I wish to make a statement.

During the past six weeks I have been trying to deal with Questions in the way recommended by the Procedure Committee on Question Hour. I thought that the House might now like a progress report.

In the first month of this Session, 756 Oral Questions received Oral Answers in this House. This compares with an average of about 550 for the first month of the previous 10 Sessions or so and represents an increase of approximately one-third more Questions answered in the hour. I believe that this is good for hon. Members who have taken the trouble to put down Questions, and that it enables Questions to be reached instead of being postponed and so widens the scope of Question Hour.

I do, however, appreciate that some hon. Members may have reservations about the increased momentum of Ques- tion Hour and may fear lest the opportunity to probe the activities of the Executive should suffer in the process. This probing is one of the main purposes of Question Hour and it would be quite wrong if it were ever frustrated. But to these hon. Members I would point out that we are achieving not fewer but slightly more supplementary questions in total than we were before. For example, 987 supplementary questions were asked in the first month of this Session as compared with 956 in the first month of the 1962 Session. Moreover, recently, with occasional exceptions, supplementaries have become so much shorter that I have been able to call still more hon. Members for supplementaries and yet get through about 50 Questions a day.

Fifty Questions a day seems to be about the average to aim at and, subject to any instructions which the House may give me, I would propose to try to reach that figure but not to try to improve on it. The figure should, of course, be regarded as an average. There are days when there are more Questions than usual of broad policy and high importance and on such Questions it is proper to allow more supplementaries than usual. I hope that so far the Chair has not clamped down on any such Questions and that I have let the House get its teeth into any big issue when it clearly wishes to do so, but this naturally reduces the total number of Questions reached on such a day.

On the other hand, there are days when a large Department attracts some 70 or 80 Questions mostly of a local nature. On such days I would regard it as important to get as far down the list as possible.

All this must be a matter of judgment —often of snap decision although, I hope, never of snappy decision—and a matter for diligent attention on the part of the Chair. I am all too conscious of the fact that the Chair will err from time to time.

Perhaps I might again emphasise that the key to sustaining our progress—if the House agrees with me that it is, indeed, progress—lies almost entirely in brevity in questioning and answering. I do not suggest that supplementaries should be much, if at all, shorter than most of them are now. But I am afraid that hon. Members who occasionally ask long supplementaries must continue to expect intervention from the Chair in the interests of others who have questions which they hope will be reached; for it is all too easy for the momentum to slacken, as I have myself found on occasions in the past month. It is the very gradualness of the slipping back which provides the danger, and it was this, I think, that caught the House unawares in the postwar years. Now that we know where the danger lies, the task has been made much easier for me than for my predecessors.

Behind what we have achieved so far is a great deal of research, preparation and statistical analysis each morning by the Second Clerk-Assistant, Mr. Barlas, to whom I am deeply indebted and grateful. But if the House believes, as I do—and I think it does—that Question Hour has become more effective, fruitful and more wide-ranging, providing more opportunities for Front and Back Bench, for both Government and Opposition, to do what they have come to Parliament to do, the real credit is due to the very willing cooperation of the whole House during the past Session. The only discipline worth while is self-discipline, and I believe that we have achieved this together.

Hear, hear.

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

Mr. Speaker, before explaining the Bill may I congratulate you on the astonishing increase in Parliamentary productivity which you have just reported to the House and, with generous modesty, attributed to others rather than to yourself. It is not without difficulty for Ministers and Members, but I think the main strain must have been upon you, Sir, and I congratulate you upon what in the Post Office is known as increasing the speed of answer, in the House.

I strongly support what you have said about Question Time as the main safe- guard of the rights of the House, and I must say that Parliamentary Questions look a lot more effective when one has to answer them than they sometimes do when one has to ask them. At any rate, I feel sure the whole House will wish to join me in congratulating you on what you have achieved. I shall try to be as brief in presenting this Bill as I would were it in answer to a Parliamentary Question.

The object of the Bill is to enable the Post Office to construct a subway under Severn Street in Birmingham, to connect New Street Railway Station to a new letter and parcel sorting office to be built in Severn Street. Let me first explain to the House why we need a new sorting office. The existing sorting office is housed in two linked buildings in Victoria Square in the centre of Birmingham. One of these buildings is nearly 70 years old and the other dates from the end of the First World War. By the start of the last war both buildings were becoming congested and the Post Office has been thinking of a new building ever since the war ended. Unfortunately, we have been prevented from doing anything about it until now by shortage of capital and the lack of a suitable site.

The situation in Birmingham has long been grim and is steadily becoming worse. We are suffering from acute congestion in nearly all phases of our work. In particular, the main unloading platform can deal with only six vehicles at any one time. There is no yard, and at night a long queue of vehicles waits in the street until space becomes available for unloading. During such times vans are often forced to drive round the building to ease congestion. Much of our sorting work has to be out-housed in temporary premises. There is no room to install modern mechanical aids. Both the existing letter and parcel offices are connected to New Street Railway Station by a tunnel. This provides direct and quick access through a British Railways subway to all the station platforms. There is no doubt that, but for the existence of this tunnel, the operation of the Birmingham office would have been impracticable long before now.

Recently we have been able to buy from British Railways a piece of land in Severn Street adjacent to property which we already own and use for a postal garage. We plan to demolish this garage and, on the combined site, to build a new letter and parcel sorting office at a total cost of about £4 million. We intend to spend a further £2 million for electronic letter coding and sorting machines in that office.

This new office will be the largest single postal building in the provinces. It will handle all the letter and parcel traffic posted and delivered throughout the Birmingham area and will deal with a considerable portion of the traffic for the neighbouring towns of Solihull and Sutton Coldfield. It will act extensively as a general forwarding centre for towns in the counties of Staffordshire, Warwickshire and Worcestershire and to a lesser extent for towns over the greater part of the country. It will also include the Postal Customs Depot which is at present located some six or seven miles out of Birmingham at Sutton Coldfield. It is hoped that building work will begin in July, 1966, which is why we need the Bill this year, and be completed in two years. A further period of up to two years will then be required for installing the initial mechanisation equipment and the office will not be fully operational until the early summer of 1970. This gives an idea of the time span in projects of this kind.

The amount of space available at ground level on the site is not as big as we should have liked. The building will, therefore, be built on stilts so that the whole of the ground floor will be a covered yard. Space will be available for 130 vans to be dealt with at any one time and there will be no need for vans to queue on the public highway. This will be a great benefit to the people of Birmingham. Moreover, the removal of the office from its present site in the centre of the city will in some small way help to ease the general peak hour traffic congestion which, as anyone who travels in a great city knows, can be a serious problem. On the other hand, the change of site will break our present underground tunnel link with New Street Station.

The new subway for which the Bill provides is an essential link between the new office and New Street Railway Station. It will enable mails to pass quickly between the new sorting office and the railway subway system which leads to the station platforms. In fact, it would really be quite impracticable to carry all the mails to and from the station by van as the station does not provide adequate access for postal vans and, after its present reconstruction, will provide even less. Therefore, the subway is an essential part of this major reconstruction project.

The subway to be constructed under the Bill will run throughout its length under public streets; that is to say, it will run under Severn Street and the intersections of Severn Street with other streets. It will be under the carriageway of the street and not under the footway except at the frontage of the new sorting office site at one end and, of course, at the frontage of New Street Station at the other. It will not interfere with any cellars or vaults belonging to private property, and its construction should cause no inconvenience to the public. All the work will be done underground except on the Post Office site itself. The surface of the street will not be broken. The top of the subway will be some 15 to 18 ft. below the street surface. Electrically driven compressors will be used; these are reasonably quiet in operation. The method of construction—that is to say, the use of 14 ft. diameter prefabricated circular sections—will be such that there should be no risk of subsidence. When the subway is in use, the electric tractors and the trollies carrying the mail will not be audible at street level.

The Bill empowers us to construct the subway and gives us the necessary right to use the subsoil under the public highway. This subsoil is virtually without value to the owners and so we have followed the precedents set by certain private Bills and provided for use without compensation. The owners of adjoining property will, of course, be entitled under the Bill to compensation on the usual basis for any injurious affection, as it is called, of their property; that is, for physical damage or depreciation in value.

We expect that the subway will be clear of all underground sewers, water and gas mains and electricity cables but we cannot be absolutely certain about this. The Bill, therefore, makes provision in case it should be found necessary to alter the position of such apparatus or to take protective measures. The Bill also provides, purely by way of precaution, for the underpinning or strengthening of nearby buildings, but for reasons which I have given when I spoke of the circular prefabricated tubes, we do not think that there will be any risk. A provision of this kind, however, is usual in private Bills authorising the construction of works.

The construction of the subway is expected to cost £200,000 which will be paid from the Post Office Fund set up under the Post Office Act, 1961, which, as the House will recall, separated the finances of the Post Office from the Exchequer. Hence there is no necessity for a Money Resolution in connection with the Bill. This is a hybrid Bill and the usual procedure will apply. Anyone whose interests are affected and who wishes to object will have an opportunity to petition and have his case heard by the Select Committee.

I hope, Mr. Speaker, that my speech comes within the acceptable limits of presentation. This is a major project and a very important one for people who live in Birmingham and the neighbouring area. It gives me intense pleasure to bring the Measure forward, because all too often over the last 50 years postal building has been held back and I think that now we are able to look forward to a period where construction of this kind can go ahead. We had the Western District Office opened recently in London and now Birmingham will have an office worthy of a great city. I hope that the House will give the Bill a quick passage through all its stages.

I join in what the Postmaster-General has said, Mr. Speaker, about your statement this morning. If on Wednesday last we did not quite get to the end of Post Office Questions there is no blame to be attached to anybody over that.

I do not intend to detain the House long. The Postmaster-General has given us an exhaustive description of the Bill which I say, straight away, we on this side of the House welcome. It will be very much welcomed, of course, by the Post Office and those who work in it. Anything which is destined to improve Post Office services will always have our wholehearted support.

The Explanatory Memorandum says that

"The subway is needed for the speedy conveyance of mails.…."

The word "speedy" is indicative because the sentence could have read, "The subway is needed for the conveyance of mails". Here again the accent, quite rightly, is on speed and modernisation. In a place like Birmingham, which is probably one of the biggest commercial centres of the country and where exports are very much affected, the improvement of this type of service is very necessary. This is not the first Post Office subway. I and others have often seen the subways in London and I remember as a small boy travelling on one of the underground trains of the London Post Office service.

The safeguards in Clause 3 and the provisions in Clauses 2 and 4 are perfectly adequate. I consider them to be unexceptionable and it appears from what the right hon. Gentleman has said that the rights and interests of neighbours will be entirely safeguarded. There is one question, however, which I should like to put to the right hon. Gentleman. He has told us that the subway, with which the Bill is only concerned, will cost £200,000 and he has told us what the new Post Office building will cost. Can we be told, first and foremost, whether both these jobs will be put out to public competitive tender? Subject to an answer to that question, we should like to give the Bill our blessing. We wish it well and we hope that the work will go on to time, as envisaged by the right hon. Gentleman, and that by 1970 there will be a brand new Post Office and subway in the Birmingham area, which is such an important part of the country.

Once again on a Friday we have an example of the drive, initiative and enterprise of the Postmaster-General. We are quite used to this but I am beginning to wonder whether my right hon. Friend is going too fast and piling too much work on his Department. Anyway, it is nice to see this going on and to see my right hon. Friend having new ideas and bringing them before the House.

Apparently we shall not spend much time on the Bill this morning and I wonder whether it is necessary for a piece of work like this to be brought before the House in the form of a Public Bill. Perhaps when the Committee on Procedure is discussing possible improvements it might have a look at this question and consider whether we can simplify the method in some way. This procedure seems to me to be a case of using a steam hammer to crack a nut when we even have a hybrid Bill to construct a subway.

I am indebted to hon. Members for their comments on the Bill. I would say to my hon. Friend the Member for Accrington (Mr. H. Hynd) that we must present the Bill in this way because this is the procedure laid down. There may be changes in the future. Let us hope that those changes will enable us to proceed with greater speed in the operations of the Post Office and other Departments of Government.

I assure the hon. Member for Hereford (Mr. Gibson-Watt) that the contracts for the subway and the Post Office will be let out to tender. Payment for the subway is expected to be made by 1967–8.

I do not intend to take up a great deal of time of the House. I am grateful for the support accorded to the Bill and to the new building scheme which will be an immense improvement not only in the Post Office service in Birmingham but in the country as a whole. This, as has been pointed out, is because Birmingham with its size, its geographical situation and favoured position in the railway network is a key office in the postal system.

I know that we are constantly reminded of the shortcomings of the Post Office at Question Time in the House, but if we are to have a postal system which is fully appreciated it is obvious that Birmingham and other key places must have the best facilities that we have to offer. As my right hon. Friend said, the existing offices are old. I have made many trips throughout the country since taking over responsibility in my Department and I am disturbed when I see some of the conditions in which Post Office employees have to work in these antiquated buildings. It is my right hon. Friend's object to do all he can to eliminate these conditions. Accommodation in many buildings is totally inadequate. In the Birmingham offices at present there is no scope for the mechanised sorting of letters and parcels and the buildings are structurally incapable of taking the machinery which we would like to install. The result is that this busiest of provincial offices in the centre of an area of intense manpower shortage has to rely to a large extent on obsolete manual methods for the disposal of the traffic.

Now, however, we shall have a new combined letter and parcel office which will be one of the most modern in the country and has been planned with a view to implementing the latest ideas in mechanical conveyance and electronic sorting. This is a major step forward in the improvement of our postal services affecting, as I have said, not only the City of Birmingham and the Midlands but much of the country as well.

I hope very much that the hon. Member for Hereford and his hon. Friends will on some occasion find time to go and visit some of our post offices to see the work which is going on and the type of machinery now in use.

This new building is important not only for the postal services but also for the staff, in whom I take a great interest. In my time as a Post Office Minister, I have been very conscious of the shortcomings in some of our buildings, and it gives me very great pleasure to see that the staff in Birmingham will now have a new office with good working conditions and with a full range of welfare facilities, kitchen, lounge, dining room, games and quiet rooms. Moreover, I have seen sketches of the new office and, in my view, its architectural appearance is striking and something of which Birmingham will be proud. It is designed in the modern idiom and in keeping with the latest development in the city centre. This is important. Furthermore, by providing this tunnel to link the office with the railway station, we shall also be helping the City of Birmingham in the solution of the traffic problems which bedevil any city centre. This will be welcome to all citizens in Birmingham and, I am sure, to our Post Office drivers in particular.

Thus, with this subway and new sorting office, we have taken a step which is very necessary and very welcome to the community at large and to our own Post Office staff.

I am indebted to the House for support it has given to the Bill.

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

I have it in Command from Her Majesty the Queen to acquaint the House that Her Majesty, having been informed of the purport of the Church of England Convocations Bill [Lords], has consented to place her prerogative and interest, so far as they are affected by the Bill, at the disposal of Parliament for the purposes of the Bill.

The Bill takes us back a long way in the history of our lay and ecclesiastical institutions. It is closely intertwined with the development of our people over centuries. The Convocations of Canterbury and York are of great antiquity. Their origins can be traced back to an ecclesiastical synod which met at Hertford in A.D. 673, the Archbishop of Canterbury presiding. The years went by. By 1170, the two Provinces of Canterbury and York had their provincial synods, which became known as the Convocations.

The House will know that the Convocations each comprise the Upper House, that is, the bishops, and the Lower House consisting of certain ex officio members together with elected representatives of the lower clergy. The representatives are known as proctors. The Convocations are primarily concerned with doctrinal and spiritual matters, and they alone have the function of making canons or rules binding on the clergy, which, having received the Royal Assent and licence to make, execute and promulgate, have the force of ecclesiastical laws of the realm. Unlike Church Assembly Measures, the canons are not subject to Parliamentary approval, although, under an Act of Henry VIII, they must not be incompatible with any law or customs of the realm.

The object of this Bill, which the Government have introduced at the request of the Archbishops of Canterbury and York after consultation with their clergy in the two Convocations, is to facilitate the work of the ancient assemblies of the Church of England and their association with the lay element in the government of the Church.

Under arrangements which have their origin in the 13th and 14th centuries, the two Convocations of Canterbury and York, composed of the bishops and the proctors to whom I have referred, are summoned together by the Crown. The summons is by writs issued at the same time as the writs issued for the election of a new Parliament.

After the Reformation, certain canons or rules made by the Convocations in 1640, at a time when Parliament was not sitting, were declared invalid, but it has now become established practice not only to summon but also to dissolve the Convocations at the same time as Parliament. There was a period which lasted from 1717 until 1852 when the Convocations did not meet save for the transaction of purely formal business, but, since 1852, the summoning and the dissolving of Parliament and the Convocations of the Church of England have been done simultaneously.

This custom—for custom, in essence, it was—has now become so well established that the Law Officers of the Crown, whose advice was taken, advised that it would be wrong to make any change in those arrangements save with the authority of Parliament. We have, therefore, brought before Parliament this Bill which comes from another place.

In the circumstances of the 20th century, it is no longer appropriate that the life of the Convocations should necessarily be regulated by the life of a particular Parliament. The dissolution of Parliament for reasons unconnected with the interests of the Church can lead to unnecessary interruption of ecclesiastical business and the unwelcome expense, which the Church has to bear, of new elections of representative clergy. It is far more appropriate that the duration of the Convocations should now be linked with the duration of the House of Laity of the Church Assembly. The House of Laity, as the House will know, is elected for a five-year period. In the circumstances, with this object in view, Clause 1(1) of:he Bill provides that the power of Her Majesty to dissolve and summon Convocations should be exerciseable independently of powers to dissolve and summon Parliament.

By subsection (2) of Clause 1 the maximum life of the Convocations is fixed at five years. There is an exception to that. In the case of the present Convocations a six-year period is provided so that they will be dissolved in 1970 at the same time as the House of Laity of the Church Assembly, which was elected for a five-year period in September this year.

Subsection (3) provides for the continuance of the present practice whereby the election of the representative members of the new Convocations and the calling together of these bodies takes place as soon as convenient after the dissolution of the old Convocation.

Subsection (4) is simply designed to remove any doubt as to whether the Convocations may continue to sit notwithstanding the demise of the Crown. The Representation of the People Act, 1867, already provides for the continuance of Parliament in such circumstances, and it has in those circumstances been the practice since that time to apply the same principle to the Convocations. The subsection is declaratory in terms and simply confirms these existing arrangements.

That is the content of the Bill. It is a Bill brief in scope but of great significance to the Church, and it makes what the Government put to the House as a necessary change to conform to modern conditions as embodied in the Bill. It certainly represents a departure from the long tradition of association between the ancient assemblies of the Church and Parliament. I hope that hon. Members will be willing to approve these new arrangements which I have outlined, knowing that they will assist, as they undoubtedly will, the Church to carry out its business more conveniently and more expeditiously and without what would seem to be a completely irrelevant interruption from time to time.

I thank the Home Secretary for giving the House such a very clear and courteous explanation of the purposes of the Bill. We are greatly indebted to him. As he said, there is great significance to those who are interested in these matters in the contents of this short Bill. From this side of the House, we welcome the explanations which he has given. We find nothing in them to query. It seems an eminently sensible Bill, and something which I am sure in this day and age should be done. The provision in subsection (2) for a five-year period, with an initial six-year period, seems eminently sensible. This is not a party matter, and I think that we all agree about the Bill. I repeat my thanks to the right hon. and learned Gentleman for the courteous and lucid way in which he has explained the Bill, and I welcome the Bill on Second Reading.

I beg to move

That the Meat Industry (Scientific Research Levy) (Revocation) Order 1966, a draft of which was laid before this House on 1st December, be approved.

Let me emphasise, first of all, that this Revocation Order does not mean any change in the Government's interest in or support of meat research, nor that we have given up the idea that the industry should make a proper contribution to this research. It is merely part of the process of changing over from an unsatisfactory method of collecting a levy to a more satisfactory one.

I must say something about the history of the Order which we are proposing to revoke and which was originally approved in draft by the House in February, 1963. It imposed on the industry a levy designed to meet half the capital and current expenses of the Meat Research Institute set up by the Agricultural Research Council. Collection of the levy was linked with the arrangements for making weekly payments under the Fatstock Guarantee Scheme. A small sum—3d. per beast for cattle and ¼d. for sheep—was added to the buyer's bill. Double the sum was then collected from the seller by subtracting this amount from the guarantee payment. This method of collection worked reasonably well when the guarantee system included a provisional rate of guarantee, announced in advance. This provisional rate very seldom needed to be adjusted before being made final. The fact that there was an advance announcement of the provisional rate made it possible to suspend collection of the levy from buyers of certified stock in weeks when the provisional rate was nil.

The guarantee arrangements were changed after the Annual Review of 1964. The system that I have outlined was replaced by the present one, under which the guarantee payment for each week is calculated on the basis of the actual market prices in that week, taking into account any adjustments needing to be made to the guarantee payment under the graduated deficiency payments system. The guarantee can, therefore, be calculated only retrospectively.

The present guarantee arrangements include provision for an end-of-year payment if the guarantee for the year has not been met. It was expected, on the basis of recent experience of market prices and in the light of the outlook at the time, that an end-of-year payment would be made at the end of the 1964–65 fatstock year. It was thought that this would provide the opportunity for recovering from producers their part of the levy in respect of any weeks where a weekly guarantee payment had not been due. So the arrangements for weekly collection of the buyer's part of the levy were continued. In the event, because of an increase in market prices very much greater than could have been foreseen at the time, no end-of-year payment was due at the end of the fatstock year. As a result, some of the money collected from buyers remained in the hands of sellers and did not reach the Agricultural Research Council for use on research.

We have, therefore, been considering very carefully this year whether we could devise any means of preserving the present system. We have reached the conclusion that the only sensible course is to revoke the present Order and collect the levy in a different way. We have made provision in Clause 15 of the Agriculture Bill so that charges may be imposed or payments made by the Meat and Livestock Commission in respect of meat research done by the Agricultural Research Council. This will, clearly, be a much more satisfactory method of dealing with this difficult problem. There will, it is true, be a period during which no money will be collected from the trade for meat research, but I hope it will not he a long one. This interruption will not, of course, affect the total contribution of the industry to this essential research.

The provisions in the Agriculture Bill will apply only to Great Britain. Different provisions will be required in Northern Ireland and these will be announced by the Minister of Agriculture for Northern Ireland as soon as possible.

What I have said so far mainly concerns cattle and sheep. Pigs in Great Britain are not covered by the Order now current, since the Pig Industry Development Authority made a voluntary undertaking to contribute to the Agricultural Research Council an annual sum for meat research equivalent to that which would have been produced by a normal levy. The Government propose to release P.I.D.A. from this undertaking if this Order is made. The new arrangements proposed in Clause 15 of the Agriculture Bill will cover pigs as well as cattle and sheep.

Finally, what do we propose to do about the money wrongly collected from buyers last year and this year? We cannot at the moment precisely calculate the amount involved, but it is a little under £25,000. To collect this money from the sellers now would be very difficult and costly, particularly as a very large number of very small sums is involved. To try to reimburse all the buyers individually would cost even more—probably more than the total sum involved. Any attempt at this stage to collect or redistribute the money would be pointless. What everyone concerned wants is to see this amount of money devoted to meet research.

It is, therefore, proposed that, as a final settlement of this matter, a sum equivalent to the total sum wrongly collected from buyers be paid out of public funds to the Agricultural Research Council to be devoted to meat research. In this way the project for which the money was collected will receive equivalent benefit, and the total obligation of the industry will be reduced by the amount it has contributed.

Our officials have held a meeting with all the main interests concerned at which it was agreed that the proposals provide a reasonable means of dealing with the present situation. The proposals have also been circulated in writing and no adverse comment has been received. I therefore confidently recommend this Order to the House. A system which originally seemed to provide a simple method of collecting this levy has become unworkable because of changes in the guarantee scheme wholly unconnected with it.

Everyone agrees that the present system cannot be modified to operate satisfactorily and that the continuing collection of money from buyers that is not properly due should cease as soon as possible. What is needed is a new scheme of collection not subject to the difficulties of the present one. We propose, when the necessary legislation is in force, to introduce such a new scheme, based on a thorough study of the practical problems involved.

I am grateful to the Joint Parliamentary Secretary for being so frank about the situation. The Government have got themselves into a mess in the past year and he was quite frank about the reasons. I introduced this Order in 1963 and then this seemed to be a reasonable method of levy and of collection. There was a running rate of deficiency payments and the forecasts made this process easy.

Then, as the hon. Gentleman said, in 1964 the method of paying deficiency payments to producers was changed. The collection of the levy then became more difficult. The Ministry knew from the end of the 1964 fatstock year that the position was becoming impossible but it has taken all this time for it to make up its mind to revoke the Order. One could understand that delay if it were a question of consultation and of finding some new method whereby the money could be channelled into meat research.

What is difficult to understand is why the levy was allowed to go on being paid by the buyers during this period. On 12th July, in reply to a Question from my hon. Friend the Member for Tonbridge (Mr. Hornby), the Joint Parliamentary Secretary, the hon. Member for Enfield, East (Mr. John Mackie), gave the amount which had been paid by buyers of meat to the producers. Of course, the producers themselves were not contributing and the money therefore was not reaching the meat research establishments. As a result of this, there has been a certain amount of bitterness among those who have been paying their portion of the levy. They have been wondering how long the Ministry would continue allowing these payments to go on. I repeat that the Government knew that this situation was arising at the end of the 1964 fatstock year. They knew it on 12th July, as was made clear in that Answer.

One can criticise the Government for not taking action earlier to revoke the Order. It is an almost incredible position in which money is paid over to producers by buyers who are getting no benefit out of it. I am sure that the whole industry will be grateful for the statement that the Government are to make a contribution of £24,000 direct to the Meat Research Association. That is a good thing to do and I am sure that it is the right solution. But surely it is not only the sum of £24,000, which is the short-fall, that is involved. That sum in fact is only half the levy. It arose from the buyer's 3d. on beef carcasses and a smaller amount on sheep and lamb carcasses. What about the 3d. from the seller? The two contributions from buyers and sellers together should make £48,000 to £50,000. and it is this sum that should be paid by the Government to the M.R.A. and not £24,000.

We should press the hon. Gentleman on this issue because this total sum is the amount of levy which the Research Council has been short of. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will be able to look at this again and see whether the total sum could not be made up. Then there is the position of the buyers who have been paying this money to the producers. In effect, this has been a bonus "buck- shee" payment to the sellers of beef and lamb carcases.

As the hon. Gentleman said, in Clause 15 of the Agriculture Bill, provision is made for a new system of levy by the Meat Commission and presumably that money will be voted for research, quite properly. But the fact remains that this money under the 1963 Order has been paid for the purpose of research. It has been put into the pockets of the producers, however. That, of course, is no reflection whatever on them. Nevertheless, that is what happened. It would be only fair if the hon. Gentleman gave an assurance that the buyers who have paid £24,000 to £25,000 should have that amount taken into account when the levy is being raised in the initial period under the new Bill. They have overpaid this amount. They have paid it "buckshee" to the producers, and it is only right that, because of this administrative muddle which the Government have allowed to continue beyond what I think is reasonable, they should have this amount taken into account when the levy is being based.

Would not it be easier for the producers to repay what they have been overpaid?

This point was covered to a certain extent by the Joint Parliamentary Secretary. If a reasonably satisfactory method could be found by which 6d. per cattle carcase could be repaid to the butchers, I think that this would be a fair way of doing it, but I am sure the Joint Parliamentary Secretary will agree that the administrative details and the difficulties involved in doing that would far outweigh the benefits of getting the money paid back.

There would be the difficulty of tracing the payments which had been made to individual producers. There would be the difficulty of getting the money from them. If an individual producer decided that he would not repay the money, there might have to be a court action to collect it. Many administrative difficulties would be involved, and, as I say, such a scheme would not be worth while.

The simplest way of dealing with this is to take this factor into account when the rate of levy comes to be arranged under Clause 15 of the new Bill, if it becomes law. If this is done, the buyers who have paid their portion of the levy for something which has not been carried out will not feel that they have wasted £24,000.

I welcome the Government's action in revoking the 1963 Order. I think that this should have been done earlier, and I think that arrangements should be made to ensure that those who have paid this £24,000 are given some special consideration later on. I welcome the Government's announcement that they are prepared to pay £24,000 direct for meat research, but I think they should consider again whether to pay £48,000 because this is the total amount of the levy which is lacking and which, if the scheme had been working, would have been paid.

We all agree about the importance of meat research. It is a particularly valuable type of research, and in the last two years the industry, which is a most adaptable one, has made good use of the results of research.

Research in the meat industry has been financed in a certain way in the past. As I say, the industry is adaptable and ready to accept new ideas. The fact that it welcomes the importation of the Charollais breed, in spite of the allegation that to do so was against our interests because we are predominantly exporters of stock, shows how adaptable the industry is, and there must be no falling off in the research on meat.

I did not understand the figures given by the hon. Member for Cornwall, North (Mr. Scott-Hopkins), and I should like my hon. Friend the Joint Parliamentary Secretary to put the matter quite simply. Can he guarantee that although the levy money will no longer be available for meat research, other money will fully make up that deficiency so that there will be no gap? Can he guarantee that there will be no falling off in the money devoted to meat research?

Perhaps I might deal first with the last point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Kettering (Sir G. de Freitas). I said in opening that we were going to make this money available for meat research.

The hon. Member for Cornwall, North (Mr. Scott-Hopkins) is an awkward chap at times. He tends to exaggerate even on the smallest issues. He talked about the awful amount of money involved. This is just not so. The 1963 Scheme was introduced by the hon. Gentleman, and the modification which took place in 1964 was a result of agreement with all concerned. It so happens that the payments were going to be retrospective, depending on what happened, but meat prices moved to such an extent that it did not become workable. That is all that happened, so let us not exaggerate the position.

The hon. Gentleman talked about bitterness among those who had contributed this sum of £24,000. The sum collected from each person is so infinitesimal that it would cost more than that to try to repay it.

That is what I said.

I agree that the hon. Gentleman said that, but if he follows that by saying that people feel miserable about it, he does his case no good.

I think the hon. Gentleman will accept that if one overpays £24,000 to someone else one is entitled to feel bitter about it, whether the individual payment is large or small. I am surprised that the hon. Gentleman is adopting such a cavalier attitude, and is regarding £24,000 as a minor matter. It is a considerable sum to any association.

I am not treating it as a minor matter. All I am saying is that it is not true to say that there is tremendous bitterness among those who have contributed to this sum. Under the present scheme, this money would have had to be paid in any case. It so happens that because of the way in which meat prices have moved the other partner has not had to make this contribution. During the weeks of nil guarantee payment, no levy contribution was legally due from anyone. The Order is quite clear on this.

Although the scheme makes it necessary to collect from buyers in case there should be a guarantee payment for the week in question, it does not follow that a contribution is due from the sellers. That is why we thought that in justice to the Agricultural Research Council this sum of £25,000, which had already been collected, should be made up, and the Council should not be penalised by losing it. This sum had been contributed, but the expense of collecting it would be so great that it would cost more than that, and I was glad to hear the hon. Gentleman say that he welcomed the Government's solution to the problem.

The Government decided that, to ensure that the Agricultural Research Council would not be any poorer because of the situation which had arisen, they would make a payment of £25,000 to the fund. I think that this is a reasonable thing to do, as I am sure that the House will agree. It was because of that that I had pleasure in moving the Order.

I beg to move,

That the Prayer Book (Versions of the Bible) Measure, passed by the National Assembly of the Church of England, be presented to Her Majesty for Her Royal Assent in the form in which the said Measure was laid before Parliament.

Annexed to the Act of Uniformity of 1662 there is, as most hon. Members know, the Book of Common Prayer which contains part of the Scriptures which are to be used in the services, a notable example of which is the psalms. According to the Act of Uniformity this version only was to be used. It is true that there have been some statutory modifications of the rigour of that original injunction, but since then there has been immense research by scholars and many new translations of the psalms and of the other Scriptures. There has been considerable use, perhaps illegal use, of the new versions and translations which have appeared from time to time.

The object of this Measure, subject to the widest possible safeguards for those who wish to keep the 1662 versions of these Scriptures in the Prayer Book, is to bring understanding and enlightenment in cases where there has hitherto been confusion and irrelevance. This is by no means a case of wanting modernity for its own sake, sweeping away beautiful words hallowed by time, comfortable in their messages and sonorous in the rhythm of their poetry. It is rather a case of allowing the living Church today to benefit from the research of scholars and to understand passages from which, hitherto, little or no meaning could be extracted. In other words, it is a question of enabling the individual to judge for himself the relevance of the message of those passages of Scripture to the problems which he has to face in the modern world.

I mentioned safeguards for those who wish to keep the old words, to which they have become accustomed. These safeguards are such as virtually to render impossible the sweeping away of the cherished versions and the substitution for them of ponderous paraphrases incapable of bringing either light or comfort to those who read or sing them.

Before the new versions can be used, they will have to be approved by the Convocations and by the House of Laity and the parochial church council of the church in the parish where it is proposed to use them. In the case of a cathedral church which is used as a parish church, the parochial church council there also will have to agree, and, in the case of a guild church, the guild council. With regard to the occasional offices—as the services of baptism, marriage and death are commonly known—anyone who is personally interested in these services may object before the service to the use of the new versions. After all these conditions have been satisfied, the Minister in charge may use the new version.

I ought to deal with the psalms. A commission under the Archbishop of York which included men distinguished in literature, music and scholarship as well as ecclesiastics produced a Revised Psalter in 1963. It was intended at the time that there should be a special Measure to render lawful the use of this Revised Psalter. It was later decided that, since this present Measure was proposed, it would be better that that provision should be incorporated in this Measure.

Clause 1(3) lays down that, in the case of the Revised Psalter, it shall not be necessary again to obtain the consent of the Convocations and the House of Laity because, when the present Measure was being considered, they had already passed, by their votes, that the Measure allowing the new Psalter should be made law. It is not, therefore, necessary to approach them again for their consent under this Measure.

I hope that I have said enough to show that the Measure should be accepted by the House and is a Measure of virtually no controversy. Indeed, its passage to the Statute Book so far has been marked by overwhelming support. The bishops in their House, by a vote of 15 to none, gave it their support, the clergy by 202 to 6 and the laity by 168 to 6. The Ecclesiastical Committee of Parliament, to which all Measures which are to be presented to both Houses have to go, has declared that it is expedient that the Measure should be made law. In another place, when it was debated, nobody spoke against it. All those who spoke approved it, and there was no division. I therefore hope that this House will do likewise.

It is not very long since my constituents and those who live to the north of the Manchester conurbation had reason to be grateful to my right hon. Friend the Minister of Transport because of his decision to reprieve the Manchester-Bury line, which had previously been threatened with closure. But the ghosts of Dr. Beeching and previous Tory Ministers of Transport are now hovering above the line again. I cannot emphasise too strongly the concern which is felt at recent developments by my constituents. A new wave of speculation and deep misgivings have been aroused by the decisions to increase certain fares on the line and to cut down on certain services. It is for this reason that I sought this opportunity to debate the matter.

I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for Bury and Radcliffe (Mr. Ensor) will catch your eye, Mr. Speaker, later in the debate. His energy and zeal on behalf of his constituents who have used the line from Bury and Radcliffe, both before the threatened closure and since the recent announcements, have demonstrated how acutely aware he is of their needs. The service is for them perhaps even a more vital lifeline than it is for mine. I am sorry that the hon. Member for Middleton and Prestwich (Sir J. Barlow), who is my own Member of Parliament and who ought to represent my interests in the House, is not here today.

The problem of the Manchester-Bury service cannot be dealt with in isolation from the general problem of rapid transit from and to city centres, a problem which Manchester shares with many other large conurbations, not only in this country but throughout the world. This problem cannot be dealt with without the context of a philosophy for transport in which social needs and costing must replace the narrow cost-accounting principle of the Beeching era.

I recall, in this respect, the words of my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister in the debate on the Beeching railway Report in the House on 30th April, 1963, when he made some very pertinent comments. I hope that my right hon. and hon. Friends in the Ministry of Transport will heed these words in a way which has not been apparent up to now, particularly in respect of suburban transport services, because there delays and congestion exist. The cost of accidents, redevelopment, policing and lighting have to he borne by the community at large no less than the cost of subsidising a suburban transport service. In that debate, the Prime Minister, who was then the Leader of the Opposition, said:

"I tremble to think of the Beeching technique being applied to another service, the Post Office. Should we close those post offices and those delivery systems which work at a loss, and keep only those that work at a profit?"

Two sentences later, he said:

"So with the railways. We may close a railway losing £8,000 a year, but suppose this means spending £250,000 on improving the roads, on providing alternative services, or subsidising bus services in those areas. Suppose we save £8,000, and then add immeasurably more in social costs through increased road congestion? "—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 30th April 1963; Vol. 676, c. 911.]

The cost of road congestion can be measured not only in money. It is such that the very life of our city as a viable, urban community is at stake. So long as the main radial roads—such as, in the case of Manchester, the Bury Old Road, the Bury New Road and Cheetham Hill Road—as well as the central areas remain congested and become increasingly choked the central area of the city is likely to become progressively strangled. We have to add to this the high rate of vehicle ownership and the use of vehicles which threatens to compound the problem.

The key lies in diverting traffic by means of the attractiveness of the public transport service. It may well be that one day Manchester will have a monorail from Ringway to Langley. My hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Openshaw (Mr. Charles R. Morris) has made some interesting suggestions in respect of transport in Manchester. On the line from Bury via Radcliffe White-field, Prestwich and Crumpsall and the line from the North to the centre of the city the obvious service to be cultivated, improved and made more attractive and perhaps given better publicity is the Manchester-Bury railway service. Instead of this, the opposite is now happening.

My hon. Friend must know that funds for roads are not forthcoming. The problem of congestion is naturally becoming daily more acute. The latest figures which I have—they may be slightly out of date—for the Manchester conurbation of 2,250,000 people is that of those travelling into central Manchester in the morning peak 14,000 come by private car, 90,000 come by bus and 40,000 come by rail. Roughly 7,000 of those who travel by rail use the Manchester-Bury line. Even if all the through traffic were eliminated by building ring roads round the city, and even if all the city roads were widened and adequate off-street parking provided, the 9 per cent. of the people who travel by car could be increased to only 22 per cent.

It is no wonder that at this time, when we are weakening our service, towns and cities like Stockholm, Oslo, Rome, Lisbon, Hamburg, Copenhagen and numerous United States cities are busy building systems of rapid transit or taking steps to preserve and sometimes to restore urban rail transport. As Wilfred Owen said in an interesting article on the Metropolitan transport problem in 1958:

"The dilemma … is that traffic continues to outstrip the rapid pace set by road builders. During the rush hours the tremendous jams on major freeway routes have reduced average speeds and intensified traffic hazards".

I invite my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary, or perhaps my right hon. Friend the Minister of Transport, to come with me and to see what happens in my constituency at the junction of Bury Old Road, Cheetham Hill, Leicester Road and Middleton Road early in the morning before nine o'clock so that he may realise the problem about which we are speaking.

The network of roads and car parking spaces which would be necessary to allow access to the centre by private car makes this type of solution impracticable if not undesirable from the point of view of preserving the character of the city. Paradoxically, in this situation, we have rendered the service less attractive and less effective, while the urgent priority should be to halt the current deterioration of the quality of public transport services and to improve the quality and standard in many cases, particularly on this line.

Already—and my hon. Friend the Member for Bury and Radcliffe may have something to say about this—bus time schedules are being thrown out by congestion. The ratepayers will have to bear an enormous cost in order that extra buses and services may be provided. The alternative offered for equivalent distances in travelling by bus bears no comparison with a frequent and regular train service along this route. Yet, in spite of this, cuts have recently been made and prices increased. These have been made at precisely the peak periods when the rail service is most needed.

I am fully aware of the problem. I know the difficulties involved in having rolling stock lying idle all day, or for a major part of the day. But this is inevitable, and it has to be measured against the social cost to which I have referred and the social priorities involved in dealing with the commuter problem.

I am most perturbed by a statement in a letter written to my hon. Friend the Member for Bury and Radcliffe, who very kindly has put all his papers at my disposal in a most generous way. The statement says:

"The Minister … would expect the Board to take such steps as may be open to them to achieve economies consistent with the provision of a service to meet essential needs".

I want to know whether this means only a skeleton or token service, or a service which will be so unattractive that passengers will cease to use the line and thus give British Railways the final excuse to close it. This is the unpleasant logic of the vicious circle into which we seem to be entering.

The fear locally is that by diminishing the attractiveness of this line British Railways will be able to say, "It is not paying. Now we have a good argument for closing it". This is the fear of many people in the constituency to whom I have spoken and in the area where I live. The existing daily peak hour return ticket has now been withdrawn. Therefore, passengers are expected to buy three-monthly or monthly unlimited travel season tickets. This is not easy at a cost of £10 19s. 0d. and £4 1s. 0d., respectively, for an ordinary family man with a moderate income.

Also there will be four fewer trains in the morning peak and six fewer trains in the evening peak. The Sunday service from Bury to Manchester hardly merits the name of a service. There will be five fewer trains in the morning and evening peaks from Manchester to Bury. Some calculations have been made on the basis of this. It would seem that there are 1,861 passengers for four trains, that is, 465 passengers for one train. But each train has a capacity of only 372. It seems that on every train 93 people will have to stand. I wonder how long people will be prepared to put up with this before deciding to use some other form of transport. Let it not be forgotten that on 6th January, 1964, off-peak services were reduced from one train every 20 minutes to one train every 30 minutes. Certainly early and late trains were also withdrawn. Therefore, there is a gradual erosion of the railway service.

The proposal was made, I understand by the staff side, for a train from Bury between 7.30 and 8 a.m. and another at a suitable time during the evening peak. I understand that this was rejected. This left the staff with the impression that there was a deliberate attempt to force passengers away from the service.

Yet, the Minister, in making his decision, recognised the necessity of the line. He noted the extent to which the line is used, particularly by large numbers of commuters in and out of Manchester at peak hours, and that closure would cause serious hardship to those making essential daily journeys by reasons of the congestion on the corresponding roads. He also recognised the present contribution of the line to the transport system of the conurbation. Those were the words of the Minister.

My objection to current developments and possible closure are very much those which I outlined at the time in the objection I submitted against the closure that was threatened under the previous Government. I outlined a number of specific objections to the closure which I should like to repeat, because they are of close interest to the people who use the line.

Children travel to various schools along the line. I used it myself for six years when going to Bury Grammar School. There is also the Stand Grammar School and one to which, of course, I did not have entry—the Bury Grammar School for Girls—as well as the Bury Convent High School, the Radcliffe Technical College and Bury Technical College.

Another of the problems is that of mothers with young babies, and I have experience of this in a personal sense. My wife, for example, would take the train rather than the bus to go into Manchester, because that is the most useful means of transport for people so placed. Many housewives along the line who have children find it of great benefit when going to do their shopping in Manchester, as do people visiting relatives along the line.

Holidaymakers find the line a great boon for the same reason when they have a large amount of luggage. There is always the danger that if a holidaymaker starts his journey by another means of transport than rail he will go on by another means of transport. Sometimes, I believe, the Ministry of British Railways tend to underestimate the line as a feeder for the main line services from say, Victoria or Exchange stations. I know that closure or even the weakening of services along the line would affect nurses and hospital staff, as well as visitors to patients in hospitals in my constituency at Crumpsall, Booth Hall and Springfield. Some of them would be placed in a very difficult situation. The same applies to workers at I.C.I. Dyestuffs Division, with its very large factory, and residents along the line would certainly be affected by any deterioration of the service or closure.

One has also to take into account new estates. In my constituency, we have the new estate near Bowker Vale station, off Blackley New Road. There is a new estate at Whitefield. My hon. Friend the Member for Bury and Radcliffe may refer to the possibility of a new estate in Bury.

Surely, one has to relate the transport needs of the community to future planning and to the future development of communities on the north of the Manchester conurbation. It is my earnest contention that it will be cheaper to subsidise the line—I understand that the saving from the reduction of services is only £14,000—than to bear the other cost burdens that would arise from closure such as I have mentioned in the form of congestion, accidents, policing, lighting of roads and the rest.

This is a very important problem for Manchester. Why cannot we have an outside firm to look into the accounts and finances of the line? There are rather disturbing rumours that many of the figures which have been given to the public are inaccurate. I do not know whether there is any truth in this. All I can say is that the rumours would be disposed of if we had an outside firm to do this.

I want to know what costing has been done of accidents and of other items which are borne by the rates, including the results of increased traffic density on the radial roads and in the central area. What is the cost of these factors and of alternative transport services which might well have to be subsidised by the ratepayer? What public relations work has been done to get people to use the line, to sell it to the public and to attract commuters? What has been done on the line to achieve economies in staff? The staff ratio of British Railways is remarkably high when comparison is made with the Continent. We have been presented only with a fait accompli based upon the existing financial difficulties. Only the knowledge that the previous Government, in an act of unmitigated folly, proposed the closure of the line prevents me from making my strictures in respect of British Railways today more harsh than they already are.

I want to know when we will get a coherent transport policy which reflects the needs of planning and urgent development and which decides upon a balance between different forms of public transport. The Bury line is a microcosm of the whole transport problem. My constituents can judge the effectiveness of the Ministry only on the basis of action taken concerning this line. I hope that my right hon. Friend the Minister of Transport and my hon. Friend the Joint Parliamentary Secretary, who has been so good as to come here today and who has to deal with all too many of these transport problems, will take heed of what Manchester says today and do tomorrow in London all that needs to be done to reverse this retrograde step which has now put the line in jeopardy again.

I am indeed grateful to have this opportunity to draw the attention of the House to the situation concerning my constituency of Bury and Radcliffe. I am also grateful for the help and assistance that I have been given by my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Blackley (Mr. Rose), because we are both intimately and vitally concerned with this railway line.

The House will, no doubt, remember from what we have been accustomed to call the Beeching Report that it was suggested that this line should be closed. For some time before I had the honour to become a Member of this House, I was very active with my hon. Friend the Member for Blackley in attempting to get that decision reversed and hoping that we would be able to persuade the Minister of Transport not to consent to the closure.

As the House knows, we were fortunate enough that in February this year my right hon. Friend the Minister of Transport refused to consent to closure of the line. That, however, was not the end of the story as one might have expected. It was, indeed, only the beginning. With respect to my hon. Friend the Member for Blackley, I think that we have been too kind to British Railways following their subsequent behaviour.

There is no doubt whatever that this line is part of the lifeblood of my constituency. A vast number of people use this railway to go to work in Manchester every day. As my hon. Friend has said, it is used by a great number of schoolchildren and people who attend technical colleges down the line at Radcliffe and elsewhere. It is used also by a vast number of householders, particularly young householders, who have to go to do their shopping in Manchester. As we all know, it is quite impossible to take a pram or a folding chair on a bus, whereas it is quite a simple operation to put it on the train.

When my right hon. Friend the Minister said that he would refuse to agree to closure of the line, he said at the same time that he hoped that the Railways Board would take certain steps to see what it could do in achieving a compromise. That is what we all want. On this side of the House in particular, perhaps some of us have always said that a railway service should be a public service and that it should be provided for the benefit of the people of the country. Some of us would go further and say that it was about time that we got a great deal more heavy traffic off the roads and put it back on to the railways.

Be that as it may, the Railways Board, having been told by my right hon. Friend in February this year that it would not be allowed to close the Bury to Manchester line, which today carries traffic to the extent of many thousands of passengers a day, has in my view done everything that it could in a backhanded and miserable, mean way to achieve by some other method what it could not achieve legally. Closure of this line was refused. What has been done is to put up the fares and withdraw peak hour transport with the result, I am reliably informed, that some 1,800 passengers a day will now either have to stand, or take an alternative method of transport into Manchester.

I do not think it is carrying one's imagination too far to suggest that 1,800 passengers are not going to put up indefinitely with standing on a journey from Bury to Manchester which takes some half an hour, which means, of course, that some other form of transport will be taken by those people. There are only two other forms of transport, private car or a public bus service from Bury to Manchester. Those of us who represent these areas know perfectly well that in the peak hours, somewhere between 8.30 and 9.45 in the morning and approximately between 4.45 and 6.15 in the afternoon, the Bury to Manchester A.56 is jammed already. It is nothing unusual for one going by car to Manchester at that time in the evening to take anything up to an hour and half for that journey of seven miles. That is nothing unusual.

What is even more important is, what are we going to do with those 1,800 passengers a day who are obviously going to be driven off the line and on to the road not only by the fact that British Railways have withdrawn the peak hour trains but also—and I use the word advisedly—have had the impertinence to raise the fare from 3s. 10d. to 5s. 8d. That is calculated to drive people off the railway line. So in about 12 months' time British Railways will come and say to my right hon. Friend, "We are losing money. We cannot go on like this. We want you to close the line because we are losing 2,000 passengers a day." Well, of course they are going to lose 2,000 passengers a day when they put up the fare from 3s. 10d. to 5s. 8d. and take off a high percentage of the peak hour trains, which means people will either have to stand or——

My hon. Friend is making a substantial and impressive case against any cut-back in railway services. Would he agree that, from the information he is presenting to the House, there is a very strong case for talking of the expansion of the suburban services in Manchester, and that in fact British Railways have opportunities to improve suburban rail services in various parts of the Manchester conurbation, certainly in south Manchester? Would he agree further that unless we do have an expansion of suburban rail services the roads of Manchester will very soon be choked to death by unnecessary traffic?

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for reminding me of that situation. Of course that is true. What we do not want in South Lancashire is a cut-back of suburban traffic. We want an increase in rail services, not only for Bury but for other parts of South Lancashire.

To continue the argument, a grave situation was that, when, under the Beeching Report, it was suggested that this line should be closed, one naturally had to assume that some other form of transport would have to be provided for the thousands of people who wished—indeed, not only wished, but had—to travel from Bury to Manchester every day; and I am informed that if that line had in fact been closed the cost to the Bury Corporation would have been in the neighbourhood of £500,000 to provide an alternative bus service to get the people who wished to go there into Manchester. That alone is a very large sum of money for a county borough which is by no means a large one and of the size of Bury in my constituency. The tragedy of it would have been that, having had to spend that sum of money on the bus service, we should have added incalculably to the chaos of the traffic in the morning and evening and should have spent all that money on providing buses which, indeed, would probably have been used for only an hour in the morning and an hour in the afternoon.

I regret it if I have sometimes spoken rather strongly, perhaps, but I feel very strongly about this question and especially as it affects my constituency, because this railway is vital to my constituency. It is part of its lifeblood, and I shudder to think what might happen if this railway were closed. The unpleasant aspect, as I have reminded the House—and I charge British Railways on this very point—is that this is a backhanded, miserable, mean and unpleasant attempt to close this line which they could not get legally closed, and I am entirely in support of what my hon. Friend has said.

Before my hon. Friend the Joint Parliamentary Secretary replies, may I ask him a question with regard to the tariffs generally on this line and on suburban services in Manchester generally? Could he in his reply itemise the factors which have given rise to the increase in tariffs on suburban rail services in Manchester?

This is the second time in this Parliament that we have had an opportunity to debate public transport affairs in the Manchester area. Previously we had a very interesting debate with my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Openshaw (Mr. Charles R. Morris) on the question of amalgamating bus undertakings in the Manchester area. Now my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Blackley (Mr. Rose) and my hon. Friend the Member for Bury and Radcliffe (Mr. Ensor) have raised the question of one of the Manchester conurbation's vital rail links, the electric service from Bury to Manchester by way of Prestwich. I have good reason to know of the passionate feelings of my hon. Friends who have never lacked energy and diligence since this Parliament began in pressing the claims and the needs of the population of the Manchester area in terms of transport, and I hope that I can at any rate allay some of the fears which they have expressed this afternoon and give some sort of constructive projection about the future for the Manchester area.

I referred to this as one of Manchester's vital rail links, and I did so advisedly. My hon. Friend the Member for Blackley who opened the debate recalled the recent history of this line when the Beeching Report proposals had to be dealt with by my right hon. Friend.

On 29th January this year, my right hon. Friend announced that he had refused his consent to the withdrawal of the passenger services on the Manchester—Bury line as proposed under the Beeching Report by the British Railways Board. I want the House to understand and appreciate the importance of that decision. In putting forward the proposal for the closure of the Manchester—Bury electric service, the Board claimed in its representations that it would annually save the amount of £162,800 by closure. In the light of the Railways Board's serious financial position, that was the reason why the closure proposal was put forward. The number of passengers carried on the service has been mentioned, and I am advised that at the time my right hon. Friend took his decision about 7,000 passengers a day were carried in each direction, including about 4,000 peak hour commuters travelling to and from Manchester.

My right hon. Friend's decision on 29th January was a clear case of the application of the Labour Government's policy on railway closures, distinguished from the policy of our predecessors by our refusal to consider the question solely on the grounds of either hardship or financial accountancy. I hope that my hon. Friends will bear in mind the substantial sum which it was claimed would be saved by the closure.

In his announcement, my right hon. Friend Trade clear his reasons. He was influenced not only by the T.U.C.C.'s conclusi an that closure would cause serious hardship to a large number of displaced rail passengers by reason of congestion on the corresponding roads onto which they would be thrust in buses and cars, but also by the contribution that the line was making to the transport system of the Manchester conurbation. That was a vital planning point.

In Manchester, as in other great conurbations of the country, as I mentioned in my reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Openshaw when we were discussing the amalgamation of bus undertakings, there is now a very important study under way. We have established a comprehensive land use and transportation study on which all the local authorities in the area, the bus operators, the railway operators and everyone concerned with the future planning of the Manchester conurbation are brought together to consider in a comprehensive and coordinated way what forms of transportation are going to be required for the Manchester area in the future.

May I say in parentheses that I hope that the possibility of a monorail or the use of some new form of transport will be urgently considered by those con- cerned in the Manchester area. We want to give them every encouragement and assistance to use the benefits of such techniques.

Can my hon. Friend say when he expects to know the outcome of that study and whether it will include an examination of the proposals in a recent issue of Modern Railways for a really good, electrified suburban rail service for Wythenshawe and the south of Manchester generally?

Certainly. These studies have arisen out of the planning report in which Buchanan spoke in favour of the integration of policies on housing, town planning, transportation and so on. The whole purpose is to consider the general scheme of development of the conurbation and its transport needs, and certainly not to exclude the possibilities of new rail services, including new technical means of transport not previously used. We certainly want them to consider those.

Naturally, because of the immense complexity of the positions in conurbations that we have inherited, these studies take a considerable time. However, we hope to get some preliminary recommendations before the studies are complete on which the British Railways Board, the bus operators and so on can begin to work before we get any final plan about the future shape and size of development of the conurbation.

We therefore regard the establishment of the comprehensive land use study in the Manchester conurbation, as in others, as being extremely important, and the sorts of suggestions made by my hon. Friend the Member for Blackley are matters which they will bring under their purview and on which they will hope to make recommendations in the near future.

Let me be quite clear and emphatic about the proposed closure of the Manchester-Bury line. The closure was refused by my right hon. Friend in January of this year. There is no question of going back on that decision. I say that again. There is no question of going back on the rejection of the closure proposal made by my right hon. Friend in January of this year for the reasons that I have mentioned. His decision means that in our view the line and the service must be kept running. But, as I said, the Railway Boards analysed that £162,000 per annum was being lost on the running of the service, and that is a substantial sum of money.

In rejecting the proposal for closure, my right hon. Friend asked the Railways Board to make a thorough review of the running of the line to see whether and where economies could be made consistent with providing a service to meet essential needs of the citizens in the area. Clearly, as my hon. Friends have implied, where a substantial amount of money is being lost it is important that my right hon. Friend should direct the Railways Board to consider what economies can be made. But the details of these economies are an operational matter for the Railways Board. The Board has been charged by Parliament with the duty of making its services as adequate and economical as possible. The losses on the railway services in general have to be carried by the taxpayer, and there are not unlimited funds available for subsidising railway services.

Since the Board is operationally responsible for the management of railway services, it is for the Board to judge what is the scope for making economies, and the Board has freedom to rearrange services providing that it does not discontinue services where the Minister has said that they are essential to meet the important needs of the population.

That is the background, therefore, to the reductions in services on the Manchester-Bury line and the local increases in fares which have been made by the Railways Board following the rejection of the closure proposal.

The Railways Board tells me that these are the maximum working economies that can be made consistent with providing a service for essential needs. Six fewer four-car train units are now required. Six drivers and five guards fewer are now employed on the service. In consequence, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bury and Radcliffe mentioned, a certain amount of standing is necessary at peak hours, but I am informed that this applies only over comparatively short distances. I have been informed by the Board that it has no plans to make any further changes in the service in the near future. I repeat again that there is no question of any policy of running down the line to prove the case for closure. The question of closure has been decided. It has been decided to keep the line open.

I should, perhaps, deplore some of the rather strong language that has been used. However, I appreciate the strength of feeling that exists about the importance of the line to the Manchester conurbation. Any railway user who is dissatisfied with the adequacy of the service after reductions have been made can, if he is unable to get satisfaction from the Railways Board and after a suitable interval during which experience can be obtained of the new service, take his complaint to the local Transport Users Consultative Committee, which is statutorily bound to consider the matter.

There is, perhaps, a habit among the public, including hon. Members, to regard the sole function of the T.U.C.Cs as being to consider closure proposals. In recent times such proposals have represented a great part of their business, but these committees are established also to consider complaints and criticisms of the adequacy of the services run by the nationalised Railways Board. My hon. Friend's constituents, in considering reductions in these cases, have a perfect right, if they fail to get satisfaction from the Railways Board, to take the matter to their local T.U.C.C. and have it argued out there.

I must say a word about fares. The changes which the Railways Board is locally empowered to make, as the operational manager, to increase fares to try to reduce the losses on the line have obviously aroused the feelings of some of my hon. Friends constituents. The important point to remember is that any regular traveller on this line—and the majority of peak hour commuters are regular travellers—can now, by taking out a season ticket for one or three months, get his daily journey at less cost than the peak hour day return which has been withdrawn. The off-peak day return fares have not been altered.

I appreciate the point that has been made about the substantial sum of money a traveller needs to buy a season ticket. But it is important, when considering the variations which the Board has made, to remember that the regular traveller can still get a season ticket in which in terms of a daily rate, is cheaper than the peak day return which have been withdrawn. These latter matters are the operational and managerial responsibilities of the Board.

If there are appropriate complaints, they should go to the local T.U.C.C., where the matter can be argued out.

I wish completely to allay any fears to the effect that any of these changes have anything to do with jeopardising the future of the Manchester-Bury via Prestwich line. The matter has been decided. As my right hon. Friend has said on many occasions at this Box, there is no statutory power for revoking the decisions which have been taken about closure proposals. In this case my right hon. Friend has taken the decision. He regards this as a vital rail link and wishes to keep this service open for consideration by those who are working on the land use and transportation survey in the Manchester area so that they have an opportunity to consider what further developments and expansion might be made, just as they can carry out the sort of cost-benefit study mentioned by my hon. Friend.

We in the Ministry are interested in promoting cost-benefit studies which take into account all the social factors. This is not an easy matter and the technique has still to be developed. We also do not have the tremendous amount of trained manpower necessary to carry out these studies. We hope to learn much more about this as a result of the seven conurbation studies which are going on now, of which Manchester is one. The studies will enable us to carry out the objectives which have been mentioned in this debate. Those objectives are to expand traffic on the railways, to attract more traffic to them as well as to discover ways and means of organising our transport services in the conurbations in a more satisfactory way in future than has been the case in the past.

I wish to take advantage of this opportunity to raise another matter on the Adjournment and, with your permission, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I will do so.

I have been in touch with the Minister concerned, who is the Minister of Labour, but he is not available at the moment and I am informed that he will not be available until three o'clock. I therefore hope to say briefly why I am raising this matter and then hope that the Minister will read my words in the OFFICIAL REPORT next week.

The Chair has no power to stop the hon. Member speaking on the Adjournment. I should, perhaps, indicate clearly that the Chair strongly deprecates the raising of a subject without the Minister who is Departmentally responsible for the matter being here to answer. That is no reflection on the Minister, although it raises the question of the suitability of raising a matter in the circumstances.

I hope that when you hear what I have to say, Mr. Deputy Speaker, you will feel that there is justification in this case. I join with you in saying that there is no reflection on the absence of the Minister. He had fairly short notice. He could not know any more than I could that the previous debate might finish at this time.

I am raising a matter of significance and it is one of those subjects one rarely has an opportunity to raise. It is not the sort of issue which is discussed frequently in the House or which can normally be easily raised as a subject for debate on the Adjournment. It refers to a document published by Her Majesty's Government and presented to Parliament, Cmnd. 2790, and which lays down proposed actions by Her Majesty's Government in two Instruments to the constitution of the International Labour Organisation.

The Minister of Labour, in presenting this document to Parliament, states that the decisions of Her Majesty's Government on these Conventions are set out in the document, as they are.

The decision which I wish to raise is that on Recommendation No. 120, concerning hygiene in commerce and offices. The Government say that the Government's ratifying——