On a point of order. I thought that this morning we were to have a statement on the third London airport, but having refreshed my memory with HANSARD, I find that it is not being given but that a statement is to be made by way of answer to Written Question No. 181.

Those of us who were involved in the matter are in somewhat of a predicament, because I understand that the Press is to be informed about this at twelve o'clock today, whereas it is the normal custom that Written Answers are not published to Members, including my hon. Friend the Member for Woking (Mr. Onslow) who asked the Question, until after 4.30 p.m. The problem would not arise if this were not the last day before Christmas.

Would it be possible, Mr. Speaker, to have a copy of the Answer placed in the Library at the same time as it is revealed to the Press? That would overcome many of the difficulties that right hon. and hon. Members on both sides face.

Order. I listened to what the hon. Gentleman said, but all that Mr. Speaker knows is that no statement is being made this morning. I have no power to make a Minister make a statement or to make him vary the method by which he is conveying information.

Order. May I remind the House that I have had put on the Order Paper not only the topics for debate but the length of each debate. The times must be rigorously adhered to, otherwise hon. Members at the end of the day will not get in.

If I am asked in later years what was my best opportunity in 1970, I must certainly say that it was my opportunity today to raise in the House the very serious problem of Glasgow's housing. I and many thousands of Glasgow families are deeply indebted to you, Mr. Speaker, for providing this opportunity. First, I should like to pay my tribute to you, Sir, on your last day of service in the House, and to wish you a very happy and healthy retirement.

A few years ago on a visit to Glasgow the then Conservative Prime Minister, Mr. Harold Macmillan, having a look at Glasgow's slums, described them as the worst slums in Western Europe. Only in June the present Prime Minister went on record as saying that Glasgow's slums are four times worse than any other city's, and that special aid must be given to the City of Glasgow. This was repeated in an editorial in the Glasgow Herald of 11th June, which said that Glasgow's housing problem was a special issue, and continued:

"And for the thousands of people still living in condemned or dilapidated property … there is no problem more real than that,…".

At this Christmas period many thousands of Glasgow's families will spend a most unhappy time, because they will be sharing the festive season with dampness, rats and other forms of infestation. When we consider this to be a democratic society, that must rank as the most modern example of man's inhumanity to man. Christmas is a special time for children, but for many hundreds of Glasgow children this will be a very bleak period.

In last Wednesday's Glasgow Herald, Dr. Peter McKenzie, a consultant physician at Belvidere Hospital, was quoted as saying:

"During the winter there is a high admission rate of acute respiratory infections in young children and many of these have to be nursed in humidified oxygen tents. As a facet of poor housing conditions in the city, infantile gastro-enteritis and dysentery are responsible for nearly 1,000 admissions."

Glasgow's medical officer of health said only yesterday:

"There are too many children in overcrowded conditions.…"

He also said that these atrocious conditions in Glasgow were a major cause of dysentery, and that one type, Fhexner dysentery, could also be called the "Glasgow disease" because it was quite peculiar to that city. The majority of victims lived in tenements with outside toilets and no wash hand basins or baths, and school children from homes lacking good hygiene standards were carriers of the disease. It must concern each and every one of us that in the latter part of the twentieth century people are still living in such appalling conditions.

The Prime Minister, to whom I did the courtesy of sending a letter asking him to be present this morning—although I appreciate the reason for his absence—is quoted as saying on 1st June:

"The people of this country deserve a better life and that is the only reason I am in politics."

I am sure that that is a sentiment we all share and a principle we would all accept. The only difference is that as Prime Minister he now has an opportunity to do something about it. The right hon. Gentleman went on to say:

"I promise you one thing and I will stand by that promise. I promise I will do everything in my power to make sure that for all the people in this country tomorrow will be a better day."

I have grave doubts, as have most people in Glasgow. I fear that the Prime Minister's golden halo is somewhat tarnished by the actions and reactions of the Government since June.

Why have we so many slums? Why have we this shocking position in Glasgow? One of the main reasons is that a hundred years or more ago it was the attitude of the employers to cram in as many workers as possible as close to the factories as possible. We had a combination of property owners and industrialists—I would say the "ancestors" of the present Government—who were interested only in getting a return of 20s. in the pound and who had no regard for human dignity or the conditions in which those people had to live. There were thousands of single apartments with outside toilets which sometimes had to serve a dozen people. These apartments were known as "single ends", and it is my opinion that the single end was a slum as soon as it was built. The single end is one of the reasons why my constituency had such a high rate of tuberculosis and the unenviable record of the worst infantile mortality rate in Western Europe.

The Labour council, which was in power for a considerable number of years, achieved a record of 150,000 houses. The recent five and a half years of Labour Government, during which subsidies were increased, helped to make serious inroads into the problem. It is worth quoting the difference between the subsidies under the Tory Government of 1962 and those under the Labour Government, particularly in 1968. In 1962 Glasgow was receiving only £32 per house per year. But there was an astonishing difference in 1968, when the city was receiving £150 per house, with an extra £30 for difficult site building. I quote those figures because we are anxious about the present Government's assistance to Glasgow, and especially the attitude as shown by the new rate support grant.

Unfortunately in 1968, through misguided nationalism, Glasgow suffered a severe setback, when we had a Tory council and this tragedy was compounded by the return of a Tory Government in June last. We did not have long to wait to see the results of local Tory policy. In 1969 we had a record increase in rates, a rapidity of rent increases and a cutting back of a very effective direct labour department set up by a Labour council in 1937 which had achieved a very high standard of workmanship in house building.

It is worth mentioning here the amount of financial assistance by way of rate support grant received by the city from the Labour Government. In 1967–68 Glasgow received £26 million; in 1968–69, £29 million, and in 1969–70, £33½ million. When considering these figures we must remember the serious financial crisis we had in those years, yet the Labour Government tried to meet their promises to the city as far as possible.

In spite of that very generous assistance from the Labour Government, the City Treasurer of 1968 set about reducing the housing estimates by £700,000 in 1969. He was quoted as saying in March of that year:

"I think there must be a slowing up in the rate of redevelopment in this city. I would suggest that serious consideration should be given to the advisability of restricting the programme of redevelopment up to 1980 to the 14 comprehensive development areas at present in course of execution or preparation, and of postponing the remaining 15 until 1980–2000."

How could anyone in such a senior position talk about keeping slums until the year 2000?

Order. I hesitate to intervene, but so far this seems to be Glasgow's responsibility. The hon. Member must come to something he wants the Minister to do.

I accept your guidance, Mr. Speaker.

Glasgow's tragedy is that the enthusiasm and drive of the previous Labour Government and the previous Labour council have been replaced by the apathy and indifference of the present Government.

Because of the inability of the Tory council to do anything about the problem the Labour Government set up the Glasgow housing programme working party in January last, the remit being to consider how best to cure this atrocious problem. After meetings between the Glasgow Corporation and the Scottish Development Department officials it was realised that Glasgow's programme was for only 3,000 houses a year when the actual need was for about 7,000 a year. Yet we have the appalling situation of £11½ million being underspent on the housing account. That shows a highly irresponsible attitude. This is where I press the Government to take serious action on Glasgow's behalf. Glasgow's housing problem must be a national responsibility. The cold indifference shown is resulting in a great deal of unnecessary misery.

The new indicative cost procedure has been blamed for the delay in building but this is not true. In 1968, plans for only 1,420 houses were submitted for approval and that figure determines completions in 1969–70. The Minister must take urgent action, because if the present situation continues any longer there could be a breakdown of many families as units.

The present Secretary of State recently said:

"We must clear our slums, especially Glasgow slums.…"

How can he reconcile that statement with the Government's decision to cut back housing subsidies in order to save £100 million or £200 million while at the same time announcing income tax and corporation tax rebates amounting to £350 million—I suppose as a means of repaying the political paymasters of the Conservative Party.

The situation cannot be adequately described by statistics. Professor Cullingworth, who was responsible for an investigation into Glasgow's housing problem, said that we should be shouting from the rooftops because Glasgow's slums were unique—"thank God"—in Great Britain. I urge the Government to take immediate action, for they appear to be frozen in the ice of their own indifference. I hope to take some action which my colleagues in Glasgow and the rest of my Scottish colleagues to keep shouting from the rooftops, and, as long as I am privileged to be a Member for Glasgow, to hope that the city, and particularly my constituency, will enjoy a standard of housing equal to that of the rest of the country.

I am grateful to you, Mr. Speaker, for giving me the opportunity to make my maiden speech. I have waited so long because I wanted to speak on a Scottish subject, and preferably a subject concerning Glasgow. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Gorbals (Mr. McElhone) on raising this subject on the Adjournment and so allowing me to do so.

It will be recollected that in 1964 Labour made political history by winning Pollok and overturning a Tory majority of nearly 8,000. It was said at that time that the late Alex Garrow was in for life. Unfortunately, we did not know that life for him would be only two and a half years. It is exactly four years today, the Friday before Christmas, that Scottish Members gathered to pay our last respects to Alex Garrow.

At the by-election, because of the intervention of the Scottish Nationalist Party, Esmond Wright, a well-known figure in Glasgow, an academic, television and radio personality, well respected not only in his own party but in other political parties in Scotland, won the seat for the Conservative Party. Had he been returned in this election I am sure that he would have been gracing the Government Front Bench, and on that account at any rate I am sorry that he is not here.

Pollok is a constituency in Glasgow which is half residential and half council housing. If anything, the balance is on the council housing side. My hon. Friend the Member for Gorbals spoke about slums and I am acutely concerned about slums ill the housing schemes. We do not have housing problems in Pollok, although we have something of a traffic problem which I have discussed with the Under-Secretary, and about which, even at this late date, I hope to have something done. Pollok is one of the oldest burghs in Scotland, but it has been completely redeveloped by the construction of multi-storey flats. I am sorry to say that after spending nearly £1 million on these multi-storey flats, Glasgow Corporation has walked away leaving large dumps of materials in the vicinity.

This is the start of modern slums at House Hill Wood and Priesthill. These flats cannot be adequately described. I have heard them called a jungle. Let me make it crystal clear that I do not blame the present Government or the present corporation. The fault lies with consecutive town councils in Glasgow. Instead of going around the world, councillors in Glasgow would do well to wander around their own city at times to see for themselves exactly what is happening.

Priesthill has been described as a place of total despair. Headmasters and their schoolteachers tell me the children suffer if they come from these areas. The scheme was built before the war and no drains were laid. The result is that in 1970 people have to walk to their dustbins through six inches or nine inches of mud. The cleansing department is not very efficient with this scheme and gradually the whole environment is worsened.

Above and beyond all others, the great tragedy is that children are being brought up here. I am often conscious of the fact that this is one of the reasons why Glasgow has become such a violent city. Wives and mothers living in these areas find that for them the cost of living is higher than it is in the rest of the town, for their bus fares are higher and they have to go by bus to do their shopping. Pollok has no amenities of any kind, no place for the children to go, and so they have nothing to do but go in the streets.

I hope that this is something which the Minister will consider as soon as possible and that this great estate will be provided with the community services which it needs. As the bulldozers pull down the Gorbals and Bridgeton and Govan, people move into Pollok, and we have a wonderful opportunity to make life for the people moving from the slums much better instead of allowing them simply to move into new modern slums. We already have an acute problem with people who do not want to leave houses which have no toilets and bathrooms to move into houses in Priesthill. This is freely admitted in Glasgow, and it is a shocking reflection on the lack of energy displayed by the corporation.

In 1952 the Toothill Report on the Scottish economy criticised the amenities of Scottish council housing and described the new estates as bleak areas of concrete boxes. Discussing schemes without community centres and without anything for children to do, a report published in 1935 said:

"Neglect of this principle and the prevailing tendency to regard working-class houses as mere units of accommodation unrelated to each other and to their environment we regard as a fundamental defect in the majority of Scottish housing schemes."

Thirty-five years later conditions have got worse.

One of the peculiarities of Pollok is that five hon. Members live there—I do not mean to suggest that they are peculiar. They are losing constituents into my con-constituency. I am now serving them by doing my best to ensure that life is a little better for the people who move into Pollok.

I should like to congratulate the hon. Member for Glasgow, Pollok (Mr. James White) on an able and calmly delivered maiden speech on a matter which often excites, and rightly excites, great emotion. I have a particular interest in Pollok, because, as the hon. Gentleman probably knows, the constituency was represented for many years by my father. Clearly, in my view Pollok is not now quite the same. Nevertheless, I was delighted by the hon. Gentleman's speech and I hope that he will continue, not only in the House but in the Scottish Committee, to make speeches in that same calm manner and not become contaminated by some of his hon. Friends.

The hon. Member for Glasgow, Gorbals (Mr. McElhone) chose an important subject for this debate. His constituency is somewhat different from mine, but in parts of mine I have similar problems. It is easy to excite sympathy and stir up emotion by describing the appalling conditions of certain parts of Glasgow, but that is not nearly enough.

It was unworthy of the hon. Member for Gorbals to suggest that the slums were there because 100 years ago factory owners wished their workers to live close to the factory. Where else did he expect them to live? He seems to have forgotten that in those days there were no trains or cars, and if the workers did not live near their work, they did not have any work to do. The hon. Gentleman should do his research before producing that sort of red herring.

I get sick and tired of hearing people talk these days about man's inhumanity to man. I saw a photograph recently in the Ayr Advertiser of a row of miners' cottages in the constituency of the Under-Secretary which had been built just over 100 years ago. These houses are today condemned as utterly appalling. However, the article recalled that when they were originally built they were regarded as the best possible modern dwellings that could be provided.

rose—

I will not give way. I did not interrupt the hon. Gentleman and I wish to be brief.

Hon. Gentlemen opposite forget that there is no point in criticising what was done 100 years ago if, at the same time, they compare those days with the conditions and standards that exist today.

It ill becomes the hon. Member for Gorbals, who was a member of the Town Council of Glasgow for many years, to criticise the Conservative Party for the conditions which he and his hon. Friend the Member for Pollok rightly condemn. In the last 40 years there has been, with two short exceptions, a Socialist administration running the City of Glasgow. If there is anything wrong with housing in Glasgow, and heaven knows there is, they are the guilty men. I am sorry to have to say that so close to Christmas, but unfortunately it is true.

The hon. Member for Pollok rightly referred to housing estates where people feel they are living in what the late Aneurin Bevan described as "units of accommodation". That is the trouble. They are called units instead of homes. I remember that during the 1945 election Mr. Churchill, as he then was, spoke of three important factors; food, work and homes. What did we get? We got "units of accommodation" from the Socialists, and they are responsible for the present housing conditions in Glasgow. I have written to my hon. Friend on the question of multi-storey dwellings saying that this type of development has gone too far, and I join with the hon. Member for Pollok in this matter.

Three points must be borne in mind when considering housing conditions in Glasgow, and none of them has anything to do with man's inhumanity to man. First—and the Labour party is responsible in this matter—the rents of local authority houses have been far too low. I see the hon. Member for Greenock (Dr. Dickson Mabon) sharpening his pencil—or is he getting his gun ready?—because of this remark. Unfortunately I will not be in my place to listen to his protestations because owing to the air troubles I shall have to leave shortly to get to Scotland.

Because of the low rents that have been charged, there has been no incentive to those who are able to afford a little more to help themselves. A few years ago a notorious case arose in my constituency. It was found that a gentleman earning well over £3,000 a year, which is probably equivalent to £4,000 today, was residing in a local authority house and paying a very low rent.

The second factor which is causing bad housing conditions in Glasgow is that rent restriction has meant that insufficient money has been going to maintain private housing. This was recognised by hon. Gentlemen opposite because, as a death-bed repentance, they introduced the fair rent structure. We had been pressing for it for years.

Oh dear.

We do not want any hypocrisy from the hon. Member for Greenock. He knows that there would have been a tremendous uproar from his hon Friends, with shouting from the house-tops, if we had attempted to introduce such a Measure.

Thirdly, I am concerned about the maintenance of private property in multiple ownership. There are many good tenement flats that were built 50 to 60 years ago, but the occupants of many of them tend to take a short-term view of maintenance. If they were living in their own bungalows they would know that any money spent on maintenance would be well worth the expenditure because they would more than get it back when they sold. However, those who own only one part of a block and who have neighbours above and below them take a different attitude.

I hope that the Minister will look into this problem. This may sound rather strange coming from a Conservative, but I suggest that the Government examine whether they have powers to ensure that private property is maintained to an adequate standard. I am not referring simply to safety standards. Unless this is done, I fear that there will be a constant decline in this property. There are good houses in my constituency which are lacking adequate maintenance.

If we look at local authority rents—and the Government have promised to introduce a Measure about this—and fairer rents are charged for private property, so that there is an incentive and an ability to maintain it—it cannot be done without the money—and if this question of the maintenance of property in multiple private ownership is examined. I am sure that we shall achieve more for the citizens of Glasgow than all the shouting from the housetops on the part of hon. Gentlemen opposite will achieve.

I wish, at the outset, to add my congratulations to my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Pollok (Mr. James White) on his excellent maiden speech. I have known him for many years and I have no doubt that, having got his first speech in this House under his belt, we will be hearing from him frequently.

I am glad of this opportunity to speak about Glasgow's housing conditions. I do not propose to comment on the many points raised by the hon. Member for Glasgow, Hillhead (Mr. Galbraith), except to wonder about what he as to complain over the attitude of the Socialist Administration towards Glasgow. If anything, I have more to complain about than he has.

As a result of the efforts of the previous Administration, my distinguished constituency of Bridgeton will disappear after the May redistribution. This will happen because of the successful record of the Socialist Administration in rehousing so many families from my area. It is, of course, a source of regret to me that Bridgeton will disappear. On the other hand it gives me a sense of satisfaction to know that so many families have been removed to better homes.

The hon. Member for Hillhead said that it was easy to become emotional on the subject of housing conditions. I get not only emotional but impatient because, unlike him, I am not prepared to dwell on the past. I have no doubt that when the historians come to write about our actions, they will have an equal portion of blame and praise to give.

Nor is it any good to quote statistics. How many houses were built in one year compared with another is meaningless to families waiting for homes. Statistics do not convey the degradation and vile conditions which still exist in the City of Glasgow. It is ironic that we hear so much about environmental pollution and its effect on the countryside and the air when for so many years we have had in the midst of one of Britain's greatest cities areas which can be classed only as cesspits. In my constituency there is one ward in which nothing has been built for over 20 years by either private builders or by the local authority. Yet in this area are some of the poorest and worst housing conditions which can be found anywhere.

I am not demanding immediate action, but I ask the Under-Secretary of State for Development to find time to pay a visit to Glasgow to see the problem for himself and to realise how urgent it is. If he made such a visit, it would create a good deal of hope—and in my area hope is a commodity which is running out. A visit by the Minister would put him in a better position to decide what should be done. I do not propose to remind him of the assurances given prior to the election; many things are said prior to an election. But I imagine that no one would disagree that Glasgow is in a unique position.

Reference has been made to the report of the medical officer of health in which such terms as "atrocious housing and living conditions" are used. They are strong words, but they fit the conditions in Glasgow. Gastroenteritis and dysentery are commonplace, especially in my constituency where back courts are back courts in name only at this time of the year. Throughout the winter these are areas of green slime. Dustbin shelters are non-existent. These conditions are accepted as normal.

If the Housing Acts were made to operate in my area—and we should bear in mind the standards laid down in the last Housing Act in respect of which there was talk of tolerable standards for the first time—90 per cent. of the houses would be shut. It is nothing short of tragic that we can pass Acts with the declared intention of righting certain evils and yet nothing is done to improve the housing conditions.

We require more than simply the passing of legislation. The intimate attention of Ministers whose responsibility is to provide decent housing is required. Local authorities should face up to their responsibilities and provide the necessary houses.

The conditions in an area like Glasgow transcend all political boundaries. If we spent less time slanging each other for what has been done or what should have been done and united in a common purpose to achieve better standards in areas of bad housing conditions, possibly many more people living in atrocious conditions would live in them for only a very short time longer and would be removed to much better areas.

I ask the Minister to find time to visit the City of Glasgow—not the town centre but areas of bad housing conditions—so that he may fully appreciate the urgency of the situation, although I do not dispute that he knows that it is urgent. He would then be able to see for himself what is needed. I ask him not to say that this is purely a matter for the local authority. I have no doubt that if he makes a visit he will come away armed with the information he needs and imbued with a sense of urgency to do whatever is necessary.

Words are just words; they contribute nothing. Facts speak much louder than words, and the facts in Glasgow are there for anyone to see.

I join my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Bridgeton (Mr. James Bennett) and the hon. Member for Glasgow, Hill-head (Mr. Galbraith) in congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Pollok (Mr. James White) on his excellent maiden speech. My hon. Friend kept very calm in a situation which perhaps could have engendered a bit more heat, which the hon. Member for Hillhead did. He counselled us to keep calm but did not keep calm himself. Like Simon Marley, in his warning to old Scrooge, he told us of the wickedness of what will happen if we do not behave. The hon. Gentleman is a convert when he talks about insufficient money being put into old tenements. That is quite right. The only major repair and renovation carried out recently in the private sector in Glasgow was with Government money as a consequence of an act of God and an Act of Parliament. The act of God was the storm of 1968 and the Act of Parliament was, among others, the 1969 housing Measure which provided for the giving of money to owners of properties in Glasgow and elsewhere in Scotland.

I agree that the social value of these buildings is more properly gauged in the atmosphere of Dickensian times, about which the hon. Member for Hillhead is an authority, when the present tenements were built than by looking at them nowadays. But no one can deny that the state of private housing, particularly of rented accommodation, in Glasgow is deplorable. A great deal of action, not talk, is required to improve the situation. All that we have had from the Government so far has been talk.

What are the facts? We are not to have a Bill for another year. Then it probably will not be in process of translation into fact until the summer of 1972. That will be two years after the Prime Minister promised on 11th June, 1970, that special aid for Glasgow was on the way. It will be two years, if the Government stick to their declared timetable, before they help Glasgow in some unspecified way. I emphasise that. We do not know what the promise to Glasgow means, nor do the Glaswegians. Not even the loyal Tory followers of the Prime Minister have the foggiest idea what the "special aid" represents. No city treasurer of Glasgow can calculate the budget estimates for the next few years based on an arithmetical appreciation of the Prime Minister's promise.

We have no facts and no figures. The Government have almost a terror of committing themselves to figures. Let me remind them of a few figures which they cannot run away from. First, they are on record as saying that they intend to build 50,000 houses every year in Scotland. That has never been repudiated. We can therefore take it that the Government's target remains what they declared it to be. We hope that they will achieve it. Certainly it is a target which we would have liked to achieve.

When the Prime Minister talks about the situation in our country being worse in 1970 than it was in 1964 in terms of new houses built, that is not true of Scotland. The Under-Secretary of State for Development, on any recital of the figures—and perhaps he had better stay away from figures—will have to admit that this year more houses are being built than in 1964, when 37,000 houses were built. We have surpassed that figure this year and are well on the way to sustaining the 40,000 plus which the Labour Government secured in 1967, 1968 and 1969. Therefore, I ask the hon. Gentleman whether he intends to go beyond the figure of 50,000 completions in Scotland in the time that he and his colleagues are at the Scottish Office.

There is also the commitment by the present Secretary of State for Scotland that he will secure the Cullingworth target of 30,000 slum houses cleared annually. If the Secretary of State is not committed to this—and in my opinion he is—then certainly the Under-Secretary of State for Development is committed, as witness his past speeches in favour of the Cullingworth Report and its consequential legislative provisions.

I touch on this because we hope that the present Government will use the 1969 Act to the full. Without that, this report which is the basis of our debate this morning, the report of the working party on the Glasgow housing programme, 1970, will be meaningless. I should like to highlight some of the facts in this report and ask the hon. Gentleman to tell us, which so far they have not done, what the Government intend to do about this report.

I remind the House that it was my duty in the days when I held the hon. Gentleman's office and then later as Minister of State to look regularly at this matter on a working party basis between officials and elected Members, and we did process for five years the housing programme of the city. It was a joint effort between the Government and the Corporation—to see that we could achieve better figures of housebuilding in the city and in figures of improvements and, of course, of the slums. In 1965 to 1969 inclusive we set ourselves a target of 25,000 new houses and we achieved that target, give or take a score, of houses here and there, depending on circumstances. That was for those five years. There was then a successor working party set up by Lord Hughes, my colleague as Minister of State, and the Corporation to lay out the strategy for the next 10 years—not five, but 10 years.

I am afraid that I was very disappointed at the paucity of information which the Under-Secretary of State gave us when he went to Glasgow this autumn and discussed the report with the Corporation. Therefore I would ask him a few questions which, I hope, will be answered, because my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Gorbals (Mr. McElhone), my other colleagues and I have discussed these matters and we want answers. We think that the city, and both major parties in the city, are entitled to answers.

Do the Government accept the targets here? Do they expect the city to build, in that 10-year period, the same number of houses as we built in the five-year period, namely, 25,000? Does the hon. Gentleman expect that? Will his Department work closely with the Corporation to secure that the figure will be achieved by 1981? Can he tell us what has happened this year? That has not been quantified in this report. Or will we have to wait till January or February next year before we know how many houses have been completed in the city in 1970 and whether 1970 was as bad as or even worse than 1969? Much more important for the future of this programme, what is the figure of approvals and starts in 1970 in the city, and what has been done to increase it? I think that by that we can measure whether or not there is any sincerity in this declaration that 25,000 will be built in Glasgow in the next 10 years.

More important still, I would suggest, particularly in view of what the Select Committee said about the slow rate of house improvement grants both under Labour and Conservative Governments, there was, for example, in one year a rate of 140 applications for improvements—and that when there are literally thousands, tens of thousands, of houses which fall into this category in the city. Can we know, therefore, if it is the intention of the Government to try to secure 1,000 improved houses per annum over the 10 years? That would give us the 35,000 houses mentioned in the report here as necessary to be improved and freshly constructed within the city.

Then there is the strategic figure of 100,000 families to be rehoused, 10,000 a year, over the decade, with 65,000 outside the city. I can remember the long and difficult negotiations with the Conservatives in Glasgow over the contributions to Erskine and how at the end of the day we had to give in to the city's claim that it should get a very preferential rate and it should get such consideration for its houses and tenancies as its special situation merited. I personally would have liked Glasgow to have been given the entire and exclusive use of these houses on a tighter arrangement, but the Conservatives did not want that and wanted them cheaper. I warn the hon. Gentleman that there will be trouble if he gives less to other areas than has been given Glasgow. I warn him to be careful about it, because there are other places, little Glasgows, whose social and construction problems are as much in need of special aid, as the Prime Minister called it, as Glasgow claims to have.

On this question of overspill, the figure of 65,000 houses is given in the report. Will the hon. Gentleman tell us whether this is endorsed by the Conservative Government? If it is, will he give us some information about the discrepancy between the numbers that we committed ourselves to when we were in office, and which I estimate to be some 17,000 fewer than that figure? This means, therefore, that there will be some reassessment of the various places and numbers outside the city that were chosen by the last Government for discussion and consideration—Erskine, Cumbernauld, East Kilbride, and, most controversial of all, the development of Larkhall and Stonehouse. The arrangement here was that the overall plan would be designed—not financed, but designed—by the East Kilbride New Town Development Corporation. After that 2,000 houses would be built by the S.S.H.A. and further houses would be allocated to the Larkhall-Stonehouse area. The intention was to review the situation in the light of reports like this. Is there not need to look at the Larkhall-Stonehouse area to see whether perhaps there should be a new town here—knowing that the Treasury has always a firm voice in these things, of course, under Government by either party? Irvine was envisaged for development in 1964 by the party opposite but it took two and a half years of statutory procedures and inquiries before the order was laid before the House and the start on building the houses for Irvine new town as such was made. If that was the case—and that was pretty good going—surely it is now time to start discussing the prospect of a new town in the Larkhall-Stonehouse area?

These are things of great moment to the people of Scotland, particularly west central Scotland, and the Scottish Office, so far, has been very reticent about saying anything about them. Indeed, the only noises we hear from the Scottish Office these days are snores. The somnolence is almost insufferable. The Government have grasped the housing finance nettle, as the hon. Gentleman said on one memorable occasion; let them grasp the nettle of these housing developments. Why is it that we hear so little about their future? We do not know what Government policy is. Perhaps the Government do not know themselves. Let us be fair—perhaps they have not made up their minds. But I can tell the hon. Gentleman that my hon. Friend the Member for Gorbals has today fired the first shot in a campaign to get the Government to come clean and to say what they intend to do, and what they intend to do about that 50,000. lf, as I understand it, this is an agreed working party report, then these are questions which, I suggest, the Minister must answer. I hope that he will answer them today.

I should like first to congratulate the hon. Member for Glasgow, Gorbals (Mr. McElhone) on his extreme good fortune not only in getting, the Adjournment debate today and upon raising this very important subject, but also upon getting in first and upon confining his speech to a length which will make his and other hon. Members' arrangements easier for the rest of the day.

Having done that I should like particularly to say what a pleasure it was to hear the maiden speech of the hon. Member for Glasgow, Pollok (Mr. James White). He did what many others would be well advised to do. He waited to make his maiden speech for an occasion which is thoroughly suitable, and a subject thoroughly right in the interests of his constituency, and he talked of what he most believes in, and I thought it shone all through his speech that he was talking from his heart about a constituency which he knows well, and about a situation which matters to him and to his constituents very much indeed. I enjoyed the hon. Member's speech very much indeed, and I hope that it will be but the first of many which he will make in this House during this Parliament and, no doubt, in Committee upstairs.

No one needs—although I have no regrets about having this debate—to have a debate to convince me, or indeed this Government, that Glasgow faces a highly exceptional difficulty in its housing situation. That is why we went out of our way in our General Election manifesto to specify that we intended to give special aid to Glasgow in recognition of its special and most difficult problems. I reaffirm that we intend to keep this pledge, and I will explain how we shall go about it.

I do not need to be persuaded that there is a difficult housing problem in Glasgow. I know it, and I am glad that hon. Members have debated it today. The hon. Member for Greenock (Dr. Dickson Mabon) said that he would embark on a campaign. He had better get a move on with that campaign, because it will be a very short one. Before long the Government will be able to announce, I hope, the whole details of the special help which we intend to give Glasgow.

The situation in Glasgow goes back for many years. I much appreciated the remarks of the hon. Member for Glasgow, Bridgeton (Mr. James Bennett), who made an interesting and statesmanlike speech. I agree with him that hon. Members on both sides of the House know about the problem. It is not a question of whose fault it was in the past; there is more than one opinion on who bears the blame. The question is what we can do to put it right. I thoroughly welcome the realistic and sensible way in which he addressed himself to the problems.

The most encouraging thing which I have seen in Scottish housing for a long time is the joint working party report which has been referred to. The working party was set up following the radical reappraisal of the Glasgow housing situation embarked upon by the administration in Glasgow Corporation on coming to power in May, 1968. It was embarked upon as a deliberate act. The corporation felt that there was a crying need for a reappraisal of the whole planning and housing situation in the city, to see how it would shape in the next 10 years. Following that initiative, I must also record, as the hon. Gentleman did, my appreciation to the noble Lord Lord Hughes who, during his term at the Scottish Office, got together with the Corporation, as a result of which the working party was appointed and produced the report which we are debating today.

That is not true. The report is a consequence of a working party meeting this year. Working parties have been set up before, and the first one was established in March, 1965, at the behest of the then Glasgow Labour administration in agreement with the Government. The hon. Gentleman should ask his officials about this; they have worked very hard on these working parties.

The hon. Gentleman is not understanding what I am saying. I am not saying that this working party was started in May, 1968. I am saying that, as a consequence of the radical reappraisal which started then, it became clear at the beginning of this year that a joint working party could produce a useful report. So it has done. I very much welcome it, and I pay tribute to the noble Lord for his part in it.

The report gives the administration in Glasgow and the Government a set of figures and guidelines, upon which to base a reappraisal of the housing programme in Glasgow for the next ten years. The Corporation has accepted the report, and so has the opposition in the Corporation. As I said in Glasgow on 25th August, the Government also accept the working party report as a realistic aim for the next ten years. We shall be working with the Corporation on these lines.

The problem is basically one for the Corporation. I have been at pains during the last few months to emphasise that this is Glasgow Corporation's problem, and that my rôle and that of the Scottish Office is to help the Corporation in every way we can. I do not agree with the hon. Member for Gorbals that our rôle is to lake over the housing programme from the Corporation. I have no intention of doing that, and if I did, it would not be welcomed by anyone in the City.

Following the working party report, I have been in the closest touch with the Corporation during the last few months, and my officials have been in even closer touch. Not for a long time have we had such a close and fruitful working relationship, and we are well on the way to formulating details of the form of the special help which we intend to give to Glasgow with the agreement of the Corporation as a whole.

Does the hon. Gentleman accept the figure for overspill of 65,000, and what are his views on that figure?

I do not quite know what the hon. Gentleman means by "accept". I accept it as a realistic estimate of what is needed. Together with the Corporation, I am putting all my energy and consideration into working out how we are to achieve this aim. At this stage all I can do is to accept it as a realistic aim, and to work out how best to achieve it.

The hon. Member for Gorbals referred to the cut-back in housing subsidies as being a matter of grave concern to him. I hope that he will look with a great deal more care at the local effect of the new housing policies as they are spelt out. He will find that the main aim of the new policies is to concentrate the help which the Government can give particularly on areas of greatest need. I can think of no general principle which would act more to the benefit of Glasgow than that, and I hope that he will look at the new housing policies in that light.

The hon. Member for Gorbals also described very movingly some of the slums in his constituency. No one denies that those slums exist, and I look forward as much as he does to the day when they are removed. The problem is to decide how we can remove them, and that is why the emphasis of the new policy must be not merely on the building of houses within the city, but on improving older houses and looking at the whole planning picture to see how we can make the best use of the ground and our resources. This matter must be looked at as a whole and that is why I welcome the way in which the Corporation has tackled this problem by getting the working party to look at it as a whole.

The hon. Member for Pollok spoke about the condition of some of the existing Corporation schemes, which is perhaps the greatest justification for a complete reappraisal of the City's housing. I agree that more resources must be devoted to upgrading the environment of some of these older developments. The condition of some of the older schemes should restrain us from rushing ahead, irrespective of the facts and figures contained in the report, and building anything, anywhere, at any cost. By doing this we should be building tomorrow's slums yet again. No hasty action taken by me without careful planning and without taking the Corporation's officials and members with me, would be in any way helpful in alleviating the conditions which have been so movingly described. This matter must and is being considered very carefully. That is why I must resist the idea of going for a quick, slick glamorous solution which would read well in HANSARD but would not solve, or even go a substantial way towards solving, the exceptional problems of Glasgow's housing.

The hon. Member for Greenock asked whether we accept the working party's report. We certainly do. But, rather remarkably, he asked whether we accepted the target generally for Scotland of building 50,000 houses a year. In the first place, if parties are to be committed to fulfilling their last election manifesto but one—and it was in our last election manifesto but one that this figure was mentioned—then the hon. Gentleman should look back at some of the Labour Party's past election manifestoes and see what hon. Members opposite are committed to thereby.

We have never disguised the fact that we regard the failure of the last Government to get anywhere near the 50,000 target as being the main signpost in the change of housing policy for future years. The present Government are not going to base the housing programme on a set of targets plucked out of the air which we would have no chance of fulfilling. I hope that is a clear answer. It is meant to be. The question is whether we can build houses when and where they are needed and at the right cost. That is what we are addressing ourselves to at the moment.

The hon. Gentleman asked whether it was our aim to achieve the 1,000 houses to be improved each year over the next ten years. That is our aim. I shall devote particular emphasis towards house improvement because, for various reasons, this aspect has not received sufficient attention in the past. Indeed, the last Government's Act, which would help and is a very good one, has not been used as much as it should have been. It is important that we should make as much use as we can of that Act.

In considering this problem, we can all take the words of the hon. Member for Bridgeton very much to heart. This matter vitally affects everyone in Glasgow during the next 10 years. We now have a joint working relationship between the Corporation and the Government which is working extremely well. It is very close and I believe that it can produce very shortly now a blueprint for housing over the next ten years in Glasgow which can produce results which can go at least a long way to cutting down the conditions which hon. Members have talked about today.

I was accused in the debate of having sat and done nothing. I may be accused of many things that are wrong and of making mistakes, and no doubt will be. But what I have not done, as the Minister responsible to the Secretary of State for housing in Glasgow and Scotland generally, is sit down and do nothing. I have paid tribute in the past to the energy and enthusiasm of the hon. Member for Greenock when he was responsible for housing in the Scottish Office. I hope that he will not be too embarrassed when I say that I aim to emulate that enthusiasm in getting the next stage of Scotland's housing going forward.

But we will not get the houses built and we will not help the homeless by going back into the past and arguing about whether conditions in Glasgow today are the responsibility of the last Socialist administration in Glasgow, which lasted for 30 years, or of the Tory Government, which has been in for six months, or the present administration in Glasgow, which has been in for two years. Our aim is to look to the future and we have a unique opportunity to do so in the facts and figures of the joint working party report.

I hope that we can have the support of both sides of the House for a new deal for Glasgow's housing, which is being worked out at the moment. If we can have the support of all hon. Members, it will be a great improvement on the party warfare we have sometimes had in the past.

Order. I remind the hon. Gentleman that this debate finishes at 12.15.

I assumed that you would call me to order when necessary, Mr. Speaker. If the debate has now finished, that is fine.

Before I call the next debate, I should like to repeat, for the benefit of those hon. Members who were not here, what I said earlier. I said that we must stick to the timetable because, if we vary it at all, some hon. Members wishing to take part in debates towards the end of the list will not be able to get in.

In calling the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Dell), therefore, I must remind him that the debates are timed, and this one must end by 1.15.

The subject I bring before the House in this debate is not a very happy one, but before I proceed further with this sad story, I should like to say, Mr. Speaker, that I am glad at any rate to have this last opportunity, on a day which is in this sense historic, to speak under your chairmanship. I say that to you not because I want to gain any favour under the rules of order. I know that I must not refer in an Adjournment debate to matters which entail legislation. Specifically, I must not refer to the Mersey Docks and Harbour Board (Capital Reconstruction) Bill, which is currently before the House. Nevertheless, I am sure that I cannot be blamed if the existence of that Bill is in the minds of hon. Members—it is not something I can prevent—and inevitably it may be taken by the House as, in a sense, the background to what I am saying.

Nevertheless, I am basing my case on the Government's action in moving for the appointment of a receiver of rates, now granted by the courts, and an issue which is therefore no longer, as it was when we debated the subject on 1st December, sub judice. The object of the Government in moving for the appointment of a receiver of rates was stated by the Minister for Transport Industries on 30th November. He said that it was being done:

"… to protect the financial interests of the Government and the other secured creditors."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 30th November; Vol. 807, c. 905.]

I will argue that it fails to do this adequately, in respect, at any rate, of the other secured creditors.

During the debate on 1st December, when the House considered the situation then facing the Board, the right hon. Gentleman said that

"… investors who make mistakes are apt to lose their money."—[OFFICIAL. REPORT, 1st December, 1970; Vol. 807, c. 1096.]

His remark in this context has caused considerable offence to many investors in the Board and in my view is not appropriate to the case—especially perhaps not in the case of the small investors who invested in the Board because they wanted security. They were not going in as a gamble. They were not investing in equities for the purpose of making a capital gain. What they wanted was security and they thought that that security was what they had achieved.

I think that the Government's decision in this matter has been wrong and that they should change their minds. What I am trying to do today is to persuade the Government to change their minds. They have at any rate one precedent for changing their minds on this issue. In an editorial on 1st December, discussing the Government's decision against the background of the Government's disengagement policy, The Times said:

"If disengagement is to be a meaningful philosophy, then a start has to be made somewhere and given the Government's declared objectives then the Mersey Docks and Harbour Board is probably as good a place to begin as any."

However, after maturer reflection, which this issue clearly needs, in an editorial three days later, on 4th December, 1970, The Times said something very different:

"By the tenets of free enterprise investors in ordinary shares bear the risks and the rewards of business. It is unfortunate, therefore that the first victims of Government policy are investors in fixed-interest debentures and bonds in Mersey Docks. And it is doubly unfortunate that a question mark has thus been raised over the security of semi-official borrowings in the bond market."

In its final few sentences, the editorial continued:

"But, if Mersey is a special case, the Government should pay the cost of making it an exception. What they cannot do is to confuse the principles of free enterprise with noncommercial practice—particularly at the expense of investors who have chosen safety rather than risk in the placing of their funds."

The House will agree that that represents a change of attitude to the problem by The Times after considering the implications of disengagement. The Government should follow the example of The Times and change their mind.

It has been argued that if, some time during the last 112 years that the Board has been established, somebody had read the small print of the Board's statutory constitution, they would not have made the mistake of believing it to be a virtually gilt-edged investment. They would have found that it is less secure than many equity investments and that borrowing by the Board is secured only by the rates, which are not the whole of its income, and not against the assets of the enterprise.

I hope that the Government do not want to go down in history as one in respect of whose actions the small print has to be read. I do not accept that argument. There are reasons for not accepting that argument as a correct interpretation of the Board's position. It was established in 1858 as a statutory trust, and in 1965 there was a Revision Order introduced by the Minister of Transport under the Harbours Act of 1964. Under that, four nominees of the Minister of Transport were appointed to the Board, which indicates, at any rate, some Ministerial responsibility. This is an investment falling within Part II of the First Schedule to the Trustee Investment Act, 1961. For a very long period investment in the Board has been as secure as, one would once have said, an investment in the Bank of England.

There is, however, an additional reason for rejecting this interpretation of the security of an investment in the Board's loan capital, the interpretation that people should have read the small print and understood the real statutory position. The additional argument arises from the impossibility of the situation which occurs if the Board falls into financial difficulties. Under the Statute, the Board has to function: it has to function even if it has inadequate finances. There must have been an entirely justified assumption that, if this impossible situation arose, the Government or Parliament would act to relieve it in a way which would not be at the expense of the holders of fixed interest secured debt. If investors had taken any other view, they would not have invested in the Board other than on very high risk terms. In that event, the Govern- ment would have been compelled, sometime during the last 112 years, either to have given a Government guarantee to investments in the Board or to have found some other way of increasing the security of investments made in it.

The Government's action in this case is an outrage. That is the strongest word which I propose to use, for the simple reason that I am hoping that hon. Member's opposite may find it possible to support what I am saying, and I do not want to make it more difficult.

Hon. Members will have seen letters in The Times and other newspapers from bondholders of the Mersey Docks and Harbour Board, expressing their views on the Government's action, and I am sure that other hon. Members have received similar letters from their constituents. Since it became known that I was to raise this matter, I have received letters not merely from my own constituents but from those of other hon. Members.

I shall quote a few extracts from those letters. I shall not give the name of the writers. A doctor living in Ealing writes:

"Last January my mother invested in the Mersey Port and Harbour Board 9¾ per cent loan to be repaid in January, 1972. She was invited to invest money by the Board, having invested in a previous loan."

The doctor continues:

"My mother in common with a great many other people, would not risk her money in equities and would certainly never consider the more speculative type of share, as she relies on the interest she receives for income on which she lives. She regarded the Mersey Docks as completely safe, and comparable with the many Local Authority loans offering a similar rate of interest."

"I am writing this letter on behalf of my mother, as although she insists on being independent and lives alone, she is elderly and half-blind, and consequently finds difficulty in writing letters."

I quote an extract from a letter which I have received from one of my constituents:

"I am not in a position to lose this amount. I will find it very difficult to be without the dividend I have been receiving. I do trust that this Bill that you have to be considered on Friday …"—

the lady evidently does not understand the procedures of the House—

"… will to some extent relieve the anxiety of many of us who have money in the Board."

I hope that when the hon. Gentleman replies to the debate he will tell us exactly what the position will be, not merely in respect of the deferment of repayments of bonds but in respect of interest payable on the bonds before repayment.

Lastly, I quote a letter which I have received from a gentleman living in Southport:

"I am a holder of a small sum in these Bonds and am therefore interested. The attitude taken by the Government in this matter is, in my opinion, the most shameful action ever taken by any British Government. I have always held the impression that these securities carrying Trustee status and issued by a Public Trust whose borrowing is at all times controlled by the Government, were completely safe, both as regards to capital and interest."

Other hon. Members will have received similar letters and will have been able to judge the reaction of these bondholders, who are aware of what is happening to them as a result of the Government's decision.

Another reason why the Government should reconsider their decision is the effect it may have, and I believe will have, on the cost of borrowing by public boards and even local authorities. I have been in contact with various people who could advise me on that. I should like to quote a paragraph from a letter I have received from a firm of City solicitors which advises one of the bodies involved in this case Again I will not mention the firm. I do not think that it would object to my doing so, but it does not say specifically that I can. Its letter says:

"In the light of the foregoing, it has become clear to our clients that investment in the Mersey Docks and Harbour Board and other similar statutory undertakings, though long regarded as a safe trustee investment at fixed interest, in fact involves a very high degree of risk. Investors, in the absence of legislation to improve their security and facilitate the enforcement of their remedies, cannot be expected to provide further funds for undertakings such as this. It is our clients' view that the market's confidence has been completely lost and that undertakings such as statutory boards and even local authorities will, unless confidence can be restored, soon find it virtually impossible to raise money from many of the most important sources upon which they have hitherto been accustomed to rely."

What consideration have the Government given to this point?

I am glad to see two Treasury Ministers present and that they are listening to what I say, even though I understand that neither is to reply to the debate. I gave notice that I would be asking this question, and I hope that the Under-Secretary of State for the Environment will be able to deal with it.

What estimate, if any, have the Government made of the effect of downgrading the security offered by the Mersey Docks and Harbour Board on the future cost of borrowing by local authorities and public boards? Let me take the Port of London Authority as an example. What will it add to the cost of funding its debt? Will it add anything? What estimate has been made on this point?

What effect will there be on the cost of borrowing by local authorities? What effect will this decision have on the cost of borrowing by the Government? I have heard indirectly of one stockbroker who has been advising his clients to move their fixed interest holdings out of public boards and local authorities into Government stock. That may help the Government, but is that the Government's intention? What estimate have the Government made on this point?

On the first point, about the effect of this on public boards, do the Government agree with what the right hon. and learned Member for Wirral (Mr. Selwyn Lloyd), with his great authority as a former Chancellor of the Exchequer, said in this House on the 1st December:

"It is also a pity that the nature of the Government's plan should affect the credit worthiness of port authorities generally. If matters remains as they are, I doubt whether port authorities will be able to raise money in the future without some kind of Government guarantee. That ties round the necks of future Governments the responsibility for raising capital for port developments, and perhaps that was not the intention of this exercise."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 1st December, 1970; Vol. 807; c. 1107.]

What view do the Government take of what the right hon. and learned Gentleman said on that occasion?

I have one final question. During the proceedings in the court preceding the appointment of the receiver of rates, it appears from reports that assurances were given by the Government to those who initially were opposed to the appointment of the receiver of rates and led to those bodies withdrawing their opposition. What assurances were they? What did the Government do which led to the withdrawal of that opposition? I hope that the hon. Gentleman can tell us that. Certainly it has not been made clear heretofore.

I have tried to make my point as moderately as possible so as not to make it more difficult either for the Government to change their mind or for hon. Gentlemen opposite who are inclined to support my plea. The Government must think again.

Naturally, my personal concern is mainly with small investors who sought security and who cannot afford the loss that this will cause them. I never thought it possible that a Government of this country other than, perhaps, in a period of great national crisis, would do anything like this. I beg the Government to think again.

The House is grateful to the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Dell) for raising this matter.

I should perhaps declare that I am a partner with many others in a firm of stockbrokers which, ever since the inception of the Mersey Docks and Harbour Board, has in the ordinary course of business dealt in its bonds, though I personally have never been much enamoured of their so-called securities.

My right hon. Friend the Minister for Transport Industries referred to the writing down of the nominal value of the capital by 30 per cent. That will happen on 1st January. It will therefore be a partial default when that happens. Is not this the first time that a public board has ever defaulted in this country? Even though it would still be a technical default, would not it be very much better for there to be a delay in the repayment, as long as the full interest can be met?

My right hon. Friend went on to say:

"I believe that the future of this immensely important port depends upon the contribution which can be made, and should be made, by a lot of people of differing backgrounds, differing functions and certainly differing political beliefs."—[OFFICIAL REPORT. 1st December, 1970; Vol. 807, c. 1098.]

I agree. However, those people will be found only in the various local authorities, and there are eight with which the Harbour Board deals.

I understand that there has been a meeting already between the Board and some of the local authorities. Perhaps my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for the Environment can give some information about that meeting, because I believe that, sooner or later, those local authorities have to back our regional port in the same way as the Port of Bristol Is backed by Bristol and the Port of Manchester has been backed in the past by Manchester. I remind my hon. Friend that almost every day the Lord Mayor of Liverpool replies to the toast,

"The City and the Port of Liverpool."

How are investors in this country and, above all, investors overseas, who have produced £150 million for local authorities on short term, to differentiate between the city and the port of Liverpool? Equally, local authorities on Merseyside will suffer a decline in their credit worthiness entirely because of the difficulties of the Mersey Docks and Harbour Board.

I want to refer to what my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment said when he replied to the debate on 1st December. He implied that equity would be provided in lieu of the 30 per cent. But what is the value of that equity? If it is not to pay a dividend, it will be at a very substantial discount. We have had no figures. No budget has been produced.

Some people think that for a long time the Board has been too institutional and not enough commercial and that, when the fat has been cut off, the Board may be in the black within 12 months or so. No one knows. Other people say that the position is very much grimmer. We would like to know so that at least we can judge what the value of that equity may be.

I ask my hon. Friend to think of the reaction, not only among those who are possible investors in other public boards. but those overseas. What a wonderful example for people in Africa or Asia to deal with British securities in this unilateral way. If a contract can be torn up unilaterally, how easy it will be for certain leaders overseas to do the same.

Past Governments have in large measure been responsible for the advice tendered to the Harbour Board. In view of that, I hope that this Government will take more than their share of the equity. That will allow some of the 36,000 bond holders, from whom, like the right hon. Gentleman, I have received many letters, at least to have the option either to have the equity or have the full capital repaid as soon as possible.

The Secretary of State said:

"My argument is that the Port of Liverpool does not need a subsidy"—

I agree that it should not need a subsidy once it is in the black—

"it needs good management and good relations between men and management."

I agree.

"There will then be no need for a subsidy to be paid by those who have invested in the port, or by local authorities or Government."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 1st December, 1970; Vol. 807. c. 1146.]

I agree, but at the moment, and for years to come, if nothing is done there will be no credit attached to the Mersey Docks and Harbour Board and it will be unable to raise any money to produce the working capital which it must have. The only way that I see of getting it is for the local authorities to give a guarantee. Then it can go to the market, and there will be no need for a call on the rates or on the taxpayer, provided that it can show it can be operative and in the black.

Let us have the power which Bristol and Manchester have. Do not let us call on the national taxpayer or even the ratepayer. Give us the power to underwrite our own regional port. Until that is done I cannot see that what we are debating today will ever pass this House.

I am sure that the House is grateful to the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Dell) for raising this subject, and for the moderate terms in which he introduced the debate.

I agree with much of what was said by the right hon. Gentleman. We are looking at a very sad story in quasi-governmental stocks. The last published figures show the capital of this organisation at £84 million. Having written off £35 million in depreciation over the past few years, at the end of 1969 it had reserves of £15 million and made a loss of £1·7 million. It is not a very good financial story. Unless the position has deteriorated substantially since, I do not think that it really calls for the action which the Board has taken.

I agree with the philosophy of the Government that undertakings, no matter what they be, should eventually be economically viable. Presumably it was because of this underlying philosophy that the Board was persuaded to undertake this capital reorganisation. I say that reservedly, because I do not think that it is a true capital reorganisation.

The Government must be very careful not to upset the money market from which the Board gets most of its capital, whether through local authorities, water boards, and all the rest. Take, for example, the institutional buyers in the City of London with money which is put aside for the future pensions of hundreds of thousands of people. If this kind of market is upset, the Government will be in grave danger. I am not sure that this point has really been thought through.

I think that everybody accepts that technically this is not Government stock. Presumably the investors did not read the small print. A case can be made that the investors should read the small print. Even so, they might still think that it was quasi-Government stock, and the British Government have never in the past defaulted on a stock. The only default in recent times, which is not connected with this matter, was non-payment of interest on the Rhodesian stock, in relation to which £100 is now worth about £30. We do not want that happening in this country.

If the Government say, "You must be commercially viable and do what private enterprise does", I think that the organisation should conform to the rules of private enterprise and not introduce a Bill to try, by Act of Parliament, to have a capital reorganisation.

I remind the House that under normal company reorganisations concerning any reduction in capital, there is, first, a general meeting of the company at which every class of share and bond holder is present. The Board has to get a 75 per cent. majority, and that is obtainable only if the whole of the facts and figures of the company are placed before the share and bond holders. This has not happened in this instance.

I cannot see the logic of saying, "Yes, you must do what private enterprise does, but you need not conform to the rules of private enterprise." If private enterprise wanted to give the facts and figures and to write down its capital, it could, or it could wind up. Everybody appreciates that a public undertaking cannot be wound up like that. However, I suggest that the rules of private enterprise should have applied here.

I deplore that a Bill has been introduced. I cannot see how it can become effective on 1st January, because it will not have been passed by 1st January.

As the Private Bill has not been passed, how is it possible for something drastic to be done to my constituents and other people on 1st January?

My right hon. Friend has raised a good point. Although the Bill will say that it will be written off on 1st January, the Bill cannot be passed by 1st January.

My real point is that in arbitrarily writing off 30 per cent. of the capital, whom did the Board consult? I presume that it consulted the Government. The Government are in no different position from any other bond holder in this organisation. My hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Mr. Tilney) and my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Southport (Mr. Percival) have many constituents who I understand invested in this undertaking. They have not been consulted, but presumably the Government have.

Next, I refer to the deferring of redemption for two years. This may be all right. It is not as serious as an arbitrary writing off. But what is serious is that any new borrowing after 27th November this year should rank in priority to the existing loans and debt of the undertaking.

If it is right—we must be logical—that we must write down the capital and only 70 per cent. of the loans remain they should rank pari passu with any new money, if there is something wrong with the 70 per cent., then the Board has made a mistake; it should have written it down to 50 or 60 per cent. But under no circumstances should it be able to write down 70 per cent, and not let it rank pari passu.

I warn the Government about the loss of confidence that this kind of action brings about. No one will believe that the Board is acting without guidance from the Government. There will be a great loss of confidence. Mention has been made of the loss of confidence in the Port of London Authority. Anybody who knows the City knows that there is resistance to local authority, water board, or any governmental or quasi-governmental borrowing. This is important for the taxpayer. If this kind of lack of confidence goes through and hits local authority loans, local authorities will need to have recourse to the Public Works Loan Board, and this means the taxpayer. Has this really been thought out? If we are going to kill this confidence, I beg the Government, as others have, to think again.

We must keep faith with these investors. I know that the organisation, for various reasons, has made a loss and that it has probably been increased because the revenue which was projected did not materialise. It had labour troubles and all the rest. I think that the Board, in conjunction with the Government, should reach some other solution. The deferring of redemption is not too hard a burden to bear, provided that the interest is being paid—a moratorium on, say, 30 per cent. of the interest—but with the right for the bond holders in perhaps two years to demand a meeting to find out what has happened to the undertaking and to see, as soon as possible, when it can fund that interest. I think that the point I made about letting new money rank pari passu with the 70 per cent. left is obviously financially logical.

I am delighted that the Treasury Minister is here. I am sure that if he were to speak in the debate he would agree with me. We find ourselves in an unhappy situation. There is no quoted price for the stock, but the price is about £30 for the lower interest rates and about £45 for the higher rates. The loss of confidence is extraordinary. The yield on the stocks goes up to 21 per cent., which is nonsensical, and shows what the investor thinks. I accept that the small investor with just £1,000 is hurt far more than the institutions, but when I talk about these yields the important point is not just the small investor but the loss of confidence that the City generally and particularly the institutions have in this stock.

In 1960 we had a Private Bill with some similarity to the present Bill. That was the Oldham Corporation Bill. Many investors up and down the country must be grateful to my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Southport who led an excellent campaign against that Bill, which was eventually amended.

The Mersey Docks and Harbour Board must think again. It must retain the confidence of the investor. We do not know where we shall end on this slippery slope if we lose the confidence of the institutional investor and the small investor, and if the Government's credibility is lost. I ask my right hon. and hon. Friends to think again.

I had not meant to intervene, but I want to press the Government on the very important issue of public confidence. Already it appears that the question we are debating has had an effect on public confidence. I understand that two recent local authority loans had to be offered at a higher rate of interest than would have been the case but for the history of this matter. Had the Government foreseen this? Had they taken it into account? If not, will they please respond to the very strong pressure, not only from my right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Dell) but from hon. Members opposite, and think again?

To avoid repetition I shall confine myself to points other than those which have been made this morning, but I should not like it to be thought that I am not just as concerned about each of those points as are those who have put them forward.

I hope that I shall not be thought to be an old-fashioned lawyer if I stress the one point which has not been stressed sufficiently today. We are talking about people's contractual rights. We are talking about quite a lot of small people who have relied upon the fact that they had a contract with the Board, and have made detailed arrangements. I shall not give details of all the letters that I have had from constituents, but I recall that one constituent has bonds totalling £1,200, some maturing on 1st January and some later. He is approaching retiring age, and his plans for retirement are substantially based on the receipt of the moneys which his contract guarantees him.

The House should be reminded of the view which it expressed when the Oldham Corporation Bill was before it. My hon. Friend the Member for Surrey, East (Mr. William Clark) was kind enough to refer to my part then. Practically every speaker then stressed that we all recognise that the House must be very slow to interfere with people's contractual rights. There may on occasions be cases where the argument is so strong that some intereference must be suffered. Interference may be justified because it is in the long-term interests of the persons whose contracts are concerned. But at present I, for one, am entirely at a loss to understand how we can at one and the same time have the Government taking over the entire responsibility for the management of the concern and permitting that concern to write off 30 per cent. of the rights of those who have invested—and write them off for all time. I might be persuaded that a moratorium was justified. I find it difficult to see how I could possibly be satisfied that this substantial writing-off could be justified.

So as to allow the maximum time for my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State to advise the House and the country about the matter, I say no more. But I hope that I have said enough to indicate that I and many right hon. and hon. Members who cannot be here today are very concerned about what appears to be proposed.

This debate has turned on three principal issues. The first is the suggestion by the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Dell) that there has been injustice to bond holders and other security holders by reason of the moratorium on repayment and the capital reconstruction proposed in the Board's Private Bill. The second issue has been the action taken by the Government to have a receiver of the rates appointed by the court. Third, hon. Members have been concerned about the potential effect of these actions on other similar borrowings.

The debate is somewhat inhibited by the fact that it is not appropriate for us to anticipate discussion of the Board's Private Bill, and many of the matters raised by my hon. Friends can and will be put when it is debated. Moreover, I must emphasise that the Government are not responsible for the proposals in the Bill, and certainly not for the circumstances which have led to the Board deciding to take this action.

It is very difficult in a limited Adjournment debate of this kind to deal with all these complex matters. However, there have been a very full statement by my right hon. Friend the Minister for Transport Industries and an emergency debate.

The Government's position is quite clear. The Board came to see my right hon. Friend the Minister for Transport Industries at the end of July, when he suggested that it appoint consultants to examine its serious financial position. Early in November the Board informed the Government that it was faced with cash deficiencies totalling some £20 million over the next three years, mainly to meet bond redemptions falling due in that period. In the absence of Government bridging loans or guarantees to cover these expected deficiencies, some form of moratorium on the repayment of bonds and a revision of the Board's capital structure were inevitable. That is the background to the Bill.

I appreciate that some form of moratorium may be difficult, but why is some capital reconstruction inevitable?

I said that in the absence of Government bridging loans or guarantees it would be inevitable.

The Government are in no way responsible for the circumstances that have led to this situation. We are sorry that a great deal of distress has been caused by it, and particularly is this so in the case of the small investors.

On the understanding that the Board would take steps to assure the immediate viability of the port and to take the necessary remedial measures, the Government are prepared to continue to provide loans for the Seaforth scheme as it was planned and for other approved capital works. We are making these fresh loans on the clear understanding, and only on the understanding, that the Board itself is taking, and will continue to take, all the necessary steps to put its finances on a sound basis.

Seaforth is vital to the future of the port, so in supporting Seaforth—to the tune of £40 million—my right hon. Friend is making a substantial effort to help the port and to ensure its future. Incidentally, the Government have today made another loan advance of over £½ million and a further payment of some £300,000 will be made next week.

The Government have also agreed that their loans, made before the deposit of the Bill, should be treated in exactly the same way as the money put in by private investors. The reason is that all these past loans are on an equal footing and we recognised that the Board's proposals, which represented its view of the essential capital reconstruction needed to preserve solvency, ought to be accepted by everyone who has any interest in the continued operation of the port, including those with money invested in it.

My hon. Friend keeps saying that it is inevitable that we should have a capital reconstruction, and inevitable that there should be this and that, but who else has seen the figures? Have the bondholders seen the figures?

The Board makes its judgment of its own circumstances. The new Chairman, Mr. Cuckney, has said that it is only through the united efforts of the staff and the workers in the port, and of the users and investors as well, that a base for a thriving port in the end can be secured. I am sure that this is right; and that my hon. Friends will recognise that an effort is required on the part of investors as well as the rest. It is important to remember that the Board's statement of 27th November, issued at the same time as the Bill was deposited, made it clear that the Board proposed further legislation to create a statutory company with equity capital to replace part of the existing debt.

It has been suggested in the debate that some of the Board's security holders have not been adequately consulted about the Board's proposals for capital reconstruction. The facts are as follows. The Board sent copies of its statements of 24th September and 27th November to all known investors—about 30,000 people. The statement of 27th November not only explained in detail the current financial position and the management steps taken to deal with it—that is to say, the higher charges, the cost savings, the land sales, and so on—but dealt very fully with the Board's proposals for capital reconstruction and its reconstitution plans.

The same statement went on to explain the purposes of the Board's Private Bill. It indicated that further legislation would probably be necessary, and it gave an undertaking that all holders of the Board's capital debt would be given further details when these had been worked out. I understand that Mr. Cuckney is concerned to ensure that those further details should be provided as quickly as possible.

I understand, too, that the Board has welcomed—indeed, encouraged—the initiative of the Investment Protection Committees of the British Insurance Association and the National Association of Pensions Funds to set up a consultative and advisory body which can act, as it were, as a focal point for representing the interests of security holders. This is very much welcomed by the Government as well as by the Board, and it will provide a continuing forum for consultation. I would also remind the House that the Board's Private Bill will be subject to all the safeguards of parliamentary procedure, including the right to lodge petitions, and these matters can be and will be debated and discussed at that time.

The Minister says that an effort is required of the investors. As I understand the word "effort", it is something voluntarily given by those involved. Surely what is happening here is that the investors have been told, or it has been proposed that the House should tell them, what they should do. Although they may have facilities for approaching the House during the passage of the Bill, this is not an effort that is required of them but a sacrifice.

If the hon. Member is able to anticipate the House's decision in this matter he is able to foresee the future better than I am. There will be opportunity during the discussions on the Private Bill for all concerned to make their points.

The Government's decision to apply for the appointment of a receiver of the rates, in respect of which the necessary order has now been made by the High Court, was intended to achieve two objectives. The first was to protect the financial interest of the Government and the other secured creditors. The second was to achieve the payment of all expenses properly chargeable to revenue and necessary for the maintenance management and working of the port; in other words, to keep the Port of Liverpool in operation. The Government consider that this action is in the best interests of all the secured creditors whose loans rank pari passu with the Government's past loans, and we took it having regard to the fact that the Board was faced with substantial cash deficiencies over the months ahead until its Bill to construct its capital could become law.

The point I make is this. In spite of some unfounded rumours in the Press, it would be wholly wrong to run away with the idea that because the Mersey Board is in acute financial difficulties every other port is in the same plight. This simply is not true. Some ports, indeed, having already benefited from successful modernisation schemes, are on a fully profitable basis.

More than one of my hon. Friends were concerned about possible guarantees by local authorities. My hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Mr. Tilney) virtually suggested that the Government should, as it were, bring in legislation to enable the local authorities to guarantee renewal of the bonds falling due. I had thought about this a good deal, but I am not sure that it would be right for the Government to promote a Bill giving general power for this purpose, for the one very simple reason that only a minority of local authorities have ports in their locality. In any event every local authority which has a neighbourhood harbour is free to take Local Act powers to guarantee that harbour if it wishes. Some have already done this—for example, Manchester and Ipswich—and the means to take such powers are available and always have been available to those who wish it.

Essentially, this is a matter of individual choice for local authorities themselves, and I do not think that central Government should appear to be stimulating local authorities generally to accept such new liabilities.

Would my hon. Friend bear in mind that the Mersey Docks and Harbour Board deals with no fewer than eight different local authorities. This would therefore mean eight different Private Bills, and what we want is action quickly. Since we have no Merseyside County Council can the Government not give these eight authorities power, and do this in Government time?

Perhaps I should add that as far as I am aware none of the local authorities concerned has so far indicated any desire to guarantee borrowing by the Board. The local authorities have, however, been willing to assist the Board over its immediate cash problems; for example, by purchasing certain land and by deferring the collection of rates and other charges for a period. Eight Merseyside local authorities have also set up a working party to discuss ways in which they can help the Board out of its financial crisis.

I gladly pay tribute to this helpful attitude on the part of the local authorities, and I say to them that if local authorities generally wished to go further and wished to discuss with the Government the question whether general powers should be conferred, I am quite sure that my right hon. Friend would be only too pleased to listen to their views.

Throughout everything that the Government have done my right hon. Friend has had in the forefront of his mind the need to ensure the continued working of the port. The steps which we have had to take have been taken with great reluctance, and we regret very much that they have in some cases caused distress to bondholders and other holders of securities of the Mersey Docks and Harbour Board.

But the only way in which it would have been possible for these effects to have been avoided would have been for the taxpayer to foot the bill for the whole of the Board's cash deficiencies, which amount to £20 million or more, and even this might not have been enough to assure the port's future viability. Even if it had, it would still have been quite wrong, and certainly quite contrary to the Government's general policy, to take on full financial responsibility for a situation for which the present Government and the British taxpayer are in no way responsible.

The same objections to apply to the provision of bridging finance to meet the Board's immediate obligations until its Private Bill is passed. Moreover, such a provision of short-term bridging finance would have created manifest unfairness, as the purpose would have been to enable the Board to pay off the early bondholders in full while the later security holders, including the Government and the taxpayer, would have been subject to the proposed capital reconstruction.

Was it therefore fair for the bondholders in September to be repaid 100 per cent, and for the bondholders in January to get only 70 per cent.?

The position was not at all clear at that time and certainly the present Government were not making the decisions.

I want to deal with the effect of this on the borrowing of other similar bodies, because a number of somewhat harsh remarks have been made this morning. There is no reason why the arrangements proposed by the Mersey Docks and Harbour Board should affect the borrowing of local authorities, or any other viable public boards, and I will try to explain why. The credit-worthiness of local authorities arises from their right to levy rates upon people in the area they serve, and the viability of public boards can be established from their balance sheets and their accounts, which are published annually. The arrangements proposed by the Mersey Docks and Harbour Board make it clear that bodies of this type borrow on their own credit. They do not rely upon a pool of unlimited Government credit available to all and sundry regardless of success or failure and regardless of efficiency or inefficiency. There is no such unlimited pool.

Nor can there be any doubt, while they are reminded of this, as they are, that investors and their financial advisers are perfectly well able to appreciate the difference between the Mersey Docks and Harbour Board and the local authorities and to pay due regard to the published results of other public boards. I must tell the House that, unlike my hon. Friend the Member for Surrey, East (Mr. William Clark), I am not aware of any local authority which has found it impossible to borrow since 27th November, that is to say, since the date of the Board's statement.

In the shorter-term money market, interest rates for local authorities have remained extremely steady. For two-day and seven-day loans the interest rates had by 14th December dropped by ⅛ per cent, since the November statement when they were standing at the same rate as at the time of the Board's original September statement. For three-month and one-year borrowings the rates were the same on 14th December as at the time of both the November and September statements by the Board. Some public boards which are not local authorities, I accept, have experienced rather more difficulty than usual, but the position has now settled down again and there is no reason why viable authorities should have any difficulty in borrowing from their usual sources.

I should like to have been able to deal more precisely with some of the questions put to me, but I am running out of time. However, I should like to reject here and now the suggestion by the right hon. Member for Birkenhead that there was any outrage in this matter. On the contrary, the Government have taken the right and courageous stand. My right hon. Friend has done what is best for Merseyside and for the British economy at large.

I do not believe that it does any good for the Mersey, the bondholders, the workers there, or the national economy for Labour Members continually to make these charges in public when the task before us, whether we sit on the Opposition or Government side of the House, is to make the Mersey Docks and Harbour Board work and to make it successful, and that is the Government policy which my right hon. Friend's decisions will bring about.

We turn from what sounded to me rather like one set of troubled waters to some a little further south. I am grateful for this opportunity to raise a subject of great concern to many of my constituents as well as to many hundreds of thousands of people on both sides of the Bristol Channel.

I should like to begin by approaching the problem in a rather general way. I think that I can do no better than to quote from the annual report of the Council to the Court of Bristol University on the Sabrina project:

"The Romans could little have envisaged the changes that would take place in and around the treacherous estuary of the river they called Sabrina.

Villages have grown to towns, the towns to cities. Industry has established itself along the fringes with the resulting expansion in sea, road, rail and air communications. Power stations have been sited near the Estuary to make use of its cooling water and links have been made between the north and south side both under and over the Estuary. Development of the Estuary and its hinterland is likely to increase in pace during the coming decade. Severnside has been suggested for one of the major growth points in the United Kingdom; numerous schemes have reached varying degrees of refinement with the erection of barrages, international airports, major port installations, additional tunnels and bridges in the region.

The environment of the Estuary has long since ceased to be ' natural'. Sewage effluent, industrial effluent, fertilisers and pesticide residues have modified the estuarine waters. Agriculture and urbanisation have removed all but the last vestiges of natural vegetation that existed in Roman times. Even the atmosphere has been changed by pollution.

Little is known in detail of the peculiarities and characteristics of the natural environments in the Estuary and its hinterland. As a result, little scientific help can be given to the planners of the region in terms of predicting the effects of any changes that they bring about by their decisions."

It may be helpful if I say a few words about the Sabrina project. It is clear that the problem of pollution in the Severn Estuary is very largely one of lack of knowledge. Bristol University has suggested to the Natural Environment Research Council that they might get together and, with all the sciences at the disposal of the university, study as one entity the whole formation and effect of our modern way of life on this part of the world.

They propose that a triangle bounded by Gloucester, Barry and Bridgwater should be studied, that they should examine the sediment and water inputs from the various tributaries, make chemical analyses of the various pollutants, study the macro and micro fauna and flora in the water and around the fringes, conduct an aerial survey, study the meteorology of the district and look into the atmospheric and natural—and by "natural" I mean the soil and rock—pollution in the estuary.

I have received some helpful and expert advice from a constituent, Dr. T. C. Shaw, who is in the Department of Civil Engineering at Bristol University. Writing on this subject, he said:

"There is no one authority overseeing the Seven Estuary and hence no one is keeping an 'ecological' eye on changes consequent to any industrial development".

I hope the Minister will join me in welcoming the University's interest and I hope that he will help to persuade the Natural Environment Research Council to continue with the view that it is now taking. I gather that the matter is still under discussion, though in a friendly way.

Three specific points arise out of the proposed co-operation between the University and the N.E.R.C. The first is that of control and supervision over the whole estuary. The second is the question of a hydraulic model. The third is the worry, and the University is undoubtedly worried, that in a study of this nature the final result may turn out to be the pointing of accusing fingers at industry—and industry is generous in its support for the university. It is important that this study goes ahead because if the views are uncomplimentary, it is all the more important that we know about them.

I will go over those three points, but in reverse. The last one is self-explanatory. The question of a hydraulic model is important. In all the researches I have done for this debate, I keep coming up against the fact that the Severn Estuary lacks a proper model. The Thames, the Humber and the Clyde each has one. These models are large and expensive; £250,000 would probably be needed to build a model of the Severn Estuary, though it appears from the many authorities which would require the loan facilities of such a model that the rental return might make this an economic proposition.

Models have in the past been made for special items—one was made for Avon-mouth Docks and another for the C.E.G.B.—but these have been of a small scale and unfortunately they have nearly always been destroyed at the end of the study. When I come to deal specifically with the British Steel Corporation, as I shall do shortly, the House will see the significance of these remarks. It is relevant to note that Dr. Shaw said:

"At the present time the only answer is to make resort to hydraulic model methods to study the physical matters".

My first point was control and supervision. There are six river authorities concerned with the estuary: Glamorgan, Usk, Wye, Severn, Bristol Avon and Somerset. There are two joint committees of these authorities. The first consists of board members, and they meet to discuss the whole question of the control of pollution and other things within the estuary. The second is a sub-committee of that body, comprised of officers, including fishery and pollution officers, and the University of Bristol is represented on it.

This joint committee has no powers over its constituent bodies, other than persuasion and recommendation. I gather from the many inquiries that I have made that the view is taken that the present situation in the estuary is unsatisfactory, and it is asked, "Why should we be worried about powers for this joint committee?" When hon. Members hear what I have to say later, the Minister may be persuaded that this joint authority should have more powers. After all, what other authorities are concerned with and looking into estuarial control? I gather that the Minister has agreed to appoint an officer but that so far he has been unable to fill the post. Can he clarify the position? I appreciate that the Severn River Authority has an estuarial officer who is concerned specifically with this point.

If one takes the whole estuary as being the area from Milford in Pembrokeshire to Bude in Cornwall right up to Lower Parting in Gloucestershire, one is becoming involved with a very large number of local authorities, and it seems to me that these authorities should be represented in some way on this or some other committee.

A letter which was written to my hon. Friend the Member for Somerset, North (Mr. Dean) by the Clerk to the Long Ashton Rural District Council, Mr. Overton, states:

"We all feel here that there should now be some co-ordinated control of standards for the Severn Estuary, so that all discharges can be kept up to the highest standards."

A few years ago I flew up the Welsh coast from Pembrokeshire to Gloucester. It was low tide at the time. I recall being impressed by the number of factories that border the Welsh coast and the sight of the effluent that many of them were putting out. It is a memory which I shall keep with me. I hope that the Minister will consider how best some more stringent control may be imposed on the various river boards with responsibility for matter going into the estuary.

On the question of pollution, there is undoubtedly a lack of basic information. A starting point to assess what is going on is required. If a measurement is taken today, nobody can say whether it is worse or better than a similar measurement taken 12 months ago. This great study that Bristol University is hoping to do will, therefore, be the yardstick for the future.

The whole question of pollution is enormously wide. There has just been completed a two-day debate in another place in which a large number of noble Lords spoke on a wide range of subjects. Estuaries seem to get left out. They are neither sea nor river.

I will quote a few extracts from a paper given by an industrialist, Mr. C. F. Thring, to the River Boards' Association as long ago as 1958. At that time Mr. Thring was part of the Billingham Division of I.C.I. He pointed out the reasons for industry and power stations wishing to plant themselves along the shores of our estuaries and he said:

"Most of these large-scale industries, requiring substantial quantities of water, in consequence also have large amounts of trade effluent to dispose of. The estuarial site offers greater possibilities for disposal without harm to other interests than an inland site. In spite of its prime enconomic importance, less study has been given to this aspect of the use of estuaries than others."

Later he drew attention to studies which had been done on the discharge of effluent into the Rivers Mersey and Tees and said:

"In these cases, too, it is true to say that the broad conclusions arrived at were different from those expected when the surveys were undertaken."

He then said:

"The point I wish to make is that, while everybody now recognises that, with the increasing industrialisation and urbanisation of our estuaries, pollution of tidal rivers by sewage and industrial effluents is likely to create a greater risk in future, there is at the same time a growing realisation that much more scientific investigation is required before a controlling authority can devise satisfactory controls to solve the problems."

I hope that my hon. Friend the Undersecretary of State will not think from what I have said that all industry is totally to blame. Let me conclude my quotations from Mr. Thring's paper with this statement:

"Industry will play its part given requirements which are based on a sound knowledge of the regime of individual estuaries, and on full data of the capacity of each estuary for affording dispersal and dilution for the effluents which it receives."

That paper, written 12 years ago, is even more pertinent today than it was then.

I wish to progress to the specific point which first aroused my interest in this matter. But before I do so I should like to make two points clear. First, my constituency interest, which is obvious, is to keep the River Severn clear. At Weston-super-Mare, constant attention is given to testing the water to ensure that it is safe for bathing. It may not appear clean, but the health-giving properties carried in the water are renowned to all those who have sampled them.

Secondly, this is not a battle between the interests of the North Somerset coast and the industrial interests of Wales. Both sides of the estuary are interested in this matter and both sides must combine to ensure that it is kept as clean as it is at present.

In the matter of the British Steel Corporation, I should pay tribute to the interests and help of a number of my colleagues; my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, North-West (Mr. McLaren), who has kept himself informed of the correspondence from the city of Bristol; my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, North-East (Mr. Adley), who may, if he catches your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker, intervene in this debate; my hon. Friend the Member for Bridgwater (Mr. Tom King), who would I am sure have been present today but for the fact that he is unhappily in hospital; and my hon. Friend the Member for Somerset, North, who has taken a keen interest in this matter.

A number of local authorities, including Bristol, Long Ashton, Clevedon, Burnham-on-Sea, Thornbury, Portishead, and Weston-super-Mare have corresponded with me and with the Ministry. Somerset and Gloucester County Councils have attended meetings on this subject, as has the Port of Bristol Authority. A number of clerks and officials of various authorities have helped me in gathering my information, and to them I am very grateful.

In setting out the basic case, I cannot do better than to read the letter which Mr. William J. Hutchinson, Town Clerk and Chief Executive Officer for the City and County of Bristol, wrote to me on 21st October:

"In early September the Haven Master of the Port of Bristol Authority heard fortuitously that the British Steel Corporation were proposing to carry out tests to ascertain the effect of discharging coke oven effluent at a point on the Bristol side of the Severn Estuary tix-tenths of a mile north of Blacknore Point, Portishead. This area is within the area of the Port and Harbour of Bristol and also within the boundary of the City and County of Bristol but is included in the ' controlled waters' as defined in the Clean Rivers (Estuaries and Tidal Waters) Act, 1960, which are under the jurisdiction of the Usk River Board. As the result of meetings held between officers of the Corporation and a representative of the Steel Corporation we were told that a new steel making plant was being erected at Newport, at an estimated cost of £40 million and this development will involve the construction of new large coke ovens. The Steel Corporation wished to dispose of the effluent from these ovens by flushing it out to sea rather than by the customary and more expensive method of neutralising the effluent before discharge."

He then explains the method of conducting the test and concludes that paragraph by saying:

"If the tests were satisfactory the Steel Corporation would lay pipelines from Spencer Works at Llanwern to the discharge point and would discharge 400,000 gallons of effluent per day over a period of six hours (three hours each tide). The Steel Corporation had been in touch with the Usk River Authority who were agreeable to the tests being carried out but had overlooked the need to communicate with the Bristol Corporation as they had not appreciated that the point of delivery would be within the Port and City limits".

That is how this matter came to our attention.

I should like to say a few words about the test. As a result of the protest, the original test was postponed, but on 23rd October a test was carried out without an effluent constituent on a radio-active tracer under the supervision and control of the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority. There was no effluent in this test and therefore it would not show how effluent as such would react.

Was not the reason there was no effluent in the test that the Bristol authority would not agree to it?

That may well be part of the case, but I hope to persuade the House that the test, however it is carried out, will be insignificant. It is important to remember, however, that the phenol in the effluent disperses in a special way. I am no chemist, but without the effluent at the right temperature and in the right dilution the tests may well be comparatively unimportant. Dr. Shaw comments as follows on the test:

"Such tests are comparatively cheap, simple and swift to execute. However, they fail to demonstrate (a) the risk of concentration of pollutant from continuous discharge; (b) the movement at spring tides".

The noble Lord, Lord Melchett, wrote to my hon. Friend the Member for Somerset, North on 27th November explaining how the tests were being carried out. He added that the measurements were being assessed and would be made available to all the river authorities, the Bristol Corporation and other interested bodies.

If we put a drop of oil in a bucket of water, it may appear that the water is relatively clean. If we put in two drops every day over the years, the water will very quickly become polluted. The problem is that nobody knows whether the Severn Estuary completely empties itself on each tide. Until a proper study is done and a model made, whether that happens can only be surmised.

The proposal of the British Steel Corporation is to pump 400,000 gallons of effluent each day into the Channel. The authorities were told that this consisted of 1 per cent, ammonia, and cyanide and phenol constituents. The sample produced and analysed by the Bristol city analyst showed 2 per cent, ammonia with cyanide and phenol. One of the problems with ammonia is the nitrate concentrations. This is a matter which is already concerning my hon. Friend's Department.

Cyanide is well known to be a fatal poison, and phenol, which I understand can be cleaned by biological methods, is considered by the World Health Organisation, in its standards for drinking water, to be sufficiently dangerous to allow for only two microgrammes per litre of phenolic substances in drinking water. No doubt my hon. Friend is well up with the metric measurements, but that does not sound much to me.

The question of the fishery interests was investigated. The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture wrote to my hon. Friend the Member for Somerset, North on 18th November. He stated that his Ministry was interested only in the fishery interests in the estuary. A test had been made with the sample of effluent provided and the results had been sent to the Usk River Authority and the British Steel Corporation. I have no knowledge of the results of those tests having come out in public.

It seems to me inexcusable that the British Steel Corporation should plan a £40 million extension of the Spencer steel works without making proper inquiries about the disposal of the effluent from the coke ovens. If I wanted to put up a small piggery on my farm I should have to satisfy my local authority and river authority and the Ministry of Agriculture before I put one brick on top of another. It would appear that the British Steel Corporation considers itself not an ordinary mortal. It made no contact with Bristol Corporation and other interested local authorities until 20th October, when the furore which had been caused at length pressed the Steel Corporation to summon a meeting to which it invited the local authorities. The subject of this debate here has been notified for more than a week and no one from the Steel Corporation has attempted to offer me information or contact me in any way at all.

This disposal is the responsibility of Usk River Authority. It is that authority's responsibility because the effluent starts on its shore. Therefore, my hon. Friend the Member for Somerset, North approached the Secretary of State for Wales who wrote to him on 27th November:

"If an application is made the decision will be a matter for the Usk River Authority. I can intervene only if and when an appeal under the Pollution Acts comes before me."

I understand that that means that if the Steel Corporation is not allowed to dispose of this effluent in the Channel, it may appeal to the Minister. I should like to know whether it is possible for either the Secretary of State for Wales or my hon. Friend to make inquiry directly, of the Usk River Authority on this matter.

I have lived all my life by the River Severn. I was born in Worcester, through which it runs, and I have lived on a farm on its banks ever since. I cut my political teeth in Montgomeryshire near its headwaters at Plynlimmon, and now I find myself representing a constituency on the shores of the estuary. I would hate to see this great river spoiled. I would hate to see our estuary become a stinking drain. I hope that the Usk River Authority will heed the warnings which have been given, and I would urge the Minister to consider how best we can deal with this problem of control of estuaries—now—and to bear in mind the more general issues for the future.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Weston-super-Mare (Mr. Wiggin) and I am sure that the House is, too, for raising at this appropriate time in European Conservation Year the question of the River Severn.

I start by quoting from a lecture delivered by Mr. Hooker to the Institution of Civil Engineers three days ago:

"During European Conservation Year special attention is being given on an international scale to the problems of pollution and industrial dereliction and the need to pay much greater regard to the preservation of amenity. The objectives of conservation, however, are not confined to preserving the wilderness but include the proper management of natural resources in planning new developments. Thus there is a twofold task of rehabilitating the areas left derelict by the first Industrial Revolution and ensuring that new industries do not destroy the environment."

I know that my hon. Friend is not seeking in some narrow way to preserve some small constituency interest, but that he is seeking, as many others have, over a long time, a solution of the problems which can and will be caused by unco-ordinated development in the area to which he has referred.

Of the maritime industrial development areas—M.I.D.A.S.—the Severn is one of the three estuaries chosen in this country for study but in my submission, and that of many others, the study does not go anything like far enough. I believe that studies of industrial sites should be part of an overall environmental plan, and that this plan should include, amongst other things, water conservation, recreation and airport developments. Water conservation is enormously important, because in the next 30 years more new water will be required than has been needed in the last hundred years. Therefore, a study of a Severn barrage and of the Severnside area should take account of water conservation in this area of such great potential. It is an area of great potential also for recreation. There is potential for a marina and other maritime facilities—and messing about in boats is one of the fastest growing recreations in this country. It is a fact of the matter I should like included in the study of the Severn estuary.

So, too, is the airport. There is potential for an airport built on reclaimed land away from presently populated areas, and where aircraft can take off and land over water and stack over water. This from the national point of view presents a positive contribution towards the preservation of the environment. It is a timely moment in connection with the question of the airport, when the Roskill Commission's report is due at any moment, to point out that the M4 and M5 motorways cross at the interchange at Almondsbury. Moreover, British Rail have plans for advanced passenger trains travelling at 150 miles an hour by 1978 on the Bristol to London main line. Furthermore, an airport would provide employment possibilities for South Wales and the provision of alternative employment there is important as the coal mines will probably provide less employment in the future. There is in today's Notice Paper Early Day Motion No. 206 dealing with airports, and it mentions the environmental benefits of a coastal situation.

Then there is the question of site suitability for supersonic aircraft aiming westwards across the North Atlantic, starting off subsonic. Not unnaturally, studies have been carried out at Bristol University, and a great deal of time has been given to the estuary itself, but it is interesting to note that these studies are not confined to Bristol. Research has been going on for the past nine months at Oxford by a team of assistants into the development of the Severn Estuary, and they are encouraging me to press the Government to study all these proposals in their entirety.

My hon. Friend and I do have constituency interests in this area, but we express to the Minister our concern that this small island—not only the area of the Severn Estuary—should be properly developed so that the maximum benefit for all is secured from those assets which nature has provided for us.

There is another aspect of the matter, and that is tourism, and those areas of outstanding natural beauty—the Wye Valley, the Cotswolds, the Mendips—which many of us would like to see preserved for tourists, not only our own people, but visitors from overseas as well. If a study is undertaken I should like the tourist aspect included. The location of an airport on Severnside would be a valuable boost to tourism in the area.

As to the specific point about the British Steel Corporation, I put a Question two or three weeks ago, and was advised that the responsibility for pollution by the corporation was entirely within the corporation's jurisdiction.

I agree wholeheartedly with my hon. Friend the Member for Weston-super-Mare that it is not good enough that a large organisation should be able to become an arbitrary polluter without reference to the requirements and wishes of the local authorities in the area and, more important, without reference to the total plan which is envisaged for Severn-side. For instance, the pipeline which the British Steel Corporation is planning, if the proposal is allowed to proceed, could arrive at the same place, at the same time, as part of the proposed Severnside airport. The British Steel Corporation is a large, arrogant, authoritarian organisation which proceeds without reference to those who live in the area.

I think my hon. Friend will agree that the answer to his Question stated that the normal statutory powers possessed by river authorities applied to the British Steel Corporation. My point was that it would appear that the British Steel Corporation is trying to avoid those statutory obligations.

Yes, I agree with my hon. Friend that this is the position, and it is this position about which we are complaining.

Compared with the Mersey and the Thames, the Severn has remained comparatively under-developed. We are not seeking massive over-development; we are seeking balanced and planned development. That is why in this brief intervention I have great pleasure in supporting my hon. Friend in his plea for a full study of the tourist, recreational and industrial potential of Severnside. The Minister can be assured that, if he looks sympathetically upon this, he will be realising the dream of generations of people in and around Severnside who have wanted the Government to notice the area in which we live.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Weston-super-Mare (Mr. Wiggin) on the agreeable and extremely knowledgeable way in which he has opened this short Adjournment debate. I thought that the depth of research—

Order. I think the hon. Gentleman will know that in courtesy to the House he should ask for the leave of the House, since we are still on the same debate in which he made his earlier intervention. It is a small point.

I am not quite sure that I fully understand your small point, Mr. Deputy Speaker—

I will make it plain. We are on the Adjournment debate. The fact that the hon. Gentleman has dual responsibility this morning does not absolve him from the normal courtesy of the House.

With the leave of the House, I will come to my second estuary of the day and repeat my congratulations to my hon. Friend the Member for Weston-super-Mare on the agreeable way in which he organised his speech and put forward the real concerns of his constituents. I felt a great deal of common cause with him, particularly when he described his journey in an aircraft from which he was able to observe the effects on the waterway of industrial effluent, and when he spoke of his piggery. I too have built one and have been made aware of the difficulties which a pig-keeper must face in disposing of his effluent.

I am glad, too, that my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, North-East (Mr. Adley) intervened and gave us some lucubrations on the subject of aircraft noise and the activities of the British Steel Corporation.

I am answering the debate on behalf of two of my right hon. Friends, namely, the Secretary of State for the Environment and the Secretary of State for Wales. Our two Departments work closely together in guarding against all forms of pollution. This policy cannot be pursued on a regional or national basis but must be pursued across the whole United Kingdom area. The Government are wholly committed to improving the environment and to making sure that the conditions of the air, the water and the noise level in which we live are, as far as possible, ameliorated. We are making some progress in this.

My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has recently expanded the Alkali Inspectorate. Our air, far from getting dirtier is getting cleaner, although we all regret the temporary setback caused by the shortage of smokeless fuel. We have had local setbacks with water during recent weeks as a result of the unfortunate strike of local authority manual workers, but even that has had but a marginal effect on our rivers as a whole, and, far from getting dirtier, most of our rivers are, if anything, likely to get cleaner in the years ahead.

I am very glad that my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, North-East spoke about noise. I believe that noise is a form of pollution. He will be pleased to know that the Noise Advisory Council is making considerable progress in its studies of the effect on our people of aircraft noise, traffic noise, industrial noise and the rest. Taking these things together, and adding to them the work that we are doing on refuse disposal and derelict land, it will be seen that the Government are making progress on air, water, noise and dereliction, which are in the end the bare bones of the environment.

I welcome this opportunity to talk specifically today about the Severn Estuary, and in particular about the proposals of the British Steel Corporation to discharge untreated coke oven liquor into the Bristol Deep off Portishead. I well understand the concern of my hon. Friend and his local authorities about this. It is quite right that people should express forcibly their views on a matter which could affect their living conditions.

I will first explain to the House what precisely the problem is and what is being done about it. The coke oven effluent from the British Steel Corporation works at Newport, that is to say, the Spencer works, Llanwern, is neutralised and is then discharged into the Bristol Channel at a point one mile from the Monmouthshire coast. So far, this has given rise to no objection. An expansion of the coke ovens is now proposed, which I am sure, in the interests of our national economy, everybody would want. The Corporation, therefore, has a problem. What is it to do with the resultant effluent?

It has wondered about the wisdom of discharging existing and future effluent from these ovens, without treatment, at a point in the Bristol Channel only half a mile from the Somerset coast. Remembering as I do the Private Bill which was introduced when it was sought to build an ore terminal off Portishead, I can well appreciate the pressures on my hon. Friend to see that this does not happen. The main reason why the British Steel Corporation wants to discharge in this area rather than nearer to the Welsh coast is that there is a problem in disposing of the ammonia resulting from treatment. Without treatment there is no ammonia. But, of course, there would also be a substantial saving in costs if it was able to discharge effluent untreated—a saving which, I understand, would reach into sums of six figures each year.

I understand that this untreated coke oven liquor has a reddish brown colour, deriving its colour from the polyhydric phenols it contains. In so far as there is any toxicity—which is by no means firmly established—it derives it from the phenols and thiocyanates. There is some smell—I do not know how much—and this derives very largely from the ammonia content.

In late October of this year tests were carried out by the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority on behalf of the British Steel Corporation in collaboration with the Usk River Authority. The purpose was to assess whether a hazard would be likely to arise if these new proposals were accepted. The Steel Corporation is trying to satisfy itself as to whether the effluent will be swept straight out to sea without offence or harm to anyone. If the effluent discharged from this point were likely to remain in the estuary as a sort of sludge material moving in and out with the tide and approaching the shore, I understand that the corporation would abandon the proposal.

The tests were undertaken with clean water containing radio-active material. My hon. Friend was hardly fair to the corporation in this respect, for it had intended to use untreated coke oven liquor for the tests in order to get a really proper result but deferred doing so because of the objections of Bristol Corporation. The results of the test with the radio-active tracers have now been assessed, and the Atomic Energy Authority's report is being considered by the corporation.

Would it not have been better to have asked the local authorities beforehand and consulted them? What we are concerned about here is the way in which these vast organisations—and this does not just concern nationalised industries—do these things. This is the point on which I was consulted by the Town Clerk of Bristol.

I am sure that the British Steel Corporation will note what my hon. Friend has said, although he will be aware that the configuration of the port of Bristol, when looked at on a map of the Severn Estuary, shows a line running a very long way down the coast towards the Portishead area, and I suppose that it is not impossible that even the greatest mind might suppose that the suggested area of discharge was not within the confines of the port of Bristol. However, I accept that this matter should perhaps have been checked up on and I am sure that the corporation will note what my hon. Friend has said.

Does my hon. Friend appreciate that Bristol City at the moment has to take its own sewage sludge more than 50 miles down channel by ship, and that Weston and Long Ashton Councils have been forced to put in extremely long and expensive pipelines for the disposal of their vegetable-type sewages? Why, if this combination of circumstances has taken place in the past, should there suddenly be a change of mind?

I am not sure that my hon. Friend is correct in laying these things at the door of the British Steel Corporation, which is the point I am on at present. But I can give him the assurance that the corporation is fully aware of its responsibilities to the community in these matters, and I should not like the House to think that it is merely intent on using the Severn as a sewer. That simply is not so.

I would point out to my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, North-East that the answer to the question referred to pointed out that the British Steel Corporation is obliged to carry out the statutory duties laid upon it. Neither the Steel Corporation nor any other public body is above the law. The law applies to such bodies as it does to everyone else, and I am sure that the chairman of the corporation is perfectly well aware of that. Indeed, he has made it plain that other methods of disposing of this noisome effluent are being energetically examined.

A great deal of research is being carried out at several research establishments, including those of the corporation, to find out whether it is necessary to put this effluent in the Severn at all. There may be biological means of disposing of it in other ways. Because of its fear of pollution, the Somerset River Authority, the Bristol Corporation and a number of other authorities on the English side of the estuary have asked that the Secretary of State for the Environment should intervene to prevent such a discharge. Bristol Corporation and some other local authorities have also represented that a consultative organisation of local authorities and river authorities should be set up to express the views on proposals affecting the estuary as a whole.

If an application for consent is made, the decision will be one for the Usk River Authority. My right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for Wales would only come into the matter if the Steel Corporation were to make a formal appeal against the Usk River Authority's decision. I know that there has already been consultation by the Usk River Authority with other river authorities in the Severn Estuary and with some of the local authorities. I have no doubt that these consultations will continue even after an application is received.

I welcome the fact that there is already a Severn Estuary Joint Consultative Committee in being. This was set up in 1957 with the specific purpose of discussing salmon netting in the Estuary. The members were the Usk, Severn and Wye River Boards, as they were then known. In July, 1963, the Committee widened its scope and embraced the Somerset, Bristol Avon and Glamorgan River Boards with terms of reference which included the following:

"To keep under review the state of the Severn Estuary with particular reference to industrial developments and the welfare of migratory fish, and to report to the River Boards concerned."

It was at this same time that a subcommittee of technical officers was appointed to deal with technical matters.

Both the Department of the Environment and the Welsh Office are represented on this sub-committee by officers of the Directorate of Engineering and although, regretfully, some of the joint survey work of this body has failed to materialise, it is nevertheless looking very carefully into the dumping into the estuary of toxic and other wastes. So a good deal of information about conditions in the estuary already exists in the hands of the river authorities, although both they and we recognise that more information is needed.

In addition to this, there is "Operation Sabrina." When I first heard about this name, I wondered where it had come from but I am pleased to tell you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that the name arose not from a certain distinguished lady but from the old Roman term for the River Severn—and in some respects I rather regret that it is not still called the River Sabrina.

"Operation Sabrina" is a research study mounted by the Department of Geology of the University of Bristol. It has some although limited financial assistance from the National Environment Research Council. The Severn Estuary Joint Consultative Committee— that is to say, the river authorities—has appointed a representative to the Sabrina Project Steering Committee.

The Department of the Environment can and does help in these matters. We have, for example, arranged, quite independently of the present problem, for a Member of the Water Pollution Research Laboratory, with specialised knowledge of estuaries, to undertake a desk study to evaluate existing data, to suggest what further work is needed and to prepare a comprehensive survey programme—chemical, physical and ecological. This desk study might take two to three months from its start.

My hon. Friend has suggested among other things that what is needed is a model of the estuary. I am not sure what kind of model he has in mind, whether physical, or mathematical of the kind prepared for the Tidal Thames as a result of the work of the Pippard Committee, whose report, "Pollution of the Tidal Thames" was made in 1961. The Pippard Committee type of model is, in effect, a computer-type model of the Thames, Tees, Humber and so on, and a whole series of equations are mathematically resolved by the computer. I will be glad to draw my hon. Friend's remarks about a hydraulic model to the attention of the laboratory during the work it is doing on the desk study. On pollution control, I must tell the hon. Gentleman that a mathematical model might on the whole be more useful than a physical one if the complexities of tides and currents are to be sufficiently identified.

The suggestion of a hydraulic model was made simply for the reasons which I stated, and my hon. Friend's points—that it can be used for many purposes.

I understand that. Finally, it is important that we understand the statutory position. The Clean Rivers (Estuaries and Tidal Waters) Act, 1960, gave local authorities a general power to control new and substantially altered discharges up to the seaward limits of each estuary of significance—not every estuary—as defined in the Schedule to the Act. The seaward limit of the Severn Estuary is the line across the estuary between the Black Nore Lighthouse at Portishead in Somerset and the tip of Lavernock Point in Glamorgan. The location of the proposed point of discharge of untreated coke oven liquor is within these controlled waters. Section 9(3) of the Rivers (Prevention of Pollution) Act, 1961, makes it clear that any application for consent to make a new discharge into the controlled waters of an estuary can be made only to the river authority in whose area the premises from which the discharge is to be made are located.

The Spencer Works are in the area of the Usk River Authority, so that any formal application by the British Steel Corporation for consent to discharge trade effluent at the particular point that they wish must be decided by the Usk River Authority, and any subsequent appeal by the British Steel Corporation against a refusal of the application, or against any conditions imposed upon a consent, would fall to be determined by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Wales.

In many respects, this debate, though important, is premature, and the situation which my hon. Friend fears may never arise. But if it does, I assure him that we have a system to deal with it. I underline that point. Discharges into our nation's waterways can be, and are, strictly controlled under the legislation we now have. I do not say that the position is perfect, but it is by no means bad.

I never regret the opportunity to affirm the Government's wish—which I am sure we must and shall achieve—to reduce pollution. It would not be right to end this short debate without mentioning the Report of the Working Party on Sewage Disposal, and the Key Report on the Disposal of Solid Toxic Wastes, both of which are now before my right hon. Friends the Secretaries of State. We expect that their proposals will produce decisions by the Government in a fairly short time.

The Government's intention is clear cut. We abominate pollution. We must reduce it. There are economic considerations and questions of technical manpower to be considered in applying our remedies to the problem. But the intention and the policy of the Government are clear. Pollution is a problem, whether in the Severn or anywhere else, and it is a task which we are tackling.

I rise to speak about the problem of secondary schools in the Lewisham area, not just because it is the narrow issue of what happens in one of London's boroughs but because it illustrates a number of the problems which areas like mine suffer because of the geographical arrangements of educational authorities and the way in which transport difficulties are exacerbating the problems which face those authorities.

The general situation in Lewisham is simple. West Lewisham lies to the southern end of the borough, right at the edge of the Inner London Education Authority area. Therefore, it finds that it is bounded on the southern side by the London Borough of Bromley. Its school provision is made entirely by the Inner London Education Authority, and it is one of those areas of London which, contrary to the norm, is increasing in the demand for secondary education all the time. There are only three divisions of London where this can be said, and they all lie along the southern boundary of the Inner London Education Authority. Therefore, any shortage of schools is exacerbated by the fact that it cannot be taken up south of the area, because that area is controlled by the London Borough of Bromley; and on either side the two boroughs concerned, the London Borough of Southwark and the London Borough of Greenwich, have their problems, too. Therefore, our position is especially difficult.

Lewisham is an area whose needs are growing very fast. Already, over the last few years, 2,000 new primary school places have been provided. It might, therefore, surprise the House to hear that there has been no similar provision for secondary school places. This would, therefore, automatically suggest that perhaps we would be short of places. Moreover, because of these arrangements for children being placed in this area, I had information on ten cases of children who were out of school for many weeks at the beginning of this term because there was no place for them. If I, as the Member of Parliament, had ten cases, I am sure that there were a number of other children who did not come to my attention. Although I am unable to obtain from anybody the exact figures, I have good reason to believe that there were some 30 children out of school at the beginning of this term because there were no places for them. So bad was the situation that, after many months of saying that there was no problem, the local education committee had to use an amenity room in one of the schools, which most needed amenity rooms, in order to find places for these children.

It may be asked why this matter should be raised in the House. The reason is that the local education authority always falls back on the argument that the reason it cannot provide sufficient educational places in this area is that the Ministry makes its allocation on need grounds over the whole of London south of the river. If that is so—and it appears sometimes to be so—one ought to examine the basis upon which this kind of decision is made.

Lewisham, for example, is a long way from North Bermondsey, and yet the only vacant school places in south London which are applicable are in North Bermondsey. The journey to North Bermondsey means that a child from my constituency must travel about 18 miles a day for secondary education. That is a long distance, and it is made worse by the transport problems in South London, which are enormous, Children could make such a journey only if they were to change their bus or train two or three times.

Once again, we revert to the argument that children do not in fact have to make such a journey. It is suggested that they have only to be "rippled out" from the school to which they wanted to go. This is a phrase which worried me when I heard it.

The plan is that if a child lives to the south of the borough, he must go to a school to the north of his home. A child who lives south of Forest Hill will go to Forest Hill School. But no child living on the north side of Forest Hill will go to that school unless he lives almost in the school playground. Children living north of Forest Hill have to go to the Manwood School, but no child living north of that school is allowed to go there. Instead, he goes to the Samuel Pepys School. The idea is that every child has to do a small journey, but that no one has to do a large journey.

Like all theories, in practice it is a very different matter. What happens is that a child expresses the wish to go, say, to Forest Hill School, and probably his primary school headmistress agrees since she knows that a number of boys living in the same road went there the year before. She agrees to his putting down his name for Forest Hill. However, because of the increasing pressure upon that school, he is told that there is no place for him or for any other child living in the same road. He fails to get into the school of his choice. He then finds that all other schools within reasonable distance are also full, and he is offered a place at a school many miles away from where he lives.

A number of cases of this kind have been brought to my attention. One concerns a boy who lives in the middle of my constituency within half a mile of one school and a mile of another. He was offered a place at a school which is nine miles away, that being the only one which seemed suitable for him.

The school population in this part of London has exploded as a result of private and public house building. The education authority has been either unwilling or unable to provide secondary education for these children. The reason given always is that there are school places and that they lie within the designated area. But, of course, that covers a very large area since what the education authority means is that there are school places in North Bermondsey.

The situation has been bad for several years, and we have drawn attention to it. But so bad was it this year that we took the trouble to see what the figures would be for next year and the year after. We found that what was disastrous this year will be even worse next year, and the figures for 1972, 1973, 1974 and 1975 show a considerable increase in the secondary school population of my constituency and the surrounding area.

What made a disastrous situation culpable was that we discovered that, far from improving the situation, the education committee had made decisions which will make the situation worse. The area is well served by direct grant and independent schools. Last year, 60 children from my constituency and probably another 60 from the area round about went to independent and direct-grant schools. This year, not one child will go to an independent or direct-grant school because the right to grant has been removed. A number of parents sent their children to independent and direct-grant schools and paid their fees, but the cases to which I refer concern children who were helped by the local authority. However, the local authority has decided that in future it will not contribute towards the education of children in independent and direct-grant schools.

On the surface, this suggests that we shall need another 60 places. However, the parents of some may be able to pay, so it may mean only 40 places for my constituency and perhaps a similar number for the area round about—perhaps 80 places in all. The answer of the education authority is that these places will still be available since the direct-grant schools have a statutory obligation to provide certain free places, paid for by the direct grant. But this is satisfactory only if the places are not taken up by other authorities which are prepared to pay grants towards the children's education.

The London Borough of Bromley has already said that it intends to take advantage of the opportunities that it now has to move into the places in independent and direct-grant schools in the area which have been vacated by the Inner London Education Authority. As a result, children from my constituency will compete for secondary school places with even more children—and many brighter children already suffer in the area which I represent.

Socially the situation is becoming serious. Like most of the borough, West Lewisham is an area into which people have moved from the inner ring of London. They are people who have been brought up in the crowded streets of Bermondsey and want to bring up their children in less crowded conditions. They buy the relatively reasonably-priced properties in the area which I represent. They move there because they want their children to go to schools in the area. It is these very parents who are told that they can have places for their children only in the area from which they have moved—and they moved because they want their children brought up in a less deprived and less crowded environment.

Not only have we found that the demand for places next year will be greater and will go on increasing; we have also found that 60 children who would have been educated outside the State system last year will not have that advantage this year. In addition, we discover that the latest plan of the education committee is to cut even further the provision of new schools in the area.

I do not want to enter into a discussion of the relative merits of the various plans. The facts are that until recently the local education authority was sticking by a plan which had been passed by the previous Conservative authority, which had been prepared by the previous Labour authority, which had been passed by a Labour Minister, and which was to come into operation in 1972. The education authority has made certain alterations. However, this is not the occasion on which to discuss whether they are reasonable. For my constituency, they mean that the proposed and promised secondary girls' school, which was to have been the first new provision in secondary education for the area and was to have been a seven-form entry school, is now to be a nine-form entry mixed school, five for boys and four for girls, which will make up some of the provision which will not now be provided in the Colfe Grammar School in the next door borough.

We are happy to have further provision for boys in the area, but it is difficult to understand the reasoning behind starting a mixed school so near to a boys' school which has already great difficulty in coping with its recruitment problem although, like all other schools, it will continue to be over-full. The Manwood School is achieving an enormous amount, under great difficulties, mainly because of the personalities of the headmaster and his staff.

All this has resulted in no increase in the number of school places. It means that there will be fewer school places within reasonable reach of my constituency.

In the area, we fought very hard for a proper provision of primary school places. The fact is that we got 2,000 extra primary school places for this small area of London. Having got them, we imagined, perhaps mistakenly, that school places having been provided for primary school children, we must then be concerned to provide the secondary places that inevitably they will need. Such provision ought to be in some reasonable relationship with the vicinity of their homes.

This is not happening. It is not reasonable to ask children—often the neediest children whose parents are most concerned, children who have made a first choice of a popular school and therefore often fail to get in—to travel up to 16 and 18 miles a day, just because that is the system which we use.

I therefore ask the Minister whether he will look, first, at the criteria for need. Is it reasonable to take arbitrarily the geographical area of the Inner London Education Authority, so unsatisfactory an area that it is not used for any other part of our local government, as the area over which the need places must be spread and then say, arbitrarily, that we shall take the area south of the river, so that places like West Lewisham, right on the edge of the authority's area, are asked to take up places so far away?

We shall always have troubles with the division between different education authorities. There will always be people who live on the boundary who will have difficulty. But this has not happened in this area before. However, we are now surrounded by authorities and other boroughs which are themselves faced with the problem of enormously over-full classes and schools. In the past we have been lucky. The London Borough of Bromley has taken a number of our children who would not otherwise have found places. But this will not go on next year or the year after, because the London Borough of Bromley is now facing growing problems of school placement.

Let us consider the situation as it arises on the doorstep of the Forest Hill School, the most popular school in my constituency. Within 100 yards of this school a family with a very bright child moved in. That child has had to be taken out of the State education system and sent to a private preparatory school because no suitable place in the entire area could be found which his parents considered within reasonable travelling distance. By "reasonable travelling distance" I mean any distance which meant he had to travel less than 14 miles. This is a serious matter. If we are to provide decent education in London we must not allow that to happen in future.

What can be done immediately is clear. First, the Ministry can discuss whether it can change its policy on need places. This will be a long-term matter because no new building which would take place could solve the immediate problems. Cannot this policy be changed and cannot we take into account, as we ought, the relative difficulty which people have of getting from place to place, because one can travel longer distances easier in some parts of London than other parts, and if one tries to cross London horizontally there is special difficulty?

Secondly, as much pressure as possible of a non-political and non-partisan kind ought to be put upon the Inner London Education Authority to rescind, at least for those areas where the school provision problem is as great as I have posed, the regulations which stop children going to independent and direct-grant schools with a local authority grant. Naturally, I have political reasons for thinking that it was a mistake to spoil the bridge which we were beginning to build between the independent and the State sector. But, leaving that aside, I say that it is not sensible, in an area where many children are out of school for long periods while some hole somewhere is found for them, to add to that number 60 more children who could properly be accommodated in independent and direct grant schools.

Thirdly, pressure should be brought upon the education committee to look again at its plans, as presented to the Minister. I know that the Minister has recently had alterations made in those plans for this area. I hope that when the Minister discusses those plans with the Inner London Education Authority she will look at a number of things.

First, provision within reasonable travelling distance for this area. Secondly, the proposal that we should build not two schools side by side, a boys' and a girls' school, providing for the needs of the area, but a mixed school, three forms of which will replace the forms which are to be disused in the King Alfred School, with one additional form for girls, and five forms for boys. These will go nowhere near to solving the problem of the area, but they will create a new problem of organisation in the sense that were this school to be run together with the Roger Manwood School, it would be a school on three sites divided by about one and a half miles from one site at one end to another at the other end, with one building in between. If it were not to be run with the Roger Manwood School, it would mean that that school would again find itself at the bottom of the list for rebuilding.

There is a plan, which seems to be right, to build two new schools on the Manwood Road site—a girls' school, as envisaged and agreed for 1972, and a boys' school, for which need can be made out as long as people do not expect children to travel to North Bermondsey.

It is not as if we do not appreciate that there are problems in the rest of the country or, indeed, in the rest of London. But we believe that, because in general in London the number of secondary school places required is declining, it is difficult for the Government or for the local authority to come to terms with the special position of the peripheral areas of the Inner London Education Authority where considerable local authority and private building is going on.

We were promised a number of emergency measures. I am extremely sad to discover today that the major proposal has now been denied us. So bad was the feeling in the area about the problems that 1,000 parents signed a petition for a new school within a very short time. So, with a lady constituent, who was not a party worker or concerned with the Conservative Party but who had raised the petition, and with the representative on the education committee of the Lewis-ham Borough Council, I went in deputation to the leader of the Inner London Education Authority. At that deputation only two months ago I was promised that there would be in Lewisham a new hutted school as an addition to one of the local secondary schools. This morning I telephoned one of the other people who attended that deputation to check that that was the promise which had been made. Yet last night, on the board, I had a letter from the deputy leader of the Inner London Education Authority saying:

"There have never been any plans for a new hutted school in West Lewisham."

This is yet another of a whole series of situations in which we feel that continually once we get to a stage of pressure which becomes too much, when the education authority is too worried, we get a few kind words, a new proposal, and a new possibility. But when we try to tie down that possibility and demand the help which we need, we find that it is withdrawn.

In that same letter is a sentence about the matter of which I make complaint:

"Urgent consideration is being given to the future of Roger Manwood School, on which no firm decisions have yet been taken."

Yet at the Ministry today is a proposal for changes in the plan which directly affects the Roger Manwood School. To have made those decisions without consulting any of the local schools concerned, except a brief chat with one headmistress on the morning on which it was presented to the school's sub-committee, is indicative of the kind of problem which those who have been working for these places have been up against.

Therefore, I ask my hon. Friend the Minister to do for me but three things. First, will he bring every pressure that he can to bear on the education committee to see that it rescinds the plan to stop the 60 children going to a direct-grant or independent school? Secondly, will he ensure that the education committee takes every step to provide the emergency accommodation and the hutted school which was promised for this area? Thirdly, will he look with all compassion and with all the care that he can upon the proposals, should they be put before him by the local education committee, for new school provision in an area which is expanding so fast that it needs 2,000 new primary school places but, curiously enough, does not appear to be expanding fast enough to need one new secondary school place?

I hope that it will be not inappropriate if I start by saying that my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, West (Mr. Selwyn Gummer) and I, who have known each other for some years, have probably never supposed that we should be taking part together in a debate on the Floor of this ancient House on an historic day when we shall very shortly be taking our farewell of you, Mr. Speaker. This is particularly appropriate, because in your previous incarnation you always took, as I remember gratefully, a close personal interest in educational matters. I am glad that although our sights today are narrow, we are nevertheless discussing an education matter.

I congratulate my hon. Friend not only upon his speech this afternoon but also upon the very consistent way in which, as I well know, he has represented the interests of all his constituents in these matters and has sought always to put before the Departments, since he had responsibility for representing his constituents, their needs in educational matters, as, I am sure, in others of which I do not have personal knowledge.

Although it is the season of good will and all that, I must make the comment that it seems to me to be somewhat strange, considering that we have plenty of time, that no other parliamentary representative of the great borough, part of which my hon. Friend represents, is taking part in his discussion, which must be of crucial importance to the whole borough, and that it has been left to my hon. Friend to represent the views of that part of London, which he has done with conspicuous skill.

My hon. Friend has made of me three requests, which I shall attempt to answer. At least I think that I can give him assurances on some of the points which he has raised. I must, however, make one passing comment on a matter which, by comparison with the others of which my hon. Friend has spoken is a detail—but only by comparison, because it is, of course, important in itself—namely, my hon. Friend's references to some children who were out of school in his constituency for lack of an appropriate place to which to go.

I have made a quick inquiry about this and I am assured that, at least as at today—I am speaking of today, and in this sense my hon. Friend and I are probably not in disagreement—no children of secondary school age are out of school either at Greenwich or at Lewisham. It is the Inner London Education Authority's information that all children have been placed in what that authority at least considers to be appropriate secondary schools, and no school attendance order proceedings are in view. It is only proper for me to say that, but it is not intended in any way to cast doubt upon the facts given by my hon. Friend, which, as he explained, referred to an earlier period.

I should like to point out to my hon. Friend that, as I am sure he is aware, the only reason why that can now be said is that the pressure upon the authority has resulted in its taking over an amenity room in one of the schools which was previously full in order to provide places for parents, who steadfastly refused to send their children these enormous distances.

I am obliged to my hon. Friend. I see the reasons. I simply state the facts about absence as at this moment. However, the point made by my hon. Friend is perfectly fair.

I was asked about the method of calculation of the criteria for need by my Department. In a sense, my reply to my hon. Friend in this respect will not be entirely to his satisfaction, and for this reason. As I understand the system operated by the I.L.E.A., which, as image we know, is a great authority in numbers and extent, it is based upon the individual or combined borough requirements within the I.L.E.A. area. In other words, the onus of proof, the necessity for assessing need, rests with the I.L.E.A., which does it on the basis of either individual boroughs or districts, which, I understand, largely, but not exclusively, coincide with the boroughs, or, in some cases, combined boroughs.

What I am seeking to say is that we, from our point of view in Curzon Street, do not simply do a mathematical calculation based upon the whole of the Inner London area north and south of the river and then divide by a given number. I believe that my hon. Friend understands this perfectly well, but his remarks might have led people to suppose the contrary. It is as well to have that perfectly clear.

My hon. Friend mentioned his anxiety about secondary school places and what was in the pipeline. In fairness to the I.L.E.A., although my hon. Friend is very close to the whole question and will know the details, I ought to remind him of them. I shall give the details only for the Borough of Lewisham. I have with me the details of other neighbouring areas but it would weary the House unduly if I dealt in detail with them other than for the Borough of Lewisham.

For 1970–71, the authorised starts in the London Borough of Lewisham are the Manwood Road Secondary Girls School, which is an extension from 450 to 1,170 places, at a gross cost of £755,000. That is the authorised start. It obviously dates from well before the change of government at the centre. For the raising of the school-leaving age programme, which is obviusly important when one is talking about secondary schools, two extensions are authorised in the borough: first, at Forest Hill Secondary Boys School and, secondly, at Sedgehill.

When we move on to the authorised starts for 1971–72, also in the borough, we find that the authorised start is a substantial programme costing £541,000 at the Christopher Marlowe Secondary Girls School, being an extension from 600 to 1,050 places.

My hon. Friend has already noticed that there is nothing in the way of a start for the year following that. The reason is that which he himself drew to the attention of the House. It is true that there was a project for the 1971–72 design list programme which centred on Colfe's School, as my hon. Friend has reminded us. Although in any part of the country these are essentially matters for the local education authority concerned, I understand that my hon. Friend is absolutely correct in saying that the original proposal for the substantial extension of that school emanated from the Inner London Education Authority under Labour control. It was adopted by the Inner London Education Authority under Conservative control, and was essentially the same scheme in both. In both, because it is the same scheme, there was still an element of selection, and as that scheme, along with others, was approved by the then Secretary of State, who was a member of the Labour Party. Both major parties have had a hand in the scheme. One put it forward and the other approved it, on the understanding that there was in it still a basis of selection.

The authority has very recently written to my Department informing us that it will not be proceeding with the Colfe's School project in the 1971–72 design list programme. I cannot know what reasoning led to this change of mind on the part of the authority. The Press notice says that the governors of the school, which is run by the Leathersellers Company, said that they had now made it clear that the arrangements they would lay down for admissions to the new unit would be unmistakably selective. To the best of my knowledge they were always unmistakably selective in one form or another, but this must essentially be a matter for them.

The I.L.E.A. now approached the Secretary of State with a provisional proposal, the substitution of two other projects which would together provide about 100 more places than the previous one. This request by the I.L.E.A. is under consideration in my Department. The revised proposals are to extend the new Kidbrooke Park School from a five-form entry boys to an eight-form entry mixed school, and the Manwood Road (King Alfred) School from a seven-form entry girls to a nine-form entry mixed school—five forms for boys and four for girls. I understand that the Authority is consulting the governors, head and staff of the King Alfred School but does not intend to do so in the case of Kidbrooke Park because there it is a bringing forward in time of a proposal which has previously been discussed.

My right hon. Friend will need to make a decision on that request. What I can tell my hon. Friend without reservation is that I shall make sure that the very cogent points he made are right in front of my right hon. Friend and those who advise her before she comes to a decision on that request. I gladly give that assurance, because many of my hon. Friend's points were very important.

On the essential point my hon. Friend raised about criteria, I hope that I have explained how the matter is decided. I shall make sure that I am satisfied as to the method of operation, and if there are further examples that my hon. Friend wishes to represent, I am always at his disposal for that purpose.

I think that I have dealt with the actual school problem. But my hon. Friend made another very important point highlighting the practical effect upon his constituency of the I.L.E.A.'s decision to cease as from next September to take up places at direct-grant schools. The I.L.E.A. has, as it is bound to do, made it quite clear that it is continuing to see through their school career all those who have actually started. Both my hon. Friend and I must wish to make that clear to remove any possible anxiety in the minds of the parents of such children.

It must be said very clearly that there is a gulf between the attitude of mind on this matter of the present controlling party in I.L.E.A. and of my right hon. Friend and myself. I believe in variety of provision. In particular, I have always been attracted by a system—and I prefer to talk not about direct-grant schools but about a direct-grant system—which bridges the gap between the wholly independent and the wholly maintained schools. I have often felt that it might, intelligently used, be a way forward for wider provision in future years when finance possibly allowed. For that reason, I deplore the decision of the I.L.E.A. not to take up places any longer after September. It is a decision totally within its competence, and I have no power to prevent it doing so. It would not accord with my general approach of giving not decreased by increased discretion to local authorities if I were to take any other view.

rose—

Order. If an hon. Member seeks to intervene, it is not enough to stand. He must ask the Minister whether he will allow him to intervene.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way. I hope that in making representations of this kind to the Inner London Education Authority he has drawn to its attention the outstandingly progressive role played by the Leathersellers Company in educational ventures of all kinds.

I have certainly made representations on all relevant matters to do this and I am well aware of my hon. Friend's point. I am sorry to have overlooked him: he is not easy to overlook, but on this one occasion I achieved the impossible.

I was saying that I have this firm belief and support for the direct-grant system. It has to be said that schools other than the direct-grant system schools at present vary very widely indeed in size and educational standards, and in other ways. As an entity, in so far as they have a complete entity, I believe them to have very great importance in our educational system. I have never understood why people can, for purely political reasons, bring themselves not to use a system of this kind.

The effect of that decision is excellently illustrated by examples given by my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, West. It is perfectly true that certain other boroughs not as bigoted as this authority are taking up places, but that does no good whatever for the young people concerned, whom my hon. Friend represents, and those in the other parts of the borough.

Order. It would seem from the Minister's own argument that this is a matter for the local authority and that he has no power to intervene. I do not know.

I was talking in general terms, Mr. Speaker, and explaining what the broad umbrella was. I should hate to incur your wrath on your last day, but I have made the essential point and I will leave it there.

I can tell my hon. Friend—and here I move immediately to matters which are strictly within the purview of the Department I represent today—that, as she announced publicly, my right hon. Friend is in very careful consultation with the Direct Grant Joint Committee to see how in these circumstances she can help it in its educational work. I am not in a position this afternoon to carry that further—this is a complex matter, as he will understand—but I want him to take from this debate the very clear understanding that those were no idle words on my right hon. Friend's part: indeed, as all who know her can testify, she is not given to idle words. I therefore add my plea that educational considerations will be uppermost in the mind of the authority concerned, but it can only be a plea—I do not have power to instruct.

I hope that my hon. Friend will feel that I have now dealt with all the points he raised. As I say, I respectfully congratulate him on the vigour with which he does this. I am so new at my job that it is a fresh experience for me to be stung regularly by someone as active as my hon. Friend, but I think that it is good for Ministers. He does it on behalf of his constituents and, as today has shown, on behalf of the whole borough, with great energy and skill. I hope that the authority will take very close note indeed of what he said, because he has been proved right before and it could easily be that he will be proved right again.

We now come to the next debate, and we are a little ahead of time. The subject of the debate is, if I may say so, one that is dear to my heart, if anyone can say that Mr. Speaker has a heart, but it must finish at four o'clock.

May I first say how grateful I am to you, Mr. Speaker, for having selected this subject for debate. My hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Wythenshawe (Mr. Alfred Morris) rendered immense service to the cause of the chronically sick and disabled when he first introduced and then piloted his Measure with great skill on to the Statute Book. It was supported by all parties, but one is pleased to refer to the debt we owed to Ministers in the previous Administration who did everything they could to assist in this direction. I am proud to know that it was a Labour Government who took steps to see that the Measure was enacted before the General Election.

The Act has been called a charter for the chronically sick and disabled, but I remind the House that however beneficial its provisions are they are futile unless they are implemented, and at the base, as it were, of such implementation is the bringing into effect of Section 1.

Section 29 of the National Assistance Act, 1948, empowered a local authority

"… to make arrangements for promoting the welfare of persons … who are blind, deaf or dumb, and other persons who are substantially and permanently handicapped by illness, injury, or congenital deformity or such other disabilities as may be prescribed by the Minister."

Section 2 of the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act puts on a local authority the duty to assess the requirements of such persons, and to provide them with such things as practical assistance in the home, wireless, television, library or similar recreation facilities, telephone, work at home, holidays, meals and other matters. In order to do that it must know who are the disabled persons to be assisted.

Section 1 of the Act therefore provides the machinery for obtaining this information and for communicating knowledge of the services provided to the disabled. It requires a local authority to inform itself of the number of persons within the area and to make known to them what services are provided. In other words, there is a duty on the local authority to compile and keep a register of all disabled coming within the words of Section 29 of the National Assistance Act, 1948.

However, more than three months after the Act came into force, so far as is known only 600,000 persons are registered as disabled. In a recently published book by Sally Sainsbury, entitled "Registered as Disabled", the numbers per thousand of the population of those registered as physically disabled in 1965 and 1966 were given for a considerable number of local authorities. For instance, for Merioneth, Kingston upon Hull, Bath and Preston it was between 7 and 10; for West Bromwich, Cardiff and Salford it was between 5 and 6 while in the North Riding of Yorkshire, Swansea and Chester it was as low as ·7 and 1·9. The number on the register in my own borough of Hackney is 3,200. It is estimated that there will be an increase of no less than one-third and possibly more when full publicity is given to the Act.

It is clear from these statistics and from inquiries and from information given to the Central Council for the Disabled and other bodies that there are at least 1 million more disabled than those appearing on the register. The first and perhaps most fundamental step, therefore, is to identify those who are not on the register and to find what some organs of the Press have called the missing million. But this can be done only if the provisions of Section 1 are effectively carried out.

I have said that the Act came into force on 29th August. More than three months have elapsed since then, but there is still remarkable ignorance of the Act and its provisions, particularly of the services to be provided as set out in Section 2. In "Contact", the organ of the Central Council, there are a number of extracts from letters and I draw attention to a few. One reads:

"The Medical Officer of Health of … considers the telephone a luxury which cannot possibly be supplied by the local authority but offers the names and addresses of charities to which the very severely disabled person might apply herself."

Another says:

"I have been to my local welfare office and they said they have never heard of the Act."

Another reads:

"Will you please send me a copy of the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act as no one here seems to know anything about it."

There are many other letters in a similar vein with which I have been supplied by the Central Council for the Disabled.

But it does not stop there. There is a similar ignorance among the staff of the local offices of the Department of Health and Social Security. I have been shown letters from the managers of two such offices addressed to the Central Council. The first, dated 12th November, 1970, reads:

"I understand you have recently published a pamphlet explaining the provisons of the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act, 1970.

I shall be obliged if you will be good enough to let me have three copies for the information of the staff of this office."

The other said:

"Further to an inquiry from a chronically sick person, I have been asked to obtain a copy of the leaflet which was mentioned in …evening paper. I would be grateful therefore if you would forward a copy to the address above as soon as possible."

My hon. Friend the Member for Wythenshawe wrote to the Department of Health and Social Security about this ignorance and he received a reply from the Ministry on 3rd December, a fortnight ago, saying:

"Arrangements are in hand to send each local office a summary of the provisions of the Act and they are being advised to put enquirers in touch with local authorities who can best help them".

Why was this not done before?

It is true that a joint circular of the Department of Health and Social Security, the Ministry of Housing and Local Government, the Department of Education and Science and the Ministry of Transport setting out the purposes of the Act appears to have been published on 17th August of this year. It purports to be addressed to local authorities. Either it has not reached them or it has been dismissed as of little importance. It was certainly not followed up or impressed on the authorities, judging by the ignorance and lack of action.

Section 1(3) of the Act states that it comes

"into operation on such date as the Secretary of State may by order made by Statutory Instrument appoint".

My hon. Friend the Member for Wythenshawe tabled a Question asking if:

"the Secretary of State for Social Services … will make a statement on the coming into effect of Section 1 of the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act, 1970; and what action he is taking in preparation therefor."

In a Written Answer of 7th December, the Minister replied, and I ask the House to note the terms of this Answer:

"I expect shortly after 1st April to make an Order bringing Section 1 of the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act into force at a time when the new local authority social service departments are in a position to carry out their duties under it in the right context. Section 1 (1) requires authorities to inform themselves of the numbers and needs of substantially and permanently handicapped persons in their areas, and I have asked the Office of Population Censuses and Surveys to help with the preparation of guidance for local authorities on the use of survey techniques. I expect this to be available after the summer. Section 1 (2) requires authorities to make known the services they provide under Section 29 of the National Assistance Act, 1948, both generally and to persons using any one of them. I am considering"—

note these words—

"whether further guidance to local authorities is necessary on the discharge of this duty."

Note the delay; no order until after 1st April, 1970, a delay of seven months, and possibly more, from the date of the Act coming into force, with a further delay because the surveys of the Office of Population Censuses and Surveys are expected after the summer, whatever that might mean. Then there is the last phrase in that Answer:

"Whether further guidance to local authorities is necessary on the discharge of this duty." —[OFFICIAL REPORT, 7th December, 1970; Vol. 808, c. 57–8.]

The problem is acute. This means so much to every chronically sick and disabled person.

There are, no doubt, authorities which are aware of the Act and which are doing something about it. For example, I am informed by the Town Clerk of Hackney, my borough, that preparations are in hand for the necessary increase in staff and for the provision of further finance for expenditure on welfare services under the Act. Also provision has been made for assisting certain categories of persons in obtaining telephones and in regard to housing, the council has in mind the specific requirements of the physically handicapped.

There are, however, many councils which have already prepared their budgets for 1971. If the Order is made on or after April, 1970, what chance will these authorities have to obtain the necessary finance and have it available; in other words, to provide the services set out in Section 2?

I criticise the Ministry for the delay. It contrasts badly with the eagerness of the last Administration to assist. This matter is so important that there should be the utmost publicity. Local authorities and disabled people, mentally as well as physically disabled—and I remind the House that people affected mentally are included in the definition of "disabled" in the Act—should have their attention drawn in no uncertain way to the duties and their rights under the Act. The Minister, possibly with the assistance of my hon. Friend the Member for Wythenshawe, should publicise on television and radio and through the Press what the Act does; he could do no better thing in the interests of the disabled, for whom I am sure he cares. Registration can be done at a small cost, possibly on a regional basis. Voluntary help can be employed. I am sure that the Central Council would assist, and I believe that there would be no shortage of volunteers.

If it is said that the expenditure of money would be involved, I remind the Minister that £60,000 was spent on publicising pensions for people over the age of 80. This is no less worthy an object, yet no money appears to have been spent on publicity to inform the disabled about the provisions of the Act.

This matter calls for immediate action, not the delay foreshadowed by the Minister in his Written Answer. I earnestly urge the right hon. Gentleman, in the interests of thousands of these people, to take action immediately.

May I draw the attention of the House to the fact that a number of Members wish to take part in this debate. If speeches are short, it will be possible to call all of them.

It is with pleasure that I speak in this debate. I was extremely pleased to hear that both sides of the House concur on this matter.

I wish to direct my remarks particularly to Section 3 of the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act, 1970, which requests all housing committees to look to their future needs in housing accommodation, with particular emphasis on the chronically sick and disabled.

The jobs starts with the architect's department. The city architect, who is in a very specialised profession, must consult the disabled people's groups. One of the most chronically disabled persons is the housewife who must not only run her home but look after her family and herself. The city achitect must look to the planning of her kitchen and her environment in the home.

A report called the "The Disabled Housewife in the Kitchen" was published by the Disabled Living Foundation as a result of three conferences held in June, 1969—one in Glasgow, one in Birmingham and one in London. The report stressed the importance of flexibility and adjustability to both the disabled and the able bodied. A home, certainly a council house, should be adapted to the needs of a disabled person. In other words, the heights of shelves, storage facilities, the design of kitchen equipment, the level of cookers, low-level preparation tables and other safety features should be adjustable to the needs of a disabled or an able-bodied person. Kitchen storage facilities are generally out of reach of the disabled person.

Housewives dependent upon crutches, and unable to reach for the shelves, or the normal points at which normal controls usually are—for water, electricity, gas, windows—need those controls where they can reach them. It is of the utmost importance for the architect to get them right. He should consider that the husband will be at work and the housewife unable to put coins in an electricity or gas meter. The housewife needs these means for keeping her home going and preparing for the return of her family. Too often I find that gas and electricity companies place meters in totally inaccessible positions. How many accidents have been caused, not only to the disabled, but to the elderly, by their trying to reach meters by climbing stepladders, or trying to reach meters under the stairs? Should not a percentage of the houses which we are building for our council tenants be purpose-built to incorporate special rooms such as those required for kidney machines and other appliances?

There is one further category I would seek to add to those my hon. Friend has mentioned, and that is picture windows, admirable things in themselves, but for the disabled almost impossible to open or shut.

Order. I would draw the attention of the House to the fact that the discussion is mainly on Section 1 of the Act.

It is not only the houses which we are going to build in the future that are important but also converted accommodation which disabled people are using. A case was brought to me some 12 months ago of a man with no legs, for they had been amputated, and who lived on the 14th floor of a multistorey block of flats. It is a case of that sort which local authorities must watch for, and they should give great publicity in order to bring disabled people on to the register. In converted accommodation there must be hoists for baths and beds; there must be special doors wide enough for wheelchairs; there must be special facilities for toilet needs; there must be switches at low level; and there must be a warning system, so that if there is an accident in the home the woman, for instance, who is on her own can at least give an alarm, and so there should be an alarm system. I concur completely with the hon. and learned Gentleman that the telephone is a necessity in every one of these homes occupied by persons registered as disabled. Another factor, they must have a garage adjacent to their home for their invalid chair.

If I am in order I will just say a word about Section 10, the appointment of one or more persons with knowldge of the problems of the chronically sick and disabled to the Central Housing Advisory Committee. Should that be written in? This should be common sense and should be applied at local level.

On a point of order. May I point out, Mr. Deputy Speaker, a point which you have yourself just made, that we are discussing in this Adjournment debate our concern with Section 1 and the non-implementation of what is on the Statute Book. It is almost inhuman to list many other things which might well have been suggested on Second Reading or Third Reading of the Bill or in Committee on the Bill. What this debate is about is getting implementation of that which is already law.

Yes, but I think that, perhaps, the hon. Member does not further his own case as he hopes. The fact is that, as he rightly says, we are having an Adjournment debate. There- fore, there is the possibility of covering matter further to that which, for the convenience of the House, is notified on the Order Paper. Nevertheless, I have tried to restrict the debate in the interests of the House. Technically, however, the hon. Member may stray rather more widely.

Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, for your indulgence in this matter.

I will not prolong the debate any longer Local government must educate the public and the relatives of the disabled about the registration of disabled persons, and funds should be available for national advertising to this effect.

I appreciate the opportunity afforded by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Stoke Newington and Hackney, North (Mr. Weitzman) to make a brief intervention in the debate. The House will agree that he has successfully made his case for the urgent implementation of Secton 1 of the Act. My hon. and learned Friend put forward a convincing case, and I think both sides of the House will endorse all that he has said.

My intervention is designed to draw to the attention of the Minister two points: first, the letter of the Act, and, secondly, the spirit of the Act. If they are not careful, the Government will lay themselves open to the charge of being dilatory in the implementation of the Act. I know that the Minister personally is not dilatory, and that he is as anxious as anyone else to implement the Act, but I understand that there are problems which must be dealt with by the Government.

The Act deals with a group of people who do not have time on their side and, therefore, a sense of urgency in the implementation of Section 1 is all the more imperative. I plead with the Minister to show a great sense of urgency, and to cut whatever red tape it is necessary to cut to ensure that official action is taken at the highest level. By taking this action and implementing the Act, he will win the appreciation of millions of disabled people.

Will the Minister consider the issue of an interim circular to local authorities urging on them the need for urgent action before his official implementation of Section 1? Such nudging, pushing and elbowing by the Minister would have a considerable effect on local authorities. So much for the letter of the law.

As to the spirit of the law, many local authorities should be able to take action without implementation. I do not want this to be taken as an excuse for not implementing Section 1; implementation is the first priority; but in the meantime local authorities can take valuable direct action. There are Members on both sides of the House who will welcome voluntary action by local authorities and be prepared to harry remorselessly those local authorities who refuse to take action.

I highly commend the Sunday Times for listing local authorities who are prepared to act while awaiting the Minister's implementation, and local authorities who are being dilatory. The Sunday Times, and other newspapers which are prepared to follow its lead, will find that the House will endorse this method of persuasion of members of local authorities who are evading the spirit of the Act.

In conclusion, may I take this opportunity, as the chairman of the all-party group on disablement, to say this to Mr. Speaker on his last day in the Chair. Many hon. Members are concerned with disablement, and an increasing number are becoming actively concerned. All this support is warmly welcome to Mr. Speaker, who was active in helping disabled people, particularly disabled children, long ago when it was unfashionable. His efforts on behalf of disabled people before the Act, and other Meassures, are greatly appreciated. One can now safely say that the implementation of Section 1 and the actions which will follow are in part a result of the work which was put in by Mr. Speaker years ago.

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I do not want the fact that I rise at this point in any sense to curtail the debate. In any case, it would be impossible for me to do so, as there is a set time scale today. In view of the number of hon. Members who wish to speak it is rather difficult for me to judge the right point at which to intervene, but I am most anxious that the hon. and learned Member for Stoke Newington and Hackney, North (Mr. Weitzman) should get a proper reply without any pressure, as it were, from the clock. I shall listen with great interest to the contributions we shall have from hon. Members on both sides after I have sat down.

I am extremely glad that the hon. and learned Gentleman has chosen this subject for debate. It is a subject extremely close to my own interests and sympathies, as it is to those of my Department, and the debate undoubtedly serves a useful purpose in focusing public attention and that of the Departments upon the urgent priority which should be given to this historic Act. I shall spend most of my speech on Section 1, since this was highlighted by the hon. and learned Gentleman. That is not to say, however, that I did not listen with interest and attention to the remarks made by my hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Test (Mr. James Hill), which will find their place on the record and will be pondered in my Department.

Section 1 requires local authorities to carry out two distinct but related tasks. First, it requires them to inform themselves of the numbers and needs of substantially and permanently handicapped persons in their area; secondly, to make known the services they provide, under Section 29 of the old National Assistance Act, 1948, both generally and to persons using any one of these services at a particular moment in time. I want to examine both these obligations. When Section 1(1) is in force, it will impose a duty on local authorities to find out the numbers of persons with disabilities at a certain level and the kind of services which should be provided for those persons. In other words, it places on the local authorities the general duty to inform themselves of the local situation so that they can make adequate and relevant plans to meet the needs.

There are a number of ways in which the authorities might seek to discharge their duties under Section 1(1) specifically. One way suggested is to compile a complete register of handicapped persons and to assess individually the needs of the people appearing on it. I have a great deal of sympathy with the feeling of those who advocate this course—total compilation. But, in practical terms, I do not think that it would be really reasonable for the Government to encourage it.

First, while complete registration of the handicapped would probably achieve the objects of Section 1(1), I am convinced that the cost of the effort of doing it would be so great a diversion of resources, in terms both of manpower and money, particularly manpower, that the whole point of the task would be nullified. There would be nothing left over, as it were, to meet the needs of those registered. That is not the only argument. Secondly, I cannot believe that it is right that all handicapped persons should be required to register whether they like it or not. Almost certainly many of them prefer not to reveal their handicap or do not wish to receive or have no need of the services. In any case, a quite arbitrary definition of the level of disability which entitled a person to be registered would have to be introduced; it would have to be measured in some way. Then we should encounter the old problem of the borderline, when people who needed services might lie just outside the legislation and suffer undue hardship.

Compulsory notification of disabling diseases would not be a suitable alternative as these are mostly of long duration, fluctuating courses and, in the early stages at least, difficult to diagnose. To define them in relation to the point in their history when they must become notifiable would be very important.

In addition to this, there would be a large increase in the number of cases which would have to be examined and assessed, with relatively little return in the form of people who would benefit from the services. I should like to suggest what seems a more realistic and practical approach to the implementation of Section 1(1). The first need of authorities is to assess the overall size and nature of the demand for services under the Act. This can be measured with a fair degree of accuracy by the use of sampling and survey techniques. A number of authorities have already carried out, or are carrying out, local surveys of various kinds designed to help them in planning services for the future.

Sampling techniques would give some idea of the number. The point made by my hon. and learned Friend was that he does not want a rough idea of the number but he wants to identify the people. A sample will never identify the people. Section 1 is about people.

That is not the whole story. Certainly identification and discovery is a crucial part. Total discovery for that identification would need such a massive diversion of resources, simply for that operation, that those left over to meet the needs of people so discovered would correspondingly be reduced. There is an advantage in the sort of surveys which I have suggested, and I hope and believe that authorities will attempt more widely to establish accurately the needs and priorities in their areas by this technique, so that they can set about meeting them in a practical and economic way One has to have some idea of the numbers, even by this technique of surveys of samples, in order to make an assessment of what the budgetary obligations are likely to be. To assist authorities in this my Department has asked the Office of Population Censuses and Surveys to help with the preparation of guidance on the employment of survey techniques which the O.P.C.S. is now using. We hope that this will be available by next summer, when the O.P.C.S. survey will be completed.

This will not solve the whole problem. Authorities will still need to establish contact with individuals. I should like to see them doing this by basing their visiting services in the first place on information already available to them about individuals, of which there is already much available. This means that there must be an adequate exchange of information, obviously within the proper limits of confidentiality, between departments and services which are in contact with people in need of help.

I emphasise the valuable part which voluntary effort can and does play in making such contacts with individuals, as the hon. Gentleman noted; and it may often be that efforts to expand services can best be begun in areas where voluntary help is particularly active. It is clear that a massive increase in the provision of services cannot be produced overnight; for one thing, it takes time to recruit and train the staff who are one of the essentials of services of the kind we hope to provide. It is no good adding handicapped people to a list of those in need of services, and thereby raising their expectation of help, when there is no hope of being able to meet that expectation for a considerable time to come. To do this is cruelty. We all know that services could be better—indeed, there is almost no limit to developments which could be made—and we all intend that they shall be better. But we must be realistic. If the development of services is started in the way I have suggested, on the basis of lists of known individuals, it can be continued by adding to those lists at a rate commensurate with the growth of resources.

It may be said that what I have suggested is simply to allow authorities to avoid their responsibilities, and the hon. Gentleman has also suggested this by his reference to some local authorities in particular parts of the country. It is suggested that some of them will make no effort to add to the number of handicapped people known to them. I hope that this will not be so; I state that firmly. We shall certainly be watching their performance in that respect. We expect the report of the national survey of disability, which the Office of Population Censuses and Surveys is now completing, to appear in the late spring next year, and this will give us a very good estimate of the number of people there are with varying levels of handicap in the country as a whole. We shall then be able to compare the number registered with authorities with the number of people who seem to be registrable, and we shall have a clear idea of how large the gap is, and both we and they will be able to form a good idea of the size of the problem facing them in the future demand on the resources.

I ask hon. Members to await the publication of the survey before they start talking about "the missing million". That is mentioned in the article to which the hon. Gentleman referred in the course of his speech. It must be remembered that many people are receiving services for which they do not need to be registered. That would bite considerably into the so-called "missing million".

Although there is room for development, I do not suggest that most authorities are not doing all that they can with the resources at their disposal, on which there are a great many heavy demands at present, or that this is a problem which we are leaving the authorities to face alone. To assist local authorities in improving services which we specially wish them to develop, including those referred to in the Morris Act, the amount of relevant expenditure on the health and welfare services ranking for rate support grant was increased by £5 million in the 1971–72 and £6 million in the 1972–73 rate support grant negotiations over and above the sums already settled in the latest negotiations.

I turn now to Section 1(2) of the Act, which comes within the ambit of the hon. and learned Gentleman's Adjournment Motion. Section 1(2) falls into two parts. The first seeks to ensure that local authorities do what is necessary generally to publicise the service which they provide for substantially and permanently handicapped people so that those who might benefit from these services, and their families, should know what is available to them. This object was one on which the hon. and learned Gentleman touched. The second part seeks to ensure that, when a person receives any single service, he should be told of others that are likely to be helpful to him.

The second of these tasks presents relatively few problems. Once one is in touch with a handicapped person and providing him with a service, it is not too difficult to tell him about other services. However, there are a number of considerable difficulties attaching to the first requirement. It really amounts to making sure that the right kind of information about a wide range of services is available continuously to those who may be in need of help in such a way that they can make use of the information and the services at any time when they are required.

Such a problem can be attacked at several levels. At the national level, there is already a general booklet called "Rehabilitation and Care of the Disabled in Britain", published by the C.O.I. However, this is not primarily designed for disabled people themselves, and it is not confined to those services with which Section 1 of the Act is concerned. I am asking my Department to look at the need for a general booklet aimed more specifically at the needs of the disabled and their families.

I am pleased to recognise the work of voluntary bodies in this sphere. There is, for example, the very useful "Guide to the Social Services" put out by the Family Welfare Association, in the preparation of which Government Departments have annually given a good deal of help. The Central Council for the Disabled has done much to make known the services provided by local authorities, especially those provided under the Alf Morris Act. I understand that the director of the Central Council for the Disabled is also participating in a commercial enterprise to produce a handbook for the disabled and those working with them. I ought to refer as well to the extremely useful Information Service for the Disabled run by the Disabled Living Foundation.

The offices of local authorities and my Department's branch offices have some of these semi-official or voluntary publications emanating, for example, from the Central Council for the Disabled. We want to see what is being produced by voluntary organisations so that we know the extent to which it must be supplemented by official publications.

I am sorry to have to tell the hon. Gentleman that my own correspondence and experience very much matches that recounted by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Stoke Newington and Hackney, North (Mr. Weitzman). It cannot be explained away by saying that those officials want to inquire what publicity material is available. I have a file of letters which, if necessary, I can make available to the hon. Gentleman, giving details of cases where local authorities have denied knowledge of the Act. One county council, Glamorgan, has sought to shield behind the lack of a date for the implementation of Section 1 in order to postpone the implementation of Section 2. In another case, a lady in Exeter saw a social security officer who denied that the Act had become law. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will not labour under the misapprehension that this is an inquiry concerned with lack of information. We are asking the hon. Gentleman to see that all his officials and local authorities are informed by the Department; not leave it for occasional inquiry as to what is being published.

I have listened closely to what the hon. Gentleman has said. I hope that he will write giving me a summary of the communications which he has received and perhaps highlight those which he regards particularly suspect and liable to be interpreted as exposing ignorance on the part of the statutory body. The hon. Gentleman will know that my Department published—"published" is not the right word—prepared and circulated a substantial departmental document on the Act dated 17th August, which was widely disseminated among local authorities.

Will the hon. Gentleman read to the House that section of the circular which deals with registration? My recollection is that it specifically advises local authorities that they are not expected to achieve 100 per cent. regis- tration, and this is leading to dilatoriness in implementing the Act.

I hope that the hon. Gentleman appreciates that registration is not a prerequisite for benefiting from the services under the Act. The purpose of registration is to carry on the original statutory duties of local authorities to register those who apply for services. A person does not need to be registered to secure services under the Act. When he applies for services under the Act he is automatically registered.

The people have to be found.

I agree that discovery is one of the crucial problems. Full 100 per cent, discovery could divert enormous resources, both of manpower and money, not only from the implementation of the services which we hope to provide under the Act, but possibly from other services as well.

Will the Minister deal with the suggestion about publicity by which the Minister, on radio, television and in the Press, should make the facts of the Act known to the disabled.

As the hon. and learned Gentleman has made the point so forcefully, I will carefully consider it without committing myself. I appreciate that there may be substance in this point, but it is extraordinary how some things which appear on television nevertheless totally fail to register and often miss some of the people one is most anxious to help.

Nevertheless, as useful as national information of this kind is—this is where the television angle might have some bearing—I feel sure that it is only valuable in so far as it is supported by very full local information. This is the importance of the locale of publicity.

Many local authorities already publish booklets which describe their own services, and I am anxious to encourage efforts of this kind. But even here there is a big problem. Even assuming that one has discovered a person who may at some time be in need of services, or of the services provided under the Act, and has put in his hands a guide, written in simple language, about the services available, how does one ensure that he will consult it when the need for services arises? All too often the information with which somebody is provided in written form, at a time when he does not require services, disappears from his camp.

My Department has these problems very much in mind, and we are considering whether there is any need to issue guidance to authorities on the narrower point of publicity. But there is no single or simple solution to publicising the Act. What is needed is publicity of numerous kinds from numerous sources put across in a variety of ways. Local authorities will need the co-operation of local newspapers and radio stations—I take the hon. Gentleman's point—in making their services known and in supplementing authorities' own leaflets and guides.

Local authority staff are increasingly being attached to general practitioners. This will help to bring people into contact with local authority services. I attach great importance to the value of attachment to local authority health centres. I believe that this may be one cardinal area in which the general dissemination of information about these extra services can be spread.

I must once again refer to the important part which voluntary effort can play in supporting and supplementing the work of local authorities. Many people have a general practitioner and they have a broad idea of the kind of services which the family doctor provides, but general practitioners have been working in a community for centuries while the social services are latecomers to the scene. Obviously, we cannot wait for centuries before these services sink into the public consciousness. We can all play a part in helping to make them known to those who need them.

Above all, it is the quality of the services provided which determines the extent to which they will be talked about in the community and thus become known. The quality of the service is a vital factor in spreading the good news of its existence. The better a local authority's services are, the more likely it is that they will be known and talked about and will come to the awareness of those who need them and at the time they are needed. It is our intention to support local authorities in the efforts which, I know, they will make to develop their services and to ensure that they are made widely known so that they can be used to the best possible advantage.

The implementation of section 1 of the Act requires an Order made by Statutory Instrument. It is my right hon. Friend's intention to make such an Order shortly after 1st April next year, when the new Seebohm departments of local authorities will be in existence and can take on the problem in the context of the responsibilities which the Section imposes upon them.

I must refute the allegation that the present Government, in contrast to the last one, are being dilatory in that respect. The Alf Morris Act specifically wrote in a flexible time scale for implementing the important Section 1. We have no doubt whatever that local authorities are in a state of ferment and upheaval as a result of the profound reorganisation which was imposed upon them by the Local Authority Social Services Act. To bombard them now with supplementary memoranda, guidance and letters in addition to the very large numbers which they are receiving bearing upon the Local Authority Social Services Act would merely gum up the machine and, I believe, be counter-productive. We hope that the new Seebohm departments—they will not be long in coming—will provide just the springboard that is needed to get the Alf Morris Act really into orbit and benefiting the global scene, as we hope that it will.

I shall be brief because many hon. Members, on both sides, wish to speak. I regret that the Minister had such an unimaginative brief, because he is a charming man and I think that he would like to implement the Act. It should be made known to his Department that the Act was put upon the Statute Book not only by the efforts mainly of my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Wythenshawe (Mr. Alfred Morris), but by the efforts of hon. Members on both sides of the House, and that there was never a Division upon it. The only division which is now creeping in is the result of the Department's being dilatory. It could quite easily have come forward with a compromise. My hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent, South (Mr. Ashley) clearly said, "Very well. If we cannot have full implementation, let us have an interim implementation." There was absolutely no response from the Minister to that reasonable request.

I am very glad that on the benches opposite we now have a friend in the hon. Member for Ipswich (Mr. Money), who is lucky enough to have an enlightened medical officer of health who is prepared to implement the Act. My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Stoke Newington and Hackney, North (Mr. Weitzman) pointed out, however, that the implementation of the Act varies from one area to another. Some areas want to help, some do not. Some want to hide behind a cloud of regulations. The Department should clearly give a lead to all local authorities that they must implement the Act.

I was astounded that the Minister's Department should have talked about a statistical survey. We are not concerned about a statistical survey. We are concerned about people. What we are after is not a random sample, but a person in reality, not a cipher. First, it is necessary to assess the disabled, whether for environmental control, access to buildings, mobility or communication. Having assessed them, we must give them whatever we can to enable them to live a normal life. But how can those two long processes be carried out until those coming under Section 1 have been indentified?

I ask the Minister to tell his Department that it was the unanimous view of the House that the Act should be implemented. That was the view expressed in the last Parliament, and it should be implemented under this Government. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will assert his authority and insist that it be done.

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Order. I thought that the Opposition Front Bench speaker was to interevene. We must finish this debate at four o'clock. Mr. Morris.

I am extremely grateful to my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Stoke Newington and Hackney, North (Mr. Weitzman) both for his extremely kindly remarks and for helping to create this opportunity to discuss a very important, not to say fundamentally important, Section of the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act, 1970. The timing of the debate is also extremely felicitous. The book published yesterday by Miss Sally Sainsbury, which is called Registered as Disabled, documents again the extremely serious problem of how we treat our disabled fellow citizens.

Much of the publicity about the Act has been undertaken by the organisations working for the chronically sick and disabled. I hope that there will now be more official publicity about its provisions. We want the implementation of Section 1 not just for reasons of administrative tidiness but because it concerns a deeply serious human problem. It has to do with some of the poorest and most needful people as well as with preventable suffering.

I accept what the Secretary of State said to me when I, together with the Earl of Longford, met him recently. He said that the Act represents a major change in the law to which local authorities will need to adjust; and he put it to us very strongly that they will need time to implement the Act fully. I fully appreciate that, but there is increasing pressure from the organisations representing disabled people, as well as many other organisations, for the quick and effective implementation of Section 1. For it is about the crucially important problems of finding out where disabled people are and of ensuring that they receive information about the services available to them.

There are examples of boys with muscular dystrophy whose parents have been unaware of the availability of ripple cushions. This means that the boys concerned suffer highly serious and very painful pressure sores. I have seen examples of this; and it would be very instructive for anyone who obstructs the passing of information to disabled people to see the effect of this on the boys I have mentioned.

To some extent this debate is a reunion of those who worked with me in passing the Act. Again, I pay warm tribute to them. I know that all of them attach great importance to Section 1.

There is obviously a wide chasm between the number of severely disabled people known to public authorities and the actual incidence of severe disablement. I ask the Minister, who I know to be very deeply concerned about the problems of disabled people, now to do everything he possibly can to see that the Section is implemented at the earliest possible date.

I wish to raise the question of the financing of the new London Airport rail link. It is appropriate, Mr. Speaker, for a back bencher to raise this subject as it is the last debate of the day and the last at which you will occupy the Chair. Back benchers, particularly those of us who are new, have been privileged to sit under your tutelage. It could be said that the winds of political change and custom have indeed penetrated among new Members, but I hope that the general movements of the air will now serve to hasten the development of democratic institutions and procedures rather than to kill them off.

There is a gale of discontent in London with the arrangements for our public transport and I am glad that this opportunity has been given me to bring at least some of that discontent into the Chamber. This is not a party matter but one which concerns both sides across the river in the Greater London Council. For me it is also a matter of constituency interest as the Piccadilly Line goes through Acton, where it has an important junction. I must also declare an interest as a co-opted member of the Greater London Council Environmental Planning Committee.

The facts are that after some lengthy inquiries the Government have decided, I believe quite rightly, that the best new link to London Airport from central London would be achieved by extending the Piccadilly Line from Hounslow West. The cost would be some £15 million for a three and a half mile extension. Until fairly recently it was assumed that the Government would supply 75 per cent. of the capital involved because the previous Government had, I think without controversy, supplied that percentage for the Brixton extension of the Victoria Line, thus bringing investment in roads and railways in London under the same sort of financial arrangement. The link which was foreseen by Abercrombie as long ago as 1943, although in 1964 the Government of the day would not finance it because they did not think that it would pay its way.

The plan is for trains to leave London Airport for London at between 4 and 7 minute intervals throughout the day, taking about 40 minutes to reach Piccadilly Circus. It is estimated that by 1975 11 million passengers a year would use the route, the number rising to 17 million by 1981. One of the features of the scheme is that since nearly 50,000 people now work at London Airport, many would be able to use the line as would visitors or those arriving or departing in aircraft.

My case is that the Government have failed, as is well known, to provide this 75 per cent. grant. Indeed, they have decided that no grant shall be made at all. I wish to ask the Minister to look again at the merits of that decision; and to point out some of the past parliamentary contexts in which this unfortunate decision has been made and the future parliamentary contexts which we will have to face. Thirdly, I wish to look at the subject in relation to the so-called track cost anomaly whereby the financing of rail and road traffic is put on a different basis, certainly in London and largely in the country as a whole.

An important feature of this debate is that it provides the first opportunity the House has had to debate the subject, because the announcement was not made in this Chamber as a result of Questions or a Ministerial statement, but was contained in two and a half lines in a Press release by the Department for the Environment on 6th November, 1970. This reads:

"The Government has considered the case for paying grant towards the cost of construction but has concluded that as the project will pay its way, Government grant would not be proper."

I hope that we shall hear rather more of the Government's reasons than is contained in that two and a half line statement.

First, let me deal with the merits of the case. This is not just a London matter but a national matter, because London (Heathrow) is a national airport.

The Government have said, and of course the G.L.C. provided the figures, that the line will make a surplus, but let us see how it makes that surplus. First, it is proposed that there should be a 6d. toll on the line, in other words, everybody who uses it will pay 6d. more than they would pay if it were an ordinary route. This is a 50 per cent. increase in the fare over this section of the line. In addition, the British Airports Authority will be asked to provide £3 million for part of the terminal facilities. Finally, it assumes a modal split, that is, that an estimate of the number of people using the underground as distinct from those using private cars or the coach services will be in accordance with the calculations.

In other words, the figures may be used either way and, by saying that there would be no toll and that the standard fare would be charged, it would be reasonable to assume that the line would not be profitable and would not pay its way. Therefore, whether it stands on its own two feet, to use a Government expression, is a matter of the adjustment of the figures. If it had not paid its way with a 6d. toll, no doubt we could have made it pay its way with a 1s. toll.

My second objection is in the parliamentary context. This may be rather more important constitutionally. As long ago as 5th June, 1935, Neville Chamberlain, to the great acclamation of the House, announced Government facilities for financing London Transport's new works programme, most of which were devoted to improving the tubes and to tube extensions. Admittedly, that was not providing capital grants, but it was providing special Government financial services.

In 1920, the first report of the Advisory Committee on London Traffic said that there might be some need for additional municipal assistance, or State aid, for extensions of the railways in London. It said:

"Such considerations must weigh with any Traffic Authority since in regard to transport facilities as a whole a broad and comprehensive view is essential, otherwise, the results will only bring temporary relief and have no permanent value."

It said that it might be necessary for the State or municipality to assist in extensions of this sort.

To go back a stage further, the Royal Commission on London Traffic of 1905 noted the difficulties of private enterprise in raising capital and noted its low rate of return. Indeed, a Select Committee from the other place in 1863 recommended the completion of the Circle Line, itself a link with London terminal facilities. The completion of the line was unprofitable, but it was made less unprofitable by joint works with road improvements, particularly the Victoria Embankment.

It is the policy of the Greater London Council to look at transport as a whole. To judge by the White Paper, Transport in London, published a few years ago and with which I assume the present Government to be in broad agreement, this policy is also the policy of the Government. I quote the excellent G.L.C. document, "Transport in London, a Balanced Policy":

"Public and private transport must not be in competition, and must be complementary …an adequate road system for buses and for the present volume of other road traffic"—

must be provided—

"and its expected increase in the years to come".

Most significantly, it goes on to say that since the submission of the Greater London development plan, the G.L.C.

"had been given overall responsibility for preparing more detailed traffic plans for London Transport's policies and finance. It is thus now able to consider and co-ordinate priorities for investment in all forms of transport in London."

I emphasise the last words, because at the moment roads in the ex-L.C.C. area attract a grant of 75 per cent. while those outside may have as much as 100 per cent. The cost of the M4 from Chiswick to London Airport, was met by the Ministry of Transport. It cost £16 million complete, with a 100 per cent. grant. That is capable of carrying about 5,000 people per hour compared with a potential capacity of the underground of 20,000 people per hour. The fact is that the rail link can provide extra road space. Because some people would use the underground, the roads will not be so congested. There would not be the same pressure on the roads if there was an underground link and therefore the provision of rail facilities is, in effect, providing extra road space. The two are very closely connected.

Not far from here there have been road works, relatively small improvement works, costing £10½ million by way of Government grant to the G.L.C. These improvements are to enable speedier access between the Palace of Westminster and just beyond Aldgate into the Highway. Another £3·2 million has been spent on road improvements by way of grant from the Ministry for road improvements round County Hall and Waterloo Bridge. These amounts would have been equivalent to a 100 per cent. grant to cover the underground extension. In other words, we are looking at these two parts of public transport, or the provision of transport, in two different ways.

I appeal to the Minister to look again at these matters. We know that cities are in travail in the United States, where they are trying to keep their cities properly alive. A distinction should not be made between track for road and track for rail, because both are vital. These facilities are like blood vessels in the body. And like the body, when a coronary occurs it impairs bodily efficiency. These arteries must be kept open and the financial system of the country, the equivalent of the heart, must not be overloaded by an unbalanced policy of investment.

I ask the Minister to consider making a statement about the future approach of Government to this problem. With the Greater London Development Plan Inquiry, looking at transport, some assumptions will need to be made about investment policy. The policy the Government intend to pursue should be made clear in a full way, and not in a few lines in a Press statement.

Transport in London will be of increasing importance in the next few years and it seems a great pity that, so far, the Minister has not seen this in the context of the needs of London, the growing need of people to move about adequately and freely, not only for work but also for enjoyment of leisure time.

I am, perhaps, the last back bencher whom you will call, Mr. Speaker, before your retirement. I wish, therefore, to thank you on behalf of all back benchers for the way in which you have treated us.

There have been occasions on which we have tried to catch your eye and when we may have thought that we possessed the quality of being invisible. However, we appreciate that, within the confines of the rules of the House and the procedures of this Chamber, you have done your best to give us every opportunity to speak.

Those younger hon. Members who may be here for some years to come will recall your Speakership only with warmth. We shall remember the great love which you showed for this Chamber and the respect you have always shown for the richly textured fabric of Parliament.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Acton (Mr. Spearing) on having chosen this subject for debate. He has followed the tradition of previous hon. Members who have represented Acton by raising an important point. It is right that we should draw attention to the Heathrow rail link. I welcome the decision of London Transport, supported by the Greater London Council, to build this rail link, which will mean that the journey from Hyde Park to the airport will be cut to 35 minutes. There will not be those anxious moments waiting in traffic jams on the A4 wondering whether one will get to the airport on time. Further, the cost of the journey from Central London to Heathrow will be the modest sum of 6s.

As the hon. Gentleman rightly said, there is an anomaly in the financing of this project. London Transport must finance it itself. It has, therefore, turned to the G.L.C., which has responsibility for transport within the Greater London area, for assistance. The council will meet 25 per cent. The capital cost of about £15 million. It has looked to the Government for the other 75 per cent., but the Government have said that they cannot meet it on the ground that this line will be highly profitable and viable. By 1981, on the lower forecast, this line might well make a profit of £1 million.

I believe that we should look to the whole complex of London transport and not just one part of it. If we do not it is like looking at a currant bun, taking out the currants and leaving the bun. But in the general context of the review which the Government are conducting on public expenditure, the Government have some justification in meeting part of the cost of a project of this sort, which will be viable. But it raises much wider implications about future developments. That is the real point. I am prepared to concede the Government their case in respect of the Heathrow link, but, when it comes to other underground transport in London, I hope that they will reconsider the question of financing the building of tubes and undergrounds because with the growing congestion on the roads I am convinced that the only hopeful and permanent solution to the road transport problem is a better system of undergrounds and tubes and an improved system of overland rail links south of the river.

When London Transport and the G.L.C. decide to build a line they get virtually no assistance from the Government. If they want to build a road to Heathrow over the railway, the Government automatically meet 75 per cent. of the cost. Yet because the link is underground and rolling stock is involved, the Government meet none of the cost.

The G.L.C. has several very interesting and imaginative developments underground. The Fleet Line, going through my constituency, down through the docks and eventually south of the river, will cost not the £15 million of the Heathrow link but £90 million. The G.L.C. and London Transport will be very hard pushed to make a substantial contribution to that sort of capital expenditure. There is the Wimbledon extension and, I hope, there will be many other developments in the Greater London area.

While accepting the Government's case in connection with the Heathrow rail link, I ask my hon. Friend to review the whole question of financing underground developments and to consider whether such financing can be put on the same basis as that for roads. There is an absurd anomaly which will inhibit the development of what I believe to be the most optimistic answer to London's congested traffic problem.

I echo what my hon. Friend the Member for St. Marylebone (Mr. Kenneth Baker) said about you, Mr. Speaker, and point out that in my short tenure in the House I have come to appreciate very much your wit, wisdom and sympathy.

In supporting much of what the hon. Member for Acton (Mr. Spearing) said, I ask my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State to accept that there is a special case for a Government grant for this link. The people using this line will not in the main be Londoners and it is wrong that the ratepayers of London should have to carry the burden. Many people using the line will come from overseas and it is therefore right, in the context of tourism as a whole, that the Government should provide a grant for the construction of this line.

That would not set a precedent. The only possible precedent might be Foulness if the airport goes there and the Roskill Commission's recommendation about Cublington is not accepted. I hope that my hon. Friend will say that the Government have an open mind and will, in the peculiar circumstances, make a contribution to the cost of this rail link.

Hon. Members will forgive me if I say a personal word before I reply to the debate.

I do not know what moments of your distinguished occupancy of the Chair will linger in your memory, Mr. Speaker. As a very young Member of the House, I can only say that I shall never forget that it fell to me to make the last speech made in your presence as Speaker. I can think of only two qualifications which I may have for discharging this responsibility. You, Sir, are without doubt part of a most distinguished thread of British history and free nations owe much to the spirit which you have embodied.

I am the latest hon. Member for Tavistock, an ancient borough whose voice for 700 years has been heard in this House, and on that account I believe that it is a voice with which you will find sympathy. I am also, so to speak, one of your protegés, and no other Speaker will mean quite the same to me as yourself. You have exhibited, as has been said, dignity, command, patience, but in the end a very kind and friendly man.

I have listened to what has been said by hon. Members on both sides of the House and there is not the slightest doubt that many points have been raised which are not controversial but are of very considerable urgency. I believe I can deal with some of the details and give an indication of the Government's attitude to this question of investment in public transport and urban transport, and particularly in line with the questions which have been put to me.

It is the intention of my hon. Friend the Minister for Local Government and Development to meet an all-party delegation from the Greater London Council to discuss the question of the Heathrow link and the Government's attitude towards it. It is true to say that the Government have announced their intention not to provide grant for this particular scheme. I think the words which are important are "particular scheme", because in looking at this scheme it would seem to the Government—and I have not the slightest doubt that the arguments are right—that this is a scheme which is well able to stand up to its own financing; it is a scheme which, according to all the evidence available to us, will make a profit. If that is the case, then to inject a further degree of subsidy into this particular scheme would be to divert resources necessary for schemes elsewhere into a scheme which is well able to go ahead without any subsidy at this present time.

If we were, as the hon. Member for Acton (Mr. Spearing) requested, to go ahead with the subsidy for that scheme, what we would in effect be doing would be, as guardians of the nation's taxpayers, to inject money into an essentially London project, and it would mean that the profit would flow to Londoners who would not need to recoup the amount of capital provided by the nation's taxpayers.

The hon. Gentleman uses the word "subsidy" which has overtones which, perhaps, one would not accept. I am talking about grant, capital grant, just like the £10 million or £50 million capital grant for road works in London. It is a grant, not a subsidy subsequently to ease fares.

I think the hon. Member is playing with words. A subsidy is what in effect it would turn out to be. The argument he is advancing would mean that it would not be necessary to have a special 6d. toll. In other words, it is assumed that the 6d. toll would be imposed on people in the form of subsidy. There is no other way round it. I do not want to make a political issue out of this. It is simply an economic fact of life. The people who do not pay the charge are in effect receiving a subsidy.

It would seem to the Government that in the present circumstances there is no case for the nation's resources, scarce as they are, to be diverted to a scheme which is well able to stand up by itself. The resources are needed for a large number of other schemes. This is not to suggest that the schemes will be inside, or outside, London; there may well be competing schemes inside London. There are, obviously, schemes which come to mind and which will come up for consideration. It is simply a question of planning priorities.

The hon. Member for Acton mentioned the point of the toll of 6d. I think he ought to get it in perspective. The proposal for paying the toll is that it is not to be charged to those using the Heathrow link as an ordinary commuting traffic line. It is only to be charged to those people who go the whole distance—in other words, airport travellers. I think it takes a bit of justifying that people who are going to make the rather expensive type of journey involved in going in aircraft should have a special subsidy to avoid a 6d. toll to subsidise the smaller and inexpensive part of the journey, when they are prepared to pay £30 or £100 for a journey in an aircraft once they have reached the airport. It does not seem to me to be a case of hardship, of which we should take particular notice.

The case put forward by the hon. Member for Acton and my hon. Friend the Member for St. Marylebone (Mr. Kenneth Baker) on the question of the anomalies between the various kinds of help that the Government provide for traffic costs is very important. We inherited this situation from the previous Government, and we are looking at it. We announced some time ago that we are looking at the forms of local and Government investment in various forms of transport systems, including roads, to see whether the differing forms of subsidy which now exist—and there are many more than those listed by the hon. Gentleman—are justifiable, or whether a more comprehensive view should be taken.

rose—

Order. We are up against the clock.

The hon. Gentleman said that he inherited this policy. May I remind him of the extension of the Victoria Line from Victoria to Brixton for which there was a 75 per cent. grant?

This is the essence of what I am saying. It would not have been possible to build the line without the grant. That is why it was given. That is why the Labour Government in the White Paper Command 3481 said:

"The financial return on the investment will clearly be one of the considerations in deciding whether a project should attract grant."

This was on the whole question of infrastructure grants. If a project can stand on its own, let it do so. The Victoria Line could not stand on its own. It was not possible to charge a special toll because the line was interwoven with the London underground system, and it would not have been possible to build it without infrastructure grant.

The Government's view, and that of the Labour Government, is that there should be a flexible approach, and that a grant should be made where necessary for schemes which would otherwise be prejudiced. That makes sense. The toll would be paid only by those who are involved in air travel, which would be about 25 per cent. of the projected passengers using the Piccadilly Line.

To put into context the point about the Victoria Line, the Government have already agreed to go ahead with the improvement to South Kensington, and are committed to 50 per cent. of the capital cost of the £1 million scheme. There is no political issue here.

I will conclude on the particular point that has been made. The anomalies cannot be changed overnight. They have grown up with history. We are looking whether there is something we should do about them and, if there is, what it should be. We shall be coming forward with our views and proposals for adding coherence to the present policy. Without saying that we are not looking forward to hearing what the Greater London Council has to say to us, in my personal judgment and in the judgment which the Government have announced, there is not much room for doubt that the decision about Heathrow stands up to the criteria which have been announced, and that it would be wrong in the Government's interests to change our minds about that scheme.