the country, and possibly it will be one of the issues at the next General Election. Of course, it may not be. The only way it may not be is, I expect, that this Report of the Youth Commission will become the policy of the Labour Party and then the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary will proceed to steal that policy and put it into effect before the next election.

This Report is dated August, 1959. Were its recommendations the policy of the Labour Party at the last General Election?

Obviously, the hon. and learned Gentleman does not keep himself appraised in politics. I was about to say that this Report was submitted to the Labour Party and is to be discussed at its next conference. I am confident that it will become a key talking point in politics. The headquarters of the Tory organisation may not be keen about this. It does not quite know where it is. Is it interested in the future generation, or is it interested merely in election tactics by which it thinks it will continue to keep the support of the people?

Let us go on a little further. My Bill is not based only on the reason that people who are called up for military service should be entitled to vote. The substance of my argument is that at the age of 18 the young people of today are citizens. They take a responsible part in society and they are entitled to have their say in electing Members to this House. Young soldiers and young miners should be entitled to vote.

I represent a large percentage of miners. At 18, the miner in the mining industry of South Ayrshire or in other coalfields does some of the most responsible work of the community and gets big wages. We know the old slogan, "No taxation without representation." The young miners between the ages of 18 and 20 do responsible and dangerous work in the mines. They handle complicated machinery and draw big wages, far higher than those of the age group at the other end of the scale—the old-age pensioner. Nowadays, therefore, there is no logical argument for saying that a young miner, who may be married and, possibly, have a child or two, should not be entitled to vote at elections.

The hon. Member for Ayr knows quite well that there is a great tendency to marry earlier in Scotland, as is shown by the figures for the hon. Member's burgh. The young worker who draws big wages needs a house for his wife and family. He is entitled to be as much of a pressure group for new housing as the old-age pensioner at the other end of the scale. The hon. Member for Ayr will know that if the young person who marries at the age of 18 gets on to the municipal list of the Burgh of Ayr, he probably has to wait ten years for a house.

If young people can marry and have children, they are entitled to a home and to consideration in the housing legislation which is passed by this House. They are entitled to have progressively-minded people on the local authorities and in this House interested in getting homes for the younger generation as soon as possible. I could go on through the Rent Act and through the whole gamut of occupations.

I turn now to some of the considerations which have been well outlined in the Albemarle Report, which points out that the young people of today have much more money to spend than the young people had twenty years ago. It was estimated by the authorities who were consulted by the Albemarle Committee that the average young industrial workman has over £5 a week to spend and that at the age of 18 the young woman of today has about £4 a week.

These people have a purchasing power. They are interested in the Purchase Tax and in the economic policy of the Government. About two-thirds of our young people leave school and enter employment at the age of 15. They go to work. Under my Bill, they will have three years' apprenticeship in industry before they come on to the register to vote. If we are to have the old democratic slogan of "No taxation without representation," we have no right to keep these people off the register.

I could give a large variety of arguments which are outlined in the Gardiner Report and which are relevant. At the age of 18, young people cease to be juveniles for the purpose of the National Insurance Acts. At 18, they are classified as adults for the purpose of National Insurance. At the age of 18, a young man can drive a motor car. Surely, this, too, affects the legislation with which we are concerned today. If he commits capital murder after he is 18, he is liable to the death penalty. Other hon. Members will be able to reinforce these illustrations.

There is an abundant case for recognising that young people of 18 are entitled to the full benefits of citizenship. What are some of the arguments that may be adduced in opposition? I will be told that the young people are not responsible and that this is the age of the Teddy boy, who is interested not in politics, but only in "rock and roll," and who is immature. Similar arguments have been used over and over again against every extension of the franchise.

I remember the controversy about votes for women. I remember the ridicule that was heaped upon the pioneers of that campaign. Then, we were told, "They will not take any interest in politics, so why give them the vote?" Women are interested in politics today. Not even the hon. Member for Ayr would advocate the taking away of votes from women—not at all. He is an enthusiast for them, whether under 18 or over 18.

I need not labour the point with the Joint Under-Secretary, because, by a curious coincidence, he was a member of the Albemarle Committee. That Committee's Report completely disposes of the idea that young people of today are too frivolous, are interested only by the sensational and are not sufficiently mature to take their responsibilities seriously. I notice that the right hon. Gentleman has come armed with a copy of the Albemarle Report, in which he has already replied in advance to the arguments that may be advanced against the Bill from the other side of the House.

There are some eloquent passages in the Albemarle Report. One of them states:

"One cannot in fact indict the young for the growth of delinquency without also indicting the older generations for apathy and indifference to the deeper things of the heart."

That disposes in advance of a good deal of the criticism of the younger generation that will arise in this controversy.

The rate of juvenile delinquency and criminality among some of our age groups is regrettable, but the Albemarle Committee Report states that only 2 per cent. of the younger generation were involved. Are we to condemn 98 per cent. of our young people who have not been in any trouble because of the 2 per cent. who have? In the female section, only 0·2 per cent. of the younger generation were involved. Are we to disfranchise 98·8 per cent. of the female population because of certain tendencies of 0·2 per cent. of that section? There is little more I can say unless we are to have this argument brought forward, perhaps not here, but in the columns of the less responsible Press.

There was one very interesting quotation in the Albemarle Report. It says, on page 31:

"Again, a quotation from Burns' poem addressed to the Unco Guid is relevant:

'What's done we partly may compute

But know not what's resisted.'"

That quotation from Burns alone should make the hon. Member for Ayr look affectionately at my Bill.

The Report continues:

"In other words, it is easier to note obvious instances of 'anti-social' behaviour than realise how much worse might well have happened, in present conditions, had young people not made so many positive, often unconscious, decisions to ignore this kind of appeal or resist that unworthy but shiny temptation. It is easier to condemn by a blanket misreading all new forms (in dress, in dancing, in popular singing) than to acquire the close knowledge which will permit an appreciation of the strengths some of these new forms reveal. If those publications, in particular, which now use so much of their space in headlining the aberrations of a small proportion of young people were to exercise as much effort, but a more sensitive imagination, in looking for the signs of positive and worthwhile life, we could assure them that they would have no shortage of exciting material."

After all, who are we to say to the younger generation that they are irresponsible? During my lifetime we have had two world wars to destroy Germany. We are now rebuilding that country. The Daily Mail of the day before yesterday said that this country has spent £15,000 million on defence and that Britain may well ask what she has got for her money. We can expect the finger of youth to be pointed at us. There will be controversy about whether we can give £3 million to the Youth Service. We will not have an answer if the younger generation say, "Are you entitled to preach to us about responsibility?"

Finally, dealing with the "couldn't care less" attitude, may I. once again, quote from the Albemarle Report, because it will dispose of the right hon. Gentleman's argument in advance:

"Probably the most accurate reply to such assertions is also the most obvious: that today's adolescents are much like those of other generations. Yet we would add this: that when we compare what is so often said about adolescents with the overwhelming unanimity of regard expressed in the evidence of those with long and intimate experience, especially in 'difficult' areas, we are left predominantly with a sense of respect and admiration for most young people's good sense, good will, vitality and resilience."

The right hon. Gentleman put his name to that Report. I ask him to show his respect and confidence in this generation by giving them the right to be citizens and by giving them the franchise at the age of 18.

I was disappointed towards the end of the speech made by the hon. Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. Emrys Hughes). I thought that he was about to lead us into rather interesting ideas. Having started off on one line of thought which suggested that because a person of the age of 18 could marry, have children, and acquire a house, he should have a say in the housing policies of the country, or at least have a say in deciding on the people who were sent to decide them, I thought that he would follow that by saying that because a child went to school at the age of 5 and made use of the education services he should be represented, or be able to choose his representatives, but the hon. Gentleman did not go that far.

I am sorry that I missed the first moments of the hon. Gentleman's speech, but after I entered the Chamber I heard him suggesting that hon. Members on this side of the House virtually dared not vote against the Bill because of what the Young Conservatives who support us at election time might say. I wonder whether he dare vote for the Bill. If the hon. Gentleman looks at the relative strengths of the Young Conservatives and the Labour Youth Movement, he will find that he is more likely to lose by the Bill being passed than we are.

That proves conclusively that those of us who are engaged in supporting the Bill seek to make no party points.

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. I was about to say that, because I oppose the Bill, it would put my motives beyond suspicion because I would lose by voting against it.

I know a young girl who has just turned 18. Although her father happens to be the hon. Member for St. Albans, she does not seem particularly interested in politics. She goes to a Young Conservatives' dance from time to time, but I suspect that she is probably more interested in whether there is a super band which plays the "cha-cha-cha" divinely. If she goes to a meeting of the Young Conservatives, it is probably to find out whether Caroline's father lets her wear black stockings at secretarial college.

Is the hon. Gentleman attributing to this young lady the same motives for joining the Young Conservatives that he would attribute to all the other Young Conservatives, that they just go dancing and want to discuss homely matters?

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. It might be said that this young lady, who is my daughter, was driven away from politics because her father was involved in them. It is not a bad thing for her to have other things in her mind. I would be anxious if I thought that she was consumed with an interest only in politics.

The hon. Member for South Ayrshire mentioned The Times editorial of today. I congratulate him on having got his editorial. It is most unusual for a Private Member's Bill. In the short time that I have been in the House I have noticed that this kind of article is very popular with hon. Members on both sides. When one is issued, it is treated like a pronouncement by the Delphic Oracle. I have seen hon. Members rise to their feet, their eyes sparkling and their chins jutting forward defiantly as they hurled the quotation across the Chamber, rather like a young petulant child who, when he wants to reinforce his argument, turns to his friends and says, "Anyway, Nanny says no, so there." I do not know whether Nanny is always right, but she may be when we are dealing with infants, or at any rate with people who are legally infants.

The editorial went on to mention various things that a person may do when he reaches the age of 18. It also referred to the things that he may not do until he reaches the age of 21. The whole point was summed up in that editorial when it quoted Halsbury's words that the infant is regarded as of "immature intelligence and discretion."

That is a point that we might have in mind when thinking of an age limit of 18 or 21 as defining an infant. I do not altogether accept the premise of the hon. Gentleman, who spoke of a person being fit to fight and, therefore, fit to vote. There are many people who serve in the Armed Forces at an early age who are not called upon to take positions of responsibility. Of those who serve in that way and merely have to learn to obey orders and how to carry out the orders, few reach the higher positions. The hon. Member referred to the pilots of the V-bombers. Those men have exceptional qualifications. It can, therefore, be argued that this should apply only to those persons of higher intellect who, before the age of 21, reach positions in which they have to form a judgment and to act upon it.

We may already have reached the stage when we believe a person of 18 has attained that position. If so, we have not merely to say that a person of 18 years of age is entitled, on our assumption, because of intellect and intellectual standards, to vote at election times. If that is the case, is it not time that instead of just playing about with this Bill we revised the whole definition of an infant in law? Why should we treat this one aspect of a citizen's rights on its own rather than say, "All right, education has improved to such an extent that now, in 1960, we can say that a person of 18 years should be regarded as of full age"?

If we can say that, we can also quite clearly say that this Bill is unnecessary because, when talking of full age, we can substitute 18 years for 21 years. The point that should be occupying our time today is whether or not we have reached the point when we can look at the whole position of the person of 18, rather than looking at it, just in isolation, on this one point of voting. For that reason, I believe that we should not give this Bill its Second Reading today but should set our minds to looking at this subject as an all-party inquiry to see if we can sort out the status of the infant as opposed to that of the adult.

I am very glad that the hon. Member for St. Albans (Mr. Goodhew) made his speech. He gave us an insight into his own view of the Young Conservative movement which, had I said it, would have been thought to be a cheap party point. Coming from the hon. Gentleman, with his intimate political and family knowledge, it is put beyond dispute. If it is the case that these hordes of Young Conservatives join merely for the dances, we have less to fear from them than we thought. On the other hand, many of the young Socialists are highly political people, showing a highly desirable interest in politics—which is, perhaps, why they get slung out of the party from time to time.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. Emrys Hughes) on bringing in this Bill. He is a Welshman who represents the Scots with very great distinction, and he is also a grey head who represents the teen-agers of Britain. Whether or not the Bill goes through, I am confident that this will be the beginning of a serious agitation for a lower age for the franchise which will continue until, long after my hon. Friend has been buried, we gather in Parliament Square to unveil a statue to him, and hon. Members on all sides of the House will congratulate him retrospectively on the foresight they denied when he was active.

I join with him in congratulating the Labour Party on appointing a commission. The commission was appointed last year, and the reason why its report did not become party policy was that there was no annual conference intervening between the publication of the report and the General Election. Hon. Gentlemen will notice, I hope, that our policy emerges from our annual conference, and I hope that at our next conference this matter will be taken up.

I also get some pleasure from the presence of the right hon. Gentleman the Joint Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department. There is an old tradition that the Home Secretary of the day should be present at certain important births. This has been somewhat modified by practice but, at any rate, we can, perhaps, interpret the right hon. Gentleman's presence today as that of a midwife and not an abortionist. I hope that he will be able to support the line taken by the Albemarle Report.

My hon. Friend's case is unanswerable, and I want only to sketch over one or two small points in addition. "Fit to fight and fit to vote" does not mean that when one is old enough to fire a revolver one must be old enough to use a vote, but that if one is thought by Parliament to be material suitable for conscription and to be put into action one should have some say in the sort of military action in which one will be involved.

When I joined the Royal Air Force we were given a lecture by a wing commander who had, no doubt, given the same lecture all his life. His theme was that we sentenced ourselves to "jankers". He told us, "You put men in Parliament, and Parliament passes the Air Force Act, and that Act gives the Air Council the right to forbid you to go about the streets unshaven." Then, with a great smile, he said, "You are really sentencing yourselves." None of us there had the vote—we were 18. It did not occur to him that the lecture he gave to the old "sweats" before the war could not possibly apply to the young war-time aircrew.

I remember coming back to this country in June, 1945, in a troopship, passing through the Mediterranean, and hearing broadcasts about the General Election of that year. One looked around and wondered how many of the soldiers on board were eligible to vote. I certainly was not, and large numbers of others were not thought fit to have a say in that General Election.

One point that should be remembered is that when we say that a person gets the vote at 21 we mean that 21 is the minimum age. However, since General Elections come only every five years, the average age at the age at which they get the vote is 24. If this Bill were passed and 18 years were made the minimum age, and the period between General Elections were five years, it would mean that the average age at which the vote would be exercised would still be only 21. There is here a practical consideration.

I support everything that has been said by my hon. Friend, by the Gardiner Committee and in the Albemarle Report about the responsibility of young people today. We hear all this rubbish about "rock and roll." In fifty years' time, the young people whom we have in mind will be old-age pensioners—probably saying, "The trouble with the youngsters of today is that they do not appreciate 'rock and roll'". They will have gone on to something else. Every generation accepts the standards of its time, and the youngsters of today will then be looking down on those coming along with something new.

What effect will the Bill have on the stability and the efficacy of the Parliamentary Government? It is a very great mistake just to ask, "Should Parliament pay attention to those of 18 to 21 years?" I should like to put it the other way round altogether and to ask: how can we make those of 18 to 21 years take an interest in Parliament? A far greater danger for this country today is that people will not be interested in Parliament. We shall get them interested only if they start young.

The rôle of Parliament and the value of Parliament in modern society was discussed by the House the other day when it debated the Report of the Committee on Procedure. We shall discuss it again when we discuss the Report on Accommodation, and so on from time to time. Parliamentary self-government is not practised by a thousand million people who live in the Soviet world. Parliamentary government does not now have a particular rôle in France—it is all left to General de Gaulle.

I sometimes wonder very much whether the younger generation are brought up to realise what Parliament is. Like other hon. Members I very often take school children round the Houses of Parliament. I take them to the House of Lords, bring them to the Central Lobby, take them round the House of Commons—then they go home. What do they make of it?

Again, if on television they watch the formal opening of Parliament, what do they make of it? What they see is a tribal assembly. It is all there—the chief sitting on her throne and, about her, the witch doctors—the bishops—and so on. There are the judges, the wise men of the tribe, in their wigs, and the landowners and the commoners. It is a purely feudal survival.

Of course, we know that the value of this is that it reminds us of our history, and underneath the feudal clothing that we wear is the sinewy strength of a modern democratic State. But do we get it across to the young people? When young people talk politics and about the affairs of their community, do they really realise what Parliament can do for them? Parliament, if it is to mean anything to them at all, must be seen as an instrument capable of being used.

I am very much in favour of the pageantry and procedure of Parliament; I believe in it and think that it is good. It has been developed over the years in order that we may get our business through quickly. The real value of Parliament is that people may use it in order to do the things which they want to do.

I remember the pilot who wrote to me at the time of Suez. He said, "I am in Cyprus. I am a pilot of a bomber and I am going to be sent in a day or two to bomb Egypt. I think it is wrong. What am I to do?" All I could do was to write back and say, "It is not for me to say what you should do. You are an officer in the Royal Air Force and you must carry out your orders. But Parliament is sitting and here are reached the big decisions about Suez." I do not know whether that man was old enough to vote. But we do not need armed action if there is Parliamentary action.

That is why The Times today has missed the point. It says:

"… there is the distinct possibility that 'youth' (in the context of young clubs, maintenance grants, and so on) would be added to the already long list of special-interest groups by placating or cajoling which the parties distort their electoral programmes."

But what is Parliament for if not to meet the needs of young people on the representation of young people themselves? The people who make gramophone records have their pressure groups and the people who make Teddy boy trousers have their pressure groups also. Everyone connected with young people and their spending has a pressure group except the young people themselves. We want the young to feel that if there is something wrong Parliament is the place to which they should turn.

I was impressed by the young students who marched along with placards protesting against the new buildings that were going up. When the big building was proposed for Piccadilly Circus a meeting was held in this House organised, as it happened, by an hon. Member and bringing together some of the "anti-uglies" among some of the architectural students who were interested. Also to the meeting came a lot of Members of Parliament and ex-Ministers; a very distinguished group. It was decided to send a petition to the Minister of Housing and as a result of the meeting it was further decided to hold an inquiry. One of the "anti-uglies" said to me afterwards, "It never occurred to me that Parliament would help us in this matter." Their plan for action was confined to processions and marches. The idea that Parliament could help had not got through to the Royal College of Art or from whatever college it was where they were working.

I want to help young people today to realise that Parliament is here to be used. That is what the Bill will do. It will convince them that more even than in the past Parliament is not just an honorary, ceremonial sword but an instrument which they can use for their own purposes.

Happily, this is a very simple Bill. I hope that the Minister is not going to recommend a Royal Commission, an inter-Departmental inquiry, or another look at the meaning of the word "infant" in Scottish law or a review of Colonial penal matters. This is a simple issue of the kind which Parliament is well qualified to grasp and decide—do young people have a vote at 18 or not?

In this age of complexity on economic and political matters which face back benchers like myself, it is a great joy to come to something which is well within my comprehension: indeed, there is only one civil servant in the Box today. Let us give the Bill a Second Reading and move forward in a direction which, I think, no one will deny is bound to be the pattern of the future.

The hon. Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. Emrys Hughes) has delighted the House today, as he has done on previous occasions, with the variety of Bills that he has brought forward. No direct reference is made in the Bill to nationalising The Times newspaper, but I am delighted to see that, in spite of that, The Times has taken a great interest in the Bill. On a previous occasion the hon. Gentleman tried to give us the impression that he had the support of the Prime Minister and the Home Secretary in his proposal to nationalise The Times, so at any rate there was a similarity of themes. But on this occasion I am delighted to see that the hon. Gentleman has the backing of quite a number of hon. Members opposite. I cannot see why the hon. Gentleman has not produced a Bill to force us to recognise the virtues of the patron saint Robbie Burns. That is perhaps because he is a Welshman representing a Scottish constituency.

The Bill appears to be a very short and simple Measure. It consists of one thin piece of paper with all the important things on one side of half of it. But, of course, it is much more far-reaching in its intentions than the House has heard so far today. I want to say something about it in my capacity as one of those hon. Members who is far nearer 18 than many other hon. Members. Indeed, for two years I was the youngest Member in the House and the youngest Conservative Member during that time. I shall have something more to say about that in a moment.

I want to look back to the time when I was 18, because then I was still at school and I did not know very much about politics, although I do remember 1945, when a disaster happened at any rate to the type of society in which I have been brought up to believe. I knew about that, and, of course, in the years that followed I had the benefit of an annual visit from the right hon. Member for Woodford (Sir W. Churchill) who came down to inspire us with his speeches and to tell us that not all was lost and that, perhaps, one day the sun would shine again. And it did.

That was all very well, but, of course, although at the age of 18 I had received inspiration from the right hon. Gentleman I had not heard the other side of the case. I was still mildly prejudiced in favour of the Conservative policies in which I had been brought up and schooled. I may say that even though in later years I have discovered something of the policies and intentions of hon. Members opposite, that has not shaken me in the belief which I had at 18. However, it is fair to say that I had not then heard both sides of the question, and I think many would agree with me on that.

The hon. Gentleman is making a perfectly valid point in relation to himself and, obviously, in relation to many other hon. Members of the House, but he surely would not suggest that it is typical of the majority of the population still to be at school at the age of 18. As has been pointed out, most of them have been at work for three years by that time.

x: I am quite prepared to agree that I may not be typical of many of Her Majesty's subjects, but that does not fail to entitle me to express my views and the views of people like myself. After all, we are striving to raise the school leaving age more and more, and are looking forward to the time when all young people will remain at school till they are 18.

I have mentioned the hon. Member for South Ayrshire who introduced the Bill and have said that he is a Welshman representing a Scottish constituency. I have a kindred feeling with him because I was born in Wales and have a Scottish mother. Fortunately, my father is deeply rooted in Gloucestershire, and, therefore, I am entitled to represent Bristol as a local man.

The hon. Member for South Ayrshire made great play about an organisation which he described as the Bow Group, and he described a number of my hon. Friends as belonging to the "bow and arrow" group. I do not belong to either. I should describe myself as belonging to the "No" group. I do not belong to any group at all. I prefer to make up my mind on various matters of public interest after having heard both sides of the case.

Subject to the Whips.

There have been a number of occasions in the three years during which I have been a Member of this House when I told the Whips that I did not agree with various proposals. I have even absented myself on occasions when I have not felt inclined to support the Government. I shall continue with that policy and I hope that other hon. Members on both sides of the House will do the same.

The hon. Member for South Ayrshire said that he had sent an emissary round the House to sound the opinions of young Tory Members. I am sorry to say that the emissary did not reach me. I had heard nothing of the plans of the hon. Gentleman until I became aware of the proposal to introduce the Bill today. I suspect that one person who was sent round by the hon. Member for South Ayrshire was his hon. Friend the Member for Greenock (Dr. Dickson Mabon). I should like, in passing, to say that I have had a certain intimate personal contact with the hon. Member for Greenock because in his medical capacity he gave me a penicillin injection last winter.

I see that the hon. Gentleman has survived, unfortunately.

Is the hon. Gentleman saying that my hon. Friend actually helped him to get a safe seat?

If the hon. Member for Bristol, South-East (Mr. Benn) knows anything about medicine, he will realise that my seat was very much more uncomfortable after the injection.

The hon. Member for South Ayrshire said that he had an unanswerable argument in favour of this Bill in that if one was fit to fight, one was fit to vote. If that be an unanswerable argument, I do not propose to deal with it but to leave it for other hon. Members to discuss. I, too, am armed with a large quantity of papers. Not only have I managed to get a copy of the document on Labour Party policy from which the hon. Gentleman quoted, but I have also a copy of the Albemarle Report, and some other learned books, from which I will quote if it becomes necessary, but I do not wish to weary the House with quotations unless it is absolutely vital for me to do so.

We have been trying to discuss the Bill in an academic sort of way, but it has great political implications. When we discussed the question of the use of motor cars at election times that became a political issue, and this is a political issue because, obviously, there is bound to be speculation about the effect on future elections were the Bill to become law.

I think I can say that at the last General Election I had quite a lot to do with the average type of constituency in the United Kingdom. We have all types of constituencies in Bristol. I speak from my experence of Bristol, West and I had a lot to do with the two neighbouring constituencies which changed their political complexion at the last election, Bristol, North-East and Bristol, North-West. I was asked the usual questions at election meetings. Two questions came up at every single meeting. One was, "What about Suez?". One had only to say "Well, what about Suez?" and, usually, the questioner had nothing more to say. It was a dead issue. The second question was, "What about Hola?" If one asked the questioner, "Where is Hola?" usually he did not know. Today's subject was not a burning issue. There was not much enthusiasm about it one way or the other and it received only lukewarm support.

Of course, I think that the Labour Party was very clever in bringing out its document just before the General Election. It was a case of flying a kite—this Bill is a rather similar example—to see what people would think about it. Hon. Members opposite ought to reflect on the public reaction to their document, because there was not much enthusiasm one way or the other. I maintain that if the Bill became law, it would certainly favour the Conservative Party because, as all the world knows, the Young Conservative movement is very successful—whatever the hon. Member for Bristol, South-East may say about its social side and activity, quoting my hon. Friend the Member for St. Albans (Mr. Goodhew).

Whatever anyone may say, those social activities are not a bad thing. We should all lead very dreary lives if we shut our politics away in a watertight compartment. It would be like a Member of Parliament spending the whole of his time in this Chamber listening to everything his hon. Friends had to say. Some of them speak very intelligently outside this Chamber in other parts of the building, although I do not think it is necessary for me to say exactly where.

The Young Conservative movement is very successful. There are a large number of young Conservatives in my constituency and I think that the young Liberals are reasonably successful. At the last election the Liberal candidate in my division, after having taken the young Conservative beauty queen out to tea, announced to the local newspaper—after he had just saved his deposit—that he would return to Bristol after the election and form a group of Young Liberals. That is just by the way, but I think that the two parties are successful in attracting young people, and here I come to my point.

I am very surprised that the hon. Member has introduced this Bill, for the reason that his party does not seem to appeal to young people. The young Socialist movement has been singularly unsuccessful and perhaps we might give a word of advice to the party opposite on that subject. It is because they are so intensely political that they fail in this respect. It is necessary to get people together because they like being together and then, possibly, there may be an opportunity to talk about useful things.

The Socialist Party approaches the matter from the wrong angle. I can give an example of the sort of thing that young people, young Socialists, tend to do when they get together. I am told that it is proposed to form a young Socialist group in Bristol. A report in the Bristol Evening Post states that a Bristol Left Club is to be formed to boycott South African goods and to picket certain shopping areas in the city. The club will also do social work which, no doubt, is a very good thing. The sponsors are Mr. Christopher Boyd who was formerly the Labour Member for Bristol, North-West, and, I see to my surprise, the hon. Member for Bristol, South-East. That only goes to show the danger to which the hon. Member is exposing his party by supporting this Bill.

It might be suggested that this Bill is part of a logical series of events dating from the Reform Bill of 1832 which increased the franchise, though it did not achieve very much. The increase was from 5 per cent. to 7·1 per cent. of the adult population. In 1864 the figure went from 9 per cent. to 16·4 per cent. In 1872 we had the Ballot Act which was introduced by a Bristol Member. In 1884 the figure increased from 18 per cent. to 28·5 per cent. In 1918 women over 30 were given the vote and the figure went from 30 per cent. to 74 per cent. In 1928, it increased from 74 per cent. to 96 per cent., and in 1948, from 96 per cent. to 96·7 per cent. Surely, that is far enough. Surely, it can be said that that, is a pretty wide extension and before we go further, we ought to think seriously about whether it is advisable to do so. I can give more details if necessary.

I did not catch what were the percentages to which the hon. Gentleman has referred.

They are percentages of the adult population, over the age of 20.

Including peers and lunatics.

I am not sure whether these figures have anything to do with peers and lunatics.

Those who oppose giving the vote to people of 18 will say that people of that age will vote for the wrong reasons, that they will be attracted by the wrong sort of things, just as Mr. Cliff Richard and Mr. Tommy Steele are the idols of the teen-agers. Here I agree with the hon. Member for Bristol, South-East that there is nothing wrong in having such people as idols or that there is anything unhealthy about "rock and roll" and the things which go with it. My point is that people of this age group are more interested in that sort of thing, and that it might not be a bad idea if we leave the voting age as it is now.

If we had these young people in, the T.V. glamour boy politician would have even greater sway than he has now. We already have a reported case of a young woman who when asked which political party she supported, mentioned one of the parties opposite and said, "I am going for that party because the leader is so madly attractive." She was a teen-ager. I leave the House to say which Opposition party was intended.

To return to the Bill, although some would know how to use their votes at 18, I maintain that many would not. It is not quite so simple as it looks and this Bill would have very far-reaching consequences in all kinds of directions. Should we want 18-year-old Members of Parliament? That could easily happen, for, if we are to allow the vote at 18, we must allow a candidate to stand at 18.

We can have a Member of Parliament of 18. The Sovereign assumes full responsibility at 18 and the Sovereign is "in Parliament assembled." That is the precedent.

The hon. Member is a genius for knowing the ins and outs of the constitution and I am grateful to him. Perhaps he will correct me in any other references I shall make. We could get 18-year-old or 19-year-old Members of this House as a consequence. That, of course, would benefit our cricket team, but it might not benefit us in other directions. We would also have 18-year-old hereditary peers. Perhaps that would be a good thing. I maintain that there is absolutely nothing wrong in 18-year-old hereditary Peers doing all the things we read about in the gossip columns of our great national newspapers, but I suggest that it would be better for them to do that sort of thing first and later to take on their constitutional responsibilities. Some may be at school and would have to have their schooling interrupted if they were to attend at Westminster.

The real obstacle to the Bill is that this is far too big a subject for Private Members' legislation. The last time electoral reform was discussed I believe it was through the formula of a Speaker's Conference. That, I feel, is the way in which this matter should be approached. I should not like to leave the House with the impression that I am steadfastly opposed to the principle of the Bill. I am trying to put the advantages and disadvantages of the proposal. I feel it is not the right way to go about it to pass a Bill of this kind this afternoon. I shall not oppose it, but we should have an opportunity to look at the problem in a much wider way on another occasion.

I saw the right hon. Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede) in his place a few moment ago. He gave the answer to this problem, although perhaps hon. Members would not agree with him. He said in 1948:

"Our view is that 21 years of age is the appropriate age for people to undertake the duties of citizenship. It requires a certain amount of maturity and experience, and we feel the long-established practice in this country of regarding 21 as a suitable age should be continued."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 17th March, 1948; Vol. 448, c. 2233.]

He is a wise man in constitutional matters and he said that then. If we were to consider this subject further, how much more useful it would be to have the wisdom of right hon. Gentlemen like him, and some of the younger Members, to look at the matter thoroughly. Here we are on a Friday afternoon with a large part of England blanketed under snow and many of us suffering from winter ailments. Are we on this occasion to pass a Bill which would have very far-reaching consequences, a Bill which, although we may learn quite a lot about its intentions this afternoon, we have not had the opportunity to explore as much as we should like?

If the Bill passes its Second Reading there will be a Committee stage and the country is not always under snow. There will also be the Third Reading in which every opportunity to debate the Bill would be given.

And there is the House of Lords.

The hon. Member for South Ayrshire has had longer Parliamentary experience than I have had, but, in spite of his charm in putting this Bill a stage further and having discussion on it upstairs, he will know that most of the great changes in our franchise have been brought about by rather different forms of legislation. I suggest to him that that might be the way to proceed on this occasion.

I have listened to the persuasive charm of the hon. Member for South Ayrshire, who so often delights the House. I hope he will long continue here. When I was looking at my television set during the General Election, I saw that my hon. Friend the hon. Baronet the Member for Ayr (Sir T. Moore) had been elected. Then I was delighted to see that the hon. Member for South Ayrshire was also elected. I did not happen to know his Conservative opponent, but I thought "Here is part of a House of Commons we just cannot do without. I am glad he is back again. I should like to give him my congratulations". We have had a valuable discussion today and we owe that to him.

Even though other hon. Members may have contributed in their way, we cannot do as we like in this House. It is not like that other, happier place where anyone can raise anything at all, and even find time to do so. Perhaps when the hon. Member has finished here he may be translated to that happier place. Then he can go and join—

The bishops.

—the bishops and perhaps even have tea with the noble Lord, Viscount Tenby, on whom he cast such severe strictures today. Perhaps when he knows him better he might persuade the noble Lord to work along his lines. We have seen today the proper use of Friday afternoon for the discussion of some interesting matters. Many people have been able to say what they think, but I do not think that at one fell swoop we should pass a Bill which would completely alter the whole franchise of the country. I do not wish the hon. Member ill in any way at all, but I do not think this is the occasion to do what he wants to do.

I have great pleasure in supporting my hon. Friend the Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. Emrys Hughes). He fastened on to exactly the right argument when he said, "Fit to fight, fit to vote." The right to vote is, after all, the right to exercise citizenship, and the right to fight is in defence, basically, of the whole concept of that citizenship—our life and our liberties.

I have been waiting for this opportunity since I was 18 years of age. At that age I had just enlisted as a private in an infantry regiment. I was rather shocked by the reference made by the hon. Member for St. Albans (Mr. Goodhew) to the suggestion that there is some distinction between serving men who are highly qualified technically and serving men who serve in a rather humble way in obscure parts of the Services. During my military service I progressed up the ladder of promotion. Towards the end, to give myself an air of spurious authority, I grew a moustache almost as magnificent as that belonging to the hon. Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Nabarro). I also cultivated a deep, booming voice. But I do not think that at the end of my military service I was any better or worse fitted to vote than when, as a humble private, I was peeling potatoes—it must have been round about two tons of them—or washing about 5,000 greasy plates.

After all, voting has never depended on education. I felt that at the age of 18 I should have had the right to vote. It is true that in my platoon we were not a collection of Sophocleses or Aristotles. I do not think any of my N.C.O.s came in that category, but I do not think that lack of political education was confined to those under 21. There were those among them who were just as informed or as ignorant, according to background, as those over 21.

My hon. Friend the Member for South Ayrshire made some very useful points. In the first place, we have more people than ever before in this age category. They are growing up faster, marrying earlier and taking on wider responsibilities. All these three factors must contribute to their right to exercise their civic responsibilities in all kinds of ways, because they are becoming more and more concerned at an earlier age with the problems of government and local government. For this reason, young people should be admitted to full citizenship.

Those of us who support the Bill base our support on two simple beliefs. First, we believe in democracy, and, secondly, we believe in youth. Democratic government should be based on the principle of the widest possible franchise and the widest area of free thought and discussion. In the growth of our democracy, we have seen the franchise gradually extended step by step as it has been given to the middle classes, the industrial workers, rural workers, women over 30 and then women under 30. These extensions have always been opposed by those who said that the proposed new category of voters lacked experience. But how do they gain experience unless they are given civic rights?

It used to be said that women were not fitted to vote. Flow could they be, when they had little incentive or opportunity to take an interest in political affairs? John Stuart Mill made the point very well in remarking that it was necessary to go into the water before one could learn how to swim. Speaking of the non-enfranchisement of women, he said:

"A practice which keeps citizens in relation to Government like that of children to their guardians is itself the cause of an inferior capacity for political life."

The same argument applies exactly to young people over 18 years of age.

Our democracy rests on the principle that thought and discussion are the basis of true government and that every citizen has the right to contribute to this thought and discussion. This is the whole advantage of democracy over dictatorship. The danger of a dictator, apart from the dangers of tyranny is inefficiency. Nobody dares to contradict him, or to express new views or opinions. The danger of the despot is that errors of judgment are never counteracted or corrected by contrary ideas and the errors of dictators mount up like compound interest until the final disaster. In a democracy, on the other hand, more and more opinions influence our deliberations. The more opinions that we can call in from more and wider sections of the community with their different experience, the more we avoid what Bentham called

"the sinister influence of the partial franchise."

What new opinions can youth provide? It is argued that the young people lack experience. I suggest, however, that experience is not the mere accumulation of birthdays. There are two qualities that young people can offer. First, they have idealism and they may, possibly, help to counteract the influence of people from whom the experience of life has eroded all idealism. Secondly, the young people possess imagination. We need these two qualities of idealism and imagination in our political life.

It is true that the inrush of new voters will lead to an element of unpredictability, but that is a good thing. We do not know which way they will vote. It will make the whole political scene unpredictable. Nothing is so well suited to keep politicians and political machines on their toes as unpredictability. I hope that this inrush of new voters will force the political parties to shake up their ideas to meet the challenge of the times and to remind the diehards, on both sides of the House, that this is not 1860, but 1960. We must be prepared to accept a lot of new ideas in the government of the country.

Some people argue that the young people are too interested in "rock and roll", but what is wrong with that? Perhaps we can do with a little more "rock and roll" in political life. I suggest, therefore, that young people can add to and assist in our political activities. We should not underestimate the capacity of young people to act on the basis of their own experiences. One hon. Member suggested that the Young Conservatives are stronger than the Young Socialists. He omitted to take into consideration, the many youth sections of the trade unions.

In Scotland, a short time ago, I met some young miners who represented the Youth Committee of the Scottish National Union of Mineworkers. Some of these young men were under 21 and some of them were married. They were serious-minded in their politics and fully capable of exercising the franchise and wishing to do so. I suggest, therefore, not only that young people can add to our political experience, but that they have the right to do so.

If young people are fit to get married—and the law allows them to marry—fit to work at skilled trades and fit to die for their country, they are fit to vote for their country. I cannot see any illogicality in this line of reasoning. If the 18–20-year-olds get the vote, they will force the politicians to take the needs of youth more seriously. There are many needs of youth, including more and better education, more and better training for jobs, especially technical training, more and better spare time facilities, including clubs, playing fields and equipment.

It is remarkable that our young people do so well in international sport when one considers the poverty of facilities, the lack of indoor tracks and the lack of proper facilities for deep diving in swimming in comparison with, say, America. The 18–20-year-olds would exercise political pressure for improvement—and we need it—in all these amenities, among which must also be included more and better housing for young married couples.

There is no party advantage in this proposal. The other day, I asked a young teenager how he thought teenagers would vote if the Bill were passed. I was surprised at his answer, because he seemed to me to be an intelligent young man. He said, "I think that we will all vote Liberal." I asked why. He replied, "Well, the Liberals are the underdogs, and teen-agers consider themselves the underdogs and they may well vote Liberal."

There are not more than six Members of the House of Commons who wish to see another Liberal Member of Parliament sitting here. I have never been able to understand the use of statistical data by those national newspapers, including one based on Manchester, which profess to see signs of a Liberal revival in the election of six Liberals out of a membership of the House of Commons of well over 600. That is a curious use of statistics. If we were to get two more Liberals in the House, no doubt the same newspaper would be demanding that the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Grimond) should form a Government.

We on this side have no wish to see more Liberal Members, but if the young people vote Liberal it will be a challenge and one that must be faced. Personally, I did not believe that young teen-ager. I think that when teen-agers cease to be underdogs and get political responsibility, they will show political responsibility in the way they vote.

I have referred, in passing, to the great legislative landmarks of the past that have widened and deepened our democracy and gradually extended the franchise to different social classes. Today, we can add a year of new political significance to the footnotes in our history books. I hope that in 1960, today's Bill will become an Act and will mark a further landmark in the progress towards the full democracy for which we are striving.

The House should be grateful to the hon. Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. Emrys Hughes) for introducing the Bill and giving us the opportunity to discuss a matter which has not been discussed for some time—the voting age. It is right that we should discuss it and I congratulate the hon. Member on his luck in the Ballot and his choice of Bill.

It is true that the hon. Member sets his sights rather high when he is not trying to nationalise some of the organs of the Establishment and when he is trying, as today, to reform the Constitution. Nevertheless, I am grateful to the hon. Member. He and I came into conflict in South Ayrshire at the by-election when he was first elected in the early part of 1946. I remember a subsequent agricultural debate, in which he and I were both engaged, in which he suggested that the reason for his election was that his great knowledge of agriculture was superior to mine and that this was recognised by the farmers, who, therefore, elected him. I say to him now that if his Bill had been the law of the land at that time I am sure that all the youth and beauty of South Ayrshire would have voted in their thousands and given me the majority.

I hope that the Home Office and the House will not dismiss this idea out of hand. It has to be considered extremely seriously. I do not base my arguments in favour of the idea so much on the hon. Gentleman's, which he put so amusingly and cogently when moving his Motion. I have never accepted that the principle, "Fit to fight, fit to vote" was right. I was a little more moved by what I thought was his second slogan, which was, "Fit to hang, fit to vote"—as I understood him.

I follow the arguments which have already been put to the House by the hon. Member for Bristol, South-East (Mr. Benn). I think them extremely important. We have had in the last few years a great new consciousness of the people under 20 who are normally referred to as the teen-agers. There is, of course, a great deal of criticism of their narrow trousers and boots and many of their activities, but I am convinced that as education has advanced the people of that age group now are more responsible than the people of that age group at any time before.

I entirely agree with what the hon. Member opposite said, that it is right that in a Parliamentary democracy we should give them this voice, and not only because they have a right to it after they have reached 18, which, after all, is a watershed in the lives of the majority of us in this country. The majority of them are working, many are married, many have quite big responsibilities, and they have a stake in the community.

It is by an historical fact that we have the age of 21 as the qualifying age. As the Labour booklet the hon. Member referred to says, it came about owing to the legal historical accident in the Middle Ages that the merchant's son became of age when he became literate and was able to do accounts, the socman's heir at 15, if I remember aright, while the knights' rule was 21. That rule became the universal one. I suggest that for the franchise we could change it today.

I hope that the idea will not be rejected by hon. Members and by my right hon. Friends out of hand. I think it should be examined. Perhaps a Friday afternoon and a Private Member's Bill on a single sheet of paper are not quite right for amending the Constitution. We have normally had for such changes inter-party conversations and a Speaker's Conference.

Cromwell altered the Constitution without a single piece of paper.

I take the hon. Gentleman's point.

I must say that I agree with the hon. Gentleman the Member for Bristol, South-East that it is a great relief to have a Bill one can understand without too much intellectual effort. However, I seriously feel we should further this proposal in the normal way by preceding such a reform with a Speaker's Conference.

There has been a change in the age pattern in this country, and, unhappily, the population will become older and older. I think, therefore, that there is an argument, perhaps a limited one, for saying that in a Parliamentary democracy the more people still in working life who can vote the better, because we shall have more and more retired people, and if the age pattern of the population continues to develop along the lines foreseen by the statisticians the centre of gravity will be much higher. I think that that is an added reason for examining this question.

Several hon. Members have said, quite truly, that maturity has developed earlier in young people over the last few years. I do not need to pursue that matter any further. It is quite clear. People are marrying earlier, not only in Scotland, and they are taking on responsibility earlier than they have in the past.

I would for a moment regret that the hon. Member did not include in his Bill certain other reforms of the 1949 Act. I should like to see at an early date an amendment of Section 9, the Section which deals with postal votes. All of us in this House have our experience of the last General Election very much in mind. There is no doubt that, having accepted the principle of the postal vote, we ought to go to the full extent and say that any man or woman otherwise entitled to vote who for any reason is temporarily away from that address at which he or she was on the qualifying date should be allowed the postal vote.

It is done. We know, every one of us in this House, instances of people who, last October, were on holiday, but who were able to combine business with pleasure to such an extent that they were able to cast their votes.

I hope that the hon. Member will not pursue this subject, because it is outside the scope of the Bill.

If you please, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, I am suggesting how the Bill could be improved. No doubt, when it goes to Committee that may be considered. I dare say that it is outside the Long Title. However, I will not pursue it any further except to say that there is in the electorate a great demand for this amendment and for arranging that people should have the vote when on holiday.

I do not think that the administrative difficulties would be nearly as great as they are sometimes maintained to be by the Home Office and, indeed, the party organisations of all three parties. I think that this is something we should do and that it should be examined, and I hope that the Minister will have something to say about it.

It gives me great personal pleasure to support the idea behind this Bill, for it should be examined. We should not take a rigid attitude towards the voting age. I hope that the House will have an opportunity, as a result of a Speaker's Conference, of a further debate upon this proposal. At present, I myself feel quite confident that we should extend the franchise down to 18 years. I have listened to a number of opinions on this matter and that is my view at present.

Although, as The Times leader says, the law does allow greater intelligence and greater responsibility to those over 21, this is really a fiction. We all know that the agricultural labourer gets his full man's wages at 18, and he is probably just as mature at 18 as he is at 21. We all know plenty of people over 21 who, if we had our own personal way, would not be allowed to vote in any election at all. There is plenty of immaturity over the age of 21, and I think that, as a class, the under-21s are just as mature as some of the others.

My hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, West (Mr. Robert Cooke) mentioned that he was at school at 18 and was a member of the Conservative Party. Perhaps I might make a personal declaration that I was also at school at 18, and presented a whole series of Socialist volumes, including the works of Karl Marx, to the school library, where they still are—I regret to say, very much thumbed. Indeed, I received an acknowledgment from the school librarian, a retired schoolmaster, which was courteous but extremely cold.

For these reasons, I hope that the House and my right hon. Friend the Joint Under-Secretary at the Home Office will not dismiss this idea out of hand. As the right hon. Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede), is now in his place, I should like to conclude by reminding the hon. Gentleman the Member for South Ayrshire that when introducing the Bill, he gave us the family history of the Lloyd Georges, and explained what the "bow-and-arrow" group had done with this. In point of fact, during the debate in the House on the 1949 Representation of the People Bill, the right hon. Member for South Shields, who was then Home Secretary, took exactly the same view as did his Conservative successor, and indeed his predecessors, that in the view of his Government 21 was the proper age to undertake the duties of citizenship.

Our record is very good. Every time in our history when there has been a reform, since the time when the Reform Bill of 1832 came before the House, everybody has said that it was impossible. The Duke of Wellington at that time said that England would collapse within six months if the Reform Bill was passed. Every time we move forward, as we steadily have done, towards the "one man, one vote" principle, we always see a class of people who say, "This is quite impossible". We know from our own personal experiences that there are plenty of people who say, "Well, of course, most of these people should not have the vote". When we ask them exactly where they would fix the age and educational standard, the answer comes that it should be about five years younger than their own age and just below the educational standard which they have themselves achieved. These are the people who are the real "bow-and-arrow" group.

For these reasons, I hope that the House will give the Bill a sympathetic reception.

I am the seventh speaker to take part in what has been a very interesting debate, which was initiated by my hon. Friend the Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. Emrys Hughes). Of those preceding six speakers, none of them has been opposed to this Bill. This is rather interesting, because we have had three Conservative Members, one of whom has said that he will not vote against the Bill, another of whom, the hon. Member for Honiton (Mr. Mathew), who indicated that he welcomed the Bill, and another hon. Member who made a similar kind of suggestion to that made by the hon. Member for Honiton, namely, that this was a proper matter for a Speaker's Conference.

I must confess that I was surprised that three Conservative Members should have given what is, in effect, a lukewarm welcome to the Bill, and certainly no opposition to it. I find that very surprising indeed, in view of the attitude which The Times takes up this morning. Whatever the hon. Member for St. Albans (Mr. Goodhew) may say about the Delphic Oracle in relation to party documents and declarations, he apparently regards The Times as a Delphic Oracle, and is willing to cast a certain amount of doubt on this Bill therefore.

I should like to take up a point which he mentioned, which is the real substance of the objections to this Bill, and I think the substance of the argument in The Times, which is this. Because we have not reformed the property laws, and because we have not completely in the common law of England given adult status to those who are 18 years of age and over, therefore we ought not to give them the vote. No one has so far argued that we have not got to give them the vote on principle, but rather because there are obstacles in the way. The hon. Member for Bristol, West (Mr. Robert Cooke) said that, as this was a Private Member's Bill, we ought not to take this kind of action at this particular juncture. The hon. Member for Honiton said it was an all-party affair and that a Speaker's Conference was the right way to do it, while the hon. Member for St. Albans raised the argument that because there are other obstacles, such as the law of property and so on, these matters should have been looked at first of all.

An all-party conference, as the hon. Member for St. Albans suggested, would go into the whole question of civil liberties and the rights and responsibilities of persons of 18 years of age and over. This is a very interesting suggestion, and while I have no wish to appear to be selling the pass to the enemy in that I do not wish my hon. Friend the Member for South Ayrshire to see his Bill lost, I find it very attractive. I would welcome at least the Joint Under-Secretary at the Home Office telling us that, while the Government cannot accept the Bill in its present form, nevertheless, such a Committee will be set up. That, at least, would provide us with some justification for what we have been trying to do this afternoon.

I listened very carefully to what the hon. Member for Bristol, West said earlier. I never knew that the toxic effects of penicillin were so long-lasting as to cause him to end up with such a confusion of argument. Some of these arguments were very good, some I did not understand, and some were downright bad. Nevertheless, the hon. Member comes down in favour of the Bill, at least to the extent of not opposing it. The hon. Member used the same argument as the hon. Member for Honiton when he said that the question of the reform or extension of the franchise had always been opposed. To re-echo Disraeli, the Tory Party has always been in favour of reform, but always the last reform, and not the next reform. That, I hope, is not true of this particular matter. The Delphic Oracle of The Times, which the hon. Member for St. Albans worships so much, in fact might be wrong.

The point is that, as the hon. Member for St. Albans has argued this case of property, we should have a look at it. It is true, as my hon. Friend the Member for Dunfermline Burghs (Dr. A. Thompson) said, that people are marrying younger, and they are marrying younger, I suggest, for simple biological reasons. They are maturing physically much earlier. It is a remarkable fact that due to the national nutritional programme—for the nation decided twenty years ago to feed its people to a conscious and better plan—this is so. We have seen in every report of the Ministry of Health and of the Department of Health for Scotland the figures of the height and weight of children rising every year, even during the war. That is an almost incredible fact. Even during the war, with all the restrictions on food, nevertheless, the actual standard of health and development of our children has consistently grown, until we now have what is called in the newspaper world a "beanstalk generation".

This is a generation which matures very early. When we read the Albemarle Report, which was referred to by my hon. Friend the Member for South Ayrshire, we see that many of the difficulties which have arisen with juvenile delinquency and so on are in fact the direct consequence of this earlier maturity. We also know that because of the fact that people are maturing earlier, the incidence of marriage at an early age also rises. One in four of all young women are now married by the time they are 19 and one in two by the time they are 21. These are figures from the 1957 Report, and they are quite remarkable.

The other side of that coin, and the rather tragic side, which is connected with what the hon. Member for St. Albans said, is that one in five of the girls who marry before 21 end up in the divorce court. I wonder why? Is it immaturity, or because their domestic circumstances are in many cases quite difficult? They may not have their own homes at all, for legally they are not entitled to their own homes. Perhaps they are not tenants at all, because under the common law of England they have very few rights as far as householders are concerned. Many of them have to live with their in-laws.

I suggest that if we are to permit early marriages we ought to grant legal rights whereby these young people can try to make a success of their marriages. Bachelor though I am, I cannot accept that early marriage will necessarily be a failure and that the later in life people marry the more likelihood there is of such marriages being successful. These are not valid arguments. Such matters can be dealt with only by the people concerned. Much depends upon their adaptability. It is a matter of personal decision and I do not think it can be a subject for comprehensive social analysis. I admit, however, that if social pressures of an adverse character are applied, even the best people may find their marriages unfavourably affected in time.

Therefore, it is valid for us to wonder about the property rights of people under the age of 18. The hon. Member for St. Albans was arguing the case for us by asking us to consider the status of people of 18 and over. If we were to say that 21 years of age should be the golden rule, the age of legal right and obligation, and that we should have none of this nonsense about people incurring responsibilities under the age of 21, the logical conclusion would be that we must have the franchise at 21 and no earlier. The hon. Member is therefore arguing the case for considering the position of those who are 18 years of age and over. Therefore, I submit that no one can fairly turn the argument on its head and say that because people do not have property rights they ought not to have a vote.

There is a phrase in a musical hall song to this effect:

"'Twenty-one today, twenty-one today,

I've got the key of the door.

Never been twenty-one before."

I do not fully understand the context. Does it refer to the fact that at 21 a man is a householder? All the laws of franchise were founded on a household basis up to 1918. As my hon. Friend the Member for South Ayrshire said, in that year the principle of property-ownership for voting was breached, as was the principle of voting below the age of 21. It was also breached at a time when men were returning from the war to a land fit for heroes, and were then given the right to determine how the country should be governed.

There has been a lot of argument about what is called in The Times, "The non sequitur of 'fit to fight, fit to vote.'" I wonder if we might turn that outside in and ask whether the slogan "Unfit to fight, unfit to vote" might not be worthy of some thought? Governments of old men throughout the years have declared wars and young men have had to fight these wars. While I do not, of course, subscribe to the idea that if a man cannot fight for his country he ought not to vote for his country, it seems to me a forceful protestation in favour of the claim that if one is fit to fight for his country he is fit to vote for the Government of that country.

There are policies pursued by Governments which land many young men in very difficult situations and they may lose their lives as a consequence. Five hundred young men lost their lives in Cyprus and, whatever may be the rights and wrongs of the Cyprus situation, 500 people paid the supreme penalty because of specific policies of specific Governments. Should the participants who have paid this penalty have had no say at all in the policy persued by their Government? It seems an incredible position to defend to say that a man has to be responsible for the result of policies laid down by other people but that he should have no say in the formation of those policies.

The other argument which seems to me almost too difficult to refute is the argument that a man at the age of 18 must accept full responsibility to the extent of paying with his life, and that when he commits the final evil he must accept full responsibility and go to the gallows. Although there is full responsibility for evil, there seems to be no power or reward for good. I do not see how people can balance one with the other.

It has been said that the politicians may argue from the point of view of who will benefit by getting the votes. Does this matter? Is this the argument of the democrat—who will get the votes? Will it be the Liberals or the Tories, or are the Labour Members subscribing to this idea for purely party reasons? I do not think that argument is worthy of consideration. I think that all my friends who are interested in politics—and the hon. Member for Bristol, West, is no exception—were interested long before they were 21. We on these benches are Socialists because ours is the party of protest and of reform. I heard of one Conservative Minister who was said to be bitterly disappointed because his boy who was at college and was 18 years of age was a Conservative and not a Socialist. He was disappointed because his son was not progressing through the normal processes of thought—that is, from achievement to senility.

When the hon. Member for Bristol, West was testifying to his political evolution he was giving us an example of the classical disadvantage of having been educated at Harrow. The poor soul has never seen the other side of the argument. But that is no reason for saying that the hon. Member at the age of 18 was not intensely political. The fact is that most people who are interested in politics to the extent of coming to Parliament had that interest very early in life. There are many people in universities who can ask much more intelligent questions than one is ever asked at the hustings, given a general group of citizens. There is an astonishing amount of knowledge among the young people and it is quite refreshing to go to meetings and to find that they are so interested in matters of public policy.

I believe profoundly that while this Bill may not succeed—and even the Under-Secretary might be so hard of heart or so determined to stick to his brief that he cannot see his way to agreeing to an all-party inquiry as was suggested by the hon. Member for St. Albans—nevertheless we have started a movement which cannot be stopped.

The hon. Member for Greenock (Dr. Dickson Mabon) has said that not one Member on this side of the House has been wholeheartedly opposed to the Bill. I am glad that I can now satisfy his demands. I in no way disapprove of the thoughts that have been expressed by a number of hon. Members in seeking to redress the wrongs of those between the ages of 18 and 21, including the difficulties of young married couples seeking a home of their own, although frankly I feel that when we digressed into those channels a few moments ago we were not, strictly speaking, dealing with the Bill. Nevertheless, I agree that the other wrongs to which reference has been made should be put right.

On the subject of voting at 18 years of age, my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, West (Mr. Robert Cooke) told a sorry story of the education that can be achieved at Harrow. At the age of 18 those who are still at school may have very little political knowledge. It is the aim of practically everyone in this country to increase the school-leaving age. We all wish to see the school-leaving age progressively increased. Therefore, there will be a time not too far away when far too many children and adolescents will not have had the great experiences of life to which hon. Members on both sides of the House have referred.

The hon. Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. Emrys Hughes) referred to the experience of young miners earning good money. Indeed, if it is a question of young men earning good money and possessing a house and family, there might be an argument for giving them the vote. It is the aim of us all to see the school leaving age rise to nearer 18, but I would not like to see the vote given broadcast to all young people irrespective of them having real experience of life.

Several hon. Members, the hon. Member for Bristol, South-East (Mr. Benn) in particular, mentioned their own military or other experience at the age of 18. I do not want to bore the House with my own experience, but at the age of 18 I was a sea-sick young ordinary seaman and I spent most of my time, as did one other hon. Member, peeling spuds and trying to keep my dinner in the proper place. I was completely uninterested in crusty old politicians of 30 and was concerned with the vital affairs of life at the age of 18. Although I had a vague idea, very vague, about the political leanings of the two parties, I think that even at the height of the war it would not have been the right moment to give me a vote, because I was too busy considering other things.

We have had from almost every speaker on the other side of the House the old-fashioned military jingoism of "old enough to fight, old enough to vote". In 1944, when the war was winding to a close but nevertheless when we were still going through one of the greatest struggles of our history, the idea of votes for those under 21 was rejected by a large majority—16 votes to three—by the Speaker's Conference. If at the height of a war a Speaker's Conference rejected this suggestion, why should we change the position today by a Private Member's Bill?

Today we are pledged to peace. Let us get away from the idea of "old enough to fight, old enough to vote". Let us hope that war is outdated. I could agree with the statement of the hon. Gentleman the Member for Greenock—old enough to have a family and be a householder. That is a far better argument. But the hon. Member for Greenock also referred to the high divorce rate, which perhaps shows a certain fickleness of mind, as he said—

May I correct the hon. Gentleman on that point? My reference to the high divorce rate was linked with the complications in law about living with other people and having no tenant rights. I was not reflecting on the fickleness of young people.

The hon. Gentleman mentioned "fickle" or some similar word in passing, but I agree with his main contention about legal difficulties, because a house is of more value than a vote to a young man.

Some earlier speakers today made sweeping remarks about the Young Conservatives and the young Socialist movement. One point which has not been made is that in our party we believe firmly in giving Young Conservatives full executive authority right to the top. For instance, I was selected to fight two elections. I was interviewed in the Midlands before the 1955 election and subsequently in the south-east of England before the 1959 election by selection committees, and subsequently by larger meetings of the local organisations. On both those committees in two different areas there were Young Conservatives under the age of 21, or their elected representatives. I am sure this is the general practice throughout the Conservative Party. So we in our party allow our young people a fair share in the selection of their Members of Parliament—

Is the hon. Gentleman saying that the selection committee consisted of people under the age of 21?

I am saying that at the selection committee there is a representative, or two as the case may be, of the Young Conservative movement.

I cannot follow the conclusion of the argument, but I accept the facts. Does the hon. Gentleman mean that there is a bad choice of Conservative candidates by the Conservative Party or that the presence of young people under 21 justifies this Bill?

I am only halfway through my argument. My point is that in our party we have young people on selection committees and other committees. Those young people who do the work for us are representatives of those who are politically keen and politically active. One hon. Gentleman opposite mentioned the young trade unionist movement, which takes an active part in the affairs of the Labour Party, and presumably their seniors wish them well.

Is it not much better that young people who take an active part in the affairs of the political parties should do it in that way? Is it not much more suitable that young people who are "clued up" should express their opinions through their party organisation rather than that we should give the vote to the kind of young people who have gone about daubing swastikas on walls and making other unsuitable gestures recently?

It was said earlier than only 2 per cent. of the juvenile population are delinquents. I am glad to hear that the figure is so small, but the fact remains that there are juvenile delinquents and that there are many other young people who are fundamentally bored with politics.

rose—

The adult delinquent is in prison and therefore has no vote. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] I think perhaps that the hon. Gentleman the Member for Edinburgh, East (Mr. Willis) has come into the debate half an hour too late.

If young people are to be trusted to select candidates for Parliament, they should also be entrusted to vote.

Those who are entrusted in that way, which is only a part of the process, are those who are politically interested. The bulk of young people are not politically interested.

How does the hon. Gentleman know?

One does know.

Is it not true that the boast of the Conservative Party is that the Young Conservatives are the largest single political organisation in the world? Is it not true that the Labour Party claims a high membership for its young Socialist movement? Is not the same claim made by the trade union branches and by the Co-operative movement? Also, do not the Liberals make the same claim and do not the student organisations in all the universities claim that we are the most politically alive nation in that respect? If that is so, what proof is there of the hon. Gentleman's contention?

The proof of my argument can be found on any street corner, in almost any coffee house, though there may indeed be large numbers of young people who are politically-minded in the universities and in the vicinity of technical colleges. What I urge the party opposite to do is to give its own supporters more autonomy within the party. It was the hon. Member for South Ayrshire, or another speaker, who said that the young Socialist movements, one after the other, had come to a bad end—

No.

Yes, indeed—because they were too keen—

No.

The phrase used was that they came to a bad end because they were too keen. Let the Socialist Party organise its young people more on the lines of the Young Conservative movement. Let those go to dances who are so inclined, and let those go to political meetings who are politically inclined. Within the Conservative Party, the young already enjoy a good measure of representation. I should like to see that extended among those who are "clued up". For the rest, the swastika daubers should have no vote.

They are not all under 21.

Indeed, those were who were brought up in court in Scotland.

Coming back to the point about the young airman of 19 who was fit to fly a V-bomber, he had gone through the most rigorous mental selection tests. He, indeed, was old enough to fight, if we have to use this unattractive phrase.

Would the hon. Gentleman give the young boy in the bomber a vote? Does he think that he is responsible?

If a satisfactory mechanism could be found to introduce a Bill to give the vote to some but not to others, that might be realistic, but I believe that it would smite at the fundamental principles of democracy and that it would be undesirable. It is, therefore, much more democratic to have a straight age level, separating those above and below the age barrier, rather than to try to weed out those who have reached a higher intellectual level. As one hon. Member said, laughingly, we all like to think that the intellectual level would be just a little lower than our own and the age for voting just a little lower than our own. It is surely better to give the vote to all at 21 than to try to weed out some during the odd three years.

I am sure that even the hon. Gentleman the Member for South Ayrshire would agree that there are many 18 to 21 year-olds who are completely unfitted to vote and who would probably not bother to vote. There can be no partisan thought behind this Bill because none of us knows how they would vote. I should like to think that they would vote Conservative. Someone quoted the young Liberal lady who was going to vote for the hon. Gentleman the Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Grimond) for a certain reason. Of course, he quoted it slightly wrongly.

There can be no doubt that the young people in this three-year bracket are learning the experiences of life. That is what we want our electors to have—a good experience of life and a reasonable standard of education. It must be my final point that in raising the educational age we improve the standard of young men to a better educational level than existed before the First World War in this country. Voters must have a proper blend of education plus experience of life before they are fit to vote, and it is my submission that until one has reached the age of approximately 21 one is not fit to have a vote.

I have listened with interest to hon. Members opposite giving a considerable amount of advice on how the Labour Party should conduct its affairs and organise its youth movement. I cannot understand why they should be so anxious for us to improve our organisation, because it would inevitably jeopardise their seats.

The hon. Member for Bristol, West (Mr. Robert Cooke), who has made it clear that he comes from a minority group, did not attempt to grapple with the realities of politics until he was 18. But the vast majority of people do not go to Harrow. I am sorry that the hon. Member did not have the good fortune to have a grammar school or secondary modern school education, for he would then have found—I quote the experience of members of my own family—that children of 14 and 15 discuss current affairs of the day and, in that way, reach towards the time when they will have some maturity in political and also social and economic affairs.

The most cogent argument that came from the opposite side of the House, although no one except the hon. Member for Maidstone (Mr. J. Wells) seems to have been other than lukewarm about it, was that of the hon. Member for St. Albans (Mr. Goodhew), who tries to equate responsibility with—in the Armed Forces, at any rate—the degree of attainment in technical or other proficiency.

It seems to me—my hon. Friends have made the point clearly—that the responsibility for giving up one's life is a great one and that anyone who is in the position of having to lay down his life because of the situation into which the Government have got the nation ought also to have the right to decide—my hon. Friend the Member for Greenock (Dickson Mabon) made the point clearly—in respect of what kind of policies he should be called upon to exercise that responsibility.

It seems to me that the argument about the right to die and, therefore, the subsequent right to vote loses a great deal of its validity in the circumstances in which we now find ourselves, where the right to fight becomes a matter of choice since we are now moving towards a volunteer Army, Navy and Air Force. Therefore, the circumstances in which people may be called upon to fight will be emergency circumstances—those of a war. It would seem to me to follow, if one wants to pursue this argument, that in wartime, when there is compulsion to fight voting rights should perhaps then be amended. That would not seem to me to be a prudent proposal.

I cannot accept the hon. Gentleman's point. It is not a question of whether or not a person is voluntarily in that position. It is the fact that the nation has required him to have that responsibility as a result of war and his life is in hazard because of the political or international situation in which he finds himself.

I commend very much the breath of fresh air that the Bill has brought into the House. I might almost say "a breath of South Ayr". The Bill is clear, short and distinctive. The main argument that the younger generations have against politicians of the older generation is that too often the older politicians give lip service to such ideas as these and say "You, the youth of today, are the leaders of tomorrow, when you will be capable of" this, that or the other; but it is always "tomorrow". The younger generation are always looking to us to do something practical in line with the phrases which we so often utter.

A feeling of frustration arose in our Youth Service, which grew up during the war, as a result of a circular issued by the Ministry of Education in 1951, when the service was cut because of the economic situation. The cuts were described in the popular Press as being in parts of "the frills of education."

The Bill is a practical expression of faith in our young people. It is not just lip service or a matter of words. My hon. Friend the Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. Emrys Hughes) is saying, "Give the Bill a Second Reading and show the younger generation that we consider them to be an important section of the community, important enough not only to exercise their views through the many organisations which have been mentioned today, but to exercise their vote when it comes to a General Election."

The Bill has become more and more important in view of the changing trend in the social pattern during the last three or four years and because the world has discovered that the economic advantages of the teen-age market are something to be fought for. Those of us who ever have time to look at television have seen only too frequently how advertising aims itself at the teen-age market. The huge sums being spent by teenagers on "pop" records, for example, means that, economically, they are being wooed. Their attention at election times is sought by the political parties, and in between elections it is sought by economic groups who hope to create high incomes for themselves out of their spending power.

If that spending power is to become an important part of our economic system, surely we should be helping them towards some responsibility in the way they spend. This Bill does nothing but enable them to feel that not only are they being got at for support at election times by politicians and for money in between by industry, but are a part and parcel, an integral part, of the community, with the right to exercise their vote at the age of 18, and that they are capable of playing a part in the community.

My hon. Friend the Member for Greenock has given chapter and verse on the question of maturity and I will not repeat his argument, which is incontrovertible. Any reading of the British Medical Journal during the past year underlines that maturity is reached earlier than it was previously, and in this changing physical pattern the argument falls behind the Bill for the vote at 18.

The social background over the last generation has been tending all the time towards being passive. Entertainment tends towards being passive. This is the danger the younger generation face—the idea that one can be cynical, that politics do not matter, that trade unionism and social service do not matter, all because "they" the people up above, decide everything and responsibility "does not rest on our shoulders." If the Bill does nothing else but demonstrate to young people that we feel that they should be active, that they themselves have a part to play in the community, then it will have played its part in receiving some attention here today.

Some comment has been made about "rock and roll." I welcome the fact that the younger generation have had a reaction against sitting in front of a television screen and feel that they must exert themselves physically by flinging themselves about in a dance hall to "rock and roll." I used to do the charleston and I suppose that that dates me, but I was criticised by my elders in just the same way as "rock and rollers" are today.

However, these generalisations will not do. The other night I spent the hour between 5.30 p.m. and 6.30 p.m. at the Royal Festival Hall, at an organ recital of music by Bach. That is not the easiest kind of music to understand. I find it difficult always to get in tune with organ music by one composer, Johann Sebastian Bach, played at the Royal Festival Hall. The hall holds between 2,000 and 3,000 people and there were hundreds and hundreds of people there whose ages were between 16 and 25. In fact, it was largely a teenage audience, so that at the same time that we are looking at teenagers in relation to "rock and roll" "pop" records, Marty Wilde, Cliff Richard and Elvis Presley, let us realise that many young people are buying long-playing records of serious music and going to serious concerts.

We talk of this generation not being interested in serious things, but every library return shows that more books are being read by more people. More cultural activities—though perhaps at a lower level than most of us wish—are being undertaken by the younger generation. One of the results of the Education Act, 1944, has been that more and more young people in all sections of the community are taking part in more and more diverse interests. In my generation there was not so much opportunity, because we were not living in an affluent society. Today the opportunity is there and young people are seizing it.

Responsibility is something which cannot be taught. It is the kind of thing which one acquires by being given it. I do not believe in guided democracy. I believe that it is possible to attain full democracy only if people exercise and use it. If we want to preserve democracy in this country, the right way to go about it is to ensure that people take advantage of it at the earliest opportunity.

I hope that the House will give the Bill a Second Reading. This is a case which will appeal not only to the younger generation, but to all fair-minded people in the community.

Those of us who were in the Chamber at the time listened with delight to the way in which my hon. Friend the Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. Emrys Hughes) moved the Second Reading of the Bill. I hope that the decision of the House will belie my hon. Friend's general experience, which is that he is years before his time. If, by any strange mischance—

Does the hon. Gentleman make that as a serious and general political comment, because it is very significant and important if he is expressing that opinion from the Front Bench opposite?

I hope that the hon. Gentleman will not press me too far on that, but on this issue at least my hon. Friend may well be ahead, certainly of most hon. Members opposite, and it is on them, of course, that the decision will rest.

If, by some mischance, the Bill does not get a Second Reading, I am certain that in twenty-five years we shall have a Conservative Government telling the House that a Measure of this kind is a most important step towards a property-owning democracy, because hon. Members opposite are always avid in seizing their opponents' proposals in the nick of time.

With the single exception of the full-blooded reactionary speech of the hon. Member for Maidstone (Mr. J. Wells), the speeches from hon. Members opposite have been very different in tone from those to which the House has listened in debates on previous proposals to extend the franchise, speeches made by people like Sir Frederick Banbury and Sir George Cockerill. Nevertheless, in the speeches from hon. Members opposite, including even that from the hon. Member for Honiton (Mr. Mathew), we have had just a taste of the old Tory argument of why things should not be done or, if they should be done, why they should not be done now, or in this way.

The hon. and learned Member for Surrey, East (Mr. Doughty) very properly asked whether the Bill was the policy of the Labour Party.

I am the Member for Surrey, East and I have not spoken on this Bill.

The hon. and learned Member may have forgotten, but he intervened to ask a question when my hon. Friend the Member for South Ayrshire was speaking. I am sorry that he should discourage the kind of courtesy which I was about to show him and which was not of a kind invariably extended to him.

The hon. and learned Member asked whether the Bill represented the official policy of the Labour Party. To some extent, that question has been answered by my hon. Friends, but perhaps I may add a comment. Because of the printing dispute, the document upon which the Bill is based was not published until the middle of September, just after the date of the General Election had been announced. However, we in the Labour Party were at pains to put in the manifesto upon which we fought the election that, among the many proposals which a Labour Government would consider, was a lowering of the voting age. We went on to say that that would be a major change in our electoral law and social practice and so we would, in the next Parliament, initiate discussions on it with the other parties.

As the House knows, we did not win the election, but since then we have been hopeful that hon. Gentlemen opposite would initiate the discussions which we said we would have initiated if we had been the Government. Those discussions have not been forthcoming. We therefore very much welcome the opportunity that my hon. Friend has provided for airing this subject today. It is not a subject on which the party has an official line, but I personally welcome it very much.

I had some sympathy with the hon. Member for St. Albans (Mr. Goodhew), who suggested that perhaps the time had come for reviewing the whole question of the legal status of men and women over the age of 18, but I do not think that that is tremendously relevant to our discussion today.

I do not want to rehearse all the arguments that my hon. Friends have deployed, but I want to remind the House of what has been said in the past on similar occasions, because the arguments advanced by hon. Gentlemen opposite today are not the sort of arguments which I think will be generally raised among the public. Members of the public may well be tempted to prophesy doom and destruction if a Measure of this kind passes into law. I do not think that we should be discouraged by that, because every time a similar proposal has been made there have been similar prophecies of gloom. I suppose that one can take it as a step forward that we have not heard them voiced in this House today.

On 7th October, 1831, during the Second Reading of the Reform Bill, Lord Lyndhurst said in another place:

"& whatever name the Government choose to give to this Bill, it is in fact and in substance a revolutionary measure. It will endanger the Constitution itself. To the monarchical institutions of the country I have been attached, both by habit and education. I do not wish for a change that might affect the rights and privileges of the Crown, nor for one which will bring about a republic, or a republic in the shape of a limited monarchy. Republics are tyrannical and vicious, arbitrary and cruel, and unsteady. I do not charge the Ministers with having introduced this Bill for the purpose of subverting our form of Government; but such will be its effect."

Nevertheless, Parliament has continued to flourish from 1832 to the present time.

We were reminded earlier of what Mr. Disraeli said. I should like to remind the House of what Mr. Gladstone said in 1867, because one of the most noticeable features of the discussion today has been the way in which the members of the Liberal Party have been absent and have only popped in in their glamorous way from time to time. When the Reform Bill of 1867 was introduced, Mr. Gladstone opposed it on these grounds:

"I do not think it is a proposal to which Parliament will ever agree. I do not think that we are called upon by my consideration of the circumstances to hand over the majority of the constituencies into the hands of the working classes."

That, I think, may be a point which all of us on both sides of the House may find useful from time to time in dealing with troublesome Liberal interrupters.

In 1917, when there was a proposal to extend the franchise, it was fiercely fought in the House of Commons by people like Sir Frederick Banbury, but the most interesting example of opposition came in another place, and it is an argument which will have a special appeal to my hon. Friend. It is the speech of Lord Finlay, who was actually Lord Chancellor at the time. He said:

"Now, my Lords, what would be the effect of the admission of these six million voters to the Register if that contingency happened? Would not there be a vast amount of material for agitation, by those who are called pacifists, who are in favour of a hurried peace, among the millions of women who without political experience it is proposed to enfranchise by this Bill?"

The noble Lord went on to say:

"My own belief is that women as voters for the Imperial Parliament are as much out of their sphere as they would be sitting as Members of either Chamber of the Legislature."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, House of Lords, 10th January, 1918; Vol. 27, c. 471, 472.]

Ten years later, when the Government proposed to introduce what became known as the "flappers' vote" it was objected to in this House by only ten Conservative Members of Parliament. And I think that the time will come when a Measure of this kind will become the law of the land.

I was particularly in sympathy with one of the things that my hon. Friend said because I cannot pretend, just as he cannot, that my own or earlier generations have a record of which it is easy to be proud. We have seen the countryside eroded and spoilt. As the right hon. Gentleman opposite and his colleagues pointed out in the Albemarle Report, we have seen youth services neglected over a long period of years. Half the world's population are living in poverty, and the hydrogen bomb is a threat of which I believe young people are well aware. I cannot believe that the state of the world will deteriorate still further, if we do today what my hon. Friend is asking us to do.

I particularly welcomed the hon. Member for Honiton's defence of young people, because I am getting a little hit tired of older people criticising the younger generation of today. That is the kind of attitude of mind which can only prolong the old antagonisms between young people and older generations. I want to get rid of these antagonisms, and I believe that the most effective way of doing it is to help them and not to criticise them.

My hon. Friends the Members for Bristol, South-East (Mr. Benn) and for Dunfermline Burghs (Dr. A. Thompson) made most valuable contributions on that point. They told us, in effect, that what we have to do is to make these young men and women of between 18 and 21 feel that they are a part, and a badly-needed part, of society. On this side, we are saying, and I hope that it will be generally welcomed by hon. Members on both tides, that the best way to make them feel a part of society is to confer upon them the full obligations and responsibilities of citizenship. I hope that we shall do that, because I believe that we badly need their optimism, their confidence and their vigour to compensate for the caution and conservatism that age and tiredness tend to induce.

It is for that reason that I shall follow my hon. Friend happily into the Division Lobby, if there is any hon. Gentleman so misguided as to force a Division on this wholly estimable Measure.

I do not wish to curtail discussion of the Bill, but it may be convenient now to follow the hon. Member for Rossendale (Mr. Anthony Greenwood) and indicate the Government's attitude to the issues raised by the Bill. I think that we agree on two things: first, that the Bill is simplicity itself—on that, we all congratulate the hon. Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. Emrys Hughes)—and secondly, that it has been a very good-humoured debate. For that, again, we are indebted to the persuasive charm—I think that that was the term used—of the hon. Member in introducing his Bill.

Althought it has been a good-humoured and light-hearted debate, I do not think that any hon. Member who has spoken has under-estimated the importance and seriousness of the issue being debated. The Bill, in fact, proposes a major alteration in the electoral law, and alterations in the electoral law—particularly any alterations in the franchise—are obviously not matters on which Parliament does, or should, embark lightly. That is particularly the case at present, because both in the debate in this Chamber, and in the debate outside there is anything but a unanimous view on the alteration proposed. This consideration of the importance of the issue ought to guide our general approach to the Bill.

As the House knows, under the present law the minimum voting age is 21 and—with a temporary exception that I will mention later—it has always been 21. The law on this, as on so many other matters, is based on the proposition that 21 is the accepted age for assuming the full responsibilities of an adult. This general proposition is expressed in Halsbury's Laws of England. Here, perhaps, I may be excused for following The Times leader, though at somewhat greater length, because it is relevant.

Halsbury says:

"An infant (that is a person who has not completed his twenty-first year) does not possess full legal competence. Since he is regarded as of immature intellect and imperfect discretion, English law, while treating all the acts of an infant which are for his benefit on the same footing of those of an adult, will carefully protect his interests and not permit him to be prejudiced by anything to his disadvantage. An infant, owing to his want of judgment and capacity, is disabled from binding himself, except where it is for his benefit."

I do not want to weary the House by repeating the catalogue of items mentioned either in The Times leader or in this House today about what a person under 21 can or cannot do, but I believe that they are of some relevance and should be listed. A person under 21 cannot, as has been said earlier in the debate, hold legal estate in land. He or she cannot, with certain exceptions, hold an office or post of public or pecuniary trust. For example, he cannot act as the clerk of a court where it is part of the duties to receive moneys, nor as a bailiff nor receiver.

A person under 21 cannot sit in the House of Commons nor, as a peer, sit or vote in the House of Lords. He or she cannot be a mayor, alderman or councillor of a municipal borough or of a metropolitan borough, nor be a chairman or member of a county council or a district council or parish council. He or she is exempt from jury service. He or she cannot, unless a widow or widower, marry without consent of parents or guardians. A person under the age of 21 may be a partner in trade or business, but incurs no liability for the debts of the firm or for the acts of his co-partners.

I could add to that list. Indeed, several additions have been made. I suggest that these examples bear out the accepted principle that 21, and nothing less, is the appropriate age for undertaking the full responsibilities of citizenship. If the hon. Member for South Ayrshire really feels that 18 is the correct age at which a person should receive a vote, then I think that, in logic, he ought to extend this privilege to the other responsibilities which have been mentioned. Indeed, that seemed to me the point taken up by his hon. Friend the Member for Greenock (Dr. Dickson Mabon).

It seems entirely logical that all these responsibilities should be exercised at the same age, and I am not at present aware or advised that there is any strong view that this age should be other than 21. At 18 it is true that, as has been said, a person may indulge in activities from which he has hitherto, until the age of 18, been debarred—we have had examples of that—but he is expected to wait till 21 before exercising that discretion which comes after longer experience.

At one stage of the debate I thought that we were anticipating the debate which, I understand, is scheduled for today week on the Albemarle Report, in which I have an interest. I should make it clear—and I think that it is known to the House—that the terms of reference here, unlike those of the Gardiner Commission, were limited. I think that I should read the terms of reference so that there may be no misunderstanding. The Albemarle Committee was given the following terms of reference:

"To review the contribution which the Youth Service of England and Wales can make in assisting young people to play their part in the life of the community, in the light of changing social and industrial conditions and of current trends in other branches of the education service; and to advise according to what priorities best value can be obtained for the money spent."

The terms of reference did not include the subject under discussion today, nor did the members of the Committee feel it their duty to discuss it.

The hon. Member for South Ayrshire, who principally referred to this Report, was, I think, fairly selective, as he is entitled to be, in his reading of it. I appreciate that he advanced the argument of earlier maturity. It has been argued today and on other occasions—the hon. Member for Greenock certainly advanced it—that earlier maturity provides a reason for granting the vote at 18. Early maturity, at least in the physical sense, is certainly true of those in their early 'teens, but I doubt whether, in fact, it applies at the ages under discussion in this Bill.

In paragraph 150 of the Albemarle Report, the following words occur:

"We have been much impressed by the abundance of evidence about the earlier maturity and at least superficial sophistication of many young people in the last school year at the secondary modern school."

This was one of the reasons which prompted the Committee to recommend reducing the lower age limit for the Youth Service from 15 to 14 years.

At the same time—I think that this is the significant point—the Committee found no reason to alter the upper limit of the age range, which remains at 20. If hon. Members opposite wish to pray in aid the Report of the Albemarle Committee, they should have regard to the fact that the Committee did not recommend a reduction though it would follow logically, if the Report is quoted in connection with this Bill, that the upper age limit of the Youth Service should be lowered from 20 to 19, or 18.

We are here concerned with responsibilities of citizenship and it does not follow that they can be assumed any earlier because of the earlier maturity of school leavers. There is an argument, which was raised twice in the debate, that the longer period of education now available justifies giving the vote at 18. I think that this argument may be used in reverse in the sense that the longer a young person remains at school the less chance he has of acquiring experience of working life and preparing himself or herself for these responsibilities. That point was made by my hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone (Mr. J. Wells).

Public schoolboys leave school at the age of 18 to go to a university, which they leave at the age of 21, with no experience of working life whatever. Yet they are welcomed, especially on the benches opposite, as Members of this House.

I was saying that the argument about extended education—and we are all happy to see the period of education thus extended—may be used as an argument either way. I do not want to go further than that. I wish now to turn to the argument regarding National Service.

Will the Minister correct the impression he has given regarding the fact that the Albemarle Committee argued that the facilities of the Youth Service should apply up to the age of 20, because the same definition does not apply with regard to the Children and Young Persons Act where, after 18, persons are regarded as adults, so that argument is cancelled out?

No I do not think that that is relevant, simply because the Albemarle Committee feels that youth services should be provided for young people up to the age of 20.

I am glad that the argument about National Service has not been pressed, and that we have devoted ourselves to other reasons for making this change. It was not accepted by the Government or Parliament of the day when National Service was in force. Of course, National Service, has now been discontinued. There is a wider argument that in time of war a person of 18 is regarded as old enough to fight for his country. This is a delicate subject. I should be the first to recognise the service which many young people between the ages of 18 and 21 have rendered to their country and I hope I shall not be misunderstood if I say that the argument I have just mentioned has perhaps more emotion than logic behind it. The capacity to serve, and to serve bravely in the field, is not necessarily the same as the capacity to form a mature judgment of public affairs.

The question of what is the right minimum voting age has been fully considered from time to time. The hon. Member for Rossendale (Mr. Greenwood) referred to several of the occasions when it was discussed. During the First World War—this was mentioned in one or two speeches—there was one exception to the age of 21, because then the age was temporarily reduced to 19, but only for males and military voters on active service. This provision was allowed to lapse at the end of the war and was not revised during the Second World War, when the view was taken by the then Government that, under conditions of total war, there was no ground for distinguishing in this matter between members of the forces and civilians, and that there was no sufficient case for a general reduction of the voting age.

The matter was last considered by the Speaker's Conference of 1944—this has not been mentioned in detail—but the conference rejected by 16 votes to 3 a proposal that the voting age should be reduced to 18. In the Committee stage discussions on the Representation of the People Act, 1948, this proposal was again ventilated.

In view of the references by the hon. Member for Rossendale to what Tory speakers have said, I wish to quote what was said by the right hon. Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede) in 1948. I am happy to see him back in his place. He said, in 1948:

"Our view is that 21 years of age is the appropriate age for people to undertake the duties of citizenship. It requires a certain amount of maturity and experience, and we feel the long-established practice in this country to regarding 21 as a suitable age should be continued."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 17th March, 1948; Vol. 448, c. 2233.]

In view of the fact that that quotation has cropped up all along in this debate, is it not true to say that my right hon. Friend had not at that time had the opportunity of considering the arguments which have been put forward today?

I also had not had the opportunity of considering the working out of the Education Act, 1944, the effects of which we are just beginning to feel.

I was quite prepared for the right hon. Member to say that he had changed, or was changing, his mind, but in view of the fact that the hon. Member for Rossendale referred to the attitude of some prominent Tories I thought it relevant to quote what the right hon. Member said only twelve years ago.

That is a long time.

In the light of the considerations I have outlined, and having regard to what has been said in this debate today, the Government's present attitude is as follows: first, the proposed reduction of the voting age to 18 would be a major constitutional change. I am sure that the hon. Member for South Ayrshire will understand that I mean no disrespect to him when I say that major constitutional changes of this nature cannot appropriately be made by a Private Member's Bill. They should be preceded, as they always have been in the House—I think that there is no exception to this—by careful examination by a Speaker's conference; that is, if they are to be pursued at all.

On this point, while we shall, of course, consider what the hon. Member and his Friends and hon. Members behind me have said in this debate, I am bound to say that, having regard to the general considerations in favour of keeping the voting age at 21 and the clear division of opinion in the House—and I am quite certain, in the country—the Government are not at present convinced that there is a case for initiating action, for example, by way of a Speaker's conference, in the direction of reducing the voting age to 18. In any event, I do not think that it would be right to make a change simply by way of a Private Member's Bill. Accordingly, I cannot advise the House to support the hon. Member in the Lobby on this Bill.

I am another one who very much welcomes the initiative taken by the hon. Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. Emrys Hughes) in introducing this subject to the House.

He has had it said to him that this is a simple Bill. I consider that it is all the more valuable for that. This afternoon we have heard. I think, most of the arguments in support of the hon. Member's proposals as embodied in his Bill and a few of the arguments against. My right hon. Friend, in my judgment, has outlined the major considerations which should influence us if it should come to a Division in the Lobbies. Therefore, I shall not at this stage seek to go over all those arguments again. I feel that the House would not wish me to do that, and it would be an encroachment on the time of other hon. Members.

It struck me that the arguments in favour of the proposals of the hon. Member are much more attractive than those against. Speaking for myself, I found the arguments put forward by the hon. Member and those who have supported him, and also some of the arguments submitted in the leading article in The Times today—to which repeated reference has been made—very compelling arguments. As has been suggested, it is always the case that one can argue that the present is not the right time. Every measure of reform has no doubt been confronted with just that argument. We have had a number of examples quoted to us.

In passing, I must say I was glad that the hon. Member for Rossendale (Mr. Greenwood) has been gazing into his crystal and recognises that in twenty-five years time the Conservative Party will still be in office. I think one reason why he was right is that by that time this extended franchise will be in operation and the young, the middle-aged and the elderly will have decided that clearly their interests are best represented by a Conservative Government.

There is a pamphlet, which is known to hon. Members, which had for its title "Change is our Ally". If we are to continue to use the arguments which have been used in the past against all change, we cannot expect to make the progress which this House and the country wishes to see, and to which, indeed, we are committed.

It can, of course, be argued, as has been argued by my hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone (Mr. J. Wells), that between the ages of 18 and 21 there is not the maturity, responsibility or judgment that is necessary to entitle someone to vote. It is true that there cannot be quite the experience because, clearly, in the nature of things, those who are 18, 19 or 20 years of age cannot have had the same experience of things as those who already have the vote.

There is also danger in the fact that those who propose these ideas have not had the opportunity to have them tested in the crucible of experience. But this reverts to the argument, which I reject, that somehow or other the so-called youth of the present age do not have the maturity to exercise a vote.

I understand that there are now 4 million young people between the ages of 15 and 20—that is to say, 4 million in the age-group that we are now considering or who would be affected by the extended franchise suggested by the hon. Member for South Ayrshire.

The hon. Member has made a mistake. We are talking not about the 15-year-olds, but about the 18-year-olds. There is a substantial difference.

I am obliged and stand corrected. Of course, we are speaking of the 18–21 age-group.

It is fair to say, therefore, that in considering the bringing forward of the voting age and in considering in this context, as we must, the raising of the school-leaving age, we shall approach—if not in this decade, in the next—a situation in which people leave school and have the right to vote at one and the same moment. There is a considerable gap that needs to be bridged before that stage is reached, but it is a position which we should have in mind and one which is worthy of reference in this consideration.

On the issue of experience, wisdom and judgment, as the hon. Member for Bristol, South-East (Mr. Benn) mentioned, we all know only too many people who have the vote and who, in our private judgment, are not very prudent in the exercise of it and whose judgment is not, perhaps, what we would wish it to be. One has evidence of that very largely in Scotland, Wales and in other places.

Is the hon. Member suggesting that the people of Scotland over the age of 21 do not deserve a vote?

If the hon. Member reads what I have said, he will not take offence; but if the cap fits, he must wear it.

I wish to raise a matter in connection with our references to youth generally. It seems to me that we are now in danger of referring to youth as a group or class in a way which is damaging to youth. We are reaching a position where we are almost invited to say, "There goes a youth". We are trying to create a class of society. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has referred to "one nation". The consequence of this debate and of the general debate which follows it in the country is, to some extent, to place people in categories—the old folk, youth and other such subdivisions. I believe that that itself is unwholesome.

I further think that in the context of this discussion there is a serious danger if, when we are criticising, I hope in an objective way, the youth of this country, the adult community should be expected to indulge in an orgy of self-condemnation because of a few shortcomings on the part of a few younger people. That, it seems to me, does not serve the interests of this age group of youth, and I would not think it the sort of understanding which the young people of this country really want, nor, indeed, the sort of understanding which can be helpful. To that extent I feel that the focus upon youth can be undesirable.

Nobody, I feel sure, would question the immense value of the work of Lady Albemarle's Committee and of a great deal more work carried out in many ways by others, by educationists, by disinterested people who have the interests of young people at heart, but I think there is a danger that we shall make the youth self-conscious, make the younger people feel that in some way there is something different about them. I am a little apprehensive that in our discussion today on the hon. Gentleman's proposal, with which I freely agree, we may be in danger of doing that.

I am sorry to disappoint the hon. Gentleman who is tempted to make encouraging noises at me, because I do not propose to support the hon. Gentleman in the Lobby. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] I feel it necessary to say why, although I think my right hon. Friend has given full, good reasons why this Bill is not a Measure which we ought to put on the Statute Book at this time or in these circumstances. I believe the hon. Gentleman knows very well that this is not the way that this change should be brought about. [HON. MEMBERS: "How else?"] There are many ways in which this could be brought about, and I have no doubt it will be a matter for consideration by my right hon. Friend in due course as to what we might do.

The right hon. Gentleman has refused absolutely any possibility of a Speaker's Conference and has given purely negative advice.

My right hon. Friend, of course, must speak for himself and his colleagues. I am permitted to have minor disagreements with him and to make them clear in the House. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] The only thing which alarms me about that is that it should win some accord from hon. Members opposite.

None the less, I cannot believe that the introduction of this Measure is the way to approach this major constitutional change.

I should like to ask whether it is now the charter of the liberties of a Tory Member of Parliament that he is allowed minor disagreements with the occupants of his party's Front Bench.

That is a slightly cynical intervention and does not contribute greatly to the discussion of this Measure, but I take it in the spirit in which it was delivered, because I do not really think that the hon. and learned Gentleman would want to be denied the same right himself, and if he were claiming it I think he would claim that right in much the same words as those which I have used.

The other point I want to make relates to this question of principle. It seems to me a thoroughly wholesome principle that we should say we are not so much concerned to do things for people, but we are very much concerned with enabling people to do things for themselves. If he interprets that principle, then the hon. Gentleman is surely on the side of the angels, a situation not altogether novel to him, I am sure, but it does mean, if we believe that people should have the opportunity, and indeed be tempted to exercise their vote, that then it is obviously only those who have the vote who can provide that opportunity. That is a quite vivid example of the haves and have-nots, in which the haves, that is to say, those aged 21 and over, are going to be able to say yea or nay to those who were born rather later.

We are confronted with the difficulty that age is a very unsatisfactory yardstick, but it is the only one we have, unless we breach the principle upon which the present franchise is based. I feel that that would be a very hazardous thing to do. It was suggested by one hon. Gentleman speaking earlier that it might be a possibility that there might be some selective process. I personally reject that. I do not think it would be acceptable for a moment either to this House or to the country, and therefore we are driven to continue to rely upon age as a yardstick, and as the distinction by which we allot this privilege and this burden. Whatever may happen in the future in the way of legislation, will be related to age.

The hon. Member for Bristol, South-East claimed that he would like to see a great deal more interest in the activities of Parliament, and that he had found, as other hon. Members and I have found, that there is great and intelligent interest in political matters amongst the age group to which we are directing our attention. I hope I will not be thought unduly flippant or showing any disrespect if I say that it is conceivable that the more young people learn about this place, the less interest in it they might have.

Oh.

Because speeches like this one, perhaps?

That is a cruel cut from the hon. Gentleman, to which I will not respond in kind, although it would seem that the House would be more amused by interchanges between the two Front Benches below the Gangway, which are sometimes a good deal more amusing and entertaining than some of the set-piece speeches.

And more to the point.

The question is whether giving the vote to a larger number of people would automatically mean that we should have a larger number of members of the community interested and active in political affairs. I do not know, but I think that that is one of those things which those hon. Gentlemen who are privileged to be called "learned" in this House would call a non sequitur. It does not seem to me to follow automatically that, because a greater number of people should be given the opportunity to vote, they would automatically, in the nature of things, take a greater interest in Parliament, and there is the point of view that that is not altogether desirable. I think we have all accepted that in education and in our schools, party politics should be excluded, that interest should be stimulated in the affairs of the country in matters that are going to be currently of interest, but that party differences in politics should be eliminated. We know here that the real political fight means nothing if the party element is not present, and I am—

rose in his place, and claimed to move, That the Question be now put; but Mr. SPEAKER withheld his assent and declined then to put that Question.

I was trying to make the point that it is questionable, and I am not sure that I am convinced by the arguments that, by increasing the electorate, we thereby add strength and vigour to the Parliamentary process and political—

I beg to move, That the debate be now adjourned.

The hon. Member cannot move that Motion while another hon. Member is speaking.

While the hon. Member may not agree with me, may I say that I have the same rights as any other hon. Member to put my point of view.

rose in his place, and claimed to move, That the Question be now put; but Mr. SPEAKER withheld his assent and declined then to put that Question.

I was delayed for a few moments by those interruptions. I hope to conclude what I was about to say. The next point that I should like to make is that it has been—

I believe that it is appropriate to raise the question of helicopter passenger services this week when the Government have announced plans to spend colossal sums of money, particularly on defence, which, as experience has shown, is like pouring money down the drain. I am asking that the Government should at long last, and as a matter of urgency, consider helping the development of this form of transport which can undoubtedly be useful to mankind, particularly in a country that is rapidly being choked to death by road traffic.

This is not a new subject for me. I have been raising it in the House for over ten years. But of one thing I am certain. Never before has it been so vital to take this matter seriously. Because of developments in other countries, there is now a challenge that we cannot ignore. It would be doing the nation a great disservice if we were to continue to defer making important decisions, because time is not now on our side.

It is possible, however, that the Parliamentary Secretary may say that I should have waited to raise the matter after the Advisory Council reports in two or three months' time. With that I would thoroughly disagree, because I think it is important that it should be discussed in this House before the Council finalises its Report. Events are moving so quickly in the helicopter world that we really must get on with the job as a nation if we are not to be left behind. We must now do something in a big way, with the Government playing a major rôle in the development of helicopter services.

Tremendous speeds are being achieved by airliners, and plans are being made for even greater speeds, but on relatively short journeys, for instance of 200 to 300 miles, the need for increased speeds is becoming highly questionable. It is here where the helicopter has such a great future. It will prove a great blessing if heliports can be made available in city centres and the noise that they make can be kept within reason.

Speaking of noise, when one considers the tolerance shown by the public these days to the shattering blasts given off by some motor-cycles and even some motor scooters it does not seem that there will be much of a case against helicopters in this respect, and particularly in city centres, where the heliports can be built on stilts way above the rooftops of neighbouring buildings.

The helicopter will never be able to compete with the aeroplane for speed, but it has remarkable qualities of its own which give it an important place in the aviation world. City centre to city centre air transport is only one of the many tasks which can be undertaken by the helicopter in peace and war, but the tasks it can undertake are too numerous for me to mention in this debate.

I suggest that serious thought should be given now to the need for an entirely new kind of service because of the chaotic traffic conditions on the roads. In spite of heavy expenditure on new highways, ground transportation conditions are becoming less and less reliable, and I suggest there is a place in a big way for helicopters that can fly in even atrocious weather conditions, and that there is no part of the world which has greater need of them than Britain.

I have just read on the ticker tape, in the Lobby, that over 1¼ million new motor vehicles were registered during 1959 and are now on roads that are already in a chaotic state. I suggest, therefore, that to get off to a proper start in the face of this great challenge helicopter operators must have financial assistance from the Government to prime the pump for the first few years of this great and exciting adventure. I also ask that a decision be made quickly, because it is urgently required.

We have the benefit of experience in other countries, and for a few moments I will deal with the experience of New York Airways' helicopters. New York Airways carried its first passenger on 8th July, 1953. During 1959, it carried 125,000 passengers and the company expects that by the end of 1963 it will be carrying them at the rate of 1 million per year.

In America, there are three helicopter companies—in New York, Chicago and Los Angeles. The details of the results of these three united scheduled helicopter operators is particularly interesting. During the years 1954 to 1959 the subsidy given by the Government has nearly doubled, but the number of city miles has multiplied twenty times—from 725,000 in 1954 to 15 million in 1959. The subsidy rate per seat mile has been reduced from 3·61 dollars to 32 cents in 1959, and the companies are expecting that, with the new helicopters, by 1965 there will be no need for any subsidy, or, if any is needed, it will be very small, because it is anticipated that the new multi-turbine helicopters which are expected in 1961 will transform the finance.

The helicopter that they have in mind is the Vertol 107 and the Sikorski S61. Despite the attraction of American helicopters, at least at this stage, the president of New York Airways, on 5th January, 1960, said:

"The availability of the Fairey Rotodyne in 1964 will place New York Airways in a position to offer the public a substantially enlarged and even more useful service operating on a business basis."

That speaks very well for one of our own helicopters by 1964.

I said earlier that there was a challenge. I believe that the challenge will be by Sabena, the Belgian airline, that its helicopters will challenge us in this business of passenger transport. It was on 21st August, 1950, that Sabena inaugurated the first helicopter mail service on the European Continent. Last year, this service of helicopters carried 250,000 passengers and by so doing it has acquired experience which will prove to be of great value in the helicopter race ahead.

It must be borne in mind, however, right from the beginning, that Sabena has been heavily subsidised by the Government. Its operations manager has recently said:

"I am convinced that the rotorcraft will ultimately take over all short-range routes covering distances of under 250 miles."

Sabena has shown by its experience that the helicopter has been valuable in feeding the long-distance aircraft whose departures and arrivals can be centred at a central point, Brussels Airport.

The challenge, I would suggest, is here. In the aviation magazine Interavia, of December, the operation manager of Sabena writes:

"Without doubt, the principal stage that can be envisaged at the moment is a regular service from Brussels to London. But the question of regularity imposes certain requirements which, in the case of services across the sea, cannot be met by the machines available. Before this project can be put into effect, we must have multi-engined helicopters."

We have got them. They are on order they are expected to be delivered in the spring of 1961. The Vertol 107 is a 20 to 25-seater.

I would suggest that the Vertol is a challenge to us because it is claimed, as a result of numerous tests which have been made, that the external noise of this aircraft is less than that of any other aircraft of comparable size. It is felt that some of the needs of this country will be met by having helicopters which will not be too disturbing to the community. Therefore, I should like to ask a number of questions. I do not expect to have them all answered, but I should like to have them on record, so that in the next months and years I shall be able to follow them up.

What is the plan of B.E.A. for the introduction of scheduled helicopter passenger services and on what routes? Are there any known plans for the introduction of helicopter passenger services by private operators? If so, what are they? Has B.E.A. yet decided whether to use the American Vertol 107 or the Sikorsky S61 helicopters, and what are the advantages over the British helicopter for the initial stages of the proposed inter-city passenger services?

When is the Bristol 192 expected to be ready for passenger services, and what are its prospects in this field? What plans are there for inter-city passenger services for the British helicopters—the Dragonfly, Widgeon, Whirlwind and Wessex—on which much development work has been carried out to give considerably improved performances?

What are the prospects of the 23-seater Wiltshire, which it is claimed by the manufacturers will be more powerful than its American counterpart, the Sikorsky S61? What are the prospects of the Westminster 35 to 40-seater civil passenger helicopter for which there are high hopes of it being an economic proposition and in respect of which it is stated that the Westminster Mark I will be flying in mid-1961?

In view of the statement that B.E.A. intends to order Fairey Rotodynes, what steps are being taken by B.E.A. to obtain the necessary operating experience to ensure that there is no delay in using them immediately they are available? Because of the obvious need for much greater effort to be made in the production of suitable British helicopters, how do the Government propose to step up their assistance to manufacturers?

In view of the valuable and timely assistance given to helicopter operators in other countries, how do Her Majesty's Government propose to help our operators in a way which will meet the urgency of a situation which must be dealt with effectively and quickly when there is so much evidence of major moves in respect of helicopters in other countries?

I leave it at that, except for just one more question. I would mention that three days ago I gave notice of these questions, so that I am not putting the Parliamentary Secretary in a hopeless situation.

I must also ask: what progress is being made in the provision of a suitably equipped heliport or heliports in or near the centre of London, and what are the proposals in this respect? Is the Ministry still considering the plan which I put forward to it in 1951, which appeared in the London Illustrated News on 2nd February, 1952? Various American and Continental organisations have said it must ultimately come down to this? During the last few days I have been talking to people in the helicopter world, and they believe that there is a future for this and that this is what will be needed over Charing Cross Station, or in a similar position, in the near future.

I hope that the Parliamentary Secretary will not say that we cannot afford it. In the debate that we had on 2nd February, 1953, the then Parliamentary Secretary mentioned that it was estimated that it would cost between £4 million and £6 million. I admit that that is a lot of money, but this week we have decided to have two atomic powered submarines at a cost of £20 million each, and I suggest that for the benefit of mankind and for the prestige of this country one heliport over Charing Cross Station would do more for us than those two submarines will.

The impact of the age of flight has already been felt in almost every phase of life. Yet this miraculous era has only just begun. I suggest that there is no real future in it for nations which lack courage, enterprise and the spirit of adventure. Can we expect this in respect of helicopter passenger travel? I shall look forward very much to what the Parliamentary Secretary has to say on this important subject.

I welcome the opportunity which has been provided by the hon. Member for Erith and Crayford (Mr. Dodds) to have this short debate on the future of inter-city helicopter services in this country. I can assure him that this is something which my right hon. Friend is most anxious to encourage. There is no doubt that this is a subject which has already excited considerable public interest, and it is likely to assume an even greater significance in the near future.

The hon. Member has asked me a number of questions. I am very grateful to him for giving me notice of them, and I will answer as many as possible in the short time available. I must say that I share the enthusiasm which I know he has shown for many years in the helicopter as a form of transport. I well remember being lent a helicopter by an American oil company, as the result of which I was able to leave New Orleans at seven o'clock, visit an offshore oil well and have breakfast, and get back to the city in time to deliver a lecture at ten o'clock, and all that allowed time for the pilot to forget the gas, drop down at a nearby filling station, fill up and set off again.

It is true that in many parts of the world people are becoming accustomed to the helicopter as a normal form of transport and one which can save a very great deal of time. However, I am sure the hon. Member knows perfectly well that there is a world of difference between using helicopters for military, charter or pleasure purposes and providing an economic commercial intercity service.

The fact is that the operating costs of the current generation of helicopters are high, about 5s. per passenger mile, and such helicopter services as are operated overseas, to some of which the hon. Gentleman referred, such as New York Airways and Sabena, are run at a considerable loss. As the hon. Member said, they receive either direct subsidies such as mail subsidies or benefit indirectly by profits on services with fixed-wing aircraft which wish to encourage a helicopter feeder service. Some which are purely experimental are of the kind of which we have already had considerable experience in this country.

What I believe important is that the United Kingdom is in the vanguard in producing helicopters of a size, speed and range which will carry worth-while pay loads. The very apt quotation which the hon. Member gave from the chairman of New York Airways shows that we are in a position to make a very great contribution.

My right hon. Friend has no power either to provide these services himself or to require operators to provide them. He has, however, been pleased to note that recently there have been a considerable number of applications to the Air Transport Advisory Council, which show that plans for the introduction of scheduled services are being developed both by British European Airways and the independent operators. These applications relate both to internal services in the United Kingdom and on the Continent.

As the hon. Member knows, under the existing system, which will, perhaps, be radically altered by the House when it considers the Civil Aviation (Licensing) Bill, the approval of the Minister is required for the operation of any scheduled service after he has considered the advice given by the Advisory Council. The applications which are now before the Council—some of which overlap—have not yet been heard. I do not know when they will be heard, but clearly it would be inappropriate for me to attempt to discuss them individually or in detail today. I can say, however, that it is not our intention to allow the various interests to stake out claims in advance before there is any real prospect of the commercial operation of these routes.

What are these commercial prospects? As the hon. Member indicated, looking to the mid-1960s, they are very favourable. By then the large multi-engined helicopters essential to the development of a network of competitive inter-city services will be available. There is, first, the Rotodyne, in which there has been a world-wide interest because it represents a significant departure from previous forms of helicopter design in that it incorporates certain principles of both rotary and fixed-wing aircraft. The Rotodyne, which will be powered by two Rolls-Royce shaft turbine engines is designed primarily for inter-city operations, either carrying passengers or freight. It is a helicopter which is capable of carrying up to 65 passengers or 18,500 lb. of freight up to 250 miles at a speed of between 180 and 200 miles an hour.

The Government are making a substantial contribution to the cost of developing this aircraft and B.E.A. has announced its intention to purchase an initial six Rotodynes. It is planned to introduce the Rotodyne into service in 1064–65 and the Minister has now informed B.F.A. that he is prepared to give it assistance to an amount not exceeding £1,400,000 towards the cost of introducing the Rotodyne into service.

The hon. Member was concerned to know the degree of Government support which was being given to this and other helicopters. It is not possible to give a precise figure of total Government support over the years. Certainly, the assistance that has been given for the development for military purposes of such types as the Whirlwind, the Wessex and the Bristol 192 is likely to have a substantial long-term value in the civil field. There has also been a great deal of research and development work of value to both fixed-wing and helicopter aircraft. Furthermore, for many years the Government have supported B.E.A.'s helicopter experimental unit. Recently this has related especially to work on the development of ground facilities, equipment and the working out of approved procedures. That in itself will help in the development of a suitable air traffic control system.

Another matter to which the hon. Member has drawn attention is the question of noise. There has been a great deal of fundamental research on noise, with which I cannot deal this afternoon. Much work has been done on the Rotodyne since its first flights were made, when no attempt was made at noise suppression. The experiments which Faireys have carried out since 1956 have been very extensive and have already resulted in the achievement of a significant reduction in the noise level, but much remains to be done and we are in touch with the manufacturers on this aspect of the matter.

The hon. Member also asked about the Westminster, another large, twin-engined helicopter capable of transporting about forty passengers or five tons of freight, which is being developed by Westlands and which is expected to be available in 1962. This is certainly a possible alternative to the Rotodyne although somewhat smaller.

Of course, while awaiting the introduction into service of the Rotodyne and Westminster there is a possibility of various interim types being used, including those mentioned by the hon. Member. They are for example the United States Vertol 107 or the Sikorsky 61 carrying about 25 passengers. Later on we expect to see available a British version of the S61, the Wiltshire which, with a Gazelle engine, is expected to be more powerful than its American counterpart. We can look forward to a civil version of the Bristol 192 which is now in full production for the Royal Air Force. It is expected to be available in 1962–64 and will be known as the Bristol 192C. There is also a possibility of a Bristol 194.

The hon. Member asked me about B.E.A.'s plans. I am informed that the Corporation has not yet finally decided which of these interim types it may wish to purchase. All these matters are, of course, for the commercial judgment of the operators concerned.

The other aircraft to which the hon. Member referred are likely to be used mostly for charter work rather than for scheduled inter-city services—the Widgeon, Whirlwind and Wessex.

I want finally to refer to heliports. Before these services can be finally introduced, it will be necessary to have suitably-equipped heliports. Landing sites have been made available as and when required for the various services now operating, but the real need for permanent sites will arise with the introduction of these multi-engined machines.

Responsibility for heliports outside the London area rests with the local authorities and we are encouraging them to make provisions for them in their development plans. We have also given advice to more than a hundred authorities. In the London area, at Battersea, a small heliport is operating satisfactorily to deal with present traffic, but comprehensive facilities are being considered by a special committee which was appointed last July. This committee hopes to present an interim report fairly soon. It is particularly considering possible sites. I will not list them all, although I can assure the hon. Member that Charing Cross Station is among them.

I think that I have said enough to convince the hon. Member that a great deal is going on in this matter and that the Government are providing financial and other assistance on a fairly generous scale. We intend to press ahead with the creation of the conditions necessary for the introduction of regular inter-city services at the earliest practicable date. I believe that the era of the bigger, faster, I hope, quieter, and certainly more economic, helicopters is just beginning and I agree with the hon. Member that the possibilities are boundless.