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

I have no wish to suggest that this is a particularly spectacular Bill, or one of major importance, but I feel that, with the approval of Parliament, it could make a useful contribution to the solution of the problem which has been bothering users and lovers of sea and shore for over forty years.

During that period there has been an enormous increase in the use and carriage of oils of all kinds across the oceans of the world and oily residues have been discharged into navigable waters with unfortunate results in many ways. They have fouled our beaches, much to the annoyance of those who have been using them; they have caused damage of all kinds in our harbours and fishing ports and damage to fishing vessels and gear; and they have caused the death of countless thousands of sea birds.

Attempts have been made to deal with this problem, beginning as far back as 1920, but the earlier attempts were of very limited effect. They applied only to our own territorial waters and they lacked international co-operation and backing. It was not until the early 1950s that real progress was made, when in this country we set up the Faulkner Committee, which reported in 1953.

This was followed by the International Convention of 1954, which made certain positive recommendations for dealing with this problem on a worldwide basis, and I am happy to say that we in this country were the first to act upon the recommendations of that Convention with the Oil in Navigable Waters Act, 1955.

In 1962, there was another meeting of the International Convention, which made certain recommendations in order to carry further the task of dealing with this problem, and, again, I am happy to say that, provided the Bill receives the approval of Parliament, Britain will again be the first to act upon the recommendations of that Convention.

I think that it might be best, particularly as there was no debate on Second Reading, if I said a few words in explanation of what the Bill seeks to do, dealing, first, with Clause 1. The 1955 Act, based upon the recommendations of the International Convention, proceeded by means of prohibited areas, areas of the oceans into which the discharge of these oily residues was prohibited; and if it was done it constituted an offence. The areas were divided into two, the smaller areas applied to non-tankers and the larger areas to tankers.

The first thing that the Clause seeks to do is to remove this differentiation between tankers and non-tankers. The larger areas would now apply to non-tankers as well as to tankers.

Can my hon. Friend tell the House whether the prohibited areas concerned cover all the fishing grounds?

I believe that, so far as this country is concerned, they do, but I cannot speak about other parts of the world. I can give my hon. Friend some idea of the extent of the prohibited areas; in fact, I think that he may be relieved when he hears just how large they are.

I could perhaps best describe them by likening them to a posy of flowers lying on its side with the stems pointing to the west, the base of the stems resting on the fortieth parallel. The spray then spreads out to the north, reaching almost to within a 100 miles of the coast of Iceland, which is itself protected by a 100 mile prohibited zone. To the south, it reaches to Cape Finisterre on the north-west corner of Spain.

The whole of the Bay of Biscay, the English Channel, the North Sea and the Baltic Sea are included. In fact, one of the extensions, so far as we are concerned an important extension, recommended by the 1962 Convention, includes what has been described as a vase shaped area in the North Sea, which was previously not prohibited but which now becomes prohibited. So far as we are concerned, the whole of this area is now a prohibited area for non-tankers as well as for tankers.

Clause 2 is the most important Clause of the Bill, since it breaks entirely new ground. Based upon a recommendation of the 1962 Convention, it applies complete prohibition to all new ships of 20,000 gross tons and over. For such vessels, ordered after the coming into force of this Act, it would be an offence to discharge these oily residues anywhere except under certain very closely prescribed conditions. It would be a defence for the master of such a vessel to argue that he had to discharge them in exceptional circumstances, for example, if the ship were on fire or if the safety of the vessel, its cargo, or its crew were in jeopardy.

In passing, may I mention one small change that is being made. The 1955 Act restricted this proviso to the safety of the vessel, the cargo, or the crew of the ship itself. It was not a defence, strictly speaking, for a vessel to discharge oily residues into prohibited areas to secure the safety of another vessel, its cargo, or its crew. I cannot help feeling that that was an oversight, and if it was it is now being remedied. Clause 2 carries several subsections which lay down certain procedures, the necessity for the keeping of records, exceptions, penalties, etc.

There are two other points which, I think, are worthy of mention. One I have dealt with in parenthesis, concerning the safety of vessels other than the vessel itself. The other concerns the definition of the oils themselves. These are usually described as persistent oils: crude oils, lubricating oils, fuel oils and diesel oils. In the 1955 Act, again based on the 1954 Convention, they were defined as oils which might foul the surface of the sea. This has not worked out to be a completely satisfactory defi- nition, and a new definition is now being introduced, namely, oily mixtures containing 100 part or more of oil in 1 million part of mixture. To discharge such oils into the navigable waters of the world would be an offence.

The Bill would come into effect twelve months after it had been accepted by two-thirds of the contracting Governments of the 1954 Convention. The Minister is given power to fix the appointed day or days and he may, if he so desires, appoint different days for the coming into force of different parts of the Bill. He is also given powers, which are a continuation, in the main, of powers contained in the 1955 Act, to vary prohibited areas and to vary the classes of ships concerned, provided that he does so to implement a recommendation of the Convention. It would not be necessary for him to promote legislation; he would be able to do it by regulations.

I have explained the most important parts of the Bill, but if any hon. Member wishes any point of detail dealt with, I shall do my best to deal with it.

I do not feel that I can sit down without expressing my gratitude, first, to my hon. and gallant Friend the Parliamentary Secretary who, I understand, proposes to continue to incur my gratitude by intervening at a later stage to deal with the rather knotty problem of enforcement. He and his colleagues have been extremely helpful to me and I should like to say how much I appreciate it. I should also like to thank hon. Members who served on the Standing Committee and those who very kindly agreed to sponsor my Bill.

The hon. Member for Bermondsey (Mr. Mellish) is here and I am very grateful to him; and, in his absence, I should also like to express my appreciation to the hon. Member for Cardiff, South-East (Mr. Callaghan), who has been particularly helpful.

I rise on behalf of my party warmly to congratulate the hon. Member for Lewisham, West (Mr. H. A. Price) and to say that we hope that the Bill will get a Third Reading today and speedily go on to the Statute Book.

The Bill is a first-class example of what can be achieved by a private Member when he is lucky enough in the Ballot to come near the top and have the chance to introduce legislation. The Bill must be a special joy to the hon. Member for Lewisham, West, because I believe that he has already announced that he does not intend to stand again for Parliament at the next General Election. He will be able to look back, knowing that, whatever else he may or may not have done, he has, in introducing this Bill, done a very fine service.

I understand that the Bill strengthens the 1955 Act, which was cordially welcomed at the time. That Act defined two categories of prohibited sea area. The smaller area was for all ships and the larger for tankers. The Bill will extend that larger prohibited area to all ships. It also means that Britain is setting an example to the rest of the world in accepting the 1962 Convention and will. in fact, be the first to ratify the proposals that came from that Convention.

The Parliamentary Secretary is to be congratulated on his co-operation and the help which he and his Department have given to the hon. Member for Lewisham, West. On this side of the House we commend the Bill both in detail and in principle and we are happy to be able to support the hon. Gentleman in passing it.

I should not have intervened in this Third Reading debate had it not been that the Bill went through on the nod on Second Reading and there was no opportunity to ask any questions either about the Bill or about the Convention from which it stems.

I take the opportunity from this side of the House to join in the congratulations already offered by the hon. Member for Bermondsey (Mr. Mellish) to my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, West (Mr. H. A. Price) on his good fortune in the Ballot and for presenting to the House this admirable piece of amending legislation which, I am sure, he will have the gratification of knowing will be known for all time as the Price Act.

The International Convention for the Prevention of the Pollution of the Sea by Oil, 1954, and the 1955 Act excludes naval ships and naval auxiliaries. It is quite understandable that there should be this exclusion, but I want an assurance from the Minister that every possible step is being taken by Her Majesty's Government and by other Governments which are signatories to the Convention to ensure that naval forces comply with the restrictions and regulations laid down by the Convention, although not formally covered by the Convention or any Act.

Clause 2, as my hon. Friend has clearly explained, will prohibit the deposit into the sea of any oil or oily mixture by ships of over 20,000 tons registered in the United Kingdom and built, or the contract for the building of which was entered into, after the coming into effect of the Bill. This is admirable, but it can have no real effect until the first ship is launched after the passing of the Act, probably in about 1967 or 1968. There will be a long time before we have an effective prohibition against the discharge into the sea of oil from ships of this size.

Is it possible for the Minister to give an estimate of when it is likely that we shall cease to be troubled by the discharge of oil from ships of this size? I imagine that it will be twenty or thirty years before we can effectively cover all ships of this size, unless there is further agreement between the parties to the International Convention to alter the present situation. I devoutly hope that there will be.

How has the 1955 Act operated? It is the impression of all those with experience of conditions round our own coasts that we are still suffering considerably from the nuisance of oil pollution. We still suffer considerable inconvenience and, to some extent, danger from the washing up of oil on to our shores, especially at seaside resorts. Undoubtedly, many seaside resorts from time to time suffer considerable loss of revenue not only during the year or years when their beaches are polluted by this nauseous substance, but a continuing loss because, if people go to a seaside resort and suffer this inconvenience, it is a long time before they decide to go back there. The place acquires a bad name which is not lived down for some time.

Has the policing of the seas under the 1955 Act been effective? Have there been many cases of ships being dis- covered offending against the Act? Are the penalties under the Act really stringent enough? Should we in the Bill before us have had regard to the penalties and increased their severity? There has not been much evidence of improvement in the pollution of our shores by oil.

I feel that the House should have an answer to these questions before we give the Bill a Third Reading.

One of the big problems here is not so much the penalties as the policing of the seas and finding out who offends. A lot of it is done at night, and it is almost impossible. unless there is good will, to stop some people doing what is an illegal act.

That is quite true. That is why I ask the Minister to tell the House of what has been done to ensure that there is effective policing, so far as policing can be effective. This is what led me to make the second point: that if the penalties were sufficiently severe and one or two people were caught and fined very heavily indeed for the offence, this might discourage others who might hope to get away with it under the cover of darkness or in some other way. I hope, therefore, that we shall be told that the penalties are severe enough or, if they are not, that we can, even at this late stage, perhaps in another place, introduce an Amendment to add to their severity.

My hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, West (Mr. H. A. Price) has been unduly modest in describing his Bill as a very minor Measure.

I endorse what was said by my hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe (Mr. John Hall) about the pollution of our beaches. This is something of which probably every Member of the House has personal experience. The degree of the menace to amenity can be judged very well by a glance at the shelves in a chemist's shop, or a beach cafée or stall, at any seaside resort. Tar remover is exhibited for sale and sold in large quantities. This is a measure of the filth and menace to the amenities of our lovely beaches.

I have great personal experience of this problem. On the beautiful beaches of Cornwall, in my rôle of paterfamilias, I have, over the years, assumed, or had forced upon me, the rôle of tar-remover-in-chief. This is not merely a matter of dealing with bodies emerging from the sea smeared with oil. It is difficult to spot black pitch on black basalt rock before one sits down. The removal of tar from oneself or from others after they have lain on black rock in various postures is an arduous business and, sometimes, embarrassing. I well remember that my best day's bag as tar remover consisted of one wife, four children, two females various, one dachshund, one seagull and one shag.

What is a shag?

The common cormorant or shag, which, as my hon. Friend and the House will recall,

"Lays eggs inside a paper bag.

The reason you will see no doubt,

It is, to keep the lightning out;

But what these unobservant birds

Have never noticed is that herds

Of wandering bears may come with buns

And steal the bags to hold the crumbs."

I hope that that sufficiently explains the ornithology to my hon. Friend.

That is a very interesting quotation. Can my hon. Friend give the source?

Not without notice. I have the feeling that it did not quite scan as I said it. I will rehearse it afterwards and try to assist my hon. Friend.

No one who has not had to de-tar a shag can realise what appalling cruelty is caused to birds in general by this beastly menace. It is noticeable that even after the laborious business of being smeared with tar remover the unfortunate victim comes back day after day to the same rock to join one at "elevenses". This is not out of any sense of pure gratitude on the part of the creature; it is just that tar removing does something to the social life of a shag. In my experience, once a shag smells of tar remover no other shag will speak to it for weeks.

I come now to a question of detail to my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, West. I apologise for my ignorance. In speaking of the definition of oil, he talked about one hundred parts in a million.

I wonder how oily coal is. We have a problem in the North-East because of foul beaches—not that all the beaches of County Durham are foul; far from it. Our lovely beaches add greatly to the amenities of the area and could add even more if some were not befouled. I am not sure whether this is due to oil or not and whether the pollution comes within the province of this Bill.

I hope that this Bill, or any other which seeks to keep our beaches clean, will not be or could not be applied in such a way as arbitrarily to prevent and restrict, without compensation or remedy, such bodies as the National Coal Board, for instance. If the Board were not able to discharge foul waste into the sea it would not be able to keep certain coal mines in operation. While trying to improve the amenities of the area and thus stimulate the economy into further growth and expansion, thus providing more employment, we cannot afford a disastrous effect in the short term by further pit closures because of this Measure. That would be something that we could not afford.

I hope, if anything is to be done to cleanse the beaches off the north-east coast in order to make it an even more attractive part of the world for people to work and live in, and an even more popular tourist resort, that the procedures now being put into operation by my right hon. Friend the Minister of Housing and Local Government in providing generous assistance to local authorities in carrying out "operation face-lift" will be used and not legislation such as this Bill. I should like to be reassured about that. Meantime, I join in congratulating my hon. Friend on this excellent Measure.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Darlington (Mr. Bourne-Arton) was entertaining the House in the way he did, I recalled that I had the privilege of congratulating him after his maiden speech. On that occasion he entertained us with some Biblical history on the subject of Naboth's Vineyard. I do not propose to follow his diversion into the closure of pits, which seemed to me to be somewhat distant from the subject of this Bill.

I rise briefly to congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, West (Mr. H. A. Price) on the tremendous hard work he has put into this very useful Bill. He well deserved the graceful compliment paid to him by the hon. Member for Bermondsey (Mr. Mellish). It is very pleasant on these occasions when hon. Friends on both sides of the House can join with each other in congratulating a Member who has done a good job of work.

I think that my hon. Friend the Member for Darlington was right in suggesting that our beaches will not be unpolluted straight away and that it will be a long process. But we are on the right road. I am sure that those who enjoy our beautiful beaches in future years may not realise how polluted they have been in these last few years. If that is so, it will be largely due to the pioneering efforts of those who sponsored the setting up of the committee which went into the matter, then the 1955 Act and this Amending Measure.

It is not only a question of pollution of beaches, unpleasant as that is. There is also the very dangerous effect on sea birds. Shags have been mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Darlington. I wonder whether any hon. Members have read the book "The Stranger" about a Brent goose which was migrating to the West when its wings got covered by oil, which meant it had to change its way of life. The story was not so fanciful. It was written by a naturalist. It was a poignant story of what can happen to birds as well as to humans.

My hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, West described the prohibited sea areas. I did not hear how far they went to the West. I imagine that they cover the whole of the Irish Sea and all the waters off the West coast of Scotland, where there is considerable fishing activity. How far further west into the Atlantic do these areas stretch?

I should think that Clause 2 will have affects upon the cost of construction of vessels of the size mentioned. Have there been any representations from ship owners or constructors about Clause 2, and have they been consulted in any way about the provisions of the Bill? These are only minor points. I welcome the Bill, as I am sure the whole House does, and congratulate my hon. Friend on its introduction.

I also congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, West (Mr. H. A. Price). The Second Reading was passed in that formal manner which every hon. Member bringing in a Bill hopes for and we did not have an opportunity to speak then.

Buckinghamshire is an inland county and, generally speaking, I congratulate myself that subjects like white fish do not have to engage my interest. It is really by accident that I became concerned in this subject of the pollution of the seas by oil.

The Convention was one in which this this country took the lead. It was initiated in London in May, 1954, and it happened that in that month I became a member of the Consultative Assembly of the Council of Europe and of its Legal Committee. One of the most worthy preoccupations of that Committee has been that of trying to persuade member countries of the Council which have signed the Convention not to go to sleep, having signed it, but to get on with ratification and to pass the appropriate legislation.

Because of that, I became concerned with trying to persuade the countries which were members of the Council of Europe and were signatories of the Convention to do something about it during 1954–55. There was, of course, no need to bring any kind of persuasion upon the British Government, because this country had taken the initiative throughout in trying to get an international convention on the subject. I suppose that since we are islanders and are more addicted to sea bathing than the inhabitants of other European countries, in spite of the somewhat inclement temperature of the sea around our shores, we have a rather bigger interest in the matter than they have. There was an extraordinary lethargy on the part of some of them towards doing anything more than signing the Convention, but that lethargy was overcome in the end.

The hon. Member for Cardiff, South-East (Mr. Callaghan) and I were able to co-operate a great deal on this matter and he played a very large part in getting the necessary ratifications for the whole Convention to be brought into force. He is a Member for a maritime constituency. I suppose that he represents the beach at Penarth and, although I have known many better reasons than oil pollution for not bathing at Penarth, I see his point of view.

The 1954 Convention came into existence and represented, as these things always do, just the highest common factor of agreement which could be reached at the time. Had it been any more ambitious, we would not have got the necessary number of ratifications to bring it into force. These things have to be done step by step. I am most glad that once again the United Kingdom took the initiative and that the meeting to amend the Convention took place in London and agreed to this very valuable extension of the 1954 Convention.

I am most happy that my hon. Friend should have used his place in the Ballot to introduce the Bill, which will be very valuable. I have no major questions about it, but there is one which interests me, because all the way through I have been concerned with the time factor. This arises out of Clause 2, which is to come into force on a day which the Minister may by order appoint. I wonder whether the Parliamentary Secretary will be able to help us on this and say whether it is our intention to proceed unilaterally. I do not see that there would be any disadvantage in doing so.

There is, I suppose, an argument for saying that we ought to wait until a sufficient number of countries have passed the enabling legislation in their own Parliaments for them to he able to ratify and bring the Convention into force in accordance with its terms—it does not enter into force until a certain number of countries have ratified it. I speak without expert knowledge, of course, but I would have thought that the burden imposed on British ship-owners of implementing Clause 2 forthwith would not be a major factor.

There would be no burden on British shipbuilders, because if they were to build ships for foreign owners whose countries had not brought such legislation into force, they would not embody the modification in the ship and so they would be at no disadvantage in that respect. A British shipowner having a ship built in a foreign yard would have to require the foreign shipbuilder to tender for a ship which included the modification, and the burden would fall on the shipowner. I do not know what its magnitude would be and perhaps the Parliamentary Secretary would give us some indication. If it were small, it would be worth giving a lead in this matter inasmuch as all international progress hitherto has depended on the United Kingdom giving the necessary lead. With those words. I again congratulate my hon. Friend.

I should like to add a few words of congratulation from this side of the House to the hon. Member for Lewisham, West (Mr. H. A. Price) on having had the perspicacity and realisation of the importance of the subject to use the opportunity given to private Members, through having been successful in the Ballot, to bring in this Bill. It may give the hon. Gentleman pleasure to know that not only the ports and coastal towns and districts are thankful for the introduction of the Bill, but that the Association of Municipal Corporations, representing about 27½ million people, is enthusiastically behind him. That shows that those representing boroughs and cities throughout the country have appreciated the importance of the Bill.

I appreciate the necessity for proper steps to be taken to ensure that the disposal of waste by industrial concerns is not allowed to counteract the workings of the Bill. It is very important that we should set a lead in a matter of this description.

When a similar Bill was introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South-East (Mr. Callaghan), important steps were taken not only to maintain the beauty of our beaches and their general amenities but also to preserve sea bird life.

Sea birds have been badly affected—they still are, or there would not have been this particular need for a further Measure—by the pollution of waters around our coasts. What steps will be taken to see that the provisions now being introduced, as well as the older provisions, are fully observed, especially in the darker hours when it is more difficult to keep a watch on offenders, whoever they may be?

This is an important Measure, small though it may appear to be, and it is an indication to the nations of the world that we are deeply concerned with this matter. I am sure that the new advance will be accepted and ratified by the necessary number of nations and similar Acts will be passed by them so that the Convention can be put into full effect, and I hope that we will proceed with its implementation as speedily as possible.

I should like to congratulate my hon Friend the Member for Lewisham, West (Mr. H. A. Price). London Members do not have any beaches and we are not troubled by this problem.

I am.

The amount of oil which comes up the River Wandle is very small.

As has been said, the international agreement represented the best terms which we could possibly hope for. I would describe the Bill as short, effectual and useful and a great tribute to my hon. Friend, but before the House passes the Third Reading, as I hope it will, I want to ask one or two short questions.

The seaside resorts have already been mentioned, but can the Parliamentary Secretary say what has been the effect of the 1955 Act on fish? Perhaps that is a question more appropriately addressed to the Ministry of Agriculture. Fisheries and Food, but can my hon. Friend say whether there has been any improvement? I understand that the amount of oil which was discharged had a very adverse effect on fish.

The crux of the situation is to what extent we have been able to carry out the provisions of the 1955 legislation and will now be able to carry out the extensions which this useful Bill will make to it. Are we able to have this vast area policed, or is it a question of having spot checks here and there?

An even more important point that arises is how much has to be discharged before the ship becomes liable to a penalty? Is it one discharge, or is it the amount of oil which is discharged from that type of engine over a long period which is the criteria?

The hon. Member for Leicester, North-West (Sir B. Janner) pinpointed the problem when he asked how we could carry on this policing, when, as many hon. Members have said, most of the discharging takes place at night? By the time the discharge is seen the vessel has moved a considerable distance away and it is difficult to prove that it has, in fact, been responsible for the pollution.

What measures have we in the way of penalties under the 1955 Act to ensure effective control, and how many prosecutions have been made? Since that Act came into force, how many people in each year have been prosecuted, warned off, or told that they must modify their ships to comply with a reasonable standard?

Can the Parliamentary Secretary tell us whether we are getting much co-operation from pilots of aircraft in reporting ships which they see discharging oil? This is a first-class source of information which I am sure Governments would appreciate.

The hon. Gentleman has a knack of putting his finger on the relevant point. This could be a useful aid in carrying out the difficult task of preventing pollution. If pilots of reconnaissance aircraft reported ships which trey saw discharging oil, it would be possible to send out an aircraft patrol to check on the amount of oil that had been discharged.

I have never understood why the figure of 20,000 tons gross was selected. What is the extent of the difference between the discharge of a vessel of 20,000 tons, and that of a smaller one? Was it found that the discharge from vessels below 20,000 tons did not cause any appreciable difficulty?

My hon. Friend the Member for North Angus and Mearns (Sir C. ThorntonKemsley) asked about the areas covered by the Bill. As I understand, the areas will be the same as those defined in the 1955 Act, but I am open to correction on that point.

Another point about which I am not clear is whether, if the signatories to the Convention offend against it in the areas defined in the 1955 Act, they are liable for the same penalties as our own vessels. Have any foreign vessels been guilty of offending against the law as it stood, and if so, have any steps been taken against the companies concerned either by warning them to modify their ships, or by taking stronger measures and threatening them with prosecution for such offences, or in fact actually prosecuting them?

I again congratulate my hon. Friend, and I hope that before the Bill is given its Third Reading my hon. and gallant Friend the Parliamentary Secretary will answer some of the points which have been raised.

I am sure that not only the House, but many organisations which have been concerned to help my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham. West (Mr. H. A. Price), will wish to add their congratulations to him on this brief useful Measure, and on the way in which he has handled the matter.

I am the Secretary of the all-party Tourist and Resorts Committee which has from time to time had to consider this question matter. We have been very much helped by a number of associations. For example, the Association of Health and Pleasure Resorts has from time to time tried to lend its weight to assist in dealing with this problem. Perhaps most of all, however, we are indebted to the Co-ordinating Advisory Committee on the Oil Pollution of the Sea, of which the hon. Member for Cardiff, South-East (Mr. Callaghan), who is abroad, has played so great a part as chairman.

This is an all-party matter and requires to be dealt with both by legislation and by education. It is a little like accident education. One can try to do these things by legislative action, but one succeeds far more by using educational methods, and it is in this dual field that we shall succeed in conquering this problem in due course; and it is about this matter that I wish to say a few words.

I have here an excellent pamphlet which was issued shortly before the I.M.C.O. conference of March-April, 1962. This was the forerunner of what my hon. Friend has in mind to do, and no doubt felt he would like to do it if he could carry it into effect, but this must be a gradual process. With the assistance of these Acts of Parliament it seems that the aims briefly set out in this pamphlet may be achieved, and I should like to refer to them because I want to suggest how we can achieve my hon. Friend's purposes by an educational process.

First, the conference invited all those attending from about 50 countries to agree on a date for the total prohibition of a discharge of waste oil into the sea. Secondly, that Governments, municipalities, oil companies, harbour boards and other authorities concerned with the control of ports should be required to provide proper dumping and disposal facilities for waste oil. Thirdly, that the oil companies should take special measures at loading ports, especially in the Middle East. Fourthly, that when foreign tankers were hired by companies in countries within the Convention they should be bound by its rules. Fifthly, that the shipping and tanker companies should make sure that the masters and crews of their own vessels understood the danger of oil pollution and the method of preventing it.

The most important of all is the last, in conjunction with the owners of ships, for it is the owners and the operators of the tankers and vessels, whether they be of 5,000, 20,000 or 50,000 tons, who really could do much to help. I hope that those gentlemen sometimes have to go and bathe near shores which are covered with oil, or are bird lovers and see the trouble caused to wild life, or are anglers and fishermen and have an opportunity of meeting the Association of Fishermen which consists of people who have very strong feelings when someone is out to defeat their catch. I have had experience of planning appeals in the West Country, and I know how strongly fishermen feel on the subject of oil.

Perhaps I might give an illustration of the sort of thing which might have to be done, and see whether, in the light of the fact that this will have to be done, a Bill of this kind could be applied to oil.

I understand that into the great port of Southampton, in July or shortly afterwards, we shall receive for the first time a nuclear ship from the United States of America. Will that ship discharge nuclear effluent into the port? What measures will be taken to ensure that radioactive waste is not discharged into the sea from nuclear ships when they become more common?

Will this ship be provided with a protective device to ensure that its radioactive waste is discharged in an appropriate place, far away, or to ensure that the discharge is not into the sea but ashore? I am told that there is no reason why a locking device should not be produced which would prevent the discharge of oil until the ship was in an appropriate place.

Arrangements could be made to ensure that there is no discharge into the sea, which is, no doubt, the idyllic aim of the future, but if this waste is to be discharged into the sea in the meantime there is no reason why the imagination of our scientists should not result in the production of a device which will ensure that there shall be no discharge within 50 miles of the shore, or 100 miles from the shore in the case of such countries as Canada, Iceland, Norway and Kuwait—and even Spain and Portugal.

It may not be appreciated by the shipping companies and the masters of ships and their staff that there is a large lobby in favour of this sort of legislation. The difficult is that this is predominantly an international matter. We can, therefore, congratulate my hon. Friend and everybody in this country upon the fact that Great Britain appears to be the leader in legislation in this field. That being the case, we must use every method of persuasion at least to see that British shipping gives a lead to the rest of the world. If we can introduce scientific devices of the kind to which I have referred, we should do so.

The trouble is that the development of this situation has been such a gradual one that we have tended to become accustomed to the pollution of our beaches. Only now, when it has become so bad, have we really become concerned about it. If we can get on to the nuclear bandwagon we can make use of that, because it is capable of shocking the conscience of the public much more rapidly, and of making everybody feel that immediate action is required.

It would be a good idea to point out to nations throughout the world, whether or not they have agreed to become contracting parties that they had better get a move on with this legislation because nuclear shipping is coming and that will certainly require the proper measures to be taken, so they might just as well deal with oil pollution as well.

My hon. Friend tells me that it is not until two-thirds of the contracting parties have accepted this legislation, by introducing legislation of their own, that the Bill can come into effect. That means that active steps must be taken by Government Departments to invite contracting parties to use due expedition in carrying their legislation through. I hope that the Minister will be able to give us an assurance that this necessity will be pressed upon the contracting parties as a matter of urgency, and that they will be invited not only to carry legislation into effect but to ensure that there is a proper appreciation of the problem, by all possible educational and other means. I should have thought that the Mediterranean countries, who have very similar considerations to ours, would wish to do all they can to assist.

The most important resolutions which the international conference was so anxious to pass relate not only to the prevention of this discharge into the sea, but also to the encouragement of new parties to become members of the Convention. With the introduction of nuclear shipping I am sure that many more countries will feel inclined to join, and will be ready to ensure that tankers with oil residues on board should be regarded as carrying water ballast when passing through canals—because great trouble is created in that connection—that proper reception facilities are provided at the oil loading terminals, as a matter of urgency, and that there shall be a development in the installation of oil and water separators, besides agreeing to the need for a co-ordination of effort and research of the kind to which I have alluded.

Up to now little has been done, because no profit has been available out of it, but there can be a profit. I would not mind if money were given to assist in this sort of research, if a company would undertake it. Once a start is made in that direction we can expect to see some results. Periodical reports should be made on oil pollution generally, and in this matter the Government should assist the International Convention.

I have pressed for as much education as possible to be provided on this matter, because I believe that the proviso to Clause 2 will make it extremely difficult to prosecute an offender. I do not regard the penal provisions of the Bill as being very effective. The proviso makes it a defence

"to prove that by reason of special circumstances it was impracticable or unreasonable to retain the oil or mixture in the ship."

A clever advocate might not find it very difficult to persuade a court that there were special circumstances. The hon. Member for Bermondsey (Mr. Mellish), my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary and I know a great deal about these special circumstances, because we were all on the traffic Bills together, and we know how easy it is for people to put forward mitigating or special circumstances as a defence.

Since the Bill has received support from hon. Members on both sides of the House, and since many foreign Governments also support its principles, I believe that it needs just a little less selfishness on the part of those who operate on the sea—a little more realisation that there are other people who wish to enjoy the pleasures of the sea, or depend on it for their livelihoods—for progress to be made in this matter. We should ask them to try to appreciate our point of view, and give it the sympathy we feel it deserves.

I, too, should like to begin by thanking my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, West (Mr. H. A. Price) for having sponsored this Measure. May I also congratulate him on the skill with which he has brought it to its present stage Perhaps, the fact—this point was made, I believe, by the hon. Member for Bermondsey (Mr. Mellish), and I agree—that his name will hereafter be associated with what is an important step forward in the fight against oil pollution will be some reward for his exertions.

May I also say that I am grateful to the hon. Member for Bermondsey for his kind and helpful remarks. I should also like, while thanking people, to acknowledge the consistent help and support which we have received in this matter from the hon. Member for Cardiff, South-East (Mr. Callaghan) and from the Co-ordinating Advisory Committee on Oil Pollution of the Sea over which he so ably presides. I can truthfully say that Her Majesty's Government are grateful for the work of this organisation.

As has been explained already, the Bill is needed before Britain can accept and enforce the amendments to the 1954 Convention agreed at the conference held in London last year, and it is the intention of Her Majesty's Government formally to accept the Amendments agreed at that conference as soon as the Bill receives the Royal Assent.

We were asked whether it was intended to proceed unilaterally. This point was raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Buckinghamshire, South (Mr. Ronald Bell). In general, the answer must be "No." We do not intend to do that, though in certain respects British ships are already conforming with some of these amendments; but I think that it has always been accepted that the powers given to the Minister in the Bill have always been regarded as contingent on the agreement coming into force. I do not think that they are legally so; not in all cases. The position is rather complicated over that.

Here I answer another point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for North Angus and Mearns (Sir C. ThorntonKemsley). There was the fullest consultation with the shipping industry both before, during and after the conference was held, and we certainly have to understand that we should advance in parallel with other countries because, otherwise, there might be some material disadvantage.

Before my hon. and gallant Friend leaves that point, could he tell the House if there is any disadvantage which British shipowners or shipbuilders might suffer if we introduced Clause 2 unilaterally?

I can give my hon. Friend the answer at once. Supposing we introduce Clause 2 unilaterally, tankers returning empty to the Persian Gulf would certainly be placed at a disadvantage because the practice in general, is to use their own rather slow mechanism for cleaning the tanks while on passage. They pump all the oily sludge into a main tank and this process is continuing all the time until they reach Gibraltar; that is the time it takes. Then they proceed eastwards through the Mediterranean. It is important for them to get rid of this oily sludge before they arrive at the Suez Canal as otherwise they are required to pay substantially higher dues for passing through the Canal. There is a "hole" in the Mediterranean into which this sludge may be pumped and which we tried to get closed under the Convention. If we required our ships to refrain from discharging the oil in this part of the Mediterranean there would be quite a material disadvantage compared with those vessels flying the flags of other nations which do not enforce it.

That is a rather pessimistic statement. Is not research going on, which, I believe, is almost on the verge of success, whereby sludge can be retained and refined with the rest of the oil without any harmful effect to it? Am I right about that?

That may well be so, but I should not like necessarily to be so optimistic as the hon. Gentleman is. I think that is unwise.

On the point raised by the hon. Member for the Isle of Thanet (Mr. Rees-Davies). There is a great deal of research going on by more than one organisation. Meanwhile, if we retained oily residues on passage there would be the difficulty of the Canal dues. I would rather not pursue that matter, because this is under negotiation at the moment, as I am sure he knows.

We had hoped to be the first nation to take this action, and several hon. Members said that we should. Indeed, I expressed that belief during the Committee stage, but I must say that France has beaten us by a short head because the French Government notified their acceptance on 29th April last, just the other day. I think, possibly, that their Parliamentary procedures are somewhat more streamlined than our own. The United States of America has taken the necessary legislative process, and also the Federal Republic of Germany. But, as has been pointed out, the Amendments will not come into force until twelve months after they have been accepted by two-thirds of the member nations of the 1954 Convention.

Here I should like to refer to what my hon. Friend the Member for Buckinghamshire, South said about the work of the Legal Committee of the Council of Europe in stirring up countries to do this ratification. Like my hon. Friend, I have experience of that Committee's work, and I am most grateful for what has been done there and for the part he has played in it.

I am grateful to my hon. and gallant Friend for what he has so kindly said, but I seem to remember that on the last occasion France was one of the worst laggards. She certainly seems to have improved a great deal as a result of something which has gone on at Strasbourg.

That is indeed so.

I should like to reply to some of the other points raised in the debate. My hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe raised, first, the question of whether Royal Naval ships which fly the White Ensign and which are under Admiralty control ought or ought not to be included in this Bill. Perhaps I might repeat something—paraphrase something—which I said during the Committee stage of the 1955 Bill.

The hon. Member for Cardiff, South-East, in fact, moved an Amendment with this precise object in view. I well remember it, because, with the valour of ignorance, I rose on a point of order and tried to get the hon. Gentleman ruled out of order on the ground that the Amendment would infringe the Royal Prerogative. That caused a lot of trouble and delay in the proceedings. I was wrong, as it appeared, but nonetheless the Amendment was in due course withdrawn. The reason was, I think, because it was agreed that it was not really necessary to give my right hon. Friend the Minister of Transport, who superintends the enforcement of these Acts, powers already possessed by the Board of Admiralty.

After all, my right hon. Friend the First Lord of the Admiralty and my hon. Friend the Civil Lord are both answerable to Parliament. They can be questioned at any time on this matter, and if my hon. Friend cares to question them I am sure he will find that even stricter regulations are applied in the Royal Navy than is the case with regard to ordinary commercial ships. I certainly think it would be quite wrong to complicate the position of captains of Her Majesty's ships by making them responsible to two separate Ministers at the same time.

I was not suggesting for a moment that Her Majesty's ships should be included in the purview of this Bill. I merely asked for confirmation that, in fact, the Board of Admiralty was exercising the same control as one would expect a commercial undertaking to exercise.

I can indeed give that assurance on behalf of my hon. Friend the Civil Lord. The Board of Admiralty certainly exercises the same control, and is very strict indeed.

I agree with my hon. Friend in what he said about the time factor. I think it is probably true that it will take about 20 years before all the large tankers come under the provisions of Clause 2. My own guess, for what it is worth, is that a further international conference is likely to be held long before this and there will be a further extension of the provisions as a whole.

He asked, as did my hon. Friend the Member for Darlington (Mr. BourneArton), how the Act operated. We find it difficult to judge how effective it has been. But, so far as we can judge, we think there has been some improvement on the beaches round the country. It is even more difficult to judge whether there has been any improvement in the position in relation to fish. We think that there has been some improvement, although this has to be judged, mainly, by the number of complaints which are received or are not received. Sometimes the number of complaints goes down because people have become tired of complaining. But we think that, on the whole, it is having a good effect.

Is not the Ministry in touch with the authorities of seaside resorts at regular intervals in order to get all the information required?

We are. But it is not easy to answer in specific terms. However, I repeat that on the whole we believe that there has been an improvement.

Several hon. Members referred to the question of enforcement, and I should like to mention that later. The penalties are considerable. On summary conviction there could be a fine of up to £1,000, and on conviction on indictment an unlimited fine could be imposed. Short of making this an offence for which the master of a ship or someone else might be sent to prison—no one would suggest that—I do not think we can increase the penalties to any great extent.

My hon. Friend the Member for Clapham (Dr. Alan Glyn) asked whether it was necessary for a shipmaster repeatedly to offend in order for there to be a conviction. That is not so. Any case of unlawful discharging of oil would render the master of a vessel liable to prosecution.

Can my hon. and gallant Friend give the number of cases where shipowners or masters have been charged and convicted?

I could not give that figure without notice. The statistics have been given from time to time. I will write to my hon. Friend and give him the most up-to-date figures. The occasions are not inconsiderable.

My hon. Friend the Member for North Angus and Mearns also asked how far to the West the prohibited areas referred to in Clause 1 extended. They cover all the near waters, the whole of the Irish Channel, the Minches and the areas about which my hon. Friend spoke. Roughly speaking, they go about 1,000 miles westward into the Atlantic.

My hon. Friend asked about the effect on the cost of the ships which will have to comply with these regulations. There is some effect on the cost, and that is one reason why there has been full consultation with the shipping industry about this Convention. The hon. Member for Leicester, North-West (Sir B. Janner) urged, as did other hon. Members, that we should take the lead. I can only say that we have taken the lead hitherto and we feel confident that we shall continue to do so.

I hope that I did not give a wrong impression. I meant continue to take the lead.

As I say, I feel confident that we shall do that.

My hon. Friend the Member for Clapham asked why the figure of 20,000 tons for a tanker had been selected. That covers practically all the sea-going tankers. There has been a dramatic increase in the size of tankers. Today a 20,000-ton tanker would be regarded, comparatively speaking, as a midget.

My hon. Friend the Member for the Isle of Thanet disturbed me by asserting that he would find no difficulty in securing the acquittal of anyone charged, under the defence of special circumstances. I sincerely believe my hon. Friend to be wrong. But if he thinks that, I hope that he will appear on the side of the prosecution. My hon. Friend referred also to the importance of education, and I wish to refer to that matter later. He correctly pointed out that there was a request made for the Conference to fix a date for total prohibition. That was not agreed. It was considered that no useful purpose would be served in fixing a deadline until more progress had been made internationally. In these matters, this country and other associated countries eager to reach the goal of total prohibition have to steer a careful middle course in order to try to persuade the rest of the world to go further with them without at the same time frightening off these other countries by writing provisions into the Convention which would deter countries from ratifying it.

May I say, in passing, that one of the big difficulties confronting some countries is the need to provide tank clearance facilities. That is necessary if a country is to be a member of the Convention. But they are expensive to provide and by no means all of them earn their keep.

My hon. Friend referred to nuclear ships. They will be the subject of wholly different legislation based on entirely different international agreements which have not been ratified at this stage. In answer to the particular case which he mentioned, I may say that if the "Savannah" comes to this country before legislation is passed, which is extremely likely, she will be made the subject of special agreements and undertakings and a statement will be made to Parliament about them.

It is unnecessary for me to repeat what has already been said about the importance of preventing the pollution of the sea by oil. I am sure we are all agreed on that. This bad practice causes distress, injury and death to sea birds, not by the thousand but by the million. It also affects marine life and is responsible for the fouling of our pleasure beaches, boats and fishing gear—to which reference was made—and to quays and docks. The ultimate objective of this country remains the total prohibition of the discharge of oil into the sea by any ship or vessel in any part of the world. All I would claim is that the Bill—and here is why we are so grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, West—marks a useful advance towards that goal. It has been so drafted that further legislation will not be needed as and when the 1954 Convention is strengthened in its range and scope by international agreement. This Bill confers sufficient power on my right hon. Friend the Minister of Transport to make orders which would achieve total prohibition just as soon as this is internationally agreed.

The same cannot be said about enforcement, and I must confess frankly that enforcement will remain a difficult problem. I can assure the House that we shall continue to do our best—indeed everything possible is already being done—to ensure that the existing law is observed. This Bill is only an extension of the existing law. I cannot give the total number of prosecutions. But I can say that prosecutions in the United Kingdom average about one per week.

Is my hon. and gallant Friend referring to prosecutions involving only British ships, or does that include foreign ships?

That is a complicated question. The position is that some foreign shipmasters are successfully prosecuted in the United Kingdom for offences committed in United Kingdom territorial waters. That presents no difficulty. Prosecutions for offences by foreign ships in the prohibited zones in international waters under both Conventions, the 1954 Convention and the Convention which is being implemented by the Bill must, however, be instituted by the Government of the country in which the ship is registered. So details of offences which we suspect have been committed in prohibited zones are referred to the appropriate Government.

The ships which come into the ports of this country are regularly inspected by the Ministry's surveyors, together with their oil record books. Both civil and military aircraft keep a look out for oil patches on the sea and for ships discharging oil. We obtain a great deal of information in that way, for they do report to us, but in spite of these activities a ship which discharges oil at night or in bad weather is unlikely to be detected. That is why we believe that the education of ships' officers and crews on the importance of avoiding pollution is every bit as important as the sanctions of the law itself.

As my hon. Friend the Member for the Isle of Thanet pointed out, the 1962 Conference, in addition to agreeing the amendments to which this Bill gives effect, also adopted a resolution to the effect that Merchant Navy officers should be instructed in this subject and their examination for certificates of competency should include questions on avoidance of pollution. That does not require legislation, because in this country it has long been our practice. I should add that both British shipowners and oil companies have consistently adopted an enlightened and co-operative attitude towards the 1954 Convention. This encourages me to think that the stricter provisions in this Bill will be observed, at any rate by vessels flying the Red Ensign.

Once again, I thank those who helped to prepare the Bill and to bring it to its present stage, and I commend it to the House.

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

This small Bill, which was introduced and piloted through Committee by my hon. Friend the Member for South Angus (Sir J. Duncan)—who greatly regrets his inability to be in his place this afternoon—is of limited scope and probably is of interest to only a few hon. Members. Nevertheless, it would be discourteous of me, particularly since Second Reading was obtained formally without debate after four o'clock on a Friday afternoon, if I did not explain briefly what the Bill is about.

Section 4 of the Forestry Act, 1945, which was a United Kingdom Measure, empowers the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food in England and Wales and the Secretary of State in Scotland to

"sell any land vested in or acquired by him…which in his opinion is not needed or ought not to be used for the purpose of afforestation or any purpose connected with forestry."

It will be noted that it does not empower the Ministers to sell land which is used for forestry or which ought to be used for forestry purposes.

In England and Wales, the Minister of Agriculture has held himself free—whether rightly or wrongly, I should not presume to know—to sell forestry land under powers given in Section 90 of the Agriculture Act, 1947, which says that

"The Minister may manage, farm, sell, let or otherwise deal with or dispose of land acquired by him."

In Scotland, we very often complain that our legislation follows far too slavishly the English model. Often, in Scottish Standing Committee, we regret the fact that our legislation is modelled on the English and follows it slavishly, but in this case difficulties which have arisen since might well have been avoided had we adopted this provision. What we did was to qualify the provision in the English Act which I have read to the House and this qualification is made in Section 61 of the Agriculture (Scotland) Act, 1948, by adding the words, "under this Act".

So, in Scotland, the power to sell forestry land was limited to land acquired under the Agriculture Act. By this unintended provision—I am certain that it was unintended and that its effects were unforeseen—the Secretary of State is denied powers to sell forestry lands which are possessed by the Minister of Agriculture in England and Wales. This limitation has been found inconvenient, in practice, in a number of cases.

There have been cases when the Forestry Commission has wanted to adjust boundaries, or to sell outlying portions of land. This has resulted in the fact that lands which could be used more effectively for forestry purposes by private landowners has had to remain in the hands of the Commission because it lacked the power to sell. I shall give one or two examples of the kind of difficulties which have arisen.

The first is the case of an estate of about 5,000 acres which the Forestry Commission acquired in 1954, and on part of which, by an agreement which had previously been made, timber was reserved to a firm of timber merchants for felling when it attained maturity. Some of those reserved trees, then thirty or forty years old, required maintenance work, such as the filling of wind-blown gaps, which the merchants were either unwilling or unable to do themselves and which the Forestry Commission could not do because the trees belonged to the merchants.

Another firm of merchants was prepared to buy the timber and take on responsibility for management provided it could buy the land as a whole from the Commission. Although this arrangement would have been eminently desirable from everyone's point of view, the Secretary of State had no power to sell and was debarred from helping to resolve the difficulty in that way.

The second example was one in March, 1961, when a landowner whose land adjoined that of the Forestry Commission wanted to acquire by exchange two areas of land, totalling about 80 acres, for forestry purposes. If this disposal of land had been permissible, the Commissioners would have been prepared to recommend it, on the ground of tidying up the boundaries of the adjoining estate and their own.

The third case, again in 1961, but in July, concerned a landowner whose land adjoined that of the Forestry Commission and who wished to purchase quite a small parcel of land—about five acres—for planning purposes from the Forestry Commission. The Commissioners had no access to the land, which was cut off from the main forest block by a railway line, and a sale, if it had been permissible, would have been desirable

"in the interests of rational land management".

a phrase which is used in the Bill. But it could not take place for the reason which I have given.

I could give other examples. My hon. Friend the Member for South Angus gave examples in Committee which I will not repeat here, but I hope that I have made it clear that there is a need in practice for legislation on this matter.

The powers which the Bill seeks to confer on the Secretary of State are narrower than those possessed by the Minister of Agriculture. Those powers are limited by the Bill to transactions which are

"desirable in the interests of rational land management and which would facilitate the discharge by the Forestry Commissioners of any of their functions".

The Forestry Commission's functions include a general duty to promote in the United Kingdom the interests of forestry, and they include the development of afforestation and the production and supply of timber. If the House accepts the Bill, a sale could thus be made if, in the opinion of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, it would benefit rational land management and afforestation. The Bill does not confer upon the Forestry Commission the power of sale at large. To do this would, in my view, and, I am sure, in the view of the House, too, effect a major change in forestry policy, and a Bill on those wider lines would raise controversial questions.

This Bill, limited in scope as it is, has been discussed with and is supported by the Scottish Landowners Federation, the Scottish Woodland Owners Association and the Home Grown Timber Merchants Association of Scotland. They like the Bill and they would like to see it through. It received all-party support in Committee.

With these brief words of explanation, I hope that the House will give the Bill an unopposed Third Reading.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for North Angus and Mearns (Sir C. Thornton-Kemsley). This is one of the best forms of Private Member's Bill, because it takes exactly one page to state what it wants to do and has no Schedule or anything else attached.

May I refer to the way in which the heart of the Bill was carefully set out by my hon. Friend the Member for South Angus (Sir J. Duncan) in a masterly speech which occupies two columns of the OFFICIAL REPORT of the Scottish Standing Committee. I know that my hon. Friend the Member for North Angus will subscribe to that view. I know very little about forestry, but by reading those two columns I was able to see that the Bill to some extent puts the legislation in Scotland on a parity with that for England, with the exceptions which my hon. Friend the Member for North Angus and Mearns mentioned.

There are two points on which I should like the opinion of my hon. Friend the Joint under-Secretary of State for Scotland. First, does he think that the powers which the Secretary of State for Scotland has been given under the Bill will be sufficient? Secondly, am I correct in saying that the powers in Clause I are at the entire discretion of the Secretary of State?

If hon. Members look at line 4 of Clause 1 they will see that it says

"notwithstanding that in his opinion…"

That refers to the Secretary of State for Scotland. I presume that the Bill gives him absolute discretion—as I think it ought—subject to the provisions in Clause 1 (a) and (b). I should like a little clarification on that point and I should also like him to say whether he considers that the powers which are given to the Secretary of State are sufficient to ensure that this great industry of forestry in Scotland is carried out as efficiently as possible.

I pay my respects not only to my hon. Friend the Member for North Angus and Mearns, but also to my hon. Friend the Member for South Angus, to whom the House owes a great debt for summing up the whole Bill in Committee in those two columns of HANSARD.

I hope that the House will give the Bill a Third Reading.

The hon. Member for North Angus and Mearns (Sir C. Thornton-Kemsley) has made a most lucid, exact and precise exposition of his hon. Friend's Bill. I am sorry that his hon. Friend the Member for South Angus (Sir J. Duncan) cannot be here today. I congratulate the hon. Member on having sponsored the Bill, which seems to us to be a sensible and useful addition to the legislation governing our forestry system, and I am glad to be associated in helping it on its way.

I should like to express, on behalf of the Government, a welcome to the Bill, which, as the hon. Member for Stirling and Falkirk Burghs (Mr. Malcolm MacPherson) said, makes a useful addition to our legislation in Scotland on forestry matters.

In view of the very full and lucid explanation given my hon. Friend the Member for North Angus and Mearns (Sir C. Thornton-Kemsley), I do not think it necessary to expand in any way on the Bill. He explained clearly the differences between the powers which the Bill gives to the Secretary of State for Scotland and those which are held by the Minister of Agriculture in England.

May I tell my hon. Friend the Member for Clapham (Dr. Alan Glyn) that, notwithstanding this difference in powers, we consider that the Bill gives the Secretary of State sufficient powers to carry out these desirable sales of land which can be in the best interests of rational land management. I also confirm that the discretion lies absolutely with the Secretary of State for Scotland. But this is not a Bill which gives great powers to the Secretary of State. Nor is there any intention to use these powers in any way to upset existing policy about forestry matters. The Bill simply gives the desirable power, where it is required, to allow the Secre- tary of State to sell land when that is in the best

"interests of rational land management

and when it

"would facilitate the discharge by the Forestry Commissioners of any of their functions".

I should like to add my congratulations not only to my hon. Friend the Member for North Angus and Mearns, who moved the Third Reading, but also to my hon. Friend the Member for South Angus (Sir J. Duncan), who had the good fortune to introduce the Bill, and I express thanks to all those who have helped in seeing its passage to this stage.

I beg to move, in page 2, line 44, to leave out Clause 3.

It is a pity that Clause 3 has been inserted in a Bill which is otherwise generally acceptable as a very beneficial Bill indeed, and which is welcomed by all persons and authorities concerned. It is significant that all the provisions of the Bill, apart from the Clause, are enabling powers for local authorities. The Clause is something of an enabling power in relation to functions other than the precise functions of local authorities. The other functions are more clearly defined as the functions of the authorities. It is rather a pity that in an agreed Measure of this kind, which everybody welcomes, including the Government, I gather, something of a discordant nature is introduced. It is a matter which requires a good deal of discussion before it should be accepted as part of the law.

The Clause deals with associations of members. It does not define them. We know that it is concerned at this stage with a particular association of members and not with associations of members in general, although the Clause as drafted would deal with any sort of association. The fact that it is sponsored by three hon. Members from each of the parties does not necessarily endear itself to me, although that alone does not necessarily invalidate it.

I am not endeared to this form of sponsorship, particularly when one happens to be the founder of the feast, who has a great interest in this matter and has caused the formation of an Association of Councillors. I should not mind my hon. Friend showing his disillusion with the Association of Municipal Corporations and seeking a new forum for discussion of various matters. When it comes to seeking formal Parliamentary recognition, which brings it into the realm of official recognition, we must consider the matter very carefully.

If the argument is advanced that this is sponsored by the joint chairman of the three bodies, who are Members of Parliament, I should counter by asking: what about the ratepayers and the independents, for example? They might say, "We do not want an association of this kind. We should like a different type of association. We will sponsor one. We will tell the Minister that we can perform these objectives on behalf of our members who give their allegiance to us and we do not want particularly to come in under what might be regarded as a political banner, even if it is a joint political banner".

I am not arguing whether these people would want to do so or not. At any rate, they would have the right to do so. The Minister might be placed in an embarrassing position by having to determine whether such an association carrying on similar objectives would be a proper association to which he should grant recognition. I have no objection to embarrassing the right hon. Gentleman who occupies the position of Minister at present. However, I would hate to add to the possible embarrassment of my right hon. and hon. Friends who may shortly be forming the Government.

I ask hon. Members to consider what the objects of the association are to be. After all, this is the crux of the matter. There is not one of these objectives which cannot be fulfilled by the existing local authority associations. They already have powers to deal with all these matters—educational matters, dissemination of information, matters concerning education for members, and so on. All these matters are already within their powers. They are already done to some extent. I am prepared to admit that much more could be done than is being done at present, but this is no valid argument for setting up a new organisation.

One of the functions of the House is to guard carefully against new organisations being set up purely for the sake of setting them up. The House should look at the existing machinery and ask itself whether that is capable of doing the job. If it does not function properly, the House should inquire why it does not. The question should be considered from that point of view, before it is agreed that a new body should be set up and officially recognised. The Association to which I belong—the County Councils Association—offered no objection to this body on its formation.

I want to make that perfectly clear. If members of local authorities like to get together for a particular purpose, that is a matter for them. It is within the rules. It is an association of members. It was never intended to be an association of local authorities as such. Nor was it intended originally, as I understand it, that local authorities could contribute towards it. In so far as it is an association of members and they like to contribute to it and pay for it, they are quite entitled to have any association they wish.

I should be the last person to deprive anyone of the right of association, because that is a fundamental right which should exist anyway. Whether the ratepayers at large ought to contribute to it is another matter, especially as they are already authorised to contribute, and do in fact contribute, to bodies which are capable of undertaking this work and do, in fact, undertake this work.

The hon. Member for Hexham (Mr. Speir) accepted the Clause with great reluctance. He said that he thought that what these associations proposed to do would overlap considerably with what is done by the existing associations. One can understand the hon. Member's reluctance to introduce something of this nature into a Bill which is otherwise admirably suited for the purposes for which it was promoted.

I have already said that the existing associations generally have the necessary facilities. I need not detail the things which are done from time to time, things which are done continually, and things which will be done in the future. One of the arguments put forward is that there ought not to be any distinction between associations of officers and associations of members. This may or may not be done. However, the expression "association of local authorities" is capable of very clear definition under the law as it stands. There is no question about this. The expression "associations of officers of local authorities" is also capable of very clear definition. There is no question about that either. It is a group clearly and easily defined.

The expression "association of members" is an amorphous sort of title. It is not limited to an association of members, although I appreciate that it has that object at the moment. One can imagine all the various bodies under various titles and with various attractive programmes which could come together as associations of members, seek the Minister's approval to their formation, and have local authorities to contribute to them, if the Clause goes through in its present form.

I understand that the Parliamentary Secretary took the view that the Minister already had power under Clause 2, if he was so disposed, to recognise this body or any other body. That is as may be. I do not want to argue the question whether he has or not. That is the Minister's view. If the power is already there, there is no reason for the Clause. One can only assume that the desire to keep it in may be inspired by something beyond that.

For these reasons, the Clause should be more carefully examined. I am rather surprised that my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, North (Mr. Reynolds) is so coy about this position. It is usual, when Members have an interest in a matter, especially such a deep interest as my hon. Friend has, at least to inform the Committee or the House, as the case may be, that they have such a specific interest rather than hide under relative anonymity, as appears from the record of the Standing Committee. I am speaking only as it appears from the record.

The fact that this is so, and that we get what I consider to be special pleading on behalf of this organisation, is a reason why the whole matter should be very carefully examined. If the House carefully examines the matter and decides that there is room for an organisation of this kind, or for a number of organisations of this kind, I should be the last person to deny it or to object.

However, I should like to see the case properly argued. The associations which are at present authorised to carry out these functions should be asked to agree, either that they are not carrying out the functions referred to or that other bodies should be formed which may be able to do better than they are doing at present.

I hope, therefore, that for these reasons the House will accept the Amendment and leave what is otherwise a perfectly good and uncontroversial Bill to go through its remaining stages and be placed on the Statute Book. If the Clause is to remain I shall have to continue to object, and that would be lamentable.

I am sorry to see another split developing in the party opposite, but, as I said, when I was speaking on the Clause in Committee. I have no strong feelings on whether the Clause should be included or excluded from the Bill, although I think on balance that the House, when considering the matter further, may think that the Clause is still a little premature or even possibly unnecessary. I say "premature" because the hon. Member for Islington, North (Mr. Reynolds) informed the Committee that the only association which stands to benefit from the provisions of the Clause at present is an association called the Association of Councillors. I believe that it was clear to the Committee at the time that the hon. Member was personally closely associated with that association. He told us that even if the Clause remained in the Bill the Association had no intention of seeking to take advantage of its provisions at the moment.

I have nothing whatsoever against the Association of Councillors. I wish it well if it can make the grade. I always think that competition in all walks of life is a healthy thing. On the other hand, this association is a very young body. It has not yet proved to the world that it is a necessary body or that it has a useful purpose to perform. Possibly it would be better if one of the existing local government associations were allowed to do the work which this Association is setting out to do. In my view, all these local government associations are doing extremely useful jobs. It may be said that the views of the existing local government associations are somewhat biassed, but several of these associations have written to me in the last week or two to say that in their view this new association would be largely duplicating a number of things which the existing associations are already doing or intend to do in the near future. As the hon. Member for Southall (Mr. Pargiter) said, there might well be some overlapping.

Would my hon. Friend confirm that even so the Minister must still give approval to the granting of these subscriptions?

Yes. It may be that at a time like this, when there is a great outcry about local government expenditure and complaints about the heavy burden of rates, that we would not be justified in asking the ratepayers to find additional sums for this expenditure and to find money which might well not be necessary. It may be argued that the money involved is small. The subscription to the Association of Councillors is at present only 2s. 6d. per councillor per year. Equally it can be argued that if the amount is so small it is not a great hardship if individual councillors are left to pay the subscription themselves, if they are so minded.

There is a small point to which I should like to draw the attention of the House, and particularly of the hon. Member for Islington, North. I believe that, other things being equal, the hon. Member and his association could get all they want under Clause 2. I am advised that the Minister could give his consent under Section 136 of the Local Government Act, 1948, to a subscription to this Association of Councillors, provided that he was satisfied that it was really proving its worth and rendering a useful service, in that case the Minister would have to give his sanction. Perhaps my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Housing and Local Government will be able to say more about the possible use of Clause 2 and of Section 136 of the 1948 Act for this purpose. I hope that my hon. Friend will be able to satisfy the hon. Member for Islington, North that in the right circumstances Section 136 could, should and would serve this purpose. If my hon. Friend can give that assurance, I hope that the hon. Member will agree that Clause 3 could well be dropped from the Bill.

We should be quite clear about our position now after the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Southall (Mr. Pargiter). He has announced to the House—and he said that he was speaking as a member of the County Councils Association—that if this Clause is not taken out of the Bill he will block and kill the Bill. I could not understand from his speech why the Clause was so repugnant to him and the County Councils Association that if it is to be included in the Bill he will kill a Measure which has in it other Clauses which will be of considerable use to local government generally.

The House is at present debating this matter under a threat from my hon. Friend that if we do not do what he wants he will kill a Bill which has been through all its stages, which has had one or two Amendments made to it, and which has had general support on Second Reading and full support in Committee. He will kill it at this stage, on this comparatively minor Clause which will not greatly add to the powers which the Minister already has. Yet my hon. Friend has found it necessary to say that it is so repugnant to the County Councils Association that the whole Bill must be killed if the House does not accept his Amendment and withdraw the Clause.

I did not say that it was sufficiently repugnant to the County Councils Association. I was expressing my view that I would object to the Clause and would carry that objection to its logical conclusion, in the same way presumably as my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, North (Mr. Reynolds) is prepared to carry the Clause, even though it is not important, and thus jeopardise the Bill.

My hon. Friend must not assume what I shall do. I am objecting to what he has announced to the House as his intention, and his interjection has not qualified that statement in any form.

This was a Clause which was intro- duced in Committee. It was discussed fully in accordance with the rules of the House and was put down on the Order Paper more than two days before the Committee met. The normal procedure was followed. This was not a starred Amendment. The procedure gave local authority associations time to write to their numerous vice-presidents in the House of Commons, as many of them did, asking hon. Members on the Committee to oppose the introduction of the Clause.

The Clause was moved and discussed in Committee in the normal way, and it was added to the Bill without any Division. Yet my hon. Friend the Member for Southall has to say that this matter has not been discussed. If a Committee is set up to deal with a Bill, and a new Clause is moved, and the Committee discusses it and decides to add it to the Bill without a Division, how can my hon. Friend expect the House to give more time and more facilities to discuss it? I cannot see why he should expect the House to spend more time in dealing with a matter of this nature than it would spend normally in Committee on a Clause of greater or less importance to a Bill. The full procedures of the House have been gone through in introducing and adding the Clause to the Bill. It is completely wrong to suggest that the matter has not been adequately dealt with.

My hon. Friend also suggested that I was the founder of the Association. This is incorrect; I was not its founder. The original idea and the circular calling a meeting for such an association was sent out by a local government journalist, a member of the Sussex County Council and other local authorities in the Sussex area—a man who, incidentally, is chairman of a Conservative constituency party organisation, which enabled a large number of Labour members on the County Councils Association who hold office by virtue of Conservative votes in that association to accuse me of participating in a Tory plot to govern certain sectors of local government.

I was asked to share the chair at the inaugural meeting with the hon. Member for Chichester (Mr. Loveys). I gladly accepted that invitation and later, together with the hon. Member, became joint chairman of the organisation, of which a Liberal Member of the House afterwards became a third sponsor. I was in the organisation from the beginning but was not its originator. When the idea was put to me, I considered it an excellent one and gladly agreed to give what help I could.

My hon. Friend's speech was concerned mostly with the Association of Councillors rather than the powers given to the Minister under the Clause. He said that all the objects of the Association could be carried into effect by the existing local authority organisations, and I do not disagree. The objects of existing local authority associations are widely drawn.

Those organisations, however, have been in being for quite a long time. The Association of Municipal Corporations was formed in 1873, the County Councils Association in 1888, the Urban District Councils' Association in 1890 and the Rural District Councils' Associations in 1895. In addition, there are the Metropolitan Boroughs Standing Joint Committee and the London County Council, so that any Minister of Housing and Local Government has quite a maze of associations with whom to discuss matters.

The truth is, however, that although those other organisations have been in the field for 70 years, they have never tried to do anything about some of the principal matters with which the Association of Councillors was concerned. They have never set their mind to the question of trying to provide educational facilities for elected members of local authorities or to trying to give publicity generally for the benefit of local government.

When the Association's circular was first sent out calling an inaugural meeting to discuss amongst others those two items of educational facilities for members of local authorities and publicity for local government generally, it was amazing how quickly the local authority associations got together. They are usually torn apart right down the line, but when they saw a new member coming into the field they thought that they must do something about it. A few months later, at local authority conferences, one began to see pa3ers on educational facilities for members of local government and also on publicity for local government. During the past three years, the associations have been working hard and have held a number of meetings. They have reached the stage of agreeing to appoint a publicity adviser. That is not bad going in three years after nothing had been done about it during their 70 years of operation. They are still discussing, and have not yet agreed upon, educational facilities for members of local authorities, but they hope to set up a staff college of some kind for elected members in the not too distant future.

I ask the House to note that proposal of a staff college. It will be a top-level business. The ordinary member of a local authority will not have much chance of getting them. I do not know how many members of local authorities there are, but there must be 50,000 or 60.000 or more throughout the country, and it will be a long time before the benefit of this so-called staff college percolates down to the rural or district council level.

Therefore, despite what my hon. Friend says about the local authority associations having power to provide these facilities, which I do not deny, they have not been provided over the last 70 years. It is only following the emergence of the new association and the suggestion that these things should be done that the associations which have been in existence for 70 years have felt that they should look at the position. If it has done nothing else, the formation of the new association has certainly tended to wake up the existing local authority associations. 1.15 p.m.

My hon. Friend says that they were not opposed to the setting up of the new association. They hurriedly called a meeting of the secretaries of the five major associations to consider the attitude to be taken towards it. I imagine that the steps of the Minister of Housing and Local Government were almost worn out during a period of a couple of months by some of the officers wanting to make sure that everything possible was done to stop assistance of any kind being given to the formation of an association.

The Minister must not give permission to local authorities to incur expense in attending its meetings. Letters were written, visits were carried out and great efforts were made to strangle this infant at birth. Nevertheless, it was born and it is functioning. I consider that there is need for an association of this kind, but this is not the moment to start arguing that aspect.

Having referred to the action taken at the birth of this organisation, I must say that this is nothing new. When the Association of Education Committees was formed, the associations already representing education authorities did their best to strangle that one. The child is now, perhaps, rather more powerful than its possible assassins in the educational field.

Another organisation was set up four years ago supported primarily by the right hon. Member for Norwich, South (Mr. Ripon), who is now Minister of Public Building and Works, and my hon. from the Member for Hayes and Harlington (Mr. Skeffington), called the British Branch of the Council of European Municipalities. This was the first time I had seen the local authority associations in operation when trying to kill something they did not like. It was a fantastic and amusing procedure. Eventually, delegates from the British Branch of the Council of European Municipalities were sent, together with representatives from the existing local authority associations, to a conference at Strasbourg. I was one of those delegates, the hon. Member for Winchester (Mr. Smithers) being the other from the British section.

The way that people were treated at that conference was amazing. Meetings of all the other delegates were called of which we were never informed. There suddenly appeared on the agenda amendments to the constitution of the organisation which would so alter the constitution of the European Conference that it would have been impossible for the British branch to send delegates. They were directed at an international conference solely to stop an organisation sponsored by hon. Members—again, from both sides—from taking any part in voicing the opinions of local government in the European scene. I know a reasonable amount about local government. The hon. Member for Winchester knew even more about the operations of the Council of Europe at Strasbourg. Needless to say, every one of those amendments was rejected and eventually the associations had to accept the existence of a British branch of the Council of European Municipalities.

I am sorry that this matter has been introduced. It has nothing to do with the matter which is under discussion. Since, however, it has been introduced with a one-sided implication concerning the associations, I might say that the opposition of the associations to this matter was that the people who there purported to represent British local government were individually chosen and were not representative of any authorities or bodies other than themselves.

My hon. Friend has made the point that I should like to make. He objected then because the individuals were individually chosen. He objects to the Clause because the members would act not as individuals, but would be sponsored by a local authority. Let us have it either one way or the other. My hon. Friend must not try to use the argument both ways.

I quote that instance only to show that the objection of the existing local authority associations to the new organisation is nothing new. It is the same sort of opposition that they have put up to the formation of any additional local government association over a considerable period of years. I do not particularly blame them for that. People who are operating in a certain field naturally have a vested interest in it and are bound to look askance and try to do something to stop what they consider to be interlopers from coming into the field. This is the sort of thing which trade unions are accused of and gets so much publicity—restrictive practices; but I do not think that this will get so much publicity as that. Nevertheless, this is nothing new. It is more or less what I expected when I had the temerity to put down the additional Clause for introduction into the Bill.

The hon. Member for Hexham (Mr. Speir) says that the amount of money concerned at the moment is a very small amount. The membership fee for this association is 5s. for an individual and 2s. 6d. if all the members of the council join in a corporate membership. To be perfectly honest, the subscription was deliberately fixed at a low level when the association was formed because it was realised at that time that it would be able to offer very little by way of facilities to its members, and so the membership fee was fixed at a nominal rate. There has been the suggestion that this would cost many thousands of pounds for each local authority, but no organisation covering the whole of local government would need a fee of anything like that kind.

The case against this association is that here is a local authority association which makes no distinction between a member of a parish council, or a rural district council, or an urban district council, or of a county borough council, or a borough council, or a county council. It is for the elected members of local authorities, whereas the existing associations are concerned with their particular vested interests in the general local authority field. The existing associations now are rather concerned at the growth of an organisation which they feel may in the long-term affect their own vested interests in the particular field they represent. I can think of no other reason at all for their objection to an association concerned with the welfare of local government by trying to provide for members of local authorities education and information—which is what it boils down to—for elected councillors and aldermen. We have been told in the Press and in other circles—I do not accept all of it by any means—that the general educational standard and standard of knowledge of elected members of local authorities is at a very low level. One of the objects of this association is to try to raise the level, and I find that a wholly worth-while job if it can possibly be done.

When the association was first formed we realised that one of the best fields in which we could make the most useful contribution was by attempting to provide educational facilities for members of local authorities and that we should seek the help of the Ministry to see if there could be any amendment of the 1948 Act exactly in line with what this Clause 3 of this Bill does.

At the same time the Association was having discussions with the Nuffield Foundation with a view to getting financial assistance for educational work. At that time, in any case, there was no legislation going through. It was agreed that the main thing which should be done before the association could expect to receive any financial support from the ratepayers was that it should prove that there was a case for it and that it was capable of doing the worthwhile job there was for it to do. The association, has received a grant of £1,000 from the Nuffield Foundation and is starting on 29th June a series of weekend and day schools for elected members of local authorities in the West Riding of Yorkshire. It will be attended by members of local authorities in the West Riding of Yorkshire and there will be the secretary to the Rating and Valuation Association who will lecture on rating, the treasurer of Bullingdon Rural District Council on local finance, and there will also be a lecture on the relationships between the Press and local government by a local government journalist. I happen to know that this last lecturer will take a different view of this matter from that which I take. Nevertheless, we want to give members an opportunity to discuss these things because we believe that the relationships with the Press are particularly important in financial matters.

I believe that a weekend of this nature for elected members of local authorities will do an immense amount of good in increasing the knowledge of those members. Many take interest in financial questions but there are other subjects such as the provision of libraries, schools, anything of that nature, and the general standard of facilities, and it seems to me that in providing these courses over two years in twenty schools will do an immense amount of good. At the end we hope to have proved that there is a job to do in this field and that it can be successfully done and that it is not too much to ask that there should be a contribution towards the subscriptions of the members.

A local authority can at the moment, if the Minister gives his consent, pay a subscription of an officer who is employed by the local authority and who is a member of an organisation. Subject to the Minister's consent that subscription can be paid, and the Ministry vets the applications very carefully indeed. What in fact the local authority associations are now saying is that it is all right for ratepayers' money to be spent on financing contributions on behalf of an employee of a council but completely wrong for the ratepayers' money to be spent on financing the subscription of an elected member of the local authority, one of the people who represent the ratepayers as a councillor or an alderman.

That is something which I just cannot understand. An officer who is doing a paid job for a local authority can have this expense met; but a councillor, giving up his time, who fights elections, who has the support of the ratepayers in his area, who vote for him, otherwise he would not be there, who in all probability incurs financial loss of some degree in doing his voluntary work, must not be supported by the ratepayers by making any contribution at all to any expense he may incur in attending an association which will be able to assist him in the better performance of his duties.

I must say that I cannot understand the attitude of the existing local authority associations in this matter. Nevertheless, that is the attitude which they have taken up, and it is the attitude which the hon. Member for Southall has taken up through his opposition towards this Clause, and it is the attitude he is asking the House to support him in.

So this experimental work is going to be started by the Association of Councillors in the West Riding of Yorkshire and I think and hope it will be a success. I understand from what the hon. Member for Hexham has just said that there is provision already existing whereby it will be possible to meet the requirements of the Clause, but nevertheless, if the Clause is struck out it will mean that the House is taking the view that the elected members of local authorities are not worthy of the same sort of support which the House is prepared to give to the officers whom local authorities employ. That is in fact what my hon. Friend is asking the House to agree to. He is asking the House to say, in effect, that the House has more trust and confidence in the officers of local authorities than it has in the elected members of local authorities.

This attitude is not new. It has been adopted by the local authority associations over a long period of years in regard to what they consider to be interlopers into their own particular restricted field. I think that perhaps a great deal of the controversy we are having would have been avoided if over the last seventy years the local authorities themselves had realised that it would be better to have one association of local authorities rather than half a dozen local authority associations, half a dozen associations which spend a large proportion of their time disagreeing with one another, but at the same time trying to keep everybody else out of their field. We have seen some recent signs of that for they are beginning to jostle about over who shall represent the proposed new Greater London Councils to be set up. There is a lot of jostling going on in the background.

I hope that the House will agree to leave this Clause in. It will put members of local authorities on to the same status as that of the officers employed by them. If in the future the association to which I have referred proves it has a worth-while job to do and that it is able to do it successfully, the Clause will enable the consent of the Minister to be given to local authorities to incur this expenditure in a direct manner rather than in a roundabout way.

But this is a Friday. I do not know how many Members there are in the House at the present moment but the hon. Member for Southall knows that if there is a count on this matter and fewer than 35 more Members come in it will mean the end of this Bill, certainly for the moment and in all probability for the rest of the Session. It may also be the end of other Bills also set down for today.

1.30 p.m.

The hon. Member and the local authority associations have deliberated and decided that even that risk is well worth while. Is it in fact worth while to make it impossible, or leave it as it is at present, for local authorities to borrow money to meet the interest on capital for central area development work? It is better that that should not be allowed than that this Clause should be included in the Bill. It is better that local authorities should continue to labour under immense financial difficulties than that the Minister in future might enable the ratepayers in the area to pay a financial con- tribution to an association which comes into the field which these associations have got so nicely sewn up at the present time.

I regret the action that the hon. Gentleman has taken. I do not want to see this Bill killed, but I hope that the House will allow this Clause to remain in the Bill.

Would not my hon. Friend put it the other way? Rather than insist on something going into the Bill which is controversial, would it not be far better to withdraw it at this stage and let the matter be properly discussed elsewhere?

As to controversy, we have to see what other hon. Members have to say. I do not think that it can be said that this is necessarily controversial because the hon. Gentleman has asked for the Clause to be taken out. I have opposed that and the sponsor of the Bill has very neatly sat on the fence.

I should like to congratulate the hon. Member for Islington, North (Mr. Reynolds) on a very able exposition of the position. Having read some information sent to me from various types of councils, I think that this Clause ought to stay in with the Bill.

I find it extraordinary that the County Councils Association should suggest to me in a memorandum, as it has done that, on the one hand, members of authorities should vote for a subscription to an association of which they themselves are individual members and in which they could be said to have a pecuniary interest. This implies some dishonesty, or at least negligence, towards public administration which, I think, is wholly unjustified in the circumstances.

I am also astonished to read in another paragraph that this new association is an independent pressure group. What are the other associations but independent pressure groups? If they are not independent they ought to be. A pressure group ought to be independent and able to stand up and be seen to he what it is. They ought not to castigate other people by calling them in the pejorative sense a pressure group. It seems to me that this is a wholly admirable association which the hon. Member for Islington, North has described and I congratulate him on the very large amount of publicity for the courses which are to be run in the West Riding. I do not know whether he is canvassing for subscriptions from hon. Members so that they may spend part of their holidays there.

I think that this Clause is devoted to an admirable purpose. This appears, perhaps, to be rather an extraordinary discussion because I expect that the Parliamentary Secretary will tell us later on that the Clause is unnecessary because what it does could be done under another Clause, anyway. However that may be, it seems to me that the object of this Association of Councillors is quite innocent. It is not trying to sabotage local government, it is not out for its members own pecuniary interests, and I do not see why we should not vote for 5s. a year for them.

I am fearful to intervene in a dispute between two Members on the other side of the House, but I think that the House should welcome the fact that there has been a debate on this important subject of the education of elected members in council matters.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Islington, North (Mr. Reynolds) on his tenacity on this subject. It is not only today that he has brought it up. We know that this association has been growing for many years. I congratulate him not only on his tenacity, but on the progress which has been made in making people realise that there is an opportunity here for good work in providing educational facilities in council and local government matters for elected members.

I would hesitate to countenance any increased expenditure by local authorities which would mean increasing the burden on the ratepayer. In fact, would have thought that this was a facility which ought to have been provided nationality. The Nuffield Foundation certainly thought that there was some national good to be gained out of providing such a facility, and I would have thought that the right thing to do would have been for the Parliamentary Secretary to say that he would persuade his right hon. Friend the Chancellor to put this on the taxpayer instead of on the ratepayer. In any event, this is a very small amount, and I do not think that one can boggle at it being placed, at any rate temporarily, on the ratepayers.

We have always tried, on both sides of the House, to encourage younger people to offer themselves for election as members of councils. The younger people have financial difficulty in carrying on their council work. They are not retired people who can spend any amount of time at it. They have to fit it in with earning their bread and butter. They have little enough compensation for the expenses to which they are put and for the loss of time, which, again, is a loss of money to them.

If this Clause were not included in the Bill, I think that we should be telling them, "Here is another thing for which you have to pay. If you want to learn how to be a councillor and something about local government, you must pay for it, and we are not giving any support to any organisation which will give you facilities for doing this."

My hon. Friend the Member for Hex-ham (Mr. Speir) put forward some points against this new Clause which was introduced in Committee. Then he finished by saying, "It does not really matter at all, because it can be done under another Clause". If it can be done under another Clause, there must be some doubt about this, otherwise the Committee would not have agreed to introduce it in Clause 3.

The Minister has to approve.

I understand that the Minister has to approve it under Clause 3 as well. He has to approve the associations to which subscriptions are made, but there seems to be some doubt as to whether it can be done under the other Clause, and, if it can be done, what approvals, consents, and so on, have to be obtained. Let us come out in the open and say that it can be done definitely, as is said in Clause 3.

The other point which my hon. Friend the Member for Hexham made was that he thought that perhaps this was a little premature at the present time. If a baby is premature, one does not starve it; one does the opposite, one nourishes it. If this association which is offering these facilities for education in local government matters to elected members of councils is in its embryo stage we ought to encourage it. We ought to nourish it and say quite definitely in legislation that this is something of which this House approves. It really has a job to do.

I am not concerned so very much whether this particular association of which we have heard does the job or someone else does it; but there is a job to be done. The Nuffield Foundation has seen that there is such a job to be done and what better recommendation could we have in this House than that this foundation has chosen to make an advance to this association.

The job of the local councillor is growing as we throw more and more duties into his lap. Reading the legislation on local government of the past few years, trying to digest the Local Government Act, 1929, the Local Government Act, 1933, the Local Government Act, 1948, and the Local Government Act, 1958, all with hundreds of Sections and dozens of Schedules, one wonders how the ordinary local councillor, who is a layman, understands what his job can be. Yet all the time we are throwing more and more duties on to him.

With education in this subject, one can be selective. One knows what to read and what not to read. One knows the sort of things to study. I believe that the education in local government matters of elected members of local authorities has now become essential if we are to sustain the standards of local government.

Like my hon. Friend the Member for Crosby (Mr. Graham Page), I hesitate to intervene in what is, virtually, a private war between two hon. Members opposite, but I feel that it would be a very great tragedy if we were to allow this small point, which, I understand, the Parliamentary Secretary will probably tell us can be dealt with adequately under other Clauses or other legislation, to stand in the way of the passage of the Bill.

I was a member of the Standing Committee, and I think it right to say that the hon. Member for Islington, North (Mr. Reynolds) made quite clear to most of us, even if he did not actually say it in words in Committee, what his personal position in this matter was. The difficulty here arises over our parliamentary procedure. The hon. Member for Islington, North has said that this question was fully discussed in Committee. That is quite right, but I appreciate the position of the hon. Member for Southall (Mr. Pargiter); he has a perfect right to introduce an Amendment a t this time, the first opportunity he has to make his point. However, I make a sincere plea to him not to obstruct the Bill.

This question has raised a very large issue. First, it raises the whole subject of how much local authorities and the ratepayers should be called upon to pay in various respects. I am glad that the House has had an oportunity to discuss this. The hon. Member for Islington, North spoke of a staff college for councillors. I hope that the ratepayers will not be called upon to buy brass hats for councillors attending this staff college. The question before us is how we are to look in future upon the amount of money which is spent by the ratepayers, whether for the education of councillors or in other ways.

I think that the particular aspect of the matter raised by the Amendment could fairly be described as a private battle over the half-crown or five "bob" subscription. In my view, we should be sadly lacking in our duty to Parliament, to the ratepayers and to local government if we allowed any form of jealously between organisations which, as my hon. Friend the Member for Crosby said, are all doing a fine job, to interfere with the passage of the Bill or to exclude the Association of Councillors. We do not say that that association is not doing good work even though it has only just been started.

I hope that the House will make sure that the Bill is not spoiled by the Amendment and will look at the wider issues here involved. Perhaps, if my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary can assure us that the same end can be achieved under his wider powers, we may be able to get on with the more important task and give a Third Reading to this excellent Measure.

I, too, have no wish to be involved in a dog-fight between two hon. Members opposite, both of whom have most distinguished records in local government. Nor had I very strong feelings on the matter until I heard the speech of the hon. Member for Islington, North (Mr. Reynolds). I think that there is a good deal of merit in what he said. I feel that members should have parity with officers in this respect and that, therefore, the Clause should remain in the Bill.

I am not very surprised at the opposition generated by the County Councils Association and various other local government bodies. Admirable as they are in many ways, they do not always entirely reflect the views of people in local government. As a member of a county council, I know that quite a number of things done by the County Councils Association do not always meet with my approval, although, I suppose, I give them tacit support by being a member of a local authority.

There is a tendency on the part of the established local government bodies to try to monopolise the situation and not admit other organisations which wish to break into the field. I know very little about the organisation to which the hon. Member for Islington, North is connected, but it seems to have some admirable aims. I think that it should be encouraged, and I hope that the House will encourage it.

It would be a great pity if this small but important Bill were to be wrecked by this issue, particularly if we can deal with the same point through Clause 2. Perhaps my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary will make absolutely clear that the object can be achieved via Clause 2. In those circumstances, perhaps the Amendment could stand. We must do all we can to support these new organisations such as the Association of Councillors, because they can do nothing but good throughout the whole world of local government.

f have no wish to intervene in the dispute between the hon. Member for Hexham (Mr. Speir) and his hon. Friends. It appears to me that he and my hon. Friend the Member for Southall (Mr. Pargiter) are the only ones who really want the Amendment, although the hon. Member for Brentford and Chiswick (Mr. Dudley Smith) seemed to finish his speech by appealing to us to agree that we might as well give way. I say frankly that, if it is a question of giving way on this or losing the whole Bill, we ought to agree about it and ensure that the Bill is not endangered. Also, I think that discussion ought not to be too prolonged. I intervene only because, having regard to the high spirits of the debate so far, it would have been rather poor spirited not to take part.

It has been suggested that the Clause is unnecessary because the same object can be achieved under Clause 2. I think that the Parliamentary Secretary set the matter out in Committee. One knows that the Government never claim to give authoritative rulings on what the law is, but their view, for what it is worth, is that the same thing can be done but in a rather more laborious way. In my view, if we definitely want something done and believe it ought to be done, it is better to do it in a straightforward way and make the thing perfectly clear. My hon. Friend the Member for Islington, North (Mr. Reynolds) is, I think, to be congratulated for wanting this issue brought out fairly instead of having the thing done through a back door.

What are the objections to the Clause? It was suggested that, since the Minister's approval will be required if the power under it is to be used, this would embarrass the Minister in having to decide whether a particular association was one to which he should give approval for the purposes of the Clause. Really, if anyone in any Government would feel embarrassed by having to make up his mind about something like that, he ought not to be a Minister. We pay Ministers to be embarrassed. It is one of the things they are there for.

We do not pay them very much.

No, but enough to undertake this job.

Then the hon. Member for Hexham thought that there was danger of an added burden on the rates. But if this and other horrors that have been foretold are to follow what the hon. Member for Crosby (Mr. Graham Page) has pointed out, then we are in danger of them already because of the power under Clause 2. But I am convinced that, if there is any way of dealing with the rates problem, it is wrong to try to solve it by restricting local authorities from doing everything one can. We shall never solve the problem by saying that we must never give them power to spend money.

If and when local electors feel that their councils are spending money in silly or extreme ways, they can always turn them out and put other people in, as we have seen them do in the last week or two. I do not think that there is really anything in either of these arguments.

The real issue is not whether a new body should be set up. The body is set up and will go on anyhow. The question is whether it should be given this very moderate measure of official recognition. This is an extraordinarily moderate Measure, hedged round by every kind of safeguard and, moreover, no more than anything that is already given in the case of officers. One of the worst aspects is that, if we removed this Clause, we should be pronouncing that we regard this kind of work for elected members as less important than for officers. That would be deplorable.

I would not wish to imply some sort of invidious position for members. My case is that there are existing powers and organisations to do this job, and our job is to see that they do it. Like every other hon. Member, I want to see as much education as possible, but there are channels through which it should be done.

My hon. Friend is resting his argument on the proposition that the job is being done, and presumably can always be done adequately, by existing organisations. He used the phrase. "Our job is to see that they do it". But it is no such thing. It is none of our business to insist on the County Councils' Association and the Association of Municipal Corporations doing their job properly. If they do not do their job properly, that is a matter for their members.

I am not speaking of Members of Parliament in this sense but of members of local authorities.

Why should we tie ourselves permanently to the view that the only right channels are channels which are so constructed that they must work on the principle of what kind of local authority one belongs to? That is the nature of the existing organisations. The C.C.A. speaks for people on the county councils and the A.M.C. speaks for people as members of borough councils. But surely it is an entirely legitimate proposition to say that we might get a new, fresh and useful angle on this matter, so that people would not consider local government from the point of view of how it would affect a county or a borough or a parish but of how it would affect local government as a whole.

This is an aspect of the matter on which I feel very strongly, and it is of great importance at present, when so much is in the air about the reform of local government. Nothing could be more dangerous than to approach local government with the idea that we have some particular loyalty to a county, a borough, a district or a parish or whatever it may be. Over and over again, we shall have to consider the question, "By what kind of body is a particular local government function best performed?" It should be looked at exclusively from the point of view of the citizens as a whole, without any first approach by one particular kind of local authority rather than another.

It is no derogation of the useful work the present associations are doing to say that it is just possible that an organisation formed on a rather different principle might be able to contribute something useful to the process of education, information and public relations among elected representatives. At one moment during the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, North I wondered whether the Association of Councillors should not widen its scope still further and include Members of this House and possibly even of another place, so that we could all be assisted in learning our job and about public relations and all the other things we should know. But I do not press that at this stage.

It has been suggested that this is premature. But we do not legislate on this sort of matter every day or even every month. Clause 8, for instance, is very valuable. If I remember rightly, the Permanent Under-Secretary at the Ministry recently told an association of people interested in comprehensive re- development that the Government were of opinion that what is done in this Clause should be done, and that it was solely a question of waiting for a legislative opportunity.

I do not believe that any case in principle against Clause 3 can be made out, whereas in principle the case for it is good. Therefore, it would be a mistake, when we have a local government Bill before us, to throw away this legislative opportunity for we do not know when the next opportunity will come. If the Clause is struck out, I hope that when the next opportunity comes, whatever Government is in power, they will take the opportunity, with all their authority as the Government, to put something like this into law. If that happens, I wonder whether the C.C.A. and the other organisations concerned will not think that they were unwise to hold up a change which is bound to come sooner or later, and whether they might not have been better advised and more gracious to have dropped their opposition at this stage.

Perhaps I can take up what the hon. Member for Fulham (Mr. Stewart) has said in his plea that we should make this provision in a straightforward manner rather than in some more laborious and roundabout way. As he says, the Government do not give authoritative statements of the law. All I can tell the House is the legal advice I have received, and which I believe to be good.

It might be useful if I read to hon. Members the terms of Section 129 of the Local Government Act, 1948, with which Clause 3 is concerned, because I thought that the greater part of the speech of the hon. Member for Southall (Mr. Pargiter) was really off what we are really discussing. Section 129 reads:

"The council of a county, county borough, metropolitan borough, county district Or rural parish may pay reasonable subscriptions, whether annually or otherwise to the funds—

(a) of any association of local authorities formed for the purpose of consultation as to the common interests of those authorities and the discussion of matters relating to local government, or

(b) of such associations of officers of local authorities, being associations formed for the purposes aforesaid, as may be approved by the Minister."

The hon. Member for Islington, North (Mr. Reynolds) wishes to insert in paragraph (b) the words "or members". What we are really discussing is whether there is a legitimate distinction between officers and members for this purpose. I am bound to say, expressing a negative view, that I have not heard a single argument put forward for making this distinction. I think that the hon. Member for Southall used the words "We are discussing the setting up of a particular organisation". But that is not what we are doing. The only organisation of members is the one he referred to. We are discussing whether this organisation or any other organisation of members that comes forward should, in some way, be put into a totally different category from other organisations. I would put in a plea for the general way, which the hon. Member wants and which my hon. Friend the Member for Crosby (Mr. Graham Page) advocated, of putting it straightforwardly in the Bill where it can be seen for what it is.

2.0 p.m.

With regard to the question of any embarrassment about the approval of these organisations by Ministers, I have a very long list of associations of various local government officers, including a number of very reputable organisations which have not been approved because they do not fall within the general terms of the Section. So far as I know, no recent holder of my right hon. Friend's office has suffered any acute embarrassment in sorting the sheep from the goats and I hope that the hon. Member for Fulham does not believe that, in the unlikely event of that office being held by a member of his party, this will suddenly become an overbearing burden, because that would augur ill for the future of the country—should the first disaster come about in the first place. I endorse what the hon. Member for Fulham and the hon. Member for Islington, North and others have said about the Association of Councillors—that there must be a case for some body which is not divided into rather watertight compartments of urban district and rural district government and so on.

I hope that the hon. Member for Southall will agree to withdraw his Amendment. Like everybody else, par- ticularly the hon. Member for Fulham, I would not like to see the Bill lost. Like him, I know only too well that when one misses an opportunity to legislate on these matters, it does not easily arise again. I suppose that every Government Department has a long list of relatively minor but useful reforms waiting for Parliamentary time, and often waiting a very long time.

I do not know whether I have the position quite clear. Under existing legislation, if the organisation is approved by the Minister, am I right in supposing that there is no difficulty about paying the subscription?

I am coming to that. Under Section 129, of the Local Government Act 1948 with which the Clause is concerned, all that is required is that my right hon. Friend has to approve an association as one to which it would be suitable for local authorities to make these contributions. When he has done that, any local authority within the group can make contributions, or pay subscriptions, as the case may be.

The other Section with which we are concerned is Section 136 of the Local Government Act which is to be amended by Clause 2. As amended it reads:

"A local authority in England or Wales may, with the consent of the Minister give either generally or specially"—

so there is the opportunity to cover the whole country; perhaps I misled the Committee when I thought that it had to be special in each case—

"contribute towards the expenses of any body carrying on activities…for the purposes of furthering the development of trade, industry or commence"—

within the area of that authority,

"or giving advice, information or other assistance to persons resident therein, or otherwise for the benefit of that area or those persons."

The last words are clearly very wide. Under that rather wide heading, I am advised, contributions could be paid, and the wide word "contributions" covers "subscriptions", whether regular or only initial.

As I said earlier, I entirely agree with the hon. Member for Fulham and with my hon. Friend the Member for Crosby that it is much better to put this in clear words so that it can be seen for what it is. I would hope that that would be the decision of the House, although it is not for me on a Private Member's Bill to intervene further than that.

Again I remind the House that we are considering this very narrow issue of the distinction between officers and members and whether it is right to draw this distinction in this context. The merits of the organisation are not before us. It was made clear in Committee that there was no question of this organisation even applying for approval at present and no suggestion that it would be an approved organisation within the next year or two. This is something we have to wait for and we would have to see how it developed.

I beg to move, in page 2, line 48, to leave out "and" and to insert "or".

This is a purely drafting Amendment. Since the Committee stage I have been advised that the insertion of the word "or" is preferable in every respect to "and". As the Bill is drafted, any organisation approved under this scheme would have to contain both officers and members of local authorities, which would probably make it rather difficult for the officers' associations which have already secured the Minister's approval. This is a purely drafting Amendment to make the Clause say exactly what everyone thought it meant.

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

I hope and believe that this Bill, amended and improved as it has been in its passage through the House, will generally be welcomed by those engaged in local government. Its provisions seek to give greater freedom to all local councils in England and Wales, from the London County Council to the Council of the Isles of Scilly, with the one sad exception of the City of London. It was only drafting difficulties which, unfortunately, prevented the City of London from coming within the terms of the Bill.

All too often when Parliament passes a new Bill into law the main object of the Bill is to tell the great British public that there is something more which it is not allowed to do, something which is forbidden, or as the Germans say, verboten. It is on record that as long ago as during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I Her Majesty protested that Parliament was passing too many laws. A great many more laws have been passed since that clay, despite the efforts of Lord Randolph Churchill with his cry of "Set the people free" and despite the Conservative Party election manifesto of 1951 which was entitled, "Britain—Strong and Free".

Fortunately, it is quite reasonable and compatible for me, while urging the need for a further holiday from restrictive legislation, nevertheless at the same time to commend this Bill to the House, because this Bill will to a large extent set people free to do things which they are not at present allowed to do.

All the way through its provisions the Bill enables councils to do things which, under other legislation, they cannot do at all, or possibly cannot do except with the Minister's consent. I emphasise that the Bill does not seek to lay any new duties on local authorities and that it gives no new powers to local authorities over the public. I think, therefore, it can be truly said that the Bill will help and not hinder both local authorities and the public. In fact, it will cut out a great deal of red tape.

It will cut out much unnecessary correspondence between Whitehall and local authorities, and at a time when it is desirable to make local government both more efficient and more local. I believe that the Bill will go some way in both those directions. It will make local authorities more efficient, because it will allow them to have more initiative and more discretion. It will make them more local, because they will be allowed to be a little more enterprising, and I think that this should stimulate local interest.

In particular, I draw attention to the provisions of Clauses 6, 7 and 8, which, I think, should prove specially useful. It is really rather absurd, but as the law stands local authorities are not allowed to fence off dangerous places such as the banks of canals. They are not allowed to erect warning notices saying that there are dangers about the place, such as disused welts: they are not even allowed to fill in disused wells. Nor are they allowed to contribute to the cost of providing amenities such as telephone boxes in small villages which might not otherwise be provided with them.

Again, except with the sanction of the Minister, local authorities cannot do many obviously desirable things such as planting trees on commons and open spaces. They are not allowed to undertake the essential first-aid repair works in connection with damage caused by floods or gales. Now, under Clause 6, subject to certain very stringent safeguards, local authorities, without the need for obtaining the consent of the Minister, will be allowed to spend modest sums, limited in most cases to a 1d. rate—in the case of a parish council limited to a 1s. 5d. rate—for any purpose which they consider is for the good of their areas or of their inhabitants. This new provision has been warmly welcomed by all the local authority associations, and they tell me that it will serve a very useful purpose, although in many instances the expenditure in question may be a matter of only a few pounds.

Clause 7 has also been welcomed by many local authorities. It seeks to provide local authorities with a useful additional method of borrowing money by means of the issue and sale of bonds. I again emphasise that, at a time when everyone is concerned about the high rate of local government expenditure, this Clause does not confer any new borrowing powers on local authorities. It merely gives them increased flexibility and provides them with another method of borrowing money.

Bonds are a simple and convenient method of borrowing money. They are easy to issue. They do not require a formal deed, as in connection with a mortgage, and they can be issued so to speak "on tap" across the counter. I think that these bonds are, therefore, likely to attract loans from local investors. Their issue will, quite rightly, be subject to rules and regulations made by the Minister. In this way, I hope that many local authorities will be able to stimulate and excite local interest for some of their ventures.

I also hope that Clause 8 will encourage local authorities, be they corporations of some of our great provincial cities or county boroughs, or some of our smaller urban district councils, to undertake bold, and eventually remunerative, schemes for the central development of their cities, or for urban renewal—schemes which are so necessary if our city centres are to be properly developed on really sensible and imaginative lines.

It will often be the case that while the land is being cleared in these expensive areas, while the sites are being prepared, and while the new buildings are being erected, the expenditure will be very high and the revenue in the early years will be either negligible or non-existent. Therefore, in the right circumstances, and in circumstances to be prescribed by the Minister, power will be given under this Clause to a local authority to suspend the annual provision for the payment of loan charges, subject, I emphasise, to a maximum period of suspension of five years.

The justification for suspending the provision for the repayment of a loan by a local authority must, I think, be the expectation that after the initial unremunerative period there will be money coming in for repayment of the charges, and that money may come in either in the form of income, or in the form of capital proceeds, such as from the sale of the sites themselves after the land has been prepared. That will be the acid test which the Minister will have to apply, that the scheme will eventually be a paying proposition. I hope that this Clause will enable city centres to be redeveloped and improved—and, I hope, also beautified—without the necessity of imposing an excessively heavy burden on local rata during the initial non-profit-earning stages.

In asking the House to approve the Bill, I conclude by expressing the hope that the Bill will help to make both urban and rural England a better, more pleasant, and more beautiful place in which to live. This objective has been the central aim of all the several Bills, now four in number, which I have had the privilege of sponsoring in this House. That was the central aim of the Litter Act, 1958, the Noise Abatement Act, 1960, the Diesel Fumes Bill of last Session, and it can be said to be the principal aim of this Bill.

The Bill will allow and encourage big cities to redevelop their old and overcrowded centres. It will allow towns to do such things as floodlighting their memorials and their historic buildings. It will allow parishes to plant trees on their commons and open spaces, and to offer prizes for their best kept gardens. It will enable councils throughout the length and breadth of England and Wales to do all these and a host of other desirable and sensible things.

All too often Governments are penny wise and pound foolish. All too often Government, as I think the hon. Member for Fulham (Mr. M. Stewart) said on Second Reading, spend 6d. to save 3d This Bill will get rid of some of that kind of nonsense. There is an old saying that a parish clerk ought to be able both to read and to write, and it helps if he can sing! It is my hope that this Bill will encourage many clerks of local authorities to sing!

It simply remains for me to thank my hon. Friend, his Department and all his officials for the great amount of willing assistance which they have given me in the drafting of the Bill and throughout all its stages. They could not have been more helpful to me, and without their help I could not possibly have got the Bill to its present stage. I am most grateful to them all.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Hexham (Mr. Speir) upon the remarkable success which he has achieved with his Bills. He has created something of a record in the number of useful Bills that he has brought forward. I welcome the Bill—apart from the point to which I have expressed my objection—and the so-called backward looking local authority associations to which reference has been made, including my own, also welcome its provisions, although many of the powers it provides are already exercisable by them.

Too much is often left to private Members' Bills, and to the chances that a Private Members' Bill has. This was a very chancy one. It is always open to any hon. Member to object, on any question, and on a Friday, due to the attendance of many hon. Members in other places, great difficulty may be caused. It may prove very difficult to get through a Measure that the whole House would generally consider desirable.

My hon. Friend said that he would insist on the retention of the Clause to which I objected, and said that between one or the other of us the Bill might be lost. I did not intend that to be the case through my efforts. Unless there are sufficient Members of the House present to express its true opinion either way I do not think it is right for a Measure to be lost, as may be the case on a Friday, purely as a result of a rule of the House which enables a minority of Members to achieve their object. It is regrettable that so many Measures should be lost because of the operation of that rule, simply because a sufficient number of Members do not happen to be present to support them.

The Bill will do good. The fact that it may do something which I believe to be unwise is of secondary importance. It is because I think that the good things in the Bill far outweigh the one doubtful thing that I welcome it.

I am glad to have the opportunity of adding my congratulations to those which have already been addressed to my hon. Friend the Member for Hexham (Mr. Speir), and to express my conviction that the Bill will serve some useful purposes. I have taken an active interest in local government for a long time, having served for about twenty years both on a county council and on a borough council. My hon. Friend has been successful in achieving a somewhat exceptional feat. He has produced a Bill which is warmly approved of by local authorities and local authority associations which has received the commendation of my right hon. Friend, the Minister of Housing and Local Government, and which has not—with the single exception of the limited point made by the hon. Member for Southall (Mr. Pargiter)—evoked any substantial measure of opposition. It is quite clear that the proposals of the Bill are in line with the mass of opinion which is interested in and concerned about the future health of local government.

The Bill achieves three very useful purposes. First, it enables local authorities, without the consent of the Minister, to do things for which his consent is required at present. These matters are all ones which can properly and safely be entrusted to local authorities to settle by their own free will and decision, and I hold the view that is now current both in this House and among local authorities, that if the proper health and independence of local government are to be maintained it is necessary that effective powers should lie in the hands of local authorities and that we should reduce to a minimum the number of matters in respect of which they have to obtain ministerial consent. The Bill is in line with that general principle, and I warmly support that part of its proposals.

Secondly, the Bill enables local authorities to do certain useful and necessary things which they cannot do at present either on their own decision or even with the consent of the Minister.

Thirdly—and this is something which appeals to me very much—the Bill will enormously reduce the volume of correspondence, and going and coming and consultation, between local authorities and the various Ministries which are concerned with different aspects of local government. No one suggests that in the present complex state of government in this country, and the interaction between national and local policy, we can set local authorities entirely free and make them completely laws unto themselves, regardless of what national policy may be. Speaking as a local government man rather than as a Member of Parliament, however, I can say that local authority councillors feel a great deal of frustration at the delays which necessarily occur over comparatively trivial matters, where there has to be a great amount of going and coming between local authorities and the Ministries, and they will welcome gladly and with acclamation anything that is done to reduce the large amount of delay and paper work which is now necessary.

I now turn to the question of the gains which the Bill will provide for local authorities. I support the proposal which enables conference expenses to be paid on a rather wider scale and to a wider range of persons. For the first time it includes co-opted members of committees who are not members of the council. In future, in suitable circumstances, they will be able to represent a council or a local authority committee at important national conferences held throughout the country.

I am glad that it has been provided that in this connection the Minister shall lay down regulations. This would not be an appropriate matter to leave entirely to the judgment of local authorities. It is necessary that safeguards should be provided, and the fact that the Minister will lay regulations, within which local authorities must act, will prevent local authorities becoming the subject of criticism by people in their areas—criticism which might fall upon them if matters were left entirely to their discretion. I am sure that those regulations which the Minister is to promulgate ought to receive, and will receive, very careful consideration with a view to seeing that what is, I believe, a useful piece of liberty provided in the Bill is not allowed to degenerate into licence.

Speaking for a moment as one who has been chairman of a finance committee both of a county council and of a borough council and who has therefore had something to do with these matters, I am bound to say that my experience has been that where public expenditure is concerned it is usually the small items that occasion public difficulty and public protest rather than the large ones. Some great scheme that involves £1 million or so usually goes through the finance committee and the council and is accepted at the bar of public opinion without any difficulty at all. The figure is so large that people think that it is really no good troubling their minds about it—the whole project seems to them so tremendous. But if there is a question of whether two representatives instead of one should be sent to some rather delectable local government conference which is going to meet at Bournemouth or Blackpool, there may be an amount of public criticism and feeling on the council and among the public which is out of all proportion to the importance of the issue or the amount of money involved.

From that point of view, I think it right that the Minister should lay down regulations not only for the guidance of the local authorities but to which the local authorities shall be subject. There have, of course, been cases in which, I think, there have been legitimate criti- cisms of the expenditure of public money in the sending of councillors to local authority meetings.

I remember one case, in my own personal experience, of a council on which I served and which was proposing to send two representatives, at public expense, to represent a not very large non-county borough at an international meeting of local authorities to be held in Paris. Nothwithstanding the fact that the proceedings were to be conducted in French, a substantial number of the council felt that it was quite proper to send at public expense two members of the council, neither of whom could speak or understand French, to attend this meeting in Paris. A good many ratepayers, and they had my sympathy, felt that it was not an appropriate use of public funds to send people to an international conference in these circumstances.

My recollection is that I was in the chair at the time, and the settlement of this matter depended on my casting vote. I have a recollection that much to the annoyance of the two persons concerned I recorded my casting vote against their going to Paris at the ratepayers' expense. I think that this is the kind of case which tends to bring local government into very fair criticism on the part of those who pay the rates. I think that with the safeguards of the regulations which the Minister is to promulgate the matter is very fairly dealt with in the terms of the Bill as now before us for Third Reading.

I am wholeheartedly in support of the power now to be given to local authorities to contribute towards the cost of services provided for the benefit of the residents in the area of the local authority by some organisation that may operate over a wider field, that may have its headquarters just over the boundary in some adjoining local authority area but which is, in fact, rendering a very real service to the people living in the areas of more than one authority.

I think that the present position is anomalous and that it could not have been foreseen when the law was passed in its present form. This, I think, is dealing with something, not of a major character but, none the less, of an important character, which has justified the consideration and attention of the House. When we come to the Clause in the Bill which enables up to a 1d. rate, except in the case of parish councils, to be spent on various projects for which the local authorities have not at present the power to incur expenditure, I am bound to say that this seems to me to be a useful provision. The sponsor of the Bill has pointed out that this will enable the fencing of dangerous places to be carried out, the erection of warning signs to take place and also remedial works following flood or tempest, and, furthermore, that repairs to war memorials can be carried out under this provision.

My hon. Friend referred in this connection to the expenditure of modest sums. But, of course, the sums which will be able to be spent now will be very much less modest than they would have been prior to 1st April this year when the new rating assessments came into force. I hope that local authorities will, in fact, confine expenditure to necessary and modest projects and will not make it an occasion for spending money merely because they have the power, unless there is some compelling reason for the expenditure.

In my own county of Surrey, on checking up the matter this morning I found that the product of a 1d. rate under the new assessments is now £⅓million, so that in the case of the major authorities it would be possible for them to use this power to undertake expenditure which many ratepayers may regard as not being quite so modest as it sounds when one expresses it merely as the product of a 1d. rate.

I wholeheartedly support the power which is now given generally to local authorities to issue bonds in respect of their borrowings. This, after all, is only a simplified form of borrowing; it does not enlarge their right to borrow but merely enables them to borrow in an additional manner to the manner in which they can borrow as the law stands at the moment. I believe it to be a fact that under private Acts, which affect the powers of a great many individual local authorities, some 150 local authorities at the present time possess this power.

It seems to me that if these bonds can be issued in units of £5 it brings this kind of investment within the range of a vast number of local people who would not be likely to invest in the larger stock market issues of the local authorities, and when we find—

Will not my hon. Friend agree that one of the great advantages of this is that local people will feel that they have some stake in their local finance by contributing towards loans?

I fully agree with that, and I was just coming on to that point.

It will enable people in the locality who are particularly interested in some project, such as the building of a new town hall, a new community centre, a new swimming bath or something of that kind, to feel that they are making their own personal contribution towards providing the money needed to pay for a much needed improvement.

To take the example and experience of only one local authority, when we find that the Derbyshire County Council was apparently successful in borrowing nearly £3 million within a space of one month by the issue of bonds which it was permitted to issue under its own private Act legislation, it seems to me to open up quite a large field of possibilities of borrowing by many of the authorities which do not at the moment possess this power but which will do so when the Bill becomes an Act.

Finally, I wish to give my support to the proposal which, stated quite simply, will enable interest to be capitalised during the period of development in the case of certain major undertakings of a revenue producing character. As the law stands at present there is a very real fear that local authorities may feel themselves inhibited from undertaking major schemes of this kind because of the heavy effect it may have in the short-term on the rate burden that they would have to impose on the public. I think that a bad thing. I agree with my hon. Friend that there is a vast field for the redevelopment and improving of city centres, and for the carrying out of overspill development in the case of areas already fully developed or possibly overcrowded; and if one has to bear, as a charge on the current rate interest charges which are incurred during the period of development when there is no income or only a negligible income from the project, it may very well deter local authorities from embarking on that kind of scheme at all.

After all, it is common practice in the case of limited companies and private businesses that one capitalises interest during the period of development, and this is merely bringing into local authority finance principles which have been accepted and recognised as right and reasonable over very many years. I wish again to offer my congratulations to my hon. Friend. I am sure I speak for local authorities when I say that in the years ahead they will have very much occasion to be grateful to him.

I am sorry that the hon. and learned Member for Kettering (Mr. Mitchison) is having an almost lonely vigil on the benches opposite during the welcome which is being given to this Bill. Perhaps he thinks it best, if he is to have unity in support to have only one backbench Member to support him, having regard to what we found in an earlier debate. But I should have thought that there might have been a little more support from the benches opposite on the occasion of the Third Reading of this very valuable Bill.

I sincerely congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Hexham (Mr. Speir) on piloting his Bill to this stage. It would be a very frustrating life for a backbench Member had he not the opportunity of himself putting something on the Statute Book now and again. My hon. Friend has not been backward in doing this, and I sincerely congratulate him on having once again got as far as this with a Private Member's Bill.

As was said in an earlier debate one would hesitate, if this were a Bill giving more power to local authorities to spend more money and therefore to have to collect more in rates. But I think this Bill may well be a Measure which gives a saving of expenditure by increasing local management. I think the remarks which my hon. Friend the Member for Hexham made during the Second Reading debate have been well justified by the subsequent debates and the Committee stage discussions. He said:

"The Bill sets out to remove a great deal of red tape and to abolish much to-ing and fro-ing between local authorities and Government Departments in Whitehall."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 8d1 March, 1963; Vol. 673, c. 827.]

My hon Friend was supported in that by the hon. Member for Fulham (Mr. M. Stewart) who said:

"Against this one must set the small but not insignificant point that the Bill will save both local and central government a certain amount of unnecessary time and expenditure on correspondence spending 6d. in order to make sure that 3d. is not improperly spent."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 8th March, 1963; Vol. 673, c. 856.]

I think this a vitally important aspect of the Bill. My right hon. Friend the Minister of Housing and Local Government has pressed local authorities again and again to look at their administration to see whether expenses can be reduced. Many local authorities have applied work study methods to their organisation and organisation and methods to their work in the council offices, either by employing work study officers or by employing a consultant firm to carry out this work. The sort of provisions contained in this Bill will enable councils still further to improve their administration and to save more money.

I hope that my right hon. Friend the Minister of Housing and Local Government will at some time publish the savings achieved by the application of organisation and methods to local government work, because it runs into millions of pounds. I suppose that before I go further I ought to declare an interest, as am the secretary of a certain organisation which has rather a long name—the Institute of Incorporated Work Study Technologists. Only next week there is a European Work Study Congress meeting very near to this House—in Church House—and I think that we might hold up this Bill as an example of what we are doing to apply proper organisation and methods procedures to local government.

I wish to mention in particular the provisions in the Bill which permit local authorities to expend money on certain obviously desirable things. Under the existing law they are prevented from spending money in that way. My hon. Friend the Member for Hexham mentioned the fencing of canals. There happens to be a very dangerous canal in my constituency and I recollect that on many occasions the local authority has had long conferences with British Transport and lengthy correspondence with the Ministry regarding the fencing of this canal and who should be responsible for the expense. I believe that the provisions contained in this Bill would have prevented all that waste of time and effort and correspondence and conferences. The local authority would have had a free hand to spend just a little bit of money on saving life. In that case it was, indeed, a question of saving life, because deaths from drowning in that canal occur frequently.

The power now to be given in Clause 1 of the Bill to pay for the attendance of members of local authorities at conferences will be a very useful and valuable power. There have in the past been many occasions when local authorities have desired to send members, or co-opted members, to conferences and the Ministries concerned have refused to permit the expenditure involved to rank for grant. Again I must declare an interest. I have come up against this problem on many occasions in connection with valuable conferences held by the Pedestrian Association for Road Safety. On many occasions Ministries have refused to allow expenses of representatives attending conferences which the local authorities concerned have considered of great value for their road safety committees.

I am sorry that we still see in Clause 1 this peculiar word "political". The conferences to which this Clause applies must not be wholly or partly political. The hon. Member for Fulham on Second Reading said that this was a Committee point and no doubt we should see it tidied up in Committee, but it has come back to us at this stage with the wording unaltered. Obviously what was meant was "party political" not "partly political". I should have liked to have seen the letter "I" dropped from that word. It will be extremely difficult for anyone to define what "political" covers. By a wide definition it would exclude almost every sort of conference, whereas I imagine that the intention is to exclude only those which are party political.

Clause 2 allows the local authority to subscribe to organisations providing certain amenities within their areas. I think particularly of the area with which my constituency is concerned, the conurbation of Merseyside, where cer- tain authorities concentrate on certain amenities and facilities which they offer not only to their own residents but also to those of neighbouring boroughs and districts in the conurbation. Although this Clause reads at first sight as if it applies to commercial activities only, I assume that it will also apply to cultural activities such as music and drama festivals carried on in one district not only for the benefit of that district but of the neighbouring districts as well.

I do not wish to go through every Clause in the Bill at this stage, because it is such a valuable Bill and we want to see it go through Third Reading and, eventually, on to the Statute Book. I conclude on this note. There are on the Statute Book a very great number of local government Acts. I happened to look them up before coming into the Chamber this morning. That is why I know that they go back to the County Buildings Acts of 1826, 1837 and 1847. Those are still perfectly good statutes. There are Acts like the Liberties Act of 1850 which still control the activities of local authorities. Then we come to the much more massive Acts, the Municipal Corporations Acts of 1882 and 1883, and the Local Government Act, 1888. We still turn back to that and the Local Government Act, 1894. There were further Local Government Acts in 1929, 1933, 1948 and 1958 and many small local government Acts almost yearlyin 1953, two in 1956, one in 1957, in 1958 and in 1960. I believe there are before the House at present three Local Government Bills sponsored by private Members.

Have we not reached the stage at which there ought to be codification of these Acts? When we have before us a Bill such as this, amending a number of existing statutes, not all the same statute, it makes one think that this is the right time to codify the law relating to local government. I hope my hon. Friend the Joint Parliamentary Secretary will bear this in mind. I again congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Hexham. He and I now belong to the "Double-Act Club". Before the end of this Session we both will belong to the "Treble-Act Club".

I wish to follow the excellent example which my hon. Friend the Member for Crosby (Mr. Graham Page) always sets us and to relate my remarks to two Clauses of this important Bill. I wish to add my praise to the unqualified congratulations which my hon. Friend the Member for Hexham (Mr. Speir) has received from both sides of the House.

In his remarks, my hon. Friend the Member for Hexham referred to the ability which clerks should have to sing. I am confident that there will be a wide chorus of praise to him and for his hopes for the Bill, which I am sure will be fulfilled. This praise is well deserved and will earn the wide appreciation of those concerned with local government administration and welfare. I am confident that he should have the satisfaction not only of a job well done, but of a job which needed doing.

The Bill is an effort to modernise local government. It goes very properly hand-in-hand with the many changes and reorientations which flow from the boundary revisions and subsequently the reorganisation of district councils by the county council authorities. Substantial administrative savings are possible, but I think that the greatest attribute of the Bill is the greater flexibility it will bring into local government affairs.

I wish to refer only briefly to Clauses 8 and 9. Clause 8 will provide to the local authorities powers which many of them have already gained by local Act legislation, which require to be much more widely used and which should be more readily available. I am sure that this power is safely in the hands of the local authorities. Their activities will be in the context of rising land values. By this means they will be able to enjoy substantially increased land values which follow not only their development but from development by private organisations and private developers. That is accepted commercial practice, as my hon. Friend the Member for Wimbledon (Sir C. Black) emphasised in his contribution to this debate.

In this country we have seen many splendid examples of private development. In this, we may well lead the world. We are seeing the increasing adoption of joint schemes by local authorities in conjunction with private developers. It is an advantage that both sides should be able to deal with a redevelopment scheme with common practices and linked principles of the application of the financial arrangements which are so necessary.

The limits called for in the Bill are, I think, fair and reasonable. It should be possible to terminate and to bring to fruition a scheme of redevelopment in a five-year period and to produce revenue either by means of ground rents or by means of rents subsequent to the redevelopment. County councils could give district councils considerable help in this field for, with their substantial staff and "know-how", they should be in a position to give far greater help to district councils than has been available hitherto. I hope the county councils will increasingly turn their attention to this matter.

I was, however disappointed to see what was said by my hon. Friend the Joint Parliamentary Secretary on Second Reading. He said that as he saw it at the moment

"straight housing projects would not normally be included because usually most housing authorities have already got a programme and the income from a recently completed project in a sense is helping to finance the 'dead' period of the current programme."—[OFFICRL REPORT, 8th March, 1963; Vol. 673, c. 868.]

In respect of central redevelopment schemes for residential purposes, he added that enormous costs may be involved.

That is certainly true, but, as I see it a housing development can stand on its own feet in the same way as does a commercial development, and I believe that in our urban renewal it is in residential redevelopment and renewal that substantial schemes will come about if we are to see the redevelopment of our city centres. This applies to the smaller towns, too, and it is here that I wish to emphasise the help which could be available from county councils.

I hope that the Minister will not find it necessary to be restrictive in this matter in respect of housing developments in town centres. He may well find that, in a scheme, housing and commercial development go hand in hand, and it would be unfortunate if we were to find that it was possible to take advantage of the provisions of the Bill in one part of the scheme but that there were restrictions on another part of the scheme because it had some residential character. I hope that the Parliamentary Secretary will deal with that point.

Clause 9, which has not been mentioned in the debate, deals with a provision which has been necessary for educational authorities for many years. It will be of particular help to authorities in the purchase of sites in advance of their requirements. They are often in competition with other potential users of central sites and sites on the outskirts of a city.

The Bill brings together many varying strands of local government practice. One often sees this in legislation which passes through the House, in that a Bill brings together the best practices which local authorities have developed as pioneers or pathfinders in the increasing administration of local government affairs. We should keep a closer watch on this matter and find more Parliamentary time, if possible, for legislation affecting local authorities. There may well be a need for a Bill of this character every four or five years. I hope that my hon. Friend in whose name the Bill stands will hold himself in readiness for a future occasion.

I join with others in congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Hexham (Mr. Speir) on his remarkable run of success with Private Members' Bills. It seemed earlier this afternoon, at one perilous moment, that the Bill might founder, but owing to the generosity of the hon. Member for Southall (Mr. Pargiter), that moment passed, and it looks as though the Bill will now get its Third Reading.

I have been a member of a county council for about six years and have been connected with local government in one way or another for most of my adult life. Obviously, therefore, I welcome the Bill and any Measures which improve the administration and conduct of local government. That administration becomes more complex year by year, particularly in its financial aspects.

The Bill is a very useful tidying-up Measure, although I think that some of its provisions might well have been carried into law before. I have long felt that there was too much paper work in connection with local government, and the Bill does something to cut it out. It is vital, also, that we should not spend more money in trying to save a lesser amount of money. Those of us in the Chamber today, who have had local government experience have seen exactly that sort of thing going on. I therefore welcome this part of the Bill.

I wish briefly to deal chiefly with Clause 1, which removes the existing control over expenses in connection with conferences. while still retaining a very necessary safeguard. Elected members of local authorities are used to being "slated", but they rarely get praised. I am sometimes rather mystified as to why they even go in for local government work. I can understand it where they are young and politically ambitious and members of either of the two main Parties, but when they are not I sometimes wonder why they take an active part in local government, because there is no glory and very little understanding and recognition of their work. An ever-mounting rate of criticism is levelled against them.

Therefore, it is important that there should be a few small departures from the humdrum of the ordinary council routine. This can come with the occasional conferences and gatherings to which local authorities send representatives. No reasonable person would wish to deprive councillors of these occasional trips. Very few of them are at all glamorous. It is absolutely vital that we should keep a constant vigilance over expenditure in this direction, because public money is concerned all the time, and the public sometimes get very upset if that money is used in the wrong direction.

We in the House are particularly conscious at present of the ever growing rate burden. It is, therefore, vital that we should have every possible economy in local government which is consistent with efficiency. I am, therefore, glad that the Bill will, for the most part, as was pointed out by my hon. Friend the Member for Hexham, not add to local government costs, because I myself am very anxious that the number of trips and outings to local authority conferences should not grow substantially as a result of the Bill.

In the past, there have been some abuses by councils. I suppose that this is inevitable. However, I am sure that most of them treat this subject with caution and with good sense. I myself am not so worried in some ways about council members as about officials. Many councillors have to spend a good deal of money on hospitality when they go to local authority conferences and they have to get time off from their jobs if they work for a living. As a consequence, they are very much out of pocket at the end of the trip.

But officials are in a different category. They certainly need to attend some of these conferences to keep abreast of up-to-date developments in their spheres of activity. However, I do not think that they should be away from their desks at the county hall or the town hall any longer than is really necessary, because they are being paid by public money.

I am pleased that under the Bill the power given in Clause I will be governed by Regulations which are to be made by my right hon. Friend the Minister. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Wimbledon (Sir C. Black) that this is very necessary. This, I understand, will limit the amount of allowances to be paid to people attending conferences and will also restrict the number of members allowed to go to any one conference. I hope that my right hon. Friend will keep a close eye on these developments. I trust that the matter will be watched in the regulations and that, if necessary, they will be amended from time to time.

One often hears ill-informed and slanderous comment from members of the public who talk about councillors feathering their own nests and who allege that they are in local government only for what they can get out of it. I have yet to meet the man who really got anything out of local government in a material respect. If one pins such people down, the reply usually is, "Perhaps they are not getting much out of it, but they are always going off on these jobs at the ratepayers' expense and are spending public money on private entertainment". I do not think that this is true. It is very unworthy.

This afternoon my hon. Friend the Member for Wimbledon gave us the example of the two councillors who were going to Paris. He vetoed this suggestion by the casting vote from the chair. In the public mind there is too much of the idea of the traditional story of the Welshmen who every year go across to Paris for the international rugby match. So very many of them, who save up for this trip, never actually get to the match, although they go on the trip. I am sure that the majority of councillors who go to local authority conferences spend a vast amount of the time attending to their duties and they do so loyally and faithfully.

The county council of which I am a member imposed some rigid rules over conferences some years ago and ever since then all these trips have been scrutinised very closely. There have been plenty of arguments on the subject, but only the more essential claims get through. Therefore, administratively these changes can be very helpful and I am sure that most of the councillors and the bodies concerned will carry them out in the right spirit.

The Bill definitely helps to make local government more local, which we should always welcome. Because of my campaigning for rating reform and my wish to have certain expenditure transferred to the national Exchequer, I am sometimes accused of wanting to rule out local government control and of wanting everything transferred to the centre. This is not so. A good case can be made out for transferring large sums of money to the centre, but I have always subscribed to the idea that we should retain as much local control as possible at the town hall and in the county council.

I greatly resent Whitehall domination in local government and that is why I think that the Bill is a useful implemention of what has gone before. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Crosby (Mr. Graham Page) that we ought soon to have one local government Measure which will bring many of the enactments now on the Statute Book up to date.

On a point of order. May I draw your attention, Mr. Speaker, to the fact that there are many hon. Members who are not present today who have promoted some of the Bills named on the Order Paper, including the hon. Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Central (Mr. Short), who has promoted a Bill of which I am in favour?

Would the hon. Member be good enough to indicate what, if anything, is his point of order without reciting names?

It is only because so many of these hon. Gentlemen are not present that I draw your attention, Mr. Speaker, to the fact that there are fewer than 40 Members present.

After that unfortunate incident, I will restrict my remarks to congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Hexham (Mr. Speir). I have had the privilege of taking part in debates on three out of four of his Bills. He goes from strength to strength. This Bill achieves what we would all like to see, so that, as my hon. Friend the Member for Brentford and Chiswick (Mr. Dudley Smith) has said, local authorities will not only be local but will have more power and more local authority.

On a point of order. Is it not an abuse of the procedure of the House, Mr. Speaker, for an hon. Member to walk in, to interrupt the proceedings deliberately by a stratagem and to walk out immediately after he has done so?

No. It is wholly in order.

The Bill which is before us achieves the object of increasing the power of local authorities. We all want not only efficient local government, but local government with a reasonable degree of economy.

Before leaving the Bill, we should also thank the hon. Member for Southall (Mr. Pargiter) for the generous way in which he made it possible to proceed by withdrawing his Amendment. The Bill improves local government and achieves the objects which it sets out to achieve.

With a Private Member's Bill, it is an incredible success for my hon. Friend the Member for Hexham to have got through a Measure which encompasses so many important improvements in the powers of local government. I am interested to see that not only has my hon. Friend increased his scope, but that in the Bill he has even increased his geography by including the Isles of Scilly.

I do not want to prolong the proceedings unnecessarily, but the hon. Member for Crosby (Mr. Graham Page) said earlier that not many of my hon. Friends on this side were present. The hon. Member for Hexham (Mr. Speir) will, no doubt, have been delighted that a number of us were here to rescue his Bill from the stratagem of somebody to whom, technically, the hon. Member would refer as one of his hon. Friends. Indeed, it could not reasonably be expected that my hon. Friends would take any notable part in discussion of a Bill which is now universally approved by the House and the contents of which are fully known to us all, since we on this side do not share the enthusiasm for obstructing discussion of a later Bill which has prolonged the Third Reading debate on this one.

It is not necessary, therefore, for me to say more than that. All of us warmly congratulate the hon. Member for Hexham and all those who have been associated with him in advancing this useful Bill to its conclusion in this House.

I have no doubt that the hon. Member for Exeter (Mr. Dudley Williams), who blew in, blew up, blew out again and is no longer present, will be back at about two minutes to four o'clock to do his usual obstruction job at 4 p.m.

I know that other hon. Members wish to speak on the Bills which are to follow and I hope that they will be able to do so. I simply congratulate the hon. Member for Hexham (Mr. Speir) on getting through its various stages a Bill which will be of considerable use to local authorities generally. I express thanks to my hon. Friend the Member for Southall (Mr. Pargiter) for not, as he originally said, pushing to a logical conclusion his objection to the Clause that was inserted in Committee.

I certainly do not want to prolong these proceedings, but I must add my congratulations to the many that my hon. Friend the Member for Hexham (Mr. Speir) has already received. This is his third or fourth Bill and we can say that of all of them—rivalling in numbers, I should think, the experience of many right hon. Gentlemen as heads of Departments—this is the best. I hope that with these congratulations he will certainly receive, as he certainly deserves, the congratulations of the local authority associations as well, and I hope that they will include those of the County Councils Association along with the others. I do congratulate him.

I hope that my hon. Friends will not think me discourteous if I do not refer to all the specific points to which they referred. I will certainly write to them about them.

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

This Bill received its Second Reading without any discussion, and its consideration in Standing Committee lasted only about 35 minutes. It may, therefore, be supposed that I ought to take the opportunity of explaining the Bill now. I do not propose to do that. It is not out of discourtesy to the House, as I hope will be clear, but because I think that the Bill is self-explanatory. I do not think that anyone who reads the Bill needs any expounding from me of its provisions.

I would, however, just like to take a couple of minutes, probably less, to say how grateful I am to a number of people who have been associated in the passage of the Bill to this stage. When the Bill first saw the light of day that eminent non-Parliamentary figure the Lord Advocate wrote to me offering his assistance, and that assistance has been given by his Department fully and freely. I am grateful for that. I am grateful also for the benevolence of the Scottish Office, and particularly I would like to say how much I appreciate its efforts in connection with the setting up of the second, the special, new Scottish Standing Committee thus enabling this Bill and another Bill to get through Committee more certainly and quickly than might otherwise have been expected. I am also grateful to those who have been associated with me in the sponsorship of the Bill and those who sacrificed a morning to take part in the Committee on the Bill.

In a word, I should just like to make it clear to the House that the Government welcome the Bill. In doing so, I would convey to the hon. Gentleman the Member for Stirling and Falkirk Burghs (Mr. Malcolm MacPherson) my very warm congratulations on his good fortune in having found a place in the Ballot which enabled him to introduce the Bill, and I would thank him for the time and trouble he has spent upon it.

The hon. Gentleman has put in a tremendous amount of work on the Bill, not only in Committee, but beforehand, in the preparation of it, and I should like not only to offer him the Government's congratulations, but also the thanks of the Government for all he has done.

I, too, would like to congratulate the hon. Member for Stirling and Falkirk Burghs (Mr. Malcolm MacPherson). Although I know very little about Scotland I think that this is one of the clearest expositions I have ever had the privilege of coming across. As far as I can see, it brings up Scottish jurisdiction to modern conditions, and I warmly commend the hon. Member on it.

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

If one were to have in Victorian fashion a couplet at the head of a chapter, the head of the chapter of this Bill could well be

"Poisons there are that cure, and poisons there are that kill;

Whilst some are just remedial."

Quite obviously, this Bill is concerned with all three, but it is to see that drugs and poisons shall be only used, prescribed and administered after the most thorough check in all ways for safety.

Safety with drugs is a matter of degree. It is relative, and not absolute. It is very important for the public to know that they cannot be completely protected by any form of legislation. The only absolute protection, as has been said many times in the last fortnight on the Floor of the House, would be to have no chemical tests and no distribution of any new drug. This, quite obviously, must be wrong and can in no way be the will of the public.

What is necessary is that in this country. as in every other country of equal or somewhat similar standards of living or technical advance—indeed, in many countries more backward than ourselves—there should be a board or committee charged to investigate and consider that every step has been taken to protect the public. To ensure that, as we are all human, every known precaution or the fullest consideration must have been given before a new drug is freely available for use by the medical profession or by the public. That, ultimately, is what my Bill is all about.

It should be made clear to the House what is the present position in any drug consideration and how this has altered since my Bill was read a First time on 21st November. Instructions well before that were given by the Minister of Health to the Standing Medical Advisory Committee which formed a Joint Sub-Committee, with its Scottish counterpart, under Lord Cohen.

The Cohen Report was presented to the House on 4th April, and I am certain that all hon. Members here today would want to thank Lord Cohen and his Committee for the great considerations they have given to these very wide problems. The first stage, however, was reached when the Minister of Health accepted the first two recommendations of the Report of the Cohen Committee on 6th November. These were on page 5 of the Report:

"(1) The responsibility for the experimental laboratory testing of new drugs before they are used in clinical trials should remain with the individual pharmaceutical manufacturer.

"(2) It is neither desirable nor practicable that at this stage of their evaluation the responsibility for testing drugs should be transferred to a central authority."

This is of extreme importance, for no one at any time should get the idea that there is from this House or from any informed opinion an attack on the pharmaceutical industry. In my view, 90 per cent. and probably 95 per cent. of that industry is completely and absolutely above reproof. It is an interesting fact that this industry which, in 1958, was employing about 58,000 people is today employing nearly 66,000 people. There are about 250 companies in the industry and its total output in value is about £218 million. What to many hon. Members is of supreme importance is that the exports of the pharmaceutical industry have risen since 1938 from £3·3 million to £15·8 million in 1948—not a very large rise—but to £50·2 million in 1961. Probably, they are among the ten largest of all our exporting industries.

What makes the story even better is that the importation of pharmaceutical and chemical products has decreased since 1954 from £9·6 million to only £5·3 million. Another factor of great importance for the ordinary public is that in 1962 over £10 million was spent on research in this country, and a number of companies associated in some way with sister or parent companies elsewhere have been able to benefit from about £150 million worth of research. It is important to remember the contribution which the pharmaceutical industry is making in our country today.

I turn now to the final Report of the Cohen Committee. In paragraph 10, we read:

"We think that a Committee on the Safety of Drugs should be established."

In paragraph 7, it is said:

"These arrangements themselves would obviously be more effective with legislative sanction than without…"

I ask my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary to take particular note of that. The Committee goes on to say:

"We are satisfied that legislation on the whole subject is urgently required"

My Bill would meet that.

"No interim measures should be regarded as a justification for delaying this essential task. We recognise, however, that legislation would probably involve a comprehensive review of the whole field and that this is a major undertaking. Yet there is a specially urgent need to take whatever steps are immediately possible to improve the safety testing of drugs".

It is obvious that my Bill is immediately possible.

The Minister has accepted this Report, taking the view that it would be possible to introduce a voluntary scheme without legislation, and in this he is supported by the last two sentences of paragraph 7 of the Cohen Report:

"The scheme we suggest can be introduced, if desired, without waiting for legislation. In the absence of legislation, it will only be effective to the extent that the industry and the medical profession are prepared to cooperate in implementing it but we hope it is reasonable to assume that this co-operation will be forthcoming."

It is only fair to state that this co-operation has been forthcoming, but, nevertheless, it is necessary only if there is not legislation. I suggest that the Bill would do for my right hon. Friend a great deal in furthering the suggestions of the Cohen Committee.

But let there be no doubt that the Minister is to be congratulated on the action which he has taken in the last twelve months not only in appointing the Cohen Committee but in immediately acting, as he saw fit, on the recommendations. Obviously, the Minister of Health would be somewhat limited in producing a small Bill, and he must feel that a comprehensive Measure immediately would be impossible.

It is important that the House should realise how involved this subject is. There is no comprehensive legislation or legislative code to provide protection on drugs. Various Statutes deal with different aspects, mainly incompletely, and responsibility is scattered among a number of authorities. The Statutes are the Pharmacy arid Poisons Act. the Dangerous Drugs Act, the Therapeutic Substances Act, the Cancer Act, the Venereal Disease Act, the Merchandise Marks Act and the Food and Drugs Act.

The authorities with powers under these Measures include the Ministry of Health, the Department of Home and Health for Scotland, the Home Office, the Advisory Committee under the Therapeutic Substances Act, the Poisons Board, the British Pharmacopoeia Commission, the British Pharmaceutical Codex Committee and the British National Formulary Committee.

That is a pretty large number of organisations and authorities with duty or power of enforcement include the Health Ministries, the police, the local authorities and the Pharmaceutical Society. It is, therefore, against this background, together with the appointment of Sir Derrick Dunlop as chairman of the Committee on the Safety of Drugs, which has already been made by the Minister, that my Bill must be considered.

Clause 1(1) of my Bill would appoint a Drugs Advisory Board. I think that from what I have said already, it follows logically that I believe it imperative not to give the public the belief that any committee or board can make all new drugs absolutely safe. Therefore, the title "Drugs Advisory Board", as opposed to the title of "Committee on the Safety of Drugs" would be much better.

Clause 1(2) says that, in discharging its duties, the board would be required to consider certain things. These would include (a) whether such drugs mentioned in subsection (1) were toxic,

"(b) the results of chemical trials of such drugs,

(c) the therapeutic efficacy of such drugs,

(d) whether such drugs react adversely upon those to whom they are administered."

Then it states that the board must report its finding to the Minister of Health as quickly as possible.

I should add that Clause 2 fits in closely with the suggestion made in the Cohen Report for three sub-committees dealing with toxicity, clinical trials and adverse reaction. The Clause goes on to designate that the board would consist of a chair- man, and up to six members, and that it would be a corporate body. We do not yet know whether the Minister's own Committee will be a corporate body.

The Clause sets out procedure and gives power to keep accounts and records and to appoint officers. In subsection (1)(f) there is provision for an annual report from the board to the Minister. This report would be published and laid before Parliament, so that this House could debate it. This is of considerable importance.

Being particularly human, I gather that paragraph (g) is a lawyer's way of saying that the Minister can make certain regulations to make the operation of the board in a sensible and businesslike manner possible if there is anything that I have forgotten.

Clause 3 deals with the financing of the board. My hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary knows that we are entirely in the dark about how his committee is to be financed, but we have heard that it will be financed from public funds. My Bill removes the responsibility from the taxpayer and allows the board to levy fees. I heard an hon. Gentleman opposite say "Shame". I wonder whether he will follow me closely through my reasoning to see whether he cannot agree with me about this matter.

The whole concept of the board is not that it should do all the toxicity testing and clinical trials itself, but that it should consider the trials and tests done by the manufacturer and the importer of a drug to see whether these have been adequate to give the public full and proper coverage. This is done fully and comprehensively by most pharamceutical firms. I mention no names, but Burroughs Wellcome and Smith, Kline and French are firms which have the highest reputation for doing everything in their power to ensure that drugs which they produce are properly tested for toxicity and are given proper clinical trials.

However, the Cohen Committee, on page 8 of its Report, said:

"The high, standards of leading firms are not necessarily reproduced throughout the industry."

There are perhaps 5 or 10 per cent, of the firms in the industry which do not have this reputation and there may be importers who are willing to sell drugs from other countries in the United Kingdom without checking the toxicity or considering clinical trials carried out overseas.

If such firms or importers ask the board to consider a drug and report upon it, there will not be the closely documented brief which a leading firm would produce, and the board might be put to considerable expense to make a check or an examination. If it has to go to outside opinion—and it will be seen that my Bill will allow the board to go to other specialists and agents—to get the views and considerations necessary for clearance by the board, that might cost a large sum of money. While a well documented brief might cost the board only 50 or 100 guineas to test, testing an unreliable brief from an unreliable importer or manufacturer might cost more than £1,000.

Why should the taxpayer be asked to finance the less reputable firm? I believe that if the board is able to charge fees according to the amount of work that is necessary, this will be fairer both to the firms in the industry and to the taxpayer.

Does not the short answer to the hon. Gentleman's question, "Why should the taxpayer bear this burden?" lie in the fact that we do not allow judges' salaries to be paid by those whom they are trying?

There is no doubt that people tried by judges have no option, but to be charged by the police. Indeed, those applying for a certificate of clearance do not have to do so. If one believes that the Minister will appoint to any form of Board or committee people who are not absolutely reliable, the certificate will not be worth the paper on which it is written.

I have an inherent belief that the people appointed will be fair and unbiased. That being so, I cannot see why the taxpayer should be taxed for the sake of the unreliable chemical manufacturer or importer, as opposed to the firms being able to obtain a clearance certificate on a fee-paying basis.

If the Minister thinks that a large amount of money is available in the Ministry of Health, and if he is gener- ously inclined towards this industry, I should have thought that he could best have provided assistance by establishing a number of chairs of clinical therapeutics at different universities throughout the country, because whatever one may say about the Bill there is no doubt about the need for this kind of research professorship in universities.

An important and somewhat newer aspect of my Bill is outlined in Clause 1(3) which deals with other activities of the board, and I should like to take the House back to paragraph 7 of the Cohen Report which said:

"There are several other aspects of drug safety which are of considerable importance, e.g., the control of quality of drugs, control of sale over the counter, labelling of containers, use of improved names, regulation of therapeutic claims, etc. These matters, new arrangements for which would require legislation, are outside our terms of reference."

Anybody reading that must realise that the Cohen Committee was concerned about these things, and although it could not report on them, it did in fact suggest that legislation was needed. My right hon. Friend's Committee would be unable to do all these things, and if the House would bear with me—

I am sure that my hon. Friend would not wish to give the House the wrong impression. Surely he will recall that, speaking in the Committee of Supply last Wednesday, my right hon. Friend made it clear that he did not dissent from this view expressed by the Cohen Committee that we would have to legislate in this wider field? I hope that my hon. Friend will not create the impression that the Government exclude the possibility of such legislation.

I apologise to my hon. Friend. Certainly, my right hon. Friend the Minister of Health said more than once, when speaking to the industry, that he does not preclude legislation to deal with this matter. However, he takes the view that it should be overall legislation. My point is that the committee which he now suggests would not be able to do these things. It would not have the power to consider the items that I have listed, whereas my Bill would give him those specific powers.

Clause 1(3) provides that

"The Minister may from time to time request the Board to consider and report to him on any other matter related to the manufacture, distribution, marketing, advertising and naming of drugs or any other related matter not previously considered by the Board".

Clause. 4 deals with those drugs which are unsafe, and lays upon the board three duties. First, if a drug cannot be safely administered the board shall inform the manufacturer or importer of the drug:

"and shall notify all persons permitted to prescribe, dispense or administer drugs that the drug concerned should, in the Board's opinion, not be prescribed and should be returned forthwith to the manufacturer or importer."

The Board is also required to report this to the Minister, and to make its decision public. My right hon. Friend has not been willing to accept this duty in respect of his own Committee. It is imperative that if an adverse report is made by any committee or board—a report which could have a financially detrimental effect upon the manufacturers or importers—that report must be made available to the public in order that the persons concerned may discover the reasons which have led the Committee to an adverse conclusion.

In this respect the Cohen Committee does not agree with me. On page 10 the Report says:

"We do not think that the Committee itself should be expected to bring these facts directly to the attention of the medical profession since this might lay the Committee open to action through the Courts. In our view, the Committee should advise the Health Ministers whenever such instances occurred so that the Ministers might take whatever action they thought fit to bring the facts to the notice of the profession."

This is understandable in respect of a voluntary scheme, but if my Bill became law set powers would be given to the board, and no problem of the kind envisaged by the Cohen Committee would arise.

The Bill is not the complete comprehensive review which the Minister might feel it necessary to introduce in the field of drugs or poisons. Obviously that is beyond the scope and resources of an individual back bencher. It may be that the Bill does not go as far as the Government would like, or that it is not in the form which the Minister thinks best. That is understandable, since it is my Bill. The Minister cannot be blamed for that. The Minister may think that it can be strengthened by Amendment. I am willing to provide every possible assistance in making whatever Amendments he may deem necessary.

Perhaps when Government action is finally taken this Bill as an Act would be supernumerary. This I do not mind, but I believe that in the interregnum it would do some good. What is not in any doubt is that if the Minister wanted to back the Bill it could be on the Statute Book during this Session, probably before August, and provide some of the legislation recommended by the Cohen Committee.

I know that my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary will get up, make some friendly noises, pay charming compliments, make reference to some interesting ideas and pay regard to all that has been said, saying probably that it will be taken fully into account. This will be done in a manner that my hon. Friend can do as ably as any member of the Government, probably better. But what I fear is that he is under instruction to have this Bill "still-born". I plead with my hon. Friend, as he has listened so closely and so kindly to what I said, "Forget your compliments and your healing balms, overcome your brief and allow yourself to be entirely non-committal. Do not foully poison this Bill at birth. Let it go to Committee. You can still ensure that it does not become law if you want to, but consider with your Minister, my right hon. Friend, who I realise unavoidably cannot be here this afternoon, what I have had to say. This Bill can do no harm to your cause; but only good. Do not let the Minister of Health be a broken thermometer, Surprise us all, surprise even yourself, by allowing this Bill, the Drugs Advisory Board Bill, 1963, to obtain a Second Reading".

I have very little time in which to resist the blandishments of my hon. Friend the Member for Reading (Mr. Peter Emery). While I think that we would all wish to commend him for giving us an opportunity to consider once again this important question of the safety of drugs, I must make the Government's position quite plain in the time available to me.

I think that it says a great deal for the thoughtful and constructive way in which my hon. Friend has proceeded in the matter that the proposals which he brings before the House bear a very close resemblance indeed to those of the Cohen Sub-Committee, but, I am bound to say, they offer no greater protection. It is, after all, with protection that the House must be concerned.

Since my hon. Friend first announced his intention to introduce a Bill of this kind a great deal of water has passed under the bridge. The Government have accepted the recommendation of the Cohen Committee that an advisory body should be set up in order to advise on the adequacy of toxicity tests before clinical trials, to advise on the adequacy of the clinical trials themselves, and to enable the collection and evaluation of data about the effects of new drugs. The Government are implementing this recommendation.

As I made clear in my intervention, my right hon. Friend does not dissent from the view that legislation in the wider sense is necessary. But we feel that we should not delay implementing the Cohen proposals on that account. My hon. Friend made light of the task of introducing such legislation. It will have to be detailed and comprehensive. We are proceeding with our study of what is required as quickly as possible.

I am bound to say, as I think the House will recognise, that this is not a subject suitable for a Private Member's Bill, however eloquently and ably it is introduced into the House. I cannot, therefore, in these circumstances, advise the House that facilities should be given for the progress of my hon. Friend's Bill. This does not mean to say that we do not recognise the necessity for proceeding as speedily as possible in regard to the implementation of the recommendations of the Cohen Report—I do not think my right hon. Friend can be accused of dragging his feet on that score—or the need to press ahead with the wider subject of comprehensive legislation.

Object.

Object.

What day? No instruction.

Object.

Object.

I am extremely pleased that the right hon. Gentleman the Minister of Transport is present, because the subject which I hope the House will consider is one of grave concern to the constituents of Willesden and a number of neighbouring constituencies. The Minister knows that I invited him to meet some of our leading citizens, but unfortunately the right hon. Gentleman was unable to be present. The Mayor and Corporation of Willesden have taken a great deal of initiative in this matter relating to the proposed closure of the railway line between Broad Street and Richmond. On 7th March a town meeting was convened in Willesden and was attended by about 300 residents. A constructive resolution was passed of which, I think, the Minister has had a copy. If not, I will make sure that he has one. However, the right hon. Gentleman will be familiar with the general terms of it.

On 10th April, about 400 of the constituents of Willesden and of neighbouring boroughs, together with the Mayor of Willesden and four other mayors came to this Palace and attended a meeting in two of the large committee rooms in the Committee Corridor in order to discuss this most important matter which affects so many people not only in Willesden but in the constituencies of 14 hon. Members of this House. They include the Home Secretary, the right hon. Member for Hampstead (Mr. Brooke), who I am very pleased to see is present this afternoon. The right hon. Gentleman sent me a note pointing out his concern and suggesting that perhaps we could make our protest more effectively at a later date.

This is an all-party problem and one affecting all sections of the community. In the meeting held in the Palace of Westminster we had representatives from many industries with local interests, including two which are known nationally, Guinness, which is known throughout the world, and Messrs. Heinz, which has more than 57 reasons for supporting the protest. Eight schools with their parent-teacher organisations were represented and 14 trade unions, and, incidentally, five stationmasters from the stations which would be closed and a number of representatives from three transport users' groups. I have in my hand a foolscap page from which, if time permitted, I could read a list of 60 or 70 different organisations which have expressed an interest.

As he could not attend the meeting in this Palace, the Minister sent a letter on 10th April explaining the way in which a protest could effectively be made through the transport users' consultative committee. I should like, in passing, to thank the "back-room girl" at the Ministry who provided me with 300 copies of the letter roughly three-quarters of an hour after I requested them, which shows that the Minister is seized of this matter. We have to make representation to the transport users' consultative committee on an extremely narrow front. We have to establish that if the closure is to come about there will be hardship. This is one of the difficulties. How do we measure hardship, in terms of numbers, in terms of individuals, in terms of quantity or quality?

I should like the Minister to consider two cases sent to me. A large number of representations must have been received by most hon. Members now in the Chamber from their constituents. First there is the hardship case of Mr. Geoffrey Solomon. He came to this House to attend the meeting. He had to be helped from his chair for he has been a cripple from childhood. He is a stockbroker and he said that he had been using the line for thirty years and added:

"If the line is closed I can no longer go between my house and my business."

Case No. 2 is of a mother who writes about hardship from a different angle. She is Mrs. Walsh of West Hampstead, N.W.6, who writes:

"To a busy housewife…with young children whose husband does not earn enough for us to be in the car-owner class, I find wonderful in summer to be able to go on the train with the kids and the push chair to the freedom of one of the Kew Gardens or Richmond areas where I can relax and know that the children can play and run about without fear of traffic and enjoy the open air and the sunshine."

The sunshine is problematical, but the amenities are there. For this mother who takes her children out on a Bank Holiday to Richmond, to the river, this closure will be a hardship, but how can it be measured by the committee? Do we have to find 50 such mothers or 50 such cripples who are unable to reach their places of employment, in order to show that there is hardship?

Then we look at the situation of the ordinary commuters and the hundreds of school children who will be affected, particularly in my constituency. Representations have been made by the local education officer in this respect. It so happens that some of the stations on this line are most convenient for school children going to and from their homes and schools.

My hon. Friend may be interested to know that the station which serves my constituency, Gospel Oak, has near it three schools, a girls comprehensive school and two primary schools. They are not 300 yards away from the station. Twenty-five per cent. of the girls attending the comprehensive school use the station, in addition to ten of the teaching staff.

Many of those come from Willesden.

Most hon. Members can support me on this question. The House will know of my interest in medical matters and in the hospital service. I have served on the Central Middlesex Hospital Committee, and I know that the closing of the line will be a great loss in service to patients and staff.

The Minister has talked of providing alternative services. How does one arrange an alternative service in an urban area? In a rural area more buses can be put on, but in north-west London when a railway line such as this closes, how does one cater for the passengers using it? According to the Guardian of 28th March, the Minister's estimate of public reaction was best summarised by the passing reference:

"I think when they get on the buses it vial be all right".

I wonder whether he has tried getting from Brondesbury to Kensal Rise, first by a No. 8 bus or a 76 and then a 46 or a 52, with intervals between the times of the buses. Alternatively, has he tried getting from Brondesbury to Kilburn when one has to catch a No. 8 bus or a 176 and then change on to a 226 or a 260?

Let us compare the times. At present, the railway journey takes four minutes, compared with fifteen minutes by bus, on the journey from Brondesbury to Kensal Rise, and in the other case it gives a seven-minute journey between those two points compared with one of eighteen-minute. Although this cannot be called hardship it is a great deal of inconvenience.

The Minister has a difficult problem in dealing with the London rush hour travel. We understand the difficulties in this connection for people concerned with London Transport. We have the Baker-100 Line which serves this area, too. During the rush hours people are packed into carriages in a way which is harmful to health and to the whole cause of trying to work satisfactorily in the community. At least sardines are killed before they are packed into the tins. It is more humane. In the London commuter service, on the tubes, however, we get a proximity which amounts to indecency. It is fantastic that on the same day as that on which we celebrate putting a man into orbit twenty-two times round the earth, we still have this gross indignity in the way in which, between certain hours, we crush people into the London Transport system. If this line were kept open it could contribute to the solution of this great problem.

We know that the Minister is aware of the problem, because, after a good deal of prodding in the House he has agreed to the building of the new Victoria Line in London. It is fantastic that we should spend £56 million on opening a new line while proposing to close another line in the same area which is already in existence. A line, not the one of this debate, is being closed down which serves four of the stations within a quarter-of-a-mile and another two stations within half-a-mile on the proposed new line.

We have to bear in mind that if the line is closed there will be a heavy social cost. I have had some figures worked out giving the number of hours which will be lost. If we work them out at 5s. an hour, and on the basis that the line carries 80,000 people during the week, it works out at a total cost of £1,148,000. I cannot guarantee the accuracy of this figure, and I should not like to be held to it, but there is no doubt that if the line is closed there will be a great social loss and a great toss to the community. We have being scrapped an urban electric line which carries 80,000 passengers a week, at a time when millions are being spent to try to solve London's transport problem.

I am not asking the Minister for a "justification approach" to this issue. We want to keep the line open and to make it a practical proposition. We think that that can be done. I hope that he will look at the Motion on the Order Paper signed by a number of his hon. Friends which refers to the possibility of putting this line in with the London Transport Board and possibly making it viable. That is a line of thought which should be pursued. When I examined examples of work journeys—these are random figures—I found that 38 per cent. of the people asked were using the line, 18 per cent. knew that it existed but did not use it and 44 per cent. did not even know that it existed. On another check which we made of pleasure journeys, 17 per cent. used the line, 22 per cent. knew about it vaguely but did not use it and 61 per cent, of the people who were approached did not even know that the line existed. Surely it is far more constructive to think in terms of publicising the line and making it profitable—of bringing it to the notice of people—than to deprive 80,000 people a week of a service which is of great benefit to them.

A number of suggestions can be made to the Minister. They concern the whole question of publicity, the question of increased interchange with the existing services, both radial and London tube services․

Is the hon. Member aware that if the off-peak traffic were cut still further, the cost of running this railway line would be considerably reduced.

Yes. I have a list of figures. The position has now arisen that the last train leaves at about 9 o'clock at night, so we can get out in the morn- ing but we cannot get back at night. I have a break-down of the figures. Had there been more time I should have liked to have given some of the operating costs which apply at the moment and to have suggested possible ways in which these could be saved.

The stations need modernising. They are drab and uninteresting. There is a possibility that two-car units from the District Line stock could be operated in off-peak hours. There is the possibility of using five trains instead of four, thus giving a fixed interval and faster timing. There is the possibility of having conductors on the trains instead of have people manning the stations at off-peak hours. This would also save much expense.

I submit to the House that all that is lacking to make this line a viable proposition, to make it not only a social service but also an economic service, is the wilt to do so. I hope that the Minister will not say that we must wait for the machinery. I hope that he will see this as a special case. I am making a special plea this afternoon. This is not the ordinary argument against the whole Report. I am not arguing Beeching. I am not arguing transport. I am making a special plea for the fourteen Members of the House whose contituents use this service. I ask that we should, if possible, not wait until the whole of the machinery slowly grinds down. The Minister should take a thorough look at this, come to a quick decision, and harness the terrific amount of energy that there is in the civil authorities, in the people using the railways, in workers and management, in the nurses and doctors working in the hospitals I referred to, and in the teachers and parents in the parent-teacher associations. I assure the Minister that, if he moves quickly, he will receive a great deal of support from hon. Members of all political parties.

The hon. Member for Willesden. West (Mr. Pavitt) has raised the question of a particular railway closure proposal. Before I refer to this proposal, I should like to explain the general position as it affects all proposals for passenger closures.

First, what does the Beeching Plan have to say about passenger closure proposals? An essential feature of the plan is a substantial reduction in the network of passenger services. The services proposed for withdrawal and the stations proposed for closure to passengers are set out in Appendix 2 to the Railways Board's Report.

The House has debated that Report as a whole. It welcomed it in general terms, but all that the Report contains is a series of proposals by the Railways Board. It merely gives advance notice of the closures which the Board would like to effect.

Does this mean that the Railways Board can proceed to close all the passenger services and stations listed in the plan? The answer is, "No". The Government have seen to that. In the Transport Act, 1962, users have been given for the first time a statutory right to object to passenger closures. If users object, the railways cannot now close any passenger service. They have to follow the procedure in the Act. Therefore, users can take it that no passenger service will be closed by the railways without taking the objections into account.

What, then, is the procedure for closing passenger services? This is laid down in Section 56 of the Act, so it is on record. It is in subsections (7) to (11) of that Section. The procedure is this. First, the railways must issue a formal notice, and I stress the word "formal". It will be in local newspapers in two successive weeks and on stations. Local authorities will get copies. In the notice users will be told that they can send objections to the area transport users consultative committee. They have six weeks to put objections in.

As soon as a user objects, the transport users consultative committee must tell me. Then the closure cannot take place without my consent. The consultative committee considers the objections. Then it reports to me on the hardship likely to arise. Finally, the case comes to me. I must then decide whether to give consent.

That is the procedure for all passenger closure proposals: first, a formal notice; secondly, if closure proposals are opposed, the T.U.C.C. hears objections; thirdly, it reports on hardship; finally, I consider the case and no closure takes place unless and until I give my consent.

What are the consultative committees? They are independent bodies appointed by me under the Transport Act. Before I appoint them, I consult, as Section 56(2) of the 1962 Act requires,

"such bodies as appear to him"—

that is, to me—

"to be representative of the interests of persons likely to be concerned with matters within the competence of the committee."

In practice, I consult associations representing local authorities, industry, commerce, agriculture, labour and others. The consultative committees represent the interests of users as a whole in their respective areas, and for this reason they are particularly well qualified to say what is likely to be hardship and what is not if a closure were to take place. There is a handbook issued by the Central Transport Consultative Committee which gives a very full account of the committees and their work. More people should read it. So much then for the consultative committees, these independent bodies widely representative of user interests.

Do these committees recommend whether a passenger closure should take place or not? The answer is, "No, they do not." They are concerned with hardship to users in the area. They go into the question of alternative services. They report to me on the hardship which they think the closure would cause. They can give me proposals for alleviating the hardship, such as new and better bus services, and so on, but they do not tell me whether or not I should agree to the closure. This is my decision.

The House may well ask whether this puts the Minister in a difficult position. The answer is, "Yes". These decisions are not easy. My position might be called a quasi-judicial position. That means that I have to be careful what I do, and what I do not do.

What are the things I must do? First, I must study the consultative committee's report on hardship. I examine, in particular, the adequacy of alternative services which may be needed to alleviate hardship. I examine reports from my divisional road engineers about roads, and reports from other Government Departments about their interests—planning, industrial development, population movements, local employment, defence, and so on; and that is not an exhaustive list. We have already set up machinery for obtaining these reports. Where an alternative bus service is necessary I consider the possible need for extra luggage space or for bus shelters and other things of that kind.

I look at any relevant representations made by local authorities and other bodies either direct to me or to my colleagues on any matter other than hardship, and that would include the schools. If I am in doubt seek the advice of the appropriate Minister. It is always open to me to seek more facts when I think that I need them, and I shall do this where necessary. For instance, I can—and again in the words of the Act—

"…require an Area Committee to make a farther report."

But an hon. Member may ask, are not proposed closures in London a special case? The hon. Member did so ask. In a sense every closure is a special case, especially to the people concerned, but know that proposed closures in the large conurbations may present particular difficulties and I shall study them with great care. In a Written Answer, on 20th March, I gave details of the machinery for cooperation and the co-ordination of railway services which has been set up by the Railways Board and the London Transport Board in accordance with Sections 3(2) and 7(2) of the Transport Act. This machinery is available if either of the Boards thinks it desirable to discuss any aspect of a proposed closure in the London Passenger Transport Area, or if I ask them to do so.

This shows what the Minister will do. Is there anything that the Minister will not do? I feel that in matters which can be covered by a report from the T.U.C.C. I should act in a quasi-judicial way. This means that there are two things which I ought to avoid doing. First, I should not enter into discussions with individual interested parties about the T.U.C.C. aspects of a closure before reaching my decision. To listen to one objector would be wrong. Others would then say, "You listened to him and it is only fair you should now listen to me."

This means that I personally would have to listen to all objectors. Clearly, that is impossible on physical grounds alone. The Act has given the job of considering objections about hardship to the T.U.C.C.s. I must not try to do their job for them, though I can always ask them for another report if I think this is necessary.

Secondly, I do not think that I should make any statement or proffer any opinion on the merits of a closure until I give or refuse my consent in accordance with the Act.

It is often asked, while the transport users consultative committee's report will deal with hardship, what can the Minister do to prevent hardship? I can refuse consent to a closure. When I do this, the railway service has to be continued. Alternatively, I can give my consent but insist that extra alternative services are available when the closure takes place. If necessary, the Railways Board must contribute to the cost of the services or run them itself. In most cases, it will be cheaper to provide a bus service than meet the loss on the rail service.

I can ensure that the services are maintained. They cannot be taken off without my consent. That is the way I can deal with hardship, by extra alternative services or, if this is not possible, by refusing consent to the closure. I can defer my consent if necessary. As Section 56(11) of the Act states:

"the Minister may give his consent subject to such conditions as he thinks fit and may from time to time vary those conditions; and the Minister may in connection with the closure from time to time give such directions to the Board concerned as he thinks fit."

That means that the permutations and combinations which are possible are endless in variety. That is the position on all passenger closure proposals. It applies to all the Railways Board's individual proposals to discontinue passenger services from any line or station. That is the procedure set up by Parliament for dealing with them.

I come now to the case which the hon. Member for Willesden, West (Mr. Pavitt) has raised concerning the passenger services between Richmond and Broad Street. I must ask this question: what ought I to say about this case? Quite frankly, the answer is "Nothing". All opposed passenger closures will come to me for decision. I have already said how I shall deal with them, not only this proposed closure, but all other proposed closures. Each case will go through the same statutory procedure and will be handled in the same way. Each will be looked at on its merits with the greatest Care.

That is all I can say now about the Richmond-Broad Street line. That is all I shall be able to say on any other individual passenger closure proposal which is likely to come to me for decision, whether from London, Yorkshire, Lancashire, Scotland or Wales. We have passed an Act of Parliament which lays down adequate safeguards and I personally, as Minister of Transport, must see that every passenger closure proposal goes through that procedure and I shall do my best to take as much evidence as I can and reach as fair a decision as I can.

Will the right hon. Gentleman answer my point? He has explained his entirely negative approach and the legal situation, but I asked whether, in his capacity as Minister, he could take positive action apart from his actual safeguards before a line is closed in order that, as a transport service, it shall be improved. The Minister can do something positive. Is that possible outside the terms of this reference?

I will see that the Railways Board gets a copy of HANSARD, so that it will read for itself what the hon. Member has said.

I am glad that my right hon. Friend the Minister has explained the difference between the 1947 and 1962 Acts. As I understand it, under the 1947 Act there was no chance of an inquiry until after a line was closed. Under the 1962 Act, the inquiry is held first and the line is closed afterwards in pursuance of the decision. That is the sum total of what my right hon. Friend has indicated in this matter.

My right hon. Friend answered a Written Question of mine on 16th May in connection with Sections 3(2) and 7(2) of the 1962 Act, and stated that there was to be co-ordination between London Transport and the Railways Board. He also indicated that it was not yet necessary to go further to the Nationalised Transport Advisory Council. How would such a reference arise? If there was coordination by a lower body, in what circumstances would the matter be referred to a body of higher standing?

The best thing I can do is to send a copy of HANSARD to the Railways Board to enable it to see the point made by my hon. Friend about co-ordination between London Transport and the Railways Board. Then, the Board will see whether it can give effect to what he has in mind. The Nationalised Transport Advisory Council will concern itself not so much with individual cases as with the general question of co-ordination of transport in the nationalised sector of transport as a whole.

While the line operated at a loss of £200,000 in 1960, recent figures which I have obtained show that the net financial effect of closure would be only £69,000. I suggest that my right hon. Friend might consider maintaining the line at peak periods, because whereas the average train loading over a whole week is 51 passengers and a load factor of 18 per cent., in mornings and evenings the average train loadings are 100 to 110, with approximately eight trains having a maximum loading at some points along the journey.

This would appear to be the area between Dalston Junction and Willesden Junction. It would be impractical to organise an alternative service running parallel to that line because Hampstead Heath is in the centre, and there would be blockages on the line. The way to obviate that, of course, is to arrange concerted operation at peak periods and then many of these problems would be overcome.

Finally, I would draw the Minister's attention to a Motion on the Paper in the names of the Members for Richmond (Mr. A. Royle), Acton (Mr. Holland), Brantford and Chiswick (Mr. Dudley Smith), Holborn and St. Pancras, South (Mr. G. Johnson Smith), Hemel Hempstead (Mr. Allason), Wembley, South (Mr. Russell) and myself. It indicates that we support the Beeching proposals and that it might be possible to consider incorporating this line into the London transport system. If it is possible to run a freight organisation, would my right hon. Friend consider running it in conjunction with the rail system itself?

The Minister has told us about a whole lot of things that he has to consider at various times, but would he tell the House at what stage he considers that it might be advisable to subsidise railway services in built-up areas?

I am sorry to say to the House that I can only listen and absorb the words of wisdom hon. Mem- bers have given to me from both sides—