I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment.

It may be for the convenience of the House if at the same time we consider the next Lords Amendment, in page 2, to leave out lines 8 to 10.

I should tell the House, if the House has not already spotted it, that there are no fewer than 81 other Lords Amendments to the Bill related to the same subject

The subject is the change of name of the Inland Waterways Authority. As the Bill was originally drafted we used that title believing that it was a little more descriptive of the functions this body would perform. It was, however, represented to us by the Inland Waterways Association that the initials I.W.A. had become very well known to many people in the waterways world as being the initials of that association, and that, if we had Inland Waterways Authority, the current tendency to describe bodies by their initials would almost certainly lead to confusion. In Standing Committee we agreed to look at the point. In consequence, in another place Amendments were made to change the name to British Waterways Board. It has, incidentally, the extra advantage that the use of the name British Waterways, which is applied widely to the British Transport Commission's waterways property, will not have to be changed and there will consequently be a saving of money.

I hope that that explanation of these Amendments will satisfy the House and that the House will agree with them. I am not quite sure how we should proceed with the other Amendments scat- tered through the Bill, but perhaps, Mr. Speaker, you would take into consideration that we have had this debate upon this change and take those other Amendments without further debate when we reach them.

Yes.

. I wish only to say that in Standing Committee the view was expressed on all sides that it really was rather ridiculous that all the other bodies should be called "boards" and this single one "authority," that that view was accepted tentatively by the Government, and that on second thoughts the Government have agreed to accept the views expressed in the Standing Committee and to have these alterations made.

As it fell to me to put this point to my hon. Friend in Committee, I should like to say on behalf of all those interested in the subject how grateful we are for the courtesy and consideration he and his right hon. Friend have shown in adopting the changes set out. There is no doubt about it that the other name would have led to great confusion. The new arrangement, although perhaps not the one which we might have chosen, is at any rate a great deal better than the former, and I should like to express my gratitude to my hon. Friend for that.

I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment.

This Amendment was made at Report stage in another place following an undertaking by the Government in the Standing Committee of this House that we would consider an Amendment to the Bill to provide that experience in dock management should count as one of the qualications for membership of the Docks Board under Clause 1 (5). I think this is a useful Amendment to meet—I am relying on my memory—a point which was ventilated in the Standing Committee where we said we would gladly see if we were able to do something about it.

In the interests of saving wear and tear on your voice, Mr. Speaker, I wonder if it would be possible for you somehow to cut down the time on putting the questions on these Lords Amendments by taking them en bloc. I am quite sure that nobody would have any objection to that procedure if it is possible.

I am much obliged to the hon. Member. I will follow that course as far as I can. It may, of course, be interrupted by Amendments on other topics, but otherwise I shall follow that course on consequential Amendments, if the House will allow me.

I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment.

It provides that the Minister's order under Clause 8 (5) shall be made by the vesting date. This order is one which certifies the routes on which the London Transport Executive had power to carry passengers by stage or express carriage services at any time in the year ending with the date of publication of the Bill. The certification of these routes is of some importance, because the London Board is given certain powers under Clause 8 (1, b and c) to carry passengers both on those routes and, with the consent of the Minister, beyond them.

So we gave an assurance in another place that the order would be made as long as was possible before the vesting date, but we agreed that an Amendment might be made which would require an order to be made within a specified time. Since the order has to be made on vesting date so as to allow London Transport the powers it needs to operate on the routes concerned without its services being dislocated, there could, I think, be no objection to an Amendment which compels the order to be made by that date. We shall complete our consultations about the order with the interested parties well before vesting date.

I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment.

Clause 11 has undergone various vicissitudes in another place. I think I can explain briefly to the House what the current position is. This is the Clause which deals with the development of their land by the boards. In another place at the Committee stage four Government Amendments were made to it. They have all been incorporated in the new Clause which was inserted on Report stage in another place, and now appeals on the Notice Paper.

What we seek to do in Clause 11 is to make it clear that where the boards have surplus land which they want to develop, they should be free to dispose of the land as developed whether by outright sale, by lease or by tenancy for use by another person.

The first of the Amendments deletes the general reference to retention or disposal of surplus land in Clause 11, and provides accordingly.

The second Amendment made in another place to the original Clause in effect remodels subsection (2). As the subsection originally read, it was not clear whether

"the erection of buildings of any description for use for purposes other than the purposes of their business "

related to the use of that land by and for purposes of other persons or by the Boards themselves.

Our intention clearly is that when the boards develop surplus land by erecting buildings for purposes other than the purposes of their business, those buildings shall be used by other persons and not by the boards. To give an example, a board might find that some of its surplus land would bring in its best return if flats or other housing accommodation were erected for sale or lease to someone else for use quite unconnected with the purposes of the board It is not intended that in circumstances like that a board itself should use such buildings for such general purposes but should sell or lease them to other people for their use. So the second Amendment clarifies the intention of subsection (2) and makes clear that when a Board develops land

"for purposes other than the purposes of their business"

those purposes are to be the purposes of other persons to whom the land and buildings might be sold, leased or rented. This is a very technical matter, and I apologise to the House for having to put it on record, but I hope I have made it clear. The third and fourth Amendments made to the Clause are purely consequential.

All I need say in conclusion is that our remodelling of the Clause conveys a much clearer picture of what our intention is with regard to the powers to be vested in the boards. I hope that the House will agree to the new Clause replacing the Clause that we had in the Bill when it was previously with us.

I would remind the House that there is another new Clause which deals with the development of the boards' land in London, which raises rather different issues, and it would be preferable if we could delay any discussion of that point until we reach that new Clause.

I wish to put on record how grateful I am sure those who are concerned with the administration of railway land will be for the Clause. As one who was formerly in the legal department of a railway company, I can say that nothing was more destructive to the proper use of railway land than the law as it was then. There was a tremendous waste of land in that it could not be used for purposes for which it might usefully have been used. The original Clause was a great improvement upon the position, but I now congratulate my right hon. and hon. Friends and those in another place upon having made an even more substantial improvement in the new Clause. I think it will probably work very well.

I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment.

The Amendment deletes from paragraph (k) of subsection (1) of Clause 14 the express reference to the provision of electricity as one of the powers of the boards. The background to this is that at the present time the British Transport Commission, in agreement with the electricity authorities, provides surplus electricity which it generates to third parties when this is convenient to itself and to the others concerned. The situation arises principally in certain docks where it is convenient for the Commission to provide some of its tenants with electricity from its own ring main. At one time we thought that some express power ought to be included in the Bill to put it beyond doubt that this activity could go on. As passed by the House, the Bill made special provision for it in the paragraph to which I have referred. That gave the boards a general power to turn their resources to account so far as they were not required for the purposes of their business. But my right hon. Friend was subsequently advised that this reference to electricity was unnecessary, and, accordingly, it was deleted in another place.

I can reassure the House that a deletion of this kind does not make any difference at all to the existing practice. In fact, I think that it might be said that it more truly reflects the present practice of removing express references to a matter of no great importance, and it thereby avoids any possible misleading impression which could be created that the Boards could become significant generators or suppliers of electricity on a grand scale throughout the country.

The Amendment results in a reversion to the position Which obtains at the present time, when the Commission undertakes the work as a purely marginal activity without having any express statutory authority under the Transport Act, 1947.

It might be for the convenience of the House, Mr. Speaker, if we dealt at the same time with the Lords Amendments, in page 26, line 45, leave out from "assets" to second "and" and in page 27, line 2, leave out from "loss" to end of line 3.

Yes.

I beg to move, That this House doth agree with Lords in the said Amendment.

The Amendments delete from subsection (4) of Clause 28 the express provision that a direction given by Che Minister under the powers conferred by Clause 28 may require a board to abrogate a contract notwithstanding that the board concerned may as a consequence of so doing be liable to damages for breach of contract.

11.30 a.m.

The right hon. Member for Vauxhall (Mr. Strauss) will remember that this point was discussed in Standing Committee. We included this express provision in the Clause because originally we thought that it would be necessary to remove any doubt there might be that a board would be obliged to comply with the direction given by the Minister under this subsection, notwithstanding that compliance might involve the board in breaking a contractual obligation which it had entered into.

I explained at the time that this was a technical and legal point and gave my advice accordingly to the Committee. The Amendment then under discussion was withdrawn with the request from the Opposition that the position should be given further consideration. We have given it that further consideration and we are now told by our legal advisers that a board would not be absolved from the obligation to comply with a direction given by the Minister under subsection (3) on the ground that to do so would mean that it could not comply with a contractual obligation and might be liable for damages for breach of contract.

The express provision as it stood was. therefore, purely declaratory as a matter of law. There are a number of other provisions in the Bill which are pertinent here. For example, under Clause 53, relating to coastal shipping, the same point could arise and a declaratory provision in subsection (4) of Clause 28 having the effect of throwing some doubt on the position in these provisions.

To avoid any difficulties of that kind, it seemed, on consideration, best to delete the provision in Clause 28. The short effect is that in a case where the Minister has power to give directions to a board, the board will be bound to comply with that direction notwithstanding the existence of any contract which relates to the subject matter of the transaction. The position as between the board and any third parties affected in that way would be a matter to be dealt with under the general law. The Amendment is purely drafting, paving the way for the substantive Amendments which follow.

I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment.

It would I think be convenient, Mr. Speaker, if we also discussed with this Amendment, which is a paving Amendment to the proposed new Clause B dealing with the organisation of the transport police, the following Lords Amendments—in page 79, line 21, page 79, line 27, page 80, line 7, page 80, line 13, page 80, line 14, page 80, line 23, and page 99, line 11.

This may seem rather a lot, but I assure you that they all go together and form a simple consecutive story which I can briefly explain.

That may be done if the House so pleases, but I should be obliged if I may be reminded of all these Amendments as we proceed further.

If we can deal with them all, Mr. Speaker, it will be in the general interest.

I am obliged to you Mr. Speaker, and to the right hon. Gentleman. Under the Bill as passed by this House it was left entirely to the new boards to decide, as a matter of management, what organisation they should adopt for their police forces. This was in line with the present position of the British Transport Commission. Under its existing powers, the B.T.C. has chosen to establish a single unified police force, which is known as the British Transport Commission Police Force. This covers the whole of the Commission's undertakings. It has an establishment of about 3,000 policemen and is the third largest police force in the country. It has an excellent record of efficiency.

In another place, it was considered necessary to make some statutory provision to limit the discretion of the new boards as regards the exercise of their police powers, and in particular there were very strong representations that a single unified police force on the lines of the present force should continue. So we put down Amendments which were agreed to in another place. Amongst other things, they provide for the continuance of a unified force, unless it seems to the Minister that there are special reasons to the contrary.

We have it in mind that the British Railways Board will, after the Bill is enacted, prepare a scheme on the lines of the Amendments and of the new Clause which are all intended to enable this to be done. The general position will be that after the Bill becomes law a scheme will be prepared by the British Railways Board and presented to the Minister, and it will be for him. in consultation with the boards, to decide what actually should be done with the police.

I would not like to speculate on the outcome, but I assure the House, which, I am sure, is anxious to know about this, that we shall do our best to work in the closest contact with the representatives of the B.T.C. police. The last thing we want to do is to see damage done to that excellent force. We shall do all we can to ensure efficiency with a proper adjustment of the responsibilities of the boards in policing their undertakings.

I understand that the Amendment goes some way towards preserving the unity of the B.T.C. police force. The advisability of this was urged strongly in Committee here and we had an argument about it. However, those who were putting forward the case got very little help from the Government and nothing could be done. As usual, all the technical difficulties were pointed out and we were told that we must wait and see and that the Minister would take into account everything that had been said, but that no alteration of the Bill was possible without causing very substantial technical difficulties which might lead to delays and trouble later on.

This is one of the occasions where the Lords have stepped in and have been successful where the Commons failed. Sometimes we get these instances where one is very pleased that the House of Lords exists and that their Lordships are able to stand up to the Government more effectively sometimes than the Opposition in this House. Indeed, there have been a number of cases recently where the opposition in the House of Lords has fell freer from political association and when a number of noble Lords have combined to force the Government to accept Amendments which were denied in the Commons.

Does that mean that the Opposition are now in favour of the continuance of another place in its present form?

Oh, dear, no.

Order. I think we had better confine our debate to the Lords Amendment.

You were, as usual, wise to pull us up very early before the debate continues, Mr. Speaker, for if we got out of hand it would last a long time.

I am glad that the Amendment was moved in the Lords and that this House is now being asked to endorse it. As I understand it, what is to happen is that the whole of the British Transport Commission police force is going to the Railways Board and the chances of it being broken up later on, while not completely removed, are made less likely. The case for keeping this body as a unified whole is very strong. It has a proud tradition and it is well organised and has the great advantage of enabling its members to move from one section to the other, from the railways to the docks, or road haulage, and so on. Its members are most anxious on all grounds that the force should not be broken up but should be allowed to continue as a unified body doing a very good job and all the stronger in making representations to the Commission because it is one body instead of five small units.

I concede that the Parliamentary Secretary cannot commit himself completely today, but I should like a further assurance that the chances, in view of what both Houses have done, are that this body will remain as a single unit and not be broken up. In view of the expressions of opinion in both Houses, of which the Minister must take note, that now seems to be the probability. If the Parliamentary Secretary can say something more about that issue, I should be very grateful.

These Amendments are very complicated when one has not served on the Standing Committee. When detailed Amendments are made in another place, one has to try to fit the new arrangements into the Bill and see what one has at the end. I thank the Parliamentary Secretary for his care in explaining the matter to us.

Is this the last this House will hear of this arrangement? I gather from what he said that one of the boards will prepare a scheme and submit it to the Minister and that when the Minister has approved the scheme, that will end the matter. In view of its importance, it would be advisable for the Minister to submit his decision to Parliament for ratification so that there could be a debate on the appropriate Order. I am not opposed to the Amendment, but all police powers are important and while it is a good thing for unity to 'be maintained, I hope that it will be possible for Parliament to have an opportunity of considering the final arrangement before it becomes operative.

By leave of the House, it was a pity, Mr. Speaker, that you felt obliged to intervene at a very important moment in the speech of the right hon. Member for Vauxhall (Mr. Strauss). I am sure that we are very grateful to another place for having revised this provision with great care, and we have benefited from its views.

The right hon. Gentleman asked whether the changes meant that the chances were that the force would remain unified. It is difficult to answer that question, because much will depend on what emerges from the scheme and, secondly, on whether any of the boards put forward special reasons why something different from a unified force should be created.

As I explained, the Railways Board is now put under a duty to prepare and submit to the Minister, within twelve months of vesting day, a scheme for the organisation of the police on a unitary basis, as a single force. The scheme provides for that single force unless the Minister is satisfied that there are special reasons why there should be a separate police force for more than one of the boards. At that stage, the onus will be on the individual boards to put to the Minister reasons which they consider to be special why there should be not a single force, but a force tailor-made to their requirements.

It is very difficult for me now to speculate on what the various special reasons might be which the boards might possibly put forward. I do not know. If I were compelled to say something on this issue, I would say that the chances of there being a single unified force were brighter now than they were when the Bill left this House. But I must make it clear that much will depend on any reasons which may be advanced by the individual boards for having their own individual forces. The requirements of London Transport and the docks, for example, demand entirely different police arrangements from those of the British Railways Board, and one cannot imagine that the British Waterways Board for example will require a police force of its own. Matters of that sort will all have to be considered by the Minster at the time.

The right hon. Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede) asked whether Par- liament would have an opportunity of considering the scheme again. The answer is "Yes". The right hon. Gentleman will see that subsection (7) of new Clause B provides that after a scheme has been approved, any board may apply for modification. Subsection (8) then says:

"The power conferred by this section on the Minister to make orders shall be exercisable by statutory instrument subject to annulment in pursuance of a resolution of either House of Parliament."

The effect of that is that the scheme would be submitted to Parliament in the form of regulations and Parliament would then have the normal opportunity, by way of Prayer, of dealing with the matter in debate if it so wished.

I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment.

This is really a drafting Amendment. In fact, the Commission does not own all of. the shares in the bodies listed in Parts I to IV of the Fourth Schedule. In particular, the British Electric Traction Group holds shares to an equal extent in the B.E.T. bus companies listed in List B of Part IV of the Fourth Schedule. So the words in lines 16 and 17 on page 31 which read:

"(being securities beneficially owned by the Commission)"

might seem to suggest that the Commission is the beneficial owner of all the bodies listed. The words "so far as" which the Amendment seeks to substitute for the words "being securities" are therefore more apt to the actual situation.

I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment.

This is a further drafting Amendment to remove a possible doubt in connection with the provision in subsection (8) dealing with disputes between a former employee of the Commission and one of the new bodies to which he has been transferred under the provisions of Clause 34.

Under that Clause it is a matter for discussion as to what service the new body may select for him as being reasonably comparable with those under his service agreement. Subsection (8) provides for such disputes to be reported to the Minister of Labour by any party to the agreement, and there was some doubt about whether the words were entirely apt to include the new employer in place of the Commission as being a party to a service agreement.

The intention of the Amendment is to make it clear that there is an express reference to the Board or company or the other party to the agreement, to put the matter beyond doubt.

I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in this said Amendment.

This Amendment is intended to cure a defect in the criterion which we set out in Clause 40 for deciding the amount of the suspended debt of the Railways Board. The House will recollect that a substantial part of the existing debt of the British Transport Commission, which is to be transferred to the Railways Board, is to be placed in suspense.

Subsection (2) defines the way in which the suspended debt is to be calculated. It is to be that part of the commencing capital debt of the Railways Board which in the opinion of the Minister is not—and I emphasise the "not"— represented by the written-down book value of the assets which have been created by the Commission since the end of 1955 and which vest in the Railways Board. In other words, the debt which is represented by the assets created since the end of 1955, mainly the new money that has gone in for modernisation, will continue to be live. The debt represented by all the other assets created prior to that time will be a suspended debt. That is the effect.

The subsection was drafted in terms appropriate to physical assets. In fact, however, the assets passing to the Railways Board will include shareholdings in various companies. The most important of these will be the shareholdings in the hotel company which is to be set up under Clause 33, and it is clear that the present wording of the Bill is not appropriate in relation to those assets.

It is our intention that the debt represented by those assets should be live, and the Amendment provides that any securities which vest in the Railways Board shall be treated as if they were assets created by the Commission since the end of 1955. I hope that that explains the matter.

Considerations of Privilege arise on the next four Amendments. Should the House be willing to express agreement with the Lords Amendments I shall cause the requisite entry to be made in the Journal.

I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment.

Yes.

These four Amendments relate to charges for the carriage by rail of traffic which has been carried by coastal shipping to or from a port and for the carriage of which there is no reasonable alternative to rail for the onward and inland part of the overall journey.

The background to this is that the Commons on Report—and the right hon. Member for Vauxhall (Mr. Strauss) will remember this—amended the Clause so that coastal shipping should have protection on the short haul, that is, where the haul is by rail from the pit to the port where the railways often have a monopoly. Coastal shippers were frightened that the railways would change too low a price and price them out of business.

The coastal shipping interests pointed out that it was not only from pit to port, but from the other port, when it arrived there, to the final destination, whenever that might be, that the railways might still have a similar monopoly. The fourth Amendment, in paragraphs (a) and (b) of subsection (5), gives the Minister a power of direction, following a complaint by a representative body of shipowners about the Railways Board's charges for carriage by rail to or from a port for goods which are to be or have been carried by coastal shipping.

I want to make it clear that the Minister's power of direction should be available in these short haul cases only where the railways have a monopoly position, because the whole need for special protection for coastal shipping on "pit to port" and the corresponding section of the overall journey at its other end arises from the fear of the exercise by the Railways Board of monopoly power. Accordingly, it is proposed to make the next Amendment to the Clause. This will have the effect of providing that the Minister cannot give a direction to the Railways Board in respect of short haul traffic unless it appears to him that the goods cannot reasonably be carried by coastal shipping unless they are carried by rail to or from the port concerned. I hope, therefore, that the House will agree with these Amendments.

I am sure that the House will want to agree with these Amendments. In a way it seems rather strange that coastal shipping interests, which are both the companies that own the boats and the seamen who earn their livelihood in them, should be so frightened that a publicly-owned body whose main purpose is to serve the public interest should try to strangle them out of existence. One would have thought that any publicly-owned corporation or organisation of any sort would have the general public interest in view, but the situation today is a bit different because we are to have a Railways Board whose primary job will be to make money to reduce its losses, using any means under its control to do so.

With this new attitude of the Government and the general direction which they have given to the Commission, I think that it is possible, or at least conceivable, that the Railways Board might try to take away the trade which coastal shipping has earned for itself and make a profit to the detriment of the coastal shipping industry. Under these conditions it seems reasonable that the coastal shipping industry should take steps to see that the Railways Board is not in a position to strangle it by charging improper rates for the transport of goods either from pit to port or from port to the final destination. 12 noon.

I should have thought that, even under the present régime, with Dr. Beeching as head of the Transport Commission or the Railways Board, such an unfair practice would not be permitted, and that it is stretching commercial freedom far too far to say that it would permit the Railways Board, because of its peculiar monopoly situation, to destroy, or even greatly damage, another important transport industry. Nevertheless, I think that the coastal shipping industry had good reason to seek every proper safeguard which it could get, and was fully justified in asking Parliament to insert in the Bill such protection as may be necessary to prevent the Railways Board acting in this extremely unpleasant way, which I myself do not think it would have done, but which it might well do under the new régime which exists in the railway services.

Therefore, I think the House will be very willing to accept this Amendment, which gives further protection to the shipping industry against predatory and unfair actions which the Railways Board might take in order to divert traffic to itself from that industry.

The Clause as it will stand after this Amendment has been incorporated in it will be very different from the Clause which emerged from the Committee stage, when it was still in the form of the original draft in the Bill.

My right hon. Friend has been extremely good in listening patiently to the case put to him by the coastal shipping interests, and he was undoubtedly ready to consider with care the case which was advocated so competently by my hon. Friend the Member for Brighton, Kemp-town (Mr. David James) during the Committee stage in this House. This is one of those instances in which all the seafaring bodies, the National Union of Seamen and the officers' organisation, have joined with the shipowners in pressing upon my right hon. Friend the unfairness of the original proposals in that they did not adequately safeguard the position of coastal shipping. My right hon. Friend was good enough to see deputations from the Chamber of Shipping, and also my hon. Friend the Member for Barkston Ash (Sir L. Ropnar), my hon. Friend the Member for Kemptown and myself who took deputations to see him, as well as others of my hon. Friends, with the result that he was fully appraised of the dangers which coastal shipping interests feared from the legislation as originally contemplated.

On Report stage, my right hon. Friend introduced an Amendment which met many, but not all, of our objections to the Bill as it was then drawn. It did not meet certain points in Amendments which I and others of my hon. Friends sought to raise at that time, but they have now been remedied in full measure. In fact, the Lords Amendment goes even further than we asked my right hon. Friend to go on Report stage. In another place, Lord Teynham has been perhaps even more persuasive than we were able to be in securing further safeguards for the coastal shipping industry.

My right hon. Friend has been most generous in looking at the whole situation and in tieing up the coastal shipping problem completely. This important industry of coastal shipping is an industry for which the people of Britain have a great affection, for its war time exploits, as well as for the quietly efficient manner in which it carries out its duties and performs its services in peacetime. The industry will now be protected against the danger that it might be smothered by the nationalised railways, which at present enjoy a subsidy. My right hon. Friend has indicated that, on the long hauls, the danger has been that the Railways Board might cut the prices of its freight rates. On short hauls, both from the coal pits to the ports and from the ports to the ultimate destination to which the goods may be sent, the danger is that the railways may change unrealistically high rates to the detriment of coastal shipping in its competition with the Railways Board.

Now, in the Bill as it will stand after the Amendment is carried, if there should be cause for complaint on either score, there is further provision covering the position if the railways should refuse to quote rates for the short haul, and my right hon. Friend can appoint a person of suitable qualifications to report on the need for intervention, and on the possibility of my Tight hon. Friend giving directions to the Railways Board. On the Report stage, it was indicated that this person of high qualifications might well be an accountant. Since both my right hon. Friend and myself are accountants, I think we must agree that an accountant would be a very suitable person for the appointment.

With the protection which the Bill now provides, it is to be hoped that the coastal shipping industry will have confidence to increase its efficiency and arrest the decline in the number of ships and the tonnage operating round our coasts. I know that I am expressing the view of the coastal shipowners and the seafarers, as well as that of those of my hon. Friends and hon. Gentlemen opposite who take an active interest in this industry, in thanking my right hon. Friend for the attention which he has devoted to coastal shipping and for the very satisfactory result evident on the Order Paper today.

I will not detain the House very long, but, as one who planted a thorn in the Minister's side during the Committee stage, I must give him my personal thanks for what has taken place. It was a very difficult task to reconcile the free commercial operations of the railways with adequate protection for the coastal shipping industry, but I believe that, as a result of what has transpired during the last eight months, this result has been achieved.

I have seen one or two Ministers at various moments, and I have been left with the impression that if we had had a portable tape-recorder in front of an empty chair, the time of both parties would have been saved. My right hon. Friend has such a flexible mind and such a sense of all the difficulties that it is always a pleasure to talk to him, and I think all those who went to see him felt that he would genuinely try to do everything he could to help. I should like to add to what my hon. Friend has said about the value of this industry to the country, and to say that if we were to enter the Common Market, this industry would become absolutely crucial.

I am delighted to know that the Bill has been further improved in another place, and can say that a number of shipowners—though I have no connection with the industry, personally—who know that I followed this matter in Committee, have said that they hoped that this expression of thanks to the Minister would be made.

I wish to add a word of thanks to the Minister for the Amendment which has been made to the Bill in another place, which goes rather further than those which were accepted when the Bill first came before this House. At that time, my right hon. Friend was pressed by my hon. Friends who have already spoken,—the hon. Members for Southampton, Test (Mr. J. Howard) and Brighton, Kemptown (Mr. D. James) and also by my hon. Friend the Member for Barkston Ash (Sir L. Ropner), who were anxious that this Amendment should be accepted because of the threatened decline in coastal shipping.

This was of particular interest and concern to my constituency in Northern Ireland and to other persons in Northern Ireland, We are very largely dependent on the success and prosperity of coastal shipping, and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Test has said, it would have been possible for higher rates to be quoted for the short journeys from pit to port and much lower rates per ton mile for the long journeys within Britain. This would not only have an adverse effect on coastal shipping; it would affect such areas as Northern Ireland, which is dependent on coastal shipping and which has also had to face continuous increases in the price of freight in the past year.

A great deal of alarm has been expressed in Northern Ireland as a result of these increases, not only in shipping circles but in the chamber of commerce and other places. Part of the confusion has been caused by the fact that in some cases both the shipping service and the railway service has been provided by the Board, and it has been impossible to discover how the costs have been apportioned between the shipping part of the journey and that part which has been done by rail. Northern Ireland is still not satisfied on this point, although I am pleased with the Amendments as they stand, especially in view of what has already been said by the Minister, and also when considering this Clause together with Clause 28 of the Bill as amended, which provides that the Minister has power to order the Board to alter charges which are out of proportion, in spite of any threat of breach of contract.

I hope that as a result of these Amendments the Minister will be able to give a further assurance that in the relationships between railways and coastal shipping every effort will be made to avoid wasteful duplication of services, so that the two forms of transport will work together for the good not only of coastal shippers but those people in that part of the country which I represent.

I congratulate my hon. Friends on the great success that they have had with my right hon. Friend, and I congratulate him, too, upon resolving what was a very nasty situation in Committee, where there was great dissension and trouble. I am glad to see that concord has been reached.

Does my right hon. Friend visualise the possibility of any unfair competition, or any pressure being brought by the railways upon inland water transport, particularly with reference to independent carriers and carriers who exercise their trade in borderline cases, operating partly as coastal shippers and partly on inland waterways. Certain vessels go through estuarial waters and then up inland waterways. Will they have the protection of this Clause? If my right hon. Friend considers that undue influence is being brought to bear by the railways in future will he try to apply the principles which are set out so well here?

I am grateful to my hon. Friends for their thanks and compliments. Nowadays, and this week in particular, this, to a politician, is like manna from heaven.

In answer to the right hon. Member for Vauxhall (Mr. Strauss), I take the view that coastal shipping was apprehensive of the railways long before Dr. Beeching became Chairman of the Commission. It was more scared of the 1947 Act than of anything else that we have had. I do not accept the right hon. Gentleman's strictures that it has reason to be more afraid now than it was then.

I can tell my hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Test (Mr. J. Howard) that I, too, hope that this provision Will lead to more efficiency in the coastal shipping industry. He mentioned the question of an investigation by an independent person, and I want to explain a little further, for the convenience of the House, what the words contained in subsection (4) mean. That subsection places a duty upon the Minister to refer complaints to a suitably qualified person for investigation, and to consider the report of that person before deciding whether a direction should be given to the Board. During the Third Reading debate I said that:

"when complaints are made I proposed to appoint an accountant of very high standing to investigate impartially and then to report to me."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 18th April, 1962; Vol. 658, c. 586.]

He will be the independent investigator.

It should be noticed that in this part of the Amendment the Minister is not obliged to refer all complaints to an independent investigator, but only those where,the representative body concerned has established what is, in the Minister's opinion, a reasonable case in support of its complaint. This is necessary because the Minister must be able to avoid unnecessary duplication of reference to an investigator, and so save expense and time-wasting investigations.

There is a precedent for the use of the concept of "reasonable", which appears here. The precedent is contained in paragraph 2 (1) of Part I of the Fourth Schedule to the Transport Act, 1953, under which the Transport Tribunal can take action in relation to coastal shipping if it considers that shipowners have made out a "reasonable case". The Clause refers to "a person appearing to" me "to have suitable qualifications." That has been put in because, in some circumstances, I may think that a solicitor or a man of business would be more suited to do the job than an accountant. This provision has been left fairly wide.

12.15 p.m.

Subsection (5) deals with the refusal of the Railways Board to quote a charge. This has been inserted to enable the Minister to deal with a situation in which the Board is deliberately refusing to quote a charge at all, in order to prevent goods being carried by coastal shipping. It is highly unlikely to occur in practice, but it might be possible in theory, at any rate, for the railways to exploit their monopoly position in short-haul cases by refusing to quote any charge. This would mean, in effect, that they ware unwilling to carry the goods. The Amendment meets this hypothetical situation by providing that, if on a complaint made by a body— which can complain in a case where charges are made—it appears to the Minister that the Railways Board has refused to quote for the carriage of goods by rail to or from a harbour in a case where the monopoly conditions exist, the Minister may give a direction.

If a monopoly situation does not exist there is no need for this provision to come into action. My hon. Friends have been very reasonable in this matter. I am grateful to them for calling my attention to the various aspects of the coastal shipping case. If I decide that the railways have refused to quote a charge I can give directions requiring this to be done. It would be possible for the Minister to deal with a complaint where no charge had been made in the monopoly type of case, but this does not mean that the Minister would issue a direction in every case where the Board has refused to carry goods which someone wants it to carry to or from a harbour, because it may have good reasons for refusing to do so. It may be that it is proposing to close down the provision of goods services from a port to the proposed destination of the goods, or that it has other bona fide reasons, such as a shortage of manpower or wagons, for refusing to carry the goods. In those oases the Minister would not propose to issue a direction.

The purpose of the new subsection is to enable the Minister to dead with a case, if ever one arose, where it appeared to him that the Railways Board was adopting the device of refusing to quote a charge merely for the purpose of exploiting its monopoly position. It would then be driving traffic away from coastal shipping so as to get it carried for the whole of its journey by rail. I am extremely grateful to my hon. Friends for the help which they gave me in trying to hammer out a difficult position and to resolve the problem. It was not a question of any lack of will to do so, but the provision of a mechanism to ensure fair play has been difficult. I think that we have now been successful.

Subsection (6) provides that the procedure on any complaint under the Clause shall be such as the Minister may determine. The Amendment has been put forward to make it clear beyond doubt that the proceedings are informal and are not referable to the courts on procedural matters. It is important that in the investigation of these complaints there should be no disclosure to the body making the complaint of the charges which the Railways Board is making, since this is the sort of information which cannot be disclosed to its competitors without risk of its interests being damaged. In these circumstances it was felt desirable to make it clear that the Minister must have power to determine in what way complaints should be dealt with by him, and how the person to whom the complaint is referred for investigation should carry out that investigation.

This will have the advantage of enabling the complaint to be dealt with as speedily as possible. The shipowners attach great importance to these cases, as I do, and I shall do my utmost to see that they are decided quickly.

Subsection (7), in page 5, line 30, deals with the question of whether a charge has actually to be made before any complaint can be lodged with the Minister or with a complaint made about charges proposed to be made. It has always been my view that "charges made" covers charges which had been quoted by the Railways Board to a person who wants to get his goods carried by rail. But it was apparent from the discussions on the point that there was some uncertainty on the question of whether "charges made" covered charges which had to be quoted in advance of carrying the goods.

This Amendment puts the point beyond doubt by making it clear that reference to a charge made for the carriage of goods includes references to a charge at which the Board holds itself out as willing to carry any goods. I think that sensible. Therefore, I hope that the House will agree with the Lords in the said Amendment.

May I have an answer to the point which I raised with my right hon. Friend?

It covers estuarial waiters but not inland waterways.

Will my right hon. Friend deal with the point concerning the position where the Board provides both the shipping and the rail services? Will it be possible to discover how the pricing is apportioned between the rail and the shipping parts of the carriage?

No, not under this Amendment.

I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment.

Clause 54 provides that the Railways Board, and the London Board, shall from time to time give advanced public notice of their plans to discontinue railway passenger or goods services so that users, both the public and trade and industry, can have as comprehensive information as may be available in good time for them to make the necessary arrangements to fit in with the changes in railway services. But as Clause 54 stood when it came out of the Commons, the provision for publication of advanced notice of such plans related purely to railway services and not to railway shipping services whether provided directly by the Railways Board or through subsidiary companies.

The shipping services referred to are, in fact, extensions of the railway system and it is just as necessary for those concerned to have advance notice of the discontinuance of railway shipping services as of railway services. This Amendment, therefore, provides accordingly by including the discontinuance of railway shipping services within the obligation imposed by Clause 54 on the Railways Board to give advance notice of its plans.

It will be seen that the Amendment is drawn to embrace two subsidiary companies, namely, the Caledonian Steam Packet Company Limited and the Caledonian Steam Packet (Irish Services) Limited. Amendments have also been made by the Lords to Clause 56 to include the services and facilities provided by these two companies within the ambit of the Transport Users' Consultative Committee. Therefore, I hope that the House will agree with the Lords in the said Amendment.

I should like, very briefly, to add that this Amendment is particularly welcome in Northern Ireland where it is of particular concern to the people living there.

I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment.

This and the next Amendment will enable the Nationalised Transport Advisory Council to advise the Minister on any questions relating to the coordination, or any other aspect, of the nationalised transport undertakings. As the Bill came out of the Commons, the Council was limited to advise only on such questions as were referred to it by the Minister. The Amendments will therefore enable the Council to take the initiative in considering any question where this seems desirable to it. It should be noted that the Amendments do not in any way alter the advisory nature of the Council or give it any executive capacity but merely enlarge the orbit of subjects which it can discuss.

During the Committee stage of the Bill upstairs, we sought to alter this Clause in many ways and to make the National Transport Advisory Council a much more important body and one much less limited in scope than was suggested in the Bill when it originally appealed before us. One of Che proposals which we put forward was that the Council should not be limited, as the Minister suggested, to dealing with questions which the Minister put before it. We wanted many other things, too. We wanted the body to be able to co-ordinate and do things other than just advise. We were beaten on that, but on this matter we are delighted that once again their Lordships have succeeded in doing what we failed to do. As a result of the Amendment, the Council will now be able to consider every sort of problem, as I understand it, dealing with the nationalised transport undertakings, and not just those put before it by the Minister. I therefore give a very warm welcome to these Amendments which will make some improvement, though a very small improvement—it does not go as far as we wanted it to go—in the scope of authority of this new Council.

I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment.

This Amendment will allow the Nationalised Transport Advisory Council to advise the Minister on questions relating to the Transport Holding Company. It is really a drafting Amendment because the definition, when it parted from this House, was defective in that it did not refer to the Holding Company itself. Therefore, the Nationalised Transport Advisory Council would have the affairs of the Holding Company excluded from its deliberations. I think everybody will agree that that would be a mistake, because the Holding Company holds the shares in an amazingly large number of bus companies and it is quite clear that their actitvies ought to be discussed in the Council if it thought fit.

I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment.

The purpose of this Amendment is really to give a word which is more precise and to make it absolutely clear that it is the duty of the Committees to consider representations. The idea is to make absolutely certain that the Committees know what they have to do. It is a change of words which gives more precision to our meaning.

I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment.

Subsection (14) of Clause 56 as it emerged from the Commons, provided that the Central Committee could from time to time make recommendations to the area transport users' consultative committees with respect to any matter affecting the procedure of those committees. The Central Committee includes the chairmen of the area committees in its membership, and the intention of this provision was to enable them to discuss matters in which uniformity among the area committees was desirable, and to make recommendations accordingly. However, it was subsequently advised that the word "procedure" may be too narrow in certain circumstances which I will outline.

One of the matters in which uniformity among the area committees is desirable is in the general lines of the reports which they will make to the Minister under subsections (9) to (11) of the Clause. Under the procedure set out in these and the two preceding subsections for dealing with passenger closures the area committees will be charged with the task of reporting to the Minister on the hardship likely to be involved in such closures and of making proposals for the alleviation of hardship. The area committees' reports will be seat direct to the Minister. Copies will be sent to the Central Committee as wall as to the board concerned, but the Central Committee will play no part in the consideration of individual closure proposals or their effects on users.

It is clearly desirable that the reports which the Minister receives from the various area committees should be on broadly similar lines and should adopt broadly similar criteria and standards for 'the assessment of hardship. It would be monstrous if in one part of the country there was one criterion for hardship and in another part of the country shore was another criterion. Due weight must, of course, be given to local circumstances, but the Minister will be greatly helped in his consideration of individual cases if area committees are in general working on the same lines in making these reports. It is therefore desirable that the powers of the Central Committee to make recommendations to the area committees under subsection (14) should be widely enough drawn to enable them to make recommendations on matters of this kind. For this reason the second Amendment provides for the insertion of the words "or functions" after the word "procedure".

On the other hand, there must be no doubt about the fact that these reports on closure cases go straight from the area committee to the Minister without the intervention of the Central Committee. To make this abundantly clear, and to avoid the possibility of the Central Committee's recommendations under subsection (14) referring to any individual closure case, the word "general" was added before "recommendations" by the first of the Amendments.

I should like to say that the present chairmen of the Central Committee and the area committees are in entire agreement with the purpose and intention of these Amendments.

I do not think that anyone would disagree with the purpose and intention of the Amendment, but it does not seem that the words will achieve the purpose which is required. After the Amendment has been made, all that the Clause will say is:

"… the Central Committee may from time to time make general recommendations to the Area Committees with respect to any matter affecting the procedure or functions of those Committees."

That is all right. But I understand that the Minister wants the Central Committee to make suggestions about standards of hardship and matters of that sort so that there may be some kind of uniformity. It is true that within the wording it would be possible for the Central Committee to do this. But there does not seem to me any such suggestion arising from the words as they will now stand that it shall be the function of the Central Committee to give directions on general points about standards of hardship which should be in the minds of members of the local committees when making recommendations to the Minister. While one does not object to the Amendment, it would appear that it does not achieve the purpose which the Minister has in mind.

I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment.

With permission, Mr. Speaker, perhaps we could discuss the Seventh Schedule with this Amendment.

If the House so pleases.

The main effect of the Amendment which is really a drafting Amendment is to enable the Minister to deal with passenger closures which have taken place before the Bill becomes law, or are before him at the commencement of Clause 57, in a similar way as with those which will fall within the procedure laid down. In other words, it covers the (transitional period.

I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment.

Clause 56 (4) provides that the transport users' consultative committees are to consider, and where it appears to them desirable, make recommendations, with respect to any matter affecting the services and facilities—I stress those words—provided by any of the boards. "Services and facilities" as regards the Railways Board include not only its railway services but other services, notably shipping services, operated by the Board. The words do not, however, include any shipping service provided by a subsidiary company of the Railways Board. In fact, two such companies will become wholly owned subsidiaries of the Railways Board under Clause 31 and Part I of the Fourth Schedule, namely, the Caledonian Steam Packet Company Limited and the Caledonian Steam Packet Company (Irish Services) Limited.

Therefore, there is no distinction between the nature of the services operated by these two companies and the shipping services operated directly by the railways. They are both extensions of the railway system and it is therefore considered that the services and facilities they provide should be open to the transport users' consultative committee procedure like any other railway shipping services to which they are akin. The Amendment provides accordingly and widens the scope of what may be considered by the transport users' consultative committee.

I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment.

I think that it would be convenient if with this Amendment we also discuss the Amendment in page 64, line 12 leave out "(4) In the last foregoing subsection" and insert:

"(4) Any road service licence which is transferred on the vesting date to the London Board under Part II of this Act and which authorises the London Board to provide a road service on a restricted route shall have effect as if it contained a condition that the Board shall not both pick up and set down a passenger on the route, but any such condition may be varied subject to the provisions of this section.

(5) In the two last foregoing subsections"

Both these Amendments provide that current road service licences which vest in the London Board on vesting date are to contain a notional condition to the same effect as any restriction imposed under the London Passenger Transport Act, 1933 if the licence related to a restricted route. I had better explain that.

The restricted route is defined in subsection (4) of the Clause as one over which the London Transport Executive had power to run its buses at any time in the 12 months before the publication of the Bill. But this is subject to a condition that the Board should not both pick up and set down passengers on the route. The first Amendment, in line 42, is consequential and a drafting Amendment relevant to the second Amendment. The Amendment is necessary since licences currently in force are not subject to the special procedures set out in subsection (1) of Clause 59. As these licences last for up to three years it seemed right to us that licences in force on vesting date should be deemed to be subject to the conditions about picking up and setting down passengers on restricted routes.

Although the Amendment refers to variation of conditions, in fact the Traffic Commissioners will not be able to dispense with such conditions under its powers under Section 134 (3) of the Road Traffic Act, 1960. So any attempt by the Board, if an attempt were made, to vary the conditions of restriction of existing licences would bring the routes outside the conditions of exemption. That would involve a variation in the conditions of a road service licence. Protection for other operators is provided for in subsection (2) of Clause 59 and this would apply automatically.

I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment.

I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment.

Subsection (1) of Clause 61 as it emerged from this House provided that Section 17 of the Regulation of Railways Act, 1873, should apply to the British Waterways Board as it formerly applied to the railway companies. That Section of that Act requires the British Transport Commission at present to maintain certain inland waterways in a navigable condition. Subsection (2) of Clause 61 provided that those obligations should relate only to inland waterways which formerly were covered by Section 17 of the Act of 1873, that is to say, which were transferred to the Commission from a railway company, and which have not since been statutorily closed to navigation.

It is important to understand the background. On nationalisation the railway companies were amalgamated into the British Transport Commission. They brought with them as part of their im-pedimenta a certain number of canals which they had acquired over the years. At the same time the Commission acquired virtually all the other canals in the country. The 1873 Act applied only to those canals which came to the Commission from the old railway companies and not to those which the Commission got by way of nationalisation in 1947.

The subsection restored the position which held good before nationalisation. The only provision in public legislation which required the maintenance of canals for navigation applied solely to the formerly railway-owned canals. This was quite apart from any obligations of that kind imposed by private legislation, and there was a great deal of that legislation. The original intention of Section 17 of the 1873 Act was to ensure that the railway companies which acquired canals from competitors, in those days, would not allow the canals to decay. As the British Waterways Board will not be a railway company, specific provision is necessary to impose this obligation on the Board.

The Amendment makes this provision and extends the provision of Section 17 to all canals owned by the Board, those which have never been owned by railway companies and which have not enjoyed the Section 17 protection before nationalisation. The B.T.C. canals are at present subject to this obligation. Upon consideration, in the (light of views expressed in another place, we came to the conclusion that the present position should continue.

I thank my hon. Friend very much for what he has done to facilitate this position. The decision arrived at is, I am sure, the right one. When we were in Committee upstairs and under the pressure of the Guillotine it was impossible to discuss these matters thoroughly. They have now been discussed thoroughly and I am sure that as a result a very much better position will obtain for the inland waterways than before.

The explanation given by the Parliamentary Secretary was, as usual, admirably clear, but I must confess that I do not now know what difference it will make if this Amendment is accepted. I could not understand whether this was a tidying up procedure and if it was necessary purely for the legislative purpose of putting beyond doubt that all these canals, whether they were brought in by the railways or not, would as a result of this Amendment be treated in exactly the same way. I am sure that that is the legal position, but in practice what difference will this make? Will it make it easier or more difficult for the Board to close such canals as it thinks necessary? Will it make any difference in practice, or is it merely a bit of legislative tidying up?

With the leave of the House, I can answer the question put by the right hon. Member in the form in which he posed it. This is a legal tidying up. I cannot suggest that it will make any fundamental difference to the position of the British Waterways Board. Nevertheless, it is a further safeguard which I think appropriate to place on the Board to ensure that it does not dispose of canals or close them without proper form being gone through.

The general effect will be that all the canals which vest in the Waterways Board as successor to the Commission will be covered, if these Amendments are made, by the protection given by Section 17 of the 1873 Act. The position at present is a little different, but I think I can say that this is a tidying up.

Does it mean that any waterway taken over by the Board can be closed only by an Act of Parliament relieving the Board from obligations imposed by the Clause we are considering?

No, it does not. There are various ways in which canals can be closed. I had better not go into great detail on them now. All that this Section of the 1873 Act does is to require the owners of such canals to:

"keep and maintain such canal or part, … thoroughly repaired and dredged and in good working condition, and … preserve the supplies of water … so that the whole of such canal or part may be at all times kept open and navigable for the use of all persons desirous to use and navigate the same without any unnecessary hindrance, interruption, or delay."

That is the statutory obligation which will be placed on the Waterways Board in respect of its canals if we accept the Lords Amendment.

Closure is an entirely separate matter. Although it would be normal for a private Act of Parliament to be required for closure of parts of the system, there are other ways in which that could be done. The effect of the Amendment is simply to place this general responsibility on the Board to keep its canals in a navigable condition, but if at any time it wishes to close them to navigation there is an entirely separate procedure.

Will the hon. Gentleman clarify the position a little more because now he has confused me? It seemed from his earlier speech that the effect of the Amendment would be to impose an obligation on the Waterways Board which it did not have before, to keep all its canals—however originally obtained—in a navigable condition, which I am sure is desirable. He suggested that this obligation operated only in regard to some canals and not others. Now, he tells us that it will operate in respect of all canals, which which case, I think, the matter becomes one of principle and not just a bit of tidying up. I am not objecting to it, but I want to know whether or not this Amendment in fact imposes a further considerable obligation on the British Waterways Board in respect of canals which were not acquired through possession originally by the railway companies. I do not object to the obligation, but I want to know where we are.

With respect, I think that the right hon. Gentleman's memory has failed him. He has, perhaps, forgotten that there is under Clause 64 what we called in Committee the moratorium. In effect, all the statutory obligations are suspended, subject to the conditions under that Clause, for five years until the end of 1967. Although, technically, the effect of this Lords Amendment is to place upon the British Waterways Board the obligation imposed by Section 17 of the 1873 Act, that obligation is suspended by the operation of Clause 64 as regards maintenance.

I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment.

This is a simple Amendment which has the effect of broadening the ambit of subsection (3) so as to exclude from the embrace of the Clause abstractions of water by frontagers on the River Lee and its tidal tributaries, which are covered by certain other byelaws made, I believe, under the River Lee Water Acts.

I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment.

Clause 63 provides that the British Waterways Board shall serve notice on a number of public water authorities and other public bodies if it applies to the Minister for consent to new or increased abstractions of water for sale. These public bodies then have 28 days in which to lodge objection with the Minister if they disagree with the proposal. The Minister has to take such objections into acoount when he oonsiders whether to give consent and, if so, in what terms.

The Amendment has the effect of placing an additional obligation on the Board, the obligation to publish a notice in one or more local newspapers if it applies to the Minister for consent. It was considered by noble Lords that it was desirable to publicise abstraction applications vary widely because such abstractions could well affect a range of interests rather wider than the public bodies which are given the specific right of objection by the present subsections (4), (5) and (6). In particular, it was thought that riparian owners, farmers and industry should be properly informed. This seemed to us an unexceptionable doctrine and accordingly we agreed with the proposed Amendment.

I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment.

This Amendment is intended to apply to the Holding Company the obligations under Clause 71 to consult about the establishment and maintenance of negotiating and consultative machinery. The right hon. Member for Vauxhall (Mr. Strauss) will recall that in Standing Committee and on Report the Opposition pressed for this. The matter was again pressed in another place, and we agreed there to apply the obligation to the Holding Company itself but not to its subsidiaries which, like the subsidiaries of the four statutory boards, are organised as commercial companies under the Companies Act, 1948.

We felt that this was a desirable change to make in all the circumstances, and I think that the Opposition will agree since they pressed us so strongly about it.

I am sure that my hon. Friends who pressed this matter in Standing Committee and on Report will be grateful to the Government for accepting the case which they put and incorporating it in the Bill by this Amendment.

I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment.

I think that it might be convenient, Mr. Speaker, if at the same time we included for discussion the following four further Lords Amendments

Yes.

These are really drafting Amendments to carry out the intention of Clause 76 enabling the Commission during the period up to vesting date to develop its surplus land for sale, rent or lease or for some use other than the purposes of its primary business.

The House will recall that, earlier this morning, it agreed to new Clause A to replace the old Clause 11 in the Bill. These Amendments make to Clause 76 the counterpart Amendments to those made by new Clause A in respect of the Commission for the remainder of its life, whereas new Clause A dealt with the powers to be vested after vesting date in the new boards.

I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment.

This is a drafting Amendment to make clear that subsection (1) does not apply to a case where the Commission or one of the new boards is developing its property for operational purposes, that is to say a development for use for the purposes of its business under powers conferred upon it by Clauses 11 and 76.

I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendments.

In Committee on the Bill in another place, on 28th and 29th May, there was a great deal of criticism in debate about the possible consequences of Clause 11, which sought to give the British Transport Commission and the new boards powers to develop their surplus land for purposes other than the purposes of their primary business. One of the defects of the 1947 Act was that the British Transport Commission could sell its land to a third-party speculator and he could develop flats or offices on it but the Commission was not allowed to do so. I always thought that this was a great restriction which was quite unjustifiable.

Clause 11 as it left the House gave the Commission power to develop its surplus land, but in another place the point of criticism concentrated upon the possible consequences in the development of office accommodation in London. It was contended that these new powers would enable the boards to develop considerable areas of their surplus land into office accommodation and so add to traffic congestion and the problems of getting people to and from their work on public transport and on the roads in London.

An Amendment was moved in another place and there were bitter complaints that there was not a balance between housing and offices in the land which the Commission had available. The Commission has more land available in Central London than any other body. It has between 1,000 and 1,500 acres. The Commission at that time was negotiating with London County Council and trying to do a deal. It was pursuing discussions very earnestly. The idea was to give so many acres to London County Council for housing and to have permission to develop so many acres for office accommodation.

The effect of the new Clause is twofold. It places a duty on the Commission and the new boards to do two things. The first is to consult London County Council about the use of their surplus land in the county of London. They were doing that anyhow and, as the right hon. Member for Vauxhall (Mr. Strauss) knows, the British Transport Commission is a public body with a conscience. It was doing the right thing but we are now imposing it upon these bodies as a stautory duty. It was the wish of another place that this should be done.

I do not admire the other place as my right hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall (Mr. Strauss) does.

That is the kind of dichotomy that goes on in the party opposite.

The Commission and the boards have to submit to the Minister of Housing and Local Government for approval proposals for the use of that land. Such proposals must be consistent with proper planning and the proper balance as between new office and other accommodation for trade, industry and business on the one hand and new housing accommodation and related amenities on the other under subsection (1).

Until such proposals have been submitted and approved by the Minister of Housing and Local Government and he has certified by Order that he has so approved them, no compensation for refusal or conditional grant of planning permission will be payable to the Commission or the new boards in respect of any office development, whether for operational use or for sale or lease to other persons on land belonging to the Commission or the new boards in the County of London. This provision is intended as a sanction and an incentive to the Commission and the new boards to submit to the Minister of Housing and Local Government, in consultation with London County Council, acceptable proposals for the use of their surplus land in London as soon as practicable. It will also deter them in the meantime from seeking planning permission for office development in London which would be likely to be inconsistent with such proposals and would in any case enable the planning authority to refuse permission for office development without being deterred by the heavy compensation which might have otherwise to be paid on such a refusal.

Once, however, the Commission and the new boards have secured the approval of the Minister of Housing and Local Government to these comprehensive proposals for the use of their surplus land and the Minister has certified accordingly, their disabilities under the new Clause are removed and they are entitled to compensation for refusal of planning permission in appropriate circumstances just like any other developer. The Clause is therefore a temporary measure designed to provide for the initial period, when the Commission and the new boards are vested with powers to develop their land, and some general control is necessary while overall proposals for the use of their surplus land are being settled with the Ministry.

It can be argued that the Commission and the new boards will have considerable areas of land in London, and that is true. As I have said, they are in a unique position in that respect. In support of the new Clause it can also be argued that the special problem of office development in London in relation to traffic congestion, both on the roads and the suburban railways, is unique and justifies this sort of provision. The Clause does not amend in any way the Town and Country Planning Acts or bring about any permanent change in the eligibility of the Commission in relation to compensation for refusal or conditional grant of planning permission under the planning Acts. The Clause was something that the other place thought desirable as a first move towards balancing housing and office building in London. Whilst it may be thought by some to be inappropriate in a Transport Bill, because this is a town planning matter and the Town and Country Planning Acts will apply to any of the boards just as to anybody else, the other place nevertheless inserted the new Clause.

Considerations of Privilege arise on the new Clause. If the House is willing to waive its Privilege I will see that the necessary entry is made in the Journal.

The Minister has given a full and fair explanation on the new Clause and there is little for me to say, because my reaction to it is much the same as his. It was perfectly clear from the way he put the case that the right hon. Gentleman does not think much of the new Clause. It will not alter the law to any significant degree, if at all, because the Town and Country Planning Acts will apply as before and it is exceedingly doubtful whether it will provide any safeguard for anybody, but it will certainly do no harm.

Will the right hon. Gentleman agree with Gilbert that their Lordships in this case have done nothing and have done it very well?

They have done nothing and have taken a long time doing it and they have produced a very involved Clause, but if they wanted to do something that is all right. That is my reaction to the Amendment. As it does not seem to be objectionable but is utterly harmless, I see no reason why the House should not agree to it.

I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment.

The Amendment removes the possibility of any ambiguity in the terms of Clause 80 (1). That provision is designed to provide for the payment of compensation to employees of the Commission "who suffer loss of employment or loss or diminution of emoluments or pension rights or whose position is worsened in consequence of the reorganisation" which the Bill effects.

Employees of the Commission are defined in Clause 80 (1) as

"officers or servants of the Commission".

We ware told that there is room for slight doubt whether the term "officers" could be held to embrace members of the Commission or of the London Transport Executive—that is to say, the bosses rather than the men lower down. The question arises from Section 1 (3) of the Transport Act, 1947, which states that

"Every member of the Commission shall hold and vacate his office in accordance with the terms of his appointment".

In the same subsection, there is a reference to a member resigning his office. It is said that these words might conceivably be held to import the idea that a member of the Commission is also an officer of the Commission, and he might, therefore, come within the ambit of the compensation provisions of Clause 80.

As I have explained on numerous occasions, those compensation provisions are intended to apply only to the employees of the Commission and separate and special provision is made in Clause 78 for the Minister to be able to arrange for paying compensation, if it appears to him that there are special circumstances which make it right, to members of the Commission or of the London Transport Executive who relinquish their appointments before the time when they would normally expire, or whose appointments have come to an end before the date on which the appointment would expire because the Commission and the Executive are to be abolished.

We want to put beyond doubt that such compensation as the Minister judges should be payable to members of the Commission or of the Executive relinquishing their appointments before their due time should fall to be dealt with under Clause 78 and not under Clause 80. Therefore, the Amendment covers these purposes by inserting a new definition into the Interpretation Clause so as expressly to define what is meant by "officer".

I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment.

I think that it would be convenient to discuss at the same time the Lords Amendments in page 100, line 10, and the new Schedule "A" at page 140, line 24. All these Amendments provide for the detailed application of the Bill to Northern Ireland. They are basically technical Amendments. The first of them takes out of the Bill the procedure set out in Clause 91 for application of the Bill to Nothern Ireland by Order in Council and it paves the way for the new Schedule "A", which contains detailed provisions for application. The second of the three Amendments, in page 100, line 10, as a purely consequential drafting Amendment to the first one.

The main reason for these Amendments is that it seems to us on reflection batter and more in line with precedents for the Bill to provide for its own application in detail rather than for this to be left to subordinate legislation— for example, by Order in Council. The basic principle that we have followed is to apply the provisions of the Bill to Northern Ireland except when there is a reason to the contrary. A particular example is the case of Stamp Duty, which is a matter for Northern Ireland legislation.

I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment.

This Amendment provides for the Minister to keep Parliament informed of the salaries and other emoluments of members of the regional railway boards which the Minister has to determine with the approval of the Treasury in respect of the members of those Boards. The Bill has always provided for the Minister to give Parliament this information concerning the members of the four statutory boards and the Holding Company, but it seems to us desirable that the Minister should be under the same obligation as regards the members of the regional railway boards.

I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment.

This Amendment goes together with the following Lords Amendment in line 16 and the Lords Amendments in lines 29 and 31. They are all drafting Amendments to the provisions of the Second Schedule relating to the transfer of the Commission's statutory functions under the Coast Protection Act, 1949.

I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment.

This, again is a drafting Amendment. The Second Schedule provides for amending a number of Statutes which confer statutory functions upon the Commission so as to substitute for the Commission one or more of the new boards as may be appropriate. Further research has revealed that the Schedule should provide for allocation of the Commission's functions to the Railways Board and the London Board in the case of Section 157 of the Road Traffic Act, 1960.

I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment.

This, again, is a drafting Amendment consequential on the Government Amendment to Clause 91 and the proposed new Schedule applying and modifying the provisions of the Bill to Northern Ireland.

I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment.

It would be convenient, I think, if we also took the Lords Amendment to page 115, line 7.

These Amendments allocate the Commission's shareholding in the Penarth Dock Engineering Company Limited to the Holding Company instead of to the Docks Board. I am told that this company has now changed its name and has largely gone out of the dock business in any event, and it seems now appropriate for the Bill to provide that the Commission's shareholding in this company be transferred to the Holding Company.

The second of the Amendments secures this by inserting the company's present name at the end of List B of Part IV of the Fourth Schedule.

I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment.

I think that it would be convenient if we were also to discuss the Lords Amendment, in page 116, line 38; page 118, line 42; page 120, line 26; and page 121, line 22.

These are incidental Amendments which clarify the effect of the Bill on the distribution as between the Railways Board and the Holding Company of the existing rights and liabilities of the Commission under agreements with bus companies.

I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment.

We could perhaps also consider the Lords Amendment in page 116, line 38.

These are both minor Amendments which relate to contingent liabilities which arise from road haulage disposals. I should perhaps briefly explain what they are as a matter of record. When the road haulage undertaking of the Commission was returned to private enterprise under the Transport Act, 1953, a substantial number of properties, including leasehold lands comprised in the road haulage organisation of the Commission, were sold off, but there are still a number of contingent liabilities left with the Commission in respect of some of these lands and properties. For example, when a leasehold property is disposed of there is under the law still an implied covenant on the person who assigns a leasehold property to pay the ground rent and perform the covenants in the lease should the person to whom he assigns it fail to do so, although he will have a remedy against the assignee to recover what he so pays.

These liabilities, at present falling on the Commission in respect of leasehold properties of their former road haulage undertakings which they have sold off, are, of course, no more than contingent liabilities, but under the Bill as it left this House they would have passed to the British Railways Board on vesting date as being included among the residual rights and liabilities of the Commission which are not expressly vested by some other provision of the Bill. However, they have nothing to do with the railways and it would be more appropriate if they were expressly transferred to the Transport Holding Company which As to take over the road haulage companies of the Commission and these two Amendments have been made accordingly. I cannot possibly put a money figure on the amount of the contingent liabilities, but I am advised that the chances of their amounting to any material or indeed actual liability are extremely remote.

I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment.

This Amendment was made to cure a defect in paragraph 6 of Part II of the Seventh Schedule which deals with the transitional arrangements for the control of passenger fares in London.

I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment.

This is a drafting Amendment to provide that the provisions of paragraph 12 of the Seventh Schedule should apply to some 350 people who fall into certain distinct categories. First, they are people who belong to what is known as the Aire and Calder Navigation Superannuation Fund. The second group are former employees of the Lee Conservancy Board or the Lee Conservancy Catchment Board who are entitled to superannuation allowances under certain statutory provisions on the scale from time to time applicable to permanent civil servants. The third group are former employees of the Minister of Transport at Holyhead Harbour and on the Caledonian and Crinan Canals, who are similarly entitled under regulations made in 1952. I am sure that we would wish to make certain that all these people have their non-contributory pension rights preserved.

I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment.

It would, I think, be convenient if we were to discuss the following Amendments, page 129, line 45, page 130, line 3, and page 130, line 7.

These four Amendments all relate to paragraphs 15 and 16 of the Seventh Schedule. These paragraphs deal with the arrangements following the reorganisation which concern the pensions payable by the Commission on an ex gratia basis. The need for these two paragraphs arises from the position at present, which we discussed in Standing Committee, where the Commission is paying as a matter of grace certain pensions and retirement allowances to some former employees. These include supplementary payments to some former employees whose pensions have diminished in value and since there is no legal obligation to make such payments, the Bill would not ensure that they would be continued by the new undertakings unless there were express provisions for it. Paragraph 15 accordingly provides for the preparation of a scheme for redistribution of the responsibility for these payments between the new undertakings. The Opposition, on Report, tabled Amendments which had the same effect as these four Amendments. I should tell hon. Members opposite that we were ready to accept Amendments put down on Report but the operation of the Time Table Motion prevented us from accepting them.

The first Amendment makes it mandatory on the Minister to approve the scheme to be prepared by the Commission under paragraph 15 of the Seventh Schedule, if he is satisfied that responsibility for the ex gratia pension payments, for which that scheme makes provision, is distributed between the new boards and the Holding Company in an appropriate manner and also that the scheme contains sufficient particulars to enable them to discharge their duties under the scheme.

1.30 p.m.

The second of these Lords Amendments makes the Minister's powers under paragraph 16 dependent upon representations to do so from or on behalf of interested persons. The third of this group of Amendments makes it obligatory on the Minister to direct the Commission by order under paragraph 16 to include in a scheme under paragraph 15 those ex gratia pension expectations which appear to him to be such as "ought to be receivable as of right". The fourth of these Amendments makes it clear that where pensions under ex gratia expectations are covered by a scheme under paragraph 15 they shall be made the responsibility of the new Board or Holding Company as if they were ex gratia payments already being made by a scheme in respect of people already retired before the vesting date.

I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment.

It would be convenient to discuss at the same time the succeeding three Lords Amendments: In page 137, line 6, at end insert:

"(2) A person shall not be appointed to act under paragraph (a) of the last foregoing sub-paragraph after he attains the age of seventy-two years, or under paragraph (b) of that sub-paragraph after he attains the age of seventy years, except where the Lord Chancellor or the Minister, as the case may be, think it desirable in the public interest, but no person shall be appointed to act after he attains the age of seventy-five years."

In page 137, line 26, leave out "and" and insert:

"(3) A person shall not be appointed under this paragraph for a term extending beyond the end of the completed year of service in the course of which he attains the age of seventy years, except that where the Lord Chancellor, the Secretary of State or the Minister, as the case may be, consider it to be desirable in the public interest that a person should be appointed for a term extending beyond that date, that person may, with the approval of the Treasury, be appointed for such term not extending beyond the date on which he attains the age of seventy-five years, as the Lord Chancellor, the Secretary of State or the Minister, as the case may be, thinks fit.

(4)."

In page 137, line 27, leave out "such a person" and insert "a person appointed under this paragraph ".

These four Lords Amendments relate to the age limit of members of the Transport Tribunal and substitutes for the President and members and members of the special panel. The Tenth Schedule as it emerged from this House contained the following provisions. Firstly, the President must vacate office at the end of the year in which he reached the age of 72, but the Lord Chancellor and the Minister with the approval of the Treasury might authorise his continuation in office up to the age of 75 if they thought that desirable in the public interest. Secondly, other members could hold office for the maximum period of seven years. Finally, members of the special panel are to hold office for a maximum period of three years.

It was intended that, where appropriate, the question of age limits for ordinary members of the Tribunal and members of the special panel would be laid down in the letters of appointment of the members concerned, but on reconsideration it seemed to us desirable that account ought to be taken of the modern practice by writing in provision for age limits into the Bill. This, incidentally, accords with the views of the Council on Tribunals. These Lords Amendments are intended to have this effect.

I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment.

The next Amendment could be conveniently taken with it, in page 139, line 24, leave out from "tribunal" to end of line 27.

These Amendments provide for the deletion of the provisions in the Tenth Schedule which in effect limit the discretion of the Tribunal in two directions, firstly, as regards the awarding of costs, and secondly, as regards the right of audience before the Tribunal. As previously drafted, sub-paragraphs (1, a and f) of paragraph 11 of the Tenth Schedule would have allowed the Tribunal, with the approval of the Lord Chancellor, the Secretary of State and the Minister of Transport, to make general rules governing their procedure and practice, including the question of costs and the right of audience, but sub-paragraph (1, a) would have prevented the rules from giving the Tribunal power to award costs except where a person had initiated frivolous or vexatious proceedings. Sub-paragaph (1, f) similarly would have prevented the rules from debarring parties appearing in person or being represented by an employee, or counsel or solicitors.

We considered it undesirable, in the light of modern practice, in particular the development of supervision by the Council on Tribunals, that these limitations on the rules should be laid down expressly in the enabling Statute. We feel the better course is to specify what topics the rules may deal with, as in the other sub-paragraphs of paragraph 11, and then deal with such questions in the rules themselves. I would remind the House that these rules will, of course, be shown to the Council upon Tribunals in draft.

I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment.

It would be convenient to discuss also the next Lords Amendment, in page 139, line 32, after "paragraph" insert:

"which are in operation immediately before this Schedule comes into force".

These two Lords Amendments simply correct an error in the Tenth Schedule where it refers to

"the commencement of this Act".

In fact, as the House will see from Clause 93 (2), the Act is to come into force by order of the Minister, and the Minister is enabled to appoint different days for the coming into force of different provisions. The reference, therefore, to the commencement of the Act is inapt, and these Amendments delete it and substitute a reference to the Schedule coming into force.

I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment.

It would be convenient to discuss also the next Lords Amendment, in page 139, line 36, leave out from "he" to "shall" in line 37 and insert:

"considers will be of assistance to the tribunal in connection with any matter before them, and ".

The first of these Amendments is a drafting Amendment. It distinguishes more clearly between two separate duties already laid upon the Minister under paragraph 12. These duties are, firstly, a duty to help the Tribunal when it asks for help, and that includes the production of such information in his possesion as it may ask for; secondly, a duty upon the Minister spontaneously to give information to the Tribunal which he thinks relevant to the matter before the Tribunal.

The second of these two Lords Amendments slightly amends the form in which the Minister's spontaneous duty is expressed. Under the Bill as it was previously drafted, this duty related to any information which the Minister had and which might be relevant to the matter before the Tribunal. This is not quite appropriate. In the case of the future London Fares and Miscellaneous Charges Division of the Tribunal, there may well be a great deal of information in the Ministry relevant to a case but which will probably be adduced by the applicants or by other parties. It would not, therefore, have been appropriate to put a duty on the Minister to prepare a comprehensive statement of all the information he has which might be relevant, or for the Tribunal to be troubled with it. It might well largely be a duplication of information already put forward by the applicants, and needlessly lengthen the proceedings. The second Amendment uses the words:

"considers will be of assistance to the tribunal in connection with any matter before them."

The House may consider this a purely drafting Amendment, but I think it goes a little beyond that, and that is why I have given this explanation.

I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment.

This is a drafting Amendment which provides for the repeal of the references to the Area Railway Authorities in the House of Commons Disqualification Act, 1957.

I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment.

This is a drafting Amendment dealing with the repeal of those provisions of Section 20 of the British Transport Commission Act, 1956, which relate to the Kennel waterways.

I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment.

Section 22 of the British Transport Commission Act, 1957, has to be repeated as being no longer necessary. The object of the Amendment is to provide accordingly.

I beg to move,

That the Motor Vehicles (Tests) (Extension) Order 1962, dated 2nd July, 1962, a copy of which was laid before this House on 4th July, be approved.

Section 65 of the Road Traffic Act, 1960, provides for the periodic testing of motor vehicles and fox the issue of test certificates in appropriate cases. Section 66 of the Act makes it an offence, with certain specified exemptions, to use a vehicle which was first registered in this country not less than 10 years ago unless there is in force a test certificate relating to the vehicle.

Subsection (3) of Section 66 empowers the Minister to make an Order substituting a shorter period for ten years, and provides that such an Order shall be subject to an affirmative Resolution of each House of Parliament. In October last year we made such an Order substituting seven years for ten years, and the Order now before the House reduces the period still further, substituting six years for seven years. The Order represents a further stage in the extension of the vehicle testing scheme. The House may recollect that when we debated the earlier Order I mentioned that my right hon. Friend intended to propose this extension now.

The House may like to know how the testing scheme is getting on. The records of the testing stations show that for a period after the scheme was put into effect about 40 par cent. of the vehicles submitted for test were refused a test certificate on initial inspection and they had to be repaired or taken off the Toads. We also ascertained that many vehicles were scrapped without being submitted for test because their owners simply knew that they were in a bad condition and would be quite uneconomic to repair.

The period following the extension of the scheme to the seven-year-old vehicles shows a figure comparable to the 40 per cent. of 33 per cent., which is still fairly high. Incidentally, an analysis of the spot checks that we have been carrying out at the roadside—this is quite independent of the vehicle testing scheme proper, which is done in garages —shows that no less than 30 per cent. of vehicles between five and seven years old were defective to an extent which made them a potential danger or source of accident at any time. So I think that from the spot checks at the roadside we have some confirmation of the desirability of the vehicle testing scheme proper. They give us an assurance that the scheme is achieving its purpose. I think that in those circumstances the House will agree that the extension of the scheme which the Order provides is not only necessary but highly desirable.

The Parliamentary Secretary is having a heavy day. We have had almost a monologue from him since eleven o'clock, and now he has moved this Order.

I welcome this extension of the scheme. There was some doubt when the original law for testing vehicles was passed about the extent to which this was necessary. I appreciate, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that I am not allowed to debate the principle behind the extension. There was a fear that the provision might not be worth while and that the constant—yearly— inspections of cars might create a considerable amount of personal inconvenience. But we have found that the inspections have been accepted by the public as necessary. There is overwhelming proof that as a result of the inspections a very large number of cars are not on the road which would have been on the road in a dangerous condition and that cars which were in a bad condition have been put into a safe condition before coming on to the roads.

I have no doubt that a major factor in keeping down road accidents during the last few years—they have been kept down to a remarkable extent—has been the compulsory inspection of cars. There have been many other activities, including many undertakings by the Minister of Transport, which have been very useful, but this has been the important factor. We know from overwhelming evidence in this country and other parts of the world that defective mechanism of cars is an important contribution to accidents on the roads.

It is proposed that cars which are six years old will have to be tested. Up to now it has been seven years. The evidence given by the Parliamentary Secretary to the effect that spot checks have shown that 30 per cent. of cars between five and seven years old which have been tested have proved to be defective is proof of the need for the extension. One of the remarkable things that we have discovered is that a high proportion of cars which are only a year or two old are also defective and are to that extent dangerous on the roads. Therefore, the quicker the seven years is reduced to six years, five years and eventually one year, the better it will be and the safer will our roads be in consequence.

Consequently, I think we all welcome very much—I certainly do—this extension of the testing scheme and the shortening of the period from seven to six years.

I welcome the Order. The figures which the Parliamentary Secretary has given the House have shown how very vital the scheme is and how successful it has been. When we appreciate that one-third of the vehicles tested out of a total of some 3 million have failed to pass a test, it justifies the policy adopted by the Government in instituting the tests. It also reflects great credit on the motor agents and other certified testers—there are 17,500 of them—that the scheme has gone so well.

I want my hon. Friend to assure the House that there will be no relaxation in the standard of those who are to undertake the testing. I understand that the certified testers are visited twice a year by Ministry officials in order to maintain the standard, and that they authorise the mechanics who are to do the work. This is vital for two reasons: first, to assure motorists that the tests will be carried out by competent people, and, secondly, to assure the pedestrians, who I am sure are also in favour of the scheme.

There is a further point which I should like my hon. Friend to explain. If I am wrong about this, I am sure that I stall be corrected. There is a report that when a car was taken to an authorised tester and had been tested by a mechanic in the proper way, the mechanic was on the road testing the vehicle when he was apprehended by the police, and he was taken to court and fined because he had not the appropriate certificate. I cannot justify that. What is the position if a tester takes an old car on the road to be assured—

Order. I am sorry to interrupt but I am afraid that the horn. Member is going further than he should. We are merely discussing the extension of this scheme to a wider range of cars, altering the qualification age. We are not dealing with the principle.

I apologise if I am out of order, Mr. Deputy-Speaker. I was asking for an assurance that there would be no difficulty for an authorised tester if he was carrying out his duties efficiently and in the spirit of the scheme. No doubt my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary will bear this matter in mind, for I should like to relieve any uncertainty that there might be.

The Parliamentary Secretary made out his case for an extension of this scheme when he said that spot checks had shown that 30 par cent. of vehicles which are only five to seven years old have proved to be defective. That is a remarkable and shocking figure.

I have a few questions to put to the hon. Member. First, what is the reason for this extension being made at this moment and for only one year to be specified in the diminution of the age? Why had the age limit not been reduced to five years or even four? Is it because at the present time the capacity of the qualified garages is limited and they can only cope with an additional year's work of cars, as it were? A moment ago, my right hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall (Mr. Strauss) said that he was looking forward to the period when cars only one year old would have to be subjected to compulsory testing. Is the Minister thinking in those terms? We need to have some sense of balance and moderation about this. After a/11, 15s. may not be a very great sum but it is operating as a sort of penalty against the man who maintains his car properly.

Until recently I had a rather old Rover, which is a car built to last a long time. It was well maintained by my garage. In due course I had to get it tested and was slightly irked to have to pay 15s. for it to be driven round the block so that the mechanic could certify what he knew already was the case—that the oar was in perfectly good order. But the formality had to be gone through.

The person who has not maintained his car properly, however, is already committing an offence in allowing it to get into that dangerous state and presumably to be driven on the roads in such a condition. What this scheme does is to bring that person up sharp and show him that his vehicle is in a dangerous state and that he must either take it off the road or have it repaired.

What do these spot checks show about cars only two or three years old? I suspect that they show that a large percentage of them are defective. The reason is that there is a school of motorists who buy new cars, drive them hard for two or three years without bothering much about maintenance, then trade them in and buy new ones. It may well be that a new car within a short period may wall become defective having been treated like that. These people can be a serious menace on the roads.

What is the right answer for this? Is the Minister envisaging extending the scheme in order to catch these people? Or is the right answer to be found in more spot checks followed by prosecutions, which will bring home to the public the risks and dangers involved in this sort of behaviour?

Order. The hon. Member is tending to go further than he should.

With respect, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, I think that this is relevant to the consideration of this Order. The basic question I am asking is why only one year's extension is being made. If the hon. Gentleman says that he is not extending the scheme much further than this, how is he proposing to cope with the danger I have referred to? Before we approve this extension we should be told what the Minister has in mind for dealing with that problem.

I am obliged for the general welcome for the Order. I am sure that we are doing right in extending the period, and the figures I gave show that it is very important that the scheme should be proceeded with as originally intended.

My hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Mr. Cleaver) paid a well-deserved tribute to the testing stations. There is no doubt that experience is supporting our decision in the Road Traffic Act, 1956, to use the existing motor garages as the principal testing stations. We are finding in practice that an extremely high standard of testing is being maintained.

Our inspectors examine these stations and their employees from time to time, and they have available a booklet which we call The Tester's Manual. This gives uniform details as to how testing should be done and what should be looked for. Altogether, we are pretty happy with the way in which the tests are going.

It may interest the House to know that only a very few testing stations have been removed from the register for any form of incompetence or misconduct, and that my right hon. Friend gave instructions at an early stage that any appeals by authorised testing stations against an order striking them off should be settled by a Minister. A number of these have come to me and I have been surprised by the number of borderline cases in which it is quite evident that the people in the testing stations have been doing their best.

Broadly speaking, one can say that the scheme is going extremely well. There is no evidence of any relaxation of standards by testing stations. One might have thought that, as time went on, and the men who did this work became more accustomed to it, there might be some risk of such a relaxation. But on the contrary the impression I get is that as the testers play themselves in, as it were, they become perhaps a little tougher than in earlier days.

My hon. Friend referred to a report about a garage mechanic being prosecuted after driving a motor car on test. I have had only a few moments to check this on this report, but I am told that it was wrong—that there was no foundation for that story which appeared in the Press.

Order. I am afraid that if one hon. Member errs slightly it causes other hon. Members, even Ministers, to err as well.

I accept your rebuke, Mr. Deputy-Speaker. I can only plead that I have been at this Box a couple of hours and that perhaps I temporarily forgot the rules of order.

I pass quickly, therefore, to the remarks made by the hon. Member for Derby, North (Mr. MacDermot), who asked why this extension is being made now. The reason is that we think we have come to the next appropriate stage in the process, because the trade is now ready to take a further tranche of vehicles and is willing to do so.

The hon. Member also asked why the reduction was for only one year in the age limit. He asked why it could not have been made five years or even four. The number of vehicles brought into testing by each reduction now increases with each younger registration year. It is no longer practicable to bring in more than one year at a time.

If we followed his advice and brought the limit down to four years, well over 2 million vehicles would be brought within the ambit of the scheme. In addition, experience shows that people delay in having the test done until the very last minute.

It would be impossible for the garages and testing stations to cope with anything up to 2 million or more vehicles within a very few days. We are obliged to stagger any extension which covers more than one year over a period of time. However, the long-term objective of the Government was stated in paragraph 2 of the summary of the White Paper issued in 1958, Cmnd. 430. We always have declared our intention progressively to bring down the age limit for compulsory testing to cover motor vehicles of all ages.

Perhaps I may say a few words about spot checks, although they do not fall strictly within the scope of the Order. We have always envisaged proceeding on two parallel lines. One is the testing scheme in the garages once a year for all vehicles, with the additional requirement that before taking out a road fund licence for a further year, a driver has to produce a valid test certificate. The second parallel approach is that of the spot checks on the roads. These now apply to vehicles of all ages. As we get on with both of these schemes we shall be making a contribution to road safety. Such evidence and such figures as we have show that both schemes are working extremely well and I feel sure that when we gat this further extension to the vehicle testing scheme which the Order brings into effect, we shall have a further advance to report to the House in due course.

I bag to move,

That the National Health Service (Superannuation) (Amendment) Regulations, 1962, a draft of which was laid before this House on 5th July, be approved.

It may be convenient if we also debated the second Motion—

That the National Health Service (Superannuation) (Scotland) Amendment Regulations, 1962, a draft of which was laid before this House on 4th July, be approved.

The two do not differ in any material respect.

I think that will be convenient.

The Regulations cover two separate matters in the two substantive Regulations which they include. The first, in Regulation 3, relates to provision for early retirement. The second, in Regulation 4, relates to improvement of superannuation benefits.

The provision in Regulation 3 for early retirement with accrued pension and lump sum benefits applies in two events —in the event of redundancy and in the event of the retirement of the officer concerned being in the interests of the efficiency of the National Health Service. Those are the two alternative circumstances sot out in Regulation 3.

The major modernisation of the hospital service which was outlined at the beginning of this year in the Hospital Plan, Grand. 1604, will be carried out over such a period of time and in such a way that little redundancy of Health Service Officers should result from it. All hospital authorities will be particularly concerned to ensure that the plan As put into effect in such a way that redundancy is kept to a minimum. I do not believe that there is any disagreement with the statement which appeared in paragraph 51 of the White Paper that

"… it will be rare for difficulty to arise in finding posts elsewhere in the Service for staff who want them."

But I was very glad that on 5th March the hon. Member for St. Pancras, North (Mr. K. Robinson) said:

"We all agree that the redundancy will be very small …"—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 5th March, 1962; Vol. 655, c. 14.]

Nevertheless, it is right that provision should be made for the small minority of exceptions, and this Regulation deals with that instance where an officer whose redundancy is in question is 55 years of age or more and where, therefore, there may occasionally be real difficulty in finding suitable alternative employment in the Health Service and where the sensible course is that he should retire a few years earlier than he otherwise would have done. The effect of this Regulation is to secure that where he has had ten years' service and has attained the age of 55, it shall be possible, where the retirement takes place on grounds of redundancy, for him to enjoy at once, as from the date of his retirement, his accrued pension and the lump sum payments to which he is entitled.

The same Regulation provides for earlier retirement where that is in the interests of the efficiency of the Service. This provision is similar to provisions which have existed in earlier schemes for health services and that which exists in the Civil Service. It is a benefit not only to the Service that an elderly officer who can no longer fully adapt himself to the requirements of his work should be able to take somewhat earlier retirement, but it is very often to the benefit of those individuals themselves who may, by no fault of their own, foe subjected to an intolerable strain by the necessity of confronting duties to which they are no longer fully equal.

I think that the House will welcome the opportunity which the Regulation provides, and which will be exercised under strict safeguards, for officers over the age of 55 and with a minimum of ten years' service to retire where that is in the interests of the efficiency of the Service. Those are the two sets of circumstances in which Regulation 3 provides for earlier retirement with accrued pension and lump sum benefits.

I now come to Regulation 4. An investigation by the Government Actuary in 1955 disclosed that the superannuation contributions made in respect of practitioners were more than sufficient to produce the scales of superannuation benefit in the case of practitioners who had entered at the normal age. But, of course, in 1955 the great majority of practitioners in the Service had entered at later than the normal age. Since then, naturally, the balance has tilted and more and more of those in the Service are normal-age entrants. In the Government's view, the time has now come when the contributions and the benefits should be brought into a closer and more correct relationship.

This could cleanly be done in one of two ways—either by reducing the contributions, or by increasing the benefits. The professions were unanimous in saying that they preferred that it should be done by increasing the benefits. The Regulation, therefore, adjusts the basis on which the pension and the lump sum benefits are calculated. From the coming into force of this Regulation, on 1st September, superannuation in future will be equivalent to 1½ per cent. of the practitioner's total remuneration before 1st September and 1¾ per cent. of his total remuneration after that date. Similarly, the lump sum benefits—the smaller contingent where there is a right to a widow's pension and the larger where there is not—will be adjusted, in the same way. So also will be other lump payments such as the death gratuities.

That, then, is broadly the effect of Regulation 4, to raise the scales of practitioners' superannuation benefits to accord more closely with the value of the contributions in the case of a new entrant at normal entry age.

I should like to make it clear that there are respects in which the professions concerned would have liked to see these Amendments to the superannuation scheme carried further still, but I do not think that there is any doubt or disagreement that the improvements which these Regulations make are in themselves right and desirable, and in the Government's view they meet the requirements of the case both as regards the small range of redundancy which may occur, and as regards superannuation benefits for practitioners.

Apart from a brief formal statement to the House earlier this week about the waiving of the Royal Prerogative on the Uganda Bill, this is, I think, the right hon. Gentleman's first appearance at the Dispatch Box since his elevation to Cabinet status. I congratulate him most warmly on his promotion. It is the first time in twelve years that the Minister of Health has been in the Cabinet. I know that this will be a source of great satisfaction to many people who work in the National Health Service, and I am also sure that they will hope, as indeed we on these Benches do, that the right hon. Gentleman will now be able to argue on more equal terms with the Chancellor of the Exchequer for an even greater share of our national resources to be devoted to the National Health Service.

As the right hon. Gentleman explained, these Regulations cover two different subjects. Regulation 3 is a part of the general arrangements for redundancy in the National Health Service which the Minister recently introduced under an administrative circular. We have already protested about certain aspects of these redundancy arrangements, and I do not think that it would be appropriate to pursue this at any great length today, but I repeat that the arrangements as a whole are, in essence, parsimonious, and we were surprised to find that they were far less favourable than the terms being enjoyed by Health Service staffs from the inception of the Service until about two years ago. It would have cost the right hon. Gentleman so little to have been generous or indeed fair, on this occasion, to the staffs. He has succeeded in saving a trifling sum of money,,but I believe that in so doing he has further forfeited the confidence of Health Service staffs.

We have no criticism to make of Regulation 3, and we have no intention of opposing these Regulations. Obviously we must welcome the reduction to 55 of the age at which superannuation can be granted, but this is only a step in the right direction. I think that it is appropriate to remember that one can still have in the Health Service an officer aged 54, who has given the best part of a quarter of a century's reckonable service to the public, but who will on retirement get no more than the aggregation of his contributions returned to him, and the chances of such a man getting another worthwhile job are pretty slender.

As I understand it, there are arrangements in other forms of public service whereby superannuation rights in such a case can be frozen so that the full entitlement to pension can be drawn at whatever age is fixed—perhaps in this case the age of 55—when the man reaches it. I wonder why it was not possible to do that in the new arrangements which the right hon. Gentleman has made for the Health Service.

One other aspect of these Regulations to which I should like to refer is the decision to deduct from the lump sum payment which is made when superannuation begins the terminal payments that are made under another aspect of the general redundancy arrangements. Payments are made up to 26 weeks to an officer who is made redundant while he is looking for another job. Should he not succeed, and in the meantime reach the age of 55, he can be superannuated, but these Regulations provide that the terminal payments shall be deducted from his lump sum entitlement.

This seems a little mean and unnecessary, and I wonder whether the right hon. Gentleman would look at this again. Even if he is not prepared to give way on the principle, I wonder whether he would consider the Income Tax position in these circumstances. As I understand it, the terminal payments are treated as income for tax purposes. When they are deducted from the lump sum payment on retirement, which is not taxable, may I have an assurance that the tax already paid will be automatically refunded? In other words, if a man received his lump sum payment he would get it tax free. In these special circumstances his terminal benefits will be deducted, but tax will already have been paid on them. Surely it is only equitable that that tax should be refunded to him the moment he retires? Possibly the right hon. Gentleman will be able to reassure us that it will be automatically refundable, but if there is any doubt I hope that he will clear up this matter with his right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer.

On the second of these Regulations, Regulation 4, naturally we can only welcome the fact that the benefits under the practitioners' superannuation scheme are now to be brought into line with the level of contributions, as was recommended by the Government Actuary. The Minister did not make quite clear why this decision had been taken. Was it in fulfilment of any undertaking given to the profession at the time the Government Actuary reported that this step would be taken after a certain length of time? Was it in any way connected with the Pilkington package deal, or was it just a sudden rush of generosity on the part of the right hon. Gentleman? At any rate, we welcome the Regulations but the welcome we give them is without prejudice to the dissatisfaction that we have already expressed about the nature of the redundancy arrangements as a whole.

As we expect from him, the right hon. Gentleman has fully and lucidly explained the Regulations. On this occasion I detected a more gentle and sympathetic presentation of the case than the right hon. Gentleman usually displays.

I recognise, as did my hon. Friend the Member for St. Pancras, North (Mr. K. Robinson), that so far as they go these Regulations are commendable, but in view of the background against which they are to come into operation I think that we must ask ourselves whether they go far enough. We all join in the hope that redundancy on any substantial scale will not arise as a result of the reorganisation in the hospital service to which the right hon. Gentleman referred, but the possibility of redundancy does in fact arise, and the presentation of these Regulations is an indication of that possibility. We must therefore recognise that there will be some staff for whom employment cannot be found within the Health Service when they come to be displaced. Therefore, we must look at these Regulations to see how they would fare.

As the right hon. Gentleman told us, he is making special provision for people over the age of 55 years who have at least ten years' service to their credit, and who would not otherwise be entitled to a pension. In these cases, pensions are provided, and all that is welcome. It is all very nice and tidy, and if only everyone adversely affected by the Hospital Plan could fall into this category, everybody would be completely satisfied. But, as the right hon. Gentleman knows, life is not as tidy as that. There may be cases of staff retiring under the age of 55 who are unable to find other employment in the Health Service, and in many cases they will have a very large number of years' service to their credit; not merely 10, but perhaps even 20 or 30.

What is to happen to them? As I understand it, they will have their superannuation contributions returned to them, and they will get the terminal benefit, to which my hon. Friend referred, but nothing else. In these circumstances, I must ask the Minister if this is fair and just. Does it not show indifference to the fate of individuals many of whom may have given long and loyal service, and who may have to suffer merely as a result of a national plan which is intended to benefit the community as a whole? If they have to be displaced and cannot be absorbed in other parts of the Health Service, why cannot their existing pensions be frozen, as my hon. Friend suggested, so that when they reach the age of 65, which would have been the normal retiring age, they can become entitled to it? Otherwise, it appears to me that unless they find within one year some other employment to which their superannuation benefits can be transferred, the whole of their working life for pension goes entirely by the board.

There is another point in connection with the Regulations to which I wish the House to give its attention. It is provided that in the interests of efficiency, an officer aged 55 or over may be retired before the normal retiring age on grounds of inefficiency, and the right hon. Gentleman referred to this. On this provision, I should like an assurance from the Minister that when he comes to lay down the procedure for dealing with this type of case, there will be provision that any officer so affected may be represented, either by his union representative or somebody else on his behalf, and also that there will be some provision for appeal.

Another aspect of the matter to which I ask the right hon. Gentleman to give his attention is that inefficiency, where it does exist, may sometimes be due entirely to ill-health. As the right hon. Gentleman knows, there are existing provisions whereby officers may retire on grounds of ill-health and get a pension. In these circumstances, the pensions will be much more beneficial than the provisions now made on grounds of inefficiency, and I should like some assurance from the Minister that these new provisions will not be used to prejudice an officer's pension on health grounds in appropriate cases. I should be grateful if the right hon. Gentleman will deal with those two points when he comes to reply.

I, too, wish to congratulate my right hon. Friend on becoming a member of the Cabinet. We all hope that he will enjoy his work here. With the financial knowledge which he has gained in the past, I am delighted to know that the Cabinet has been strengthened by such a man.

I wish to make some fairly short comments on these Regulations. The first is that there is no explanation, either in the Regulations or in the Explanatory Note, of the cost of this scheme. I am quite prepared to agree that the first part of the Regulations is due to my right hon. Friend's desire to increase efficiency in the hospital service, and we moist all agree with that. If people have to retire early on redundancy or other grounds, we roust agree that it is right, but is it going to save money or to cost more? It is very difficult for an hon. Member reading these Regulations to know which it is to be.

The other point I wish to raise concerns the doctors. One-quarter per cent. increase is very little. I wish to ask how often the auditor of the accounts reviews this pensions fund, because I hope that in another five years it might be possible to increase the pension by a little bit more, if the figures warrant it. Doctors who are practising, particularly in rural areas, although they are well enough paid, have to look forward to being forced to retire on pension at 65, and they cannot normally practise after that. Once they are out of the realm of National Health benefits, I understand that it is impossible nowadays for them to continue in private practice. They are more or less bound to be living in retirement on their pensions, plus what they may have saved, so that the pension becomes more important than ever.

I wonder how often the accounts of the pensions fund are reviewed, so that it may be possible in future to increase the pension by at least another ¼ per cent., say, in another five years' time, so that the younger doctors who will not be retiring for, maybe, 20 years, can look forward to increased pensions. I speak with some personal knowledge, because a member of my family is to retire fairly soon, and it will not benefit him very much if he is to get ¼ per cent. additional pension in, say, five years' time. It will make very little difference to him, and so I hope that it may be possible to do better for the doctors as the days go by.

I have always taken the view, and I think most hon. Members would agree, that the State should be a model employer. I am sure that there must be many ex-Ministers now wondering whether that is the case, and, probably, wishing that they had been in the National Health Service and getting a benefit under these Regulations.

I want to ask one or two questions, particularly of the Under-Secretary to the Scottish Office, since the Minister said that the two Regulations are well-nigh comparable. When the right hon. Gentleman talked about the question of redundancy being negligible today, I must say that we in Scotland hear the word "redundancy" in a very different connotation from that in which it is used in England. I want to ask the Under-Secretary just how much redundancy is likely in Scotland. I appreciate the very great difficulty, indeed, almost impossibility, of answering that in any exact terms, but the hon. Gentleman will appreciate that if there is any redundancy in Scotland, how very much more difficult it will be for a man to find alternative employment in certain parts of Scotland.

I want to refer particularly to paragraph 3 (b) of the Scottish Regulations, which provides:

" that the officer's retirement is in the interests of the efficiency of the service."

My hon. Friend made reference to this extremely vague phrase, which is wide open to abuse. I echo his question: what exactly do the Government intend shall be the machinery for dealing with this kind of case? There must be a right of appeal for any officer who is subject to redundancy on that ground. Further, is there any entitlement in respect of those with less than ten years' service, or those under 55 years of age? I have said that a man who is declared redundant at 54 years of age in my constituency, and in many places in Scotland and the north-east coast, would be extremely hard put to it to find alternative work.

Lastly, have the staff associations concerned been fully consulted, and do they wholly agree with these Regulations? My impression is that they are very far from satisfied with them. I would be glad if the right hon. Gentleman would enlarge on that matter in his reply.

First, I want to thank my hon. Friend the Member for South Angus (Sir J. Duncan) for his very generous expression of good will, and also the hon. Member for St. Pancras, North (Mr. K. Robinson), coupling with it the hope—although it is none of my business—that this may perhaps have made him a shadow Cabinet Minister.

At whatever point the line is drawn in provisions of this kind it will be easy to argue that those persons who fall just below it are placed in a difficult position. The line of 55 years of age which has been chosen for the purpose of Regulation No. 3 is in line with the general practice in the public services, where 55 is the minimum age for going on to pension. That is the broad reasoning behind the choice of that age.

Where the officer concerned is below the age of 55, or where his service is less than 10 years, the compensation provisions outlined in my administrative Memorandum will apply. The question of freezing pension in cases of redundancy is one of those matters in which the staff associations, or some of them, would have wished to see compensation carried further, but the House will appreciate that it would not directly or immediately help the redundant officer, who is helped under the present arrangements either by a terminal payment or by being provided with his pension.

The third point made is the question of deduction of the amount of compensation from the superannuation benefits. These are two alternative provisions. The compensation provision is essentially a payment to bridge the gap in a man's life caused by his redundancy, and the fact that further employment cannot be found for him in the Health Service. But the provision in Regulation No. 3 will put him on full retirement benefit from the moment of his ceasing to be employed. It would therefore be an unjustified duplication if he were to be paid for the transition to other employment and also the full benefits to which he is entitled on retirement.

I can set the mind of the hon. Member for St. Pancras, North at rest on the taxation point. I am assured that terminal payments, or compensation, as we have been calling it in this debate, will not be liable for tax.

The hon. Member also asked whether, in respect of Regulation No. 4, there was some specific undertaking which the regulation fulfils. The answer is that the situation has developed since 1955, with the gradual building up in the Service of a higher proportion of normal age entrants. The Government have had the matter under careful consultation for many months with the professions before arriving at the solution in Regulation No. 4, which they regard as acceptable.

Here I can answer the question put by my hon. Friend the Member for South Angus. These Government Actuary's reviews take place every seven years, and another review, for the period 1955–62 is on foot at the moment. But he will not be misled into thinking that this is a matter of a quarter per cent. What it does is to add a quarter per cent., or one-sixth, to the annual brick which is laid each year that a practitioner remains in the Service. Therefore, the amount of addition to the total superannuation benefit may in some cases be very considerable, and even after the five years which he mentioned it will be appreciable.

He also asked what would be the cost of Regulation No. 3. I hope that it will be very small. We all hope that cases of redundancy to be dealt with in this way will be few and far between. It is for that reason that it is not possible to give any useful estimate of the cost over the years—but that this will, in any economic sense, be a true saving, I have not the slightest doubt under either head, because the modernisation of the Service which is implicit in the hospital plan brings with it endless possibilities of increased efficiency and there would be advantage in the elimination from the Service of elderly officers who are no longer fully efficient in the jobs they are trying to perform.

The hon. Member for Lewisham, South (Mr. C. Johnson) asked about the procedure to be adopted in cases of early retirement in the interests of the efficiency of the Service. I accept the point which he and the hon. Member for Fife, West (Mr. W. Hamilton) made, that these are circumstances in which proper safeguards are needed in the interests not only of the individual but of the public service, to ensure that there are sound grounds for the decision.

I propose, in a circular, to indicate the procedure which is to be followed in these oases. It will include the right to a personal hearing by the employing authority, in the presence of two assessors, one of whom will be appointed by me. The officer concerned will have the right to be represented by anyone whom he wishes—trade union official or otherwise. In addition, if early retirement is recommended as a result of that hearing, a full report will have to be made to me, and it is my decision whether the provisions are invoked. I shall have to be told of the opinion given toy the assessors in cases where the officer asked for a hearing.

I shall endeavour to ensure that hospital authorities apply stringent safeguards—which will be under my direct surveillance—in the use made of this new provision.

I am trying to Change my memory. To what extent does this march with the provisions made for the ordinary civil servant? Are the provisions announced by the right hon. Gentleman batter or worse than those?

They axe different in a good many respects, because the superannuation system of the Health Service is mot fully comparable with that of the Civil Service. I would rather deal with the detailed matters directly with the right hon. Member than, to use his phrase, charge my memory. But these are two different schemes. We are dealing with two quite different and separate systems; the contributory system of the National Health Service and the non-contributory system of the Civil Service.

I shall be anxious to ensure that the safeguards which are applied in working Regulation No. 3 are effective. I can also assure hon. Members that they will not prejudice the rights of officers where health grounds are in question.

Finally, I can say on behalf of my Scottish colleague that the modernisation of the hospital service in Scotland is not expected to involve redundancy on any greater scale, if on as great a scale, as in England and Wales, that in Scotland there has been equally full consultation with the associations and that what I said about the attitude of the staff associations applies to both countries. With those explanations, I hope that the House will approve these Regulations.

At a late hour last night we were discussing the question of small farmers, but a great many hon. Members found that within the narrow confines of the Scheme they were unable to raise the various matters which they felt were perhaps relevant to a full discussion of the subject. It is for that reason that I have brought the Parliamentary Secretary back to the Dispatch Box for the third occasion in his first week as a Minister, and I apologise for so doing because I know that Friday afternoon is not the most convenient time for those who live in Cornwall and who have a constituency there.

The observations which I want to make this afternoon follow, therefore, the few matters that I raised last night. Perhaps I may remind the Parliamentary Secretary of one or two things which I then said so as to lay the foundations for the other matters that I wish to draw to his attention. I gave two examples, one of a dairy farmer and one of a man who has specialised for the whole of his working life in beef, people who have benefited from the Small Farmer Scheme and who, as a result of the present level of prices and other difficulties in which they find themselves, make it clear that they find life increasingly difficult.

It is because of those difficulties and because I have discussed them with many farmers in my constituency and elsewhere that I have sought to raise the matter on the Adjournment today. Last night I indicated one or two figures just to show the position of the small farmers. I first referred to a report, which comes from Aberystwyth by D. H. Evans, which gave the figures for 1960 and 1961 on acreages of between 20 and 99 and which stated that the average weekly income of those on better land was £6 2s. 4d. and that the average weekly income of those on poorer land was £2 18s. 10d.

I then referred to the figures of the National Farmers' Union for 1949–60 which gave the lowest return of £4 10s. per week in 1950–51 for those on acreages below 50 and the highest return during those years of £10 10B. a week for the year 1957–58. So that for a period of eleven years, on acreages below 50 the farmers who made returns to the National Farmers' Union had weekly incomes of between £4 10s. and £10 10s. These are men who have put up their capital, who are hard-working, responsible people and who make their families join in the enterprise. I do not think that any of us would feel that they are being overpaid.

Then I made reference to the recent report of the Land Settlement Association which gave the figures for 1960. Of those who were Land Settlement Association tenants, 58 per cent. were making over £600 a year and 28 per cent. were making over £1,000 a year. The average holding of Land Settlement Association tenants is five acres so that they are indeed very small fanners.

I am not asking the Minister to extend the Land Settlement organisation because I know that it is only a very small organisation. I know that it is a pioneer in this field and that it is not designed to give birth to a further offspring of a similar nature. The land is owned by the Minister and there is Treasury control. Ail I am asking the Minister to do is to look at the reasons which underlie the great difference in weekly incomes which Land Settlement Association tenants receive as compared with those who are operating on a larger acreage but perhaps on different principles.

One hon. Member last night indicated that my comparison between the Land Settlement Association tenant and the ordinary small farmer was not valid. He suggested that there were, in fact, many real differences between the way in which a tenant of the Land Settlement Association was working as against the ordinary small farmer. It is precisely because of those differences that I have thought it worthwhile to ask the Parliamentary Secretary to look at them to see whether there might be some indication in them which would be of assistance to us in trying to solve the problems of the small farmer.

One of the things which I always try to say to fawners is that as far as I can see it is not much use grumbling that the price of milk is not as high as they would wish or that they do not get a proper return from their acreage because of the prices of the products which they are producing. To go on producing a product which the market is not anxious to buy and at a price which is uneconomic is to go along a road which is not going to provide a very satisfactory future.

I want to set out under five headings the principles at which I thought we might look today. The first is that if we are going to have a viable economic unit—it does not matter what it is producing—it must have adequate marketing arrangements. I would say that the first thing that the small farmer needs above all else is a method of seeing that his produce reaches the market in a satisfactory manner. It does not matter whether we look at the way in which small farmers in Denmark market their bacon or the way small horticultural producers in Holland market their produce or, indeed, whether we look at the methods by which Canadians have been tackling their problems. They ail show that once we get satisfactory marketing arrangements, then we can obtain the advantages of dealing with the large buyers who are becoming increasingly numerous these days.

Unless we have an organisation which can produce large quantities of a particular commodity that can be properly graded and that can be provided throughout the year at times when the purchasers want it, it means that we are weak sellers and are not going to got the best prices. In addition to that, a proper marketing organisation can tackle the problems of grading and providing standards on which the public can rely. None of those things are available to the small farmer as we know him today unless he happens to have a local co-operative or some other arrangement That is the first thing which I think we might look at, because under the Land Settlement Association all the marketing is done for the tenants, and that organisation is then able to make far better arrangements for selling produce than any individual farmer would be able to do.

The second point at which I wanted the Parliamentary Secretary to look is the question of financial loans. I know that many people feel that if it is made easy to obtain financial assistance, the result is that some will find themselves with a millstone of debt round their necks from which they are unable ever to escape. But one of the things with which the small farmer finds it very difficult to deal is an alteration in the rate of interest on a loan.

If a small man thinks that he has secured a loan at a particular rate of interest and then finds that the interest rate is considerably higher, it means, with his small budget, that he is faced with grave financial difficulties. Therefore if there were some method by which a small farmer might be able to obtain the financial assistance which he needed at a rate which would remain steady throughout the period of the loan, that might prove another method of providing real assistance to the small farmer. The Land Settlement Association loans available through that organisation are related to the Public Works Loan Board rates for local authorities. The interest rates on the loans made to its tenants by the Association are fixed for the whole period of the loan.

The third point is the question of buying, because if it is possible to buy at one time what is required by a number of people, better terms may be obtained for the purchasers. But, quite apart from obtaining better terms, the Land Settlement Association advises tenants on what is suitable for them to buy. Advice is given about the right seed for their land or indeed for the markets which the Association is able to provide for its tenants. There is also the question of machinery suitable for a smallholding. We all know of the successful machinery syndicates in Hampshire and elsewhere. These are matters which might be looked at to see whether they provide methods of giving assistance to small farmers. If a small farmer is able to obtain advice about what he should buy when purchasing his seed or his machinery, and is able to buy what is necessary at advantageous rates, that would be a help for him.

My fourth point may not command itself readily to all small farmers. I refer to the contract which the Land Settlement Association demands that its tenants should sign. The contract makes it necessary for the tenants neither to buy nor to sell elsewhere. That, of course, is fundamental to any organisation of this nature. Unless the small farmer is prepared to enter into some sort of arrangement with a larger body of similar farmers and is prepared to play according to a set of rules which will be binding on them all, he will have to go on arranging his own affairs in Ms own way. I believe that, however unattractive such a proposition as this contract might appear, it is the cornerstone of any activities which may evolve along the lines I have suggested.

The fifth point which I should like my hon. Friend to look at arises where there is an organisation, and some small fanners have decided that they want to tackle their problem on a wider basis. The time might come when it ought to be possible, at least in some parishes— or even over wider areas—for a survey to be made in order to ascertain whether the small farmers in the parish wore producing the things best suited for each of them to produce in each part of the parish. In one parish of which I know there is a farm of over 100 acres; there are three farms with an acreage of between 50 and 100 acres and the rest of the farms are under 50 acres. If each of the smaller fanners decides that he is going to produce a crop which is not wanted by the market I do not think that he is in a position to grumble if at the end of the year he finds that he has not done very well.

In the Province of Quebec, for example, this problem has been dealt with in a serious manner. It was decided that the best solution for those farming a small acreage and not getting an adequate income would be a survey of the whole area to find out what could usefully be produced on the different farms in the area. An opportunity was given to small farmers to turn over to a different variety of production which would fit into what was required by the markets and by the country. In the area which I have in mind livestock producers have been encouraged to turn to the production of vegetables to be converted into frozen food in factories which have been set up for the purpose.

No one who knows the difference in climate between the Province of Quebec and this country would have any doubt that there would be no direct parallel between the example which I have given and what it might be possible to do here. But if we did examine wider areas and made such surveys to find out what it might be possible for small farmers to produce more economically, we might find that they could avoid the problems which they so frequently encounter, and get away from the idea that there are only two or three commodities which small farmers can produce.

Those are the five points which I wanted the Parliamentary Secretary to look at. In his speech last night he intimated that the National Agricultural Advisory Service was not the organisation to undertake such an enterprise. If N.A.A.S. is too busy with the Small Farmer Schemes and other responsibilities to do this work, it might well be that, with some encouragement from the Ministry, a solution along the lines which I have suggested could be arrived at in some other way.

When I discussed this problem with some of the small farmers in my constituency I found them confident that among their number were people who would be able, and in whom they would have enough confidence, to run for them an organisation such as the one I have envisaged. I am not able to give an opinion as to whether this is so. But if it is not the answer, and if it is impossible to put this additional burden on N.A.A.S., it may be that a training scheme could be started for managers to be recruited from some other source, or from among local farmers who would be prepared to take on additional responsibilities. It would be necessary in some way to find someone who could manage the business affairs of several small farmers.

The reason I have raised this problem at this moment is that those of us who are reasonably closely in touch with the agricultural community are aware that it is those on small acreages who are perhaps most anxious at this time. If they are in that frame of mind, this may be the auspicious moment to put to them some ideas which might provide a practical solution to their problems. If the total result could be that their incomes would be related more to the Land Settlement Association's standard than that indicated by the National Farmers' Union farm accounts, I think we would find some very satisfied small farmers.

Finally, I should like to read to the House part of a letter I have received from the chairman of a branch of the National Farmers' Union at which I discussed these problems, among others, not many weeks ago. He writes:

"I feel that perhaps something could be achieved with Government help and direction along the lines of the Land Settlement Association.

In areas such as this where the small farmer predominates I think it might just be possible for a number of farmers to employ, if you like, a business manager. The whole thing could be co-ordinated possibly through the present N.A.A.S. machinery. I know it is often said that the small men like their independence, but I think that many of them do begin to see the tide moving rapidly against them and I am fairly sure would be more ready to consider such a thing than they would have been five years ago. As I see it, in a way similar to this the small man would be able to reap any advantages there may be in group buying and selling which are at present not open to him.

I think, too, in this way it might be possible for them to avail themselves of any grants on packing sheds etc. for the better marketing of their produce. There are I feel quite a lot of possibilities opened up by such a scheme, and it does I think differ from the present syndicates etc. in that it would be possible to plan production on the smaller acreages rather than as at the moment when production just happens. I am certain that a good many small farmers would be very happy if they obtained anything like the income which the Land Settlement Association publish for some of their holdings and this perhaps is the greatest thing to be said in favour of giving the whole thing further thought."

The key words of that letter are "production just happens". If we allow production just to happen on very small acreages, for a considerable period in the future there will be small farmers in even greater difficulties than they are in today.

I hope that the hon. Member for Rye (Mr. Godman Irvine) will not be embarrassed by an hon. Member on this side of the House congratulating him on a very constructive speech. Last night we had a debate on the Small Farmer Scheme. I joined in and there was some controversy. Today, in the quieter atmosphere of an Adjournment debate on a Friday afternoon, the hon. Member has made many constructive proposals which I know will be carefully considered by the Parliamentary Secretary.

I think that all hon. Members on either side of the House will agree with the hon. Member that we must offer something constructive to deal with the small farmers' problems. We all know that the problems may become acute. There are signs in many parts of the country that small farmers are experiencing difficulties. On a previous occasion I quoted the problem of small farmers in upland areas who may have quite large acreages. It is not always the man with a small acreage who can be classified as a small farmer. It depends on the type of farm. Even a large holding in certain circumstances may provide a very small living for the individual concerned.

I have also pointed out the difficulties of milk producers in the North of England, especially in the suburban Pennine areas. The hon. Member for Rye speaks from experience of the South. He knows that difficulty faces many small producers. I welcome what the hon. Gentleman has said. His five points are admirable, and they should become the basis of discussion not just this afternoon in this debate but within the Ministry. A careful reply should be given to them.

To take one of the items which the hon. Gentleman mentioned, I regard marketing as the key. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman has read the survey just published by a group of representatives of the National Farmers' Union who toured France, Western Germany, Holland and Italy.

I have read it.

It is an excellent document prepared, in the main, by representatives of the horticulture section of the N.F.U. From it we can see how we are lagging behind. In France, for instance, under the impetus of the Monnet plan, new market organisations have been created. I am not speaking now just in terms of marketing but of the whole system of market organisation. The French are setting about creating in various parts of France efficient markets to which the produce can go, with lower transport costs, easier handling and the application of modern methods and mechanisation, all of which benefits the small producer.

What a contrast is displayed by our own higgledy-piggledy marketing arrangements for fruit and vegetables. We have had arguments about Covent Garden. Recently, I paid an unofficial visit to Brentford Market. The site is a good one and the market is controlled locally. Compared with what happens in other parts of the country it is efficient. In Sheffield a new structure has been created. But all over the country there is chaos in marketing. In France and in other Western European countries the creation of more modern markets is a top priority. We have no such priority here.

We have our new Horticultural Marketing Council, but it has no executive authority to decide on new markets and the new methods of efficient distribution which are so urgent. I trust that the new Parliamentary Secretary will regard it as one of his first tasks in the Ministry to inject life into the sections of his Department concerned with marketing. I am not thinking of a wider meat marketing organisation. This will inevitably flow from the investigations into meat distribution, marketing and so forth carried out by the committee of inquiry recently set up. I am thinking now purely of horticulture, and it is horticulture which so much affects the small producer. There should be a new spirit in the Ministry on the subject of marketing. The hon. Gentleman should win his spurs by injecting into the Ministry a desire quickly to catch up with our European competitors.

This is why I am so worried about the Common Market. If we join the Common Market—I shall not argue the merits now; we shall have an opportunity to do that on a later occasion, no doubt—our horticultural producers and small farmers will face the blast of competition from people who have during the past few years very rapidly improved their marketing arrangements. Whatever our views about the Common Market, and whether we go in or not, there must, as a matter of high priority, be a drive in marketing in order to help the small farmer. This should be one of the major priorities of any Government dealing with the problem.

The hon. Member for Rye referred also to the subject of loans and credit arrangements. In Italy and in Holland the horticultural producer can have better credit facilities than can producers in this country. If our producers are to compete with those two producer countries, they will inevitably be at a disadavantage. I want the Government to look very carefully into the whole question of loans, rates of interest and credit arrangements. As the Parliamentary Secretary must know if he has read his own party's documents over the years, this was one of the strong points of the Tory Party in its famous charter which—although it was as dead as the dodo as soon as it came off the printing presses—promised cheap credit. Nothing has been done over the years. We have raised the subject in many debates and we have always had a dusty answer. The Chancellor has promised to look at it and the Minister of Agriculture has promised to look at it. That is all.

The time has come for the Government to fulfil the promises they have made over the years. If our small farmers and producers in horticulture or anything else are to compete, they must have some form of cheap credit arrangements. The whole subject of credit, rates of interest and loans must be gone into thoroughly.

I will not inject any more controversy into the debate. I agree with the hon. Member's constructive approach and I hope that today the House will be able to say that we all feel that the small farmer must be catered for. I am glad that comments were made about the Land Settlement Association. It is doing a fine job. It gives security to producers and the ability to have efficient marketing with long-term contracts. The organisation is first-rate. We want all that and, as the hon. Member rightly said, we also want more cooperation.

This is a vital issue in agriculture and I am proud that in Cumberland we have the best and largest agricultural producers' co-operative organisation in Western Europe in the Western Cumberland Farmers. I want to see that kind of organisation developed elsewhere. It is the only way to give the small farmer some protection in earning his livelihood. It is essential that the small farmer should play his part in a larger unit, because more than any other producer in agriculture he makes the most important contribution. It is wrong and immoral that the small farmer should be squeezed out by economic and financial pressures. He is the backbone of British agriculture and for these reasons I not only want him to protect himself by mutual co-operation but I also want the State to help him by providing the essential leadership.

I am not entitled to the indulgence of the House, but perhaps I may hope for some generosity from hon. Members for one who addresses the House after a long interval, particularly since this is not a controversial subject and it affects my constituency. There are a great number of very small farmers indeed in west Derbyshire, and I feel grateful to my ban. Friend the Member for Rye (Mr. Godman Irvine) for raising this subject again.

I want to make one or two general points and, I hope, some practical suggestions. The Minister kindly supplied me with one set of figures. There are in England alone nearly 174,000 farmers farming less than 50 acres. In 1960 their average income was £740 a year. I find that townsmen still hold very generally the view that all farmers are richer than they appear, and in some mysterious way have hidden reserves and neither need nor deserve the subsidies which we as a community pay them. These figures surely dispose of those ideas.

The truth is that not only are two-thirds of the farmers of England small farmers, but their average net earnings are about the level of the average net earnings of manual workers, that is £15 a week. Because this is an average, as my hon. Friend said, many of them earn a great deal less. Although some have capital and a few a quite considerable amount, a very much larger number have borrowed a great dead to carry out their farming and are heavily in debt. Far from having hidden reserves, therefore, they are in the reverse situation.

We are also apt to forget that farming entails far more financial risk than any job token in any industry. In a bad year—and in paints of Derbyshire last year was a difficult one—small farmers earn practically nothing. If they have two bad years running it is almost in-comprehensible how they carry on. Without the help that Parliament has given them, a large number of farmers in Derbyshire would have gone out of business already. My fear is that unless there is further discriminatory help, perhaps along the lines suggested by my hon. Friend 'the Member for Rye, a great many will go out of business quite soon.

I know that a lot of economists would welcome that. One has read many reports by people expressing the hope that a county like west Derbyshire will be simply ranched by a few people on a large scale. As is the case with many people who deal with figures, however, that attitude totally ignores the social revolution which that would bring about and to which the hon. Member for Workington (Mr. Peart) so rightly referred.

Nobody who loves the countryside can conceivably want whole villages to disappear. In my constituency, there are small villages of 20 or 30 houses inhabited by nothing but small farmers. They would go to ruin. Nor can anybody who loves the country want to curb the spirit of independence which prompts a man to leave a wage or salary-earning job and try to work on Ms own, accepting all the risks and responsibilities of being a small farmer. He is not only the backbone of British agriculture, but of a lot of the character of the country, too.

I should like to make two suggestions. The main problem in my part of the world is milk. Although the west Derbyshire farms are hilly, most of the small farmers have gone in for milk, not because the land is particularly well suited to it—very often the soil is too shallow, the climate bleak and the grass comes late in the spring—but because of the monthly milk cheque.

Because of the way that the Price Review works—I know that this is not now directly the responsibility of my hon. Friend the Joint Parliamentary Secretary, although he must take a great interest in it and, perhaps, give a lead —the income of the small farmer is gradually falling. If something is knocked off the price, the large farmer, particularly in the South, steps up production, introduces more cows to his herd and increases the production of milk. The small farmer cannot afford such extensions and, consequently, has a falling income. Many people have thought that this position might be tackled by a quota system, but I, like other hon. Members, have discussed this aspect with many farmers' organisations and institutions. Nobody seems to think that a quota system which might limit the degree of expansion which farmers can undertake would really work.

If the tendency of the price of milk to fall continues, we must try to help the small farmer with less than 50 acres to change over to another form of production. The great difficulty is his need of capital. It is not entirely a matter of credit. We should try to think on other lines. Many of these fanners hesitate to borrow at the rate of interest which they are charged. I wonder whether it might not be possible, if they were to change over to livestock production, for example, to devise some sort of system of futures payments, by which I mean quarterly payments at least on stock on the land, striking a balance at the end of the year. This would solve the problem of the small farmer having to go through most of the year without anything coming into his banking account and it would enable a check to be kept on the way that he was producing his livestock.

That could be done in many ways, perhaps through the Fatstock Marketing Corporation or a meat marketing board, if we have one, or conceivably some form of insurance. I am, however, sure that we will not be able to persuade small farmers of the type of whom I am thinking to make this drastic change in their methods if they have to borrow a lot of money at high rates of interest. Something else is needed.

My other suggestion concerns cooperatives. As the hon. Member for Workington has said, we are a long way behind many Continental countries in our development of co-operatives. Some people, however, underestimate the difficulties. I think more of what I call machinery or producer co-operatives than marketing co-operatives. In Holland or Denmark, the country is flat and farm after another are of the same kind, separated only by a small ditch, and everybody produces much the same thing in much the same way. Most people can easily share their machinery and other things. It is a different question in a place like West Derbyshire, where the whole country is steep hills and narrow valleys.

A small farm at the bottom of the valley may have a totally different sort of soil and farming technique to its neighbour, 1,000 feet above it, although the two fanners are next door to each other and only 50 acres apiece. There may be no means of communication and one may have to go five miles round to get from one to the other. Co-operation is not easy in those circumstances. Nevertheless, it is of very great importance. I know there is a considerable resistence to it, and I doubt if in this area the idea of a single manager managing many farms, as my hon. Friend suggested, would yet be acceptable.

If we are to get farmers of this kind, living next to each other but remote from each other in many ways, to consider co-operation, we shall have to consider introducing some form of pilot scheme. The Minister must forgive my ignorance if any such schemes exist in other parts of the country, because I have not been back long enough to have that information, but I am pretty sure that no such scheme exists in my constituency or in neighbouring constituencies.

I think that if we could get a small group of four or five farmers in different areas to accept the idea of a pilot scheme, survey their needs and possibilities, and then, while the scheme is running, have the constant help of somebody from the advisory service, we might get something going which would set an example that other small farmers would then consider. I am sure that we will not achieve practical cooperation merely through exhortation. It is only when these very independent minded men, who are living a fairly hard life and working enormously long hours all through the week, actually see that it works and pay off that they will consider it.

I hope that the suggestions not only of my hon. Friend the Member for Rye but those, too, which I have made will commend themselves to the Minister. It is infinitely worth while doing more than we are doing to help the small farmers. Because not only will he be with us for a long time, but here and in other European countries he will remain the backbone of agriculture during the rest of our lives.

May I say how very much I enjoyed the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Derbyshire, West (Mr. Crawley) whom we welcome back to the House and how much we shall look forward to his contributions in the months and years ahead? It is only because of what he said about the villages and farms in Derbyshire that I am speaking in the debate. I should also like to congratulate the Parliamentary Secretary on his new appointment.

On this question of co-operatives, I am sure that in the long run if the farming community of this country is to receive the support of the masses of the people, farming will have to be productive and profitable. I wonder if my hon. Friend has considered sending a delegation to the State of Israel to look at the type of village co-operatives called Moshavims where there are about 25 farms which seem to be of a similar description to the one which my hon. Friend described in Derbyshire and where each individual farmer farms as an independent person but all the produce of those farms is brought centrally into the village. Their marketing is cooperative, their machinery is co-operative and their on-cost of production per acre is much less than that of the average farmer in Britain. I think that a survey of this system in Israel, where the farmers are very dynamic in their approach to agriculture, would be a sensible approach to this problem of the small farmer.

If we could take an ideal village and start a pilot scheme of this kind and, because it is pilot scheme, guarantee its security by Government funds over a period so that we could show the rest of the farming community that it would be worth while, I am sure that we should get a great many from other villages wanting to do the same thing. If we could produce such a pilot scheme through the Ministry of Agriculture, we should go a long way to overcoming this problem of the small farmer.

I go back to what I started with and say that the nation as a whole will not for ever go on giving ploughing grants, and subsidies for this and that, to produce for the individual farmer an income which is lower than the amount he is drawing in subsidies. The public will eventually realise this, and when they (realise it they will say to the Government of the day that they must bring it to a stop.

Before that happens we have to evolve some efficient system, and we could profit from the lessons which could be learned by a real study of how the problems were tackled in Israel. The farmers there had extremely difficult problems. Look at their land. They even had to spend years moving boulders by hand, to get at the soil from which to produce crops. I am certain that the problems of the Derbyshire farmers could be solved if their problems were to be tackled as Israel tackled hers.

I say to my hon. Friend, let him go down in history as the man who solved the problems of the small farmer.

Let me first of all say how grateful I am to my hon. Friend the Member for Rye (Mr. Godman Irvine) for raising this extremely important subject on the Adjournment this afternoon. I do not mind a bit forgoing the pleasures of Cornwall to discuss such a very important subject as this one, even though we were talking about it, to a certain degree, last night. As my (hon. Friend will undoubtedly know, I have the very greatest sympathy for the small farmers, because I was myself a small farmer, albeit many years ago. I was engaged in farming by myself, the one person on my farm, so I realise and understand only too well the problems Which small farmers have to face.

However, I think that perhaps the picture Which has been painted by my hon. Friend and various other of my hon. Friends and the Member for Workington (Mr. Peart) is just a little bit too over-gloomy. There are no two ways about it. The small farmer does have by far the most difficult time of all the farming community at the moment, but the House will remember that only as recently as last night we were discussing measures Which the Government are taking to help the small farmer. We appreciate that the small farmer needs help. Last night we discussed the help that we have given through the Small Farmer Scheme and the improvements to that Scheme. It is for the very reason that the small farmer has been lacking in capital, which is one of his troubles, that we made an injection of capital in the once-for-all grant last night, for the very purpose of helping him to make himself more productive, more efficient, and to get into a position to face the changing conditions of the future.

I expect that my hon. Friends will remember the speech which was made last night by my hon. Friend the Member for Lowestoft (Mr. Prior) when he made extremely interesting and constructive suggestions to the effect that small farmers, amongst others, must keep up with Che times, and with modern improvements and all the new things Which are happening, and which science brings us; they must take every advantage they can of these if they are to keep in the race. Of course, this is only just one side of it. My hon. Friend put forward five interesting points, and I am sure that everybody in the House will agree that they are extremely useful and interesting.

The hon. Member for Workington mentioned a point about marketing, as did my hon. Friend the Member for Derbyshire, West (Mr. Crawley), whose very interesting speech I was delighted to hear. I am glad that he has joined us here. The Government recognise the fact that the marketing position needs looking into and, indeed, needs reorganisation and, perhaps, changing in some of its aspects. It is for that reason that after the Price Review at the beginning of this year £1½ million was allocated by the Government for research into new methods of marketing to bring the marketing systems of this country into line with modern techniques and improvements so that this country can compete with whatever changing circumstances may bring, even those mentioned by the hon. Member for Workington, and whatever happens in the future. This is the responsibility not only of the Government but also of the N.F.U. and other farming organisations. I am sure that advantage will be taken of it and something worth while will emerge from it.

My hon. Friend and the hon. Member for Workington also spoke about capital provision and loans. It is rather difficult to deal with this matter in respect of the small farmer in isolation. The matter of credit for the farming industry must be considered as a whole. The Government have provided an injection of capital amounting to £29 million for the small farmer alone when the present scheme comes to an end, and that is no small sum. The structure of capital and credit for the farming industry cannot be broken down but must be looked at as a whole, and, if possible, improved.

My hon. Friend also raised a point which covers buying syndicates, selling syndicates and machinery syndicates. This is an extremely important issue. Small farmers, and large ones as well, must be encouraged to go more and more into this sort of thing. The greater the co-operation which can be achieved between farmers, the better it will be. That is one of the reasons why after last year's Price Review the Government allocated money for grants to be paid to syndicates for the erection of buildings for grain drying, storage and the housing of machinery. For this purpose, £250,000 has been made available over the next seven years.

My hon. Friend also talked about the Land Settlement Association. He pointed out that this is a compulsory get-together and that farmers cannot become tenants unless they sign a contract to buy and sell all their products through the Association. I do not think that it is the right approach to have a compulsory get-together of small farmers. It should be done on a voluntary basis. The small farmers should be shown the advantages of such an arrangement, and once together, they can be encouraged as they have been by the recent grant. Except in this instance, I do not think that compulsion can be said to work on a nation-wide basis. The work that the Association has done, and the success that it has achieved, has been extraordinary, but the work is on a very limited basis, and I think it must stay that way.

One thing which my hon. Friend did not make clear when talking about the Association was that the tenants do not pay any interest on the capital which the Association uses for buying and selling the produce and the general running of the scheme. A certain amount must be set off for this from the profit which the ordinary tenant receives at the end of the year. The Association has done extremely well, and I hope it will continue to do even better in the years ahead.

My hon. Friend also spoke about help from the National Agricultural Advisory Service for small farmer groups. He may slightly have misunderstood what I said last night. I did not say that the N.A.A.S. would not help at all—it will—but it is not its function to act as business managers for a buying group, a selling group or a farm machinery syndicate. Its job is to advise. If farmers want to get together —and I hope they will do so—they can then ask the N.A.A.S. for advice and help in working out their plans. It will give advice as to what groups should produce, and so on. That is the kind of service the N.A.A.S. would be only too delighted to give to the farming community, particularly small farmers, but, as I have said, it is not its function to act as business managers.

Many of the buying associations employ their own full-time managers. In my part of Cornwall a buying group has been started by a small branch of the N.F.U., and there is a fully paid manager to look after the groups in the county. This is a very good small scheme started under the N.A.A.S., whose main functions must be to advise and help small farmers to get together and to increase their production.

I understand the difficulties expressed by my hon. Friend the Member for Derbyshire, West. His area has farms scattered among the dales and hills and it is difficult to get the farmers together to co-operate on a reasonable basis. The N.A.A.S. can help in showing them how it is possible. That applies to the production side, of course, but on 'the marketing side also the more association and co-operation between farmers there is, the better it will be for them.

My hon. Friend the Member for Ormskirk (Sir D. Glover) made a very interesting suggestion when he talked about the State of Israel. By sheer coincidence, a farmer friend of mine has just returned from there and has told me about this work. It sounded fascinating and I shall do what I can to hear more about it.

It is not a village. It is a type of village, and there are hundreds of them.

There are several of them, some successful and some not so successful. Nevertheless it is a very interesting suggestion worth looking into, and I am sure it will be considered.

The main point brought out in this debate is the great concern we all feel for the small farmer in seeing, on social grounds, that he is able to stay on the land with a reasonable standard of living and that he is able to thrive in future. Whether he can thrive alone on his own farm with his old standards and practices, I do not know. Surely he must move with the times and, by using modern methods and combining where possible with his neighbours—but on a voluntary basis—he can hope to give himself a higher standard of life.

The Government are fully alive to the difficulties of the small farmer. We intend to see that he is neither left behind nor squeezed out. This is the object of what the Government are doing, and have done in the past, as has been proved. I hope that small farmers will continue to co-operate with each other more and more in future so that they can get together in strength and face the future, no matter what it may hold.

When it appeared this morning that the debates today might not last until 4.30, I gave notice to the Home Secretary that I would wish, if the opportunity arose, to draw attention to another case of deportation which has just occurred.

Yesterday in the House I think more honest and spontaneous indignation was expressed about an action of the Home Office than I have seen ever since the case of Joaquim Perez-Selles, which I raised. He was a stowaway and a political refugee from Spain. The case I want to raise this afternoon is of a different character from the one which my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, East (Mr. Fletcher) raised yesterday. I will say only that many of us are very grateful to the Leader of the House for having given us the opportunity to raise the matter again on Monday, despite the Home Secretary's firm refusal yesterday to reconsider it.

The case which I am raising this afternoon is different, but it shows an equal lack of humanity and an equal lack of compassion and will make the same kind of deplonable impression on the world of our inhospitality and absence of generosity as the case before the House yesterday.

Last Monday, I received a cable from Durban in South Africa in the following terms:

"My daughter Lutchmee Atchanna being held by your immigration. Your immigration wants to send her back to South Africa by July 19th. Your urgent intervention desired. She will explain full story about her position. Letter following. A. Reddy."

On receiving that cablegram I immediately made inquiries and obtained the assistance of legal friends who not only contacted the Home Office but sought to find this girl who was to be returned to South Africa by 19th July. They reported to me the same afternoon that the girl had already been sent back to South Africa—I do not have the date before me, but it was several days earlier.

It was on 12th July.

A considerable period earlier.

They discovered that this girl had come from South Africa for surgical treatment in this country. She had burns on her face and her neck and needed plastic surgery, no medical treatment adequate to her injuries being available in South Africa.

The Home Office informed those who inquired on my behalf that she was being returned to South Africa because she. did not have funds available to remain in this country. I have since received a letter from the girl's father which reached me yesterday and of which I have informed the Home Secretary. He said that he provided her with £60 in cash to enter the country and undertook that further amounts of cash would be forwarded to her each month so that she might remain here during her period of treatment. That information I have sent to the Home Office.

Unless the Home Office can disprove the truth of that statement of the girl's parent—that she had £60 with her and his pledge that he would maintain her each month while she was here—I can hardly imagine a more inhuman case than to return to her country a girl in need of medical treatment available only in this country.

It is possible that because of the new Health Service regulations the sum of £60 with which this girl arrived in this country would have been inadequate for the costly operation necessary for plastic surgery. If this girl had money when she arrived, but the sum was insufficient to meet the costs of the operation, she should have at least been allowed stay here, and a communication sent to her parent in Durban pointing out the cost of any operation that might be necessary. That is the least that the Home Office could have done.

I come now to a second point, and I admit that it is a new one. If the Home Office had any humanity, it would not in a case like this simply say that there is a regulation laying down that the person concerned must have sufficient money for an operation. It would not merely say that this girl had only £60, the operation would cost £100, and that therefore she must be returned to her own country. If the Home Office had any humanity, in a case like this it would endeavour to find people who would be prepared to assist the girl. This case was reported in the Press last week, and people wrote to me saying that they would be prepared to contribute towards the maintenance of this girl.

I am not suggesting that the Home Office should communicate with me in all oases of this kind, but there are African and South African associations which would have been only too ready to act in this case. A humane Home Secretary, when dealing with a girl who has been sent here to receive medical treatment would, instead of returning her to the Republic of South Africa, try to find people in this country who could and would assist her. I make the suggestion which has not been made in the past, that when cases of this kind occur every effort should be made to find people who are prepared to assist.

My last point is this. The girl was sent back before 19th July, the date on which she was originally due to leave, because of an unexpected vacancy on a ship. She was sent back before we could intervene and do anything to help. I therefore make this suggestion to the Home Office. If the parent is able to say, as I believe he would have done if a communication had been sent to him in the first instance, that he would meet the costs of the operation, the Home Office should agree to the girl returning and undergoing the necessary operation.

This country used to have a reputation for its generosity and humane hospitality not only to political refugees but to all those in need. It would be difficult to find someone in greater need than this girl who has suffered these dreadful injuries. It distresses me that in recent years the reputation of this House and of this country has suffered in its treatment of those who come to us for help and succour.

No one could have listened unmoved to the plea of the hon. Member for Eton and Slough (Mr. Brookway), but I hope, before I have concluded, to persuade him that he is quite wrong in thinking that the various officers of the Home Office who have looked most carefully into this case have not acted with the humanity with which he appealed to them to act.

There must be rules—I think the hon. Member himself would admit that—and the first rule that we have to administer in the case of aliens—and, of course, this lady is an alien, and no hon. Members of this House were keener to make it quite clear that South Africa was a foreign country than were hon. Members apposite—as under the Aliens Order, Article 4 (1, a), which is in the following terms:

" Except with the authority of the Secretary of State, an immigration officer shall not grant leave to an alien to land in the United Kingdom unless the alien (a) is in a position to support herself and her dependants (if any) in the United Kingdom …"

It follows, as a corollary of that, although it is not always realised, particularly on the benches behind me, that aliens are not normally allowed to enter the United Kingdom for the sole purpose of obtaining free medical treatment. Nor are they normally admitted if they are not in a position to support themselves. Although that may occasionally work great hardship, in fact we could not administer this country at all if we were not to erect a barrier against the floods of people who seek to come here, particularly aliens, in the way they do.

The short history of this case—and I shall be brief, as the hon. Gentleman himself said that I had not had a tremendous amount of notice that he was to raise this matter today—is this. This girl, Lutchmee Atchanna, is a 23-year-old South African woman of Indian stock, with a badly scarred and disfigured face. She arrived at Southampton on 6th July with £23 and no return ticket. She said that she intended to stay here for about four months and to obtain surgical treatment for her disfigurement. She was immediately examined by the port medical officer, who reported that she was not a sick person and not in need of any immediate treatment. He advised that she would require four or more surgical operations to restore her facial appearance to normal, and that the cost of this would be very considerable indeed.

This lady at first told the immigration officer that her father would send the money when the cost of her treatment was known, and that she thought he had about £200 available. She produced no evidence or any undertaking such as the hon. Member has mentioned. She said that her father was a cabinet-maker earning £4 15s. a week. At a later interview, four days later—because, as the House will hear, we did not have the inhumanity to return her immediately without further inquiries—on 10th July, she admitted that there was no money immediately available. It is clear that Miss Atchanna, with only £23 and no work permit or return ticket, had been led to believe by others that she could obtain free treatment under the National Health Service. She said that she would pay if she had to, but although she received an offer of free accommodation in this country, no financial assistance was available to her here, and no further funds were coming from home.

At first she said that she would stay with a cousin named Pothiah, whose address she gave but whose Christian name she did not know. She said that he would arrange for hospital treatment and, in common with her other relatives, would help to pay for it. As a result of that information, the Home Office thought that it should try to help this Lady and it made contact with Mr. Pothiah, who said that he was not Miss Atchanna's cousin, nor, indeed, any blood relation of hers. He was unable to help bar in any way, financially or otherwise.

Then we tried again. Miss Atchanna gave the name and address of Mr. Appanna, and claimed that he had advised her that if she could come to the United Kingdom and pay some insurance contributions she would be entitled to free surgical treatment. Mr. and Mrs. Appanna were contacted, with some difficulty, by the officials of the Home Office. They said that they were not reflated to Miss Atchanna, except possibly by marriage. They thought that Mr. Pothiah, to whom I have already referred, had made ail the necessary arrangements for Miss Atchanna's stay.

Mrs. Appanna later called at the Immigration Department of the Home Office in London and the officials at the Home Office tried to see if there were some way in which they could sponsor Miss Atchanna so as to enable her to stay here. Mrs. Appanna said that all she could do—and it was very generous of her to do it—was to offer Miss Atchanna free accommodation. But she was adamant that neither she nor her husband was able to assist financially in this very expensive facial surgery that Miss Atchanna was seeking.

Then we also made some more inquiries and Mr. and Mrs. Naidoo and Mr. and Mrs. Naik were interviewed. They interested themselves in the case, but only to the extent of saying that they were acquaintances of Miss Atchanna and had intended to meet her at Waterloo, but could not do moire than wish her wall. They could make no offer of financial or any other assistance.

As I said, at the second interview, on 10th July, Miss Atchanna had told the immigration officer that it was the consensus of opinion among her family in South Africa that she could get the facial surgery here free, and that she should come to try to get it, and if she failed to get it free her relatives would club together to help. She said that she would try to work, but she was not in possession of a Ministry of Labour permit which, as is known, is an essential for an alien to be granted residence.

Miss Atchanna was permitted to communicate with the South African authorities in London, but the consul informed the district immigration inspector at Southampton that he was aware of the facts of her case and had advised her that she must abide by the immigration officer's decision. So, in spite of the many attempts by hard-pressed officiate of the Home Office to help this lady, it was clear that she did not have the money and that there was no concrete evidence that she could get the money for these four or more very elaborate facial operations, which are no doubt most desirable but are in no sense urgent.

Unless we abrogate the rule that no immigration officer shall grant leave to an alien to land unless the alien is in a position to support herself, and that aliens are not normally allowed to enter the United Kingdom for the sole purpose of obtaining free medical treatment, it is clear that Miss Atchanna does not qualify. But it is equally clear, and I readily give this undertaking to the hon. Member—

I readily give this undertaking to the hon. Gentleman that if in the future Miss Atchanna can produce sufficiently reliable evidence, or, better still, the money itself with which to support herself and to pay for the plastic surgery which she desires, there will, as far as I know, be no objection whatever to her coming to this country for the purpose of obtaining an operation which it is said she cannot obtain nearer home. Of course, if she can fulfil the qualifications, mostly financial, then she shall certainly be admitted for that purpose.

However, from the appearance of Miss Atchanna, with no return ticket and only £23 and with the whole story of the following up at great difficulty—.but with some humanity, in spite of what the hon. Gentleman said—by the Home Office officials into the various names of possible sponsors and helpers in this country, I think, I must say that we must have better evidence that Miss Atchanna will be able to pay for the operation and support herself in the course of so doing.

If this girl had £23 and had to remain in this country for several days while inquiries were made, was permission given to her to get in touch with her father and to inquire from him whether in this situation he would provide the necessary money to enable his daughter to remain in this country and have her operation?

No obstacle whatever was put in the way of this lady communicating with her father or, for that matter, with anyone else. But Durban is a long way away, and I am not sure that it is the duty of the British taxpayer to pay for the communications of people who arrive in this country from Durban.

She had the money.

As I have said, no obstacle was put in the way of this lady spending the money on communicating with her father. Indeed, we facilitated in every way communication with people whose names she gave and whom she thought might help.