I beg to move, in page 1, line 8, to leave out subsections (2) and (3), and to insert:

(2) Where an action in tort is brought by one of the parties to a marriage against the other during the subsistence of the marriage, the court may stay the action if it appears—

(a)that no substantial benefit would accrue to either party from the continuation of the proceedings; or

(b)that the question or questions in issue could more conveniently be disposed of on an application made under section seventeen of the Married Women's Property Act, 1882 (determination of questions between husband and wife as to the title to or possession of property);

and without prejudice to paragraph (b) of this subsection the court may, in such an action, either exercise any power which could be exercised on an application under the said section seventeen, or give such directions as it thinks fit for the disposal under that section of any question arising in the proceedings.

This is a substantial Amendment to an important part of the Bill and one which has not been without difficulty in framing the best way of carrying out its intentions. I therefore think it right, in view of the fact that there was no debate on the Bill on Second Reading, that I should indicate what the effect of the Amendment will be.

It appears from Clause 1 that the intention of the Bill is that spouses can do what they have not been able to do previously, namely, sue each other in tort or in respect of civil wrong. The previous position has been based upon the principle which, in the words of Blackstone, who is usually quoted in this context, is that

"by marriage, husband and wife are one person in law; that is, the very being and legal existence of the woman is suspended during marriage, or, at least, incorporated and consolidated into that of the husband."

These are the words of the distinguished Blackstone, but the position has very much altered in other branches of the law since he wrote them, and, indeed, that position has been abrogated by Section 12 of the Married Women's Property Act, which permitted the wife to proceed in respect of her "separate property", but which was amended by the Law Reform (Married Women and Tortfeasors) Act, 1935, to her property.

There have been and there are considerable anomalies in the law, the removal of which are proposed by the Bill and this Amendment. These will indicate more clearly. One anomaly is, that, under the present law, a wife can sue her husband for a tort committed before marriage, namely, a civil wrong before marriage, such as negligence, nuisance, or slander, whereas the husband cannot. The wife, therefore, is in a better position than the husband. Secondly, under Section 12 of the Married Women's Property Act, a wife can sue her husband for protection of her property, that is to say, for detinue or trespass over goods, but the husband cannot. There does, of course, exist power under Section 17 of the Married Women's Property Act for determination of questions of title in or possession of property to be decided by the High Court or a county court, but there are still other anomalies which I shall refer to later.

My intention under the Bill is to permit spouses to sue in tort as though they were not married and that disputes affecting the title or right to property should be dealt with exclusively under Section 17, the wife not to have the alternative of any procedure under Section 12 of the Married Women's Property Act, which is repealed by the Schedule to the Bill.

This reform in the law has been the subject of recommendation by the Law Reform Committee, a very powerful body which consisted, among others, of two Lords of Appeal in Ordinary, the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins, Lord Howard Pearce, and also Lord Justice Donovan, Mr. Justice Ashworth, Lord Justice Dip-lock, Mr. Gerald Gardiner and my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Northwich (Mr. J. Foster).

This Committee made its recommendation in December, 1960, and referred to these anomalies and, indeed, some of the absurd positions which arise. For instance, Mrs. Tinckley, who many years ago separated from her husband, and, having taken the furniture to which she was entitled, her husband complained that she had stolen the property. She was arrested, she lost her job, and when she brought an action against him she could not, under the law then, have any redress whatsoever.

So there are these anomalies and difficulties which it was the recommendation of that Committee should be smoothed away. But, as drafted at present, it is not wholly clear in the Bill that the Bill, as it now stands, as amended in the Standing Committee, is carrying out my intention. The position might arise that a spouse might start an action under Clause 1 (1) of the Bill. He or she could either do that or could make an application under Section 12 of the Married Women's Property Act, 1882, Section 12 having been repealed. An example of that might be where a husband takes a wife's car away and smashes it up.

Then the wife, under the Bill as at present drafted, would be able to bring proceedings under Clause 1. But if the husband just took the car away and did not smash it up—just took it away—then under Clause 1 (2) as at present drafted:

"No action in tort shall be brought by virtue of this section in respect of damage for which relief could be claimed in an application made under section seventeen of the Married Women's Property Act, 1882."

and in those circumstances the husband, having taken the car away, the wife, under the Bill in its present form, would be obliged to proceed under Section 17 because it would be a relief in respect of damage in respect of property, and she would have no remedy for detenue or conversion, the husband having taken the car and perhaps kept it for his own use. On reflection, that does seem totally unreal because in either case the wife would have to establish the car is hers and establish her right and title to the car.

11.15 a.m.

Therefore, the purpose of the Amendment is better to carry out the intention of the Bill, namely, that all property disputes should be dealt with exclusively under Section 17, and that is best effected by giving to the spouse a right of action in all cases, but giving to the court the power to stay the action if the matter could be more conveniently dealt with under the Section 17 procedure of the Married Women's Property Act. Of course, there is power in the court alternatively to deal with the issue as though it were an application under Section 17.

Would the hon. and learned Gentleman be good enough to explain for the benefit of the House exactly how some proceedings can be more conveniently dealt with under the Married Women's Property Act than as actions in tort?

I was just coming to that. Because the Section 17 procedure enables the parties to apply to the appropriate court, the High Court, or it could be the county court, if that were thought fit, to have determined the matters in respect of the property—who owns the property, and so on.

This is dealt with by Masters of the High Court, or the appropriate officer in the county court, in chambers. It is a summary procedure and can be quickly and cheaply carried out, and one which has found favour with lawyers and litigants in so far as issues as to the ownership of property between spouses can in these circumstances be more speedily and privately decided, and decided, as I say, at the county court level if that be so wanted. Therefore, if a person decided to bring an action upon the detenue of a motor car, an action in tort, under the present Bill with this Amendment the court would have power to stay those proceedings and to say, "This is more conveniently dealt with and more cheaply dealt with under Section 17."

Alternatively, the court can say, "I will treat this as an application under Section 17. Although as an action in tort as to whether that car has been wrongfully detained and is still detained by the husband, I will treat it as an application for the court to say to whom does this car belong, whose is it, who ought to have it." It is to make clear that the court should always have that power, because of the interests, particularly, of litigants, that I move this Amendment. The purpose of the Amendment is to make that clear without any doubts whatsoever.

The rules of court to which reference is made in Clause 1 (4) are not affected by this proposed Amendment. They will provide for rules of court made on the "summons for directions" where the court gives directions as to place and nature of the trial, and in the county court by appropriate procedure, so that the court could then say, "This is something which ought to be decided under Section 17 and can be disposed of there," and then can adjourn it to an appropriate time, to be dealt with by the Masters as a Section 17 application. In other words, the intention is that where it is a dispute about property it should be Section 17 procedure and Section 17 procedure alone.

Under the proviso to Clause 1 (2) as presently drafted

"any question as to the right of a tortfeasor to recover contribution from either party to a marriage under … section six of the Law Reform (Married Women's and Tortfeasors) Act, 1935, shall be determined as if the foregoing provisions of this subsection had not been enacted."

By the proposed Amendment that proviso is not once again recited for the reason that, in fact, it will be dealt with by the words of the proposed Amendment. The reason for it is that under the present law there are these anomalies.

For instance, a woman is injured driving in a motor car as a passenger and she claims that it was due to the negligence of the driver of the car in which she was a passenger and of another driver. If the court finds the drivers were fifty-fifty to blame, they would fifty-fifty contribute to the damage paid to the woman; but if the wife was a passenger in a motor car driven by her husband, and there was an accident with another car driven by another person, the wife could now bring an action against that other person, the other driver, and, although the court were to say that they were fifty-fifty to blame, that other driver would have to bear the whole 100 per cent. of the damages, being, therefore, in a very much worse position than if it had been not the husband who had driven the injured wife but it had been another relation or person other than her spouse.

Therefore, the position of third parties in that case is affected by the status of husband and wife and are often treated in what appears to be a totally unfair way. For example, if the husband negligently injures the wife, the wife cannot sue the husband and recover any damages for that injury. But if husband and wife were in the same employment, employed by the same person, and the husband negligently injured the wife in the course of that employment, the wife can sue the employer and the employer cannot rely on the fact that they are husband and wife. This is, therefore, yet another anomaly and, as has been said in the Law Reform Committee by Lord Devlin, this is a branch of the law where husband and wife both have their cake and eat it.

It seems indefensible that a third party should be adversely affected by privileges based on principles of law which are totally unrealistic. Therefore, the proviso in Clause 1 (2), which was put in to cover the position of third parties, is quite unnecessary with the terms of the new Amendment. There will be no need for the new proviso, because a spouse will have the right of action against the other in all cases and, therefore, it will be possible for a contribution to be made to some other tortfeasor by the husband in making up the damages which the wife was awarded.

I apologise for taking up the time of the House and for the technical nature of these comments, but this is a complicated branch of the law and one which, in my view, has been calling for reform for some time. It was felt by the Law Reform Committee that it was most important that the courts should have the power to stay certain actions and that the law must not assist in airing petty grievances between husband and wife. Of course, apart from petty grievances on a matter of tort, civil wrong, there is the jurisdiction of the High Court, Probate, Divorce and Admiralty Division. The Divorce Division of the High Court or the magistrates' court provides a tribunal for spouses on matrimonial issues which arise as to divorce, separation, maintenance, failure to maintain, or the custody of children. That is the jurisdiction of the Divorce Court and the magistrates' court.

But where we are now giving that power to spouses to be able to sue each other for civil wrong it was felt by the Committee that the courts must have this power to stay, which is now set out in subsection (2) of the Amendment. It reads:

"… the court may stay the action if it appears—

(a) that no substantial benefit would accrue to either party from the continuation of the proceedings …"

The court would have to take into consideration and would take it into consideration where a wife or a husband bring some action in tort on, say, the ground of negligence and it was an extremely petty matter, or say, nuisance or other of the civil wrongs, all the circumstances surrounding the claim made and the conduct of the parties and the nature of the complaint, and it would have the power to stay the action and to say that it should not proceed if it thought fit.

Clearly, the court would not do that if there were behind the scenes a person or institution which was going to provide indemnity. Therefore, the wife in the motor car case sues her husband knowing that there is in existence a policy of insurance, This means that any damage she recovers, though technically and legally coming from her husband, comes from the insurance company. This, to use the robust language used by the Solicitor-General in the Committee, puts the wife in the same position as the husband's daughter and in the same relationship in law as a mistress would have with her lover. By the terms of the Amendment this would apply too all action in tort brought during the subsistence of the marriage.

The suggested wording makes it clear, therefore, that the courts will have power to stay and that this power to stay will apply to all actions of tort between the spouses. The effect of the Amendment is better to carry out the intention of the Bill, which is not so clearly carried out in its present form. The Amendment provides more certainty and ensures by the wording that the property disputes will come under Section 17 of the Married Women's Property Act, that the Bill will not affect the rights of the spouses to sue, and that it will provide the court with power to stay in appropriate circumstances or to treat the case which is brought in tort as, in fact, being an application under Section 17.

The hon. and learned Member for Epsom (Mr. Rawlinson) has pointed out that the Bill has hitherto had very little discussion. It went through on the nod on Second Reading and the Committee stage proceedings took less than half an hour. I do not think, therefore, that the hon. and learned Member need have apologised to the House for having explained the provisions of the Bill in some detail because, as he pointed out, the Amendment introduces a substantial change in the Bill from its original form.

The Bill itself makes a substantial change in the law of the land as it has existed for several centuries. It is, therefore, important that we should be clear about what we are doing and be satisfied that the Bill, if the Amendment is accepted, is now in the right form and carries out the intentions both of the hon. and learned Member and of the Law Reform Committee to which its origin is due.

I agree that it has been anomalous that hitherto a wife has had certain remedies against her husband in respect of contracts and matters of property, but no redress in matters of tort or injury. As the hon. and learned Member said, the existing law derives from conditions of society where, probably rightly, husband and wife were treated as one person in the eyes of the law. That situation has been gradually eroded and there are now numerous cases in which proceedings between husband and wife in various forms come before the courts.

I understand that the Bill will go a long way to remove the existing anomalies. At the same time, of course, it is devoutly to be hoped that granting for the first time rights in tort as between husband and wife will not in itself either disturb matrimonial felicity or lead to a spate of actions between husband and wife. I do not think that there is any reason to suppose that that will be the result, but if it were, it would obviously be undesirable.

It is, presumably, for that reason that the hon. and learned Gentleman is now introducing a somewhat novel provision for an Act of Parliament, giving the courts power to stay proceedings if no substantial benefit would accrue to either party from the continuation of the proceedings. I hope we shall hear from the Solicitor-General whether he is quite satisfied with the effect of the Amendment now proposed. Superficially, there is an inconsistency in, first, giving a spouse a right of action in tort against the other spouse as if they were not married, and then saying that that right should not be exercised unless some substantial benefits can be shown to accrue.

I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will appreciate that there has always been in the Bill a power to stay, from Second Reading onwards and during the Committee stage. This is putting it in another way and putting it in other terms. The provision has always been in the Bill on the basis of the recommendation of the Law Reform Committee that a power to stay should be given to the court.

I appreciate that there has always been in the Bill power to stay. The Amendment puts it in different language. What is proposed may not be very different; it may be repeating some of the provisions of subsection (3). However, apart from the words of the Amendment, the Bill gives the court power to stay if no substantial benefit would accrue.

I hope the Solicitor-General will be able to tell us whether it is sufficiently clear in an Act of Parliament to use those words. I do not quite know what is meant by "no substantial benefit". I should have thought this was something which some courts might have difficulty in construing. In the ordinary case a person is entitled to take proceedings if there has been any damage, however small, and a court cannot stay an action merely because it thinks that the results will be minimal or frivolous The court has to go through the functions of determining the issue, and what, ever the damages may be, large or small, they are awarded.

Hitherto, a court has not been able to say that it would have been better for the action not to have been brought because it was only a storm in a teacup, or something of that kind. Courts cannot say that. If it is intended that a court should say that with regard to not very serious injuries between a husband and wife or claims for tort, then we ought to be quite assured that this language is something which the courts will be able to adopt.

On the other point, I agree with the hon. and learned Gentleman that we should remove the anomaly which now exists where a wife is a passenger in a car driven by her husband and has an injury in a collision with another car as a result of which the drivers of both vehicles are to blame. It would be quite wrong that the loss should fall on the third party or his insurance company. I am glad that this change is now being made. I also think it is right that an insurance company should not escape liability if a wife who is a passenger is injured in a car driven by her husband on the technicality that she has no claim against her husband and, therefore, there is nothing in respect of which her husband's insurance company can indemnify.

With regard to the new proposal for giving the court power to stay or decide that questions can be remitted for trial under the Married Women's Property Act, 1882, or dealt with as if the proceedings had been started under that Act, I take it that this will not give the court any additional power of remitting to a county court proceedings which otherwise it would not be able so to remit.

Those are the points that I wanted to raise. Subject to the assurances which I hope we shall get from the Law Officer, I personally hope that the Amendment will be supported.

The matter of the general merits or demerits of the Bill is, I suppose, something that we shall consider upon Third Reading, because on Second Reading and, apparently, in Committee, little has been said about the Bill. Therefore, our opportunity will arise at a later stage. Consequently, I shall confine myself, as I must according to the rules of the House, to the Amendment before us.

One has first to look at the words which are proposed to be deleted and those which are proposed to be added in their place, and decide whether this amounts to an improvement or not. Frankly, for reasons which I shall give, I think that the words in the Bill are better than those in the Amendment, though there is a good deal of criticism to be levelled at the words in the Bill.

The original words in Clause 1 (2) give the court peremptory direction that

"no action in tort shall be brought"

in a case where relief already exists under Section 17 of the Married Women's Property Act, 1882. That is clear, and the court knows what it is going to do. In the case of a person issuing proceedings in respect of property, the order would say, "These proceedings will be stayed, and you must go under Section 17 of the Married Women's Property Act." The court would then know where it was, and everybody else would know where he was.

But the words of the Amendment alter that, and say

"that the question or questions in issue could more conveniently be disposed of on an application made under section seventeen of the Married Women's Property Act, 1882".

What is the court to decide? What factors is it to consider? Is it to consider the timing of the action? Is a person to say, "I can get this case on in court so quickly because the lists are empty" or "I can get into a county court and get a date on Friday week to have the case heard. It is more convenient to me to have speed"? Or is the court to consider the propriety of bringing action which relate to property or the misuse of property—I use the word in the tort sense? There, the court is left at a disadvantage.

I do not know what the Amendment means on the basis of those words, and I look forward to hearing what the Solicitor-General has to say about

"more conveniently be disposed of on an application made under section seventeen of the Married Women's Property Act, 1882."

If it is a question as between husband and wife, which has for years, ever since the Married Women's Property Act, been referable to a contest under that Act, then it ought to be left where it is. There is no necessity to alter the law. Both spouses have ample powers to obtain a legal decision binding upon the other. There is no necessity to alter the law and give them power to bring that in tort. If the Amendment is passed they will have a choice, and the court will have no clear directions about what is to happen when an action is brought under this Clause.

For those reasons, though I do not propose to divide on the matter, I am not really in favour of the Amendment. I should like to know what is meant by the words,

"that no substantial benefit would accrue to either party from the continuation of the proceedings."

Suppose one comes before whatever tribunal it is to apply to have the proceedings stayed on the ground

"that no substantial benefit would accrue to either party from the continuation of the proceedings",

what does it mean? What arguments does one put forward? Does one say, "This is a trivial matter. It is an action for assault, and the wife or husband got only a black eye and no bones were broken, and no substantial benefit will accrue financially, for there may not be very large damages"? But the other party is entitled to say, if he has a cause of action, "My benefit may not be astronomical, but it is certainly real, and, therefore, you cannot stay the action."

Does it mean that if, as between a husband and wife living together, one gets an order for damages and costs against one it automatically reverts on the other because the joint income is thereby reduced by that amount and, therefore, no substantial final benefit results? Does it mean that if the defendant spouse has no money, no substantial benefit would result? Does it mean that the publicity, and so forth, would result in no substantial benefit to the parties as they are?

Let us also take the case as it probably will be when these actions are brought, that they are spouses only in name in the sense that they are married but are at daggers drawn and only too anxious to bring proceedings against each other, perhaps to support some subsequent matrimonial proceedings by which a court is entitled to say, "This is an action for assault" or, "This is an action for slander"—be what it may"—and I consider, having heard all the parties, that this is really part of divorce proceedings which are in course of taking place or are about to be started, and one party wants to have an advantage against the other through being able to say, 'I got an award of damages for assault or libel. Look how cruelly I have been treated'." Is not the court entitled to say, "No; your benefit must come in the divorce proceedings."?

The words have very little meaning in law for those who have to administer the proceedings finally. That is why I shall listen with interest to see whether the Amendment has the support of the Solicitor-General, whether he can explain to us what these words mean, and whether it would not be better to give the court clear directions, as I have suggested, about the words,

"could more conveniently be disposed of".

I should be interested to hear whether he thinks that those words ought to be included. At present, in connection with this Amendment, I have grave doubts.

In the presence of such legal brains among my colleagues, I hesitate to intervene, but this seems to me to be a very reasonable and sensible Amendment.

I know that some fear will be expressed about the words,

"could more conveniently be disposed of on an application made under section seventeen of the Married Women's Property Act, 1882,"

and also about the words,

"that no substantial benefit would accrue to either party from the continuation of the proceedings,"

but I should have thought that it was not unreasonable to expect the court to give a decision in these cases.

If it is, quite honestly, a case which already falls within the compass of the Married Women's Property Act, I can see no objection—I can visualise no loss to the plaintiff—to the proceedings being taken under that Act. Nor can I see any reason why the court should not judge whether any substantial benefit would accrue.

I was, however, impressed by the remark of my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Surrey, East (Mr. Doughty) that perhaps in some cases this might well be an action for assault or for slander and might well be a prelude to an action for divorce or separation. He said that in those circumstances perhaps it would have been more convenient to proceed under the normal processes and get a decision of the court. Again, it seems that it is in the power of the court considering all these circumstances to say that there is a benefit which can accrue, and that it should, therefore, permit the proceedings to continue.

As I understand it, the Amendment also means that certain proceedings may also be taken in a magistrates' court as an alternative to the High Court. If I am right, and I hope that the Solicitor-General will correct me if I am not, I would have thought that that action was something which, from the point of view of machinery, was a more beneficial way of conducting the litigation.

This is only an Amendment and I am sure that many of us on either side of the House will have much more to say on Third Reading. But, subject to what my hon. and learned Friend the Solicitor-General says, I have no hesitation in supporting my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Epsom (Mr. Rawlinson) in the Amendment which will make the Bill better and probably simpler to administrate.

I was rather surprised to hear the support for this Amendment which came from my hon. Friend the Member for Clapham (Dr. Alan Glyn) until I recalled that it was only recently that he entered into the bliss of matrimony. I hope that he will never have to suffer as a result of anything within the ambit of the Bill. It would not be proper for me to give my full opinion, because I would have to make a Second Reading speech. Unfortunately, I was not here when the Bill received a Second Reading, or it would not have had such an easy run as it has.

I support the view which was expressed by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Surrey, East (Mr. Doughty) and by the hon. Member for Islington, East (Mr. Fletcher). I intensely dislike the suggestion that the court should have this power and this duty. I have always felt that the office of all the offices in the Government which I should most like to have to refuse is that of a Law Officer of the Crown. I do not see how a Law Officer of the Crown can discharge his duty in advising the House on an Amendment of this nature, which is so vague.

My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Surrey, East made the point of the grounds on which the learned judge would have to decide whether to stay the action. I would have thought that it was extremely difficult to know upon what grounds a judge would have to make up his mind, and some of the points which my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Surrey, East made were most valid. One thinks of the public figure, the Member of Parliament, who is attacked in the court by his wife. Has the court to decide whether that is likely to result in a member of the Liberal Party or, even worse, a member of the Socialist Party, being returned at the next General Election if the hon. Member concerned is a member of the Tory Party? This is an intolerable strain to put upon the learned judge in such proceedings.

My hon. Friend the Member for Exeter (Mr. Dudley Williams) will recollect that the power to stay is based on the recommendation of the Law Reform Committee and he will appreciate that at least five judges were members of that Committee and believed that there should be the power to stay. I appreciate that the wording is mine, but, presumably, as they felt that they should have the right and power to stay, they would be able to administer such a power.

That makes me even more suspicious. The moment that leading members of the Bar get together and start making recommendations, I am always a little worried about whether the unfortunate layman will understand what his rights and powers are, although I have no doubt that that advice was given in complete sincerity.

I should like the Solicitor-General to say whether this power which is to be given to the courts is original, or whether there are any other cases in the law whereby such power is available to the courts. If there are, I should like to hear what they are before making up my mind about whether I can support the Amendment. I understand that this is a very original approach, but I should like to hear from my hon. and learned Friend whether it is, or whether there is precedent for it in other laws.

I should like to begin by congratulating my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Epsom (Mr. Rawlinson) on putting forward this substantial Amendment and this improvement to the Bill in subsection (2). The view of the Government is that this is an improvement on the Bill as it was originally drafted, and I should like personally to congratulate my hon. and learned Friend on the skill with which he has produced this redraft of the original subsections (2) and (3). I should like to follow what I think is the right course adumbrated by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Surrey, East (Mr. Doughty) and devote myself to the Amendment, speaking more generally on Third Reading about the effect of the Bill and the important amendments which it will make to the law of husband and wife.

What the Amendment attempts to do is to co-ordinate the new right of action which is given between husband and wife and the old and subsisting procedure under Section 17 of the Married Women's Property Act, 1882. The hon. Member for Islington, East (Mr. Fletcher) asked why Section 17 procedure was more appropriate or convenient and why we should want to retain it, or to remit an action which has been started in tort for decision under the summary processes of Section 17.

The advantages of the Section 17 procedure, for all those who have been concerned with unhappy disputes about property to or possession of mutual goods as between husband and wife, are that it is an exceedingly convenient process. First, it is summary. Secondly, the problems of dividing the property of husband and wife in the unhappy event of the break-up of the marriage is often exceedingly difficult and cannot be adjudicated upon according to the ordinary principles of right and title or right to possession, because many of the goods have been common property and nobody has ever considered whether they belong to the husband or to the wife as they have always been regarded as part of the lares et penates of the matrimonial home. When it comes to a division of them, it cannot be done strictly according to law and must be done on general equitable principles.

Suppose the late Aunt Margaret leaves her silver teapot in her will. It arrives in the matrimonial home. Although she was the aunt of the wife, she had said that she would leave it to the husband. When that marriage breaks up, to whom does it belong? That cannot be adjudicated upon according to the ordinary principles of the law. Therefore, the Section 17 procedure is essential for the equitable divison of not only the chattels, but even the house, the matrimonial home, and the other assets which have been jointly enjoyed by the parties while they regarded each other as one.

Thirdly, it is a very advantageous procedure because it is in private. Everybody would agree that, whatever the necessity for publicity in ordinary litigation, there are great advantages for husband and wife whose marriage unhappily breaks apart being able to wind up the property side of that marriage in the privacy of the Master's chambers and without all the publicity which is attendant on a public hearing. It is, therefore, necessary, and I think that nobody has disagreed with this, that one should preserve the Section 17 procedure.

It can be used in any circumstances when the title to or possession of property arises between husband and wife. This may arise in a hundred different ways closely linked with questions of tort. In an action of negligence, particularly where third parties are concerned, one of the principle issues may be who was, in fact, the driver, husband or wife. This would be a question of who was in possession of the property, namely, the motor car, and under the Clause as it was originally drafted, if a question under Section 17 arose, the court had to stay the main action and remit it for decision under Section 17.

The area between conversion of goods and detinue of goods and the decision as to the right and title to them or possession of them is often very narrow. It is exceedingly difficult in some instances to determine whether an issue which has arisen in the course of an action is one which could properly be decided under Section 17. Under the Bill as originally drafted and, if the Amendment is not accepted, as the Bill stands, that awkward question at the beginning of the proceedings will have to be determined to see whether the action must be stayed.

Questions as to the title to or possession of property might also arise in actions which are linked with a series of other questions between husband and wife which are properly triable as actions of tort, and one might therefore have to divide the action and send the Section 17 part as to property between husband and wife to the Master, for decision in Chambers, leaving the other part of the action outstanding because it is an action in tort and not a Section 17 action. Yet the same issues of fact between the parties might be involved, and would then have to be determined by two different courts.

It was with those difficulties in mind that the hon. and learned Member for Epsom has adopted the procedure which is proposed by the Amendment and which gives the court a discretion to remit the whole action to the Master, or in the county court, to the Registrar, for trial as a Section 17 action; or to retain the whole action as an action in tort and, if necessary, to apply the Section 17 procedure to the whole or part of that action; or, to remit part of the issues between husband and wife for decision by the Master while still retaining itself the decision of the issues to be decided in strict law of tort.

This is a departure from the recommendations of the Law Reform Committee which, in paragraph 14 of its ninth Report, recommended that disputes affecting the title to or right of possession of any property should in future be dealt with exclusively under Section 17 of the 1882 Act, and that a wife should no longer be able to bring an action under Section 12 as an alternative to proceedings under Section 17. A provision on these lines, however, is open to the objection that cases might easily arise in which it is by no means clear whether the proper course is to start an action under the general power conferred by Clause 1 (1), or to make the application under Section 17 of the 1882 Act.

The distinction between the two is rather unreal and under the Bill as originally drafted the unfortunate plaintiff would have had to choose the correct procedure at the outset of the proceedings. If he had got it wrong, he would have thrown away time and some costs, because the court might come to the conclusion, on what is a very narrow and difficult issue, that the case should have proceeded under Section 17 and, therefore, the action should be stayed.

The distinction between these two actions is, in a sense, very technical and somewhat unreal. As time proceeds, I am sure that it will be found convenient that we should preserve the advantages of the Section 17 procedure but leave it to a court in which an action for tort has been started either to remit it, if the whole action can be tried, or remit part of it far trial in private and summarily if that is a more convenient way of disposing of the issues between the parties.

12 noon.

The other principal issue discussed on this Amendment was the point raised by the hon. Member for Islington, East, my hon. Friend the Member for Exeter (Mr. Dudley Williams) and my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Surrey, East on what is the purport, meaning, intention, and probable result of the provision in paragraph (a), that the court may stay the action if

"no substantial benefit would accrue to either party from the continuation of the proceedings;"

This is an attempt to put into legislative form the recommendations of the Law Reform Committee on this question of staying actions. The first question is whether husbands and wives ought to have an unlimited right in all circumstances to sue each other in court. There was only one recommendation in favour of that position before the Law Reform Committee, and the evidence it had and all the other recommendations include some suggestion that there aught to be a limitation upon the rights of husbands and wives to litigate within the courts and, perhaps, to ventilate their vindictive passions to little purpose.

The way in which the Committee expressed its opinion on this subject was as follows:

"The court should, however, be able either of its own motion or on the application of the defendant, to stay the action if, having regard to all the circumstances including the conduct of the parties and the nature of the matter complained of, the judge is satisfied that the complaint is not one of substance or that it would not be in the best interests of the parties that the action should be allowed to proceed."

This proviso, enabling the court to stay, has picked up that part of the recommendation which suggests that the court should stay an action if it is not one of substance, but has not picked up the suggestion that there should be a stay if it is not in the best interests of the parties that the action should be allowed to proceed. There would be the greatest difficulties if in the earlier stages of an action a court had to consider what was the long-term best interests of the parties, and what was in a sense likely to be the result of the action on the status and permanence of the marriage.

The conduct of the parties can really have very little relevance to the substance of the proceedings, and a reference to the best interests of the parties implies an obligation to examine the effect of the proceedings on the continuance of the marriage. If that were to be done by the court, however, in cases where the stability of the marriage was in doubt there would be a stay, but in circumstances where the parties were very happily married and an action was likely to have no result on the stability of the marriage, or in circumstances where they had been parted for many years and there was little likelihood of effecting a reconciliation, the action could be brought.

It would be an odd position if only those spouses whose matrimonial relationship was in a somewhat dubious state were prevented from proceeding with the action whereas all other spouses who could show that they were happily married or unhappily married would be able to do so. This would be an impossible distinction for the courts to draw in deciding whether an action should proceed or not.

In any event, on the evidence before the judge at the early stages on which this decision would have to be taken, it would be very difficult for him to assess whether there was any prospect of a reconciliation, or what was the state or reality of the marriage. Indeed, this might be involved in the very decision of the action that was coming on for trial, and therefore distinctions of this sort are impossible to provide for by legislation. All that one can do is to say that spouses ought not to use the processes of our courts if it is unlikely that any substantial benefit would accrue to either party from the continuation of the proceedings.

If there is likely to be a substantial benefit to one of the parties the action proceeds, because the position would not be within the paragraph giving power to stay. Therefore, any person who shows that as a result of the action continuing he will get a substantial benefit, whatever the result will be on the other party, will be able to continue with the proceedings, unless the position is that the success of one spouse will lead to the ruin of the other, and thus to the ruin of the plaintiff spouse.

One can imagine circumstances in which really the wife is getting all the money that she can get from the husband, or is ever likely to get, and to sue him for monetary sums thereafter is merely to run up an additional bill of costs to no purpose because the prospect of getting more money than she is getting at the time is nil. On that basis it will be open to the court to say that it is absurd for this wife to pursue this husband for a monetary remedy which is likely to be fruitless. The only purpose she can have for bringing the action is one of ventilating vindictively the affairs of the marriage to no real purpose, and therefore there is no substantial benefit in continuing the action and the court can then stop it.

Would not the Solicitor-General agree that if that is the way the courts will determine whether there is or is not a substantial benefit, that inquiry will also involve consideration of the relationship between the parties which would not be any more difficult than the inquiry which the Law Reform Committee recommends as to whether the proceedings are in the best interests of the parties? In deciding whether there is substantial benefit, they have to consider the status of the marriage, the prospect of the marriage surviving, and so on. That is the kind of inquiry that would be involved in considering whether it is in the interests of the parties, which the Solicitor-General advises is impossible.

With respect, that is not so, because in the one case where one is considering the prospects of reconciliation, or the status of the marriage and the general situation of the marriage state, one has to investigate to a large extent both the history of the marriage and the personal relationships between the parties. When one is considering substantial benefit, one has the easier task of considering the financial position.

The substantial benefit here does not mean the benefit in the sense of the ethical or moral disadvantages or advantages of pursuing a spouse in a court of law. It must be confined to the practical property aspect of the matter, the cash, the house, and whatever other assets there may be, and it does not go so wide as to include the general moral considerations of the advantages or disadvantages of maintaining a married state in the society in which we live. It is with that object in view that the court should have power to see that no practical benefit is being derived by a party by pursuing the litigation, or, if the litigation is pursued it will be completely fruitless. Those are the two situations intended to be dealt with.

Another situation with which it is intended to deal is the situation where, as has been said, the injury is quite trivial, where there is only a black eye, and it would be absurd to allow the people to ventilate a matrimonial quarrel, the net result of which would be to produce nothing except acrimonious litigation between them, again with no substantial benefit because the claim is small and costs would be high.

Members of the Bar have had experience of cases in which parties who are both legally added have pursued against each other a trivial claim about property or small injuries, at enormous expense to the Legal Aid Fund and really for no benefit to themselves. It is to deal with those cases—which, I believe, will be minimal—that the provisions are necessary. It is not envisaged that there will be large numbers of cases in which it can be said that the result of the whole litigation will be that neither party will get any benefit at all. If either party can show that he or she will receive a substantial benefit from pursuing such litigation the court will not have power to stay any such action.

I heartily agree with the hon. Member for Islington, East that it is to be hoped that these Amendments and the provisions which we are making will not lead to a spate of husband-and-wife actions.

I refrained from intervening while the Solicitor-General was speaking, because I was not able to be here at the very beginning of the discussion, and I did not want to criticise an excellent Bill by raising one point. Nevertheless, I am a little worried about what the Solicitor-General has said in respect of the words "no substantial benefit." Those words misconceive the recommendation made by the Law Reform Committee. That Committee said that in disputes between husband and wife which it is clearly not in the best interests of the parties to pursue there should be power to stay actions.

That is a very different thing from the provisions of the Amendment, which says:

"that no substantial benefit would accrue to either party from the continuation of the proceedings …"

The Solicitor-General would not pretend for a moment that that carried out the recommendation of the Law Reform Committee. It seeks to nibble at the problem by including words which will go some way towards the recommendation of the Committee.

Do the words achieve their object? The Solicitor-General instanced the case of the husband who gave his wife a black eye, in respect of which she brought proceedings against him. Let us suppose that medical evidence was given, and that the wife claimed damages. If real damage had been done, why should not the court say that the wife should receive a substantial benefit? Would not the court be in a real difficulty in deciding what is meant by "no substantial benefit"? I appreciate the intention behind the Amendment, but when a court tries to translate its provisions it will say, "The real point is: is there any real damage? If there is the offending party will have to pay for that damage. If the party pays for that damage a substantial benefit will accrue to the other party." Therefore, the insertion of these words will not achieve what we intend. I am rather troubled about the insertion of these words in an otherwise excellent Bill. To some extent they spoil the Bill.

I beg to move, in page 2, line 11, to leave out from "by" to "marriage" in line 12 and to insert:

"one of the parties to a marriage against the other during the subsistence of the".

This is a drafting Amendment. The Clause extends to Scotland only. I therefore approached this branch of the law with even greater trepidation than I approached the Bill in general. I derive some comfort from the thought that, comparing English and Scots common law, the law that prevails in Scotland is often very much more preferable. On consideration, it appeared that subsection (2) did not make entirely clear my intention with regard to the powers of the court.

As drafted, the subsection says:

(2) Where any such proceedings are brought by virtue of this section during the subsistence of a marriage, the court may dismiss the proceedings if it appears that no substantial benefit would accrue to either party from the continuation thereof;

Those words are not completely satisfactory, for I understand that there are a few actions which a spouse can bring under the existing common law of Scotland, and the original working of the subsection would not appear to give the court power to stay those actions.

If the Amendment is agreed to the subsection would read:

"Where any such proceedings are brought by one of the parties to a marriage against the other during the subsistence of the marriage, the court may dismiss the proceedings …"

This makes it clear that the court would have the power to dismiss not only actions which could be brought under the provisions of the Bill but also actions which could be brought under the existing common law in Scotland.

I beg to move in, page 2, line 24, to leave out "References in" and to insert:

"The references in subsection (1) of section one and subsection (1) of section two of".

This is a drafting Amendment, which is necessary because the expression "parties to a marriage" will, under the Bill as amended, appear not only in Clause 2 (1), but also in Clause 1 (2) and in Clause 2 (2), and in the last two mentioned cases the reference is to proceedings during the subsistence of the marriage, and it would clearly be inappropriate in those cases to suggest that the reference to parties to a marriage included parties to a marriage which has been dissolved.

But the parties to a marriage, or the spouses to a marriage, would be able to bring proceedings under the Bill after that marriage had been terminated, in respect of a tort which had been committed during the course of the marriage.

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

This Bill is an attempt to clarify and modernise the law and to bring the law in relation to tort into modern relationship, having regard to the present status and position of husband and wife. It was clear from our discussions on Report this morning that this is not very easy to effect. But I am sure that all of us who see the gross anomalies that exist and the hardship which is imposed upon wives, who would otherwise be unable to get compensation for injuries they have received in, for instance, accident cases, would wish to see that that is put right.

Nevertheless, this is a matter of some complexity and follows upon the change in the law and the modifying of the law over the past century. The unity of the household, which, of course, was the old idea, was breached a long time ago, particularly in 1882, when powers were given to the wife which arose, of course, from the view that the husband should cease to have control over the whole of the wife's property. The wife having won the power to control her own property and to bring proceedings against her husband in respect of it, as the hon. Member for Islington, East (Mr. Fletcher) said earlier this morning, it is obvious that there should be an equal right in the spouse to bring actions in respect of tort.

The unity of husband and wife is, therefore, in the present state of the law, unrealistic, with the wife as an individual having the same status and rights as the husband. Nothing that I have said in that regard, of course, alters the social importance of the sanctity and maintenance of the marriage.

The cases and the anomalies to which reference has already been made show how necessary it was for some reform of the law to be brought about. I have referred to the accident cases and the cases with regard to employers and the contributor, and third parties. The Law Reform Committee, to the members of which I have referred and all of whom have great experience not only in the practice of the law, but also in judicial administration—two of them are at present Lords of Appeal in Ordinary, two others sit in the Court of Appeal and one other sits in the Queen's Bench Division of the High Court, while others are not only practitioners of the law but are also academic professors—agreed to the recommendation that the court should have some power to stay the action having regard to the circumstances, including the conduct of the parties, the nature of the matter complained of and if the judge is satisfied that the complaint is not one of substance.

That recommendation is based upon the social conception that there should be some restraint and of the undesirability of having complete freedom. The only body which said that there should be complete freedom for husband and wife to litigate was, I see with interest, the Association of Liberal Lawyers. That suggestion was rejected by this very powerful Committee, and I should think that the House would want to reject it also. Therefore, there is surely the need for some restraint and a power which I should have thought the courts, with their experience, would be able to administer sensibly and reasonably in the interests of the parties.

In these circumstances, and acknowledging the great help that I have received in this matter from my hon. and learned Friend the Solicitor-General and other advisers, I ask the House to give the Bill its Third Reading.

The hon. and learned Member for Epsom (Mr. Rawlinson) was successful in obtaining the Second Reading of his Bill on the nod and in it having a rather formal Committee stage. Therefore, this has really been the first discussion on the Bill. That being so, and although this is not by any means always my view, I think that it may be rather fortunate that there is a further stage elsewhere, because I am not entirely happy about the whole of the Bill.

This is a subject which interests me a good deal, because I remember that I was in the case which upset the decision of Mr. Justice McCardie, which, I think, then stood for twenty years, to the effect that a wife could not sue her husband with regard to an accident which happened before the marriage. The Court of Appeal, I must confess slightly to my surprise, held in my favour on that occasion. Therefore, it has been possible since then to bring an action upon torts which occurred before the marriage. Whether the Amendments introduced on Report fully achieve this, I am not certain, but my own feeling is that so far as husband and wife are concerned actions in tort ought really to be confined to actions which involve injury either to the person or to property.

I am not at all happy about a variety of other actions in tort of which, of course, the most obvious is slander. I cannot really think that we shall be better off as a community and, indeed, add to the dignity of marriage if we find rows in the bedroom and talk to neighbours afterwards, translated by husband and wife, instead of bringing an assault summons before the magistrates proceed to issue a writ for slander.

However, there will be an opportunity in another place to consider that aspect of the matter. I have no doubt that those in another place will do so, and, subject to that slight reservation, I think that we should express our gratitude to the hon. and learned Member for Epsom for having provided us with a very useful and valuable addition to the law.

As the hon. and learned Member for Northampton (Mr. Paget) said in his speech, with every word of which I entirely agree, this is really the first occasion that the House has had the opportunity of discussing the Bill. It is seldom that an hon. Member obtains on the nod a Second Reading of a Private Member's Bill of a somewhat controversial nature. There is nearly always one hon. Member to object. We therefore congratulate my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Epsom (Mr. Rawlinson) upon his good fortune and luck. He is probably as surprised as I am that his Bill has got as far as this.

Having said that, I suggest that we should treat the Third Reading stage of the Bill more like a Second Reading stage and hope that the Bill will receive further consideration in another place, because it is a very important Measure. It deals with so many people, since the vast majority of adults in this country are married. The reason for it is, quite bluntly, that insurance companies managed to escape liability in respect of injured persons because one was married to the other.

I do not believe for a moment that if there were not any question of compulsory insurance such as exists in connection with motor cars, the Bill would have been introduced. If it had confined itself to that, it would have had my wholehearted support. At the moment, it has only my qualified support. However, I will not object to it now any more than I objected to it on Second Reading.

I would point out the opportunities that the Bill, as amended, gives for collusion. That is not a desirable feature of the Bill. The Bill introduces complete power, subject to the Amendment which we discussed earlier, for a spouse to sue the other in tort. Tort covers many matters, besides ordinary negligence. It covers libel, slander and assault, to mention only three. This will open the door to spouses to bring civil actions in respect of all those and other matters as well, which, frankly, I have no hesitation in saying are undesirable between spouses. This cannot be desirable between spouses who are—I will not say living happily together but, at any rate, living together. When they are no longer living happily together it opens up an opportunity for one further to irritate, annoy and pester the other by means of legal process which at the moment they do not, and rightly in my view do not, possess.

The Bill will undoubtedly be used to bolster up divorce proceedings. A spouse will tell the judge that there have already been two judgments for slander and one for assault against the other party. It may be that one spouse wishes financially to ruin the other. One can exaggerate a libel, slander or assault and obtain an order for damages and costs, probably assisted by legal aid, in order not only to irritate and worry the other party but also to reduce that party to a state of financial embarrassment and perhaps thereby prevent him or her defending the later divorce proceedings. Therefore, a great deal of criticism can be offered to these provisions.

It may be said that the Amendment which we discussed earlier dealing with "substantial benefit" will cover that point. I have no hesitation in saying that, in my view, it will not. Suppose a wife alleges that her husband has grossly slandered her. Is the court going to say that no substantial benefit would result from a continuation of the proceedings? The question whether or not the slander was spoken cannot be decided at the preliminary hearing. It cannot decide the question whether or not the damage effected by the slander is serious. That is a matter for the subsequent trial which may take a long time to decide such difficult questions. Therefore, this alleged safeguard is absolutely no safeguard at all.

One knows how bitter and strenuously contested these actions between husband and wife can become. I foresee, as a result of the Bill, not the recompensing of injured spouses who are unfortunate enough to be involved in accidents of one kind and another, unintentionally although perhaps negligently caused by their spouses, but long and bitterly-fought cases resulting from trivial matters—slander, and so on, or assaults committed perhaps in the heat of the moment which occur sometimes between husband and wife; and I foresee many days being occupied with the results of such footling incidents, perhaps supported by legal aid.

For those reasons I hope that in another place this will be considered more carefully, and that Amendments will be moved to cover these difficulties, deal on a practical basis with spouses who become bitter towards each other, and make provision to stop actions of that kind taking place.

As has been said, this is the first opportunity we have had of discussing this extremely important Measure. I congratulate the hon. and learned Member for Epsom (Mr. Rawlinson) on introducing a Measure which certainly carries out to a considerable extent a much-needed reform.

I am frankly, however, rather worried about the point which has been referred to before, whether the Bill in fact carries into effect the very important consideration that was put forward by the Law Reform Committee. I question whether disputes between husbands and wives are so dealt with that the recommendation of the Committee has been carried out. One recognises, of course, that as the sexes are equal, opportunities ought to be given to both husband and wife to bring actions at law. At the same time, we have to recognise the particular relationship between husband and wife. It is a relationship which is most important in our society. Anything that interferes or tends to interfere with that relationship must be considered very carefully indeed.

That is why I echo what has been said by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Northampton (Mr. Paget). I hope that this matter will be considered very carefully from the point of view of seeing how far this reform goes, whether the intentions that we really desire to bring into effect are carried out in the Bill and whether due regard is placed on the relationship between husband and wife.

I should like to emphasise what I mentioned before when we discussed the first Amendment. I am troubled by the words:

"… no substantial benefit … to either party."

I hope that these words will be considered very carefully. I hope also that if it is intended to implement to some extent the recommendation of the Law Reform Committee, words will be used which really implement it. I feel that the words which are now inserted are of little advantage. Apart from that qualification, I support the Bill and congratulate the hon. and learned Member on introducing it.

I congratulate my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Epsom (Mr. Rawlinson) not only on his success in the Ballot but on having got his Bill through Second Reading without difficulty. That is evidence of two things: first, of popular support in the House and the country for some reform of the law—

No.

The hon. Member for Exeter (Mr. Dudley Williams) has not taken part yet.

—and, second, of my hon. and learned Friend's popularity in the House which ensured that there were no objections to a Second Reading.

This is an important Measure. It is another illustration of how our business on Fridays and private Members' time can be usefully employed in putting through legislation which is of considerable value. The Bill represents what is probably the greatest step forward since the Law Reform (Married Woman and Tortfeasors) Act, 1935, and we have all welcomed it today. As I see them, the Amendments which my hon. and learned Friend put down have to a great extent improved the Bill and have removed what would otherwise have been come anomalies. None of us would care to see the social importance of marriage in any way impaired, but there has been an ancient anomaly, and my hon. and learned Friend has sought to overcome a real difficulty which many hon. Members have illustrated by individual cases arising out of accidents.

I am a little worried that there may be a spate of vexatious litigation in the courts, and I hope that my hon. and learned Friend the Solicitor-General will tell us how he envisages that the Amendments introduced today will enable the courts to stop such litigation. I have in mind cases such as those to which my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Surrey, East (Mr. Doughty) referred which should not come before the High Court at all but which properly should be the substance of actions in the divorce courts.

It is undeniable that, when two persons have been divorced, there is very often a great amount of spite between them. It might be possible to use the provisions of the Bill in the pursuit of litigation which could do neither party any good and which could cause the ruin of one or the other. I hope that my hon. and learned Friend the Solicitor-General will enlarge on this point about how litigation of this sort will, in his view, be dealt with by the High Court.

I have no hesitation in supporting the Bill, which I regard as a real step forward in removing an anomaly which has existed for centuries.

I hate to sound a discordant note, but I am not in favour of the Bill. I regard it as an undesirable Measure and I shall regret it if the House decides to give it a Third Reading and send it to another place. I hope that, if it goes to another place, it will receive short shrift there.

I criticise the Bill because it is another nail in the coffin of matrimony. The fear expressed by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Surrey, East (Mr. Doughty) that it will lead to a spate of litigation is, I believe, well founded. I do not believe that it is possible for people to issue writs against each other for slander, libel or assault and still continue in the state of matrimony. If legislation of this kind were thought desirable at all by the House, it should be applied only to marriages which have already broken up or, at least, where a legal separation has taken place. To suggest that these powers should be given to either spouse to sue the other is, to my mind, another way of saying that the House of Commons is prepared to pass legislation which will encourage the break-up of marriages. For this reason, I oppose the Bill.

Both my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Surrey, East and my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Epsom (Mr. Rawlinson), whose Bill it is, spoke about a wife being unable to sue her husband in a case of negligent driving. This is true, but a similar limitation applies in other respects. We had this matter thrashed out in the House of Commons on a Friday last Session, when the hon. Member for Loughborough (Mr. Cronin) introduced a Bill which would have made it compulsory to insure pillion riders on motor cycles.

Does not my hon. Friend realise that in this case, where persons have entered into an agreement, a policy of insurance, which covers third parties, they do not, if they are husband and wife, have the benefit of that policy which they would have if they were father and daughter or lover and mistress?

I cannot speak for lovers and mistresses. My hon. Friend is not so naive as to believe that, if this ground of legal action were given to spouses, there would not be a rise in insurance premiums. I submit that it would lead to a considerable number of cases, in many of which, I have no doubt, there would be a strong element of collusion. Nothing would be easier than for a wife to sue her husband and say that, owing to his bad driving and an accident which he had caused, she had had a nervous breakdown. It would be to the husband's advantage to encourage his wife to bring such an action because he would not pay the bill.

Has the hon. Gentleman considered that it is, perhaps, a little unjust that the one person who should be restrained from suing in those circumstances is the very person who almost undoubtedly has for a very long time been giving the husband good advice about how careful he ought to be in driving?

I do not like the suggestion that she has been giving him good advice. In fact, it will work just as much the other way. The husband would have been giving the wife good advice, but it is suggested that we should give him power to sue her if she is driving. I think that this is undesirable.

In my view, the Bill should not be accepted by the House. Subject to what my hon. and learned Friend the Solicitor-General may say, I shall have to consider carefully whether I ought to call a Division to test the opinion of the House. My present view is that it is far from desirable that the Bill should be given a Third Reading.

I can give the Bill only qualified support on Third Reading. My support is qualified for the same reasons as those expressed by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Northampton (Mr. Paget).

As has been said, it is obvious that the Bill is introduced primarily to give spouses remedies against third parties, particularly against insurance companies, in circumstances in which they have not such rights at present. This was recognised in the Report of the Law Reform Committee to which the hon. and learned Member for Epsom (Mr. Rawlinson) referred. I share the concern already voiced about the possibility of this leading to undesirable vexatious litigation between husband and wife which it has hitherto been the policy of the law to restrain.

We all agree that it would be very undesirable if the passage of the Bill into law were to lead to a lot of trivial, frivolous or vexatious proceedings for slander or petty assault by one spouse against another, or even to the threat of such proceedings, because this would lead inevitably to matrimonial unhappiness.

What grieves me is that the hon. and learned Member for Epsom has prayed in aid the recommendations of the Law Reform Committee, but there is in the Bill a serious departure from its recommendations. We have not implemented to the full the safeguards which it stated should be provided to prevent the very abuse to which I have referred. It is really not open to the hon. and learned Member to claim support from this very distinguished Committee unless he can go to the length of ensuring that the safeguards which it thought necessary are written into the Bill.

The Law Reform Committee felt this concern strongly. It recognised that, because of anomalies arising out of claims against insurance companies, certain changes were desirable, but in paragraph (9) of its Report it said:

"Litigation in respect of petty acts of negligence in the domestic sphere would certainly not be conducive to the continuance of the marriage and would, we think, do nothing but harm."

It was for this very reason that the Committee recommended that the court should have the right to stay proceedings.

My regret is that, as the Bill now stands, the right of the court to stay proceedings is limited to the circumstances in which the court finds that no substantial benefit will accrue to either party. That is something substantially less than the Law Reform Committee proposed. It states in paragraph 10:

"A solution on these lines would recognise that the theory underlying the common law rule as to the inability of either spouse to sue the other for a tort committed during marriage had finally disappeared and that the law was concerned only to ensure that some check was placed on litigation which could not serve any useful purpose."

To achieve that result, it specifically recommended that

"The court should, however, be able, either of its own motion or on the application of the defendant, to stay the action if, having regard to all the circumstances including the conduct of the parties and the nature of the matter complained of, the judge is satisfied that the complaint is not one of substance or that it would not be in the best interests of the parties that the action should be allowed to proceed."

That last phrase—those vital words—have been omitted from the Bill and I think that it is essential that they should be written in the Bill. Therefore, while I give the Bill support on Third Reading I hope, as hon. Members on both sides of the House have said, that when the Bill gets to another place, their Lordships will see fit to have regard to the full recommendations of the Law Reform Committee and amend Clause 1 (2) so that the court can stay proceedings if it thinks that it is in the best interests of the parties that the action should not be allowed to proceed.

I can imagine plenty of cases in which the court may find it very difficult to say whether any substantial benefit would accrue or not. I do not know what the position is if one spouse slanders another. Often, hasty, intemperate and unwise words are said by one spouse to another in the presence of third parties. If on every occasion that happens there can be the threat of proceedings, or actual proceedings, it is putting a very invidious task on a judge to say whether the degree of slander uttered was substantial or not. There must be many cases in which a court would be able to say that it could not be in the interests of the parties or in the interest of the marriage that proceedings of that kind should take place.

The Solicitor-General, in what I thought was a very laboured and unconvincing speech, tried to give us the reasons why he did not think that it would be possible to have these words in the Bill. I very much hope that he will have second thoughts about that matter. He did not convince me. The reasons he gave did not convince distinguished members of the Law Reform Committee. Since they gave the matter this degree of thought and were concerned, as hon. Members on both sides have been, about the dangers of troublesome and unnecessary vexatious litigation between spouses which will be opened up if we go further than necessary in correcting the main anomaly at which the Bill is aimed, I hope that when the Bill gets to another place this matter, to which attention has been drawn, will be rectified in the Bill.

We started this morning with a good deal of enthusiasm for the Bill which has become somewhat qualified as time progressed. I should like on behalf of the Government to welcome the Bill as it stands at present and to congratulate my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Epsom (Mr. Rawlinson) on the choice of subject, on his skill in its presentation and in getting it through all the stages up to date, and on his expertise in getting it on the nod on Second Reading.

Since it has not been discussed generally on the Floor of the House, perhaps the House will forgive me if I say a word or two about the general principles of the Bill. I should like before I do that to express the thanks of the House and of everybody to the members of the Law, Reform Committee for their very excellent Report. It is obvious that all hon. Members who have taken part in the debate have relied on it very much indeed. It was, as I think we would all agree, a well-thought out exposition of the difficulties of the law as they exist. We ought to be very grateful to the distinguished members of that Committee for the time and trouble taken in elucidating this subject, and the fact that we are passing this Bill within fifteen months of the Report being issued will be an encouragement to all members of Law Reform Committees to continue with their good work, which often appears to them, no doubt, to be a somewhat thankless task.

The subject of legislation for husband and wife is dealt with in one of the oldest statutes extant, going back to 1285. It contains provisions about the forfeiture by married women of their dowry in the event of their elopement. Throughout the centuries Parliament has been concerned with adjusting the mutual rights as between husband and wife.

The great jurist, Blackstone, expressed the view that the female was a great favourite of the laws of England. A good many other people would regard her position, at any rate until the Married Women's Property Act, as being one of extreme disadvantage when she was subject to her husband taking possession and power over the whole of her property and leaving her almost without any rights.

We have since those days of the Married Women's Property Act, progressed a good deal. There is one respect in which a wife has an advantage over her husband. While spouses can contract with each other and sue each other in contract they may not, as has been said and which it is the purpose of this Bill to deal with, sue each other in tort, except that a wife may sue her husband for the protection and security of what is her own property. This injustice to husbands in not being able to sue their wives for protection of their property is now, I am glad to say, being removed. I say that "I am glad to say", because I am addressing an exclusively masculine House today.

The rule that spouses should not sue each other in tort is supposedly based on their unity after matrimony. As they are one body and one person by the ceremony which has been performed, they cannot, therefore, invoke the law for their mutual protection. In fact it is generally thought that the main principle in the earlier law of husband and wife was to give the husband a profitable guardianship over the property of his wife and that the common law devised the doctrine of the unity of the person in order to disguise and justify this particular law. But this principle of unity has never been recognised in equity or in the ecclesiastical courts. It is a mere common law device which has survived only as far as tort, not contract, is concerned. Therefore, while we are in a sense embarking on a very new and radical procedure in giving to spouses the right to sue each other in tort, it is in line with the general reforms in the law of husband and wife which have been taking place over the last century or so.

Of the two exceptions to the present bar on proceedings between husband and wife, one was Section 12 of the Married Women's Property Act, which, as I have said, gave the wife the right to protect her property by suing her husband in tort. The Bill abolishes this right. It will be swallowed up in the wider right to have remedies in tort not only for the protection of the property but for all other purposes.

The other provision of the legislation which provided for actions between husband and wife was Section 17, which enabled disputes concerning title to or possession of property to be litigated between them. That will remain, and either party will be able to employ it and the courts can insist on their employing it in circumstances in which it is convenient to do so.

The Law Reform Committee's Report dealt only with the law of England, but the legal disabilities of parties to a marriage were not dissimilar in Scotland. Such was the persuasiveness of the arguments of the Committee to Scottish lawyers and those concerned with the matter in Scotland that they have gladly climbed on the band-wagon of my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Epsom and have taken this opportunity of making a similar reform in the law of Scotland. The Bill does not extend to Northern Ireland, though, no doubt, the Parliament at Stormont will be able to use its powers to adjust the law in the same way if it so desires.

Clause 1 provides that in future, subject to the two restrictions which we have discussed this morning, the parties to a marriage in England shall be able to sue each other as if they were not married. There is to be the procedural restraint in the form of the power of the court to remit disputes for trial under section 17 or to stay the action if no substantial benefit is likely to result to either party. If it will result in benefit to one party, the action can continue.

The new right of action applies to torts committed before marriage as to torts after marriage and therefore removes the anomaly which existed before, that a husband could not sue a wife for a pre-nuptial tort whereas a wife could sue her husband. We have dealt at some length this morning with the question of the procedural arrangements which have to be made to co-ordinate an action in tort and the possibility of resolving claims as to property under Section 17. I do not think it necessary to elaborate on those arrangements. The principal subject of discussion on Third Reading and the principal criticisms of the Bill have related to the fact that the recommendation of the Law Reform Committee to give a power to stay "an action when it would not be in the best interests of the parties that the action should be allowed to proceed" has not been incorporated in the Bill.

I agree with the hon. and learned Member for Northampton (Mr. Paget) that it is, perhaps, an advantage that this difficult problem can be considered again in another place. I do not pretend that one can view with equanimity the prospect of a spate of what may well be vexatious and unjustified actions in the courts as a result of what we have done today. But, conversely, our instinct must be to allow people to exercise their rights under the law. If we give people the right as between husband and wife to ensure that they obtain justice and as much indemnity for injuries suffered by them as if they had not been spouses, then there is strong pressure to see that that right is not cut down unless it is really necessary.

I assure the House that a great deal of thought has been given to this very difficult problem, and the solution in the Bill, which has been in it since its inception, has been very carefully considered and is acceptable to the Government for the reason that we should not place shackles on the rights of people to seek justice at the bar of the courts of law unless it is essential. Also, it is very difficult to devise any sort of formula which would enable courts of law equitably and fairly to distinguish between those types of action which should be allowed to continue and those types of action which should be stopped in limine so that a plaintiff is deprived of what may be his just rights.

Under the Bill as drafted, a person cannot proceed with an action if it is not likely to be of substantial benefit to both parties to the marriage. If it is desired to widen this, consideration can and should be given to it in future. But there are considerable difficulties in seeing how courts could properly decide the wider question which the hon. Member for Islington, East (Mr. Fletcher) adumbrated, namely, that one should consider the effect on the marriage of the social, ethical and moral consequences of allowing litigation between married people to continue.

What do the words "substantial benefit" mean? Will the Solicitor-General give us a definition of them?

I endeavoured during discussion of the Amendment to give a definition, and I am sure that the hon. and learned Member would not wish me to waste time by giving it again. I refer him to HANSARD. It means a practical and financial benefit, not a prospective moral or ethical benefit. It must be concerned with questions of money and property. If the net result of the action will be only to satisfy the vindictiveness of an invidual, or something of that nature, that cannot be a substantial benefit.

Suppose that a hushand slandered his wife very seriously. Would he have to await the verdict of a jury on how much it should give him, and would the judge then have to decide whether that was a substantial benefit or not?

No. It is intended that the question as to whether there should be a stay should be considered at a very early stage in the proceedings, probably on the summons for direction as soon as the pleadings are closed. At that stage one would have to consider whether the nature of the claim and the injury alleged was trivial. If it was trivial, there would be no substantial benefit in continuing. If, however, it appeared to be a heavy claim but, nevertheless, there were no assets against which a successful judgment could be executed, the action could be stopped. The intention is to cover those sorts of action in which the fruits of litigation are likely to be nugatory and in which it is thought that there can be no object in allowing husband and wife to continue to litigate.

Like everyone who has been concerned with the Bill, including, I am sure, my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Epsom, I very much appreciate the necessity of ensuring that we do not open the door to unnecessary litigation too wide. Nevertheless, the task of devising a practical dividing line is exceedingly difficult.

The suggestion of the hon. and learned Member for Northampton that the matter should be confined to personal injuries and injuries to property was very interesting. This is a matter which will be considered. I should point out, on the other hand, as to questions of the right to sue in libel or slander, that there is no legal aid in the High Court of Justice in such actions. While on the one hand it may be said that people may bring unnecessary actions, they will have to do so at the risk of bearing all the cost themselves, and they will get no assistance at all in such actions from the legal aid fund. Conversely, one remembers that there may be circumstances in which a husband and wife have been separated for years, their marriage has broken up, and one party very seriously slanders the other party; in such circumstances we might be depriving a person who was seriously injured of her right and putting her in an exceptional position from the rest of the community.

This is a useful qualification which could well be put in. The difference in respect of slander is whether the marriage was subsisting or not in the sense that they were living together. The mere fact that they cannot get somebody else to pay for it is not necessarily conclusive. The Solicitor-General might have in mind a case running at the moment in which there might be half-a-dozen slander actions if they were allowed.

It is an exceedingly difficult question and it is fortunate that it can be reconsidered. Reconsideration will be given to all that has been said and all the suggestions which have been made. It was thought that this was the best formula which could be devised and which can be applied practically by courts of law in deciding which actions should be stopped. If we provide that it is only when parties are living separate and apart that they should be able to sue each other, I suppose in actions other than injuries to property and persons, then difficult questions arise of how long they have been separated and whether they were truly separated or whether they had separated in order to be able to sue each other. But I do not exclude consideration of all these matters, and I am grateful to hon. and right hon. Gentlemen who have made proposals as to how this difficult question might be reconsidered.

An important effect which the Bill will have is upon the rights of third parties. The present law has been anomalous and unjust in the way in which third parties have been dealt with when there has been the equivalent of a tort between husband and wife. A person liable jointly with one spouse for injury to the other spouse will now be able to recover contribution. The present situation is that if Mr. and Mrs. Jones are driving along the road in their motor car and Mr. and Mrs. Smith are endeavouring to overtake them, and in the course of that there is an accident which is due to the negligent driving of both Mr. Jones and Mr. Smith, which results in serious injuries to Mrs. Smith, the whole of the cost and expense of providing those damages for Mrs. Smith fall upon Mr. Jones and his insurers. The insurers of Mr. Smith get off scot free, because the doctrine of law is that Mrs. Smith could not have sued Mr. Smith and therefore there is no liability on him and none on his insurers. This is obviously an absurdity and an injustice.

There is another set of circumstances in which in an action by one spouse for loss suffered as a result of an injury to the other spouse the amount recoverable against the defendant cannot be reduced because of the injured spouse's negligence. It is an absurdity that if you suffer damage by the loss or deprivation of the services of your servant, and he was negligent, the defendant can rely on that, but if it is your wife, he cannot do so, and has to pay in full even though your wife may have been substantially responsible for the injuries which were inflicted upon herself. The Bill will have considerable effects upon cases of this nature.

My hon. Friend the Member for Exeter (Mr. Dudley Williams) raised the question of the insurance companies. They were invited to make representations to the Law Reform Committee and did not do so, and as far I know they have not made any since. It may therefore be assumed that they are happy with the provisions of the Bill.

They are happy because they have the premiums the moment the Bill goes through.

That is so, because the additional risk may require some small—not very large—increase in premium, or they can provide in their policies that the liability to indemnify passenger-wives or husbands can be excluded. This is a matter of negotiation between motorists and their insurers. One either sticks to one's present premium and excludes the possibility of one's spouse being indemnified or, if one wishes to include her, the extra risk will have to be covered by some small extra premium. But it will result in the removal of the present absurd position whereby your daughter, your mother-in-law, your girl friend or your mistress can sue you if you injure them when they are passengers in your motor car, and your insurance company is liable to indemnify you, whereas under the present law your wife can neither sue you nor obtain any indemnity against your insurance company.

It has been said that this is an opportunity for collusion between husband and wife to put forward fraudulent claims pretending that one has injured the other, but I think that we can rely on the skill and know-how of insurance companies over many years to deal with fraudulent claims, which they know how to smell out and recognise. In any case, that could not be a reason for excluding all honest persons from being indemnified by the insurers of their spouses.

It is for these reasons that the Government welcome the Bill and recommend it to the House. I congratulate my hon. and learned Friend upon his success in the Ballot and in carrying the Bill thus far in the procedure of our legislation.

I beg to move, in page 1, line 6, after "closing" to insert:

"and of Part IV of that Act (which relate to Sunday trading)".

I think that it would be convenient to take with this Amendment the other two Amendments namely, in page 1, line 20, at the end to insert:

(3) Subsection (2) of section fifty-nine of the Shops Act, 1950 (which relates to restriction on Sunday trading under certain earlier enactments), shall have effect in relation to anything done in England or Wales in accordance with paragraph (b) of subsection (1) of this section as it has effect in relation to the carrying on of any business as mentioned in the said subsection (2).

and in the Title, line 3, after "I", to insert "and Part IV".

Yes, Mr. Deputy-Speaker. If the first two Amendments were accepted the Title would require the addition of the words "and Part IV".

May I start by saying that it gives me the greatest possible pleasure to say that my hon. and gallant Friend's original Bill, as it then stood and before it went into Committee, was as good a Measure as it was possible to put before the House? What did it do? It did two things. It stated that designated airports should be treated separately for shopping purposes, and that Part I of the Shops Act, 1950, which relates to the hours of closing, should not apply in respect of airports designated by the Minister under the Bill. It went on to state, furthermore, that Part IV of that Act, which relates to Sunday trading,

"shall not apply—

(a) to any shop at a designated airport which is situated in a part of the airport to which this Act applies, or

(c) to the sale (otherwise than at a shop) of any goods at a designated airport, where the sale takes place in a part of the airport to which this Act applies,"

We had a subsection (3) which was precisely in the terms in which I now seek to reinstate it. Thus, what my Amendment aims to do is to restore the position to exactly as it was when the original Bill received a Second Reading, with one exception, which is not to reinstate the words which were originally in the Bill on Second Reading:

"(b) to the carrying on of any retail trade or business at any such shop."

The reason for omitting that was that it affected hairdressers in Scotland. I feel that while it is obviously reasonable that we should have full and proper shopping facilities and premises, I did not reinstate that part of the original Bill, because I thought that it may be felt that people in Scotland, and hairdressers in Scotland particularly, might have some arrangement for not working at airports on Sundays. It did not take the matter much further.

This matter is one of the very greatest importance. As the situation has been for a great many years, there may be strong feelings on Sunday observance, but it seems to me that we must have some regard not only to existing legislation and the position as it now is, but also to the great tourst industry, which is very greatly affected in these matters.

In Section 51 of the Shops Act, 1950, we find that all the tourist centres of this country are treated preferentially for certain times of the year, and the result in my own constituency is that in the towns of Margate, Ramsgate and Broadstairs, in the summer and for a matter of up to eighteen weeks, shops are allowed to trade and sell any article of food and virtually anything which a tourist would require. That is under the existing law. At airports shops are not entitled to sell on Sundays any of the articles which an ordinary tourist can get in the tourist centres. This is a preposterous state of affairs.

After all, the airports are the shop windows of the country as a whole. On coming into London Airport, or any other airport, on any day of the week, including Sunday, when arriving from a distant part of the world, it is not unreasonable that one should expect to be able to purchase any article one wishes, but, still more, this problem arises on one's departure. It is a recognised feeling that, on arriving at the airport to go back to Pakistan or America, a passenger may have some small change or a few pounds left in his pocket, and may wish to do what he can do any day of the week, Sunday included, that is, spend the rest of that money in the purchase of a memento or token of a very pleasant visit to Britain.

I find it difficult to believe that those who may have a conscientious objection to Sunday trading, in the real sense and in the wider context, could feel that there would be any harm done if we seek to extend this provision in respect of trading at the airports, bearing in mind the position as it now obtains under the law.

I want to draw attention to the way in which this matter was dealt with in Committee. There was a brief Committee stage, and my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for The Hartlepools (Commander Kerans), whose admirable Bill this is, moved an Amendment in a commendably brief fashion; and if ever I have heard an Amendment moved with reluctance, it was that which he moved in this case. He adverted to the fact that the Bill was designed to extend the provisions of the Shops Act, 1950, regarding the hours of opening of shops at certain airports designated by the Ministry. He went on to say:

"It is purely a liberalising Measure."

as it is, and that

"the Amendments which I am putting forward are designed to exclude Sunday opening."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Standing Committee C, 18th April, 1962; c. 3.]

I have no doubt that he would not have done it had he not felt that his Bill might be in danger. This is a shame. I appreciate the difficulties in which my hon. and gallant Friend might well have been placed, but, from my point of view, perhaps it was a pity that we did not start with the Bill without provision for Sunday opening, when I am sure either my hon. and gallant Friend or the Minister could have put it in in Committee, and we should have it now.

My hon. and gallant Friendly rightly referred to the support which his Measure, as it stood originally, had in the country. It has support from the unions and from every side of the tourist industry, including the British Hotels and Restaurants Association, chambers of trade, and all those various associations which represent the different interests of tourism. What happened? Having with supreme reluctance moved his Amendment, my hon. and gallant Friend saw the hon. Member for Islington, South West (Mr. A, Evans) rise and say that he would like to retain the Bill as it was. He said:

"I know that most reasonable people would agree that these facilities should be available on Sundays as well as weekdays."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Standing Committee C. 18th April, 1962; c. 4.]

The hon. Member also suggested that the Amendments were undesirable.

What did the Minister say? The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Aviation, who is present on the Front Bench today, stated that the Government were also favourably inclined to this, and that the view of the Government was that the Measure should remain as it was. Thereafter, my hon. Friend the Member for Gosport and Fareham (Dr. Bennett) said that he deplored these Amendments and begged my hon. and gallant Friend not to make them. However, 20 minutes after this debate started in Committee, the matter was dropped. Such is the conscientious conviction of a tiny minority of this House and of a tiny minority of people in the country that it can put off to yet another day the attitude of mind which a great majority of us in this country share. I think that it is a great pity.

The Parliamentary Secretary has told us what is perfectly true, that the House of Commons has set up a Select Committee of the House for the purpose of considering the out-dated Sunday observance laws. That was certainly overdue, but it is well known from members of that Committee that its deliberations will be long in this complex and obtuse field.

1.30 p.m.

It is clear that the Committee's deliberations will not be completed before the end of this year and that, therefore, it will be extremely unlikely that we shall see legislation either in this Session or the Session 1962–63, because it involves many other matters. I really do not think that it is fair, in those circumstances, to say, when one has an opportunity to remedy one or two of the more obvious anomalies of the Sunday observance laws, that we should not take that opportunity.

One of those anomalies arises out of my hon. and gallant Friend's Bill, the fact that till this Bill becomes an Act of Parliament the airports are governed by the absurd Shops Act, 1950, both during the week and at the weekend. As for the absurd anomalies, as I have already mentioned, for eighteen weeks of the year we are entitled to trade on Sundays in a tourist resort; in the other ones we are not. We have, therefore, to try to fix our periods. While, as I said before, we can go to Margate or Blackpool on holiday and be permitted to eat and drink as we like on those particular eighteen Sundays, if we happen to go there for Easter instead we cannot do so.

The Shops Act, 1950, has a very large number of astonishing anomalies, as we know, and the third of the Amendments I have tabled to the Bill would remove Acts which, hon. Gentlemen will appreciate, go right back to the fifteenth century. The Schedules to the 1950 Act do nothing to remove many of those appalling pieces of legislation of a long time ago. Therefore, if today we get no further even than having a useful debate upon the vital necessity of getting on with improving our outdated laws in relation to Sunday observance, at least we may have achieved something and we may, perhaps, also have been able to give to the Select Committee some guidance on the general tenor of thought in the House today on this matter.

The Shops Act, 1950 is governed by a number of totally different Schedules, and I want to remind the House of the absurdity of some of those Schedules and of the way in which they affect Sunday trading at airports. From the First and Second Schedules we find that there are certain things which are transactions not affected by general closing hours or by closing orders:

"The sale of meals or refreshments (including table waters, sweets, chocolates, sugar confectionery, and ice cream), for consumption on the premises, or … for consumption on the trains".

The fact is that we can buy on the trains a great deal which we cannot get in the airports.

Let us turn to the other Schedules, and, in particular, to the Fifth Schedule, which arises out of Section 47, and which provides that for some transactions a shop may be open in England and Wales for the serving of customers on Sunday. Let us consider what it is that conscientious objection apparently feels it is perfectly normal to buy on Sundays:

"intoxicating liquors; meals or refreshments whether or not for consumption at the shop at which they are sold, but not including the sale of fried fish and chips at a fried fish and chip shop; newly cooked provisions and cooked or partly cooked tripe; table waters, sweets, chocolates, sugar confectionery and ice cream".

These may be purchased on Sundays, and, of course, we can have flowers, and it may also be noted that they may be delivered on a Sunday to a funeral undertaker because he is entitled to continue his trade, albeit on a Sunday. We may buy on a Sunday.

"fruit and vegetables … milk and cream"

but it must not include

"tinned or dried milk or cream"

but it can include

"clotted cream whether sold in tins or otherwise".

This was over ten years ago, when hon. Gentlemen opposite had the majority in the House, but I am bound to say that the man in Whitehall who managed to draft the Fifth Schedule to the Shops Act, 1950, must have done so really as if he were playing noughts and crosses.

We may also buy on Sunday

"medicines and medical and surgical appliances".

It is interesting that we can be supplied on a Sunday with an aircraft or motor or cycle supplies, but that we are not entitled to engage in normal Sunday trading on an airport. We can buy on a Sunday

"tobacco and smokers' requisites; newspapers, periodicals and magazines; books … postcards, photographs, reproductions, photographic films".

These are all included.

Then one finds that there may be an exemption order under the Sixth Schedule which would enable us to obtain

"bread and flour confectionery, including rolls and fancy bread; fish"—

and the man in Whitehall made it clear by putting in brackets—

"(including shell-fish); groceries and other provisions commonly sold in grocers shops."

I always like the phrase "commonly sold in grocers' shops". Today, I may say, in grocers' shops, the modern ones, there is practically everything which the human body can possibly need for sustenance or wearing; apparel—practically everything—is to be found in grocers' shops today and commonly sold therein. And so, although, of course, we may buy, for example, a newspaper or a periodical, we may not buy a volume of Shakespeare.

I could go on at great length about this, but I pass now to the Seventh Schedule, which is the matter to which I now wish briefly to turn. It is governed by Section 51. That is the tourists' section. For eighteen Sundays in a tourist area, but not for the other thirty-four we are entitled to buy

"any articles required for the purposes of bathing or fishing; photographic requisites; toys, souvenirs and fancy goods; books, stationery, photographs, reproductions and postcards; any article of food."

I really think that hon. Gentlemen will appreciate by now, having dealt with some of these Schedules, the Fifth, Sixth, and Seventh, that it is really almost impossible to conceive how anybody could have a conscientious objection to the extension of the existing situation under the Shops Act under which one is entitled, for eighteen weeks, in various areas, to do what I have said may be done, or could maintain that it makes very much difference whether one buys fish rather than meat, or has tripe, or fish and chips, rather than bacon and eggs or some equally suitable food.

I therefore say to the Minister and to my hon. and gallant Friend that I greatly hope that we can go back to what was such an admirable Measure as this was on Second Reading, and in this way recognise Sunday trading, so that at least our airports may have reasonable and proper freedom to carry out their business as they see fit for our interests and as shop windows for the trade and tourism of this country.

I should like to support the Amendment. One has to see these Amendments to realise their cogency and necessity in the context of the Bill as a whole and to bear in mind the object of the Bill. It sems to me to be a highly sensible and very necessary object, namely, to ensure that Britain's international airports should be able to provide the passengers who use them with the same day and night services as are available at other international airports throughout the world.

No one who has been to one of our large airports at night, especially during the summer, when so many people travel at night, to take advantage of the cheap night tickets, can doubt the need for brightening up the airports after dusk. It really is physically as well as mentally depressing to travel by night and get off an aircraft in a strange international centre and then find that almost everything is closed and be unable, as my hon. Friend the Member for the Isle of Thanet (Mr. Rees-Davies) said, to spend one's last dollars or few remaining traveller's cheques. It is something which can do nothing to increase the good will of people who pass through our great international airports.

If the Bill is approved by the House in its present form, even without the Amendments, it will do much to alleviate and enlighten the use of our international airports at night. But it will still have this lacuna, and in my view a very serious lacuna, of leaving Sunday in the airports of this country as bleak as ever it was before the Bill came before the consideration of the House.

The Bill, unamended, exempts the provisions of Part I of the Shops Act, 1950, from operating in respect of airport shops. As has been pointed out already to the House, Part I of the Act regulates such things as the half-day closing of shops, the general closing hours, and the exemptions far the sale of specific goods, such as tobacco and newspapers. But only the provisions of Part I of the Act are at present exempted by the Bill.

All the restrictions which are included in Part IV of the 1950 Act are still alive and would operate upon the activities of traders at the shops at our international airports. The result is that if a visitor is unfortunate enough to reach one of our airports on a Sunday he will find the same conditions as are imposed on life outside the airports.

I, for one, am all too sensitive of the deep and sincere views held by many hon. Members on both sides of the House about Sunday opening. I would not attempt for one moment, certainly in the context of the Bill, to argue that Sunday opening should be amended this way or that. But in the context of the Bill and its background, bearing in mind that international airports are in some sense divorced from the country at large and the people who use these airports are not expected to have to submit, as they have at the moment, to what they and other people in the country may consider, however rightly or wrongly, to be a prejudice or a belief, that ought not to have the effect of imposing restrictions.

Where we are dealing with international airports, I do not believe that it is right, and I do not believe that one acts against one's conscience one way or another by suggesting, as I strongly suggest to the House, that for these international airports the restrictions which are imposed upon trades outside in the country at large should not apply to the airports.

1.45 p.m.

To achieve this effect, the Amendment is necessary so as to include Part IV of the Act, but by including Part IV, and by saying that it shall not apply to traders at the airports, we exclude the operation of the whole of Part IV upon the activities of traders at the international airports. In doing that we exclude the protection which Section 59 of that Act gives to traders who otherwise would be exposed to the possibility of a prosecution under enactments which, as my hon. Friend the Member for the Isle of Thanet said, go back as far as the fifteenth century. They include the Sunday Fairs Act, 1488, and the Act of the third year of His Majesty King Charles I

"… for the further reformacion of sondry abuses committed on the Lords Day comonlie called Sunday".

and the Sonday Observance Act, 1677.

Obviously, if we merely exclude the operation of Part IV of the Shops Act, 1950, from this activity of trading at our international airports, we remove the protection given by Section 59. It becomes essential, if we are to introduce any sense into this legislation, to reintroduce the effect and to ensure that the provisions of Section 59 and its protection still subsist by means of the Amendment in line 20.

It seems to me, and I think this to be a matter of the plainest common sense, that splendid buildings at an airport are not sufficient in themselves to persuade people that they are coming to one of the greatest of countries. We want to impress, and there are many reasons why we should impress, those who have occasion to come through our great international airports with their efficiency and with the hospitality and rational approach to life of the people who live here. I can imagine no more irritating feature as a first impact upon one's impressions of a country than to discover that one is prevented by a local law from behaving as one has behaved in perhaps all the other countries through which one has passed, spending a few dollars and travellers' cheques on taking home some mementoes.

In this regard I remember very well that in about November of last year on my way to the West Indies I happened to pass through Bermuda Airport at night. I had always imagined Bermuda to be a somewhat exciting and attractive place. Looking outside the doors, one saw that it was raining heavily, and it was also rather cold. But the airport and the shops in it were at least open and one was able to buy postcards showing Bermuda as it is always supposed to be, lit with bright, hot sunshine, and was able to send back a postcard which gave really a quite fraudulent impression of what one had experienced in Bermuda that night. But if I had written back home, as I cannot help feeling many people might be disposed to write from an airport which had nothing to stimulate their imagination, that it was a most dreary place, I can imagine nothing which would have a more harmful effect upon that vital trade—the tourist trade.

I appreciate that at the moment the Crathorne Committee, under the auspices of the Home Office, is busy considering how best the laws relating to Sunday observance can be amended and improved. But, as my hon. Friend the Member for the Isle of Thanet has said, this is a Committee which, at the very earliest, is not likely to produce its Report before the end of this year. Indeed, from what one hears, a more likely time would be the middle of 1963 or the beginning of 1964. I suggest that these Amendments deal with matters which cannot in the ordinary course wait for the deliberations and final conclusions of that Committee, and in this situation and for those reasons I ask the House to support the Amendment.

This is not a debate on the general merits of Sunday trading, on which I know that in many parts of the House there are very deep feelings. Nor is it a debate about the Fifth Schedule of the Shops Act, 1950, right or wrong as that may be. My hon. Friend the Member for the Isle of Thanet (Mr. Rees-Davies) drew attention to the very many anomalies which exist in that Act, such as whether one can sell tripe or meat on a Sunday at any hour.

I thought that my hon. Friend's remarks about Sunday trading in the coastal areas were not irrelevant to this subject, because in both cases we are dealing with the tourist trade. But whereas in the case of the seaside towns we are dealing mainly with our own tourists, in the case of the airports, certainly as specified in the Bill, we are dealing principally with the international tourist trade.

It seems to me that on the face of it there can be no justification at all for not embodying the Amendment in the Bill. Indeed, without it the Bill would be very much poorer. It is ridiculous that one can sell an aircraft on a Sunday but one cannot sell anything that one might put in the aircraft.

My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Billericay (Mr. Gardner) drew attention to the many wonderful airports that one finds on the Continent and in the Americas. Anyone going to Mexico would be impressed by the goods that one can buy in the international airport there—the silver trinkets and other delightful things which, as has been said, one can purchase at the last moment with the few pieces of foreign currency left to one, though I always find at the end of a trip that I have surprisingly little money to spend on such articles. However, it is a point that the tourist frequently wants to make a last-minute purchase, perhaps of a present for his mother, his sister, or even his mother-in-law, to commemorate a trip which he has enjoyed and of which he wants to take back a souvenir.

Looking at it in a far wider way than in respect of the average tourist who wishes to purchase something, I think that what my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Billericay said was most important. The principal avenue of tourist trade is now through the airports. Gone are the days of the sea and rail traveller. Today people want to travel quickly, and so they use the airports. When tourists arrive in England, their first impression of the country is given by what the airport looks like, whether it is clean or dirty, what the buildings are like and what shopping facilities there are in the airport itself. If we are to attract the very large tourist trade that we wish to attract, we must offer facilities which are no less good than those offered by our competitors in Continental airports.

I do not remember ever having been to an airport where one cannot buy things at most hours of the day. It is true that the airports in Paris are not open in the very early hours of the morning sometimes and that one is then unable to purchase duty-free liquors, but that is no justification for our restricting the sale of goods at airports at all times. There would seem to me to be no justification for that. After all, what are the advantages? We shall increase the attractions of our airports, and we shall build up a reputation for having good and charming airports where one can purchase goods at almost all hours of the day and night.

I concede that there will be difficulties about introducing the provisions of the Amendment. But I have no hesitation in supporting the principle lying behind it. None of us wishes to see Sunday in this country changed in its character, but I think we all agree that certain alterations must now be made. As my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Billericay said, we ought not to have to wait for the Crathorne Committee. We ought to be able to implement the Amendments which are put forward in this small and modest but extremely important Bill.

I appreciate that there are limitations to the scope of a Private Member's Bill. I would not press the Amendment if it meant that either here or in another place the Bill would be defeated by a few reactionaries who failed to appreciate the value of Sunday trading in airports. I would not vote against it if it meant the death of a Bill which is designed to improve facilities at airports and to increase the international tourist traffic into this country.

I cannot but agree with everything that has been said by my hon. Friends, as I myself said on Second Reading and in Committee. I felt, however, that I had to give an assurance to certain hon. Members, otherwise I should have found my own Bill dropped. I think that was a fair alternative.

I feel that it is better that we should have the Bill as it is drafted, for that is far better than nothing at all, especially when one bears in mind that the Bill really started in another place some six years ago and died through lack of Parliamentary time. I feel that it will die again if the Amendment is pressed. I ask my hon. Friend the Member for the Isle of Thanet (Mr. Rees-Davies) not to press the Amendment so that we can have something instead of nothing at all.

I am not so much concerned with what it looks like to arrive at London Airport or Victoria Station on a Sunday. To arrive at Victoria Station on a Sunday morning or afternoon is a pretty grim experience and cannot be very encouraging to tourists. That is, after all, how a great many tourists arrive here.

When we talk about people arriving at airports, we must have a certain measure of perspective about the matter and bear in mind that the traditional habits of Sunday observance in this country have decreed that we do not exercise a very generous degree of hospitality or welcome to those who arrive at our great London termini on Sundays. However, that is not what we are discussing. We are discussing whether a shop shall be open at London Airport on a Sunday so that people arriving or departing can buy a postcard, toothbrush or whatever else they want as they can do at any other airport in the world.

I do not want to repeat anything that I have said previously on this subject, except to remind the House that I spoke on Second Reading and took a view diametrically opposed to that of the hon. Member for Wimbledon (Sir C. Black). Although, like the hon. Member, I have the greatest respect for those who have conscientious views about the observance of the Lord's Day, one has to recognise that there are different views among conscientious people about what is a proper method of observance of Sunday. Also, there is no warrant for thinking in the context of an international airport that the British idea of Sunday observance has some special merit even in Christianity, because other Christian countries have different traditions with regard to Sunday observance. Therefore, it is purely a British attitude of mind compared with non-British attitudes of mind. It is not, in my opinion, a question about how Christians should observe a certain day as opposed to how other people think it ought to be observed. For those reasons I was opposed to the hon. Member for Wimbledon. I said so on Second Reading, and I say so again.

I venture to intervene because I think that we are faced with a very curious situation. I was rather appalled by what the hon. and gallant Member for The Hartlepools (Commander Kerans) said just now. He spoke about having given some assurance. I do not know to whom he has given assurances or what assurances he has given. But I can assure him that no assurances he has given are, in my opinion, binding on any other Member of the House.

As we have been told, in the Committee stage, when an hon. Member moved to delete the provisions which it is now sought to restore, everybody who spoke, including my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, South-West (Mr. A. Evans), said that they would regret it if there should be any change in the Bill as adopted by the House on Second Reading. They thought that it would be a great mistake to truncate the Bill by deleting the provisions which would permit a shop to be open at an airport on a Sunday. My hon. Friend the Member for Falmouth and Camborne (Mr. Hayman) expressed the same view and the Minister said that the Government had welcomed the Bill in its original form. Therefore, there was a preponderance of opinion in the Committee against any change in the Bill.

Today, with the exception of that of the hon. and gallant Member for The Hartlepools, every speech has been in favour of the Amendments with a view to restoring the Bill to its original form. The hon. Member for the Isle of Thanet (Mr. Rees-Davies) and the hon. and learned Member for Billericay (Mr. Gardner) both thought it necessary to deploy arguments at some considerable length in support of their view which I should have thought was almost self-evident. I cannot speak for any of my colleagues, but if those hon. Members press the Amendments to a Division, I shall support them because I share their view. I gather that the hon. Member for Clapham (Dr. Alan Glyn) and other hon. Members will do the same.

I thought that I made the point that, while I supported the principle of the Bill, I appreciated that there were limits to what could be done in a Private Member's Bill and that if the Bill were to be defeated by pressing the Amendments, I was not prepared to press them.

I am very glad that the hon. Member has made that interruption. He has said that he would rather that these Amendments were deleted than lose the Bill, although he is in favour of the Amendments. But that will not be the alternative. If the hon. Member for the Isle of Thanet and the hon. and learned Member for Billericay and others call "Aye" when the Amendments are put by the Chair and if there is a preponderance of voices in favour of them, in the same way that all the speeches have been in favour of the Amendments, then it will be the task of the hon. and gallant Member for The Hartlepools to decide whether by calling a solitary "No" when the voices are counted, or by challenging a Division, he will run the risk of losing the Bill.

It is the hon. and gallant Member who will find himself in difficulty because he will be faced with these alternatives. There will be a preponderance of "Ayes" in support of the Amendments and therefore the Amendments will be carried. If the hon. and gallant Member challenges a Division, he may find that there are not enough hon. Members present to vote, in which case he will lose the Bill, or, if there are enough hon. Members, he will not lose the Bill and although he might successfully resist the Amendments, he will then be in the same position as if the Amendments had been withdrawn.

I am making it clear to the hon. Member for Clapham that what he suggested was not the true alternative and that by supporting the Amendments in Divisions in the same way as by their speeches, hon. Members will not in any way be jeopardising the Bill, but seem likely to be able to obtain the double objective of securing Amendments which are thought desirable and also the passage of the Bill.

When the Second Reading was debated, one hon. Member voiced the complaint that no guidance had been given from the Government Front Bench on the Government view. He was in the process of speaking at length at the time almost in such a way that it would have been very difficult for the Government view to be indicated in the Second Reading debate for want of time, but I took the opportunity of drawing the attention of the House to the fact that I had been nodding assent to practically every sentence which the hon. Member for Islington, East (Mr. Fletcher) had said in his speech. The Government view the Bill with sympathy and viewed it with sympathy in its original unamended form when it included Sundays—all 52 Sundays, I take it, and not 18 or 24—and I shall not recapitulate the arguments which were used on Second Reading.

It was fairly common ground that international air travellers constituted a special case. Very few of them wish to travel at night or on Sundays of their own choice. There is a delusion, current among some people, that air travellers belong to the rich, idle and undeserving classes who are given V.I.P. treatment at Heathrow at the taxpayers' expense. Most air travellers, especially international air travellers, are engaged on useful, valuable business, often in the national and public interest. According to figures which I have collected, some 40 to 50 per cent. of them at the airports in the London group pass through the terminals at hours when shops are normally closed, and of those some 70 to 80 per cent. are international passengers. From that it is clear that international travellers are a case apart. It is true that facilities at the international airports are in some cases more limited than those allowed in other parts of the country and at other times, for instance, at shows, exhibitions, holiday resorts and so on.

On a point of order. May I draw attention to the fact that although the Minister has now been speaking for about five minutes, none of the three hon. Members on the Tory Benches who made long speeches in support of the Amendment is here to listen to his reply?

That is not a point of order.

It is a matter of good manners.

I do not wish to rehearse again the arguments for and against which were brought out on Second Reading, but I should like to give a little attention to the very sincere speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Wimbledon (Sir C. Black), because there is no doubt that he was speaking for a section of opinion which is opposed in principle to any extension of Sunday opening, even for the convenience of air travellers at the main international airports.

I was not greatly impressed by all his arguments. I was not impressed in the first place by his argument that Sunday opening at the airports would constitute unfair competition. He referred to numbers of visitors not travelling who could take advantage of the opening of shops at the airports, but such visitors would hardly choose of their own volition to be there at inconvenient times, and it is essentially with inconvenient times that the Bill deals. There is also the disincentive to the shopper of the expense of going to London Airport merely for the purpose of shopping, an expense which includes, for instance, parking which is there becoming increasingly expensive. There is also the disincentive to the trader of having to pay overtime which would discourage him from keeping his shop open for excessive hours. I remind the House that in any case there is no compulsion in the Bill to keep a shop open at any time. The Bill is purely permissive.

Nor was I greatly impressed by the hon. Member's argument of hardship to employees. It has never been Government policy by legislation to limit the hours of adult employees, who are considered to be capable of looking after themselves, and who enjoy trade union protection. In most cases which would be covered by this Bill, wages are governed by wages councils which lay down wage rates relating to normal hours and overtime rates relating to hours beyond the normal and which would provide a disincentive to employers to try to exploit employees. The principal union concerned, the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers, has been consulted and has expressed no opposition to the Bill and nor, equally, has the Retail Distributive Trades Council on behalf of the employers.

For all those reasons, the Government feel that there is nothing excep- tionable in the Bill and that there was no substance in the arguments of my hon. Friend the Member for Wimbledon which were in essence not sabbatarian arguments but arguments of practical convenience and in some cases arguments of commercial advantage.

Nevertheless, despite our reluctance to accept that category of argument against that part of the Bill which applies to Sunday trading, we felt that there was more substance in the arguments advanced under two heads against the extension of the Bill to cover Sunday trading. One was the strength of feeling with which the conscientious arguments were advanced. As the hon. Member for Islington, East said, there is no reason for yielding to them merely on the ground that the feelings are strong, but the fact that they were strongly and conscientiously expressed was a factor which the Government thought it right to take into account. More important, in addition there is at present sitting a Departmental Committee of the Home Office. To correct my hon. Friend the Member for the Isle of Thanet (Mr. Rees-Davies), it is not a Select Committee.

The hon. Gentleman cannot correct his hon. Friend because he is not here to learn.

He will be able to read it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Can he read?

It is not a Select Committee but a Departmental Committee appointed by my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary. Its terms of reference are:

"To review the law (other than the Licensing Acts) relating to Sunday entertainments, sports, pastimes and trading in England and Wales and to make recommendations".

Because this Committee is now sitting and in order not to anticipate its conclusions, the Government have decided that it would be the better course to accept the wish of my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for The Hartlepools (Commander Kerans) to delete from his Bill the Clauses relating to Sunday trading. The reasoning which we have heard this afternoon has been powerfully directed to persuading that Committee to expedite its Report, but it should not persuade the House in the present context to anticipate that Report. I therefore hope that my hon. Friends will not press the Amendment to a Division.

In view of the observations that we have had, and the length of the debate, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.

No.

Permission is not given.

On a point of order. Is it open to the hon. Gentleman, who has not listened to any of the debate—

Order. The hon. Gentleman has already spoken to the Amendment.

I have not, and perhaps I might make the point. The hon. Member for the Isle of Thanet (Mr. Rees-Davies) has announced that in view of the observations that have been made he wishes to withdraw the Amendment. As he was so discourteous as to walk out of the Chamber after making his speech, and as he has not been present to hear the arguments that have been advanced, how can he possibly ask leave to withdraw the Amendment on those grounds?

I listened to the long and able speech of my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Billericay (Mr. Gardner) in support of the Amendment, and I indicated in my speech that I did not think that the matter ought to be pressed to a Division. In view of certain conscientious objections on the part of certain hon. Members who are not present, and as my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for The Hartlepools (Commander Kerans) is obviously reluctant to accept the Amendment, I do not feel justified in calling upon the House to divide on it. In ordinary circumstances I would, of course, press it to a Division, and I think that the hon. Member for Islington, East (Mr. Fletcher) is well aware of the reasons which prompt me to make this decision.

I therefore beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.

The hon. Gentleman says that he proposes to withdraw the Amendment because of what has been said. He has admitted that the only speech to which he listened was that of the hon. and learned Member for Billericay (Mr. Gardner) who supported the Amendment and said that he would support it in the Division Lobby if necessary. Since then there have been other long speeches by hon. Gentlemen opposite saying that they, too, welcome the Amendment. The hon. Gentleman did not hear my speech, about which I make no complaint, nor that of the Minister. He then enters the Chamber and gives as the reason for wanting to withdraw the Amendment the fact that he thinks some assurances have been given. He ought therefore to tell the House what those assurances are.

I appreciate that the hon. Gentleman was going to support what I had said. It was also clear from what the Minister said that the Government did not think this Amendment unacceptable as such save for one reason, that there is an inquiry being conducted by the Departmental Committee considering this question. I intended no discourtesy or embarrassment to anyone. I merely left to partake of some light refreshment. One must bear in mind the realities of the situation. There is undoubtedly a Departmental Committee considering this whole matter, and in the circumstances I think that it would be taking advantage of ghosts who have not attended this debate to seek to press the matter to a Division. Of course I cannot stop the hon. Gentleman from so doing, with the leave of the Chair, but I have stated my position.

Why, then, did the hon. Gentleman make a long speech in support of the Amendment? These considerations must have been known to him when he moved the Amendment.

This is of the greatest importance, for two reasons. First, the question of Sunday opening ought to be thoroughly ventilated, and I ventured to say, and I repeat, that I hope that in future on matters of this kind we shall not get what one might call veiled undertakings which may bind hon. Members in some way, or may bind them at any rate morally if not otherwise. It is dangerous, because it means that mixed loyalties may arise. It is a pity that we could not perhaps have started this Bill without including Sunday, and then put it in during the Committee stage. We could then have come back here and had a Division on the matter.

That is as far as I can take it. I know that the hon. Gentleman can say, and indeed he has, that he and I are not bound in any way, but in these matters there are certain niceties that must be observed.

The hon. Gentleman refers to niceties and embarrassment, but surely the House cannot, by private discussion between individual Members, be deprived from reaching a position on a matter of this importance.

I wonder where we are getting to in this muddle. I am not certain what is going on. There seems to be some discussion between the hon. Member for Islington, East (Mr. Fletcher) and my hon. Friend the Member for the Isle of Thanet (Mr. Rees-Davies). I should like to speak against the Amendment, but, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, I do not know whether I shall be in order in doing so, because I do not know whether you were gathering the voices. If you were, could not we now have a decision on the matter, or may I come in and make a few remarks of my own?

The hon. Member for the Isle of Thanet (Mr. Rees-Davies) is exercising his right of reply. When he sits down, if the hon. Member catches my eye he may speak.

I have finished.

I am glad to have the opportunity of giving my views which I think are roughly in line with those of the hon. Member for Islington, East. I cannot see any reason why Part IV of the 1950 Act should not apply to this proposal. Without being in any way critical of other hon. Members, I usually read the Acts to which Private Members' Bills refer. It is sometimes extremely enlightening to see what Acts are to be embodied in legislation introduced by private Members, and what restrictions are to be put on the activities covered in such a Bill.

This morning I took the opportunity of reading the Shops Act, 1950, to discover what Part IV was about. It forms a considerable part of the Act. It contains about twenty Clauses, some of which are almost unintelligible to Members who, like myself, have not been given the education given to a barrister or a solicitor. Clause 47 says:

"Every shop shall, save as otherwise provided by this Part of the Act, be closed for the serving of customers on Sunday:

Provided that a shop may be open for the serving of customers on Sunday for the purposes of any transaction mentioned in the Fifth Schedule to this Act."

I assume that anything mentioned in the Fifth Schedule can be done by any shop, whether it is on an airport or anywhere else, and I draw the attention of the House to what is allowed under that Schedule. I hope that my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary will explain what else is required to further the comfort of air passengers. These provisions give quite a lot of licence to people who wish to trade on Sundays, and I cannot see why there should be any extension of these facilities at airports or anywhere else. It says that a shop may be open for the sale of:

"(a) intoxicating liquors;

(b) meals or refreshments whether or not for consumption at the shop at which they are sold,"—

and this is very sinister—

"but not including the sale of fried fish and chips at a fried fish and chip shop."

My hon. Friend may have strong views about this commodity and think that it ought to be available to anyone travelling through London Airport. A shop may also sell:

"(c) newly cooked provisions and cooked or partly cooked tripe;"

I must be careful what I say about tripe, because considerable reflection has been cast by the Tripe Dressers' Association on someone who referred to tripe.

2.30 p.m.

The sale is also permitted of

"table waters, sweets, chocolates, sugar confectionery and ice cream (including wafers and edible containers);

(e) flowers, fruit and vegetables (including mushrooms) other than tinned or bottled fruit or vegetables;

(f) milk and cream, not including tinned or dried milk or cream, but including clotted cream whether sold in tins or otherwise;

(g) medicines and medical and surgical appliances—

(i) at any premises registered under section twelve of the Pharmacy and Poisons Act, 1933; or

(ii) by any person who has entered into a contract with an Executive Council for the supply of drugs and appliances"—

I do not know what that jumble means, but I have no doubt that it is something very important—

"(h) aircraft, motor, or cycle supplies or accessories".

It is not suggested, surely, that somebody will fly to London Airport from Frankfurt in order to buy aircraft, motor, or cycle supplies or accessories—

(j) newspapers, periodicals and magazines …

(l) guide books, postcards …

(m)photographs for passports;

(n)requisites for any game or sport at any premises or place where that game or sport is played or carried on."

Presumably if darts are allowed at London Airport one can buy a dart board—

"(o) fodder for horses, mules, ponies and donkeys ….

2. The transaction of—

(a) post office business;

(b) the business carried on by a funeral undertaker."

I should have thought that this list, which can hardly be called lacking in comprehension, would be adequate for any airport in the country. I should not have thought it necessary for the list to be extended in any way. For that reason I regard the Amendment as undesirable. Quite apart from whether or not my hon. Friend wishes to withdraw it, I should have thought that there was a strong case for its being rejected, and I hope that in due course that will be the decision of the House.

I am sorry that the hon. Member for Islington, East, has left the Chamber. I thought that he was going to listen to the support that I am giving him, especially after the attack that he made on my hon. Friend the Member for the Isle of Thanet.

My hon. Friend asked me to say that, having been here since eleven O'clock in the service of the House, he thought he might be excused if he left. He has listened to all the speakers, including the hon. Member for Exeter (Mr. Dudley Williams) up to the point at which he referred to tripe. At that point my hon. Friend thought that he had heard enough.

I hope that the hon. Member for Islington, East does not get into trouble with the Tripe Dressers' Association, because it is very sensitive to any reference to its commodity. I am sorry that the hon. Member has left the Chamber, but I fully understand that if he is feeling rather faint after his long service in the House today it is desirable that he should be allowed to leave the Chamber in order to seek refreshment elsewhere.

My case is that the Amendment is not acceptable to the House. Quite apart from whether or not my hon. Friend will persist in his efforts to withdraw it, I hope that the House will have none of it, and that it will not be allowed to become part of the Bill.

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

This is a permissive Bill, which, if passed, will extend the opening hours of certain shops at designated airports in the United Kingdom at present covered by the Shops Act of 1950. It does not include Sundays, and we all know why. No compulsion will be exerted upon traders by the Bill. What it means, broadly, is that shops in certain areas of airports can extend their hours to cover peak traffic conditions, thus bringing our major airports more into line with other international airports. These facilities are long overdue, and I hope that if the Bill succeeds in another place it will do something to remove existing anomalies at our airports and be an asset to airlines and the travelling public generally.

There is no doubt that present limitations at our airports are very inappropriate to this modern age. I agree that the traffic throughout airports fluctuates tremendously, but there are seasonal peaks and there is no doubt that there will be an increased demand for greater facilities as traffic builds up. I have visited many shops at Heathrow. The vast majority have a very high standing, and are a great asset to our export trade. They are very much needed. Many improvements have recently been made at Heathrow, and that is all to the good. People have time to walk around and look at the shops, and they are attracted into them. There is no doubt that prestige counts for a lot in this country. One often hears the comment that London Airport is nothing compared with Shannon, or with South American airports. These comments are not easy to counter.

Paragraph 84 of the Report of the Estimates Committee points out that passengers using our major airports are frequently irritated and inconvenienced when shops are closed. There is need for a better service for passengers. One is continually meeting this sort of problem, and I hope that the Bill will help to overcome it. Even thought it does not go the whole way it goes some way, and we must have some give-and-take.

I am very grateful for the substantial assistance and guidance that I have received throughout from my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Aviation and his colleagues, and also to the many local authorities concerned.

I commend the Bill to the House and trust that, small though its provisions are, they will do something to improve the amenities at prestige airports, such as London, Gatwick, Prestwick and Manchester.

I am sure that we would all wish to congratulate my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for The Hartlepools (Commander Kerans) on this excellent Bill, and also to sympathise with him because, of necessity, it cannot be as comprehensive as many hon. Members on both sides of the House would have liked. It does not include Sunday trading within its compass. I am also sure that we all appreciate the fact that hon. Members did not press an Amendment to a Division at an earlier stage. If they had done so it might have destroyed the possibility of the Bill's becoming law.

At an earlier stage in the Bill's proceedings most hon. Members expressed their support of the very real benefits which the Bill will bring. At this stage I do not wish to elaborate upon those benefits. I simply say that the Bill brings us into line with many of our competitors overseas. Most travellers express regret at the fact that our airport shops are not able to compete with shops at continental airports and South American airports. Earlier, I cited the instance of Mexico City, where the airport shops are of an excellent quality and are encouraging trading.

The hon. Member for Islington, East (Mr. Fletcher) said that the facilities at Victoria were not bad. Nevertheless, that should not stop us endeavouring to improve airport shops. I join with other hon. Members in congratulating my hon. and gallant Friend upon successfully piloting through the House a Measure which can only increase our tourist trade and create a favourable first impression on the part of visitors to this country. Hon. Members on both sides will welcome the Bill, and will hope that, at a later date, when the Departmental Committee has made its findings known, we may be able to extend the provisions of the Bill in the direction which most hon. Members on both sides of the House would like.

The best that I can say about the Bill is that I do not think that it will do much harm, which is more than one can say about most of the Bills that are passed on a Friday. On the Bill as it stands, I appeal to the Parliamentary Secretary to be rather generous as far as all airports where the powers under the Bill are concerned. I hope that the Bill will not be thought of as purely one for Gatwick and Heathrow Airports. There are many other airports in the country, including one which serves my constituency and which fulfils an important function. I hope that if these facilities are granted for passengers at London Airport they will not be refused to passengers using Exeter airport. Therefore, I hope that the Parliamentary Secretary will see that any regulations made under the Bill are applicable to all the airports in the country.

I do not want to spend much time dealing with the fact that the Bill gives the Government the opportunity to make regulations. This criticism of Private Members' Bills is made on almost every Friday when Private Members' legislation is initiated. I think it most undesirable that the Government should have power under a Private Member's Bill to issue regulations, and, although I do not think it will do any good, I hope that my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary will appeal to the Patronage Secretary to see that the Whips are not put on for any regulations which he may care to issue under the Bill. I do not expect that I shall have any success in the matter, but I like to make this appeal on every possible occasion that Private Members' legislation gives the Government power to make regulations.

The last point I wish to make is that I hope my hon. Friend will see that in any regulations which he introduces some control is exercised over the type of shops allowed to operate. It is very important that we should not allow anyone who cares to do so to open a shop and enter into a trade which is possibly undesirable or offensive to passengers. I can think of one trade which causes considerable irritation to airline passengers. It is covered in a record made by a well-known American entertainer who states that he is not the slightest bit nervous of flying in an airliner until he gets into an airport building and finds there a thriving industry selling life insurance.

It is most depressing, when going to an airport building, to find that the first thing which greets one is either a machine from which one can buy life insurance cover or a lady sitting behind a counter who disposes of a life insurance policy to you for the nominal fee of 2s. or 4s. on which policy is marked in heavy print "Good for one flight". Some of the details printed on the policy state what can happen to one if one is unwise enough to board an airlines, and this is enough to frighten would-be travellers from the airport building and on to British Railways. I hope, therefore, that there will be some control by my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary and by my right hon. Friend the Minister of the type of shops likely to operate in our airports.

As I said earlier, I do not think that the Bill will do much harm. Neither do I think that it will do much good. When I go to an airport I want to get into the aeroplane and pretend that I am sitting at home in my drawing room, something of which I am rarely able to persuade myself, and to look forward to my rapid arrival at the other end in one piece, with or without the assistance of a life insurance policy.

I do not think that when one arrives at one's destination, whether in the United Kingdom or in any other country, one wants to hang around an airport building. The moment one arrives one goes down the escalator at Heathrow, gets into a car, either one's own or a hire car, and is whisked back to the centre of London. One does not spend time at the airport buying things. I do not believe that when people are leaving Heathrow they waste time buying things from the shops there. They go rapidly into the channel designated for their aeroplane. They might stop at the cosy little bar which is available for them on the apron, but not many buy anything from the shops.

It is a misapprehension if the House thinks that passengers purchase lots of goods at airports. Generally, they do not. Very often, it is true, people go to the airports to shop when the shops in their neighbourhood are shut. I do not think that the granting of these facilities will encourage people to travel by air. I repeat, I do not think that the Bill will do any harm, and, therefore, I do not propose to divide the House on its Third Reading.

Does not my hon. Friend agree that Exeter Airport will be excluded under the Bill by the terms of Clause 1 (2)?

That just shows how careful one has to be in passing Bills of this kind. I sincerely hope that when the Bill goes to another place noble Lords who have a special interest in the West Country will pay particular attention to it and will ensure that the Bill is suitably amended so that these facilities can be available to other areas. I should be disappointed if Exeter were excluded.

I welcome the Bill, truncated as it is as a result of the action taken in Committee. The hon. Member for Exeter (Mr. Dudley Williams) said that people do not want to spend much time at London Airport and referred to the fact that those who arrive there desire to get away as soon as possible. But, of course, a great many passengers have to spend quite a lot of time at London or other airports owing to weather conditions, and so forth. Many people, contrary to their own inclinations, have to spend several hours waiting for departures scheduled for a certain time, but which, owing to weather conditions or for other reasons, are delayed. Therefore, we have to consider not only the convenience of passengers arriving, but that of passengers who are departing.

It is for that reason, as well as for other reasons that have been given, that the hon. and gallant Member for The Hartlepools (Commander Kerans) is to be congratulated on having introduced and carried through to this stage a Bill which, in the main, is designed to make airports places where incoming and outgoing passengers from all over the world can find the kind of reasonable comfort that they expect to find in foreign airports. In the past, our airports have suffered in this respect.

All that the Bill proposes to do is to bring the amenities of our own airports up to the standard of ordinary international reputation, and to that extent I think it will redound to our national prestige as well as be an encouragement to the tourist trade and an advantage to our nations when leaving the country.

The only other thing I wish to say is that I regret that the hon. and gallant Member was forced to abandon a substantial part of his Bill and found it necessary to give assurances which create such obvious embarrassment to the hon. Members for the Isle of Thanet (Mr. Rees-Davies), Billericay (Mr. Gardner) and Clapham (Dr. Alan Glyn). I wish to protest against this habit.

This is not the first occasion this Session on which the important part of a Bill has been jettisoned contrary to the wishes of the Committee on the Bill, contrary to the wishes of the promoter of the Bill, contrary to the wishes of the Government and contrary to what, I think would be the wishes of the House on Report and Third Reading. That step is taken because a small number of hon. Members who were not in the Committee have exercised some pressure in the matter.

That seems to me to be a very regrettable tendency. It is creating much embarrassment to the promoters and the Government, and has produced what I and many others think are most unfortunate consequences. It seems to me most unnecessary and derogatory to the influence and importance of Parliament that private assurances of that kind between a few Members can take place which frustrate the wishes of the promoters, the Government and the general body of opinion on the merits of the whole Bill.

I have only a few observations, and perhaps it would be useful to the Parliamentary Secretary if I were to make them now. I, too, should like to congratulate the hon. and gallant Member for The Hartlepools (Commander Kerans) on his Bill, which appears more than likely now to reach the Statute Book. He seems to have the same facility in making his mark on our legislation as previously in another incarnation he had in getting gun-boats down the Yangtse. I, for one, would certainly like to congratulate him on his achievements.

I wonder whether the Parliamentary Secretary can say whether it will be possible, in another place, to amend the words in Clause 1 (2), at the bottom of page 1, whereby the Bill applies only to the larger airports. As has been said by the hon. Member for Exeter (Mr. Dudley Williams), there are smaller airports which might not qualify, but which have just as much right as the larger ones to have these facilities—in fact, in some ways more so. In the larger airports there are considerable facilities already, and I should like the Parliamentary Secretary to say whether it would be possible to have an Amendment made in another place to meet the point made by the hon. Member for Exeter.

I am grateful to the hon. Member for making that point. May I just add that there is a substantial amount of international air traffic at Exeter.

I appreciate that fact.

My next point relates to another matter which was raised by the hon. Member for Exeter. Normally, the sale of insurance at an airport is done by way of a machine and not in a shop at all. Although it may frighten some people, there is not the slightest doubt that neither these machines nor the bright young lady to whom the hon. Member referred would be employed if they did not meet a need. If the need is there, I see no reason why the facilities should not be provided. Therefore, I hope that in another place nothing will be done to prevent that kind of facility being supplied.

I am glad that my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for The Hartlepools (Commander Kerans), who did so well across the world, has now come to anchor—if that be the right nautical expression—in East Surrey. I am very happy to welcome him as a constituent, and I congratulate him on introducing this Bill.

Many years ago a Bill was introduced in this House called the Airports Licensing Bill. I cannot think why, but there was a lot of dispute and contention day and night to get permission to sell drinks at various hours at airports. So far as I can recollect, nobody produced an Amendment to extend this facility to the sale of other articles. This is really an extension of the Airports Licensing Bill, and I am glad to see that it is going through with much less contention than there was on that highly fought out Bill.

This Bill merely brings airports in this country into conformity with what happens in every other airport in the world, except that in other airports these facilities exist for seven days of the week, whereas they apply for only six days in this country. I should like to be assured that goods sold in shops in a part of the airport ordinarily used by persons travelling by air—in other words, not in places frequented by the general public—will be duty-free. In every airport in the world there is always what is called a duty-free shop, sometimes large and sometimes small, reserved for passengers after they have gone through the necessary customs formalities and are, technically speaking, outside the country. Sometimes they have to wait there for a long time, as one knows to one's cost.

My hon. Friend the Member for Exeter (Mr. Dudley Williams) need not worry about the insurance. That is sold outside.

But I am "sunk" by the time I get to the airport because I have got my ticket by then. I cannot give that up when I am frightened by the life insurance vending machines.

I am sure that my hon. Friend exhibits the same nerve in the air as he does in this House. He need not worry when he is 15,000 feet up.

This Bill brings London Airport, Exeter and Gatwick and others into line with what international passengers would expect to find in this country and with what they find in every other country.

Before joining in the congratulations to my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for The Hartlepools (Commander Kerans) on his success in piloting this Bill through its stages, I should like to take the opportunity to reply briefly to the points which have been raised in the debate on Third Reading.

My hon. Friend the Member for Exeter (Mr. Dudley Williams) asked that my right hon. Friend should consider two or three suggestions which he put forward and which I shall certainly communicate to my right hon. Friend. However, in the case of one to which I assume he attached the greatest importance—namely, the extension of the designation of airports under this Bill when it becomes law to airports in which he and other hon. Members have constituency interests—I cannot hold out a great deal of encouragement for those which, as in the case of his own, are primarily domestic airports and not on a very considerable scale.

I do not know whether travelling to Jersey is international, but there are 40,000 passengers leaving Exeter for Jersey this year. I should have thought that there was a good case for saying that Exeter should have the same facilities as London Airport.

I am sorry to say that travelling to Jersey is not international travel for the purpose of this or any other Measure.

It may be convenient to the House if I give an indication of the airports which my right hon. Friend at present has in mind. This, of course, is not an exclusive list. It could later, if circumstances so developed, be extended. We have in mind at the moment four airports, Heathrow and Gatwick in the London group, and Prestwick and Manchester in the North. Those are the four main international points of arrival.

They may be for ordinary passengers, but an enormous number of people go from Ferryfield and Southend with their cars, and this is almost exclusively international traffic.

Yes. These points relating to other airports can be taken into consideration. I am only giving our present state of mind—I will not call it decision—and saying what we have under active consideration. These are the main international terminals which we are at present considering, but it is by no means excluded that others may be added to the list later.

Will my hon. Friend bear in mind that it is not so much the size of an airport which is important as the traffic which goes through? My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Surrey, East (Mr. Doughty) has referred to Southend, where the traffic is exclusively international traffic, even though it is small in comparison with the volume of traffic at London Airport.

Such points will be borne in mind. I remind the House at this stage that the Bill, when it becomes law, will enable my right hon. Friend to designate airports at which there appears to him to be a substantial amount of international traffic. I am telling the House now which airports he has at present in mind to designate under that definition, but I repeat that it is not an exclusive list.

The right hon. Member for Colne Valley (Mr. Glenvil Hall) asked whether it would be possible for the Bill to be amended at a later stage so that it would have the effect of not confining the operation of Clause 1 (2) to international passenger traffic. I have to tell him that I cannot give any undertaking on that point. This is a Private Member's Bill and it will not become a Government Bill even when it goes to another place, though the matter will certainly be open to debate.

The Statutory Instruments will be Government instruments, I take it.

Yes, but they will be made under the Bill, and in the Bill as at present drafted the reference is to international passenger traffic. I think that it has been generally agreed on both sides in the debate that international passengers are in a class apart. Their journeys are much longer, and they are much more likely to arrive at airports at abnormal hours. Although all passengers deserve consideration, we have, I think, found common ground in agreeing that international passengers deserve special consideration in this context.

My hon. Friend the Member for Exeter asked that some kind of control should be exercised over the shops which would be allowed to operate at the airports. This is a point which we shall bear in mind at the airports over which my Ministry has control, but I remind the House that the administration of the Shops Act, 1950, is a matter for the local authorities. It is not for my right hon. Friend to decide which shops could remain open at particular airports. The test is one of fact, whether the shops are in a part of the airport ordinarily used by passengers. The answer will generally be obvious, although there could conceivably be marginal cases.

In the case of Heathrow, for instance, it would be obvious that shops in the two passenger buildings would qualify under the Bill, but shops in the Queen's Building would not. The enforcement of the Shops Act is for the local authorities and, in the last resort, for the courts. My right hon. Friend might be called upon to give evidence on matters of fact, but it would not be for him to decide which shops could or could not remain open.

I think it right to answer now a point raised on Second Reading by my hon. Friend the Member for Wimbledon (Sir C. Black). He suggested that some passengers who came in at airports which were obviously international airports might then fly straight on to other parts of the country, and he asked whether the fact that they did so would constitute a ground for claiming for those other airports to be regarded as international airports. My hon. Friend said:

"They may have booked on through-tickets to Manchester, Liverpool, Edinburgh, Glasgow or Belfast … Are these passengers … to be classified for this purpose as international passengers at those other airports, and thereby set up a claim that those other airports are carrying a substantial amount of international traffic?"—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 26th January, 1962; Vol. 652, c. 651.]

The answer in general to that question is "No". Although it happens that Manchester is one of the airports I have mentioned as being considered by my right hon. Friend for designation, the passengers going to the other places which my hon. Friend mentioned, Liverpool, Edinburgh, Glasgow or Belfast, would not be counted as international passengers and they would not contribute in any way to determining the status of those other airports as having a claim to be regarded as international airports.

I express my agreement with the hon. Member for Islington, East (Mr. Fletcher) in rebuttal of something said by my hon. Friend the Member for Exeter on the subject of the time spent at airports. No passenger wants to spend more time at an airport than he has to. Very often, however, passengers have to spend considerable time at airports. On the first occasion I returned to this country after taking up my present appointment, I was diverted in the middle of the night to land at Gatwick, and I should have been very happy if, at the hour when I arrived, which was three o'clock on a foggy winter morning, I had been able to enjoy the benefits of this Bill already on the Statute Book.

I hope that, not only from personal experience, but in the interests of all the travelling public in this country and into this country from abroad, the House will join in giving the Bill a Third Reading. In recommending it to the House, I should like to add my congratulations to my hon. and gallant Friend who has piloted the Bill so far.