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

As all the Amendments have a single purpose, it might be convenient to consider with it the other Lords Amendments:

I have no objection if the House has none. So be it.

When the Bill was being considered in another place attention was drawn by the Glasgow and District Licensed Trade Defence Association to inequity between certificate holder and certificate holder. The purpose of the Amendments is the removal of that inequity. For the issue of a certificate in suspense following compulsory acquisition the sequence of events is that first there is compulsory acquisition and then there is the resultant discontinuance of business.

There can be quite a long interval between those two events, where, for instance, the local authority does not immediately require the whole of a block of premises it has acquired for redevelopment. In such a case the business continues in operation in premises acquired by the local authority. The right to a certificate in suspense is not exercisable until the business is discontinued.

But for the present legislation, the dispossessed certificate holder would have his compensation for the compulsory acquisition assessed on the assumption that he would be able to exercise his right to have his certificate placed in suspense, and he would be able to exercise his right on discontinuance of business. This is as it should be.

In future cases there will be no right to a certificate in suspense, so it will not be taken into account. This is again as it should be. But as the Bill is at present drafted there is a third possibility—that the compensation might have taken into account the right to a certificate in suspense, but because the business had not been discontinued before the coming into force of the Act that right would not be exercisable.

It is clearly desirable that if the compensation took account of a right that right should be exercisable, or alternatively that if the right was not to be exercisable it should not be taken into account in assessing compensation. The effect of the Amendments is that a limited number of certificate holders, whose premises were compulsorily acquired before 4th August, 1966, will continue to have a right to a certificate in suspense even though their business is discontinued after the commencement of the Act. The reason for the insertion of the date, which is the date of the making of the Amendment in another place, is that in respect of compulsory acquisition before that date, some of them considerably before, the assessment of compensation will have taken into account the right to a certificate in suspense, so that it is proper that they should be able to exercise that right.

In respect of compulsory acquisitions after that date the valuers of the Inland Revenue will be able to take into account, in assessing compensation, the fact that the certificate holders will not, under the Bill, be able to exercise their right to a certificate in suspense and will be able to disregard any contingent value arising from that right. They have, in fact, been doing this in the intervening months. Since in assessing compensation for compulsory acquisition after 4th August no account is being taken of any right to a certificate in suspense, there is no case for extending that right to such cases.

I should like to say two things in connection with compulsory acquisition in relation to the Amendments. The first is that the Amendments refer to the time of service of notice to treat, because that is the critical point of time for the assessment of compensation or compulsory acquisition. The amount of compensation is assessed in the light of all the circumstances at the time of notice to treat and it is, therefore, appropriate that the date in the Amendments should apply to that stage of the proceedings.

The experts have advised that these Amendments will have the effect which I have described. I therefore hope that the House will agree to them.

The House will be grateful to the hon. Member for Glasgow, Shettleston (Sir M. Galpern) for explaining the purpose of this group of Amendments so clearly. As the hon. Gentleman has said, they have the effect of removing what would otherwise have been an inequity following the passage of the Bill through Parliament, an inequity which would have fallen with possibly quite severe financial hardship on a small group of people. I believe that the Amendments in the form in which the hon. Gentleman has presented them remove this hardship. It is, therefore, right that the House should agree with the Lords in this group of Amendments.

I add my personal congratulations to the hon. Gentleman on coming to the concluding stages of a Bill which he has piloted so successfully through the House. It is a small but important Measure.

The Government appreciate the facility with which my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Shettleston (Sir M. Galpern) has presented his case in support of the Amendments, and I commend them to the House.

The Bill has had a smooth and speedy passage through Second Reading and Committee and I will do nothing to slow down that progress. I hope that the House will not think me presumptuous if I take this opportunity of thanking those who helped me to draft the Bill and who have given it the support which it has had and of expressing the hope that it will have corresponding support in another place.

This is a useful little Bill, and I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Mr. Ogden) on sponsoring it. I thank both sides of the House for the speed with which they have dealt with it and I wish it gospeed on the rest of its journey to the Statute Book.

I beg to move Amendment No. 1, in page 2, line 24, to leave out "imminent".

Members of the House who served on the Standing Committee dealing with the Bill will recall that I accepted the insertion of this word in the Clause only to give me a chance to consider the points they had made before we proceeded further.

It may help the House if I explain that some members of the Committee felt that, unless we altered the Clause as originally drafted, the regulations to be made under it might be thought to cover any birds being reared on the same premises where slaughter took place, for example, in the larger poultry packing stations. Some hon. Members were unable at the time to accept my argument that the interpretation of this provision is governed by the general purpose of the Clause, that is, a power to make regulations

"in connection with the slaughter"

of poultry. It is not the intention that the regulations should deal with husbandry practices for rearing birds. The Bill would obviously not be the appropriate vehicle for dealing with such matters.

I have been assured by the Government and those advising me that no Minister would read the Clause other than as relating to the period immediately prior to slaughter. If he sought to do so, my legal advisers tell me that matters could be put right immediately in the House by a Motion for a Prayer for annulment of the regulations, for which the Clause provides.

I hope that, with these assurances, the House will agree to the Amendment.

I should like to express my gratitude to the hon. Member for Bury and Radcliffe (Mr. Ensor) for considering in Committee at short notice Amendments that were tabled at a late hour and to which I could not be present to speak to owing to the clash of business in the House. My hon. Friend the Member for Devizes (Mr. Charles Morrison) moved the Amendment in question in Committee and we realised that it was accepted with some reservation by the hon. Member for Bury and Radcliffe.

I am not quite sure that our difficulties are entirely resolved, because there is the possibility that someone, not necessarily a Minister, not necessarily anyone in the Government, might seek to argue that the meaning of the Clause could include a much longer period of an animal's life than clearly the Government intend. It can be said of a broiler chicken that it is awaiting slaughter from the moment it is hatched simply because, in an efficient business, the number of days that it should remain alive is known ahead, since it should reach the required slaughter weight over a fixed period.

Therefore, while we are grateful for the explanation which the hon. Member has given, we are sorry in a way that it has not been made clear within the Bill at this stage that this strict limitation is likely to be effective. I do not, however, think that it is any good insisting on "imminent", as clearly the hon. Member's legal advisers would rather the word were withdrawn. Therefore, we would not seek to press our view.

I beg to move Amendment No. 2, in page 3, line 30, to leave out Clause 8.

This is a probing Amendment to give the hon. Member for Bury and Radcliffe (Mr. Ensor) an opportunity of explaining why he and his advisers have found themselves unable to insert in the Interpretation Clause a definition of "domestic fowl". In Standing Committee we offered a definition, which could be seen to be technically defective, and the hon. Member undertook with his advisers to see whether a definition could be introduced later.

The industry is anxious that at this stage ducks should not be included in the Bill, and should clearly be seen not to be included. The reason for this is that there is as yet no technically efficient apparatus for stunning ducks available. If the hon. Member can make it clear that there is no intention that the Bill should go further than the broiler chicken, we should be satisfied. If, however, it were possible to make this abundantly clear by a definition within the Bill, we should be still better satisfied.

I give the hon. Gentleman the Member for Norfolk, South (Mr. J. E. B. Hill) the assurance, first, that the Bill is not intended to include anything other than domestic fowls. Ducks are not included at this stage for a variety of reasons, one of which is that there is no reliable weapon with which they can be stunned.

Secondly, the hon. Gentleman raised the question of definition. The shorter Oxford Dictionary describes a chicken as the young of the domestic fowl. It has been made plain in a number of Acts of Parliament—including the Diseases of Animals Act, 1950, the Protection of Birds Act, 1954, the Protection of Livestock Act, 1953, and the Agriculture (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act, 1943—that the expression "domestic fowls", unless the Interpretation Clause of the Act says otherwise, excludes ducks, geese and other birds, which are varieties of a different nature.

I am advised that there is no problem under the Interpretation Clause and that the Bill as it stands includes only domestic fowls—which, in colloquial terms, means what the hon. Gentleman and I would mean as chickens and turkeys—and no other birds at this stage. If, at a later date, there is an efficient weapon for the stunning of ducks and geese, it may well be that the Minister will ask for an extension, but that is not the intention now and I am advised that the Bill includes only chickens and turkeys.

The Government oppose this Amendment because the Bill would be killed without the Interpretation Clause. But, of course, we understand the reason why the hon. Member for Norfolk, South (Mr. J. E. B. Hill) put it on the Notice Paper. He wished to use it as a probing Amendmend. I hope that the answer given by my hon. Friend the Member for Bury and Radcliffe (Mr. Ensor) has satisfied the hon. Gentleman on the point he raised about domestic fowl.

As my hon. Friend pointed out, there are a number of precedents. Whether the hon. Gentleman will accept the Oxford Dictionary's definition, I do not know. We cannot use the word "chicken" because for some reason or other it has a special meaning in Scotland. But I give the hon. Gentleman my assurance that ducks are not covered by the Bill. If any Minister ever attempted to make regulations covering ducks without the necessary extension of the powers to do so, he could be quite rightly opposed in this House on a Motion for a Prayer for annulment.

I am grateful for the various explanations which have been given. The assurance seems to be satisfactory and I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.

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

This is the first opportunity the House has had to discuss the Bill as a whole, so I should like to say a few words about its purpose. The Slaughter of Animals Act, 1958, provides safeguards for the welfare of farm animals, and horses, in the slaughterhouse. In particular, it requires, with certain exceptions, that they should be humanely slaughtered. Such protection has been lacking for poultry, however, and the aim of the Bill is to provide it.

The Bill provides for the stunning of chickens and turkeys before slaughter, except where they are slaughtered by neck wringing or decapitation, which are both considered to be humane methods and which obviously apply to the small person with a few chickens in the garden or on a smallholding. It also provides for humane methods which may be developed in future.

As in previous legislation, exception is provided for slaughter by Jews and Moslems of poultry intended for consumption by followers of those respective religions. The Bill also requires that premises where stunners are to be used must be registered with the local authority and this, together with the power of inspection, will enable Ministers to ensure that the main purpose is achieved.

It is essential to authorise officials to enter premises where stunners are being used and to see that they are properly maintained and used. Ministers will be able to make regulations to secure humane conditions and practices for poultry awaiting, and during, slaughter. The regulations would cover the provision of food and water, protection from extremes of weather and other aspects of their treatment.

The regulations would also limit the length of time that birds may be hung before being stunned and stipulates the shortest time which may elapse after slaughter before they are put into scalding water. After consultation, Ministers may extend the provisions to cover other birds, but it is not intended to do this at the present time. As suitable humane stunners become available for other birds, such as ducks, they can also be protected by the legislation.

I am most grateful to hon. Members on both sides of the House for having helped me with the Bill. It is a minor but important Measure and I hope that the House will agree to give it its Third Reading.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Bury and Radcliffe (Mr. Ensor) on using his good fortune in the Ballot for introducing this useful Bill in advance of legislation on the Brambell Report. He will add a page—I hope that the Bill will soon be on the Statute Book—to the long story of legislation in this House in the cause of animal welfare.

The Bill will cover an important aspect of the mass production of poultry. It safeguards the interest of the small farmer slaughtering birds at home and pays regard to religious susceptibilities. I am grateful to him and to the Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food for their great courtesy in allowing the Opposition to claim that we have made some improvements to the Bill, because it provides specifically now for consultation with those concerned in the industry before regulations are brought forward and that is an improvement.

The proceedings of the Bill were unique in my experience. It is the only case I know of in which a starred Amendment was followed by a manuscript Amendment in Committee to get the Bill right quickly, and I express my gratitude. The industry wants the Bill and I hope that it will speedily become law.

I add my congratulations to my hon. Friend the Member for Bury and Radcliffe (Mr. Ensor) for the service he has rendered by introducing the Bill and the courtesy he has shown to those who have certain views of a personal nature, as in my case, from my religious standpoint, in taking into consideration the requirements and obligations of members of the Jewish faith. We are grateful to him.

Generally, the Bill will add considerably to the protection of poultry from pain and will do something of a significant nature, although it is a small Bill, towards the prevention of cruelty.

This is a necessary Measure which has the full support of the Government. It has become almost a tradition of the House that animal welfare legislation should be introduced by private Members. I am happy to be able to agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Bury and Radcliffe (Mr. Ensor) in everything he has said and to express the gratitude of the Government for the time and effort he has devoted to bringing the Bill before the House.

There is no doubt about the need to extend provisions for humane slaughter to poultry. Less than 15 years ago poultry was killed by the million each year; now it is killed by the hundreds of millions. I believe that about 180 million are slaughtered every year now.

If the Bill is passed my Department will have to spend time in making the arrangements which are necessary to bring its provisions into operation. Hon. Mem- bers can be assured that we shall do this as speedily as possible, but they must remember that we have promised to consult all the people who are affected.

I have great pleasure in commending the Third Reading of the Bill.

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

This is the first occasion in my experience in the House on which I have been directly associated with a Bill in respect of which complete unanimity has been expressed by hon. Members on both sides of the House. Although I see strange faces on the benches opposite today I hope that the same note will be struck, and that the Bill will receive its Third Reading in an atmosphere of complete harmony.

This is a short Bill, but it is a very important one to thousands of miners. In cases where a worker has been certified as suffering to a degree of 50 per cent. or more from pneumoconiosis, and where the disease is accompanied by emphysema or bronchitis, or both, it empowers the Minister to regard either or both of those diseases as being caused by pneumoconiosis—just as in the case of tuberculosis at present. I hope that that is not too complicated.

I am pleased to say that this provision will apply to all existing cases where those conditions exist. Those cases may have come into being under the Industrial Injuries Act or under the old Workmen's Compensation Act. I know that my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary would like to deal with that aspect of the matter. I am glad to see him in his place, as he has been almost from the beginning of our discussion of the Bill.

I should like to thank my hon. Friends—especially my hon. Friend the Member for Bedwellty (Mr. Finch), who has expressed his regret that he cannot be present today. I know the unavoidable reason that has kept him away. He has been an enormous help to me, because he had long practical experience of industrial diseases before coming to the House. I also want to thank the Minister of Social Security, and, once again, the Parliamentary Secretary. They have shown their desire that the Bill shall be effective.

Most unusually for me, I also want to express my appreciation to hon. Members opposite, and in particular to the hon. Member for Somerset, North (Mr. Dean), who has also explained that he cannot be here this morning. He has been a great help. The help of my hon. Friends and hon. Members opposite is appreciated not only by my fellow-miner Members of Parliament and myself, but also by thousands of suffering miners. The Bill is an excellent break-through, because, at long last, it has brought within the list of scheduled industrial diseases emphysema and bronchitis.

I am sure that I speak for all hon. Members present and many thousands of people outside the House when I offer my sincere congratulations to my hon. Friend. I congratulate him, first, for being successful in the Ballot. We are contemporaries, both in coal mining and in Parliament. During my time in the House I have never been lucky in the Ballot. I am still living in hope, and shall continue to put my name down. I also congratulate my hon. Friend on promoting this Bill.

I have a personal interest in this Measure, in the sense that it is an Amendment of an Act of Parliament which I was privileged to pilot through the House—the National Insurance (Industrial Injuries) Act. That was a very big break with tradition. I am glad to know that after 21 years of experience some of the anomalies that have been discovered have been remedied, although others have not. On the whole, the Act has been accepted as making much better provision for sufferers than did the previous Act.

I remember the first time that silicosis was scheduled—not so long ago. I note that my hon. Friend the Member for Bedwellty (Mr. Finch) has just arrived. It was not until 1928 that the first Regulations were made, and they were very stringent. They covered diseases arising only as a result of silicon dust, although we all know that all dust is harmful.

This has been a very difficult problem to deal with. We have all had cases where two men have come to see us—perhaps living next door to each other—one of whom is certified as being disabled by pneumoconiosis accompanied by silicosis and the other certified by his doctor as being disabled owing to emphysema or acute bronchitis. We know that at the moment one receives benefit under the Industrial Injuries Scheme and the other merely receives sickness benefit—and there is a great difference between the two.

Having been certified, the men are entitled to benefit not only under the Act but also under the miners' supplementary scheme, which it was my pleasure to introduce 20 years ago. Not only do they have extra benefits from that scheme but they have a certain amount of coal at cheap rates. Those of us who know mining areas know that that is an enormous benefit.

This has been a sore point. It is a legal dictum in this country that justice must not only be done but must be seen to be done. I have found it impossible to explain the difference to two men, one covered by the National Insurance Industrial Injuries Act and the other certified as disabled through emphysema. The symptoms are the same.

Very few doctors today question that the incidence of bronchitis and emphysema amongst miners is bound to be higher than among the general population. One of the disappointments to old miners who knew the days of hand cutting and hand filling is that although we hoped when we reached the age of mechanical mining that there would be less dust to breathe. There is, in fact, more. There is provision in the National Insurance (Industrial Injuries) Act to make investigation, and I hope that my hon. Friend will do that. I pay tribute to what the Coal Board and the N.U.M. have done in the supression of dust, but there is still far too much and it remains a big problem.

The Bill will meet a long-felt and deeply-felt grievance. I hope that it will receive the House's unanimous approval and the Royal Assent. Will my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary keep its operation under review? I do not now propose to argue whether 50 per cent. is the right criterion. I gave my view on that on Second Reading.

I noticed the other day that there was some criticism of the medical boards. I have none to offer, but could my hon. Friend ask them to take a special note of these cases and to report to him, say, at the end of two years whether the provisions of this admirable Bill really meet the position? I am sure that before very long people who have not got a 50 per cent. disability but who have emphysema will feel a grievance.

When I was preparing my Bill I said to one of my advisers, "If I put this in I am sure to create an anomaly." He said, "That is how we progress. We remove one anomaly, create another one, and then go on to remove that." There will be anomalies here. But in the meantime I offer my congratulations to my hon. Friend the Member for Merthyr Tydvil (Mr. S. O. Davies) and my hon. Friend the Member for Bedwellty, who I brought from the valleys to superintend our workmen's compensation work when I was president of the South Wales miners and he has done excellent work. I also pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Minister of Social Security, my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary and hon. Friends opposite who helped to get the Bill through.

It is a good step. It is not the last, and I therefore hope that we shall have a full report on how it is working. I give it a cordial welcome and shall vote for its Third Reading with both hands, if that is permissible.

The Bill represents a landmark in the history of occupational diseases. For the first time, general emphysema and bronchitis in the presence of pneumoconiosis will be regarded as an industrial hazard, if the Bill passes, as I am sure it will. In other words, it is recognised that bronchitis and emphysema, where there is pneumoconiosis, contribute to a man's total disability, which is the general trend of medical opinion today. I regard that as a great step forward, although it is not all that we desire.

Our good friend Sir Barnett Stross, who was a Member of this House for many years, and was held in high respect on both sides of the House, had a wide and intimate knowledge of the subject. In 1961 he said:

"Every time men cough as a result of breathing noxious dusts they are damaging their bronchial tubes and their lungs. The cough was given to us in the first place as a possible means of protecting ourselves, but prolonged constant coughing over many years damages more than the bronchial tubes. We do not need doctors to tell us this. It destroys the elasticity of the lungs and ultimately prevents the interchange of oxygen and carbon-dioxide in the tissues. This is why men cannot breathe and why they cannot work."—[OFFICIAL REPORT. 3rd February. 1961; Vol. 633, c. 1398.]

He there summed up the position of both medical men and laymen connected with the coal-mining industry on that important subject.

We are glad that the Bill carries us at least some of the way to recognise these distressing diseases. It has been difficult to understand some cases. In my years of experience I have known men working in pennant rock where there is a high percentage of silica. Some men are certified and others are not even though they show the same symptoms—gasping for breath in the same way as the men who are certified. That has been a cause of dissatisfaction and disturbance in the industry. People cannot see why one man working under the same conditions should be certified while others are not. The Bill should at least eradicate some of the dissatisfaction and discontent which have been experienced, particularly in the South Wales mining industry, over many years.

It is said that the figures are declining. We are happy that they are indeed declining, but of course fewer men are working in the industry. The problem of pneumoconiosis is still large, serious and urgent. The long-term problem is being tackled by the National Coal Board and the miners themselves through research into application of improved methods of dust suppression. Nevertheless, the figures are still very high. A high percentage of men in the later years of their work in the industry are declared to be totally incapacitated. A survey on the prevalence of this disease was made at 93 collieries all over the country and it was found in an average of 12·4 per cent. of those X-rayed. The prevalence in Great Britain between 1959 and 1963 was 12·1 per cent.

In the ageing group, 30·2 per cent. of those aged 55 and over who were X-rayed were declared to be suffering from pneumoconiosis, compared with an average of 2·7 per cent. among younger men. As the years go by, the winning of coal for industry and the country has placed a heavy toll on those who have spent so many years in the coal-mining industry.

Many others show the same symptoms and are incapacitated but are suffering from what has been described as emphysema and bronchitis. We are now at a stage where those declared to be 50 per cent. disabled and over with the presence of bronchitis and emphysema will be declared to be totally incapacitated. There should be further research to eradicate this disease from the mining areas, which is why I am pleased that the Bill should be before the House. We welcome the fact that this will include the old workmen's compensation cases. I congratulate the Government and the Parliamentary Secretary upon this gesture.

Under the old Workmen's Compensation Acts, many thousands of men were declared to be suffering from pneumoconiosis, but when examined by the Board were not assessed to be 10 per cent. or 15 per cent. disabled. There was a choice only between total or partial incapacity. Many of these men may not actually be disabled from pneumoconiosis, but, when they appear before the Board, as is intended, many will be found fit for very little work. If they are 50 per cent. incapacitated from emphysema or bronchitis, they can come within the terms of the Bill. This is of great importance.

Under the old Workmen's Compensation Acts, a man's compensation depended on his earnings, unlike the present industrial injuries benefit which my right hon. Friend put through this House. Under the Bill, they will qualify if they are certified as seriously disabled. Under the old benefits scheme there was no declaration of assessment, but that will now be brought into the Bill. Many men in the coalfields will come within these provisions.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Merthyr Tydvil (Mr. S. O. Davies) on the Bill. He has done a great service to miners and has helped to deal with the problems of aggravation and acceleration. The Bill opens the door for other forms of disability, such as arthritis. This is a question of acceleration. Therefore, the Bill is a great step forward. I am glad that I have lived to see the day when emphysema and bronchitis have been brought within our legislation. I also thank hon. Members opposite for their co-operation in seeing the Bill through Parliament.

I add my welcome to the Bill. It is a real breakthrough. I was wrongly reported in Committee, probably because of my poor diction, as describing it as a breakout of the wall. I said, in fact, that it was a brick out of the wall.

There has always been this great barrier for a man who is unable to reconcile himself to a severe disability like emphysema and not receive compensation for it. Now, a man with pneumoconiosis, with from 1 to 10 per cent. disability, is given a 10 per cent. assessment. This is a brick out of the wall, as I said in Committee and on Second Reading, and as I grow older I learn that these things are better done gradually. The argument is now put forward: why should 50 per cent. be in the Bill? We will leave that problem until later and get the Bill through first.

I also congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Merthyr Tydvil (Mr. S. O. Davies) on his success in the Ballot and, more important, on his choice of bringing a real measure of social justice to the people we represent, the mine workers. Though this is a wide Bill, embracing also people in the cotton industry and the potteries, and I am glad to see representatives of these industries present on these benches.

The Bill applies to anyone with a pneumoconiosis assessment and to the old workmen's compensation cases. Tribute has been paid to my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary for bringing this in and I also congratulate him. The byssinosis victims are also covered. All will benefit. The criterion will be the 50 per cent. assessment. This will be some problem in the old workmen's com- pensation cases, but I do not doubt that it will be overcome.

The Measure is all the more welcome because it is long overdue. The sooner that real results can be seen, and justice is seen to be done, the more we will all like it. This modest Measure does not, as some still wrongly think, schedule emphysema as an industrial disease. It is merely an extension of the paired organs system, so a natural disability for which one is not due to be compensated will be considered with whatever industrial injury one receives.

I hope that my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary will not mind, on this St. Patrick's Day—La Padraig, in Gaelic—if I give my hon. Friend a symbol of it. I do not know whether he has a shamrock, but he should have.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Llanelly (Mr. James Griffiths) said that it was generally felt that mineworkers and others in heavy industry suffer more from bronchitis than those anywhere else. Bronchitis is called the English disease. This is borne out by a recent Government Report showing that the incidence of bronchitis, particularly among mineworkers, is twice as high as among the next highest group. This is further conclusive proof that the Bill is a good one.

The Bill is an extension of the 1948 Act, for the introduction of which we owe congratulations to my right hon. Friend. That Act was a milestone in the history of workers' protection. It removed a very unequal contest between an injured workman and an often wealthy employer. This is a brick out of the wall—I hope to be correctly reported—of this insuperable barrier. I hope that, very soon, after the Bill reaches the Statute Book, and with more luck in the Ballot and co-operation from the Parliamentary Secretary, we will remove the wall entirely and justice will be seen to be done. I welcome the Bill.

I rise to express the warm support of my right hon. and hon. Friends for this useful Measure. I join those who have congratulated the hon. Member for Merthyr Tydvil (Mr. S. O. Davies) on having steered his Bill safely through the Committee with so much harmony and light, and on having in the process persuaded the Government to support him. I agree with the right hon. Member for Llanelly (Mr. James Griffiths), whose efforts in this sphere over so many years are well-known, that this is a great step forward.

The hon. Member for Bedwellty (Mr. Finch), who also has a great record in agitation in this field—that is probably the right word in these circumstances—has recently said that the Bill is a great landmark. As a representative of a mining constituency where, unhappily, pneumoconiosis and the associated diseases of emphysema and bronchitis have been all too prevalent, the hon. Member for Merthyr Tydvil can feel that he has performed a very useful service not only for his own constituents but for all those who live in such constituencies. I was delighted to hear him pay warm tribute to other hon. Members, including my hon. Friend the Member for Somerset, North (Mr. Dean).

This is not an occasion for long speeches. The Bill is a simple and straightforward Measure. It had a good Second Reading and received thorough scrutiny in Standing Committee. That is not surprising, since to many members of the Committee had intimate and firsthand knowledge of the subject.

On a personal note, I recall that when I first became a Minister and went to the Ministry of Pensions and National Insurance a large number of hon. Members, some of whom I see here today, pressed me continually for the prescription of emphysema and bronchitis as industrial diseases. At that time I was obliged to say, on the advice given to me, that there was no strong evidence to link these diseases specifically with occupational conditions. I have never been happy about that, although as recently as last year the same view was still held, and was borne out by the expert inquiry conducted by the Medical Research Council at the request of the Ministry of Pensions and National Insurance.

There has been and, I suppose, there always will be, some difficulty in amending the Industrial Injuries Scheme in regard to prescription of disease. This requires that a clearly established connection must be shown between disablement and a disease specifically caused by occupation. However, the right hon. Member for Llanelly blew a gust of fresh air into this discussion. Common sense would suggest, I should have thought, that once a man had contracted pneumoconiosis, that would predispose him to bronchitis and lung inflammation.

Some years after I was at the Ministry I saw that Dr. McLellan of the Pneumoconiosis Research Unit, the work of which we all recognise to be of such great value, said, as reported in the Practitioner of December, 1965:

"There is a possibility that the inhalation of dust and fumes may predispose to this syndrome (bronchitis) without producing radiographic or other signs by which it can be separated from bronchitis of non-industrial origin."

In short, it seems that in a case where bronchitis and emphysema are associated with serious pneumoconiosis, this should be taken fully into account—and, in the name of humanity, the benefit of the doubt should be given to the man concerned.

I agree with the comments of the right hon. Member for Llanelly about the 50 per cent. limit. Perhaps one can say with St. Patrick that better half a loaf than none at all. Indeed, it must delight St. David that St. Patrick is on his side today.

He is always on the side of the righteous.

That depends on whether Ireland is playing England or Wales at rugby football or something else.

I join with the right hon. Member for Llanelly in pressing the Government—although I am sure that here we are pushing at an open door—to keep the question of the 50 per cent. limit under review. As the House knows, I am particularly interested in health problems. The changes that have been and are taking place in medical techniques are remarkable. All the time we are discovering more about disease generally and it would, therefore, be right for the Government to give an indication that they will not rest on this, but will keep the matter very carefully under review.

Since other hon. Members wish to speak and as other Bills are waiting to be discussed, I will merely add that the Government have been right to accept this Measure. Once again, on behalf of my hon. and right hon. Friends, I warmly congratulate the hon. Member for Merthyr Tydvil on his success in getting such a swift passage for his modest but, for the people concerned, extremely valuable Bill.

Most hon. Members who have spoken represent mining constituencies. My constituency in Bolton can no longer be so described, although it contains the headquarters of the Lancashire branch of the National Union of Mineworkers. I wholeheartedly agree with the remarks of my hon. Friend the Member for Ince (Mr. McGuire) in that the Bill extends—this is my understanding of it and I trust that I am right—beyond miners and includes, for example, byssinosis, which is the disease of cotton workers.

Significantly, not for the first time, the initiative in this matter has been taken by hon. Members of the Labour Party who represent constituencies in South Wales, and that initiative benefits not only their own constituents and industries but many workers in other industries. I therefore warmly congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Merthyr Tydvil (Mr. S. O. Davies) upon the initiative which he has taken and the help which he has given to 3,000 or 4,000 people who are at present deprived of benefit because of the operation of the previous Act. This is, therefore, a useful amending Measure which will be of great help not only to miners but to those outside the coal industry as well.

I warmly applaud the Bill and hope that the Parliamentary Secretary will make it clear that it relates to industries other than coal mining. I appreciate that predominantly we are speaking of diseases which afflict those who work in the mines. It should be remembered, however, that it will be of considerable assistance to those who suffer from byssinosis and silicosis.

I, too, congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Merthyr Tydvil (Mr. S. O. Davies) upon piloting the Bill through its various stages. I am prompted to rise to make a few remarks of commendation of my old friend Sir Barnett Stross, who spent many years in this House and would have longed to be here today. Before coming here he spent a considerable time in Stoke-on-Trent working on behalf of people suffering from these terrible diseases. It is fitting that on this occasion, after having campaigned for so many years, we have this recognition of the diseases of emphysema and bronchitis.

The Bill will be particularly welcomed in Stoke-on-Trent because, as has been said, it will benefit all workers who suffer from the terrible scourge of pneumoconiosis. Perhaps because of the nature of the pottery industry, we have also suffered a great deal from atmospheric pollution, and this has added to the health hazards faced by the workers in the mines and in the pottery industry. However, it will be a disappointment to many people who are not exposed to the dangers of pneumoconiosis, and those whose disability is less than 50 per cent. that they will not qualify under the Bill. This should not detract from the many virtues of the Bill, which must be regarded as a significant step forward and certainly a step in the right direction.

I rise briefly to congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Merthyr Tydvil (Mr. S. O. Davies) and other hon. Members who have helped to pilot the Bill through. As my hon. Friend the Member for Ince (Mr. McGuire) said, this is a brick out of the wall, but much more remains to be done.

I stress the point made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Llanelly (Mr. James Griffiths) that today, with mechanised coal mining, the problem caused by dust is still great. Pneumoconiosis sometimes takes years to manifest itself. Until fairly recently I worked in the East Midlands coalfield, and know that it is no longer a question of men getting the coal by hand. Machines do that, but they grind a lot of the coal to dust which makes the dust suppression problem more acute. So much is this the case that I seriously fear that in, perhaps, 10 years' time we shall have a serious outbreak of pneumoconiosis in the East Midlands if we are not careful. At the same time, I recognise that a lot of money and time is being spent on research into dust suppression, and I sincerely hope that we shall see some real achievement in this connection.

I recognise that this Bill is a real breakthrough. I see my duty in this House as being, as an "ex-soldier" as it were, to increase that break-through from 50 per cent. onwards. I congratulate all those hon. Members who have steered this Measure through the House, because to my branch members and my constituents it represents a great step forward. It is something for which we have been waiting for many years. It will stand miners and others in good stead for years to come.

I want to add my word of congratulation to my hon. Friend the Member for Merthyr Tydvil (Mr. S. O. Davies). I have known him now for over half a century, but have never before known an occasion on which he has met such universal approval. I speak, not for Welsh miners but for Scottish miners. I live in a Scottish town, and every weekend I walk in the hills in the company of miners. One sometimes sees men ambling along on sticks or walking very slowly because they suffer from this dread disease of pneumoconiosis or one of its allied diseases.

My father began work in a stone quarry in North Wales, and swallowed the stone dust. Then he came to South Wales, and swallowed the coal dust of South Wales. Therefore, in his lungs he had a mixture of stone dust and coal dust, and as the medical authorities of that time did not know how to diagnose his complaint they called it asthma. I have no doubt that it will now be called pneumoconiosis. I am sure that the Bill will be very warmly welcomed by the men in the stone quarries of North Wales and in the coalfields of Scotland, South Wales and other parts.

I also pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Member for Llanelly (Mr. James Griffiths) with whom I have been associated for many years. He has always been connected with this struggle to improve the lot of the working miner. I recall that it is all of 50 years ago that he saved my life. There was a very stormy meeting at which I was not the most popular person on the platform. A mild attempt was made to assassinate me, and my right hon. Friend saved me from a rather savage mob. I am not so sure that he has not been regretting it ever since. All hon. Members who represent mining constituencies, and constituencies in which people suffer from this disease, will welcome the Third Reading of this Bill as an historic occasion.

I do not want to be the only hon. Member present today who does not congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Merthyr Tydvil (Mr. S. O. Davies) on introducing the Bill. There are no coal mines in my constituency, but I was at least brought up in a coal-mining area. One of my earliest recollections as a boy in the County of Durham was the pitiful sight of old miners, maimed, coughing and dragging out the last few years of their lives in the most miserable circumstances. I am therefore very glad to have the opportunity to congratulate my hon. Friend, and I hope that it will not be long before this very useful Measure finds its place on the Statute Book.

One of my first notes for this debate was that I must congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Merthyr Tydvil (Mr. S. O. Davies). I thought that this was something unusual, but I find that every hon. Member who has spoken has done just that.

My hon. Friend has been in this House for many more years than I ever will be, and during that time has has been particularly concerned with men engaged in the coal mining industry as well as with his other constituents. He represents a South Wales constituency, where we get more miners than in many other areas of Great Britain. It must be a proud moment for him to know that after all these years he has been able to steer through this House a Bill that will have a marked effect on the lives of at least a limited number of miners.

My hon. Friend has got his Measure through to this stage without, as far as I know, a single speech of any kind being made against either its principle or provisions. It is true that in Committee we had, as a Government, to make some Amendments which were, perhaps, restrictive, but if we have to plead guilty to that we can equally claim credit for the fact that some of our Amendments extended its provisions to some who, as the Measure stood on Second Reading, would have been excluded. I congratulate my hon. Friend, and I congratulate also, some others of my hon. Friends whom I know assisted him in the preparation and piloting of the Bill.

I hope that the House will not think it remiss of me if, with due deference to everyone else who has spoken this morning, I refer to the hon. Member for Bedwellty (Mr. Finch). I am now in a rather difficult situation in speaking about the Bill. I represent one of the oldest coal mining constituencies in Great Britain, but we no longer have deep mines there, although we have some free miners and shallow pits.

The fact that I represent a constituency that has been historically of a coal mining nature does not mean that I know anything at all about the industry itself. It is true that I come into contact with miners who suffer from pneumoconiosis, but I feel a great deal of diffidence in attempting to speak about pneumoconiosis, chronic bronchitis and emphysema when most of those hon. Members who have spoken in this debate have a far greater degree of knowledge of the subject than I can ever hope to have.

My hon. Friend the Member for Bedwelty not only assisted my hon. Friend the Member for Merthyr Tydfil, but on one occasion he assisted me. Although I have an exceptionally good Department and advisers on this matter, but once when he was in my room at the House, and I was trying to sort out a particularly difficult problem, before I could ring up the office to get some advice he was able, off the cuff, to give me the information I required.

This is a small Measure affecting only about 3,000 or 4,000 sufferers from pneumoconiosis with accompanying chronic bronchitis and emphysema, but it may affect others. I hope the number who will be added to those at present concerned will be very small indeed. I shall be delighted if there are no more than 3,000 or 4,000 who are at the moment affected. The fewer people who suffer from pneumoconiosis the more I shall be pleased.

It is a common practice of many journalists to denigrate this House. Today we have spent some of the time in trying to bring into effect an improvement in the lives of a number of people who constitute a small percentage of the total population. It is a tribute to our system of government that we can begin to think in terms of small sections of people rather than devoting the whole of our time to some of the more exciting debates ranging over wide international affairs.

The effects of the Bill have been referred to by a number of my hon. Friends and by the hon. Member for Essex, South-East (Mr. Braine), but it might be as well for me to make absolutely clear its precise effect. As my hon. Friend the Member for Ince (Mr. McGuire) said, we have to make abundantly clear that we are not scheduling all chronic bronchitis and emphysema in relation to industries with dust content. It would be wrong if we did not attempt to underline this. I should not like every miner, pottery worker, steel worker, or other worker to imagine that with the passing of the Bill pneumoconiosis accompanied by chronic bronchitis or emphysema would be taken into account in his case. Only those who under the Industrial Injuries Act or the old Workman's Compensation Acts have an assessment of 50 per cent. pneumoconiosis and a condition of accompanying chronic bronchitis or emphysema will have chronic bronchitis or emphysema taken into account in the total assessment of disability. That must be absolutely clear.

The question has been raised whether bronchitis and emphysema are caused by dust conditions in different industries, or whether there are other reasons for those complaints. The reason we chose the 50 per cent. line was that on medical advice that point is associated with the transition from simple to complicated pneumoconiosis. After it changes from a simple to a complicated condition there is marked disability resulting from emphysema or bronchitis accompanying pneumoconiosis.

A number of hon. Members have referred to the causation of bronchitis and emphysema. I do not want to argue to the contrary, although I make clear that in recent discussions some of my medical advisers have argued that bronchitis and emphysema are not complaints peculiar to any particular industry. There is much conflicting evidence about this. I do not want my hon. Friends to be upset by what I am saying, but we should treat this matter in a manner which combines emotion with objectivity.

I get emotional about pneumoconiosis and when I see miners who suffer from emphysema and bronchitis, I cannot get away from the feeling that those men have been in the pits and it is doubtful whether they would have suffered to the same degree from bronchitis and emphysema if they had not been in the pits.

I want to cheer up my hon. Friend. There was a time when many doctors would not accept that miners could get pneumoconiosis. The name was invented only in recent years. But doctors change. I urge my hon. Friend on. Argue with them, and they will change.

It is true that, as we change, doctors and medical opinions change. We should be clear that the relationship between chronic bronchitis and occupation is not yet clearly defined. Both my right hon. Friend and myself are very concerned about this whole subject. In response to a request by my right hon. Friend, an expert committee was called together by the Medical Research Council towards the end of 1965 to consider the rôle of occupation in the etiology of chronic bronchitis, with particular reference to the coal mining industry. With the approval of the Minister, the Council's Report was published in the British Medical Journal on 8th January, 1966.

The Report concluded that chronic bronchitis displayed the same clinical characteristics, irrespective of the occupation of the individual affected, and, in consequence, it was not possible in the individual's case to determine the extent to which employment in a particular occupation had contributed to the development of the illness. Cigarette smoking, atmospheric conditions, geographical location, and other socioeconomic factors were factors in the incidence rate. Intensity of first exposure did not appear to be very significant in determining the prevalence of bronchitis amongst coal miners.

The Report concluded that it was important that research should be carried out into the etiology of the disease and that this research should continue. The results of research were kept constantly under review and it was not considered that a further review at that time would be likely to reveal any other evidence about the rôle of occupation in the etiology of the disease.

My right hon. Friend the Minister has recently discussed this Report with the Chairman and Secretary of the Medical Research Council. The Council has assured my right hon. Friend that, although it concluded that the information to date does not provide evidence on which a causal relationship between occupation and chronic bronchitis could be accepted, it is prepared at any time to consider new findings which may bear on the question.

The Council has stressed to my right hon. Friend, however, that, in a disease as common in the general population as bronchitis, conclusions cannot be drawn from general impressions or individual cases. The evidence must be factually based on fully-documented comparative studies covering considerable numbers of people who have lived and worked in different environmental circumstances. Whenever further evidence of this kind is produced, including the results of the studies currently in progress, the Council will consider it and go into it, as necessary, with the investigators concerned.

The Council added that it would also be prepared to consider well-documented medical evidence which would seem to indicate further possible lines of research on the question of the connection between chronic bronchitis and occupation.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Llanelli (Mr. James Griffiths) asked me whether I would give an undertaking that, once the Bill is on the Statute Book, I will ask the medical boards to keep a careful check and analysis of the cases presented to them and to report on a two-yearly basis. I will draw the Minister's attention to this request, because in the final analysis it is her responsibility. I am sure that my right hon. Friend the Minister will consider the request.

I have been asked whether this covers coal miners and other industries. It covers other industries. I hope that my hon. Friends will not ask me to use a list at this stage. The old cases have been referred to.

I am sure that the whole House is very grateful to the hon. Gentleman for what he has been saying. On the point raised by the right hon. Member for Llanelli (Mr. James Griffiths) and to which the hon. Gentleman has quickly responded by saying that he will ask the Minister to inquire of the medical boards what they can do in this respect, what relationship is there between inquiries of that kind and the wide variation there must be between conditions in particular mining communities and in particular pits?

I agree with everything that the hon. Gentleman has said about the inability to link bronchitis specifically with occupation. There appears to be a very high incidence of bronchitis among miners. Conditions vary between pit and pit and between one mining valley and another. What type of inquiry is going on, not merely into the actual causes of bronchitis, but aimed at establishing the environmental facts in the coalmining areas? Surely research should be going on into this aspect as well?

Research has been going on for a number of years. There have been a number of reports on this, but there has not yet been a report which has established that bronchitis is in any way attributable to the industry. In one instance, there was a higher incidence of bronchitis in a mining area and, therefore, it could be assumed that there was a causal connection, but it was also discovered that the same high incidence applied to the womenfolk in that area who never went down the mine. This is a difficult problem.

Both my right hon. Friend and myself are conscious of the necessity to determine one way or another, wherever medical evidence is available, any causal connection with mining or the pottery industry. However, although we can be conscious of this necessity and are constantly keeping our eyes upon it, we must be mindful of the fact that diseases cannot be scheduled, unless the scheduling is based upon evidence that there is a direct causal connection between the disease and the industry.

I agree with the hon. Gentleman. I accept what he says. I should, however, like to raise a specific point. He referred to the survey carried out by the Medical Research Council at the request of his Ministry. The Council's report refers to a point which is of high significance. Referring to a number of special surveys, the report confirms that miners have more respiratory symptoms than non-miners in the same area, but it adds that the difference is pronounced in South Wales. This would suggest that an environmental factor is involved. What I am asking is whether some special effort might be made to follow this up. I ask in a spirit of genuine inquiry.

If I may intervene, what the hon. Member for Essex, South-East (Mr. Braine) said is very interesting. He said that the incidence of bronchitis was heavier in South Wales than elsewhere among miners. Why is this? This is an interesting point. The same applied to the incidence of pneumoconiosis 25 or 30 years ago. It was heavier among anthracite miners than among other miners. This is why I want the Medical Research Council to consider this matter very carefully. I am sure there is a lot to learn about it. Why should anthracite miners be more prone to pneumoconiosis, and not only more prone to contract the disease but prone to have it in a more severe way than other miners?

The time has come to have a fresh review of the whole problem of the relationship of these diseases. I appreciate that my hon. Friend the Joint Parliamentary Secretary can only convey our feelings to his right hon. Friend, but I am sure my right hon. Friend the Minister will look at this problem very carefully because it is very important that we should gather the information as we go along.

May I tie this up at this stage by telling the House that there are at present about 20 bronchitis research surveys going on including several associated with pneumoconiosis, some of them closely associated with the Medical Research Council and the Pneumoconiosis Research Unit. We shall take whatever steps are within our power to establish in one way or another whether bronchitis and emphysema are associated with the mining industry or any other industry and whether there is a causal connection. Beyond that, however, I do not think that I can even lend myself for a minute to the suggestion that we might reduce the 50 per cent. provision at any subsequent time. I would hope that evidence would establish that it is right and proper for us so to do, but I do not think I can give the assurance which might be desired by hon. Members.

I was about to refer to the old cases. I should like to make clear that the Bill covers those old cases, both the time-barred cases and the supplemental cases—all those persons who have contracted pneumoconiosis prior to 5th June, 1948; I am saying 5th June from memory.

July.

I am obliged to the hon. Gentleman; I should have said 5th July, 1948.

The Bill will cover those cases. They will get a bit more compensation because these are the old cases which were not compensated under the old Workmen's Compensation Act. They will get a little bit more as a result of the Bill.

I conclude as I began, by saying that I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Merthyr Tydvil not merely because he got a place in the Ballot, but because he introduced the Bill. I am as grateful to him for, as I am sure are those 4,000 or so people who will obtain benefit from it.

I have it in Command from the Queen to acquaint the House that Her Majesty, having been informed of the purport of the Bill, 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.

Hear, hear.

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

I am very glad that the House has received with gratitude that statement by the Home Secretary.

This Bill has had a rather chequered history. I introduced it in the last Conservative Parliament, and the then Home Secretary went on strike. I was aware that this would require the Queen's Recommendation and I went through the usual motions of obtaining it. I approached the then Home Secretary, who is now in another place, to obtain the Queen's Consent. He went on strike; he did not go to the Palace. I am very glad to say that the present Leader of the House and the present Government are far more enlightened, and that I am now able to move the Second Reading of the Bill.

I notice, too, that the official Opposition have gone on strike. I presume that this means that I have the unanimous assent of the Opposition and that they are no longer opposed to the Bill. I presume that, having decided to live up to the image of a modern party which is not anxious to defend obsolete and mediaeval titles, they have decided to go on a sit-down strike and not oppose my Bill. Perhaps they are now sitting down somewhere in the region of the London School of Economics.

The Opposition have now arrived, in the person of the hon. Member for Wycombe (Mr. John Hall).

I am quite sure that when the Bill is debated in another place there will not be empty benches. There will be a very large number of titled ladies and gentlemen, anxious to defend their titles and privileges, and that the House of Lords will be better attended than it has been since the Murder (Abolition of Death Penalty) Bill was debated there.

The question of titles has been under consideration for a considerable time. When I first became interested in politics there was a raging controversy between the then Liberal Party and the Tory Party. Very strong words were spoken on the question of titles. Sir Winston Churchill was then in the Liberal Government. He described the House of Lords as a "Punch and Judy show" which he thought should have disappeared into history. Mr. Lloyd George was less complimentary. He referred to various titled gentlemen as the "last of the litter".

Now, however, the attitude towards titles has changed. It has changed largely as a result of the abandonment of the sinking ship by many leaders of the Conservative Party. When Lord Butler introduced a Bill to create life peers, as a result of the energetic action of my right hon. Friend the present Minister of Technology, he argued that the time had come when hereditary titles no longer had any real place in the modern world, and suggested that the occasion was right for the creation of life peers.

Since then, the House of Lords has been a rather mixed lot. It is now composed of people who received their titles in years gone by, in some cases centuries ago, and by people who have been made life peers under Lord Butler's Act. The consequence is that there is in the House of Lords a system of apartheid. We have the "lifers" and the hereditary peers. The hereditary peers may look down their noses on the lifers and say, "My son and grandson may be in this place during the next 50 years, but yours definitely will not."

Even in the House of Lords, therefore, there is a feeling against titles. When my Bill comes to be piloted through the House of Lords, there will be no more suitable sponsor for it that Lord Butler, and I hope that he will put his services at my disposal to complete the work which he began.

The new attitude towards titles has been publicly expressed in other ways. In the editorial column of the Observer, one of our influential newspapers, this was said three years ago:

"It would be far better for this nation, including its upper-class families, if titles were to be abolished. They encourage unrealistic thinking and living and they add needlessly to confusion. Although the House of Lords has had its value over the centuries, there is no sense in a hereditary Second Chamber today, and the Monarchy, which still has a genuine political value in limiting political ambitions and acting as a symbol of communal unity, can get along perfectly well without an aristocracy, as is shown in Scandinavia and the Netherlands."

In Scandinavia and the Netherlands, legislation of the kind I am now advocating has been the law for generations. Sometimes, when Parliamentary delegations from this country go to other countries with Members of the House of Lords, the titled members of the delegation, the lords or dukes who happen to be there, are looked upon as a sort of aristocratic curiosity—as, indeed, they are.

The main purpose of the Bill, therefore, is to abolish hereditary titles and to bring us into line with most other countries of Europe and the world. There are no hereditary titles, such as we have here, in the United States or in the U.S.S.R. We are a nation which still continues with hereditary titled personalities, with the dukes, marquesses and earls whose titles have descended through hundreds of years.

I believe that I am fulfilling a useful function through the Bill in giving the impression to the world that Britain is really going modern in the true sense of the word and that we shall end these anachronistic and medieval titles, throwing over the principle of heredity so far as it affects certain personalities other than the Crown.

I do not propose abolition of the hereditary title of the Monarch. This could not be done on a Friday afternoon in this way. My hope is that Her Majesty will continue to live to be a centenarian, longer than Queen Victoria, at which time it will be a problem not for me but, perhaps, for my hon. Friend the newly-elected Member for Nuneaton (Mr. Huckfield), who, I understand, is now 24 years old and who, if he lives as long as my right hon. Friend the Member for Easington (Mr. Shinwell), may be here in about 2026.

The Bill, as I say, is not for the abolition of the Monarchy. It is not even for the abolition of the House of Lords. It is not even a Bill to deal with the powers of the House of Lords. I understand that a Bill to that effect, in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Fife, West (Mr. William Hamilton), is to come later in the list on today's Order Paper.

What is the case against hereditary titles? First, it does not follow that, because the original holder of a title has certain qualities, his sons, grandsons, great-grandsons and their sons will necessarily have the same qualities. No doubt, the ancient medieval dukes and marquesses performed certain services to the monarch of their day, and they received the honours of the day for rendering such service. Accompanying the titles, they received large gifts of land. I do not propose to take away the land as well as the titles. I leave that to the Chancellor of the Exchequer and his death duties.

Or the Land Commission Act.

Or the Land Commission Act.

It will be seen that I am not in any sense penalising these ladies and gentlemen. It is not a punitive Bill. It does not take the titles away from the present holders. Its effect is simply that, on their demise, the heirs will not succeed to the titles. It is a painless operation, a humane killer, and this is why there can be so little objection to it.

It has been obvious that the son or grandson of the recipient of a title does not necessarily follow in the same line as the original holder of it. There are many instances of honours being given where the successor to the title has in some ways proved very different from his predecessor. I have in mind the case of Earl Baldwin, who received his title because he was an ex-Prime Minister. But he had a son who was not a Conservative. I think that he became Viscount Corvedale. He was elected as a Socialist Member for Paisley. After sending Earl Baldwin to the House of Lords the Conservatives discovered in a very short time that they had sent a Socialist peer there.

This applies both ways; it applies also to Socialist peers. For example, one of my old friends in my early days on the Clyde was David Kirkwood, who was what I would call a rumbustious Scottish nationalist and a demagogue. He used to denounce the House of Lords. Nobody in those days, when the Clyde group of Members arrived here with David Kirkwood, one of its most obstreperous Members, thought that he would end up in the House of Lords. But he received a title, which nearly killed "Willie" Gallacher.

The day the news appeared in Scotland that David Kirkwood had been given a title, and had gone to the House of Lords, they said, "Oh Lord!" Look at what has happened to his son. I understand that he has become a Conservative. These incredible things happen in politics so that if political honours are given for service to either the Conservative Party or to the Socialist Party the results in the next generation turn out differently from what was intended.

Would not the hon. Gentleman agree that his examples show that these things balance out very well, and that the net result in the next generation is exactly the same as in the previous generation?

That may be an interesting theory, but my argument would produce a safe result for the political parties. If peerages are given because a father has done conspicuous service to one party it does not follow that his son, grandson, great-grandson, and so on, will necessarily show those qualities.

I occasionally go to the House of Lords. I never find there the person whom I consider to be its most distinguished member. He takes no notice of his title. I refer to Earl Russell. Everyone knows of Bertrand Russell, but a large number of people know nothing about Earl Russell because he has not thrown away his title but has just ignored it.

That applies to distinguished ex-Prime Ministers. Sir Winston Churchill resolutely refused to take an earldom. He sat here for many years and I sat opposite him and used to admire the old man because he was still in the House of Commons when he could have gone to the House of Lords. But he refused to be buried in the mausoleum on the other side of the building. He showed a certain amount of disrespect for titles which has continued.

For example, Mr. Harold Macmillan has not taken a political title. He is neither a "Sir" nor an earl. He lives in retirement as a respected citizen and one who has shown his disregard for a hereditary title. What is the Opposition's attitude? When Mr. Macmillan retired they looked around the House of Commons for a leader, but they could not find one, so they went to the House of Lords. There they discovered Lord Home, with a very old title, who took advantage of Mr. Butler's Act to give up his title after it had been in his family for 14 generations. By doing that he threw away the title. He thought that to serve in politics was more important than a title.

When he came here he was not such a success as they imagined he would be and lost the election. After the election he was still the Leader of the Conservative Party, which said, "We must get rid of him, because he still has the aroma of a title". The image was all wrong because the idea of the Conservative Party was not modern, but was still in antiquity. The Conservatives therefore got rid of the right hon. Member for Kinross and West Perthshire (Sir Alec Douglas-Home). Now the Conservative Party's problem about a title is not to bring anybody else in from the House of Lords but when and how they shall send their present Leader there. Titles are not regarded as a political asset by the Conservative Party any more and they should not be so regarded on this side of the House. I therefore see no reason why I should not have unanimous support for this innocuous Measure, which, I think, is about to be passed unanimously by the House of Commons.

I have referred to the old titled nobility. There is no case for continuing their titles. They have had their day and should now cease to be. They have had a long run for our money. There are the dukes and lords who have owned land for a long time. The time has come when they should no longer hang on to their titles.

There is a member of the House who is an earl. I informed him that I would make this speech and told him, "I shall refer to you, although I shall not make an unchivalrous attack on you." He said, "That is all right," so he is not even here to defend his title. In due time he will become a duke, which would be a calamity for this House. I believe that the noble Lord who represents Edinburgh, North (Earl of Dalkeith) would make a good Leader of the Conservative Party if he were allowed to remain here. If my Bill comes into operation the title will disappear on the demise of the Duke of Buccleuch and we shall have the benefit here of the noble Lord who represents Edinburgh, North. I am therefore really doing a service to the Conservative Party.

It is not only a former Prime Minister who threw away his title. There was the ex-Viscount Hailsham, the right hon. and learned Member for St. Marylebone (Mr. Hogg). I told him that I would make a complimentary reference to him and he said, "That is all right, old boy." So he is not here to defend his title, either. If all those gentleman are not here to defend their titles there is obviously no case for them.

On those grounds, we should pass my Bill. By doing so we shall show that we are in the modern age. I can say a lot more for the Bill but I believe I have said enough to get a Second Reading. When the Bill reaches its Committee stage I will, of course, be very pleased to consider any Amendments which are likely to strengthen it.

Surely, the hon. Member will not conclude his speech without referring in rather more detail to the position of life peers. He has said a good deal about hereditary peers and how hereditary peerages should be brought to an end. Would he not admit that there is, perhaps, value in life peerages? Perhaps the hon. Member would like to let the House know whether he thinks that life peerages should be brought to an end.

Life peerages and titles end with the death of the holder. If the hon. Member wants me to expound further, I would say this about life peers. A number of members of the Labour Party have gone to the House of Lords. They have been prepared, most of them, to sacrifice themselves out of a sense of duty. For example, when Earl Attlee went to the House of Lords, he took the attitude that if the House of Lords was to last for a few years longer the Labour Party should be there and he was prepared to make a supreme sacrifice and go to the House of Lords as an earl. That is the position of most Labour Party members.

There may be life peers in the House of Lords who are there for prestige, but I once discussed the question of life peers with the late Earl Alexander of Hillsborough. I said to him one day in the Tea Room, "I am in favour of abolishing the House of Lords." He replied, "All right, old boy. As soon as the Labour Party decides to abolish the House of Lords, we will vote for the abolition of the House of Lords." All that he was worried about was the pay. I am quite sure that members of the Labour Party who go to the House of Lords as life peers go there, not for the titles, but to perform a service to the community as long as that House exists.

There is a point about to be made on why life peers should continue, and I will explain. The time may come when this House will have to realise that in spite of the fact that it has become a very respectable debating society, the House of Lords might interfere with the will of this House. It is true that it is not doing so at present. Although Lords Amendments are sent to us, no attempt is made by the Lords to destroy major Bills, such as, for example, the Iron and Steel Bill. Although the House of Lords rejected the Iron and Steel Bill in the previous Parliament, it has accepted it today because it realises that if it obstructs the will of this House in the early days of a Labour Government, it may be signing its own death warrant.

Therefore, I am in favour of life peers until the time comes when it is decided that that kind of Second Chamber must be considered. Indeed, I am in favour of my own constituents becoming life peers in case of necessity—

Is not the hon. Member contradicting his own Bill, which requires all titles to be abolished? Is he not making things very difficult for the Prime Minister with regard to the Minister of Agriculture and the President of the Board of Trade? When they rebel against the Prime Minister's policy of going into the Common Market, if he cannot kick them upstairs where will the Prime Minister kick them?

I will come to that.

In the fierce controversy between the Lords and the Commons in 1910, there was a serious constitutional crisis. The House of Lords refused to yield to the House of Commons. How were the Government to overcome that difficulty? Mr. Asquith decided to go to His Majesty and say that if the House of Lords refused to pass his legislation he would have to create a number of peers. When His Majesty King George V said, "Yes, I will create a number of peers", the House of Lords gave in.

The same thing might happen again. In its third or fourth year of office, a Labour Government might find that the House of Lords was obstructing because we were getting nearer to the dissolution of the Parliament. If necessary, the Prime Minister of the day would have to create, or threaten to create, more life peers to deal with that constitutional crisis. So the question of titles will come in. If necessary, I am quite prepared to get 500 miners in my constituency to become life peers and to pay their bus fares for the day to come down and secure the necessary majority to achieve the will of the people.

The hon. Member for Birmingham, Hall Green (Mr. Eyre) asked about the Prime Minister. The hon. Member has not been reading the recent speeches of the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister made a speech in which he said that it was permissible to have one bite, but that if people had more than one bite, their licence would be abolished. He was not referring at all to the Members of the House of Commons, but was referring to the House of Lords. [Laughter.] That is the best explanation that the Prime Minister could possibly find of what he said. It is far better than any I have seen, and I present it to him. He did not specifically mention the House of Lords, but that was in his sub-conscious mind. My hon. Friend the Member for Brixton (Mr. Lipton), beside me, remarks that he is similarly convinced.

I do not know whether any hon. Member opposite wants me to make any further explanations of the Bill. It is, I believe, a Bill that will be acceptable to the overwhelming number of people. I hope that it will get swift progress through both Houses of Parliament, and that it will be a little step towards making a more democratic and egalitarian society.

It might be for the convenience of the House if I intervene briefly at this stage. The House will, perhaps, understand that in my position I am not able to approach this weighty subject in quite the engagingly light-hearted manner in which my hon. Friend the Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. Emrys Hughes) has done.

I should like to explain the circumstances in which I thought it right to tender advice to the Queen to place her Prerogative, so far as it is affected by the Bill, at the disposal of Parliament for the purposes of the Bill and the significance of Her Majesty's consent.

When a Bill is introduced in this House which mainly or very largely concerns matters affecting the Royal Prerogative, the Queen's consent must be signified at the earliest stage of the debate—that is, at the beginning of Second Reading. If it is not so signified, the Bill cannot be debated. The Bill introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for South Ayrshire clearly comes within this category. Whatever views right hon. and hon. Members on all sides may have about the contents of the Bill, they will, I think, mostly agree that it would have been undesirable to put any impediment in the way of its being debated.

It was solely to allow the Bill to be debated that I tendered advice to Her Majesty to place her Prerogative, so far as it is affected by the Bill, at the disposal of Parliament. But I must make it clear that the fact that the Crown signifies its consent to a Bill or places its interests at the disposal of Parliament is not to be taken as meaning that the Crown, through its advisers, approves of the provisions of the Bill. It means no more than that the Crown does not intend that the lack of its consent should debar Parliament from debating such provisions. It is also recognised doctrine.

It is stated on page 617 of the seventeenth edition of Erskine May that Ministers cannot

"… be discharged with inconsistency for speaking and voting against a bill in the case of which they had recommended the signification of the royal consent or that placing of the interests of the Crown at the disposal of Parliament."

I hope, therefore, that my hon. Friend's remarks about the Bill being allowed to be debated will not be unduly contradicted if I say that I am bound to advise the House not to support the Second Reading. Judging by what my hon. Friend has made abundantly clear—certainly, in his speech when he sought leave to introduce the Bill in November and, I think, in this speech today, although, unfortunately, I had to miss a few minutes of it—he is aware of the full effects of the Bill, but perhaps it might be convenient if I make clear what they would be.

The Bill provides that all existing titles shall cease with the death of the present holders and that no new titles whatever shall be conferred. The effect of this would be to extinguish, but extinguish slowly, within a generation, the Second Chamber. During the period of this gradual extinction, it would become an increasingly small and increasingly senile Second Chamber, for not only would the Bill put an end to hereditary peerages, but also—and I am not sure where my hon. Friend stands on this—it would prevent the creation of any more life peerages.

As I say, the effect, therefore, would be to make a change of very great magnitude in our whole system of Parliamentary government. Whatever the views of right hon. and hon. Members on either side of the House may be about the hereditary principle, the Bill would undoubtedly go very far indeed beyond changing it.

I did explain that I am prepared to accept reasonable Amendments to the Bill provided that it goes to Committee. If the Government chose, in Committee, to move an Amendment to continue life peerages, I should have an open mind on the subject and would consider whether this was a reasonable Amendment that I could accept.

It would certainly be an Amendment that would go to the heart of the Bill. It would wholly change its content, because the Bill does not deal with hereditary titles alone. It specifically deals as well with the creation of new titles and would, therefore, have a very widespread constitutional and parliamentary effect. My hon. Friend himself said that he was not proposing the abolition of the hereditary monarchy on a Friday afternoon and it could be argued that one should certainly not make a change of the constitutional magnitude proposed in the Bill, or even contemplate it, upon a Friday afternoon, either.

A secondary effect of the Bill would be to lop the head off the present Honours List by prohibiting the granting of honours down to and including knighthoods. A more significant effect on the Second Chamber would be the gradual extinction not merely of the hereditary element, but of the Chamber itself as a whole in a long-drawn-out process, with an increasingly senile composition of that Chamber.

I am prepared to meet this point in Committee. I have thought about this. If the Government wish to make an Amendment that titles should be extinguished in five or 10 years, I would regard that as a reasonable Amendment.

I do not think that there would be much left of my hon. Friend's Bill if he accepted in Committee all the Amendments he says he is willing to accept.

While, clearly, views are held strongly in different parts of the House about the use and value of the hereditary principle, I must, so far as the membership of the House of Lords is concerned, advise the House not to give a Second Reading to a Bill whose effects would be very much wider and very much more far-reaching than contemplated.

Does the Home Secretary see a continuing need for the hereditary element in the House of Lords?

That was no part of my case. I was endeavouring to point out that the constitutional effects of the Bill would probably be more far-reaching than my hon. Friend's speech indicated.

I apologise to the hon. Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. Emrys Hughes) for not being here for all of his speech but I am sure, judging by his usual performances, that it was fascinating. The hon. Gentleman is surely the kindest revolutionary who has ever sat on any legislative bench in any country. I suppose that I must declare an interest, although I do not think that the Bill would actually apply to me for my title dies with me.

I do not think, therefore, that the hon. Gentleman is trying to deprive me of the small honour done to me. But he does want it to disappear and surely much more of a revolutionary attitude would have been to take me out to Tower Hill and get rid of me quickly and permanently. [HON. MEMBERS: "Do not give us any ideas."] Perhaps I should not put these ideas into the minds of hon. Members opposite, because someone else in the not very far distant future may bring in another Ten Minutes Rule Bill to apply to me only.

Although I understand the arguments of the hon. Member, I do not think that he carries the nation with him nearly as strongly as he thinks. Perhaps I may cite the case of my own honour. When Her Majesty was pleased to honour me with the order of knighthood, I had just come back from Australia. My wife said to me, "You are not going to accept it, are you?" I said, "Certainly." She replied, "In our house?"

My wife and I were considerably embarrassed by this title for a considerable time. I found that people one would have thought would have been hostile to it took to it far more quickly than we did personally. We have a maid who has been a friend of our family for 34 years. She was calling my wife "My Lady" within half an hour. For the next two years my wife was very embarrassed when anyone referred to her in that way. In the nation there are many people who like this system and it is certainly far the cheapest way of honouring a person ever invented. So I hope that the hon. Gentleman will realise that there is not a unanimous vote in the country that titles should be done away with.

The much more important question is that of the other place. There is, of course, a great deal of illogicality, in this day and age, in its situation. On the other hand, I think that history shows that people in that Chamber, because they are not at the mercy of the electorate, are very much more inclined to express views that many of us would like to express but are not prepared to express because we know they are contrary to the views of our own electorates.

Very often, new ideas and new thought on various social problems and international affairs get their first airing in the House of Lords because its members are not concerned with immediate political popularity. We are being unfair to the House of Lords if we do not acknowledge that. In that alone it carries out a far more important rôle than a great many of us in this House are prepared to give it. This arises from the fact that, as I have said, its members are not subjected to all the pressures that M.P.s, on whichever side of the House we sit, are subjected to. They can therefore take the unpopular line. They can take the long-term view. They can begin to mould the thinking of people to the acceptance of a change in social or foreign policy—

I am not questioning the ability of these people at debating, but does the hon. Member say that they should have the power to override decisions of the House of Commons?

If the hon. Member will allow me I shall refer to that point shortly.

There is no argument about the fact that the Upper House carries out a valuable rôle, in that it is an independent forum not subject to the pressures to which Members of the House are subject in their day-to-day activities with their constituencies.

Should the other place have power to override decisions taken by this House? Since the threat of Asquith to appoint 500 or 600 peers and, as a result of the Parliament Act, reduce the powers of the House of Lords, which were further reduced by the Attlee Government, the delaying powers of the House of Lords have been very limited. Should they ever use those delaying powers? In my opinion they should, but on very rare occasions.

Nobody can say this with complete assurance, but it may be that because of certain pressures which have grown up a Government, for some time after an election, will do things for which they have no mandate and which are contrary to the constitutional development of our society. The other Chamber must view a decision to vote against or delay a Government Bill almost as a death sentence upon itself. In my opinion, however, if the situation to which I have referred should arise, it would be the bounden duty of Members in the other place to seek to delay a Government Bill, even if they knew that it might mean the end of their existence as an independent Chamber—simply because they are the one authority which can delay action taken by this elected Chamber which, at the time it is taken, may be contrary to the overwhelming opinion of the nation and for which the Government of the day have not the title of a mandate from the electorate as a result of a prior election.

Is the hon. Member arguing that these necessary qualities of the persons occupying the Upper Chamber must always be derived from hereditary rather than other qualifications?

On the same point, can the hon. Member think of a single other society or country which still has a partly hereditary Legislature? Is it not true that every new State in Africa regards this as a system too primitive to be allowed to continue?

I know that it is difficult in logic to argue against the case that is put up, but this country has never been very logical. I am convinced that our present House of Lords, with all its illogicalities and in spite of all the arguments put forward by its opponents, serves a more useful purpose than most other second Chambers which are, by their nature, not as independent as our House of Lords.

In Australia or in the African countries, wherever there are bicameral legislatures, the Senate or Upper House is in some form elected. Because it is elected it is subject to the same pressures as those to which Members of this House are subject. The only Chamber that is not so subject is the other place at the end of the passage. Its illogicality may be its greatest virtue. If it were done away with, and we had an Upper House or Senate appointed, perhaps, by corporations or by some other means at indirect elections, the fact that Members were appointed by county and county borough councils, and so on, would mean that they would be in the political stream and therefore subject, to a greater or lesser degree, to the same pressures and difficulties as we are.

Does not this criticism extend to the Senate of the United States?

To a degree, although the American system—which is contrary to most second Chambers, with its partly elected representation on a six-year basis, with a third of its members having to stand again for election after two years—tries to do what our Upper House does, namely, to remove the pressures that I have talked about from individual senators. But even in America, in any given four-year or six-year period, the Lower House and the Senate are subject to the same harsh political realities as those to which we are subject.

It is far more difficult for the Senate of the United States to begin to evolve, to express and talk about new social or foreign affairs policies, because they are still suffering from the harsh crunch of elections. It is difficult for them to be objective.

Our Upper House is the one Chamber in the world where a person can say, "I am going to state my honest opinion, with no feeling that I have to trim my wings to the political climate of the day". I know that the hon. Member for South Ayrshire does it very ably in this House, and I am not saying that every Member is subject to these pressures. There are always some great independents. The hon. Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. Sydney Silverman) will also speak his mind, whatever the climate of the day. But the great bulk of the thinking of an elected Chamber is conditioned—to a far greater extent than any of us would privately admit—by the pressures of the existing political climate.

Is the hon. Member advancing the argument that the only people with this privilege should be life peers and hereditary peers? Would not he do better to argue that we want a better selection of ordinary people?

I am dealing with the Bill, which is deliberately designed to get rid of the other place in a very short time. I do not blame the hon. Member for doing so, but that is the intention. I am not arguing whether, under a different system, another piece of machinery could be produced with the same virtues and the same vices. I am saying that the effect of the Bill would be, over a matter of a very few years, to remove the second Chamber which, when it comes to expressing personal views, is probably the most independent in the world.

I understand that the hon. Member's argument is that we should not accept the Bill because in its present form the House of Lords has an independence which gives it its uniqueness and importance. How does that independence arise when there is a Conservative Government and an overwhelming majority in the House of Lords?

Does the hon. Gentleman honestly believe that the Conservative Party have any control over 90 per cent. of the so-called Conservative peers in the House of Commons, over whom we have not one iota of sanction?

But is it not a fact that the Conservative peers have great influence over the Conservative Members of the House of Commons?

I have been a Member of the House for a good number of years and during the whole of that time I do not think that I have ever been spoken to by a so-called Conservative peer seeking to influence my view on a particular subject. If I went on to the red-carpeted part of the premises I should very quickly get lost. I know my way about the green-carpeted part of the premises. I am certainly not in the pocket of any form of noble Lord. I am sure that anybody who understands the Conservative Party will realise that, with the exception of perhaps 20 peers who run the machine, who are there to answer Questions or to put Questions, the Conservative Party do not stand in a close party relationship with so-called Conservative peers. An hon. Member suggests that this is the magic circle. I refer not to a magic circle. I refer to the 20 or so wheel horses of politics who are there to make speeechs and to reply, for example, to Second Reading debates. Those people may have what I would call some connection with the Conservative Party machine. The remaining 100 attending the Upper House who are so-called Conservatives are as independent as anyone who sits on the cross-benches, and when a debate starts we have no idea whether they will support the Conservative Party line or oppose it. They are entirely independent, and that, I believe, is the virtue of the Upper Chamber. If they think that the Conservative line is wrong, then probably half-a-dozen of them will rise and say so.

rose—

I would rather not give way again. I have given way quite often and prefer not to do so again unless the hon. Member wants to encourage me to speak until 4 p.m., which certainly I do not wish to do, as many other hon. Members wish to take part in the debate.

I see that the hon. Member for South Ayrshire has left the Chamber. At least I have had a tactical victory in driving him from the Chamber. Perhaps he has gone to find out what is going on in the other place so that he can return with his arguments buttressed.

This is not a Bill which a private Member should try to get through the House. It deals with a great constitutional problem. There are views on all sides of the House which perhaps would not discourage change, but this is not the way to deal with it, by an hon. Member such as the hon. Member for South Ayrshire bringing in a Bill on a Friday afternoon. I was pleased to hear the Home Secretary say that the Government could not give the Bill any support or recommend that we should accept it. Indeed, if we gave the Bill a Second Reading we should be a very foolish House of Commons and would show that we needed a second Chamber to control us.

I am always interested in the remarks of the hon. Member for Ormskirk (Sir D. Glover), but he tends to mistake where the real innovating Chamber happens to be in this Palace. It is not in the House of Lords. It is in the Smoking Room. On many occasions we have participated together as friends and not as honourable enemies in this process of innovating thoughts which we hope will eventually percolate to this Chamber. I am glad to see that he agrees with me.

The hon. Member's speech was an eloquent defence of the Upper Chamber as it now is, with all its illogicalities. But that has nothing to do with the Bill. This is a very modest Bill, with a very modest aim, and it was moved by my hon. Friend the Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. Emrys Hughes) in unusually moderate terms. If my hon. Friend made the same kind of moderate speech in defence debates, some of us would be very happy. There was not the faintest suggestion in the Bill of a guillotine, either in terms of legislative procedure, or in terms of the system used in France, to liquidate certain sections of the aristocracy. My hon. Friend made a very humane and moderate speech in support of a very limited and very moderate Bill.

One mellows in one's attitude towards the Upper Chamber with years in this Chamber. I have developed a considerable affection for the other place. It is the only place in this Palace where I can attend a Communist meeting, as I did recently, when the main speaker was Mr. Kosygin. I thoroughly enjoyed the speech and I thoroughly enjoyed the meeting. Since I understand that the only Communist in the building is a member of the Upper House, that is the only place where one is likely to listen to Communist speeches, and since the only speeches to which I listen with more than the slightest degree of interest are those with which I violently disagree, I should hate to be deprived of this limited privilege.

I was also present in the House of Lords when their Lordships were discussing a Bill which dealt with fisheries. I listened for three hours to a series of highly instructive discourses on the mating habits of salmon. I have never before received so much education in so brief a space of time, and so beautifully delivered.

Whatever its legislative significance, there is something about the Upper House which charms us all. If we could export this charm in some way, we should break export records, because, as is well known, and as those who travel in Eastern Europe will confirm, nobody loves a peer so much as does a Communist in Eastern Europe. This has been proved time and time again. I have no hostility whatever to the Upper House, nor do I have any conscious feeling of detestation for the Members of the Upper House. I am on friendly drinking terms with very many of them—because they tend to come to the plebeian end of the Palace, because I think that the beer is rather cheaper here. I therefore have no animosity whatever towards the aristocracy as it now is, towards the Upper House as it now functions, or towards the precise braking powers which the Upper House now enjoys.

Like my hon. Friend, I wish that they were exercised by 500 ex-miners—and since there are so many pit closures, this might be a solution to the redundancy problem—instead of by 500 of the sort of people who exercise them now.

But would not this create a long fight with the Transport and General Workers' Union?

It is one of the glories of politics that the unions are now fighting. If they fought each other through this Chamber, this might add a piquancy to our proceedings and enliven our otherwise dull poltical life. The only life in politics at the moment is contributed by the internecine warfare on these benches. I speak more as a journalist than as an hon. Member.

I would remind my hon. Friend that I have been praising his studied moderation and this very limited Bill. I wish to add one word about the aristocracy, for which I have considerable affection. Every week I have an appointment, with millions of other television viewers, with Clarence, 9th Earl of Emsworth, who is fond of pigs and dedicatedly opposed to British entry of the Common Market. I have sympathy and admiration for him. If all aristocrats were like that, I would promote a Private Member's Bill to increase their privileges and even their emoluments.

But they are not, and I must dismiss from the argument my sentimental affection for the House of Lords and my interest in the rather esoteric debates which take place in that Chamber, where one may learn about things which had never been heard about before.

The point of the Bill is that the hereditary principle must go. It has already been abandoned in practice by successive Conservative leaders, as my hon. Friend pointed out, and has no relevance in any significant sphere of our national life. The Chairman of I.C.I, does not pass on that position to his son. The Chairman of the National Coal Board, I hope and trust, will not pass on that position to his son—

Does that principle apply also to Lord Melchett?

There is a strain running through the discussion which might be applied to Lord Melchett and others, but I would not like to pursue that, because it might put me in a position of antagonism with my hon. Friend, and I am determined to be friendly to him, at least this afternoon, and support this limited Bill.

The hereditary principle applies nowhere else. We no longer inherit our seats, although some people might think, looking at me, that I inherited mine. We no longer accept that the tenth transmitter of a foolish face should have the rights and privileges which once accrued to the originator of that face. The Bill is merely trying to remove an obsolete principle from our national life which does not apply anywhere that effective decisions are made or the effective life of the nation is carried on.

My hon. Friend will be surprised at some of my remarks, because he possibly never knew that I believed that he was essentially a moderate at heart. With his characteristic moderation, he has said that he wants to be a humane killer. He does not wish to liquidate existing aristocrats, but only to let them die off painlessly and let the hereditary aristocracy erode. If my hon. Friend is a revolutionary, he is the most humane one since the well-known French revolutionary who used to sign the warrants for the guillotine but could not bear to be present when the executions were carried out, because he could not stand the sight of blood.

My hon. Friend is a very humane man. He is trying to bring the Upper House—this mausoleum, this museum, this place for which I have considerable affection and which I visit in much the same way as I do the Victoria and Albert Museum—to the state in which its legislative functions shall not be encumbered any longer by people whose right to sit in that place derives only from the exploits and feats, military or sexual, of their ancestors, male or female. This is a very modest demand and a modest Bill and I shall have pleasure in voting for it if I am enabled to do so.

The House will be grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Ilkeston (Mr. Raymond Fletcher) for drawing our attention back to the purpose of the Bill, which is to abolish certain titles, rather than to reform the other place. The spirited opposition of the hon. Member for Ormskirk (Sir D. Glover) on behalf of that varying body really related to the powers of another place rather than to the Bill's purposes. Although the House of Commons is a strange place, I never thought that, in the absence of a Conservative Opposition—when even the Tory whips have to be brought in to speak for their rights—a Labour Member of Parliament would have to defend the aristocracy.

Although they have very little ancient families—they have their 14th Earl; we have our 14th Wilson—and can trace them back over centuries, perhaps they wish that they could not. We, who cannot trace our families back as far as we might, wish that we could.

Yet I oppose the Bill, although it has certain attractions to us egalitarians on both sides of the House. I cannot speak for the Liberals, because none is present. At least the Bill has brevity and clarity and the support of the Scots, the Welsh and the English—not the Irish, unfortunately, but perhaps my hon. Friend could tell us at some stage whether it will apply to the six counties of Ulster.

The Bill's intentions may be admirable. As my hon. Friend said when he introduced it on 2nd November:

"It would do no injustice or cruelty to the holder of any title, but would provide that the title shall cease with the death of the holder."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 2nd November, 1966; Vol. 734, c. 467.]

He described it as "a kind Bill." He had a terrific write-up in The Guardian on 3rd November, which, under the heading "Mr. Hughes' first-rate script ", said:

"It was one of the jolliest moments of the session when Mr. Emrys Hughes was given permission yesterday to introduce his Titles (Abolition) Bill into the Commons. There was not a single opposing voice.

This ought to have struck a chill into the hearts of those who really believe in the abolition of titles, or at least want to encourage the Prime Minister to push his reforms further than he has shown much sign of doing yet. For the merriment and unanimity between them guaranteed that Mr. Hughes' aims have about as much chance of being achieved as an act at the Palladium has of becoming an Act of Parliament. … There was little republican passion in his voice when he explained how reluctant he was to bow before the … descendants of kings and how many members of the House of Lords were descended from notable … gangsters … Next time the Emrys Hughes Show comes on the Westminster channel, he should play it dead straight. That would shake them."

It would also ensure that the benches opposite were full, and there would be no chance of the Bill getting a Second Reading.

This issue has not been restricted to hon. Members. The correspondence columns of The Times on 10th and 11th of this month carried letters from someone very close to the House, the wife of the Clerk of the House. I have spoken to the learned gentleman and he has said that he has no objection to my quoting these letters, they will not embarrass him. On 10th March in a letter entitled. "Call Me Mister", Lady Cocks wrote:

"I wonder whether your brave new newspaper would agree with me that the time has now come to drop the use of ' esquire' "—

We all receive letters addressing us as "Esquire" or "Mr.". Nobody seems to know the correct way to address us. The writer stated:

"It has never been easy to decide whether the man you are addressing is a gentleman by birth, occupation or education, and I notice that both the Inland Revenue or the Electricity Boards take the kindly view that all their clients fulfil the conditions of an esquire. Would not "mister" do just as well?"

That letter was taken up the following day by a correspondent who wrote:

"Lady Cocks suggests … that the time is now ripe to drop the use of esquire. How splendid if she would now abandon her title, and we could both call ourselves Mrs."

That letter was from a Mrs. Macdonald of Poole in Dorset. She would not, I think, be satisfied with the terms of this Bill, because the title of the Clerk of the House is an earned title and not an hereditary one. I have no doubt that the wife of the Clerk played as much part in earning the title for her husband as anyone else—and earned titles are not included in the Bill.

Further, the Bill would not achieve the aims of my hon. Friend the Member for South Ayrshire. One cannot legislate to control the very human folly—or should I say "frailty"—of snobbery. We are a nation of snobs, but not the only one. As is often said, "Everybody loves a Lord". The noble Lord, Lord Arran, is particularly popular on television and in the Evening News. There is a certain mystique, an attraction, about Lords and there is certainly a commercial value in their titles.

Titles have been of ancient interest to our people, as Dryden wrote a long time ago:

"A successive title, long and dark, drawn from the mould rolls of Noah's Ark".

And Congreve stated:

"… fellows that the flood could not wash away ".

In Act II of "Ruddigore" we hear:

"Oh a baronet's rank is exceedingly nice. But the title's exceedingly dear at the price ".

Snobbery is not confined to these islands, for Goldsmith, speaking of Continental customs, complained:

"Such is their passion for a long list of splendid titles that I have known a German Prince with more titles than subjects and a Spanish nobleman with more names than shirts ".

When continental monarchies have been replaced by republics, titles have endured We still have a recollection here of the French Revolution, and perhaps a little of it washed off on to our shores. We hear talk of the Comte de Paris and the Due D'orleans. We have an alliance between members or nationals of the Polish Communist Republic and of the Republic of the United States of America. The newspapers and gossip columns refer to Princess Radziwill.

Italian monarchies go and are replaced by Italian republics. But we have the gossip columns written by one of the best known name-droppers in the business, a lady who describes herself as "Jennifer's Diary" in Queen and who, in a busy day, tells her readers:

"Arrived back to find my hostess waiting for some Italians, friends of friends, cruising on the Italian ship Rafaello, who had been told to look her up. Shortly afterwards the Marchese Alessandro di Montezemolo arrived with the Duchesse Marine Lante della Rovere and another Italian friend, and we all drove out to Lyford Cay where we met the Marchese's two brothers the Marchese Vittorio Corinna di Montezemolo who is Italian Consul General in New York and his wife—they were also on the cruise—and their youngest brother the Marchese Cesare di Montezemolo who was staying in Nassau …".

That was said of a republic, but the titles still remain. What can we do about it, remembering that we have The Times Court Circular and the Sunday Express gossip columns telling of the adventures of various titled personages?

I have given enough information to suggest that a change from a monarchy to a republic does not mean the abolition of titles. Nor would the passage of this Bill. Should we follow the German system under which people are called "Herr Doktor", "Herr Professor", or "Herr Engineer"? But they are earned titles and would not come within the scope of the Bill.

This leads me to a suggestion which may be of assistance to my hon. Friend the Member for South Ayrshire. Should we have a "new creation", not a new Genesis, as Asquith once threatened, and have titles for all? I do not believe that there would be too many administrative difficulties. We already have an electoral register and a College of Arms and Heralds which would provide sufficient information so that anybody asking for a title could have their applications thoroughly considered without debasing the coinage, because I am opposed to devaluation. As Robby Burns said:

"The title is only the stamp on the coin. The man is the gold".

I therefore put forward a proposal which I have derived from an impeccable source, "The Complete Guide to Heraldry" by A. C. Fox-Davies, a Welshman, and this suggestion might commend itself to my hon. Friend the Member for South Ayrshire. On page XI of that document, attention is drawn to the fact that in England nobody is compelled to bear arms—although that does not refer to conscription but to heraldic arms. It states:

"But our desire to do so until the end of 1944 required a payment of one or two guineas annually, according to the method of usuage, and from this source the yearly revenue exceeded £70,000."

This provides us with the germ of an idea. From this impeccable source perhaps we could develop the practice of not abolishing titles but of taxing them. Let us licence them, like making sure that people have television and other licences.

Dog licences?

In a similar way.

I am informed by the Library that we have four peers of the blood Royal. It would, I suggest, be reasonable to exclude the holders of those offices. We have two archbishops, and it would be reasonable to exclude them as well. We have 25 dukes. I suggest that we charge them an annual licence fee of £1,000 each, which would bring in £25,000. As we have 30 marquesses we could perhaps charge them £750 each, which would bring in £22,500. The 164 earls and countesses, coming down the scale, could be charged an annual licence fee of £600, which would bring in £98,400. The 110 viscounts could pay £500 each, which would produce £55,000.

Is not my hon. Friend confusing my Bill with the National Sweepstakes Bill which will shortly be coming before the House?

I have noticed that the proposer of that Bill is in his place on the benches opposite, and has been showing considerable interest in this discussion. Perhaps there is a possibility of linking the two Measures.

We have 24 bishops, but perhaps they have a right to exemption. Of the 678 barons and baronesses, 124 are life peers—and have, therefore, earned their titles—leaving 554 whom we could charge £400 each, which would give us £221,600.

In addition, there are about 1,000 baronets and we could perhaps charge them £250 each, which would provide £250,000. This would give us a grand total of £672,500. One must, I suppose, make provision to allow some of them to contract out—this is a democracy, after all—but we would be left with an annual grand total of about £½ million.

My hon. Friend would not get anybody from Scotland.

I am trying to assist my hon. Friend. It is for Scottish hon. Members to consider that point. I am merely saying that we could, by this means, obtain valuable additional revenue, particularly from companies who use titled personages to adorn their boards of directors. It might be difficult, however, to persuade newspapers and magazines to refrain from title-dropping, but perhaps we could issue D notices to cover that eventuality.

There are other proposals which my hon. Friend the Member for South Ayrshire might care to consider in Committee, if his Bill gets that far. I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for indicating why he tendered certain advice to Her Majesty and I am grateful to Her Majesty for having accepted that advice. As Oscar Wilde wrote:

"You should study the peerage, Gerald! It's the best thing in fiction the English have ever done."

The hon. Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. Emrys Hughes) moved the Second Reading of his Bill in very interesting and amusing terms, but he was to a serious degree confused. He did not appreciate that the full consequence of the Bill would not only be to abolish hereditary titles, but to deprive the Prime Minister of the power to appoint members of the present Administration to life peerages; and that could be an unfortunate drawback for the Prime Minister.

The Bill attacks not only the hereditary system, but the system of life peerages and the bestowal of other titles that are limited to the life time of the recipient. I thought that the first leg of that attack was very ably met by the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Mr. Ogden), and also the argument on that score was effectively answered by the Home Secretary, who said, in effect, that he could not contemplate the damage that would be done to the other place if the Bill's intention were carried out. I am, therefore, content to leave the defence of the hereditary system to the Home Secretary and to the hon. Member.

I want to defend on merit titles awarded for life. The hon. Member for South Ayrshire said there was no system of tities in the United States of America. That is true, but when one looks at the American social structure there is no doubt that social distinction is based chiefly on wealth, and that has certain unpleasant features which, to some extent, we avoid here. In any event, the American system is not as interesting as ours, and it does not provide as much copy for the gossip writers.

When the hon. Gentleman said that there was no system of titles in the U.S.S.R., he displayed the great misunderstanding there is among some hon. Members opposite about the Russian system. The Soviet Union has a tremendous pay incentive system, and makes great distinction between people according to rank and status. Furthermore, there is a great use of titles. The title of "Hero of the Soviet Union" is a great distinction, and is much prized. In very recent years the Russians have recognised the quality of their spacemen with the title "Astronaut", which, again, is highly prized and a tremendous distinction—

But these honours in the U.S.S.R. are not hereditary. The cosmonaut's daughter or son does not inherit the title.

I accept that, but at the outset I tried to make it clear that I was leaving to the Home Secretary and to the hon. Member for West Derby the defence of the hereditary system, and reserving to myself the right to defend on merit our system of awarding life titles and other recognition to operate only during the life time of the recipient.

That being so, I was saying that there is a system of awarding titles in the Soviet Union which recognises virtue, Titles are of great value, and society is tremendously benefited by being able to recognise merit and to reward it. I emphasise that human nature—

My Bill does not affect the award of the O.B.E. or the B.E.M. or the M.B.E.—or the A.B.C.—or any of these suffixes at all.

I am well aware of that. Nor does it affect the C.D.M., which is awarded by Cadbury's. But the Bill would prejudicially affect the bestowal of titles for life and, as the Home Secretary explained, it would prejudicially affect the Prime Minister's right to make awards down to knighthood, and that would include the award of a life peerage.

I am seeking to defend the system of awarding life peerages and knighthoods, which are limited to the lifetime of the recipient, on the basis that human nature requires some effective recognition of the virtue of those thousands of worthy people who have done tremendous work and performed public and other services of great value, often to the detriment of their own private lives. That these services should be effectively recognised, is a very necessary requirement inside society, and it is part of a system which I suggest this Bill would destroy.

I remember that in the City of Birmingham there was an alderman named Albert Bradbeer, a well-known Socialist leader, now deceased. As might be expected, I disagreed with him very strongly on items of policy, but I was extremely glad when, a few years ago, he was awarded a knighthood, because it was a well-deserved recognition of the tremendous public service that he had given to the city. Such recognition is extremely necessary inside society.

I suggest that the Bill is a good old-fashioned joke that we have all enjoyed. It has enabled hon Members opposite to parade some of their prejudices. A therapeutic benefit comes from this Bill, because by enabing them to parade those prejudices it has made hon. Gentlemen better able to accept the serious differences which exist between them on things that really matter.

I have a great deal of sympathy and regard for the purposes behind the Bill. My hon. Friend the Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. Emrys Hughes) is a lovable character—and perhaps he is also slightly mischievous—but he will recognise that were his Bill to reach the Committee stage the Opposition's indignation over steel nationalisation would be as nothing in comparison.

The Opposition are a party of patronage and privilege. Their love of titles and the hereditary principle is deep seated. I had a most dramatic illustration of this not so many years ago at a county function which was visited by the present Leader of Her Majesty's Opposition. I was sitting, quite properly, in the hall where the function was being held when, suddenly, many ladies and gentlemen rose in deep respect. I thought we were having a visitation of the Almighty but, in fact, it was the then Chief Whip and Patronage Secretary of the Conservative Government.

My hon. Friend must recognise that, although it will take time to go, the hereditary principle is on the way out. There has been change already. The Prime Minister's attitude is to create life peerages and titles, but to abandon the hereditary principle. There is slight evidence that the granting of these life peerages is based on service to the community, and here lies the main point of the Bill. What my hon. Friend and many others want is a Second Chamber representative of a cross-section of the community, each member having been put there for his or her services to the community, and for no political or other reason at all. That is a point of view which we could all express.

I do not see that the passing of the Bill would create a constitutional crisis. I do not agree with the Home Secretary that the constitutional situation would be serious. Surely, if the Bill were carried into effect, the obvious thing to do would be to create a large number of life peerages for people outside this Chamber and from all kinds of public life. There is no serious obstacle, but we should not rush this too much.

I would have preferred my hon. Friend to have devoted his attention to the titles which we grant each other in this Chamber. Take the position about hon. and gallant Members. They have earned that title by tradition because they have held Her Majesty's, or His Majesty's commission in the past. An hon. Member who has served in the ranks is not entitled to that title. This is one of the most stupid anomalies. Many hon. and gallant Members have given really gallant service to their country, so please do not misunderstand me. An hon. Member might have had the position of a supplies officer and done well out of the process. A man who served in the front line, might have had the V.C. He could come to this Chamber and not be entitled to be called "hon. and gallant".

Is it not equally absurd automatically to assume that a Queen's Counsel is learned, as we do in this House?

Order. This digression is outside the scope of the present Bill.

I rather gathered that you might say that, Mr. Speaker, but it must be admitted that there is a temptation, when we are trying to set another House in order, to try to set our own House in order at the same time. We are having a useful discussion in spite of the fact that it is tempting to be a little facetious on this issue.

We need a second Chamber and to abolish it would be disastrous in the present constitutional set-up. I would be the first to admit that on many issues another place has set an example to this Chamber. But the fact remains that it is completely unbalanced in its membership and we need a leavening of opinion from outside more representative of the modern age and those whom we represent.

Mention has been made of the United States of America. There is an excellent example of a second Chamber in Canada, which I had the privilege to visit only recently. That Chamber is composed entirely of Members elected for life. All of them have rendered good service and the Chamber works quite well. Here we have the rather ridiculous situation that when there is a challenge—it may be conceivable that this would happen when this Bill got to another place—that on some issues the battalions arrive and the national Press makes a mockery of the Second Chamber.

Because someone intervened in my speech, I did not make clear the difference about the Senate in the United States. The difference is that the Senate has almost as much power as the Lower House. We need to be careful, because no one advocates that in this country.

I agree. The Senate in the United States is an elected body. I think that would be the most democratic solution to our problems, but we have many traditions dating from the past and we are slow to change. An elected second Chamber is the alternative. I would extend that to local government and the appointment of aldermen. I shall not continue on that line, because I would be ruled out of order.

My hon. Friend the Member for South Ayrshire has done a useful service in bringing his Bill before the House so that we may discuss an issue which is of great importance in this modern age. I hope that we shall continue the debate on the lines that it has followed so far. It may be that the Bill will or will not be given a Second Reading, but something useful will have been done.

Many sinister reasons or motives have been read into the innocent little Bill which has been introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. Emrys Hughes). It is a modest Bill, a molehill of a Bill, but a number of hon. Members have made a mountain of it.

It is quite clear, as my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich, North (Mr. Wallace) pointed out, that the hereditary principle is on the way out. That is a fact we have to accept. The present Prime Minister has made it almost an act of Government policy to ensure that the hereditary principle shall not be extended or buttressed so far as he has any say in the matter. It cannot be right that legislative functions should fall into the lap of certain persons simply because they are the sons of their fathers. All that this Bill seeks to do is to abolish hereditary titles.

There is a little error in drafting which I am sure my hon. Friend will be able to correct in Committee. That would satisfy almost all the niggling doubts which have been expressed today. All that needs to be done is to insert the word "hereditary" between "bestow" and "titles", in line 8. Then the Bill would say that Her Majesty shall not

"bestow hereditary titles as from the passing of this Act".

Probably that would meet the objections, particularly if, as my hon. Friend said, should the worst come to the worst he is quite prepared to put forward the names of 500 persons in his constituency who would make very good life peers in order to keep another place going. If people are distressed by the thought that the other place would disappear, we can always fall back on the very generous offer made by my hon. Friend.

I am quite prepared to consider that very reasonable compromise.

In those circumstances, it seems that the last serious objection to the Bill disappears. I wish that the Home Secretary were here to listen to this little exchange. He conjured up a picture of the House of Lords becoming more and more senile and disappearing in due course, or in the course of a generation. All that we seek to do—this is why I have added my name to the names of supporters of the Bill—is to abolish hereditary titles. Consider how many old titles were originally conferred for the most dubious reasons by King Charles II to various people whose successors still decorate the British aristocracy, and all the peerages conferred at the time of the Coalition Government, 1918, by the then Prime Minister, Mr. Lloyd George, also for very dubious reasons. Some of them or their sons still have a real title to participate in the legislation which this House seeks to put on the Statute Book.

For all these reasons, I hope that the Bill will be accepted. It is not purely a joke, although one or two humorous remarks have been made in the debate. We are not seeking to abolish the House of Lords, nor are we seeking to abolish the Second chamber, nor are we seeking to abolish the monarchy. Without seeking to do any of those things the thought of which so terrifies some hon. Members, all we seek to do is to abolish the hereditary principle. Then, if it is thought desirable to continue the House of Lords, there are still quite a number of good citizens worthy of being made life peers who would more than adequately take the place of those whose titles would be extinguished on the death of their present holders.

I apologise to the hon. Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. Emrys Hughes) for not being present at the beginning of the debate and hearing his speech. I very much wish that I had been able to hear it, because I am sure that he made out a reasonable and sensible case for the Bill.

However, merely to remove the hereditary principle, a course of action on which both sides of the House agree, would not be a sufficient method of reforming the House of Lords as it is constituted at present. If there were nothing but life peerages, that would be a dangerous power to put in the hands of any Government.

Before the hon. Gentleman develops his argument any further, perhaps he would like to know that the Home Secretary defended the hereditary principle as being necessary to continue the other place in its present form.

There are difficulties on both sides. If the hereditary principle is continued as it is now, there is a permanent built-in Conservative majority in the other place which could in certain circumstances frustrate important Government legislation. There is no need to go back far for an example. In 1909, when the Budget introduced by Mr. Lloyd George was frustrated for many years in the other place, it was almost necessary for Mr. Asquith, the then Prime Minister, to create large numbers of new peerages to ensure that the will of the elected House was supreme. The appendix to the Home Secretary's life of Asquith shows that the then Prime Minister had ready about 250 names of persons who would have been appointed as peers by His then Majesty to ensure that the will of the elected Chamber was carried through in another place.

I volunteered to bring 500 miners from South Ayrshire who would undertake to fulfil this rôle.

I gathered from listening to the hon. Member for Brixton (Mr. Lipton) that the hon. Gentleman had made that useful suggestion. There are two difficulties here. If things are left as they are, with the hereditary principle in force, there is a permanent built in majority in another place which could frustrate the will of a radical Government. We have seen only recently how the other place was on the point of rejecting an important piece of legislation—the London Government Bill—but fortunately the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, thought better and decided that he would not recommend his colleagues in another place to use their power on that occasion.

There may come a time when an important piece of legislation cannot go through because such power is exercised. It may be like a bee's sting, which is used only once and which then results in the death of the bee. I believe that if the other place ever decided to use these powers it would force the Government into taking some action to limit the other place to amendment on one occasion and not to delay a Bill by as much as a year, which I understand is the case at present.

Going to the other extreme, if there were nothing but life peers there would be the equal objection that a very powerful patronage was placed in the hands of the Government of the day. I do not think that any of us would wish to see that either. [Laughter.] The hon. Member for South Ayrshire may laugh, but he is sometimes as much against the Government as I am. I should have thought that this argument would appeal to him.

The hon. Gentleman has not heard my case for the Bill. I argued it on entirely different lines. I do not want a House of life peers either.

The hon. Gentleman says in his Bill only that he wants to abolish

"All titles bestowed by Her Majesty."

Now he qualifies that by saying that he wants only to abolish the hereditary ones and that, if this creates some difficulty in manning another place, he is willing to nominate some of his constituents who would be willing to come and do the job.

To finish the job.

I wonder whether the Prime Minister would be prepared to accept the hon. Gentleman's suggestion in regard to these 500 people. I am somewhat dubious about whether the Prime Minister would take the hon. Gentleman's advice. In any case, there is the point, which I make quite seriously, that a Government could create large numbers of life peers and use this as a powerful instrument of patronage. They would not all be the hon. Gentleman's constituents, who would no doubt be extremely good at the job. I do not think that we could pass a Bill of this kind in its present form. We need to give more careful consideration to the future of the other place as a whole.

The hon. Gentleman has got it wrong. I argued, as the hon. Gentleman has argued, about Mr. Asquith's going to the King and saying that if the House of Lords did not come to heel he would create 200 peers. I argued that in an emergency, with the House of Lords going contrary to the House of Commons I was prepared to get 500 miners down to do the job, not to continue as life peers.

Order. The hon. Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. Emrys Hughes) cannot now recapitulate a speech which the hon. Member for Orpington (Mr. Lubbock) did not hear.

Mr. Asquith was thinking of using those powers in an emergency. I do not think that the hon. Gentleman would seriously suggest, as a permanent solution to the problem of the relationships between this House and another place, that in any case where the other place might disagree with us the hon. Gentleman's several hundred miners might be brought forward to ensure that the right solution was achieved. Surely that is not what the hon. Gentleman is suggesting.

I recommend to the hon. Gentleman that the other place should be partly elected. If the Bill had contained such a provision, I should have viewed it with greater favour than I do. Although it is satisfactory to have a number of peers nominated by the Prime Minister or by the Government of the day, there should be a greater element of democracy in the other place, which I fail to see provided for in the Bill.

I do not have any rigid ideas as to how this should be carried out, but I feel that regional representation is an important element which might be brought into a reformed second Chamber. There should be a second Chamber which re- flects accurately the views of people in, say, the West Country. After the Honiton by-election result today, I feel that the views of the West Country have not been adequately represented so far, as is betokened by the large increase in the Liberal vote, about which I am delighted. If we had such representation in the other place of Welsh, Scottish, West Country and Northern opinions, the other place could be a very valuable adjunct to the House of Commons.

The hon. Gentleman failed to mention East Anglia, which is very important.

The hon. Gentleman is supporting my case that here in this House perhaps we do not give adequate attention sometimes to regional problems. If the other place could be reformed in such a way as to give a powerful voice to these regions, it could perform a very useful function indeed. However, I do not see that this can be done entirely by means of nominated life peers. Life peers hitherto have not been nominated by the Government for the views which they have expressed on the regions. This is done by means of recommendations by the parties.

In my experience, at any rate, looking at the composition of another place, the parties do not take into consideration the views that I have just put forward as being of very great importance. It is necessary in any reform of another place to make provision for a substantial number of elected Members, and unless we do that we are merely tinkering with the problem by introducing a Bill to abolish titles.

I can see great sense in the hon. Gentleman's case that a person should not be entitled to legislate merely because his father happened to be given a title, or because one of his remote ancestors was given a title for dubious reasons by King Charles II, as the hon. Member for Brixton said. But it is important, in sweeping away this antiquated provision in our constitution, that we do not get into even greater difficulties through having an entirely nominated second chamber. If the hon. Gentleman would take his Bill away and redraft it to incorporate the sort of provisions that I have mentioned, I shall be delighted to support him on a future occasion.

This debate was begun on 2nd December last. In the one minute before four o'clock on 2nd December, I was moving the Second Reading of this Bill and I was able to say a few words—actually, I counted 163 words—in commending the Bill to the House before I was beaten by the clock at 4 o'clock. If today I repeat any one of those 163 words which I managed to get in on that occasion I trust that the repetitions will be in order and that I shall not be tedious.

The purpose of the Bill—indeed, it is a purpose which is supported, as proved by a Gallup poll, by eight people out of 10 in the country—is to legalise national sweepstakes in order to provide funds for pioneering work in hospitals and also for medical and surgical research work in general. By research work I do not mean only the medical genius who is tucked away in the laboratory of a teaching hospital but I include the clinical experiments, the design of wards and theatres in hospitals, the new attitudes of and towards the nursing services, the streamlining of hospital administration and so on—all those new ideas which at present do not get the chance to be put into operation in hospital administration because of the lack of funds.

On research work in general the Government have been spending the totally inadequate sum of £11 million a year. Some months ago I trailed my coat with regard to the amount of money which might be raised by national sweepstakes. I said publicly that a National Sweepstake Act authorising national sweepstakes in this country could add some £30 million to £50 million per annum to the £11 million spent at the present time on research work. I was rebuked by the managing director of Ladbrokes. He ought to know. He said that I was pitching it too high. But, he said, if a national sweepstake "caught on", Britain's hospitals could hardly get less than £20 million a year. What could hospitals not do with £20 million a year on research work? Of course, it would catch on. There is no doubt about that. I will settle for £20 million for the hospitals, which would mean that the sweepstake itself would be raising funds of about £50 million a year. This is not at all an impossible figure.

The committee set up by the churches estimated that at the present time we put something like £1,000 million a year into non-charitable gambling. It may even be double that figure, because the Chancellor of the Exchequer has found that he is gaining a lot more from betting tax than he expected. So it is possible that the churches' figure of £1,000 million a year put into non-charitable gambling is an underestimate.

At least, we know that 17 million people hold premium bonds, and that is a very good example. Those 17 million people have invested £500 million in this gamble, and receive £2 million a month in what can only be described as lottery prizes from "Ernie". The well-known economist, Mr. Alex Rubner, set out a weekly scheme for national lotteries and he estimated—perhaps it is not correct to use the word "estimate" in connection with any economist—he definitely said that £200 million a year profit could be made out of national lotteries of the sort which he had in mind.

Countries all over the world have made a success of such lotteries. The French do it. The Italians do it and, as Noel Coward might have said in his song,

"The Spanish, Belgians, Irish and Australians do it.

Even Manxmen in the Isle of Man do it"

They collect a very substantial sum from this country. This is what I stress. The money is collected from this country in the process. The Irish Sweepstakes, for example, which raise some £6 million a year, raise £4 million of that in this country. So we are subscribing substantial sums to subsidise overseas hospitals.

I have here a letter from the Hospitals' Trust (1940) Limited which is the undertaking which runs the Irish Sweepstakes. That organisation tells me that the hospitals in Eire have received from sweepstakes to date a total of £68 million. On the figures two-thirds of that money comes from this country. Therefore, I think I am justified in saying that we are from this country subsidising hospitals in other countries.

The Daily Sketch said potently:

"Why should we give away these millions?"

In remarking that in France and the Isle of Man there are national sweepstakes such as I am proposing in this Bill, that newspaper says that money for charities like the Red Cross, the war disabled and hospitals is raised by those lotteries. The editorial in the Daily Sketch of 22nd February, 1966, said:

"People gladly pay 10s. or even £3 for a ticket which may bring them as much as the £180,000 top prize in lottery-loving Spain. Even if they don't win, the money has gone to a good cause."

While our own hospitals are starved of the money for facilities for research,people in this country are subscribing large sums to lotteries overseas and depriving this country and our hospitals of the facilities which could be satisfactory and satisfying to the dynamic brains which medical training in this country produces.

The result of lack of funds of this sort for medical research is the brain drain. Down the drain goes much of our advanced knowledge and imaginative application in the field of medical services. We lose this great knowledge, this imagination in the application of medical knowledge, to other countries because we cannot provide the facilities for research here. It is true that the endowment funds of many of the teaching hospitals are used in an effort to provide facilities for research, but these endowment funds are dwindling because the teaching hospitals have had to spend the money on maintenance and replacement rather than the initiation of new schemes in research.

There are still the wealthy benefactors such as the Nuffield Trust, Wolfson, Rayne and others, who still provide magnificently for research work, but there are too few of such men, and, perhaps, the new rich such as the Beatles and the Rolling Stones have not yet realised what services their money can provide for the public in social welfare.

We shall find the money to save what I would describe as the crumbling edifice of research in hospital work only by giving the public en masse the opportunity to contribute to the great research projects which even now are in the pipeline.

We cannot expect the taxpayer as taxpayer to contribute a sufficient sum to this object. Research work, medical, sur- gical, hospital administration and so on, is sometimes a long-term job. It is sometimes a gamble, and one does not know whether it will prove successful or not. One should not, I suppose, have a flutter with the taxpayers' money, but as individuals everyone enjoys a flutter, especially if it is in a good cause. As the Daily Mirror said in its headline referring to this Bill,

"A harmless flutter, so why kill it?"

and the quotation across the heading on the page was:

"I'm blowed if I can see anything morally wrong in this plan",

the words "this plan" referring to the Bill which I am now putting to the House.

It is not only the popular newspapers such as the Daily Mirror which are in favour, expressing popular desire for such a scheme. More serious organisations such as the National Union of Towns-women's Guilds take a similar view. The National Union passed a resolution at its annual meeting in favour of national sweepstakes in the form provided for in the Bill. The National Federation of Business and Professional Women's Clubs passed a very strong resolution at its annual conference in November, 1966, in favour of national sweepstakes in this form.

Perhaps it will not delay the House unnecessarily if I quote that resolution in full:

"That in view of the present unsatisfactory state of the hospital services in the British Isles, necessitated by the restrictions of national finance, the National Federation of Business and Professional Women's Clubs of Great Britain and Northern Ireland urges Her Majesty's Government to give sympathetic and urgent consideration to the Private Members' Bill presented by Mr. Graham Page on Friday, 17th June, to be read a Second time on Friday, 2nd December, 1966 and to be printed, on condition that by so doing the Government does not reduce the grant which it now gives or the pro-rata increase necessitated in the grant by reason of rising costs."

At about the same time, there was a similar resolution passed by the National Association of Leagues of Hospital Friends.

A special committee of the British Medical Association strongly supported the proposal for national sweepstakes. That was that committee which produced what is known as the Richmond Charter on the defects of the hospital system and which contained recommendations for improvements. In reporting it, the Daily Mail gave the banner headline,

"Doctors want hospital sweep".

The whole trend of what is called the Richmond Charter was in support of the raising of funds for hospitals in that way. In the same spirit, the Daily Express called the Bill

"A worthy piece of legislation"

and it referred to the raising of

"millions of £s for medical research and pioneering hospital work by our own national sweepstake on the big Classic horse races".

In that editorial, the Daily Express said:

"What a splendid idea … Parliament and the public should support this enterprising Bill."

I take up that reference to the big Classic races by explaining that aspect of the matter straight away. The provision is that the sweepstakes proposed should be held on our well-known horse races in this country. If one is to have a lottery of this kind, it should be on something exciting. "Ernie" of the Premium Bonds is all very well, but that is merely a lottery, the drawing of numbers out of a drum or whatever it may be. But when people have a flutter on a horse race, they really enjoy it. Therefore, I would base any system of national sweepstakes on one or other of our famous races.

If sweepstakes are to be held in connection with horse races, it will be necessary to ensure that the races themselves, the courses on which they are run, the breeding and the performance of the horses, the amenities for the public on the racecourse, the skill of the jockeys and the trainers—that all these should receive some financial support from the proceeds of the sweepstakes.

Is the hon. Gentleman advocating more nationalisation?

No. I shall come to that in a moment, and explain the scheme by which I propose that a national sweepstake should be run.

To finish the point I am on about basing the sweepstake on our famous horse races in this country, I would say, in addition, that it is right that the neighbourhood in which the racecourses chosen are situate should benefit by the provision of more and better recreational facilities.

The Bill seeks to make national sweepstakes lawful if they are upon horse races specified by the Home Secretary. An obvious choice for one of those races—if only from the Bill's title—would be the Grand National, whether it be run at Aintree or elsewhere. As I represent a constituency adjoining Aintree I hope, of course, that it will be maintained there as it has been for many years. That is one race about which the public get excited and interested, and on which they will be prepared to contribute to a national sweepstake. There are others spread over the year—the Derby, the Lincolnshire and the Cambridgeshire.

The hon. Gentleman has already staked out a claim for the Grand National. He has also mentioned the desirability of spreading the sweepstake out over the year to races that are to be selected. But the Grand National and the Derby are rather too close together for the success of a national sweepstake.

That may be so, but there are still the Lincolnshire, which is held in May, and the Cambridgeshire, held in October. With those and the Grand National one would get a spread, which is particularly important to the way in which the sweepstakes would be conducted. Those running it would wish to spread their efforts and organisation over the whole year, rather than concentrate on one or two months.

The Bill proposes that the national sweepstakes be conducted by a National Sweepstake Promoter, appointed by a National Sweepstake Authority. That Authority would be appointed by the Government in rather the same way as the Independent Television Authority is appointed. The National Sweepstake Promoter would bid for the right to operate them for a period, that right being put out to tender. I have suggested in the Bill a period of five years so that his organisation could run for a definite period on payment to the National Sweepstake Authority.

The proceeds of the sweepstake would be divided between research work and pioneering work in hospitals, public recreational facilities in the neighbourhood of the racecourse chosen for the race on which the sweepstakes would be held, and the prizes and the expenses of organising it. I have set out very definite percentages in the Bill for those four purposes. I am not wedded to them, but I am advised that they are the sort of figures which will attract people to buy tickets in the sweepstake.

The figures are: 37½ per cent. to medical research and pioneering hospital work; 2½ per cent. to public recreational facilities in the area around the racecourse; 37½ per cent. in prizes; and 22½ per cent. to the promoter for running the scheme—on the condition that he does not make a profit of more than 5 per cent. from it.

Will the National Sweepstake Promoter be paid a big salary to attract the best brains? Will he be paid £20,000 a year, or something like the National Steel Corporation figure?

That would be up to him. He will bid a certain figure for the right to receive 22½ per cent. of the sweepstakes' proceeds. If he found it necessary to employ master brains at £20,000 a year to run it, that would perhaps be his loss. I should not have thought that that would be necessary.

I have, of course, pretty thoroughly investigated whether existing organisations would be prepared to tender. I am assured that both the pools promoters and the large bookmakers, both of which have organisations sufficient to run that sort of operation would be only too happy to tender for the sort of figures I have mentioned.

The amount that the promoter would pay for the right to run the scheme, in return for the 22½ per cent. which he would receive from it, would be devoted to the improvement of the national racecourse and the improvement of the accommodation, for the public there and to improve the standard of horse racing on that course.

I admit readily that this is a form of private enterprise, not nationalising sweepstakes although running a national sweepstake. The advantage of my method, however, is that the conduct and administration of the sweepstake would be at no cost to the Chancellor of the Exchequer. It would be financed directly and entirely from the money raised. It would be no trouble to the Civil Service or any persons employed by this local authority. It would be run entirely by the organisation which succeeded in the bid to run it.

The scheme is so simple and yet so effective. I know that there are many undertakings which would tender for appointment as promoters of a scheme of this sort—undertakings which are perfectly capable of running it efficiently.

National sweepstakes conducted in this way would, I am convinced, be a winner. They would be a winner for the hospitals and for the research which is so desperately needed in our hospitals. I warn any right hon. or hon. Member who feels that perhaps for moral or other reasons he should vote against the Bill that the Gallup polls have shown that eight out of 10 people support a national sweepstake of this sort.

I received a letter from a gentleman who signs himself not by name but just as "Socialist". He said:

"Good luck to you in your attempt to introduce a national lottery to help medical research. I have never voted Conservative in my life, and probably never shall, but if I lived in Crosby I would even vote for you on this issue."

I hope that the whole House will join my correspondent and vote for the Bill.

It is very rarely that I find myself in agreement with the hon. Member for Crosby (Mr. Graham Page). This is one of those very rare occasions. The hon. Member has made a reasonable case in favour of his Bill for a national sweepstake. It would go a long way towards regularising the present position.

Legally, I suppose, it is still wrong for anyone to receive a book of sweepstake tickets for the Irish hospitals sweepstake and for tickets for that sweepstake to be sold in this country. Yet we all know that the Irish hospitals sweepstake derives a considerable income from the sale of tickets in this country. There is a big postal traffic between Dublin and various parts of Britain. I would go so far as to say that what is good for Dublin and the Irish Republic is, in this respect, good for the United Kingdom as well.

A very fair allocation is proposed by the Bill for the proceeds of the national sweepstake, although I am not too happy about the 22½ per cent. that would go to the promoter for expenses. It seems rather high and I hope that, if the Bill makes further progress, the hon. Gentleman will be prepared to listen to representations with the object of reducing the profit or expenses incurred from the rather high level of 22½ per cent.

It is intended by the hon. Gentleman that there should be two national sweepstakes a year. For purely administrative reasons, it would be necessary to ensure that, so far as possible, they were held at intervals of six months. But that means that, if the Grand National were to be one of the races involved, the Derby and summer meetings would be "out" for national sweepstake purposes. Possibly the Cambridgeshire or some other race towards the end of the year would be the source of the second national sweepstake.

There would be bound to be some jealously between the different race courses, especially if the proceeds of the sweepstake income were devoted only to the two racecourses in respect of which the sweepstakes had been held during the year. It would be unfair and unreasonable to limit the contributions derived from the sweepstake fund to one or two courses. The conditions at many of our courses are so deplorable that very few are not in need of some improvement for the comfort of those who want to go racing.

However, these are matters which could be satisfactorily dealt with in Committee. I am sure that an overwhelming body of public opinion would be in favour of national sweepstakes as suggested in the Bill. We have to get this kind of activity organised on a rational and businesslike basis and not have all these hole-and-corner methods of raising money to which resort has to be made in the present state of the law.

I hope that the hon. Gentleman's attempt to get an element of rationality into these confused operations will be successful and will receive the blessing of the Government—the best Government we have had for many years and who have introduced many desirable reforms too numerous to mention now. I hope that, to all these good things that the Government have done during the last two and a half years, there will be added this further reform, as a result of which there will be a Labour Government in the country for generations to come.

I am not a gambling man, but I would willingly take a bet, particularly after the Honiton by-election, with the hon. Member for Brixton (Mr. Lipton) about what he has just said. He would be unwise to take it up. But I agree with his earlier remarks. I am sure that a national sweepstake for the purpose set out in the Bill would be a winner. Several of my constituents have written or spoken asking me to support my hon. Friend in his enterprise. Gambling is a national pastime and it would be useful and constructive for once to turn it into something which would serve a socially useful purpose.

We all know that the National Health Service—the hospitals, in particular—is going through a period of difficulty which is causing concern to our constituents and to those devoted men and women—lay and professional—who work in the service. In almost every case the difficulties stem from a lack of adequate resources. We know that to reduce the work load on hospital doctors many casualty departments are now working only part-time. We know that waiting lists for less urgent treatment are growing longer rather than shorter. We know that doctors and skilled health workers are emigrating because of what they consider to be unsatisfactory conditions—although I hope that this trend can be reversed. We know too that scales of remuneration are a source of constant contention, and that there are acute shortages of staff in certain categories precisely because adequate remuneration cannot be offered.

From time to time Questions have been asked in the House about kidney machines—the wonderful new technique for dealing with a particularly distressing form of illness. The former Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health is present, and he will know that it is not lack of machines but lack of trained staff to operate them that is holding up this essential service. As the Central Consultants and Specialists Committee said in a recent Memorandum on the Realities of Hospital Finance:

"The gap between demands and resources has reached a critical point."

Unhappily, under present arrangements—which have obtained under all Governments since the inception of the National Health Service in 1947—the limiting factor is what the Minister of Health of the day can manage to wring out of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who is faced with a wide range of competing demands. Short of an increase in taxation specifically to finance the development of the National Health Service, or of the introduction of a wide range of charges—which would not be acceptable to the Government—or of a positive encouragement to private medical schemes—which, again, I doubt whether the present Government would favour—there is only one way in which additional resources can be found, namely, some device which persuades people to devote money that they would otherwise spend on something else to a specific hospital purpose.

The Bill provides an ingenious device for this purpose. My hon. Friend has said that under it about £20 million a year could be made available for medical research work and pioneering hospital work. I may not be completely up to date in my figures, but the Parliamentary Secretary will probably bear me out when I say that if that amount of money were made available to the National Health Service for research purposes it could release from the existing allocation resources sufficient to build three or four major district general hospitals a year. That would be a considerable contribution. But all of us who are concerned about the National Health Service can think of other urgent priorities to which this additional money could be devoted.

A proposal of this kind could excite the imagination of the public. It might attract a great many people who like a little flutter now and then and a great many more who do not indulge in any form of gambling. It should excite a very large number of people to take part in a national lottery. I understand that the British Museum was financed as a result of a national lottery.

And Westminster Bridge.

Certainly, those were two most worthy objects. I therefore commend the Bill to the House and hope that it will receive a Second Reading.

ft is a sad commentary on the situation when we have to bring forward a Bill of this kind in order to see that our hospital services and our medical research are fully financed.

Having said that, I would add that the idea of a national lottery is not a particularly bad idea, and I agree with the hon. Member for Crosby (Mr. Graham Page) that there is a tremendous demand for this sort of thing. Quite a number of people have written to me about this—not all excited about the idea, because they do not think that a Government will ever take this tremendous step in this country. There is some hypocrisy surrounding the idea of a national lottery which it is difficult to overcome.

It is with a feeling of sadness that I observe that we have to have this sort of Measure. It takes me back many years to the time when, as a boy, I saw processions going by with people throwing pennies into the street, which were being picked up by people collecting on behalf of the local hospital. We were told that beds were closed in the local hospital because finance was not available.

Whether the money raised by a national lottery would be for medical purposes or not, let us go back to the idea itself, which I certainly commend to the House. There is a demand which should be met, and which is being met in a much smaller way up and down the country. It is popular. I do not agree with the hon. Member for Crosby that it is necessary to make it exciting. The vast majority of the people will bet on almost anything, even two flies going up the wall. As long as there is a reason for it they are prepared to accept the challenge. It is irrelevant to argue whether it is necessary to choose a race or merely to take numbers out of a hat.

Undoubtedly, a good deal has been accomplished in this country with the revenue brought in by lotteries of this kind. A community centre is now being built of which I am particularly proud, being the president of the association which is running this venture. It is being helped by the Government and the local authority, but a great effort is being made by the members of this association, to a large extent by revenue brought in by a lottery of this sort, although in a much smaller day. As a result they are able to bring about something which otherwise they could not possibly have brought to fruition.

I was not thinking of the British Museum, or Westminster Bridge, but the idea is there. This is desirable and is being done and there is no reason for us to frown upon it. Not necessarily this kind of six-monthly lottery, but the continental type, with draws every week attracting tremendous revenue, might give employment to elderly or disabled people. The Bill could undoubtedly be improved in Committee, but I support it, although in a very sad state of mind.

I support the proposal of my hon. Friend the Member for Crosby (Mr. Graham Page), which has stimulated the whole House, with the sole exception of the Treasury Bench. Its occupants showed no nicker of excitement, which is disappointing. I hope that they will not treat this helpful suggestion as they have treated all others. When my right hon. Friend Mr. Harold Macmillan introduced Premium Savings Bonds, the Prime Minister, then in opposition, denounced them as a squalid raffle, and I fear that the "pussy-footing" Government Front Bench will turn this proposal down in the same frame of mind.

I hope that they will not, because not only will it save currency leaving this country—we know that many people invest in the Irish sweepstake or the Malta sweepstake—but the promoter of this scheme could go to those countries and try to get their money coming to us. Efficient promotion will be essential. It should not be a dull scheme run through the Post Office, but needs some really imaginative selling.

My hon. Friend has cleverly included this idea of private enterprise so as to ensure that the project is sold. This will stimulate investment. People are not excited by "Ernie" drawing numbers out of a drum. They like the excitement of a horse race, or even that of flies crawling up a wall. With an exciting and stimulating sweepstake, a great deal of money could be acquired for a worthy cause.

This is an important Bill and it comes before us at an appropriate time, because this week we have been spending enormous amounts of money on the Army, Navy and Air Force. The Estimates for the three Services involved national expenditure of about £2,000 million.

If we are to buy Polaris submarines at £50 million a time, pay £100,000 each for 150 tanks and a pair of aircraft carriers for £30 million, it is only right that hon. Members should face the possibility of our going bankrupt and suggest ways in which my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer might raise more capital. My right hon. Friend is always looking for new ideas and I am sure that he will say to hon. Gentlemen opposite, "The smallest contribtions will be thankfully received."

Hon. Gentlemen opposite have spoken of the necessity of providing methods of gambling that are exciting. Are they aware that they can read the Financial Times and find something on which to gamble, although it is a reflection on the Stock Exchange that not sufficient opportunities are provided for people to do exciting gambling with company shares?

The old fashioned anti-gambling point of view has not been expressed today. I have been wondering why the hon. Member for Wimbledon (Sir C. Black), who usually speaks against gambling and in favour of Sunday observance, is not in his place. I am sure that if he knew that in the closing minutes on a Friday afternoon his hon. Friends were attempting to give a big impetus to gambling, he would be denouncing them as enemies of society.

But that is the old-fashioned view of gambling. These days, large numbers of people gamble on the football pools every weekend and we would be ignoring the facts of life if we did not accept that more gambling is done in Britain now than ever before. Are hon. Gentlemen opposite aware that great drama and excitment takes place every weekend as people fill in and check their football coupons? I cannot understand why the hon. Member for Crosby (Mr. Graham Page) thinks that he is introducing something ingenious and original.

What I hope is original and ingenious about the Bill is that the money would go to medical research, which is not the case with money derived from the pools.

I will come to the medical research aspect later.

The hon. Member for Crosby thinks that he is introducing something that will catch on straight away. Is he aware that there are vested interests in gambling and that some Members who are interested in the more orthodox methods of gambling would, if they knew that they had a potential rival, be here to ask some awkward questions.

I do not deny that a great deal of gambling is going on. As the hon. Member for Hemel Hempstead (Mr. Allason) pointed out, people will even gamble on two flies walking up a wall. I have heard that on Sundays in a certain parish in Scotland—and I do not know whether or not Scotland comes under the Bill—betting takes place on the numbers of the hymns to be announced. I do not know whether that is true, but I do know that the promoter's idea that he has got hold of something new and original does not bear examination.

We already have the Premium Savings Bonds. I know that there is a great deal of excitement in many homes in London and elsewhere when the numbers are being drawn. Many people who have a £1 bond live in the hope and expectation of their names being drawn for a considerable sum. When the pools pay dividends of £100,000 or £200,000, the news is headlined on the front pages of every newspaper. There is already an enormous amount of excitement.

It is all speculation, of course, but I doubt whether as much money will be raised as the hon. Member has predicted. I do not hold the point of view of the hon. Member for Wimbledon. I know, for example, that since the passing of the small lotteries legislation, various political parties have raised considerable sums in this way—the Labour Party does so—and I know that these lotteries are successful. A national lottery would have to compete with all the other kinds of gambling activity already going on.

I do not know whether or not the Bill would affect Scotland. The hon. Gentleman did not say anything about the races at Ayr or Musselburgh, or any other races that are run in Scotland. I would like some enlightenment on how far the Bill applies, say, to Ayr races—

The Bill certainly applies to Scotland, and if, in Committee, the hon. Member were to set down an Amendment, we would be very pleased to include Ayr races.

If I were on the Committee—it would be one of the few on which I am allowed to serve—I would be quite prepared to play a constructive part. If the hon. Member thinks that an enormous amount of money would come from a national lottery on the Ayr races in addition to all the money already being raised by sweepstakes on that event, he is mistaken. Any organisation needing money already organises a sweepstake on Ayr races. The hon. Member is certainly not entering un-chartered waters here. However, I would be quite prepared to give his Bill a trial if I were satisfied about a number of things in it.

A national sweepstake promoter would be appointed by a National Sweepstake Authority. Ought we not to have some more details of that appointment? Would a Minister be in charge? If so, which Minister is to be responsible? Is it to be the Chancellor of the Exchequer? I should have thought he had enough on already. Is it to be the Treasury? Is it to be the Postmaster-General?

The hon. Gentleman speaks of a very big growth in national activity. I do not see how hon. Members opposite who have complained bitterly about the large number of civil servants employed by Government Departments, and have put down Question after Question about the increase in the number of civil servants under the present Government, can reconcile this Bill with opposition to that growth. There is to be a National Sweepstake Authority and, presumably, the Minister would have to look around the City to find suitable people to serve on it. He would have much the same job as the Minister of Power has had. He would find the argument put forward, "We want the right man for the job and we must pay him a good salary." On the new National Steel Corporation members are to have substantial salaries ranging from £16,000 to £20,00 a year.

If this Authority is to be set up it will have a large number of highly-paid officials at the top. When they are appointed, who will complain? It will hon. Members opposite, because the Government will have appointed more civil servants. The only Minister I can think as likely to qualify for the State promoter of the Authority is the Paymaster-General.

Perhaps I can help my hon. Friend. Perhaps the hon. Member for Crosby (Mr. Graham Page) will correct me if I am wrong. Clause 4 of the Bill says:

"The National Sweepstake Authority shall be charged with the following duties, namely—

(a) to offer by public tender the exclusive right to promote and to conduct all national sweepstakes for a period of five years;"

My interpretation of those words is that it will not be a Minister who will run the sweepstake, because 22½ per cent. of the total receipts are to go to the promoter. The Bill proposes that we should farm out the national sweepstake to private enterprise for profit. It would have nothing to do with a Minister.

I presume that before the Authority was set up a Minister would have to be appointed to answer for it.

No.

My hon. Friend does not understand.

May I explain to the Government Front Bench? The Home Secretary will appoint the National Sweepstake Authority and will put it out to tender. Once it is put out to tender, and a promoter is appointed, he will run the scheme.

This is the first time that the Home Secretary has been mentioned.

It is in the Bill.

It may be in the Bill, but it was not in the explanation.

Earlier, I saw the Solicitor-General on the Front Bench and I thought that perhaps he would run it. This is a rather strange duty to put on to the shoulders of the Home Secretary at a time when he is expressing alarm about the increase of gambling. The Home Secretary has an enormous amount to do at present. He has to look after all sorts of things, including the gaols of the country. Now we are to add to his troubles a national sweepstake authority for which he will have to answer in the House.

I imagine that many Questions will be addressed to the Home Secretary if he starts up in business as the Minister responsible for the national sweepstake. I foresee difficulties which the hon. Gentleman rather glossed over.

The Home Secretary is to look after it in England. Who is to look after it in Scotland?

The Bill says, "the Secretary of State". That means the Home Secretary in England and in Scotland the Secretary of State for Scotland.

I am sure that the Secretary of State for Scotland will not welcome this further addition to his responsibilities. Obviously, the hon. Gentleman has not thought about Scotland. He has not even thought about Northern Ireland.

The Secretary of State for Scotland has all sorts of multifarious duties imposed on his head—agriculture, health, education and prisons. It will be necessary to appoint another Under-Secretary of State for Scotland. What will then happen? Questions will be addressed to the Secretary for Scotland about the results of sweepstakes.

The hon. Gentleman has rather tended to minimise the practical difficulties and has offered this tempting bait to the people that there will be jam for nothing and that this will help to solve the problems of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. I do not think that it will. The Chancellor would do far better by putting a tax on gambling on the Stock Exchange. That is the great casino of the country. That is the great national sweepstake. If the Chancellor, in his Budget on 11th April, were to impose a tax on gambling on the Stock Exchange, the promoters of the Bill would be the first to oppose it.

The sweepstake is to be fanned out to contract. This was the point raised by my hon. Friend the Joint Parliamentary Secretary. It is to be fanned out to private enterprise in the same way as national television. So there are to be further highly-paid officials. They all have to be paid out of the sweepstake money before the person who puts money on a horse gets any return.

I am surprised to find that 22½ per cent. is to go to the national sweepstake promoter. How has the hon. Gentleman arrived at that figure? If the national sweepstake promoter is to get not only a salary but 22½ per cent. of the investment, he will receive an enormous income. I waited in vain for the hon. Member for Crosby to give an estimate of what would go into the pockets of the gentleman who is to get the 22½ per cent. In this, I shall carry the punters with me. They will agree with me that too much money goes to those who promote sweepstakes.

If the hon. Gentleman reads Clause 2 (1,c,iii), he will see that out of that 22½ per cent. the promoter is limited to a profit of 5 per cent.

Even 5 per cent. out of the 22½ per cent., might be a considerable sum. I doubt whether we are entitled to approve of the Bill until we have a more detailed explanation of the 22½ per cent.

I believe that we shall set up a huge bureaucracy run by the Home Secretary. The gambling propensities of the country should not be dealt with by the Home Secretary. Premium Bonds are not run by the Home Secretary; they are dealt with by the Chancellor of the Exchequer. I suggest that if this sweepstake scheme is to be set up at all, the Chancellor of the Exchequer should run it in a separate department in the Premium Bonds business. The Premium Bonds people are experts in this sort of gambling. Therefore, this scheme should not be under the Home Secretary or under the auspices of the unfortunate Secretary of State for Scotland, but under the Chancellor of the Exchequer.

In the final analysis the Chancellor of the Exchequer will get far more money from the people who gamble in Imperial Chemical Industries' shares, or in any of the large concerns in this country, a list of which can be seen in today's Financial Times. He will get far more money to finance the affairs of this nation by taxation on the really lucrative organised gambling interests in this country. I would not be surprised if the hon. Member for Crosby were to receive a protest from the Stock Exchange because he proposes to set up a rival organisation offering bigger prizes. The opponents of the Bill are numerous and are likely to be influential.

What is the bait held out? It is the hospitals. No mention is made of other causes. I wonder what we would have said if there had been a national sweepstake for the upkeep of Buckingham Palace. I wonder whether we could rely upon national sweepstakes for paying for the Polaris submarine or for the salaries of the War Office and the Admiralty. But it is the hospitals which are chosen for this doubtful proposal. The hospitals are mentioned because the promoters of the Bill think that they will command a certain amount of public sympathy. I do not think the hospitals or medical research should be dependent on sweepstakes. They should depend upon the general taxation and not upon which horse wins the Derby or which does not win the Grand National.

I object to the medical services being singled out in this way. I would rather pay for them and leave the other things to the sweepstakes. The hospitals should be financed out of the funds of the nation and not out of the profits which are left to the nation after the national sweepstake promoter has finished. The implications of the Bill are important and should be very carefully considered before being accepted.

I want to leave some time for the Home Secretary who, I believe has stated that he does not want the Bill. I am not the Home Secretary, but if I were I would object very strongly to having such a national sweepstake on my shoulders. I would say that it belongs to some other Ministry. I would say, "What about the Paymaster-General?" The Paymaster-General is an authority on sweepstakes. If the hon. Gentleman wants a really capable and well-informed Minister who knows all about horse racing in this country, he should drop the idea of giving the job to the Home Secretary and appoint the Paymaster-General.

The Paymaster-General knows about these things, he has been on the Racecourse Betting Control Board, he is the ideal man. But what a storm there would be in the House if it were announced that the Paymaster-General was to be given a new Cabinet job at £20,000 or £10,000 a year for controlling the National Sweepstake Authority.

I do not know what the Home Secretary has done to annoy the hon. Gentleman. I have a grievance against my hon. Friend because he did not this afternoon support my Bill to abolish titles, but I cannot understand what he has done to deserve having this big, doubtful, illegitimate baby put in his lap. It would be very unfair to the Home Secretary if it were thought that he was enthusiastic about accepting this new responsibility, so I shall now sit down and leave him time to tell us whether he wants the job or not.

I am sorry to disappoint my hon. Friend the Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. Emrys Hughes) by rising in the stead of my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary. It has been a matter of hurried consultation between us as to which is the most suitable Department to address the House on the Bill because it is one which covers a wide range.

In my view, the Bill is somewhat inaptly named the National Sweepstakes Bill. In so far as it purports to set up a scheme for a national sweepstake, I think that it is in the first instance primarily a matter of interest to the Chancellor of the Exchequer. There have been several proposals from time to time urging that the Government should set up a national sweepstake. It is not a new proposal. It was considered in detail by the Royal Commission of 1949–51, which then advised against it on the ground that large sections of the public would find it objectionable in principle.

We know that some people have found objectionable the very much narrower Premium Savings Bond scheme introduced by a Conservative Administration, but that scheme is in no sense to be compared with a sweepstake or ordinary lottery. Under the Premium Bond scheme, unlike any form of gambling that I have ever heard of, one cannot lose. One cannot lose one's stake and one is always entitled to withdraw it. The only element of lottery in it is in the distribution of the moneys which would be available by way of interest on the loan to the State, which is what the Premium Bonds are.

The scheme proposed in the Bill put to us by the hon. Member for Crosby (Mr. Graham Page), however, is not truly a national scheme at all. It is proposed that a rather peculiar body called a National Sweepstake Authority should be set up, which sounds very impressive, and that that body would have a very mixed bag of duties. It would be entitled to grant an exclusive monopoly right to the highest bidder when the matter was put out to public tender. Whether that is a satisfactory way of organising what is described as a national sweepstake many people would doubt.

If it were thought right that the State should lend its assistance and resources towards setting up a sweepstake of this kind, most people would feel that it was not a matter which should be put out to tender to private bodies and individuals but was something which, if to be done at all, ought to be by the Government themselves.

Quite apart from any objections there might be from people who dislike gambling, there are other important—

rose in his place and claimed to move. That the Question be now put; but Mr. SPEAKER withheld his assent and declined then to put that Question.

There are great objections on other grounds, on fiscal grounds, for instance, to trying to raise moneys by a sweepstake and then hypo thecating them for a particular purpose. Such a scheme both pre-empts fiscal resources in a way which, I think, would endanger the revenue, and would pre-empt—

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Object.

The subject which I wish to discuss this afternoon raises a principle of the highest importance. It is a scandal which has been before the House on and off in debate and Questions for several years. It has been the subject of two inquiries by the Committee of Investigation for Great Britain, has exercised the interest of the Press greatly from time to time, and yet, in spite of all this attention, there is a very grave danger that, as a result of the unholy alliance forged between the Ministry of Agriculture and the British Egg Marketing Board, justice will not even now be done.

In order to put this matter into its context it is perhaps necessary to give a brief historical summary of the events leading up to the present time. The bakery trade has for a long time used liquid egg. By 1960 the Egg Marketing Board decided that there were sufficient facilities in the country for breaking out all surplus first-quality eggs and it discouraged further firms from going into the market. However, second-quality eggs were freely available and imported shell eggs from the Continent were fairly cheap, so that firms outside the Board's ring of contractors were able to continue to work.

A Government Working Party had by 1960 established and perfected a pasteurising technique for liquid eggs. It was becoming clear that it was only a matter of time before the Government would make the pasteurising of all liquid egg compulsory. The Egg Board was well aware of this. Between May and September, 1962, the Egg Board secretly prepared a scheme to control the processing of all liquid egg, whether from first- or second-quality eggs.

This is where my two constituents come into the story because in December, 1961, Messrs. Uglow, of Plymouth, a large firm of bakers, discussed with Mr. William Baker the possibility of his supplying them with pasteurised second-quality eggs for use in their baking trade. He decided to do this and he went into partnership with Mr. John Roose to found a company to do it. On 5th October, 1962, they signed the necessary hire-purchase agreement for machinery costing £6,000.

Unknown to Messrs. Baker and Roose, however, between May and September, 1962, the Board had secretly prepared a scheme to restrict the manufacture of liquid egg from second-quality eggs to 12 plants in the United Kingdom. On 24th October, 1962, the Egg Board announced that that would be the situation and that thereafter it would be necessary for a licence to be obtained from the Board to deal in such eggs.

In November, 1962, Messrs. Baker and Roose made their first application to the Board for such a licence. They told the Board in their letter that they had entered into a hire-purchase agreement for the purchase of the necessary machinery. On 19th November, the Board replied that adequate facilities already existed and that it did not consider that there was any need for further firms to come into the business. It invited Messrs. Baker and Roose to meet the Board's officials. On 1st December, Mr. Roose wrote again to the Board saying that he wanted an assurance that his company would be able to get "seconds" if and when the scheme came into operation. On 6th December, Dr. Knowles, of the Egg Marketing Board, replied that there was still a great deal of preparatory work to be done but he repeated his statement that there were already adequate facilities.

On 11th December, Messrs. Baker and Roose met Dr. Knowles. When they had put their case to him, he said that he would put their application before the Board but stated that in any event, with so much preparatory work to do, the Board would not be making its selection of plants until September, 1963. At no time during that conversation did Dr. Knowles suggest that the plant would possibly not meet the Board s requirements. Indeed, the quality of the plant was not discussed.

Therefore, Messrs. Baker and Roose went ahead with their plans. They went for advice to their Member of Parliament, who was then Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture. His advice—coming from the Ministry itself—was that there was nothing that the Board could do to stop their supplies. Because of this, they went ahead with their negotiations.

The matter went on for many weeks—indeed months—and letters went backwards and forwards between the Board and the company's solicitors until, on 6th November, 1963, the company's solicitors wrote once again to the Board saying that the company wished to be included in the Board's list of contractors. Thereupon, on 19th November, a year after the first application had been made, the Board finally stated that there would be no supplies of eggs for the company. No mention was made in that letter of the Tightness or wrongness of the plant.

On receipt of that letter, the company forwarded a copy to the Ministry of Agriculture and on 8th January the Minister put the complaint before the Committee of Investigation for Great Britain. The Board realised at that time that it was in considerable trouble and had taken part in a monstrous carve-up of the second quality egg market. Even before announcing the new scheme, the Board had secretly made under-cover deals with some of the lucky firms which were to get the contracts.

However, for the south-western area the Board had already, in September, 1962, promised another firm a monopoly of the trade for the whole area. This was done some weeks before the Board's public announcement of its scheme. In an effort to justify its actions, the Board requested on 2nd February to be allowed to inspect the Camelford plant. It carried out this inspection on 6th February.

On 5th February, however, the Board actually submitted its representations to the Committee of Investigation, stating that the plant and the premises were totally unfit. This meant that the Board had condemned the plant a full day before inspecting it. Indeed, the representations condemning the plant were in the hands of the firm's London solicitors two hours before the inspection was carried out.

The Committee of Investigation substantially rejected the Board's grounds for condemning the company and found that South-Western Egg Products had been virtually selected as the Board's sole agents for the area in September, 1962, a month before the scheme was made public. But the Board concluded that

"… there are no grounds for the complaint that the Board has in any way acted unreasonably in refusing either to appoint the complainants as agents or to make arrangements, assuming that this is practical, for them to be supplied with seconds."

Having failed to obtain any help from their own Member of Parliament, then the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture, Messrs. Baker and Roose went to their Liberal candidate for North Cornwall, who was then Mr. Maddon Bruton, who took them to see my right hon. Friend the Member for Devon, North (Mr. Thorpe), now the Leader of the Liberal Party. He raised this matter during an agricultural debate on 29th June, 1964, and the Minister made no reply at all on the point.

My right hon. Friend then instructed the firm's solicitors to lodge a further complaint to the Ministry and ask for a further Committee of Investigation to look into the wider aspects. It took a great deal of time to get the Committee set up because a substantial amount of money had to be raised, but at last this was done and the Committee met between 29th and 31st March, 1966. We are thus more or less up to date.

When the report of the Committee came to the Minister on 20th July last year, we did not expect immediate action. On 11th August, my right hon. Friend and I saw the Minister. He said that he had asked the Board for its comments and would have to consider these before taking action. I saw the Minister again with my right hon. Friend on 7th November. Much correspondence had passed between the Minister and myself during that period.

On 11th August, the company's solicitors wrote to the Minister, also. On 22nd August, I wrote to him myself thanking him for meeting me and confirming the points that I had made. However, none of this got us anywhere, we were left with the impression that the Minister was stalling on behalf of the Board. He had received the report on 20th July and in answer to a Question by me on 14th December in the House, he said that he had now received the recommendations and comments of the Board. That was 20 weeks after the report was laid on his desk.

I should make it clear that the conclusions of the second inquiry were highly favourable to my constituents and critical of the Board's action. These conclusions were, first, that

"… the Board's actions were contrary to the reasonable interests of the complainant."

This is in direct contradiction of the conclusions of the first inquiry when it was said that there were

"… no grounds for the complaint that the Board has in any way acted unreasonably …"

The second inquiry also found that

"… the Board's actions were not in the public interest."

It added:

"We are of the opinion that urgent consideration must be given to the possibility of a system of tendering, and that, in any event, the opportunity to compete for the processing of seconds should be generally available."

But then the Committee made the rather curious and unfounded statement that

"In any event, had a system of tendering been employed we have no doubt that the plant of these complainants would not have satisfied the Board's requirements either as to the processing capacity or specification."

The Committee had no right to make that statement. Nor had it any evidence on which to base it.

During the second hearing, Dr. Hocking, the Cornwall county pathologist, was cross-examined about tests he had carried out. He said:

"This is an efficient and well conducted plant, suitable for the processing of pasteurised eggs."

Of the results of an analysis of the product he said:

"I would say that these results are exceptionally good … the plant is doing its work extremely well."

Even Dr. Knowles, of whose opinion presumably the Ministry takes note, said of these tests:

"They are very good indeed—exceptionally good if I may say so."

Messrs. A. Johnson and Company, Limited, which supplied the plant, had considerable negotiations with the Ministry about the specifications for the plant and had meetings with the Ministry throughout this period and at no time was it given any indication that the plant did not measure up to Ministry specifications.

Now I come to compensation. As a result of the second scheme, my constituents were put out of business and had to spend substantial sums on the costs of the two inquiries. There is no doubt that any reasonable man would believe them to be entitled to some compensation. Under the Agricultural Marketing Act, 1958, the word "producer" is denned as meaning

"… in relation to any scheme any person who produces the regulated product."

A "registered producer" means a producer registered under the scheme. There is no doubt that my constituents were producing the regulated product—liquid egg derived from the breaking out of second-quality eggs. The Minister denies that they were registered producers, and Section 13 allows for compensation to be paid only to a registered producer.

The fact that this company did not become a registered producer is no fault of its own. Section 4 states:

"Every scheme shall provide for the registration of any producer who makes application for that purpose."

The firm certainly made application for that purpose, but it was refused. From all this it is clear that the firm is indeed entitled to compensation. The Minister has persistently refused to face his responsibility and to use his powers under the Agricultural Marketing Act to force the Egg Board to pay compensation. Instead, he falls back on the suggestion that my constituents should take the matter to a court of law. He knows that the firm has already exhausted all the funds available for legal action.

The Minister also knows that unless some sort of compensation is paid this small firm will not be able to get back on its feet—and that is precisely the solution that he desires. In opposition, he declared some sympathy for my constituents' case, but since he has been in office he has, like Proust's M. de Norpois,

"become imbued with that negative, methodical, conservative spirit, called governmental and which is common to all Governments".

It may be thought that in the light of all these machinations the word "scandal" which I applied to this case earlier in my speech has been fully justified. But far, far worse is to come.

I turn, finally, to the Egg Board's current proposals. I do not know whether the individual members of the Board, who, for the most part are honourable men, realise how far they are being dishonoured by these proposals. There are to be two contracts. No. 1 contract is to be awarded to processors who are wholesalers and who are to be guaranteed sufficient eggs to cover 90 per cent. of their production of liquid eggs during the last 12 months. In other words, 90 per cent. of the eggs going into liquid egg production will be carved up among the existing companies who have already enjoyed this monopoly.

No. 2 contract is to be awarded to processors who will be given no undertaking or guarantee of any annual supply. Specifications which the Board states for plant and equipment is such as to demand a capital expenditure far in excess of what my constituents can afford. That is the intention. The proposals have one aim and one aim only—to legalise the present situation, which the Committee of Investigation has already declared to be against the public interest and against the reasonable interests of my constituents. There is to be no

"opportunity to compete for the processing of seconds"

in the sense in which the Committee of Investigation spoke of it.

The proposals are crooked, and if the Minister has anything to do with them, he will be condemned as a man whose "honour rooted in dishonour stood". It should be made quite clear that the 12 companies which have enjoyed the monopoly of the seconds pasteurising market for so long have made huge and totally unjustified profits. Indeed, in September, 1965, the Egg Board took fright and had to claim back between £200,000 and £300,000 excess profits from these firms. This was approximately twice what would have been a reasonable figure.

The return on capital has been outrageous. A witness at the second Committee of Investigation produced a balance sheet showing that one firm had made a net profit of about £100,000 on a capital outlay of £45,000. If commercial television is a licence to print money, this second-quality egg scheme is a licence to forge money.

It is not too late for the Minister to take action. He must realise that it is no longer any good palming me off with patronising phrases about how well he realises and appreciates the anxieties I have on behalf of my constituents. That sort of rubbish has had its day. If the Minister cannot stand up to the people who perpetrated this carve-up, there is more of mouse than man about him. I have some faith in his good will. I realise that it is based on rather tenuous foundations, but the main thing is that there is need for urgent action. Unless he acts immediately my constituents will be driven into bankruptcy by sheer force of circumstances.

I want the Minister to order the Board to pay compensation for the legal costs incurred by this small company. I want him to order the Board to grant this company the contract for processing all the second quality eggs from the County of Cornwall, which its plant is quite adequate to do. I want him to set up a full-scale inquiry into the actions of the Board, not only in this case but in a whole host of others.

I cannot believe that the Minister wishes to live through the rest of his Ministry dogged by headlines about the Board's incompetence, its chairmen's resignations, the unsatisfactory nature of its elections and its generally disreputable nature. That is why I beseech him to act now.

The hon. Member for Cornwall, North (Mr. Pardoe) said that he would make a sensational speech. If he has not provided many facts he has certainly made something sensational, but it is quite unworthy of him.

rose—

The hon. Member has had plenty of time and he had better listen for a minute. He has been saying plenty—

rose—

Order. The hon. Member must contain himself.

Indeed he must.

The hon. Member opened by accusing my right hon. Friend of collusion with the British Egg Marketing Board, and he knows that to be absolutely untrue—absolutely and completely untrue. Let him ask his right hon. Friend the Member for Devon, North (Mr. Thorpe), who first raised the matter. Indeed, I hope that we proved helpful. All this took place prior to this Government's coming into power. It was under our predecessors in another Government, a Conservative Government, that it took place. The hon. Member knows, when he accuses my right hon. Friend, that that is totally untrue.

Indeed, when he makes allegations against processors and Board members he knows that to be untrue. He made these allegations, which had been made before the Committee of Investigation, about persons who were not even there to defend themselves. Part of the hearing was taken up with these allegations that certain processors had abused their position on Committees with which the Egg Board discussed the seconds scheme. But, as the Report points out, no evidence whatever was advanced in support of those allegations, none at all—and eventually they were all withdrawn.

That is the test. It is no use the hon. Member shaking his head. They were all withdrawn at the Committee of Investigation. The Report also concluded that there was no evidence of the slightest impropriety on the part of any member of the Egg Board or its staff. As far as I am concerned, this question of misconduct is closed. I hope that as it has been withdrawn even by the counsel for the hon. Member's constituents, he will not go on repeating it.

I want to say one or two words about the Committee of Investigation. This Committee is one of the safeguards written into the agricultural marketing legislation to protect the interests of those who may be affected by the various marketing schemes. Let me make it quite clear that it is entirely independent of Ministers and of marketing boards, that it has as its Chairman a distinguished Queen's Counsel, Mr. David Karmel. I do not think that anybody would care to challenge that.

This Committee has reported twice on complaints by the Western Egg Pasteurising Co. Ltd. On the first occasion, Western Egg complained that the Egg Board had refused to appoint them as processors under the Seconds Scheme introduced in January, 1964. In its Report, made on 22nd June, 1964, the Committee concluded:

"There are no grounds for the complaint that the Board have in any way acted unreasonably in refusing either to appoint the complainants as agents or to make arrangements, assuming that this is practicable, for them to be supplied with seconds. We think that any adverse effect of the operation and consequences of the Seconds Scheme on the interests of the complainants has arisen from their own actions, and that their request for the Scheme specifically to be amended in their particular interests is unreasonable".

Now I come to the second report about Western Egg, which is the subject which the hon. Member has raised for debate today. The concluding part of his speech had nothing to do with this complaint. He was then dealing with the Egg Board's new scheme which has been submitted to everyone concerned for their comments—

Would the hon. Gentleman not also agree that, in that first Report there was a clear finding that the monopoly for the South-West had been carved up before the scheme even began?

This was the Committee's finding. I merely refer to what the Committee found out and make no comment.

This Report was made on 20th July, 1966, on complaints made by Western Egg and four agricultural co-operatives that certain aspects of the Seconds Scheme were contrary to their interests and not in the public interest on the grounds that it was not introduced in a proper manner; that the plants chosen to process the seconds were not selected in a proper manner; and that a monopoly was created.

It is important to bear in mind that the report of July, 1966, was not about whether the Egg Board should have allotted a contract to Western Egg for egg processing in 1964. It was not about the Seconds Scheme as a whole, nor about its effect on prices. The complaint under investigation concerned the way in which the Egg Board introduced and operated its processing arrangements under the Seconds Scheme.

I should also point out that this complaint was made to Ministers in July, 1964, and was referred to the Committee in that month, but the Committee was unable to begin its consideration for an- other 18 months because Western Egg did not supply written representations until November, 1965. In view of this, it is rather unfortunate that the hon. Member should now accuse the Government of delay, when it was the company's.

The Committee concluded:

"We think that the Board's intentions should have been published in greater detail, and we consider that it ought not, from the outset, to have confined the selection of those who were to process seconds to the field of its existing contractors, but should have issued invitations publicly for this work. In these respects we consider that the Board's actions were contrary to the reasonable interests of the Complainants. We also find that the Board's actions were not in the public interest, and … we are of the opinion that urgent consideration should be given to the possibility of a system of tendering and that in any event, the opportunity to compete for the processing of seconds should be generally available."

The Committee made one further observation. The hon. Gentleman quoted the first, presumably because he liked the first quotation, but not the second. The second said:

"In reaching these conclusions it should be borne in mind that we were not required to consider any issue dealt with in the first complaint by the Western Egg Pasteurising Company Ltd. Nevertheless, we think it is desirable to refer to the particular circumstances of that complaint. During that hearing it was not contended that the actual method of selection of the processors was fundamentally wrong in principle, and we did not therefore consider this aspect of the Scheme. In any event, had a system of tendering been employed, we have no doubt that the plant of these complainants would not have satisfied the Board's requirements either as to processing capacity or specification."

These, then, were the findings which were presented to my right hon. Friends last July.

After considering them, they decided that the right course of action was to seek a solution that was in the interests of all concerned, and that, of course, means not only processors, but others, such as the users of processed egg. They realised that it would take some time to achieve such a solution, and the hon. Member for Cornwall, North must have realised it, too. Indeed, the hon. Gentleman said as much in one of his several letters.

It would have been foolish to impose a hasty solution on this industry without giving proper scope for consideration and comment. My right hon. Friend told the House on 11th August that he had asked the Egg Board for its comments on the Report, and he further said in the House on 14th December that he had just received the Board's detailed comments.

These comments related particularly to the question of introducing a tendering system. The Board said that it saw many drawbacks in such a system, but that it was considering alternative proposals because it accepted fully that the opportunity to compete for processing should be made generally available. We received these alternative proposals in January, and I might add that they are concerned with the processing not only of seconds, but of first-quality eggs as well.

After carefully considering these proposals, we decided that it would be desirable to obtain the widest comment. It is for this reason that we have published them without comment and have invited everyone with an interest in this subject to send us their comments by the end of April. My right hon. Friend announced this in the House on 7th March. It is, therefore, particularly opportune that this subject should have been raised at this time, since I am able to draw attention to these draft proposals.

I had been told by the Minister throughout my discussions that he would keep me fully informed. I had not been given the draft proposals and I had to telephone him today for them.

The hon. Gentleman sent many letters to my right hon. Friend and had two meetings with him. I believe that even his right hon. Friend the Member for Devon, North would not dare to accuse the Minister or the Department of discourtesy. They have been considerate and kind to the hon. Gentleman.

It would not be right for me to comment on the proposals now, because the Government have made it clear that they are not in any way committed to what the Egg Board proposes. We hope that people will comment constructively so that a decision can be made in the light of the views of all who may be affected.

The hon. Member for Cornwall, North has certainly put forward a case on behalf of the Western Egg Pasteurising Co. Ltd., but I cannot accept what he has said. As I have already explained, the Committee of Investigation's Report, with which we are concerned this afternoon, commented on the whole question of the contractual arrangements for egg processing that were introduced under the Seconds Scheme. The Report contained nothing which calls for special treatment for individual complainants and I cannot accept that the Government have an obligation to make any special provision for Western Egg.

The Committee did not in any way change the findings of its first Report, which was specifically directed to the affairs of Western Egg. Indeed, as I have quoted, the Committee, using the very considerable knowledge that it had about Western Egg, observed that that company would not have satisfied the Board's requirements even if tenders had been invited when the Seconds Scheme was introduced.