The Government, after very careful consideration, have decided that Stansted, Essex, should be developed as the third London airport.

The inspector who conducted the Public Inquiry into this question did not feel able to recommend either that Stansted should be developed or that other sites were more suitable for this purpose. He suggested that the matter needed further study. The Government have, therefore, carried out a very thorough re-examination, and are satisfied not only that a third airport for London will unquestionably be required in the mid-1970s but that Stansted, though by no means ideal, is clearly the best site for it.

This re-examination has, necessarily, taken some time. While we regret this, I am sure it is right that in a matter of this importance a decision should not be taken without the most thorough and careful study.

Together with the inspector's Report, a White Paper has today been presented to the House. This examines the need for a third London airport, and the various alternative sites which have been proposed, and sets out fully the Government's reasons for their decision in favour of Stansted. A Special Development Order, under the Town and Country Planning Act, 1962, authorising the British Airports Authority to develop Stansted as a major London airport, will shortly be laid before the House. I shall discuss with my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House whether, if the House so wishes, a debate can be held at which both the Special Development Order and the White Paper could be considered.

I assure the President of the Board of Trade that we on this side fully accept that there must be adequate airport facilities in this country to allow Britain to participate to the full in the extraordinarily rapid-growing business of air transport. But, having said that, we shall, as he will understand, wish to consider carefully the White Paper and the arguments in it before expressing any view on his recommendation. At this stage, I have three questions to put.

First, what was the nature of the thorough examination which the right hon. Gentleman mentioned? Was it just an examination of London's airport problems, or was it an examination of the whole national policy for airport development in this country, which we believe is required?

Second, will the right hon. Gentleman assure us that everything possible will be done, whether the airport is at Stansted or anywhere else, to reduce the undoubted menace and social impact of these necessary but nevertheless unpleasant concomitants of the modern age?

Third, while we welcome what the right hon. Gentleman says about the possibility of a debate, we wish him to know that we consider that proper discussion of this matter will be necessary.

I welcome what the right hon. Gentleman has said about the need for a major airport in the developing conditions of civil aviation. As to the examination which we carried out, we decided to investigate thoroughly all the alternative possible sites for an airport serving, broadly, London and the southeast of England, because examination of the facts showed that, whatever else was done in the rest of the country, some such airport was necessary. We examined these alternatives from the point of view of safety, of noise, of convenience, of transport, of air traffic control, and also of defence, which is directly concerned with the air traffic control aspects of the problem. The matter has been examined by all the relevant Departments, so that we can confidently say that we have looked at all the considerations and examined all practical sites.

As to the social impact, I agree that a modern airport has great effects in matters of noise, housing and many other issues of that kind. The right hon. Gentleman will see from the White Paper that these have already been pretty exhaustively considered, and, from the point of view of noise, the nuisance which may be caused at Stansted will be far less than at Heathrow and not far different from what it would have been with the other alternatives. We shall do our best to minimise it.

I would myself welcome a debate, though formally it is for my right hon. Friend and for consultation through the usual channels to decide if and when it is held.

This decision will be received with deep resentment and bitterness in my constituency and in North Essex generally. People are not convinced that it is necessary, and they feel that the weight of informed opinion is against it. However, this is a matter for debate, and at this stage I put two questions to the right hon. Gentleman.

First, what plans has the right hon. Gentleman for compensation for those many people in the area, tenant farmers in particular, who will lose their whole livelihood? Second, is he considering any restrictions on the development of this airport in the future?

I realise that there will be regret in the neighbourhood, but I am afraid that it is inescapable that, wherever a major airport is placed, there will be disturbance to some of those who live and work in the neighbourhood. The compensation will be arranged through the normal procedure of compulsory purchase which will be necessary in this case. I believe that the hon. Gentleman's last question was about a debate——

It was about any possible restrictions on future development of the airport.

In the first instance, the purpose will be to build an airport of two runways. One of the advantages of Stansted is that eventually, but much later, extension will be possible there, though it would be more difficult elsewhere. But up until about 1974 the proposal is to develop a major airport with two main runways.

Is my right hon. Friend aware of the depths of dismay which will be felt by many of the residents of West Essex, particularly the people who live in Harlow New Town in my constituency? Is he aware of the stupidity and short-sightedness of siting London's third airport in this area where so many other projects are in view which will use up undeveloped ground, and will he assure the House that the matter will still be thoroughly reconsidered?

I think that when my hon. Friend has studied the White Paper he will change his mind, because he will see that from all points of view this is undoubtedly the best alternative, though I do not pretend for a moment that it may not cause local disturbance. We have examined this very thoroughly, and that is why we have taken 9 or 10 months over it. I must tell my hon. Friend honestly that I do not think that further examination would bring further facts to light.

Although we have not yet had time fully to study the White Paper, is the right hon. Gentleman aware that we cannot accept that this is the best site from all points of view? Is he aware that the anguish which has been expressed on behalf of their constituents by hon. Members on both sides of the House is also fully shared in my part of Essex? I have two specific points. First, if this plan goes through, is the further development of the airport correlated with the construction of the M11? Secondly, could we have some idea of the timing?

Yes, Sir. The development of the airport will be correlated with the development of the M11, and a link will of course be necessary to enable the road traffic to connect with the M11. As I said, the immediate plan for development will be up to the year 1974. Any eventual development would probably come a good deal later. I do not expect the hon. Gentleman to accept the plan before he has studied the White Paper. That is precisely why we are publishing it now so that it can be thoroughly examined before any debate.

Does my right hon. Friend accept that Stansted was inevitable if the speediest possible relief were to be given to meet urgent needs? I think also that this will undoubtedly bring a great deal of relief to thousands of people in East Kent, and particularly on the Isle of Sheppey. Could my right hon. Friend say whether this also now means that we shall have time for a thorough look at the very much longer-term airport-siting policy, including further examination of imaginative schemes like the Goodwins and Foulness mud flats?

We certainly mean to continue examining these further long-term aspects. What my hon. Friend says shows that wherever the airport was placed there would naturally and understandably have been local objections.

Would the right hon. Gentleman accept that, whatever the technical considerations involved, and whatever advantages may accrue from this, it raises great human problems in the context of the well-being of those who live nearby? Would he give two undertakings on behalf of the Government? First, will he undertake that in the siting of the runways and the subsequent layout, conduct and operation of the airport everything will be done to reduce to an inescapable minimum the impact of noise on the residents of Bishop's Stortford, Sawbridgeworth and the villages adjacent thereto? Secondly, could he now put into operation as a matter of urgency the suggestion that I made as long ago as January, 1966, to amend the law on compensation so as to give compensation, where the law now provides none, for depreciation in the value of houses and properties due to the construction of airports and major motorways?

I shall certainly consider the latter point in consultation with my right hon. Friend the Minister of Housing and Local Government, who is more directly responsible. I certainly give the other assurance for which the right hon. and learned Gentleman asked that we shall do everything possible to minimise disturbance caused. Probably rather fewer people will be directly affected by noise here than in quite a number of the alternatives, and the total noise effect as it is now conventionally measured will not be more than about one-twentieth of that at Heathrow. We are also, as the right hon. and learned Gentleman knows, tackling the noise problem in other ways, for instance, by certification of future aircraft. I fully agree with the right hon. and learned Gentleman that noise must be kept to the minimum.

rose——

Order. I am trying to call those hon. Members with constituency interests.

Will my right hon. Friend say why it was necessary to consult the N.A.T.O. authorities about the siting of the airport? Does he think it right that the military authorities, particularly the Defence Department, should have over-ruled the civil planning authorities when the earlier discussions took place about the site?

It is not correct that the military authorities, whoever my hon. Friend means, over-ruled the civil authorities. I naturally consulted in great detail my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Defence, because there is a very large number of military flights weekly, and indeed daily, in this country as well as civil flights, and a very intricate pattern of air traffic control is involved. It would have been extremely foolish to take this decision without allowing for those considerations. The pattern of military airfields in this country, for which the previous Government were really more responsible than the present Government, has to a great extent limited our choice.

What about N.A.T.O.?

Any consultations with N.A.T.O. will naturally have been conducted by my right hon. Friend rather than myself.

Aside from the irretrievable loss to farming and the countryside, is not this a classic example of putting the convenience of aeroplanes before the well-being of people and sacrificing the long-term interests of the nation to a short-term palliative to the Airports Authority? How can it possibly be justified to have three separate airports for London each on completely different sites and at long distances from it? How can that make sense in the 1970s and 1980s?

Paris, Moscow and New York are all doing the same thing, and they, apparently, consider that it makes sense there. I fully agree with the hon. Gentleman that there is a conflict of interests here between civil aviation and those who live in the neighbourhood of an airport, but I do not agree with him that this is sacrificing the long term to the short term. The fact is that if this nation is to hold the same place in civil aviation in the future, which is highly important from the point of view of earning and saving foreign exchange, as we have held with shipping in the past, we must undoubtedly have as good a modern, developed set of airports as our major competitors, and that we are determined to have.

Would my right hon. Friend accept my assurance, as a former member of the Essex county planning authority, that many people in Essex will welcome his statement, which some of us consider to be long overdue, as providing a new dynamic in that area? Would he also agree that the statement is not before time as B.E.A., B.O.A.C. and the Airports Authority require it in order to complete the vitally needed planning for future years?

I am very glad that my statement is welcomed even by some people in Essex. I also agree with my hon. Friend that it was absolutely essential to take this decision now. All sorts of delays would have been caused if we had waited any longer.

Does the right hon. Gentleman recognise that for the convenience of passengers, many of whom want to change to different airlines—being in transit—for the efficiency of the airlines, and for the burden on the taxpayer, the smaller the number of airports which serve a great metropolis like London the better? Is he satisfied that enough money is being spent not on concrete and forming a new centre of annoyance and noise but on more sophisticated navigational aids and air traffic control procedures which would allow us to compress the traffic of existing airports and thus make better use of them? The right hon. Gentleman will know that the load carried by New York and Chicago Airports is already more than double that carried by Heathrow and Gatwick.

Yes, we intend to use all the devices to which the hon. Gentleman has referred and on which I know he is very expert. I agree that the fewer major airports there are the better, but the fact is that Heathrow and Gatwick cannot be extended beyond certain limits, to which we intend to extend them before Stansted is brought fully into use. Apart from them, it is essential to have a third airport. Several other major cities in the world have been forced to the same conclusion.

It is very simple for those of us with constituencies in the west of London to welcome this unreservedly on the basis that any form of relief is to be welcomed. But on further consideration, after we have read the Report, it may be that we shall come to the conclusion that, while this relief is to be welcomed, there is no long-term answer to the problem except tackling the problem of aircraft noise. If my right hon. Friend agrees with that statement, will he read the Amendment that I am proposing to my Aircraft Noise Bill——

Order. I suspected that that was coming.

I shall await my hon. Friend's conclusions with interest. I assure him that I read all his statements on this subject that I have time for.

The right hon. Gentleman has said that the fewer airports we have in the London area the better. We are now up to three. He mentioned at the same time that the Government were examining long-term projects. We have been in the era of air transport for 20-odd years since the war. Could he tell us whether the Government have clear views as to what the long-term projects are before we find that we are discussing the fourth and fifth airports?

Stansted, with the long-term extensions, should meet the needs of civil aviation in London and the South-East well into the 'eighties. The subsequent problem therefore does not arise until 1980. We are already examining it, but there is plenty of time to reach the right conclusions.

Now that we are to have three airports in the London area, has my right hon. Friend given any thought to rationalisation of air traffic whereby transcontinental services would be concentrated at Stansted and European and internal services would be allocated between Gatwick and Heathrow?

It is not as simple as that. Many people wish to interchange between long-distance and internal services. However, one of the benefits of taking the decision is that the best solution to this complex problem can be worked out by the airlines and the British Airports Authority.

Why are the Government still concentrating on this piecemeal, patchwork solution to London's airport problems? The 'eighties will soon be with us. Is it not creating a situation in which London will be pretty well deluged with a criss-cross pattern of air flights, as a result of which the whole of London will be subject to noise and inconvenience and all the troubles that arise therefrom?

I note that my hon. Friend always looks a long way ahead. We do our best to keep up with him. We have examined this not just in a patchwork spirit. We took a number of months over it in order to examine all the possible alternatives which might contribute to the solution. I think that was right. The next stage is to examine the longer term in the same way.

With permission, I should like to make a statement about the financial position of the electricity industry.

Electricity prices have been stable for two or three years, although the coal price increase of a year ago was passed on to large industrial and commercial users of electricity through contract clauses. In view of the Government's call last July for the standstill and following period of severe restraint, no move has so far been made to revise tariffs. Meanwhile the necessary measures of last year have resulted in a lower rate of growth in sales of electricity at a time when capital charges are growing due to the need to catch up at last on shortages of plant and provide for the faster growth which was previously foreseen. In consequence, net revenues of the Electricity Boards have been falling for some time, and despite efforts to absorb increased costs through greater efficiency, the industry would incur a deficit in the current year if nothing were done.

The current financial objective of the industry is a gross return of 12·4 per cent. on average net assets—equal to a net return after depreciation, but before paying interest, of about 6¾ per cent. This implies a net balance of revenue of about £85 million a year, about 8 per cent. on gross revenue. In the four years ended March, 1966, the industry's balance of revenue, closely matching the financial objective, amounted to a total of some £260 million, the whole of which was put towards the industry's new investment of nearly £2,000 million. Last year, however, net revenue fell considerably short of the financial objective—by about £60 million—and a further £100 million shortfall would occur in the current financial year if there were no change in prices. Additional loans from the Exchequer of this order would have serious implications for taxation and would, of course, affect our capacity to support other investment. The industry has materially reduced its total capital requirements, but they are still around £600 million a year, which is about one-tenth of total national investment. In such a programme we have to aim to pay as we go a substantial part of the new money required.

In these circumstances the Electricity Council consulted the Government on what action should be taken. We are satisfied that in the circumstances of the industry an increase in tariffs in order to improve the rate of return would be justified against the criteria for price increases after 30th June. I have, therefore, told the Council that the Boards should not try to recover past short-falls but should try to regain the rate of return required by their current objectives as soon as practicable. The increases will vary considerably as between Boards and as between different classes of consumer, but there will be no increase until after the period of severe restraint.

Area Boards are now working out their proposals, which will be considered by the Government under the arrangements for early warning of price increases: they will also be considered in detail, under statutory procedures, by the Area Consultative Councils and the Electricity Council.

Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that this is a very grave announcement which will be greeted with dismay by electricity consumers throughout the country? Is he aware that it has profound implications for the Government's prices and incomes policy, and will have a major impact on industrial costs, particularly of large electricity users like the steel, chemicals, glass and cement industries?

The right hon. Gentleman has given us a plethora of excuses, among which figured largely the failure of the National Plan, but he has given us very few facts. I should like to ask him three questions.

First, how much does the right hon. Gentleman expect the average increases will be? In 1965 the average increase in tariffs to the consumer was about 9 per cent. It is suggested this morning in the Press that it may be about 10 per cent. Is this a realistic estimate?

Secondly, bearing in mind that out of £100 revenue £80 goes to the Central Electricity Generating Board and only £20 to the area boards, how much of the increase is due to the increase in the bulk supply tariff to the area boards and how much will go to the area boards?

Thirdly, while we on these benches entirely accept the financial targets which have been set and agree that they should be maintained, why must this always be achieved by increasing prices and never by cutting costs? What progress has been made towards the Prices and Incomes Board recommendation that the financial targets should be combined with a requirement to keep costs down? How long must the electricity industry go on paying the cost of giving preference to coal?

The hon. Gentleman has asked a number of questions in a somewhat polemical tone. It is difficult to work out exactly what the increases will be. We must first hear what the area boards will do. The average increase probably should be about 10 per cent.

The point is—and the House really must accept this—that if the country wants an efficient, modern, large-scale electricity industry without breakdowns, it must be prepared to invest large sums of money. The hon. Gentleman knows that as well as anyone else. The effect on the cost of living index of the increases should be about 0·3 per cent.

As I made some effort to make clear, in terms of the incomes policy, there will be no increase until after the period of severe restraint, and the criteria are thus in accordance with the White Paper. The effect on industrial users is likely to be rather less than on domestic consumers, since industry has already absorbed some of the increased coal prices.

Does not my right hon. Friend agree that, now that the consumers are faced with increases in the tariff, they have every right to demand an increase in the standard of service? Can he give a guarantee that there will be no further cutting or shedding of the load during the winter months so that at least there can be some benefit from the increased tariff?

That is a fair question. Every Minister of Power gets more letters and objections to breakdowns and disconnections, voltage reductions and the rest than about any other subject. But these factors have been reduced enormously in recent years as a result of hard work.

The fact is that the country cannot have the sort of electricity programme it requires unless it is prepared to pay for it. It is not a question of whether it can be done more cheaply or not—and I am sure that the hon. Member for Wanstead and Woodford (Mr. Patrick Jenkin) does not believe this himself, since, for example, nuclear power stations tend to be expensive articles—but whether the cost should be met out of personal taxation or out of capital that had been made available for other things, such as hospitals, roads and education, or whether we should be realistic and face the issue, which is what we have done.

The right hon. Gentleman has spoken of the capital burden. First, why is he announcing an increased price when we have just had an announcement of a substantial cutback in the capital programme and when Bank Rate has been reduced so that the cost of Government borrowing has been reduced? Secondly, why is it that we are not to wait for the completion of the Government's review of the fuel policy before these increases come into effect? The cost of the electricity industry may be substantially reduced in the light of the Government's future fuel policy. Thirdly——

Order. I must protect the business of the House. Questions must be reasonably brief. That is enough.

I gave the reasons as clearly as I could. If there is no increase, the Central Electricity Generating Board and the Electricity Council will be unable to meet their financial objectives, and the short-fall would be about £100 million. That money would have to come from somewhere. No one would suggest cutting the programme and therefore it is a question as to whether one is prepared to meet the cost by cutting back on investment elsewhere or by meeting it within the industry itself.

Is my right hon. Friend aware that the fact that the domestic consumer is likely to pay more on average than the industrial consumer is a matter of great concern, particularly to the lower-paid workers. How far is it intended to leave the gas industry in a favourable position?

This is one of the difficulties in hon. Members trying to draw me on what the average increases are likely to be. We do not know yet. It is a question of the area boards' interpreting how this will affect them, and the recommendations they make will have to be considered by me on behalf of the Government.

The point my hon. Friend has raised about the gas industry is real enough. The same considerations clearly apply there. It is too soon to say whether any general increase would be necessary at some time in the future for the gas industry. Clearly, the burdens of the North Sea gas investment must be faced and the matter is under consideration.

Is the Minister aware that the fact that he has chosen a very quiet day to make his statement will not result in his having a very quiet reception of what he has said? Can he tell us how the Government have got themselves into such a muddle that, in the period of a nil norm, and after 12 months of wage standstill, they dare to put up electricity prices by 10 per cent. to all consumers?

I do not think that I am naive enough to believe that an announcement of this type would make me widely popular whenever it was made.

These prices will not come into operation until about September, when the period of severe restraint will be over. The party opposite has tried to dodge these issues, with catastrophic results, for many years. I come back to the simple proposition that if we have to find £100 million for the electricity industry we can either get it from the Exchequer at the expense of other things, cut the programme, or find the money within the industry.

Is my right hon. Friend aware that the increases will bear particularly hard on the pensioners? Will he consider whether any worth-while schemes for rebates can be considered for pensioners?

This is a very big question. It has been looked at on a number of occasions. It would be a quite incredibly difficult thing to do, not least because not all pensioners are cases of hardship; there are wealthy pensioners as well as others. It is extremely difficult.

Successive Governments have felt that the best way to deal with people in such circumstances—and I do not under-rate their problems at all, which are serious—is by direct benefits rather than by attempting to jig around with prices in this way. I accept the point that these increases are not inconsiderable but it is estimated that the effect on the cost of living as a whole will be about 0·3 per cent. We are also giving a great deal of notice. The increases will not be made until the end of the year.

Despite the hypocrisy of hon. Members opposite and the many problems he has explained, is my right hon. Friend aware that many wage earners with low and average incomes will be bitterly disappointed by his announcement?

Of course everyone is disappointed at the idea of increased costs for anything. But we are all agreed on the sort of electricity programme we need, and it has to be financed. This can be done by cutting the programme or at the expense of other things—which I know my hon. Friend feels strongly about——

Or by efficiency.

It is no good the hon. Gentleman bumbling about efficiency. This is a highly efficient industry which compares with any other in the world.

Does my right hon. Friend accept that this just about finally kills the Government's wages policy? Is it not the case that the Government's mismanagement of their capital resources shows that the wage restraint by the electricity workers has proved valueless in keeping down prices?

It shows nothing of the sort. First, we are talking about increases after the period of severe restraint has ended, and, indeed, increased labour costs are part of the story. If there are no price increases for three years and labour costs rise in the meantime—which is precisely the position—obviously prices have to be increased in the end. Of course I am not blaming all this on wages but increased labour costs have contributed.

Does the right hon. Gentleman really believe that nothing can be done to increase efficiency? Is he aware that the staff of the Central Electricity Board increased by over 12 per cent. between 1965 and 1966 while sales increased by little more than half?

Of course everyone is using a "phoney" argument. Of course one can increase efficiency in any industry on the margin. I am sure—indeed, I challenge him on it—that the hon. Gentleman does not believe for one moment that efficiencies on the scale that he suggests could be achieved in the electricity industry. If a deficit of this size were due to inefficiency it would be a shattering condemnation of the entire industry, which the hon. Gentleman would not make now.

rose——

Order. Before I call the first Adjournment debate, I would point out that we have lost about 40 minutes of Adjournment time. I make no complaint, but this means re-adjusting the times of the debates.

The first debate will end at 1 o'clock; the second will be from 1 to 1·45 p.m.; the third from 1·45 to 2·30 p.m.; the fourth from 2·30 to 3·15 p.m.; the fifth from 3·15 to 4 p.m. and the last, in the name of the hon. Member for Bebington (Mr. Brooks) will be from 4·0 to 4·30 p.m.

I will have a copy of this list made and it will be posted in the usual way.

I am very grateful to you, Mr. Speaker, for having given me the opportunity of raising this morning the whole question of the United Nations. I am only sorry that two of the most lamentable statements from the Government which we have heard for some time should have curtailed the debate by 40 minutes.

I asked to be allowed to raise this subject because I am most seriously concerned with the growing attitude of irritable impatience, and indeed even hostility, among reasonable men and women of good will towards this first worldwide attempt to establish a rule of law between nations. For that is what it is; the League of Nations was nowhere near world-wide.

My party is sometimes accused by some members of the Labour Party of hostility to the United Nations. It is true that there is a right wing fringe which would have us withdraw from the United Nations, but that is no worse than the fringe of blind worshippers who greet with undiscriminating applause every action and utterance which emerges from the United Nations. After all, it was a Conservative Foreign Secretary who hedped to draft and who signed the Charter. The truth is that no responsible person who reads its Preamble could fail to support what the United Nations is trying to do. Where the difference between us and these critics lies is that we tend to see the United Nations steadily and whole, warts and all, whereas they regard it through rose-coloured spectacles with their feet planted firmly in the clouds.

I am by no means alone in my fears for the U.N. When my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Mr. Eldon Griffiths) heard that I was to raise this matter, he drew my attention to an article, "The U.N.: Reform or Die", which he had written in the Weekend Telegraph of 14th April, while another friend of mine, Mr. Gerald Bailey, sent me World Issues for spring, 1967, which he edits for the Friends' International Relations Committee and in which he is highly critical of current trends in the United Nations. I will quote one passage from his article:

"I do not take an idolatrous view of the U.N. I do not believe it to be omnipotent nor omnicompetent and certainly I do not believe it incapable of error. But I do believe it to be indispensable".

I quote that because it precisely sums up my own attitude. Unlike my hon. Friend, Mr. Bailey does not so much fear the demise of the United Nations as

"a steady and persistent decline in its powers and influence",

and that is what I, too, fear and that is what we are seeing today.

I make one further preliminary observation. I am grateful to the Minister of State for having come down to answer this debate this morning, and I assure him that my Motion is not a peg on which to hang an attack on Her Majesty's Government, still less on the distinguished civil servants from various Departments of State who carry out the Government's instructions in New York. Goodness knows, successive Governments have had their "wet" moments there. I should like to say at once that I greatly admired the address to the General Assembly delivered by the present Foreign Secretary on 11th October when he told the Assembly that he approached the United Nations

"in a mood of constructive discontent"

That set the tone for a sensible and realistic speech.

What are the principal reasons for the present state of affairs? They are much easier to state than to cure, but it is something if we can agree upon the dangers which threaten the United Nations and can acknowledge them squarely and together see what can be done to avert them. I will briefly mention the following: the utter failure of the Peace-keeping Committee of 33 with which is bound up the non-fulfilment of parts of the Charter; the infamous double standards; futile resolutions; the non-universality of the organisation; and the plethora of small States.

First and foremost, then, the Committee of 33 has so far failed miserably, and this is tied up with the non-fulfilment of Articles 43 and 19 of the Charter. Article 43 is in Chapter VII of the Charter which provides for sanctions, economic and military, in the event of threats to peace and acts of aggression. Article 43 stipulates that all members shall make available to the Security Council, on its call, armed forces and facilities necessary to maintain peace, but that these obligations shall be

"in accordance with special agreements to be negotiated as soon as possible on the initiative of the Security Council."

In all its 22 years the Security Council has never been able to negotiate these agreements, so that the built-in sanctions have never operated and the Military Staff Committee has had no work to do. The result has been that when peace has been threatened, as in the Gaza strip or Cyprus, or when the help of the United Nations has been invoked by a member Government, as in the Congo, ad hoc arrangements have had to be made by invoking the "Uniting for Peace" Resolution of 1950. What do the Government propose to do about Article 43?

These ad hoc military operations are very expensive and they alone account for the financial straits of the United Nations, because many States, and especially France and the Soviet Union, have consistently refused to pay their fair share. While on the subject of finance I must say that it is, of course, a disgrace to all of us that finance should be a source of anxiety to the Secretary-General. I say that because our total annual outgoings to the United Nations amount to less than we spend every year on giving each other free prescriptions, and at that we are the third largest contributor to the United Nations.

Although the International Court of Justice expressed by a majority of nine to five the opinion that the cost of these ad hoc military operations must be considered as being expenses of the organisation and therefore under Article 17 fairly shared by all members, and although the General Assembly adopted this opinion by the necessary two-thirds majority, these States have continued to ignore it and so the financial burden is being carried largely by the United States of America and ourselves.

We deserve to bear it because we refused to implement the Charter. We condoned, we colluded in, the non-implementation of Article 19 which provides that any Member who is two years in arrears on its assessed financial contributions "shall have no vote in the General Assembly". What happened? After wasting the whole of the XIXth Session arguing whether or not to enforce Article 19, it was eventually decided not to do so, and so the door is now wide open to others to default too. It was a grievous error, as I said at the time. We were afraid of members walking out, as they had from the League. But would they have walked out? After all, Article 19 does not deprive a Member of its vote, or veto if it has one, in the Security Council, but only of its vote in the General Assembly. So no progress is being made by the Peace-keeping Committee of 33. I hope that when he goes to Moscow the Foreign Secretary will tell the Russian leaders that perpetually to prate of peace, so that it has almost become a dirty word, while all the time surreptitiously practising incitement to war, is not to observe the spirit of the Charter.

As for the double standard, this grievous characteristic is enough of itself to alienate all honest men. It was defined and condemned by my right hon. Friend the Member for Kinross and West Perthshire (Sir Alec Douglas-Home) when he was Foreign Secretary in a speech in another place on 17th October, 1961, and again at Berwick-on-Tweed in December of that year when he said:

"I have gone into these matters at some length because the United Nations is of such importance in the life of Britain. This is bound to involve some criticism of its practices; but where does loyalty lie: with those who urge upon it actions beyond its strength; or with those who insist that its actions should remain within the compass of the Charter? … Having drawn up the balance sheet between pessimism and hope, I come down decidedly on the side of hope"

Yet for that speech, packed with honesty and common sense, and therefore of the greatest value to the United Nations, my right hon. Friend was censured by the then Opposition.

Alas, the standards of the United Nations are still double, as are those of many in the world today. It seems to so many people that all criteria are purely subjective. It is not what is done, but who does it, which seems to matter to them. Self-determination, non-interference, banning of racial discrimination, non-aggression—all these are principles of the Charter, but they are practised by the signatories of the Charter only when it happens to suit them.

There was no reason whatever why self-determination should not have been granted to Goa and West Irian. There is no reason whatever why self-determination should not now be granted to the inhabitants of Korea, Vietnam, Gibraltar or East Germany. Then there is non-interference in matters essentially within the jurisdiction of any State: certainly where the Communist countries are concerned—it appears in every single manifesto that they ever issue. But not for colonial territories or South Africa. Racial discrimination is bad everywhere, but not in Tanzania or Southern Sudan. Aggression is condemned in Rhodesia, whose Government, however illegal, is threatening no one, but is condoned in the Yemen, where Nasser is guilty of the most flagrant aggression since Mussolini's day. In peaceful Rhodesia there is said to be a threat to the peace; in the Yeman, whose wretched inhabitants are daily bombed and massacred, there is perfect peace.

Now for the resolutions, or some of them. The Foreign Secretary's address to the General Assembly on 11th October said:

"We must not think that a resolution which has no connection with reality is a substitute for action."

I have time to cite only two classic examples of such resolutions. The first was on colonialism, No. 1514 in December, 1960. The Assembly actually resolved that:

"Immediate steps shall be taken … in all territories which have not yet attained independence, to transfer all powers to the peoples in these territories without any conditions whatever. … Inadequacy of political, economic or educational preparedness should never serve as a pretext for delaying independence."

That was six months after the lesson of the Congo. Almost more extraordinary than the resolution was the fact that the United Kingdom Government and Australia, alone in the Commonwealth, did not vote in favour of it; and that even they only abstained. This utterly irresponsible resolution led to the formation of the Committee of 24, which has been poking its fingers into many places where it has no business, stirring up trouble and apparently motivated solely by hostility to what it calls colonialists, and not remotely motivated by any regard for the welfare of the inhabitants of the colonies visited.

We cannot complain about the ludicrous farce of the three-man visit to Aden, because we invited it. Was any effort made to ascertain, before its appointment, that its members would be persona grata with Her Majesty's Government? Years ago Mr. Butler, as he then was, when Foreign Secretary, warned the General Assembly that it would do itself harm if it persisted in passing resolutions wholly outside its competence. He said that the United Nations interest had encouraged extremism on both sides and made more remote the chances of two races working together. Yet we joined the Committee of 24. Why? It is not an edifying spectacle to see so many people in glass houses throwing stones.

The present Foreign Secretary's speech, which I have already quoted, went on to say:

"… the British Government are guided and shall continue to be guided by the principle of that the interests of the inhabitants of the territories for which they still have responsibility are paramount. Britain stands ready to give independence to territories that want it and can sustain it. Certain problems of de-colonisation remain. It is inevitable that these are some of the most difficult. They cannot be settled by a mixture of theory and enthusiasm. They are practical problems which need practical solutions. We are happy to have your help, provided it is offered impartially in the true interests of the people concerned."

That seems to me to be sound common sense.

A more recent example of a resolution which, for fatuous futility, beats anything even on the General Assembly's record hitherto, concerns South Africa and South-West Africa. This is a matter in which the Republic of South Africa is wholly in the wrong and the United Nations wholly in the right; where the injunction against non-interference under Article 2(7) has no application whatever. South Africa is determined to make South-West Africa into a fifth province. The United Nations, supported by the opinions of the I.C.J., is determined that South-West Africa is a mandated territory for the future welfare and constitution of which the United Nations has sole responsibility. There is complete deadlock, and it could obviously be solved only by force or by a change of heart and government in South Africa. No one knows better than her Majesty's Government that force is out of the question.

Yet in these circumstances it is proposed that the Assembly should create a United Nations Council for South-West Africa which could go there at once to take over the administration and ensure the withdrawal of South African police and troops. Any counter-action by South Africa would be considered "an act of aggression" and the Security Council would take enforcement action against South Africa—in other words, war, to be paid for by others, as usual. A 58-Power draft incorporating these "Afro-Asian" proposals was debated by the Assembly last week. One after another, the spokesmen of such splendid democracies as Albania, Tanzania, Byelo-Russia, Mali, the Yemen and others urged adoption of the resolution; the corner-stone of which, according to the representative from Indonesia, is realism.

I come now to non-universality. Here again I would like to quote from the Foreign Secretary's speech:

"I feel with the clearest conviction that all the peoples of the world should be represented here. This is not a club solely for those who think alike. This is a place where all should meet; mix and exchange their ideas and bring them ultimately to some kind of harmony and agreement."

The non-members include the "split" States, Korea, Vietnam and, above all, Germany, although West Germany plays her full part in the specialised agencies. There is also the People's Republic of China.

The fact that this great country is not a member means that her rulers are kept in an ivory tower, and scarcely meet foreigners other than fellow-Communists and fellow-travellers. Ever since I was a delegate to the United Nations, I have advocated that an invitation should be extended to Peking. I wrote to the then Prime Minister, Mr. Macmillan, and said so. Soon afterwards, our policy was changed. Who am I to say that it was not a case of cause and effect? The question not only reaches the agenda every year now, but every year we vote—with many strange bedfellows, it has to be admitted. All the so-called blocs, except the monolithic Soviet bloc, are split on this issue. We vote for inviting Peking to take her place in the U.N., including her permanent seat on the Security Council.

Of what use are the endless talks about disarmament if China is not at the table. Assume that, by a miracle, a treaty for "general and complete disarmament under effective international control" were to be signed tomorrow. Who would honour it if China was not a party? Then again Vietnam: how can the United Nations interfere effectively there when three of the four contesting parties are not members of it?

I want to give a word of warning before I leave China. Formosa, unless and until a maojrity of her 11 million inhabitants freely determines to join the mainland, is fully entitled to membership of the U.N. as an independent sovereign state. She is not entitled to masquerade as "China" or to occupy a permanent seat on the Security Council.

The last problem that I want to touch on is to do with the smaller States. There are now 122 members of the United Nations. My hon. Friend the Member for Bury St. Edmunds tells us in his article that a blocking third could be composed of members who, between them, pay less than 2 per cent. of the budget; while one could compile a simple majority from countries whose contributions, even if paid, amount to under 7 per cent. We alone pay 7·21 per cent. of the annual budget.

There was a curious passage in the Secretary-General's report for 1964–65 which seems to have escaped notice. He was talking about the

"recent phenomenon of the emergence of exceptionally small new States."

He added:

"I believe that the time has come when Member States may wish to examine more closely the criteria for the admission of new Members, in the light of the long-term implications of present trends."

But members have not wished to do so. Meanwhile, a dozen new States with populations little larger than that of an English country town have become members.

I strongly suggest that members of the United Nations should act on the Secretary-General's hint and, meanwhile, should consider whether it is practicable or desirable to institute some system of weighted voting. I say "practicable" because it would mean a two-thirds majority in the Assembly, and why should these smaller nations vote themselves less power? As to the veto, in the present state of political sophistication of most members, it would be unwise for us to forgo it, even if the other permanent members were to agree to do so.

What then to do? That is a very much harder proposition to speak about. I have made some suggestions, but I would go on to suggest, first, that Her Majesty's Government have a very long and serious talk with the Secretary-General, U Thant—that great and good man—when he comes to London next week, because things are reaching serious proportions. Secondly, I would suggest that the Government should have serious talks with our fellow permanent members of the Security Council and perhaps with some of the other senior members of the United Nations.

Thirdly, I would suggest that the Government send Members of Parliament as delegates to the United Nations. They must, of course, be supporters of the Government. When I was a delegate every member of the delegation, except the Permanent Representative, was a Member of this House, and there was one other Member of the House even among the five alternate delegates. Without any disrespect whatsoever to the civil servants, I think that Members of Parliament carry more weight in the Assembly, and that foreigners think so, and that they can take charge of committees in a way which civil servants cannot; what is more it is very good for Members of Parliament. With great respect to the Minister of State, I do not think that his reply on 17th April was good enough.

Fourthly, we should continue to support with all our force the specialised agencies, which employ 80 per cent. of the United Nations staff and which do all over the world, except in the more favoured places such as our own little island, the most wonderful work in, for example, medicine, health, law, labour relations and education. Fifthly, I suggest that at U.N.O. we stick to our principles and never "trim". Common sense, integrity and clarity of exposition will win friends and influence people.

Finally, I would encourage support for the United Nations Organisation from the people of this country. I would encourage them to join the United Nations Association, which recently appointed, in the person of the former Conservative Member for Lancaster, a new Chairman with great drive and ability who I think will do the Association a power of good. But they must not get mixed up with the peace cranks and the "rent-a-crowd" boys. That would alienate all the people to whom I appeal—the reasonable men and women of good will throughout the country. We must try to persuade our fellow countrymen that with all its faults, which we must face and try to cure, the United Nations Organisation is, in U Thant's words,

"an effort to make the world safe for diversity".

This is a very short debate. I wish to call a number of hon. Members to speak, but I can do so only if speeches are brief.

I am grateful to the hon. Member for Hertfordshire, South-West (Mr. Longden) for initiating this debate. He will, however, be well aware, before I utter the words, that I disagree with many of the things which he has said. For example, I disagree about weighted votes in the Assembly. I think that any attempt to create a basis of weighted votes would lead to far more difficulties than it would solve. Think only of the entry of China. Is China to have 10 or 12 times as many delegates as this country? Where should we end? I believe that the present system, if only we adhere to the fundamental principles of the Charter—and that will be my main theme—would work reasonably well. I disagree with the hon. Gentleman about the veto. I would abolish it tomorrow. I believe that if only the smaller and medium powers had been allowed a proper voice at San Francisco it would never have been inserted in the Charter.

However, I agree with the hon. Gentleman that the influence of the United Nations is waning. We stand in a very dangerous situation. In The Times this morning the Secretary-General is reported as saying that we are in the early stages of the third world war. It further reports that the Vietcong have destroyed a large number of American aircraft and have killed and wounded a large number of Americans at an air base 16 miles from Saigon. They have done it with heavy Russian rockets. That illustrates what the Secretary-General means when he says that we are in the early stages of the third world war.

If I read the signs aright, there is all too great a danger that the Pentagon will do its utmost to persuade President Johnson to invade the territory of North Vietnam. I do not believe that that could happen without the participation of China in the war following very swiftly and on a major scale. The parallel with the 1930s is all too clear. If the new escalation taking place day by day in the attacks in North Vietnam should culminate in an invasion, we should pass some of the turning points of the events which happened in the 1930s and which may now repeat themselves.

Why have we reached this parlous condition? I believe that the reason is that all the major Governments, followed by a number of smaller Governments, have violated the Charter in different ways. Today is not the day when we debate Suez; that is coming. On the same day we shall debate the tragic events in Hungary which followed Suez, and which I believe were connected with Suez. They were both clear, flagrant violations of the Charter. What happened in the Lebanon and Jordan perhaps was not so clear a violation. But Britain and the United States sent large-scale forces—troops, warships off the coast, with aircraft on their decks and nuclear bombs loaded up for discharge against a possible enemy, infantry and guns and tanks—to the Lebanon and Jordan against the strong advice of the Secretary General, Mr. Dag Hammarskjold, who said that his observers could easily deal with the danger with which Britain and America alleged that they were dealing.

What happened in the Lebanon was followed by the Bay of Pigs, by the tragic events in Laos, in which the rôle of the C.I.A. hardly bears examination; and by the events in Malaysia. In my opinion, which is shared by many, both the Government of right hon. and hon. Members opposite and my Government were quite wrong not to take the Malaysian "confrontation" to the Security Council and to insist on the implementation of the procedures of the Security Council, with the dispatch of observers to the spot and all the other measures necessary to bring that confrontation to a speedy end.

We allowed a war to go on for three years which, in my view, should not and would not have happened, if the two Governments of this country whom I am arraigning had done what I believed to be their United Nations duty. This was followed by the far more serious events in Santa Domingo. There was a flagrant violation of the Charter on a major scale. Every Latin American State expected us to intervene and stop it—to do what Eisenhower did in 1956. Simultaneously there was the despatch of great American forces to Vietnam.

The United Nations Agencies, together with the Technical Assistance Board and the Special Fund, have, in my view, done magnificent work. An examination of the record of the International Bank, of the International Monetary Fund, which has helped us so much, of the International Labour Office, of the Food and Agriculture Organisation, of any of them, shows that, for the money which they receive, they have given to us in promotion of British interests a very remarkable dividend indeed.

I think that in some departments of this agency work—I have no time to go into the detail of how the I.L.O. secures the observance of its conventions or how the International Bank administers its loans—we are advancing rapidly to what most hon. Members desire—international government. All of it will perish, as the similar work, very successful, of the League of Nations perished, if the Charter is not upheld. Therefore, the first remedy for the present situation is to ensure that the law of the Charter shall in all relevant cases be maintained.

I repeat what I have sometimes tried to suggest at Question Time and in other ways, that now, this year, 1967, our Foreign Secretary should turn the speech which he made in the United Nations General Assembly last October about Vietnam into a General Assembly resolution; that he should call for an immediate emergency session; that he should ask the nations to support his proposals for a solution. I believe that his proposals would obtain the support of 100, if not 120, members of the U.N.

As Paul Henri Spaak said last year in an article in The Times—the hon. Gentleman knows his great authority in United Nations circles—if such a resolution were adopted by the General Assembly it is not the United States which would oppose what was put forward.

As for Hanoi, I believe that the Assembly resolution would give them the guarantee they now need, and without which they cannot come to the conference table, that they would have the honest application of the Geneva Agreements, without the danger of being cheated, as they were cheated by the French in 1946 and as they were, most tragically, by Diem in 1955.

I have tried to be brief, because others wish to speak. I cannot think that the arms race will continue indefinitely without leading to the disaster which the hon. Gentleman fears. All Governments have a tendency to say, "Disarmament? Yes, of course. But real disarmament will have to wait. It will come tomorrow. Today we will deal with the small partial measures—non-proliferation or a test ban. That will ease the way". I ask my right hon. Friend to consider the effects of the test ban of 1963. Has it really eased the way to further progress? Is the tension in the world less now than it was then?

I do not believe that any of these partial measures will do what is required, and I hope that our Government will try in the early future to pass beyond these smaller measures. Let them go on with these negotiations if they like, but let them, with the co-operation of the Commonwealth, put forward proposals for real disarmament as early as they can.

Finally, I would express my agreement with the hon. Gentleman that the proper representation of Britain in the United Nations is a very important factor in its success. It is something which could be done at once without waiting for the negotiations on disarmament of which I have spoken. I agree with the hon. Gentleman that every committee in the General Assembly—the Steering Committee, all the technical committees, everything—should have, as delegates from this country and from other countries, parliamentarians who understand how Parliamentary debate is carried on. Either the United Nations is an instrument of democratic rule in international affairs, either it is conducted by public debate, or else it is a fifth wheel in the diplomatic machine, of hardly any importance at all.

I urgently hope that, when the Government announce the Assembly delegation this year, they will make it plain that they have now decided that this work must be done by Parliamentarians, by members of this House, and not by the Foreign Office clerks, for whom we all have a great regard, but who have never had the training that is needed for this task.

Even more important is the participation of leading Ministers in the work of the Security Council, the General Assembly, and the agencies of the United Nations. I remember a speech by the Prime Minister at Scarborough in 1963, before he came to office, in which he said that this was to be an important part of the duties of every Minister in a Labour Government. Alas, it has not happened. I believe that that has been the cause of many failures which might have been averted.

I will not elaborate on the subject, for already I have spoken too long for the patience of hon. Members and of you, Mr. Speaker. But I beseech the Government that they will consider that a visit by the Foreign Secretary or the Prime Minister, in which, for one day or a day and a half or two days, he makes a speech and then goes away, is not a help to the Assembly. It is more like an insult. It shows that, while you think it is all right for them to listen to your speech, you have no interest or duty to listen to theirs. Unless the leading Ministers take a major part in the work of the United Nations, they will never understand what it is really about and the United Nations will never work as its authors intended that it should.

I support my hon. Friend the Member for Hertfordshire, South-West (Mr. Longden) and the right hon. Member for Derby, South (Mr. Philip Noel-Baker) in their plea that Members of Parliament should be included in the delegation to the United Nations General Assembly at the next session; but I certainly do not support the strictures the right hon. Gentleman made on the unsuitability of certain Foreign Office "clerks" for carrying out the job in the committees.

It so happens that when I was a delegate at the United Nations General Assembly in 1963 one of the Foreign Office clerks on the delegation was my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool, South (Mr. Blaker) who, from the admirable training he received there, has translated himself into an admirable Parliamentarian.

The right hon. Gentleman made a highly selective tour round the world. I do not think that there was a single spot on which he alighted on which I agreed with his interpretation of events.

There was, however, one single point on which I did agree with him. That was the impossibility of changing the present voting system in the United Nations Assembly on to a realistic weighted basis. When I was a delegate at the United Nations General Assembly, I served on Committee 3. As the representative of the United Kingdom I sat next to the delegate from the United States. On the other side of the delegate from the United States was a delegate from the Upper Volta. I remember on one occasion the American delegate made a most moving and powerful speech about the freedom of the Press. It was an excellent speech, and at the end of it the delegate from Upper Volta, who was a charming and courteous man, leant across to the American delegate and said, "Felicitations. I was most interested in your speech on freedom of the Press, but of course in the Upper Volta we do not have any Press of any sort." And yet the vote of the Upper Volta in the General Assembly is precisely equal to that of the United States; but I do not believe that there is going to be in fact any realistic way of changing this.

I do not believe that we help an individual or an organisation by asking it to do a job which it cannot possibly undertake with skill. The United Nations has, rightly, gained prestige in recent years from the success of the military observer groups in certain areas such as Palestine, the borders of Israel, Jordan and Syria and Egypt, and also in Kashmir, and I believe that those observer groups have done excellent work. The United Nations force in Cyprus has also performed its task well, although I am disturbed to see a report in the paper today of U Thant saying that the deficit on this force will by the end of July amount to £2½ million. But certainly, although the financial arrangements are highly unsatisfactory, the force on the ground has done a good job.

But in the areas where the United Nations observer groups or special forces have been able to perform a useful task their task has been to separate distinct, easily definable groups. It is easy, even in Cyprus, to tell the difference between the Greek and Turkish communities, and there their job solely is to keep the two communities from flying at each other's throats. The job gets more complicated in the Yemen, where a U.N. observer group was sent, and it is unfortunate that the United Nations has not had anything like a similar success in the Yemen in recent years. It has been a regrettable fiasco.

I am afraid that the conditions for suitable United Nations intervention do not obtain in Aden either. Before the recent mission went there I warned the House that it would be a fiasco, and a fiasco it certainly turned out to be. I hope it will not return to Aden. It has certainly not helped the position in Aden, nor has it helped the prestige of the United Nations Organisation itself. Meantime the Government persist in wanting to involve the United Nations, but it seems likely, to put it no higher, that with the mandate that is given to any United Nations group which actually goes to Aden will be at the best imprecise and at the worst wholly unhelpful. After all, if we do get a battalion of Danes or of Ethiopians in Dhalla to maintain law and order, whose law and order are they going to maintain? I do not believe that the presence of a few Swedes in blue berets walking round the streets of Sheikh Othman will make any material contribution to the solution of the problems there.

So I would ask the Government to be very careful in their efforts to get the United Nations involved in Aden, and to have it very carefully set out in their own minds precisely what they want the United Nations to do, because if the present air of imprecision is carried forward I am afraid that U.N. involvement will not help the people in Aden, and it is not going to help the United Nations Organisation itself.

I should like to congratulate the hon. Member for Hertfordshire, South-West (Mr. Longden) upon introducing this debate. It is a long overdue debate, and it is a pity we have such an embargo on the time for it. Already enough has been said to indicate the anxiety of hon. Members about waning support for the United Nations. My experience has not been from the New York end, as has that of some hon. Members, though I have spent some time in New York observing the work of the United Nations, but rather I speak with experience of working for four years for the United Nations Association in London, explaining to people the various organisations and work of the United Nations, and, in particular, working to try to persuade successive Governments to give proper support to the work of the United Nations. So it is on this side of its work that I should like to speak this morning.

There is no doubt at all that among the general population there is a good deal of good will towards the United Nations, but it has been vastly dissipated because the news presented to them concentrates on the 10 per cent. of the United Nations' work, admittedy in an extremely important field, where it has not been so successful, not on the 90 per cent. of the work in social fields, U.N.E.S.C.O., U.N.I.C.E.F., the Food and Agriculture Organisation, where there is a great success story, which is not sensational news, and so, with one or two exceptions, the newspapers give it very little publicity. So, quite naturally, public opinion is concentrated on the differences between the members of the United Nations and in particular the differences which have emerged between the General Assembly of 122 members and the Security Council. On this aspect, certainly, the United Nations Association has produced some literature.

It is not surprising that there should be tensions between these two bodies. The Charter was written in a world vastly different from that of today. I do not think anyone in 1945 could possibly have anticipated the emergence of the number of independent territories which have since emerged. Consequently there is, in my view, a power imbalance inside the United Nations, and this is one aspect which partly explains why member States, the new member States in particular, working mainly through the Committee of 24, appear to pass so many untenable resolutions. As has been said this morning, this does damage, and part of the reason is that they have only the opportunity to express their views and express them by vote. By and large, the Security Council members still dominate power politics without reference to the United Nations and sometimes with little sensitivity to the greater needs of the members of the United Nations. This is the problem.

On the other hand, it is so easy to go to the other extreme and over-simplify the question. There is not another organisation like the U.N. at which so many absurdities can be uttered. There are extremists on the Right wing, but there are also extremists on the Left wing. Both want the U.N. to perform tasks which it cannot perform and even call on Her Majesty's Government to support resolutions which they could not possibly support.

This all proves that a programme of public education is needed and, in this respect, the United Nations Association is greatly neglected. There is always an element of danger if one recommends that Her Majesty's Government or any other Government should give a grant to the associations of the U.N. These are free and independent bodies which will always require the right to speak freely. If they receive grants there is usually some question of strings being attached to them. Nevertheless, there is a case for more Government assistance for the U.N.'s work among young people. The Council for Education and World Citizenship, a successful part of the U.N.A., receives a very small amount of money compared with the amount spent by the Government on the Atlantic College. More money could be spent to good effect on education among young people.

Ultimately, if we are to see the U.N. live up to its Charter, we must work for a better understanding among the member Governments, and it is here that the U.N.'s C.W.C. is of such importance, remembering that that Committee can work through the World Federation of United Nations Associations, a body which is growing in influence and which is representing many of the new, emergent territories. It is through bodies like this that public opinion can be expressed.

If the action of those who wrote the Charter in 1945 can be rededicated and reinterpreted in the conditions of the 1960s, I feel sure that the U.N. will go on to live up to the high hopes expressed when the Charter was set up, and I believe that the U.N. still remains the main hope for mankind.

I agree with everyone who has spoken in the debate in welcoming this discussion and in recognising the importance of the United Nations. I wish that sufficient time were available for me to discuss other points raised by the right hon. Member for Derby, South (Mr. Philip Noel-Baker) but I will concentrate on one. It appeared to be his basic assumption that it is important that we should establish in the world the principle that change should not come about by force. I believe that this proposition is even more important than the U.N. itself, if it is possible to imagine anything more important than the U.N. It is because I believe in the fundamental importance of establishing that proposition about change that I consider that the Americans deserve to be supported in Vietnam.

I hope that the Minister will answer an important question about the mission to Aden. 1 agree with most of the points made by my hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham (Mr. Goodhart), but I should like to ask whether the Government would not have been wiser to have seen that this mission was set up through the Security Council. The way things have gone, it has been unfortunate that the mission was appointed, because it has developed into a farce. That may have something to do with the fact that it was appointed by the General Assembly and the Committee of 24, where the influence of Her Majesty's Government must have been very much less than it would have been in the Security Council.

If they believed that a mission should be set up to deal with Aden and South Arabia, why did not the Government see that it was established through the Security Council which, after all, is the body primarily responsible for international peace and security? Does not the Minister agree that, if it had been set up in that way, its mandate and membership could have been more beneficially influenced by Her Majesty's Government?

I begin by joining other hon. Members in congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Hertfordshire, South-West (Mr. Longden) for enabling us to have this important discussion. I also wish to congratulate my hon. Friend for introducing the subject with his customary skill and lucidity. This is too brief a discussion and a number of hon. Members who would have had contributions to make are unfortunately not able to take part in the debate. However, it has at least given us an opportunity to have a short and reflective discussion of the United Nations; and any discussion of this subject in Britain is often disappointingly shrill.

Journalists, politicians and even professors who are ready to analyse objectively other problems lose their calm when they come to the United Nations. There are those for whom the United Nations is, at best, a powerless debating society and, at worst, a cynical hypocrisy which we know to be untrue and a grossly exaggerated view. There are others who see the United Nations as a prototype of a future world government. Unfortunately, many of the dedicated believers go on to assume that the best way of making sure that the United Nations evolves into a world government is to treat it as if it already was one.

This assumption is dangerous, not only because it leads to uncritical veneration, to which my hon. Friend the Member for Hertfordshire, South-West referred, but also because the supporters of the United Nations feel that they must encourage recourse to it regardless of the circumstances and chances of success. This is already a temptation for baffled Governments, as we have seen in the cases of Palestine and Rhodesia, and is not one that should be encouraged.

Adlai Stevenson once described Hammarskjold as understanding that the United Nations

"… has limited, not unlimited, functions; that it has finite, not infinite, capabilities under given circumstances at a given time".

If this is the right approach, we must reject the idea that the United Nations, as it stands, is a sort of tribunal of morality equipped to hand down judgments on the state of the world.

It is difficult for anyone who has visited or worked at the U.N. and seen how resolutions are drafted and carried to understand how this idea can have taken such deep root. The General Assembly and Security Council are the meeting places for representatives carrying out the instructions of governments. Moreover, all of them use the U.N. to further or defend their national interests. Although, of course, there does exist some claim to moral authority, I am doubtful about its exercise. I suggest that it could be exercised validly only if the United Nations was able to keep the scales of justice exactly even, but representatives of Governments pursuing national or regional interest cannot hope to do this, and many examples were given this morning, particularly by my hon. Friend the Member for Hertfordshire, South-West, of how this does not happen.

The majority of the United Nations have concentrated on one particular denial of rights which it dislikes most, and this is colonialism. This is why it has carried the campaign aganst colonialism up to and beyond the limit of the Charter, swamping Article 2, and even straining the collective security provisions of Chapter 7.

All this, then, creates the double standard which has been referred to this morning, and so long as the majority of members of the United Nations continue to make moral claims for their selective judgment they are justly vulnerable to criticism such as was rightly made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Kinross and West Perthshire (Sir Alec Douglas-Home) in his famous speech at Berwick.

Breaking the financial deadlock is certainly one of the first necessities, but the major powers, I believe, could also encourage the United Nations to be more active diplomatically in areas where it is already involved. The United Nations, having intervened successfully to end the actual fighting in Kashmir, Palestine, and Cyprus, has since lapsed into relative passivity in these places. The disputes which it has temporarily smothered splutter on beneath the surface, and could at any time erupt again. The Security Council and the Secretary-General should surely be more energetic than at present in pressing the parties towards negotiation, in appointing mediators, or in suggesting compromises.

Part of the trouble is that the United Nations Secretariat is not well equipped for the kind of sustained diplomacy which is needed, and now that U Thant has been re-elected for five years as Secretary-General, an appointment which, as has been said, was widely and generally welcomed in this country and throughout the world, I suggest that he could be bolder in the actions that he takes, for instance, in the reorganisation of his Secretariat. The Secretary-General is too often hemmed in with subordinates chosen by nationality rather than by merit. He should now insist on a freer hand. He should certainly strengthen the military staff at the United Nations.

It becomes clearer with each year of its history that the United Nations can only grow by real achievements in peacekeeping, not by putting forward moral pretensions. As a peacekeeper, the United Nations has increasing opportunities as the bitterness goes out of the cold war. Its true friends will help it by turning its attention away from rhetoric, and by giving it the instruments for its real task and the encouragement to use them.

We have managed to rescue a minute for the hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Mr. Eldon Griffiths).

I am grateful to you, Mr. Speaker. That is extremely courteous of you. In the 60 seconds in which I propose to speak before the Minister wishes to rise, perhaps I might tell the House that I have been at the United Nations on many occasions. I admire the United Nations, I support it, and I wish to see it succeed, but I believe that it faces a crisis of confidence, and that this crisis arises because first, alas, there has been irresponsibility among many of the many States which have recently joined it; secondly, because there has been the double standard referred to earlier, and, thirdly, because it has been ignored by many of the Powers.

I believe that the United Nations must either reform or face the danger of withering away. I believe that the reforms are required principally in the General Assembly, where it is most difficult to achieve them. 1 should like to hear from the Minister whether he would think it wise to press that those nations which do not pay their quota should be deprived of their vote. Secondly, will he say whether there should be consideration of the establishment of regional committees within the General Assembly so that particular incidents may be considered within the committees before being presented to the General Assembly as a whole? Finally, would not the Minister agree that the crucial thing is that major States and the General Assembly collectively must stay within the Charter and accept the rule of law in all their doings?

I join the hon. Member for Westbury (Mr. Walters) and others who have taken part in the debate in an expression of gratitude to the hon. Member for Hertfordshire, South-West (Mr. Longden) for initiating this debate. There can be no more important question for the House of Commons to discuss than the future of the United Nations. It is very important to raise our sights from immediate detailed problems to what is the long-term hope of peace in the world, the United Nations Organisation.

I know that in making the various criticisms which he did the hon. Member for Hertfordshire, South-West was doing so not as one of the knockers of the United Nations, but as a long-time champion of the Organisation, and one of those anxious for its good name, and for its increased effectiveness and credibility in world affairs.

The hon. Gentleman and others who have taken part in the debate have put forward a number of interesting ideas for strengthening the United Nations. I do not accept the basic thesis of the hon. Gentleman, that the prestige of the United Nations is waning, although I heard this view expressed from both sides of the Chamber this morning. During all its existence the United Nations has been a centre of controversy and criticism. This is as it should be, and is inevitable, but I think it would be a misconception to believe that, taking its work as a whole, its prestige is waning throughout the world.

The British Government's attitude to the United Nations was described the other day by the Foreign Secretary—and the hon. Gentleman referred to this—as one of constructive discontent. I might perhaps put it in my own words by adapting one of the more limpid phrases of Lord Butler and saying that it is the best United Nations that we have, and that it is the constant aim of the Government to make it better and better until it can bring about disarmament, and become an effective peace-keeping authority, and eventually become a world government.

That is why, for example, the British Government made their offer to earmark part of our defence forces to give logistic support for United Nations peace keeping. That is why we led the way in regard to voluntary contributions to rescue the United Nations from the deadlock it faced, and the answer to the hon. Members for Hertfordshire, South-West and Bury St. Edmunds (Mr. Eldon Griffiths) about the Article 19 controversy is that although in the end the compromise that was reached was unsatisfactory in many of its aspects, it was the wisest compromise in the interests of the work of the United Nations Organisation, and ended a dangerous paralysis which had overtaken it at that stage.

The British Government's proposals in the Peace-keeping Committee, our initiative on the peaceful settlement of disputes, with which we are persisting, our recourse to the United Nations over Rhodesia and South Arabia, and in fact our whole approach to the Organisation, are evidence of our desire constantly to strengthen it.

As I have mentioned South Arabia, perhaps I might deal with the point raised by the hon. Member for Blackpool, South (Mr. Blaker). The reason why the United Nations mission to South Arabia was not appointed by the Security Council is that the British Government do not have control over the proceedings and decisions of the United Nations Organisation.

rose——

I cannot give way. I am dealing with the hon. Gentleman's point. The mission was appointed as a result of a General Assembly resolution on the basis that its membership should be agreed between the General Assembly and Her Majesty's Government as the administering Power and the appointment was made by the Secretary-General. We continue to believe that the United Nations has an important, indeed, a vital rôle to play in achieving a settlement of the South Arabia problem.

Both the hon. Gentleman the Member for Hertfordshire, South-West and my right hon. Friend the Member for Derby South (Mr. Philip Noel-Baker), who speaks with such authority and experience on United Nations matters, pressed that we should have greater Parliamentary representation on the British delegation at the United Nations. I remind them that we have permanently, as part of our delegation to the United Nations, something which did not exist under previous Governments, that is, a full-time Minister as our head of mission at the United Nations and another Minister of State as our disarmament Minister at the United Nations. In addition to that, we have announced that there will be one further House of Commons member on the delegation during the forthcoming Assembly. This makes four Members of Parliament, which compares favourably with what took place in the past.

In addition, the annual delegation from Parliament to the United Nations is this year to be lengthened to two weeks as opposed to the one week last year. I hope that these will be regarded as helpful steps in maintaining a direct Parliamentary involvement—which is most important—in the work of the United Nations.

The future of United Nations peace keeping was discussed by the hon. Member for Hertfordshire, South-West. It ought to be made clear at the outset that it is Britain and those who think like her at the United Nations who take a dynamic view of the need for the United Nations to grow and develop, and it is the Communist countries which hang back, saying that the San Francisco Charter is not a starting point but a sticking point. I hope that, when they lay such emphasis on the Charter, hon. Members will bear that point in mind. I have heard a Communist statesman say that we must regard the signing of the Charter in 1945 as a high-water mark of international consensus. In view of this Communist attitude, we have to recognise that it would not have been possible to get international agreement on the Charter at any moment since it was signed. However, it is important constantly to try to treat the United Nations as a dynamic organisation adapting itself to meet the changing world situation.

For our part, we have no illusions about some of the present defects of the United Nations Organisation. We are often victims of particularly ill-informed and ill-disposed attacks on our policy of bringing independence to our dependent territories, but we believe that the right reaction is not to retire and sulk but to defend our record of bringing an Empire of 600 million people to its present stage of being an association, a Commonwealth, of free and independent nations. I was asked why we served on the Committee of Twenty-Four. We served on that Committee because we believe that we have a good record to defend and we are ready to defend it however unfair the criticism which is made at times.

The hon. Gentleman the Member for Hertfordshire, South-West raised an important point when he spoke of the renewed interest shown by the Soviet Union and some other Communist countries in reactivating Article 43 of the Charter and pressing forward with agree- ments under that Article. The British Government are very ready to study this problem, but I utter a word of warning. As the House knows, Article 43 deals with enforcement action under Chapter 7 of the Charter. But, short of that, there are already, as the hon. Member for Beckenham (Mr. Goodhart) pointed out, important United Nations peace-keeping operations going on in several trouble spots. Soldiers in blue berets and United Nations observers are maintaining watch on the borders of Israel and her Arab neighbours, they are holding the ring in Cyprus, and maintaining peace in Kashmir.

Whatever advance is made with Article 43 arrangements, whatever agreement is reached in the Peace-keeping Committee—I regret that I cannot report to the House much progress in that Committee at the moment—it must not be at the expense of the existing peace-keeping operations. We must not risk ending up with less than we have at present in terms of United Nations peace keeping. As the Foreign Secretary urged at the General Assembly in October last year, the United Nations should be given a more effective peace-keeping capability. My right hon. Friend listed a number of practical steps which could be taken if there were reasonable agreement at the United Nations, without seeking to reconcile the major arguments in the dispute about the United Nations role in peace keeping.

In the few minutes which remain to me, I shall say something in general about the limitations and possibilities of the work of the United Nations. I say to my right hon. Friend the Member for Derby, South, whose devotion to the United Nations and its predecessor, the League of Nations, we all know and admire, that it must be accepted that the United Nations can be no better than its members allow it to be. The balanced view of the United Nations is that it is an organisation composed of sovereign States capable at any moment in time of achieving only what they are collectively prepared to see it achieve. In our view, therefore, it is foolish for the United Nations to embark on a course beyond its capacity to carry through. There is need for a severely practical approach to consideration of proposals for action. This may lead to frustration, but it is far better than having the United Nations pass impracticable resolutions, which may sound splendid at the rostrum of the Assembly but which are impossible of execution.

To give the United Nations heavier burdens than it can carry is not to show faith in it but to discredit it. This was why Her Majesty's Government withheld their support from the resolution on South-West Africa, to which the hon. Member for Hertfordshire, South-West referred. In taking that attitude, we believe that we can play our part in strengthening the organisation and reinforcing its prestige, not undermining it.

That is the negative side of the United Nations, and I hope that it will not be allowed to obscure its great positive achievements. I am glad that my right hon. Friend and my hon. Friend the Member for Hornchurch (Mr. Alan Lee Williams) both reminded us that the bulk of the work of the United Nations is done not in the delegates' lounge at New York but in the jungles, deserts and dust bowls of the developing countries of the world. In fact, the greater part of the United Nations manpower is devoted to the war on poverty rather than the verbal war which goes on in the General Assembly. No one who has seen the work of the United Nations in the field in the developing countries will be in any doubt that, in that aspect of its work at least, there is no question of its prestige waning in any way.

In reference to another way in which the United Nations can be strengthened, I take up a point made by the hon. Member for Westbury, speaking from the Opposition Front Bench, about the role of the Secretary-General and the strengthening of his office. The United Nations has been blessed by being served in the Secretary-General's office by some distinguished and dedicated men, one of whom, of course, gave his life for the organisation which he served.

U Thant has deservedly been reelected for a further term of five years by acclamation of the membership. He enjoys—through his own quiet integrity—unexampled authority. We should wish to support any proposals which U Thant will feel able to make for strengthening and streamlining the top administration of the United Nations. I assure the House that we shall talk to U Thant about this and other matters when we welcome him as the guest of the Government here in London next week. We are sure that U Thant will find that he commands wide backing for any plans he puts forward to give the United Nations and administrative machine with a cutting edge adequate to its authority in the world today.

I sometimes think that the United Nations suffers from being over-criticised in some quarters and, perhaps, over-praised in others. I am reminded of the well known couplet,

"Two men look out through the same bars: One sees the mud, and one the stars".

People looking at the United Nations may be divided into two groups, those who see nothing but the mud and those who see nothing but the stars. I have tried in what I have said to take account of both the mud and the stars, as other hon. Members taking part in the debate have done.

But the debate is not wholly representative of opinion about the United Nations. Her Majesty's Government certainly have their feet on the ground, knowing what the United Nations is and recognising its limitations, but with their eyes on what the United Nations may be. In our view, the United Nations is an instrument, admittedly imperfect but absolutely indispensable, with which member States seek to mitigate the hazards of international anarchy. No country has done more than Britain to strengthen this instrument. We have a good record in this country, and we intend to maintain it.

I am grateful to the House for its co-operation. The next debate will end at a quarter to two.

The House has just been debating collective madness and the scant hopes we have of doing something to combat it. I shall talk about individual madness, and I think that the House has rather more hope of coping with that.

I thank the Minister of Health for being here. I know how much this means to him, and I acknowledge that one of the doctors about whom I shall speak is a personal friend of his of long standing, and that there is a great mutual respect between them.

This matter means a great deal to me, because there are in my constituency two of the greatest of our mental hospitals, as they used to be called, Claybury and Goodmayes. Schizophrenics form a major proportion of their patients. I do not like the word "schizophrenia". I think that it is a bit of medical hog-wash and dog-Greek with no scientific basis to it. The Minister and I know that the word applies to people who are mad, suffering from an incurable and devastating illness. Freudian analysis is not a remedy for this class of patient. But there is new thought that a cure lies in changing the chemistry of the brain by chemicals taken as medicine.

My purpose is simply to ask the Minister to refer this new and hopeful medicine, this new method of treating schizophenia, to the Medical Research Council for investigation. I have here an article reprinted from the International Journal of Neuropsychiatry of May-June, 1966, Vol. 2, No. 3, entitled:

"The Effect Of Nicotinic Acid On The Frequency And Duration Of Re-Hospitalization Of Schizophrenic Patients; A Controlled Comparison Study".

It is by Dr. Abraham Hoffer, Ph.D., M.D., who is Director of Psychiatric Research, Psychiatric Services Branch, Department of Public Health, Province of Saskatchewan (located at University Hospital, Saskatoon), and Associate Research Professor (Psychiatry), College of Medicine, University of Saskatchewan. He is also the author with Dr. Humphry Osmond, to whom I shall also refer, of a book called "How to live with Schizophrenia", published in this country by Johnson Publications, with a foreword by the hon. Member for Woolwich, East (Mr. Mayhew).

Dr. Humphry Osmond is the Director of the Bureau of Research in Neurology and Psychiatry at the New Jersey Neuro-psychiatric Institute at Princeton, New Jersey. The book is therefore by the leading sponsors of the theory that the cause of schizophrenia is biochemical. The authors believe that it is due to changes in body chemistry, and that we are on the verge of a break-through similar to that in treating diabetes by insulin.

Dr. Hoffer and Dr. Osmond began to use nicotinic acid for the treatment of schizophrenia as far back as 1952. In fact, it has been more thoroughly studied than any chemical therapeutic agent in psychiatry, excluding, possibly, insulin coma. They have follow-ups going back to 1952 which give evidence of cure rates of 75 per cent. compared with control rates of 25 per cent. They claim to have met every obligation of research and to have completed three double blind controlled studies as well as many other similar investigations.

In a letter to me of 8th November, 1966, since receiving which I have been trying unceasingly to raise this matter in the House, Dr. Hoffer writes:

"What has troubled us is the reluctance of our colleagues to use the treatment. This would be understandable if it was dangerous, but, in fact, it is much safer than any tranquillizer. With tranquillizers there is a very large literature which shows the following dangers—

(1) Sudden deaths—due to changes in vessels around the heart.

(2) Purple pigmentation all over the body leading to blindness and irreversible Parkinson tremor.

(3) Malignant diabetes.

(4) Liver damage.

(5) Dangerous blood diseases.

I am not against tranquillizers and I could not practise psychiatry without them, but they seldom cure by themselves. Chronic patients on high doses of tranquillizers very often become worse and worse even though their social behaviour remains tolerable. In a recent study in the U.S.A. of schizophrenic Veterans on discharge, only 10 per cent. were able to hold jobs. I have on my list 104 chronic schizophrenics (average of ten years' illness). Nearly 90 are fully employed, but all are on nicotinic acid. The United States is moving very quickly into nicotinic acid therapy with nearly 100 institutions using it. The National Institution of Mental Health (an agency of the United States Government) is sponsoring several controlled studies. But England seems singularly disinterested in a problem which must cost you millions of £s and untold human suffering."

Dr. Hoffer says there that the United States is moving very quickly into the sphere of Government-controlled study. There is also private initiative under way, and I have here the special first issue, dated Fall, 1966, of Schizophrenia, the news letter of the American Schizophrenia Foundation, which is now about three years old. The news letter explains the Foundation's purpose thus:

"Schizophrenia … creates prolonged and unbearable suffering for 2,000,000 North Americans and their families. The American Schizophrenia Foundation seeks cure and prevention of this widespread disease through intensified biological research. … (In time, the A.S.F. hopes to be in a position to recommend to doctors and to the public the most advanced and effective biological treatments for schizophrenia.)"

I think that the House would be interested to know the sort of men who back this idea. Their names are set out inside the news letter. Among those on the Scientific Advisory Board are the Professor of Neurophysiology and Biochemistry, Centre for Brain Research, University of Rochester, New York; Director of Research in Clinical Physiology, McLean Hospital, Waverly, Massachusetts; Emeritus Professor of Medicine, Mayo Foundation, Chicago; Director, Psychiatric Research, State Department of Mental Health, Chicago; Chief, Psychosomatic Service, Veterans Administration Hospital, Los Angeles; Professor of Neurology, University of Illinois, College of Medicine; Chairman, Department of Psychiatry and Neurology, Tulane University, School of Medicine, New Orleans; Executive Director, Worcester Foundation for Experimental Biology, Shrewsbury, Massachusetts; Director of Research, Rockland State Hospital, Orangeburg, New York; Professor of Psychiatry, McGill University, Montreal; Medical Director, Hollywood Psychiatriac Hospital, New Westminster, British Columbia; Hill Professor of Neuropharmacology, University of Minnesota Medical School; and Alexander Agassiz Professor of Zoology, Harvard. A real bunch of cranks and quacks!

I think that it is to our shame that I should have to read that list. I do not know why reading that list makes me so terribly angry. I think that it is that I am ashamed that in our country we should need to be pushed to make a comparative effort of imagination and thought. Perhaps it is just because I smell here the smell of something that I think I hate more than anything else in the world. It is the smell of the sons of Martha who rule—and the sons of Mary who rue—in this cruel world.

I hope that the Minister will take note of what is being done and of who is doing it, where they are doing it—and where they are not doing it.

What are our men doing about it? Why does not the Minister get them to do it? I hope that I am rebuking him unjustly and that he will be able to tell me that all is now well. For this debate is about thousands of English families here and now; mothers and fathers in anguish and perplexity and shame because of their children who have become inexplicably odious, terrible and alien to them; husbands whose wives have become things of horror to them; and wives where husbands have become hateful and intolerable to them. This is a possibility of hope for all of them and for the wretched sufferers themselves.

The House must ask why we do not do something here to make sure that this still only half-understood magic of chemistry can be the miraculous cure that we hardly dare to dream of. After all, insulin treatment and electric shock treatment were discovered only by accident. Why do we not see what is in this, and why does not the Minister tell the Medical Research Council that it must investigate this?

Let us consider for a moment the results that we have before us in Dr. Hoffer's own records. These cover five years and four separate groups of patients treated by four psychiatrists. Let us compare the results obtained under a nicotinic acid treatment regime with the results obtained under other regimes.

Dr. Hoffer says in the journal from which I quoted:

"The tables are self-explanatory".

The tables cover the results obtained by the four psychiatrists whose patients were examined, and in respect of each group of patients the figures are given for those under nicotine and those not beneath the following headings: the number of patients; the number of patients re-admitted; the number of re-admissions—the right hon. Gentleman the Minister and my hon. Friend the Member for Essex, South-East (Mr. Braine) will know that those are subtly but importantly distinct things; the total number of days in hospital for all patients, admissions and re-admissions; the total number of days divided by the total number of patients, which gives us the critical figure for each group of patients to compare the figures for other groups; the number of patients remaining in hospital some years afterwards; and, finally, the number of suicides.

Dr. Hoffer says:

"Patients on nicotinic acid in all the groups were better off."

In the House one cannot possibly read figures, but a glance shows that this is undeniably so.

"They have fewer re-admissions, fewer days in hospital, fewer patients in hospital on the target follow-up date and did not have any suicides. The results are so strikingly different that no statistical tests are required."

The data in the summary tables "

shows that 346 schizophrenics occupied 54,491 days in hospital during nine years after their first treatment, i.e., they occupied 149 bed-years, or the equivalent of 16·5 beds per year for the entire nine years. The smaller groups of 128 schizophrenics given nicotinic acid occupied a bed for 7,422 days or 2·2 beds per year for the nine years."

So the figures, in broad comparative terms, are 16 bad and 2 good. In other words, one could say, broadly, that this nicotine treatment is as eight times as effective as any other.

The most dramatic conclusion that Dr. Hoffer comes to, in my view, is when he says:

"Chronic patients given nicotinic acid did not respond as well"

as the acute ones but they were better off than the others who did not have nicotinic acid. He said that the data had:

"reinforced earlier observations that nicotinic acid did not benefit chronic schizophrenic patients as much as acute patients. However, recently I have been surprised by a large number of these chronic cases who have begun to recover. Even though they had not responded for the first few years they were able to survive in the community and I was able to keep them on medication with nicotinic acid. After seven years they have begun to recover and many are nearly well."

He concludes:

"This data … leaves no room for doubt. Nicotinic acid used as described greatly improves the outcome of schizophrenia which is still a very grave illness. When a medication as free of toxicity as nicotinic acid can produce such a marked improvement in recovery of schizophrenic patients, there can be no valid reason for depriving these patients of bettering their chances of recovery."

The House must sympathise with the right hon. Gentleman. As a layman among members of a great and ancient profession he may feel a little diffident about pressing any ideas that he may have, even with such medical evidence. When I last raised the matter by way of Parliamentary Question, the right hon. Gentleman, to do him justice, bravely stood up to a verv nasty little sneer from one of his hon. Friends, and the House was behind him. But we must ask him to do better still. He really should have the medical profession's blessing. I say that on sound authority, because Claude Bernard, the great physiologist, discussing the ethics of medical experiment—this is what this is about—nine centuries ago said:

"Those remedies that can only do harm are forbidden. Those that involve no foreseeable harm to the patient are innocent and therefore permissible. Those that may do good are obligatory."

In fact, it is an ethical obligation upon the medical profession to experiment with this treatment. The nicotinic acid treatment of schizophrenia comes into the obligatory class; it may do good, it is harmless.

If the Medical Research Council does not trust the statistical evidence at present available, it must try its own experiments. However, when the Hoffer and Osmond data were presented in Oslo at the N.A.T.O. Brain Function Conference the scientists there agreed that it was indisputable that something happened to those who got nicotinic acid treatment, Instead of spending years in hospital they spent months.

There are only two other possible deductions to be made from the Hoffer and Osmond data. The first is that Hoffer and Osmond cooked the books. But they are open to inspection. The second is that the air in Saskatchewan is particularly good for schizophrenia. But other schizophrenic patients did just as badly there as they have done anywhere else.

If nicotinic acid treatment turns out to be proved effective—as it seems almost bound to be—we in this country, if we have lagged behind because of the stubborn resistance of the medical profession, and we in this House in particular, will have a shameful responsibility for all the suffering that will have taken place in the lost years. If there is scepticism about the evidence, the patients in Saskatchewan are available with all their records—10 million cards—nine hours' travel from this House. The House must ask the Minister why he does not take advantage of the open invitation to send his experts to Saskatchewan and investigate the evidence.

Luckily for their patients, more and more doctors are going there themselves and using this simple medicine. The doctors are puzzled, amazed, astonished and gratified by the results, and their patients and their patients' families are delighted and thankful.

When this treatment is eventually accepted here, what are hon. Members to say to their constituents and their constituents' relations who have been National Health Service patients and who have at last experienced these benefits? What shall we say to them when they ask, "Why did we not get this treatment before so that we might have been saved years of agony and suffering?" From the scientific point of view, there may not be very much hurry, but in human terms this is desperately urgent, because today, 12th May, and tomorrow, 13th May, between 50 and 70—let us say 60—young people will be becoming schizophrenic, will be becoming mad. Of these 60, in five years' time, in present terms, 20 will probably be well and sane and stay so; 20 will have recurring bouts of illness and madness, and 20 will be ill and mad and will probably stay so. It will not be quite 20 in each class, because six of them will have committed suicide. With the nicotinic acid treatment—according to the records—the picture could be thus: 45 would be well and stay so; 15 would have recurring illness and madness, and probably not more than 5 out of that 15 would be very ill. There would be no suicides. There has not been one suicide under the nicotinic acid treatment.

Unless this House insists that the Minister refers this treatment to the Medical Research Council for research and approval this transformation will not come about, and we shall have a terrible responsibility for our constituents, who will curse us. When the medical profession goes against the precepts of Claude Bernard, one of the fathers of modern medical practice—one of its own greatest men—for no good demonstrable reason at the cost of so much suffering, this House and the right hon. Gentleman, as the lay head of the medical profession, have a duty and a right to question the judgment of the medical profession.

It has been done before. Florence Nightingale did it with the help and blessing of politicians of her day—all honour to them. Queen Victoria did it, and she did not need the help and blessing of anyone. She did it in the matter of anæsthetics, which would have been delayed for up to a generation if Queen Victoria had not said, "Come off it, and get on with it" in the way that I am asking the Minister to do.

This treatment could revolutionise our National Health Service. It could make huge savings, by relieving the Service of 20 per cent. of its patients. It makes no demands whatsoever in terms of extra staff—nurses or doctors. It involves no extra capital cost. But the most important thing it could do would be to relieve and prevent a vast amount of human suffering. I hope that the Minister will wholeheartedly accept my plea to have this solution examined by the Medical Research Council. If he does not, he can accept my assurance that I shall harry him ceaselessly and mercilessly until he does.

I rise briefly to associate myself with the thoughtful and moving plea made by my hon. Friend. He has long been trying to ventilate this subject, and this morning not only did he address himself to it with humanity and understanding; he performed an extremely valuable service in focussing attention on the need for a break-through in the treatment of this most baffling, severe and socially crippling form of mental illness.

It is still not sufficiently appreciated in this country what a dreadful toll is taken by mental illness. About one-third of the beds provided by the National Health Service are occupied by the mentally ill. I understand that the latest figures that the Ministry has made available reveal that about 60,000 patients are in hospital suffering from schizophrenia alone. This amounts to 47 per cent. of all patients in hospitals who are mentally ill and, what is especially significant, 63 per cent. of those who have been in hospital for 11 years or more.

I understand that the distinguished Chief Medical Officer of the Ministry, commenting on these figures, has said that a method of preventing or curing this disease would have a profound effect on the need for hospital beds. One might add that it would bring enormous relief—as my hon. Friend made clear in his eloquent plea—to local authorities and a vast number of harassed families. Those of us who take an interest in health subjects have been enormously encouraged by the wonderful advances in medical skill, the use of new drugs, and above all, the change in public attitudes, since the passing of the Mental Health Act, 1959.

However, from my limited knowledge I understand that schizophrenia is vastly more serious than most other forms of mental illness. It is more difficult to treat in the community. The researches of one George Brown—not, I hasten to add, the Foreign Secretary—into schizophrenia, published in the British Journal of Psychiatiric Social Work—Vol. 7, in 1963—showed that because of the nature of this illness it is not always desirable to discharge a patient to his home, whereas over the whole field of mental illness we have been seeking to get people out of hospital as soon as possible and back into the community.

The sad truth is that, as far as we can judge, there is as yet no cure for this disease. It is fluctuating and it is chronic. So it is not surprising that the vast majority of sufferers—about 70 per cent.—have to be readmitted to hospital. Thus, the pressure on our hospital resources is very great.

What is more, because this disease attacks the young and the intelligent, its economic and social cost is incalculable. I suppose that we lose about 30 million working days a year from mental disorders of various kinds. Even if we were to find more effective means of transfer- ring people suffering from schizophrenia from hospital to the community we would probably do no more than shift the burden from the National Health Service to the patients themselves, to their families, and to the Supplementary Benefits Commission.

There are enormous gains to be had from any break-through in the prevention and treatment of this socially crippling disease. After listening carefully to everything that my hon. Friend has said, I would have thought that the case for intensifying research into this disease is unanswerable. I therefore add my voice to his in expressing the hope that the Minister will heed his eloquent plea.

I am glad that the hon. Member for Ilford, North (Mr. Iremonger) has chosen to raise the subject of schizophrenia. As has been said, the schizophrenic group of diseases is responsible for one of the largest categories of patients in our National Health Service hospitals at present. First, I want to say a word about the nature and scope of this disease. The term schizophrenia covers not one but several forms of mental illness. There are considerable differences in the clinical picture presented by the different forms of the disease, but all involve disorganisation of the patient's personality. This disorganisation primarily takes the form of interference with his thought processes and emotional make-up.

Some forms of schizophrenia may produce the wilder forms of behaviour, the hallucinations and bizarre notions which we associate with mental illness in its most extreme forms. There is also a progressive deterioration of personality which can result in chronic and persistent illness, and even, in the worst cases, a lifetime in hospital.

The disease seems to occur in all races and in all strata of society, although it is commoner among the poorer and less privileged. This is probably because it causes a downward drift towards unskilled work. In other words, its comparative frequency amongst the poorest sections of the community may well be the result of deterioration brought about by the disease itself.

It has been estimated that, in general, one's expectation of developing schizophrenia at some times during one's lifetime is between 0·4 per cent. and 0·8 per cent., the average being probably nearer the higher than the lower figure. We can roughly put the chances as around one in 150. In 1964 about 11,000 schizophrenic patients were admitted to hospital for the first time and there were about 25,000 admissions for second or further periods of treatment.

About 70 per cent. of all admissions for schizophrenia were readmissions. There were about 64,000 such patients in hospital at the end of 1964, and they occupied about 13·5 per cent. of all hospital beds.

The causes of the disease are still not certainly established, but they are generally thought to include inherited, psychological and biochemical factors, either singly or in combination. A great deal of research is being directed into the causes, and I want to say more about that in a moment.

Meantime, I will deal with the medical treatment. The development of treatment by physical methods over the last thirty years and the discovery and use of psychotropic drugs in the last decade have provided a range of rapid and successful treatments for mental illness, and a great deal can now be done to alleviate the symptoms of schizophrenia. This disease has provided one of the greatest changes from the past and it offers one of the greatest hopes for the future in the treatment of mental illness.

Modern treatment may combine the use of drugs, electro-convulsive therapy and psychological techniques. Now, in fact, treatment is so quick and effective that most schizophrenic patients admitted to hospital, particularly those diagnosed early, stay only a short time, and can then be treated as day or out-patients. Even for the older patients and the chronic schizophrenics, who may have been in hospital for years, much can be done through these new methods.

In the old days schizophrenia was the condition perhaps most liable to lead to a patient's life-long isolation behind the walls and bars of a mental hospital. Now, thanks to modern methods of treatment, this is a thing of the past, since most patients are kept in hospital for no more than six weeks.

The hon. Member for Ilford, North referred in some detail to the treatment of this disease by nicotinic acid, sometimes called treatment by Niacin, a proprietary form of nicotinic acid. I know of the experiments by Dr. Osmond and Dr. Hoffer in treating the disease in this way and I understand that they have published some impressive results, quotations from which the hon. Gentleman read.

However, I must repeat, as I am sure hon. Members will appreciate, that it is not for me to intervene in clinical matters, much less to advocate any particular form of treatment. It would be undesirable and, indeed, dangerous for the Minister of Health to try and assume this kind of responsibility. Psychiatrists in this country are, of course, aware of this form of treatment and, since Niacin is available under the National Health Service, there seems no reason why there should not be every opportunity for testing it here.

I am, however, advised that the work in this country has not so far produced results that support the claims quoted by the hon. Gentleman in respect of the treatment of schizophrenic patients by this method. However, I am sure that the Medical Research Council will take note of what has been said in the debate.

Can the right hon. Gentleman clarify my mind on this and explain exactly what his relationship is to the Medical Research Council and what its relationship is with the medical profession? For example, if I were in his place and able to do what he could do, what could I do feeling as I do about this subject?

The hon. Gentleman would, I am afraid, probably feel very frustrated. I have no responsibility for the Medical Research Council. The Minister responsible to this House for its functions is my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Science. The M.R.C. is the agency through which most medical research supported by Government grants is channelled, but clinical research is done in hospitals for which I have responsibility.

Supposing, then, the Minister were to say, "We spend £X million on schizophrenia. Let us take one hundredth part of that and give it for the pursuit of this treatment." Could the M.R.C. spit that out or would it have to do something with the money?

I shall say something about research generally, and I think I shall be able to satisfy the hon. Gentleman that there is no financial barrier to the M.R.C. doing what it thinks fit in this matter.

Earlier, I mentioned the large number of readmissions which every year are more than twice the number of first admissions. Sometimes this is cited as criticism of current methods of care, but from what I have said the hon. Gentleman will realise that, far from being a confession of failure, these are a measure of the success of new forms of treatment, which have rendered unnecessary long continuous periods as an in-patient. Modern psychiatry considers it essential, wherever possible, to keep patients in touch with the community, with the friends, relatives and occupations which together make up the social framework in which the patients are rooted. Institutionalisation is the evil above all to be avoided. It is bound to lead to further deterioration of the personality, which always hinders and can, indeed, eventually prevent response to treatment.

Even a temporary return to normal life can be of help to the schizophrenic patient. When long-term treatment in hospital is necessary and the acute stage of the illness is over, rehabilitation through active social life and work is vital. Industrial therapy in particular, in which patients can carry out work on many different types of component for industrial firms, is being actively encouraged and the apathy and restlessness which used to be the hallmark of the long-term schizophrenic patient is fast disappearing. The aim today is to return patients to the community as well-equipped as possible to play their part.

But the return to the community raises its own problems. The difficulties faced by a patient in the community and the strains placed upon his family are very real. It is not an easy task to cope with a schizophrenic parent, husband or wife. There may be relapses, especially if the patient neglects to take his supportive drugs. But patients can be, and increasingly are, given the necessary support in the community by psychiatrists, family doctors, nurses and social workers, working as a team, often with the help of voluntary organisations.

Although community care is still in many areas in a relatively early stage of development, local authorities can offer a wide range of services. Psychiatric and other social workers can advise families on the problems they are likely to meet and keep in touch with the patient to make sure he continues to take the drugs prescribed. Residential accommodation may be provided for patients with no home or whose home is unsuitable. Sometimes this takes the form of specially approved lodgings, but local authorities are also providing more hostels of their own and by the end of 1965 there were 61 such hostels for the mentally ill, with 1,200 places—a three-fold increase over the previous three years. By 1976 it is hoped to have provided 259 hostels with almost 5,000 places. Many of the patients living in such hostels are schizophrenic.

The whole concept of the psychiatric hospital has had to change to fit the new patterns of treatment and care and one of our problems in providing for schizophrenic patients is our legacy of out-dated hospitals. Many were built in Victorian times to perform a mainly custodial function and are large, isolated and unsuitable for modern methods of treatment. In the course of time many will have to be abandoned, basically remodelled or replaced. The psychiatric hospital today needs close links with other hospitals in the neighbourhood, with the family doctors, the health and welfare services and the community at large. Geographical isolation is a special handicap, because it tends to separate clinical staff from professional colleagues elsewhere and to cut off patients from their friends and relatives. In planning the hospital building programme, therefore, we have laid particular emphasis on psychiatric units forming part of district general hospitals.

But planning the new pattern of psychiatric provision is one thing, achieving it another. We must face the fact that when the needs of other branches of the hospital service are so pressing, and resources are not unlimited, the new pattern will take many years to complete. This means inevitably that many existing hospitals—even some that are structurally outdated—will be needed for a long time to come. But it does not mean that we must be satisfied with obsolete facilities. Much can be done to improve even the oldest hospital. The Ministry of Health has been at pains to encourage this.

Unsatisfactory design can often be modified without radical reconstruction. Partitioning of large wards, the provision of false ceilings, new sanitation annexes, redecoration in modern style, up-to-date furniture, heating and lighting can make a world of difference to an old hospital and many improvements of this kind can be seen in psychiatric hospitals all over the country.

As I have told the House, research is mainly the responsibility of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Science but with his agreement I should like to say something about research into schizophrenia. An enormous amount of research is going on in different parts of the world into different aspects of this disease. In this country it is the policy of the Medical Research Council to do all it can to advance knowledge of the nature and treatment of this as of other mental disorders.

The Council has some 14 research units engaged in work relating to mental health and they are helped by two special advisory committees. Three Medical Research Council units are particularly concerned with the biochemical aspects of schizophrenia—the brain metabolism research unit, the neuro-psychiatric research unit and the unit for research on the clinical pathology of mental disorders. It is now generally accepted that the biochemical approach is the most promising. This line of attack, however, is not the only one and it is likely that social and psychiatric studies will throw further light on the disease.

Other Medical Research Council units such as the social psychiatry research unit, the clinical psychiatry research unit and the unit for research into the epidemiology of psychiatric illness are engaged on such studies.

Before the right hon. Gentleman leaves what he is saying about the biochemical aspect, as he knew that the debate was coining up, having had notice a long time ago, and having answered a Question in the House about it, can he say what questions about the nicotinic acid treatment he has put to the biochemical side of the Council's work? Has he asked whether there is interest in this approach, what the Council's unit is doing about it, what its thinking about it is and what provision has been made for it, or has it been completely ignored?

It is not completely ignored. I was pointing out that there is a unit specifically charged by the Research Council with examining this aspect of this group of diseases. The hon. Gentleman put down a Question some weeks ago and I am sure that reference was made to the Council and that the Council consulted the unit before suggesting the answer which was given in the House. I was aware of the treatment and I can only repeat, as I said earlier, that so far there is no evidence from work in this country which would support the claims made. Obviously, that can only be a provisional conclusion.

rose——

I am sorry, but I do not have time to give way. I was specifically asked by Mr. Speaker to sit down at a quarter to two.

Expenditure by the Council on research into mental disorders and applied psychology rose from £250,000 in 1959 to £750,000 in 1965–66 and is expected to reach almost £900,000 in 1966–67. Further research work is being undertaken in a number of universities with support from the Council and from public funds allocated on the advice of the University Grants Committee; and in other centres financed from other sources, including voluntary bodies. There is also the Ministry of Health scheme for locally organised clinical research which includes mental health projects. In parallel with the Research Council's arrangements, this is designed to encourage local initiative in research and to cover projects which might not attract funds from other main sources.

This has been a useful debate and certainly to focus public attention on such problems as schizophrenia and its treatment can do nothing but good. The House and all who have at heart the welfare of the mentally sick will, I know, be grateful to the hon. Member for his initiative.

I welcome the opportunity of the Whitsun Adjournment debates to raise the subject of all-figure telephone numbers. This is a major change in a national institution which will affect millions of telephone users all over the country, a considerably larger number than the number of telephones in the country. I have chosen this occasion because the subject of all-figure telephone numbers has barely had a mention on the Floor of the House. The first announcement was made in a Written Answer in July, 1965, when we had other things to think of, and any other discussion has been largely in the form of Written Answers. The only other reference I can find is one Question in another place, and that did not seem to produce any very valuable discussion or conclusion.

I am not a person who opposes change. Generally speaking, I do not like changes, but I am very keen on improvements. I do not think there is anyone who doubts that the British telephone system needs improvement and needs to keep up with modern trends if the industry which supplies it is to be in the forefront of the world's electronic industries.

The introduction of S.T.D. was a major improvement in our telephone system, but I am very far from convinced that the all-figure telephone numbers are a similar improvement. In fact, the virtually unanimous view of everyone with whom I have discussed the matter—and I have spoken to many in the last few weeks—is that the introduction of all-figure telephone numbers is a retrograde step which will make our telephone system less easy to use and less useful.

In a speech like this, it is very tempting to suggest that the Postmaster-General is introducing all-figure telephone numbering—I have never quite understood why it has not been called A.F.N.—purely for the sake of change, because numbers are rather trendy, it all looks like a computer, and they are "with it", and because all-figure numbers fit in with the idea of technology which was sold to us so hard in various elections—although nothing much else does. But that would not be a sound way to approach the problem. Computers can work as well with letters as with numbers, and anyway this is not a political matter. It is concerned with the efficiency of an all-pervading national service and the whole House must take an interest in such a matter.

The theme of my criticism of the Post Office is that in this matter it has failed to adjust technical requirements to human needs. Technical requirements have been made all-important while the human element has been forgotten. Technology without humanity can be disastrous, and if it is not disastrous in this instance I believe that it will lead to a considerable deterioration in cost efficiency, perhaps not in the telephone service, but for those people who use telephones.

Automatic telephone exchanges work on a series of electrical impulses or signals which are passed down the line when we dial. Telephone numbers are merely a conventional way of writing down or speaking that electrical signal. Anyone who has had to use an Arabic telephone directory will have clearly seen that the way in which those numbers is written down is purely conventional. We happen to write it in one script and the Arabs in another. A telephone number may be spoken in French, or in German, or in Japanese, I presume, but whichever way it is said or read it is difficult to remember, and we can remember only a certain number of telephone numbers.

It is important for the House to realise that whether one has letters or figures, a telephone number is only a conventional name for a component part of an electrical signal which is transmitted when we dial. To put it more simply, numbers or letters are merely names for the holes in the dial and they have little or nothing to do with the electronic workings of the telephone. Accepting that, I find it difficult to see why there is any overpowering technical reason requiring us to give up our current system of figures and letters. If the reasons are so overpowering, why did we go halfway through the change-over to S.T.D. using this system and only change it once we were beginning to get used to the S.T.D. codes?

When the Postmaster-General made his statement in 1965 a pamphlet was issued. Three reasons were given for going over to figure codes. The first one was that it would aid international dialling. This might be a sound reason, but it is not an imperative one if one looks at this more carefully. In the first place, there is no difficulty whatever for people in this country in dialling numbers in America or on the Continent, because we have numbers on our telephone dials, as they have. The difficulty arises when someone in America or Germany tries to dial back to us, because with their unlettered dials they will have no way of knowing the number equivalent of our letter codes and numbers.

The hon. Gentleman has obviously given careful study to this. Can he say why it is that so many other countries have numbered telephone systems and why he wants us to be different to all the other countries?

I have never thought that it was a good reason for this country to do something because everyone else did it. There have been a number of occasions, and this Parliament is one of them, when we were out of step with every other country, particularly in the shape of the Chamber. I do not think that the hon. Member would want to change the shape of the Chamber because of that. That is not a very valid argument, for one can get round the problem. It is merely a matter of letting the Germans, Americans and others who want to dial us know the figure equivalents of the letters on our telephone dials. This is a matter to do with the printing of directories, it is not a technical or electrical problem. I will demonstrate later how we can adjust our directories to suit.

The second reason given in the pamphlet was that we were running out of those convenient little three-letter combinations which give us our telephone numbers in major cities. This is a matter of arithmetic. If we are running out of them, then they have to go. But one does not necessarily have to make meaningful letters, and there can be just the same number of combinations with three letters as with three numbers.

We would all be sorry to see the traditional numbers go, and I accept what the noble Lady said in another place that it was not for egalitarian reasons that the Government tried to do people out of their Hyde Park and Mayfair numbers, so that they would be the equal of people who had numbers beginning with Hop, or were on the Tulse Hill Exchange. There is not a single person to whom I have ever talked who does not think that the London system is an extremely good one. It gives one an indication of where the telephone is situated, and the numbers are easy to remember, to express and to comprehend. They fit well into the short-term memory, from directory to dial, and into the long-term memory. I can, I believe, remember more telephone numbers in London than in any other area.

The system of letters and numbers could be carried on for a very long time indeed. Why cannot we have a fifth number after the exchange? We have been told that at some time in future we will have what are known as sector exchanges. Let us say that London was to be divided into five or ten sector exchanges. Why not put one digit in front of the present telephone exchanges letters? In the central area it might be A or 1. In the surrounding areas there could be other digits to identify the other sector exchanges.

There is an argument of which I get very tired which says that we are going to change sooner or later, why not now? That is rather like a husband and wife talking together the day after their marriage. One says to the other: "Darling, let us face it, we may, sooner or later, come round to divorce." The other says: "If that is the case, why should we not get divorced at once?" Let us stick to the good system for as long as it works. We may have another set of changes forced on us in ten years time, why go out to meet trouble?

I am not only interested in London exchanges and those of large cities. There is a very real problem in telephone directories everywhere. If exchange names are replaced by figures everyone knows that if one is looking for a Smith, and there are two pages of Smiths, the quickest way to find the man is to run one's finger down to look for the particular exchange. It is diabolical already in Wales, with only four surnames, but imagine what it would be like when there are no exchanges to check! Perhaps it is always diabolical in Wales—they seem to get the thick end of the stick very often.

The real people who will suffer are those who make long distance calls, with codes, throughout the country, particularly business men. Not only does this apply to long distance calls, because we have codes for local exchange areas. We have had about 20 number codes in my local area for about five years. I can remember just one of those codes, a three figure one, but the Post Office has just changed it, so now I do not know a single one. Some of the codes run up to six and eight figures. It is possible that they may be rationalised as the system is developed, but those numbers are very difficult to remember, and in one case, dialling from two villages three miles apart, which are in separate telephone areas, there is a nine-figure code followed by the three figures of the telephone number. If we are to have complications of that sort, we will need some easier way of remembering, and there is no doubt that the use of letters in codes of that sort would make them easier to remember.

The classic and simple case is that quoted in the pamphlet I have been shown. This gives the codes for the six major cities in the country:—021, 031, 041, 051, 061. It would take ten minutes to learn those off, but on almost one reading one could remember that OBI is Birmingham, OE1 is Edinburgh, OG1 Glasgow, OLI Liverpool, and OM1 Manchester. That is the system that we started with STD. Why are we not continuing it? The Belfast code is OBE2. Ballymena, the capital of my consituency, is OBM6. To dial my own exchange of Maghera, which always seems to defeat the pronunciation of English telephone operators, I have only to dial OMG 882. This is easy to remember, but I have not the faintest idea of what the all-figure equivalent would be. We regularly hear on the news the number equivalent to Whitehall 1212. Any 50 people stopped in the street will know Scotland Yard's number, but how many will remember it in all-figure form?

This is an important question, much more serious than some people think. In the pamphlet which I have quoted there is one of those "gee-whiz" statistics. We are told that there are 6,000 million telephone calls a year. I can supply another "gee-whiz" statistic. If each of those telephone calls is delayed by precisely one second, we shall lose 2 million man hours per year. If we have to look at twice the number of numbers in the directory or trouble directory inquiries and thus put up the expense of the service, the bill for this change could be considerably in excess of 2 million man hours a year.

I am convinced that the change to all-figure telephone numbers is a retrograde step. They are no quicker to dial. They are certainly no easier to comprehend, and they are very much more difficult to remember. The House and the country is entitled to know why the Post Office made this decision. Why have all-figure numbers been introduced? What research did the Post Office do into psychology of memory and into mnemonics before it introduced this scheme? How many telephone numbers can the average person remember if they are in the present form of figures and letters? Does the number go up or down with an all-figure system? Has the Post Office discovered the answers to these questions? If not, it should not have carried out a major change of this sort which may well cause a great deal of inefficiency in British industry.

I have done what research I could. I have some information from America. In the 1950s, the Bell Telephone Company concluded that the all-figure system, or all numeral dialling—A.N.D., as the Americans call it—"would cause little strong feeling". If that test was a good one—and it may not have been—may I point out that the Americans are a very different people from the British. The all-figure system is causing a great deal of strong feeling in this country. One has only to touch on the subject and one gets an immediate reaction from almost any person one meets.

John Jung of Long Beach College produced a completely different verdict in 1963. He said:

"… coded names can be a tremendous aid in learning telephone numbers".

That was his conclusion after he had carried out a great deal of patient research. Has the Post Office conducted similar research into the basis of the British manner of thinking? Every nation has different manners of thinking. The Americans, during and since the war, have always numbered their aircraft, while we have given them names. It is clear that the British do not like numbers, and we do not want to be pushed into a bogus computer age until we have to be.

Has the Post Office done research into phasing long numbers? What is the best way for the British mind of phasing numbers? Is it two and two, as is done in France—45–35 instead of 4535—or is four and two the best way of expressing a six-figure number?

The introduction of this system is open to criticism. We have had a host of pamphlets, mostly contradictory. We have been sent little discs to stick on our telephones. Some people have discovered that their telephone number has been changed and they cannot remember it. Cithers have discovered that their number has not been changed and they have thrown the discs away. I am prepared to bet that at least half the discs sent out by the Post Office have been lost. When the change is finalised in a year's time, there will be complete chaos. There has been the minimum of informative articles in newspapers about why the change is necessary, which makes me wonder whether the reasons for it are as good as were first suggested.

In London we are told, "Dial only the last seven figures. Do not dial 01". Every London telephone number has "01" at the beginning of it. Are we to split each page of the telephone directory into two with a column of 01s? This is a bad system, and it has not been put over to the public particularly well. It will cause a great deal of chaos.

I was talking to a personnel officer in a major office block the other day. His concern has religiously followed the instructions of the Post Office. He assured me that the change in telephone numbering has caused one of the biggest headaches he has had for many years and a great deal of delay and frustration in an important British export industry.

There is an alternative solution to the problems. One problem is how people on the Continent will know the figure equivalent of our letters. Take, for instance, my own telephone number. It seems possible to alter BELgravia 6329 for a combination, without taking more room in the telephone directory, which includes the "Bel" as an alternative to the figure code 235. If this were done, there is no reason why we should not stick to the present system. Let the Germans and French, and any other people who are computer-minded, use the all-figure system if they wish.

The Assistant Postmaster-General told me a month ago that the Post Office hoped to do away with letters on telephones in the next few years. I ask him to reconsider that decision. If the Post Office is determined to work in numbers, why cannot it let people work out their own letter codes as an aid to memory? This is a very small piece of freedom and many people will want to use it. I ask the hon. Gentleman not to give a snap answer to either of these two problems. I want the Post Office to consider this matter carefully.

The new system is meant to be an improvement. I do not believe that it is. We are told that there are overwhelming technical reasons for making the change. I am not convinced. I want the Assistant Postmaster-General to tell us clearly why we should have the new system. It will cause a great deal of time wasting for probably two or three years. The loss in efficiency will have to be measured in millions of man hours. Will we be better off at the end? I do not believe that we will.

It has been an important part of the British Constitution for many years that we appoint non-expert Ministers, who are elected Members of the House, to head Ministries. This is open to criticism. But if we have lay Ministers at the top of administrative Departments, they are in a position to bring a little humanity to bureaucracy and to protect the individual from over-efficient administration. I believe that that is one of the most important parts of the British constitution. This is perhaps more important in the case of technical Ministers; and the Post Office is becoming a technical Department. It is essential that the lay Ministers at the head of technical Departments should protect the public from too much technology and temper the wind of technology with a little humanity.

Unless we have a clear and precise explanation from the Post Office on the desirability of this change, I will believe that the Postmaster-General has bowed down before the bogus golden calf of technology too quickly and has not remembered that his job in the Post Office is to ensure that ordinary people in the street can use with ease and without frustration the various Post Office systems, particularly the telephone system. This is an important question to which I hope we shall have a satisfactory reply from the Assistant Postmaster-General.

The House will be grateful to the hon. Member for Antrim, North (Mr. Henry Clark) for raising this subject. Listening to his speech, I felt that his was the voice of true reactionary Conservatism if ever there was one. If he had his way, we should still be communicating with each other by means of torn toms or by lighting beacons on mountain tops. There were people about when the telephone system was introduced who thought that it would have a debasing and demoralising effect upon civilisation.

We must move with the times. The hon. Gentleman's case is based upon the assumption that the British are more stupid than the people of almost every other country where the all-number telephone system operates. We are no longer an isolated, small island. We may be entering the Common Market. In the measurable future, we may be able to telephone directly to China. Millions of people do not know the British alphabet. If I want to communicate in years to come with someone in the Far East, I do not want to have to learn Chinese letters or Urdu or Hindustani.

I am sorry that the hon. Gentleman has made this a party issue, but this was inevitable. Even if the hon. Gentleman does not know the Chinese alphabet, can he count in Chinese?

It would be much easier to secure an agreement on numbers on an international basis than to play about with or maintain what is rapidly becoming the out-of-date system of having letters as part of telephone numbers.

It is sad, but this is the way of progress. Almost every other civilised country operates an all-figure telephone system. We have got to fit in. The proposition that, just because we are different, we must go on being different until kingdom come is not a tenable argument. One of these days we may have to abolish the rule of the road and drive on the right-hand side of the road. That will cause a certain amount of dislocation and will have industrial and technical consequences, but we must realise that we are part of a larger world. We are not just a small island all to ourselves. Communications are developing. It is just because in the end communications will be made easier by all-figure telephone numbers that I think that the Post Office is wise to follow the international practice.

I thank the hon. Member for Antrim, North (Mr. Henry Clark) for introducing this subject and for his presentation of it. I hope to answer later on some of the important questions he asked.

At the beginning of his speech the hon. Gentleman said that the only Parliamentary references to this subject had been by way of Written Answers. This may be so. It often happens in Parliament that hon. Members table Questions for Written Answer when they are not prepared to make their Question a starred one which would give them the opportunity and privilege, if Mr. Speaker so willed it, of asking supplementary questions.

The hon. Gentleman emphasised more than once that, in his view, this was a retrograde step and that no one to whom he had spoken liked the system. He said that it was such an important issue that the general public ought to know more about it. The hon. Gentleman takes exception to the pamphlets and circulars which we have issued dealing with this changeover. However, we are not unmindful of the fact that the general public should have all possible information about changes such as this. The hon. Gentleman will know that research goes on all the time in our laboratories at Dollis Hill and elsewhere into the advancement of the telecommunications side of the Post Office and its operations.

In July, 1965, as the House will remember, my right hon. Friend's predecessor announced this change. Its main effect was to alter the form of telephone numbers in the six large cities of London, Birmingham, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Liverpool and Manchester, where for nearly 40 years telephone numbers had been a mixture of letters and numbers.

My right hon. Friend was reluctant to abolish the traditional system which used exchange names. He knew this had become part of our way of life and that many people had developed considerable affection for their own exchange names. Nevertheless, as he pointed out at the time, not only was a change to all-figure numbers inevitable, but it would bring positive benefits. Further, the House accepted that, if it were to be done, it was best done quickly because this would not only minimise the difficulties but also speed the benefits.

Why was this change inevitable? As hon. Members well know, the telephone system is doubling in size every seven or eight years. To provide for this growth in London we had to plan for many new exchange codes. But by 1970 we would have run out of usable codes derived from pronounceable names. We took advice and concluded that people would have been confused by a mixture of the present system and meaningless three-letter codes. We also found that people remembered numbers just as well as meaningless letter codes.

The hon. Gentleman sought to stress the difficulty of an individual mastering an all-figure number and retaining it in his memory for all time. However, we settled on an all-figure numbering system——

I am very interested in the Post Office's research into this question. Will the hon. Gentleman tell us something of the experiments which were carried out into the memory retention of all-figure numbers as compared with numbers comprising letters and figures?

The hon. Gentleman can take it from me that the change-over has been the subject of intensive study and research in this respect. I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman has had the opportunity of going to Dollis Hill and seeing the amount of work that goes on there into matters such as this. Wherever it is necessary for consultation to take place with outside bodies, such consultation takes place.

I was saying that we settled on an all-figure numbering system, not because we thought it was easier to use than the present system in present circumstances. We did it because we foresaw that it would be better suited to the needs of the greatly enlarged network of the future. Moreover, with all-figure numbers we shall have enough exchange codes to last us at least up to the end of this century.

What benefits will the change bring? First, it will enable the Post Office to improve its service and keep down its costs, which is most important. This is because it enables us to introduce a system of sector switching centres. Although this sounds a rather technical point—the hon. Gentleman stressed that lay Ministers are not technically-minded—as it will help our customers as well as ourselves, hon. Members may be interested to hear its broad outlines.

At present dialled trunk calls to and from telephones in the six big cities I have mentioned have to go through large automatic trunk exchanges located in the city centres. As trunk traffic increases these buildings have to be enlarged and, as hon. Members well know, site values are highest in city centres.

Our aim is to decentralise and build new trunk exchanges on less expensive sites away from the centres. Each exchange will then handle the trunk traffic for only the sector of the city surrounding it. Unfortunately, for technical reasons this can be done only if the codes of all exchanges in a sector start with the same first digit or first two digits. If we had tried to do this with the present system it would have meant changing about two-thirds of the existing exchange names and many of them would have had to be given meaningless letter codes.

As I said before, we have established that people will find an all-figure numbering system easier to deal with than a mixture of meaningless and meaningful letter codes. Hon. Members will be pleased to hear that we are taking account of the demands of sector switching in allocating the new all-figure numbers. This means that as this development takes place a further reorganisa- tion of codes will not be necessary in the big cities.

The other main benefit in changing to an all-figure numbering system is, of course, that it facilitates international subscriber dialling. The hon. Member has taken, I think, some of his argument from business people, that this is not going to help them in any way. We take the other view and we believe that many business people will readily appreciate the value of this. Few countries in the world now have letters on their dials. Both the United States and France are changing to an all-figure system, and I feel sure that the House will welcome any move which improves our communications, as mentioned by my hon. Friend, both with the Common Market countries and North America. Its importance, particularly for the future, is clear from the fact that the volume of international telephone calls to and from this country is doubling every three years or so—doubling.

I should now like to turn to those points which have been raised and which have not been covered so far. The hon. Member complained about the very long codes—I do not object to his criticism in regard to this—which are at present necessary in some country areas. I am pleased to be able to tell him that this is only a halfway house. Under STD in its ultimate form the code part of the subscriber's number—in other words, the part before the hyphen—will be reduced everywhere to not more than four digits. This will take a good deal of expensive engineering work to complete everywhere, and it will take some time, but I can assure the House that we are getting on with the job.

The hon. Gentleman raised a question regarding labels on dials with all-figure numbers. These were sent out to our customers before the change had taken place. He complained about this. I accept his complaint, but these labels were sent out to enable the customers to put them on their dials, and if some have not stuck them on the dials that is their fault. The aim was to enable people to get used to all-figure numbers and give them a chance to change their stationery and warn their friends before it was too late. Some people's codes are being changed under all-figure numbering, and it was particularly for those people that we gave this transitional period.

I was also asked why it was not possible for people to keep a mixed letter and number system for internal use and be given an all-figure numbering system for international use. I have already pointed out the serious difficulties which keeping the present system would result in at home, and I can assure the House that if a double numbering system of this kind were introduced it could create still greater confusion. That is the advice we have received.

Then I was asked why we did not foresee the need to change to all-figure numbers earlier, and why we did not take account of it when we introduced STD. It is true that STD has gone ahead in this country and has been showing good results, and I would point out that when STD was introduced in 1958 the Post Office was not expecting the explosion of telephone demand which occurred in the mid-1960s. We did not expect that at all. It is this dramatic growth which has accelerated the need for all-figure numbering.

Then I was asked about research done by the Post Office before we decided upon an all-figure numbering system. I will be honest with the House—we did not do any research ourselves; but we sought advice from experts in this country and from telephone administrations overseas, particularly in America, which were also considering a change to all-figure numbering, and the tenor of the advice we were given was that pronounceable codes were easier to remember than figures, but that there was little to choose between meaningless letter codes and figures.

We were asked about the possibility of solving the shortage of available codes in London by adding a fifth digit to the numerical part of the number. This, of course, appears at first sight to be a happy solution for the internal if not the international problem. I can assure the House that we examined this, and many other theoretically possible solutions, before coming to our decision. We rejected this one because we believed that it would have involved extensive and expensive alterations of equipment at all exchanges in London and at all trunk switching centres elsewhere in the country. With the tremendous demands on our capital caused by the telephone explosion we just could not afford this.

In conclusion, I would point out that we are making good progress with the change to all-figure numbers. Since March, 1966, we have been allocating all-figure numbers in the six large cities to all new subscribers, to any subscriber whose directory entry was changed, and to any subscriber who wished to change his number—because, for example, he was having his notepaper heading reprinted. By January this year we had got on well enough with these preliminaries to be able to start changing the remaining telephone numbers in London to the all-figure form. I think we have done remarkably well to be able to do so. We aim to complete this change by September, and the new Greater London business telephone directory to be issued in September will be the first directory with all London telephone numbers in all-figure form. The remaining London telephone directories will have been reprinted in all-figure form by September, 1968. We plan to start changing the remaining numbers in Edinburgh later this year; in Birmingham, Manchester and Liverpool during 1968; and in Glasgow in early 1969. The directories for these cities will be recast in all-figure form at the netx edition following the change in each place.

My hon. Friend has said that there will be a new London telephone directory based on the all-figure system in September this year. Will that new directory be based, as the present is, on the London postal region, or will it be enlarged so as to include the outer part of the Greater London Council area which is not in the London postal region?

What I said was that this would be the first directory with all London telephone numbers in all-figure form. I think that is the answer to my hon. Friend.

We have been able to introduce all-figure numbering gradually and to make it possible to use both the old system and the new side by side till records have been amended and people become accustomed to the all-figure system. We shall in due course, however, have to withdraw some of the old letter codes so that they can be reallocated in figure form for new exchanges. Our aim throughout has been to make the change with as little inconvenience to users as possible, and I am pleased that they are becoming accustomed to the new system. Approximately 1¼ million subscribers now have all-figure numbers, and when the changes in London are completed later this year 25 per cent. of the telephone subscribers in this country will have all-figure numbers.

I am grateful to the hon. Member for Antrim, North for raising this subject today, and to the House for giving me the opportunity of explaining again the very positive purposes for which all-figure numbers were introduced. Our telephone system—I must say this—is expanding at an unprecedented rate. We confidently expect this expansion to continue till, towards the 1980s and 1990s, nearly every household has a telephone. All-figure numbering means that we are bringing in now a national numbering system which will take this huge growth comfortably in its stride.

I know and I appreciate that change is never convenient to those whom it affects, but I believe, and I am confident that the majority of the House and the telephone-using public believe, that it was right to make this change in good time, and that we have chosen the best possible system on behalf of the people who are our customers.

I am grateful for the opportunity to raise at this time a very important subject affecting Enfield. This debate should never have taken place because the voters of London should have had a chance yesterday of delivering their verdict on the local authorities which have administered this region in recent years—and they would have turned them out. The fact that they have not had that opportunity is an iniquitous act in itself, but I will not go into that because I wish to confine my remarks to the important subject of secondary education in the Borough of Enfield.

I have used this phraseology, but, in stressing the need for this debate, I could have used much stronger language. But had I done so you might have turned down my request for this debate, Mr. Speaker. I would rather have described it as the imposition of an unwanted and unworkable system of education on the unfortunate children of my borough, for so it is. Nevertheless, I am grateful to the Minister of State for her presence today, although I am rather sad to think that about 20 years ago—though perhaps I should not mention this in her presence—she and I were undergraduates together at what I would describe as the "right university"—and I say that even in the presence of my right hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, West (Mr. Iain Macleod). I am sad to think by how much she has fallen under the influence of her right hon. Friend the Secretary of State. However impartial one may feel on that issue, I must, in passing, refer to the fact that the electors of both of Oxford and Cambridge came to the right decision in the local elections yesterday.

I wish, first, to deal with the political aspects of this problem, and here the figures speak for themselves. The Borough of Enfield consists of four constituencies; Enfield, West, which is represented by my right hon. Friend, and Southgate, which I represent, Enfield, East, and there is also Edmonton, and I. am glad to see the hon. Member for Edmonton (Mr. Albu) in his place and to note that he appears to be full of ideas. I therefore trust that, since I have once or twice previously attempted to draw him into a debate on this subject, he will participate in the discussion today.

In recent years there have been a number of different elections in the borough and it is relevant to refer to some of the figures to show that the feeling between the two parties—and I fear that this is very much a party political matter at this time, although I wish it were not—about the arguments for and against the particular form of comprehensive education being imposed in the borough have struck across party lines and that many supporters of the Labour Party are against this form of education.

In 1964, in the G.L.C. elections, the total vote for the Conservatives was 111,000, and for the Socialists, 106,000. Then came the borough elections of that year, when the total vote for the Conservatives was 33,000 and for the Labour Party, 30,900. We then had the General Election of 1964. The Conservatives received 73,000 votes and the Socialists 60,000. At the General Election of 1966 the Conservatives received 71,000 votes and the Socialists 65,000. In the G.L.C. elections of last month the Conservatives received 148,000 votes and the Socialists 82,000—quite a change.

It is fair to say that even at a time when the Labour Party was winning a majority of seats on the Council, by 31 to 29-at which point it took all 10 aldermanic seats; and I should be grateful if the Minister would comment on this point—and when the Labour Party had, as it has, a majority of over 100 in this House, the majority vote in the Borough of Enfield was still in favour of the Conservatives.

Although we were deprived yesterday of our right to a full election, there were four by-elections in wards in the area and it is right to refer to these figures because they showed a swing, or difference, between 1964 and 1967. On an exact comparison, the Conservative vote went up from 6,100 to 6,800, while the Labour vote in those wards went down from 2,494 to 1,868. That is clear evidence of what would have happened in Enfield had we held the elections yesterday which should have been held.

So it is that we enter what I would describe, I think accurately, as the "stolen year"—the year in which the Council impose a system of education which, I will show, is not wanted by the vast majority of those who live in Enfield and who teach and are concerned with education in the area. But perhaps I should first refer to the petition which I had the honour to present some months ago, particularly since various references have been made in this House to that petition. I think it right to take this opportunity to put the record straight as to exactly what that petition was about. It was presented

"… on behalf of more than 10,000 parents, teachers, school governors and others troubled about the proposed educational developments in the London Borough of Enfield."

Some attempts were made to ridicule the petition on the grounds that a number, even a large number, of those who had signed it did not live in either the borough or its immediate neighbourhood. The number itself has never been questioned and I therefore presume that the figure of more than 10,000 is accepted.

I have been through the petition line by line and I have found that there were exactly 40 signatories from outside the area. I am prepared to admit frankly, having been in touch with nearly all 40 of those signatories, that 10 of them had signed it only because they were asked by friends to do so. Of the other 30, there were three categories—one of people who had lived in the borough and knew the schools but had moved out of the area, one comprised of grandparents of children who were either about to come into, or were now being educated in, that age group, and one—probably the most important category of all—comprised of a number of teachers who live outside the area.

In Committee on the London Government Bill I quoted from a letter I had received from a teacher, who wrote:

"From my experience I can state categorically that the proposed comprehensive system of education in the London Borough of Enfield is unworkable and will result in a sad deterioration in the standard of education in the borough in the next 10 years at least."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 5th December, 1966; Vol. 737, c. 990.]

That was written by a senior teacher at one of Enfield's schools and referred to the first proposal put forward by the borough, although we have had two proposals in the last few months. Bearing this in mind, I will deal, first, with the first proposal which was put forward by the Borough Council in accordance with a request made by the Minister in Circular No. 1065.

As soon as the Council started work, in April, 1965, it set up a development sub-committee to go into the problems of the reorganisation of secondary education. After an eight or nine-month inquiry, which was extremely thorough, that sub-committee produced a one-tier system of comprehensive education for children aged between 11 and 18, and that was due to start in September, 1967 and was to include a grouping of two or more schools.

The Chairman of the Education Committee explained to the Council the various reasons why this had been done and how it would work. He said that the general approach would be to define an area around each comprehensive school from which it was hoped the majority of children would go. He said that the wishes of any parents to have their children educated in other schools in the borough would, as far as possible, be respected. I wonder how far the schools he had in mind will be able to take in children in future other than from their immediate neighbourhoods? He went on to say:

"It will take many years before all our comprehensive schools are in modern purpose-built buildings, but we shall take every opportunity to improve existing buildings and to build new schools when we are allowed …".

I draw attention to the phrase "when we are allowed". He then said:

"It is important that … after a number of consultative bodies had expressed their separate conclusions, a wide measure of agreement for comprehensive schooling emerged, and the type of school generally favoured for educational reasons in the Borough was the one-tier comprehensive school …".

He concluded by saying:

"Our teachers have told us that they will do their best to make the borough's plan a success."

Here I should like to refer to the teachers, because it has been suggested by the supporters of the plan that the teachers as a whole are in favour of it. What they have said in that sentence to which I have just referred is that if the scheme is imposed it is their job as teachers to do their best to make it work. That does not mean that they think it is the best scheme that could be devised. Indeed, from the moment that the announcement was made protests came from teachers all over the borough. I have already mentioned that parents and other people signed the petition, and groups of teachers in all parts of the borough expressed their dissatisfaction with the scheme.

Perhaps I might give a few examples to illustrate my point. Parents of children at Albany School, a secondary modern school, voted 63 per cent. in favour of secondary modern schools. Some people suggest that only the parents of children in grammar schools want to keep the old system. This is an example of parents with children in a secondary modern school preferring the existing system.

Throughout that spring and summer teachers in all parts of the borough expressed their dissatisfaction with the plan. The House might be interested to know that 44 of the staff at Enfield County School wrote

"deploring the attempt to amalgamate schools in this way, while not denying their approval of purpose—built comprehensive schools."

They said that they foresaw the ending of the freedom of choice for parents, and there was a poll of teachers which resulted in a large majority against the scheme.

Another teacher wrote anonymously—but I have spoken to him because he ended his letter with "Please do not publish my name and address. I still have to work here"—and said:

"At no stage were teachers as a whole consulted as to their opinion on comprehensive schools. No meetings were held at which they could discuss the merits or demerits of comprehensive education … there are very many of us who wish to dissociate ourselves from the full co-operation and warm hearted support of which Councillor Tanner the Chairman of the Education Committee, so smugly boasts."

As the year went on, and these requests and complaints grew, the scheme finally went to the Minister, who turned down a major part of it. He approved seven of the comprehensive schools, he said that two should be sent back for further examination, and that four were not acceptable in that form. Surely that was the occasion for a long, cool look at the whole scheme, but far from it. One of the members of the council, Councillor Smythe, said that the local Press was being unfair in its comments because it said that the Minister had rejected part of the scheme; he had merely not accepted it. Just to refresh my memory I went to the Library this morning and consulted the Oxford Dictionary. I found that one definition of rejecting is "to decline to accept". I suggest that that comment by that councillor about the local Press was totally unjustified. Our local Press has played a magnificent part in publicising all the comments of the parents and teachers throughout the whole of this controversial period. As I said, there should have been a long cool look at the whole system at the time that the Minister rejected it, but that did not happen.

When the rejection was first received, deputations of the sub-committee paid two visits to the Ministry and, as a result, on 17th January, a bare five weeks later, including Christmas, a revised scheme was submitted to the Minister, including a two-tier system. This was the system which the whole of the eight months' examination had shown to be entirely inappropriate to this borough, and it was not surprising that 1 asked some Questions in the House about what consultations and examinations had gone on before coming to this decision. I asked the Minister whether he was satisfied that the further proposals which he had received from the London Borough of Enfield for the reorganisation had been sufficiently considered by the local education authority, by teachers, and by parents, and the hon. Lady replied: "Yes". The answer should have been "No", because there was no consultation with parents or teachers in the interim period.

I subsequently asked for further details of that consultation, and I was told that it was a matter for the local education authority. I finally asked the Question which led to this debate, namely, on what grounds the Minister had reached his decision? He said that his reason for rejecting the earlier version was due largely to the objections of various people, including parents, to the split premises. I do not see how, if he thought that because of the parents' objections the first scheme was wrong, he can believe that the second one is right.

But what happens now? Closure notices have been served on schools, and objections have been lodged. The last closure notice was issued on 2nd May. The Minister's decision is still awaited. We see no signs of any purpose-built comprehensive schools being constructed in the borough. In March, 1966 the Chairman of the Committee said:

"It is impossible to say when such a school will be built … when the time comes money will be available".

but the building programme has been cut back, so how can any money be coming soon? Furthermore, where will the teachers come from? More than 60 advertisements have just appeared, and if teachers are to leave their existing schools they have to give notice by the 31st May. Is the Minister confident that these applications will be answered, and the necessary teachers will be found, or will there be a continuation of what we have at the moment at Edmonton County School where boys in the G.C.E. stream are being instructed by a potential physics teacher waiting to go to university?

What about the four new comprehensives in the borough which are to be a combination of existing secondary modern schools? Will the standard in these schools be high enough to teach the grammar school stream? Who will teach the brighter boys? What will happen at three schools in Edmonton, namely, Mandeville, Eldon and Hounds-field, where in 1964–65, out of 18 boys who obtained "O" levels, seven got them in only one subject, at another, of nine who got "O" levels, seven got them in only one subject, and in the third, of six who got "O" levels, five got them in only one subject? At these schools seven "O" levels are taught, but only one "A" level. There are 790 pupils, and 45 teachers, not one of whom is a graduate.

Where will the money come from for these changes? At the moment about £90,000 is provided each year, and I suppose about half might be available, but that will not begin to be enough for what is needed for these new schools, when 40 new science libraries are needed, and where there is a need for specialised rooms and new facilities because there is to be co-education. It is also the case that seven extra sixth forms will be needed, together with qualified staff.

There is, too, the problem of the distance between schools. The Minister rejected a similar scheme at Hillingdon on the grounds of substantial expenditure and some schools having to operate for an indefinite period in widely separate schools. And if the money is used for these schools, what will happen about the primary schools? And what about the parents of 11-year-olds who ought to know where their children will go in September?

In conclusion, I suggest that the best possible scheme must be in the interests of the children of the borough. The hon. Lady above all people in this House must take a real interest in the children. There is time now for a long look at the whole problem. It is controversial, and there are many aspects to it, but there is no hurry. September, 1967, is not sacred. Let all those of us who are concerned get together and have a good look at the problem and come out with what really matters—an answer which is in the best interests of present day children and children in the future.

I hope that the House will help me. I hope to be able to call in the next 25 minutes the hon. Member for Edmonton (Mr. Albu), the right hon. Member for Enfield, West (Mr. Iain Macleod) and the hon. Lady the Minister of State, Education and Science.

The real reason for having this debate was disclosed by the hon. Member for South-gate (Mr. Berry) in the substantial first part of his speech, which was devoted to making straight party politics. It is unfortunate that this matter has become one of party politics. Consideration for the children and the proper organisation of secondary education in the borough has become, I am afraid, of secondary importance in the minds of the minority party in the Borough of Enfield, who are making all the political capital that they can out of the difficulties.

The hon. Member referred to all sorts of deputations and opinions expressed by people who have gone round collecting signatures. I challenge the hon. Member, as I challenge the right hon. Member for Enfield, West (Mr. Iain Macleod), to fight an election, locally or nationally, on the issue of comprehensive education or not in the Borough of Enfield. I supported the borough education authority in the last General Election. I do not think that there was any connection, but my majority went up 50 per cent. I am prepared to fight on the matter at any time.

What is behind all this is shown clearly by the frightful row now going on in the Inner London Education Authority between the extremist members of the Conservative Party and those more moderate ones who are prepared to consider the matter objectively.

The hon. Member asked for more delay. But further delay can only lead to more uncertainty among teachers, parents and children. It is obviously necessary to get the matter settled as soon as possible. Moreover, the hon. Member asked for delay on the ground—as the minority party in Enfield is doing—that this change should not take place until there can be purpose-built schools. He knows that it would not be possible to move towards a system of comprehensive education in Enfield in purpose-built schools for at least half a century.

What is more, it is not necessary to do so. One of the arguments frequently used is that there is a split between school buildings and the teachers have to move from one part of the school to another part. But this already goes on. It happens at Enfield Grammar School, which is already in two parts. It happens at the Minchenden Grammar School in the hon. Member's constituency, where there are two parts separated by a mile. That school has a distinguished record. So that argument falls.

The argument that there will not be enough teachers or that the teachers are terribly hostile to the scheme also falls. The argument is sometimes based on the number of resignations. In fact, it works the other way. On 11th May there had been 54 resignations this year. But to 31st May last year there had been 75. and in the previous year, before the new proposals had been introduced, there had been 92 resignations up to 31st May. Compared with the 54 resignations this year—the hon. Gentleman referred to the possible shortage of teachers—there have been 66 new appointments for September. So that argument does not hold.

What is more, with regard to the question of moving from one part of the school to another, several heads of departments have asked to be able to do this. They want to go from the senior school, perhaps, to do some teaching in the lower school in order to keep in touch with the teaching going on there. For instance, science masters want to do this so that they can see what bright boys are coming along in the lower school.

I must refer to the absolutely scandalous behaviour of a Conservative councillor, Councillor Bercow, in the matter of the Albany School. The facts given in the Enfield Gazette are completely and absolutely wrong. What is more, the decision on the appointment of this teacher was made by the appointments committee with only one councillor, a Conservative councillor, voting against it. The governing body of the school has no authority for making appointments in any case. Councillor Bercow came to the meeting of the governors without telling the chairman of the committee that he had in his pocket a letter of protest from a number of teachers about the non-appointment of this woman. He produced the letter after the meeting had started. The Enfield Gazette said that the chairman tore the letter up. That is untrue. She has still got it. She allowed some discussion on it, although it was not in order, at the end of the meeting.

This type of behaviour on the part of councillors belonging to the Conservative Party brings the whole of the discussion of this matter in the Borough of Enfield into disrepute. I am glad that the hon. Member did not refer to the matter, but I have had to because the story has appeared in the national Press as well as the local Press. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will now repudiate the action of Councillor Bercow.

I have been impressed by the crocodile tears of the hon. Member for Edmonton (Mr. Albu) about this matter having come into the political arena. We are today discussing the reorganisation of secondary education in Enfield. We are also discussing one of the nastiest illustrations of misuse of local authority power that one can conceive of. Without taking up the hon. Gentleman's last point, my information is entirely different. If he will read this week's Enfield Gazette, I think he will find that I am right on this matter. But I do not want to waste time on that.

I hope to persuade the Minister not to become further entangled in this sad affair. I am afraid that her Ministry has already done a great deal of harm. My hon. Friend the Member for South-gate (Mr. Berry) has obviously picked this day with diabolical skill—the day after the election. The hon. Member for Edmonton did not mention this, but in the by-election in his constituency yesterday there was a 14½ per cent. swing to the Conservatives, a swing even greater than that shown in the Greater London Council elections, and one which would have swept the vast majority of Socialist councillors out of that borough.

The Goddess of Nemesis must be enjoying herself this morning. I need not take those hon. Members who are present through all that we said on the Second Reading of the Local Government Bill. Suffice it to say that every single thing that we said then has come true.

Nemesis must also have been looking over the shoulder of the Secretary of State for Education in those two well-known circulars of his of 1965 and 1966. When the right hon. Gentleman in 1965 issued his Circular No. 10, 16 out of the 17 county boroughs in England and Wales with a population of over 200,000 were held by Socialists, and he could well claim that he was addressing people who were broadly in sympathy with his views. The position now is that only three out of the 17 remain—Hull, Sheffield and Stoke.

Therefore, if the right hon. Gentleman takes the faintest notice of how people vote—and I think he does—the situation is vastly different. He was then addressing a Labour London, a Labour Birmingham, a Labour Manchester, a Labour Leeds, a Labour Lancashire, and a Labour West Riding. All these have gone, and 50 more beside. The borough we are considering now, and many others, would have gone, too, if it had not been for the iniquitous London Government Bill which he and his colleagues introduced.

The Secretary of State has two choices: he can ride for a tilt against all these people, or he can come forward with a more understanding approach. I shall make my own view clear as quickly as I can. Condensing it, the simplest way to put it—the Minister of State will understand what I mean—is that I am completely in sympathy with Alderman Chataway in his approach to education and, although I do not know the details, I believe that he has acted extremely wisely in these matters. I think it right to say this. It has never been part of Conservative policy that we should be against comprehensive education. In my own small part of my constituency where I live, Potters Bar, there is a fine comprehensive school, planned by a Conservative Middlesex County Council, purpose-built under a Conservative Administration, and opened by myself.

We have never thought that comprehensives are always the right answer. Equally, we have never thought that they are always the wrong answer. In short—I am sure that my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for St. Marylebone (Mr. Hogg), who was a distinguished Secretary of State for Education, will agree—we are against the dinosaurs, wherever they may be found, whatever political party they may say they support. They exist in their most primitive form in Enfield, where, at the moment, they are busy trying to butcher, in the stolen year, as my hon. Friend said, the splendid schools there in order to make a comprehensive holiday.

I shall not remind the House of the Prime Minister's pledge that the grammar schools would be abolished over his dead body. He is too discredited to take any notice of what he said. But I do recall, because I agree very much with it, what the Secretary of State for Education and Science said in his book, "The Future of Socialism", in 1956—

"Even within the state sector, there can be no question of suddenly closing down the grammar schools and converting the secondary modern into comprehensive schools. These latter require a quite exceptional calibre of headmaster, of which the supply is severely limited; a high-quality staff for sixth-form teaching—again a factor in limited supply; and buildings of adequate scale and scope, and most secondary modern buildings which would have to be converted are quite unsuitable. Until and unless proper supply conditions exist, it would be quite wrong to close down grammar schools of acknowledged academic quality".

I agree with every word of that, and so, I hope, will the hon. Lady when she replies.

I shall add one or two words to the story which my hon. Friend has put before the House. Normally, one does not mention civil servants and officials in this context but one attacks only the local education authority. But I am bound to say that, in my view, Mr. Denny, the education officer, has played from the beginning such a blatantly partisan part in the affair that he cannot and should not escape his share of criticism.

There have been constant attempts to stifle comment. A letter was sent round to teachers in the borough warning them against helping parents' emergency committees.

In April, Councillor Tanner, chairman of the education committee, reprimanded the teachers for publicly expressing their criticism of the proposals. The governors, as I know well, for I am a founder governor of Enfield Grammar School and senior in terms of service, have been treated with contempt, and there can be no question that, sometimes, this has been deliberate. I can illustrate the quality of the advocacy best by quoting from the Enfield Gazette of Friday, 22nd June, 1966. This is part of a question and answer report giving Mr. Denny's views:

"Question: How will you get all the extra teachers to man this marvellous system? Answer: By offering more money and enticing them from elsewhere."

If that is the sort of approach, I hope that it will be repudiated by the Government From Bench.

The point is that the decision had already been taken. In the end, it was submitted to the Ministry, and the simplest summing-up of the matter was given by my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Handsworth (Sir E. Boyle), perhaps the greatest expert in the House on these matters, when he said that it was the longest and the worst scheme that he had seen. The principle of single-control one-tier comprehensive schemes was put forward and was then abandoned.

This scheme was rejected in large part on 13th December. Here is the significant sentence:

"The Secretary of State has noted that the authority wish to introduce their whole scheme in September, 1967."

I hope that the Minister of State is not so innocent as not to realise why that was. The authority wanted to introduce it in September, 1967, because this was the stolen year, the year which it knew would be stolen for it by the Government of which the hon. Lady is a member. Then we must follow the frantic rush that took place afterwards. On 13th December that letter was issued. There was then a meeting on 29th December, and there was a meeting on 10th January. There was a letter from Mr. Denny on 18th January, and it was accepted on 26th January. Incidentally, this was a holiday period. Anybody who knows anything about the Civil Service will know that this pace is quite absurd. There can be no question that only a label can be stuck on these schools. There is no possible way in which an adequate service can be given to the children of this borough.

I therefore conclude on this note. I have said that I am not a dinosaur in this matter, nor, I am certain, is my hon. Friend. I appeal to the Minister of State, and let me remind her of the figure: 16 out of the 17 were Labour-controlled. Now three are——

I hope that the hon. Gentleman will not think me discourteous. This debate must finish at a quarter past three.

With respect, Mr. Speaker, I was following exactly the note sent to me by the Minister, and I shall conclude in one minute.

We could wait a year, if we wished, until the election, and see what happens then. But there have been statutory protests against every single one of the schemes. The last expired on 2nd May, and we are now waiting for the Minister's reply. There is to be a case in the High Court. This simply cannot be done in time without a savage lowering of standards. I ask the Minister not to be doctrinaire on this matter, because it is in her hands. If she will postpone the date of the scheme she can avert a bitter conflict in which only the children of Enfield will suffer.

In the short time that I have I wish to begin by commenting on some of the points made by the hon. Member for Southgate (Mr. Berry) and the right hon. Member for Enfield, West (Mr. Iain Macleod). I am glad that the right hon. Gentleman made no attempt to try to identify the Conservative Party with opposition to comprehensive schooling. I think that he was right in this, possibly more than his hon. Friend, because it is clear that the pattern of elections reveals nothing on this point. A good many Conservative-controlled and Independent-controlled authorities have moved towards fully comprehensive systems, some even before the issue of Circular 10/65.

But I must strongly criticise one thing the right hon. Gentleman said. He is perfectly entitled to criticise the authority to any degree he wishes, and to criticise the Department of Education and Science, but in criticising the Chief Education Officer he went beyond what is normally accepted, because we recognise in the House that civil servants, both locally and nationally, attempt to carry out the policy of the elected representatives in its full spirit. I should also like to point out that the resignation and recruitment figures for teachers given by my hon. Friend the Member for Edmonton (Mr. Albu) do not bear out the argument that the Enfield scheme has put off teachers to a serious extent.

I wish to comment on some other points before turning to the main question raised by the hon. Member for Southgate First, the Department did not turn down the major part of the Enfield scheme, but only about a third of it. That bears out the argument that the Department has in mind one of the things the right hon. Gentleman mentioned, which is that a scheme shall be educationally sound. We have turned down parts of schemes and whole schemes, even from Labour authorities, when we feel that that criterion is not satisfied.

The hon. Member referred to a quotation from the teachers' letter that there was no adequate consultation with teachers. But I have before me an extract from the minutes of a meeting of the Joint Consultative Committee on 13th July, 1966, between the teachers and the authority, it is headed: "Items Submitted By The Teachers." It says:

"submitted a paper expressing satisfaction of the Teachers' Committee with the consultation prior to publication of the Plan and requesting the continuance of joint consultation on the details of the reorganisation of secondary education."

That hardly bears out the argument that there was no consultation over the original scheme. Indeed, I think that it is only fair to say that there was a great deal of consultation over the original scheme. There was a great deal of consultation with all the teachers' organisations, and in addition there was a major attempt to inform parents both by means of public meetings and a quite substantial document, 20 copies of which were placed in the public libraries in the borough of Enfield.

So an attempt was made to try to get across what was in the first plan. I would accept some criticism of the Authority over the consultations with teachers on the revised scheme, but I think that on the original scheme the consultation went a very long way. But in the revised scheme there was a move away from what had previously been an attempt to link together schools some distance apart into single schools which were replaced in two cases by two-tier schools, and in three cases by the overlord school system, which also exists in Manchester, where a single head covers both schools and deputy heads are responsible for the junior and senior schools respectively.

A two-tier scheme was put forward by the teachers' organisation in consultations about the original scheme, and it then re-appeared in the revised scheme. I must underline that this was something which the teachers themselves had advocated. In January Section 13 notices were put out for the Enfield scheme in the case of schools where closures were involved. Yet, from that time to the present, there has been only one objection from teachers, and that has come from the Joint Four, which again hardly suggests that the teachers are up in arms against the revised scheme.

The hon. Member referred to improvements to schools—laboratories, and so forth. First, there is a new school in the Enfield authority—Kingsmead. A further new school is also programmed for the 1967-68 and the 1968–69 programmes, which will replace one at least and possibly two of the junior schools in one of the two-tier systems and, in addition, there is a group of minor works allocations which will make up the accommodation in the schools mentioned by the hon. Gentleman. In criticising one school in Enfield the hon. Gentleman was referring to the present un-reorganised situation and not the situation which will obtain after the new scheme has been put into operation.

I now want to say a word about staff movements in the overall schools and also the special position of the Edmonton/Rowantree combination, in respect of which there was the largest number of objections under Section 13. These objections centred on the danger to children caused by the fact that a road cut between the two schools. We have made inquiries from the authority and from the police, and it is our understanding that there will be no movement of pupils between sessions, and that at the end of sessions and at the beginning and end of the school day there will be police patrols across this road.

As for the movement of staff in the overall schools, the authority has made a pledge to the Department that there will be no movement of pupils and no movement of staff after the third year of the scheme. The reason why there will be some movement of staff—and this has been much exaggerated—in the first two years is that the authority, in line with parental views on the subject, has decided that the children in existing secondary modern schools should be able to compete their courses without being moved to another school, and that children who started last year at grammar schools should be allowed to continue without having to move back to the lower tier of combined schools.

It is generally accepted in the House as proper in dealing with children that there should be no break in their education because of the existence of a reorganisation scheme, although it is felt by my right hon. Friend and myself that staff movement should always be reduced to the minimum. That is why we objected to one-third of the original Enfield scheme. Where children are already in a school some movement of staff on a temporary basis and for a short time may be considered more desirable than the movement of children bodily from one school to another.

My right hon. Friend has at present got the Section 13 proposals before him. It is his intention to look carefully at the objections and to consider the points made in this debate. The final decision on the Section 13 proposals has been deliberately delayed in order to enable the points made in this debate to be fully considered. I hope that the hon. Member for Southgate will appreciate this attempt to give full consideration to those points.

As for the criticisms that 1 have made of the Enfield authority about what I regard as not fully adequate consultation with teachers on the revised scheme, at the National Union of Teachers conference this year my right hon. Friend pointed out—and I underline this—to authorities which are at present revising schemes which have been either sent back for reconsideration or rejected in part by him, that we have made it clear that these revised schemes, like the original schemes, should be fully discussed with the teachers.

I have said that Enfield Borough held two meetings, at one of which there were only three representatives of the teachers. I mention that deliberately, because that was not a sufficient number. But the authority went on to hold meetings with the head teachers of the authority, at which no dissenting voice was raised.

I repeat that there has been only one objection to the Department under Section 13 procedure which started in January, and this has come from the Joint Four. Most of the points raised in the objection have been considered in discussions between the Department and the Authority.

My hon. Friend the Member for Edmonton made the fair point that children can suffer from constant uncertainty hanging over them, and it is true that Enfield has been considering reorganisation since 1963 when, under the London Government Act, passed by the last Government, all outer London boroughs were asked to submit new schemes for the development of education in their districts by April 1967.

The children and teachers of Enfield have thus been going through a period of upheaval for three and a half years, and, therefore, one would have to take a very solemn view of the situation before one perpetuated that uncertainty. We have endeavoured to improve the Enfield scheme. We believe that it has been improved and that the best thing is to ask the Authority to go ahead with those parts which have gone through or do not require Section 13 procedure, and we shall try to let it have a decision on the balance of the Scheme as soon as possible.

I want to raise the case of the Witton Isolation Hospital. First, I should make a correction to the spelling of Witton on the Order Paper, which spells it as "Whitton".

I wish also to apologise to hon. Members on both sides, many of whom are not here today, for the change in the debate. I sought at first to discuss the question of referenda in relation to capital and corporal punishment and to the Common Market and to show that Governments of both parties carry out policy and introduce legislation for which they have had no mandate. But I am prevented from doing this by the rules of order. It was not lack of desire on my part to discuss the urgent need for referenda but, as you know well, Mr. Speaker, it would have been out of order and I have therefore substituted the case of the hospital, which is still nevertheless a very important matter.

I know that I shall use strong words but I have considered them carefully. It is the disgraceful and highly dangerous neglect of this hospital, which could have cost many lives, which has caused me to raise this matter. The hospital was used since 1894 for smallpox cases. Smallpox was one of the most serious diseases of the past in this country and it could be of the present. About 1,000 patients passed through the hospital but that does not mean to say that it was not a very important place serving a very useful purpose in its time. It was last used to a great extent in the outbreak in about 1960, when a number of immigrants brought the disease into the country.

In parenthesis, I would ask the Parliamentary Secretary to comment on the possibility of the further introduction of this disease by immigrants, although, fortunately, immigration has been at low ebb for some time. However, there is always the risk that this hospital may be necessary in future, when immigrants still come in from areas where smallpox is unchecked. The hospital itself was run down after this period in the early 1960s to complete disuse. The Ministry had the hospital surveyed about a year ago, but no action was seen to be taken as a result of that survey. I do not know what was in the Minister's mind at the time.

About six months ago, the caretaker left. I do not know whether that has anything to do with the survey, but, as it happens, he was a very important man. When he left, he was not replaced and there was no substitution of any kind of security. The hospital was left, so it seems, completely unattended with no security check. As was to be expected, children and young persons found their way into its grounds and into the building. It is not known how long that went on before the general public noticed, but by then it was obvious that there had been a considerable amount of vandalism and that a number of people had entered the hospital building itself as well as the grounds on many occasions.

Around the building there is or was an easily scaleable wall and broken wire fence, but nothing to prevent children or young people from going in if they wished. When an examination was made, it was found that there were rats and mice and even domestic cats in the building, which was what mattered because, belonging to local families and straying around the hospital building, cats then went back to people.

This was discovered by an employee of the Birmingham Mail. He saw all this happening daily from the top of a bus and when it seemed to reach serious proportions he thought that it was time that something was said about it and so he reported to a Mr. Lynn, a reporter on the Birmingham Mail, who thought that it might be important as it was an isolation hospital.

On 10th April, Mr. Lynn informed the hospital group what was happening and immediately an inspector was sent along. As a result, nothing was seen to happen, although something was probably put in train. Mr. Lynn was unable to obtain any definite promise that something would be done and he was not in a position to demand it, and, as he was so concerned, he telephoned Dr. Millar, the Birmingham Medical Officer of Health. On 11th April, Dr. Millar showed his tremendous concern by recommending almost at once that the hospital be destroyed by fire. Councillor Franklin, the chairman of the local health committee, and his committee immediately consulted the Ministry of Health and pressed for the hospital to be burned.

Apparently, the Ministry agreed—I am not sure, but I suppose that it must have—and arrangements were made for this to be done. But during all this time there was the possibility, and even the probability, that the virus was in the building, and this is a densely populated area. Not only could the virus have been in the building, but it could have been conveyed by either people or animals into homes. It is generally known that smallpox is a virus which lives on in dry dust and that it is shed from patients by way of scales falling from the skin.

So it was that these facts must have been accepted, and caused the Ministry to agree that the hospital be destroyed by fire. Volunteers had to be found from the fire brigade, because of the risk involved, and they were all immunised Four tons of highly combustible material were provided, to create intense heat which would have a sterilising effect, and which totally destroyed the building on 3rd May. It would now seem that everything is safe and that there is no risk, but there is no certainty about this.

The Minister took a considerable interest in this, and a virologist was sent from Hampshire. He took samples of the dust to find out whether there was any risk of contamination remaining. It is likely that the prompt action taken by the Birmingham Mail, the medical officer, the health committee and the fire brigade, stopped an outbreak of smallpox in Birmingham. No one can say whether it did, but there was clearly the possibility. This shows the great value of the local Press, and the local authority, as distinct from the Ministry and hospital boards. The former are able to ginger up some action when Whitehall seems to be silent, remote and slow to act.

Several children who admitted to having been in the building were immunised. Everything now appears to have been done by the Ministry, and the local medical officer of health, and I am glad that this is so.

Several important questions are being asked by many people in Birmingham. A local residents' association has been formed, not through any action of mine, to deal with this matter. People are asking, as I am asking, that the Minister should reply to some of these questions. I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health for coming to answer the debate. I would have hoped that the Minister of Health could have come too, because this is a very serious matter. These are the questions which people are asking. Why was there not adequate security at the building? The caretaker had been absent for six months. Why was the Ministry unaware that vandalism was taking place, and that people were entering the building until it was reported by a newspaper? Thirdly, what other hospitals in the country are exposed to risks of this kind or to inattention? Fourthly, what did the samples taken by the virologist reveal? Fifthly, what is the planned use for this six-acre site which stands in an area which, as the Minister will know, is very short of land? It could be used for building. While this may be recognised, very quick action should be taken to bring this land into reasonable use. It has been unused for some years.

Why were not statements made by the hospital board or the Minister when all these things were known and were published in the Press? Surely the public has a right to expect the Ministry to give an explanation or some assurance. But no statements were made, as far as I know.

I think that the Minister will agree that this debate will serve to reassure the public on the up-to-date situation, not only in Witton Hospital in Birmingham, but in the rest of the country, if such a thing should happen again.

I am glad that the hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Mr. Gurden) has given me the opportunity, not only to put on record the facts about Witton Hospital, but to explain the arrangements for hospital provision for smallpox cases. I am sorry that the hon. Gentleman saw fit to drag in the question of immigration. I fear that immigration in Birmingham, like smallpox, tends to be an emotive word. I am aware that some of the Tory Members representing Birmingham constituencies have dragged in immigration in the past in an undesirable way, although there have been honourable exceptions.

What about smallpox?

I am talking about immigration. I shall come to smallpox in a moment.

Smallpox is a disease which must be treated with respect, but I think that, through ignorance, there is some popular misconception about what is necessary to avoid the spread of infection. For instance, I see from a report in a Birmingham newspaper that some people thought it dangerous to buy meat from a shop near Witton Hospital. Quite properly, a suitable assurance was given by the local authority that there could be no harm in buying food from any shop in the neighbourhood. I hope that what I have to say today will fulfil the same desirable object of dispelling ignorance. I do not accuse the hon. Gentleman of lending himself to spreading emotive altitudes about this problem, but he must be very careful about satisfying himself on certain matters.

I should like, first, to explain briefly the general arrangements for providing hospital accommodation for people suffering from smallpox and for the prevention of the spread of infection. The general pattern of hospital provision for smallpox consists of first-line hospitals which are held empty on a care and maintenance basis. These are supported by second-line hospitals which are normally used for other purposes but can be evacuated at short notice. In this way there is provided immediate accommodation for a small number of patients suffering from smallpox, and a reserve of accommodation in the event of a very large outbreak. A first-line smallpox hospital is used exclusively for the care of patients suffering from or suspected to be suffering from smallpox.

The scheme is that first-line hospital accommodation for about 20 patients should be available to each hospital region. Experience in recent years has suggested that this should prove sufficient for most outbreaks in this country. Each regional hospital board, however, is required to make arrangements for second-line hospital accommodation by earmarking suitable hospitals which could be evacuated at short notice. We have not fixed any definite scale of provision for second-line hospital accommodation. The aim is that first-line smallpox hospitals should be so placed throughout the country that patients needing admission should not have to travel for more than about two hours by ambulance. Then in the event of a major outbreak, second-line hospital accommodation is opened as near as possible to the main focus of infection. The primary requirement for a first-line smallpox hospital is that it should be structurally separate from any other building. In siting smallpox hospitals, whether first-line or second-line, the medical officer of health of the district is invariably consulted by the hospital authority and kept informed of developments.

It has been strongly emphasised to hospital authorities that anyone connected in any way with a hospital in which smallpox is being treated—whether as nurse, doctor, domestic staff or in any other capacity—must be re-vaccinated. Advice has also been given on precautions to be taken for preventing the spread of infection from the hospital to people outside it.

I come to the particular provision in the Birmingham region, Witton Hospital in particular. Until it was destroyed by fire on 3rd May, Witton Hospital was the first-line smallpox hospital for the Birmingham Hospital Region. It was built by the Birmingham City Council at the beginning of the century as an isolation hospital. It has been one of the hospitals managed by the East Birmingham Hospital Management Committee. It had 24 beds, and so was the right size for use as a first-line smallpox hospital.

Hon. Members will remember the outbreak of smallpox in the years 1961–62. A full report on this outbreak was published by the Ministry of Health as No. 109 in the series of Reports on Public Health and Medical Subjects. As will be seen from this report, successful use was made of Witton Hospital during this epidemic. Two patients were admitted, one after a diagnosis of smallpox had been established, on 3rd January, 1962. This patient recovered uneventfully and was discharged on 20th January. A second patient whose infection was in no way connected with the first, was admitted as a suspected case of smallpox on 15th January, 1962. He also subsequently recovered and was discharged on 6th February of that year.

The official report to which I have referred comments most favourably on the way in which action in the face of the outbreak was firmly concerted by all concerned, beginning with a meeting for planning purposes of local medical officers of health and representatives of the regional hospital board when the first case appeared. I quote from the report, page 59:

"This is very close to the ideal solution in the particular circumstances as obtained locally. It calls for a strong will and maximum co-operation between authorities and the rest of the medical profession. It is, of course, easier to sustain if similar restraint is being shown elsewhere in the country."

My examination of this case has shown that, far from its exemplifying any slackness or failure, it seems to be a model of what should have been done in the circumstances. Minor criticisms could be made, but I think that in principle it was a model.

On this occasion Witton Hospital was first opened for use on 3rd January, 1962, and was finally closed for terminal dis-infection on 13th February of that year. At no time was it deemed necessary to bring into use the second-line accommodation in the region. However, the use of Witton Hospital during this outbreak served to make apparent the limitations on the usefulness of the building imposed by its physical condition. There was some initial difficulty when the second case was to be admitted there, because the central heating system had been affected by the bad weather.

In 1964 the board came to the conclusion that the hospital was unsuitable for further use, even as reserve accommodation, since it was increasingly difficult to maintain in tolerable condition, owing to the age of the buildings and the equipment. The board accordingly began to look for a suitable replacement in consultation with the local and other authorities concerned. In the meantime, however, the hospital retained its function as the first-line smallpox hospital for the region and received its last patient there during the year 1966.

After careful consideration and full consultation with all concerned, the choice of the board fell on Catherine-de-Barnes Hospital, Solihull, in the same hospital management group. This had been designed, also at the beginning of the century, as an isolation hospital. Its 20 beds have been used, in conjunction with Solihull Hospital, for maternity patients who have had their confinement. It was used as a smallpox hospital during the epidemic of 1966 and it was then demonstrated that it would make an excellent first-line, regional smallpox hospital.

Accordingly, since June, 1966, while not fully designated for use as the first-line smallpox hospital for the region, it has remained empty and available to receive smallpox cases. Naturally, the board was not in a position to seek the Minister of Health's formal approval to the change of use of the hospital, from maternity to smallpox, until it had satisfactorily concluded all its consultations with interested authorities. Similarly, the board was not in a position to recommend the final abandonment of Witton Hospital until a replacement had been secured. This has now been done.

However, when the last patient was discharged on 4th May, 1966—I draw the hon. Member's attention particularly to this—a thorough terminal fumigation was carried out by the department of the medical officer of health. This was so effective that when the building was again examined this year immediately prior to its destruction on 3rd May those applying the scientific tests paid tribute to the thoroughness of the earlier terminal fumigation.

Since the hon. Member mentioned, quite rightly, that advice was sought from the virologist, he may be interested to know that the Micro-Biological Research Station at Porton, Salisbury, was asked by the senior administrative medical officer of the hospital board and the medical officer of health for the City of Birmingham to investigate the possibilities of smallpox virus surviving at Witton Hospital, and 26 samples of material from the hospital wards and drainage system were examined for smallpox virus, and no clear evidence has so far been obtained to indicate the presence of smallpox virus from any of the samples.

That is why I was a little bit alarmed when the hon. Gentleman said, I thought —he will correct me if I misunderstood him—that there was a probability of there still remaining virus infection. I hope that what I have just said will satisfy him. Smallpox virus of the type present in the cases at the hospital before it was closed was mixed with some of the material removed from the hospital, and this material had an adverse effect on the survival of the virus. The disinfecting procedures carried out at the hospital have been adequate.

I want to discuss the events leading up to the destruction of the hospital on 3rd May. By the middle of last year, 1966, as I have explained, Birmingham Regional Hospital Board concluded that in Catherine-de-Barnes Hospital it had a suitable replacement for Witton. It remained to complete the necessary local consultations and to obtain the Minister's formal approval. In the meantime it considered what should be done with Witton, once abandoned. It concluded that it had no further use for it for hospital purposes and consulted with the Medical Officer of Health of the City of Birmingham—the responsible public health authority—on the precautions necessary prior to its disposal. I hope the hon. Member takes that point. The medical officer of health gave his opinion that the hospital should be burned to the ground before the site could be used for other purposes.

During its life as a first-line smallpox hospital Witton had a resident caretaker. But on 2nd May, 1966, the caretaker resigned. Not unnaturally, in view of what was going to happen, a resident successor was not available. Immediately on the caretaker's resignation the hospital management committee appointed a member of its staff who lived in the house only 600 yards away to look after it, and to make visits for the purpose of discharging this duty. The committee also informed the police authority that there was no longer a resident caretaker. A warning notice was placed outside the hospital and the physical obstacles to entry were strengthened. This included the use of barbed wire. New padlocks were provided for the doors, some of which were screwed up. The hospital secretary made regular visits of inspection.

The seriousness with which the hospital authority regarded its obligations to secure the public from any risk of infection may be evidenced by the following example. The city council, which owned the hospital prior to the inception of the National Health Service, naturally expressed interest in resuming ownership of the site, and accordingly asked the regional hospital board for permission to look over the building. The board sought advice from the city's medical officer of health and he advised that this would be hazardous and that it could be allowed only after precautions had been taken—that is, the successful vaccination of the persons visiting: otherwise they could only inspect the periphery. One of my hon. Friends brought this to my notice in the belief that this showed perhaps undue zeal on the board's part, but there are rules and procedures which should be followed, and which were followed. We assured my hon. Friend who had mentioned the matter to us that the Department's medical advisers considered that this caution had been well founded and endorsed the advice which the medical officer of health had given.

On 10th April a telephone call was received at the board's headquarters from the Press asking for the board to comment on the incidents of vandalism at the hospital. The implications of this, from the point of view of public health, received immediate and serious attention. At this point I should, perhaps, mention that the role of the Press in this matter is not at all to be criticised. We have a good free Press in this country and I hope that it will always remain so. We depend on the Press as a check and balance on other normal, routine precautions.

On 12th April the board's senior administrative medical officer discussed the situation with the city's medical officer of health and in consequence, at the end of their conversation, the senior administrative medical officer asked the medical officer of health to carry out the demolition by fire on the lines already proposed. Arrangements were immediately set in train and the destruction by fire took place, with complete success, on 3rd May. The operation was fully reported and one account stated that it was attended by 50 Press and television representatives.

Would not the hon. Gentleman agree that what he has said bears out what I said; that there was not security? Although he has pointed out that someone was living nearby, that locks had been placed on doors and so on, vandalism nevertheless took place. That the building was a hazard and danger was surely proved by the board not allowing anyone to go in it unattended. Would not the hon. Gentleman agree that there is some justification for my remarks?

The hon. Gentleman may not have fully understood what I have been saying. When he reads the report of my remarks he will understand that over a long period certain procedures and routine measures that had been laid down were carried out.

The attendance of 50 Press and television representatives no doubt shows that this matter was newsworthy. I am somewhat alarmed at the connection between the emotive word "smallpox" and some ignorance about what this disease means and what was being carried out by the responsible authorities. I am a little concerned about whether this was fully understood or, if it was, whether sufficient publicity was given to the matter. However, in view of this attendance of Press and television representatives, it is not necessary for me to record the details.

There is one point, however, which I should make clear. The decision to destroy the hospital was properly taken by the board, but the choice of the methods to be used was made by the responsible medical officer of health.

We have been asked what the Minister intends to do with the site of Witton Hospital. The Birmingham Regional Hospital Board has reported officially to my right hon. Friend that the site is now surplus to its requirements and it has recommended that it be disposed of. It has also received an official report from the city's medical officer of health saying that he is "completely satisfied" that the site is now entirely free from smallpox infection. I should add that the site was inspected personally in the afternoon of 3rd May by the medical officer of health and his deputy, who is a member of the Ministry of Health's panel of advisers on the clinical diagnosis of smallpox.

I believe that it has been suggested that the site could be used for a small new hospital, but the practice of modern medicine requires the provision of large district general hospitals where full facilities are available. Facilities for this area are provided by the General Hospital and Good Hope. In this connection, I draw the attention of the hon. Gentleman to what is contained in the publication issued by the Minister on the hospital building programme, with all its implications about the future role of, and the economic reasons for, district general hospitals as opposed to small hospitals. I commend this to him because hon. Members have a great rôle to play in disabusing people of the idea that, to use a colloquialism, small hospitals are on.

The reason why I say that is that in modern medicine, which involves most expensive equipment, techniques and staff, it is possible to give the public what it is fully entitled to only through the medium of a big local or district general hospital. Local attitudes and loyalties about small local hospitals are very understandable, but they are not economic and they are not a reasonable proposition from the technical and medical points of view.

It therefore remains for my right hon. Friend to decide whether the site can be disposed of. If he does, the normal procedure for disposal of surplus hospital premises will will come into operation. In the meantime, the board has received tenders for the final demolition of the buildings on the site, and the district valuer has been asked to value it. The normal procedure for selecting a purchaser of surplus hospital premises is to offer them to public authorities, which take priority in the following order. First, there are other Government Departments: there is established administrative procedure for dealing with this. Secondly, where the premises were formerly hospital premises taken over from a local authority in 1948 without compensation, as in this case, the local authority is given an option to acquire them. Thirdly, the premises are offered to the county and district councils in whose areas the premises are situated.

To this procedure there is one exception. Where it is known that surplus hospital land is required by a local health authority, or local welfare authority, it would, with the Minister's approval, be offered to that authority before the other offers were made. If, for example, there was local agreement that there was need for a health centre, then an application by the local health authority to purchase the land for this purpose would receive first consideration. The city, as public health authority, has already declared that the area is safe for redevelopment, and any future use of the land will be subject only to the normal planning authorisations.

I hope that the hon. Gentleman will consider this suggestion. It is not the responsibility of my Ministry, except in a much later context, to suggest where health centres should be. This is a matter for the judgment and consideration of the local health authority. I have not surveyed the area, nor is it my responsibility, but I can assure the hon. Gentleman that if by any chance—I put it no higher than that—the local health authority—no doubt he could use his influence here—considers that a health centre might usefully be placed there, it is up to the local health authority to prepare a plan. Machinery in my Department has now been so designed for considering these applications that we can deal with plans most expeditiously. But it must be the suggestion of the local health authority. If the hon. Gentleman is interested, I shall be very happy to send him a copy of a publication which has been sent to local health authorities explaining the procedures in the up-to-date context.

In the light of what I have said, I think that the House will agree that all proper precautions were taken by the board and the local health authority for safeguarding the health of the public. There can never be complete insurance against human folly or ignorance. It seems to be in the nature of small boys that they are tempted to break into empty buildings and go climbing where they should not.

Hear, hear.

I am glad to receive support from my hon. Friend the Member for Woolwich, West (Mr. Hamling). It is the experience of many of us.

As soon as this situation was brought to the notice of the responsible hospital authorities, immediate action was taken, quite literally, to remove the temptation. It so happens that latterly the whole policy and practice of hospital care for smallpox patients has been considered by the Standing Medical Advisory Committee. The result is essentially confirmation of existing arrangements, and a circular supplementing and modifying advice which was given out by circular a little over 10 years ago will be issued to hospital authorities early next month.

This makes the point that the perimeter of a first-line smallpox hospital should be surrounded by a wall or fence so constructed as to prohibit unauthorised movement in or out of the hospital. It also explains that there should be a single entrance to the hospital under the supervision of a custodian. I have no doubt that hospital authorities will continue to treat this disease with the respect that it demands and which has been fully evidenced in the case of Witton Hospital. I am glad to be able to say, as I think the hon. Gentleman knows, that the boys known to have entered the hospital buildings were vaccinated and kept under daily surveillance. They have remained well, and are now free from any danger of developing smallpox as a result of their entry into this hospital.

I hope that what I have said will reassure the hon. Gentleman not only that in this case the necessary procedures were adequate, and full contact was maintained by the two authorities concerned, but that, generally, for protecting the public against this sort of infection, the procedures are being properly enforced with the specialist techniques advised by my Department.

Before the hon. Gentleman sits down, I wonder whether he would deal with the point that I raised about whether any other hospitals are at risk in the country?

To the best of my knowledge it is the case that the procedures to which I have referred are being properly applied, and I have no information that any other hospital is at risk. Naturally, it is the continuing responsibility of my Department to see that this information is at our disposal.

The closing moments before the Recess are not the happiest time in which to detain the House, but my hon. Friend will know that my subject is of importance to a large number of my constituents, and I assure him that they will read this debate, and in particular his remarks, with great interest.

On 1st December, 1966 the Roads Committee of the Birkenhead County Borough Council considered, and rejected, the objections which had been made to its proposals for a traffic waiting order on a section of Woodchurch Road, Birkenhead, which forms the border of my constituency. Twelve letters of objection, and petitions with 121 signatures, were before the committee, a substantial volume of protests which indicated the anxiety of local tradespeople for their future livelihood. Most of the opposition was to the proposal to ban parking during the off-peak period, a proposal which the Chief Constable of Birkenhead had stated was premature and unnecessary for a further two years. Nevertheless, the committee felt that, on balance the Order should be confirmed with the inclusion of off-peak periods. It was claimed that this would halve the accident rate, cater for the heavy traffic flows at off-peak periods on Fridays and Saturdays, and avoid subsequent need to modify the order.

The traders had previously approached me as their Member of Parliament, and I had written to the Roads Committee expressing my anxieties for their future business. The road concerned is a busy and important through route, but, equally, it is here straddled by a busy and important suburban shopping centre which has come to cater for an extensive area. Since the local authority appeared to be making no provision for off-street parking facilities commensurate with those facilities about to disappear, I felt that my intervention was justified. The Roads Committee nevertheless decided—and I would never pretend that such decisions could ever be easy—that traffic considerations, not unrelated to the mid-Wirral Road which I debated here with my hon. Friend on 14th April last, must take priority.

I do not wish to pursue any further the merits of the particular order, but I would like to turn now to the subsequent history of the attempt by the traders to invoke the aid of the Minister on appeal. It is this history which disposes me to feel that larger issues are at stake, in particular the criteria which the Ministry either does, or should, employ when asked, on appeal, to pass judgment on a local authority's traffic regulation orders.

My experience over Woodchurch Road persuades me that the present situation is unsatisfactory, and the Ministry itself seems uncertain of its powers. This, at least, is the inference which I have drawn from the events which followed 1st December, and I would now like to summarise them.

The Roads Committee saw the traders on 12th January, when a deputation was acquainted with the reasons which had led to a rejection of the petitions and protests. Although there was no question at this meeting of the Committee rescinding its previous decision, the traders again argued their case strongly, and I personally addressed a further letter to the Committee urging a phased introduction of the "No waiting" order. But by now it was plain that the Committee, for reasons which I do not seek in any way to discredit, was not to be moved——

The Committee, for reasons which I seek in no way to discredit, was not to be moved, and the traders thereupon asked me to intervene with the Minister.

I wrote to my right hon. Friend on 23rd January, saying that I was

"particularly eager to clarify the power of the Minister to accept appeals against decisions of a local Highways Authority which adversely affected the livelihood of local residents, and especially local tradespeople."

I asked whether confirmation of traffic orders was automatic, or whether the local people had any court of higher appeal at Ministry level. I concluded by drawing a tentative parallel with planning appeals, where a developer whose application is rejected can go to appeal, claiming that his interests are being handicapped by the local authority. In the case of traders, who, unlike many developers, are already living in the area and contributing to the rate fund, the same right of appeal against potentially damaging decisions of the local authority seemed justifiable.

On 10th February, I received a reply from my hon. Friend, which included the following passages:

"Waiting restriction orders generally do not require confirmation by the Minister so we anticipate that action in this case will be entirely local. Under Section 27(3) of the 1960 Act, however, the Minister does have powers to revoke, vary or amend any traffic order made by a local authority, and it is open to anyone to ask her to exercise these powers in a particular case. But in practice the Minister very rarely finds this necessary."

The Minister went on to describe how a council could advertise its proposals in the local Press, and, depending on the nature and weight of objections received, would then

"decide whether or not to hold a public inquiry to enable the proposals to be impartially examined in greater detail."

According to this statement, as I understand it, the onus of determining whether to hold a public inquiry falls upon the council. This seems to me quite unsatisfactory. Again taking the parallel of planning appeals, it is as though the planning authority should decide whether its negative decision under development control should run the gauntlet of an appeal and public inquiry. If an impartial examination is indeed to be sought, then an impartial body—and this can be only the Minister—must have the power to order such an examination.

But the position, the more I looked into it, became steadily more confusing. In Section 27(3), the clause mentioned by the Minister's letter of the 10th February, I read:

"Any such order … may be revoked, varied or amended … by order made, by statutory instrument, by the appropriate Minister, after giving notice to the local authority and holding, if he thinks fit, a public inquiry."

The onus, if lawyers' English means what I think it means, is placed upon the Minister to order a public inquiry. I hope that my hon. Friend will clear up what seems to me an apparent discrepancy between the procedure outlined in his letter and that indicated in the Section of the 1960 Act to which he drew my attention.

But sorting out whose finger is on the trigger, as it were, is less important than determining when, how and why the trigger should be pulled; or, to put it more precisely, upon what criteria should the Minister refuse to confirm a traffic order, or subsequently to revoke it if it is an order not subject to his confirmation in any case? Perhaps we should ask also why it is such a very rare event, as the Minister said, for confirmation to be other than automatic. Are we to assume that local authorities are the fount of all wisdom when they make such orders? I must avoid this tempting train of thought, however, and focus upon the main question: the criteria to justify revocation or amendment of a traffic order.

The Minister himself, in his letter to me, suggested what I would have regarded as a most important criterion, namely, the provision of off-street parking facilities. He said:

"I am surprised to hear that the Birkenhead Council has made no proposals to provide off-street parking facilities. It would appear necessary for off-street parking to be associated with the no-parking restrictions, and it would be for the Council to provide it."

I am bound to regard this comment, the spirit of which I wholly welcome, as one with highly important implications for the country at large. As my hon. Friend said, councils have adequate powers to provide such off-street parking under Section 81 of the 1960 Act, and he suggested too that paragraphs 18 to 24 and 76 of Planning Bulletin No. 7, "Parking in Town Centres", were "particularly appropriate" to the Woodchurch Road case.

The problem, however, is less one of powers than of the will and incentive to exercise them. If local authorities, faced with the mounting and grave problems of traffic congestion, respond with buckets of yellow paint—under the encouragement of my right hon. Friend—they will hardly make the provision of off-street parking facilities a high, and expensive, prority without similar encouragement from her.

But if, as my correspondence seems to suggest, confirmation of traffic orders is to remain a pretty automatic procedure, then I doubt if we shall see nearly enough attention paid to providing off-street parking commensurate with that lost due to restriction orders. We shall, in short, have planning without tears; we shall have short-term remedies without—and even at the cost of—long-term solutions. I therefore urge my hon. Friend to look at this problem in his Department.

Of course, it is far from simple; an obvious difficulty concerns the allocation of cost—and probably very high cost—incurred in making such parking facilities. At least three interests are involved: the local authority, the tradespeople whose future may be jeopardised, and perhaps other local residents, and—at least where the road is classified—the Ministry. But if the Ministry seems prepared to will the end—and my hon. Friend's statement of regret over Woodchurch Road surely justifies such a view—then it needs to give a lot more thought to willing the means, including an equitable allocation of cost.

I also suggest that the Minister consider a procedure where restriction orders, when challenged locally, should be confirmed only where the local authority can either establish that it intends to provide appropriate off-street parking, or that such provision is impossible or wholly unrealistic in the particular vicinity. I realise the risk of gumming up the process with red tape, and I do not want to preach an unrealistic gospel of perfection; but if my hon. Friend wants off-streeting parking, then some such stimulus will have to be found.

I now turn briefly to the later history of the Woodchurch Road dispute, for events have continued to arouse my sense of dissatisfaction with present procedures. The Birkenhead Council confirmed the "No waiting" order on 15th February, and the date of 8th May was announced for the introduction of the order. The tradespeople, however, then addressed a letter to my right hon. Friend, seeking her intervention under Section 27(3) of the 1960 Road Traffic Act. On 27th February I also wrote to the Minister, supporting the case made by my constituents, and touching upon many of the wider aspects I have tried to indicate this afternoon. On 16th March I heard that my hon. Friend had asked the divisional road engineer to make some local inquiries, and that these inquiries, understandably, might take some time.

I naturally assumed, and so indicated to my constituents, that nothing would happen until the D.R.E. had made his report and the Minister had given her decision. However, on 13th April Corporation workmen turned up to mark the double yellow lines, and only strong protests by the traders, leading to telephone conversations with Manchester and London, stopped the operation, at least for the time being. My hon. Friend will be aware of my views about this action, as I wrote to him on the 16th in the full flush of righteous curiosity. My hon. Friend's prompt and helpful reply contained some nevertheless perplexing remarks. He said:

"Although I am very happy to ask our divisional road engineers to enquire into local traffic problems, the Minister cannot insist, where the councils are acting entirely within their own powers, that further action should be suspended while our inquiries are in train."

This raises one or two questions. First, should not the Minister have powers to insist that action should be suspended while an inquiry is proceeding? I would have thought this a useful safeguard, if only to avoid the costs of erecting signs, say, which the Minister might then order to be removed. Secondly, is it true to say that the councils are acting entirely within their own powers, when such Orders are subject to revocation or amendment by the Ministry. Thirdly, what inquiries do the divisional road engineers carry out in practice?

A Merseyside reporter who telephoned Manchester to clarify this point, gained the impression that no one would be specifically sent to look at the area. If this is so, I would regard it as utterly unsatisfactory, and making a mockery of the Ministerial inquiry.

Small wonder, if this is the sort of examination carried out, that only very rarely does the Minister refuse to confirm traffic orders made by local authorities.

The reply from my hon. Friend put it another way. He said that the Minister's

"reserve powers are for use only in the most drastic circumstances. In order to get the sort of co-operation we need from local authorities, it is vital that we should not lightly intrude, or even give the impression of wishing to do so, in matters which are within their own jurisdiction."

This again begs the whole question of the boundaries of local authorities' jurisdiction.

I do not wish, however, to end on a churlish note. My hon. Friend has made very great efforts to meet the case put by my constituents, and I and they are very grateful for the various letters he has written, not only to me, but also to the local authority concerned.

Indeed, it is only because of the lengths to which he has gone in responding, that the inherent ambiguities which I have tried to describe became apparent to me. Perhaps they became apparent to him. Perhaps I may quote the final sentences from my hon. Friend's letter of 25th April. He said:

"I am satisfied, on my present information, that the circumstances at Birkenhead do not justify the use of the Minister's reserve powers. This is not to say that we view their proposals as entirely satisfactory. The point you stress about the need for providing offstreet facilities is indeed important, and we have written to the Council."

I am sure that it gives neither him nor me any joy to appear to conflict with a local authority which is trying to solve problems which are as intractable as they are persistent.

This is a dispute in which there are no villains; simply the enormous difficulties of coping with a motor age in which the search for solutions seems to be like loking for the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

As usual, my hon. Friend has put a cogent case on behalf of his constituents. I hope that what I have to say by way of explanation this afternoon will go some way to satisfy him and his constituents about the way in which we view this matter.

Last year the Birkenhead Council imposed waiting restrictions and peak-hour loading/unloading bans on many of the approach roads to the Tunnel. A short length of Woodchurch Road was then restricted, to protect a junction.

These earlier restrictions evoked strong protest from traders. A public inquiry was held, and the Inspector reported in favour of the restrictions. He recommended that the Council should conduct a survey to see whether any traders would be unable to carry on. The Council did this and concluded that while hardship would be caused, no trader would be prevented from continuing his business.

It considered that the need for the restrictions outweighed individual hardship. The Council therefore made the order without special exemptions for traders.

The restrictions now proposed prohibit waiting on either side of the road between the hours of 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. each day, excluding Sundays, except at the approaches to two main junctions where the prohibition is at all times of the day and week. They contain exemptions for vehicles picking people up or setting them down, and for vehicles being used for loading and unloading, and for certain other categories.

The Council's reasons for the restrictions imposed last year, and these new ones were to improve the traffic flow to and from the Mersey Tunnel and through the centre of the town, and to reduce the risk of accidents. The section of Woodchurch Road affected by the new restrictions has, according to the Council, an accident rate double that for the rest of Woodchurch Road. It says that in about half the accidents in a recent survey period parked cars were involved.

The Department's divisional road engineer has examined the merits of the Council's order—he is well acquainted with the district—from the aspects of traffic flow and safety and reported that he does not consider the use of the Minister's reserve powers justified. The Birkenhead Council has carefully assessed the local traffic situation. My right hon. Friend, on present information, has no evidence to suggest that the council's judgment is at fault or anything seriously to warrant her intervention in the mattter of these traffic restrictions. It is fully entitled to judge for itself what corrective measures are necessary and, in this case, to implement them.

Section 26 of the Act gives powers to local authorities to make Traffic Regulation Orders. Section 27 provides that, with certain specified exceptions, such Orders are subject to the Minister's confirmation. The Birkenhead Order is quite clearly one of the exceptions, and so it has acted entirely within its own powers. We want local traffic problems to be handled by local traffic authorities. We do not want a situation where every local traffic order has to be referred to the Ministry for examination. My right hon. Friend intends to place more responsibilities in future upon local authorities and to allow them to get on with the job of traffic management.

I agree that the Minister has this power under Section 27(3) to revoke or vary a local authority order. As I said in a letter to my hon. Friend, these are clearly intended as powers of last resort, to be used only where less drastic measures would clearly be ineffective.

My hon. Friend referred to the criteria for using the reserve powers, and asked what these were. In general, we should revoke or vary a local authority order if, for example, we were convinced that it was thoroughly ill-conceived on traffic or safety grounds, or that any inconvenience or proven hardship caused was so great as to be out of all proportion to the benefits expected to be achieved by the restrictions.

In practice, traffic authorities undoubtedly use their powers reasonably, and with considerable restraint, in some cases with too much restraint. My right hon. Friend sometimes complains that some traffic authorities are not sufficiently active in the imposition of orders. My hon. Friend refers to the apparent helplessness of the Minister where a local authority has laid an order and insists on carrying it into effect, even while the Minister is considering representations against it.

The point is that were the representations of such significance as to clearly warrant the use of the reserve powers, the Ministry would immediately inform the Council that the order would be revoked as soon as it came into effect. My right hon. Friend has that power if it is clear from the representations made to her, that the restrictions are not justified on traffic or safety grounds, and that the hardship which could be caused was unreasonable. In our opinion the Birkenhead case was far from that category.

The Council has agreed to delay the coming into operation of the order while it considers the views which we have put. I have said, however, that we are not happy on the score of parking facilities for cars displaced by the restrictions. We understand that the Council has no intention of providing off-street accommodation, on the grounds that there is ample space in the side roads off Woodchurch Road, in which motorists can park if they want to.

We do not regard this in general as a satisfactory solution. In our view, street parking restrictions and off-street parking provision are two sides of the same coin. They must go hand in hand, they should be planned together. Otherwise unnecessary hardship and inconvenience is caused, and enforcement becomes difficult.

But it must be recognised that off-street car parks are not likely to be used unless there are restrictions on street parking. Some roads are by their nature and location eminently suitable for controlled parking, and in some places their use for parking is unavoidable. The side roads off the part of Woodchurch Road affected by the recent restrictions are wholly residential and not particularly wide. We should view with concern any proposal to use this type of road as a permanent substitute for off-street car parking, unless circumstances offered no alternative.

We have written to the Birkenhead Council expressing our views on this matter of parking facilities for cars displaced by the waiting restrictions, and seeking more information on the subject. The Council has promised to consider our views and in the meantime has instructed their surveyor not to proceed, for the moment, with the work of erecting signs and painting the waiting restriction lines on the road. I undertake to keep my hon. Friend in touch with any further developments in this dialogue between ourselves and the Council.

With regard to off street parking we are, of course, currently resuscitating the powers in the Road Traffic and Roads Improvement Act, 1960, which lapsed last year, under which a local authority can use compulsory purchase powers and seek loan sanction for building a car park as part of a mixed development, designed to bring in enough income to cover the cost of providing and maintaining the car park itself.

We would all like such controls to be unnecessary. Ideally, shopping areas should be free of cars with all their attendant problems. We all know about pedestrian precincts, which are commonplace in the new towns and in major re-developments. Experiments are already taking place to see how far existing streets can be used in the same way. Unfortunately existing legislation was not designed with this end in view and we cannot at present go as quickly as we should wish. That is why we intend to seek more flexible powers in future legislation.

In the meantime, traffic authorities can only seek the best available compromise solution—one which achieves maximum advantages in the way of improved safety the free movement of traffic, and the preservation of environment, with the mini- mum hardship and inconvenience to all concerned.

A point which must not be overlooked in considering the Birkenhead restrictions generally is that they can always be reviewed and modified. It has been argued that new development, such as the proposed Mid-Wirral road with which my hon. Friend is concerned, and the new Wallasey Tunnel may result in reduced traffic in Woodchurch Road. This is by no means certain to be the result, but if it were, these restrictions could be speedily reviewed and quickly relaxed.