asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he is aware that the Purchase Tax on shinty sticks is a heavy burden on the diminishing number of players of this game; and why these articles are treated less favourably than cricket bats.

As the hon. Member knows, shinty sticks are taxed at the same rate as cricket bats and other sports equipment. I have noted his view that the tax bears more heavily on shinty because the sticks are more expendable; but he must not expect me to comment on that suggestion now.

asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what was the amount of Purchase Tax levied on shotgun cartridges in the past year.

I regret that this information is not available.

asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he is aware that payment of Purchase Tax is waived by Customs and Excise in respect of certain surgical appliances when medical prescription is produced, whereas components for repair of surgical appliances, previously sold without Purchase Tax, have in certain cases been taxed at various rates; by what statutory authority this is done; and whether he will end forthwith such discriminatory practices.

I am aware of the facts stated in the first part of the Question, but perhaps my hon. Friend will send me particulars of the cases he has in mind in the subsequent parts.

asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer, when framing his Budget proposals, whether he will consider granting tax exemption on all Easter and other offerings given to the clergy.

I have noted this suggestion.

asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what is his estimate of the present amount of short term local government borrowing.

I have no up to date information yet, but a survey of the composition and term of local government loan debt in 1959 is now in progress.

asked the Secretary to the Treasury why duty promised by his Department to be refunded to the tutor in charge of social studies at Brighton Technical College, particulars of which have been sent by the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion, has not been so refunded.

I regret the delay in making this repayment; the necessary postal draft was despatched from London on 18th March.

asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will review the penalty Sections of the Tax Acts of 1803–06, with a view to making proposals for bringing them up to date as suggested both in the Report of the Income Tax Codification Committee and the Final Report of the Royal Commission on Income Tax.

I would refer my hon. Friend to the Answers given on 25th February by my hon. Friend the Financial Secretary to the Treasury to my hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth, Langstone (Mr. Stevens) and the hon. Member for Ipswich (Mr. Foot).

asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what are minimum and maximum rates of interest at which loans have been made by the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development; what are the normal repayment terms; what is the rate of interest charged on loans made during the past year; and what, at this rate of interest, is the total amount repayable per £1,000 of capital advanced.

The International Bank's Fourteenth Annual Report includes a statement of all loans made from the beginning of the Bank's operations up to 30th June, 1959. This shows that the lowest rate of interest on any loan made by the Bank has been 3¾ per cent.; that the highest rate during the period covered was 6 per cent. and that the period of repayment has varied from loan to loan. On page 12 of the Report it is stated that the interest rate on new loans by the Bank was 5⅜ per cent. in July, 1958; that by September of that year it had risen to 5¾ per cent. in May, 1959 it was increased to 6 per cent.A commitment fee is charged by the Bank on any part of a loan which has been approved but not yet disbursed, and interest is charged on the amount of the loan which has been disbused but not yet repaid. The total amount due from the borrower per £1,000 of capital advanced depends therefore on the period over which disbursements and repayments are made.

asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what is the total amount of loans made to date by the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development; and what is the total sum repayable on these loans, including interest and any other charges.

The cumulative total of loans approved up to 30th June, 1959, was $4,426 million, as stated in the International Bank's Fourteenth Annual Report. The information requested in the second part of the Question is not readily available, but the Report shows the terms of each loan. Copies of the Report are available in the Library.

asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer (1) what are the minimum and maximum rates of interests at which loans have been made by the International Finance Corporation; what are the normal repayment terms; what is the rate of interest charged on loans made during the past year; and what, at this rate of interest, is the total amount repayable per £1,000 of capital advanced;

The International Finance Corporation's Third Annual Report, a copy of which is in the Library, shows that the cumulative total of commitments entered into by the Corporation up to 30th June, 1959, was $19,832,000. As explained in the Report, these commitments do not take the form of conventional fixed-interest loans, but carry interest and some right to share in the profits and growth of the business concerned. The Report also states that the terms of investment are matters for negotiation to suit the circumstances of each case. For these reasons, it is not possible to provide the information requested in the last part of each of the hon. Member's Questions, but the Report shows that Che fixed interest payable on investments approved has been between 5 per cent. and 7 per cent.

asked the Minister of Housing and Local Government and Minister for Welsh Affairs whether he will strengthen his Advisory Committee on buildings of architectural or historic interest, in view of their failure to advise against the demolition of the Central Hotel, Cambridge, by King's College.

No. My right hon. Friend has full confidence in his Advisory Committee, who on this occasion, as always, gave him careful and helpful advice.

asked the Minister of Housing and Local Government and Minister for Welsh Affairs whether he has now consulted the appropriate authorities as to the estimated growth in the number of motor vehicles in use in this country in future decades; and whether, in the light of that information, he has now decided what advice to issue to planning authorities with regard to the standards for garage and parking space in residential areas.

I still have this matter under consideration, but it is a complex one and will take some time.

asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he will now lift the state of emergency in Nyasaland and release all detainees, including Dr. Hastings Banda.

I have nothing to add to the answer that I gave to the hon. Member during the debate on 15th March.

asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies when he expects to visit Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland.

As the hon. Member will now be aware, I shall be visiting Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland from 27th March to 8th April.

asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies if he is aware that some Africans in Northern Rhodesia have failed to appear before the Monckton Comission because of intimidation; and what steps are being taken to punish the intimidators.

Whilst there is reason to believe that some Africans have been intimidated, little direct evidence is available to the police. Inquiries are continuing where possible, and some prosecutions have ben initiated in respect of threats of violence against potential witnesses which were made in public, and in respect of which evidence could be obtained.

asked the Secretary of State for the Coolnies why Mr. Ben Somba of the Nyasaland African Congress was refused permission by the Northern Rhodesian Government to attend the Second All African People's Conference in Tunis which took place in January of this year.

Mr. Somba was not refused permission to attend this Conference in Tunis. Mr. Somba, who is a Nyasalander, applied in Northern Rhodesia for a passport at very short notice. The application was necessarily referred to Nysaalnd by telegram but by the time approval was received it was too late for him to be able to get to Tunis in time.

asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies how many pupils at the Fort Jameson School in Northern Rhodesia have been expelled; for what reasons they were expelled; what is the range of their ages: and what arrangements will be made for their future education.

217 pupils between the ages of 15 and 22 years, were expelled from the Fort Jameson Secondary and Trades School because of their refusal to obey the school authorities. The immediate occasion for their indiscipline was a proposed visit by a party of members of the Monckton Commission. This visit was cancelled but the pupils continued to display gross insubordination and refused to submit to the authority of the principal and his staff despite repeated warnings and appeals. The question of re-opening the school is being considered by the Provincial education authority.

asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies how many cases of cannibalism, apart from the recent case in which 27 men, including a Ju-Ju priest, were charged with the murder of three men and with eating two of them, have occurred in Nigeria in the last five years; and what advice he is giving to the Federal Government, with a view to checking this revival of cannibalism.

It would be a lengthy task to identitfy from police records any cases of murder in which there has been evidence of cannibalism No figures are therefore available. I am satisfied that no advice from me is necessary to Nigerian Governments.

asked the Attorney-General what proposals he has for introducing legislation to amend the law relating to divorce, in the light of the provisions of the Mental Health Act, 1959.

None. The Mental Health Act, 1959, was framed so as to preserve as far as possible the existing law on this subject, which was amended as recently as 1958.

asked the Minister of Works whether, in view of the value as a tourist attraction of the floodlighting of historic buildings and monuments under his control, he will increase the scale of this floodlighting during the coming season.

As my hon. Friend knows, floodlighting is now carried out on a very considerable scale in London. Whilst I cannot increase further the money available for the actual floodlighting, I shall continue to encourage by way of technical advice, any local authority which is prepared to undertake a scheme for any ancient monument in its area.

asked the Minister of Works in what circumstances he allows prehistoric barrows to be destroyed by ploughing; how many such barrows were destroyed in 1959; and how many since the war.

When I receive notice of intention to plough a prehistoric barrow, which is scheduled under the Ancient Monuments Acts, it is my practice to stipulate that an archaeological excavation shall be carried out before deciding whether consent can be given to ploughing. Unless excavation reveals a structure worthy of preservation, archaeological evidence is fully recorded and ploughing is then permitted. During 1959, I agreed to the ploughing after excavation of 15 barrows or groups of barrows. The total for 1954-60 is 41; figures since the end of the war are not readily available.

asked the Minister of Works how many seats there are in the Victoria Gardens, Westminster, on ground level and facing the blank riverside wall; and whether he will turn round half of them to face the grass and raise the others on stands to look across the river.

There are at present twelve seats facing the river at ground level in the gardens north of Lambeth Bridge, and seven in the gardens to the south. When alternate seats were turned towards the grass experimentally in 1958, the public appeared not to like this arrangement, since they turned them back again. Four seats facing the river have been raised.

asked the Minister of Works what Department or private firm is carrying out the inspection of the defective wooden roofs in Hampton Court.

I assume the hon. Member is referring particularly to the roof of the Great Hall at Hampton Court Palace where the presence of wood-boring beetles was detected some months ago. Scaffolding is being erected by a contractor to enable my Department's professional officers to examine the roof timbers at close range. This will be done in the period during which the beetle emerges, which is from the end of March to the beginning of May.

asked the Secretary of State for Scotland whether, in view of the visit of one of his officials, he has now reconsidered the building of additional houses in Culross by the Scottish Special Housing Association.

Since this visit the town council has asked that the question of further building be deferred until it knows the result of the recent joint appeal by the council, the National Trust for Scotland and Fife County Council.

asked the Secretary of State for Scotland what new legislation he proposes to introduce to stop the deliberate circumventing of the Hire Purchase Acts by such devices as the personal credit scheme, details of which have been sent to him by the hon. Member for Motherwell.

I have, at present, no proposals for legislation.

asked the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will provide a further estimate of the cost to public funds by way of medical services arising out of the walking race from John o'Groats.

Now the race is over I have called for reports from the regional hospital boards concerned which will cover the overall cost of medical services. I shall circulate a further estimate in the OFFICIAL REPORT as soon as possible.

asked the Secretary of State for Scotland whether a decision has yet been reached on the payment of hill sheep subsidy for the current year.

I shall lay before the House shortly Statutory Instruments re-enacting the Hill Sheep Subsidy Scheme and fixing a rate of 3s. per breeding ewe which will be calculated on the number of eligible sheep in the flock at 4th December, 1959. My right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food is taking parallel action for England and Wales, and for Northern Ireland, in which countries 3s. will be the standard rate.

asked the President of the Board of Trade (1) what is the estimated labour force to be employed in the motor car manu- facturers' expansion projects determined in recent months; and how this employment will be distributed among the areas in which these expansions will take place;(2) what is the amount of capital investment involved in the motor car manufacturers' expansion projects approved in recent months; and how this capital investment is distributed among the areas in which these expansions will take place.

The hon. Member will appreciate that my right hon. Friend cannot give individual figures without the consent of the firms concerned; but on the basis of details already announced, the industry plans an investment of the order of over £100 million in the development districts to create some 30,000 new jobs. I cannot say what investment is planned outside these areas, but labour is not expected to increase to any significant extent. In the development districts, approximately 20,000 new jobs are expected to be on Merseyside, 5,600 in Scotland and 4,200 in Wales.

asked the President of the Board of Trade whether he will extend the unemployment districts listed for help under the Local Employment Bill in Ayrshire to include Kilmarnock and Ayr.

No. Unemployment in the Kilmarnock and Ayr districts is lower than in many other places and would not justify the provision of assistance under the terms of the Local Employment Bill.

asked the President of the Board of Trade what steps he proposes to take to improve employment prospects in Kilmarnock and district.

My right hon. Friend would be prepared to see industrial development in Kilmarnock and district, but other areas in Scotland where there is a higher rate of unemployment must have priority.

asked the President of the Board of Trade whether he is aware that wood chipboard manufactured in the United Kingdom and exported to Eire attracts an ad valorem duty of 25 per cent. on entering Eire, whereas wood chipboard manufactured in Eire is not subject to any duty when imported into the United Kingdom; and whether, in view of the fact that the manufacture of chipboard is increasing in Eire and that there is need for encouraging the maximum production in the United Kingdom itself of this material, he will take steps to ensure fiscal equality between Eire and the United Kingdom in this respect at the earliest possible opportunity.

I am aware that the duties on manufactured wood chipboard in the United Kingdom and the Irish Republic are as stated by my hon. Friend, but the basis of our Trade Agreements with the Irish Republic is an exchange of advantages overall rather than parity of tariff treatment for individual products.

asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will consider increasing the maxima amounts permitted by the Witnesses' Allowances Regulations, 1955, as amended by the Witnesses' Allowances Regulations, 1958, to more realistic figures, in view of current wage rates.

The Witnesses' Allowances Regulations, 1958, provide that payments of up to £2 a day may be made to witnesses who lose remuneration or incur expense as a result of attending to give evidence. In addition. they may be paid subsistence allowances at rates which were increased as recently as 1st March, 1960, and travelling allowances. No further increases are proposed at present.

asked the Minister of Education what would be the cost to the national exchequer if university grants were awarded without reference to the income of the parents.

For the academic year 1958–59 the cost to public funds of abolishing the parental contribution for awards to university students would have been about £4½ million. Of this sum about £l¼ million would have been attributable to State scholarships and have fallen wholly on the Exchequer. The remaining £3¼ million would have fallen on the local authorities whose expenditure since 1959 has been aided by general grant.

asked the Minister of Health, as representing the Minister for Science, what is now believed to be the residence-time of fall-out in the stratosphere; and to what extent the figures of fall-out over Great Britain for the last few months or to the latest convenient date indicate that radioactive material is now virtually absent as a result of the voluntary suspension of hydrogen bomb tests.

The time during which radioactive particles remain in the stratosphere following a nuclear explosion depends on the size, location and time of year of the relevant nuclear explosion. The lowest estimates have varied from 15 months for material injected in equatorial regions in recent years to four months for material injected in Arctic regions in autumn. 1958.Measurements of radioactivity in air over the United Kingdom last autumn showed a very marked fall compared with earlier in the year, in part due to a seasonal decline. Measurements in the first half of 1960 are not yet available.

asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food how many young people entered the agricultural industry in Wales in the years ended June, 1959, and June, 1958; and on what grounds Her Majesty's Government based their statement, in Command Paper No. 961, that, with some possible exceptions, there was no serious difficulty in recruiting and retaining workers.

The figures for the years ended June, 1959, and June, 1958, are 1,526 and 1,381, respectively. The statement referred to in the latter part of the Question was based partly on the evidence of the latest available figures and partly on a general assessment by our local officers.

asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, when the report of the Working Party on the arrangements for a national agricultural college for Wales is to be published: and whether he will expedite it.

My right hon. Friend expects to receive the report shortly after Easter, when the question of publication will be considered.

asked the Minister of Transport if he will state the names and qualifications of the expert committee which is now studying the possibility of separate accounting for the railway regions; and when the committee will report, and to whom.

This study is being conducted by the staff of the British Transport Commission. The Commission has

asked the Secretary of State for War when he will arrange for hon. Members to visit the depot of the Intelligence Corps.

I intend to include a visit to the Intelligence Corps depot in the list of hon. Members' visits to Army establishments in the coming year. They will receive this list through the normal channels in the near future.

asked the Secretary of State for Air if he will publish the detailed distribution of professionally qualified staff in the Air Ministry Lands Division of the Directorate General of Works.

The distribution of professional staff holding recognised qualifications is under review. The present position is as follows: