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

It is a strange feeling to find oneself proudly proclaiming paternity for a parliamentary Measure after 10 years of enforced sterility—sterility resulting from failure to find favour in the eyes of the Goddess Fortuna on the occasions of previous annual ballots when your box, Mr. Speaker, on being opened, was found, like Pandora's, to contain nothing but hope for the hon. Member for St. Albans. However, now that the fickle woman—I mean Fortuna, not Pandora—has smiled benignly upon me, I hope the House will not strangle our parliamentary progeny at birth but send it into the world with its blessing.

Although the Bill is simple in intention and limited in scope, it is somewhat elaborate in drafting, which will be apparent to hon. Members when I take the House through the Bill. The main aim is to fill a gap in the existing law by making provision for deathbed marriages for non-Anglicans, the position being that Anglicans at present are provided for. The type of case I have in mind concerns a betrothed couple one of whom may be smitten by a deadly illness or involved in a motor accident and be in danger of dying from the injuries. In such a case at present an Anglican could get married before the death, whereas a non-Anglican could not.

The present position is that except by a special licence of the Archbishop of Canterbury no marriage can lawfully be solemnised, otherwise than according to the usages of the Jews or the Society of Friends, in a place which is not a church of the Church of England, a place of public worship of some other denomination which has been registered for marriages or the office of a superintendent registrar. The special licence of the Archbishop of Canterbury meets the needs of Anglicans, enabling an Anglican marriage to be solemnised at any time and in any place. Thus, a bedside marriage in hospital or in a private house could normally be arranged for members of the Church of England without difficulty, but there is no similar power of dispensation for any other form of marriage—

If I may interrupt the hon. Gentleman, he says that there is no difficulty for an Anglican. But it depends upon what class he belongs to and whether he has got £25 available. When the hon. Gentleman says that he is extending to non-Anglicans something which is enjoyed by Anglicans, I hope he realises that he means a particular class of Anglicans who are in a position to pay the high fee demanded by the Archbishop of Canterbury's office.

I am not attempting to interfere with the powers of the Archbishop of Canterbury. If the hon. Member, who is good at introducing Private Members' Bills, would like to tackle that problem, no doubt he will find an opportunity to do so. The fact remains that at present this is a dispensation which is available to Anglicans but not to members of other churches. Anyone who is not an Anglican is unable to marry in the sort of emergency which I have described.

The law goes back to the Ecclesiastical Licences Act, 1533, when the licensing power was taken from the See of Rome and given to the Church of England. Indeed, it was part of the break from Rome. But today there are not only Roman Catholics but members of other Churches and adherents of other religions who are all deprived of the dispensation that is available to Anglicans. As an Anglican myself, I regard this as quite wrong and quite unjust.

The Bill, therefore, seeks to remedy this lack by means of the introduction of Registrar-General's licences. The Bill will probably affect only a very small number of people, but it is with minorities, however small, that this House and in particular private Members should be concerned. I emphasise that the Bill is in no way likely to affect—and it does not affect—the rights of the Archbishop of Canterbury to issue his special licence for marriage according to the rites of the Church of England. The Bill specifically precludes the Registrar General from issuing his licence for such a marriage ceremony, but it does empower him to do so for all other religious or civil ceremonies.

On all non-Anglican marriages the present law imposes certain restrictions both on place and time. A non-Anglican religious marriage or a civil marriage must be solemnised in the area in which one or other of the parties to that marriage resides and it requires that a minimum of one clear weekday must elapse before the giving of the notice of marriage and the wedding. The Bill proposes to abolish both those restrictions—the former restriction expressly and the latter by implication—for marriages which the Registrar-General is empowered to license.

These are defined in Clause I which provides that any marriage, other than a marriage solemnised according to the rites of the Church of England or the Church in Wales, which could be solemnised on the authority of a certificate of a superintendent registrar may be solemnised on the authority of the Registrar-General's licence elsewhere than at a registered building or the office of a superintendent registrar.

Clause 1(2) defines the circumstances in which the Registrar General may issue his licence, namely, where:

"one of the persons to be married is seriously ill and is not expected to recover and cannot be moved to a place at which under the provisions of the Marriage Act 1949 … the marriage could be solemnised".

Does not the hon. Gentleman think that this is rather dangerous, in that one of the parties wishing to be married might know that the other was on the point of death, but in order not to distress that person, would not want to inform him or her of it, although both were agreeable to applying for a licence? But under Clause 1(2) the applicants would have to say in the application that one of them was not expected to recover.

I was anxious about those words myself and it may well be that they could be varied in Committee in order that the position could be made less definite. It might be sufficient to say that it was a serious illness and there was a possibility of one of the parties not recovering. But I was anxious to ensure that there was no thought of extending generally the idea of marriages taking place in premises other than those registered for that purpose. But I accept what the hon. Member for Orpington (Mr. Lubbock) says and this is something which might be looked at in Committee if I have the agreement of the House to the Second Reading of this Bill.

Clauses 2, 3 and 4 deal with the question of notice and of the evidence of capacity and of consent and the way in which applications should be made to the Registrar-General. They provide for notice of the intended marriage to be given to the local superintendent registrar, that is, the one in the area in which the wedding is to take place, so that investigations may be made locally to establish that the parties are free to marry and that the necessary pre-conditions for the grant of a Registrar-General's licence are fulfilled. These pre-conditions include the question of there being no lawful impediment and of there being consent in the case of a marriage in which one party is a minor and there being sufficient reason as to the illness of one of the parties.

Clause 5 preserves the right of caveat —that is the right of anyone knowing of an impediment to the marriage to put a halt to the procedure. Clause 6 deals with the question of minors and it applies to the marriages under Registrar-General's licence the provisions of the principal Act of 1949 relating to parental consent to the marriage of minors. Clause 7 provides for the licence to be issued if the Registrar General is satisfied that sufficient grounds exist, unless there is any lawful impediment and unless the issue of the licence has been forbidden, in the case of a minor, by a person whose consent is required.

Clause 8 provides for the Registrar-General's licence to be valid for a period of one month. This is because it is felt that that in most cases, these marriages would take place very quickly after the issue of the licence, by the very nature of the circumstances existing, and therefore it would be unnecessary to provide for the normal period of three months. On the other hand, there may be cases where there is not the immediate urgency and where it might be necessary to wait until the sick party becomes fit, for the time being, to undertake the strain of a marriage ceremony. Therefore, it seemed that one did not want to shorten the period too greatly, and it was thought that a month would be just about right, but I am not wedded to that period in any way.

Clause 9 requires the marriage to be solemnised in the place stated in the licence. That is a normal requirement and it is intended to guard against clandestine marriages by making it necessary for the place of solemnisation to be announced before the marriage actually takes place, so that it is known in advance.

Clause 10 prescribes the manner in which the marriage is to be solemnised and the circumstances in which the presence of a registrar is required. There is provision for either a religious ceremony of a non-Anglican order or a civil ceremony, and that is the only part of the Bill which could affect an Anglican. If an Anglican had been divorced, and was therefore not likely to be able to obtain a special licence from the Archbishop of Canterbury to be married according to the rites of the Anglican Church, he would be able to marry by civil ceremony.

Would the hon. Gentleman explain why there appears to be a contradiction in the Bill. In Clause 10(4) there is a prohibition against any person who is a clergyman within the meaning of Section 78 of the principal Act solemnising a marriage under the Bill, whereas Clause 11 specifically allows it. There seems to be an obvious contradiction here.

In Clause 10, the clergyman within the meaning of Section 78 of the principal Act is a clergyman of the Church of England or the Church in Wales, whereas the other term is intended to refer to clergymen in other Churches. But, if there is an error in drafting, that again is something which can be looked at in Committee.

Clause 11 provides that where parties have had their marriages solemnised by a civil ceremony by the superintendent registrar they may, if they wish, follow this by asking a clergyman or a minister of the denomination to which they belong to read or to celebrate a marriage ceremony of that denomination. This is put in because it is followed by a subsection which makes it clear that the provisions of the principal Act of 1949 apply in as much as if there is a civil ceremony first this is registered and the second ceremony is merely a religious ceremony which follows it and it does not supersede the civil ceremony.

Clause 12 applies those provisions of the principal Act by virtue of which the validity of a marriage cannot be challenged after its solemnisation on the ground that the parties had not in fact resided in the appropriate district or that the consent required by law to the marriage of a minor had not been given. This also merely brings the Bill into line with the 1949 Act.

Clause 13 deals with void marriages and applies, with the necessary modifications, the provisions of Section 49 of the principal Act, which declares that, if parties knowingly and wilfully intermarry in contravention of certain requirements of the law, the marriage shall be void.

Clause 14 provides for the issue of a document by a superintendent registrar stating that the Registrar-General's licence has been granted, and for delivery of the document before the marriage to the person by whom it is to be solemnised. It is felt that in some cases of great urgency it might not be possible for the licence to be sent by post by the Registrar-General to the superintendent registrar in the district concerned in time for the date of the wedding. If it be a matter of great urgency, it is envisaged that in such cases the Registrar-General would telephone to the superintendent registrar in the district concerned telling him that the licence had been granted, and the superintendent registrar would be empowered to write the document which would then be produced as the necessary evidence for the marriage to take place.

Clause 15 deals with registration and provides for marriages on the authority of the Registrar General's licence to be registered in accordance with the appropriate provisions of the principal Act.

Clause 16 provides for penalties of up to five years' imprisonment for certain deliberate contraventions of the law by persons solemnising marriages. These penalties are similar to those laid down in the principal Act of 1949 for similar offences. However, subsection (3) is important in that it relieves those solemnising marriages on the authority of a Registrar-General's licence from certain penalties which they would otherwise incur under the principal Act, since the principal Act provides, first, that there shall be a period of permitted hours during which marriages may take place—from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m.—and this is waived in the circumstances covered by the Bill, and, second, the principal Act requires that marriages shall take place in a building registered for that purpose, from which requirement also we are breaking away under the Bill.

Clause 17 deals with fees, providing that fees to be prescribed by Order of the Secretary of State shall be payable to the Registrar-General, to the superintendent registrar and to a registrar. The power of the Secretary of State to fix fees is similar to the provision made under the Public Expenditure and Receipts Act, 1968.

Clause 18 provides for the Registrar-General, with the approval of the Secretary of State, to make regulations prescribing anything required by the Bill to be prescribed. This power is similar to those already conferred on the Registrar General by Section 74 of the 1949 Act.

Clause 19 saves the existing powers of the Archbishop of Canterbury in relation to special licences and the validity of marriages solemnised under those special licences.

Clause 20 gives the Short Title, and deals with construction, citation and extent. Also, it provides for the date of commencement of the Bill. At this point, I have to say that the Short Title which I selected before I became involved in the drafting of the Bill is far from ideal. It is somewhat clumsy as well as lengthy, and it is a little misleading, since the Statutes refer to regisprovides for marriages on the authority tered buildings and to registered offices, whereas licensed or unlicensed premises are often thought of in an entirely different connection and context. Therefore, if the House agrees to give the Bill a Second Reading, it will be my hope to amend the Short Title. It has been suggested that "Marriage (Registrar General's Licence) Act, 1970" would be more suitable than the Title which I first selected.

As the House will have observed, what appeared originally to be a simple intention has in implementation turned out to be a somewhat complicated matter. As a lone back bencher, I should have paled before the daunting task of putting into statutory form my very modest aims were it not for the most willing help and advice given to me by the Registrar-General and his department and by the Department of the Clerk of the House. I acknowledge with gratitude the major part which they played in the preparation of the Bill.

As I have said, despite the elaborate and somewhat complicated structure of the Bill, it is a modest but, I believe, humane Measure, aimed at abolishing an unintended discrimination which exists in our present marriage laws, and has existed, indeed, for 437 years. Perhaps it is a good aim for a back bencher to feel that he can manage to achieve in ten years what has been left undone for 437 years.

There will, I hope, be few who will need to avail themselves of the provision of the Bill. Nevertheless, there will always be occasional tragic cases in which betrothed persons, faced with the sudden serious illness of one of them, will wish to be married either in a hospital or in a private house before death parts them. The carrying through of this wish should not, in my view, depend upon their being Anglicans. For this reason, I hope that the House will give the Bill a Second Reading.

I remind the House that, as so often on a Friday, this is a nonparty occasion. It will help me to balance the debate if hon. Members who wish to oppose the Second Reading will let me know.

I endorse the speech of the hon. Member for St. Albans (Mr. Goodhew). It is good that the House should from time to time devote itself to discussing marriage as well as to discussing divorce. Perhaps we spend too much time being fixated or fascinated by divorce and, indeed, what I might call "polymonogomy", that is, taking one wife many times.

A person may be born anywhere and may die anywhere. I wonder whether the Bill goes far enough in providing for marriage anywhere. Perhaps it should be possible for people to be married, if not anywhere, at least in a wider range of places than are permitted at the moment. To illustrate my basic point about the need to license marriages in premises not at present recognised for the purpose—apart from the case of persons who are seriously ill—I take an example from my own constituency. The problem in my borough is that the marriage offices are in a sad state and show no signs of recovery. I am speaking here about a problem faced by a minority, though none the less a large minority. About 1,200 or 1,300 people a year are married by civil ceremony in Lambeth out of a total population of ⅓ million. They are married in a building which is really just a converted house surrounded by redevelopment. There are two yellow bands—one is the wedding ring, and the other is the "No parking" restriction outside.

I had a look at our marriage office this morning. The rooms are totally unsuitable. The smaller of the two measures 18 ft. by 12 ft., the other 20 ft. by 12 ft. When not being married in a church, people want to have a place which is dignified and gracious to which their friends can come and witness the ceremony. At this marriage office, however, it is impossible to have 60 or 70 people present to witness the ceremony. They have to be put in two separate rooms. What is more, on a Saturday, when several marriages take place, people are all crowded together, circulating between one room and another, the rooms being divided by a stairway and a public lavatory.

This is not to say that the registrar at the marriage office and the staff at the town hall do not try to do their best to make the place dignified and to make the best of the marriage ceremony. On the other hand, it is not fair to ask more than 1,000 people a year to have their marriages solemnised in such circumstances. True, a good many people in London will spend a large part of their married life in overcrowded houses, but in Lambeth they have to get married in one crowded room as well.

At present, there is a legal impediment against marriages being carried out anywhere else. As I say, for the ⅓ million people of Lambeth there is one registry office, and it is a great pity that marriages cannot take place in more dignified, more gracious and more spacious premises because of the present restrictions of the law. If a couple wish to be married by a civil ceremony in the town hall, in council chamber, in the assembly hall, or even in the mayor's parlour, all of which are more spacious than the present marriage rooms at the registry office in Brixton Road, they cannot do so.

It may be a desperate remedy, but if they were converted to Judaism or Quakerism, they could be married elsewhere than in the dreary registry office to which my hon. Friend refers.

Yes, but I should be in a little difficulty in urging that solution to the problem in a multi-religious and multi-racial community such as mine. The solution to the problem which I suggest is a widening of the provisions of the present Bill to ease the situation in areas such as mine. I do not suggest that we should establish blacksmiths' shops as alternative premises, but I should like to see an alternative arrangement possible under the law so that there could be a registrar's office situated in one part of the borough at which the marriage ceremony could be carried out, with, in addition, a relaxation of licensing so that marriages could be held in more dignified halls elsewhere. The register would not be kept in these other premises, but they would be more suitable for the ceremony itself.

On a Saturday morning not only are there several marriages taking place in crowded rooms with people mingling with one another—people do not marry the wrong person, but it is croweded enough—but there are other people coming in to register births, others coming to register deaths and others to give notice of marriage. Notice of marriage is supposed to be given in private and secluded circumstances. I cannot remember the statutory words, but there should be only two people in the room. The place is totally unsuitable.

I hope that in Committee the Bill might be amended to deal with that particularly difficult situation. People are entitled to dignity and the right kind of surroundings when they get married. Perhaps the homes from which they have come and the homes to which they will go do not make the best of marriage. We all know that bad housing makes for bad marriages. But let us do something to improve the ceremony and widen the scope of the Bill to allow ceremonies to be held in better premises.

My name appears as a sponsor of the Bill, but as there is a great deal of business before us, I want to make only a short speech in welcoming it. I think that the great majority of the hon. Members will also welcome it, and I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for St. Albans (Mr. Goodhew) both on introducing it and on the very clear way in which he has commended it to the House.

There is a good deal of technical matter in the Bill which is perhaps somewhat difficult for laymen to follow. I assume that in due course we shall receive the advice of the Home Office, which I believe to be the appropriate Department to deal with the technical questions.

I am glad that my hon. Friend emphasised that the Bill contained the necessary safeguards, because it is important that it should. I take the point made by the hon. Member for Norwood (Mr. John Fraser), and no doubt in Committee we can consider it, as it clearly should be considered. But I do not think that most people in this country want to open the door to such an extent that eccentric people can have their marriages performed in eccentric circumstances. One reads on occasion that in the United States people wish to be married up in balloons, in lion cages at zoos, or surroundings of that kind.

What conceivable harm would it do to anybody else if I chose to get married in a balloon or a lions' cage?

It is not so much a question of the harm it would do to other people; it is the harm it would do to the institution of marriage and the regard the public should have for the institution of marriage. I cannot for a moment believe that the people of this country or hon. Members would wish to pass legislation which would enable eccentric habits of that kind to be formed by people in this country.

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that under the Bill there is a power to order a marriage to take place in a balloon or in a lions' cage?

It is hardly likely in the only circumstances in which the Bill could operate that a marriage could take place in such circumstances.

But if the lion-tamer had just been bitten by the lion and was in danger of dying, those circumstances could arise.

Eccentric minds can, of course, apply themselves to all kinds of unlikely situations. I am making the point that I would like the Bill to safeguard the community at large against eccentric minds being able to indulge in eccentric happenings, such as the hon. Gentleman described.

I welcome the Bill because it rectifies an injustice. One of the main duties of the House is to seek to rectify injustice, and the fact that the injustice has existed for more than 400 years makes it all the more reasonable for us to be applying our attention to a small but important alteration in the law. I think that it is admitted that as the law stands non-Anglicans are at a disadvantage, and that whatever the feeling may have been among the members of various Churches 400 years ago the overwhelming majority of the public were then members of the Church of England and the problem was entirely different.

I have no right, as a Free Churchman, to attempt to speak for the Church of England or the Archbishop of Canterbury, but I am certain, judging by the Archbishop of Canterbury's whole atti- tude toward the ecumenical movement, that he would be the first to approve of legislation which had the effect of rectifying an injustice under which non-Anglicans still suffer. From inquiries I have made, I find the welcome for the Bill just as strong among Anglicans as among members of other religious communities. We are living in an ecumenical age and a continuance of the present injustice is inconsistent with the ecumenical spirit.

I have been for many years a member of the Free Church Federal Council, which is a federation of all the main Free Church bodies in this country. I took the opportunity of consulting them about the Bill, and I have been informed by the Secretary of the Free Church Federal Council that, subject always to the Government's being satisfied that the Bill contains suitable safeguards to see that we are not opening a larger door than the sponsors desire to open, the Council would most certainly welcome the Measure and would hope very much that it may be put upon the Statute Book.

The hon. Member for Wimbledon (Sir C. Black) has pointed out that there is other business on the Order Paper. That will not hurry me along. Only Mr. Speaker will hurry me along, because I take the unfashionable view that marriage is a little more important than abortion.

I congratulate the hon. Member for St. Albans (Mr. Goodhew) on the careful way in which he has presented the Bill. I commiserate with him on his having found it necessary to present us with a very complicated and sophisticated Bill containing 20 Clauses when seeking to put a simple and humanitarian Measure before us. The reason for this is the jungle that our marriage law is in. My first reservation, upon which I want some assurances, stems from the fact that it is very dangerous practice to seek to deal with an undoubted anomaly when the whole of our marriage laws are replete with anomalies and contain discrimination for and against wide groups of people.

The blunt and brutal fact is that each year the law and the Church together conspire to make perjurers of thousands of young people who are about to enter into holy matrimony. Lies are required as the preliminary to the sacred vows. Thousands of marriages in Britain each year begin with a deceit, the swearing of a false declaration by a bride or bridegroom that could, in theory at any rate, attract a heavy fine or a sentence of up to seven years' imprisonment. This wretched preliminary to a ceremony intended to have such binding and holy significance comes from our out-of-date marriage laws, which are rooted in a time when most people were born and lived and died in the same parish.

The demands which are placed by the existing law on residential qualifications almost compel strategems and evasions, for they are totally unsuitable for a mobile community. Indeed, that can be said of all our marriage laws. For example, a young man from Leeds who wishes to marry a young woman from Bristol may wish, for the convenience of all the relatives and guests, to hold his marriage ceremony and celebration in London. He can rarely do so without becoming involved in manoeuvres designed to overcome the existing residential qualifications.

Only too often, for generous or mercenary motives, bishops, vicars and ministers become parties to the shabby game. For many reasons these blemishes in the law make our marriage laws a scandal. They rest not on the parent Act, to which the sponsor referred on a number of occasions as the 1949 Measure, because that was only a consolidation Act. They rest on provisions which were considered desirable in 1837, since when the population has increased fourfold, has become extremely mobile, has clustered in huge urban areas and is no longer habitually churchgoing.

That the outmoded laws about which I am complaining—and with which the Bill deals with only one very small facet—have never been adapted to the needs of a modern community has been due not only to the inertia of the legislators and to tardy lawyers but to the vested financial interest of the Church, for which ecclesiastical special licences and common licences in 1970 represent dispensations—I hope that I can say this without causing discomfort to the hon. Member for Chelmsford (Mr. St. JohnStevas)—discredited just as they were in mediaeval times.

Whatever difficulty the young worker in a factory in my constituency may have of meeting the requirements necessary to enable him to marry a girl from Swansea in Cardiff, no such difficulty stands in the way of the well-heeled and well-connected.

I am not so cautious as is the sponsor in trying to appease the Archbishop of Canterbury. I never have been and it is right that the community should know these facts, because for £25 a time dispensation is granted out of the Archbishop of Canterbury's office so enabling a religious marriage to be celebrated at any convenient time—all the times mentioned in the law go by the board—and at any convenient place.

Each year more than 300 such dispensations are given. This is clear if one studies the statistics. For those lacking a little in their connections or money, there is a second grade dispensation available which, although not obviating all the difficulties, enables the parties to be married immediately; that is, after the issue of the authority of a bishop.

The House should be reminded that nearly 10,000 marriages are celebrated each year under the ecclesiastical common licences. These cost the applicants two-an-a-half times as much as they are required to pay if they publish banns or are married by certificate at a registry office. For such Church of England marriages, a common licence dispenses with the publication of banns and removes altogether the element of publicity and waiting period.

If the waiting period and publicity prescribed by the law for non-licenced marriages is necessary to enable any impediment to be brought to light, what possible justification can there be for letting anybody who can afford it escape the waiting period by paying a higher fees?

Bigamy is not the special prerogative of the less affluent. If measures are needed to protect the community from the crime of bigamy, then nobody, churchman nor agnostic, should be able to find a way around the existing regulations. The truth is that the regulations are farcical. If somebody wanting a registry office marriage is prepared to pay an extra 25s. he can thereby avoid the publicity which is given by the display of notices on a notice board and reduce the waiting period from 25 days to one day.

What possible rationale can there be for marriage laws which vary according to the size of one's purse. How can anybody any longer take seriously measures which are designed to reveal any impediment to a marriage such as the publishing of banns or the displaying of notices when this state of affairs exists?

In the social conditions existing in this country before this century these measures were doubtless quite effective, except in cases of the most deliberate fraud. But with the decline in churchgoing and since the publication of banns reaches a very small proportion of the population—even a smaller proportion sees the notices which are displayed at registry offices—all our marriage law regulations have become a gigantic bluff. They do not enhance the dignity of the Church, of the law or even of the marriage. To cap it all they are a clumsy and often inefficient method of record-keeping.

In my constituency there are 79 parish churches and 37 authorised chapels. Throughout the country a similar situation prevails. This often means that, through carelessness or because so few marriages may have taken place in an authorised establishment, the search for a marriage certificate can become a Herculean task. In not a few cases some of the registration books have not been filed in registry offices since 1837.

I have reservations about the Bill because it is a piecemeal way of tackling the problem of our marriage laws. It is time that the whole mumbo-jumbo of these archaic laws was swept away. The community should take a social decision about what delay, if any, is regarded as wise before allowing a ceremony to take place. The community should, I believe, allow anybody to marry where-ever he or she may please in whatever town and in whatever establishment is selected.

The hon. Member for Wimbledon expressed concern about other people's eccentricity. I am sure that he regards me as idiosyncratic, just as I assure him that I regard him. However, that does not mean that I would wish to deprive him of any ceremony in which he might wish to participate.

The truth is that the people who would now no doubt describe a ceremony in a lion's cage as being eccentric are perhaps not so different from those who, in 1837—when the right was being given to free churchmen and others to be able in certain circumstances to enjoy their marriage ceremonies wherever they wished—regarded the idea of anybody wanting to marry anywhere other than in church as extraordinarily eccentric. The problems which the hon. Gentleman has been describing in his constituency in Lambeth stem from a hang-over of that old climate of opinion that register office marriages are second-class marriages. I am sure that this is an opinion which, unfortunately, still exists, and it stems from our marriage laws which give a special place to certain ecclesiastical rights, and allow the notion to exist that there is some ambience of guilt and shame about a register office.

It is shameful that so many local authorities are still so cheeseparing that the register offices at which marriages are conducted are little more than shabby holes in the wall. I agree with the hon. Gentleman the bride at a register office is entitled to the same sense of occasion as a bride in a church. Times have changed. Nearly 150,000 marriages take place each year in these offices, not far short of the numbers that are celebrated in church and religious institutions. The register office bride should be able to cherish her memory of her marriage, but some of the dingy, down-at-heel register offices which exist guarantee that she will recall her great day as a perfunctory ceremony conducted amidst squalid surroundings.

It is not surprising that those who have been aware of the state of our marriage laws, and of our register offices, have for years been agitating for changes in our laws. Some of us have sought to arouse public opinion to something which is more than a nuisance, more than vexatious, something which is really quite repugnant, and I am concerned that when, at last, as a result of the views which have been expressed, the Law Commissioners have been called into the matter, at this moment the House should be presented with a Bill which is only fiddling with the matter.

As the hon. Gentleman appreciates, I am fully in sympathy with his desire that in the special circumstances which he has adumbrated facilities should be available for people who want to marry on their death-bed should be able to do so, but this is a curious way of tackling a problem which, fortunately, after long agitation, has been referred to the Law Commissioners, who, as the House may know, are starting upon a review of our marriage laws.

I hope that the Government spokesman will make it clear that any benevolent neutrality which the Government may show towards this matter will in no way clog or slow down the investigatory work that is being done, and that the Bill will in no way inhibit them from implementing any recommendations which may come out of the Law Commissioners' report. What view do the Government take of this curious little attempt to chip away at the many aspects of the real problem facing us? What view do the Government take of the 20 Clauses of the Bill which have had to be formulated to deal with a very small problem?

Before I give my full support to the Bill I should like to hear from the Government when they expect the Law Commissioners' report to emerge, and whether the Bill in any way conflicts with what was intended when the referral was made to the Law Commissioners. However sympathetic I may be to the Bill, I should not want anything to occur which would prevent the bringing about of what is long overdue, a marriage law to match our modern and pluralistic community which does not want marriage laws to continue because of vested interests in the church or anywhere else. It is upon the statement which I expect from the Government that I shall finally decide whether to support the Bill.

The hon. Member for Pontypool (Mr. Abse) has raised a number of important issues which go wider than the Bill but which, nevertheless, it is essential to discuss so that we can see the Bill in perspective.

The hon. Member for Pontypool thinks that the report of the Law Commissioners is of some importance. The Law Commission Report of December, 1969, said that it was in a position to initiate a reform of the provisions of the English law, and that it intended to put the necessary study in hand in the near future. The hon. Gentleman may have some knowledge which is not available to me. As I understand it from the hon. Gentleman, the Law Commission has embarked on this task, and I reinforce his demand that the Government spokesman should give us the fullest possible information about the progress of this study before we come to decide on the Bill.

I do not go as far as the hon. Gentleman in saying that my attitude to the Bill will depend on what the official Government spokesman says, because I fully support the objectives of the hon. Member for St. Albans (Mr. Goodhew). I do not think that just because a long study has been embarked upon by some official body—be it a Department or the Law Commission—the House should be inhibited from taking action to deal with what we recognise as anomalies, and which are accepted as such by all the religious authorities and by people outside the House who have been good enough to give us this advice.

If we always accepted the hon. Gentleman's proposition, we should make very little progress indeed, because it is the habit of Governments to set up Royal Commissions, inquiries, and Departmental investigations as a means of postponing action, and, if anything, a Bill of this kind will help to prod the Law Commission into speeding up the work which the hon. Member for Pontypool mentioned.

The Law Commission has never needed any prodding. It has never been used as a delaying department. It is an institution which usually reports fairly speedily. It is usually the House which falls behind in implementing the Law Commission's recommendations. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman would not want to do the Law Commission a disservice by describing it as a delaying institution.

My remarks were intended to refer to Governments. I agree that the Law Commission has put through a gratifyingly large amount of work, and that it has done a splendid job on many occasions. It has been of tremendous value in reforming our Statute law, but there is, here, a question of priorities.

The Annual Report of the Law Commission says that there are many other subjects under investigation, and the Law Commission might be tempted, in spite of the hon. Gentleman's advice and the importance which he attaches to a review of our marriage laws, to give its attention to other matters first, and therefore this debate can perhaps help in that way. The Law Commissioners will no doubt read what hon. Members say today and take note of the views expressed.

The Bill, useful though it may be, is only a small step towards the kind of reform which we would like to see brought about, and I thought that the hon. Member for St. Albans underlined that when he said that the provisions which we are seeking to remedy are those of the Ecclesiastical Licences Act, 1533, an Act passed 437 years ago. I do not accept what the hon. Member for Pontypool said about the recent developments in the mobility of the population, and so on, having brought this problem to the fore. It has been there, lurking beneath the surface, for many years. The problem of difference between the treatment of Anglicans and all other religions, which was not a problem at the time the 1533 Act was passed because everyone was compelled by the King to come into the Church of England, is not a new one. It has been with us ever since the latter half of the eighteenth century, and certainly the first half of the nineteenth century, with the growth of Nonconformist religions and, more recently, the departure of people from churches of all kinds and the growth of agnosticism.

I agree with the hon. Member for Norwood (Mr. John Fraser) about widening the scope of the Bill. He hit the nail on the head, and I would like to reinforce his remarks. Many people get married in church simply because it is the only available place that has some dignity and grace. They do not go there because they are truly religious. In parish magazines we constantly read the pronouncements of vicars that they will marry only those people who have been regular worshippers at their churches. They are not prepared to assist people who come along at the last moment and say that they would like to be married in church although they have no connection with the Christian religion.

I sympathise with this attitude on the part of ministers, but if the alternative is to go to some sleazy little register office that has no dignity and no grace—so that the woman has nothing that she can look back on with any pride for the rest of her married life, as signalling what is the most important day of anybody's life—people will want to go to church. That is why so many non-Christians take this step.

I therefore heartily endorse what the hon. Member said about widening the scope of the Bill. In my opinion this could be done without amending the Long Title, which is, fortunately, in broad terms—to permit marriages on unlicensed premises. As drafted, the benefits of the Bill will apply only to people on the point of death. There is nothing to prevent the hon. Member for Norwood putting down Amendments in Committee to widen the scope of the Bill in the sense described.

It is rather important to know what the Government's attitude is before we reach the end of the debate—not that anybody will vote against the Bill but because we should like to hear the Government spokesman saying that he is not only sympathetic with the objectives of the promoter but is prepared to consider extending the scope of the Bill in Committee in the way requested by the hon. Member for Norwood. That would be of great benefit. Even if the House finally decided that it was better to confine the Bill to its present narrow terms, the discussions in Committee would be of great benefit to the Law Commission in its deliberations.

Does the hon. Member appreciate that this is a matter for local authorities and not the Government? As the law now stands, the state of registry offices is a matter for local authorities and, as such, the question is likely to be determined by the rates paid to local authorities.

I was going to deal with that point. I am grateful to the hon. Member for raising it. I do not believe that the ratepayers should have to foot the bill for the construction of "marriage palaces" of the kind that we have heard of in the Soviet Union. I see no reason why people should not be allowed to have the marriage ceremony conducted in a place like a hotel, where there could be dignified and graceful surroundings and where no expense would be imposed on ratepayers or taxpayers. Most marriages are solemnised over the weekend, and if we were to provide large buildings in every major centre and in quite small towns—buildings to be used solely for the purposes of marriage services—they would be empty for five-sevenths of the week, and it would be asking a lot of the overburdened ratepayers to finance such an enormous operation.

Surely there is no need to provide extra accommodation in that way. There are town halls. They have spacious rooms where marriage ceremonies could be carried out in a dignified fashion.

The hon. and learned Member is making exactly the same point that I am making. If people were permitted to get married in town halls or hotels the problem would not arise. Receptions are held in those places. It is the general custom for the parents to take accommodation in an hotel so that they can receive the guests who have attended the ceremony and give them some hospitality. I am asking why we should not extend the scope of the Bill so that, in addition to having receptions in such places, the marriage ceremonies could also be conducted there.

In my opinion the illustrations given by the hon. Member for Wimbledon (Sir C. Black) were a little far-fetched. He said that people might want to be married in a balloon or in a lion's cage. Why should they not be allowed to do so, if that is what they want? I am in favour of extending freedom rather than continu- ally restricting it. I would not wish to get married in one of those places if I were to have my wedding ceremony all over again, but if a person wishes to have his ceremony conducted there I cannot see why he should not do so.

I agree with the hon. Member for Pontypool that it is no more eccentric now to make such a suggestion than, in the middle of the nineteenth century, it was to suggest that people could get married in a place other than an Anglican church. Our ideas and horizons are moving forward and widening as we go forward in time. Restrictions should not be placed upon the venues chosen by people who are going to derive benefit from the Bill.

There is another argument for widening the scope of the Bill. In spite of the assurance that Clause 1(2) can be modified in Committee, it is not altogether satisfactory if the right to be married on unlicensed premises depends upon a statement by either party that one of the parties is seriously ill and is not expected to recover. Most of us have had cases occurring in our own families where a person is seriously ill and is not expected to recover, but where none of the relatives wishes to inform him of that fact; indeed, it may be undesirable, on medical grounds, to do so. In such cases, the party who knows of the other's medical condition and would like to have the marriage solemnised is not able to go to the hospital and say, "Shall we get married in the next few weeks? You are bound to be in hospital for the next couple of months. We need not delay. Under the Measure passed by the House of Commons we can now get married in hospital", because a statement must be submitted to the Registrar-General that one of the parties is not expected to recover—which means, presumably, that both parties will be aware of the statement's having been made, which could have a depressing effect on the person in hospital and under the threat of a fatal disease.

The other point that worries me is the length of the procedure involved, which the hon. Member outlined. It may be that this is inevitable. It would have been helpful to have an Explanatory Memorandum covering the 12 Clauses. Although the idea is a simple one, the hon. Member readily admitted that after having put it into statutory phrases it has come out rather complicated, and difficult for the layman to follow. As I understand it, under the terms of Clause 2(1) notice must first be given to the Registrar-General in the prescribed form and then, under the terms of Clause 4, the Registrar-General may give directions to the superintendent registrar to verify any evidence submitted in respect of capacity and consent.

All these procedures may take a lot of time. If the hon. Member's main object is to benefit those who are under threat of death I ask him to consider whether there is not some way of cutting short these procedures by getting rid of some of the red tape. The hon. Gentleman may say that this is a Committee point, and perhaps it is better examined by lawyers upstairs than by laymen on the Floor of the House, but it is an important point to mention on Second Reading, so that he can have early notice of it.

The notice has to be given not to the Registrar-General but to the local superintendent registrar. Clauses 2 to 4 would enable this to be done locally, and would enable the superintendent registrar to communicate with the Registrar-General over the 'phone, so that the latter can decide whether he wants any further proof or is satified with the conditions and immediately says that a licence can be granted. This should be looked at in Committee if it is felt that it would take too long, but I am sure that it is not as cumbersome and time-consuming as it looks.

I know that the hon. Member said that questions of evidence might be dealt with between the superintendent registrar and the Registrar-General on the telephone, and he might be able to satisfy the Committee that machinery exists for this procedure to be gone through quickly. I only mention this because it occurred to me on looking through the Bill.

The hon. Member has done a very useful service to the House with this Bill. Minor though it may be, affecting only a few people, it is none the less worth passing. He is quite right that we in this House should he concerned not only with the vast majorities of the population, but also with tiny minorities, however small, who have been disadvantaged under our legislation. This is one of the greatest features of this Parliament, that we always have time to examine the problems of small minorities. So I congratulate the hon. Member on the hard work which he has obviously put into drafting this Bill. I hope that it will go through Committee and reach the Statute Book and so benefit the seriously ill and perhaps many others.

I would point out to the hon. Member for Orpington (Mr. Lubbock) that, in 1533, by no means everybody was compelled to join the Church of England. It was only those who were actually within arm's reach of Henry VIII—a fairly long arm, admittedly; but some managed to escape from it—and I am happy to say that some of us have managed to keep out of the Anglican persuasion ever since.

I would congratulate the hon. Member for St. Albans (Mr. Goodhew), a parliamentary neighbour of mine, on his work in bringing forward this complicated and difficult Bill, on which he has done a great deal of work. But in supporting him in general, I am a little sorry that his aim seems to have been unduly modest. He seems to have limited the extension of freedom rather more than might be reasonable. I am not at all sure that I wish to support strongly a Bill—I will not oppose it—whose purpose is merely to permit people to be married on unlicensed premises if they are seriously ill, are not expected to recover and cannot be moved.

That is an important thing to want to do, but to mount the whole paraphernalia of the Parliamentary Bill for that narrow purpose seems to me, if not to waste an opportunity, at least not to make the most of it. That one category might have been included among a much wider range of categories which could have used the kind of powers which the hon. Member has in mind. I see no reason why "unlicensed premises" in the Long Title should not include licensed premises in the other sense of that term. They are proper places to go to to be married—

And for refreshments.

Yes, these premises are often associated with weddings in many other ways and they seem to offer a convenient way of being married.

My hon. Friend mentioned that the Bill was limited in its purpose. Does he agree with the limitation to persons who are not expected to recover? For instance, there are people who are lame or chronically sick and who cannot leave their homes. Why should not they be included?

I agree entirely. I thought that that was implicit in my comment. I hope to demonstrate that I think that anyone should be allowed to get married pretty well anywhere.

I was about to speak about the place of solemnisation of the marriage as being important under the Bill, because it has to be reported in the representations to the Registrar. I recall that the poet Robert Burns is thought—I am not sure how accurately—to have undergone a solemnisation of marriage with Highland Mary standing across a stream in Ayrshire, and exchanging, I think, a Bible—

That is quite right.

The Whip confirms that I am right. However, since I am an Ayrshire man and he is no more than a Lanarkshire man, he is perhaps getting a bit above himself.

That marriage is said to have been solemnised by an exchange of Bibles and an exchange of an oath across the stream not very far from Ayr, with no witnesses present apart from the two involved in the transaction. The fact that there were not witnesses raises a difficulty which I do not wish to dwell on too heavily.

But this brings me to the really important part of a marriage, which is the pledge between the people concerned. Whether the pledge is made on licensed premises or unlicensed premises, whether those concerned can be moved or whether they are seriously ill—in any situation that is the key to the whole business. The remainder, the civil contract or the religious ceremony, are important matters in themselves and obviously offer protections of a wide variety of kinds, but it is not they which make the marriage and it is not these contracts and ceremonies which make the marriage secure.

The thing which makes the marriage and makes it secure is the pledge between the people involved, with whatever exchange of troths they think reasonable in their own circumstances. So I must dissent entirely from the comments of the hon. Member for Wimbledon (Sir C. Black). I say nothing further than that at the moment. It is quite appropriate that people should carry out marriages or pledges of troth in whatever circumstances they themselves feel fit, and what they feel fit might appear eccentric to us, because we in Parliament are a very staid bundle of people—

Speak for yourself.

I can speak for no one but myself, but we are a very staid and solemn bundle of people, and what appears eccentric to us might appear ordinary, humdrum and everyday to the great majority of the population. We should pay no attention to that part of the hon. Member's speech.

Still talking of the place of solemnisation, I should like to remind the House that it is not uncommon over a large part of the world for marriages to be carried out in the home. This matters, because the central part of the marriage is the plighting of the troth between the two people. Marriage is not only a matter of contract and ceremony and passion: it is a matter of domesticity, and the centre of domesticity is the home. Over a substantial part of the world—Scotland, for instance, and also the United States and many other places—it is normal and natural for people to be married at home. Ministers of religion in their ordinary work go to people's homes to carry out marriage ceremonies. I think that my parents were married at home. I was not present, but it was a near thing. Perhaps they were married in the Co-operative hall. This kind of venue is fairly common in working class circles in Scotland to this day.

It is universally common. It is not a prerogative of the working class.

I agree. All sorts of people are married in all sorts of places. I should like the Bill to cover marriages conducted in such places as the home as one of the ordinary ways in which people are married rather than in curious circumstances.

I question why the Bill does not apply to members of the Church of England or the Church in Wales. In terms of the Bill extending freedom to conduct marriages in the kind of places that I have mentioned, it would seem reasonable that the right to be married in the home should be extended to members of the Church of England as well as to other groups mentioned.

So far as I can ascertain —and I keep making the point—the only reason why it is not extended to the Church of England is that the Archbishop of Canterbury wants to keep his £25 a year fee.

The Archbishop of Canterbury once wrote a letter to me. I think that probably it was a mistake, and I shall not approach him in the same way as my hon. Friend the Member for Pontypool (Mr. Abse). It is not a question of his wanting to hang on to the £25, but the question that I wish to raise is related to that matter.

The fee involved in this kind of transaction is dealt with in Clause 17(2). I wonder what relationship it bears to the £25 which the Archbishop of Canterbury appears to deem necessary. I regard £25 as rather a lot of money, even for getting married. I hope that the fee involved will be much more nominal. I am not sure that the amount should be left to the Secretary of State. We have trouble from time to time when Private Members' Bills involve the State in the expenditure of money. In this case, all that we are doing is regulating the amount which people must pay. Many Bills state the amount involved rather than leave it in the air. I should like to know what the hon. Member for St. Albans has in mind and what relationship the fee has to the Archbishop of Canterbury's fee of £25, which I regard as far too high and excessive.

The Archbishop of Canterbury's fee is £25 presumably to discourage marriages in places other than churches of the Church of England, because he has complete discretion about the time and place. I do not seek that. However, if it were decided by the House or the Secretary of State that a much lower fee than £25 should be charged in this category of case, I should be very surprised if the Archbishop of Canterbury did not feel inclined to charge the same fee in the same type of case. But I cannot speak for him.

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. That is a very reasonable explanation. The difficulty is that the right to escape from marriage in church is more easily achieved by better-off people than poorer people. None of us would regard that as reasonable

I am worried about the point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Pontypool and the hon. Member for Orpington about the Law Commission and its report on the general law of marriage, which is a much more important matter. I notice that the Bill, if it becomes an Act, will come into force on 1st January, 1971, which is less than a year from now. Can my hon. Friend the Joint Under-Secretary of State at the Department of Health and Social Security say whether the Law Commission's report is expected before the date of the commencement of the Bill? If it is expected before the Bill would come into operation, it might be a good idea not to proceed with the Bill but to refer it to the Law Commission. I say that with the kindliest of intentions. I am not trying to damn the Bill. If, on the other hand, the report is not expected for some time beyond the date of the commencement of the Bill, we might be inclined to support it.

It is a question not just of the Law Commission's report but of the Government deciding to take action. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman, like me, knows that sometimes, even when promises have been made, things do not happen.

I do not think that I should pick up the rough end of that stick. However, the hon. Gentleman is correct. The behaviour of the Government subsequent to the report is the key rather than the report itself.

Generally I support the Bill, but it does not go anything like far enough. If it goes to Committee and I am on the Committee, I shall table Amendments to remove sizeable bits of it and to extend it to a much wider section of the public. In that way, it will be greatly improved and will justify even more than it does now the use of Private Members' time to which the hon. Member for St. Albans has put it.

I join in the congratulations which have been rightly showered on the head of my hon. Friend the Member for St. Albans (Mr. Goodhew). I welcome the news which he brought us—the evangelium, if I may call it—that the Title of the Bill is to be changed, because it is misleading. Several people who have approached me, as a sponsor of the Bill, were under the misapprehension that it authorised marriages in places other than public houses, and they were puzzled by it. It is a Bill of wider intent. It is intended to benefit the marrying classes in general. Therefore, although it is likely to have a narrow impact, a lot of people are potentially involved.

We are grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for St. Albans for the lucid speech with which he introduced the Bill and for the excellent way in which he has drafted it. It has been extremely professionally drafted and is very clear, in contrast to other Bills which we have had such as the Abortion Bill, if I may choose a neutral example, which was not as well drafted as this Bill.

The purpose of the Bill is to extend an Anglican privilege to those who are not Anglican. This is a truly ecumenical act, as was pointed out by my lion. Friend the Member for Wimbledon (Sir C. Black). We would expect ecumenism from one who represents St. Albans. After all, St. Alban was the first English martyr. We must hope that the present Member for St. Albans attains the height of sanctity achieved by his distinguished patron without necessarily gaining a martyr's crown. This is a genuine contribution to ecumenical life in Britain, and I hope that it will evoke a response from the Catholic authorities to revise their canon law of mixed marriages between Anglicans and Catholics, which works such great injustice to Anglicans today.

The Bill concerns the death-bed marriage, which is a very unusual situation. Nevertheless, however small the minority concerned, it should not be considered too small to be cared for by this House, particularly when it is meeting in the Friday capacity of an assembly of private Members. I welcome the opportunity of facilitating anything that will bring happiness to people in this situation.

The Bill will be welcomed by Catholics in Britain. I cannot speak officially for the Pope, for Cardinal Heenan or other prelates, any more than my hon. Friend can speak for the Archbishop of Canterbury, but I think it will be generally welcomed by the Catholic community, and it is in that spirit that I have supported it.

I do not wish to delay the House for more than a minute or two, because this is not a controversial Bill, although an element of controversy has been injected into the discussion by the hon. Member for Pontypool (Mr. Abse) who, despite the attire, partly of Anglican purple, with which he is decorated, has taken the opportunity to pursue his vendetta against the Archbishop of Canterbury. I wish to defend the Archbishop from the animadversions that have been made upon him, and I would like to ask the hon. Gentleman—

I thought the hon. Gentleman was about to ask me something—

Yes, it may be a rhetorical question, so I cannot guarantee to give way. I would like to ask him whether he has had any contact with the Archbishop of Canterbury about this? Has he asked the Archbishop what his personal views are? It is unfair to the Archbishop of Canterbury to imply that he is sitting at Lambeth poring over the marriage fees as they come in and rejoicing in the subscriptions of £25 to the Church of England. The truth is that this is a situation which he inherited on reaching office. This has been the fee for a long time, and an adequate reason was given by my hon. Friend the sponsor of the Bill that it is intended as a deterrent. The special licence is intended for special occasions, and if it was used on every occasion it would defeat its own purpose, so there is a reason behind the £25 fee. My hon. Friend has been less than fair to the Archbishop, and I will gladly give way in the hope that he will now make an amende honorable.

I certainly have not had any discussions with the Archbishop of Canterbury, neither has the Archbishop of Canterbury consulted me. It is quite wrong to suggest that there is a vendetta. There is a history to this question of places where marriages can be conducted. An hon. Member in 1965—

Order. The hon. Member for Pontypool (Mr. Abse) has made a speech. His intervention must be brief.

Another hon. Member in 1965 brought in a Bill which incurred the ire of the Church precisely because it had an effect, among other matters, on the fee of £25. The hon. Member for Chelmsford (Mr. St. John-Stevas) is speaking without knowledge of a long history of battle on this issue.

I am doing nothing of the kind. I know of and have followed the long relationship which has existed between the hon. Gentleman and the Archbishop of Canterbury. In view of the way in which the Archbishop of Canterbury has emerged from some of these encounters with the hon. Gentleman, I think that His Grace is very wise not to initiate correspondence with him on this point.

My second point is one which has been made by several hon. Members, including the hon. Member for Pontypool, about the drabness of register office weddings. This point was also made by the hon. Member for Norwood (Mr. John Fraser), who gave us a graphic description of how one was married in darkest Lambeth, and the hon. Member for Orpington (Mr. Lubbock) said that there was no grace in a register office wedding. I do not know whether that was a theological or an aesthetic allusion. Unfortunately he has vanished and is unable to enlighten me on this matter.

Certainly there is no reason why a marriage in a register office should be a drab and dreary affair. A marriage should always be as cheerful as the circumstances allow. In the nature of things a church wedding must be a more solemn occasion than marriage in a register office. This is particularly so because of the recent change in the divorce law resulting in the rather sharp division between a church marriage and a register office marriage, not perhaps in the effects of the law but in the sort of marriages they are. A register office marriage is really a contract of convenience which may be dissolved at the will of the parties. A church marriage can never be that. When one considers the difference in nature between these two events, one cannot bridge that gap merely by having more cheerful surroundings for the register office wedding.

As the hon. Gentleman is talking about church weddings and register office weddings, can he explain the phenomenon in my constituency of people who get married in the register office—which was rather dull until we brightened it up—having their wedding photographs taken on the steps of the church opposite?

It would be presumptuous of me to attempt to explain anything that occurred in the hon. Gentleman's constituency. This is a sign, in attenuated form, of a desire to have some higher sanction on a marriage than merely the presence of the State. Many people want it both ways. They want to have the aesthetics of the religious marriage without the religious commitment.

I merely make the peripheral point that one cannot have the solemnity in a register office marriage but this is no reason for being married in a dull and drab way. I hope that one result of the debate will be that those members of local authorities who read HANSARD regularly will be moved to do something in this respect. That is what I might call a pious hope.

In conclusion, may I once again congratulate my hon. Friend, but warn him, though I feel it is unnecessary, against the siren voice of the hon. Member for Luton (Mr. Howie), who asks him to abandon this Measure in favour of a more comprehensive Measure which might or might not come later. I think my hon. Friend would be unwise to trust to the speed of the Government, or indeed to the Law Commission, however well intentioned—

I accept what the hon. Gentleman says about not waiting too long in this respect, but my real plea to the hon. Member for St. Albans (Mr. Goodhew) was not that he should abandon his Bill but that he should widen it so that those who wished could get married in whatever holes and corners they thought fit.

That might amount to the same thing because—as my hon. Friend, being a much more experienced hon. Member than I, knows very well—if a Private Member's Bill is too wide it may vanish altogether. Therefore, perhaps it is better to stick to a narrow point and have the glory of having established the one point rather than, like Icarus, flying too high and falling into whatever channel happens to be available.

I therefore again congratulate my hon. Friend and encourage him to continue with his Bill; not to change it too much but to seek to establish this one point of change which would, I think, improve the law, and be of benefit, ecumenically, to the country.

I, too, take this opportunity of congratulating the hon. Member for St. Albans (Mr. Goodhew), particularly on the very felicitous way in which he has introduced his Bill. I follow with some diffidence the hon. Member for Chelmsford (Mr. St. John-Stevas), who is always so entertaining. I may not be able to entertain the House half as well, but I should like to express some misgivings about the Bill.

It may be worth saying that although the basic point of the Bill is small, its Long Title is so all-embracing that under it one could alter the marriage law of England from top to bottom.

I hope that those hon. Members who eventually determine to support the Measure will resist the temptation to produce a lot of Amendments to it.

The Bill causes me misgivings because it is widely assumed, as it has been again today, that its effect will be wholly good. I am a lawyer, and perhaps one gets a little cynical, but I consider that the Bill would make dying bachelors a highly marketable commodity. Perhaps my hon. Friend the Joint Under-Secretary of State for the Department of Health and Social Security will be able to tell me whether, as I imagine, widow's benefit is immediately payable even though a person has been married for only a week. If that is the position, there is every incentive for a dying man to be kind to the widow next door, or to some other such person. Has any calculation been made of the cost, in an increasingly sophisticated society, of more and more people becoming aware of the advantage of marrying a dying man?

It could conceivably have other advantages, apart from the receipt of widow's pension.

Certainly. Till death do us part becomes virtually meaningless in terms of marrying a dying man.

The whole thing could be used as a weapon of revenge and malice in the hands of a man determined that his first wife should not be able to make a satisfactory claim, for example, under the Inheritance (Family Provision) Act. At present, if a man keeps his ex-wife out of his will she is still entitled to ask the court for a share in the estate. The court, while it cannot take into account the existence of a woman with whom the dead man lived out of wedlock, must take into account for financial provision the woman with whom he lived in wedlock. One can imagine a man, not having had the decency—or the courage, perhaps—to marry the woman with whom he has lived for many years, on his deathbed taking the view that he is prepared to marry her provided he does not have to live with her, and in order to prejudice the claims of the first wife and the children of the first marriage.

There is a doctrine in law known as undue influence. One worries about the pressures that can be exerted on a man who is sick unto death who may be very old, who may be wealthy, and who may he a bachelor or a widower. How does one protect him or his estate from the effects of a marriage under this Bill? It is said that the authorities have to be satisfied under the Bill that, in effect, the man is of sound mind, but registrars and superintendent registrars do not know the individual. They see him only, presumably, at the ceremony in his home. There is no real way of ensuring that that sick person has not been prevailed upon, for financial reasons, to marry the person wishing to marry him; pressure, in other words, coming from the wife or from someone on her behalf, so that not only can she have a widow's pension, if she is over 50—and shortly it will be over 40 if proposals now under consideration are enacted—but can also inherit his estate.

There is provision for a caveat—a notice of argument that there are grounds why the marriage should not take place —but will people hear of this project for a marriage? Will the interested people even learn of it? The curious thing is that this Measure takes away the precaution, which now exists under the Marriage Act, 1949, that one or other of the parties to the marriage must have had a normal place of residence in the area for 15 days before notice of marriage. The Bill waives that precaution, presumably because it is expected that the man will be in hospital, or suddenly taken there, but that also lends itself to abuse, because a man could be transported to an area completely foreign to his native environment and there wed with no friend present.

I do not say that that will be a very likely occurrence. We do not follow the practice of Scotland, where we have heard that people who are hale and healthy, sound in wind and limb, can marry at will. We say that the only people who shall be married in this relative secrecy, compared with a public place, are those who are not in a position to protect their own interests—the very sick. That is something which we should consider.

This position applies equally in the case of the Anglican who gets a special licence from the Archbishop of Canterbury.

That may not be a justification.

I make it clear that I am not hostile to the Bill, but it seems to me that for every case where a useful and benevolent purpose is served there can be cases where the motivation is unworthy. If there is one good man in Sodom and Gomorrah he must be saved. Likewise, if this Measure will benefit only a small minority of people, we must accept it, even though abuse may occur. The same can be said of the whole social security system.

We recognise what is called a common law marriage, a marriage which can take place without a minister or registrar being present; that is, as long as it takes place abroad. If a Briton abroad marries if they are both present, if they intend by the ceremony to be bound and if they subsequently live together, the British a woman who may be a foreigner, then courts will often recognise such a marriage, although there may not be a document in existence to support the ceremony.

One way of dealing with the problem with which we are concerned might be to recognise, in the case of very sick people, common law marriages which, if they take place in this country, are not at present recognised. In other words, if there has been an informal ceremony coupled with years of living together, that could be sufficient evidence to cause the marriage to be recognised. I appreciate, however, that that might be too vague and that its application could go too wide.

I am not completely happy with Clause 1. Although

"The Registrar General"—

must be

"satisfied that one of the persons to be married is seriously ill…"

and will not recover, the licence that will be granted will extend for only one month. If the parties marry after the expiry of that period, they are liable to be prosecuted and imprisoned for up to five years, according to Clause 16.

Under the 1949 Act a licence has an effective life of three months. We here seem to be introducing a further anomaly, allowing a licence to run for three months for a well person and for only one month for a sick person who, in any case, is said to be dying.

How much confidence does the hon. Member for St. Albans have in the opinion of doctors or in the judgment of registrars, particularly if they say that they are satisfied that a person is definitely going to die? If, in the opinion of a doctor or registrar, a man will definitely die, then if that man lives for a fifth week following the grant of a licence—the licence will have a life of only one month—it will become improper for him to marry.

What will happen if a man in that position is unconscious and unable to give any response for four weeks yet, after that dire state, is able in the fifth week to marry? The licence will have run out and a new one will have to be sought. If we believe that the doctors and registrars will do their job properly, we must accept their word and assume that the man will not recover. In these circumstances why not allow such a licence to extend for the extra days or weeks?

The Bill is also somewhat harsh in placing the burden of proof on those applying to marry, for they must show that the man or woman must die and not that he or she may die. Clause 1(2) says:

"The Registrar General shall not issue any licence…unless he is satisfied that one of the persons…is not expected to recover…"

This means that if a doctor certifies that the man may recover—in other words, if there is some doubt about his dying—that man will die unmarried because the burden of proof falling on him has not been discharged. In Committee we can examine this matter in detail and perhaps alter the wording of the provision. I believe that the balance should be in the other direction and that if a man may die he should be entitled to qualify under the Bill.

With these reservations, I welcome the Measure and wish it luck. It will come into operation on the same day as the new easier divorce laws take effect, 1st January, 1971. I suppose, therefore, that those who marry when their judgment is impaired by illness will, if they survive, have an easy remedy to put an end to the marriage.

My name appears on the Bill as one of its supporters. I therefore came to the House prepared to speak at length about the Measure, which I would have done had it not been for the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Pontypool (Mr. Abse). While I did not agree with everything he said, I agreed with many of his remarks and, since he expressed them so much better than I could, it would be tedious repetition of I were to go over the ground again.

Like him, I am concerned about the principal Act which the Bill is amending. As my hon. Friend said, the Marriage Act, 1949, was a consolidation Measure of an early 19th century enactment; the 1837 Act. I will not go into that matter, as I had intended to do, although I shall refer to one Section of the early Act because I wholeheartedly agree with the view of my hon. Friend the Member for Pontypool that our marriage laws are a conglomeration of mumbo-jumbo which, by their operation, produce a great deal of injustice and take no account of the mobility of the population, the beliefs of the people or the way in which things develop in a modern society.

My real purpose in speaking is to congratulate the hon. Member for St. Albans (Mr. Goodhew) for introducing the Bill. He has done an excellent job and in this respect I dissent from the suggestion of my hon. Friend the Member for Pontypool that because the Bill does not completely revise the 1949 Act it is, therefore, a piecemeal Measure which merely chips at the problem.

I do not agree with that because if one examines the 1949 Act one finds that it is an enormous document containing 80 Clauses and 60 Schedules. Some of its provisions are beyond belief, though I will come to that later. If the hon. Member for St. Albans had tried, as a private hon. Member, with the facilities available to a private hon. Member—I have had some experience of this—to undertake a complete revision of the 1949 Act, he would have had my deepest sympathy but he would have had no prospect of success. This is, therefore, a valuable Measure and I cannot believe that any sensible Anglican, and certainly not the Anglican clergy, could have any objection to it. Indeed, I understand that there is no such objection.

The Bill will perform a valuable service for a small number of people who do not wish to be married by the Anglican rite but who wish to have what is commonly called a death-bed marriage. For this reason the Bill is to be welcomed, and I hope that the Government will give it not only what my hon. Friend the Member for Pontypool described as "benevolent neutrality", but will assist its passage through Committee and guarantee it a date back on the Floor of the House, particularly since it is largely an uncontroversial Measure.

Some arguments have been adduced against the Bill, and these can be considered in Committee. I join my hon. Friend the Member for Pontypool in saying that it is time that our whole marriage law was changed. Hon. Members who are married can claim some expertise on the subject. Those who have been married more than once might claim to be great experts. Certainly we have great experience, though perhaps we have little wisdom.

All hon. Members must deal in their constituencies with people involved in the bringing about of a marriage and sometimes with the problems involved in the dissolution of one. I have always been somewhat vague about some of the licences that can be obtained, how they can be obtained, and so on. I have frequently had to go to colleagues who are lawyers to answer constituency queries. As an example of why confusion arises, I should like to read to the House just one Section from the principal Act, the Marriage Act, 1949, page 24, Section 40(2). This is the marriage law of this country:

"In order to distinguish the certificates to be Issued for marriages by licence from the certificates to be issued for marriages without licence, a watermark in the form of the word 'licence', in Roman letters, shall be made and manufactured in the substance of the paper on which the certificates to be used for marriage by licence are written or printed, and every certificate to be issued for marriage by licence shall be printed with red ink and every certificate to be issued for marriage without licence shall be printed with black ink, and such other distinctive marks between the two kinds of certificates as the Registrar General may from time to time think fit shall be used."

Mediaeval is the word for that subsection!

I have had experience of the United States and, although I am by no means a total admirer of that society, I believe that in most states the marriage laws are more sensible than ours. I see no reason for these restrictions on the place of the marriage, nor do I see why anybody other than the State itself—and even then the fee should be only nominal—should receive any fee for the ceremony to be carried out. In a modern world it makes no sense to have various cautionary measures to ensure publicity, objection and the pleading of impediment.

Although I support the Bill, I press the Minister, even though he cannot say very much on this matter today, to make sure that his colleagues realise the substantial body of opinion among hon. Members who agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Pontypool in thinking that it is time the marriage laws were brought in touch with marriages in a modern industrial society, that the guarantee given for delay and impediment are largely worthless, and that the various sanctions placed about certificates and restriction of places are offensive and should not be there at all. The whole matter could easily be rectified, amended, and put in a form corresponding to the situation that now exists without detracting from those, probably a minority in these days, who think that marriage is a sacrament and who wish to receive it in sacramental form. There is no reason that people of that persuasion should be affected by the kinds of suggestions made by my hon. Friend the Member for Pontypool. I would make a plea to the Government to take some action in future on this matter.

I, like almost every other hon. Member who has spoken in this debate, start by welcoming the Bill on behalf of hon. Members on this side of the House. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for St. Albans (Mr. Goodhew) not only on his success in bringing forward this Bill, but for the most entertaining speech with which he introduced it.

The Bill is limited in scope, despite its range and length, but it is aimed at clearing up an anomaly in the law relating to those who are members of the Church of England and those who are not. The Bill has received a general welcome in this debate. Certain Committee points have been raised by the hon. Member for Bradford, East (Mr. Edward Lyons) and the hon. and learned Member for Stoke Newington and Hackney, North (Mr. Weitzman) and other hon. Members.

I do not regard it as a criticism that the Bill is limited. Private Members presumably have to decide whether they will take on something that is tremendously dramatic and large, with a considerable possibility that it would never reach the Statute Book, or whether the best course is to make use of private Members' time to get through a Bill dealing with a small limited issue but which, with support on all sides of the House, has a good chance of enactment and will put right a matter of distress to a small minority of people.

With respect to the hon. Member for Pontypool (Mr. Abse), I feel that the line chosen by my hon. Friend the Member for St. Albans is the better and more productive use of private Members' time. In saying that I am fully aware of the tremendous success of the hon. Member in this regard in recent years, but he will agree that a Bill that sought to do anything very much larger, coming at this time in the Session, would have little hope of being enacted.

I believe that a far wider review, and indeed amendment, is required of the marriage laws, having listened to the hon. Member for Birmingham, All Saints (Mr. Walden) read that wholly lucid and clear passage from the Marriage Act, 1949. Its complexity was such that I thought for a moment we were dealing with the Land Commission Act. I myself come from the North-West of England, my wife from Cornwall and we were married—lawfully married—in London. But I am not sure whether it did not amount to a subterfuge in our having a residential address here. These matters, of course, require to be looked at, but it cannot be expected of a private Member to take on the complicated task of attempting to redress the whole of our marriage laws. This must be a matter for the Government, in consultation with the Law Commission. Therefore, my hon. Friend is to be cangratulated for seeking to put right a small wrong in the clear determination that he has a good chance of correcting it by getting this Bill through the House.

Private Members should be concerned with minority issues and minority views. One knows the sorts of circumstances which from time to time arise about bedside marriages, involving people who may have been living together for many years and for some reason have not married, but who at the last moment become anxious to regularise—if that is the right word—their union by going through a form of marriage. The ability to be able to get married, even when one of the parties to the marriage is in danger of never recovering from illness, gives enormous comfort to that person who is dying and equal comfort to the other spouse. Since this opportunity has always been open to members of the Church of England, surely it is right that similar opportunities should be open to members of other faiths, or to those who hold no particular religious views. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Wimbledon (Sir C. Black) that the purpose of this Bill is to rectify injustice as it relates to those who are not members of the Church of England.

I will not seek to join issue with the hon. Member for Pontypool in defence of the Archbishop of Canterbury. Since the Archbishop has had the advantage of having been defended by such an eminent Roman Catholic as my hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford (Mr. St. JohnStevas), I do not think he needs the support of a mere lay member of the Church of England. I understand that the Archbishop of Canterbury in appropriate circumstances waives the £25 fee. Furthermore, I suggest that the £25 was instituted many years ago and has probably never been increased to take account of the drop in the value of money.

I turn to the point raised by the hon. Member for Norwood (Mr. John Fraser). I agreed very much with his comments about the standard of registry offices. It is a great pity that so many register offices in this country appear to be extremely dingy, dismal buildings and, although I do not want people to be able to engage in extremely eccentric forms of marriage, I think there is a strong argument that other buildings should be made available for register office mar-suitable than the present register offices.

I do not know whether the hon. Member for Norwood knows this, but in Manchester when the courts are full the register office also acts as the divorce court. As a barrister, one has the rather galling experience of having a conference with a client immediately prior to an undefended divorce case in a room in which there is a notice saying "Guests are requested not to throw confetti in this building".

A considerable amount could be done to improve our register offices and I see no reason why a licensed room should not be made available in the town hall. Indeed, I see no objection to the suggestion that a room should be set aside for this purpose in certain hotels.

Now that the hon. Member for Luton (Mr. Howie) has returned to the Chamber, I should like to say that I should not like the Bill to be so widened in scope that it would enable anyone to get married anywhere. There is much to be done in clearing up the marriage laws and in improving the standard of register offices, but it would not enhance the dignity of marriage if we got to the stage where people could get married in an extremely eccentric manner.

Why be a spoilsport? What I was reminding the House of was the fact that over a large part of the world people can get married in their own homes or in their parents' homes. There is nothing eccentric about that, neither do I think there is anything undignified about it. Indeed, there is a good deal that is sensible in it.

The problem arises when we try to draw a line between allowing marriages to take place in reasonable surroundings and allowing people to engage in eccentric fads such as getting married in balloons.

They do it all over the world.

Coming back to the Bill, there is an argument for considering some widening of the laws to allow the chronic sick, for example, to be married in their own homes.

There is nothing else that I wish to say other than to repeat that I believe the Bill has the support of all the Churches. The congratulations of this House are due to my hon. Friend the Member for St. Albans for his perseverance in this matter, because he raised it first in a Ten-Minute Bill in the previous Session of Parliament. I hope it will commend itself to the Minister and to the House in general, and that my hon. Friend will be able to get the Bill enacted during the current Session, by that means showing that he has righted an injustice to certain people in this country.

The Government welcome this Bill as providing a means of helping an admittedly small number of people, but people with a real need, which cannot be met within the existing law relating to the solemnisation of marriage.

The House will know that the Chairman of the Law Commission, Mr. Justice Scarman, and the Registrar-General have recently set up a working party to inquire into the formal requirements for the solemnisation and registration of marriages in England and Wales and to propose what changes are desirable.

No doubt, in due course we shall have other proposals for changes, but I am glad that the hon. Member for St. Albans (Mr. Goodhew) has taken the opportunity to deal with one of the special difficulties which beset people who find themselves in circumstances where they cannot meet the normal requirements of our Marriage Laws.

A number of hon. Members raised various points. My hon. Friend the Member for Pontypool (Mr. Abse) raised the question of the Law Commission's role in this field and asked me if I could give an idea about the time scale of the Commission's present investigations. I understand that the Law Commission hopes to produce a preliminary paper for comment by interested parties within about six months. As soon as the reactions to this paper are received and considered, the Law Commission will produce a report. It is not possible to be dogmatic about how long that will take, but one hopes it will be possible by the end of this year. I agree with one or two hon. Members who have said that even though the report may be readily available in the not too distant future, it is not necessarily a good reason for us not to support legislation of this kind at this moment.

My hon. Friend the Member for Norwood (Mr. John Fraser) referred to register offices, particularly in his own constituency, and by implication all over the country, and to what he felt to be their unsatisfactory state. This point was endorsed by a number of other hon. Members, including the hon. Members for Chelmsford (Mr. St. John-Stevas) and for Runcorn (Mr. Carlisle). There has been criticism of register offices in general and in particular of one in Lambeth.

Under the present law the register office is provided by and at the expense of the local authority. The Registrar-General and the local authority associations have for some time been trying to raise standards, and I think we all agree that it is right that this should be done because it is appropriate that a register office, where such an important ceremony as marriage takes place, should be of an adequate standard. Some of the criticisms are, no doubt, justified. Efforts are being made to raise standards, for it is appreciated that they are not as high as they might be in all the circumstances.

My hon. Friend the Member for Bradford, East (Mr. Edward Lyons) asked a number of questions about widows' benefits. He asked in particular how long a woman need be married before she would be entitled to claim widows' benefit. I understand that she must be married for a period of three years before being entitled to benefit. Therefore, perhaps some of my hon. Friends' fears were misplaced.

The hon. Member for Wimbledon (Sir C. Black) implied that the Home Office had a responsibility for this piece of legislation. I can assure him that that is not so. The reason for my static posture on this bench is that nearly everything that we are discussing has to do with the Department of Health and Social Security. The Registrar-General and his Department are the responsibility of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State.

Coming back to the Bill, it is designed to help couples who wish to be married urgently because one of them is suffering from some illness or other serious condition which is likely to result in death, and who find that the person who is ill is not fit to be moved to a church or register office for the marriage ceremony. At present the only way of dealing with this situation is for the parties to ask the Archbishop of Canterbury to issue his special licence which allows the marriage to be solemnised in any convenient place. This would include a hospital ward or the bedroom of the dying man or woman. The Archbishop's special licence is, however, available only as an authority for a marriage which is to be solemnised according to the rites and ceremonies of the Church of England. There is at present no similar provision for people who, for one reason or another, do not wish to marry according to the Anglican provision.

The absence of any provision similar to the Archbishop's special licence for persons wishing to marry in some other way seems to arise from the social circumstances at the time of the 19th Century Marriage Acts, which are still the basis of our marriage law now consolidated in the Marriage Act of 1949. In 1844, there were 132,249 marriages recorded in England and Wales. Of these, 120,009 were solemnised in the Church of England. There were only 3,446 marriages in the Register Office, 2,280 marriages in Roman Catholic churches and 6,339 among the other Christian denominations. Thus the vast majority of marriages at that time took place in the Church of England. On the other hand, in 1967 there were 386,052 marriages in England and Wales and, although there were 173,278 marriages according to the rites and ceremonies of the Church of England and the Church in Wales, there were no less than 131,576 marriages in register offices, 4,305 in Roman Catholic churches and 36,191 in the buildings of other Christian denominations.

These figures confirm what we all know from our own experience that today a majority of people, about 53 per cent., getting married have the marriage ceremony in some other way than in the Established Church or the Church in Wales. It is clearly desirable that the provision which the marriage law makes for those anxious, or at least willing, to be married according to the rites and ceremonies of the Church of England should be matched by a provision for those who are prevented by reason of religious beliefs or conscience from accepting the service of the Church.

I am sure that my hon. Friend is doing it unwittingly, but he seems to be creating the impression that the Archbishop's special licence is one which comes into effect only in circumstances similar to these covered by the Bill. It must be appreciated that it is a general licence which can be obtained for other reasons and this Bill is certainly not extending anything of that character to non-Anglicans.

I do not in any way suggest what my hon. Friend was implying. Of course the Archbishop's licence is available in a much wider range of circumstances, but it does apply to those who wish to use the Church of England ceremony and enables people to be married when one of them is on his death-bed at that moment, whereas those who for one reason or another do not wish or are prevented through no fault of their own from using the Church of England ceremony are debarred from that facility. The numbers are small but there is a genuine need and a genuine problem here.

Another circumstance, again touching the Archbishop's licence, which is, unfortunately, likely to complicate the circumstances of the kind of marriage that we have in mind is the possibility that one of the couple has been divorced and has a former spouse still living. Even if the couple wanted an Anglican marriage ceremony the Archbishop in those circumstances would not be able to issue his special licence. In 1837 the possibility that an urgent marriage involved a person who had been divorced was almost non-existent. There are now nearly 50,000 marriages a year where one or both of the parties has been divorced. Again we have a quite dramatic change in the situation.

There may well be cases where the divorce has been delayed until one of the couple has been struck down by illness or accident. The proposed licence of the Registrar-General will deal with such cases although the parties, even if members of the Church of England, will have to accept either a civil marriage or the ceremonies of some other denomination.

No hon. Member is likely to ask why it matters whether a dying person is able to get married before he or she dies. I do not propose to speak of the emotional satisfaction or comfort which the marriage might bring to the couple themselves. There are also circumstances when the marriage is important to others. If a couple have been living together for years in a faithful but unlawful association, there may be children who may be legitimated by the marriage. In other cases, the marriage may assist in seeing that the dying person's wishes as to the disposal of his estate are not affected by legal disputes which may even cause the estate to be dissipated in the costs of legal action.

The Bill does not provide, as does the Archbishop's licence, relief for people who are fit to travel to the appropriate register office or other building but wish for reasons of sentiment or convenience to marry elsewhere. This raises much wider and more controversial issues and will no doubt be considered by the Working Party to which I have referred. Nor does the Bill provide for such cases where the parties are prepared to go to the appropriate building but want to be married more urgently than the law permits. Those who wish to be married according to the rites and ceremonies of the Church of England have the power to be married urgently by seeking either the Archbishop's special licence or even by a common licence. Although a common licence issued by the diocesan registrar or surrogate does not permit marriage in a building where the marriage could not otherwise take place or outside the normal hours for the solemnisation of marriages which are now from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., it may be issued on the day of application if the ecclesiastical authorities are satisfied on the necessary question of capacity to marry and consents.

People wishing to marry in these ways are obliged to give notice to the superintendent registrar and one clear week day must elapse between the day on which notice is given and that on which the superintendent registrar's certificate and licence may be issued and the marriage solemnised. While there seems to he a variety of circumstances in which a reasonable case for urgency could be made out the present Bill will create no further difficulties in the way of later changes should further consideration indicate the need for a Registrar-General's licence to meet other needs.

I would emphasise—and this was a point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Pontypool—that I do not visualise that the passage of this Bill will in any way obstruct or cause difficulties in any subsequent legislation that the House may feel is right.

This Bill applies only to England and Wales.

I rather think or suspect that the hon. Gentleman is going to overlook my point, and as the hon. Gentleman is a doctor perhaps he could consider it. I am concerned about the effect on the seriously ill or dying patient of being a party to the knowledge of his fatal illness as he has to be if his application is to be submitted to the superintendent registrar.

There is a possible difficulty here. It need not necessarily be that the person who was mortally ill would realise that, because a marriage ceremony was taking place, he was mortally ill. It is not necessary for the party who is seriously ill to be told and it is possible for the other party to deal with all the official side of things. There is a problem here. On the other hand, it is rightly this particular group of people whom the Bill is intended to help. Because we are identifying the group whom we want to help, this difficulty arises. My personal experience is that people in these circumstances might well already know or wish to know that their lives are in danger and at risk and this would perhaps be the reason why they were particularly eager to be married.

Would not the hon. Gentleman agree that it is usually people who are aware that they are likely to die who are anxious to make use of the possibility of going through the marriage service before they do die?

This would be commonly so although not perhaps universally so.

As I said, this Bill applies to England and Wales only. This is not the only reason but it is one which prevents me from following up some of the remarks made by my hon. Friend the Member for Luton (Mr. Howie). I do not think that I should like to get embroiled in some of the Scottish procedures. In Scotland there is already provision for the issue of a sheriff's licence in cases of urgency and marriages are not legally restricted to churches or register offices although they are the usual places.

This Bill does not affect the powers of the Archbishop of Canterbury under the Ecclesiastical Licences Act of 1533 to issue his special licence, which will remain the only authority for a marriage according to the rites and ceremonies of the Church of England to be solemnised anywhere other than a church or chapel where it might have been solemnised following banns or the issue of a common licence.

The Bill imposes on the Registrar-General the duty of considering applications for licences under the terms of the Bill and issuing such licences where he is satisfied with the facts. Although the number of these applications is likely to be small, the service must always be available. The Registrar-General has assured me that he will readily under- take the task of ensuring that he, or one of his senior officers, is always available to deal with any urgent application.

The Registrar-General is given power to deal with objections to the issue of his licence and to dispense with the need for obtaining consent of the parents of a minor where the parents are absent or inaccessible or where the person whose consent is required is under some disability which prevents his dealing with the matter. This applies to these cases powers which the Registrar-General or the superintendent registrar has in normal cases.

The degree of urgency may not always permit the transmission of a document from the Registrar-General to the person who is to solemnise the marriage. In such cases, the Registrar-General will advise the local superintendent registrar by telephone to issue a suitable document of authority.

Superintendent registrars, who will be asked to make local inquiries on behalf of the Registrar-General and assist persons wishing to obtain this new licence, and registrars who will have to attend to see that the marriages are promptly and correctly placed on record, have a long tradition of service to the public. I am sure that, on those very rare occasions when any one of them will be called upon to help in these sad circumstances, they will perform the task with their customary efficiency and their customary courtesy and sympathy.

The hon. Gentleman is to be congratulated on tackling a subject which involves more than the normal difficulties of drafting. The Marriage Acts are detailed and, because they deal with a very important aspect of personal status, are full of safeguards designed to ensure that, after a marriage is solemnised, there is at least no doubt as to its formal validity. For that reason, the Bill may appear somewhat long and complicated to give effect to what is essentially a simple proposition. I am sure that the hon. Member will not take it as unfair criticism that, while he has carried out his task excellently, the drafting is not all that might have appeared in other circumstances. But this is something that can be resolved in Committee. I am, however, assured by the Registrar-General that he does not at present see that there is likely to be any difficulty in working the Bill. If the House gives it a Second Reading, we shall be able to consider the drafting in more detail in Committee.

If it becomes law, the Bill will operate from 1st January 1971. No time will be lost in making the necessary regulations. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Services will be required to fix fees for the licences granted. These fees will be fixed having regard to the fees charged for other marriage licences.

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

This is the second occasion on which I have had the privilege of finding my name included in the list of successful candidates in the Ballot for Private Members' Bills. As I have had the experience once before, it may be thought that I should be prepared for what will happen today. On the last occasion, shortly after my Bill had been published, I was sent for by the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department. My Bill related to firearms in the countryside, and I was told that it was quite unacceptable to the Government. Another ten days went by and I was sent for by the Minister of State, who told me in no uncertain terms that the first opinion which I had had from the Government had been reinforced by subsequent thought.

I went away at the Christmas Recess in a state of despondency. Before I came back, there was a little difficulty regarding some policemen who had been shot in London. The Government had had a quick change of mind. I was told that, if I were minded to withdraw my Bill, it would be incorporated in a Government Measure which would be larger and better than mine. That is what, in fact, happened.

On this occasion, when I selected the present Bill as the one which I wished to introduce, I heard nothing from the Government. I hope that that means that there is as favourable a brief as may be in the hands of the hon. Gentleman the Joint Under-Secretary of State for the Department of Health and Social Security, whose versatility in the subjects with which he has to deal we all admire, and that we shall be able to proceed with the matter in that way.

When I found my name in the successful list, I was subjected to the usual bombardment by people who had Bills which they thought would be suitable for me to introduce. The reason why I selected this one was that it had the backing of the two responsible professional organisations. I thought that, if they wanted the Bill, it was something to which I should lend my support. The Bill is simple. It has a second Clause, but the material part is in Clause 1.

Just to have it on the record, perhaps I should say that the Abortion Act, 1967, Section 1(1), provides that

"…a person shall not be guilty of an offence under the law relating to abortion when a pregnancy is terminated by a registered medical practitioner if two registered medical practitioners are of the opinion, formed in good faith "—

and then the qualifications are set out.

My Bill would substitute for the words, "by a registered medical practitioner if two registered medical practitioners", the following:

"by or under the supervision of a consultant gynaecologist in the National Health Service or a medical practitioner of equivalent status approved by the Secretary of State for Social Services for the purpose of this Act, if the medical practitioner carrying out or supervising the operation and another medical practitioner"—

and then the words following as before—

"are of the opinion, formed in good faith…".

That is a short, easily understood and simple amendment of the Act, and, as I have said, it is sought by the two responsible professional organisations. I have no doubt that hon. Members will have seen the letter in The Times yesterday signed by the chairman of the council of the British Medical Association and the president of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, in which the purpose of the Bill was concisely set out. I shall adopt the explanation which they gave in commending the Bill to the House. At the end of their letter they said:

"A number of motives have been ascribed to the Bill, but we would like to make it absolutely clear that in giving effect to our views it seeks only to safeguard the interests of the health of the women concerned …"

That is the point to which I shall direct my observations today.

There have been suggestions that the medical profession is not behind the Bill. In two large organisations it is impossible to achieve 100 per cent. unanimity. But the principles of the Bill were set out in the annual report of the council in the British Medical Journal of 6th May, 1967. They were considered and approved by the annual representative meeting of the Association in July, 1967. They have been approved in each subsequent year, and only this week the two responsible officers of the two organisations concerned reinforced the view that that is what the profession wants.

I find it somewhat difficult, therefore, to understand why there are people who suggest that this would not be a desirable course to take. One of my hon. Friends—fortunately, I do not see him present at the moment—came to me and said that he was in favour of abortion on demand. That is an understandable view, and, if that be the view which should be taken, I can fully understand why he would not wish the amendment to be accepted. But for those who accept the more responsible approach to the matter, I commend the remarks of the hon. Gentleman the Member for Roxburgh, Selkirk and Peebles (Mr. David Steel) on 21st July 1966—reported in col. 1075 of the OFFICIAL REPORT that it was not the intention of the promoters of what became the Abortion Bill to leave a wide open door for abortion on demand. I hope, therefore, that he will take the view that this is a helpful and desirable amendment and that I shall have his support. I am not entirely convinced that I shall, but I can at least express the hope.

I have noticed that the hon. Gentleman has from time to time claimed that certain things had flowed from the passage of his Bill. I shall say a word about one of them in a moment, but I wish to tell the House at this point that when I was in Hong Kong two or three months ago I picked up the newspaper which was delivered to my bedroom in the morning, the South China Morning Post, and saw the headline there,

"Sydney rivalling London as Abortion Capital".

Is that something for which the hon. Gentleman wishes to take credit? I have no doubt that it has been a direct result of the Act he introduced.

Shortly after that I was in Denmark—

Is that really all the hon. Gentleman intends to say about Hong Kong? Does he consider it enough to read out the headline from a Chinese newspaper, respectable as that may be? Should not he go on to give some arguments which the newspaper in Hong Kong adduced to justify that headline, if indeed it could?

On a subsequent occasion, I would be happy to discuss Hong Kong or any other matter with the hon. Gentleman, but as we have a very brief period left for the debate I hope to make my remarks as concise as possible.

Turning briefly to Denmark—

Another headline?

I talked there to one of the senior members of the Danish Government. Denmark has very liberal laws on abortion. This very senior Minister said that there were only two countries in Europe to which Danish girls could go when they could not get an abortion in Denmark. One was Poland and the other was this country.

I want to deal with three criticisms that have been put to me as a result of my introducing the Bill. The first was made by my own general practitioner, who works under the National Health Service. I asked him for his views about the Bill, and he expressed some anxiety that it would mean that there would be less responsibility for the general practitioner and less possibility for him to arrange for an abortion in the future.

A little document has been signed by some general practitioners and sent to some hon. Members. I have received two copies. One came from three doctors in a partnership in my constituency, and one was sent by a general practitioner. But the one to which I particularly want to refer was sent to one of my hon. Friends and signed by one of his general practitioners. The original draft reads as follows:

"The Abortion Act, as it stands at present, is a good law and generally works effectively for my patients' welfare. I strongly oppose any amendment to the Act which would limit my choice of surgeon and the patient's chance of obtaining a legal abortion with the minimum of delay. I therefore urge you to oppose any such restrictive measure."

This document was signed by a general practitioner in my hon. Friend's constituency.

Which of our hon. Friends is this? I have lost track.

It is my hon. Friend the Member for Woking (Mr. Onslow), if that is any help. The general practitioner who sent it added one or two words. After the first sentence

"The Abortion Act…works effectively…"

he added:

"but more particularly for the welfare of professional abortionists."

At the bottom of the document he says, having scratched out the second sentence:

"This is a fairly guileless bit of special pleading. The Irvine Bill is intended to limit the more blatantly commercial exploitation of the new law which is largely carried out in London."

That is the view which I hope will commend itself to the House. I am sure that it is accepted by the vast majority of the medical profession.

For the benefit of the general practioner who is anxious about the position, may I refer again to the wording of the Bill, which makes it clear that the general practitioner is the person to whom a girl will originally go, and it will be he who passes her on to a consultant gynaecologist.

As regards consultants, I am advised that this is a designation which technically arises only under the National Health Service, but that in fact many National Health Service consultants hold part-time appointments, so that it is quite possible to consult them outside the Service.

The hon. Member for Roxburgh, Selkirk and Peebles (Mr. David Steel) claimed outside the House last night, I think, and did so in the House as recently as last 15th July, that:

"The limited evidence we are able to gather —for example, from the London Emergency Bed Centre figures—shows that we are achieving the objective of reducing criminal abortions. The figures given by that centre show that in the first quarter of 1966 there were 1,363 emergency admissions for spontaneous or incomplete abortions, whereas during the first quarter of this year the figure was down to 870. This is a very satisfactory development."—[OFFICIAL REPORT. 15th July, 1969; Vol. 787, c. 414–15]

There was a letter in the New, Statesman on 6th February on behalf of the Abortion Law Reform Association, answering a letter which had asked whether there was any good reason for support for the Abortion Act. The letter said:

"Here is one…In 1966, the Emergency Bed Service, London, handled more than 5,000 abortions, which formed more than 11 per cent. of its total cases. In 1967 the Abortion Act was passed. By 1969 the total of abortions had fallen to some 3,300 and now form only 6·7 per cent. of all emergencies. This striking result probably explains why some of the more extremist opponents of reform are so anxious to wreck the Abortion Act without giving it a fair chance."

The hon. Member for Roxburgh, Sal-kirk and Peebles and the Abortion Law Reform Association have conveniently omitted figures, giving only those for the past year or two. The facts are that from April, 1964 to April, 1965 there were 5,816 admissions. The figures for the following years were as follows: 1965–66, 5,670; 1966–67, 4,932; 1967–68, 4,619; and 1968–69, 3,631. The hon. Gentleman claims for the Act the whole credit for the reduction in the years after its introduction. He omits to say that, for reasons I cannot explain, the figures have been declining rapidly over a period of five years. I quote those five years only because they happen to be the years quoted in the report to which my attention was directed.

The hon. Gentleman used the phrase "declining rapidly". What is significant about the figures he read out to us is their extraordinary acceleration since the Abortion Act was passed. It is not a continuously falling graph but one which goes over the edge of a precipice.

If the hon. Gentleman will contain himself for a moment, I was going to deal with that point. If he does a little arithmetic he will find that just the opposite has happened. The Act came into operation on a date which left only eight months in that calendar year, so I shall take the same eight months for the various years to match them up. In that period in 1966, there were 3,357 admissions. The figures for the following years were: 1967, 2,888; 1968, 2,482; and 1969, 2,215.

For the help of the hon. Gentleman, whose mathematics appear slower than he thinks, I will give what I take to be the result of those figures, which is that in 1967 the fall was 469; that in 1968 the fall was 406; and that in 1969 the fall was only 267. If there is any message to be derived from the figures of the emergency bed service from the abortion point of view, it is that the fall which had been going on over those years had flattened out after the Abortion Act was introduced.

Has the hon. Gentleman's attention been drawn to the fact that in the period to which he referred, in 1966 and again in 1967, there was a rapid and quite dramatic increase in the number of therapeutic abortions, that this was apparently a prelude to the full implementation of the Abortion Act and that there has been no dramatic increase since the introduction of that Act, certainly not an increase of the fashion he has described?

Even if one accepted all of that, one would still have to explain why this decline occurred prior to the Abortion Act coming into operation.

It is wrong for the hon. Member for Roxburgh, Selkirk and Peebles to say that the decline has been entirely due to his Act because the decline was going on before his Measure had even been thought of, though the decline is not as rapid now as it was then. I hope, therefore, that both he and his society will not continue with that line of argument.

I have no wish to turn this into a mathematical seminar, but as the hon. Gentleman challenged me on the question of the fall, I must ask him if he is aware that on the figures he has given—I confess that I have had difficulty in noting them all—the fall shows an acceleration? The hon. Gentleman omitted to point out that the numbers must be regarded as a percentage of the number of cases. Because the number of cases has been falling, the same number represents a higher percentage of that number of cases. Thus, the figures which he gave and which range about the 400 mark arise because the number of cases has been falling, and 400 represents a constantly larger percentage each year.

Perhaps some conclusion can be drawn from all these figures. Nevertheless, the hon. Member for Roxburgh, Selkirk and Peebles was using figures not for the eight months to which I referred but for whole years. My argument in this context is that it would be wrong to try to draw the sort of conclusions which the hon. Member for Roxburgh, Selkirk and Peebles sought to draw from the figures that are available.

It should not be forgotten that from 1961 to 1969 there was no decline in the number of septic abortions. If the claim of the hon. Member for Wandsworth, Central (Dr. David Kerr) were correct, would not one expect to find some indication of it in the number of septic abortions?

It has been suggested by some who do not like my Bill that it would be restrictive. Here again one must look at the figures. We are told that there are 555 consultant gynaecologists. If one divides 54,000 by that number—54,000 is the latest figure I have available for the number of abortions carried out in a year —one does not need great mathematical ability to see that there must have been two abortions per week per consultant. With his knowledge of the profession, the hon. Member for Wandsworth, Central will agree that that cannot be regarded as overworking consultants.

Can my hon. Friend say how many of the total number of consultant gynaecologists are not prepared, on conscientious grounds, to carry out abortions? Is he aware that that number should be excluded from this arithmetical calculation—

Would my hon. Friend—

One at a time, please.

Would my hon. Friend say where these gynaecologists are in practice? Is he aware that they are not scattered neatly over the country?

My hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton (Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop) wants to know if there are any consultant gynaecologists who, on conscientious grounds, are not prepared to carry out abortions.

Not whether there are any, but how many there are.

I do not know. [Interruption.] I hope that hon. Members will allow me to proceed.

Let us assume that one-half of the 555 consultant gynaecologists are not prepared to do abortions on conscientious grounds. That would mean that the available consultants would have to do four abortions per week, and the hon. Member for Wandsworth Central will still, I am sure, agree that that is well within their competence.

My hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Devonport (Dame Joan Vickers) wants to know where these gynaecologists are. I am afraid that I cannot tell her, though I can tell her that if my Bill is accepted there will be an arrangement to enable any deserts of consultants to be dealt with. [HON. MEMBERS: "How?"] The facts are set out in the Bill and if hon. Members will allow me to proceed I will explain everything to them.

Would the hon. Gentleman not esteem the fact that these consultants are congregating as this is turning out to be a lucrative business?

I entirely agree.

On the question of consultants having conscientious objections to performing abortions, the information I have—I have gone to some trouble to find out the facts—is that in cases where consultants have objections, they are most meticulous in seeing that those cases are handed over to people who hold a different view. I am told, in particular—I am not a member of the Roman Catholic Church —that consultants who are Roman Catholics are meticulous in the way they do this.

Would the hon. Gentleman give the evidence on which he bases that assertion? I, too, have talked to consultants about this matter. My impres- sion—I agree that it is a personal one—is that what the hon. Gentleman has described is not the case. I believe that those with a conscientious opposition put considerable resistance and blockage in the way of general practitioners and others who take a more liberal view than themselves. I gather that they do not assist in the way the hon. Gentleman has described.

If the hon. Gentleman will read the letter which I quoted and which appeared in The Times yesterday, he will see that consultants and doctors in this country subscribe to the international principle that religion must not come between them and the welfare of their patients.

I have no wish to disrupt the hon. Gentleman's speech—

That is what my hon. Friend is doing.

Does the hon. Gentleman recall that, when we were debating the original Measure, consultants in the Luton and Dunstable area announced that they had conscientious objections and that, as a result, there was nobody to whom they could refer cases?

I regret that I do not keep my eye on the Luton and Dunstable area as closely as the hon. Gentleman obviously does. If he will bear with me I will come to the fact that there may be places where there are either no consultants or some who take the view to which he referred.

Would the hon. Gentleman bear in mind that these conscientious objectors realise that their views are respected and that they, in turn, respect the consciences of their colleagues? This was made plain to me two weeks ago at a large conference in Scotland.

I am obliged to the hon. Gentleman. That was the point that I tried to make as best I could.

I have so far been working on the basis of 555 consultants and 54,000 abortions. If one takes the figures of those who have completed specialised training in this country, the picture is different. The latest figures, for September, 1968, show that in England and Wales 1,618 people had completed specialised gynaecological training in this country and were practising in a specialised way. In Scotland the figure was 269. I think that with very little difficulty the Minister would be able to select some or all of those people who would be in a position to give specialised attention to girls who required it. The fact is that 1,877 people with specialised training are available, which means a total of four operations a week. Even allowing for conscientious objections, if one divides the number of operations by the number of people available to do them, I think that one comes to a very satisfactory figure.

There are, however, other people whom I suggest the Secretary of State should consider. There are professors and their deputies at various universities who are specialising in gynaecology. I am told that there are 50 or more such people. In addition there are people who have retired from service overseas, people who, at 65, after a lifetime of service as gynaecologists, would be capable of going on sessional fees to look at some of the cases. If the Minister has a brief which says that this is something which the Ministry would not wish to undertake, I ask him to look at the Mental Health Act, 1959, where a similar arrangement was made, and at the cremation Acts, where the same thing happens.

There is a suggestion that because of the shortage of consultants there is a long waiting list, My inquiries show that there is no evidence whatever of a waiting list for women requiring abortions. I suggest to the Minister that he should have no difficulty in getting over the problem of finding an adequate number of people to deal with this problem.

I commend to the Minister the remarks of the hon. Member for Lichfield and Tamworth (Mr. Snow) who then occupied the exalted position now occupied by the Minister. When discussing an Amendment, not precisely in the terms of the amendment to the law which I am suggesting, but the same sort of arguments were being used, the hon. Gentleman said:

"But I am advised that the procedure is not without risk, and that the requirements of this Amendment would reduce the risk to the lowest possible level. I am sure that this is something we would all wish. The safest circumstances for the termination of a pregnancy are those in which the staff are experienced in operative gynaecological procedures and the facilities are suitable for carrying out those procedures. I believe that responsible medical opinion would expect such precautions to be taken."

That is what I am asking the Minister to say. That is what the amendment asks him to say, and that is what I hope he will say.

The hon. Member for Lichfield and Tamworth went on to say:

"Equally, it would not be possible under these particular powers regarding approved places for the Minister to stop racketeering. It would not be proper for him to seek to control the fees charged by the nursing home itself, nor could he in any way control the fees charged by doctors coming in to conduct operations. The hon. Member the sponsor of the Bill said that he believed that the twin provisions of control over the place and notification give precisely the kind of control which we require…" —[OFFICIAL REPORT. Standing Committee F, 8th March, 1967; c. 398–9.]

That was rejected by the then Parliamentary Secretary, and I hope that the Minister will today feel that my Bill will enable him to exercise the control which he otherwise might find it difficult to do.

A little later in the Committee proceedings the then Minister said:

"It seems to me that it is for the Committee to decide whether or not the average patient would prefer to put up with some inconvenience in return for the knowledge that the operation would be in the hands of someone about whose competence there could be no doubt."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Standing Committee F, 8th March. 1967; c. 403.]

That is what I am asking the Minister to do.

Since I announced that I was going to adopt this Bill as my own, I have had a number of cases reported to me. Some of them have been reported in the Press and some have not. One girl came to see me last week. After three hours in a clinic she was sent home, and two days later she had to go into a National Health Service hospital, where she was desperately ill for six weeks. Another girl, about whom I heard yesterday, was in a clinic for one hour, and subsequently had to spend 13 days in a National Health Service hospital because of the problems which had arisen. Another girl said that the conditions in the place to which she went were rather like Piccadilly Circus. Only this morning a consultant telephoned me to say that during the last six weeks three cases of severe septicaemia had come to him for care after visiting one of these clinics.

Those are conditions which we do not want to perpetuate. I think that the whole House should do something to deal with them. A girl who goes into a clinic of that sort needs to be cared for after she has left. She requires something more than one hour there, and then to be sent out and left to her own devices. She needs to be under observation for three days. She needs to be in a place where proper antiseptic precautions are taken, and not in a Piccadilly Circus type of organisation. I want to see that humanity is offered to girls in this condition, and that they get proper medical care, and I therefore commend the Bill to the House.

The hon. Member for Rye (Mr. Bryant Godman Irvine) has quoted various opinion polls, and various headlines from the Press. I think that perhaps I might get my headlines out of the way as well. Did the hon. Gentleman see the very good leader in last night's Evening Standard under the headline, "Abortion Reform?"? I think that that is really the crux of the whole thing.

The hon. Member is not seeking to reform the Abortion Act, which was put on the Statute Book after a great deal of discussion inside this House and outside —reform meaning, presumably, to improve, or to make progress. What he really wants to do is to repeal the Act, to make it ineffective, but he does not have the courage to come out and do that.

Would the hon. Lady give way?

No. I have not even started yet.

rose—

I give way to the hon. Member.

Responsible gentlemen who hold high office in the two professional bodies concerned take the same view as I do, and they do not want to destroy the Act.

If we look at public opinion polls, that is the second thing on which I was going to give the hon. Gentleman an analysis.

The hon. Lady's analysis is as bad as her argument.

On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Is it in order for an hon. Member to question the courage of another hon. Member because he feels that he holds a valid opinion?

That is not a point of order.

Recent public opinion polls show that the majority of the general public are either satisfied with the Act or want to see it improved so that it is easier for women to get terminations. A similar public opinion poll carried out among doctors showed that 66 per cent. of general practitioners in the United Kingdom thought that the Act should be left as it is or should be changed to make it easier to obtain legal abortions, and only 28 per cent. thought that it should be changed to make it more difficult. It therefore appears that the majority of doctors who are in the closest contact with their patients, namely, the general practitioners, are satisfied with the Bill or want to see it improved, to the extent that women can obtain legal abortions more easily. That is an effective counter to the letter printed in The Tunes which the hon. Member quoted.

In my view it is rather early to make any sort of definitive proposal to change the Act. It has been in operation for only 18 months. I agree with what Sir George Godber said at a lecture in London last June, namely—I hope that the hon. Member for Rye is listening; I can waste the time of the House if he wants me to. I am going to quote what Sir George Godber said. I take it that the hon. Member knows who he is. At a public lecture in London last June—when the Act had been in operation for about 15 months—he said:

"The most important effect of the Act—the saving in human misery—cannot be expressed in statistical terms."

That is a very important comment on the Act, coming from that quarter.

The hon. Member told us the number of legal terminations which are now being carried out, but I do not think that he distinguished between the number of terminations being carried out in National Health Service hospitals and in the private sector, respectively. What has been most encouraging since the Act was passed is the fact that the percentage of terminations carried out under excellent conditions in National Health Service hospitals is steadily increasing. Over 65 per cent. are now carried out in National Health Service hospitals under the supervision of gynaecologists and senior people with constant practice in this kind of work.

The number of patients being treated by private clinics, which now have to be licensed by my right hon. Friend before they can obtain permission to carry out terminations, is increasing at a much slower rate. We have no reason to believe that as gynaecological opinion becomes more educated and progressive the proportion of patients treated in National Health Service hospitals will not continue to increase, possibly at an even more rapid rate. There will probably be a decline in the number of patients ultimately going to private clinics.

The hon. Member for Rye quoted some hair-raising and terrible case histories, but he did not give the names of the clinics responsible. He could have done this, protected by the privilege of the House, so that all of us would have known where those clinics were. He must know that my right hon. Friend has recently inspected again all the clinics licensed when the Act was introduced, and has introduced rather more stringent regulations and is now insisting that patients should stay in at least one night after the operation has been performed. I suggest that in the interests of women who are concerned about the operation of the Abortion Act he should give this information to my right hon. Friend so that he can investigate the clinics concerned and see whether their licences should be revoked. No one wants to see women treated in this way.

What is the equivalent time in National Health Service hospitals? Patients stay for one night in private clinics; how long do they stay in National Health Service hospitals?

Some private hospitals keep their patients in for two nights and some for one night. In National Health Service hospitals the average is roughly three days. Patients do not have to pay in National Health Service hospitals, but in private clinics they do.

I regret that my hon. Friend is misinformed. It is not uncommon for patients in National Health Service hospitals, after having had the necessary operation for a termination, to be discharged in 24 hours if everything is all right. There is nothing wrong about that, just as there is nothing wrong about discharging patients who have had appendectomies if their condition is all right.

I am obliged to my hon. Friend. It therefore appears that there is no difference between the best practice in a National Health Service hospital and the best practice in a licensed nursing home or clinic.

The hon. Member for Rye tried to confuse us with his figures concerning the numbers of terminations carried out before the Act, the number of criminal abortions, and the number of admittances to hospital. It is important to realise, now that the Act has been passed and we can see how it is operating in different parts of the country, that fewer terminations are being carried out than there were before the Act was introduced. In 1967 the total number of admissions for abortions of any kind, including therapeutic abortions, criminal cases and spontaneous abortions, was 79,600—nearly 80,000. This year the figure is running at about 54,000 altogether. We know that this figure is accurate because the abortions are all registered with my right hon. Friend. The number includes private clinics and National Health Services cases.

In 1967 in National Health Service hospitals only 9,700 therapeutic abortions were carried out. This shows the change in the climate of opinion, and the effect that this has had since the Act was introduced. It was estimated that in 1967 about 17,000 therapeutic abortions were carried out by private doctors. I would also remind the House of a change in practice that has occurred since the Act was introduced. Before the Act it was common practice for general practitioners to carry out abortions in their private surgeries and to send the patient home immediately afterwards. Nothing was said about keeping them in bed overnight. That is now illegal. Terminations can be carried out now only in licensed premises which have been inspected by my right hon. Friend's Department. That risk, in the private sector, has been removed as a result of the passing of the Act. All hon. Members—certainly women hon. Members—should be grateful for that.

The hon. Member for Rye also told us the number of gynaecologists and other doctors who had had training in gynaecology—which is a different thing. Many people have training in different specialities, but abortion is not a matter where the bungler and the fumbler can work successfully.

It is obvious that I did not make myself clear. My figures were for those actively in practice in this speciality.

The figure given by the hon. Member in respect of the number of consultant gynaecologists was over 500, and that would include part-time as well as full-time consultants. If we reduce all those to full-time equivalents we find that there were 436 full-time gynaecologists in the National Health Service. Even if we were to say that all gynaecologists were carrying out their job conscientiously, and carrying out the wishes of the doctors who referred patients to them, this would work out at about three terminations per fortnight per gynaecologist—not a difficult burden. But the difficulty is that, in certain parts of the country, the gynaecologists employed in National Health Service hospitals are not willing, for various reasons, to carry out terminations. This therefore reduces the effective number of consultants who are able and available to carry out these operations. I therefore ask the hon. Gentleman—what happens in those areas where the consultants are unwilling, for whatever reason, religious or otherwise, to carry out terminations referred to them by two doctors?

If the present Act continues as it is, nothing happens, but, if my Bill is accepted, the Minister will be able to appoint a list out of the 2,000 who might be able to deal with the problems in places such as Devonport and wherever else the hon. Lady has in mind.

But in those figures which the hon. Gentleman gave, he included doctors who have retired and those who have come back from overseas. This is the Indian Army doctor syndrome—

If the hon. Lady will look—

I have not given way to the hon. Gentleman.

That is the Indian Army doctor syndrome which we debated thoroughly in Committee on the original Bill. I repeat what I said then, that this is not an operation which one would give to someone who had not had recent experience in the field. I am sure that my hon. Friend will be able to give us accurate figures of how many doctors suitably qualified, and with suitable experience, which is the important thing, are available to do these operations. My case is that, at the moment, there are 436 equivalent full-time consultant gynaecologists—

Would my hon. Friend not agree that what makes this more serious is that in those areas where the consultants are unwilling to carry out terminations, they have a natural tendency to appoint juniors of a like mind, and that that is very much the situation in Birmingham?

That is absolutely right, and I am grateful to my hon. Friend for helping with my next point.

I do not know whether the general public or even the House appreciate the power of a consultant gynaecologist, particularly in a teaching hospital. He has great powers of patronage, of appointing doctors who are working with him in his Department. He is called in to help in appointing doctors by the regional hospital board and in appointing consultants and senior men in other hospitals, and of course his influence can spread not only in his own Department in his own hospital but throughout his hospital region. He could have considerable influence, as my hon. Friend said, in the appointment of doctors with a similar point of view to his own.

This will be denied, but we have seen this in several areas. The worst regions for percentage of abortions since the Act came in are Sheffield, Liverpool and Birmingham. That is in the first year. In these areas, it was known that the consultant gynaecologists in the teaching hospitals had campaigned actively against the passage of the Act. What is even more interesting—we can gain encouragement from this—is that, in the first half of the second year, which is as far as we can go, the percentage has almost doubled in all those areas. In Sheffield, Liverpool and Birmingham there are now almost twice as many legal terminations in National Health Service hospitals. This seems to prove what I said earlier about the education and the evolvement of a more progressive attitude among gynaecologists.

The areas in which the consultants are unwilling or unable to carry out abortions which are now legal under the Act have of course seen the growth of self-help organisations. Pregnancy advisory organisations have been set up in London, and there is one in Birmingham. The reason is that a large percentage of women dealt with by this service in Birmingham are working-class women who should be going to National Health Service hospitals, the kind of women who find it very difficult to pay to go to Harley Street and to private nursing homes. This shows the growing need in these areas for the Act's help. Where it has been possible for advisory services and nursing homes to be started, which, again, are registered by my right hon. Friend and inspected by his inspectors, they are fulfilling a useful service.

The hon. Member for Rye should not feel too despondent about the development of the Act in due course, because doctors are proving more willing to operate the Act, it appears. One of the interesting features of the public opinion poll among general practitioners was that doctors in the West Midlands, the area with which I am much concerned, think that the facilities for legal abortion in the whole area are inadequate, and they want more. If I were to make any criticism of my right hon. Friend—I have made this frequently in the House—it is that he has not seen fit, so far, to make additional provision in those regions where the N.H.S. facilities are not proving adequate because of the attitude of the consultant gynaecologists. Any development must be along these lines.

The hon. Member mentioned what happens in other countries where there are terminations and quoted the headline in some obscure paper in the Far East, saying that London was now the "abortion capital of the world". That stupid and irresponsible statement, the kind of statement to encourage foreign women to come here if anything could, gained currency from a statement made by the hon. Gentleman's hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Mrs. Knight) who, I believe, said this in America. My right hon. Friend commented on this in the House on an earlier occasion.

The figures are that, of all the terminations carried out in a year's working, only between 6 and 7 per cent. were carried out on foreign women. This does not make London the abortion capital of the world. Of that six or 7 per cent., some were on foreign women domiciled here for a time—au pair girls and so on—so the number of women coming here specifically for terminations is minute.

Is there another capital in the world in which there is the number of therapeutic abortions carried out within the law as there is in London?

Yes; I will give the figures.

In 1968–69, the first year's working of the Act, the figure in England and Wales was about 40,000—I hope that my hon. Friend has that figure fixed firmly in his mind. In Czechoslovakia, it was almost 80,000; in Hungary, 180,000; in Sweden, 11,000 but Sweden's population is only one-fifth of ours; in Japan, 748,000. The percentage in England and Wales in the first year worked out at 4·6. In Japan it was 38·7, in Czechoslovakia 34·4, in Hungary 135·6 and in Sweden 10 per cent. These are abortions in countries where terminations are legal.

In case there is any misunderstanding, would the hon. Lady make it clear that the figure of 40,000 was for the whole of the United Kingdom and not just for London?

It is for England and Wales, excluding Scotland.

Not just for London?

No. There are therefore several capitals which can rival the statement made by the right hon. Gentleman. I hope that no one in the House will be so irresponsible and foolish as to give further currency to that stupid remark.

I think that I have demolished some of the rather irresponsible arguments which have been adduced against the Act. A great deal of the discussion on the Bill has been very ill informed, exaggerated and irresponsible. We should allow the Act to continue. The figures for the second year's working of it will not be available until towards the end of the year. Therefore, my hon. Friend the Joint Under-Secretary of State is not in a position to give any processed figures today. The Act has brought enormous benefit to the women of this country. More and more doctors are operating it. More and more people are aware of the benefits which it has brought to women.

The fall in the illegitimate birth rate is germane to this argument. Before the Act, illegitimate births were over 70,000 a year. This is a matter of great concern in a world situation, and particularly a European situation, where the expansion of the human race has been almost of epidemic proportions. Those people who are concerned with conservation and who heard upstairs a most interesting discussion organised by the Parliamentary and Scientific Committee only this week will know that the position which faces us is very serious. Therefore, we should welcome anything which reduces the number of illegitimate births. As Sir George Godber said, the great benefit which is brought to women by the removal of the fear of unwanted pregnancy cannot be quantified in statistics.

I hope that the House will throw out the Bill if it has a chance to vote on it. It will not be we on this side of the House who prevent a vote from being taken.

This is a controversial and emotional subject, and we should recognise that. We should be as restrained as possible in discussing it. However, I cannot pass over without a rebuke the remarks of the hon. Lady the Member for Wolverhampton, North-East (Mrs. Renee Short) who, in the opening sentence of her speech, made a totally unjustified attack on, and impugned the motives of, my hon. Friend the Member for Rye (Mr. Bryant Godman Irvine). There is a convention in the House that, however much we may disagree one with another, we respect the sincerity of those with opposing views.

Would the hon. Gentleman—

Just a minute, please. It was disgraceful, because it simply is not true, as the hon. Lady said to my hon. Friend, that he was trying to wreck the Act. His views on this matter are quite different from those of the hon. Lady, but he is as much entitled to those views, and to respect for them, as she is entitled to hers. I will not emulate the discourtesy and rudeness with which I was treated by the hon. Lady when I attempted to interrupt her and she made a cheap point at my expense and got a laugh; she is welcome to that. I will now give way to her.

I am obliged to the hon. Gentleman. I did not give way to him because I had hardly completed the second sentence of what I was saying; he was a little premature. My criticism of the Bill concerned its Title. It is misnamed as well as misconceived. It should have another title. It is not an Abortion Law (Reform) Bill.

The hon. Lady has made as near an apology as she is capable of, and I accept it in the spirit in which it was offered.

I turn to the hon. Ladys arguments. I wish to deal with them because it is important that the House should not be misled. She said that the majority of abortions are carried out in the National Health Service. That is not news; everyone who has studied this subject knows it. But there are well over 20,000 abortions a year being carried out in private clinics. That is a high and significant number. In view of that figure, we are naturally concerned with what is happening in the private sector. We cannot therefore dismiss the argument behind the Bill as though the private sector is of no importance. It is not as important as the National Health Service, but it is a very important sector.

The hon. Lady then passed to the question over which she got into a great muddle and was helped out by various of her hon. Friends, namely, how long was spent having an abortion in a National Health Service hospital and how long was spent in a private clinic. She was corrected in a helpful way by one of her hon. Friends. The standard of care in the private sector is not as high as it is in the National Health Service. That is why the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists and the B.M.A. are so concerned about the situation.

On the question of the time spent in hospital having an abortion, may I quote to the hon. Lady from the evidence given by Sir John Peel, who was then President of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, and which was mentioned when we last debated this matter in the House a few months ago? He pointed out that during a three-month period 52 women were treated under the National Health Service and discharged from hospital in 24 hours and that during the same period the number of women discharged after 24 hours in the private sector was over 5,000. One can see from those figures that it is not possible to have the standard of after-care which is needed with an abortion if one is running a mill in which people simply pass in and out, are seen for 24 hours and are never seen again. That is the point about which the medical profession is so concerned. I hope that that answers what the hon. Lady said.

Then we had the jargon about the medical profession and educating them into adopting progressive attitudes.

Would the hon. Gentleman bear in mind the number of foreign nationals who come here for abortions? Has he seen the formidable details about those women which I received in a reply by the Secretary of State for Social Services?

I am grateful for that intervention. I will deal with that point later. I was completing my indictment of the hon. Lady, and I do not wish to be distracted from this necessary task.

When the hon. Lady talks about educating the medical profession into adopting progressive attitudes, what she means is brainwashing them into accepting her own particular theological view of the right of women to have abortions on demand. That is the truth of the matter; that is what she means. I do not mind her being rude to me—I have forgiven her now, I have got over it—but I do object to her being so offensive and patronising to the medical profession.

The hon. Lady described the number of foreign women who came over to this country for abortions as minute, and she used a percentage figure of 6 to 7 per cent. But if one looks at the absolute figure, that represents over 3,000 abortions being carried out on foreign women per year. That is not a minute figure; it is a large figure. It may be made to sound minute by putting it in percentage form, but it is in fact a large, and, I suspect, a minimum, figure. I know returns are sent in, but I doubt whether they are entirely accurate and whether the addresses which are given always indicate the place of origin of the patient. Now I have finished with the hon. Lady and will pass on to develop my own argument.

There are strong feelings and deep anxiety throughout the country about the working of the Act. My correspondence shows that the worry about the Bill is widespread amongst those with strong religious views and those with none. My correspondence is not confined to letters from Roman Catholics, and it is unfortunate that an attempt is made to dismiss the protest against the Abortion Act as a religious lobby. It is not. It is a protest from people of all religions and of none who are concerned about our public morality and state of health after the passing of the Act. Abortions have now reached 54,000 a year. One cannot be definite about figures, because one does not know the number of illegal abortions before the Act came into operation, but there has probably been a three-fold increase. It is furthermore a steadily rising graph. If the graph is projected as it is going at present, within a measurable time we shall be faced with an abortion rate of 100,000 a year.

One effect of the Bill may be to reduce the number of abortions, and one should face that. If one thinks that rackets are operating under the present law, one wants to get rid of them, and one effect will be to reduce the number of abortions. I face that, and it is something which, all things being equal, I should welcome; but that does not mean that the Bill is specifically aimed at reducing the number of abortions and nothing else. It is aimed at getting rid of these legalised rackets, which my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for St. Marylebone (Mr. Hogg) warned the House in a prescient speech would rise up if the Bill passed into law unamended. On this matter I have strong moral views, and I shall, I hope, continue to express them—

Before the hon. Gentleman comes to his moral views, would not he agree that those features of the Act and of the implementation of the Act which he has outlined are very important and serious, but is it not equally serious that many women who are suffering a normal illness are being kept out of hospitals because of the accent on the Abortion Act?

That is a valid point. One could spend the entire budget on the National Health Service, such is the demand for healing, and still it would not be satisfied. It therefore must be a question of priorities.

rose—

It is a very odd form of priority in social expenditure that one should make abortion easy and family planning difficult. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman who has done so much in this sphere has something to contribute. I will give way to him. It would be much better to spend the money on instruction in family planning than on abortions.

I would be the last to dissent from what the hon. Gentleman has said. But would not he agree that if there is a danger that women with normal gynaecological problems are being kept out of National Health Service hospitals because of abortions, this Bill, far from improving matters, is likely to make them worse, as there will be a greater loading upon National Health Service hospitals?

One is dealing with too many imponderables to make a prophetic announcement as firm as that. It all depends on the policy adopted by gynaecologists and that, as we have seen, is a matter of great dispute.

rose—

The hon. Gentleman is always courteous to me; I will give way to him.

The point that worries me about his argument is what will happen to the 50,000 women wanting abortions if they do not have them? His argument is based on the assumption that they do not need treatment or hospital beds after the termination of pregnancy. But they do need more expensive health facilities if the pregnancy is allowed to continue, apart from the social consequences of unwanted pregnancies inside or outside marriage.

I am afraid there is a basic difference between us. I do not regard the birth of a child as being a disaster. I regard it as being a good thing. I do not regard the birth of a child as being equivalent to an abortion. It is a moral question not a question of which one prefers. The hon. Gentleman's approach is not a frame of argument that is mine.

I must pass on to my argument. In deference to the House I will leave out my moral views; I assume that they are well known. I will pass to the question of the law. The law should be based on the general moral consensus in the community. As far as can be judged from polls and other evidence, the consensus is that the country wants—and this is what Parliament wants—abortion for serious reasons but not abortion on demand. Secondly, the country and the medical profession want it to be carried out under the best possible medical conditions. Both those conditions are violated by the present situation. Under the Act abortion may be had on demand, provided a person can pay enough. I have no criticism of the National Health Service, I am purely concerned with the private sector and with the legalised rackets which are operating there.

We must face the fact that we have crooks in every profession. We have crooks in the legal profession and we have them in journalism—we may even have them in Parliament. We have crooked people in the medical profession, and the Act has given them a licence to run their racket free of any threat from the law. Here are people who are in it only to exploit suffering and not to relieve it, and, in exploiting it, to make as much money as possible.

Can the hon. Gentleman give the House any evidence at all that the crooks in the medical profession, to which he has just referred, are any less plentiful among consultant gynaecologists than among the generality of the medical profession?

I do not want to compare the impact of original sin on gynaecologists and general practitioners. I am not basing my argument on such a comparison, and I would be very foolish to do so. The point of bringing in a consultant gynaecologist is that we bring in a person holding a very responsible position who, because of that responsible position, is more likely to insist that the law be enforced than is another person who does not hold that position. That is my argument.

We know of the rackets, and we read about them from time to time. They can be exaggerated in the popular Press and by individuals, but they exist. There is evidence, I have it here, for instance, of the foreign women coming here, and the touting going on at London Airport. This is not the fabrication of sensation-seeking journalists. We know of the package deals that have been arranged in the United States—the combination holiday and abortion. We know too, that there are a number of doctors who, whilst observing the strict letter of the law, are completely ignoring its spirit. So there are these rackets.

My second point is that of the medical conditions. I stress here that in many cases abortion can be a most serious operation. Here I rely not on my expertise but on that of the President of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, Mr. Jeffcoate, who in a speech earlier this week said:

"There is evidence to show that even in experienced hands recognised rupture of the uterus occurs at least once in every 200 abortion operations. In others the accident can pass unnoticed. Rupture of the uterus not only offers a considerable threat to life and may require major surgery, it leaves the uterine walls so weakened that rupture is likely to occur spontaneously in a subsequent pregnancy and labour, again threatening the life of mother and child."

We should also note the statistic of the death rate after abortion, which was 15 in the last operable year—considerably higher than the maternal mortality rate—

Will the hon. Gentleman allow me?

No, I am very sorry, but I cannot. I have given way to the hon. Lady once, and there are many other hon. Members who wish to speak.

I am not quoting on my own authority but the President of the Royal College of Gynaecologists.

We had the recent case of the tape recording of the young woman who was aborted in a London clinic and left in an appalling state—bleeding and in intense pain—and had to be treated as an emergency case.

I want at this stage to make a correction to what I previously said of the case. I referred to it as having taken place at the Calthorpe abortion clinic in Birmingham, and I wish to be fair even to the Calthorpe abortion clinic in Birmingham. I mixed up the cases. The case to which I referred at the Calthorpe clinic was another case but, in a way, it was almost as bad. It took place in November, whereas the most recent case took place in December. There, again, there were medical complications and an emergency operation had to take place in Birmingham under the National Health Service. Therefore, the record of the Calthorpe clinic, although I was, I think, unfair to it, is not unblemished though I welcome this opportunity to put the record right.

These cases are occurring. How can one improve the situation? One can do it by having an effective check. One can only do that in two ways; either by having a definition or by having a responsible person intervening in the process. Definitions can always be got round, so I think that my hon. Friend is right in insisting that a responsible person—namely, a consultant gynaecologist in the National Health Service—should be involved.

The argument about numbers is very important in relation to the Bill. The figure given by the President of the Royal College, which I prefer to that given by the hon. Lady, is 555 consultant gynaecologists. It must be remembered, however, that in the majority of cases consultant gynaecologists do not themselves carry out the operation. They have working under them registrars and other people who do the operations. That means that we have nearly three times as many people, namely, about 2,000 people, competent to carry out these abortion operations. It is not a question of creating areas where a service would not be available. Even in areas like Plymouth and elsewhere where there is a shortage of gynaecologists, my hon. Friend has provided for the appointment of doctors from panels supplied by the Royal College of Gynaecologists so that nobody shall be denied their right under the law. I agree with that and I know that he is sincere in putting it forward.

My hon. Friend dealt cogently with the question of the reduction in the number of those admitted to hospital under the emergency bed service. I will not go into the statistics again, but he was challenged by the hon. Member for Wandsworth, Central (Dr. David Kerr) who said that the total number of abortions was going up and therefore this represented a higher rate of decrease than before. But he could not possibly make that statement unless he knew the number of illegal abortions. This is the great imponderable. We do not know the number of illegal abortions before the Act, nor do we know the number after the Act.

With respect, I did not make that statement, and the hon. Gentleman is quoting the reverse of what I said. The hon. Member for Rye (Mr. Bryant Godman Irvine) was saying that the number of abortions had fallen. If the number by which they have fallen remains the same, then the proportion by which they fall goes up.

My hon. Friend was quoting the fall in the number of people admitted for treatment under the emergency bed service as a result of abortion. He said that had been falling previously. Let us leave these statistical points. Statistics are misleading and clearly they have misled us both. They are a contribution to the argument, but they cannot decide it.

I will quote one more statistic, which is that in the first 12 months of the Act the death rate from abortion went up rather than down.

What is the figure?

If the hon. Lady wants the figure in percentages it went up by about 20 per cent. But I would not mislead the House in the way the hon. Lady misled the House, and will give the absolute figures. Deaths from induced abortion: three before the Act, four after the Act. Therefore, the figure would be 25 per cent. If I use the hon. Lady's method of calculation—

Very significant.

Yes, it is very significant. Even one death is important, even the death of a foetus is important, though the hon. Lady may not think it is. [An HON. MEMBER: "You are in a mess."] As I was saying—[An HON. MEMBER: "Carry on, Norman."] There seems to be a division on the other side of the House as to my status.

Order. Interruptions prolong speeches and many hon. Members wish to speak.

I am totally in sympathy with that sentiment, Mr. Speaker. Interventions when made seated and when one has not given way are even less justified, because one cannot control them.

I wish to deal now with the point about conscientious objection, which is a matter of great importance. Somebody has to carry out these abortions and, of course, those who have to carry them out are the members of the medical profession. They were given a right, which was built into the Act in the conscience Clause and supported by the promoter of the Act, reinforcing their common law right, to abstain on grounds of conscience from abortion operations.

If a gynaecologist or doctor does not wish to carry out an operation, what is going to be done with him? What would the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, North-East do about doctors who wish to exercise this right? Does she think that they should be forced against their will to carry out operations to which they have strong objections? If that is the case, then it is the end of freedom in the medical profession. That is why any Bill dealing with a medical matter should only be put forward with the support of the medical profession, otherwise the situation is reached, as now, when Parliament lays down one thing and the medical profession say something else. We pointed out in Committee to the then Minister the precise dangers in the situation. The then Minister had already abandoned his duties in regard to the medical profession. He had not taken their views sufficiently into account and the fact that, whatever the rights or wrongs of abortion, it is in the end the members of the medical profession who carry out the operation.

I hope that the House will give a Second Reading to the Bill. It is not a Bill which totally accords with my views, but it strikes a more reasonable balance between the needs of women, the rights of the foetus or the unborn child and the requirements of public morality. I congratulate my hon. Friend on seeking to improve the law in a reasonable and sincere way and I hope that he will be successful in his object.

rose—

Order. I remind the House that only 50 minutes remain for this debate and that many hon. Members still wish to speak.

I will try to be brief because I appreciate, Mr. Speaker, that many hon. Members still desire to speak. However, I wish to refer to a number of points that have been made.

The Abortion Act is an important piece of social legislation and discussion of it arouses strong feelings among its opponents and supporters. At the outset I wish to tell the hon. Member for Rye (Mr. Bryant Godman Irvine) that I feel a certain sympathy with him, and while I believe that his proposed amendment is misdirected. I am grateful to him for giving us this opportunity to discuss the problem again.

As the House will be well aware, a number of Amendments were tabled during the passage of the Measure which subsequently became the Abortion Act, 1967, seeking subsequently a limitation on the doctors empowered to perform terminations of pregnancy. To introduce such a limitation is, of course, the primary object of the hon. Gentleman's Bill.

In Committee, for example, Amendments were tabled, including one pro- posed by my hon. Friend the Member for Pontypool (Mr. Abse), which sought to limit operations to a consultant holding an appointment involving the practice of gynaecology or to a practitioner holding such an appointment and nominated by the consultant. However, Parliament rejected that and other Amendments mainly because of the difficulty of finding a generally acceptable formula which would not seriously limit the number of doctors available to perform abortions.

An amendment of the kind which the hon. Member for Rye proposes would have the effect of reducing the numbers of abortions carried out in approved places by doctors without specialist qualifications. A likely effect of such an amendment might be a decrease in private abortions and a consequent increased demand on gynaecological departments in National Health Service hospitals, which are already under considerable pressure.

It could, perhaps, be argued that this would lead to improved care for the women concerned, but in practice there would be a number of serious objections. For example, by limiting the number of doctors available to perform legal abortions, we could also produce an increase in illegal backstreet abortions. Again, by introducing a requirement that the Secretary of State should approve practitioners for the purpose of undertaking abortions, it would impose on him an unrealistic obligation and require him to undertake the most difficult and invidious responsibility, which he would find quite unacceptable, of making distinctions between individual doctors.

It is fair to say that the hon. Gentleman's Bill is directed at the private sector and, by implication, criticises private practice in this field. For this reason, I will at this stage say something about the actions which my right hon. Friend has taken to raise the standard of places approved for the purpose of the Act.

There are at present 56 private establishments functioning under his approval and they are all nursing homes registered with the appropriate local authority under the Public Health Act, 1936. The question of the standards to be demanded of these homes is a matter which has occupied a great deal of our attention during the last year.

With one exception—and here an inspection will be carried out within the next month—every one of these approved places has now been inspected by a Departmental inspecting team of medical and nursing officers, in co-operation with the registering local authority. In the case of those approved places with a high turnover of abortions in the North West Metropolitan region, two and sometimes three inspections have now been made. All proprietors of these establishments have been told that approval and renewal of approval will be dependent on their satisfying my right hon. Friend that the standard of their premises, of their facilities, of their conduct and their staffing are all adequate.

Among the steps which he has required to be taken to ensure that deficiencies revealed by these inspections are remedied are structural alterations to premises to ensure safe post-operative management; reorganisation of booking arrangements to ensure that the number of women operated on for abortion in any one day does not exceed the number of beds available on the same night; and the installation of suitable autoclaves.

While it is not possible to lay down precise criteria for approval, because of the variety of circumstances, of these places the question of ensuring adequate standards is something which is under constant review. As an illustration, we have now considerably expanded the form of application which each home is required to complete when seeking approval or renewal of approval. I should make it clear that for the present in no circumstances is the Secretary of State prepared to grant approval for a period in excess of one year. Indeed, in some instances approval has been for a much shorter period.

The form of application is extremely detailed and lays particular emphasis on facilities required to ensure that the patients are safeguarded in emergencies. The form also sets out the Secretary of State's requirement which I mentioned earlier, that the number of patients booked for termination of pregnancy on any given day should not exceed the number of beds available for such patients on the same night. It calls for written evidence of arrangements entered into with suppliers of blood and of the agreement of doctors who will be respon- sible for providing medical cover in an emergency.

Immediately a completed application form is received within my Department the registering local authority concerned is contacted and asked to check the information given on the form and to let the Secretary of State know as soon as practicable whether there are any circumstances or, in the case of applications for renewal of approval, whether any new factors have arisen since approval was last given, which indicate that approval should be refused or withdrawn.

When sending the completed form to local authorities the Secretary of State emphasises his concern that the facilities should be such as to safeguard the life and health of the patients. To this end he asks authorities to pay particular attention in carrying out their investigation into the arrangements at the home in question for dealing with emergencies which may arise. He also asks the authorities to make full use of their statutory powers of inspection under the Public Health Act. They are further asked to bring to his notice immediately anything which, in their view or that of their medical officer of health, might make continued approval of a particular establishment undesirable. My Department maintains close contact with registering authorities and has, in fact, met representatives of the local authorities most concerned.

Whatever measures may be taken by the Secretary of State to improve standards at approved places, it must be remembered that the use which doctors operating in approved places make of the facilities provided at these establishments is a matter for their own clinical judgment. This is not something in which my right hon. Friend has any power, or wish, to intervene. He refers any cases of alleged professional misconduct to the General Medical Council which is, of course, fully alive to the need to complement the Government's efforts by ensuring that they take whatever action is proper to them.

In this debate there has been some discussion about the discrepancy between the time that is spent in hospital for abortion operations by National Health Service patients and private patients. Can my hon. Friend clarify this situation and say whether he is satisfied that a one-night stay for a serious operation like this is adequate?

The decision as to the timing of the discharge of a patient is very much a question of clinical judgment, and neither I nor my colleagues in the Department would consider it appropriate for a Minister to interfere in a question of clinical judgment. If a patient has criticism to make of the medical profession, there are avenues open to that patient. It is not the role of Government to interfere in questions involving clinical judgment.

I turn now to the questions which have been raised about the adequacy of provision for abortions in National Health Service hospitals. I think it is significant that the latest figures show that over 70 per cent. of all abortions notified in respect of women with addresses in England and Wales are being carried out in National Health Service hospitals. No one denies that there are considerable variations in the numbers of abortions carried out in National Health Service hospitals from one region to another, and further that within individual regions one can find variations from town to town and unevenness in the extent to which the needs of the community are being met locally.

There are a number of factors which contribute, in varying degrees, to the unevenness of the service across the country. One is the conscientious objection which some doctors and other staff have to participation in abortion operations. The right of any person to opt out of participation in the treatment authorised under the Act, except when he has a duty to help save the life or prevent grave permanent injury to the physical or mental health of a pregnant woman, has been debated at great length in this House, and I am sure that it would be quite contrary to the wishes of the House and of the public at large if this right of conscientious objection were to be withdrawn.

Other factors bearing on regional variations within the National Health Service include the availability of facilities for examination, assessment and treatment of patients seeking abortions. Such patients in hospitals are normally seen first in the out-patient department, and generally speaking it seems that those seeking abortion take up more time than others in the gynaecology department. So there are limits on the numbers of additional abortion patients who can be fitted into clinic lists without additional staff or detriment to the treatment of other Patients en the gynaecology list. It has been suggested that one solution to this problem and also to the problem of fitting these cases into gynaecological lists in the hospitals is that we should set up special out-patient clinics specifically for patients seeking abortion. This has been done in some hospitals, and with some success, but there must be sessions available and the staff to provide the service.

Some of our hospitals are short of operating theatre space and time. Additional operations involve more theatre time and this is not always easy to find, since surgeons aim, quite rightly, to make the best possible use of the resources available. Theatre sessions tend therefore to be fully taken up some time ahead. The development of "day surgery" where patients are discharged after minor general surgery the same day is providing more operating theatre time and this will help with other surgical operations including abortion.

The other main area in which availability of resources limits the work that can be done is in the wards. The majority of patients who have abortions in National Health Service hospitals are admitted to hospital beds and occupy them for a few days. Broadly speaking the longer the pregnancy has continued the longer the period of in-patient treatment which may be necessary.

Suggestions have been made that special abortion units should be set up in the Health Service to cope with this demand. I am sure that it would be wrong to set up isolated units to undertake this work. Abortion, like any other surgical procedure in the Health Service, should take place in a general hospital with full pathological and gynaecological facilities and a blood bank for use in emergencies. Fragmentation of limited hospital resources is most undesirable. But even if it were considered appropriate to set up separate units of this kind I doubt whether sufficient hospital doctors and nurses could be found who would be willing to spend all their time doing this work. Most people like to use the full range of their skills, and repeated abortions do not offer this opportunity for surgeons, nurses, social workers and all who would be involved in the treatment of those cases. It could result in the other skills falling because of their disuse in treating abortion alone.

There may be scope for improvement in hospital services for termination of pregnancy. It is now possible to identify those hospitals where very few abortions, or none at all, are being done, and to consider what additional staff, resources and facilities might be needed to get adequate services established. Where a service is already being given it may be posible to make improvements in the arrangements for patients seeking abortions. Where an adequate service is not possible at present, I hope that hospital boards and committees will be able to make arrangements for it to be provided. I am conscious that the difficulties in some localities are severe. But I do not see the problems as insoluble if they are tackled with imagination and good-will on all sides.

Facilities for abortion in the National Health Service cannot be considered in isolation. They form an integral part of all the other health services for the community. The Health Service has developed considerably over the last 20 years and a great deal has been achieved. It remains true however that there are many fields in which improvements still have to be made to bring standards up to those which we should all like to see. Against this background one sees the difficulty of providing a uniform service throughout the country for patients needing abortion less than two years after the Abortion Act came into operation. I should like now to turn to the inquiries into the Act which are being undertaken.

What my hon. Friend has been stressing very greatly is the difficulty of finding skilled personnel, professional people and nurses for this service. Why is it that we can have the same professional consultants and surgeons and nurses for all other operations that are taking place? Why for those and not for abortion?

We face difficulties in terms of staffing right across the board and it would be wrong to suggest that we do not have problems in other fields. One need only look at the waiting lists—fortunately they are falling slightly but they are still very long—for routine surgery of various kinds, and the difficulties experienced in finding hospital beds for mentally handicapped children, and so on. This is not a problem confined to one part of the service.

There are some grounds for dissatisfaction about the operation of the Abortion Act as far as private practice is concerned, and we are watching the situation in the private sector closely. A very small number of doctors operating in the private sector are doing things of which neither my colleagues in the medical profession nor we in the House would approve. But there is reason to believe that, in relation to provision within the National Health Service, the Act is working reasonably well. Certainly, it is not possible to arrive at a considered assessment of the overall working of the Act until current inquiries are complete. These include the inquiry being carried out by the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists on the basis of a questionnaire sent to its members asking for detailed information about their experience of the workings of the Act. We hope that the findings of this inquiry will be available shortly and that they will provide valuable information on current practice.

Apart from the inquiry being carried out by the Royal College, we are ourselves in the Department carefully studying the detailed analyses of information deriving from the forms of notification prepared by the General Register Office in respect of 1969. They include information about many aspects of the operation of the Act, including the method of termination, the length of stay in hospital or nursing home, and complications arising from abortion. We are also continuing the confidential inquiry into maternal deaths, which include deaths arising from abortion. Until current inquiries into the working of the Act are complete, it would not be advisable, in the Government's view, to give support to any particular amendment such as proposed in this Bill.

I have mentioned the problems which, I think, we face in certain respects in the private sector. I assure the hon. Gentleman the Member for Rye that, if he has any evidence which concerns him about poor conditions, I shall be only too pleased to look into it if he will let me have it. The same offer is open to all hon. Members. We should welcome any information which they might feel to be of use.

I assure hon. Members that we shall continue to investigate very carefully all the reports which come to us containing prima facie evidence of contravention of the Act, and we shall seek the assistance of the Home Office and police authorities wherever appropriate. There have been references to a report in the Press earlier this week about a particular clinic, in connection with which a tape recording was sent to my Department. I have read the transcript of the tape recording. This is a case which we have under urgent consideration at present.

This process of investigation—and a very time-consuming process it is—is something on which we are constantly engaged. I reiterate the view expressed several times lately by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State that, while there may be some grounds for dissatisfaction about the operation of the Act in the private sector, we must not concentrate our attention exclusively on unfavourable features of its working. Indeed, some of the discussion about the Act is exaggerated and ill-informed.

This is a subject which arouses strong emotions and prejudices which make rational consideration difficult. But it must be our aim in the House to debate the question reasonably and sensibly and arrive at a balanced conclusion. Our task today is to survey dispassionately the workings of the Act since the House passed it 18 months ago. I believe, on the basis of our experience over these 18 months, that the Abortion Act is generally operating satisfactorily.

I believe that most people would agree that it has brought advantages. The rate of emergency admissions to hospital for abortion is falling. I have the figures here for the last three years in respect of the emergency bed service: about 4,300, about 3,700, and about 3,200. I do not put too much weight on these figures, and I do not suggest that the Act would be the only factor. I do not even go so far as to say that it would necessarily be the main factor, but there is a definite decline in the rate of emergency admissions for abortion.

Do not those figures relate to all maternity cases, not only abortion cases? The improvement may be the result of better organisation in the hospitals concerned.

I doubt that there has been any really significant improvement in organisation over the last two or three years. I said that I do not put too much reliance on these figures. They cover quite a broad diagnostic group. That is true. The figures I quoted were for the emergency bed service in London, and do not take into account the picture over the whole country. But there is an undoubted trend of a reduction of admissions. In the same way, there has been a reduction in the mortality rate consequent on abortions. In 1968 there were 50 deaths from abortions. In the first 10 months of last year there were 28. Again, I would not put too much weight on that, but these are perhaps encouraging trends. I think that we have in them some evidence of the way in which the Act is causing a real reduction in the sum total of human misery in our society.

Is it true to say that 47 per cent. of the abortions are for single women, therefore stopping the bringing of illegitimate children into the world?

The hon. Lady is right. The figures show that 47 per cent. are for single women, while 44 per cent. are for married women and the remaining 9 per cent. are women who are widowed, sepaarted or divorced.

I hope that by what I have said I have convinced the House that this would not be the appropriate time to amend the Abortion Act in a significant way.

I would like to return in a moment to some of the Minister's points about the unsatisfactory working of the Act in the private sector in one or two clinics.

But I would like to begin by congratulating the hon. Member for Rye (Mr. Bryant Godman Irvine) on the manner in which he introduced the Bill. In the two or three years during which the subject of abortion has been sometimes a heated subject of debate in both Houses of Parliament, it has been a pleasure to listen to a moderate and well-reasoned speech such as that which the hon. Gentleman made in introducing the Bill.

The hon. Member for Chelmsford (Mr. St. John-Stevas), on the last occasion he chose to introduce a similar Bill, said that it was a pity he was not an agnostic mother of nine. At least this afternoon he appeared in the guise of a Protestant father or two, which was no doubt a step of some significance.

I have no doubt that the hon. Member for Rye introduced the Bill with the best of intentions, but its results and consequences have not been fully understood by him. And since the hon. Member for Chelmsford is a sponsor of the Bill, and was so critical of the drafting of my Act, I am surprised that he has not noticed a major drafting error in the Bill, which gives the Secretary of State for Social Services a sovereignty over health services in Scotland that exists in no other field. That would have to be put right if the Bill went beyond Second Reading.

Some of the main arguments for and against the Measure have been debated twice in full here and in another place. Constantly the point is made that because the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists and the B.M.A. are pressing for this change, as they pressed for it during the passage of my Act, we must accept it. I cannot accept that argument. The House must take into account representations from a wide spectrum of opinion, knowledge and expertise on the subject. Of course, we must give special weight to their views, and 95 per cent. of their views, I would say, were incorporated in the main Act. But they cannot dictate to Parliament what should be the provisions of an Abortion Act.

One very serious result of the Bill's being passed would be that the tendency would grow for abortion to be delayed because of the limited number of people who, even if one appointed others and extended the phrase "under the supervision of" would be qualified to sign the certificate. Because they would have to sign it, whereas at present they do not, this limited number of people would have to be involved not just in the operation but in the diagnostic process. That is a factor which has not been brought out fully, and there would inevitably be delays.

The figures I have show that 63 per cent. of abortions have been carried out up to and including the twelfth week of pregnancy and 35 per cent. after the twelfth week. I consider that 35 per cent. to be too high. If abortions have to be carried out, they should be carried out at the earliest possible time, from both a medical and ethical point of view. Therefore, any red tape, any restriction, any queue-forming, would be very undesirable.

Second, it would have the effect of encouraging a restrictive practice on abortions in certain parts of the country. It is all very well for the hon. Member for Chelmsford—I think that it was the hon. Gentleman, but if I have attributed somebody else's remark to him I apologise—to say that in addition to consultants there are registrars and other people who can do this work. We know that if a consultant at a hospital takes the view, which he is entitled to do, that he is opposed to a liberal practice on abortions there is no question of registrars and others on his staff taking a different view. The effect of an amendment of of this kind would be to encourage a restrictive practice on abortions.

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I think that the hon. Gentleman has had a fair innings of interruptions during the debate.

It is unfair to suggest that because the leaders of the B.M.A. and the R.C.O.G. are pressing for the amendment it would be widely welcomed in the medical profession. Today's edition of the Lancet, one of the most authoritative journals says in its editorial:

"… Mr. Irvine's Bill is out of place. What difference can it really make? Few of the abusing doctors will be excluded from the market by legislation which requires a Government Department to pronounce that they are, or are not, of 'equivalent status'. Perhaps, under cover of this device some supporters of the Bill are now reviewing a long-rooted opposition to reform."

That is the case, whatever may have been the laudable intentions of the sponsor of the Bill. The hon. Lady the Member for Wolverhampton, North East (Mrs. Renée Short) quoted a national opinion polls survey of general practitioners which showed that 66 per cent. are either satisfied with the existing law or want to see it amended so that it is easier, and not more difficult, to get a legal abortion.

Finally, in considering medical opinion, an editorial in yesterday's Medical News-Tribune strongly came out against the Act and said:

"The only motive which we can realistically ascribe to the perpetrators of this amendment is to wreck the Abortion Act by drastically reducing the number of abortions performed."

It would be a mistake fundamentally to alter a piece of legislation when we still have comparatively little knowledge of its consequences. I have here a letter which a Professor of Obstetrics and Gynaecology in Aberdeen sent to a Member of this House asking him to be present to vote today. He says:

"We have in Aberdeen for the past 18 months been running an Interdepartmental Study into the way in which women react either to having a pregnancy terminated or having to carry on with the pregnancy for which they have requested termination. It will probably be another year before the final results of the study are available, but until such results are available, and aso fuller analysis of the workings of the Abortion Act throughout the country have been made it seems premature to make any alterations in the Act."

We have to consider the fact that this is a very wide Bill, a point which hon. Members might consider before voting. The Long Title merely says that its purpose is to amend the Abortion Act, but all sorts of Clauses could be added in Committee.

We have to consider the effects of the present Act as it has operated in the country. The figure which I have for the first year of its operation is that the death rate for abortions was 21 per 100,000, whereas the death rate in respect of child births was 24 per 100,000 in the same year. At the time of the passage of my Bill I should never have dared to predict that the death rate from abortions would be lower than the death rate from childbirth, and that is a very satisfactory conclusion. This is not statistically significant, but there have been more deaths in National Health Service hospitals than in private practice clinics.

We can say from the provisional evidence available that there has been a reduction in criminal abortions. I do not want to go into the mathematical argument again about the London emergency bed centre figures, but they show a certain definite trend in the right direction. The death rate given by the Minister just now showed that from an average of 50 from abortions, both criminal and medical, for many years, the figure fell last year to 28 in the first ten months, and that was a very significant and welcome drop.

Nobody has quoted precise figures, but the House should notice that the illegitimacy rate had been on the increase. In 1955 it was about 4 per cent., and rose by 1968 to more than 8 per cent. For the first six months of 1969, which is the latest period for which I have figures, there was a small, but nevertheless significant down-turn in the illegitimacy rate which I think can be credited to the Act.

Would the hon. Gentleman accept that if there has been a reduction, it has been induced by other exigencies?

I am not suggesting that the Abortion Act is solely responsible for the downturn in the illegitimacy figures. However, we have seen for the first time—this in the first full calendar year since the Abortion Act came into operation—the illegitimacy figures decrease. Can it be described as only a coincidence that the first downturn should have occurred at this time?

To get the arithmetic correct, one should note the rates of abortion in this country compared with the rates in other countries. I deplore the use of headlines such as:

"London: the Abortion capital of the world".

That is not true. The rate since the operation of the Abortion Act has been 6·8 per cent. per 100 live births. That compares with 8·3 per cent. in Denmark and 10 per cent. in Sweden. In countries which do not have adequate family planning provision the figures are horrifying, such as 38 per cent. in Japan and 34 per cent. in Czechoslovakia. I hope that those figures are never reached here.

The hon. Member for Chelmsford referred to 3,000 foreign women having had abortions in this country during the last year. Presumably that number includes a substantial number of foreign women who are, in any event, resident here. I do not know what the percentage of foreigners here is at a given time. What about the 30,000 Danes who, we were told, would be coming here for abortions? They have not appeared. What about the American package tours of which we read? Not one has arrived. These things may make good newspaper copy but they bear very little relationship to the facts of how the Abortion Act is working.

The other day I read an interesting Conservative Central Office pamphlet about abortion. I confess that Conservative pamphlets are not among my normal staple reading, but this one suggested that it might be worth considering establishing abortion clinics in certain parts of the country. I have never found that an attractive idea, but I appreciate that if there is a restrictive practice operating in certain parts of the country it may be necessary for the Ministry to consider this matter.

It is true that private clinics as a whole have a good record, as the death figures show. There is no doubt, however, that one or two clinics in London—and there are only one or two such clinics—have been abusing the spirit and, perhaps, the letter of the Abortion Act.

I was interested to hear the Minister say that an inquiry was going on and I welcomed his remarks about the instructions which he had given. There is a case, in the light of our experience of the working of the Abortion Act, for changing the Ministerial regulations applying to private practice. I see no reason why the same notification forms—which are, in essence, simple—should not be used for both National Health Service and private patients. More information might also be required from private clinics about each case. For example, we might require the signature of the patient on discharge from the clinic saying that she was satisfied that she had received proper medical attention. The dates of entry and discharge should also be included on the notification form.

I would go further and say that there should be no objection to including on the notification form the amount of fee charged because there is a suggestion that no receipts are given, that cash is always demanded, and that the Inland Revenue is being defrauded.

One clinic—the Minister referred to this case—has aroused considerable interest, and it is the case of the tape recording. I believe that the hon. Member for Chelmsford had this case in mind. I have made inquiries into the matter following the publicity which the case received last week. I spoke to the person in the Pregnancy Advisory Service in Birmingham who first met this applicant for an abortion.

The first thing to remember is that the girl came from Birmingham. She was referred to the Pregnancy Advisory Service by her own family doctor. I suggest that if she had lived in Newcastle, Aberdeen or many other places she would not have been in a clinic in London to start with; and that is the first lesson to be drawn from this case.

The girl was aged 18 and went to the Pregnancy Advisory Service accompanied by her father. This service is a voluntary body and not a money-making organisation. It is a charitable body, providing a social service. The woman who interviewed this girl gave her services voluntarily, as a social worker in the evenings in this centre. As for the charge of providing abortion on demand, about 30 per cent. of the women going there for abortions are refused. Those are the centre's figures. It was untrue, as suggested in the tape recording, that the first thing said was, "How much can you pay?" or "It will be £125." The normal particulars were taken and the father of the girl in question then asked how much it was likely to cost if it were carried out in a private clinic.

I should like to know why this case, which occurred in November, was not referred to the General Medical Council by the National Health Service people who took it over. I should like to know why they kept it in cold storage until a week before the Bill was introduced.

The most important fact of all was that the doctor who carried out this operation in the clinic was an F.R.C.S. and a member of the Royal College of Obstreticians and Gynaecologists who, under the Bill, could not be regarded as other than of equivalent status. Therefore, the Bill would have provided no safeguard in respect of the case that has received so much publicity during the past week.

We would all welcome a reduction in the figures for abortion, but I believe that that reduction must be achieved not by denying a facility that is badly needed for women in unfortunate circumstances but, rather, by reducing the need for resort to abortion at all. A great debate is now going on about sexual responsibility and sexual education. I welcome this, and also the steps that the Secretary of State for Social Services has taken to encourage local authorities to use their powers under the Family Planning Act to set up local authority family planning clinics. It is disgraceful that the Secretary of State for Scotland should have issued instructions preventing this in Scotland.

The slogan that should go out from this House should be, "No unwanted pregnancies", which is a very much better slogan than, "No unwanted babies". I hope that the House will divide on the Bill, and will reject it.

It is many years since I spoke in a debate on abortion. Throughout that time, however, I have been a strong supporter of a change in the cruel Offences Against the Person Act of 1861. The hon. Member for Rye (Mr. Bryant Godman Irvine) seemed to be unaware of the full implications of what he was doing. The House knows him, and we all know that he would never have any intention of introducing a Bill which might have heartless and cruel effects, but I am sure that this Bill would have.

In introducing the Bill the hon. Member relied mainly upon the opinion of the two medical bodies that are asking for statutory limitations to be placed upon the activities of gynaecologists and others outside the National Health Service. As the Parliamentary Secretary pointed out, and as the hon. Member for Roxburgh, Selkirk and Peebles (Mr. David Steel) has just mentioned, these views were expressed in the House when the Abortion Bill was under consideration; they were fully debated in Committee upstairs, and later on the Floor of the House; they were debated in another place—and they were rejected all the time. The House will realise that medical bodies—important as they are, and having influential opinions as they do—are not the last word in what should be written into the law of the land. This House is in charge of the law and having decided—as it did less than three years ago—on the form of the law in this case, it would be unwise to make a change at this stage.

The Bill proposes to place a statutory limitation upon operations done by gynaecologists and other qualified people. It seeks to restrict the lawful conduct of these operations to consultant gynaecologists in the National Health Service, or persons acting under their supervision. A statutory limitation of this kind can be justified only if it can be shown that it is in the interests of the community. It is a surprise to me that an hon. Member opposite should seek to restrict the freedom of choice of the citizen in the matter of medical care. Neither the B.M.A. nor the Royal College would wish to see this freedom eroded in other fields of medicine and surgery. Why, then, do they want it eroded in this? Is it because there is some special risk attaching to this operation?

Certainly that is not proved by the mortality rate of abortion operations. In fact, there is, unfortunately, a higher proportionate death rate in the National Health Service than there is in the private sector, but this is no reflection on the Health Service. It usually gets the bad cases, the cases which have been too long delayed by the time that they reach it. There is no evidence from the mortality rate that it is necessary to restrict this operation to gynaecologists and others acting within the National Health Service.

What other considerations, then, can there be? Is it a matter of skills? There are skills outside the National Health Service as well as inside. Some gynaecologists in the National Health Service have done few, if any, terminations. Some, quite properly, holding the views that they do, have refused to do them. It cannot be a question of skill, because skill is not the monopoly of the National Health Service.

Is it suggested that ethical standards are higher inside the National Health Service than outside? If so, is that a view which the B.M.A. and the Royal College accept? Is it their view that it takes the National Health Service to make upright doctors? Are we to regard ethical standards as one of the great reforms of the National Health Service?

What do the two medical bodies think of the proposal implicit in the Bill that if a gynaecologist who did not hold a consultative appointment in the Health Service were to perform a termination outside the National Health Service he would be committing an offence for which the penalty is imprisonment for life? This is what we are talking about. The penalties were never interfered with when we reformed the original Act in 1967.

Is it suggested that a termination is lawful if it is done by a consultant gynaecologist in the Health Service and near murder if it is done by a gynaecologist outside it? Is that the distinction which the law should make? Is it suggested that the Health Service can now take all the terminations which would come to it under the Bill? No evidence which the hon. Gentleman produced, except the law of averages, would justify such a conclusion. Have we reached the stage, in this field and in none other, to force people into the National Health Service? Is this a new monopoly in State medicine being suggested from the benches opposite? This is the astonishing thing. Is this a new tyranny coming from the Opposition?

The hon. Member for Rye, in dealing with the average of terminations which might be spread over the available gynaecologists, had little to say about the regional variations which are the great mischief of the working of the Abortion Act. It is a strange thing that if the National Health Service can cope with the terminations which are now needed it is necessary for pregnancy advisory services to deal with so many referrals from general practitioners, hospital doctors and family planning association doctors. Fifty-four per cent. of all the referrals to the London Pregnancy Advisory Service in the first year came from general practitioners, and 42 per cent. were by hospital doctors, Family Planning Association doctors and others.

In fact, some of the cases that went to it had been refused under the National Health Service. Two girls under 14 were refused, as were five girls under 15 and 40 women over 40. Another patient, a girl of 17, pregnant by her father, was refused a termination under the National Health Service. Four married women with five or more children and 10 unmarried women with two or more illegitimate children were all refused, and all were sent to the London Pregnancy Advisory Service to see whether a termination could be made available elsewhere. So long as the National Health Service cannot meet the demand and there are these regional variations, the time is not right to change the law.

The real problem in abortion is the difficulty of getting people to consider it and discuss it rationally. It is so full of emotion and offers so much scope for headlines, drama and exaggeration. It is almost impossible to get good publicity on abortion, because the good that the Abortion Act is doing is not news, while the mischief and abuses under it are. We hear nothing of all the thousands of women who have been relieved of suffering, whose health has been improved, whose families have been safeguarded, whose children have been safeguarded against ill treatment, neglect, and even cruelty, where these considerations were taken into account when the decision on termination was reached.

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Yet these are the thousands of cases—

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Order. The right hon. Gentleman is not giving way.

I am sorry. I have only two minutes before four o'clock.

We get all the publicity about alleged wealthy foreigners and distressed girls arriving from other countries. We hear a lot about the touting going on and the package deals. May I utter one warning in this connection. A good deal of this is propaganda in other countries to secure a change in their own abortion laws. They are suggesting that it is a national humiliation that their women should have to come to England for abortions, and they want to change their law in their own country.

There is so much mischief surrounding the question of abortion that it is the duty of both sides of the House to apply rational and temperate opinion to the working of the Act. Are we going through this again and again? Is this part of a persistent campaign to change the 1967 Act? First there was a Ten-Minute Rule Bill. Then we had an early day Motion, and now we have this attempt. I sincerely hope that hon. Members on both sides will give the Act a chance to work under the wise directorship of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Services.

I hope that the House will register a vote on the Bill, and that all hon. Members will keep their seats and allow a vote to be given.

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rose in his place and claimed to move, That the Question be now put.

Order. I am not prepared to accept the closure. Sir Stephen McAdden.

Shame.

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I have not called the hon. Member for The High Peak (Mr. Peter M. Jackson). Sir Stephen McAdden.