asked the Minister of Works if he will report the results of the recent experiment of a closed circuit television system to replace the present annunciator system in the House of Commons.

The standard equipment, which was all that was available for the experiment, had defects which could be corrected in equipment designed for the purpose, so as to give a clearer and bolder message free from hum and flicker on suitably designed screens. The existing annunciator system must be renewed or replaced in a year or two and closed circuit television will mean a saving of about £3,000 in capital cost and perhaps a further £1,500 a year in running costs. I would propose, therefore, to follow up with manufactures the question of specially designed equipment.

Is my right hon. Friend aware that, apart from the hum and flicker, these models seem to have a rather disturbing machine-gun-like noise which comes out from time to time and which is very disturbing to those working in the Library? Is it possible for a silent model to be found? Also, will these screens be built into the woodwork, as are the annunciators now in the Library and other places, or will there have to be these vast cabinets standing on tables as during the trial period?

There was certainly not intended to be any noise, and that is one of the things we must put right. With regard to the second part of my hon. Friend's supplementary question, which is certainly a point that occurs to one, I would hope it would be possible to build something in if we could find the right answer.

Before any change is made in the method of annunciation, will the right hon. Gentleman take the opinion of Members of the House as to which they prefer?

Yes, certainly. I certainly would not want to settle on this before the House has had a chance to see an improved effort at design, but I hope it will be possible, if for no other reason than a saving in cost.

Does not the right hon. Gentleman think that the proposed saving is trivial compared with the satisfaction which hon. Members get out of the present annunciators?

I think that £1,500 a year is worth saving if we can do it.

Will my right hon. Friend take note that the annunciators at present in use give audible warning in private rooms of a change of speaker, and, therefore, would he not take too much notice of my hon. Friend's suggestion that they should be completely silent if he changes over to television?

I think that my hon. Friend who asked the question was referring to machine-gun fire and not to the announcing of a change of speaker. We should certainly have to ensure that the change of speaker was clearly understood.

asked the Minister of Works whether he will make a statement about Sir Harold Emmerson's recently published Report on problems before the construction industries.

I should first like to thank Sir Harold Emmerson for his very valuable Report which he made at my request. The Government are in broad agreement with its recommendations, and I hope that the various sections of the construction industries will be able to make further advances in the directions which Sir Harold indicates.

I propose to appoint a Committee on the placing and management of contracts, and, in consultation with my right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Scotland, an associated working party to report on the different systems and practices in operation in Scotland.

I am also setting up an inter-Departmental committee to enable Government Departments and public authorities to use their influence as clients of the industry to improve economy and efficiency by standardisation and in other ways as mentioned in Part 10 of the Report.

I thank my noble Friend for his statement and I congratulate him on initiating this Report. Will he take particular note that on page 6 of the Report it is stated that the National Council of Building Materials Producers will welcome stronger support from his Ministry in dealing with its problems, and will he take note also of the suggestion in the recommendations that the setting up of a technical information service by architects, surveyors and builders should have immediate Government support?

Yes, Sir, to both those questions.

asked the Minister of Works why the turnstiles have not been removed from the public conveniences at Kew Gardens and Hampton Court.

Following a review of the arrangements at public conveniences in the Royal Parks, the turnstiles will be removed from the two in Hampton Court Gardens as soon as satisfactory alternative arrangements can be made. Kew Gardens is the responsibility of my right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, and I will consult him about what should be done.

Is it not intolerable that, about six months after the Minister of Housing and Local Government announced that the Government's policy was to get local authorities to abolish these turnstiles forthwith, such turnstiles are still in operation not merely in the places mentioned in my Question but in Hyde Park and elsewhere in the Royal Parks? Is the hon. Gentleman aware that this country would be happier and better governed if there were greater co-ordination between Government Departments? Will he please take steps at once to open the doors of these turnstiles because they are dangerous and there ought to be no further delay in having the danger removed? Does the Minister know that cases of serious injury have been brought to my attention?

I should not put quite so fine a point on it as the hon. Lady does in suggesting that the good government of this country depends on freer admission to public conveniences, but I can say that in the establishments within our care where turnstile admission is still in force the necessary alternative arrangements are being made as quickly as possible.

asked the Minister of Works whether, in view of the likelihood of the disused pre-Conquest Chapel of Odder Dux at Deerhurst, Gloucestershire, coming into the market, he will make arrangements for his Department to take over this unique and precisely dated monument of Anglo-Saxon architecture.

Yes, Sir. My right hon. Friend would like to take this pre-Conquest Chapel into his care and he is negotiating with the Church Commissioners for the transfer to his Department.

This will be very generally welcomed. May we take it that the normal arrangements will be made for putting the place into repair and giving the public general access to it?

Yes, Sir. There will be some necessary repairs. We have, for instance, to repair the nave roof. The chapel is already open to visitors on application to a local custodian, and we expect to continue that arrangement.

asked the Minister of Works if he will now arrange for the sale to the public, in St. James's Park, of leaflets illustrating the types of birds which frequent the lake there, as requested by the hon. Member for Norfolk, Central on 28th June, 1960.

A selection of illustrated literature about birds has been put on sale in St. James's Park. This is a result of my hon. Friend's original suggestion and I am grateful to him. I regret that it has not yet been found economic to produce the special coloured leaflet he had in mind.

I thank my hon. Friend for that reply. Although I make frequent passages through St. James's Park, I had not noticed that he has to some extent adopted my suggestion, and I apologise for my failure. I thank him for what he has done.

In the interest of avoiding litter, and since in the park there were, I believe, law notice boards with particulars of the various water fowl, with pictures of them, cannot these notice boards be replaced?

I think that the existing display frame, with pictures of the ducks, geese and so forth, is perfectly adequate. It is a massive structure, not likely to be removed. We have not found that people in general leave litter lying about in the park.

If these leaflets are desirable, why should the hon. Gentleman be so particular about the precise economics of this quite small operation which appears to be in the public interest?

We are always being urged not to spend too much money on this and that. We want to see whether there is a demand here. There are many books on the subject already available in the park.

asked the Minister of Works whether he is yet able to make a statement about the sex of the pelicans in St. James's Park.

A post-mortem examination has revealed that Wilfred, one of the two North American white pelicans, who recently had to be destroyed following an accident, was appropriately named. The survivor of this pair is now sharing the same rock as an Eastern White. Time will show whether it gets the bird.

Is my noble Friend aware that the news that these two pelicans, in spite of the fact that they come from continents on opposite sides of the world and have cold-shouldered each other for years past, are now sharing accommodation is very good as far as it goes? Can my noble Friend say whether, from his observations of their activities on the rock, he is yet able to guess whether there is likely to be a happy event before long or whether they should be described only as just friends?

It is difficult to say yet, but, as the rock warms up during the summer, we may, perhaps, find out.

Does the Minister recall that I raised this matter about ten years ago and pointed out to his predecessor that the way to find out would be to take a needle and thread stuck in a cork and hold it over the body of the fowl in question? If it is a male, the cork will go in a direct line, and if it is a female the cork will go round in circles. I had a word with Mr. Hinton, who was the man in charge of the pelicans at that time, and he agreed that this was a very good suggestion and an accurate scientific way of testing the matter.

I was aware that there was a theory that this worked with ladies, but I did not know that it did with pelicans. I will look into it.

asked the Minister of Works what progress is being made with the rebuilding of 10, Downing Street; and if he will make a statement.

asked the Minister of Works why the contractor carrying out the reconstruction work at Downing Street and the Old Treasury building for his Department decided to close the job down and dismiss all his labour.

The reconstruction of Nos. 10, 11 and 12, Downing Street is about 60 per cent. complete. The contractors carrying out this work, together with that at the old Treasury building, temporarily closed the site last Friday owing to dislocation of the work arising from two causes: first, the failure of the plumbers to return to work as directed in the finding of a Disputes Commission on 8th March; secondly, the failure of certain trades to implement the agreement reached between the contractors and the National Federation of Building Trades Operatives (London Regional Committee) on the 30th March, 1962.

Has not this little job been attended by a long and dismal tale of bickerings, misunderstandings and stoppages, official and unofficial, and has not the time come for some impartial person of judicial temperament to confer with the Ministry, the contractors and the trade unions concerned with a view to ending this belated process of reconstruction? If a move is not made soon, No. 10, Downing Street will not be ready for my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition.

I would far rather leave this matter to the good sense of the N.F.B.T.O. and the contractors.

indicated dissent.

The hon. Gentleman shakes his head, but I think that that view is right. The leaders of the National Federation of Building Trades Operatives have been extremely co-operative and helpful. They got the agreement, but, unfortunately, they have been subjected to disruptive attacks made upon them at the site, one of which, immediately after the agreement was signed, took the form of a written attack which was freely distributed round the site. I am quite prepared to put it in the OFFICIAL REPORT for the House to see just what the union leaders themselves have been up against.

My noble Friend refers to the agreement and to attempts to disrupt it. Will he, for the information of Members, publish these matters in the OFFICIAL REPORT so that we may see why the agreement, freely entered into, has not been honoured by those concerned? Further, can he tell the House how much this refusal to honour the agreement has added to the cost of the work?

I said in answer to the hon. Member for Brixton (Mr. Lipton) that I would put information about the instance I referred to in the OFFICIAL REPORT. It is impossible to say exactly how much these stoppages have cost, but it is perfectly obvious that they must have cost a very great deal.

Is not the right hon. Gentleman aware that one of the difficulties in this matter was that the plumbers were to get less than they were already getting, and, in all the circumstances of the case, will he take care to see that anything he circulates in the OFFICIAL REPORT states both sides of the case? There is something to be said on both sides.

What I propose to circulate in the OFFICIAL REPORT is an example of the incitement to go back upon the agreement which the men's own leaders had made.

With respect to the Minister, is it not a rather unfortunate and dangerous precedent to put documents of this character which will reveal only part of the story into the OFFICIAL REPORT when what is at issue is the rights and the wrongs of a rather complicated labour dispute?

There is no difficulty about it. Agreement is agreement. I am grateful to the N.F.B.T.O. leaders for doing all they could to bring this agreement about. They did it. There were others on the site who went for them because of it, and I do not see why the House and anyone else interested should not know what they are up against.

On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Is there any authority for the Government putting in the OFFICIAL REPORT propaganda documents which they may have picked up on a building site? Where does such authority come from?

I do not decide what the Minister regards as his Answer. He will put his Answer in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. The Minister gave an Answer and that Answer did not contain this propaganda document. Can he give a further and reconsidered Answer in the OFFICIAL REPORT which forms no part of his first: Answer?

In answer to a supplementary question, the Minister intimated that he would put this material, to which I add no epithet, into the OFFICIAL REPORT. In the circumstances, I am compelled to regard what he proposes to put into the OFFICIAL REPORT as part of his Answer. If the hon. and learned Member does not like it when he sees it, his complaint is against the Minister, not against me.

Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. Will it be possible for the Minister to include also the reasons why there is an official strike going on at the moment?

That is not a question for me or a point of order.

asked the Minister of Works what is the estimated cost of the wall to be built round 1A Kensington Palace; by whom is the cost to be borne; what is the wall's purpose; and whether the original Wren design provided for a wall in this position.

The estimated cost of the wall is £2,200, which will be met from the £20,000 being contributed from funds at the disposal of the Sovereign from the Grant-in-Aid under Subhead A of the Royal Palaces Vote. The purpose of the wall is to give the occupants of Apartment 1A reasonable seclusion in the use of a small private garden. The original Wren design is irrelevant as the situation with regard to the gardens has greatly changed since his day.

Can the Minister say how this extravagant expenditure matches the sentiments which he expressed in his answer to Question No. 1 today? Further, will he say whether the policy now adumbrated by him through this action is that what the public pays for it must not see?

No, Sir; I do not think for a moment that there is any extravagance involved in giving the occupants of a house like this with a garden privacy in their garden.

Did the Minister listen to the debate yesterday when the Government made a clarion call for economy? If he did hear it, why does not be act on it?

I make a clarion call to the hon. Gentleman for common sense in these matters.

In view of the extremely unsatisfactory nature of the reply, I beg to give notice that I shall raise the matter on the Adjournment at the earliest opportunity.

asked the Postmaster-General whether, in the cancellation over-stamping of mail, he will authorise the use of a cancellation design to advertise a town or district for tourism.

My right hon. Friend is looking into the possibility of doing as my hon. Friend suggests, and he will write to him as soon as possible.

I am grateful to hear that something appears to be on the way. Can my hon. Friend say how soon we can expect a decision on this, what would be the cost of initiating such a scheme and what examples there have been of this sort of thing happening? Further, will she say whether she has any proposals for control of the use of rather unfortunate symbols over our postage stamps?

I hope that we shall be able very shortly to initiate such a scheme. We are looking into the question of costs and into the question of a realistic form of control so that we do not get any unwanted form of slogan on our postage stamps.

asked the Postmaster-General what are his reasons for refusing to authorise a special issue of stamps as part of the Food and Agriculture Organisation's plan for the issue of Freedom from Hunger Campaign stamps on a world-wide basis early in 1963; and if he will make a statement.

As my right hon. Friend explained to the hon. Member when he wrote to him recently, my right hon. Friend's policy is in general to confine the issue of special stamps to outstanding current national or international events and Royal and postal anniversaries and occasions. Much as my right hon. Friend sympathises with the Freedom from Hunger Campaign, he could not issue special stamps to support it without doing the same for all kinds of other deserving causes. This would mean an excessive number of special issues which he thinks would be undesirable.

Are not these reasons rather trivial compared with the importance of the success of the Freedom from Hunger Campaign? Have not the Government assumed a duty in supporting that campagin to support it directly and to try to arouse public opinion on these matters? Surely a special issue of stamps is the best way to interest the public in this matter?

I would not accept that the reasons are trivial. Our great difficulty, as hon. Members know, is that there are many deserving causes both of a national and an international character. The publicity impact diminishes if we have too many issues of stamps. We feel that we should have one, two or three special issues of stamps every year. If we started supporting these yearly United Nations appeals, we should get ourselves into very great difficulties.

asked the Postmaster-General if he will establish closer liaison with local authorities when siting new sub-post offices in their areas.

We are always glad to take the fullest possible account of the views of local authorities about the siting of new sub-post offices in their areas. But our choice of site must also, of course, take account of the qualifications of the available candidates for the offices and the suitability and location of their premises.

Does the hon. Lady realise that recently the town council's unanimous view about the siting of a new sub-post office in the town of Coat-bridge was rejected in favour of the view of the man from Whitehall? Does not she realise that the local people have geographical knowledge of the area? It seems ludicrous that someone who only knows the town from seeing it on a map should site the post office. Does not the hon. Lady realise that there is a need for closer liaison and better understanding between local councils and her Department?

There is, in fact, very close liaison. I would not accept that this has been done just from a sight of the map. All the initial information about the site came from the head postmaster and from the regional officers who visited the site and looked at it very closely. We must reserve the right of deciding on what we consider are the best premises in the interests of our customers and to decide the best person to run the post office. In this case, I considered the matter very carefully, and I believe that we have good premises which serve the north residential area of the town and the east shopping area. We also have the right person to run the sub-post office.

Will the hon. Lady say whether her Department consulted the Clay Cross Urban District Council, the Chesterfield Rural District Council and the Derbyshire County Council, which is the planning authority for the area, when she decided to close the Old Tupton post office in north-east Derbyshire?

I cannot give the hon. Gentleman exact details about who was consulted in that instance without notice, but I assure him that we consider all the relevant interests before we close a sub-post office.

Will the hon. Lady accept it from me that the best thing to do is to consult her, because it worked out very well in the case of Belper?

asked the Postmaster-General what special arrangements exist for Post Office staff who are retired on health grounds.

No special arrangements exist for Post Office staff. The normal Civil Service rules apply.

Why are not special arrangements made for people who are retired on health grounds? When a person is registered as disabled in a place like St. Helens, Lancashire, one of the most difficult things to do is to get a job. Employers want to know exactly what is the matter. They say to comparatively young men, "Why are you seeking work at your age?", and they have to tell them. I ask the Assistant Postmaster-General not to close her mind on the case about which I wrote to her but to go into it to see what can be done to help these young men.

As the hon. Gentleman knows, our staff are civil servants and generally there is no need for us to have special rules which apply to our own staff. We try to be as helpful as possible. I assure the hon. Gentleman that I will look into this case as sympathetically as I can.

asked the Postmaster-General whether he will introduce a system by which two people engaged in a telephone conversation can be made aware that somebody else is desiring to speak to one or other of them.

My right hon. Friend is grateful to my hon. Friend for this suggestion, but, unfortunately, there is no satisfactory way of providing the facility in the public service.

Will my hon. Friend continue to get her experts to study this matter, because if such an innovation were brought in it would save a great deal of time and exasperation?

We will keep the matter under review, but it is not always in the interests of subscribers to have their telephone conversations interrupted in this way.

asked the Secretary for Technical Co-operation if he will include technical college text books in any scheme for the provision of low-priced books for overseas.

Many of the titles already included in the low-priced books scheme are used in technical colleges, as also are some of those still being produced.

asked the Secretary for Technical Co-operation whether, in view of the importance of maintaining a climate of opinion in West Africa favourable to Great Britain, he will arrange for the construction of a booster radio station to enable British broadcasts to be heard in Nigeria and Ghana.

The programme of new transmitters announced to the House on 23rd January should make it much easier for people to hear the B.B.C. in areas such as Ghana and Nigeria. Plans are now being worked out.

I am glad to hear what my right hon. Friend says, because I am sure that he will agree that the B.B.C. broadcasts—for instance, those to Nigeria—are largely inaudible and that people therefore listen to musical programmes from Moscow and Peking which are rather cleverly interlaced with Communist propaganda. Since the East-West battle in Africa is really for men's minds, should not we, taking the subject more generally, spend much more money on our information services there if we wish to retain British and Western influence in the newly independent countries of the Commonwealth?

I understand that the programmes in many parts of West Africa have been inaudible at times, and for that reason the Government decided to embark on this programme of new transmitters, one of which will be for West Africa. This policy decision has been made and the funds have been allocated. Technical experts are in West Africa at the moment making a survey.

Is it the case that British information services are at present concentrating more on countries such as Canada than on the newly independent members of the Commonwealth? Will the steps which my right hon. Friend has just announced do something to get the priorities into better order?

If I understood my hon. Friend correctly, he said that the concentration was on the older members of the Commonwealth. In fact, the concentration is on the developing territories, and this programme of transmitters has been sited to deal with Africa and Asia in particular.

Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the B.B.C. has been at a great disadvantage in West Africa because of poor reception and that there will be a general welcome for the decision which he has announced? Can he say that it will be hurried along as quickly as possible, and can he give us an estimate about how quickly these booster stations in the South Atlantic are likely to be put into operation?

I should like to do that, but we are in the technical stage and I am at the mercy of technical experts. I will hurry them along as much as a layman can.

Is my right hon. Friend aware that Members on both sides of the House have been urging a greater intensification of this kind of programme for many years and that matters are still going too slowly? There would be tremendous support on both sides of the House for a much greater expenditure of money on this type of service, not only to West Africa but to many other parts of the world as wall.

I note what my hon. Friend says.

asked the Minister of Housing and Local Government and Minister for Welsh Affairs why he reduced the housing programme for the county borough of East Ham for 1962 from the council's proposed figure of 456 dwellings to 300 dwellings.

The council's proposals are very much greater than their house-building rate over the past three years and it serves no useful purpose to approve programmes which are not likely to be taken up. The council has been told that the matter will be reviewed if later in the year it is in a position to put into contract more than the 300 houses aready authorised.

Will the hon. Gentleman have another look at his figures? Does he realise that the rate of house completion in East Ham in the last four years has averaged nearly 400, and that for this year his Department has cut it to 300? Does he realise that this means a very serious delay in getting on with slum clearance and rehousing in a borough which has a serious housing problem? Will he look at the matter again?

The council did not put in a programme last year, but it had a total of 958 dwellings approved for 1959–60. In fact, tenders for only 620 were let during the whole of the three years from 1959 to 1961. We should be glad to see the council get more of a move on. If it does, we shall review the programme.

Is not the hon. Gentleman aware that there is a great need for house building in this part of London, not only to replace the slums but to replace the blitzed areas? One of the difficulties from which this council and all councils in this area are suffering is a lack of finance because of the high interest rates. This is holding up the building of houses. Will not the hon. Gentleman charge councils in this area a lower rate of interest or, better still, give them interest-free loans so that they can get on with the job of house building?

We appreciate the importance of the housing problem in this part of London. That is why we should like to see the council do better. The point is that it is not building as many houses as have been approved.

Bearing in mind that East Ham is one of the authorities which gets the higher rate of subsidy, is the hon. Gentleman sure that this discouragement to its housing programme is not part of the policy which we pointed out he was likely to follow of discouraging authorities which are supposed to get the higher rate of subsidy?

We are not discouraging councils by cutting down their allocation of houses below a reasonable figure.

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the real reason why councils, not only in East and West Ham but in many other parts of the country, are having their housing allocations cut is that far too great a proportion of capital resources and building labour is being occupied by luxury building of all kinds which suits the Government's policy better than building houses for the people who need them?

We debated all this at great length a week or so ago. What the question suggests and what the hon. Member for Westhoughton (Mr. J. T. Price) suggests is that housing allocations are being cut below the programme which authorities can carry out.

asked the Minister of Housing and Local Government and Minister for Welsh Affairs whether he has now received the fourth report on leasehold problems in Wales; and whether he will make a statement concerning the date of its publication.

My right hon. Friend is hoping to receive the fourth report this week. As to the second part of the Question, I cannot add to the Answer my right hon. Friend gave to the hon. Member on 1st May.

I have a very heavy mail all the time from people who cannot decide whether to renew a lease because they are not aware of the Government's policy. Does the hon. Gentleman realise that the delay of the Government in making a statement on this question is adding to their hardship and is causing a great deal of personal trouble? Since the Prime Minister promised to take a personal interest in this question, may I have an assurance that we shall have an announcement of Government policy before Whitsun?

What my right hon. Friend intends to do is to publish a summary of these four reports as soon as they are available. Thereafter, there will be a statement of Government policy.

Can the hon. Gentleman say how long we shall have to wait thereafter, since the evidence concerning the leasehold problem is not new by any means? The Government have always been aware of it.

The hon. Gentleman and the House will be better able to judge when they see the summary of the reports.

asked the President of the Board of Trade if he is aware of the continued rise in the number of persons unemployed in the Spennymoor exchange area; and what steps he is taking to improve the position.

My right hon. Friend is aware that the numbers unemployed in the Spennymoor Employment Exchange area rose from 374 last July to 667 in March but fell back to 607 at the April count. We will continue to do all we can to encourage further industrial development to counteract the effect of pit closures on employment there.

Is the hon. Gentleman aware that these figures are very serious indeed? Will he tell the House what practical steps he intends to take to stabilise the position in the area in the matter of employment and thus avoid the present uncertainty?

We are making the fullest possible use we can of the Local Employment Act. This is the Measure which Parliament has put in our hands to use.

Is the hon. Gentleman aware that this employment exchange covers a very wide area, including my own? What are the prospects of new industry being brought to the site earmarked for development at Thinford? What has happened to the industry which was expected to come to that site and provide employment?

Some industries look at two or three places and may decide not to go to one of them, but there are between 1,500 and 2,000 industrial jobs in prospect in this area as a whole.

Is it not true to say that wide publicity has been given to the fact that certain forms of industry were coming to the site to give employment in the area? Will the hon. Gentleman go into the matter again, and find out what has really happened and what the prospects will be for the future?

I am aware of what has happened but the ultimate decision where to locate an industry must lie with that industry itself.

asked the President of the Board of Trade whether he will set up a public inquiry into the effects on the public interest of the proposed merger between Rugby Portland Cement and Eastwoods.

No, Sir.

Is the hon. Gentleman aware of the increase in the tendency towards monopoly in the first quarter of 1962 in this sector of our economy compared with 1961? If the hon. Gentleman is not prepared to listen to the hon. Member for Blyth in this matter, will he bear in mind what Adam Smith had to say on it in "The Wealth of Nations" namely, that:

"People of the same trade seldom meet together even for merriment or diversion but"—

Order. Verbatim quotation is out of order at Question Time.

Will it be in order, Mr. Speaker, for me to send the quotation to the President of the Board of Trade?

I am not in a position to stop the hon. Member.

It will be quite unnecessary for the hon. Member for Blyth (Mr. Milne) to send the quotation because I am very well aware of it. The fact is that my right hon. Friend has informed the House that a review is being carried out into both policy and legislation on monopolies and restrictive practices, which covers this merger among others.

Does not my hon. Friend agree that some of these mergers are a great advantage to industry in that sometimes they help the competitiveness within the industry and assist both the workers and the firms concerned? Is not this case doubly an advantage since it ensures that Rugby Portland Cement will presumably secure the services of my hon. Friend the Member for Ayr (Sir T. Moore) in the take-over bid?

Quite naturally, mergers in certain circumstances can be of advantage to the national interest as well as to the interests concerned.

asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he is aware of the sentences passed on Mr. Jack Mosiane of the Basutoland General Workers Union, together with a number of other people, at the Maseru magistrates' court in Basutoland in March; and if he will give information about the law under which these sentences, including two of ten years' imprisonment, were passed.

Yes, Sir. Mr. Jack Mosiane and fourteen others were found guilty in the High Court of Basutoland of public violence. This is an offence under the common law of Basutoland which is based on Roman-Dutch law. The convicted persons have applied to the court for leave to appeal out of time and the matter is therefore still sub judice.

Will the Minister bear in mind that a sentence of ten years is a very savage sentence for an offence which would probably earn about three months in this country? Is he aware that in the situation the demonstration arose because the crowd wrongly assumed that the police, who were taking an African leader from the police station, were about to deport him to South Africa? Will the right hon. Gentleman bear in mind that the real solution in this case is probably to amend the entry and residence Proclamation under which more refugees are now being deported to South Africa than previously? In view of the increasingly savage and repressive nature of the South African regime, will the right hon. Gentleman look at this matter again in order to give better protection to political refugees?

This case is sub judice and therefore any comment at this stage would be quite improper.

I beg to move, in page 2, line 34, to leave out paragraph (c).

I think that it would be convenient also to discuss the Amendments in page 2, line 34, after "oils" insert:

"(excluding light oils used for purposes other than as fuel)".

In page 6, line 47, at end add:

(4) The Treasury may by order direct as respects articles of any class or description specified in the order that, subject to the provisions of the order, relief shall be allowed in accordance with the provisions of the Schedule (Relief for industrial use of light oils) in respect of light oils used, or which formed a component of any goods used, as an ingredient or a material, a solvent, extract, preservative or finish in the manufacture or preparation (including dyeing or cleaning) of articles of that class or description.

In page 6, line 47, at end add:

(5) For the purposes of the customs and excise Acts the expression "light oils" shall exclude oils used for purposes other than as fuel.

And the new Schedule (Relief for Industrial use of Light Oils).

Paragraph (c) relates to hydrocarbon oils, power methylated spirits and petrol substitutes. What the Clause as a whole does is, on the one hand, to translate into permanent terms the increase brought in under one of the regulators authorised by the 1961 Act, and, on the other, to continue the power granted by the regulator so that the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Chancellor gets the increase that he has already made in a permanent form and remains at liberty to add a second increase up to 10 per cent. or, of course, to make a diminution.

I observe that the first increase was brought in almost immediately after the Budget and that it related not only to the hydrocarbon oils, which we are considering today, but to a number of other things. I can divide them roughly in this way. There is a group of things in respect of which the increase made by the regulator is being continued: spirits, beer, wine and British wine and tobacco, the hydrocarbon oils that we are now considering and, I think, also pool betting and television advertisements.

There is another group of things which are subject to an increase under the regulator: sugar, cocoa, coffee, chicory. These are the breakfast table duties which are dealt with in another Clause of the Bill. Then there are one or two omissions: matches and mechanical lighters, which appear to be omitted because they are dealt with under arrangements affecting other countries, and one or two completely unexplained, particularly hops. Why hops have been omitted is a little obscure.

For the moment we are concerned with this one increase. I wish to say a word or two to begin with about the regulator itself. The right hon. and learned Gentleman took the power to have two regulators and the increases were made under one of them. The other has been dropped and I imagine that there must have been a period when the right hon. and learned Gentleman thought over the position and all the rude things that had been said about the payroll tax. I can imagine him humming to himself in the Treasury room.

"How happy could I be with either,

Were t'other dear charmer away!"

"T'other dear charmer" has been effectively dropped and does not reappear. But the charmer that we are now concerned with, the 10 per cent. increase, as it proved to be, on Customs duties and the like, is apparently to be turned into a respectable wife.

This is a marriage between the Treasury and the increase. The unfortunate thing about it is that, at the same time, he has started another affair with a lady who looks suspiciously like the original charmer, and I cannot commend the right hon. and learned Gentleman's morals in this respect. One at a time would have been enough. If he intended to make these duties permanent one wonders why he introduced them in their original form and now desires to preserve the power to do the same thing again next year. Be that as it may, it is a subject that affects all the increases that we are now considering and I should like to turn particularly to this one.

4.0 p.m.

This is a substantial amount. No one can deny that. We are now in the fortunate position of knowing almost exactly what it is because the White Paper shows us that it amounts in a full year to £38¾ million and in this current year to £37¾ million, mostly in the way of Customs duties and with a comparatively small amount of £1½ million in excise. That is the 10 per cent. increase that we are now considering.

This seems to me to fall into a number of parts. There is, first, the broad division which is raised by some other Amendments between the use for transport, which is obviously by far the most important and biggest use, and the limited industrial use which we have had occasion to discuss on previous Finance Bills.

When we turn to the transport use, which is the one on which I wish to dwell particularly, we have to bear in mind that what we are discussing is not the total abolition of the fuel tax, but the question whether at this moment it is desirable to continue what was put forward as a temporary increase. I take some exception to the habit of putting forward things as temporary and then finding that they become permanent.

But the right hon. and learned Gentleman has respectable precedents. I find from the volume of HANSARD for 1798 that Income Tax was first introduced as a temporary tax and that it was to take the form of charging

"annually, during a term to be limited, certain rates"

of tax in view of the war situation, on much the same sort of grounds—in the interest of the national economy as a whole.

The right hon. and learned Gentleman saw fit to introduce this provision, among other measures, last year as a temporary one. Accordingly, what we are now discussing is the temporary increase of 10 per cent. in respect of fuel used, in fact, for transport by way of petrol, petrol substitutes, diesel oil and the like, and used also to a much smaller extent for industrial purposes. We are not discussing the maintenance of the fuel tax as a whole. We are discussing, I repeat, the maintenance of this increase.

In 1959, the right hon. and learned Gentleman's predecessor, who is now Lord Amory, said that less than one-fifth of this tax as he estimated at that time, fell on private motor cars used for pleasure purposes, and, though no doubt the proportion may have increased a little since then, there is no doubt about it that about one-fifth or a quarter appears to be the proportion attributable to private motoring for pleasure purposes.

But, of course, petrol and the like are used for other purposes, too, and probably the most important from the transport point of view is goods vehicles. We have all had, I dare say, a memorandum from the Road Users' Federation, and, though I would not necessarily accept all its figures and conclusions, I think that it emerges that about half the tax revenue—rather more, actually—comes from goods vehicles and the use of motor cars for what I would call commercial or industrial purposes. It is not merely a question of goods vehicles. It is also a question of commercial travellers and others who have to use a car for and in their business. That is another use.

I should like to deal with that particular point first. As I understand the position, we in this country admittedly require to increase productivity. There can be no dispute about that. We on this side of the Committee say that if that is to be done, the Government must take steps to help and certainly not steps to hinder. That involves, naturally, our competitive position in the world, whether or not we go into the Common Market. To choose this moment to add what is really an on-cost to industry seems to me to be to choose the very worst possible moment for the purpose. That is, of course, what a tax of this sort necessarily is. It is with an appreciation of that and of other factors that from time to time Amendments have been introduced to Finance Bills to alleviate or remove the tax in relation to particular uses of vehicles.

I am coming to one or two of those in a moment, but I think that I can fairly select the use for industry and commerce as probably the main use affected by this tax. That is the most important point that we have to discuss. It seems to me that the right hon. and learned Gentleman and anyone who is prepared to support him in the Lobby today is voting at the moment for an on-cost on industry in general and, more than that, for an additional cost to all those who have to use the transport services for moving goods about. I would instance those who have to get furniture moved from one place to another.

It is not irrelevant, in this connection, to remember that the reorganisation of the railways is going on and that it appears certain to involve a considerable amount of shutting down of small branch lines. This means, for people who are requiring to move goods about the country, a greater dependence on goods vehicles to that extent. I am not attempting to estimate the amount—it would be quite premature to do so—but in the changing situation as we see it, it appears even more indefensible to continue this increase at the moment from that point of view.

I turn from that to another way of looking at the matter. The ordinary persons who live in the countryside use bus transport more and more. When I say they use it more and more I do not mean that the total use goes up. I do not think that that is the case. I mean that those who are obliged to live in small villages which were formerly served by a branch railway line or possibly had no railway line at all really depend on buses to get about. We have had several debates in the House on this matter, and we have had the Jack Report.

The Jack Report came down against what we are really not trying to do—the total abolition of the fuel tax—but it did so only by a majority. I must say that I find myself in very considerable sympathy with the dissenting view expressed by Mr. Nicholas, one of the members of the Committee. He said in paragraph 13, on page 54 of the Report:

"I cannot accept the majority view that a direct subsidy"—

because that was what it was recommending—

"should be preferred to full tax remission, certainly not as a first step. There seems to me to be no case for granting a subsidy while at the same time extracting from the industry a heavy tax in respect of fuel consumed. This is merely a 'from one pocket to the other' transaction."

That seems to me to be from the point of view of the private motorist, if I may return to him for a moment, what is happening in the Budget. He is having the Purchase Tax on motor cars reduced and, at the same time, he is getting an additional tax on fuel preserved and the power to make a further increase also preserved by virtue of the paragraph we are discussing and the rest of the Clause in which it appears.

If we were discussing today the question of the total abolition of the fuel tax, certainly a much larger sum of money would be involved, and certainly the right hon. and learned Gentleman would be entitled to say, "This may or may not be a good thing, but it is more than the country can afford". But when it comes to a question of the increase, I am bound to compare the total of £37 or £38 million involved in this case with the most obvious instance before all of us—the remission of £83 million of tax in favour of Surtax payers. I do so comparing the rural population, on the one hand, with Surtax payers, on the other.

I do so, too, comparing the way in which indirect taxation is not at all progressive and affects most those members of the community who can least afford to pay it, while direct taxation can at any rate, if one so wishes, be made progressive and is to some extent made progressive in our existing legislation. On the balance of what can be afforded between one and the other, I come down without hesitation in favour of not keeping on an increased tax on fuel in order to provide rather less than half of what is being remitted to the Surtax payers.

I have mentioned two points, and on these points and on rural transport I come to look at the Government's attitude on this matter. The Jack Report, with its recommendations—and I am not assenting or dissenting from them in any way—came out early in 1961, but the Government have not yet decided what they will do about it. The Report is dated 6th January, 1961. There was a debate in the House on 11th December, 1961 on the Motion of my hon. Friend the Member for Falmouth and Camborne (Mr. Hayman), who has been very interested in these matters, and there was a later debate that arose from the Government benches.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport, still talking about this question, said:

"I regret that I must leave the question in the air, but that is exactly why the Government do not intend to be rushed into a decision on this matter. It is very easy to call for a subsidy. It is very easy for a Government to give a subsidy. It is very difficult indeed to take off a subsidy once it has been given. Temporary subsidies have an unfortunate habit in this country of becoming permanent ones. As our French friends say, Rien ne dure comme le provisoire."—

Nothing lasts like the provisional—

"This is one of the things that we must have very much in mind."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 11th December, 1961; Vol. 651, c. 96.]

Obviously, the right hon. and learned Gentleman has had it in mind about taxes. Nothing lasts like the provisional, and here the provisional is in the process of being offered to us permanently. As long as that question remains unsolved, and as long as it is agreed, as it must be, that fuel taxes play an important part in deciding whether or not they should be given a rural bus service, I think that it is wrong to continue this increase.

How important that part is appears in the Jack Report. After the question of finding labour for bus services, it mentions, as

"The other major factor in the rising costs of bus operations … the increase in fuel tax, which roughly doubled the cost of petrol and diesel oil between 1950 and 1952, when it reached its present level. Fuel tax now represents 9 to 12 per cent. of the bus industry's costs—2 ¼d. to 3d. per vehicle mile."

If that is the position—and these gentlemen took evidence and knew well what they were talking about—is this the moment to continue an increase in fuel tax which is bound to have an effect on rural bus services? The effect will be that a certain number of services—nobody can say quite haw many—will not be started, or be discontinued, because it is uneconomical to have them.

I say to hon. Gentlemen opposite, many of whom sit for country constituencies and are very much affected by questions of this sort, that if they are voting for this increase today and the permanence of this additional tax, what they are voting for is either a reduction of, or the authority to reduce, rural bus services, and, of course, with it a tendency to put up fares. I do not know whether their constituents will particularly love them for doing so.

I turn now to one or two other things. (My hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South-East (Mr. Callaghan), opening the debate on the Budget, said:

"I am sorry that the Chancellor has done nothing to relieve the omnibus companies and municipal undertakings from some part of the fuel tax. In remote country districts, as is well known on both sides of the Committee, this tax may sway the balance between deciding to run a bus service and cutting off a country area completely. In some parts of the country it has already done so."

How much more neatly and succinctly my hon. Friend puts it than I have been able to do!

"But even in the urban areas it is important. This morning I received a letter from the Town Clerk of Cardiff, in which he told me that in 1945 fuel tax cost the city roughly £17,000 whereas today it is costing the city £80,000, which is approximately equivalent, he told me, to the cost of a wage award of 18s. a week. I am sure that the Committee agrees that something should be done to remit fuel tax in this respect."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 10th April, 1962, Vol. 657, c. 1164.]

In this Amendment we are not even asking the right hon. and learned Gentleman to remit the fuel tax, although we may have to do so in another connection later. We are asking him, as against urban areas and municipal undertakings, not to choose this moment to make permanent an increase which was only put on temporarily.

4.15 p.m.

I do not want to take up too much of the time of the Committee, but I strongly urge this on hon. Members on both sides. It really is a choice here between keeping on a tax which, I repeat, will account for about half the remission on Surtax this year—and if that is done hindering rural bus services at a time when rural railway services are likely to be somewhat deficient owing to Dr. Beeching's activities, on which I express no opinion; there is no need for me to do so—and doing it by way of taxation which will hit directly industry and commerce as a whole, and which will also hit those who have to use this fuel for other public purposes.

We talk about municipal undertakings. I find the figures in this short passage that I have read from my hon. Friend's speech very disturbing and I have no reason to suppose that Cardiff is an exception. The result will be that not only will there be this increase of indirect taxation by the maintainance of this 10 per cent., but in some form or another the ratepayers of Cardiff will have to pay some additional amount.

Rates are also indirect taxation. They represent taxation that is certainly not progressive. They come down on people who are not so well off far more hardly than they do on those who are better off, even if the latter have to pay a larger sum. From a social point of view I should have thought that any tendency to increase rates was to be deplored, and the Treasury from time to time appreciates this and makes some changes, but its general rule appears to be, "Put it on to the rates if possible", and I am pointing out that in this case the effect of keeping the increased tax would to some extent put it again on to the rates.

To sum up, I regard this increase as principally affecting transport. I leave it to other hon. Members to talk about its industrial effect. The transport which will be principally affected is not so much private motor pleasure driving, which accounts for only about one-fifth or one-quarter of the total, but the goods services which are the life blood of communications for industry and commerce all over the country. I therefore regard the increase as tending to diminish productivity at a time when the opposite is what we desire.

I regard the increase as an additional burden on rural transport, and, therefore, as inflicting on a large number of people who live in the country an inconvenience that it ought to be the object of the Government to avoid. In some cases this lack of transport will compel people to move from the place in which they have lived since their birth.

If I may take my third instance, I regard this as yet another case in which a Government tax, in this case an increased tax, is hindering the activities of the municipal undertakings and those who have to carry on the business of providing the public local services in the towns as well as in the country. For all those reasons, and on those broad grounds, and having regard to the consequences of the increase, I beg the Committee and the right hon. and learned Gentleman to forbear from asking us to continue it as a permanent tax.

In his customary brief and lucid fashion, the hon. and learned Member for Kettering (Mr. Mitchison) has made a strong case against an increase of taxation which may affect costs of production. I feel sure, therefore, that my right hon. and learned Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer will have the hon. and learned Member's full support for the manner in which in this Budget he has broadened the base of indirect taxation in a way which will not increase the cost of production, because the tax of 15 per cent. on soft drinks will not increase cost of production and I do not feel that rural bus fares should be increased because of a 15 per cent. tax on ice creams and lollies. I look forward to hearing the hon. and learned Member's strong support for my right hon. and learned Friend's proposals.

I thought that the hon. and learned Gentleman dismissed a little too lightly the probable cost should my right hon. and learned Friend yield to his strong arguments. The figure of £38½ million is too much to consider now with an overall deficit of £112 million above and below the line. I know that at the time of the Budget the estimated £74 million was criticised from both directions, but the month which has since passed seems to indicate that the world as a whole feels that that was just about right. My right hon. and learned Friend would be most unwise to contemplate increasing that deficit by £38½ million.

I do not want to go nearly as far as that. I do not want to consider the remission of the surcharge of 10 per cent. on petrol used for transport, and so on, but to confine myself to the much narrower point on which we had a debate on a new Clause on the Finance Bill last year—relief for industrial use of light oils. I made a speech on that occasion and I have not the slightest intention of repeating it now, but I would like to take up one or two points which the Economic Secretary to the Treasury then made, points which to him were compelling reasons why last year he was unable to accept the new Clause.

My hon. Friend referred in the first place to the integrity of the duty which was first imposed by my right hon. Friend the Member for Woodford (Sir W. Churchill), whom we are all so pleased to see with us this afternoon. My hon. Friend said that no exception for industrial use was made and that, because there had been no exception of that kind all those years, that was a good reason for not making an exception now. That argument was used by the Economic Secretary in the very year that the integrity of a tax was definitely upset by the exception of horticulture from the 2d. per gallon duty on fuel.

The Economic Secretary chided me on that and said that under no circumstances must I use that exception as a precedent. But immediately afterwards he said that the strongest argument against making an exception in the case of industrial fuel oils was that everyone would use it as a precedent and demand similar concessions for themselves afterwards. But one cannot have it both ways. It cannot be claimed that the tax must be preserved because of its integrity while, at the same time, there can be exceptions in a similar tax without creating a precedent.

My hon. Friend also said that the Government did not regard the duty as a serious handicap on industry, yet he went on to say that the cost of the concession which I suggested would be £8 million, but could conceivably go up to £16 million. As the concession for which I asked was permissive and not mandatory, by Treasury Order, the Treasury would have to be in an extraordinary frame of mind if it ever made such Orders as would take the cost to £16 million. However, my hon. Friend said that the lower figure of £8 million was too much for the Government to consider. Yet, at the same time, he did not regard it as a serious handicap on industry. If £8 million in the context of £6,500 million worth of Government expenditure is too heavy, it cannot be an inconsequential burden on industry where the figures are very much smaller.

Towards the end of his second speech, my hon. Friend said that there were only minor effects on the productive costs for example, about 1½d. a tyre. Every motor car which comes out of the factory has five tyres and there are several motor car manufacturers who produce, say, 250,000 motor cars a year. The figure of 250,000 motor cars multiplied by 1½d. per tyre gives £8,000, a not insubstantial sum—and that is only in respect of tyres. The same cars will have paint and varnishes, which also use light hydrocarbon oils, so that the aggregate accruing to one motor car manufacturer in respect of this duty is quite a substantial sum.

I put forward the other arguments last year and I will not repeat them now. I merely point out that the three Amendments, two to Clause 1 and one to Clause 4, are once again permissive and not mandatory. It is not £8 million which I am suggesting, but a move by which some progress in that direction could be made. Profit margins are small and are getting smaller, and a small concession of this kind would not be of tremendous assistance to industry, but I agree with the hon. and learned Member for Kettering that the abolition of the 10 per cent. surcharge on light hydrocarbon oils would be a step in the right direction, and I hope that the Government will be able to consider it.

At Question Time today, my hon. Friend the Member for Blyth (Mr. Milne) surprised hon. Members by referring to Adam Smith, the economist, who wrote "The Wealth of Nations" more than 200 years ago. Although the hon. Member was out of order to refer to Adam Smith, it is pertinent and in order to refer to Adam Smith in a debate on the Finance Bill. There are many hon. Members who will have read the works of Adam Smith, and who will recollect that in one of his many famous dicta he said that once the citizens of a country had become accustomed to shouldering the imposition of taxation of various kinds, so long as they had borne it for a considerable time, they ceased to recognise it as a tax, particularly if it was an indirect tax.

Without entering into polemics or academic arguments, one of our criticisms of the increasing tendency of the Government constantly to increase the scope of indirect taxation is that once the tax is embodied in the cost of a commodity, so many people cease to recognise that they are being taxed. This is anti-social, contrary to public policy, reason and equity, and imposes the biggest burden on the shoulders of those least able to to bear it.

Thoroughly Tory, in fact.