Commons Chamber

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House Of Commons

Friday, 6th July, 1962

The House met at Eleven o'clock

Prayers

[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]

House Of Commons Accommodation (Bridge St Site)

I have a statement to make to the House.

It appears that the work of the Committee which I appointed on 29th May to advise us on certain accommodation matters would be facilitated by some revision in its terms of reference. I therefore give the following new terms of reference:

To consider and recommend how best an area of approximately 40,000 sq. ft. on the Bridge St. site might be used for permanent accommodation for the purposes of the House of Commons, and, to this end, to take into account the recommendations of Mr. Speaker's Committee on Accommodation in Session 1960–61.

Orders Of The Day

Finance Bill

Order for Third Reading read

11.6 a.m.

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

Today the House approaches the final stage of the Bill. Like other Finance Bills, it has received exhausting and exhaustive consideration and I am grateful to the House for allowing its passage through Committee and Report stages, because without the help of the House, without some continence in comment and criticism, a Finance Bill would never get through.

The progress of the Bill has been illuminated by certain features; one the striking speech of the hon. Member for Middlesbrough, West (Dr. Bray), a maiden speech on which I congratulate him. How orthodox it was I am not certain. I think that it is for the hon. Member for Cardiff, South-East (Mr. Callaghan) to say, but I noticed a certain amount of caution in his immediate reactions to the speech.

There was a critical moment for both Front Benches, and for other parts of the House, when the solicitors' branch of the legal profession formed a popular front and made its demonstration, and another moment, at ten to three in the morning last Wednesday, when the hon. Member for Cardiff, South-East was so moved by the prospect of another speech by my hon. Friend the Financial Secretary that he allowed the Government to have a point on trust.

I am most grateful to my ministerial colleagues for their help, the Chief Secretary, the Financial and Economic Secretaries and the Law Officers. It would be very damaging to the hon. Member for Cardiff, South-East to pay a similar tribute to him, but, of course, that would not be enough to deter me—indeed, it might excite me to do so. I will say only this, that I have admired the persistence of the attack and the ingenuity of some of the Amendments.

Last year, in one of those flights of fancy to which I am so much addicted, I placed the Opposition speakers in a cricket team. The hon. Member for Sowerby (Mr. Houghton) was the good steady bowler who kept a very good length all the time, and the hon. and learned Member for Kettering (Mr. Mitchison), so very skilful with his pen, was the scorer who was also allowed to play. Of the right hon. Member for Huyton (Mr. H. Wilson), who was then the captain of the team, I said that I could not always remember whether he was batting or bowling.

This year, I think that the game is probably not cricket, but billiards. The right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Grimond) is here to hear me say this: I think that the Labour Opposition have gone "in off the yellow." I think that I have got the colours right.

In moving the Third Reading, I must confine myself to the Bill, but I do not propose this morning to traverse it in its entirely the whole 86 pages. I will content myself with selecting for comment a few points. First, there are a number of useful provisions in the Bill of the sort which do not receive much attention because of the controversy raised by other proposals. I would put into this category the special Income Tax reliefs for small incomes, the increase in the Estate Duty exemption limit, the enlargement of the arrangements for the relief from double taxation, the relief which we were able to propose, I think with the good will of the whole House, for the blind, the provisions for the strengthening of the tax code and defeating avoidance. In the Income Tax field, the anti-avoidance legislation of 1960 has been strengthened and special provisions have been framed to deal with particular devices.

The Bill also begins the process of reducing the protective elements in certain of the Revenue duties on imports from E.F.T.A. countries and there is a Clause which provides for the abolition of the Revenue element in the "break-fast table" duties. As the House will remember, sugar is principally affected, and the total cost of the changes is over £15 million. These have all been useful items in the Bill.

Coming to more controversial matters, I think that there was a good deal of criticism at the way in which I dealt with the 1961 Regulator. Some people said that I should have removed the 10 per cent. surcharge in its entirety from the time of the Budget. Others said that I should have let the 1961 surcharge run on to the end of August, having taken the power to continue it then, if necessary. I stick to my opinion that neither of those would have been right. They would not have been the right way to treat the House or the economy. The method which we chose left no misunderstanding or uncertainty, and the taxpayers and the traders knew where they were as from Budget Day.

On the other hand, I think that it was also right to ask for a renewal of this type of regulatory power. It is not possible to be certain at the time of the Budget how production and demand will go throughout the year, or, indeed, about the effect which international affairs will have on the economy. It is, therefore, right that the Government of the day should have within their power the possibility of taking action in a rather simpler and less sensational form than a Budget. It is a provision for dealing with unforeseen and perhaps unforeseeable developments in the situation.

I nevertheless maintain my view that it is an exceptional power which should only be used in exceptional circumstances. I make no prognostication now as to whether it will be necessary to use it in the course of this financial year. Naturally, I hope that it will not be necessary; equally, I shall not hesitate to use it if I think it right, and if the House approves.

I think that the proposals in the Bill constitute a reform of Purchase Tax in that they reduce the spread of the rates to a band of from 10 per cent. to 45 per cent. As compared with 5½ per cent. to 55 per cent., I think that that is an important improvement. It was not, however, only the total spread, the length of the concertina as I think the hon. and learned Member for Kettering called it. It has been possible to make the incidence of the tax rather less arbitrary, and I believe that the changes that I have made are in keeping with present-day opinions as to what is and what is not essential. I do not go so far as to say that we ought to have a single rate of Purchase Tax. Nevertheless, I did think it right this year to take some steps towards bringing the incidence of Purchase Tax a little more in line with present-day consumer expenditure.

The selective nature of the Purchase Tax also convinced me that it was right to bring into its scope confectionery, soft drinks, and ice cream, rather than to raise the same amount of extra revenue by increasing the rates of tax on goods aready subject to Purchase Tax. Of course it has been represented that this new Purchase Tax on sweets was an attack on the standard of living of the children. I received a formidable representation from the children in a school in the North, that they would eat no more sweets until I removed this tax. I was able to sustain that threat with composure, having regard to the saving in the school dental service which I felt would follow. But, really, the case for this tax has been made again and again by Members on the Opposition benches during the course of the debate.

Eloquent appeals were made to me to reduce other taxes on the ground that they were taxes on necessities or near-necessities. I was asked to give relief to a variety of types of deserving causes. As I have said, I have done a little this year for people with small incomes in Clause 8 and there have been considerable reduction of tax on some goods. But it is necessary to sustain the revenue, particularly if one is to be able to make concessions at all, and I believe that this method which I have chosen, which will bring in £50 million in a full year and £30 million this year has been generally accepted as sensible.

Finally, I come to the short-term gains tax. The provisions for this have taken up a lot of space in the Bill although they have been disposed of fairly speedily by the House. In spite of the criticisms, on the one hand, that I have done nothing, and, on the other, that I have dealt a fatal blow at a variety of activities, again I think that the basis of my approach in the Bill is correct.

There are certain transactions which are essentially short-term designed to make what is, in fact, income. I do not see, for example, how one could possibly suggest that a man who goes in and out of a particular stock in the same account is an investor. I think that he should be taxed as he is taxed on the rest of his income. I do not think that it is possible or practicable to apply a motive test, and, therefore, I had to take another test—the period of time within which the transaction is completed.

I admit that six months is an arbitrary period, and that three years in the case of land is an arbitrary period; but in these matters any period is arbitrary. We selected these periods because we considered them to be the best time tests of short-term transactions likely to be of an income-seeking nature. We have made every endeavour to be fair and to provide for reasonable treatment of exceptional cases, for example, transactions as a result of a death or compulsory purchase.

My hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham, West (Mr. Tapsell) asked the Government whether we would pay attention to the incidence of this tax on Stock Exchange dealings. I should just like to add something to what my right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary said on my behalf on this matter during the course of the Bill earlier this week. I do not for a moment suggest that this tax has had no effect on the number of transactions on the Stock Exchange.

It may be that some speculative transactions have not taken place because of the tax. However, what I do say is that it is much too early to say yet whether it has had any undesirable effect. I know that there is a school of thought which propounds the idea that speculation is beneficial to a market. If there is a rapid fall speculators come in in the expectation of an improvement in prices and, therefore, they steady the market. This certainly may happen sometimes, but it may also be that they come in as "bears" in the expectation of further falls and aggravate the slide which is taking place. There are times when speculation can take hold of a market.

Anyhow, the effect of a particular tax on a particular market is not the only test. I believe that there is a wide feeling that it is unjust that people who make this sort of short-term gain are going tax-free, and I think that for social reasons it was wise to make these proposals in the Bill, and that it is wrong to seek to minimise their importance.

I do not think that it is necessary for me to detain the House longer. The background of the Bill was set out in my Budget speech and in the Budget debates. It would be out of order to develop those arguments again on this occasion, and I therefore commend the Bill to the House.

11.17 a.m.

Without making this too much like a mutual congratulatory affair, I should like to thank the Chancellor and the Treasury Ministers for their unfailing courtesy during the course of the debates. They gave a demonstration of good temper and equanimity which made their path easier, which should be a lesson to all aspiring Ministers.

I should like to thank also my hon. Friends who helped me on this Bill and did most of the work, especially my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kettering (Mr. Mitchison). I do so because on him there falls every year this great burden of drafting a whole series of new Clauses and Amendments which are put down in my name. My hon. and learned Friend is not here, so I am glad to say that this is a labour which is especially well done, as I am sure the House will agree. Indeed, I sometimes wonder what would happen to the British constitution if my hon. and learned Friend took it into his head not to draft any more new Clauses or Amendments.

The Chancellor, delving back into his ill-spent youth, returned to the shady haunts of the billiard saloon for his metaphor. I prefer a healthy out-door game like cricket. Although my hon. Friend the Member for Sowerby (Mr. Houghton) and the rest of us kept up what I hope was a well-directed attack, we took only one wicket, and that was in respect of the provisions for blind persons. When the Chancellor said that he hoped he had the support of the whole House in respect of the relief that he was giving to the blind, I thought that he was a little less than accurate. In fact we would not have had that concession for the blind if the House had not held up another Clause which he wanted to get.

I am glad that the Chancellor acquiesced in the wish of the House and gave this relief, but that was the only wicket we took. I do not say that we did not hit the stumps many times—but the Chancellor declared himself not out. He said, of the Finance Bill, "It is my bat; you shall not have it." I have a feeling that, having hit the stumps as regularly as we did on a number of occasions, the results of his batting practice may be seen in a better performance on a later Finance Bill. That is my view of the present position.

The Finance Bill raises an extra £289 million in taxation. Every major tax that we have been considering has risen—except one. As a result of the Chancellor's Budget he will collect an extra £81 million in Purchase Tax. He has put up the rates on some things and decreased them on others. They have been increased on shoes, clothing and furniture, and have been decreased on motor cars and television sets. The Chancellor is collecting an extra £30 million on sweets and an extra £59 million on oil, including the heavy fuel oil used by lorries and buses, so having a direct effect on fares. His action is a direct cause of the withdrawal of what are called uneconomic services in the countryside, by which bus operators merely mean that the level of costs is so high that they have to withdraw these services.

The Chancellor is raising an extra £36 million on beer, but only another £7 million on spirits. That is not right. The beer drinker ought to be given more relief than the spirits drinker. I am sorry that the balance has gone in that way.

In all these measures he is raising a considerable additional amount of tax. Now he says, "I was right to remove the regulator and reimpose it." But he has never faced the argument that that is not exactly what he is doing. He is removing it in one sense, but reimposing it, at a permanent level, 10 per cent. higher. When he claims that he is taking this action so that he can move either way he is right, but he is starting at a point 10 per cent. higher than he was a year ago. He is not just removing it and replacing it he is pitching a number of his Customs and Excise duties 10 per cent. higher this year than last year and, starting there, giving himself room to move up or down 10 per cent.

I hope that hon. Members opposite realise that a number of taxes on certain commodities, including hydrocarbon oils, are now higher—including the tax on beer, spirits, tobacco and betting. A number of these are higher than they have ever been. Over the last decade Chancellors have been content to use any buoyancy in the revenue generally and to take the uncovenanted benefit that they get as a result of continuing inflation. But this Chancellor has done worse than that. He has not only taken his surplus out of the benefits of inflation—so far as they are benefits for the Chancellor in terms of revenue—but has increased the actual rates of duty. He is getting a double benefit. He is directly responsible for the increase in the retail price index and the cost of living over the last twelve months.

I cannot agree with him about his regulator. He says that he makes no forecast about the future. I notice that Ministers are getting very coy at the moment. According to Press reports, the Leader of the House was rather coy last night, at a meeting in another place. He said that there was a cat in the bag, but that the Prime Minister did not propose to let it out. One of the cats in the bag is the regulator. The whole country is now waiting cynically for the pre-election boom, and I can forecast that one of the cats that will jump out of the bag when the Prime Minister and the Leader of the House judge that the election is getting nearer is a reduction in the tax on beer in the clubs and pubs, in Purchase Tax on clothing and other essentials, and perhaps even in betting duty. If I were the hon. Member for Southend, East (Mr. McAdden), I would not place too much hope on that, but the hon. Member might get some relief at the expense of something else.

We shall have all the old games and circuses once again in order to deceive the electorate in the hope that it will jump through the ring as it has done on the last two occasions. I hope that the country is becoming much more cynical about this. In speaking of letting cats out of the bag, in terms of future Government policy, the Leader of the House is not using language that will commend itself to many of our people, who now feel that there are many grave problems ahead which should not be discussed in terms of electoral considerations.

Although the Chancellor made no forecast, if an election is coming nearer I am cynical enough about the Tory Party to think that the regulators will go down, even if they have to be reimposed a year later. If I am asked the reason for my scepticism, it is just history. It has happened before and it will happen again.

I thank the Chancellor warmly for his concession to blind persons and to persons living on small incomes, but I regret that he has not gone further. He knows my view, which I hold very strongly, that the balance of taxation is wrongly adjusted at present, and that those people at the bottom of the income scale are being mulcted too heavily. He knows that in my view he should readjust the balance as between those people at the bottom and those people at the top of the scale.

I am told that in these days it is unfashionable to talk about people earning £8, £9 or £10 a week; that the average income is now £14 or £15 a week; that we are living in an affluent society, and that it is only the fuddy-duddy Labour Party which goes on talking about people living on £8 or £9 a week. I do not know whether or not it is bad politics, but I am sure that it is good morality, and I am sure that many hon. Members opposite agree that, putting electoral considerations aside, our society should not endure a situation in which we still have to tax an elderly married couple living on a mean pension of £7 or £8 a week. But we are still doing this, and it is the first task of the Chancellor to put it right. I am not being fuddy-duddy at all in saying that—or, if I am, that is the rôle of the Labour Party and I am proud of it. We must take all people into consideration, and our first care should be for the elderly, the sick and those who need help most.

I deeply regret many of the things that have been left out of the Budget, as well as some of those that are in it. The Chancellor has not shown a proper sense of values, in failing to make even the comparatively small adjustments that could have been made.

Earlier, I said that the yield of only one major tax was going down. Hon. Members opposite may groan when I say this, but it is Surtax. We are collecting in Surtax £23 million less than we collected last year, although we are collecting more from other taxes. When introducing this relief the Chancellor told us that it was to be a measure of social justice. What are we to think of the values of a Government that believe that it is a measure of social justice to give this relief and at the same time to deny the same sort of social justice to nurses and probation officers? I do not understand it, or applaud it, and I shall continue to attack it.

As for the speculative gains tax—I have no complaint about the periods being arbitrary. Any period is bound to be arbitrary. The periods suggested by the Labour Party would have been just as arbitrary as those selected by the Chancellor. My complaint is that the tax will not bite on anything, and that the possible yield from it will be extremely small. It would have been far better to impose a long-term capital gains tax, and I regret that we failed to get this into the Bill. Failing that, however, I would have made the periods of such a length as to make them bite and to yield some revenue, on the Chancellor's hypothesis. What is his hypothesis? It is this. The right hon. and learned Gentleman stated it on 9th April:

"The speculative gains tax without affecting growth will meet a long felt and widely held grievance and sense of unfair treatment as between taxpayers."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 9th April, 1962; Vol. 657, c. 994.]

Is there any hon. Member opposite who has gone to his constituents and told them that "mularky" and whose constituents have believed it? There is no one in the country who believes that this speculative gains tax meets

"a long felt and widely held grievance and sense of unfair treatment as between taxpayers."

That is not because we on this side of the House have been misrepresenting it, but because the Chancellor has been so clear in explaining it. Everyone understands that the transactions will be of such a character that this will be largely a voluntary tax.

What the Chancellor has done is this, and this is a good point. As he said, he may well have lessened the amount of short-term speculation within the account. I have heard the argument that this helps the markets. I rather share the right hon. and learned Gentleman's view on this. It is a good thing to cut out—if, indeed, the Chancellor has cut out—short-term speculation within the account.

Where the right hon. and learned Gentleman has not met the

"long felt and widely held grievance and sense of unfair treatment as between taxpayers"

is in the longer term capital gain on which people pay no taxation at all. During one of our earlier debates I went out to get an evening paper and saw in it a report of the case of the Bexley Borough Council which is having to pay £35,000 for an acre of land which it was offered a few years ago for £2,400. The speculative gains tax does not touch that sort of thing, and if the right hon. and learned Gentleman wants to get at the roots of the

"long felt and widely held grievance and sense of unfair treatment as between taxpayers"

he must take other steps. It is precisely because there are people in the country today who by holding on to a piece of land for two or three years can see their profit on it rise from £2,400 to £3,500 that there is this sense of grievance. This is a deficiency in the Finance Bill, and this is why I cannot approve the speculative gains tax.

We wanted to do a number of things, which, I regret to say, we failed to do. I think that the extra £289 million which the Chancellor is raising from these small measures is too much, and, therefore, I felt quite free to press upon him a number of reductions all of which, cumulatively, would have added up to more than £289 million. As they were all rejected one by one, we were entitled to go on putting the various alternatives to the right hon. and learned Gentleman.

I believe that the Chancellor is collecting too much taxation this year in view of the state of industry at the present time. I think that the economy has been clamped down too hard. We know the reason for it, but we believe that the Chancellor is wrong in raising all this revenue in order to assist his economic policy. I think that rather than assist that policy the construction of the taxes in this Finance Bill are militating against the successful achievement of that policy.

We would have liked to have seen the Purchase Tax reduced, and/or—I do not say that the right hon. and learned Gentleman could have done it all—the Chancellor could have reduced the tax on oil and thus kept down fares and helped to sustain the country bus services. We failed on the capital gains tax. We wanted fair treatment for the elderly and the P.A.Y.E. taxpayer. I believe that that will come. I suspect that it will come before the election. We have made out such a case on this matter time after time that there cannot be an hon. Member who, though he may be sick of it, cannot at least acknowledge that the case has been made out many times before, but it has never been answered in detail. The P.A.Y.E. taxpayer is bearing an unfair proportion.

We would have liked to have relieved unemployment in Scotland, in North Wales, in South Wales, in Llanelly, where the heavy pockets of unemployment are, and in other areas. We would have liked to have secured a better location of industry by increasing investment allowances and by giving other financial aids to industries establishing themselves in these areas. We believe that this would have been of benefit not only to the people living in those areas but to people living in the overcrowded industrial areas generally.

We would have liked new incentives given to industry for installing new plant and machinery. We failed on that, too. In fact, we took no wickets at all, except one minor one. I am sure that it would have been right to do this, and I very much regret that we have not done it and that in this rather tedious Finance Bill room could not have been found for fiscal measures that would have assisted to a greater extent the better distribution of industry and the relief of unemployment in areas where it is still heavy. In Scotland, as we were told this week in the Report of the Scottish Board of Industry, unemployment is twice as high as the national average.

We think, too, that if the Chancellor had accepted some of these measures he would have assisted growth and not retarded it. We believe that the time has come to let up. Indeed, we have felt this throughout these three months of debate. We believe that the Chancellor should not collect so much in taxation. The right hon. and learned Gentleman could have distributed the money in one or more of the ways which we suggested and which were designed to achieve greater social justice, a greater distribution of industry and a better location of industry. I very much regret that the Chancellor has not taken that opportunity.

I have discussed the Surtax and do not wish to say any more about it. Throughout all these debates, the Chancellor has gone out to try to restrain the rise in prices. He has tried to provide a base for an expansion of exports and has tried to stimulate growth. I am glad to see that exports are increasing slightly. I hope that they will continue to do so. Production has not increased, so that the object of the exercise as far as increase in production is concerned has really not begun to be achieved.

I see that the level of production in this country in April, which is the last figure I have, was lower than in April a year ago. Therefore, there has been no stimulus in production. The Chancellor has also said that he wants to restrain prices, but, in fact, prices have gone up more in the last twelve months through his own actions than since the index was constructed in 1956. I say to the right hon. and learned Gentleman that he may have thought that he was going out to do battle in a worthy cause but that if one chooses unfairness as one's sword and selects the weak as one's victim, one cannot really claim to be clad in the armour of righteousness.

This is the real reason why the right hon. and learned Gentleman's policy is failing. When we strike a blow and win a victory on the pay pause, the Chancellor says, "You are not striking at me, the Chancellor; you are striking at the nation". He believes this to be true. But the right hon. and learned Gentleman does not appear as the champion of righteousness, he appears as the villain. That is the trouble with him. The country believe that his policies are not fair, that they are discriminating unjustly, and that is why they will not succeed. The country can be got to follow a policy as tough as can be if it is fair.

How can the Chancellor justify the fact that the only tax which is being reduced is that imposed on those who are the richest in the country? I do not think that the right hon. and learned Gentleman is too sure of it himself. I must say that it was most remarkable to see the Chancellor the day before yesterday congratulating himself very properly on introducing an incomes policy. I think he did right to try to introduce it. But then he went on to condemn himself on the ground that it was unfair to the nurses, to the probation officers and other public servants and agreed that it could not be maintained. He undertook to announce a new pay policy and to make a positive statement on what he intended to do. That seems to me a remarkable case of schizophrenia. He went into the Lobby and voted for all that.

I am sure that the hon. Lady the Member for Tynemouth (Dame Irene Ward) would never be guilty of an un-ladylike action. But if she were, she would whistle with surprise to see the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Financial Secretary to the Treasury, the Chief Secretary and the Chief Whip—and the Prime Minister—all trooping through the Lobby in support of a Motion which condemned the Government's present pay policy as unfair, unjust and unable to be sustained and which called for the introduction of a new one. I can only draw the conclusion that the Government in that respect would be obeying the old motto—"If you can't beat 'em, join 'em." There can be no other reasonable explanation of the Chancellor's speech this morning and his sustenance of his existing pay policy by trooping through the Lobby in support of a Motion which was in complete opposition to it.

No wonder the right hon. and learned Gentleman is reducing the Tory Party in this House to a state of nervous breakdown. And as for his followers in the country, there the whole party is in a state of complete collapse. That is why I say that I do not think the right hon. and learned Gentleman is sure about what he has done. I do not think the Chancellor understands how wages are negotiated. I regret that he has not someone at his elbow to talk to him and to make fewer speeches about the Commonwealth and a few more about how wage negotiations are conducted in this country. It would be a great help to us if the right hon. and learned Gentleman had someone to do that for him.

We have spent sixteen days on this Finance Bill and so many hours—too long, I agree. Looking back over those long and weary days and nights, I cannot think what we have been talking about all that time. It would seem that the Finance Bill and the Government share many things. They are both tedious, trivial, unfair, unrealistic—and they have been with us too long. We shall be happy to say farewell to both.

11.42 a.m.

The hon. Member for Cardiff, South-East (Mr. Callaghan) has told us, in eloquent but light-hearted language, where he differs with the Bill, the concluding stages of which we are now celebrating. It seems to me that the hon. Gentleman's differences have been of a minor character and his criticisms have been criticisms of degree rather than kind. So much so, in fact, that in his enthusiasm the hon. Gentleman claimed for himself and his party the credit for a Clause designed to give relief to the blind. He overlooked the fact that it was moved by my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Devonport (Miss Vickers) during the Committee stage discussions on the Bill and that at that time it was not supported by the party opposite. Although no doubt historically and properly the Opposition do claim credit for concessions made in the Finance Bill, in fact this was moved by my hon. Friend.

I said that it was the result of pressure by the whole House. I said that deliberately. Our Amendment was not selected. We moved such an Amendment in 1959, in 1960 and in 1961. On this occasion, it was swept up in a much broader Amendment dealing with the whole of the disabled. I did say specifically that it was the whole House which held up the passage of the Clause of the Government's.

Naturally, I cannot refer to the hon. Gentleman's speech today, but he did not make any mention of my hon. Friend who did present the Clause. I think that his meaning would have been made clearer had he mentioned that.

I remember that in 1955, at the time of the second Budget, the autumn Budget of that year, I was invited to do The Week in Westminster on the B.B.C. and I then referred to my right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary and the present Financial Secretary to the Treasury as having been invited by Horatius to stand at either hand with him and to help him keep the bridge. It is an agreeable feature of this Finance Bill that we should witness these two eminent warriors on either side of my right hon. and learned Friend the Chancellor to support this Measure through the twelve days of its existence in this House. I do not wish to identify either of them in the terms used by Macaulay, but he did refer specifically to Herminius and "stout Lartius". I leave the House to draw its own conclusions. Macaulay went on to say—I did quote this on the B.B.C.:

"Never, I ween, did swimmer,

In such an evil case,

Struggle through such a raging flood

Safe to the landing place:

But his limbs were held up bravely

By the brave heart within,

And our good old Father Tiber

Bare bravely up his chin."

Perhaps the problem of holding up the chin of my hon. Friend on the Government Front Bench would have been more than even "Father Tiber" could have managed. But the fact is that this is an agreeable combination, as I think the House will confirm, and not only on the Government side but on the Opposition benches also.

Having sat through all the stages of this Bill without making more than a minimum contribution, I wish to pay tribute to those who have made its passage agreeable. Before dealing with the Bill, I wish to draw to the attention of my right hon. and learned Friend an article by Sir Frank Bower which appeared in Lloyds Bank Review. He is a tax expert of considerable standing and what he has to say is of great interest. He makes the very important point that, theoretically, it would be possible to divide the Budget into a taxation Measure and a tax management Bill.

I think that there are strong arguments for considering that separation. The Select Committee on Procedure did not recommend any change in our procedure regarding the Finance Bill, but I still think that this would bear further investigation. We all agree that the right place to discuss taxation is on the Floor of this House. We do not want such discussions to be tucked away in a Standing Committee. But on the actual management of taxes, with which so much of this Measure deals, much of the time of the House could be spared. Not only that, but a much more appropriate investigation could be given to the highly technical points which are involved in it.

My right hon. and learned Friend referred to the fact that a group of twenty hon. Members who are members of the legal profession, solicitors and barristers, voted against a Clause on Report. On that occasion, I was a member of the majority. But I do not think that decisions taken at 2 o'clock in the morning are very appropriate for this House on matters of real importance. I felt that we were in the position of children who had "got away with it". We had voted down the lawyers, and we all felt pleased. Perhaps there was a feeling of satisfaction. But I think that there was some feeling of conscience as well.

I stress this point because, in the nature of things, the pace of a Measure of this sort is dictated by the Opposition, and naturally, the Opposition want to bring to the attention of the House and have the fullest discussion on these major matters of taxation which affect the country as a whole. Therefore, in the way our procedure works, we discuss the management questions not in daylight and with full attention, but rather late at night, with a feeling that people want to go home, and that the discussion ought to be shortened and that, anyway, it does not really matter. I suggest to my hon. Friend who is to reply to the debate that these things do matter, that the management of taxes, though not as important, is of comparable importance to the taxes themselves. Turning to our tradition of secrecy about the Budget, it would seem impossible for my right hon. and learned Friend to get the advice of professional bodies of all sorts, before the Budget, on measures which he was proposing, such as would normally be done in respect of Measures of another nature. I do not think we should legislate about white fish or other problems we deal with without getting the views of the interests chiefly concerned. On Budget matters we simply do not do that. A Chancellor of the Exchequer retires into purdah and no one outside the Government is privy to what is going on inside. As a result matters are put before us which of course have had the fullest attention of the Treasury but which have not been subjected to the criticism of outside.

Is not my hon. Friend rather overlooking the interval—this year a rather longish one—between the Committee stage and Report stage of the Bill? A number of Government Amendments on Report, which were fairly criticised by the hon. Member for Cardiff, South-East, reflected the notice which the Government have taken of criticisms of the Bill outside when it first appeared.

I take that point, but it would be very much more satisfactory to all concerned if, instead of the Government having second thoughts, those Amendments had been part of the Government's first thoughts; I instance particularly this matter where the solicitors as a whole voted against this House. We in the majority may have been wrong. I do not know whether we were right or wrong. I was in the majority, but we may have been wrong because they are an important body of people and had not been consulted. They had not had a chance of expressing their views before the Government made up their minds.

This strikes me as basic. I do not think a Tax Management Bill would do us any harm. It could safely be taken in Committee in an upstairs Committee room where it would be properly thrashed out and all the various points would be cleared up to the satisfaction to the interests concerned. We spend the daylight hours discussing matters such as Purchase Tax, allowances and other matters of interest and importance to the greatest number of people, but the tax management side is neglected. If we stick to the tradition of pre-Budget secrecy, I think we should take the tax management in Committee upstairs and deal with these matters in the autumn.

I want to say two things arising out of the article which I quoted. The first point is a tribute to my right hon. and learned Friend for his clarification of the national accounts. This is an improvement and Sir Frank in his article goes a little further and says, why do we not have a consolidated account showing the movements, not only on the national account, but on the accounts of local authorities and nationalised industries? He does a brief consolidation at the end of the article and shows a result which we should all bear in mind and which is that in the current year and also in the previous year more than £400 million has been taken out of the economy into the Treasury. This, in terms of our gross national product, is a very major act of deflation. We must have reservations on whether it is right this year for the Treasury to take £400 million out of the economy. In the words of Sir Frank:

"Therefore the private sector in its capacity of customer of the nationalized industries will repay to the Treasury these loans which it initially provided as taxpayers."

This should not be entirely overlooked.

Another point he makes is that the balance between direct and indirect taxation, irrespective of what Government was in power, between 1950 and the current year shows almost no variation in the proportion borne by direct and indirect taxation respectively in the national accounts. Throughout those years under both the Socialist Government and this Administration, the direct taxes have contributed just under 50 per cent. of the total burden of taxation. I do not know if the experience of twelve years and five Governments proves that this is the right proportion, but it is extraordinary that the variation has been so very small when so many different ideas have been current at one time and another.

My right hon. and learned Friend has spoken of this Budget as one of a series. I think the objective of the next Budget must be something which he has discussed rather loosely, an attempt at the separation of corporation taxation from Income Tax. Our task in this House would be very much easier and our purpose as a Parliament could be very much more clearly expressed if we could vary corporation tax without at the same time varying the burden on individuals as a whole. I have found that when people reach a conclusion and do not know how to bring it into action they say, "It can't be beyond the wit of man to devise a scheme". I do not use that phrase, but Sir Frank argues against this. I urge my right hon. and learned Friend, if he pays great attention to Sir Frank's article, that on this point he should cast a less apprehensive eye.

I congratulate my right hon. and learned Friend on a Budget, which has gone through all its stages without engendering friction or that sense of unfairness to which the hon. Member for Cardiff, South-East referred on more than one occasion, and which I think Will not only be well received by the country but is calculated to meet the country's needs.

11.58 a.m.

I, too, wish to thank the Treasury Ministers for their courtesy during the passing of the Bill. I do not at this stage want to be unnecessarily contentious nor, like the hon. Member for Cardiff, South-East (Mr. Callaghan), to claim to be an expert in those games in which the Chancellor apparently mis-spent so much of his youth.

I doubt, however, if there is a game played on the billiard table in which the object is to get in off the yellow. There is a well-known game in which the object is to pot the blue and to pot the red. That is the game we are trying to play. Another feature is that one may be snookered. What frequently happens is that the Chancellor is snookered in trying to pursue his long-term plans by temporary crises in the balance of payments. There is widespread dissatisfaction with the economic purpose of the country and growing dissatisfaction with the way in which we handle our financial affairs.

Is not the essential difference in this game that we are getting out of pocket rather than putting them in?

I accept that very important further complication of the game.

I should like very much to follow the line of thought explored by the hon. Member for Walsall, South (Sir H. d'Avigdor-Goldsmid), but starting in a slightly different way. I should have thought that there is a need to cease trying to compress our whole financial management within the compass of the annual Budget. There is a great need at the Treasury for longer term planning and a need—here I follow very closely what the hon. Member said—to examine the whole structure of our taxation.

This, I believe, cannot be done by picking out some anomolies each year and getting them corrected in the course of the general Finance Bill. There may be a lot in what he said about a reform in handling financial matters by which to divide the Bill, as he suggested, between the imposition of taxation and the management of taxation. I am not very clear where that division would fall, nor that it would meet the particular point of criticism he made about what took place in the small hours of the morning in relation to powers to demand information from solicitors. I take it that he would say that is part of tax management, but I am not very clear that the Government could consult any better with the bodies concerned by having the Committee stage upstairs than as we have it now.

As the Financial Secretary pointed out there is a considerable time which may elapse between the publication of the Finance Bill and the Committee stage and then between the Committee and Report stages. I should have thought that there was opportunity for very considerable consultation. On this occasion articles were written in the newspapers and hon. Members had the matter drawn to their attention.

The point that I had in mind was that, granted our secrecy and the lack of previous consultation, it was important that these matters should be fully discussed and that owing to our Parliamentary timetable it is not possible to get them fully discussed on the Floor of the House.

I take that point and I agree with the hon. Member that to consider this matter at two o'clock in the morning is not the best time of the day to do it.

There are other matters concerned with taxation which need examination. In the Bill we speak of a standard rate of Income Tax at 7s. 9d. I wonder whether that is any longer a useful way of dealing with Income Tax. No one pays 7s. 9d. Many people get the impression that this is an average rate, or, in fact, the rate at which Income Tax is now being levied on the taxpayer. Of course, it is not. I think that the time has come when the whole method of describing Income Tax and all its allowances should be reviewed.

I agree with the hon. Member for Walsall, South that it would be extremely valuable to distinguish between personal Income Tax and corporation tax. I doubt whether this is the sort of reform that we shall get unless there is a section of the Treasury that can take its eye off the immediate annual Budget and take a rather longer term view, applying this suggestion also to the capital gains tax, if one may call it that.

The Chancellor has explained that, in his view, it is simply an expansion of Income Tax, and I think that he is right. I do not think that it touches the real case for taxing capital or taxing capital gains. There is no doubt that this matter will have to be examined more fully. The difficulty, if one extends this matter very far, is one of administration. It would be valuable if the Treasury could give us some information, or prepare some information, on the administrative difficulties if we want to carry this attempt any further.

I think that everybody is deeply grateful to the Treasury and the Inland Revenue for the amount of trouble that they take over taxation and in dealing with the complaints from individual taxpayers. I am always agreeably surprised at the very great courtesy and accuracy with which they tackle any complaint, and the trouble they take to explain the taxation system. But it is almost impossible for many people to compete with their own taxation returns, and if the matter is to be simplified this will need a longer time of review of our taxation system.

I cannot understand the Chancellor's proud defence of his conduct of the regulator. It may be right for him to include increases in the Excise duties in the current Finance Bill, but we cannot avoid the conclusion that what he is doing is simply to put up certain taxes and, on top of that, taking power to reintroduce the regulator again. There is no way around this. He has increased the level of taxation and kept his power to regulate it. I personally thought that the introduction of the regulator was a reasonable step. Again, this confirms my view that we cannot handle our financial affairs entirely within an annual Budget.

It would be helpful if we heard a little more about how this particular regulator is worked. There is some indication that it may have a considerably delayed effect on demand for certain products and it would be interesting to know from the Treasury whether it is satisfied with the effects of this regulator, how long it thinks that it takes to work and whether it is undertaking any steps to find forms of regulators that may be required between Budgets.

I must add my quota to the case which other hon. Members have made against the increase of the fuel tax. This seems inexcusable at a time when we are trying to keep down the costs of industry and it has put some transport already in difficulties in even greater difficulties.

There is never a great deal that can be said on the Third Reading of a Finance Bill, particularly so this year, when the striking feature of the Bill is not what is in it but what is not in it, so that even less than usual can be said about it. I do not think that the Bill faces up to the need of a reform of the taxation system, or to the changes that will have to be made in our economy if we are to get a steady rate of expansion. In spite of all that the Chancellor and the other Ministers have said, I do not detect in the Government a firm decision that they are going for a steady and sustained rate of expansion and that they have put it at the head of their economic priorities.

I do not see in the Bill any encouragement to investment in this country, which is so urgently needed. Nor am I satisfied that the Chancellor is right in thinking that, if he takes the amount of taxation which the Bill will take, he can afford to do so because of the tendency towards expanding production. There is precious little evidence that production is expanding at a satisfactory rate and I am not convinced that the Chancellor has not miscalculated the confidence of industry in the future and the dangers of over-hasty expansion at which the Budget seems particularly to be aimed.

12.8 p.m.

I intervene only briefly, first, to defend the reputation and rectitude of the youth of my right hon. and learned Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who affected to have some knowledge of the game of billiards and who was reprimanded for this by the hon. Member for Cardiff, South-East (Mr. Callaghan). It is quite clear from what the Chancellor said in referring to the game of billiards as being concerned with going in off the yellow that he has never played billiards in his life and that neither he nor his officials at the Treasury have much knowledge of games of skill or of chance, or of skill and chance combined.

It is true, as the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Grimond) said, that there is the related game of snooker which has a different value for different colours, but I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman will not get much satisfaction from knowing that the red has the least value of all, that the yellow is valued only a little higher, but that the blue is valuable and well worthy of support.

Are there not many more reds?

The hon. and learned Gentleman is quite right. There are far more reds, but the object of the exercise is to get rid of the reds at the earliest possible moment. There is also in the game of snooker the pink. It is valued higher than the blue, but because of its dangerous situation at the base of the pile of reds it is reckoned that it is not a colour to go for if there is a more conveniently situated blue.

I draw the attention of the House to a very fair point made by the hon. Member for Cardiff, South-East when he drew the attention of my right hon. and learned Friend to the fact that taxation must be seen to be fair between different sections of the population and in its incidence on those who contribute to the revenue in various forms. I share very strongly the view expressed about the retention of the surcharge in a permanent form on selected forms of taxation. During the passage of the Bill, I have tried to draw his attention to the fact that I have no objection to gambling being taxed, but that it should be taxed fairly between the sections of the population, and that is not being done now.

If we give, as I am sure we shall, a Third Reading to the Bill, it does not mean that we are entirely satisfied with the existing method of taxation in it, and it is only the assurance that we have received that it is intended to look more carefully over the whole field which enables us to give our support. The Third Reading of any Finance Bill must be an occasion of joy or disappointment according to one's point of view. There are those who advocated a reform which has not found favour with the Chancellor, and it is in a spirit of compromise that we assent to the Third Reading of a Bill which does not espouse our individual point of view.

However, in so far as the Chancellor has held out hope that on a future occasion he may be able to remedy the injustices which still exist in the Bill, and because we have faith, confidence and hope in my right hon. and learned Friend, believing that he will do more to carry out his promise than is evidenced by his knowledge of games of skill, or skill and chance combined, we wish him the very best success not only in this Finance Bill, but, much more important, in remedying the present injustices in the next Finance Bill that he introduces.

12.11 p.m.

I saw last night, on television, the Leader of the House, when he was answering a charge by Robert Mackenzie that the Tory Party and the Government were tired. The right hon. Gentleman replied that the Tory Party was bubbling over with ideas. Having gone through the complete and utter boredom of the Finance Bill, I began to wonder where those ideas were going. Clearly, they have not reached the Chancellor of the Exchequer.

The following are the ideas that we find in this Finance Bill, a Measure to which we now welcome the opportunity to say goodbye. First, the surcharge imposed last year is to be permanent, which means an uplift to the cost of living, now at an all-time record level, as it has been for many months past. Secondly, there are the Purchase Tax increases, particularly the tax applied to sweets, clothing and furniture, all of which items give a boost to the cost of living.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer excused himself for the tax on sweets on the grounds that it would improve the dental health of children, but he did not say anything about improving the health of tobacco smokers in view of the report of the medical authorities about the dangers of lung cancer. One must logically follow the other.

My hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South-East (Mr. Callaghan) has already spoken about the continuation of the fuel tax plus the surcharge, which also affects the cost of living and inevitably leads to pressure for wage increases to offset the rises in costs. All this is creating a feeling in the country among ever-widening sections of the community that the Government have no intention of seeking a policy based on social justice or any sense of fairness whatever. The "phoney" capital gains tax, which is in some ways one of the central features of the Bill to which the Government attach very great importance, is designed simply to give a feeling of fairness and get co-operation from the workers in the incomes policy.

The hon. Member for Southend, East (Sir S. McAdden) recognises that there is a considerable degree of unfairness in our society today. The Finance Bill does nothing whatever to remedy it. On the contrary, it perpetuates and intensifies it. I have one or two points to make to underline that charge.

Most hon. Members received last week—I do not know why they are sent to us—copies of the annual report and accounts of the Beecham Group. I have looked into the remuneration of the directors of the group, of whom there are twelve. One of them sits on the other side of the House. He is the Chairman of the Kitchen Committee. I have been here twelve years and have never heard him make a speech in the House; but he is a director of Beechams.

I find that in 1960–61 the remuneration of the directors amounted to £142,470, an average of about £12,000 a year for each director. But the directors found it very difficult to exist on £12,000 a year, and in 1961–62 the total rose to £157,580, or about £13,000 a year each. In other words, the directors of Beechams, of which one sits on the other side of the House, no doubt supporting the pay pause policy, had an increase in one year of £1,000 each.

These are the people to whom the Government are this year giving £83 million in Surtax concessions, and yet the same Government are telling the nurses, probation officers and university teachers that the economy will be jeopardised if they receive more than a 2½ per cent. increase in pay. It is this kind of thing to which I and many millions of our people object most violently.

When the Minister of Pensions and National Insurance announced the other day that, because the economy was on the move again and the Government had a sense of social justice, £20½ million was to be given to recipients of National Assistance, I made a quick calculation and found that that is about a quarter of the concession which has been given to 300,000 Surtax payers. That is the context in which we must view this matter, and it is the context in which I seek to examine the Bill.

The Bill is grossly and patently unfair to millions of people. There is nothing in it for our retirement pensioners. On the contrary, they will be hit very hard by the forcing up of the cost of living, presumably by deliberate intent. As my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South-East, said, it is grossly unfair to the P.A.Y.E. paying workers of whom there are many millions, earning much less than £12 a week. There is nothing for them in the Bill. Therefore, I take the view that it is patently unfair and obviously irrelevant to the problem that the country is facing.

What we want, and what the Government recognise that we want, is an increase in production, productivity and exports. So far as I can ascertain, there is nothing in the Bill to give the stimulus to our economy which is so much needed.

I wish for a moment to refer particularly to problems in Scotland. During the Committee stage of the Bill we sought to obtain some differential treatment in order to solve the problems which plague the Scottish economy. We had no success. The recent Report on Industry and Employment in Scotland is an extremely gloomy document. When a Government Department produces a document as gloomy as that, the situation must be very grim indeed. We have a strong belief that the economy of Scotland is in for a very hard shaking up in the next two or three years, unless the Government recognise that there are special facets of the problem which need special treatment. The Budget and the Finance Bill do nothing whatever to even attempt to tackle the problems.

I have found the Finance Bill a very boring exercise. There is a very good case for taking some of it upstairs in a Committee. The Government listen to arguments and, however powerful they are, consistently reject them. There is a very good article by A. P. Herbert in the Guardian this morning about the tyranny of the Treasury. How right he is. One can produce the most foolproof and convincing arguments on a Finance Bill, but the Government have already made up their mind that they will not yield and the Opposition make no headway.

It is true that this year my hon. Friends took one wicket. It was a very important one to a small section of the community. We laboured for days and produced this one little mouse. That is what we get for our endeavours. This is an extremely, boring, irrelevant and unfair Bill, and I am not sorry to see the last of it.

12.22 p.m.

I hope that the hon. Member for Fife, West (Mr. W. Hamilton), if he takes part in next year's debates on the Finance Bill, will again produce the report and accounts of the company he mentioned and tell the House about the substantial increase that will have taken place in the Profits Tax imposed on the company, an increase of about 25 per cent. resulting from the action of my right hon. and learned Friend the Chancellor, which was taken at the same time as the decrease in Surtax.

This is only the second Finance Bill with which I have had the privilege of being concerned. Therefore, unaware of the intricacies and complications of steering a Finance Bill through the House of Commons, I have admired both the astute way in which my right hon. Friends and hon. Friends on the Treasury Bench have steered the Bill through the House and, if I may say so without being presumptuous, the work of hon. Members opposite. There were perhaps a few of us on this side of the House who hoped that with the disappearance of the right hon. Member for Huyton (Mr. H. Wilson) from these debates there would be a decline in the skill with which the Opposition conducted their affairs. This, alas from our point of view, has not happened. I hope that the hon. Member for Cardiff, South-East (Mr. Callaghan) was not too discouraged when at one stage in Committee my hon. Friend the Financial Secretary resorted to the argument that, as both the hon. Member for Cardiff, South-East and the hon. Member for Worcester were in agreement, this proved that the Treasury was right.

I support the Bill both in its broad application and in detail. In its broad application I consider that it has probably hit the right balance and will assist the economy to remain competitive in world markets. We are all encouraged by the news of the increased exports which have taken place and the improvement in our competitive power in foreign markets.

I applaud the fact that my right hon. and learned Friend has not taken note of the demands of the Opposition not to make the Surtax reductions which he introduced last year. It would be completely wrong in the present conditions of world markets to have a situation in this country where the higher levels of taxation were higher than those imposed by our main competitors. In spite of the present reduction in the Surtax rates, the rates here are higher than those obtaining either in the United States or in West Germany.

In detail, I very strongly welcome the new Clause concerning blind persons. I have the privilege to have in my constituency an incredible organisation called the Worcester College for the Blind. Any person who comes into close contact with such an institution will appreciate the long overdue need for the introduction of such a Clause.

I want to make two comments upon the provisions of the Bill appertaining, to the speculative gains tax. I still maintain that Clause 14 is completely unworkable in regard to companies with Stock Exchange quotations. I am a little alarmed that the Treasury could produce drafting which in practice will not be able to be administered. I query whether within the Treasury there are persons with sufficient knowledge of the intricacies of the City and the Stock Exchange to draft such a Clause. I hope that, if there is a lack of such persons within the Treasury, people will be recruited with a life-long experience of the workings of the Stock Exchange to administer this type of tax in the future.

If the Stock Exchange points out that the result of the speculative gains tax has been a decline in the turnover of the Stock Exchange, I hope that my right hon. and learned Friend will point out to the Stock Exchange that there is one remedy for this position. That is the remedy of the Stock Exchange doing a little more to go out and attract new investment. If there has been, as one hon. Member has suggested, a decline of about 20 per cent. in the transactions taking place, which will undermine the whole jobbing system, perhaps this will act as an incentive for the Stock Exchange to go out and attract the small investor and make its services far more available throughout the country, instead of concentrating on London.

I look upon the Bill as one of a series of Finance Bills for which my right hon. and learned Friend has been responsible. If at the end of this series my right hon. and learned Friend has been successful in reorganising the position of Income Tax and Surtax, in creating a corporation tax instead of the two taxes which apply to companies at present, and in doing away with the burden of Schedule A, we shall look upon him as having been one of the most outstanding Chancellors of the Exchequer in the history of this country. It is in that spirit that I support the Third Reading.

12.26 p.m.

It is always very difficult to know what to say on the Third Reading of any Bill. This is particularly so in the case of the Finance Bill because of the many long hours that we spend discussing it in Committee and at other stages. There has been a certain amount of talk this morning about the desirability of having some of the discussion taken off the Floor of the House and transferring it to a Committee of some sort, by having two Finance Bills, one dealing with taxation and the other deaing with tax management. I have a good deal of sympathy with this suggestion, although at the same time I have a certain amount of difficulty in understanding precisely how we could make this distinction on so many points that come up in a normal Finance Bill between taxation prob- lems, on the one hand, and tax management, on the other.

The hon. Member for Walsall, South (Sir H. d'Avigdor-Goldsmid) mentioned the interesting discussion we had the other evening, or rather the early hours of the morning, regarding the position of solicitors who are asked for information about speculative capital gains. I see that one of the hon. Members who led the fight at that time, the hon. Member for Crosby (Mr. Graham Page), has just entered the Chamber, which has effectively, precluded me from making the slightly cynical observation that none of the hon. Members who then spoke so feelingly about the damage that this would do to the legal profession seems to think it worth while to attend here this morning and carry on the fight up to the last minute.

The hon. Gentleman should know that within the rules of order one can discuss on Third Reading only what is in the Bill and not what is not in the Bill. I wanted to get something into the Bill. It is not there, so I could not discuss it today.

I would not suggest that the hon. Member transgresses the rules of order, although other hon. Members seem to have a facility for making their points within the rules of order. However, I am very glad that the hon. Gentleman is here to carry on the fight right up to the last minute. At least, I hope that that is why he has come this afternoon.

I was rather puzzled by what the Chancellor said about the regulator. I do not quote his exact words, but their effect was that he hoped that it would not be necessary to use the regulator again this year but that, if he had to use it, he would be perfectly willing to do so. I am concerned with the implication of the word "hope" in that context, which is that he hopes that he will not have to use it in an upward direction this year. When the Financial Secretary reads in the OFFICIAL REPORT tomorrow what the Chancellor said, I think that he will agree that I am not putting too much emphasis on this when I say that by using that form of words the Chancellor betrays that he is thinking of the regulator as one that can be moved only in an upward direction.

We on this side welcomed the regulator when it was introduced last year, because we wanted any Chancellor—the present incumbent of the office or any other—to have the flexibility that it would give him, but if it is to be thought of only in terms of putting taxes up we are simply giving any Chancellor the opportunity, surreptitiously, or almost surreptitiously, to take a second bite at increasing taxation at some time between Budgets.

I do not look on the regulator in that way at all. Many would say that if it were to be used again this year it should be used, not in an upward but in a downward direction. The fact that the Government consolidated the regulator in this year's Budget, and that the Chancellor used those words this morning, makes one very suspicious of exactly what the Government have in mind about it. I hope that the Financial Secretary will assure us that there are circumstances in which the Government would think it right to reduce taxes, and not to increase them. That would appeal to hon. Members opposite as well as to those of us on this side.

It is unnecessary to demolish the Government's arguments on the speculative capital gains tax, because they were pretty effectively demolished during the Committee stage. It is very difficult to see exactly what the Government hope to gain from this tax. The Financial Secretary may have noted a certain lack of enthusiasm on this side to put down detailed Amendments to the relevant provision in the Finance Bill. It was a complicated provision in the first place, and the Government had second thoughts on many of its aspects.

I must tell the hon. Gentleman that we did not put down detailed Amendments to it because we did not think it was worth while. We do not think that the tax is sufficiently worth while to merit detailed consideration of that sort. It will not raise much revenue, it does not deal with the fundamental problem of capital gains, and it will have to be replaced if we are to tackle the real problem, and satisfy the electors and the ordinary taxpayers that we are really serious about getting a fair and equitable system of taxation.

On Income Tax, we made our points about personal allowances while we were in Committee and, again, I think that our case was completely unanswered by the Government. Naturally, we were very pleased about the concession to blind persons. I hope that it is merely the first step towards making similar concessions to disabled people and to those in particularly unfavourable circumstances of one sort or another.

I know that the Inland Revenue and the Government can easily produce purist arguments to show that we cannot make such concessions without breaking well-established principles and creating precedents; and that to do so will make it very difficult for any Government to resist further concessions. Despite all those arguments, I believe that there is a general sense in the House that people who are disabled, blind, or otherwise in difficulty should get some sort of discriminatory tax treatment. I am very glad that the Government have made this concession to blind persons and, as I say, I hope that we shall get something for other categories of disabled people.

I very much agree with the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Grimond) about the Government's complete failure to do anything to encourage company investment by adjustments of investment allowances, rationalisation of the whole structure of capital allowances, or anything else. It is one of the most damning criticisms of the Chancellor that he seems to be willing to accept that manufacturing investment figures will show a decrease over this year, rather than the increase that everyone would hope for, without doing anything at all by way of taxation adjustments to try to counteract that tendency. It is extremely disturbing, and one is very disappointed that the right hon. and learned Gentleman has not seen fit to do anything about it.

I share the regret of the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland that in the realm of indirect taxation the Chancellor has not done something to lift some of the burden on industry and public transport imposed by the present hydrocarbon oils duty. There has been a complete neglect to do anything about so many aspects of our taxation system that cry out for reform at present, and one finds a great deal of difficulty in relating the Finance Bill to the existing economic situation at all.

The most that can be said about the Bill is that, in some respects, it does not do a great deal of harm, although in others we think that, economically, it does a considerable amount of harm. It gives no incentive to economic expansion and growth. It does not create that feeling among ordinary people that there is some fairness and equity in our taxation system that produces a psychological or personal stimulus to improve economic performance. It does none of those things, so we cannot give it any welcome at all.

12.37 p.m.

I am sorry that the hon. Member for Glasgow, Craigton (Mr. Millan) spoke so gloomily about this Finance Bill, because I support it. He has criticised, as have other hon. Members opposite, the concession given to Surtax payers in the last Budget, but none of them has mentioned that the Surtax payers have come last in the queue. They have failed to point out that in previous Budgets it has been those with lower incomes who got relief first. Nobody complains about that, but it is a little hard that the Government should be criticised for granting a rather overdue relief to those last in the queue—the Surtax payers.

I thank both Front Benches for the clarity of their contributions to our debates. I do not propose to refer to the rules of snooker, because my hon. Friend the Member for Southend, East (Sir S. McAdden) has quite clearly a far greater knowledge of them than I have. Our debates in Committee are always long and, to be frank, sometimes tedious, but they are justified, because one of the duties of all hon. Members is to examine our taxation system very carefully. After all, we congratulate both Front Benches, and the back benches as well, but those whom we should really congratulate are the people who pay the taxes we impose, and it is on their behalf that we have to say whether the Government have done right or wrong.

In this Budget, I believe that the Government have done right. There are very few hon. Members who would propose additional taxes that the Government should impose. It is for the Government to impose the taxes because, with their specialised knowledge, it is they who know what the year's expenditure will be. If, therefore, the Government put a fresh tax, as they have, on soft drinks and sweets, that is because they know that the money is required.

Incidentally, I support that tax. I see no reason why these articles, the consumption of which has gone up enormously in the last few years, should not pay a due proportion of taxes, as many other things must do.

There are two matters to which I particularly wish to refer. I do not think that the first has been referred to today. It concerns Clause 2 of the Bill; lower rates of Customs duties on E.F.T.A. goods. The amount of money involved in this does not represent anything startling, but if we are to enter the Common Market—on which I express no view since I have no greater information on this than any other hon. Member and, in any case, if I digressed on to that subject I would be out of order—it is clear that Finance Bills of the future will require a considerable number of Clauses to deal with the reduction of duties which will follow any treaty we shall sign before our entry. It would be interesting to know whether that would affect the revenue of this country to any great extent. Incidentally, if we do not enter the Common Market, we shall have to continue to reduce duties in accordance with the start we have made in Clause 2.

The second matter to which I wish to refer is the tax which is referred to by various names, generally and erroneously as the "speculative gains tax." It is nothing of the sort and I prefer to describe it as the "charge on gains from acquisition and disposal of assets", as referred to in Chapter II of the Bill. This is dealt with in Clauses 10 to 16. The Treasury has made a valiant effort to try to draft the necessary Clauses, always remembering that it is a new tax and that the Treasury does not have experience of its enforcement or possible attempts at evasion.

When imposing taxes one must realise—and this can be said of every tax—that one is putting a brake on someone else. Undoubtedly this tax puts a brake on the Stock Exchange and, naturally, that must represent a loss to the Revenue because there is a 2 per cent. Stamp Duty on Stock Exchange deals. If fewer deals take place there will be less revenue. Whether the 2 per cent. duty is or is not right is a matter open to doubt. It makes transactions in this country more expensive than in others and, particularly should we enter some form of European organisation, its continuance is a matter to be considered at a future date.

I wonder what the Treasury would say should the administration of the new tax be found not to result in a gain for the Revenue? If the greet deal of work involved in making the necessary assessments and inquiries results in only a trifling increase, I hope that the Treasury will be frank with the House and say that the tax has meant so much hard work and has produced such a small return that it is proposed to scrap it. I do not want hon. Members to think that because of these remarks I am against people paying taxes on the gains they make from deals, whether in shares or land. In any case, these are already covered by our present financial system, apart from the provisions of Chapter II of the Bill.

If a person makes an odd transaction and escapes the tax I do not think that anyone would particularly object. But where regular transactions are conducted involving buying and selling on the Stock Exchange or in land deals those should not escape the provisions of Chapter II. However, as I have said, if the Treasury discovers that it has meant a lot of hard work for accountants, solicitors and others, I hope that the Department will admit this and revert to the old system by which people pay taxes on ordinary trading deals.

Apart from that, I think that this is a fair Bill. It makes no other very sweeping changes in the law and while it is always easy to say when a tax is increased that it increases the cost of living, that sort of statement is obviously true. Purchase Tax and the duty on hydrocarbon oils does precisely that. Many of us would like to see these reduced and I suppose that the real solution is to reduce expenditure. However, I welcome the Bill and willingly support its Third Reading.

12.44 p.m.

I add my congratulations to my right hon. and learned Friend the Chancellor and express my regret that they must be rather second-hand because during some of the most important discussions that took place on the Bill I was kept, rather against my will, in a Committee room upstairs. It is in this context that I must express some astonishment at the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall, South (Sir H. d'Avigdor-Goldsmid) in which he seemed to assume that upstairs one deliberates only during the hours of daylight.

On the night to which my hon. Friend referred, when the question of lawyers was debated on the Floor of the House, we were summoned from upstairs on a number of occasions. It is a matter of no little difficulty, when coming down the stairs, to weigh up all the arguments for and against a subject and to decide in which Lobby to go. I am sorry that on that occasion I was rather a traitor to my own legal profession and went into the wrong Lobby.

I was interested to hear the references made by the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Grimond) and a number of hon. Members to the possibilities of altering the method of dealing with Finance Bills. I do not share the optimism that one could divorce the Clauses which deal with the imposition of taxes from what might be called the procedural and managerial Clauses. In this year's Bill, for example, I do not think that it would have been possible to have made an arbitrary decision to take the Clauses dealing with the speculative gains tax in the main part of the Bill on the Floor of the House while dealing with the Schedules upstairs.

I suggest, however, that with an entirely new tax which is self-contained, as we have this year, the House could consider lifting the whole of the provisions dealing with it out of the Bill so that they could be discussed in Standing Committee. This would eliminate the difficulty of having to have all taxes discussed on the Floor of the House and might help to answer the real objection raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Worcester (Mr. Walker) about the drafting of the speculative gains tax.

About a year ago I expressed the hope that my right hon. and learned Friend would try to address his mind to simplifying our taxation system with the object of reducing its bulk. We cannot claim that that has happened in this year's Bill. I expressed that hope in a Question, and while I will readily agree that this would not be an easy thing to do—as was made clear to me in the reply I received from the Chancellor—I believe that the Treasury should consider whether our tax system could be simplified without violating our longstanding tax principles. I have in mind the introduction of a greater measure of discretionary powers in taxation.

The present method of our drafting of Finance Bills must involve the country in an appalling waste of professional talent and also brings the whole of our taxation system still further from the ideal, to which we all pay lip-service, that it should be intelligible to the ordinary taxpayer.

12.49 p.m.

This is the day and hour on which it is customary for hon. Members to express their weariness with the proceedings on the Finance Bill and to say how glad they are to be getting rid of it. I do not share that view. During the 16 days on the Bill there has not been a dull moment for me—and it is the thirteenth Finance Bill on which I have spoken. I think that it is a most fascinating exercise, and I was very distressed to hear my hon. Friend the Member for Caridff, South-East (Mr. Callaghan) say that he was glad to get rid of it. I know that he coupled getting rid of the Finance Bill with getting rid of the Government, but I see no reason to throw out the Bill with the Government.

After all, my hon. Friend started working life, as I did, as a tax gatherer. We were both tax gatherers. I stuck to it mostly, but he wandered off. He came into the House and took an interest in transport. Then he went into the affairs of the Colonies. Now he has come back to his first chosen vocation. He must not be bored by it.

I must say that I got out of the Inland Revenue only just before I was thrown out.

Oh no, the Inland Revenue would have kept my hon. Friend to this day had he wished to stay.

My hon. Friend the Member for Fife, West (Mr. W. Hamilton) was particularly scathing about the tedium and boredom of the Bill. I share the general disappointment that one can work so hard on the Finance Bill for so little immediate result. But here again, on Finance Bills one has to be philosophical and content to cast bread upon the waters and see the results after many days.

After all, the small incomes relief and the extension of age exemption in Clause 8 were mainly the result of vigorous discussion of these two matters last year. The relief for blind persons has been discussed in this House almost every year since the second Interim Report of the Royal Commission in 1954. I am not going to join in any scramble to get the credit for this one additional relief that we have got in this Bill. I envy the hon. Lady the Member for Plymouth, Devonport (Miss Vickers) on having moved her new Clause on this matter at a favourable moment and on having got a concession from the Chancellor. I moved a similar Clause in past years without meeting with favourable results. This is an achievement for the House of Commons, and we should rejoice that we have at last been able to bring some additional tax relief for gravely afflicted persons.

I do not share the view that has been so frequently expressed by Ministers on this matter, that the proper way to deal with grave affliction is through the social services and not through tax reliefs. One might as well say that the way to deal with the expense of children on a domestic budget is through family allowances and not through child reliefs in Income Tax. In that case, both the social services and taxation combine to give the parent some relief from the additional expenses of a larger family. So it is with relief to blind persons. I hope that in due course the Government—any Government—will accept the broad principle put forward by the Royal Commission that grave affliction can so alter the pattern of a person's life that it is proper that tax relief should be given to meet exceptional conditions.

On age exemption, although the change in the Bill is very welcome—it is something for which we pressed twelve months ago—I still feel that further consideration should be given to small incomes relief and age exemption. One can go through long debates on these matters and still miss a material point. Only yesterday I received a letter from a widower who said that his wife had died recently. He is retired and living on a pension. The immediate consequence of becoming a widower is that he has Income Tax to pay. On £400 a year as a married man, and being a pensioner, he got the benefit of age exemption. Now that his wife is dead, on the same income he now has to pay 11s. a week tax.

That comes hard on an ageing man who has lost his wife and who says, "I must now get some help in the home. I must even get someone to come and live with me because I cannot manage alone." But there may be no housekeeper relief and no domestic expenses relief in his case. I think that the gap between the single person and the married person is still too wide in respect of age exemption.

My hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South-East has been most persistent throughout the debates on the Bill in referring to the disproportion between the level of taxation on earnings and the level of taxation on other sources of taxable income. What went wrong about this was that in 1955 there was an intention of adjusting the tax burden over the course of years, but economic conditions interrupted the pattern of development which the Chancellor then had in mind. This was coupled with the rise in money incomes which is bringing many more people into the higher rates of tax under the reduced rate arrangements.

In 1955, the standard rate was reduced, the personal allowances were increased, but the reduced rate bands were tightened up and people came into this second hand of tax more quickly than previously. Then, in 1959, the then Chancellor said that he thought it was the turn of the standard rate, and it has been nobody else's turn since, except for the change in Surtax last year.

So there is no doubt that some adjustment here is overdue as soon as circumstances permit. My hon. Friend has been saying and repeating that there is no doubt that what is needed next is consideration of the personal allowances and reduced rate arrangements because people are coming into the 4s. 3d. and 6s. 3d. rates far too quickly now that money incomes have been increased.

The Chancellor, in his opening remarks, referred to the differences of opinion which have been expressed about the use of the regulator. I have reacted unfavourably from the beginning to what the Chancellor is doing in the Bill. I am surprised that hon. Members opposite did not feel equally keenly about it. When emergency taxation is introduced I think that it is desirable that when the emergency is over it should be abandoned. While the emergency is on it should remain emergency taxation. It is wrong to impose emergency taxation, then to consolidate it in the general structure of taxation and give oneself the same latitude as before to raise or lower the level of emergency taxation. I have had far too much to do with the Minister of Pensions and National Insurance not to recognise sleight of hand when I see it. Nobody can have gone through 22 meetings of the Standing Committee which dealt with the graduated pensions scheme without recognising some very dubious devices indeed, and I think that this is of a similar order.

I do not want to go over again all our arguments about the Purchase Tax and the tax on confectionery. In my view, the general question of the relationship between direct and indirect taxation will become of growing importance in the future. The hon. Member for Southend, East (Sir S. McAdden) said, as other hon. Members have said, that taxation must be seen to be fair. I think that he will agree that about half the taxation levied upon the people of this country is not to be seen at all. At one and the same time, this is a great advantage to the Chancellor and a great disadvantage to those who bear the taxes. People ought to know when they are being taxed. They ought to see it all the time they are being taxed. Taxation should not be hidden in the price ticket as it is at present.

Sometimes, the imposition of additional or new taxes on commodities presents manufacturers with a considerable dilemma in the matter of prices. I was astonished to learn recently from representatives of the ice cream industry that none of them had heard a word or hint about the new tax before the Chancellor announced it in his Budget statement. I understand the difficulties the Chancellor has in having discussions with industry about a possible additional or new tax, but to plunge a new tax upon industry without any warning at all can give rise to some serious disturbances of the rhythm and the economy of its affairs.

Recently, the chairman of the Rowntree company spoke of the tens of thousands, if not millions, of wrappers which became immediately obsolete because they all had the price printed on them. The ice cream industry had its automated factories geared to products of a particular size, and it was not easy to adjust the size to give a satisfactory adjusted price for the product.

There was the question whether half-pennies should be introduced into the price of ice cream, which the retailers said they did not want, and then we blame the manufacturers for going to the penny above. These are serious difficulties for industry when taxation is thrust upon manufacturers unawares. There are problems here which the House and Chancellors will always have to consider when imposing additional indirect taxation.

It seems to me that such prejudice is being built up against Income Tax that Chancellors will be tempted more and more to take refuge in indirect taxation. In my view, this will be a bad thing from the point of view of public awareness of the level of taxation and interest in public expenditure.

The hon. Member for Walsall, South (Sir H. d'Avigdor-Goldsmid) made some interesting comments on an article written by Sir Frank Bower in the current number of Lloyds Bank Review, an article which I read with great interest. An ex-inspector of taxes always has something interesting to say about taxation, even though he may have spent many years with Unilever in between. I think that the idea of a Tax Management Bill ought to receive serious consideration. At one time, I thought that it was receiving serious consideration.

I heard some funny noises coming out of the windows of Somerset House a few years ago and I thought that I caught the words "Tax Management Bill" and I had an idea that the Chancellor was showing some interest in the matter. I do not know how much of the Finance Bill would be taken by a Tax Management Bill. Perhaps quite a bit of Chapter III would be taken, but, more important, perhaps, is that quite a lot of other overdue reforms in tax administration could be brought in. I suggest that the Chancellor should give very close study to this matter.

We are awaiting—with considerable scepticism, Sir Frank Bower says—the result of the Chancellor's consideration of a corporation tax. I agree with what has been said already this morning, that there is no necessary relationship between the level of company taxation and the level of personal taxation. Personal taxation is related to the ability of individuals to pay based upon domestic circumstances and a reasonable range of income. Company taxation is not levied on the same sort of principle of ability to pay. The basis is a combination of the requirement of the Exchequer that industry shall make its contribution to the revenue with the desire that industry shall be able to build up sufficient resources to enable it to expand and prosper. We shall look forward with much interest to the result of the Chancellor's consideration.

The Bill as a whole does not make a positive contribution to the economic circumstances of today. It is a holding Bill. The Chancellor spoke of this in his Budget. There is an interesting article, "Government Policy and Growth", in the Bulletin for Industry in which there is information and candour and useful reflections on the problems now confronting the Government and the nation. The rôle assigned to this Bill by the Chancellor in his general economic strategy was not a positive one. He was just holding back consumption by retaining the general level of taxation at last year's figures plus the additional revenue to come from expanding purchasing power and also from particular directions where he thought he could get extra money.

I have been unhappy about two matters which have arisen in our discussions. I was distressed at the dispute which arose the other night about the right of the Inland Revenue to require solicitors to render certain information about transactions conducted by them as agents for their clients. I am always distressed when my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kettering (Mr. Mitchison) and I go into different Lobbies, because we agree on so many things in this sphere, and I began to question my own judgment about the decision I took to vote with the Government. Earlier in our discussions on the Bill, I made a speech which some of my hon. Friends thought went a little too far. They are not as enthusiastic as I am for the security of the Revenue. Perhaps I am strongly biassed in favour of the Revenue having all the powers it needs within reason to see that the Chancellor is not cheated.

Reflecting on the matter since, I still think that the amended Clause is the right one. I think that the closer and narrower definition of the field of inquiry to be permitted under the Bill justified requiring solicitors, when acting as agents for their clients in these transactions, to give information to the Inland Revenue when called upon to do so.

I well remember the debates on a similar matter in 1951, regarding disclosure by banks. Previous discussion on this question went on for thirty years, from the Report of the Royal Commission of 1921 until 1951. Every Government and every Chancellor had demurred at doing anything which would breach the confidentiality of relationships between banker and client. But it was done in the end, and it was done in a way which went further than the recommendations of the Royal Commission. It is true that it was done by a Labour Chancellor who might, on the whole, be more willing to do this kind of thing than a Conservative Chancellor, but there has been no demand since the Conservative Government came into office to repeal that provision of the 1951 Act. The Chancellor knows full well the millions of pounds of revenue which disclosures by banks have brought him. They have brought him not only millions in direct payment on bank interest, but have disclosed affairs which have led to innumerable back duty cases. This provision proved to be a necessary safeguard to the Revenue, however distasteful and however much it was thought by hon. Members at the time to breach the longstanding confidentiality between banker and client.

The other worrying thing in the Bill is the whole apparatus of the taxation of speculative gains. I feel very strongly that there will be an enormous amount of work in this for comparatively little return. Had this been part of the definition of income for years past, as in the case of the United States, it would have been taken in the stride of Income Tax administration. But we have delayed so long in introducing a measure of this kind. The Chancellor of the Exchequer said in his Budget statement:

"The new Case VII Income Tax, without affecting growth, will meet a long-felt and widely-held grievance and sense of unfair treatment as between taxpayers."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 9th April, 1962; Vol. 657, c. 994.]

It had got to that stage. This was something designed, not to broaden the base of income taxation, but to remove

"a long-felt and widely-held grievance".

When we do that, it is not much good erecting an elaborate but unimpressive structure to tax this form of income.

The hon. Member for Surrey, East (Mr. Doughty) said a moment ago that he hoped that the working of this new tax would be carefully watched and that, if it turned out to be not worth the candle, the Chancellor would come to the House and say that it was no good, that it was not worth going on with and should be scrapped. I hope that that will not ever be done. A Chancellor of the Exchequer confronted with that situation would, I hope, seriously consider converting a tax on short-term speculative gains into a tax on longer term capital gains.

Sir Frank Bower rather suggests that this pioneering work which the Chancellor has undertaken in connection with Case VII Income Tax may provide the basis for converting the tax into a different tax by extending the period over Which capital gains should accrue and still be taxable and by removing a considerable number of exemptions. Sir Frank Bower's catalogue of things which the new tax does not do is very interesting. There is quite a lot of things which this tax does not do which I think another tax would do.

I shall not keep the House any longer, although I still feel enthusiastic enough about the Bill to comment further on it. However, my feelings are not shared by my hon. Friends, apparently. I exempt from that observation my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kettering, because he not only wrote most of the Notice Paper of Amendments to the Bill, but spoke to a great deal of it, too, and to great effect. I am sure that had it not been for the restraining hand of my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South-East at three o'clock the other morning, he would not have allowed anything to go on trust, even at that hour. The more obscure, complex and unintelligible the proposal which the Government wanted the Committee to pass, the keener my hon. and learned Friend was to deal with it and the simpler he would have made it sound.

However, before we come to the end of the Bill, I wish to say this about the people who will be affected by it and about those who will have to administer it. I sincerely hope that the Chancellor—I hope that I shall be forgiven this last word—is taking particular care to ensure that his machinery is equipped to discharge the task which he is imposing on it. That is most important. There are many complaints about overwork in the Inland Revenue at present, but what is much worse is that I have never known a time when Inland Revenue officials have been so discontented at their inability to do the work to their own satisfaction. Overwork is one thing, but dissatisfaction with the discharge of one's duties is a mortifying experience which is most depressing to the morale of the Department.

In addition, it means that a good deal of skimped work goes out of the Department. I am shocked at times to see what can go to a taxpayer in the way of routine and rather perfunctory administration on matters about which he is entitled to feel most keenly. They are personal to him. Inland Revenue officials must realise that in many cases they are demanding money. They are not just sending out a chit as a matter of interest, something to be read in between looking at the television. These matters affect the taxpayer very keenly and personally.

It is essential and in the interests of sound administration that the work not only of the Inland Revenue, but of all Departments which have contact with the public and intrude on people's personal and financial affairs or on the rights to which they are entitled, should be discharged efficiently and in a proper spirit. It cannot be done unless there are adequate numbers of staff, properly trained and encouraged to be enthusiastic about the work which they have to do. I hope that the Chancellor will ensure that that position prevails in the Inland Revenue in the months to come.

1.18 p.m.

I hope that the hon. Member for Sowerby (Mr. Houghton) did not feel that the occasion made it necessary for him to abbreviate his remarks too much or not to do sufficient justice to his very real enthusiasm. Listening to him on the subject of taxation, I was reminded of the stanza of Dr. Johnson, which I suspect the whole House knows:

"His virtues walk'd their narrow round,

Nor made a pause, nor left a void;

And sure th' Eternal Master found

His single talent well employ'd."

I do not say that the hon. Gentleman is a person of only one talent, but there is certainly a single talent which he employs very ably in the House and with great enthusiasm.

I think that there would be complete agreement with the congratulations of the hon. Member for Cardiff, South-East (Mr. Callaghan) to the hon. and learned Member for Kettering (Mr. Mitchison) on his skill in drafting Amendments to successive Finance Bills—a most necessary part of our proceedings on such Bills. Perhaps you will not think me impertinent, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, and will not rule me out of order if I offer further one word of congratulation. I think that this year our proceedings have been assisted very much by the early notice which hon. Members have had of the selection of Amendments and by the helpfulness which hon. Members on both sides of the House have had from the Chair throughout the debates.

The hon. Member for Cardiff, South-East, at the start of his speech, said that the Finance Bill this year raises substantially more in taxation than last year's Finance Bill, which is, of course, perfectly true. But I think that the House ought to remember something else, and that is that the state of the balance of payments today and the state of sterling is very much stronger than it was at the time we were debating the Third Reading of last year's Finance Bill.

I shall say something later about the general economic situation in relation to the Bill, but when considering the background to it the House ought to remember that the external monetary position was extremely favourable in the first quarter of this year. The trade figures suggest that the visible balance has improved since the first quarter. I have said on many occasions in the House that we should not ever forget the importance of the Budget and the Finance Bill in helping to keep supply and demand in balance and leave room for the expansion in exports which we need.

It is worth remembering that the rising trend of exports continued in May. Making the seasonal adjustment, United Kingdom exports rose by 4 per cent. between the three months December to February and the three months March to May. There was a strong increase in exports to Western Europe during this period, an increase of about 6 per cent., and exports to the sterling area, my hon. Friend the Member for Worcester (Mr. Walker) will be glad to hear. were 5 per cent. higher in March to May, mainly due to the recovery in exports to Australia and New Zealand. A fall in exports to America was wholly due to reduced exports to Canada. There was a small increase in exports to the United States.

The hon. Member for Cardiff, South-East said that the economy had been clamped down too hard and that the time had come to let up. But do not let us underrate the letting up which has been done by my right hon. and learned Friend during recent months. We have had the successive reductions in the Bank Rate; we have had the reductions in special deposits; and we have had the important reduction in hire-purchase terms. I do not want to arouse unnecessary controversy at this point in our proceedings, but it would be a very new line for hon. Members and right hon. Members opposite if they said that reductions on the budgetary side, the fiscal side, ought to take priority over reductions on the monetary side.

It was always the view of the right hon. Member for Huyton (Mr. H. Wilson), when he spoke on these matters for the Opposition, that my hon. Friends expected monetary policy to do too much, that they relied on it excessively. I claim that we have been absolutely right, considering the needs of our economy, to start by reducing on the monetary side. When I hear hon. Members opposite say that we should have given greater priority to reductions on the fiscal side, I bear in mind that there may be other applications of the remark by the hon. Member for Cardiff, South-East—that economic problems and solutions should not be decided just by electoral considerations. I agree with him about that.

The hon. Member referred to the importance of fairness in our budgetary policy. I agree with him about this, too, but fairness does not relate only to the raising of taxes. It must also extend to the question of where the money which we raise by taxes goes and for whom it is used. In that context, I remind the House of what I thought was the very striking figure which I gave the other night, namely, that in 1951–52 the total proportion of Supply expenditure going on social and communal services was about 33 per cent., whereas the total proportion now is about 43½ per cent.

When we are considering fairness, and I agree that it is important, we ought to bear in mind the very substantial increases in Government expenditure during the last two or three years and where those increases have gone, because the standards today of both the National Health Service and the education service are higher than ever before, and we have only just announced the intention of the Government to make a further increase in National Assistance.

My hon. Friend the Member for Walsall, South (Sir H. d'Avigdor-Goldsmid) made a number of interesting suggestions, first, on the subject of whether we should have separate taxation and tax management Bills. The difficulty would always be the borderline cases, for the decision on which side of the line a particular proposal should be drawn would be arbitrary on a number of occasions. I can see a good deal of difficulty arising over that.

I do not have as much experience as some hon. Members of Standing Committees, but I have a certain amount. The other night we debated the Clause on solicitors and information for about 1½ hours. I think that that was a fair length of time for a Finance Bill debate, but it would have been a rather long debate for a Standing Committee. Do not let us forget that the length of a normal day in Committee of the whole House from half-past three to half-past eleven—not a day with an all-night sitting—is more than three times the length of a normal Standing Committee sitting. In fact, I believe that we get a proportionately more careful discussion under the present system.

It is true that Standing Committees can sit in the afternoon, but my experience is that when a Standing Committee sits in the afternoon there is at least as much impatience at half-past seven in the evening upstairs in Standing Committee as there is downstairs in the Chamber at half-past eleven. We had a coherent discussion the other night and I doubt whether, simply from the point of view of getting more time for discussion of Clauses, there is quite as much in the Standing Committee suggestion as some hon. Members think.

But will the hon. Gentleman also consider the other point, that if the Bill is sent upstairs there is released more time in the Chamber for other debates?

I see that. I am merely putting my point of view because it is one which we should consider. There is the further point that many of these discussions would probably have to take place at a later stage of the Bill, which, again, would take some time on the Floor of the Chamber.

I want, finally, to say a few words about the Finance Bill in relation to the economic situation, bearing in mind the situation today and that when the Budget was introduced three months ago. When my right hon. and learned Friend introduced his Budget, his theme was the maintenance of a firm base for sound expansion, that is to say, not a sudden expansion which could last for perhaps one year and which might then cause us again to take measures to correct the economy, but a soundly based rate of growth based on a really fine competitive performance in world markets. My right hon. and learned Friend wanted to lay the base for a steady increase in production and consumption throughout the year ahead without a renewal of the balance of payments difficulty.

It is untrue that the Budget was too deflationary. It is quite true that it did nothing to expand demand, but it also did nothing to prevent demand from increasing. My right hon. and learned Friend took the view, and still takes the view, that there was likely to be a substantial increase in total demand over the financial year without deliberate reinforcement through the Budget, though, as I have said, he has taken certain important steps outside the Budget in other ways.

My right hon. and learned Friend also made it quite clear that if he turned out to be wrong he had means at his disposal to stimulate or restrain, and that, by pursuing a neutral budgetary policy, he had greater freedom to reduce interest rates and to relax credit restrictions which had to be imposed last July. Total demand has risen since the beginning of this year, although this increase has not as yet been reflected in any substantial increase in production.

This is due largely to two factors which must be temporary. The first is the shortage of vegetables over the last few months, which has raised food prices and checked personal consumption; but this check has already passed its peak. At the same time—and this is part of the answer to the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Grimond)—manufacturers have met rising demand by very heavy withdrawals from stock. The hon. Member for Middlesbrough, West (Dr. Bray), who made such an interesting maiden speech the other night, was right to raise this question of stocks because, as I said at the time, they are a more important short-term factor in our economic life than is always realised.

Stock building rose sharply from £12 million at 1958 prices in the third quarter of last year to £78 million in the fourth quarter, and stock building at that time was an important factor in sustaining output when other kinds of demand were still falling. I think that at the beginning of this year the reverse was true. While other kinds of demand had risen, stock building had fallen back. The actual figure for the first quarter on the same basis would be minus £40 million, and provisional indictions are that destocking continued into the second quarter.

In the first quarter of this year stocks were reduced at a higher rate than at any time since 1955, when quarterly figures first became available. We do not believe that this is likely to persist for long, and as soon as it stops production will be considerably stimulated. Later, we must expect traders to be adding to stocks in the normal way, and, of course, the swing from stock reduction to stock building could be a matter of hundreds of millions of pounds a year. What went wrong with the calculation in 1959 was precisely this. We expected there to be some rise in consumption. We expected there to be some rise in fixed investment, but in the early months of 1959 nobody realised just exactly how much stock building might add to all the other expansionary forces at that time.

My right hon. and learned Friend based his Budget not just on a view over the first few months, but over the year ahead, and I do not believe that there is any reason to make significantly different assessments of our prospects because of what has happened during the last two or three months. The elements of expansion which my right hon. and learned Friend emphasised in April are still operating strongly. Exports have been climbing, public expenditure is certainly rising at least as strongly as my right hon. and learned Friend forecast in April, and consumer spending also shows signs of increasing. I see no reason at all to go back on the forecast which my right hon. and learned Friend gave in his Budget for consumer spending over the financial year.

In any case, the Government have not just sat idly by over the last two or three months. We have taken the opportunity to make some relaxations on the monetary side. We have brought down the Bank Rate. We have reduced special deposits and lowered the minimum down-payment on all consumer durables other than motor cars, and the aggregate effect on the level of demand of all these relaxations is likely to prove considerable. My right hon. and learned Friend is quite confident that the economy will expand at a satisfactory rate over the present financial year.

I hope that I have not detained the House too long. As I see it, our policy with regard to the Budget, our monetary policy, in fact all our policies designed to regulate supply and demand, must be taken alongside the perhaps more controversial policy of the Government in other fields. I end by quoting a valuable passage in the thirty-second Annual Report of the Bank for International Settlements. The article as a whole, like the Motion of my hon. Friend the Member for Tynemouth (Dame Irene Ward) the other night, is moderately and reasonably critical of the Government, but its general tenor seems to be entirely in line with my hon. Friend's Motion, which began with the words:

"That this House congratulates Her Majesty's Government on initiating a policy designed to control inflation and to stabilise prices but calls on the Government to expound the policy with greater clarity …"

The Government are happy to vote for any Motion of congratulation, and are not very worried if some reasonable criticisms are made while discussing it.

I thought that it was the congratulatory part of the Motion which was so damaging.

My hon. Friend's speech was a shade long, but I thought that the evening as a whole was a happy one.

To return to what I was saying, the Bank for International Settlements said:

"In the 1962 Budget the authorities showed their intention to maintain restraint in the fiscal sphere in the immediate future; some useful reforms in taxes were introduced but the overall impact of Government finances will be neutral. This policy was again criticised for not being expansionist, even by some who have not advocated import controls. While the authorities have no need, and presumably no intention, to let economic activity drift downwards, a premature expansion to recapture the situation of a year ago would certainly not make sense. In setting their standard on a firm wages policy, if they hold to it, and in looking for exports to give the next real impetus to expansion, if they wait for it, the Government has chosen the only road to future vigour for the British economy."

I believe that those words are absolutely true, and it is in that spirit that I commend the Bill to the House.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read the Third time and passed.

Trinidad And Tobago Independence Bill

Considered in Committee; reported, without Amendment; read the Third time and passed.

Cruelty To Animals

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[ Mr. Rees.]

1.37 p.m.

When a little time ago I had the opportunity of asking my hon. Friend some questions on the subject of cruelty to animals, especially as it affected the Cruelty to Animals Act, 1876, I found that there was not enough time to go into the matter in any detail, and I hoped to get a half-hour Adjournment debate. Now, to my immense joy and surprise, I find that my hon. Friend and I can discuss this subject until half-past four.

I am sure that my hon. Friend knows it already, but I should like to warn him that there is a growing feeling throughout the country, not among cranks but among serious-minded people, that the new developments in chemistry and medicine generally are making this question of cruelty to animals of much more interest to the public generally. This applies not only in this country but all over the world.

I know that my hon. Friend feels that much of the criticism that has been made could be pinned down to foreign countries rather than to this country. I accept that. There is no doubt that in the United States of America, in Japan, and in other parts of the world there is much more cruelty to animals than there is in this country. Indeed, this country is famous for its organisations which try to help, and for the vast number of animal lovers to be found here. But, at the same time, with the increasing publicity that is given to various activities all over the world, people are beginning to wonder whether in this country also things are done which harm and hurt animals generally.

After I had asked these questions I was glad to find that, without anything to do with me, my own council in Brighton took up the question of cruelty to animals, especially in connection with the Brighton Technical College and the possibilities of cruelty to animals in the new University of Sussex. The council debated the question for a long time and finally decided that everything was pretty well all right with the technical college and that the experiments there should go on, but it added a rider, which was carried unanimously by the council, that something should be done to improve the 1876 Act, if possible in the form of a Royal Commission, in order to satisfy the public generally that the Home Office was carrying out the provisions contained in the different parts of that Act.

I was delighted to have this opportunity, therefore, to state what the council had asked me to state. If we read the reports of debates in the House during the last few months we find that more and more people are becoming worried about the secrecy of the Home Office in relation to what is happening. Last February, my hon. Friend the Member for Gillingham (Mr. Burden) moved a Motion on this subject, and as recently as 10th May, in the Home Office debate, two or three Members who certainly cannot be called cranks in any way took the matter up and were answered by the Minister of State. Questions have also been asked by the hon. Member for Blackburn (Mrs. Castle), who put down two or three Questions recently. I therefore feel that my hon. Friend should take a little more seriously the questions that are being put, because they are not put merely by Members of Parliament; they have obviously been asked by their constituents to do something about the matter.

Cruelty to animals is not necessarily concerned only with the Act of 1876. Other Acts have been passed giving local councils all sorts of opportunities to look after animals, but I am not sure they take advantage of them. For example, there is the question of riding schools. I have been in touch with the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals on the subject and I cannot do anything better than quote its comments. The Riding Establishments Act of 1939 gave local authorities the power, which they may use but do not have to use, to:

"authorise in writing any duly registered veterinary surgeon to inspect any premises. which they have reason to believe are used as a riding establishment. The R.S.P.C.A. is very concerned that although this Act came into force as long ago as … 1940 a very large number of local authorities have failed to utilise their power and appoint a veterinary surgeon for inspection purposes. It is regrettable that this Act did not insist that riding establishments should be registered by the local authority because without registration undoubtedly some local authorities do not even know of the existence of riding establishments in their area. In view of recent Press reports about unsatisfactory riding establishments in different parts of the country surely everything possible should be done to induce local authorities to appoint a veterinary surgeon for the purpose of inspection."

What happens is either that very young people run these riding schools or, if not, an older person owning the establishment leaves young people in charge.

That is one of the two Acts whereby local authorities rather than the Home Office are responsible for looking after this question of cruelty. The other Act is the Pet Animals Act, 1951:

"Under this Measure all pet shops have to be licensed by the local authority and the local authority may authorise, in writing, any of its officers or any veterinary surgeon or veterinary practitioner to inspect such premises."

Interpolating from what I am quoting, each Act refers to veterinary surgeons, whereas in the old Act of 1876 it is medical and not veterinary people who are entitled to examine these properties:

"There is no doubt that this Act resulted in a considerable improvement in many pet shop premises. At the same time some of these establishments are still unsatisfactory … It was hoped by many people that when the Pet Animals Act became law there would be an end to such markets as Club Row"—

which I believe is at Bethnal Green—

"where animals are sold from stalls. Many of the stall-holders at this market, however, have been granted licences under the Pet Animals Act, but anyone who visits the market will surely feel that many of the stalls there are quite unsuitable for offering pet animals for sale. It has to be remembered that the market is open on Sundays, in all weather, and the local authority in question should seriously consider whether licences should be granted or renewed for many of the stalls at this market."

These are just two of the Acts under which local authorities can do some- thing for themselves, and I have been encouraged by the fact that my own Brighton Council has brought up the whole question and has given leadership in the matter.

There is a third Act, dealing more with the Ministry of Agriculture—the Protection of Animals (Anaesthetics) Act, 1954, which deals with the dehorning of calves, castration, the docking of sheep and so on. The hon. Member for Blackburn brought this question up a few days ago. She asked the Minister of Agriculture if he would contact the Home Office on the subject, and I should like to know whether my hon. Friend can state whether anything more is being done in this matter. Recently I brought up the question of rabbits being used for the improvement of cosmetics. I have investigated the matter still further since asking the question, and I find that this practice mostly goes on abroad.

I do not want to read out all the unpleasant details about the way in which rabbits have injections put into their eyes in order eventually to test whether it will help to improve cosmetics, but I understand that, appreciating the fact that it will be very difficult for them to do such work legally in this country, the Americans and others are telling firms over here that if they would like to get in touch with the Americans they can work together on this matter. That is why I regard this as more an international than a national problem, and we must do our best to prevent it developing here to the stage that it has reached in the United States.

We do not want to be too sentimental about these things. There is a grave danger of sentimentality sweeping the country and of our finding ourselves in a very embarrassing position. Everybody knows that a tremendous amount of work must be done in testing animals to improve new inventions and techniques to help the human race. Nobody in his senses could be against that. But we want to make sure that these practices are carried out properly.

In all fairness to my constituency, I should point out that when the question of the methods used in the Brighton Technical College was brought up it was noted that the Home Office inspector, who has the right of entry to the laboratories at any time, was last there in April, 1962, and previously only a few months earlier. He does go there quite often. It was also noted that the number of animals involved in this work at the Brighton Technical College has been extremely small. Five animals—two rabbits and three cats—have been used in the last two years. The animals are obtained either from a recognised dealer or from a farmer who is well-known to the head of department, so we can safely say that, at any rate in Brighton, things are not being done too badly. On the other hand, one receives from the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals a list of something like 7,000 dogs which have been used in a year and reports of vast numbers of cats being used, sold by special agents, and so on. One wonders where all this happens because it is quite obvious that it does not happen in my own area.

I am inclined to think that if the Home Office were a little more forthcoming in letting us know what goes on we might more easily stop these criticisms and, if there is any exaggeration, show it up. Various people who are studying the matter tell me that they find it immensely difficult to find out the real facts. The only people who seem to know them are the Home Office inspectors. At the time of the 1876 Act the number of cases was very small, something like 300 or 400. Then there were two inspectors. Today there are nearly 4 million cases and the number of inspectors has been only increased to six.

I have spoken to various people in the laboratories. They are all very fair on the subject and say that the inspectors are extremely hard working. The six of them made something like 1,600 visits last year, but everybody admits that there are not enough of them for the amount of work to be done. The inspectors sometimes give notice of their coming, though very seldom, and they come and inspect. However, none of them is a vet. Many doctors engaged in this work say that it would be much better if there were some vets as well.

I do not know how far we can stop the export of machines. I believe that there is an appalling brain machine used on cats. We do not use it in this country, but it is made in and exported from this country. I do not know whether anything can be done about it. Frankly, I doubt it. A variety of suggestions come from abroad. In the United States, oddly enough, instead of always using animals for tests, in many cases prisoners are used. Unfortunately, most of the prisoners used are negroes, which will be a matter of considerable interest to people in Africa. It is in the southern part of the United States where they are mostly used.

I am told that in Antigua one or two doctors carry out tests on criminals. The men concerned are let off a certain term of imprisonment if they allow themselves to be used as guinea pigs. I am glad to say that in this country those who allow themselves to be used as guinea pigs are usually the doctor's assistants. To a large extent, the doctors carry out these tests on their own people and sometimes on themselves.

There is one last point I wish to make. I need hardly say that since I decided to raise this matter I have received endless literature from different organisations. It seems to me that the fairest and the most sensible has come from a gentleman called Major Hume, who is the Secretary General of the Universities Federation for Animal Welfare. I will not weary the House with too much of what he says. In fact, I would suggest that hon. Members who are interested might try to get a copy of his document entitled "Experiments on Animals in Great Britain." The following are some of his suggestions:

"The Medical Research Council recognises the value of the Animal Technicians Association and of trained animal technicians, for whom it tries to provide suitable status and prospects, but most universities, and the Ministry of Health, do not do this, and it is desirable that they should."

I leave that with the Ministry of Health to see what it can do.

"The establishment of Home Office Inspectors needs to be substantially enlarged to keep pace with the increase in the work to be done."

I am told that from almost every source. I know that the Home Office says that it is satisfied. It feels that its inspectors are doing a first-class job. I know that they are, but how can they possibly deal with all the work to be done? Major Hume goes on to say:

"The main obstacle is probably Treasury economy."

I suggest that the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals or the Universities Federation for Animal Welfare should be empowered by the Home Office to send their recognised inspectors round to the various laboratories to work in conjunction with the Home Office and to send their reports to the Home Office. They need not send their reports to anybody else. They should be able to do this and would be prepared to do it without extra pay. That would, presumably, be the solution. Major Hume also points out:

"In order to widen the field of recruitment a minimum salary of £3,000 per annum is desirable; at present it is difficult to find recruits of the necessary calibre except among men who have existing service pensions to supplement their salaries."

I wonder if my hon. Friend could tell us the sort of pay which these inspectors receive and to what extent it has been increased over recent years. I beg the Minister to do something about getting vets into the organisation. The Pet Animals Act recognises that these are the people required, and I think that they could be added to the list. Major Hume continues:

"The rules laid down in the Act for the sponsoring of certificates and applications for licences are archaic and under modern conditions unpractical. Compliance with the spirit of the rules often has to be achieved, with only formal satisfaction of the letter, by collaboration between senior scientists and the Home Office. But the whole system needs to be tidied up, for the personal qualities of licensees are of critical importance, and irrelevant formalities are a nuisance. Hospital boards and universities could with great advantage allocate more funds than they usually do to animal-house accommodation and staff."

I think that this is quite important, and when I go round to the laboratories of the drug firms I am always impressed by the trouble which they take to look after the animals. They spend a great deal of money on looking after the animals. Therefore, I feel that hospital boards and universities should look into the matter again. Continuing, Major Hume says:

"Animals should be obtained as little as possible from dealers"—

I think that is a good idea—

"and as much as possible by breeding on the premises, or failing that from breeders accredited for certain species by the Laboratory Animals Centre. Liaison between laboratories and the veterinary profession is desirable."

Then comes the question, should one ask to have a Royal Commission to discuss all these matters again or should one just suggest that an inquiry be held by some scientists or, as was mentioned in the debate on 10th May, by some leading judge? I think that the country as a whole feels that something should be done. It is many a long day since there was a Royal Commission on the matter. On the other hand, of course, I realise that Royal Commissions, like the recent one on television, do not always lead to approval by everyone. It is never absolutely certain that their recommendations will be accepted. In my opinion, a Royal Commission consisting of people with as little knowledge of the medical and veterinary side of the matter as some of those serving on the Royal Commission headed by Sir Harry Pilkington had of television would not help very much. On the other hand, scientists might well be asked to consider the matter.

I understand that when in the debate in May the Minister of State was asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Ashford (Mr. Deedes) and by my hon. Friend the Member for East Grinstead (Mrs. Emmet) to try to get an inquiry started, he pointed out that we already had the Advisory Council led by a learned judge, Lord Morris. He has a Welsh part of his name which at the moment I cannot remember.

It is "Borth-y-Gest".

He said that his lordship was—I am sure he is—an ideal and a wise person. The Minister said that he would bring the matter before his lordship and ask what he thought, and then he would let the House know. I wonder whether my hon. and learned Friend will do so today.

May I point out, lastly, that this advisory council, which has met only once in the last three years—I believe that was in 1960—is available to assist, as indeed are the six inspectors. But there is in the country a strong feeling that something is slightly wrong. Hon. Members have told me that they have gone to the Home Office. They complain that the Home Office takes this matter lightly and seems uninterested. Everything is brushed off. They are told that everything is perfectly all right and that the Home Secretary is satisfied. The Home Secretary is not at all satisfied with what is going on in prisons in respect of human beings, so why should he suddenly switch round and be so completely satisfied about what we think are tortures to animals?

I beg my hon. and learned Friend to discuss the matter once again with the Home Secretary and, if possible, to have some inquiry instituted in order that the minds of many hundreds of thousands of people in the country may be put at ease.

2.1 p.m.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Sir W. Teeling) for raising this subject today. It is fortunate that on this occasion more time is available to discuss the matter than was the case when I raised it on the Adjournment on 16th February.

I apologise to my hon. and learned Friend the Joint Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department for keeping him in the Chamber on a Friday afternoon, but I feel sure that he is seized of the serious concern which undoubtedly exists, and has been expressed, not only among hon. Members of this House but a great many people in the country.

I have been amazed at the concern which has been expressed quietly and behind the scenes by hon. Members on both sides of the House in respect of this subject. I have admired the restraint which has been imposed upon themselves by hon. Members who have interested themselves in the matter. I hope that my hon. and learned Friend will not assume that this restraint is weakness. I can assure him that it is not. I can also assure him that a number of hon. Members are becoming much more militant-minded about it, in view of the way in which they feel that the Home Office has been "stonewalling". I hope that today my hon. and learned Friend will be more forthcoming. I can tell him that the pressure will continue until something is done, and the sooner it is done the better for all concerned, not least for the animals.

I agree that time was short on 16th February when we last debated the matter, but the reply which my hon. and learned Friend gave to me on that occasion was not very satisfactory. Since then he will have had an opportunity to study some of the questions which I put to him and I hope that today, in addition to giving the answers to questions raised by my hon. Friend, he will answer some of the questions which I put to him in February.

Then I referred to the great public concern at the tremendous increase in the number of experiments on animals. When the Act of 1876 was introduced there were 300 experiments and two inspectors. In 1960, the last full year for which figures are available, there were no fewer than 3¾ million. I know that my hon. and learned Friend said that some of those were injections and did not involve cutting, and so on. But they were experiments. Many such experiments create fear in the animals which are used. They are not natural experiences for the animals, and it would be interesting to know how many of the injections which are painless in themselves create conditions afterwards which are painful and harassing to the animals.

I asked how many times in 1960 unannounced visits had been made to laboratories to observe experiments. My hon. and learned Friend stated that 1,500 visits were made annually and about 95 per cent. of them were unannounced, and that has been confirmed. In comparing the figures for 1959 and 1960, I was interested to find that in 1959 there were 535 places registered for experiments, that there were 3½ million experiments and 1,550 visits.

In 1960, the number of experimental laboratories had fallen to 524. Experiments had increased by another 250,000 in a year, and the number of visits had dropped from 1,550 to 1,506. It may well be that the increase in the number of experiments and the paper work involved made it impossible for the inspectors to maintain the number of visits carried out during the previous year.

I also asked the Minister how many experiments were actually watched, because that seems to me very important. It is most important, also, that visits for this purpose should be unannounced. In February, the Minister was unable to give me an answer. What is the position now? Then I cited instances of very cruel experiments. I referred to one in particular about which I thought that the Minister had been given incorrect information. It was an experiment involving operations on a number of cats, in which one of their eyes was removed. Some of these animals were allowed to live for as long as a year after the experiment while observations were carried out on the membrane of the eye after its removal.

My hon. and learned Friend stated that these animals had been painlessly destroyed after a very short period and that they had not been kept alive for anything like as long as one year after the experiment. I wonder whether he has checked this information, because I am convinced that he was wrong. I have checked and I find that they were kept for approximately one year.

I referred to a book entitled "The Principles of Humane Experimental Technique." This was produced by two men who are eminent in the animal world, Mr. W. M. S. Russell and Mr. R. L. Burch. Mr. Burch was formerly of U.F.A.W. and Mr. Russell is still an experimentalist of U.F.A.W. I should like to quote again from the book so that my hon. and learned Friend will know what was said. They state:

"Even in research, therefore, the film is liable to diminish overt experiments. In teaching it is still more important. Teaching consists … of demonstration and class-work. The demonstration of relatively inhumane experiments may be largely or wholly replaced by the use of filmed experiments."

I wonder whether my hon. and learned Friend has talked about this and gone into it with the inspectors and various people engaged in research.

The authors go on to refer to the unnecessary pain which is caused to animals and to some of the worst features of experiments which have been undertaken. They state:

"The use of vertebrate hosts in virology must often involve direct inhumanity."

Has my hon. and learned Friend looked at that? A series of such statements is made, one of which is:

"If progress in the bioassay field is not yet all it could be, the position is more serious in that of toxicity testing. This is one usage which is an urgent humanitarian problem."

This was brought to his notice last February. Has he done anything about it? Has he considered it and thought about it? I commended the book to my hon. and learned Friend. I wonder whether he has read it. He should do so. If he has not, I should like him to do so as soon as possible. This book was written by men used to experiments, They say that very necessary reforms are required in the whole field of experimentation.

In February, my hon. and learned Friend could not make any reference to this passage of my speech when winding up the debate because time was then so short. It is not short this afternoon; he will have plenty of time. I hope that he will use it to answer these points. Since last February there has been widespread concern evident throughout the country. I offer no apology for the fact that the R.S.P.C.A.—of whose council, as my hon. and learned Friend knows, I am a member—has launched a campaign. It seems that the campaign has had an immediate and urgent public response.

I had letters from constituents and only a fortnight ago I had a petition from people in my constituency who had no knowledge of my association with animal welfare and with the R.S.P.C.A. I believe that they show the great concern which has been, and is being, shown in this matter. The list I have runs into several hundred names. This is not confined to my constituency.

I can assure my hon. Friend that I have been receiving a similar number of letters, but I have tried to get concrete evidence from these people.

I shall come to that later.

Hon. Members in all parties have expressed disquiet and serious concern about the position on several occasions. My hon. Friend the Member for Brighton, Pavilion has today referred to the debate we had on Home Office affairs on 10th May. Then, several hon. Members raised the question of experiments on animals and all referred to widespread uneasiness on the matter. My hon. Friend the Member for Ashford (Mr. Deedes) said that there was real need for an inquiry. He, like my hon. Friend the Member for Brighton, Pavilion, pointed out that probably the best way of getting something done from the point of view of speed, cost and in every other way, would be to appoint a High Court judge to look into the matter.

My hon. Friend the Member for East Grinstead (Mrs. Emmet) made several valuable suggestions. No doubt the Joint Under-Secretary may have been a little more rushed in giving consideration to these points since May than he has been on the points I raised in February. I hope that he has also given careful consideration to the points raised in May and will answer to them today. My hon. Friend the Member for East Grinstead said:

"we should inquire whether there are sufficient inspectors and whether the numbers of centres licensed could be reduced. Is it necessary to have so many?"

It would help inspectors tremendously if there were fewer laboratories.

In view of the number of laboratories already existing and the increased difficulties of supervision, I hope that new licences for experimentation will not be issued lightly. My hon. Friend asked:

"Would it be possible, perhaps, for Members of Parliament or experts in zoology to visit these laboratories from time to time? I am sure that it would make a good impression on the public to know that laymen were allowed within the precincts of these places."

It is extraordinary that farms and places where animals are kept for human food can be visited by the police and others, but the only people who can get inside these laboratories are inspectors and experimentalists themselves, so far as I can find. Perhaps my hon. and learned Friend will correct me if I am wrong in saying that and, if not, perhaps he will confirm what I have said.

My hon. Friend the Member for East Grinstead suggested that there might be

"a woman doctor or nursing expert or zoologist on the Board. Certainly I should like to see a woman on the Board, also a layman, so that the Board does not give the impression of having a vested interest in these laboratories."

How right she was. That is a major cause of concern. She said:

"It would also help if the Home Office, when it makes out the yearly report, explained to the public the tremendous benefits we have derived from experiments in these laboratories. It could explain how we have practically eradicated tuberculosis, how poliomyelitis has been brought under control. …"—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 10th May, 1962; Vol. 659, c. 705.]

In the same debate my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford, North (Mr. Iremonger) and my hon. Friend the Member for Colchester (Mr. Buck) also referred to the public disquiet over this matter and supported a demand for an inquiry into the whole of animal experimentation. I beg my hon. and learned Friend not to say that everything in the world is rosy. These are responsible Members of Parliament. They have shown very great restraint. I think that he knows hon. Members well enough to realise that we would hardly get such a wide cross-section of hon. Members expressing themselves so strongly unless there were very serious concern. Glib words will not cause these fears to disappear. We want much more than that. I hope that my hon. and learned Friend will give an assurance that it will be provided.

In his reply to the debate in May, my hon. and learned Friend the Minister of State said:

"Hon. Members have made a number of specific suggestions and I am sure that they would not expect me to give an immediate answer to all of them. But I can say that I propose to invite the attention to this of the Chairman of the Advisory Committee, who is Lord Morris of Borth-y-Gest and who is a Lord of Appeal.—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 10th May, 1962; Vol. 659, c. 767.]

I hope that he has an opportunity of calling the attention of the chairman to this matter in the very near future, if he has not done so already, because it is disquieting that the committee has met only once in the last three years. I should have thought, in view of the extent of growing public concern, that that alone would have been sufficient to highlight the notice of members of the committee and bring it to their urgent attention. It is at least necessary for them to get together to discuss this matter in an attempt to allay public disquiet, if for no other reason. He went on to say:

"… it would be courteous to him to invite his attention to what has been said in this debate and to consult his Advisory Committee on the suggestions that had been made. Let us first have their views and then we will consider the matter further."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 10th May, 1962; Vol. 658. c. 768.]

Let us have their views. For goodness' sake, do not let us wait another three years for them.

The pamphlet by Major Hume, to which my hon. Friend referred, has been issued by the U.F.A.W., which, no less than the R.S.P.C.A., is not—I repeat "not"—an anti-vivisectionist society. Many members of the U.F.A.W. are actively engaged in laboratory work and on animal experimentation. Again, I would like to commend this pamphlet to my hon. Friend and ask him if he has read it. I would also point out that it makes no attempt to exaggerate; it is extremely restrained in tone and has a positive and constructive approach to the whole subject of experiments on animals. Because it is restrained and unemotional, its conclusions, I believe, are even more important and more valuable.

I should like to draw attention to one or two of the passages in this admirable booklet. I would refer my hon. Friend to page 2. It states that

"Pregnancy tests are no longer treated as coming under the Act of 1876."

Note, "no longer". That was the Cruelty to Animals Act, not to encourage experimentation, but to stop cruelty to animals. Fundamentally, that is what it was intended for, but

"The writer does not know for certain why this is, but suspects that it has something to do with the abundance of young women fearing the worst, and possible abuse by abortionists. It may well be, however, that a retrograde step has been taken and that pregnancy tests ought to be restored to the ambit of the Act."

Will my hon. Friend have a look at that?

It also states:

"But often routine testing entails estimates of LD50, in which case about half the animals eventually die, or ED50. They must feel ill, at least, though often they become comotose. There are, however, a certain number of instances, in toxicology, for instance, in which more serious suffering arises. In any case, the vast volume and rapid increase in pharmaceutical testing (in large establishments the requisitioning of mice is like turning on a tap for water) raises several difficult questions:—(i) to what extent could an end point other than death be more often used in quantal assays? (2) Has the possibility of using protozoa and other similar organisms for screening been sufficiently explored? (3) Is the level of significance prescribed for bioassays reasonably related to clinical response? (4) To what extent, if at all, do tests required under the Therapeutic Substances Act, 1956, persist because they have become customary, after non-biological tests have become available? … Would a less empirical research strategy effect an economy of animals?"

This may be a little outside the orbit of control of my hon. and learned Friend, but at least I hope that some of the scientists will take note of that and give consideration to these very pungent and pertinent comments in this little booklet. It goes on to refer to other research procedures:

"They take place principally in universities and research institutions. Some years ago it was roughly estimated that about 45 per cent. of them relate to bacteriology, pathology, or parasitology. About 8½ per cent. may relate to genetics and are presumably free from suffering, unless in exceptional cases of abnormal mutations. About 12 per cent. may relate to nutrition and metabolism; usually these will be of a very innocent nature, though there are also instances in which the with-holding of food or water or of vitamins or other essential nutrients may entail severe conditions."

There is a comment which, I think, is very interesting on page 5:

"Humane scientists in Britain give a great deal of thought to the problem of minimising suffering and it is very desirable that they should continue to do so. Mild techniques are normally employed, though the writer feels a certain uneasiness about one or two particular licencees and a few procedures."

Even one or two licensees without the proper approach can cause a great deal of suffering to a great number of animals, and a few procedures, in which a great number of animals may be used, can only involve a great number of animals in a lot of unnecessary suffering. I hope that my hon. and learned Friend will look at that.

I am extremely pleased to see the comments of Major Hume, which we all know to be true, that the vast majority of experimentalists in this country are humane men and women who consider, above all, the care of the animals which they are using and inflict upon them the least possible suffering, and then only if they consider it necessary for the advancement of science which will benefit both humans and animals. I think that it would be quite wrong of me—and I have no such intention—to give any impression that the great number of these men and women do not carry out their duties in a way that is above reproach.

Major Hume states:

"A substantial number of U.F.A.W.'s members work in laboratories, either as research scientists or as technicians, and U.F.A.W.'s Scientific Advisory Committee includes experimental biologists of high standing."

I have quoted these passages to show the importance which, I believe, should be attached to this booklet.

There is an important passage on the work of the Home Office inspectorate. It is clear to hon. Members that those officers carry out their duties unselfishly and in a way which is above reproach. It is no reproach to them that there are not enough of them and that those who are there have not the time to do the job as thoroughly as we would like. If it is a reproach upon anybody, it is one upon my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary for not having increased their numbers so as to make it possible for them to do their job to the satisfaction of all.

Major Hume also says:

"Again, the inspectors go carefully into the qualifications of applicants for licences and the nature of the procedures to be permitted by the certificates which dispense with anaesthetics. They rely largely on precedent".

The Act has been in operation since 1876. I suggest that in view of the enormous number of experiments now compared with the number in 1876 a little less reliance should be placed on precedents and that the licences which are now granted on precedent should be reviewed in the light of existing circumstances. I hope that my hon. and learned Friend will undertake that that will be done.

There is another point in the booklet which has caused me disquiet:

"The most immediate restraints on a callous experimenter are the public opinion of his colleagues and the tradition which has been created under the British system of control. In a particular instance known to the writer a foreign licensee who had recently arrived in this country began to test analgesics by a cruel method which he has been accustomed to use at home. He was at once pulled up by two of his British colleagues and obliged to adopt a humane technique."

It was to the credit of his colleagues that they pulled him up. But how is it that that man was able to obtain a licence to carry out the experiments in this country and to carry them out with a technique which was cruel and unnecessary?

I suggest that in future any persons coming from abroad desiring to carry out experiments should have their qualifications very carefully checked, and it should be made clear to them what their responsibilities are and that the Home Office will not, in any circumstances, tolerate cruel experiments without proper licensing for those experiments, and that licences will not be issued for such experiments unless they are absolutely necessary.

Major Hume goes on:

"Nevertheless, while the good faith and good will of all the parties are beyond question, there are so few inspectors and they have so much to do that one would like to feel quite sure that all the requirements are always understood by all the licensees."

The point that I have just made about the visitor from abroad more vividly underlines the need for this than anything I could say.

I turn briefly to the question of veterinary representation on the inspectorate. I believe that my hon. and learned Friend, while saying that the Home Office would be willing to employ veterinary surgeons on the inspectorate—those who have studied the question believe that it is highly desirable at least in the field of animal anaesthesia—has given the impression that there are not veterinary surgeons with sufficient qualifications to be able to carry out the task, or that they cannot be obtained. I have discussed the matter with high officers of the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons and they say that veterinary surgeons are available if they are paid the proper remuneration for doing the job, but that we shall not get people with the necessary qualifications these days unless that is done.

That raises a very important point. I hope that all the inspectors at the Home Office—there are six at the moment, and I hope that there will be more—will be paid salaries which are in line with the qualities which they must possess and the duties which they have to perform. A great sum of money will not be involved, but if for the expenditure of a comparatively small sum all the fears of the public could be removed it would be a good investment.

I am sure that the R.S.P.C.A. and some of the other animal welfare societies would be very happy to put their hands in the "kitty" to supplement the Treasury on this if it were really necessary and desirable. But if the Treasury or the Home Office say that they cannot accept that, then they must accept the responsibility of paying the right people the right money so that they can do the job properly.

Finally, I refer the House to the comments that I made when I raised this matter on the Adjournment in February. It is a very difficult and very serious problem. We must realise that we who control the lives and destinies of so many animals so closely from their birth until the time they have served man's purpose have a duty, because of the bounty that we get from them, to ensure that during the time they are on earth they are treated in a humane way and are not subjected to more suffering in carrying out man's purpose than is absolutely necessary.

We must always remember that, despite what so many people think of animals, many of them, including the lower of the rodents, are highly sensitive, highly intelligent animals, and are subject to strong fears and stresses. I beg my hon. and learned Friend to realise that we have a very serious duty to perform towards the animal kingdom.

2.38 p.m.

I intervene briefly to say how grateful I am to my hon. Friend the Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Sir W. Teeling) for raising this subject and how glad I am that my hon. Friend the Member for Gillingham (Mr. Burden), the Chairman of the Animal Welfare Group in the House, has also been able to intervene. Between them they have covered all the ground that really needs to be covered on this subject, and I merely want to reinforce one or two points made by them.

My hon. Friend the Member for Brighton, Pavilion made the very valuable suggestion that the Home Office inspectorate should be reinforced by allowing the inspectors of the animal welfare societies to investigate some of the experiments. I support that most warmly. When we were discussing the Pet Animals Bill which I had the good fortune to pilot through the House in 1951, the Bill as originally drafted suggested that the inspectors of animal welfare societies, certainly those of the R.S.P.C.A., should be empowered to do this. The House took the view, on the advice of the Government of the day, that that would not be a wise procedure and that inspectors should be confined to those appointed by the Home Office.

In view of the enormous increase in the number of experiments on animals which my hon. Friends have shown are taking place now compared with those conducted a few years ago, and in view of the shortage of inspectors and the difficulty they have in making enough inspections, I ask that my suggestion be reconsidered. I do not suggest that my hon. Friend should answer this today. I merely ask the Home Office to reconsider my suggestion. Inspectors in the animal welfare societies are very qualified persons to assist in this way, otherwise they would not be inspectors in animal welfare societies. In view of this problem, I hope that my suggestion will be reconsidered and the attitude taken over eleven years ago when the Pet Animals Bill was discussed now revised.

What encouragement is given by the Home Office to local authorities to keep a watch on cases of cruelty to animals which are covered by the Pet Animals Act. The onus for bringing prosecutions and issuing or refusing licences for pet shops was placed on local authorities by that Act. I know that local authorities have many other problems to deal with, and perhaps many more pressing ones. They have other kinds of licences to deal with as well as licences to keep pet shops. What encouragement is given by the Home Office to local authorities, first, to initiate prosecutions where they feel that prosecutions are justified, and, secondly, to refuse the renewal of licences in cases where cruelty has taken place. Licences have to be renewed annually. Has the Home Office any information as to how many licences have been granted and subsequently refused over the last eleven years? I do not press for this information today, but I hope that we can have it at some time and that my hon. Friend will not have to say that the information is not obtainable, because it should be obtainable.

There is much feeling in the country about the vast number of experiments which are taking place. I am not in any way an anti-vivisectionist, nor are most of the people who are anxious about this matter. They only want to ensure that no experiments are being conducted that are not absolutely necessary. In view of the enormous increase which has taken place, I wonder whether they are all absolutely necessary. There is strong feeling about this. I hope that my hon. Friend will be able to allay some of the fears.

2.43 p.m.

I was not able to be present during the earlier part of this discussion, and I apologise for that. The points I want to raise may have been covered. Can the Minister give us any information about the source of supply of animals for experiments? I am in agreement with everything that I have heard about the experiments. They should be conducted only when they are absolutely necessary and they should be conducted with the minimum of cruelty. What has been worrying me lately are the stories about some cargoes of animals which have been arriving in this country under very unsatisfactory conditions. How far do the Government take steps to control that? What steps do the Government take to ensure that the animals are properly looked after on their way here?

Further, is a close watch kept on any source of supply from within this country? What I have in mind is that in the district where I live in north London there have been a number of instances lately of pet oats disappearing, apparently having been stolen. The suspicion is that they have been stolen for purposes of vivisection. This is a serious charge to make, but there seems to be no other reason for the series of disappearances of pets.

The hon. Gentleman is making a very important point. Although the figure of oats, dogs, mules and asses is rather lightly written off by many people on the basis that they amount to only 0·5 per cent., nevertheless 18,000 of them were used last year. As the number of experiments has reached these proportions, the difficulty of obtaining animals becomes evident.

It may be only a cat. It may be only a dog. That cat or that dog may represent something very important in the life of a family. From communications I have received I know how deeply people feel when their pet cat or pet dog disappears and they think that it has been stolen for this purpose. I hope that the Minister will be able to give us some indication that he has an eye on this matter.

2.46 p.m.

I should like to thank my hon. Friend the Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Sir W. Teeling) for his courtesy in giving me notice of some of the points which he has raised this afternoon, and indeed for the general tone of his speech, which seemed perfectly right in drawing attention to this problem. It certainly is a problem. My hon. Friend said that there was a growing feeling of unease because of modern developments in medicine. My right hon. Friend is fully conscious of this growing feeling. It is going on, and it will grow bigger, as I shall hope to show later in my speech.

I was particularly glad that in the course of more than one speech references were made to Major Hume. I had the privilege of having a long talk with Major Hume only yesterday, and I shall have more to say about his pamphlet later.

Much of the public concern has been provoked by the pamphlet of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals called, "Cruelty within the Law". I had the temerity to raise some questions on that pamphlet last time I spoke on this subject. I should like to say here and now, with the full authority of Major Hume himself, that those criticisms of this pamplet were nothing to the bitter attack that Major Hume made on this pamphlet. He has indeed done so in public.

Of the demands voiced this afternoon, and I think in the pamphlet, that R.S.P.C.A. inspectors should somehow share the responsibility of inspecting premises, Major Hume writes this:

"The R.S.P.C.A. have suggested that their inspectors should have access to laboratories. But the assessment of pain is a technical matter in which persons devoid of a scientific training may go badly astray."

Major Hume then gives an instance which is so damaging that, unless I am challenged on the matter, I would rather not repeat it.

As I am on the subject of this very distinguished gentleman, perhaps I may deal with his pamphlet now. In many respects it goes completely counter to the R.S.P.C.A. pamphlet, as one might expect from what I have already said. The R.S.P.C.A. pamphlet makes great point of the fact that there are no prosecutions under this Act, as if that showed that the Act was not being properly administered. Major Hume, however, says this:

"The inspectors also inspect premises before licensing them. They visit laboratories about three times a year on the average. The popular notion that a Home Office inspector should be primarily a policeman, pouncing on laboratories in the hope of catching out an F.R.S. in some breach of the law, is wholly unrealistic. Such a policy would fail to create the requisite climate of opinion, and would not achieve its object."

I would point out that it was Major Hume himself who quoted in this pamphlet an instance of a foreigner who came here, obtained a licence, and carried out experiments in an extremely cruel way. Presumably, had the Home Office known about it, it would have prosecuted.

That may well be, but Major Hume also says:

"Normally any breach of the regulations will be due not to recalcitrance but to failure to understand them, especially on the part of foreigners or beginners."

One does not normally prosecute people for failure of understanding, but because they have flagrantly or recklessly broken the law. That is the method of prosecution here.

I have been asked to deal with the minimum salary of inspectors, which is mentioned in Major Hume's pamphlet and has also been referred to in this debate. It seems to be generally thought that there are not enough inspectors. I hope to deal with that matter later, but Major Hume says:

"In order to widen the field of recruitment a minimum salary of £3,000 p.a. is desirable …."

I am told that the present salary is £2,950—£50 a year less than the £3,000 suggested, but virtually the same.

My hon. Friend the Member for Brighton, Pavilion, in furthering, as he is quite entitled to do, the resolution of the Brighton Council, suggested that there should be a Royal Commission. Major Hume comes out strongly against a Royal Commission, and says:

"A new Royal Commission taking evidence from non-scientific witnesses would get bogged down in a morass of misrepresentation and misunderstanding and is to be deprecated, but good work might be done by a group of humane and knowledgeable scientists reviewing as a whole the actualities of present-day research and the ethical principles involved."

In a Supply day debate, my hon. Friend the Minister of State undertook that Lord Morris of Borth-y-Gest would be asked to review the operation of the Act. I am happy to say that that has been done. Lord Morris will start his investigations as soon as possible.

It would be impossible for me not to be conscious that there exists a feeling that there is secrecy here but, in a sense, the responsibility put on the Home Office by the Act makes that inevitable. These are not our plants or institutions. They are not like prisons or borstals, with which a comparison has been drawn. These are private institutions, and our only power to enter or inspect them is the power given by the Act, and no more.

When I am asked why we cannot throw these things more open to public scrutiny, the answer is that we have not the power under the Act——

Amend the Act.

My hon. Friend has been in this House longer than I, and he knows that we cannot discuss that in an adjournment debate. I have to discuss the administration of the Act as it is, and the Act as it is makes perfectly clear what our powers are. They are extremely limited powers. However, I have already said, and I do not mind saying it publicly, that if any hon. Members wish to go over these establishments we will do our best to see that the licensees show them over the premises—and I am sure that they will.

I must repeat the warning I have given in other circumstances that it is necessary for hon. Members to take a certain risk of infection. In many cases, they must be prepared to put on special clothing, and to undergo various washing and other hygienic procedures, but if hon. Members wish to do this—and I have so far had no candidates—we will do our best to see that they go. But we cannot guarantee it, because these are not Home Office plants or installations——

Would it not be a sheer waste of time if those people knew that hon. Members were coming? It would be like an army inspection.

In spite of that, a lot of people do inspect army establishments, and some of them think it worth while to do so. I do not quite see how, within the terms of the Act as it is, we can be expected to spring upon an installation a posse of Members of Parliament at dead of night, or anything like that. I am as keen as anybody, and I say it with all sincerity, to make as little of a mystery of this matter as possible because, as hon. Members have said, I am quite sure that secrecy is one of the great dangers.

Two other matters outside the Act have been referred to. It has been suggested that a large number of local authorities have failed to use their powers of inspection under the Riding Establishments Act, 1939. The Home Office has recently sent a circular to local authorities drawing attention to their power to inspect riding schools, and I hope that it will have some effect. We will consider acting on the suggestion of my hon. Friend the Member for Wembley, South (Mr. Russell), to act in the same way under the Pet Animals Act. I do not think we have done that, but one does not want to shower circulars on local authorities. We will consider it, however, and see whether there is a need for it. I shall certainly try to get the figures relating to the administration of that Act for which my hon. Friend asks.

The hon. Lady the Member for Blackburn (Mrs. Castle) recently asked my right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture about the Protection of Animals (Anaesthetics) Act. That is entirely a matter for the Ministry of Agriculture, and although the hon. Lady suggested that the Home Office might be approached, I am instructed that constitutionally it does not come within our purview at all.

My hon. Friend the Member for Brighton, Pavilion said some very kind things about the frequency and care with which the Home Office inspectors have visited the Brighton Technical School, and I am sure that he is right about that. He said that the Home Office should be more forthcoming about its good works and not do them in secret, and he may well be right there.

My hon. Friend also said that there were not enough inspectors, and almost everyone else in this debate has repeated that statement. The other day, I did something that I do not think has ever been done before. I gathered all six of the inspectors together in one room, with myself, and talked to them on this point, because the frequency with which this allegation is made is such that one wants to get down to it. They assured me, individually and collectively, that at least at present they were confident that they could do the work.

In all walks of life views are expressed to there never being enough of many things. That would, no doubt, apply if there were 13 or 300 inspectors. If there were 300 of them premises would be better inspected, but the inspectors are convinced that at present they are adequately inspected. I cannot say more than that; but I will undertake to continue to watch this matter and if at any time there is any sign that the inspectors feel—and they are men of great honesty and reliability—that they are over-stretched, we shall certainly take action.

Usually, under the Parkinson dispensation in which we live, people are inclined to say that they are overworked or that they need more staff. The inspectors in this case, however, did not make the usual response in this connection. They feel that they can do the job and they do not feel that the criticism about their numbers is at all fair.

I was horrified to hear the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion, refer to experiments on criminals in Antigua. That, in spite of the ever-widening Imperial duties of the Home Office, does not come within our purview, but I will pass on his terrible story to the Colonial Secretary to see what can be done, for it would seem a damaging story needing investigation right away.

I cannot agree more with the necessity for animal care and trained animal technicians to look after them. A great deal of the criticism expressed is not really due to the operative procedures that take place on animals—which, I think, are generally regarded as necessary—but is more largely directed to the way in which some establishments, one or two of them but certainly not the great majority, look after their stock of animals. The Home Office inspectors undoubtedly use the knowledge and experience gained from one plant in trying to help others which are not so good in looking after their animals.

It is often a question of money and the inspectors, to a certain extent, frequently go outside the duties imposed on them, for there is nothing about animal welfare in the Act. This is a matter which, by force of persuasion and example, the inspectors help to deal with the one or two not very good establishments that may exist. Curiously enough, perhaps because more money is available to them, the commercial establishments are rather better in this matter than the hospitals and universities. We certainly realise that something needs attention in this connection and we shall give it such attention as we can.

My hon. Friend the Member for Gillingham (Mr. Burden) drew attention to there having been a slight drop recently in the number of visits paid by inspectors to establishments compared with a previous year. That is true, for two reasons. First, one of the inspectors resigned, I understand that there was some difficulty in obtaining a successor and that for about a month there were only five instead of six inspectors. Secondly, the test is the number of establishments rather than the number of operative procedures. The number of establishments has slightly dropped and it is likely that the number of visits has slightly dropped as well.

Concerning the number of experiments watched, I am advised that the inspectors do not keep any special records of these because in the vast majority of eases the actual insertion of the needle is not the important moment. The important thing is to see whether animals are suffering as a result of the needle or the feeding procedure or whatever it might be.

If that is so, why is so much made of the fact that so many of the experiments are mere inoculations? The Joint Under-Secretary has himself admitted that it is not the inoculation which causes the trouble but the after effects.

I am making the point that the inoculation is not really the important moment in regard to the 3 million or whatever the number is of inoculations that are given. Thus the watching of the actual inoculation is not the moment when an inspector should necessarily be present. The time to be there may be a week later or visits spread over a longer period to see whether the animal is suffering and, if it is, to call the attention of the licensee to the animal's pain, condition, or whatever the case might be.

Regarding filmed experiments, I was asked in a sharp way whether I had done anything about this subject and whether I had read a certain book. I have gone into the matter to see the extent to which, in demonstrations to students, it is possible to demonstrate by means of recorded film rather than by repeating the experiment. We are busily pursuing this possibility with the teaching authorities. I have to tell my hon. Friend that the teaching authorities are not much in favour of it. They say that the value of the demonstration is very much, as it were, stereoscopic, in the round, and that that is a quality that one cannot always get from a film. I do not know about that, and I will not accept it as a final answer. I shall pursue it further because it seems to be a very good point, and that in so far as it is not necessary to repeat an experiment for a different series of students as they come along so much suffering may be diminished.

My hon. Friend the Member for Gillingham asked me about the pregnancy tests. Here again I must refer to the Act:

"A person shall not perform on a living animal any experiment calculated to give pain, except subject to the restrictions imposed by this Act."

It is only within that orbit that we have any power at all——

I am sorry to interrupt my hon. Friend and I hope that he will forgive me. I did make the point that the pregnancy tests were excluded under the Act and that they have since been removed from the control of the Act. That was the point made by Major Hume. He asked why they have been removed from the control of the Act and why that control should not be restored. I think that is an important point.

It is an important point and one which I was just about to try to answer. The important point is that after 1,876 medical experts told us that the pregnancy test is not calculated to give pain to the animal on which the substance is tested. That being so, it is not within our power to prescribe conditions relating to it. There may be differences of medical opinion as to whether it is calculated to give pain or not, but of course neither my hon. Friend nor I are doctors. We can only take the advice of the best people we have. We took the advice, I believe, of our advisory committee on this subject, which was an extremely distinguished body. This was many years ago, of course. They advised to the contrary.

However, since Major Hume, my hon. Friend and others think that it may be "calculated to give pain"—those are the words of the Act—we will certainly look at it again and that may well he a matter to which we might ask Lord Morris of Borth-y-Gest to give his particular attention.

My hon. Friend reverted to the question of having someone with veterinary experience on the inspectorate. He knows now that we have substantially implemented the requirements of Major Hume so far as salary is concerned. That is to say, it is virtually £3,000 a year. If he can produce for us a veterinary surgeon who has the medical qualifications which I shall seek to show in a minute are really essential for this job, no one would be happier than we, and we would certainly appoint him if in other respects he were suitable.

I strongly believe that it would be a very good thing not only for the inspectorate and not only for the licensees but also for the veterinary profession that we should have one, but we must insist on the quality of the inspectorate because, as Major Hume says, it is on the quality of the inspectorate and on the confidence that the licensees have in the inspectorate, that the whole structure of the enforcement of the Act must rely. Unless we can keep up the quality of the inspectorate and unless the licensee feels that the inspector is somebody who really knows what he is talking about, the whole structure will begin to dissolve. We can only do that if these people have very high medical qualifications, or so I am advised.

Finally, concerning my hon. Friend the Member for Gillingham, I will certainly withdraw what I said at the time of our last encounter about the experiment on cats. It is true that in one or two cases the cats were kept alive for nearly a year. I am instructed that the cats would have suffered no pain and little inconvenience as a result of this and that, if they had been shown to have any pain they would, of course, have been destroyed long before, under the condition relating to pain. I apologise if I misled my hon. Friend. As he reminded us, I had to make a very rushed speech then, and I did not do justice to his case in that matter.

All hon. Members have made clear that they are not opposed to experiments on animals as such. I believe that it is generally recognised that vivisection experiments have in the past provided and will continue to provide an enormous fund of information to assist in alleviating pain and suffering in human beings. I should like to see very much what my hon. Friend the Member for Gillingham suggested, that the benefits to be obtained from these experiments not only to the human race but to the animal kingdom also in many cases should be put forward, but I think that it would probably attract a good deal of criticism on constitutional grounds if the Home Office were to make this case in its annual report under the administration of the Act.

It is, however, common ground among us all that animals should not be made to suffer unnecessarily, and I appreciate the sincerity of those who, in their concern that no unnecessary suffering shall be caused to animals used in experiments, question the system of control.

The two main questions raised in this connection are, first, whether we can be sure that experiments performed on living animals in this country are in accordance with the provisions of the 1876 Act—and, as a side question to that, whether the experiments are really necessary—and, second, whether everything possible is done to ensure that experiments which are authorised are carried out in such a way as to cause the minimum of pain to the animals used.

Sometimes, the criticism is made that animals are used in tests for what are called cosmetic purposes. My hon. Friend the Member for Brighton, Pavilion did not make that case today. He made a rather different case, saying, I think, that this was done in the United States of America and the fruits of it were, as it were, advertised in this country for the benefit of English firms. I think that one would have to reflect a long time before one interfered in any way with the right of American firms to advertise or solicit trade in that way. We do not allow experiments which come under the Act—calculated to give pain—for what are described as purely cosmetic purposes.

On the other hand, it is not easy to decide where to draw the line between preparations which have some medical or therapeutic properties and others which may be said to be merely for the improvement of nature. It is necessary also to ensure that preparations of either kind which are sold to the public may not produce some harmful effect, for instance, on the skin. Questions of dermatitis and the science of dermatology come very close to the borderline here, and I think that this is a subject which is likely to grow in importance and which needs watching.

My hon. Friend the Member for Brighton, Pavilion mentioned the testing of substances on rabbits' eyes. As he clearly said, this was not an experiment in this country, and none of our researches have enabled us to find anything comparable to it here.

As for the brain machine of which he spoke, I have no knowledge of this, nor have my advisers. I should very much like more information about that because it sounds a most terrifying organ.

I have spoken of the various safeguards in previous debates, but I must repeat them again, because we attach immense importance to them. We are sometimes criticised by the medical authorities for being rigid in this matter. I am not sure that Major Hume does not think we are a little rigid in some ways. In the first place, the person wishing to perform such an experiment—that is, an experiment calculated to give pain—would have to obtain a licence under the Act.

To obtain his licence he would have to be able to show that he was suitably qualified to perform the experiments proposed. His application would have to be supported by the recommendation of the president of a learned society and of a university professor of a branch of medical science. The applicant would have to show to the satisfaction of the Home Secretary that his experiment was intended to widen physiological knowledge, or knowledge useful for saving or prolonging life or alleviating suffering.

In considering the application, the Home Secretary would have the expert advice of the inspectors appointed under the Act, and, in a difficult case, further expert advice would be obtained. That is one of the functions of the inspectors—to advise the Home Secretary that the experiment was intended to widen physiological knowledge, or knowledge useful for saving or prolonging life or alleviating suffering. It is, therefore, very necessary to have very high medical and scientific qualifications. If the application were eventually granted, the licensee would be able to perform his experiment only in a place approved for the purpose by the Home Secretary, and no place is approved until it has been inspected by an inspector. That is only the first stage which has to be gone through.

I agree with Major Hume—I do not think that anyone would disagree—that the system of certificates, which, if analysed, is, I believe, perfectly right and watertight, is rather muddling under their different headings. In addition to the licences, since experiments of the kind to Which my hon. Friends have referred would presumably be carried out without the animal being anaesthetised, licensees would require a Certificate A for their experiments. This certificate also would have to be signed by persons having the same qualifications as those supporting the application for a licence and would be required to certify that insensibility in the animal on which the experiment was to be performed could not be produced without necessarily frustrating the object of the experiment.

The certificate, when signed by the sponsors, must be forwarded to the Home Secretary, who may disallow it if he is not satisfied with it in any respect. If he does not disallow it, be will make it subject to a number of conditions, including what is known as the "pain condition". Under this latter condition, if any animal at any time during the experiment under the certificate is found to be suffering pain which is either severe or likely to endure, and if the main result of the experiment has been attained, it must forthwith be painlessly killed.

If the animal at any time during the experiment is found to be suffering severe pain which is likely to endure, it must be killed, whether or not the main result of the experiment has been achieved. Explaining these pain conditions to licensees is one of the chief functions of the inspectors. They are very determined men in explaining to any new licensee or to anyone not familiar with these things exactly what is involved in the pain condition.

I think that it will be clear from what I have said that authority to perform experiments is not lightly granted. It is certainly not true to say, as has been alleged during the recent campaign against experiments under the Act, that it has been turned into an Act to allow almost unlimited and uncontrolled experiments on animals.

As regards control over the performance of the experiment once authority fat it has been granted, I am sure that we recognise that many of those who conduct these experiments are people of very high standing and reputation who, not only have no desire or incentive to inflict unnecessary suffering on animals, but who also must have regard to the fact that if they were to do so it would adversely affect their professional reputations.

Few of these experiments are conducted by individual scientists in isolation—they are team matters—and if any licensee were to conduct experiments in an undesirable way, his shortcomings would quickly be brought to the notice of his own colleagues, as in the case quoted by my hon. Friend, that of the foreigner.

The functions of the inspectors are threefold. First, they have to maintain close contact with those working in medical research and in related fields; and to be personally acqainted with the most eminent and influential doctors and scientists who are concerned with experiments on animals.

Secondly, they must be qualified and able to examine applications for authority to perform experiments, and to advise the Home Secretary on the desirability of allowing proposed experiments to be performed, and on the useful knowledge which is to be obtained from such experiments. In performing this function, the inspectors naturally have careful regard to all the provisions of the Act.

Thirdly, it is the function of the inspectors to visit from time to time the establishments at which experiments are carried out. Too much emphasis is often laid on this last function, to the exclusion of all else, and it has frequently been suggested that the number of inspectors is insufficient, having regard to the number of experiments now performed under the Act.

It is neither desirable nor practicable for inspectors to watch every experiment, or even any appreciable percentage of all the experiments performed. It is much more important that the inspectors should ensure, by continuous personal contact with licensees, that they understand and fulfil their responsibilities under the Act without an inspector looking over their shoulders all the time.

Nearly all of the 1,500 or so visits which are made to registered places are made without previous notice. Those laboratories where large numbers of experiments and where the more unusual experiments are carried out are more frequently visited than others at which only routine procedures may be performed. I should, none the less, like to say to all hon. Members what I have said already—that if at any time any of them are in possession of information which would lead them to think that there has been an offence against the provisions of the Act, the inspectors under the Act are available to investigate such an allegation immediately, but of course we must have some details or it is impossible not only to identify the experiment but to do anything useful.

Much play has been made in the course of the recent campaign against the Act with the steady increase in recent years in the total number of experiments performed under the Act, as shown in the annual return submitted to Parliament. I have commented previously on the conclusions to be drawn from these figures, but as misleading interpretations continue to be put on them, I feel it necessary to repeat what I have said.

Fortunately, the large number of experiments recorded is not a measure of the amount of suffering involved. Nor does the annual increase in the total represent a proportional increase in suffering. Ninety per cent. of the experiments performed under the Act are performed under certificate A without anxsthetics—but nothing more severe than simple inoculations or superficial venesection is allowed to be performed under this certificate. They include numerous feeding experiments, which seldom cause any pain.

They also include more than 1 million experiments designed to secure the purity and efficacy of the remarkable drugs which have come into use in the last twenty-five years for the treatment of common infections. These not only cannot be satisfactorily tested, but are not allowed to be tested, chemically, and so the Therapeutic Substances Regulations require animals to be used for the purpose. In these cases, each batch of the new drug, even though it be of the same formula, must be tested in each case because of the immense need to take every precaution against the public being in any way infected or damaged.

Unfortunate experiences with some new substances developed in recent times have made it clear that in future more rather than less testing of this kind is likely to be necessary if the production of undesirable, and even horrifying, side-effects from the use of the substances by human beings are to be avoided.

There springs to all our minds the terrible stories we read of the drug Distaval and of the monstrous births which have occurred not so much in this country as on the Continent, and this is an illustration of the immense need for seeing that these new drugs are tested over and over again in the most complete way if we are to avoid a terrible tragedy of that sort.

Perhaps I might sum up by saying that all that has been said on this subject this afternoon has been concerned with the problem of striking a proper balance. The fears of the hon. Member for Accrington (Mr. H. Hynd) about the sources of supply are unfounded, although I know that the stories are widespread. There is no truth in the idea that animals are obtained by irregular means and include people's pets which have strayed from home. An increasing number of animals are bred specially for the purpose, and otherwise they must be obtained only through credited and responsible dealers who normally breed animals for this purpose. It is the normal practice now for the laboratory concerned to ask the dealer to furnish a certificate stating that the animals have been obtained by lawful means and are his own property.

This problem of a proper balance between suffering in animals and the march of medical science and the benefits it brings to humans and to animals is a difficult one. We all wish to avoid the infliction of unnecesssary suffering on animals. On the other hand, we must not restrict unduly the development of medical science with the attendant benefits not only for human welfare, but for animals as well.

It has been said, and I entirely agree, that our record in the treatment of animals is as good as, if not better than, that of any other civilised country in the world. The bitter opposition to the attempt to bring something like the Cruelty to Animals Act, which for all its age struck a fairly good balance, into the United States of America at this moment under the Clark-Griffiths legislation in Congress shows the degree to which we have been pioneers in protecting animals, and the 1876 Act, though an octogenarian, is still capable of performing its task.

It provides a framework within which it has been possible, in changing circumstances, to preserve the balance between the conflicting interests. I would not like my hon. Friends to think that my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary is complacent in this matter, or that the Home Office is complacent. We are certainly not. As I said, the problem will get bigger rather than smaller with the growing need to test these drugs.

We in the Home Office have in recent months gone into this subject in great detail, and we are consulting Lord Morris of Borth-y-Gest, who seems the best person, on the various suggestions which have been made.

I thank my hon. and learned Friend for what he has said, but I want to be clear about the position of Lord Morris of Borth-y-Gest. Is he to make the inquiry, or is he just being consulted? Is he to be on his own, or will he conduct the inquiry with other members of the advisory council?

Lord Morris has been asked how he thinks this should be done. In view of the criticisms of the medical profession and of the Home Office, we thought it better that we should have a distinguished layman to do the job. But I do not know how far his inquiries will range, whether he will make them alone or whether he will want help in the matter. He will undoubtedly need some advice, but whether he will need help in the sense of having another inquirer I cannot say. We want him to be consulted on the method of procedure because part of our troubles has been—I think largely as a result of the R.S.P.C.A. pamphlet—a quite unjustified lack of trust in the present administration. It is to see what should be done to restore that trust that we have asked this very distinguished layman to give us his views.

I raised several points in my speech in February, but my hon. Friend still has not been able to give me an answer to them. A great deal of the mistrust that exists in the minds of hon. Members on this side and also hon. Members opposite would disappear if some of these questions could be answered—if not in the House then by letter—because we still want to know the answers.

Secondly, my hon. and learned Friend has made use of Major Hume's pamphlet where it is at variance with the views of the R.S.P.C.A. I asked what was being done about the points in respect of which Major Hume had expressed serious concern. I hope that my hon. Friend will be able to write to me on these points, as he cannot give me an answer this afternoon.

I have given my hon. Friend the answer in respect of several of Major Hume's criticisms. I have said that we regard the question of the minimum salary as having been met. I disagree with my hon. Friend about the enlargement of the Home Office inspectorate. I thought that I had dealt with his criticisms. As for the question of animal welfare, I have explained the limitation of our powers under the Act and that we admit the difficulty with animal welfare technicians, in respect of hospitals and universities, because of those limitations.

As for what my hon. Friend has said about his speech in February, I did not know that he was going to speak today—although I make no complaint about that. I shall certainly go through his speech and write to him if I find any points which have not been dealt with by me today. When I say "dealt with" I do not necessarily mean that I shall satisfy my hon. Friend. I do not ever expect to be able to do that. But I will write to my hon. Friend and give him such answers as I can.

I am most grateful.

We are satisfied that although the Act is no doubt capable of improvement, if we had unlimited time, it is adequate to maintain a fair and humane balance in the present circumstances. I do not exclude the fact that with the immensely rapid development of medical science, and as human discoveries and activities increase—in spite of the fact that almost all those engaged in this country in the pursuit of medical science are themselves remarkably humane, in the sense that we can probably find, proportionately, more animal lovers among those involved in experiments on animals than we will find outside—we must be adaptable.

I will consider the question whether we are too much bound by precedent. Precedent can be a bad taskmaster, but if we are administering an Act it can also be a good one. We must not necessarily think that precedent is wrong. It gives a uniformity Which makes people think that there is fairness in administration. Uniformity is one of the most important qualities in this respect, even if it may not be as flexible and foresighted as one would like.

We will undoubtedly have learnt from this debate, and I am obliged to my hon. Friend for initiating it. I do not deplore the fact that we have had rather longer to debate the matter today than on previous occasions; indeed, I welcome it. I will go through the speech that my hon. Friend the Member for Gillingham made in February and see whether there are any loose ends left about, in respect of which I will write to him.