asked the President of the Board of Trade if he would make a statement about the air crash at Manchester Airport yesterday involving the deaths of three persons.

A Viscount aircraft, GAVJA, belonging to British Midland Airways, crashed at Manchester Airport at 16.58 B.S.T. yesterday. The aircraft was making a flight in the course of which pilot training was taking place during the take-off. The aircraft made a normal take-off and lifted off in level flight. At about 50 ft., it yawed to the right with the wings level and then started to roll to the right. When in a nearly vertical bank, it appeared to sideslip to the ground. The right wing tipped, and then the nose hit the ground. The aircraft crashed upside down. The fire and rescue services, which had been alerted because of the training exercise, extracted the three bodies from the aircraft before it caught fire. The one survivor is in hospital.

An Inspector's investigation was initiated in the early hours of this morning, and a report will be issued in due course.

I am sure that the House will wish to join with me in expresisng sympathy with the relatives and friends of those who died and also with the survivor.

I join with my hon. Friend in expressing very deep sympathy with the relatives of those concerned in this second disaster in the Greater Manchester area involving a British Midland aircraft. I also share the nation's relief at the merciful survival of Miss Timson.

Is my hon. Friend satisfied that the disaster in no way reflects on the very high standards of safety and other arrangements at Manchester Airport? Is he also satisfied that what has happened—in particular, the use of this type of aircraft—does not imply any future danger for the many thousands of people living in the immediate vicinity of Manchester Airport? Finally, when does he expect the inquiry's report, and will he be asking British Midland to discontinue using or to ground some of their arcraft pending the outcome of the inquiry?

On present evidence, there is no reason to suppose that the arrangements at Manchester Airport are in any way defective. On the contrary, for the reasons that I mention, the fire services were alerted and took very prompt action.

As for the aircraft itself, although there have been a number of accidents to Viscounts, we should not fail to recognise that there are a very large number flying. But, obviously, if the inquiry shows that there are special factors in this case, action will be taken.

Reports take some time to prepare because of the need for extensive inquiries into the causes of accidents. But, as I think my hon. Friend knows, in the event of any information coming to light at an earlier stage, action will be taken at once, whatever it may be.

I think that it is much too soon to place the responsibility for the accident either on the aircraft or on anyone else. Here again, if the evidence shows that it is necessary to ground any aircraft, this will be done.

I know that my right hon. and hon. Friends would wish to be associated with the expressions of sympathy to the friends and relatives of those concerned, and of course, we appreciate that it is much too early to ask the hon. Gentleman to give us any real indication as to the basic causes of this accident.

Will he bear in mind the importance of making an announcement as soon as possible if it becomes clear that the aeroplane was not in itself at fault, in view of the inevitable anxiety as a result of what I think is the fourth Viscount crash within a relatively short time?

Yes. I think that the hon. Gentleman indicates that on these sort of occasions it cuts both ways. If there is a real cause for anxiety action must be taken, but the travelling public must know as soon as possible if there is not.

I should like to associate myself with my hon. Friend's expresssion of sympathy to the relatives of those who were killed in the crash.

Did I understand my hon. Friend to say that this aircraft was on a training flight of take-off and landing? Does he consider it advisable that training flights of take-off and landing should be carried out at an airport in a major conurbation such as Manchester?

The flight as a whole was not a training flight, but an exercise in training was taking place at the time of take off. My hon. Friend raises an interesting point which I will certainly bear in mind.

Could my hon. Friend say whether this type of Viscount is in general passenger service? If so, will he consider it wise to ground them in the interests of safety?

It would be premature to jump to conclusions about what the cause of the crash may have been. This particular aircraft was built in 1958 and is Series 815. Very large numbers of them are flying in many parts of the world and have given exceedingly good service. If there is evidence of some weakness which might be common to other aircraft flying, we shall take the necessary steps. But let us not be too presumptuous at the moment, because it might make people more anxious than they need be.

Does my hon. Friend agree that a disturbing aspect of this matter is the fact that it has been widely reported that there was a message on take-off that the pilot had engine trouble? This is very disturbing, indeed. While not expecting my hon. Friend to comment at this time, will he draw this to the attention of the Inspector, because it needs looking into?

Yes. This certainly should be looked into. I have heard of this report that one of the engines was heard to wind down, although the pro-pellor was not seen to be feathered. This is the kind of question which will be looked into. We know that it might be due to any one of a number of causes. That is why I think we should await the Inspector's preliminary report before drawing conclusions.

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

As hon. Members know, a back bencher faced with the formidable task of introducing and, if lucky, piloting a Private Member's Bill through its various stages has to rely entirely on his own resources and endeavour. Not for him the essential help of the legal draftsman, the expert research and guidance of the civil servant, and all the other aids available to the Government in promoting legislation. The consequence, all too often, is the presentation of a Bill which, had Government aid been made available, would in all probability have seen the light of day in a form more acceptable to the House.

I freely confess that this would have been the case with my Bill, which seeks to re-enact the Second World War temporary powers conferred by Defence Regulation 33B to compel the medical examination and treatment of persons suspected of suffering from venereal disease.

However, one may view the Bill, all of us must admit to grave concern over the fact that V.D. has now reached epidemic proportions in this country. The time has come when we must shock people out of their complacency, ignorance and apathy. In my opinion, this is a task not to be shirked by politicians. It is our duty to reveal the facts and proclaim human decency throughout society.

I believe that we have acquiesced for too long in permissiveness in moral issues and stood by while moral values are allowed to rot. A generation is emerging which no longer cherishes chastity. The present teenage culture despises the value of adult experience and authority.

The tragedy is that promiscuity among young people is closely connected with the step rise in venereal disease—notably gonorrhoea. The advent of the Pill and legal abortion will undoubtedly lead to still further promiscuity.

In Great Britain at the present time about 30 diseases are notifiable, for the obvious purpose of safeguarding the health of the community. Yet venereal disease, which today constitutes Britain's second largest group of reported infectious diseases after measles, is not notifiable.

The facts are really startling. Every day in Great Britain 200 people contract a venereal disease. Last year the incidence of gonorrhoea rose by 15 per cent., and this year it is estimated that no fewer than 200,000 people will visit the 230 V.D. clinics in the country, in other words, one out of every 300 people in the country.

I invite the House to allow me to look in a little more detail at the statistics relating to the steep rise in the incidence of the disease. I quote from Appendix C, "Tables relating to cases seen at Venereal Disease Clinics: England and Wales" in the 1967 Report of the Medical Officer of Health. In 1950 the total number of males seen at V.D. clinics in England and Wales was 78,487. In 1967 the number had risen to 119,545. In 1950 the number of females seen at the clinics was 32,342. In 1967 that number had leapt to 56,829.

But those figures do not give the whole story. Britain's V.D. clinics report their statistics to the Ministry of Social Security, the erstwhile Ministry of Health, but these clinics serve only about three-quarters of the population. Specialists, general practitioners, and Service medical officers do not have to notify V.D. figures, and the Venereologists Group of the British Medical Association estimates that 25 per cent. could be added to the reported cases of syphilis and 15 per cent. to the figures for gonorrhoea for cases treated outside the clinic service.

The epidemic is, of course, not confined to Great Britain. The World Health Organisation experts on gonoccocal infection estimated in 1962 that about 60 million to 65 million cases of gonoccocal infection occurred annually throughout the world. The figures clearly establish the magnitude of the social problem confronting us today. Only 10 years ago doctors claimed that V.D. had reached a record low level. Since then, unfortunately, the yearly total of new cases has trebled.

The changing sexual behaviour pattern of young people, teenage promiscuity especially among females, is directly responsible for a considerable proportion of the increase. Dr. Willcox of St. Mary's Hospital, Paddington, says:

"The very promiscuous are almost certain to contract veneral disease sooner or later."

Intensified population movements by air, land and sea are also contributory factors to the rise.

I am most concerned, as I am sure all hon. Members are, about the steep rise in the incidence of venereal disease among the 15 to 24 age group. In 1963, 14,032 in this age group were attending clinics in England and Wales. In 1967 the figure for that age group had risen to 17,890, an increase of almost 33⅓ per cent. This prevalence of V.D. among young adults contract syphilis or turbing.

Unfortunately, there is appalling ignorance about V.D., particularly among teenagers, largely due to a considerable unwillingness and resistance to include V.D. in health education, the subject being regarded as dirty. In a survey recently undertaken, 1,800 teenagers were invited to write down something about their sexual knowledge. More than half knew nothing about the symptoms of V.D., and of those who confessed to sexual intercourse, three out of four boys and four out of five girls would never have known that they had become infected; yet National Health figures show that every day 50 teenagers and young adults contract syphilis or gonorrhea.

I dare say some hon. Members saw the Panorama programme screened by the B.B.C. a few weeks ago when it dealt with this very topic of V.D. It was an extremely interesting programme. Two medical men on the programme did not agree. One favoured the present situation; the other was all for legal action to try to control the disease.

I was most interested in the replies given by several of the teenage girls who were interviewed. On said:

"I cannot feel guilty or ashamed about having gonorrhea because I have done something completely natural like just to sleep with somebody. I just cannot feel ashamed."

Another girl, asked whether she was ashamed when told that she had gonorrhea for the first time, replied:

"No, I do not think so."

Yet another teenager of 16 said:

"I would not be horrified because it is quite a common thing nowadays."

Teenagers and adults do not know that V.D. can be disastrous. In the light of those figures and in the light of the present situation, what are we to do? What guidance are we to give? What action are we to take in an attempt to control this scourge?

In the 1966 Annual Report the Chief Medical Officer of the Ministry of Health, as it was, said:

"These infections are human problems with potentially disastrous effects on health and happiness. If they are to be contained they require high standards of skill, devotion and energy from clinicians, epidemiologists and auxiliary workers. They require also from the public more knowledge and more under-Standing of human frailty unclouded by prejudice."

What does that declaration mean in practical terms? Despite the rising figures, only one new clinic attached to the Middlesex Hospital has been built in the last 25 years. There is no money available for the propaganda that is so urgently necessary. One venereologist declared:

"We come right down at the bottom of the list for money because the people who allocate it are still the ones who believe that those who get V.D. deserve to suffer a bit."

I do not know how far this is fair criticism. The Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Security said, in a Written Answer on 18th November, 1968:

"The Government take the problem of venereal disease very seriously, and steps are currently being taken to improve the tracing of contacts, which I consider is the most effective way of controlling these diseases. There is also need to increase public awareness about these infections, and I am sure the newly formed Health Education Council will play an important part in this."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 18th November 1968; Vol. 773, c. 209.]

Let us consider contact tracing, the method favoured by the Secretary of State. In November, 1968, the then Minister of Health sent to local authorities a memorandum headed "Contact Tracing in the Control of Venereal Disease." I should like, if it would not bore the House, to have the opportunity of reading practically the whole of this document because it is a very fundamental document to this debate, but I shall restrict my quotations to certain aspects of it.

I begin with paragraph 6, "Aim of contact tracing", because it is essential that the House should know precisely what is involved in contact tracing and should see whether this is a method which can be relied upon reasonably to control the spread of V.D. That paragraph says:

"The aim of contact tracing is to ensure that the sexual contacts of persons found to be suffering from venereal disease are identified and persuaded to attend a clinic for examination and for treatment when this is necessary. This is not only in the interests of the individual; it is the most important single preventive measure that can be taken in attempting to control these diseases. Contacts may include not only the presumptive source of infection of a particular patient, but others with whom he or she may have associated in a promiscuous group. They may also include a spouse who is unaware that infection has occurred."

Paragraph 7 is headed, "Necessary conditions and Action". It says:

"Contact tracing calls for a cycle of action as follows. The patient provides information to an 'interviewer', who either acts on this information or conveys it to a 'contact tracer'; subsequent action by either is to seek out the contact and persuade him or her to obtain medical advice. If this person is infected a further cycle will then begin; the first cycle should be completed by reporting the outcome to the clinic which got the information first."

Paragraph 8 says:

"If efficiency is to be ensured, the following conditions must be satisfied. The utmost speed"—

those words are in bold capitals—

"in obtaining, communicating and acting upon information must be achieved…".

I doubt whether what I have read so far is indicative of how it will be possible to act with speed in tracing somebody, whether by the colour of his hair, or his complexion, or his size, or anything else about that person, for the paragraph goes on to say:

"…but at the same time, confidentiality between the patient and doctor must be honoured."

I come to the final paragraph, paragraph 10, which is important:

"Interviewing the patient.

At present the patients usually give information regarding their sexual contacts either to the clinician or to another 'interviewer', who may be a member of the nursing staff, a medical social worker or other officer employed by the hospital, or an employee of the local health authority working at the clinic. On the first occasion patients are often given one or more contact slips and asked to persuade their sexual contacts to attend an appropriate clinic with the slips. This method, which meets with a reasonable measure of success where the contacts are regular consorts but with very little success where contacts are casual, will continue to be useful; and it must be left to the judgment of the 'interviewer' whether it is to be employed in individual cases. Consideration should be given, however, to the use in every possible case of a more active tracing method, in which identifying details concerning the contacts are diligently sought, as well as or in preference to the contact slip."

I have read from that report in some detail to try to give hon. Members the opportunity of judging the type of work involved in this method to which the Secretary of State pins his faith.

I have tried to put the success of contact tracing to the test by reference to statistics, and I shall simply quote what I thought would be the most acceptable figures from the annual report of the Glasgow Medical Officer of Health, published in 1967 Table VII in that report shows the outcome of efforts to trace female contacts. The total number notified at local clinics and elsewhere was 1,145 in 1967. The number not traced was 722. In other words, roughly 60 per cent. of the people suspected as possible contacts have not been traced by the social workers involved. I believe that this is probably indictave of the pattern throughout the country.

A good deal of pioneering work in this field has been done in Sheffield, but I have not been able to obtain any figures which would allow me to reach a conclusion on the extent of the success of this system of contact tracing in Sheffield.

I am sure we are all serious in our desire to control venereal disease, and I believe the issue before the House is whether we should have contact tracing or compulsory notification and treatment, as I have suggested in the Bill. Before we proceed to arrive at a conclusion, let us consider how other countries deal with the problem. Forty-four countries have varying forms of venereal disease legislation which, in the majority of cases, is based on the Swedish law of 1918, as amended in 1948. This law makes treatment compulsory for all patients and requires medical practitioners to trace the source of infection. Infecting, or exposing another to infection, is made an offence. In Great Britain, medical practitioners are not required to notify cases and there is not compulsory examination and treatment.

Let us look for a moment at legislation in some other countries. As I said, I do not regard the Bill as perfect and, if it were given a Second Reading, I should have no objection if it were then mutilated in Committee and we were able to draw upon other sources of knowledge in order to produce a worth-while and workable Measure.

In Italy, all cases of venereal disease with active contagious manifestations must be notified to the provincial medical officer. In Canada, when any physician or other person attending any patient knows or has good reason to believe that such a patient is infected with venereal disease, such physician or other person shall take action with regard to notifying these diseases as is provided for by the special regulations regarding venereal disease issued by the Minister of Public Health, and it shall be the duty of every physician immediately upon discovering a case of communicable disease to secure the isolation of the patient or to take such action as is required by the special rules and regulations laid down.

In East Germany, the onus is laid upon the person. Any person who knows or suspects that he is suffering from a venereal disease must immediately have himself examined by a physician and, in case of disease, submit to treatment as well as to the necessary subsequent examinations or treatment. Examination and treatment, in the contagious stage, shall be regarded as complete when a written medical certificate to that effect is issued. East Germany goes still further: if the patient or suspect is a minor, or if he is incapable of appreciating the necessity and significance of the medical measures and the danger of contagion, a guardian or other person responsible for his well-being must be informed.

In New Zealand, the position is much the same. Persons suffering from venereal disease are by law required to undergo treatment.

In France, any person with respect to whom there exists definite, serious and concordant circumstantial evidence to the effect that he has communicated venereal disease to one or more persons may be required by duly substantiated decision of the health authorities to present within a time limit set by those health authorities a medical certificate stating that he is, or is not, suffering from infectious venereal disease.

If my argument so far in favour of compulsory notification has not met with much success, perhaps the thought that to adopt it might enable us to enter the Common Market with less difficulty and greater expedition may influence hon. Members to agree that our law should be changed and be brought more into accord with that now effective in France.

I am not suggesting that these other countries have been 100 per cent. successful in treating cases as a result of their legislation on venereal disease. Obviously not. But I submit that their approach is preferable to, and more successful than, ours. The system of contact tracing is laborious and difficult, for the social worker has very little information to go on. If hon. Members will read the whole of the memorandum from which I quoted extracts, they will see precisely and in detail how frustrating the business of contact tracing can be for the people engaged in it.

I do not regard the purpose of the Bill as an infringement of civil liberties, as some organisations have seen fit to say in letters to me. Are our requirements for the notification of infectious diseases, almost 30 of them, an interference with civil liberty? Would there not be a public outcry if those requirements for compulsory notification and isolation were repealed? I cannot, therefore, accept that argument. In some public places people are prohibited from smoking. They do not regard it as an interference with their civil liberties. There are many restrictions of that kind, but they are not in a true sense interferences with or restrictions upon the rights of individuals.

In reply to Questions recently, the Secretary of State for Social Services said that the expenditure on venereal disease cannot be ascertained. Undoubtedly, a large sum of money is required here. We do not know how much is being spent, but we do know that a substantial sum is needed on three important aspects of the problem—health education, the establishment of more clinics, and research.

There is a tremendous amount of work to be done in health education. There are few indications in places to which people go of what to do if one contracts a venereal disease, except in some old Underground toilet rooms. We never see on the Underground or the escalators along with the other advertisements notices telling people about treatment or about what to do. A lot of propaganda ought to be done in health education. There is a lot of resistance to be overcome, and overcome it will have to be. There is a lot to be done in the establishment of more clinics and in research. One venereologist told me that if he could have £50,000 he could do an enormous amount of work on V.D. infection.

The fields I have mentioned—health education, the establishment of more clinics, and research—are basic to any campaign for the control of venereal disease, but they are ancillary to and not substitutes for compulsory notification and treatment. In my opinion, Defence Regulation 33B was a successful measure in the fight against V.D. I regret that it was repealed. I am convinced that contact tracing will not meet the present urgent need for the control of venereal disease in view of the alarming increase in its incidence. I urge the House to give the Bill a Second Reading.

My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Shettleston (Sir M. Galpern) has had a distinguished record in local government in Scotland. Few hon. Members could claim to have held a position like that of Lord Provost of one of our two great cities. One remembers with respect an hon. Gentleman opposite, a great friend of mine, Sir Will Darling, who will have been known also to my hon. Friend.

In taking on this Bill, my hon. Friend has taken on a task which should rest squarely on the Government, not on the private Member. All my experience is that Bills of this sort and this length stand little chance of passing through the House at this time of year. If we are forced to a vote on the Bill, I shall not vote against it, but I do not think that I shall vote for it.

I spoke of local government a moment ago. The Association of Municipal Corporations, of which I am a vice-president, takes a very dim view of the Bill. It thinks that it is one of those Bills which, under the guise of being helpful, is positively dangerous.

I welcome any steps towards limiting the spread of venereal disease, but the Association's Health Committee is opposed to the principles of the Bill because it considers that compulsory medical treatment is unsound in concept, and that the provisions are not likely to be an effective measure of controlling the spread of the disease. A compulsory system is a right-about-turn from the practice of the past 50 years in dealing with this social danger. There was a Royal Commission on the matter. The Bill might well discourage people from attending for treatment. Social workers have, in general, been very successful in persuading contacts to attend for medical examination, and it would be harmful to this voluntary relationship if it became known that information given to a social worker or doctor could lead in due course to the legal action.

One is always rather diffident about opposing Measures such as this, but it must be said that venereal disease is one of those hit-or-miss diseases. It largely springs from promiscuity. It might be perfectly possible for a person not suffering from it to sleep with someone for a night and to be reported upon. There might be a leak in the legal machinery and the information might reach his or her place of work, and the matter might end with litigation. I do not like the idea of being prepared to accept a statement from an injured person, someone who suddenly finds himself or herself with the disease and says, "I think that it was So-and-So." He or she might be promiscuous. That idea is a bit grim.

My hon. Friend spoke about the example of 44 other countries. But, it is not enough to do that. One must look at their social backgrounds. My hon. Friend mentioned East Germany. I have been there, and I know that the docketing of people for all sorts of things is rampant. That has not been the practice here.

When I am in doubt about a matter, I always like to look at the history of previous attempts at legislation on it. I am glad to see my right hon. Friend the Member for Sowerby (Mr. Houghton) here, because, like me, he has always been interested in movements for women's rights. One of the greatest Parliamentary battles of all time was fought over the Contagious Diseases Acts and associated with it was the greatest of all women in this field, Josephine Butler. Because soldiers caught diseases in garrison towns, in the 1840s there was legislation that any women in a garrison town or seaport who refused to submit to medical examination for venereal disease should be labelled as a common prostitute. A famous by-election was fought in Colchester on the issue. It was the first time that women had really entered into the electoral battle. The owners of the brothels in Colchester were so upset about this that they burned the building in which she spoke, and she had to flee from the crowds. In those days, Ministers had to fight an election when they were appointed, and Sir Henry Storks was killed politically in that by-election.

That resulted in the great Royal Commission on the Contagious Diseases Acts. One can read its proceedings in the Library, and it is still interesting to read those old pages. Josephine Butler was the first woman ever to appear before a Royal Commission. The Commission obviously thought it had a timid woman before it, but by the time she had answered her eleven hundredth question she was dominating the proceedings, and a contemporary document said:

"It seemed that the spirit of the Lord had entered there."

The women's movements have fought all along against compulsory registration, and they will not accept this Bill. We still have a dual code in our society, that women must be punished and conditioned to the needs of men. This is very much resented by women. I opposed the Street Offences Act and all similar legislation because of that dual code, and I shall also oppose the one before us. I do not mind legislation that fixes upon people known to have a contagious disease, but I am opposed to the kind of snooping that can lead to blackmail, the vilest of practices, and which may involve an innocent person.

We must draw a sharp line between crimes that outrage the law and matters of morality. There used to be a strongly held doctrine that young people should not be fitted up with contraceptives because they might become immoral. I am rather old-fashioned, but we see that practically every university now gives advice on contraception to protect the innocent, the ignorant and the inexperienced, and it may be extended to grammar schools.

The House cannot accept the system laid down in Clause 1. I would not be guided by what other countries do. I am a child of this House and this country, and I know how the political system has grown up. I know the great battle fought by the women's organisations, and it is the women who will be the principal victims of the Bill. It will not be the men. I know the great Parliamentary battles that have been waged over the years to protect women against the dual standards that men still observe.

The Armed Forces can look after their own affairs; we are speaking now of civilians. I think that we shall have to return to the idea of as much education as possible, which will probably have to begin at a lower age level, in the schools. When cases of V.D. are found, we shall have to bring great pressure to bear on those known to have it. But that pressure will not extend to the idea of their being informers on the person with whom they might have slept the previous night. One reads in the papers about people sleeping round.

I remind my right hon. Friend that the clinic system involves informers, because the person who comes to the clinic has to tell the social workers where to look for the other person involved.

I have had a great deal to do with social workers and have been chairman of committees of social workers. Generally speaking, they are trained in their work just as any other professional people are trained. They certainly know that confidentiality is the basis of their work.

Informers.

They are not informers any more than policemen are informers. Social workers are not informers. They may go to a social contact and say, "Will you go on this?". But that is very different from serving a notice which might go astray to an employer, for example. I expressed some doubts about the White Paper, "In Place of Strife", because of the attachment orders suggested. I know how hit-and-miss affairs attachment orders are. It would be very unfriendly of me if I were to suggest that my hon. Friend has not brought this Bill forward with the best possible motives. But it was Ramsay MacDonald who said, "It is not consequences you have to worry about, but the consequences of the consequences…". The consequences here could be pretty grim.

The Bill would breach our history, particularly that of the women's movements—and women would be the principal sufferers—and would breach the basis of confidentiality. There are surely other ways to achieve what my hon. Friend wants and I must therefore end in the way that the Association of Municipal Corporations asks me to end—by expressing the point of view that it would be better if the Bill did not make any further progress.

The Government should consider legislation to deal with this great social evil in a far more comprehensive manner than is considered in the Bill. If my hon. Friend has stimulated the Government into that degree of activity, then his exercise will have been well worth the effort.

I owe the hon. Member for Glasgow, Shettleston (Sir M. Galpern), and the House, an apology for coming to speak without having heard his speech. It was only because he rose at the regrettably inconvenient hour of 1.15 p.m., and since the House does not adjourn for lunch inevitably some people interested in an item of business will be in the dining room when it starts. Furthermore, although I have to say that I do not agree to the Bill, I, too, take it for granted that he has promoted it with the best possible motives.

Like the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Leeds, West (Mr. C. Pannell), I cannot feel that the Bill should go through and become law and enforced. I understand that the right hon. Gentleman is particularly concerned with women and their organisations, but I think that this Bill could work all ways. There is nothing in it about confidentiality, and I do not think that there could be, because this kind of procedure is bound to go through clerical and filing departments of local authorities. There would be no confidentiality about it at all. It would lay anyone open to the most appalling blackmail or even just malevolence—even to a practical joke. It would be a rather effective practical joke, though deplorable. We just cannot expose the citizen to this kind of thing.

The detriment which comes from venereal diseases is obvious and regrettable, but I do not think that we can do much about it by legislation, whether introduced by the Government or by a private Member. We can do a good deal about it by education and by administrative arrangements, but legislation will never play a major part in the campaign which must be waged against these diseases.

With the feeling that this Measure would be an incursion upon freedom and—even more than that—upon the personal safety and the reputation of the individual, I could not possibly endorse it. Even though I did not have the advantage of hearing the hon. Gentleman's speech, I am sure that there was nothing in it in favour of the Bill which could have changed my views.

I am sorry that the hon. and learned Gentleman was not here. I am sure that, had he listened to my speech, his decision would be the reverse of the one he has arrived at.

The hon. Gentleman flatters both himself and me by implying that he could have persuaded me and that I am so open minded that I would have been persuaded. But I do not think that I would have been persuaded, because I think that I understand the implications of the Bill. While I understand his motives, I also understand the machinery by which the Bill must inevitably operate, and that machinery could never be acceptable to me. To my regret, therefore, I must oppose the Bill.

One of the differences between the world as it was when I was a teenager and the world of today is that, in my day, we said, "Nothing succeeds like success", whereas it seems that in the world today nothing succeeds like sex. Running throughout this debate there has been the tendency to look at teenagers as though they and not we made the world in which they find themselves. We discuss the Bill against the background of the whole accent given, in advertising, for example, to sex. One cannot go down the escalator in the underground without seeing that the whole accent is placed on sexual relationships, even if twice removed by way of underwear. It becomes difficult for us, in tackling an important subject like this, if we are immediately to opt out of the responsibility we have.

The House is grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Shettleston (Sir M. Galpern) for giving it the opportunity to look at this extremely important matter. I am sure that my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, West (Mr. C. Pannell) spoke for all of us in saying that none of us doubts the aim my hon. Friend the Member for Shettleston has in mind and that we all share the hop that we shall be able to do something about it. Running throughout the debate is condemnation, contained in the suggestion that there has been a big increase in recent years in these diseases, whereas, as I think most right hon. and hon. Members know, this problem has been ever with us. Indeed, my hon. Friend said so. He said that it is ever topical.

This is also part of the problem when dealing with health matters in relation to venereal diseases, for one encounters attitudes with moral overtones, involving some judgment, whether Victorian or otherwise. All these are newsworthy and are able to get discussions, whereas in the rest of the health field some of the killers in our midst cannot get the same amount of attention.

My hon. Friend spoke of the difficulty of drafting legislation. Most of us who have had to tackle the problem share his view and it is time that the House helped hon. Members with their legislation. But, it may be some consolation to my hon. Friend that I got on to the Statute Book last year a Measure with no help in drafting. It took me three years, but I think that this Bill would take much longer than that.

My hon. Friend referred to a number of tables in the Report of the Chief Medical Officer of Health. Although he was right to say that the problem was important and that in some areas it had increased, it would be wrong to ignore the fact that the tables for other areas show a decrease. Table C.3 on page 281 shows that the incidence of congenital syphilis dealt with for the first time fell from 1,223 in 1950 to 216 in 1967. Table C.2 and table C.4 show a decrease in the figures to which they relate. Mortality from congenital syphilis among live births decreased from ·003 per 1,000, a very small figure in relation to the population, in 1912 to less than ·001. I am not playing down the problem and we should not underestimate that there has been an increase in the difficulties, but it is important to get it into perspective.

The global figures show a diminuation from the high figures during the war, but an upsurge in the last ten years.

That is so. Nevertheless, the curve flattens out. One of the most encouraging parts of the Report is that the curves for both gonorrhoea and syphilis flattened out from 1966 onwards. The figures for 1966 were more cheerful than those for 1965, while those for 1967 were more cheerful than those for 1966. There was a fairly consistent upsurge until 1965, but there is a little gleam of hope to be derived from the flattening-out of the curve since then.

I echo much of what was said by my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, West. The problem is to ascertain whether the Bill's designs will achieve the result which my hon. Friend the Member for Shettleston intends. We have had the experience of garrison towns when notification was compulsory and enforceable, but I am informed by my own local medical officer of health that experience then was infinitely less satisfactory than under the present voluntary system. Most medical officers of health will endorse that view.

It is one thing to have compulsion and quite another in an area as sensitive as this to stem the spread of venereal disease through contacts. I am aware of the work in hospitals of the North-West Metropolitan Regional Hospital Board and I am satisfied that its social worker approach in the last few years has been highly successful. It is true that it becomes a kind of detective work, but trained social workers are able to deal with these delicate matters and are able to secure confidence and the kind of information required and to establish where the contacts are in a way which would not be possible with the provisions of Clause 1 with legal sanctions and all that that implies.

I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Shettleston that there is an absolutely outdated approach to special clinics. One can go into hospitals within a stone's throw of this place, across the river and elsewhere, and walk down back corridors, to reach signs saying "Males" and "Females", rather like a public lavatory, but not so elegant. Notices advertising the treatment of venereal disease are to be found mainly in public lavatories. We still approach this matter with a kind of Victorian "Get thee behind me, Satan".

We do not give it the same approach which we adopt in other health matters, the kind of approach which we have achieved with mental health. There was a similar attitude to mental health some years ago. It was thought that it had to be shut away behind bleak walls. But in the last 20 years we have made mental health an ordinary health problem. We have brought it into the open. People are treated not only in mental but in general hospitals, and also remaining in the community. This has solved some of the difficulties of mental illness in the same way as with bodily illness. Venereal disease is another type of illness with which the community has to deal, and should deal with it in a far more open and forthright way.

One thing I commend teenagers and the younger generation for is that they have lost the kind of hypocrisy which many of us had in our younger days. They are prepared to look at these things openly when we regarded them as something furtive and secretive. My hon. Friend the Member for Shettleston made that apparent when he quoted some of the statements by young people caught up in this tragic disease. We have to keep it in proportion.

We have a tendency to imagine that all teenagers are somehow caught up in sex and drugs. There is an increase in venereal disease and an increase in promiscuity. But last night I was heartened when I went to a prize-giving at Willesden College of Engineering and Technology. A hall was crammed with people and, as the principal was giving his report, I looked at the teenagers and thought of the popular headlines of the popular Press. But the principal reported that more than 1 million study hours were undertaken within the precincts last year. Every morning, about 1,600 students attended the college and evening classes had comparable numbers. One can go to the Royal Festival Hall to hear a Bach concert and find 3,000 youngsters, many of them teenagers. But those things do not get the headlines.

In our approach to venereal disease and how to deal with a problem which affects youngsters as it affects us, we have to keep the matter in proportion and not use phrases which are too emotive, such as, "In my young day, we did not do anything like that." In my young day, many things went on under-cover, things which these days are done far more openly and which are much more part of the scene. It may be because of that that there are more elderly fears about these things.

But the increase in the incidence of venereal disease cannot be ignored. There were 41,829 cases of gonorrhoea last year affecting 37,849 people. Gonorrhoea seems to be the most difficult problem that the medical profession had to tackle in the whole range of venereal diseases. But an analysis of the tables shows that only 15 per cent. of those affected were between the ages of 16 and 19, that is, 5,503, and nearly 20,000 people were over the age of 24. The statistics, therefore, do not show that this is a problem confined to teenagers.

I was interested in the comment of the Chief Medical Officer of Health that:

"It is satisfactory to note that the returns for 1967 show a further decline in cases of infectious syphilis indicating that the spread of this disease, which has proved so intractable in other countries, is being contained here".

That is why I listened with interest to the account of the homework undertaken by my hon. Friend into what had happened in other countries. Although the disease is increasing in other countries, it is being contained here. The Chief Medical Officer of Health went on to say:

"On the other hand, as will appear from the details which follow, gonorrhoea has shown a further sharp increase in both men and women and the prospect of an early solution seems to be remote."

That is why I can understand my hon. Friend bringing forward the Bill in an attempt to find a solution which now seems remote.

My hon. Friend the Member for Shettleston mentioned 44 other countries. I do not have his acquaintance with the figures, but over a long number of years those countries with notification has had curves going up similarly to ours, with a retraction from the last war and then an upsurge.

That is borne out by examination. The World Health Organisation has done extremely good work which bears out what my right hon. Friend says. However, as the Chief Medical Officer of Health has said, there has been a decline in the incidence of syphilis since then. The curve is flattening out and the evidence is that it can be contained, but the problem is that as fast as we defeat bacteria and viruses so they seem to put on extra "muscles" and we then have to find stronger drugs for stronger diseases.

A plea has been made today that we cannot spend too much on research in this problem. In the Annual Report, we get further information which is salutary in view of the fact that prostitution has now been driven from the streets of Piccadilly. On page 71, we read that of 102 prostitutes admitted to Holloway Prison in 1967 aged between 15 and 20, 61 submitted themselves to examination and 38 proved to have infection, three from syphilis and 35 from gonorrhoea. So it would seem that it is not only the social problem which must be solved, the promiscuity which might take place in all kinds of circumstances and places, but also the whole problem of prostitution. This is no doubt one of the sources which will have to be thoroughly tackled. I recognise that this goes beyond my hon. Friend's Department to the Home Office.

The House has been generally united about health education. We realise that perhaps the most constructive thing that we can do, whether or not the Bill goes further, is to continue health education. I commend to the House the article of the noble Baroness Birk in this month's Nova, a magazine which is more likely to be read by teenagers than either The Times or The Guardian. On the front cover it has a picture of the bare-bottomed Beatle who got married yesterday; within, it has the other attributes which may attract young people, and there are four excellent pages on venereal diseases which young people will read.

One of the first articles that I have read for some time, about sense in sex, was in The Guardian on Wednesday by Catherine Storr. This was an amazing and very perceptive approach. I immediately wanted to cut it out and send it to my children, because that was the kind of thing that I wanted to tell them. But they are unlikely to appreciate it for it is written in my generation terms. They will easily read Nova, which is in the language that they understand.

Therefore, when my hon. Friend is considering education, I hope that he will not do so only in a narrow and academic way. This must spread. The aim of education is to communicate with those who one is trying to educate. Education is not for the educators but for those whom one is seeking to impress with ideas. In those circumstances, we must use the channels of communications which are acceptable to young people today, if it is the young people that we are trying to reach. Therefore, I commend Nova, which is a very with-it kind of magazine, and the way in which this media can provide an extension of understanding of important problems.

We still have to face the provision of research, and I shall be very surprised if the Medical Research Council is short of funds for venereal research. My hon. Friend quoted a venereologist who said that, if he had £50,000 more, he could do a tremendous job. But my experience in the fields in which the Medical Research Council operates convinces me that projects which have a fair chance of success are not kept short of funds. My hon. Friend will obviously deal with this, and I look forward to what he will say.

In the Chief Medical Officer's Report, we read:

"Non-gonococcal urethritis remains an intractable problem. The cause of it is unknown and the evidence that it is a transmissible infection is therefore based on epidemiological experience. But the evidence is very strong."

In a case like this, when one knows the question but knows that doctors do not have the answer, a little pressure could be put on the Department of Education and Science for the Medical Research Council to advance special projects in this field.

Research for earlier diagnosis in gonorrhoea is essential. The problem with gonorrhoea is the very short incubation period when the infection shows no symptoms but when the disease can be imparted. A classical case is given in the Minister's Report, of the holiday camp where, in 1967, one case led to ten, but by the time the ten were traced, three had already disappeared.

In the rapidly changing social situation and with the gap between the generations, I came to the Bill with a fairly open mind, though with a leaning against it. After hearing the debate, I am convinced that this is not the way to get the results that my hon. Friend wants. The changing social pattern is extremely fluid and the way in which human relationships are developing is something with which we have difficulty in keeping pace. Things move almost as fast as my hon. Friend (Mr. David Ennals) moves from the Elephant and Castle to John Adam Street and back again to the Elephant and Castle.

Although we might applaud my hon. Friend today, I hope that the Bill will not be given a Second Reading, but that we shall hear something constructive from the Ministry about the way in which the things which have been mutually agreed across the House about education and research will be given an added fillip as a result of this discussion.

The hon. Member for Glasgow, Shettleston (Sir M. Galpern) is always listened to with great attention in the House because of his distinguished service both to the House and to local government north of the Border, and he has done the House a service in bringing forward the very serious social problem of the diseases under the sordid heading of "venereal disease". However, we on this side think that his suggested methods of dealing with some of these problems are not acceptable for a variety of reasons. One of the most cogent is that mentioned by my hon, and learned Friend the Member for Buckinghamshire, South (Mr. Ronald Bell)—the whole question of confidentiality.

There are other reasons which cause me to say that this method is not satisfactory. I do not find it acceptable, for instance, that a person who has contracted venereal disease should be encouraged to become an informer to the doctor about the person from whom he suspects he may have contracted it, when the end result could be criminal proceedings. Nor do I find it acceptable that the doctor should be put in a semi-judicial position. Clause 1 would put upon him some duty to assess, the reasonableness or otherwise of the patient's suggestion that it might have been a certain named person who gave him the disease. This puts the doctor in an invidious position, and must make a semi-judicial decision on evidence of the most unsatisfactory type—suspicions communicated to him in private.

Similarly, the medical officer of health would also be in an invidious position. By the terms of the Bill, he would have to assess the reasonableness or otherwise of the suspicions of two or more persons which might have been transmitted to him.

I do not find it acceptable that we should create a criminal offence in the circumstances set out in the Bill. I do not find it acceptable that it should be a criminal offence not to submit for examination or treatment. One foresees a legion of difficulties leading to blackmail, and so on, which could arise. To suggest that it should be a criminal offence punishable, under Clause 6, by a fine of up to £50 or imprisonment not exceeding two months if one has refused to submit to examination or treatment is not acceptable, especially when the offence which is created seems to be absolute. A demand could be made that a person should attend for examination in spite of the fact that there might be no evidence that he or she had a disease of any type. This is invidious. It seems to us, therefore, that the Bill offends against the principles of natural justice, and, in addition, is not acceptable on grounds of practicality.

The best method of approach to deal with the problems is in the way suggested by the hon. Member for Willesden, West (Mr. Pavitt). I know that the sponsor of the Bill accepts that the best way is to continue to ensure that there is ample health education concerning these matters and research on them. I hope today's debate will have contributed to the knowledge on these serious problems which have been put in perspective both by the sponsor of the Bill and by the hon. Member for Willesden, West, to whose speech we have listened with such interest.

I would like to start by congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Shettleston (Sir M. Galpern) on his initiative in bringing forward the Bill. He has heard a number of criticisms of it, and I shall emphasise some of them. The House, is however, indebted to him for having raised the problem in the way he has done. He has done a great deal of research and has spoken from a wealth of experience and background, which the House always appreciates.

My hon. Friend rightly said that we are dealing with a problem in which ignorance is, perhaps, one of the most significant factors. One of the main reasons why I am grateful to my hon. Friend for bringing forward the Bill is that the very debate and the points which have been brought out by hon. Members on both sides may help to dispel some of the ignorance by bringing the facts out into the open.

I want to start by considering the question of how serious the problems are and looking at some of the statistics which have been mentioned and, perhaps, adding some of my own. Certainly, venereal diseases have increased throughout the world in recent years. That is the situation not only in this country. But in Britain, there are relatively few cases of syphilis, and the numbers are tending to decline.

The numbers which I am about to give are of cases that were dealt with for the first time at clinics. In 1950, 5,979 males were treated for syphilis. The total fell to 2,401 in 1960. In 1966 it was 2,454, and it fell further to 2,434 in 1967. In 1950 the number of females was 4,988, and it fell to as low as 1,169 in 1967. We can, therefore, see that there has been a dramatic decrease in syphilis in the early 1950s and subsequently a tendency to decrease more slowly.

My hon. Friend was quite right to point out that the cases of gonorrhoea have been increasing in number year by year during the late 1950s. They seemed to have stabilised in the 1960s, but in the last couple of years they have substantially risen. In 1950, 17,007 males were reported for treatment. The number rose to 26,618, in 1960, to 27,921 in 1966 and to 30,645 in 1967. I do not, of course have the figures for 1968. For females, the number rose from 3,497 in 1950 to as high as 11,184 in 1967. That is a total of 41,829, which is the largest figure since 1946, which was the post-war peak. My hon. Friend was quite correct in suggesting that during the war the figures had been very high, for reasons which one can well understand.

Perhaps I might put the figures in another way, and for this purpose I draw upon the memorandum from which my hon. Friend quoted. In 1967, of all young people aged from 16 to 19 inclusive, one in 500 boys and one in 440 girls were known to have contracted gonorrhoea. One in 15,700 boys and one in 32,300 girls contracted syphilis. Of those aged from 20 to 24 inclusive, one in 190 men and one in 450 women were known to have contracted gonorrhoea. One in 7,900 men and one in 23,200 women had contracted syphilis.

It would be wrong, therefore, to think that this is a disease which affects only the teenager. I am glad that this point was raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Willesden, West (Mr. Pavitt). In his Report for 1967, the Chief Medical Officer said that venereal diseases were mainly prevalent not in the under-20 age group but among adults between 20 and 30.

Probably the most important factor which explains the increase in gonorrhoea especially is promiscuity in sexual relationships. A further factor is that modern methods of contraception, which today provide no element of mechanical protection, may favour the spread of gonorrhoea. Perhaps the use of the Pill may well have led or contributed to the increase in recent times.

This is certainly not an issue in which there is any degree of complacency in my Department. On the contrary, this is a situation which causes us a good deal of concern, and we are anxious that there should be a tightening and an improving of the methods which have been practised in this country and which our Department believes to be the proper ones.

The memorandum to which my hon. Friend the Member for Shettleston referred is a very recent document and was issued only in November last year. It was sent out with a circular from my Department to local health authorities drawing to their attention the proposals and information in the memorandum. It was a memorandum which had been approved by the Secretary of State's Standing Medical Advisory Committee. It made a number of important proposals for strengthening procedures and was sent not only to local authorities but to hospital authorities, which, as my hon. Friend the Member for Willesden, West said, have an important part to play in this problem.

In moving the Second Reading of his Bill, my hon. Friend the Member for Shettleston referred to the shortage, as he suggested, of facilities for treatment. I should like to assure him that my evidence is that there are adequate facilities both for diagnosis and for treatment under the National Health Service.

Perhaps I might say a little more about the method which we believe to be the proper way of tackling this social and medical problem. The present system of control and treatment of venereal disease is based on persuasion and voluntary cooperation, and, on the whole, it is working well. The control of venereal disease depends primarily for success on the speedy and effective tracing of potential sources of infection; and I was glad that my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Shettleston referred to the paragraph in the memorandum which dealt with the importance of speed.

Would my hon. Friend confirm that when people are persuaded to use the National Health Service there will be no question of their being charged half-a-crown per prescription when they attend special clinics?

I would not like to give my hon. Friend an incorrect answer, and as I cannot confirm that off-hand I will give him the information later.

I was talking about the importance of speed and efficacy. The aim of contact tracing is to ensure that the sexual contacts of people with venereal disease are identified and persuaded to attend a clinic for examination and, if necessary, treatment. Under contact tracing, the patient provides information to an interviewer at the clinic, who may follow up the case in person or may pass the information to a contact tracer. The contact tracer subsequently tries to seek out the contact and persuade him or her to obtain medical advice. If this person is infected, the process is then repeated.

Interviewers and contact tracers are usually employed by local health authorities, and it is accepted that they need special qualities to do their work, whatever their professional background. Both tasks call for tact and patience and, on occasion, courage and resource. While personal qualities are a primary requirement, many of the employing authorities consider that qualifications as a nurse or a trained social worker are essential. An increasing number of those involved in this important work now have training either in social work or as nurses.

As my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, West (Mr. C. Pannell) rightly pointed out, success in contact tracing depends on confidence between patients, doctors, contacts, contact tracers and the staff of the health services in general. For this reason hospital authorities have been obliged by law since 1948 to keep information about patients confidential.

New regulations made in October, 1968, however, amended this rule to permit information to be passed to a doctor or person employed by a doctor in connection with the treatment of venereal disease or the prevention of its spread. This was done to facilitate the development of contact tracing. This is an important development which my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Shettleston did not mention.

In the view of the Government, the threat of ratification and compulsion of contacts is likely to deter some patients from seeking treatment at venereal disease clinics. In our view, it is also likely to disturb the cordial relationship between venereologists and their patients, and particularly between contact tracers and the communities from which they seek to persuade named contacts to present themselves for medical advice.

Local authorities are participating in contact tracing to an increasing degree, and the contact tracers themselves would be the last to agree that compulsion would help them in their difficult work. I will come to some of the representations that we have received from those who are involved in this work—this is a delicate and developing task—and they make it clear that their efforts would, they believe be hindered if we adopted my hon. Friend's proposal.

The Bill would institute a system, as my hon. Friend explained, of compulsory notification, similar to Regulation 33B, which was issued as an Order in Council in 1942 under the Defence Regulations, 1939. It is understandable that such measures were taken during the war because, as I indicated, there was a substantial increase in the incidence of venereal disease, largely because a large number of men from the Armed Forces of many countries were located here. They were away from their wives, sexual relationships were on an extremely free basis, so to speak, and, of course, this led to a substantial rise in the incidence of venereal disease.

It is, therefore, fair to say that we had considerable experience of this sort of experiment during the war. Regulation 33B defined as a Special Practitioner a doctor who was qualified under the Local Government Regulations of 1930 as a venereal disease officer, or who was a specialist in venereal disease in H.M. Forces, or who was designated by the Minister of Health for the purpose of the Regulations. The Regulation laid upon this special practitioner the duty of notifying information gained from his infected patients as to suspected sources of infection to the medical officer of health for the county or county borough in which the person who was the suspected source resided.

If the medical officer of health received notification from two or more patients concerning the same suspected source, his duty was to serve the person concerned with a notice stating that that person might require treatment for venereal disease and requiring him or her to submit to examination by a special practitioner within a specified period. In due course, the special practitioner either sent a certificate to the medical officer of health to the effect that the individual suspected was free from infection or served a notice on the individual requiring him or her to attend for treatment or for further tests. The patient concerned had the right to change his or her special practitioner, subject to the obligation to notify the medical officer of health of the details of the change. In the case of default, the medical officer of health was notified by the special practitioner.

The object of Regulation 33B was twofold. First, it was designed to bring under medical care those infectious persons who had shown themselves unresponsive to educational work or to methods of persuasion and who, owing to their refusal to undertake treatment, remained a constant source of danger to the health of the community. Secondly, the regulation was designed to make it an offence for any person indicated as the source of the infection by two or more separate patients under treatment, after being required to undergo examination or treatment, to fail to do so or to cease treatment until certified as not suffering from the disease in a communicable form.

My hon. Friend the Member for Shettleston said that this had been a successful experiment. Indeed, it was a most unsuccessful one. Perhaps if it had been successful my Department and others concerned might have looked with more favour on the proposal which my hon. Friend has made.

In fact, the experiment did not work. On 13th May, 1943, after six months' experience of the working of the regulation, the matter was raised in Parliament with the then Minister of Health, who in answering Questions from several hon. Members reported that 36 men and 475 women had been reported to medical officers of health as alleged sources of venereal infection, of which one man and 27 women had been the subject of more than one report—not a large number in the course of six months at a time when venereal diseases were at a high level. The Minister said on that occasion that no civilian voluntarily undergoing treatment for venereal disease was subject to compulsion to complete it.

The necessity for two separate notifications before action could be taken was the stumbling block to the efficacy of the regulation. Since the vast majority of people were concerned in only one report, many councils authorised their officers to make an unofficial approach on receipt of notification, and in such a case a visit was made by an appropriate visiting officer and the regulation was not used. When the regulation was allowed to expire, on 31st December, 1947, it had singularly failed to achieve its purpose. It is possible that at that time there were those who would have argued that, since its weakness was that it made provision for two notifications, it would have been better had the regulation been based on one notification only, but I think this would have been more likely to lead to the dangers that have been referred to by my hon. Friends during the debate.

By making compulsory treatment dependent upon the suspicions of two or more patients with venereal disease, the Bill opens up the possibility of individuals being the object of false information or of blackmail. The hon. and learned Member for Buckinghamshire, South (Mr. Ronald Bell) spoke about the practical joke. This is a real danger, and it would require only two people to play a very unpleasant joke on an innocent person by notifying that the person was, according to their information, a contact and infected with the disease for that person to be put in an acutely embarrassing position. But, worse than that, if the medical officer of health were convinced of the correctness of the evidence given, and if that person were not prepared to meet the requirements of the Bill, he might then face penalties. We could not put on the Statute Book a Bill which laid us open to that sort of danger, whether it be of genuine false information or, worse still, of the practical joker.

Although the Bill does not place a duty on the medical officer of health unless it appears to him that there is reasonable cause to believe that the disease was so contracted, there is a danger that a successful conspiracy could be established, not just a joke, but a genuine and determined attempt to damage a person's reputation. Such a conspiracy could open the way to blackmail of a most unpleasant kind. I should not like to detail in the House the situations in which a person might say, "Unless you do a, b, c, or d, or unless you pay me a, b, c, or d, then I will ensure that you are notified, rightly or wrongly, as being liable to the provisions of the Bill." While I greatly respect the sincerity of my hon. Friend in bringing forward the Bill, I shall ask the House not to give it a Second Reading.

Many hon. Members have laid stress on health education. This is absolutely right. We have first to ensure that the system of contact tracing is efficient, and this is the purpose of the memorandum which was sent to local authorities and hospital authorities. Secondly, we have to ensure that the sections of the general public 10 whom this applies are aware of the facilities which are open to them. There is little point in their being suitable clinical facilities for diagnosis and treatment if the persons concerned do not know that they can, without fear of public knowledge, come forward freely for treatment. The clinics are open to everyone without payment for treatment. When my hon. Friend referred to prescription charges, he was referring to medicaments, to which I did not give him an answer, but treatment is entirely free.

I can assure my hon. Friend that patients are given medicines as well. There is no charge for prescriptions at special clinics.

My hon. Friend, having posed the question, has now provided the answer, and I am delighted to confirm the accuracy of the information given by him.

Health education is of extreme importance. Although health education was not the main purpose of the memorandum to which earlier reference has been made, it was touched on in paragraph 5, which reads:

"Sources of information are much more likely to be traced if public awareness of the problem is fully aroused by active health education. The screening of special groups is important, e.g. routine testing of pregnant women to reduce still further the now infrequent pre-natal or neo-natal infections and persuading prostitutes, both male and female, to attend regularly for examination as a means of controlling the major sources of acquired infection. Speedy contact tracing is the method most likely to produce quick results; female contacts brought under treatment, especially if they are promiscuous, contribute a disproportionately high degree of success to the control of infection".

It is interesting, as that paragraph points out, that not only female prostitutes but male prostitutes can create a danger of this disease.

This problem falls upon the Health Education Council, whose work is now expanding, and I hope that with more substantial funds at its disposal it will use a good deal of imagination in dealing with this. My hon. Frend was right to point out that in educational matters we must bring ourselves up to date and use imagination and modern techniques to bring the message home.

The Health Education Council maintains close contacts with, and actively participates in the work of, the British Federation Against the Venereal Diseases which is a body which emphasises the importance of public education. This very afternoon, while I am speaking, the Director-General of the Council and his senior officers are attending a meeting of the Federation to discuss future developments. In addition, the Council has recently instituted a research programme in association with Dr. William Belson, the Director of the Survey Research Centre of the London School of Economics, into the effectiveness of various kinds of health education methods. In the meantime, the Council is continuing to make available to local authorities and others existing leaflets, posters and other materials, including film strips.

Reference has been made to the views of many bodies. My right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, West referred to the Josephine Butler Society. This was formerly the Association for Moral and Social Hygiene which was founded by Josephine Butler as long ago as 1870. The Josephine Butler Society has recorded its views against the Bill in strong terms, and I will read two paragraphs from a letter which sets out its views:

"In 1947 the Minister of Health decided not to renew the Regulation 33B because, far from preventing the spread of venereal disease and reducing its incidence, it discouraged those who feared they might have contracted the disease from seeking examination and treatment. The strictly confidential relationship between doctor and patient was seriously undermined. Moreover, since the complainants remain anonymous, the Regulation is a gross violation of British justice, because it deprives the named contacts of the legal protection afforded to all other persons against defamation of character, whilst gravely infringing individual liberty and human rights. It is, moreover, contrary to Article VI of the United Nations Convention (passed in 1949) for the Suppression of Traffic in Persons and of the Exploitation of the Prostitution of others."

A number of other representations have been made against some of the provisions in the Bill. The only other one to which I want to refer is from the National Council of Women. My right hon. Friend referred to the great concern of women's organisations if the Bill were to become law.

The National Council of Women says:

"Regulation 33B created a precedent in that the private informer provided the basis without which it could not operate. The informing patient remains anonymous, but the contact becomes a suspected person who can only clear himself or herself by the indignity of submitting to a compulsory medical examination. The Bill creates an offence with penalties if the contact fails to attend for or submit to medical examination. This is a grave infringement of human freedom and a human right. Moreover a false name may be given either by a genuine mistake or by deliberate malice and, because of the anonymity, the contact has no redress for defamation of character.

Venereal disease is usually a physical consequence of anti-social behaviour and therefore any proposals for its control must be examined for their effect upon the amount of promiscuity. If promiscuous persons mistakenly suppose the State's Regulations will ensure them a clean bill of health, irresponsible behaviour and the spread of the disease will be encouraged."

While I greatly respect the intentions of my hon. Friend, many of which will have been achieved by the publicity that the debate will have given to the facts of the situation and the concern which is felt, I cannot advise the House to support the Bill. The best policy is to see that the recommendations made in the circular sent out in November are fully carried out to ensure that the new stimulus which has been given by my Department to contact tracing is made effective. I assure my hon. Friend that we shall review the situation after a reasonable period of time to see whether new initiatives are required.

With that assurance, I hope my hon. Friend will not feel it necessary to press his Bill. I can assure him that the Government are as much concerned as he is about the problem before us, and are anxious to take effective steps. However, I do not think we should attempt to put on the Statute Book a Measure with the social dangers which, inadvertently, my hon. Friend's Bill would create.

rose——

Order. The hon. Gentleman needs the leave of the House to speak again, but I think that he will get it if he asks for it.

Mr. Speaker, with the leave of the House, may I say that I am very glad to have had an opportunity to ventilate this urgent social problem. We have had a very useful debate, and I am grateful to all right hon. and hon. Members who have participated and made such interesting contributions.

I am still not satisfied that contact tracing will be the ultimate solution in our fight against this scourge. Nevertheless, I fully appreciate that my hon. Friend's Department is gravely concerned about the situation, as we all are.

In view of the assurances that he has given about further investigation into the whole question of trying to contain venereal diseases, I ask leave to withdraw the Bill.

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

The time available for this debate is limited. Therefore, I will be brief and, I hope, uncontroversial.

The Bill is short, simple and fair. It deals with an obvious defect and inadequacy in present electoral arrangements. It deals, in fact, with a matter of electoral justice and is not, therefore, in any sense a party measure. It is in no party spirit that I seek to commend it to the House. But where electoral justice is involved, it is a matter of concern to Members of all parties sitting in all parts of the Chamber.

The principle of one man one vote has been for long axiomatic in this country. But the principle becomes meaningless unless the votes are of approximately equal value. If in one constituency, for instance, it takes five times as many votes to elect a Member as in another, this makes a mockery of the principle of one man one vote.

It was to deal with this particular matter that the procedure for the review of Parliamentary constituencies was brought into being. Under this procedure, as the House will know, reviews take place from time to time. The last General Review was in 1954—fifteen years ago. The purpose of the reviews is quite obvious. Stated briefly, it is to keep the electorates of the constituencies as nearly equal in size as is conveniently possible.

It will be within the knowledge of the House that the boundaries of Parliamentary constituencies are currently being reviewed, as the law requires. This is obviously necessary as substantial population movements have taken place and serious disparities and inequalities in the sizes of the electorates of constituencies have developed. I would assume that the past 15 years has seen one of the largest movements of population about the United Kingdom as has possibly ever been known in any similar previous period. The result is that there is now a serious disparity in the size of the electorates of the constituencies.

I will give only two or three examples from the many that could be quoted. Some constituencies, like Billericay and Portsmouth, Langstone, have swollen to twice the national average. Others, like Glasgow, Kelvingrove and Birmingham, Ladywood, are too small.

It is interesting to note that the late Member for Birmingham, Ladywood had only to poll less than 9,000 votes in 1966 to get elected, whereas the runner-up in Billericay polled over 38,000 votes but was nevertheless defeated.

This, on every ground, is a very serious position. Perhaps the most serious aspect is that it tends to destroy the faith of the public at large in the justice of the democratic principles by which Members are elected to this House. When faith in democracy is shaken in this way, the consequences cannot be other than altogether evil.

The Boundary Commissioners, which have now had this matter under active review, must complete their General Review by November, 1969, but it is anticipated that they will report much earlier than the latest permitted date.

My Bill deals simply with what happens after they have reported. The present law requires that after the Commissions have reported the Home Secretary shall present Orders to Parliament to implement the recommendations "as soon as may be". This phrase is so vague that it imposes no obligation on the Home Secretary to present the Orders at any time at all. The phrase is simply "as soon as may be". This imposes no limit of any kind on the dilatoriness of a Home Secretary—or a Government—who believes that the proposed alterations in boundaries might be disadvantageous to his party. The Government of the time can, of course, refrain indefinitely from implementing the recommendations, that is to say for so long as they may be able to remain in power, and to remain in power on the basis of the votes of electorates which are obviously unsatisfactory electorates. This, by any measure, is a most unsatisfactory position.

It is my endeavour throughout to introduce this matter with a maximum of light and a minimum of heat. I make no imputation whatever against the present Home Secretary in respect of a dilatoriness which has not yet occurred. But it is obviously wrong that any Government or any Home Secretary of any party should be able to delay an urgently necessary review of Parliamentary boundaries for any reason, least of all for the reason of party advantage.

The purpose of my Bill is to deal with this obvious deficiency in the law, to impose a time limit of two months instead of the words "as soon as may be", so that there is an obligation on the Home Secretary for the time being to make his Orders in the House within a limited period.

I should like to demonstrate my great desire to be most reasonable in this matter by saying that if a case can be made to show that for procedural reasons two months is an inadequate period, I should be very susceptible to a suggestion in Committee that the period might be extended to three, or possibly even four months. This is a matter of concern to all hon. Members. It goes to the root of democratic practice, and we have the opportunity today in this simple Bill in the time that remains to take the first step to put the matter right.

We often hear strong criticisms from hon. Members—I do not criticise them for this in any way—of other Governments who exercise a sway in distant parts of the world when it is alleged that those Governments are not complying with proper democratic practices in their own electoral arrangements. If it is desired that we should be in a position to make this kind of criticism of other countries and other Governments for which we have no responsibility, how much more is it necessary that we, as the House of Commons, should have clean hands in the matter of our own electoral arrangements?

rose——

Order. Three hon. Members wish to intervene. The hon. Gentleman will have to choose which hon. Member he would like to interrupt him.

In as much as I am going to resume my seat in one minute, Mr. Speaker, I think it would be better if I were to conclude my speech and leave the interveners with the hope of catching your eye.

This Bill speaks for itself. Its purpose is clear. Its justification is obvious, and it is difficult to see on what reasonable ground any Member can seek to oppose or obstruct a Bill that is so obviously necessary.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Wimbledon (Sir C. Black) on having brought before the House this Bill which is succinct and easy to understand. It is quite obvious, in view of the way in which he has introduced the Bill, that the House should give it a Second Reading.

My hon. Friend's approach has been utterly reasonable. Should the Government say that the suggested period of two months during which they will have an opportunity of considering the recommendations is too short, my hon. Friend has indicated, with an infinity of reasonableness, that he is prepared to consider an Amendment to lengthen the period. This is an extraordinarily reasonable approach, so it seems that we should have agreement from the Government that the Bill should have a Second Reading so that the whole matter can be gone into in some detail.

Let us face the fact that there has been widespread speculation that the Government do not intend to act with expedition relative to the Boundary Commission's recommendations. It has been suggested widely in the Press—I have cuttings with me—that they do not intend to act with expedition because the Boundary Commission's recommendations may be to the Labour Party's disadvantage. Today the Government will have an opportunity to confound those suggestions that they intend to be dilatory about this matter for their political advantage. The best way they can do that is by allowing this Bill to have a Second Reading.

I hope that we shall have certain assurances from the Home Office today. The first assurance for which I ask is that the Government will not put forward, as an excuse for not implementing the Boundary Commission's recommendations speedily, the fact that in due course a Royal Commission on Local Government is to report. I do not expect that any such excuse will be put forward by the Government. It would be particularly invidious if that were to be put forward in view of the latest information which I have, emanating from the Minister of Housing and Local Government, who is reported as having said, I believe in a speech at Truro, that the implementation of local government reform will probably not take place till 1973 or 1974. Therefore, it would obviously be absurd if any suggestion were made that the implementation of the Boundary Commission's recommendations must await the Report of the Royal Commission on Local Government. I should like a firm assurance from the Government that that is not their intention.

Second, we want an assurance from the Government that, in laying draft Orders based on the recommendations of the Boundary Commission, they will act, if not in weeks, at least within a very few months. It is the basis of my hon. Friend's Bill so to provide, and I hope that we shall have a firm assurance from the Government to that effect.

If we have assurances of that kind, the speculation and suggestions that there is likely to be procrastination here for party advantage will be set at rest, and I hope that the Minister present, the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, for whom one has personal respect, will be able to give them.

The hon. Gentleman says that he is in favour of the Bill. Will he tell us where the Official Opposition stand on the question of months? He speaks of two months. May we be told more specifically what the view of the official Opposition is?

That is precisely the sort of reason why we consider that the Bill should have a Second Reading, so that we may go into the whole question of how long is likely to be necessary. We do not assert, and neither does my hon. Friend, that two months is necessarily exactly right. We shall want to give detailed consideration to the question in Committee, assisted, no doubt, by the advice which can be drawn from the detailed researches which the Government will have made into it.

Is delay necessary? In the past, we had an example of a review in similar circumstances. That was in the mid-1950s, and the Conservative Home Secretary then, Mr. Gwilym Lloyd-George, acted with great expedition. Within two weeks of the Report, draft Orders were laid before the House. He was subject to some criticism for undue expedition in the matter, but the criticism centred largely on suggested faults in the original legislation, the 1949 Act, on which the procedure of the Committee was based. As a result of those criticisms, we had, by agreement, a later Measure, the House of Commons (Redistribution of Seats) Act, 1958, which largely put right the suggested procedural faults pointed out in the earlier debates.

Therefore, any criticism there might have been in the past that a Conservative Home Secretary acted with undue expedition would not apply now if a Home Secretary were to act with expedition, since the 1958 Act, a Measure passed without Division and with all-party support for its principal provisions, made it possible for the Commissions to adopt a better procedure, with local inquiries, and so on. This makes it much easier for the Government to act speedily when they receive the recommendation of the Commission. A Conservative Home Secretary acted within two weeks under the old Act. It would hardly become the Government to admit that they could not act within two months, and, as I have said, we are only too glad to discuss what the appropriate period should be.

This is an urgent matter. As Mr. David Wood pointed out in The Times as long ago as 1957, the present situation is undesirable, and by the mid-1970s it will have become outrageous. The Government must give the assurances for which I have asked. The health of our Constitution requires that constituency boundaries be subject to this continuing review.

It may be that the 1958 Act went too far in providing that the maximum period between reviews can be as long as 15 years. There is a case for saying that that is too long. But we are getting near the end of that 15-year period and we must have assurances from the Government that they will act with expedition. I expect that we shall have an assurance from them that they have utter confidence in the Boundary Commission which in the case of England has Mr. Speaker as the Chairman, Mr. Justice Thesiger as Deputy Chairman, and a very distinguished composition.

The Government have had the advantage of preliminary draft reports which have been published and considered locally, so they know which way the Commission's thoughts are going over most of the country. Any additional homework that will have to be done when the final report comes out will not be very considerable. If the situation is not righted very speedily, our constitution could lose its credibility. It becomes utterly absurd when we have the sort of situation indicated by my hon. Friend of 93,000 electors in Hornchurch, 102,000 in Portsmouth, Langstone and 109,000 in Billericay while there are tiny constituencies like Manchester, Exchange with a mere 19,000 and Glasgow, Kelvingrove with 20,000. The problem becomes very serious when there is this contrast.

Is the hon. Gentleman also aware that as a result of this enormous review there are certain areas in London where the new figure is to be 70,000 or more? If he is complaining that figures of 80,000 or 90,000 are too high, is not it absurd to increase the electorate in some areas in London? He will know them as well as I do, because he has no doubt done his homework. Therefore, I cannot see his argument. Given that some are large, the reports now coming out show that some are to be made even larger.

What is needed is a much more sensible mean figure. The hon. Gentleman has discussed the draft reports. We shall see what comes out in the final Report. What he said is no argument against evening up, so far as is practicable. Under the 1958 Act, the terms of reference were made more flexible so that local considerations of boundaries, loyalties and so on could be taken more specifically into account. This was one of the improvements agreed upon by all parties. Therefore, the hon. Gentleman's intervention does not take the matter much further. It is obviously absurd to have some constituencies with electorates of 109,000 and others with a mere 19,000 or so. It is necessary, therefore, that the Government act with speed as soon as they receive the final Report.

When does the Minister expect to get it? One hears that it is likely to come very shortly. We hope that that will be later in the spring, but as today is officially about the first day of spring we must hope that it will be just a little on into the spring or early summer. We should like the assurance that as soon as the Report is received the Government will act with expedition in implementing what it recommends

It might be convenient if I intervene at this stage to give the Government's view on the Bill. Bills are usually introduced to bring about a change that is demonstrably necessary, to deal with something that has not been done in the past. But if the hon. Member for Wimbledon (Sir C. Black) looks to the past, he will see that in the early 1950s the then Labour Government distributed themselves out of office. The first Tory Government in the early 1950s was a minority Government. Therefore, the past gives the hon. Gentleman no reason to believe that this side of the House is motivated by political considerations.

That was an admirable precedent.

That may be so, but it ill becomes the party opposite to suggest that it has never been done. The Labour Party Government know exactly what to do. We are fully aware of our statutory obligations.

The Bill seeks to make a simple amendment to Section 2(5) of the House of Commons (Redistribution of Seats) Act, 1949. Hon. Members have referred to the provisions of that subsection and I want to quote it in full because there are some aspects of it to which I shall refer. It says:

"As soon as may be after a Boundary Commission have submitted a report to the Secretary of State under this Act, he shall lay the report before Parliament together, except in a case where the report states that no alternation is required to be made in respect of the part of the United Kingdom with which the Commission are concerned, with the draft of an Order in Council for giving effect, whether with or without modifications, to the recommendations contained in the report."

The Bill would substitute the words,

"Not more than two months"

for the words,

"as soon as may be".

Accordingly, the Secretary of State of the day would be required to comply with his responsibilities under the Statute within a specific period, no matter what circumstances then existed.

Let us, first, consider what those responsibilities are. A Commission reaches its final conclusions and completes its report. Arrangements then have to be made for it to be printed and distributed to both Houses together with draft Orders in Council. The Act refers to a single draft Order but it has been the practice to prepare several, each relating to a group of constituencies. The purpose of this has been to facilitate debate in Parliament.

The effect of the requirement in Section 2(5), combined with the practice of the laying of Statutory Instruments generally, is that both the reports and draft Orders in Council must be presented and published simultaneously. So, after a report is received, some time must be allowed for all the necessary printing to be done. This can be a major task in the case of a general review.

Section 2(5) contemplates that draft Orders in Council may modify the recommendations contained in a report. The words of the Subsection are

"…together…with the draft of an Order in Council for giving effect, whether with or without modifications, to the recommendations contained in the report".

Clearly, then, Parliament contemplated that the Government of the day should examine a report of a Commission and reach its conclusions on it before bringing it to Parliament. Time is needed for that and for the preparation of the draft Orders in Council and also, as I have said, for their printing.

Then there is the provision in Section 3(5) of the 1949 Act which provides that where any draft Order in Council gives effect to the recommendations of a Commission with modifications, the Secretary of State must at the same time lay before Parliament the draft of a statement of the reasons for the modifications. Accordingly, if modifications are proposed, time is needed for the preparation and printing of the statement. That is a brief outline of the administrative arrangements necessary following the submission of a report by a Boundary Commission. This Bill would allow a period of two months for their completion.

Section 2(5) of the 1949 Act is a consolidation of provisions which first appeared in Section 4(5) of the House of Commons (Redistribution of Seats) Act, 1944, following a recommendation made by Mr. Speaker's Conference in May, 1944—Command Paper No. 6534, Recommendation No. 23. There was also a similar provision in Section 2 of the 1944 Act relating specifically to a review of abnormally large constituencies, which was a procedure followed at the time.

The hon. Member for Wimbledon has not provided evidence of an unjustified delay in the past. Indeed, he and the hon. Member for Colchester (Mr. Buck) told us that the purpose of the Bill was to seek an assurance from the Government about their intentions with respect to the present general review. I remind the House, however, that the change proposed by the Bill will affect the reports not only of that review, but all reports made by the Commissions in future.

I return to what appears to be the main purpose of the Bill—to obtain some assurance from the Government that constituency boundaries will be altered before the next general election. My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary dealt with this matter during the debate on electoral law on 14th October. He said, in effect, that the Government had taken no decisions in this matter and that they saw no reason to do so in advance of receiving the Commissions' reports; that he proposed to wait for the reports, give appropriate consideration to them and to bring the Government's conclusions before the House. He also indicated that, if the Commissions did not report until the autumn of 1969, the Reports of the Royal Commissions on Local Government in England and Scotland, which are also awaited, would be a factor which would need to be taken into account.

That is still the position. Neither the Reports of the Royal Commissions on Local Government nor the reports of the Boundary Commissions have yet been received. I find it absolutely extraordinary that everybody is talking as though my right hon. Friend had received the reports of the Boundary Commissions. They have not yet been received.

The hon. Gentleman is putting words into my mouth that I have never used. I made it perfectly clear that I was making no imputation of bad faith against the Home Secretary or against the Government. I do not understand why heat has been engendered about something which I have not said.

The hon. Member proposes a Bill which alters the present procedures and says that no imputation is being made, but offers no evidence for a change. The evidence from past years shows that the Labour Party carries out its statutory obligations. With respect to the hon. Member, whom I respect in many other ways, this seems to be an effort on behalf of the Conservative Central Office. What I heard just now was that the Conservative Central Office has decided that redistribution is in the Conservatives' favour.

The hon. Gentleman made the point that the reports have not yet been received and said that my hon. Friend was implying that they had been received and that there had been some hanky-panky. However, the Home Secretary said quite clearly, and I have his words before me, that the Boundary Commission was not required to report until November, 1969, although it was expected to report much sooner. There is no point in the hon. Gentleman saying that the Commissions have not yet reported.

I find it interesting to hear that they are expected to report shortly. I wonder where the hon. Gentleman, any hon. Gentleman, got that advice. It would be of great value to the Home Office to know.

rose——

Order. I remind the House that other hon. Members wish to take part in the debate.

It was suggested in The Times that this was likely. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will confirm whether the Commissions are likely to report in the spring. Will he give the first assurance for which I asked, that the Royal Commissions on Local Government will not be used as a reason for delaying decisions?

I gather from my brief experience that it is not the practice to comment in the House on comment in newspapers, however distinguished?

Really?

I have already made the point that the reports on Local Government will be received later in the year, and they will be a factor to be taken into account, as my right hon. Friend stated.

The position is that we have not yet received the reports of the Boundary Commissions. If hon. Members opposite are expecting me this afternoon to announce the Government's intentions on the Boundary Commission's reports, not yet received, they are asking for the impossible. The Government propose to consider the recommendations and reach their conclusions on them in the light of circumstances when the reports are received.

The matter would then be in the hands of Parliament, and I remind the House that, under Section 3(5) of the 1949 Act, if a draft Order is rejected by either House, or withdrawn by leave of either House, the Secretary of State may amend the draft and lay an amended draft. Accordingly, the question of the period between the submission of a Boundary Commission report and the implementation of changes in constituency boundaries depends to some extent on Parliament itself.

The effect of Section 3 of the Interpretation Act, 1889 would be that the period of two months—or three months: the hon. Gentleman said that he would make it a little longer if necessary, but we will stick to two for this argument—would be two calendar months and not two months of Parliamentary time. It is not inconceivable that a Boundary Commission could report just before a Dissolution. Under the proposed time limit, there would be precious little time after a General Election to consider the recommendations and bring the reports and draft Orders before Parliament. Moreover, with a period of two calendar months, there could be some technical difficulties if the reports and draft Orders had to be presented to Parliament by a certain date which happened to fall in a Parliamentary recess.

The Government's view is that the existing words "as soon as may be" in Section 2(5) of the 1949 Act are the most appropriate. They were no doubt wisely chosen by those responsible for their inclusion first of all in the 1944 Act. The words take into account the fact that the amount of work flowing from the recommendations in a report can vary according to the magnitude of the alterations recommended. For example, action could be taken fairly quickly or. an interim report under Section 2(3) which recommended only minor alterations of particular constituency boundaries to bring them into line with altered local government boundaries, but a great deal of work might be necessary following a general review of all constituencies, because many alterations might have to be made.

The provisional recommendations of the English Commission which have been published locally in the constituencies affected over the past two or three years seem to show that many changes of constituency boundaries would flow from the final recommendations of the Commission. The Government think it right that they should have time to consider the Commission's final recommendations thoroughly before bringing them before Parliament. In their view, the present law recognises their right to do this and they cannot accept the Amendment proposed in the Bill.

It is perhaps not inappropriate for me to end by saying that Bills of this nature are normally Government Measures preceded by consultations between the parties. The hon. Member for Wimbledon would no doubt take the view that such consultations are difficult for a private Member. Perhaps so, but that makes it even more clear that the Bill's purpose is to get the Government to say what they propose to do about the Boundary Commissions' reports before they have received them. The Government propose to examine the reports thoroughly when they are submitted. Accordingly, they oppose the amendment of the law which the Bill seeks to make and advise the House to reject it. I can only repeat the words of my right hon. Friend on 13tn February when, speaking of the right hon. and learned Member for St. Marylebone (Mr. Hogg) he said:

"The right hon. and learned Gentleman may be well aware that I am aware of my statutory obligations."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 13th February, 1969; Vol. 777, c. 1544.]

rose——

rose——

Mr. Roberts.

indicated dissent.

Order. I have called two Members of the Opposition, and I am now calling the second Member from the Government side.

I deplored the political remarks made by the hon. Member for Wimbledon (Sir C. Black) in introducing the Bill. The Bill is concerned basically with the democratic process. The hon Member was concerned that, because of the present rapid changes in population, it was important that certain electoral changes took place so as to maintain, as far as possible, the democratic character of our elections. But I have a horrible suspicion that the results even of these Boundary Commissions will not basically further this democratic procedure.

Hon. Members opposite have mentioned particularly constituencies like Billericay, with an electorate of 109,000, and, on the other hand, Ladywood, with about 19,000. What they have not mentioned is that there are in Britain constituencies like Merionethshire with an electorate of 25,000, Caithness and Sutherland with 26,000, and Orkney and Shetland with about 24,000. Even after the proposed redistribution, that type of constituency would remain.

Effectively, therefore, there would be many English constituencies with a figure of nearer 50,000, but in Wales and Scotland there would remain abnormally small constituencies in terms of numbers. I accept that there may be good geographical argument for those constituencies, and I will return to this presently. Basically, however, what would be left after the redistribution is the fact that, in some senses, some Welshmen are equivalent to two Englishmen. Whereas some of us would never quibble with that fact, some of us, perhaps, have doubts whether one Scotsman is equivalent to two Englishmen. Clearly, therefore, it cannot be said that this redistribution is the ultimate answer to the problem of maintaining the democratic nature of the electorate.

Would not the hon. Member agree, however, that it is far more important than the Parliament (No. 2) Bill, for example, in maintaining the democratic process?

I would not hesitate, perhaps, to agree on that point. As my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary has said——

In discussing the democratic process, will not my hon. Friend remind the House of the time in 1963 when the City of London, the most appalling rotten borough in the business, was left as a deliberate attempt by the Conservatives to retain it? This is an example of talking about democratic processes in the House but the Tory Party outside doing the exact reverse.

I quite agree with my hon. Friend's sentiments. We have only to look across the water to the position in Northern Ireland if we want to extend this discussion on the democratic process.

My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State has referred to the great changes which are taking place. There is the problem of the redistribution of local government boundaries. There is the question of the 3 million-plus—we are not certain exactly how many—young voters who will be coming on to the electoral register. As the hon. Member for Wimbledon mentioned, the nature of population movements is far more complex than ever before. We can, therefore, say that the questions of Parliamentary boundaries and electoral size in general are becoming more and more complex.

It seems to me, therefore, that the arguments are not in favour of the Bill, which would precipitate the action of my hon. Friend the Minister, but are rather in favour of greater delay and consideration. The time is, perhaps, reasonable for us now to look at the whole problem of constituencies and the electoral process. It may be that something more is required than merely changing boundaries in the way proposed.

It has been suggested that we should have multiple representation. Certainly it would overcome some of the problems of small constituencies in Wales and Scotland because we could have two hon. Members for larger, less populated areas and perhaps three hon. Members for more compact, highly populated urban areas, and the same might apply to parts of England. This would provide something nearer the statistical type of democracy which hon. Gentlemen opposite are seeking, because it would be as near as one could get to the "one man one vote" principle.

I hope that the hon. Member for Bedfordshire, South (Mr. Gwilym Roberts) will forgive me if I do not pursue him into the fastnesses of Wales and Scotland in an attempt to weigh up the values of the various nationalities. He gave away the game when he acknowledged that there were geographical conditions which might make a difference to the electoral figures.

Is not the hon. Gentleman aware that the latter part of my argument was designed to point out that by having multiple representation we should in the end secure a system whereby every man's vote would elect an equivalent part of an hon. Member, which is what I believe hon. Gentlemen are trying to achieve?

The hon. Gentleman is making the whole thing unnecessarily complicated.

The Minister suggested that this was a case for a Government Bill after consultation between the two parties. In view of the experience of the House on the Parliament (No. 2) Bill, over which, we gather, there was consultation between the two Front Benches, is the Minister's suggestion a good one? Hon. Members are finding the results of that consultation singularly unacceptable in the face of the Government's trying to force through the Measure against the wish of the House as a whole.

The Minister then suggested that the Labour Party had redistributed itself out of office in 1951. That is a doubtful proposition. Rather than placing a halo over his head for his party having taken that sort of action, and instead of making the public wait the statutory time, he should urge his colleagues to go to the country now; and then we shall all be able to judge the result.

I must correct an impression which the Minister gave earlier. The redistribution took place not in the Parliament of 1950–51 but prior to the 1950 election, and that election was won by the Labour Party. Thus, the redistribution did not have an adverse effect on hon. Gentlemen opposite.

I thank my hon. Friend for reinforcing my remarks about the Minister's earlier proposition.

The Government also take the view that my hon. Friend's suggestion of two months is not satisfactory because of the time that would be needed for printing and so on. That is no ground for rejecting the Bill. My hon. Friend made it clear that he was not wedded to the period of two months. In any event, the Minister did not say what he thought the period should be. Does he think it should be three or four months?

I said that it should remain as soon as maybe, which is even better.

I will come to that. When I was asked to be a sponsor of the Bill and I looked into the matter, I was astonished to find that the present situation rested on an expression so vague and meaningless as "as soon as may be", which can mean whatever one wishes it to mean, or nothing at all.

Is the view that has just been expressed the considered view of the Opposition?

The hon. Gentleman cannot hold me responsible for my entire party, any more than he speaks for his whole party on matters like the Parliament (No. 2) Bill. I speak for myself, and I find the expression "as soon as may be" vague and woolly. It suits the hon. Gentleman at the moment to continue with such a phrase, and I will tell him why in a moment. I regard it as being quite unacceptable, whichever party is in power, that there should be the possibility of delay. My hon. Friend was taking a non-party line on this, and I agree with him.

During the last 15 years since the boundaries have been redrawn there have been enormous changes in Hertfordshire and Essex, caused by the large influx of people from London to the new towns. This has completely thrown out of balance the way in which the constituency boundaries have been drawn. In any event, however quickly the Government get on to issuing the Order in Council, we shall always be a bit behind the times. Two years have probably elapsed since the Boundary Commission made its proposals for Hertfordshire and for Essex, and there have been public inquiries——

This is an interesting point. The hon. Gentleman is saying that the Government are allowed to bring in modifications to take into account changes since the earlier considerations.

I am not objecting to the Government bringing in modifications. I am saying that the time required should be quantified. I may come to him later to ask for modifications of certain constituencies where there is dissatisfaction with the proposals which have been made.

This all takes time, after the report has been received; that is the point.

Yes, it all takes time, and it may be that the time should be tied to the date on which the modifications have been made, but it is clear that the vague phrase "as soon as may be" allows too much room for unattractive manoeuvre.

If we know that the proposition which will be put to the House will be on figures which are already two years out of date, it is absurd to allow that position to drift on. It may be that a Government may not be making allowance for the changes which have since taken place and are working on the figures which they have before them. It is a question of how long it takes to decide the modifications.

The hon. Gentleman must recognise that the most important factor is the coming into effect of votes at 18. This represents an enormous change of pattern. Any Government would have to take into account the distribution of 3½ million 18-year-olds and its impact on certain areas. It must obviously take far longer than two months to deal with it.

The hon. Gentleman is saying what I expected to hear from the other side, and making any excuse for delay in coming to a decision. I dare say he will find that the 18-year-olds will not greatly affect the position. They are probably fairly evenly spread throughout the country and will not make much difference to the size of the constituencies.

The case being made out by the hon. Gentleman is the case that I was trying to put forward, that the problem is becoming more and more complex, and now is the time when the Government should look at the whole problem of the electoral process to see how it can be made more democratic.

That is almost another speech, rather than an intervention. My point is that, over and over again, the Government——

Object.

Object.

Object.

Object.

Object.

Object.

Object.

Object.

Object.

Object.

Object.

Object.

Object.

Object.

Object.

Object.

Object.

I wish to draw attention to the grievances of certain of my constituents who, as I shall show, have suffered hardship and distress as a consequence of the working of the Land Commission Act. These cases are not unique, and, to my certain knowledge, there are more of them all over the country.

Let me make two comments at the outset. First, whatever any of us may think about the setting up of the Land Commission and the introduction of the so-called betterment levy on all transactions in land, I am referring here only to one category of cases; namely, those where a person has built a home for himself on land which he has received as a gift from a relative, or which has been given on payment of a nominal sum, or where not a penny of profit has been made out of the transaction.

When the Land Commission was set up, we were told that one of its two main purposes was to make land cheaper and, therefore, to make houses cheaper. Yet, for some people, to the cost of building a home there is now added a levy of several hundred £s for the privilege of doing so. The money extracted in this way is a new and oppressive form of taxation which makes houses that much more expensive.

Secondly, the cases which I shall cite are those where the provision of a remedy does not require any Amendment of the law. It requires merely a decision on the part of the Minister to use powers which Parliament has already given to him.

So that the matter may be fairly judged, let me briefly detail the circumstances in each of these three cases.

The first concerns a Mr. and Mrs. Fitzgerald of Canvey Island, a young couple in their early twenties. Mr. Fitzgerald is a bricklayer. I have known his wife since her childhood. Her grandmother, who had brought her up almost from birth, gave the young couple a piece of land next door, without which they could not possibly have afforded to build a house of their own. The land was in fact a wedding present. No money passed in respect of the conveyance and no one made a profit out of it. Yet no sooner was the house completed than the Land Commission sent them a demand for £400, subsequently reduced to £304.

Mrs. Fitzgerald wrote to the Commission last year, saying:

"John, my husband, is 23 and I am 22 and we were married on Boxing Day. To give us the chance of a home of our own we were given part of a garden upon which John built our bungalow himself, and for which we were lucky enough to obtain a £3,000 mortgage from the local council.

John is a bricklayer and myself, until recently, worked as a typist. I say this to give you some idea of our earnings. Out of this money we not only have our mortgage, rates, etc., but we now have £180 for road charges. With what little money that we have left, we are gradually decorating our bungalow, and hope soon to buy some carpets.

I have recently left work, as we will be having a baby in October, and so you see the idea of paying you £304, plus 17s. 6d. plus Is. 3d. a day for something we already own, is rather difficult to say the least."

Mrs. Fitzgerald's grandmother, Mrs. Manthorp, put it more bluntly. In a letter to me she said:

"I am hopping mad…to learn that my granddaughter is to be fleeced by the Government of over £300 because she had the cheek to build a bungalow on land I gave them. It is a swindle."

The second case is that of Mr. and Mrs. Dady. The only difference here is that this young couple already had a home of their own, but moved to a new one that they built on land conveyed to them for a nominal sum by Mrs. Dady's elderly mother. The purpose was to enable Mrs. Dady to be more easily to hand to help her mother who lived alone.

In this case the building society advised Mr. Dady, that, if he wanted a mortgage, he would have to acquire the freehold of the land. Accordingly, his mother-in-law sold it to him for the nominal sum of £50.

No sooner was the house built than the Land Commission demanded a levy of £318. Like the Fitzgeralds, the Dadys had exhausted their small savings in building their new home, had taken on a new mortgage, and so to pay the levy caused them acute hardship. The irony of it was that they were told subsequently that, if they had not paid the nominal £50 and the land had been conveyed as a gift, they could have been exempted from payment of the levy. But if this is so, it is difficult to understand why the Fitzgeralds were not exempt from the start.

I raised both these cases with the Minister of Housing and Local Government. I told him that tax was being levied in circumstances which Parliament could never have envisaged when the Land Commission Bill was going through. I said that if I had encountered such cases, there were probably hundreds of others up and down the country where the Commission was making the lives of young married couples utterly miserable. Surely he was going to do something about it.

The only reply I got from his Parliamentary Secretary, the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (Mr. Skeffington), was that if financial hardship was being caused the Commission would be prepared to accept payment by instalments, but that until this had been arranged interest would be charged on the debt. The Parliamentary Secretary had a very short memory, and I will return to his part in this shabby business a little later.

The third case is that of Mrs. Shillum, a 69-year old-widow, who lives with her 83-year-old sister, also on Canvey Island. Their joint income is the princely sum of £9 a week.

Mrs. Shillum sold her home for £6,000 to clear debts due to be met out of her late husband's estate. Out of the residue she had built for herself a small bungalow costing about £2,000. But she had to meet road charges of £600, and so she was left with hardly any capital at all.

The Land Commission was quick off the mark. It promptly presented her with a demand for payment of £1,575. Needless to say, she has no hope whatever of paying this vicious tax and, at her age, is never likely to be able to earn the money to do so. As a consequence, she has been made ill with worry.

I knew her husband quite well. He was a councillor and served the community ably. It is disgraceful that his widow, or for that matter any widow who has worked hard all her life, should have to face a burden and an anxiety of this kind in the autumn of her years.

I raised this case with the right hon. Member for St. Pancras, North (Mr. Robinson) who, in the meantime, had taken over responsibility for these matters. I told him that in causing acute hardship to people who could least afford to bear it, such as these young married couples and elderly widows, the Land Commission was behaving in a way which Parliament was told would not happen. Indeed, it was precisely because the Government were warned during the debates on the Bill that hardship might result that the Minister was given power in section 63 to lay an Order directing that in such cases no levy shall be charged. But the Minister did not say anything about that in his letter to me. All he would say was that he was not prepared to amend the law, particularly at this early stage in its operation.

"At this stage", when his "In" tray must be overflowing with examples of this kind. He told me that the situation I had revealed was to be found more frequently in my constituency than in most. This was an extraordinary observation, but if it is true there may well be a special reason, for in October, 1965, that is before the Land Commission came into being his Parliamentary Secretary visited my constituency. The hon. Gentleman was reported in the News Review, a local newspaper—and I have sent the right hon. Gentleman a copy—to have given the South East Essex Labour Party a talk on the work of the proposed Land Commission.

A local councillor asked him:

"whether a plot of land next to a building would escape levy. Mr. Skeffington replied that if someone who owned the land wished to use it for themselves or, say, for their son and daughter there would be no levy. But if it was sold to a builder as a business deal it would then be levied. But these people are not speculators, he said, and we do not wish to catch them. We would allow one house only, but no more."

The Fitzgeralds, the Dadys and scores more like them who read the local paper would have been excused for thinking that the hon. Gentleman's words meant that they would not be liable to levy. I told the right hon. Gentleman that there is a strong moral case for taking the necessary action to ensure that the Parliamentary Secretary's clear pledge is honoured, and I repeat that now. In any event, by what moral right does the Minister tax people, not on a profit they have made, but on one that the Commission deem they might make at some unspecified date in the future?

The Minister's suggestion that I have more than my fair share of these cases is not borne out by the facts. It is true that my post yesterday brought me a fresh case from my constituency, that of Mr. Weston of Manor Road, Thundersley, who gave two plots adjoining his house to two daughters. Building has started, and although according to the right hon. Member for Sunderland, North (Mr. Willey) this sort of case would be exempt, the Commission has served notice that levy is payable. However, my attention has been drawn to similar cases all over the country. There is, for example, the case of the old retired Nottinghamshire miner whose son gave him a piece of land alongside his own home. Now that he is building his retirement cottage the Commission is demanding £400. His wife wrote to me:

"My husband has been an underground coal miner for over 50 years, we have never been unemployed, we have worked hard all the time. I would not like you to put our names in print as we feel sort of humiliated. We have not the money to meet it at the moment, we shall probably have to change our plans. Do you not think this is a mean and miserable act for old people?

Let the Minister also ponder over a letter I received from Major Sir Hereward Wake of Northampton which raises another aspect of this appalling bureaucratic tyranny. He said:

"Last year, in an effort to assist a local Baptist minister—with extremely limited private means—I gave him a corner of a field adjoining the village on which he was able, with the help of a mortgage, and some help from me, to build himself a modest house.

I was shocked to receive a Betterment Levy assessment for £456 16s. which I was advised, under the law, I had to pay—and have done so.

Is this the Government's way of encouraging landowners to provide houses for people?"

Does not the right hon. Gentleman see that his failure to act in these cases is not only causing misery and frustration to people who for the most part ask nothing from the all-powerful State, but is also discouraging generosity and self-help by putting a premium on meanness?

So far the right hon. Gentleman has given no sign that he will take any such action. Indeed, he told me on 21st February that he could not promise any new legislation, and in dismissing my representations put forward an argument of great callousness—which was totally out of character—and which I am sure that on reflection he wished he had not used. In acknowledging that the cases I had cited were causing hardship he said:

"it must be admitted that the difficulty is really due to the developers having insufficient means both to build their houses and to pay the levy due on the development value."

Developers indeed! To some that is a dirty word. Did the Minister mean it as such in reference to my constituents? To Mr. Fitzgerald, the young bricklayer, who had built his house with his own hands? To Mrs. Shillum, the elderly widow? I bitterly resent his implication, namely, that poorer members of the community who have been fortunate enough to secure a piece of land from a relative or a well-wisher ought not to have the temerity to build themselves a house if they cannot also pay the Levy—this coming from a Minister who said recently that in a few years the housing shortage will be over.

If the Minister chooses, he can put this matter right now without legislation. Even the Land Commission has power to vary the time and manner of payment of levy in an individual case. But—much more to the point—the Minister, by making an order under Section 63 of the Act, can direct that no levy be charged in certain specified circumstances.

The right hon. Member for Sunderland, North, who was the Minister who piloted the Bill through Parliament, is on record as having said in the last few days that the Commission has power to suspend levies and interest indefinitely in cases of hardship. According to the right hon. Gentleman—and he should know—

"the provision is there but the discretion is not being exercised."

It is very much to his credit that he also said that he is disturbed and upset by the situation. This is what we would expect of him. He was also reported in the Press on 10th March as saying that he had interceded on behalf of the Sweeting family who had turned an uncle's barn into a home last year at Danbury. Mr. Sweeting is a £13 a week labourer who spent £500 on the barn and was then served by the Commission with a demand for £900 and interest at the rate of 3s. 9d. a day until the levy was paid. The right hon. Gentleman told the Land Commission that the Sweetings need not pay anything at all and, according to the report, the case was settled.

If this is so, it is quite monstrous that a concession can be made by the Commission in respect of persons for whom the right hon. Gentleman can intercede but not for my constituents who find themselves in the same situation. This is a scandalous state of affairs, and the reason for my raising this matter today is to bring it right out into the open and demand that the Minister exercises now the powers that he possesses to end this injustice. Surely by now he must realise that Parliament never intended that the law should operate in this heartless way. In the kind of case that I have mentioned, the levy is creating conditions under which some small home owners are being driven to misery and despair. One can even envisage circumstances in which some unfortunate person is driven to desperate measures. If the Minister does not want that on his conscience, let him act quickly. I hope that is what he will tell the House now.

I intervene briefly on behalf of two of the hon. Gentleman's constituents. I confine myself to this case because the hon. Gentleman invited me to look at this case. I had indeed the pleasure of meeting Mr. and Mrs. Fitzgerald. As I understand it, the Minister feels unable to do anything in this case because it falls outside the exemption that we provided in the Act for single family dwelling houses. We provided this exemption for an owner building a house for himself or a member of his family on land which he owned at the time of the White Paper. I emphasise that we had the family in mind.

Naturally enough, we have to think only of an adult member of the family when we are thinking of providing a dwelling house. If anyone in Standing Committee had called my attention to the fact that an adult member of the family might be a grandchild I am sure we should have made provision for a grandchild. In fact, we made provision only for sons and daughters, but we construed this as widely as we could. We included adopted children and illegitimate children. I am sure that within the spirit of this exception falls the adult grandchild.

I am delighted that Mrs. Manthorp, the grandmother, in this case is a great-grandmother. I feel that my right hon. Friend should surely look at this case sympathetically and provide for the exceptional case which has arisen. I know of a couple of such cases, and in each case, incidentally, the Minister has suggested that the grandmother should go and live in the house for six months. I feel that she should not be put to that inconvenience. The simplest thing to do is to say that we are thinking of the family in terms of children and that we include adult grandchildren.

I am surprised that this matter has been under consideration for very nearly a year, and I hope that, now that the hon. Gentleman has raised the question on the Floor of the House, my right hon. Friend will be able to say that he will look sympathetically at it and make provision for the exemption not only of children but of grandchildren, too.

I welcome the opportunity to reply to the charge made by the hon. Member for Essex, South-East (Mr. Braine) that the Land Commission Act is causing injustices to people in his constituency and elsewhere. I shall not have time to deal with the glosses which he put on various statements I have made in writing to him and elsewhere, and neither, I think, can I deal with the hyperbole with which he described some of the cases of alleged hardship. But I say at the outset that I am as sensitive as anyone to cases involving genuine financial hardship to individuals. I add only that this is no new phenomenon in taxation matters.

One of my difficulties is in knowing how to deal with the issues raised by the hon. Gentleman and remain within order. I shall try to confine myself to describing once again the job which the Land Commission was established to carry out, a matter which some hon. Members claim they find extremely difficult to understand, despite its basic simplicity.

All land—by which I mean land in the legal sense, including both bare land and land with building on it—has the value of the purpose for which it is at present used. This is the current use value, a term which, though it is taken from the Land Commission Act, is quite explicit and barely qualifies to be called jargon. We all know that when planning permission is granted to put land to a more valuable use, or when the prospect of its being granted can be clearly seen, the value of the land rises. The planning permission is worth something, and often a great deal, in financial terms. It gives an added value to the land, and that added value—the difference between the current use value and the value with planning permission—is the development value on which the charge to levy is based.

Obviously, not all transactions are as simple as that, and there are a few in which the complications of apportionments and related tenancies, Estate Duty and Capital Gains Tax which the Act so carefully stores up in all its 17 Schedules must be invoked to bring out a just and equitable answer where those factors are involved. But these transactions are a minority, and the complications for which the Act is so widely criticised are seldom, if ever, involved in the type of case of which the hon. Gentleman has spoken today.

At this point, I must express my concern at one of the reasons giving rise to the allegation that the levy is causing hardship and injustice. Most weeks, I receive a number of letters from hon. Members and from the public about the betterment levy, and I am frankly astonished that in so many cases the correspondents claim that they had never heard of the levy till they had spent or decided how to spend the proceeds of their sale. I say that I am astonished and concerned about this because nearly all these people have had some professional advice either on the price they asked for their land or on how to obtain planning permission, or at the time when they conveyed the land. Must one draw the conclusion that all these things go on without levy ever being mentioned? By now, people are entitled to expect to receive advice about the incidence of betterment levy from their professional advisers as a matter of course and should not find themselves taken by surprise when the demand for levy is made. I am, therefore, grateful for the opportunity which this debate gives me to explain the activities of the Land Commission.

There is one other matter on which I should like to put the record straight. That is the much-repeated assertion that the Land Commission Act was not designed to impose a levy in ordinary small transactions but was intended solely as a weapon against unscrupulous land speculators. It is easy to speak in general terms about unscrupulous land speculators without asking oneself how the Land Commission could decide whether a transaction involves a speculation in land or, on the contrary, is to be regarded as completely meritorious. However, this is hardly relevant since the Land Commission Act was specifically designed to take levy in all cases where there was a realisation of development value. One needs only to look at the six cases of charge to realise that every foreseeable contingency was being taken into account.

Nor is there any mention in the Act that the owner-occupier or any other class of person is exempt from levy. No one reading the debates on the Bill can have any doubt of Parliament's intention, which went far beyond taxing merely the large-scale land speculator.

Not that the Land Commission——

rose——

The hon. Gentleman has not left me much time, and my right hon. Friend also spoke, so I shall not give way.

The Land Commission is not failing to catch the large cases, as one might suppose from some of the comments. Cases where the market value is over £10,000 will bring in half the levy estimated to be raised in 1969–70.

Will the right hon. Gentleman allow me?

I shall not give way. I have a great deal to say.

Why not answer the debate?

I have six minutes left. I am dealing with the suggestion that the hon. Gentleman repeated several times that it it was never Parliament's intention to catch small cases.

Does the right hon. Gentleman repudiate the Parliamentary Secretary?

I shall now deal with what the Parliamentary Secretary said. What he said was perfectly true. Many of the cases the hon. Gentleman quoted came within the context of what he said. Anybody who owned land at the time the Parliamentary Secretary was speaking certainly will not attract levy if he develops that land for himself of his immediate family. In the two cases the hon. Gentleman quoted the land was not owned at that time. He knows perfectly well that those are the facts of the case, and there is no need for him to distort them.

I should like to examine the claim that the levy causes hardship. If that is true, it is because the person called upon to pay the levy has acted without proper advice, or in some cases has chosen to go ahead with what he or she had in mind to do although aware of the provisions of the Act. Betterment levy is exacted only where there has been either a cash profit or gain in the form of a valuable asset. Thus, if proper advice were taken and followed there would always be some gain from which the levy could be met. A close examination of the chief complaints against levy brings me to the conclusion that it is not so much that hardship is created but that some people are less able to relieve their present burdens because they are called on to return some part of the gain created by planning permission which the community exercises.

If a person buys land to develop and pays full market value for it, he will not be called upon to pay levy when he develops, because the price he paid for the land will be taken into account. Levy will have been paid by the vendor. But if he has been given the land or comes by it cheaply, levy will be due. This is a matter which owners of land must appreciate. They could not build on their own land without incurring liability to levy; they cannot under the Act avoid that liability by giving the land to somebody else.

The second category in which we are told hardship or injustice is brought upon the private individual is where land is sold. It may be the owner's own house, part of his garden, or a small plot of land which he happens to own. Assuming that levy is due, it will be due only if the sale has been made at more than 10 per cent. above the current use value of the land.

But more important is the fact that if the value of the house is its value for continued use as a house and not, for example, as a site for a block of flats, no levy will be payable.

What about grandchildren?

As my right hon. Friend said, the definition of family was considered and very carefully worked out when the Bill was going through the House.

Will the right hon. Gentleman allow me?

I shall not give way. I now have 3½ minutes left.

The hon. Gentleman quoted what my right hon. Friend said in an article in The Times a day or two ago. I hope that he has also read the letter in today's issue of The Times from my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Derby, North (Mr. MacDermot), who was responsible for the Land Commission when my right hon. Friend had left the Government. There were statements in his article which I think my right hon. Friend, on reflection, will not wholly agree with.

Will my right hon. Friend allow me to intervene on this?

I am sorry. I want to get on the record——

My right hon. Friend has referred to me——

Order.

My right hon. Friend knows perfectly well that the Land Commission has no discretion to waive interest.

This is scandalous. The right hon. Gentleman should give way to his right hon. Friend.

The main burden of the hon. Gentleman's speech was to ask what the Land Commission proposes to do about the cases of hardship and injustice he quoted. He made great play with what my right hon. Friend had said.

It has always been open to people charged betterment levy, as the hon. Gentleman knows, to apply for permission to pay by instalments. The Commission has always been able to consider such requests. How the Commission takes payment when it comes to some agreement with the payer is a matter for the Commission. It is a discretion which it exercises, and I believe that it exercises it reasonably. But it payment is made by instalments, and this includes any temporary postponement of payment of the levy—should that be more appropriate than spreading payments out by a series of equal instalments—interest is chargeable. The Commission has no discretion to waive interest.

Where some misunderstanding has arisen is in relation to the quite separate power in the Act under which regulations can be made by the Minister which may provide that in prescribed circumstances interest shall be waived or reduced by a prescribed amount. This is not a discretionary power for the Commission. It is a power under which, subject to the agreement of the House, the Minister can decide that certain defined categories of levy payer should not pay interest on levy outstanding.

On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Does not this come within the definition of "tedious repetition"? We have had all this again and again in Standing Committee.

Order. There is very little time left.

It is only because there is so much misunderstanding that it is necessary to say these things again.

rose——

An example of the waiver of interest cover which I have mentioned is the building of houses for agricultural workers, where levy is postponed and interest waived as long as the house is occupied by an agricultural worker.

The question has been raised whether the Government will propose new regulations applying to further classes of levy payer or, indeed, amendment of the Act to exempt certain groups of cases. I should be out of order if I discussed changes of legislation on an Adjournment debate, but, as regards individual cases of alleged hardship——

rose——

Will the hon. Gentleman contain himself if he wants a reply? As regards individual cases of alleged hardship, I said in the House on 6lh February that I would take up with the Commission any cases that hon. Members raise with me. This I have done. My purpose in so doing is to keep under review the operation of the levy. The Commission has been going less than two years. A great part of that period was covered by the so-called "interim" period, and it is only in recent weeks and months that the full operation of the Act could have been seen functioning. I am keeping it under review——