Commons Chamber

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House Of Commons

Friday, 23rd April, 1971

The House met at Eleven o'clock

Prayers

[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]

Bills Presented

Pool Competitions Bill

Mr. Secretary Maudling, supported by Secretary Sir Keith Joseph, Mr. Secretary Campbell, Mr. Secretary Peter Thomas, Mr. Terence L. Higgins, Mr. Attorney General, Mr. Mark Carlisle and Mr. Eldon Griffiths presented a Bill to make provisions as respects certain competitions conducted by registered pool promoters: And the same was read the first time; and ordered to be read a second time upon Monday next and to be printed. [Bill 157.]

Education (Milk) Bill

Mrs. Secretary Thatcher, supported by Mr. Secretary Campbell, Mr. Secretary Peter Thomas, Mr. Patrick Jenkin and Mr. van Straubenzee presented a Bill to restrict the duty of education authorities to provide milk for pupils at educational establishments maintained by them or under their management and make further provision with respect to their power to do so; to restrict their power to secure provision of milk for pupils at other educational establishments; and for purposes connected therewith: And the same was read the first time; and ordered to be read a second time upon Monday next and to be printed. [Bill 158.]

Orders Of The Day

Administration Of Estates Bill

Lords Amendment considered.

Clause 10

Retainer, Preference And The Payment Of Debts By Personal Representatives

Lords Amendment No. 1: In page 7, line 11, leave out subsection (2) and insert:

"(2) Nevertheless a personal representative—
(a) other than one mentioned in paragraph (b) below, who, in good faith and at a time when he has no reason to believe that the deceased's estate is insolvent, pays the debt of any person (including himself) who is a creditor of the estate; or
(b) to whom letters of administration had been granted solely by reason of his being a creditor and who, in good faith and at such a time, pays the debt of another person who is a creditor of the estate;
shall not, if it subsequently appears that the estate is insolvent, be liable to account to a creditor of the same degree as the paid creditor for the sum so paid."

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

To enable hon. Members to understand the Amendment, I think that some background knowledge of Clause 10 and of how it comes to be part of the Bill is essential. It is especially necessary in this case because some hon. Members may not be familiar with a Bill which passed through all its stages in this House without debate before it went to another place. I hope that those Members will be helped by the ensuing explanation. I must apologise for the fact that the explanation will be fairly lengthy. I am extremely pleased to see my hon. and learned Friend the Solicitor-General on the Front Bench, because I am sure he will be able to give the House assistance with the more technical aspects of the Amendment and of the Bill.

Clause 10 deals with the administrator's ancient rights of "retainer" and "preference". Subsection (1) abolishes these rights. At present they entitle an executor or administrator, on dealing with an estate, to retain a debt due from the deceased to himself in priority to other debts of the same class or degree, and to prefer, or pay, one creditor of the same class or degree rather than another instead of paying all of them on a pro rata basis. If the personal representative pays his own debt in priority, it is called "retainer"; if he pays the debt of a third person, it is called "preference".

I have done some research into this matter, and found that the origins of these rights are obscure. One may speculate that the right of preference probably came into being at a time when men of property had many servants and it was felt that the wages due to these servants should be paid promptly and not be held over, perhaps for a year, until the whole estate would be wound up.

As for retainer—that is, the right of the executor or administrator to retain his own debt in priority to other debts of the same class—it is probable that this right was established at a time when judgment debts took priority over other debts and the personal representative was unable to sue the estate, because he could not sue himself as administrator of the estate, and so was placed at some disadvantage. Any other creditors could sue him, as administrator of the estate, and so convert their claims into judgment debts while he could not do so himself. Today a judgment debt is no longer payable in priority to other debts, and some of the historical justification for the retention of this ancient right has disappeared.

However, certain restrictions on these rights have long been imposed by the Probate Court. That court, basing itself on the principle of the law of equity, that no one should be entitled to take advantage of a position of trust and so benefit himself at the expense of another, considered that rights of retainer and preference were often out of step with the principles it sought to apply. Therefore, towards the end of the last century, the court established a practice whereby any creditor who took out a grant of representation was required to undertake not to exercise these ancient rights of retainer and preference. The rights have therefore for some time, been inoperative where the personal representative obtains a grant as a creditor, but in other cases they are still occasionally exercised, some- times for good reasons but at other times with little justification. Why is it necessary to deal with them in this Bill? The answer is found in paragraphs 5 to 9 of the Law Commission's Report, Administration Bonds, Personal Representatives' Rights of Retainer and Preference and Related Matters (Law Comm. No. 31).

I mentioned just now that the court required a personal representative, on obtaining a grant as a creditor, to promise to waive his rights of retainer and preference and to pay all creditors of the same class rateably. This result is achieved by requiring him to include in his administration bond—a bond every administrator must enter into—an undertaking to do so. But Clauses 8 to 11 of the Bill implement, with very minor modifications, the recommendations contained in the Report that the administration bond should be abolished and replaced by a totally different procedure operating in exceptional cases only.

Hon. Members will therefore appreciate that there is a definite link between Clause 8, which abolishes administration bonds, and Clause 10, which we are now considering and which does away with retainer and preference. In order to appreciate the Amendment, it is necessary to have a little understanding of what an administration bond is and does. Under the present law, an administrator, but not an executor appointed by a will, must, before being issued with a grant by the court, enter into a bond that he will collect, get in and administer the estate of the deceased.

The Law Commission has concluded that the administration bond is no longer necessary and that the interest of the creditors of the deceased, as well as that of the beneficiaries, could be adequately safeguarded by other means. The Commission therefore recommended that the bond should be abolished.

I apologise to hon. Members for the dryness of this speech but I see that, according to the OFFICIAL REPORT of 16th March in another place the noble Lord, Lord Simon of Glaisdale, who sponsored the Bill there, said:

"My third apology concerns the subject matter of the Bill: it would be idle to pretend that it is hilariously entertaining. I doubt whether even the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack, with his great capacity for giving animation to inert material, could make it very gay. I certainly cannot; but I do commend it to your Lordships as a useful improvement in the law and practice governing the administration of estates…".—[OFFICIAL REPORT, House of Lords, 16th March, 1971; Vol. 316, c. 419.]

I can only say the same in this House.

11.15 a.m.

I think that hon. Members will appreciate that, following the abolition of administration bonds by Clause 8, something has to be done about the rights of retainer and preference, because the present practice of requiring an administrator, who obtains a grant as a creditor, to include in his bonds an undertaking to waive these rights cannot be continued in the future.

My hon. Friend has made a point about the abolition of the need for a bond under Clause 8. Surely Clause 8 is reducing the burden on sureties by removing the requirement for twice the gross value of the estate. Is not this part of Clause 8, which is replacing the bond and reducing the burden on sureties?

I do not want to go back over that ground, particularly as this is a purely legal point. It would be best to leave the explanation to my hon. and learned Friend the Solicitor-General.

Clause 10 is also based on the recommendations of the Law Commission, contained in paragraph 9 of its Report. The Comission concluded that the right of a personal representative to prefer his own claims to those of others was an anachronism and should be abolished and that this should apply whether the grant was obtained in his capacity as a creditor or in any other way. The Commission considered whether the existing rights of personal representatives to prefer one creditor to another of the same class should be allowed to continue, and concluded that they should only be allowed to do so where, acting reasonably and in good faith, the personal representative pays the claims of a creditor at a time when he has no reason to believe that the estate would prove insolvent; only in that event should he be absolved from personal liability towards other creditors whose claims could not be met in full out of the estate. These recommendations are implemented in Clause 10.

The Clause has met with some criticism from the legal profession. These criticisms were, unfortunately, not made in time for the Law Commission to consider them before its Report was published and before I introduced the Bill in this House assurances had been given to the professions that their criticisms would be fully considered either here or in another place. The Amendment is the result of that consideration in another place.

Lord Simon of Glaisdale, who, as I have already mentioned, sponsored the Bill in another place, had discussions with representatives of the Chancery Bar Association, the Law Society and the Law Commission, as a result of which this Amendment was agreed, which commended itself to the other place and is now before this House.

As Clause 10 stands subsection (1) abolishes the rights of retainer and preference, while subsection (2) affords protection to a personal representative who acting reasonably and in good faith pays off some of the creditors in preference to others of the same class at a time when he has no reason to believe that the estate is insolvent. The Amendment leaves subsection (1) untouched. Some critics of the Clause have urged that it should be deleted, but, as I have explained, something must be done about the rights of retainer, and I and my advisers are satisfied that it should be abolished. The Amendment will replace subsection (2) by a more effective and extensive protection in respect of preferential payments made bona fide by the personal representative while the estate appears to be solvent.

The Amendment will meet three points made by the critics. First, the onus placed upon a personal representative to justify his actions under Clause 10(2) is rather a heavy one, as it requires him to prove the reasonableness of his action in addition to his bona fides when preferring small debts; the requirement that he should have to show that he acted reasonably has therefore been omitted.

Secondly, it has been suggested that there is a doubt whether a personal representative, being unable to sue himself as administrator of the estate, could ever pay his own debts without the necessity of first going to the court for clearance. The Amendment will remove this doubt.

Thirdly—and this is the most far-reaching of the changes brought about by the Amendment—it gives the personal representative the right to pay himself in the same circumstances where he may pay others. He will not, as a result of the abolition of the right of retainer by Clause 10(1), be placed in a worse position than other creditors of the deceased. The Amendment will have the effect of allowing a personal representative who is also a creditor but has not obtained his grant in that capacity, to pay the debt of any person, including himself, out of turn provided he does so in good faith and at a time when he has no reason to believe that the deceased's estate is insolvent. If the estate later becomes insolvent he will not be liable to account to other creditor's of the same task for the payment he has made. As I have said, the right to make preferential payments to himself will not be exercisable by a personal representative who has obtained a grant qua creditor, so that the present position whereby such a creditor is required by his administration bond to waive all rights of retainer and preference will to this extent be preserved.

Lastly, I want to thank Lord Simon of Glaisdale for the trouble he has gone to in settling these complex and intricate matters in discussion with representatives of the Bar, the solicitors' profession, the Law Commission, and the Lord Chancellor's Department, and I also would like to say how grateful I am for the help I have had from the Lord Chancellor's Department. I believe that the new subsection (2) represents a satisfactory solution for all concerned.

I apologise again to the entire House for the length of my very long and detailed explanation.

My hon. Friend the Member for Leominster (Sir Clive Bossom) has referred to the legal complexities of this Clause and of the Lords Amendment. As a non-lawyer I find I really do need a Little Willy's guide to the implications of both.

I cannot understand, for example, what the implication of the personal representative is in this context. As I understand it, the purpose of the original Clause and of the Lords Amendment is to reduce the burden on someone who has been left holding a baby due to some weakness of the administration, or misunderstanding which has arisen during the administration of the estate. If this Lords Amendment is to be satisfactory, either the term "personal representative" should have a very wide implication, or the Clause and the Lords Amendment do not go far enough.

I should like to amplify a little what I am getting at, and what puzzles me, in the hope that I may be given some enlightenment later—perhaps in a few minutes. I am not sure whether the "personal representative" mentioned in the original Clause includes the administrator granted the letters of administration. If it does, I do not see any necessity to spell it out in the Lords Amendment; in paragraph (b) we see that letters of administration are specifically referred to, and this appears to draw a distinction between the "personal representative" and the personal representative who has been granted letters of administration and therefore becomes an administrator. If there is no dispute between the two I see little necessity to spell it out in the Lords Amendment, since the Clause originally also referred to "personal representative". On the other hand, if it really is the intention to ease the burden on the people who would suffer financially as a result of some creditor being paid perhaps from an estate which subsequently proves insolvent, it should not stop just at the administrator.

Another implication of "personal representative" might be a creditor appointed to look after certain interests but not granted letters of administration. Persons so appointed might be, in the good old folklore terminology of the Midwest, kinfolk. On the other hand, if it is really the intention to try to soften the blow for someone who is financially liable when there is administration of the estate, the intention should also, surely, cover sureties. This is a point I raised during my intervention in my hon. Friend's speech just now and the question of the reference to Clause 8.

As I said, I am not very clear on the liabilities, and the other day, when I saw the Lords Amendment, I consulted one of my hon. and learned Friends about it and went into the question a little. He referred me to a weighty and large tome, with which I am sure you, Mr. Speaker, will be familiar, entitled "Tristram and Coote's Probate Practice", in the Library. To lighten the burden of carrying it into the Chamber I took the opportunity to obtain the assistance of the Library staff to have certain page photostatted.

This is really what concerns me about the Clause and the Lords Amendment and whether they go far enough. I see from Tristram and Coote—page 263 of the Library's copy—that an administrator, if a representative is to be administrator,

"is required to give a bond, in a penalty of double the gross amount of the estate, for the due administration of the estate about to be committed to him."

That is fair, and we refer to it in the Lords Amendment, to the representative who is to be administrator, and this was the point I made in my earlier intervention, because the earlier part of the Bill softens that a little by substituting twice the gross to "within the discretion of the court". That is a softening, but the hardness is still there and still exists.

Then Tristram and Coote go on—I presume they are two gentlemen—on page 264 to say:

"The normal requirement is that there shall be two sureties to every administration bond."

Two sureties surely means there are two people who are financially liable, just as much as the administrator who produces the bond.

A further implication is on page 266:

"When required to justify, each surety makes an affidavit that he is worth in real or personal estate one-half the amount of the penalty of the bond."

this puts a very heavy financial responsibility on the sureties, but

"If a surety to a bond has reasonable grounds for anticipating maladministration by an administrator, he is entitled to apply to the court by way of indemnity against his liabilities under his bond."

There is some protection there, but, if not provided in the statement, in itself it does not always work out in practice.

11.30 a.m.

I will give an example. If it is not relevant, Mr. Speaker, you will tell me so, but I think it is relevant. I learned the other day of the death of a man of some property whose wife was granted letters of administration, and under the existing law she was required to produce a bond with two sureties. It was only after the proving of the will was complete and the lady was spending the money left her as next of kin that it was discovered that she was the victim of a bigamous marriage and the second widow of the man. The two sureties were required to fulfil their financial obligations. The bigamist widow did not know she was a bigamous widow; that came to light subsequently.

Through an administrator acting in complete ignorance, a heavy financial burden was placed on two people who had acted in good faith. Sureties require more protection from the law for this kind of failure than there is at present, and more than the Amendment or the original Clause 10 provide.

It may be that the surety is included with kinfolk, with a creditor appointed and whoever receives letters of administration. They may all be part of the same terminology in law; I am not a lawyer and I do not know; but if a personal representative includes all that, the Amendment appears to be unnecessary since the term "personal representative" in the original Clause would cover all these types of debtor after the failure of an administration.

I should like to know in more understandable terms what we are talking about when we speak of a personal representative winding up an estate, in the terms of people being granted or not being granted letters of administration. Perhaps we could have amplification of this point from my hon. and learned Friend the Solicitor-General, unless any of my hon. Friends are already seized of this point and can enlighten me earlier.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Leominster (Sir Clive Bossom) on the clarity with which he introduced the Amendment, and my hon. Friend the Member for Carlton (Mr. Holland). This is not an area that a non-lawyer, or a non-practising lawyer like myself, enters very readily. It is a technical Bill but also an extremely important one. It is on Clause 10 that the trouble has arisen, otherwise the Bill has been widely welcomed, not least because its provisions secure a reduction in legal and other costs and, to the layman, this would seem to be a considerable advantage. There is always tremendous comment when legal costs go up, but very little comment when they come down.

I am not altogether happy about the Amendment which is before the House. The Clause springs directly from the Report of the Law Commission published in October, 1970, on Administration Bonds, Personal Representatives' Rights of Retainer and Preference and Related Matters. The Law Commission was emphatic about the rights of retainer and preference. The position the Law Commission was asked to consider was clearly anomalous.

Normally, any person in a fiduciary position must subordinate his own interests to the interests of those to whom he owes his position of trust. Yet in this case the personal representative was allowed to prefer himself. The Law Commission regarded this as altogether objectionable, as would most of the public. It is an extraordinary state of affairs. Thus we had the recommendation of the Law Commission and the subsequent provision in Clause 10(1) that the right of retainer of a personal representative and his right to prefer creditors should be abolished. Subsection (2), which we are directly considering, sets out what the Law Commission considered to be an important exception to this rule. It is the extent of this exception about which I am concerned.

The Law Commission identified the area which should cause concern as my hon. Friend has identified it—the case of the insolvent estate, and that is what subsection (2) is about. The Law Commission rejected most of the arguments put forward on this and stated that:

"An argument for its preservation is said to be that in the case of an insolvent estate it would be difficult to find anyone to undertake the administration unless he had a right to retain."

The Law Commission did not think that there was anything in that argument, and said:

"If there were anything in that argument the answer, it is suggested, would be to empower the court to allow the personal representative proper remuneration."

Subsection (2) springs from page 5 of the Report, paragraph 8 of which states:

"As we see it, there is only one respect in which the right of preference may be said to perform a useful function. It protects a personal representative who, reasonably enough, has paid the tradesmen's bills without waiting until all claims are received in response to the statutory notice for credi- tors. Should the estate ultimately prove to be insolvent the personal representative will not be liable at the suit of creditors of the same class as those paid. Real hardship might be caused to small tradesmen (and indeed to the widow and children of the deceased who may be dependent on their good will) if debts of this sort could not be paid promptly."

Few in the House would disagree with that argument. The Law Commission suggested:

"…that this would be best dealt with by an express provision to the effect that where a personal representative reasonably and in good faith pays a creditor at a time when he has no reason to believe that the estate will be insolvent he shall not be liable to account to any creditor of the same class if the estate subsequently proves to be insolvent. We see no reason why this provision should not be capable of applying to one who has obtained grant as a creditor, although it is unlikely that it would operate in such a case since the estate will usually be known to be insolvent. If, however, a creditor has obtained letters of administration to an estate which appears to be solvent we see no reason why he, to the same extent as any other personal representative, should not be allowed to pay the tradesmen immediately. What is objectionable is that he should prefer himself to other creditors."

That is what lies at the heart of the Clause. The reasoning of the Law Commission was encompassed in the Bill before the suggested Amendment was made in the other place. I will not weary the House by reading the original Clause, although it is perhaps somewhat clearer than the Clause now before us. The object of subsection (2) before it was amended was stated by the Law Commission to be:

"to preserve what is believed to be the only useful and desirable consequence of the archaic rights of retainer and preference by enabling a personal representative to make speedy payment of tradesmen's bills. So long as he acts reasonably and in good faith and at a time when he has no reason to believe that the estate will prove to be insolvent he will not be liable to account to a creditor of the same class if the estate subsequently proves to be insolvent. He will be liable to account to a creditor entitled to priority, but so he would under the present law, since the right of preference can be exercised only as between creditors of the same class, and no case has been made out for extending the present protection to cover this situation."

The Clause has been changed. Subsection 2(a) will provide that a personal representative

"who, in good faith and at a time when he has no reason to believe that the deceased's estate is insolvent, pays the debt of any person (including himself) who is a creditor of the estate".

The vital phrase "including himself" was not originally contained in the Bill.

The noble Lord, Lord Janner, raised this point specifically when the Bill received its Second Reading in the other place. The noble Lord quoted from what the Law Society had said. It is these arguments that have weighed so heavily in persuading my hon. Friend the Member for Leominster to accept the Amendment. The noble Lord said—

Order. I did not stop the hon. Member for Leominster (Sir Clive Bossom) when he quoted from the debate in the other place. However, strictly speaking it is not in order to quote from a debate in the other place.

I am obliged, Mr. Speaker. In that case, I will not quote directly from the debate.

My hon. Friend is raising a point of interest and of substance. Would it not be in order to paraphrase the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Janner?

The strict rule is that it is not in order to quote from, nor indeed to refer to, a debate in the other place, but there has been some latitude from the Chair in interpreting the rule. A Ministerial statement in the other place is a different matter and can be quoted in this House. The rule is fairly strict and I therefore hope the hon. Gentleman will at least honour the spirit of the rule.

11.45 a.m.

Certainly, Mr. Speaker. I will phrase the matter differently. The Law Society, in its representations about this provision, was concerned about the extent of Clause 10 and said that in Clause 10 it was proposed that a personal representative's right to retain a debt due to himself should be abolished. The Law Society had endeavoured to apply its mind to this situation and to what would result from it and had questioned how, if the right of retainer were abolished, a personal representative would in such circumstances ever pay his own debt short of going to court. The answer was given by an authority of no less distinction than the Lord Chancellor, who said that those fears were unjustified.

It is on these grounds that I raise my questions about this provision. I do not believe that my hon. Friend the Member for Leominster has established why this provision is now necessary when only a few weeks ago we were under the impression that such an extension was not necessary. If a few weeks ago the view were correctly taken that such an extension was unnecessary, it therefore follows that these words must be adding something to the Clause. If they are adding something to the Clause, I should like to be crystal clear about the precise scope of the extension. Why is a distinction drawn between one class of personal representative and the class of personal representative referred to in paragraph (b)?

Will my hon. Friend again emphasise that we need to know what is the distinction between a mere personal representative and one who has letters of administration. What field does the first type of personal representative cover? What type of people are personal representatives who do not have letters of administration?

I agree with my hon. Friend. I listened carefully to what my hon. Friend the Member for Leominster said about the reasons for this extension. As I understand him, he put forward three reasons. The first was that under the original Bill the onus on the personal representative to prove the reasonableness of his action was too heavy and that the burden that he should act in as reasonable a fashion as this should be removed. This would be rather a dangerous doctrine if it was not carefully restricted. I hope that my hon. and learned Friend the Solicitor-General will give guidance about what is meant here.

The second reason was that there was considerable doubt about the position of the personal representative in sueing himself. As has been made clear elsewhere, no doubt had arisen on this point until the last few weeks. What has caused these doubts to appear so suddenly?

The third reason, which was perhaps the most important of all, was that one of the main aims of the new subsection was that the personal representative should be put in a position in which he should pay himself in exactly the same way and in the same circumstances as other creditors and should not be in a worse position than other creditors. I appreciate the force of this argument, but I hope that the argument has not been turned on its head so that the personal representative is put in a better position than other creditors. As this was the whole reason for the Law Commission's Report and for the Bill, it is a point of considerable substance on which I should like some clear assurances.

It is extremely important not only that not only the House but also the public knows the exact extent of the Clause. This is a technical Bill. It is nevertheless a Bill which covers an important area, as my hon. Friend the Member for Carlton made clear, which affects many members of the public. All too often law is made without the public appreciating, or even at times understanding, the exact nature and effect of it. I hope that on this subsection, at least, we shall be left in no doubt about its extent and meaning.

Finally, I was fully persuaded by the Law Commission's Report. The Commission does an immensely useful job in this area of law reform and in the immensely technical proposals it puts forward. The principle put forward in this case seemed to be an excellent principle and one with which I could not disagree. The Commission put forward detailed proposals, albeit technical ones, to support this, and I look for an assurance from the Solicitor-General that this principle has in no way been dented by the Amendment.

Both my hon. Friends the Member for Carlton (Mr. Holland) and the Member for Nottingham, South (Mr. Fowler) have raised specific questions which I shall do my best to answer. The Amendment is welcome and is one which can be regarded as improving the Bill, for reasons which I shall try to explain in answer to my hon. Friends.

Before dealing with that, it is right that I should say that the whole House will congratulate and thank my hon. Friend the Member for Leominster (Sir Clive Bossom) on his public-spiritedness in the introduction of the Bill, because it includes two measures of law reform designed, unusually but creditably, to make the law both easier and cheaper. The Bill has been fortunate in its spon- sors in both Houses. My hon. Friend will forgive me if I congratulate him on the extent of his researches and the lucidity with which he presented the arguments in respect of the Amendment.

The whole House would wish me to express its gratitude to the noble and learned Lord who sponsored the Bill in another place, Lord Simon of Glaisdale. This is an appropriate opportunity for saying how much pleasure his translation to the other place gave not only to his friends, admirers and colleagues in the legal profession but to all of his former colleagues in this House.

It gives me great pleasure that one of my most distinguished predecessors as holder of the office of Solicitor-General, Lord Simon, sponsored the Bill in the other place. Both Houses, and the country, were fortunate that he was willing and able to undertake the sponsorship, because the matters with which the Bill deals are of such technicality that the Bill called for his skill, experience, authority and willingness to undertake the negotiations which he did to produce the proposals in the Clause.

The Bill deals with two quite distinct measures of law reform. We are not now considering the first part of the Bill, which deals with the abolition of the need for the resealing of grants of representation by the different countries of the United Kingdom, but it has been commonly concluded that that was an unnecessary piece of machinery. It costs tens of thousands of pounds a year, to no useful purpose, and no controversy has been raised about its abolition.

The matter with which the House is now concerned arises from the second part of the Bill, contained in Clauses 8 to 11, concerned with the abolition of administration bonds and of the associated rights of retainer and preference.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham, South pointed out, this springs from the Law Commission report, on which he takes his stand in putting forward his argument on principle. The House will have gathered by now that it is dealing with what one must, not unfairly, describe as a little known and supremely unexhilarating part of the law.

But important.

But an important part—because its existence and continuation in this form involves cost and inconvenience to the citizen and to the profession. For that reason, no one has questioned the general proposition in favour of the abolition of the bond which administrators, but not executors, were required to enter into which costs up to £10 per £10,000 of estate by way of insurance premium and additional legal expenses beyond that.

The controversy at the heart of the two alternative versions of Clause 10 has centred round the even more obscure matters into which my hon. Friend has delved, namely, the rights of preference and of retainer, two highly technical matters. Both of these are abolished by Clause 10(1) as it stands, and no one seeks to challenge that. One suggestion made was that the whole of Clause 10 should be dropped from the Bill pending a full inquiry into the administration and winding-up of insolvent estates. But no hon. Member has advanced that suggestion. One simply could not abolish administration bonds and omit all reference in the Bill to the rights of retainer and preference. If Clause 10 were to be omitted in that way, the second part of the Bill would be open to grave objections, and no one, least of all the legal profession, would want that. We can start from the common ground that Clause 10, in one form or another, is to stand.

My hon. Friend the Member for Carlton asked for the exact meaning of "personal representative" in this context. He was giving himself an answer—with respect—that was founded upon placing the non-existent comma in the wrong place in Clause 10(2)(b). "Personal representative" means an administrator or an executor. An administrator is someone to whom letters of administration have been given. An executor is someone who has secured a grant of probate. Looking at Clause 10(2)(b) my hon. Friend asked what is meant by

"…a personal representative to whom letters of administration had been granted…".

That is any administrator, as so described. But the magic in Clause 10(2)(b) is

"…to whom letters of administration had been granted solely by reason of his being a creditor…".

Clause 10(2)(b) deals with that kind of animal and not with any other.

The Amendment makes a clear distinction between a personal representative

"…other than one mentioned in paragraph (b) below…".

and the other one in (b), which is one

"…to whom letters of administration had been granted solely by reason of his being a creditor…".

But if, in the first instance, the first "personal representative" relates only to an administrator, someone who has been granted letters of administration, why not use the term "administrator" and not "personal representative"? I do not understand the significance of transposing the term "personal representative" for the term "administrator", which is quite commonly used for people to whom letters of administration have been granted.

I think that the matter could have been approached in either way. But it is clear that the purpose of Clause 10(2) is to include in paragraph (a) every kind of personal representative apart from the kind mentioned in paragraph (b). Paragraph (a) therefore includes an executor or an administrator becoming a personal representative in any of the several forms, by inheritance, grant of personal administration, or probate. Paragraph (b) deals specifically with the personal representative to whom letters of administration have been granted solely by reason of his being a creditor: it is the man who claims letters of administration and personal representative status by virtue of being a creditor and secures letters of administration. I hope that my hon. Friend will feel that that is an apt way of defining the two different kinds of people with whom we are dealing. This relates to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham, South, who is concerned with the possible impropriety of someone who becomes a personal representative and who is a creditor.

12 noon.

I have explained already that I have not a legal mind or any legal training, and I am puzzled by the distinctions in legal nomenclature. Am I right, therefore, in taking it that, in place of "a personal representative", could be substituted the words "administrator or executor", with those words being used throughout in place of "a personal representative"?

I hesitate to give a conclusive answer to that.

That is my problem.

There are different kinds of personal representative. I have not a copy of Tristram and Coote before me but, groping back in my recollection of this abstruse subject, there are personal representatives who acquire that status by letters of administration where the deceased dies intestate. There are those who acquire their position by probate. There are also personal representatives who become so by themselves being appointed personal representatives of those who have previously been executors. If my hon. Friend became the administrator of someone who died without leaving a Will and then himself unhappily died, his own personal representatives would become the personal representatives of the original deceased, and they would acquire that position by status.

There are other examples. People can move in when the previous personal representative has not fully administered the estate, and so on. But in this context we are dealing in Clause 10(2)(b) with this one kind of person who becomes a personal representative solely by reason of his being a creditor. That is really the point which is referred to by both my hon. Friends and which I hope to make clear to my hon. Friend the Member for Carlton now.

Clause 10(2)(a) is any ordinary kind of personal representative. Paragraph (b) is the personal representative who acquires that position because he is a creditor, and nothing else. He is the kind of person against whom the Law Commission warned in paragraph (8) of its Report. In that case, special provision has to be made for the person who acquires his personal representative status by virtue of being a creditor. If he becomes a personal representative not as a creditor, he may pay the debt of any person, including himself. If he becomes a personal representative by virtue of his being a creditor, he may pay the debt of any person who is a creditor other than himself. It is to protect the other beneficiaries of the estate from the possibility of a creditor acquiring personal representative status and then preferring himself that Clause 10(2)(b) draws that distinction.

I am still not crystal clear. Does that subsection mean that, by virtue of paragraph (a), he cannot give priority to himself?

Subsection (2)(a) provides that the man who becomes a personal representative not as a creditor may pay himself without the necessity of going to court. He may do that provided that he deals with himself on level terms. Subsection (2)(b) is designed to exclude the possibility of someone who moves in as a creditor paying his own debts.

At this point in his questions, my hon. Friend the Member for Carlton began drawing upon the learning of Messrs. Tristram and Coote. However, I think that he misunderstands the object of Clause 8. Clause 8 abolishes the administration bond as a matter of existence at all. But, as a condition of granting administration, in accordance with probate rules and orders, the High Court

"may require one or more sureties to guarantee that they will make good",

and so on. The administration bond is going. But a new set of rules is projected whereby, in certain limited cases, the court may still require one or more sureties.

It is recognised that there are certain situations where it is necessary to ensure some kind of protection for the administration of an estate. It is in those more limited cases that sureties will hereafter be required. The detailed regulation of those situations will be set out in the rules proposed to be made in accordance with the recommendations of the Law Commission. Once those rules are made, which no doubt is intended when the Bill comes into force, the requirement for a surety will be anything but automatic. A surety will be required only in five specified cases. The surety will not any longer be required to give a surety equal to twice the value of the estate. If the surety is to be a body corporate, one surety will be enough. The requirement for two sureties when it is not a body corporate, in these limited cases and only to the extent of once the value of the estate, remains for this more limited area. But the administration bond has gone. The surety remains as a necessary protection in this much reduced number of cases in accordance with the rules which will be made, no doubt in general terms, on the lines recommended by the Law Commission.

Although the bond is being modified, the sureties still remain. But I think that my hon. and learned Friend has explained that they remain only in certain circumstances. Therefore, there has been a partial abolition of the sureties, too.

The bond has gone. The sureties remain, but over a more limited area.

If my hon. Friend reads paragraphs 13, 14 and 15 of the Law Commission's Report, he will find the foundation of the recommendations for restriction of the areas in which sureties will be required. He will see draft rules in Appendix B to the Law Commission's Report as well.

My hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham, South rightly said that the Law Commission was concerned about the possibility of someone unreasonably preferring himself to other creditors when he had become a personal representative. It was the removal of that possibility, which is a necessary corollary of the removal of the administration bond, which was embodied in the Clause as it stood before amendment.

A number of critics suggested that that was going too far and began suggesting that, although they wanted to dispose of the administration bond, they would like to see the right of preference and retainer kept in some way. I have already explained that we cannot really get rid of the one without getting rid of the other, so that the Clause, in substance, should stand abolishing both the preference and the right of retainer.

My hon. Friend, therefore, became anxious about what was being done, in face of the Law Commission's recommendations, which might resurrect the possibility of an unreasonable preference by a creditor. I assure him that that possibility has not been resurrected. One change which has been made, as my hon. Friend the Member for Leominster pointed out, was the removal of the words "acting reasonably and" which found their place in Clause 10(2) as originally formulated. That was to meet the point that an innocent person disposing sensibly of some of the assets of the estate to pay trade debts and so on might have too high a burden of proof placed upon him if he had to prove that as well. Those who considered the matter in another place were persuaded, as I am, that there is a sufficiently high burden of proof if he has to show that he was acting in good faith. If he fails to show that he was acting in good faith, that is a sufficient deterrent. There is no need to have both propositions "reasonably" and "in good faith", because that might be held to bring in a whole range of extraneous and irrelevant matters.

I know that, after Second Reading in another place, discussions were held in which the Law Commission took part. Was this point accepted by the Law Commission

I understand that it was. I believe that the discussions embraced, if that is the right expression, the Law Commission, the Lord Chancellor, certainly people from his Department, representatives of the Law Society and the Bar Council and specifically the Chancery Bar Association. I have no doubt that the noble Lord Simon of Glaisdale, who probably knows a great deal more about this aspect of the law than any other person, would have satisfied himself about that before accepting this conclusion. I understand that the Law Commission was concerned in the discussions. Certainly, to my modest legal mind, it makes sense that the elimination of "reasonably" and the preservation of "in good faith" meets that point.

I am grateful for my hon. and learned Friend's explanation. However, I am not altogether clear about the distinction between "in good faith" and "acting reasonably". Is there any example which my hon and learned Friend could give on that point?

I hesitate to give an example. My judgment is that if a person has to establish that he is acting in good faith, then anything which could possibly call his conduct in question could be advanced as a means of destroying his good faith. To require him to demonstrate that he was acting reasonably as well as in good faith might require him to prove a whole range of other things unconnected with the quality of his good faith. That was the anxiety of those who criticised the Clause as it stood, and those who have considered it are persuaded that it can be altered in this way. "In good faith" is one of those rather splendid, equitable phrases which generally serves to protect the honest and harm the unworthy. I hope that my hon. Friend will take that optimistic view.

Another point of criticism of the Clause as it stood was that it did not allow a personal representative to pay himself without going to court, even if he was doing so on the same terms as he was paying everybody else. In that respect, a distinction is now drawn in Clause 10(2)(a) and (b) between the personal representative who is no more than personal representative and the personal representative who becomes such by reason of being a creditor. The latter certainly is not placed in a more advantageous position as a result of this change. The spirit and intention of paragraph 8 of the Law Commission's Report is still fulfilled, but certain reasonable anxieties of those who have to deal with these matters have been removed.

In light of the full discussion which the Clause has received, I hope that the House will now accept the invitation of my hon. Friend the Member for Leominster to concur with the Lords in the said Amendment.

Question put and agreed to.

Welsh National Opera Company Bill

Not amended ( in the Standing Committee), considered.

12.15 p.m.

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

The House has just listened to a very involved legal discussion on the Administration of Estates Bill, which is of vital importance. I am glad that we are now moving to the final stage of a Bill of equally vital importance and perhaps of greater interest.

The Bill has passed speedily and smoothly through its various stages in this House. That would not have been possible but for the co-operation of hon. Members of both sides of the House, and I welcome the opportunity of acknowledging again the general approval which the Bill has received from right hon. and hon. Members.

The Bill, in essence, is a challenge to local auhorities in Wales in so far as it removes the restrictive conditions applied by Section 132 of the Local Government Act, 1948, which we discussed in detail in Committee, and thus enables those local authorities in Wales which choose to do so to contribute out of the rates in particular towards the expenses of the Welsh National Opera Company. Section 132 was a great act of faith by the late Aneurin Bevan, the architect of the 1948 Act.

The need for financial backing for the Welsh National Opera Company is a matter of great urgency. Hence, the importance of the Bill. There is no doubt whatsoever—indeed, it is widely recognised—that the Welsh National Opera Company, despite the immense difficulties with which it has been confronted since its inception in 1946—it has been operating for the past three years on a standstill budget, despite rising costs in every direction—has achieved very high standards. Furthermore, it is recognised that the technical considerations in opera planning involve long-term forward commitments, and nobody can challenge that this is an expensive business.

Some four years ago, with the approval of the Arts Council, the Welsh National Opera Company launched its development plan. It has constantly and, indeed, successfully, striven to aim always at excellence and to give full value for money.

It is appropriate that the Bill should be before the House this week as it coincides with the opening of the Welsh National Opera Company's new season at the New Theatre, Cardiff. Here, again, it is playing to capacity audiences and has already enhanced the reputation of its famous chorus and, indeed, the excellence of its new production of "The Magic Flute". Indeed, it plays to capacity audiences throughout its seasons at Cardiff, Swansea and Llandudno, as well as in an increasing number of English provinces from Southampton to Sunderland.

It is now accepted that the Welsh National Opera Company is an integral part of the overall pattern of opera in the United Kingdom. Its services to the development of operas in the regions is quite outstanding but is not in my view fully recognised. Despite all the company's box office success—and it has been quite outstanding—it needs additional public financial support to maintain it, and this is one of the objects of the Bill. Financial support for opera is a characteristic need in all countries. I shall not detain the House with all the details that I have here of the support given to opera in Austria and Germany. For greater accuracy I have the details on the authority of the Librarian himself. He has computed the figures so that we can understand them in our language.

Leading Welsh operatic singers are very much in demand in Austria and Germany, and I should like to quote a few figures which are of great interest. The Vienna State Opera receives State help of about £3 million, while the Folk Opera receives about £10 million. Berlin Opera receives a State contribution of well over £2¼ million. Hamburg receives more than £1½ million, and in Munich the help again amounts to more than £1 million. A total of nearly £5 million is given to Berlin, Hamburg and Munich.

Has the hon. Gentleman borne in mind the additional fact that in all the cases to which he has referred there is not the additional expense of touring, which must form a large part of the budget of an organisation like the Welsh National Opera Company?

I am obliged to the hon. Gentleman. I should not like to underestimate the expense involved when a company goes on tour. I am glad that the hon. Gentleman intervened, because it must be recognised that if there is any opera company which has made a contribution to touring opera it is the Welsh Opera Company, but the fact is that it has not received full recognition for all that it has done. Last year the company went to nine provinces in England alone. I mentioned its having toured from Sunderland to Southampton. I could mention other counties that it visited, but suffice it to say that it has done more in this respect than any other opera company.

Schedule 3 on page 83 of the Annual Report of the Arts Council shows the contributions which have been made during the year. It shows a contribution of £1,400,000 to Covent Garden. Sadlers Wells received £762,000. The figure for the Welsh National Opera Company, which had been fixed at £160,000 for two or three years, moved to £178,000. I do not want to be misunderstood. Those figures represent considerable help, and we are grateful for it, but one can draw comparisons between them.

It is imperative that help is received from the public purse, and this need was well summed up by the Chairman of the Arts Council, Lord Goodman, in his introduction to the 25th Annual Report of the Arts Council, when he said:

"…there is an area of artistic activity that must wither and die without help from the public purse. The test of eligibility for support is easier to sense than to define, but in broad terms the beneficiary objective must have merit or promise of merit, appeal or prospect of appeal, and must satisfy a discriminating need."

I submit that the Welsh National Opera Company answers all those tests of eligibility for support.

I should like to put on record my appreciation of the help given by the Government, through the Arts Council, in the recent negotiations to meet the deficit which was a great threat to the existence of the Welsh National Opera Company. I acknowledge that co-operation, and I do not want to underestimate the help that has been given, but in moving the Third Reading of the Bill this morning I regret to have to tell the House that, despite its fine record of continuous musical and artistic success, this company is now faced with a financial position regarding its future plans which compels it to curtail its productions and halt its development plan. This is a tragedy.

Above all, I deplore the fact that the company has to consider abandoning its training scheme, which would be a terrific blow to the future a young Welsh singers. The company has made an impressive contribution to opera throughout Britain, and if it fails for financial reasons it will be an irreparable blow to the arts, inside and outside the Principality.

The Welsh National Opera Company deserves every possible help from the Government, through the Arts Council, the general public, and the local authorities. It is in that spirit, and with confidence, that I commend the Bill to the House.

12.27 p.m.

I agree with every word said by the hon. Member for Gower (Mr. Ifor Davies) who has done a service to his people in Wales by choosing this subject for a Bill to mark his success in the Ballot.

I speak as an expatriate. I rise with the support, and at the prompt request, of my hon. Friend the Member for Barry (Mr. Gower) who regrets that he cannot be here this morning. I know that he gave great support to the hon. Gentleman in the promotion of the Bill. Having served at one time in the Welsh Guards, having had the opportunity of hearing Welsh music and Welsh choirs, and having followed not merely opera, but the other choral activities of the Welsh people, I know that those who live in England and who serve the interests of tourism, both at home and overseas, realise that the whole world recognises the musical gifts of the Welsh people. They know that when people go to Wales they expect to hear those gifts being used by the Welsh people as members of choirs, or in opera.

As the hon. Gentleman said, assistance is given to opera in Salzburg, in Vienna and in Munich, and the same applies in Milan, too. German and Italian people also have certain musical talents which they explore and expand to the full. It is recognised in those countries, in a way that is not done here, that an essential requirement is the development of their full cultural activities in order to develop tourism.

The 1948 Act did not appreciate what we now realise is the position, and an amendment is necessary to enable every local authority throughout Wales to genuinely participate by subscribing money to provide for what is a truly national heritage, in this case the development and expansion of Welsh opera.

The Welsh National Opera Company, formed in 1946, became a non-profit-making company, limited by guarantee, in 1948. Therefore, it has now been effectively carrying on for a quarter of a century. But it began, as many good things do, as a purely amateur effort. We, in a small way in Kent, are doing the same by way of a small Kent opera. In other parts of the country, others with amateur efforts, are developing not amateur dramatics but amateur operatic societies.

One thing has been recognised by the Arts Council, that, for opera and ballet, the costs of presentation and of communication—not least of transport communication—mean that one cannot charge an audience a price which would show a profit. This is particularly true of the tourist, who may attend at Cardiff, Llandudno or Swansea to hear this opera. The charge may show a profit for that one production, but not in relation to its general touring problems.

The Government, through the Arts Council, recently wiped out the Welsh National Opera's deficit of £150,000. That clearly shows that there is a fund of good will for the future but it is up to local people in an area to give their local support to something which is truly national. Welsh people should see this as one of the exhibits in their shop window and support it to the full. That is why this is such a good Bill.

The deficits have been largely made up by individual people, but we cannot continue to expect them to do that—although we might be able to work out some method similar to the National Arts Collection Fund, by which life members, on payment of an overall sum, are entitled to admission on beneficial terms.

This travelling opera company has travelled to Bournemouth, Birmingham, Leeds and Southampton and is now considering a tour of universities, beginning this year at Oxford. It is right that it should be expanded to the universities, where it could be of great benefit out of term time, since one can hope in future to use the universities for the development of international tourism.

Thus, when large groups of American visitors go to stately homes and to Oxford and Cambridge and other universities, they would be able to see something like the Welsh National Opera, just as, at Warwick or Blenheim, they can see son et lumiére performances. The development of these cultural activities is what the public and overseas visitors expect. The Welsh National Opera Company has an effective part to play in the training of new singers, to ensure that the natural talents of young Welsh singers are exploited to the full, in the same way as young singers are encouraged in Italy and Germany.

The company plays to capacity audiences, but mainly in the main cities. They should give precedence to playing in Wales, and their touring season is something extra, an opportunity to build up their potential. There were two previous precedents—the Royal National Eisteddfod and the Llangollen Musical Eisteddfod, the two occasions for which this Bill had to be widened.

There is a great difference between this company and the Sadlers Wells and Covent Garden companies. Those of us who take a close interest in tourism are anxious to diffuse the advantages of culture outside the metropolis. Far too many activities are confined to London, and very soon the Londoner will not be able to enjoy many of the pleasures of London because he is being swamped by the "furriners". This is one activity which could be so diffused.

I ask my hon. Friend the Minister of State, who has taken a close interest in the Bill, to draw to the attention of the Welsh Tourist Board the part which it can play in giving assistance to this company. Choral performances as well as operatic in places like Carmarthen and Harlech Castles and other suitably historic homes could use the members of this opera company to develop peculiarly Welsh performances, following the example of owners of such homes in England. This would bring out the full effect of the spirit of Wales.

The hon. Gentleman is making a very helpful speech, but would he add to his list the Welsh National Opera Company orchestra which is available? The Minister of State and I had the pleasure of hearing a youthful orchestra at the opening night of the new performances of "The Magic Flute". In the past six months, under the guidance of the Arts Council, about eight orchestras outside Wales have given some 25 performances in the Principality. Use should also be made of the Welsh National Opera Company orchestras in other parts of Wales, to sustain and and maintain it.

I am much indebted to the hon. Gentleman for his intervention, with which I wholeheartedly agree. It is a question of the Welsh Tourist Board's getting together those who have interests in music of all types in Wales —although perhaps it is the voice which is the most famous aspect attributed to the Welsh people—to consider an imaginative programme to be presented as a whole and to go outside Cardiff, Llandudno and Swansea, so that it reaches the Welsh people in every aspect and enables them to join in. Unless they provide the basic audience and the basic interests, and local authorities develop the idea, it will not be so attractive to the tourists from overseas, to the expatriates, who will then hear of these presentations.

We have a number of festivals in different parts of the country. In the case of the theatre I am reminded of the Chichester Festival and the Aldeburgh Festival. The development of this type of thing in Wales could produce something of great value. Welsh festivals have primarily been of music—choral, opera and orchestras. They can be of the greatest value if those concerned consider the site of the performances. It is much more exciting to be able to listen to music in an atmosphere that is thoroughly appropriate, such as the grounds of a beautiful castle in the summer, or somewhere with an old keep in the background. People can have the advantage of hearing the flute played well, and the violins are far more attractive in that type of surrounding than in the average ordinary concert hall.

I hope that the Bill can be used to encourage the Welsh people as a whole to recognise not only their heritage but to seek to expand it for their own benefit, producing for themselves much additional money by attracting people to come to Wales, and to stay there to enjoy these pleasures.

In one sense the Bill is a precedent in widening the scope for local authorities to make a grant, in this case for the benefit of entertainment. I hope that the Government will take the view that local authorities throughout the United Kingdom should be encouraged to try to develop the cultural activities of their own areas and present them in the best light. For example, in Norfolk people might turn to the presentation of paintings, to the great school of Crome and the old Norfolk school. In an area where there are particularly fine historic homes the presentation of pageantry may be suitable. If we develop our country to the full in this way we shall find people moving to all parts of the United Kingdom to enjoy the different cultural pursuits in the various distrcts.

All of us who are interested in such matters, whether expatriates or otherwise, are indebted to the hon. Members who considered the Bill, and I greatly hope that we shall give it its Third Reading today.

12.45 p.m.

I add my tribute to the sagacity and initiative of the hon. Member for Gower (Mr. Ifor Davies) in introducing this important legislation. As an English Member, I find it a great pleasure to say so on a day when some of us should be wearing red roses and paying our tribute to St. George and St. David.

I am also glad to add to the tributes paid to the Welsh National Opera Company. None of us who heard the performances in London of Verdi's "Nabucco" will ever forget the sound of the voices of the Welsh chorus in the great song of faith and hope "Va, pensiero". The hon. Gentleman referred to the production of "The Magic Flute", which he has been lucky enough to see. Some of us hope to see it when it is brought to London, as it undoubtedly will be in view of the tributes paid to it in the Press. Production was scheduled for 18 months ago, but it had to be postponed not because the singers, the conductor or the artists were not available, but purely for financial reasons. Such difficulties always face the presentation of this art form in the United Kingdom.

It is right to stress, as the hon. Gentleman did, the importance of the company as one of the three English-speaking permanent opera companies in this country. Now that the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden has adopted almost entirely the stagione system I do not believe that any of us would pretend that it falls into that category in any sense. I pay tribute to the work done at Covent Garden and the high achievements there, but I feel that in many ways for the future of our own cultural heritage the position of Sadlers Wells, the Scottish Opera and the Welsh National Opera Company is probably more central.

Does my hon. Friend agree that the tremendous example of pride in their own national opera that the hon. Gentleman and his colleagues have shown could well be followed by some of us who are wearing the red rose today?

Indeed, and I hope to turn to that point later.

The hon. Gentleman also spoke of the importance of the Welsh National Opera Company as a training ground. From a national point of view we should pay tribute to the importance of the institution and the important part that Welsh singers like Sir Geraint Evans and Gwyneth Jones have played not only in building up our own standards in this country but in bringing up tremendous prestige in opera houses throughout the world. It is important to stress, therefore, that the training scheme for young opera singers at Cardiff should not be lost. We hope that it will be built up in the same way as the Opera Centre in London is being built up. Anything likely to jeopardise that work would be likely to jeopardise the tremendous recrudescence of this art form, with all its importance for tourism and other material interests.

It is right that an English Member should pay tribute to the Welsh National Opera Company's touring activities, which are steadily building up. In 1967–68 it visited Bristol. In 1968–69 it went to Bristol, Birmingham and Stratford, and last year it went to Bristol, Manchester, Southampton, Leeds, Birmingham and Sunderland. We hear that this year it may also be going for quite a long season to Oxford. When, for various reasons, it has been almost impossible to establish effective regional opera outside London, and when for financial and other reasons Sadlers Wells must spend a large amount of time in the metropolis, this is a matter of the greatest importance.

We should bear in mind that the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, which is not basically suited to touring, has not been able to tour since its visit to Manchester in 1964. There is a hunger for opera in provincial centres throughout the United Kingdom. The Sadlers Wells Company has been touring at Bristol this month, and it is interesting to note that there has been a staggering increase in the size of its audiences. In 1970 it had a 49 per cent. attendance by paying customers throughout the period it was at Bristol. This year the figure has gone up to between 79 and 83 per cent. This illustrates the tremendous growth of interest in the provinces.

I turn now to the importance of bringing audiences to opera when it is impossible to bring opera to the audiences.

The question of the creation of new audiences is tremendously important, but before my hon. Friend moves on to his next point would he direct his mind to the enormous potential of television and particularly the great assistance it would give to the Welsh National Opera Company if it were seen on television screens more often?

That is quite right. That is something which has been borne in mind in the last few years with regard to all the major English companies. The difficulty has been in finding the right timings to fit the expenditure in putting on an opera at possibly non-peak periods. I hope that the success of organisations like the Welsh National Opera Company will continue to build up audiences for opera so that they will be able to obtain more peak periods for performances on television.

I come to the question of audiences outside the touring areas. Over the last few years, apart from the Aldeburgh Festival, with its special and extremely expensive performances, the only major centre in East Anglia which has had the benefit of regular operatic visits is Norwich. I am therefore encouraged by the scheme evolved by Mr. Stephen Arlen, the general administrator of Sadlers Wells, whereby if it is impossible, because of the absence of a theatre or for other technical reasons, to take an opera company to a large provincial centre—and here I speak with some feeling because we have not had opera in Ipswich for many years—alternative arrangements can be made with British Rail to provide special trains from a centre where the demand warrants it to enable people to go to Sadlers Wells or any other area where the company is performing. This is of some importance in connection with the contents of the Bill.

Before I leave the question of touring, I should like to refer to the summary of this matter referred to in the Report of the Harewood Committee, which reported to the Arts Council in 1966–69. The matter was summarised on page 17 in this way:

"On the Continent the large opera companies do no significant touring in their own countries, and in Britain touring has presented increasing difficulties. The theatres in most British provincial towns are by London standards outdated. Orchestra pits and dressing-rooms are generally inadequate, and space on the stage usually so cramped that there is little room for storage, so that the companies' lorries either have to be used for that purpose or for carting the scenery to and from the theatre and stores. There have been annual complaints about the limitations imposed on the foreign companies which have visited the Edinburgh International Festival and it can only be assumed that they have undergone these difficulties because of the glamour of this occasion and the prestige of appearing there.

Touring in any event imposes a considerable strain on performers, and with the general inadequacy of theatres for the presentation of full-scale opera and ballet, companies cannot achieve the same standards as in their home bases. The adjustment of a production to a different theatre is likely to involve a loss of quality for the first few performances. The worst problems occur with opera, and Sadler's Wells, even before they moved to the Coliseum, were considering whether, for both artistic and practical reasons, they would have to make provision for duplicate touring scenery which would be suitable for the lowest common denominator of theatre; this problem has, of course, been highlighted with the move to the Coliseum".

I stress those words, because approximately two-thirds of the Arts Council subsidy received by Sadlers Wells in recent years has gone on touring. This highlights the difficulty facing a company which has a duty to the regions unless it gets support of the type proposed by this admirable Bill.

Equally there is great significance in the extension of audience support. The time was when opera in this country was a rare bird. It was a bird of exotic plumage which settled for a few brief weeks at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, with the company singing in foreign tongues and performing to almost exotic audiences, many of whom, one is tempted to think, probably did not arrive until halfway through the second act. It has now found a basic root in this country so that one can say with some pride that it is of such a standard that, together with our galleries and other attractions, it constitutes one of the great tourist attractions which we have to offer foreign visitors.

But there is a continual need to reach out to new audiences through various media. To this extent, the recommendation in the Harewood Report about the need for a co-ordinating board for touring opera and the need for parity of salary scales between the companies is important in that it will enable those who have to plan for the future of opera to put it on a permanent rather than on a hothouse footing.

There is also need to consider new means of presenting this art form. Two problems of the Welsh National Opera Company can be highlighted. The first is the need for a permanent base suitable for the performance of opera in Cardiff. I hope that the hon. Member for Gower will not think it any derogation to the New theatre if I say that all the authorities appear to have the view that in the long run it is highly desirable for Cardiff, as for Edinburgh, to find a suitable theatre for the presentation of large scale opera and ballet.

This matter is referred to specifically in page 51 of the Harewood Report, where it is said:

"We recommend the building of a new opera house in Wales, presumably in Cardiff, to house the Welsh National Opera Company and to provide a stage for visiting companies. The logical development of the Welsh National Opera Company, which in our view is strongly to be encouraged, renders the provision of an opera house in which it can operate indispensable if it is to attain the full strength and position which its national aspirations merit."

Hon. Members who have had the mixed blessing of sitting through a performance at the King's Theatre, Edinburgh, during the Edinburgh Festival will know the miseries and splendours of listening to opera of the highest quality in circumstances totally unsuitable for the performance of work of that standard.

One thing we are very short-sighted about—I am sure my hon. Friend agree—is in thinking that opera and other art forms should pay for themselves there and then. Building up all these attractions and the creation of arts which are worth coming to see bring more tourists into the country, and these in turn bring more money with them. One cannot, therefore, say that the arts do not pay for themselves. Indeed, they have been responsible for bringing many millions of £s into the country.

I am obliged to my hon. Friend. I had intended to turn to that matter. I had it in mind. If he will bear with me, I shall turn to it later in my speech.

A matter of the greatest importance, both to the Welsh National Opera Company and to the future of the other art forms in this country, is the question of adapting the buildings which are not necessarily prepared with a proscenium arch or which are not the type of house suitable for what used to be called "grand opera". There is a great case for taking opera out to where other audiences are available, but where perhaps no houses are big enough to show an opera like "Carmen" Why not use aerodromes, for example, which provide suitable open air sites. This is already done in Italy. There are also possibilities in suitable football grounds or even in big enough factories to hold opera in the round. I hope that such excursions will be given encouragement so that it will be possible for our three principal tourising companies to reach wider audiences.

I am sorry that, in a sense, this Bill has been concerned only with the Welsh National Opera Company. I shall not incur the wrath of my Welsh colleagues by treading on the dangerous ground of Monmouthshire. But I regret that, for practical purposes, the subject has been approached purely as a Welsh matter. I say this because no local companies are established in any of the English regions, which contrasts with the situation in Scotland and Wales. Comparison has already been made by hon. Members with the situation in Germany, Austria and Italy, where almost any centre of some size has a house of its own.

The benefit that comes to the English regions from the existence of a company like the Welsh Natonal Opera Company, which is willing and ready to tour, is tremendous. I should have preferred a Bill of a wider purpose. Of course I agree with the terms of the Bill—to amend Section 132 of the Local Government Act, 1948, in order to give power to local authorities to make contributions towards entertainment and the promotion of cultural activities outside their own immediate areas—but I would prefer to have seen this extended throughout the country so that, for example, when the Welsh National Opera Company goes to Oxford it would be possible for Oxfordshire County Council or for Oxford City Council to adopt the visit as a supportable venture.

I am sure my hon. Friend would agree that it would not be transgressing on the time of the House to say that the contributions now under the 1948 Act are derisory and that we must bend our minds to this problem in this House. I should like to see great opera houses—which would give encouragement to architects, incidentally—built in our major centres. This is the sort of adventurous way in which we have to tackle the problem. I am sure that we are all grateful to the hon. Member for Gower (Mr. Ifor Davies) and his hon. Friends for making this small beginning.

I concur entirely. I echo what has been said—that Section 132 of the 1948 Act, which has given great opportunities to local authorities in many ways, has been more honoured in the breach than in the observance. One hopes that in future it will be more freely and powerfully used by the local authorities.

I have only one caveat about the Bill. I would rather have seen it applying to the whole country instead of just to Wales and Monmouthshire, so that there could have been wider provision for building specifically for this purpose. One comes back to the theme of national shame—I say this without embarrassment, for I do not think any Scotsmen are present—of the absence of a suitable opera house for the Edinburgh Festival. Over and over again, the answer which comes from local authorities with regard to something fit to house presentations of this kind is that they cannot borrow enough money and will need special powers to do so and in these circumstances are not prepared to take it on.

Before leaving this aspect, I want to refer to tourism in relation to which the Bill is a belated act of justice. Mention has been made of Llandudno, where, throughout the summer, the Welsh National Opera Company has been a major tourist attraction for the season. But the matter does not rest there. Although Llandudno itself, or the county council, may have been supporting the company, many areas stretching out into the surrounding country benefit through the influx of tourists who come in because of such attractions. The Bill is, therefore, an act of equity towards the beneficiaries of these attractions.

I want to stress that expenses do not just stop at the arrival of a company in a particular town for a particular season. Effective touring means permanent running expenses. It is not just a question of the expenses involved in getting a number of players and a certain amount of scenery by train or other form of conveyance to a certain place. There must be a permanent organisation. There must be permanent workshops and a permanent secretariat. This is one of the factors in the escalating costs of the major opera companies.

I will quote a few figures for the Welsh National Opera Company. The John Street Opera Workshop in Cardiff cost the company, in the last year for which figures are available, £11,500; the administration cost another £20,000. The combined total is very nearly four times the total even of the generous subsidy of £7,750 which the company receives from the great City of Cardiff. The other companies are also faced with this sort of difficulty all the time.

Covent Garden has now a major opportunity with the removal of the market. At long last it has the chance to have suitable rehearsal, scenery and costume accommodation. Instead of having to rehearse, as often happens, in parts of the building normally used for completely alien purposes—for example, refreshment rooms—or having to go to the East End to use the Opera Centre there, Covent Garden will have the opportunity, where the market has been standing, of being able to expand its buildings. I hope that the Arts Council, which is specifically charged with these matters, will bear this problem very much in mind when considering future grants.

Here, I turn to a matter which I believe is fundamental to this whole problem—the question of the need for a general grant not only from the Arts Council but also from local authorities. This is a matter which has been touched on again and again in nearly all the reports which have been prepared for the Arts Council. It was touched on specifically in the Peacock Report. It is related to the matter of an opera company having its own orchestra. This affects the whole planning future of such an organisation. One can see it only too clearly in the problems which Sadlers Wells has faced, and it affects the Welsh National Opera Company, too. It is the problem of not knowing where next season's money is coming from or even if it is coming at all and of being able to provide a first-rate orchestra.

This is one of the great difficulties. An opera company is always faced with the problem of having an orchestra of its own, an orchestra which can be used for outside purposes, but an orchestra of its own so that the company does not have to bring in an outside orchestra, as has been done on various occasions with the Welsh National Opera Company, the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra and the Northern Simfonia. I believe most strongly that it is vital that, wherever possible, a permanent orchestra should be built up for an opera company. By all means let those orchestras be used for other purposes—for giving concerts, for playing in television performances, and so on—but the orchestra should be central to the opera company so that the players know where their money is coming from and can know the terms of the contracts by which they will live.

While we welcome this constructive Bill, surely my hon. Friend will agree that it really is complete nonsense to think in the long term of an opera company being given help but without its orchestra being created, to be a part of the opera company itself? The singers and musicians are two parts of one whole, and we cannot really have the one part without the other.

I agree indeed with my hon. Friend, and again merely echo that this was stressed by the distinguished persons who were members of the Hare-wood Committee.

The Bill obviously will not be a panacea for all the problems involved with opera, even in Wales, but it does go some way towards solving the prob- lems with which this art is faced. The problems one would stress are, first, that short-term planning is expensive, as one sees in almost all the arts—for instance, in the acquisition of works of arts for major collections. How much money could have been saved if there had been major acquisition grants 10 years ago rather than that present prices have to be paid. The same applies to the building of suitable accommodation for opera and ballet and to being able to plan over a long-term period, as one has seen with Sadlers Wells and Covent Garden and, to a lesser extent, with the Welsh National Opera Company. It is an extremely expensive business, having to stop a performance, drop it half way through a run, because there is not enough money to continue it, and being unable to be certain whether a singer engaged for this season will be able to be retained again before the next season, because one cannot guarantee an adequate salary. There is also, of course, the difficulty of not knowing where the money is coming from to pay for a permanent orchestra, and of having to hire one on an ad hoc basis.

I repeat briefly a matter which was touched on earlier because I think it is important to deal with it in context. It is one of the most important matters. Great developments have taken place since 1945 and almost concurrently with the life of this company in particular. Opera is no longer regarded as a sort of hothouse plant unconnected with the life of the country, but is now regarded as a part of the life of the country. That feeling must grow, and there must be be enough money available to try new forms, to try new places to attract new audiences. In particular, money should be put up for young singers and young composers. One of the most shameful things about this country over the last 25 years has been that over and over again English composers have had to go to Germany to find a suitable vehicle for first performances of their works.

Opera is an art which, by its very nature, will always call for subsidy, and the greatest part of that will certainly have to come from public patronage, either in the form of Government subsidy or through the Arts Council.

Would my hon. Friend please stress that this is no new situation? In the past it was the great private patron who provided the money for local opera groups—very often in Germany and elsewhere on the Continent. Today the private patron is no longer with us, and so we have really got to provide public patronage to take his place.

This, I am sure, is right, and it is public patronage which has to be given—not merely by this House being called upon from time to time to increase a grant which goes to the arts or to the Arts Council which in its turn calls for money from a specific organisation such as the Royal Opera House, which has taken up so large a part of the Arts Council grant. I welcome the Bill in that it brings in the local authorities on a broad basis, not as broad a basis as I should have liked, but, still, a broad basis, so as to be able to provide this kind of public patronage—in this case to a specific organisation.

However, there are two other forms of patronage which it would be wrong to lose sight of. There are regional arts associations which can be an encouragement to bringing in money from private sources. I do not necessarily mean big private sources; contributions would be welcomed whencesoever they come. There were some hon. Members who were invited to hear the formidable Miss Nancy Hanks, the administrator of the American arts programme, and they will have noted with considerable interest the emphasis which she placed not only on the way in which the money was coming in, not only from big companies but also in subscriptions and donations of amounts as small as one or two dollars, and so the donors all felt committed to the work of the programme. Also, the tax system in America is so organised as to give maximum concessions and benefits to trust organisations of that kind. I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister of State will bring this to the attention of the Paymaster-General, and draw to his attention the fact that there is a strong feeling throughout the House that this form of aid is valuable and may be fundamental for the future of the arts in this country.

From both the material and also, and far more importantly, from the spiritual standpoint, I hope we shall not be forced into escalating seat prices as they have been escalated at the Royal Opera House, with the effect that the actual capacity of the audience goes down. One would like specifically to pay tribute to Sadlers Wells that it has kept its prices down. Its audiences have increased as a result, and so many young people—and others—who could not otherwise have afforded to go, can go to opera, and form a taste for it, and derive pleasure from an art on which, in any case, a substantial amount of public money is spent.

I utter a word of warning about the whole future of opera. The future of the Welsh National Opera Company a few months ago was seriously at risk. The Press has recently been full of rumours about the difficulties faced by the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, and by Sadlers Wells. The Scots Opera has been in financial difficulties although, like the Welsh National Opera Company, it has built up a tremendous reputation in its rather shorter life. Glyndebourne has been dependent on high prices and support from private sources.

Does not my hon. Friend agree that it is a blow to the prestige of the country when people coming from abroad to enjoy the best we have to offer know that that best may not continue beyond the foreseeable future? Will he make an earnest plea to my right hon. Friend that our sentiments are passed on to the Paymaster-General?

My hon. Friend is extending conservative principles very far. He is almost suggesting that there should be an unlimited public purse for subsidising opera. My view is that some caution is called for.

I hope my hon. Friend has not misunderstood me. I have not suggested that subsidies, however much one would like them, should be unlimited. I am calling for a planned policy of subsidies rather than the present unplanned system. I want subsidies which will be sufficiently generous to be effective, instead of the present system which involves desperate appeals—

Bearing in mind the enormous earning potential from tourists.

That is certainly right. Money spent on the artistic life of London comes back in the form of money earned by tourism and in the enormous prestige of the capital. The success of the English musical scene is part and parcel of our invisible earnings. This is absolutely fundamental to the future of opera and of all the performing arts.

There is a risk that because the arts are expensive and because they are Arts Council subsidised there will be too much demand, in the sense that the price of tickets will go up to such an extent that ordinary people cannot afford to buy them. There may be a strong case for having gala price tickets for performances at Covent Garden which appeal to a certain audience, but I hope that it will never be suggested that the price of tickets at Sadlers Wells, the Welsh National Opera and the Scottish Opera or even in Covent Garden cannot be kept down to such a level that people who are paying in the form of taxes and rates can afford to go to performances.

Does my hon. Friend agree that it is illogical on the one hand, to have free admission to public galleries —or the miniscule charge which is shortly to be imposed—to see the finest works of art and, on the other hand, that the price of admission to the performance of opera is beyond what students and old people can afford?

My hon. Friend is right. When the plans are announced I hope that the Paymaster-General will bear in mind the possibility of reviewing the funds for the galleries.

This is the first opportunity we have had to debate arts matters in the House since many of us were elected. The time is coming when we shall have to approach the subsidised opera companies in two different ways. Covent Garden is not dependent on the existence of a permanent body of English singers, and not dependent entirely on a regionalised audience, drawing, as it does singers and conductors from overseas to take part in highly publicised festival-type performances. We must, therefore, discount Covent Garden in operatic planning.

Glyndebourne is a special case. It runs for a comparatively short season and has standards of the utmost distinction. It is one of those typically English institutions that logically should have died on its feet within a few hours of birth. One is tempted to think that it has continued to exist only because it is such a long way from London and it is therefore a great challenge to English people to keep it going.

The true operatic life of the country depends on three major existing English singing companies. I appeal, through my right hon. Friend, to the Paymaster-General to consider the rationalisation of this situation in relation to Sadlers Wells.

I hope that the sponsor of the Bill, who is still here, will use his good offices to take up the suggestion of my hon. Friend the Member for the Isle of Thanet (Mr. Rees-Davies) who painted in such graphic and glowing colours the exciting potential of what might be called the Welsh Glyndebourne at Carnarvon Castle. How marvellous it would be for "Aida" to be performed by the Welsh National Opera Company in a setting like that. Can we hope that these ideas will be passed on?

To turn from the exceptional performances of Glyndebourne to the bread and butter of opera, we are lucky enough to have the Welsh National Opera Company and the Scottish Opera, which is now performing with great success principally in Glasgow and Edinburgh, but we lack an English opera company as such. Although Sadlers Wells is in effect the English opera company, it has been called either "Sadlers Wells" or "Sadlers Wells at the Coliseum" and has been treated by the Arts Council and by local authorities as a major company which has somehow found itself in the middle of the Metropolis. I hope that the Paymaster-General will consider making Sadlers Wells either the British National Opera Company or at least the English National Opera Company. There is a temptation to take a cynical approach and to say that one reason successive Ministers have not taken that step is that it would be difficult, once Sadlers Wells were recognised as a national opera, to send it up the spout in an economic crisis.

Such a step would be a fit and proper recognition of the achievements of Sadlers Wells. There is the Royal Opera at Covent Garden and there is the Royal Ballet Company. There is no reason why Sadlers Wells should not be given the equally proud title of National Opera House. It is the only opera house that performs almost entirely in English in the Metropolis and almost entirely with Commonwealth singers. The taking of such a step is of the greatest importance from the point of view of the prestige it would give and which has been undoubtedly earned by Sadlers Wells.

Now that Sadlers Wells Theatre is used by visiting companies and Sadlers Wells itself plays at the Coliseum, the public experiences difficulty in knowing what is playing at Sadlers Wells Theatre. It is vitally important for foreign tourists to be shown how good Sadlers Wells is, just as they are shown how good the Welsh National Opera is.

If Sadlers Wells were established as the National Opera Company it would clearly fit into its position as the permanently-based British company through which our standards would be established irrespective of anything that happened at Covent Garden with its swallows which come for a month or two. It would solidify the position which Sadlers Wells has built up, just as the Welsh National Opera Company has solidified its position. We in England are unfortunate, perhaps, in that we do not have the same natural heritage of music that our colleagues from the Principality have.

There is the whole question of the absence of any operatic function in the hinterland of the English region. At one time Sadlers Wells divided itself so that there was always an A company playing in London and a B company on tour, or vice versa. This entailed two permanent companies, two secretariats, two orchestras, and a top-heavy organisation. Recently Sadlers Wells has been organised on the basis of one company only, which has caused considerable difficulties in casting and has given rise to the inevitable feeling that when Sadlers Wells tours it does so as a second team.

Long-term planning should be on the basis of there being three strong companies available to tour. One possibility is that Sadlers Wells should merge with the Glyndebourne Touring Company so as to have a touring company. Then there would be the Welsh National Opera Company, with its special responsibilities in Wales, increasingly touring the rest of the United Kingdom, as at present, and with suport not only from Welsh local authorities and the Welsh Arts Council, but also from the English Arts Council, as at present, and from English local authorities. The same would apply to Scottish Opera and to a touring opera, whether called the Midlands Opera or whether based in some other part of the country, and orgainsed by Sadlers Wells in conjunction with Glyndebourne.

Would it not be appropriate to regard the Welsh National Opera Company, with its tremendous touring experience, and remembering that it comes from the Principality which is renowned as the land of song, as being in course of time the principal touring company with its own orchestra and perhaps with two companies?

I am gratified by the many interesting ideas which are being thrown up in the debate. Every one of these ideas will be closely examined. However, I emphasise that the whole purpose of the Bill is to save the Welsh National Opera Company. I hope that the Bill will succeed in getting a Third Reading, otherwise none of the ideas which have been thrown up will be of use and the Welsh National Opera Company will suffer. I emphasise that the whole object of the Bill is to do something about the present serious financial position. Action speaks louder than words; and action is urgently needed.

I accept that. As actions speak louder than words, I must not take up any more of the time of the House.

Hear, hear. There are other things in the world than Welsh music.

I always listen with great interest to anything that falls from the lips of my hon. Friend the Member for Worcestershire, South (Sir G. Nabarro). He will appreciate that there have been a number of occasions during the course of the last nine months on which he has been able to contribute to the discussion of subjects which are of interest to him. This is the first occasion since June of last year on which those of us interested in the subject have been able to contribute to a debate on Welsh music, English music, or indeed on the arts generally. We thank the hon. Member for Gower for having provided us with the opportunity of doing so. I thank the Chair for the latitude it has shown. I wish the Bill every possible success.

1.40 p.m.

I would not attempt to match my hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich (Mr. Money) in quantity, and I would not assume the arrogance of attempting to match him in quality. But after we have heard a Welsh Member for an English seat and an English Member for an English seat, it seems appropriate that an English Member for a Welsh seat, from the back benches on this side of the House, should congratulate the hon. Member for Gower (Mr. Ifor Davies) on bringing forward this extremely, useful, valuable, essential and timely Measure.

The value of the Welsh National Opera Company is not merely as a Welsh company, an opera in Wales, but also as a nursery for talent for the entire United Kingdom, and in this sense the company is more than a Welsh asset; it is a national asset.

In the hills around Dolgellau there is gold. It is not mined at present because it is not worth while for people to mine it. If the mining of the gold there became a more profitable enterprise, people would mine it. If opera were to become a more popular and financially successful form of art, some of the operatic gold which still lies buried in the hills and valleys of Wales would be extracted. This would be greatly to the benefit of the musical public, not only in Wales and the United Kingdom but in the entire world, as patrons of opera houses throughout the world have found in listening to Welsh singers.

Therefore, I wish the Bill every possible success and a swift passage into law.

1.42 p.m.

Mr. Deputy Speaker, with your connivance, collusion and co-operation, I should like to follow the precedent set by some of my hon. Friends who are Members for English constituencies and accord my good wishes to the Bill. I do so not because I am a Welsh Member for an English seat, or an English Member for a Welsh seat but, I confess, merely because I am an English Member for an English seat who has a certain sentimental attachment to the Principality. To show that that is the reason for my great interest in the Bill, I should like to take the House, briefly, on a short sentimental journey, a journey which, I assure you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, in its main point is wholly relevant to the Welsh National Opera Company. The journey starts on the threshold of the New Theatre, Cardiff, and ends at the feet of the personification of Welsh opera.

During the Second World War I had my first date with the girl who later became my wife, and I took her to the New Theatre in Cardiff. It was the first time that we went out together. We were subsequently married at a little church on a wooded hill in Monmouthshire. I know that Monmouthshire is not strictly in Wales, but it is included in the Bill.

After a honeymoon in Tenby, a little further west on the Gower coast, we returned to our first home, which was a flat in the upper half of a house in Cowbridge Road, Cardiff, opposite Tressidet's Nurseries. I hope that they still stand there. The name of the house, if the hon. Member for Gower will permit me to attempt it with my abysmally bad Welsh pronunciation—I hope that I have it aright—was "Can yr Eos". As I am sure that he does not follow my pronunciation, I shall translate it into his second language and my first language. It is, "The Song of the Nightingale'. I hope that I got it not too far wrong.

It was very good.

Here I come to my first vicarious contact with Welsh opera. The house had been the home of Madam Clara Novello Davies, and it was the house in which her son, Ivor Novello, was born. It can be well understood that I have a sentimental attachment to Wales and to Welsh singing, which is the branch of the arts in which the Principality excels. It is for that reason that I wish to fulfil a long-held ambition. It has been a long ambition, because during the Parliament of 1959 to 1964 for four years I served on the Welsh Grand Committee, and I served on that Committee mum-chance, hog-tied, listening to discussions about places and names all too familiar to me and for which I had an affection, unable to utter a word because the limited time available belonged, as of right, to colleagues on the Committee who had constituency interests in Wales. I thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, for allowing me to catch your eye. I have fulfilled my ambition to intervene in a Welsh debate.

I wish the Bill well. The assistance which the Bill offers will fortify the opera company. The additional financial assistance given to the opera company of Wales, wherever it finds its home and its opera house, will help in the future to find a new Clara Novello Davies to add to the rich heritage of our United Kingdom.

1.48 p.m.

This has been a good debate. I am sure that the hon. Member for Gower (Mr. Ifor Davies) feels, as I do. Not only was the Bill worth putting forward but, additionally, the fact that we are discussing the Welsh National Opera Company today has enabled the House to debate opera throughout the United Kingdom. On both sides of the House we are grateful to you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, for allowing us to discuss opera in toto. One cannot discuss opera in Wales without discussing it in the rest of the country, because the Welsh National Opera Company is the largest touring company in the country.

We have had a number of excellent speeches, finishing up with my hon. Friend the Member for Carlton (Mr. Holland), laying bare some of the earlier moments of his private life, taking us on a sentimental journey to Cardiff, and even almost to the details of his honeymoon in Tenby. As he has been good enough to contribute to the debate and to give his support to the Welsh National Opera Company, the hon. Member for Gower and myself would like to invite him back to the Principality. After all, no doubt he would wish to be a subscriber to the Welsh National Opera Company. I assure him that we should give him a very warm welcome in the New Theatre in Cardiff whenever he wishes to come.

Working backwards in the wrong order through the speeches which have been made, my hon. Friend the Member for Flint, West (Sir A. Meyer) and my hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich (Mr. Money) referred to Wales being a nursery for singing talent. There is a great deal in this. Last night, at the City Hall, Cardiff, I was an honoured guest of the Lord Mayor, who was giving hospitality to the Liverymen of London. Following a first-class meal, we were rightly given an excellent entertainment by young men and women and also by a harpist. There are few musical occasions in Wales which cannot be improved by the harp.

My hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich rightly took the opportunity to deal in some detail with the problems of opera in this country. I listened to him very carefully, and I did not disagree with a single one of his main themes. I can give him the firm assurance that I will draw what he has said to the attention of my right hon. and noble Friend the Paymaster-General, who has taken a considerable interest in this art form. I can also tell my hon. Friend, who is secretary of our Party Committee on the Arts and Amenities, that his remarks about high percentage attendances when the Welsh National Opera Company is touring are very near the mark. That is an added reason why the company must have financial support, not only from the source that we are discussing today but from others which are well known.

My hon. Friend also referred to subscriptions from private sources, and from industry. We were all delighted to read in the Western Mail only a week or so ago that, as a result of a subscription list being drawn up, the sum of £32,000 has come from industry and from individuals to the Welsh National Opera Company. That is a source of pleasure to all those interested, but it still does not take away the necessity for support from other directions.

My hon. Friend also said that he wished that the Bill had covered the whole United Kingdom. In saying that, he gave great credit to the hon. Member for Gower, who has got in first. I shall not be accused of speaking as a nationalist if I remind the House that on a number of matters Wales is accustomed to getting in first. For example, with the Welsh Elementary Act of 1882, they beat their friends across the border. There have been other occasions on the sporting field since to which I need not refer today.

I want to refer to one other matter raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich, and that concerns his remarks about the orchestra. When we speak of an opera company, we are not discussing just individual singers and the chorale. We are considering the problems of the orchestra as well. Earlier in the debate, my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Thanet (Mr. Rees-Davies) made a speech which, quite rightly, was largely intended to show that the proper use and expansion of this art form in our country can be of help commercially to tourism. I agree with much of what he said. I say only that the opening night at the New Theatre, Cardiff, on Monday was attended by the hon. Member for Gower and me, among others, and also by the Chairman of the Welsh Tourist Board, Mr. Mervyn Jones. I think that it is fair to say that those responsible for tourism in Wales are very keen on opera as well.

The hon. Member for Gower has produced a Bill which has had overwhelming support from many quarters. There were over 20 Welsh hon. Members present in Committee to support his Bill. As the right hon. Member for Caernarvon (Mr. Goronwy Roberts) said:

"…every point in the compass of Wales has paid its meed of tribute"—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Standing Committee E, 7th April, 1971, c. 31.]

to the hon. Member for Gower. Today, is it fair to say that every point of the compass of England as well has paid that tribute. It is not surprising that the Bill has been well received, because the company has a record second to none and rightly deserves its high position in the minds and hearts not only of the Welsh people but of many thousands of others throughout the United Kingdom.

Overseas, too, singers from the company have advertised the fact that in Wales there is an abundant source of talent backed by choirs, singers and eisteddfordau. Today, on Third Reading, it is clear that a number of hon. Members did not wish this opportunity to pass without paying tribute to the objective of the Bill, which is to allow local authorities in England and Wales to subscribe to the funds of the Welsh National Opera Company.

Not all the speeches that we have heard have come from Welsh Members, as I have said. When I first saw the Motion on the Order Paper, I thought that possibly it was inimical to the Bill. However, when I saw the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Conway (Mr. Wyn Roberts), I realised that all must be well, because I know that coming as he does from a North Wales constituency, he has as great a love of opera and of the National Company as any man I know. I was told that other hon. Members wished to contribute to the debate in order to underline the importance that they feel that the Bill has.

It is good to hear the heartening and helpful comments of so many hon. Members about the company. No professional company of this sort can continue to succeed and produce new works unless it can command large sums of money. As hon. Members have pointed out, these funds can come only from three main sources: from funds provided through the Arts Council of Great Britain, decided in conjunction with the Welsh Arts Council; from a number of private subscribers and industries who have been faithful to the company; and from local authorities.

I will not dwell at length on the main theme of the Bill. It has been well explained already. The season started on Monday. Anyone who has seen that production will have every reason to hope that it will be a good season.

The company cannot plan ahead without sufficient funds. It is therefore right that the three sources of funds to which I have referred should be encouraged as much as possible.

The Bill make its legal for local authorities, both in England and in Wales, to contribute. The fact that so many hon. Members have supported the Bill on Third Reading and throughout its various stages shows the general regard which the public and we in this House have for the Welsh National Opera Company.

The Welsh National Opera Company has many friends. As its touring programme in England expands—it is already considerable; nine weeks last year—it will increase its following in the great cities of England, and the citizens of those cities will be able to play their part, as indeed will their counterparts in Wales. Proud as we are of our opera company we cannot and would not wish to keep it all in Wales. We wish to spread it throughout England, too. I close on this note, ac yn Cadw Cymru yn fôr o gân. We would wish also to make England a sea of song.

The Government, therefore, are right to give their full support to the Bill introduced by the hon. Member for Gower and supported by so many hon. Members on both sides of the House.

Question put and agreed.

Bill accordingly read the Third time, and passed.

Tobacco (Health Hazards) Bill

( changed from TOBACCO AND SNUFF (HEALTH HAZARDS) BILL)

As amended (in the Standing Committee), considered.

2.2 p.m.

Before calling the hon. Member for Worcestershire, South (Sir G. Nabarro) to move new Clause 3,

"Regulation of labelling and advertisement of cigarettes",

I remind the House that there is a large group of Amendments of a somewhat complicated nature, as they look in print at any rate, including new Clause 7—"Offences and defences"—new Clause 8 —"Exempted provisions" —and new Clause 11— "Offences and penalties". I shall not confound hon. Members by reading them all now. They are readily available if hon. Members wish to see them.

On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I seek your guidance about a Motion which I wish to make about the number of Amendments to which you have just referred. We find ourselves in a strange and peculiar position this afternoon regarding the Bill. The first group of Amendments which we are about to discuss introduce a completely new set of principles into the Bill as originally drafted which was given a Second Reading in this Chamber on the nod and was discussed at some length in Committee. Many Amendments—some moved by myself—were withdrawn in response to undertakings given by the sponsor of the Bill about what he would do on Report.

I submit that the first group of Amendments should be recommitted to a Committee because they introduce principles which have never been discussed. Part of the first group of Amendments includes the amazing proposition by the chief sponsor of the original Bill to delete, with one exception, every Clause of the original Bill and of the Bill as it was reported back from the Committee

In a thinly attended House on a Friday afternoon it seems utterly wrong that a Bill of this importance, so altered, so changed, and with propositions now before us which cannot adequately be, and have not been, discussed in Committee and in respect of which some of the phrases used have not been fulfilled by undertakings given by the chief sponsor of the Bill in Committee, should be allowed to proceed now. It seems, in fairness, justice and equity, that I should move that the Bill be recommitted to a Committee.

I am obliged to the hon. Member for Leeds, North-West (Sir D. Kaberry) for bringing this point to my notice. I have had some time to consider the point and I have taken careful advice before reaching this conclusion. Whereas indeed I think that the hon. Member was justified in submitting his case, because there is something to be said for the course which he has advocated, on balance—this is all that the Chair has to do, and mercifully it does not have to give reasons—I definitely feel that the Bill should be allowed to proceed.

Further to that point of order. May I ask the nature of the debate which will flow? Shall we be entitled to have a wide-ranging debate as though the first group of Amendments were in fact a Second Reading? Shall we be able to embrace the whole subject matter of the Bill, and thereafter put in further manuscript Amendments which may be necessary in view of the wording of the new Clause and the inability, so far, of the sponsor of the Bill to fulfil the undertakings given upstairs? Can these Amendments be, so to speak, given a Second Reading and thereafter be referred to a Committee?

It is very difficult to give the hon. Member a satisfactory answer. I think that a fairly wide debate will be allowed in considering the new

New Clause 3

Regulation Of Labelling And Advertisement Of Cigarettes

(1) A person shall not sell, by retail or otherwise, cigarettes packed in a packet containing one hundred cigarettes or less unless the packet bears the statement—

'Warning by H.M. Government

Smoking can damage your health'

and the statement satisfies such requirements as are prescribed with respect to its place on the packet, size and colour and with respect to such other matters, if any, as are prescribed.

(2) A person shall not, except in prescribed cases, publish in a prescribed manner an advertisement for cigarettes unless the advertisement includes the statement—

'Every packet carries a Government health warning'

and the statement satisfies such requirements as are prescribed with respect to its place in the layout of the advertisement, size and colour and with respect to such other matters, if any, as are prescribed.

(3) Regulations may provide that subsection (1) or subsection (2) of this section shall have effect with the substitution for the statement specified in that subsection of such other statement as may be prescribed.

(4) A person who contravenes the provisions of subsection (1) or subsection (2) of this section shall be guilty of an offence and liable on summary conviction or conviction on indictment to a fine which in the case of a summary conviction shall not exceed £400; but regulations may provide that a person who publishes an advertisement in the course of his activities in a prescribed capacity shall not by virtue of this subsection be guilty of an offence in consequence of the publication—[Sir G. Nabarro.]

Brought up, and read the First time.

2.7 p.m.

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

Every aspect of this matter was comprehensively debated in Committee, as was every aspect of the many Amendments and other new Clauses which have been grouped with new Clause 3. My hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, North-West (Sir D. Kaberry), who has raised points of order, participated in all those debates.

At the outset I should simplify matters for my hon. Friends and hon. Members opposite in this apparently complicated situation by giving a brief explanation of what has occurred. The Committee, unrepresentative of the whole House for it comprised only 16 Members—this is a national issue of great moment and evidently of interest to all 630 Members of this House—could not hear all the voices in what is largely a non-party political issue—namely, the extent to which the Executive should intervene in

Clause. It is a large subject and there are a lot of matters to be discussed. However, the hon. Member will have to leave it to the Chair. If the Chair feels that the debate is going too wide it will say so. Subject to that, the best advice which I can give is that the hon. Member should leave himself in the hands of the Chair.

the personal and individual habits of millions of people in this country who smoke cigarettes, tobacco, cigars and other tobacco products.

I take the view that it is proper for Parliament to legislate to prevent people poisoning and killing themselves. Although the sponsors of the Bill, who are men and women of all political parties in this House and who widely represent both medical and lay opinion, broadly embrace the original principles of the Bill, they have been vocal in saying to me that they have no great interest in trying to dissuade inveterate smokers of adult years continuing this habit, but rather to direct most of their attention to younger people and preventing them commencing the habit.

There is an exact analogy in this context, in that in 1955 I brought in clear air legislation based on the Beaver Report. This time I have sought to bring in antismoking legislation based on the commendable report of the Royal College of Physicians, called "Smoking and Health Now", which was published only a few months ago, and it is wrong for anybody in this House, or without it, to suggest that the Bill goes wider than the recommendations made by the Royal College of Physicians. In fact it follows altogether too closely, in my view, those recommendations, and were it possible for me to do so within the rules of order, and having regard to local government susceptibilities, I should have preferred a much wider and even more comprehensive Bill, but that is hardly practicable in present parliamentary circumstances and the condition of public opinion outside this House.

The original Bill and the Bill which was amended in Committee upstairs have been disembowelled by the group of Amendments and new Clauses that we are discussing this afternoon. Disembowelled is the rhetoric. Apparently my right hon. Friend does not like the surgical term "disembowelled", but it seems highly appropriate.

I was only preparing to count the number of times that my hon. Friend would enjoy himself by rolling that word round his tongue.

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend. I have no desire to be avuncular in my delivery this afternoon —avuncular—or avuncular in the sense of parliamentary legislation, because normally, as a Conservative politician, I do not believe in grandmotherly interference—and I use the rhetoric "avuncular" this afternoon—with the liberties of the individual subject, save only where important health matters are concerned.

The original Bill has been disembowelled. I refer particularly to the Clauses of the Bill reported to the House from the Committee of which my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, North-West (Sir D. Kaberry) was a distinguished ornament.

An active member.

Order. The hon. Member must be more active still and rise if he wishes to intervene.

The group of Amendments and new Clauses take out of the Bill as reported to the House from the Standing Committee Clauses 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 8, and leave stet, subject to Amendment later, Clauses 7 and 9. My right hon. Friend is anxious to correct me I am sure, but the fact is that he did not move to delete Clause 7. I have sought to delete Clause 7 because my hon. Friend the Member for Bedford (Mr. Skeet) submitted a Clause which was better than mine and which contained provisions which we had not thought of in the Standing Committee. I am literally correct when I use the term "disembowelled", because it means that the proposal is to delete Clauses 1 to 8, to amend Clause 9 and, in addition, to delete Schedules 1 and 2.

indicated assent.

2.15 p.m.

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend.

Having said all that, my right hon. Friend, with his superior draftsmanship and all the services of the technical bureaucracy at his elbow—I am glad to see my right hon. Friend nodding assent —has set down on the Notice Paper a group of new Clauses and a large number of Amendments to which 1, with alacrity, have added my name, sure in the knowledge that once my name, as the principal sponsor of the Bill, appears on the Notice Paper supporting my right hon. Friend's legislative intent, my name immediately takes precedence over his, and I therefore move the Government's new Clauses. That is exactly the position that I sought to create.

Machiavellian.

My hon. Friend has scant parliamentary knowledge. In 1957 I did exactly the same thing with a highly technical Measure called Thermal Insulation (Industrial Buildings) Bill. It was disembowelled on the floor of the House, and Lord Mills put in Clauses which I supported and therefore moved and carried through to the Statute Book in my name. That is the proper order of precedence with private Members' legislation, which Ministers and Whips alike should recognise is the effort of independent Members of the House of Commons. Ministers should sit on the sidelines and advise in the public interest. They should not seek to dominate with the services of the Whips at their elbows.

I bow to the superior draftsmanship of my right hon. Friend and his colleagues, and that is why I am supporting the Government's new Clauses and Amendments this afternoon. But let me explain that there are certain important differences between my right hon. Friend's new Clauses and the Clauses in the Bill as it was returned to the House from Standing Committee.

Let me go over these very shortly. First, my right hon. Friend and I have always been unequivocally united in condemning the smoking habit, on health grounds. My right hon. Friend has done so on innumerable occasions in the House, as I have. We differ only—

Notice taken that 40 Members were not present;

House counted, and, 40 Members being present—

In case there is any misunderstanding about who called the count—the hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr. Atkinson) has just accused me of calling a count in the middle of my own speech—let me make it quite clear that the malignant parliamentary behaviour of my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, North-West is responsible for this trick. It is similar to the one which caused the proceedings of the House to be brought to a close on the Protection of Human Rights Bill. I hope that the Standing Orders are soon altered to stop this kind of trickery on matters of major parliamentary and national importance. My hon. Friend ought to be ashamed of himself, and should look beyond the Bar of the House. I shall continue my speech, sure in the knowledge that I may do so uninterrupted for a further one hour.

There have been three major differences of opinion between my right hon. Friend and myself. The first is that my right hon. Friend has always proclaimed that he wished to proceed in this matter of health hazards derived from smoking by voluntary agreement with the tobacco companies. I believe that such recourse is impracticable and in operation will be found to have little value. The second is that my right hon. Friend has wished to apply himself to cigarettes only and to exclude pipe tobacco, cigars and other tobacco products, whereas I believe that cigarettes and all tobacco products should be included within the ambit of any health warnings agreed.

The third major difference between us is that my right hon. Friend has taken the view that advertising should not be discontinued for tobacco and tobacco products, including cigarettes, whereas I have always felt that severe restrictions should be placed on advertisements of these products, having regard to the grave injury which they do to human health. But I said in Committee, and have been awaiting the opportunity to say on report, that a total ban on advertising of tobacco and tobacco products was such a major consideration that it should not be dealt with by a small and largely unrepresentative Standing Committee, and that the matter should be debated on the Floor of the House on later stages of the Bill.

Those are the three differences between my right hon. Friend and myself in broad principle, although in relatively minor matters of application, there have been revealed, from the new Clauses tabled by the Government, certain differences on matters such as penalties, all of which we can deal with later.

First, this new Clause confines the Bill to cigarettes. It excludes pipe tobacco and cigars. Snuff was excluded by a diversion in the Committee. Let me put the matter in its correct context, and in the simplest terms. It is that 87 per cent. of all tobacco consumed in this country is in the form of cigarettes. I go this far, therefore, with my right hon. Friend—that, if we legislate only for cigarettes, we are covering 87 per cent., or seven-eights, of the whole market. That seems not unreasonable, if I wish to get the Bill on the Statute Book.

I therefore unreservedly withdraw my earlier opposition to the exclusion of pipe tobacco and cigars, and accept my right hon. Friend's advice that the Bill should relate only to cigarettes, but I am prompted to do so by a very important provision in my right hon. Friend's Amendments. He has taken absolute powers to make regulations, delegated legislation, Statutory Instruments, to be subject to affirmative Resolution of both Houses of Parliament, within the whole context of health hazard arising from smoking tobacco. I am advised that he could therefore, by delegated legislation, present Statutory Instruments to bring in both pipe tobacco and cigars.

That is adequate for my purposes, but before I leave the question, it is important to draw attention to what the Royal College of Physicians said in this matter. Under the heading of "Less Dangerous Forms of Smoking", and dealing with pipes and cigars, it said in paragraph 98 on page 131:

"A remarkable disparity of risk between smokers of cigarettes and smokers of pipes and cigars suggests that much saving of life and health might be achieved if cigarette smokers were to change to pipes and cigars. Unfortunately, no study has yet been made on the health of those who have made this change. Cigarette smokers accustomed to inhaling might continue to inhale the smoke of pipes and cigars and smoke heavily enough to maintain the risks. That the change is likely to be beneficial is suggested by the experience of many individual cigarette smokers, who report that, on changing to pipes or cigars, their cough diminishes. But judgment must be reserved, since there are reports from Europe suggesting an incidence of lung cancer as great in pipe and cigar smokers as where cigarrettes are used, mostly of sun-cured tobacco, and though it is thought to be less dangerous, the mortality from lung cancer among smokers is still high throughout."

The medical advice in Switzerland and Germany has already pronounced that pipes and cigars are as dangerous as cigarettes if not more dangerous.

As I said to my right hon. Friend in a supplementary question a few weeks ago, the only safe recourse is not to smoke tobacco at all, for it is very far from established yet by the scientists and all those concerned with tobacco research that cigars and pipe tobacco are indeed less dangerous.

I would rather have my hon. Friend with me than against me, so I welcome the degree to which I have succeeded in persuading him, but I should not like him to take my silence for agreement in one proposition which he has just made. He said that one of the reasons that he was willing to change his mind about pipes and cigars was that he thought that the Government would have power, under this new Clause, to cover pipes and cigars later by regulation if the evidence were to change. I am advised that the title of new Clause 3, which refers only to cigarettes and not to tobacco products as a whole, would not give the Government that power under the Clause.

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend, and I accept his assurances. Then, in future, when it is technically and scientifically established, if at all, that pipe tobacco and cigars are as dangerous as, if not more dangerous than, cigarettes, we shall have to legislate —if this Bill reaches the Statute Book.

I can understand that my hon. Friend's concern for this legislation is entirely because of the loss of and damage to life which this practice does. Does he therefore contemplate legislation to stop the use of motor cars where the injury and loss of life is far more per year than that caused by smoking?

Order. The hon. Member for Worcestershire, South (Sir G. Nabarro) would be out of order if he answered that question.

In any event, that is a hoary old argument which has often been presented. No one has done more than I in public affairs to try to bring about a general realisation of the dangers arising from the pollutants in the exhausts of motor cars, but scientifically we are in an analogous position there, because there is no perfect remedy known to man at this stage for depolluting the exhaust fumes of motor vehicles. However, I will not pursue this. We do not do this, because there is no perfect remedy.

I am prepared to be guided on this occasion by the two major considerations —first, that 87 per cent. of the market is cigarettes and I would prefer the Bill to cover 87 per cent. than none at all, and, second, that I would prefer, having regard to the dubiety about the harmful effects to health of smoking cigars and pipe tobacco, to leave that for further consideration on a future occasion and additional legislation, if that becomes necessary.

2.30 p.m.

I respectfully agree with the construction placed upon the language and scope of the Bill which has been put forward by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State. I was about to intervene to put that point when he did so. My hon. Friend the Member for Worcestershire, South (Sir G. Nabarro) knows my interest in this matter and knows that I am glad that this legislation has come forward. In view of that construction, does not he agree that there is a good deal to be said for keeping the minority case, which is less clearly proven, for future legislation, rather than for regulations even if they were intra vires the Bill, which they are not, having regard to the general desirability of legislation through full parliamentary process rather than delegated legislation?

I am very grateful to my right hon. and learned Friend, because in a short intervention he has proclaimed his support—and he carries great authority in this regard, as a former Conservative Minister of Health—for legislation rather than voluntary agreement, which is critically important in this context. I shall not argue it in depth at this stage, but I said at the beginning that in my judgment any voluntary agreement would be totally inoperable, ineffective and impracticable. It is for that reason that I welcome the conversion of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State in tabling new Clauses which, if English words have any meaning, must surely be construed as an absolute embrace of the Nabarro principle, which is that legislation in this context is much more important than voluntary agreement. For if he denies such intent, why on earth did he put the new Clauses on the Order Paper in the first place?

I must ask my hon. Friend to limit the fertility of his imagination. He cannot presume my intentions from the Amendments put down by me until he has given me the chance to explain why there are on the Order Paper.

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend, but I promise him that I can read, and I have read his new Clauses. I am moving the Clause simply by the good fortune that I happen to be the sponsor of the Bill, and through this rare, if not unique, position, I have precedence over my right hon. Friend in being called, absolute precedence. I do not suppose that he realised when he tabled the new Clauses that he would not himself be moving them. I am glad to be corrected if he did realise it.

I can read, and what the new Clause I am moving says is that health warnings shall be attached to cigarettes sold in packets. If my right hon. Friend did not intend to legislate on this point—

Will my hon. Friend allow me?

My hon. Friend intervened 19 times on the Welsh National Opera Company Bill in order to hold up the proceedings on this Bill. Therefore, I will not easily give way to him. He intervened nineteen times, with long interventions, and therefore I shall not give way to him on this occasion. He will have his own opportunity to oppose the Bill later, for he is a strong opponent of it as the Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Security. That is the august and elevated position occupied by my hon. Friend the Member for Cannock (Mr. Cormack).

I was saying that I could read, and if English words have any meaning my right hon. Friend's new Clause is designed to attach warnings about health to packets of cigarettes. That is why I have associated myself with his new Clause. If he says that that is not the intention of the Clause, he had better withdraw his name from it and leave me to argue it out with other opponents of the Bill. Otherwise, I hope that he will accept that I have collaborated with him in disembowelling the Bill in order to replace my inferior and amateur draftsmanship with his superior and professional draftsmanship, all of which will contribute in the passage of time, I hope, to a splendid Statute.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend, whose eloquence I so much enjoyed in Committee—

My hon. Friend is enjoying it now.

—for giving way. I listened to him with close attention in Committee as he expounded with immense eloquence and fervour the case for including cigars and pipe tobacco, about which he now appears to have second thoughts. I hope that he will not disallow in the case of my right hon. Friend the fact that there may be better courses, as he himself found in the matter of the substantial arguments he put forward on cigars and tobacco.

I will cut down on the banter and go in for the logic. It is the fact that many of us have had second thoughts on what is, after all, pioneering legislation. Nobody has tried to legislate on any substantial scale on the health hazards associated with tobacco. My right hon. Friend will not mind my mentioning that when we originally discussed this matter he was the first to say to me that it was too difficult for a private Member.

indicated assent.

I am glad to see that my right hon. Friend is nodding assent. He still thinks that it is too difficult for a private Member. I accept that it is very difficult and that there are hundreds of different points of view. I remember that in 1955 my right hon. Friend the Member for Streatham (Mr. Sandys) said that legislation for clean air and a revolution at the fire side was too difficult for a private Member, even his hon. Friend the Member for Kidderminster—as I then was, in that incarnation. But he later recognised that it is very useful for a private Member to steer through the House legislation that the Government do not want to touch.

It is an open secret that in the last Parliament a substantial body of opinion in the Labour Party wanted to legislate on smoking. The Minister of Health, Mr. Kenneth Robinson, wanted to legislate on smoking and health hazards. I know that he will not mind my saying this about him, because it is utterly true. He was prevented from doing so by many members of the Cabinet who took an opposite view.

This is not a Party political matter. It is a matter of judgment as to the extent to which Parliament should intervene in the private lives and habits of ordinary men and women. That is why I used the term "avuncular" earlier, or, if one likes, "Meddlesome Mattie". We are talking about the loss of about 100,000 lives a year on account of illness and disease arising directly or indirectly from smoking habits. The exact number has never been quantified, and I doubt whether it ever will be exactly quantified. We are talking about a very large loss of life. I am sorry that my hon. Friend the Member for Gillingham (Mr. Burden) nods dissent, but the fact is that the loss of life from the tobacco habit is generally regarded by the medical profession as vastly greater than that arising from road accidents. Therefore, to pass legislation such as this is a proper rôle of Parliament.

It would not be sufficient to leave a matter of this sort to an agreement. My right hon. Friend says that it is not a legal contract. Therefore it is utterly non-binding in a legal sense. I counsel my right hon. Friend, because I am a friend of his personally and in a Parliamentary sense, not to be foolish. His actions are not binding on the next Government. If they happen to be a Labour Government, the tobacco companies could run out on the agreement on their first day in office, saying, "We made our agreement with the last Government. It does not apply to the new Government."

That is the weakness of my right hon. Friend's case. I must emphasise to the opponents of the Bill that not only is it in its new form to apply only to cigarettes, but there is nothing proposed by my right hon. Friend and myself that is not already the subject of agreement between him and the tobacco companies. There is nothing at all. If the Amendments and new Clauses in the names of my right hon. Friend and myself are accepted, all that the Bill now does is to give legislative respectability—

indicated dissent.

I do wish that my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury (Mr. Crouch) would not nod dissent. We have been over all these things. The Bill gives legislative respectability to the voluntary agreement—

I cannot hear.

I am sorry that the hon. Member for Feltham (Mr. Russell Kerr) cannot hear. The Bill gives legislative respectability to the voluntary agreement made by my right hon. Friend. All that is between us and the other opponents of the Bill is that my right hon. Friend says that he wants to achieve his object by voluntary agreement; the opponents of the Bill say that they want to do it by voluntary agreement, and I say that in order to make it effective and operable it must be done by parliamentary Statute and not by some sort of airy fairy, palsy-walsy agreement between a couple of top civil servants and a couple of cigarette manufacturers sitting in the Ivy Restaurant or some other reputable hotel or hostelry—

Is my hon. Friend aware that four times as many people die from carcinoma of the lung alone as are killed in road accidents? That takes no account of death from coronary disease and other forms of carcinoma. Four times as many people die from carcinoma of the lung as die in road accidents.

I now propose to fix my hon. Friend the Member for Gillingham for all time. I intended to thank my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich, South (Dr. Stuttaford)—a distinguished doctor—for his support for the Bill as a sponsor, and for the most important statement on the health hazards of smoking that I have yet read, out of millions of words. Due to a quirk of the time at which my hon. Friend made his speech in Standing Committee his utterance received altogether too little publicity. I would happily pay to have what he said printed as a notice and put into packets of cigarettes, for it is the most powerful indictment of the smoking habit that I have yet read. I quote it to the House this afternoon because of its important application to our deliberations and, notably, to try to swing the waverers behind me in a non-party issue and to underline the importance of legislation, having regard to the dreadful ravages described by my hon. Friend.

rose—

I shall give way to my hon. Friend in a few moments. On 13th March, in Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich, South (Dr. Stuttaford) said:

"I think that, as has been stated so clearly, there can be no doubt that nine-tenths of the carcinoma of the lung in this country has, as one of its causes, tobacco smoking. The other one-tenth is a different form of carcinoma which occurs for other reasons. The figures which we can expect to see of 50,000 deaths a year from carcinoma of the lungs indicate a very large death rate with smoking as its cause.

However, it is not about Carcinoma of the lung that I wish to speak. Generally, the public has in its mind that the danger to health to which everyone refers is carcinoma of the lung, but there are many other dangers to health—and, of course, causes of death—occasioned by tobacco smoking, and we must consider these. A criticism which I have of the notice which is to be put upon cigarette packages is that it implies hazards to health about which the lay public knows already. People will assume that the hazard referred to is carcinoma of the lung whereas, in medicine today, we realise more and more the prevalence of other hazards to health, particularly damage to the arteries, which are, perhaps, as significant a cause of death, and from the point of view of education, perhaps of greater significance.

Our latest figures show that 12,500 people died of carcinoma of the lung. Compare that figure with the 31,000 who died before the age of 65 from coronary thromboses. When educating the general public about tobacco smoking, there is a danger—particularly among the young—to think in terms of a disease which will develop very slowly over the years. It is a case of `Smoke now—pay later '. Retribution comes slowly and at a time of life which is hard to visualise when one is 20 and as hard to visualise when one reaches the ages of 40 or 45.

I can remember, in my days as a medical student, seeing a patient die of carcinoma of the lung. He was only 41. At that time, I was only 24 or 25 and when I walked away from his bed, I thought, 'He has had a reasonable life'. I have not quite reached the age of 40, and I do not consider that my life is finished, but at the age of 25 the prospect of something which will happen 15 years hence makes little impact.

It is a different thing when we consider the effect that tobacco smoking has on the clotting mechanism of the blood. The very next cigarette which a person over the age of 35 lights may be his last cigarette. The effects upon the blood which it causes are immediate."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Standing Committee C, 17th March, 1971, c. 35–6.]

2.45 p.m.

I consider that to be the best indictment of tobacco smoking generally that I have been privileged to listen to from a doctor in all the millions of words that I have read on this topic. I warmly congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich, South. I am delighted to have him with me, as I am delighted to have almost every doctor in the House with me—my hon. Friend the Member for Reading (Dr. Vaughan), my hon. Friend the Member for The Wrekin (Dr. Trafford), my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Ripon (Sir M. Stoddart-Scott), the hon. Member for Loughborough (Mr. Cronin) and the hon. Member for Halifax (Dr. Summerskill). It is not a coincidence that every one of those doctors takes the same view as that of my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich, South, that a voluntary agreement is grossly inadequate.

I am sure that my hon. Friend does not wish to exaggerate, and I am sure that that goes, too, for my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich, South (Dr. Stuttaford). He stated that three times as many deaths occurred from lung cancer as from road accidents. My right hon. Friend the Member for Worcestershire, South (Sir G. Nabarro) has stated that 12,500 people died from lung cancer, but it has not been established that all those deaths were entirely due to smoking. I suggest that the figures in respect of road casualties are established as to cause, and are certainly in excess of 12,500.

Is my hon. Friend the Member for Worcestershire, South (Sir G. Nabarro) aware that his hon. Friend the Member for Gillingham (Mr. Burden) is confusing deaths with casualties? That is where the mistake has arisen. Is he also aware that his hon. Friend is badly informed, and that deaths from carcinoma of the lung account for 75 per cent. of those who smoke tobacco? It is a common belief that more people die from road accidents than from carcinoma of the lung, but that is not so. Four times as many people die from carcinoma of the lung as die from road accidents. I am not speaking of road casualties; I am referring to deaths from road accidents.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. In this context, I prefer his testimony to the intervention of my hon. Friend the Member for Gillingham.

May I revert to what my hon. Friend said earlier before that dramatic passage—that the terms of the Bill were not in disaccord with the potential or actual terms of a voluntary agreement; it was just a question of difference in approach and techniques in legislative form. Does that include Clause 5, which refers to the maximum tar and nicotine content?

As I said, Clauses 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 and others are to be deleted from the Bill. If my hon. Friend looks at the Amendment Paper, he will find proposals to that effect. New Clause No. 4 and its associated Amendments refer to the treatment of poisons—tar and nicotine—which the Minister proposes to deal with by notices in tobacconists' shops and other places of sale rather than on the packet. I cannot go into that matter because it is not dealt with in the Clause we are debating. We shall deal with it later.

It is Amendment No. 52.

Order. We must guard against sedentary interventions and try to keep the debate on as high a level as possible. As the hon. Member for Worcestershire, South (Sir G. Nabarro) said, it would be out of order to go into that question now.

It may have been a sedentary interruption by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Hertfordshire, East (Sir D. Walker-Smith), but it was vastly more valuable than many interventions made from a standing position.

I have some figures which my hon. Friend probably has not come across relative to the incidence of lung cancer. It is probable—and I know that my hon. Friend concedes this point—that not all cases of carcinoma of the lung are due to smoking, but it may interest him to have the following figures. The incidence of lung cancer mortality among nonsmokers living in rural districts is about 10 per 100,000. If this is compared with the figure for those who smoke more than 25 cigarettes a day living in towns, the number rises to 509, which is approximately 50 times greater than the figure for non-smokers living in rural areas. It is tenable to a small extent to say that the reason is the difference between urban and rural situations—in other words, the environment. But the incidence among smokers in rural areas is still about 20 times. This adequately establishes the point which my hon. Friend the hon. Member for Worcestershire, South (Sir G. Nabarro) made that there cannot be any dispute that people who die from lung cancer predominantly die as a result of this habit.

The figures given by my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich, South (Dr. Stuttaford) were entirely accurate. The figure of 12,500 which he gave referred, I believe, to deaths of people under the age of 65, which is a quite different figure from the total figure. The total figure is over 30,000.

I am very grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for The Wrekin, who is a distinguished consultant and doctor. This testimony, with that of all the other doctors participating in our debates, should be sufficient to sway wavering opinion that legislation, rather than a voluntary agreement, is imperative.

I wish to deal with one last major issue. My right hon. Friend the Minister has, with obvious legislative intent inserted in his new Clause which I am moving a form of words which was agreed with the tobacco companies. I read the words:

"'Warning by H.M Government

Smoking can damage your health'"

Two things are wrong with that form of warning. The first is that it drags the good name of the Government into it. The second is the word "can". I wish to apply myself to both aspects in the context of Amendment (c) which stands in my name alone. The words proposed in it are "Smoking IS harmful to health". The word "is" is in block capitals while ordinary type is employed for the other words in the message.

Why bring in the good name of the Government? This is a Tory Government. I can well imagine a working class man in Wolverhampton, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Glasgow, Kidderminster, Evesham, Coventry, London or Feltham looking at the warning proposed by my right hon. Friend and saying, "Her Majesty's Government?—Tory tricks", spitting on the floor and lighting up another fag to denote his opprobrium for my right hon. Friend and the other members of his Government. "Her Majesty's Govern- ment" has a highly political connotation. Her Majesty's Government are not omniscient—

Hear, hear.

—neither are they universally respected—

Hear, hear.

—in the context of human health or other activities. You might as well put my face on the warning—

Order. I beg the hon. gentleman's pardon.

I was using the vernacular, Mr. Speaker. I was quoting —"You might as well put my face on the health warning or even a moustache if you wanted to cause opprobrium among many people in different parts of the country".

Or damage to health.

I agree. All of this underlines the ridiculous sentiment of bringing the Government into it. We are legislating for putting a health warning on packets.

The form of words which I use, in terms of the utmost purity, in the Amendment is definitive. "Smoking IS"—and "is" is the important word— "harmful to health" are exactly the words recommended by the British Medical Association.

3 p.m.

It is interesting to relate that, on the day the Committee stage of the Bill started, the B.M.A. issued a Press notice. It said, first, "We want legislation and not a voluntary agreement". Secondly, it said, "We want the legislation to apply to tobacco and all tobacco products and not cigarettes alone". Thirdly, it said, "We want the words 'smoking is harmful to health' as the nature of the warning on the side of all packets of tobacco and tobacco products, including cigarettes."

Therefore, the B.M.A., which, I suppose, is the best professional representative body of doctors in this country—and we should be unwise to discard its advice, information and help—has told the Secretary of State in no uncertain terms, "Nabarro is right and you are wrong." But he replies, "No. I, the Minister, am right, and Nabarro is wrong." This is the difference of opinion between us.

But I am never a whole-hogger. I am old enough and experienced enough to know that if one gets 51 per cent. of what one is seeking in parliamentary legislation, one is doing well, and, as Winston Churchill once said, a majority of one is enough. If I get 51 per cent. of what I seek, I can go on my way rejoicing, scratch my own back and say that I have done a job of work. Here I am getting 87 per cent. of what I am seeking—the general tobacco market with health warnings attached to it.

All I say to my right hon. Friend—I should be out of order to deal with it now—is that he should not try to wreck this Bill through the medium of Amendment. No. 90, standing in the name of my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Southport (Mr. Percival), which was put on the Order Paper late last night and therefore starred and not available for discussion today. It is a wrecking Amendment, a last-ditch reserve by the Department and its friends to cast this Bill out if it reaches that stage.

I cannot delineate on Amendment No. 90, but my hon. Friends can see what it would do. It will be the last Amendment to be debated probably next Friday or the following Friday, and the object is to wreck the Bill. The effect, by dragging in the London Gazette and voluntary agreements and all sorts of other crazy notions, supported by my right hon. Friend, is to wreck the Bill, and, as far as I am concerned, although I am a friend of the Secretary of State both personally and in the parliamentary sense, I am not going to have this Bill wrecked save only over my dead body.

I appeal to my right hon. Friend, therefore, to follow through sensibly and logically new Clause 3. He inspired it and he drafted it and put it on the Paper. I hope that he will not now go to that Dispatch Box and say that he did not mean the words in the new Clause and that it was put down only for the purpose of having a debate on the Floor of the House. If he gets up to any tricks of that kind, then I remind him that the remainder of the time today and the time available on two other Fridays is available for debate on this Bill. I want the Bill to be debated. I am not trying to frustrate it. I firmly and adamantly believe that parliamentary legislation is imperative in this matter and that any voluntary agreement would be valueless.

I am in some confusion over the complicated state of the Amendments. Would it not be rather neater if my hon. Friend the Member for Worcestershire, South (Sir G. Nabarro) withdrew his name from new Clause 3 and restricted himself to Amendment (c)? I cannot understand just what he wants. Does he want new Clause 3 or Amendment (c)?

I am sure that my hon. Friend the Member for Belfast, East (Mr. McMaster) is experienced enough to know that, when a number of new Clauses and Amendments are grouped, the mover applies himself to the first new Clause, and I am moving it. If my hon. Friend has any particular point to raise in connection with Amendment (c), there will, I believe, be an opportunity for a separate vote on it. I am sure, Mr. Speaker, that that is your desire. I will go on talking about this so that you may consult your papers but I hope that there will be opportunity for a separate vote on Amendment (c).

I can reassure the hon. Gentleman. There will be a separate vote on Amendment (c), if desired.

I am most grateful, Mr. Speaker, as always, for your guidance. There will be an opportunity and that will furnish me with the opportunity to substitute for the words,

"Warning by H.M. Government Smoking can damage your health"

the words of my Amendment (c),

"Smoking IS harmful to health"

knowing that I have the whole of the British Medical Association behind me.

I very much regret, though I think it is my duty, to rise now when there is such a very large number of my hon. Friends here in the Chamber and my rising now will inevitably put back the time when they will have a chance to catch your eye, Mr. Speaker.

There is always next Friday.

Yes, there is plenty of time.

I also regret that I should have to come into conflict of opinion with my hon. Friend the Member for Worcestershire, South (Sir G. Nabarro). He has every right to be pleased with his achievement in the 'fifties when he put the Beaver recommendations on to the Statute Book, admittedly with the help of the then Government. I have often in the country praised his achievements at that time as just the example of what a Private Member can do. I happen to think that on this occasion his enthusiasm and his constructive zeal are being applied at the wrong point. That will emerge from what I have to say.

The Government are absolutely determined to secure a sharp fall in the suffering associated with cigarette smoking. I cannot make a more flat or determined statement than that. The House will note that I have expressed our intention in terms of a sharp fall in the suffering associated with cigarette smoking. I am a non-smoker, and I find cigarette smoking an obnoxious habit; it is unpleasant to a non-smoker to be near cigarette smoking; but that is a personal reaction.

It may be that we shall achieve our objective partly by bringing about a fall in the consumption of cigarettes and partly perhaps and happily by some method discovered by the industry or by other means of making cigarette smoking less hazardous. What we are determined to do is by a combination of these two methods to bring about a fall in the suffering.

I am very conscious that we are a free society and that there exists for the Government a fairly narrow path between, on the one hand, excessive laissez faire in a habit proven to be seriously damaging to health, and, on the other hand, a degree of grandmotherly intervention which goes further than merely securing that every citizen knows exactly what he or she is in for if he or she consumes cigarettes. It is to find that middle way that the Government are embarked upon the campaign to which we have set our hands.

I must tell the House that we shall mislead ourselves if we think of this campaign as a broadside now to be successful and forgotten. That is not the way it will be at all. We are dealing with a widespread addiction which has unfortunately seized a large proportion of the children as well as of the adults of this country, and there will be a whole series of stages ahead if we are to achieve our purpose. Today we are discussing one part and one part only of the first stage of that campaign. It is true that the Government see this first stage as centring upon, though not, of course, limited to, voluntary agreement or in the legal terms of the contents of the new Clauses to which my hon. Friend and I have our names and which he has introduced in his characteristic speech just now. The Government still firmly believe that the voluntary agreement is the right course. I recognise that there are legitimate doubts about the voluntary agreement. I will not run away from them but will come to them later.

The Government do not regard the Bill as necessary, and I shall explain why we think it is actively mischievous. In what is virtually the Second Reading of a new approach to the problem—because that is what the introduction of the sponsor's name on the Government new Clauses is, in effect—I want to stress, to underline and to emphasise that the contents of the Bill, or for that matter the contents of the voluntary agreement, are only one ingredient in the campaign which lies before us.

If we still believe that the voluntary, agreement is the right course, why did I—because it is my initiative and my decision—put the Government new Clauses on the Order Paper? The answer is that the House may decide to legislate and, if it does, the Government hope that the legislation that emerges will embody—in statutory form and with sanctions the points on which my hon. Friend legitimately lays emphasis—the contents of the voluntary agreement. That is why it is perfectly consistent for me to say that I am not converted to the view that legislation is necessary, although I have deliberately put new Clauses on the Order Paper.

By your decision, Mr. Speaker, there are to be taken in this debate on the new Clause many separate strands of argument. I shall not presume at this stage to try to guide hon. Members or to comment on each one of those separate Amendments which are in this new Clause 3 package. What I seek to do is to put either the voluntary agreement or the Bill into the total strategy which the Government foresee will be necessary to achieve our purpose. I hope that it will be possible for my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State, who was on the Standing Committee, to comment later on the Amendments that go with new Clause 3.

My hon. Friend the sponsor of the Bill has straightforwardly explained how he has changed his mind to the extent of accepting a large part of what he seeks and being willing for that purpose to sacrifice the totality of what he originally sought. There remain between him and the Government three main issues. The first is advertising, which he said he intended to raise at this stage in the debate, but he has not raised it. All I have to do, therefore, is to point out to the House that at least the sponsor is not suggesting that the Government should legislate at this stage to ban the advertising of cigarettes. My hon. Friend is absolutely right in saying that this would be a big step. We shall certainly have to consider it in the immediate future when in the Government's view it will become relevant. I will return to this shortly.

The second difference my hon. Friend has virtually disposed of for the moment, although he may not have satisfied some of his supporters. He has come to accept as better than nothing a Bill which deals only with cigarettes rather than one which deals with all tobacco products, so that difference vanishes.

The third and largest difference remains. He and his supporters think that a voluntary agreement—what he might call a legally toothless agreement —is not enough. That is the main difference between him and the Government. I shall spell out the Government strategy and, I hope, meet all the relevant objections which have so far been raised.

After the publication of the Report of the Royal College of Physicians—" Smoking and Health Now "—no one can seriously doubt that cigarette smoking kills many thousands a year and damages the health of scores of thousands more.

3.15 p.m.

None of us wants to exaggerate the effect of smoking. It has been implied that deaths from lung cancer are caused almost entirely by smoking. It would be interesting if the hospitals could produce figures showing who had smoked and who had been non-smokers amongst those who had contracted the disease.

My hon. Friend is right to express a certain scepticism about the wholesale denunciations, coupled with figures, which are fashionable. I do not know about other hon. Members, but I have found totally convincing the living experiment that the doctors carried out. It was the Doll and Hill experiment conducted from 1951 on thousands and thousands of doctors themselves, and which showed the mortality experienced over the last 20 years of doctors who smoked different amounts and those who had given up smoking, which totally convinced me that cigarette smoking inflicts very grave and avoidable suffering on large numbers of our fellow countrymen. I accept, however, that the more figures we have the better.

Nevertheless, even faced with this avoidable misery, we live in a free society. We cannot be wet nurses to every citizen. Nor can we enforce legislation that is not socially acceptable. We must balance our action against the freedom of individuals and against the danger of discrediting the law if we seek to apply the law where it cannot effectively be enforced.

I am glad that my hon. Friend has virtually taken out of the debate for the moment the argument about pipe tobacco and cigars. I expect that other hon. Members will return to it and I know that my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary would like to guide hon. Members on the validity of the advice of the Royal College of Physicians that we should concentrate on cigarettes.

I certainly do not want to mislead people into thinking that the manufacturers of cigarettes are on the point of finding a "safer cigarette", but I understand that they are putting a great deal of effort into research in this direction. It is certainly in their own interests to do so. The Government welcome their efforts. This may lead to the use of different materials or to decreasing the nicotine and the tar yield.

One of the most important decisions that the Government have made has been to initiate the setting up of a scientific committee on which there will be Government scientists as well as scientists from the tobacco industry. It will be this Committee's task to pass judgment upon and to validate the methods used by the industry in its pursuit of and measurement of the relative safety or danger of different smoking materials. We shall have for the first time a forum on which Government scientists will sit and which will be able to guide the public on this difficult subject.

Despite all this, it would be unrealistic to hope for a safe cigarette in the foreseeable future. I hope that hon. Members, whatever their enthusiasm, will agree also that it would certainly be equally unrealistic to dream of there being an ending of cigarette smoking. That is just not on.

I must now make, my task harder by explaining to the House that easy references to the importance of preventing people from embarking upon cigarette smoking is merely a matter of words. None of us knows how, effectively, to stop young people from embarking upon smoking. We know in theory what should be done. If we could stop all parents, teachers, people on the television and on the films in cinemas from smoking, perhaps it would have an immediate effect upon children. But that is beyond hope.

Or stop all doctors, too.

The doctors, of all the professions, have probably gone further than any in setting a good example, though the Royal College of Physicians hopes that even more of their number will set that good example.

I can promise that the Government will seek all the practical ways there are to influence the young not to take up cigarette smoking. But until we have the co-operation of all those people I have listed, and particularly the parents and the teachers, to some extent we shall be blowing against the wind. What we are embarked upon is the task of making cigarette smoking socially unacceptable. Until we achieve that, we shall not have made a real impression on our task.

I hope to explain to the House some of the measures we intend. The first stage includes the voluntary agreement, as the Government would wish, or this legislation, as my hon. Friend the Member for Worcestershire, South would wish. I must explain that the voluntary agreement was reached not by some civil servants with some officials from the industry but by the leaders of the industry, personally, with the Secretary of State for Social Services of the day, personally. It was not an agreement that will vanish with a new Secretary of State or a new Government. It is not, as my hon. Friend sought to suggest, like a particular Government seeking to bind its successor to a policy. That is not the position. The industry has undertaken to the holder of my office to accept and to adhere to a voluntary agreement, with a code of practice to be agreed between the holder of my office and the industry. Motivation is vital in human affairs, and I emphasise that it is greatly to the interest of the industry to adhere to the voluntary agreement, because the industry can tell, from the witness of this day's debate—and from the words of my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Hertfordshire, East (Sir D. Walker-Smith), a most distinguished past Minister of Health himself—the signs of the times.

The Royal College of Physicians has produced a report which no Government can afford to ignore. If the industry were foolish enough to break the voluntary agreement, it would not be long before legislation would descend on it. Having entered into the voluntary agreement under no threats and in a genuine attempt to mitigate the damage, without any original intent or awareness, which its product is now found to cause, the industry must recognise abundantly that it is in its interest to show itself willing to accept the content of the vountary agreement.

That agreement covers the marking of packages and advertisements, setting up a scientific committee, and the publication of nicotine content and tar yield in the form of league tables. I repeat those ingredients—the ingredients of the voluntary agreement or of the Bill: marked packages and advertisements warning of the health hazard; the scientific committee; the publication of league tables showing relative and respective nicotine contents and tar yields.

The House would be wrong to think that that voluntary agreement, significant and powerful though it is, is the whole picture. There are a number of things that it is not for the industry or legislation to bring about. The Government will be embarking upon a television campaign. Public money will be put at the disposal of the Health Education Council to warn the public by way of television. I am in touch with the Chairman of both the B.B.C. and the I.T.A. about the possibility of reducing the amount of cigarette smoking that is shown on television. We are seeking to disenchant the young, to de-symbolise the cigarette, and we shall follow up every sensible, practicable, non-avuncular method which seems to make sense. I borrow shamelessly the words of a noble Lord with whom I do not generally find myself in agreement. In the words of the noble Lord, Lord Soper, we shall try anything "to enlarge the smokeless zone". That is a concept which is familiar to my hon. Friend the Member for Worcestershire, South.

I am in touch with the Railways, to see whether we can further extend the provision for non-smokers.

My right hon. Friend says that he intends to go to this great trouble, and even those of us who do not approve of this Bill, who accept the voluntary agreement and who do not want too much Government interference, think it right that he should go to a certain amount of trouble. Will not my right hon. Friend go further and try to persuade the Chancellor of the Exchequer to change the tax structure on tobacco so that on cigarettes he increases it and on cigars and pipe tobacco he reduces it? That would be an effective means of cutting down the loss of life caused by smoking cigarettes.

I shall come to what is proper for me to discuss on that sort of question in a few minutes. I must make sure that I do not forget it.

When I spoke at this Dispatch Box a few weeks ago to announce the voluntary agreement, I included in the number of steps that I intended to take a reference to making contact with aero- plane companies, entertainment companies, and the restaurant people. I have studied the subject more since then, and I have reached the conclusion that there will be grave difficulties in achieving a larger smokeless zone in aeroplanes and in places of entertainment, as it were, from scratch.

There are many countries in Europe where, for 20 or 30 years, it has been normal for smoking not to be allowed in cinemas, theatres and concert halls. I asked my advisers how it was enforced. We know that cinema attendances are declining. Do cinema managers simply kick their patrons out? I am told that there is no problem. The habit is so longstanding that it has become socially acceptable. I am told that the original ban was not on personal health grounds or on social or aesthetic grounds, but simply on fire risk grounds. The fact is that the Home Office has not thought fit to ban smoking from the normality of such places. Instead of any easy approach to these people, what I propose to do is invite them to discussions to see how far we can go.

My right hon. Friend knows that I bear him some good will in this matter. To be entirely convincing in a parliamentary sense, however, I should like him to devote a few moments to the following two points. First, does my right hon. Friend think that it is more desirable from a constitutional viewpoint to proceed by the "nudge and wink" from a Minister rather than by the process of law? Second, since "intervention" is being bandied about as a word—and I am just as much a non-interventionist as my right hon. Friend—what is there essentially less interventionist in a Minister suggesting that there should be a voluntary agreement, backed up with a threat of legal sanction if it is not kept, than in the proposal which is being made in the Bill, that a health warning should be put on cigarette packets under an Act of Parliament? What is there essentially less interventionist in my right hon. Friend's procedure than in that proposed by my hon. Friend the Member for Worcestershire, South (Sir G. Nabarro)?

3.30 p.m.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. I shall come to this point later. I know his views and those of a number of my hon. Friends on the impropriety of government by "nudge and wink".

There are two points to be considered. First, we are dealing here with a small definable number of organisations, the tobacco manufacturers, of whom there are three of significance in this country. The amount of imports coming in is one-half of 1 per cent. of the market. These people have said that they are willing to do all that we require of them at the moment. Should we clutter up the Statute Book—Lord knows, many of us think that there are already too many Statutes —with an additional Act of Parliament to achieve precisely what can be done without statute? I shall come to the difficulties about the effectiveness of the agreement later.

Secondly, it is particularly for my hon. Friends and for me and, if I may include the sponsor of the Bill, for him, because we are all united by respect for private enterprise, to give private enterprise a chance to volunteer action before it is required to take action. We on this side of the House believe that private enterprise is responsible and willing to do what is socially right if it can be shown what is required and if it can still be allowed to survive and perform its function—always, of course, within the law. It is for us, if we wish, to ban something with which we say private enterprise shall not concern itself.

We can ban drugs, we can ban prosstitution, and we can try to enforce the ban. If we were proposing to ban cigarette smoking, the law would have to do it. However, this limited range of things which we want to achieve has been offered by the industry. Therefore, it is surely not for the champions of private enterprise—

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

I should like to finish my sentence. I shall then give way. It is surely not for the champions of private enterprise to reject the offer of the industry and to insist on legislation unless—I shall come to this point later—the voluntary agreement will be flouted.

The simple observation I wanted to make was that my right hon. Friend's analogy was singularly ill-chosen. He said, "We can ban prostitution". On the contrary, we can do nothing of the kind. That was an utterly ill-chosen analogy. All we have done is to cause it to be conducted underground instead of on the streets. That is very desirable—I do not dispute that—but my right hon. Friend should not drag into the controversy about cigarettes and tobacco the proposition that we can ban prostitution, because it is manifestly nonsense.

My hon. Friend is quite right. In my anxiety to shorten the argument, what I was saying in my shorthand way was that we can ban private enterprise seeking to make profits out of prostitution and drugs. We have banned those two matters. It is a criminal offence to traffic in prostitution or in drugs. If we were to deal with cigarettes, in the same way, it would be a matter for the law. But making and selling cigarettes remains legal. I do not think that anyone in this House wishes to prevent it from being legal. That is why I believe that the voluntary agreement, provided that it can be effective, should be the first step.

Will my right hon. Friend reflect upon one possibly disturbing inference which comes from his suggestion that, because there are only two or three large manufacturers concerned, therefore it is possible and proper to substitute the ordinary operation of law by what my hon. Friend the Member for St. Ives (Mr. Nott), in his graphic phrase, called government by "nudge and wink"? Does not my right hon. Friend feel that this is giving a privileged position to and an argument for monopoly, having regard to the statutory definition of monopolies of scale as those commanding a third of the market? There are those who think that the processes of monopoly have gone far enough and that they should not be given further incentive.

My right hon. and learned Friend has a point which I must be careful to guard against. I was seeking to say only that, if we were dealing with a fragmented industry which could not come into a single room and make a an agreement, we should have to move by way of law. My right hon. and learned Friend will accept, from the fluctuating fortunes, profits and share values of the three main manufacturers, that there is effective and powerful competition, even though one has a majority of the market.

I am sorry to keep on about the "nudge and wink" but I do not think that the Secretary of State made clear to my hon. Friend the Member for St. Ives (Mr. Nott) what he said earlier. I understood him to say that the industry accepted the voluntary agreement, not because my right hon. Friend threatened legislation but because it was obvious to them, from the direction in which public opinion was moving, that sooner or later, if they did not reach a voluntary agreement something would happen.

There was no threat, but the industry are perfectly capable of seeing where their enlightened self-interest lies. That is why they were ready to accept the voluntary agreement.

I was listing some of the action parallel with the issues in the policy upon which the Government have embarked. I am circulating to National Health Service authorities and local authorities stronger advice on discouraging cirgarette smoking, in as much as is practicable, on their premises. The Secretary of State for Education and Science and I are studying ways in which we can bring effective advice to school children and teachers. The Health Eduation Council already has funds to cover a campaign against cirgarette smoking, and I am increasing those funds, as I have told the House, for a television campaign which will be continued next year. I have in mind not a continuous television campaign but a series of short, sharp campaigns, repeated at intervals, with as much monitoring as we effectively can.

If people have to smoke, and if they have to smoke cirgarettes, there are undoubtedly sensible ways in which they can try to reduce the damage to their own health.

Has the right hon. Gentleman seen the letter sent to every hon. Member by the firm which makes Aqua-Filters, which it is claimed will help to stop cancer, but which has to pay 55 per cent. purchase tax? Will he have a word with the Chancellor to see whether the tax should be dropped or reduced, since this would obviously help?

This material has been put in my hand just now for the first time. I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for drawing it to my attention. I was about to list some of the things which the cigarette smoker can do if he wants to try to reduce his intake.

One has to be careful in making pronouncements of this sort, but American evidence tends to suggest that filters reduce the amount of tar which goes into the lungs. There is not as much evidence yet as I would wish, but it is proper to say that much. If one must smoke cigarettes, it is sensible to leave a longer stub. It is sensible to reduce the number of cigarettes smoked and it is sensible not to inhale. But at the end of the day, the only sensible thing to do is to give up cigarettes, if one humanly can, and, if one cannot, to switch to pipes or, if one can afford them, to cigars. I shall return later to the tax point, so far as it is proper for me to do so.

I wanted to intervene before my right hon. Friend left the subject of the young. Does not he think that it is a legitimate exercise of non-avuncular Government to ban cigarette machines?

I think that that is one of the things we shall obviously have to consider, and I shall come to that matter in a moment or two.

If the voluntary agreement were allowed to go ahead, marked packs would begin to come into the shops, and marked advertisements to appear in the newspapers and on hoardings, this summer. By the end of the year, if the voluntary agreement were allowed to go ahead, it would be fully effective and all stock and all advertising would be marked. If the voluntary agreement were allowed to go ahead, we should synchronise the first T.V. campaign with the arrival in the shops of marked stock.

I come now to explain the next stage in the campaign on which the Government have decided. The Prime Minister some months ago, just before the Report of the Royal College of Physicians was published, ordered a Government internal study of the further methods we should need beyond those I have outlined to reduce the suffering caused by cigarette smoking and the quantity of cigarette smoking, and the implications of those methods. Obviously, it is only responsible for the Government to study the revenue implications of success, the success we are determined to have. We must study the liberty of the subject and side effects, such as the repercussions on the newspapers of a wholesale ban on cigarette advertising.

My right hon. Friend has said many times over that if it were not for the Bill the health warnings would appear on packets this summer. Does not he realise from the condition of the Bill today that it could easily pass through this House and another place within two or three weeks, but certainly before Whitsuntide, with his benevolence, support and aid, and that then the same health warnings could be on the packets this summer? It is a very simple operation for tobacco manufacturers, who have to overprint the packets all over the surface anyway, to print a health warning on them. They have only to make a few new rubber stereos, and therefore the health warnings could be on the packets by July even if the Bill went through. So it is quite wrong to suggest that we are holding up the health warnings.

For a business man, my hon. Friend is very wrong. I should like to have heard his reaction in the old days if any Government had told him that every no-nail box was to have this or that done to it instanter. He would have pointed out a number of things. I shall return to my hon. Friend's point in the proper place in my argument.

I was explaining that there is a Government study in hand on the next stages and their implications.

When my right hon. Friend is pursuing this developing programme against smoking, which I am sure we all welcome, he should bear in mind that we must not get too carried away. May I draw his attention to recent reports in the Lancet on the experience of those in California who spent a great deal of time and trouble in stopping people from getting coronary thrombosis by giving them the right things to eat. The results looked excellent. People stopped getting coronaries when they adhered to the diet, and everything seemed fine until it was discovered later that they were all dying just as fast of something else. There are risks in this connection in the pursuit of variations using different types of filter, different types of cigarette, arguing about pipes versus cigarette tobacco and so on. From the Report on Smoking and Health it can be seen that in 10 years little evidence was found about carcinoma of the bladder but by 15 years a slight change was already becoming apparent. Therefore, when my right hon. Friend considers advocating any form of change, such as changing to another type of tobacco, there can be long-term effects. My right hon. Friend above all else will not forget the classic case of thalidomide, which was widely advertised as the safest sleeping drug—

Order. This is very nearly an abuse of an intervention, if it is not so already.

I repeat to my hon. Friend, who is a consultant, that the evidence of the doctors, Doll and Hill, who carried out the survey is very conclusive.

I was about to explain that as part of the study ordered by the Prime Minister into the next stage—and I am addressing my remarks to my hon. Friend the Member for Rutland and Stamford (Mr. Kenneth Lewis)—the implications for taxation will obviously have to be considered by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer. I shall draw to his attention what my hon. Friend said today. There lie ahead for the Government at that stage very difficult questions connected with advertising, coupons and other subjects connected with cigarettes. During 1972, when the voluntary agreement, if it is allowed to persist, or the contents of this Bill—one or the other—will be in full force, our intention is to study the results achieved and the results of the Government examination which is now going on.

3.45 p.m.

My right hon. Friend has not mentioned, as part of the Government's study, something that is relevant to his previous remark, namely, that it is not the duty of the Government to wet-nurse our population. If the full provisions of the Bill were put into effect and they dramatically cut down the consumption of tobacco, it would affect employment in the tobacco industry and might have other dangerous effects, especially with the present level of unemployment in various regions. Will the Government consider, along with other factors, the effect upon employment of a dramatic and rapid cut-back in the consumption and sale of cigarettes in this country?

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. I shall refer to that point later. Further action will undoubtedly be needed if we are to achieve our objective. Some of that action will be within the power of the industry, and where it is it seems to me that the proper course—subject to the industry's having kept its previous agreement—will be to ask it to act voluntarily. But where the industry cannot or will not act, or where matters lie outside its power to act, the Government will have to take their own action.

The point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Hertfordshire, South-West (Mr. Longden) is very relevant. In the debate in another place, the report of which I have read with admiration and respect, many noble Lords emphasised the relevance of doing something about vending machines. I know that some of my hon. Friends agree with that proposition.

A number of complexities are involved. Not all vending machines in or near schools are necessarily used only by children. Some vending machines are situated in medical schools and colleges which are almost entirely inhabited by people who now have the vote. But there is something for the Government to examine here, and I undertake that we shall see whether there is a case for banning or controlling vending machines which are exclusively available to children.

Much pressure was exerted in the other place for intervention by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Educa- cation and Science in school curricula in order to educate children against cigarette smoking. That is for my right hon. Friend to answer—but the Health Education Council is embarking upon an effort to produce the right sort of effects upon school children. Meanwhile, we must continue to emphasise the scale of the problem that we are trying to tackle. At the moment it is very widespread. Our aims will take time to achieve—and several stages, involving cumulative action, if they are to be effective. I do not wish to pin too much hope, or to encourage my hon. Friends or hon. Members opposite to pin too much hope, on messages alone. But there is great significance in messages. For the first time they bring into the open the implications of cigarette smoking.

I disagree with my hon. Friend the Member for Worcestershire, South that the Government's participation in the message is damaging. On the contrary, I think that the participation of the Government, who are thought to be the main beneficiaries of cigarette smoking, in the message adds a particular force to the message. I cannot pretend that the exact wording is vital. One could say that, after the novelty effect has worn off, the message will not be as widely read and pondered as many of us would wish. But, so far as lies in us, we have achieved a form of wording which we think is most effective. We have associated the Government with it. We have said that

"Smoking can damage your health"

because not every individual who smokes a cigarette suffers damage to his or her health, although it may be that he or she will be one of those who suffer.

We have been scrupulously accurate in our message because we regard it as counter-productive not to be accurate. If the message can be shown to be exaggerated or too lurid, it will be even more discounted. We have included in our message the word which advertising experts advise us is crucial—"your". My hon. Friend's message does not include it. He proposes a message which is weaker. He uses the word "harmful" instead of "damage". His message says that smoking can be "harmful to health" instead of "damage your health". We qualify the message by use of the word "can" because we cannot be absolutely certain that every individual who smokes a cigarette will suffer as a result.

My right hon. Friend must not impute to me authorship of the message proposed in my Amendment. It is the official declaration of the British Medical Association and, therefore, I thought that it was superior to anything which could be thought of by the bureaucrats.

It is a question whether my advisers consulted good advertising experts and whether the B.M.A. took that trouble. It would not have been automatic for the B.M.A. to consult advertising experts before it designed its message. However, this is a matter which we can reconsider and, if necessary, change. All that I am saying is that I do not think that messages, however much we may want to see them, will turn the tide on their own. They will not. But, coupled with television campaigns and the other steps we are taking, perhaps they will begin to turn the tide; perhaps they will make a dent.

This is the programme. It may be necessary to legislate later in the programme. But for the moment all that we require of the industry, as opposed to the other things, like television campaigns, upon which we are embarking, is in the voluntary agreement.

I come to perhaps the most powerful argument on the side of the Bill's sponsor. Will the voluntary agreement bite? Will it be adhered to by the industry? I think that I have already persuaded the House that it is in the industry's interest to abide by the agreement. A code of practice will be agreed by me. I can assure the House that the industry will police the agreement itself. Each one of the three companies will be only too keen to make sure that the other two do not get away with a breach. So that the agreement will be self-policed.

The agreement was made, not with anonymous civil servants, however distinguished, but with the Secretary of State. I must, however, confess that one of the most disturbing features of the House of Lords debate was the emphasis put by the noble Lord, Lord Platt on the degree to which, in his view, the industry had broken its undertaking given to the previous Government. He twice levelled at the industry the charge that, although it said that advertising was only to serve the inter-brand competition, much advertising was addressed to increasing the size of the market in that area which was not so saturated as the rest, namely, among women.

I have taken this allegation by Lord Platt extremely seriously. I have asked the industry. It says that it does not feel that its advertisements have transgressed the code. But it regards it as necessary to be scrupulous in staying within the spirit of what is intended. That is what the industry says. So there is a wide gulf between what Lord Platt says and what the industry says.

I must apologise to my right hon. Friend in that I went out for a few minutes to smoke a small cigar. It is extremely difficult to define interpretation in advertising, and what Lord Platt said and what may have been said in answer to him in debate or by the tobacco manufacturers themselves is very much a matter of interpretation.

Yes. But I was coming to the punch line on this subject. There they are: the noble Lord, a very distinguished observer of the scene, on the one hand, and the industry on the other, with a wide gap between. I am told that the industry has made certain changes quite recently in its advertising policy which will become evident. Perhaps we can leave it for the moment at that and see what changes are in evidence.

I fear that I have spoken fast but there has been a lot of ground to cover. I may not quite finish today but I will do my best.

Before my right hon. Friend leaves this matter, I hope that he will deal with subsection (2) of new Clause 3, which deals with advertisements. I understood him to say that he had taken the point put by my hon. Friend the Member for Worcestershire, South (Sir G. Nabarro) that he would not support any longer opposition to advertising. Is it the case that my right hon. Friend would now prefer to withdraw subsection (2)? If he does not prefer to do so, can he indicate what types of advertisement he would sanction? What would authorised advertisements be?

I detect quagmires ahead if I am required off the cuff to define advertisements, but I think that there is a misunderstanding here. When I said that my hon. Friend the Member for Worcestershire, South had dropped his advertisement thesis, I meant that he had dropped his proposal to introduce the proposition that all advertising of cigarettes should be banned. I remain firmly of the opinion that we should have, either by way of voluntary agreement or by subsection (2) of new Clause 3, an obligation on the industry to put a reference to health hazards on its products, and that I would defend as an essential part of the campaign.

I come now to the nub of the point. The Government do not regard the Bill as necessary. We regard the voluntary agreement as bound to be effective. We do not think that it is sensible to impose on a willing industry a superfluous statute, with all the apparatus of controls and penalties which that involves. But I still have to meet my hon. Friend's charge that, whether by way of voluntary agreement or by way of legislation, there is nothing in it as to time. I have no time today to explain the implications for the industry and for the Government of proceeding by way of legislation rather than by voluntary agreement. But my hon. Friend, with his long business experience, should well understand the detail to which regulations would have to go if we were to require by legislation the obligations which we are already virtually agreed upon with the industry.

The regulations would have to lay down precise details. They would have to take account of the rights of the individual firms to regulate their affairs so as to conform with the changed law, without damage to the jobs which, in places like Northern Ireland in particular, as my hon. Friend the Member for Belfast, East (Mr. McMaster) pointed out, we as a Government must have seriously in mind. We, if we pursue the legislative path, embark upon a whole apparatus of controls, with penalties as the outcome, with criminal offences as the potential outcome. We must, as the House of Commons, be clear that we are being fair to the industry—

It being Four o'clock, the debate stood adjourned.

Debate to be resumed upon Friday next.

Cab Bill

Order for Second Reading read.

Object.

Second Reading deferred till Friday next.

Head Teachers (Terms Of Employment) Bill

Order for Second Reading read.

Object.

Second Reading deferred till Friday, 7th May.

Dangerous Litter Bill

Read a Second time.

Bill committed to a Committee of the whole House [ Mr. Peter Mills.]

Committee upon Friday next.

Owner-Occupation (Help For Private Landlords' Tenants To Purchase) (No 2) Bill

Order for Second Reading read.

If hon. Members wish to object I wish they would do so audibly. Objection taken?

Object.

Second Reading deferred till Friday next.

Betting, Gaming And Lotteries (Amendment) Bill Lords

Read a Second time.

Bill committed to a Committee of the whole House.—[ Mr. Maddan.]

Committee upon Friday next.

Transport (London) Amendment Bill

Order for Second Reading read.

Object.

Second Reading deferred till Friday next.

Protection Of Human Rights Bill

Order read for resuming adjourned debate on Second Reading [2nd April].

Object.

Debate further adjourned till Friday next.

Small Claims Courts Bill

Order for Second Reading read.

Object.

Second Reading deferred till Friday next.

Welsh Water Corporation Bill

Order for Second Reading read.

Object.

Second Reading deferred till Friday next.

Attachment Of Earnings (No 2) Bill

Order for Second Reading read.

Object.

Second Reading deferred till Friday next.

Rentcharge Abolition Bill

Order for Second Reading read.

Object.

Second Reading deferred till Friday next.

Medical Inspection (Evidence Of Drug Taking) (School Pupils) Bill

Read a Second time.

Bill committed to a Standing Committee pursuant to Standing Order No. 40 (Committal of Bills).

Mineworkers' Protection Bill

Order read for resuming adjourned debate on Second Reading [19th March].

Question, That the Bill be now read a Second time, put and agreed to.

Bill committed to a Standing Committee pursuant to Standing Order No. 40 (Committal of Bills).

Cruelty To Animals Act 1876 (Amendment) Bill

Read a Second time.

Bill committed to a Standing Committee pursuant to Standing Order No. 40 (Committal of Bills).

Urban And Rural Environment Bill

Order read for resuming adjourned debate on Second Reading [5th February].

Question, That the Bill be now read a Second time, put and agreed to.

Bill committed to a Standing Committee pursuant to Standing Order No. 40 (Committal of Bills).

Television Licensing (Elderly Persons) Bill

Read a Second time.

Bill committed to a Standing Committee pursuant to Standing Order No. 40 (Committal of Bills).

Closing Of Prisons Bill

Order for Second Reading read.

Object.

Second Reading deferred till Friday next.

Protection Of Pension Rights Bill

Order for Second Reading read.

Object.

Second Reading deferred till Friday next.

Criminal Justice (Amendment) Bill

Read a Second time.

Bill committed to a Standing Committee pursuant to Standing Order No. 40 (Committal of Bills).

Public Health Act (Amendment) Bill

Read a Second time.

Bill committed to a Standing Committee pursuant to Standing Order No. 40 (Committal of Bills).

Employed Persons (Safety) Bill

Order read for resuming adjourned debate on Second Reading [12th February].

Question, That the Bill be now read a Second time, put and agreed to.

Bill committed to a Standing Committee pursuant to Standing Order No. 40 (Committal of Bills).

Travel Agents And Tour And Charter Operators Regis- Tration Bill

Order for Second Reading read

Object.

Second Reading deferred till Friday next.

On a point of order. If objections are to be made to Bills—objections which are at the instigation of the hon. Member for St. Albans (Mr. Goodhew)—could they be made by him instead of by the hon. Member for Ipswich (Mr. Money)?

That is not a point of order.

Finance Of Council House Building Bill

Order for Second Reading read.

I draw the attention of the House to the fact that this Bill is not yet printed. I rule that it cannot now be taken.

Second reading deferred until Friday next.

Hare Coursing (Abolition) Bill

Order for Second Reading read.

Object.

Second Reading deferred till Friday next.

Charitable Causes (Medical Research And Disabled Persons) Bill

Order for Second Reading read.

Object.

Second Reading deferred till Friday next.

Sale Of Tickets (Offences) Bill

Order for Second Reading read.

Object.

Second Reading deferred till Friday next.

Planning Applications (Perivale)

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[ Mr. Fortescue.]

4.6 p.m.

I wish to draw to the attention of the House an issue involving planning permission granted by the Planning Committee of the London Borough of Ealing which could have serious and deleterious effects on many of my constituents resident in the Perivale area of Greenford. The planning permission involves land east of Rockware Avenue, a triangle of land bounded by railway lines, on which the developers intend to construct an estate road and to erect three warehouse buildings. This would have a deleterious effect on the residents in Bennetts Avenue and Conway Crescent. Near Bennetts Avenue and Conway Crescent there is already a main line railway and a London Transport railway. The grant of planning permission will mean that this little oasis of peace and quiet will be destroyed.

Previous planning applications for this land were made in 1964, 1965 and 1967, but they all came to nought. Regrettably, on 18th November, 1970, the Planning Committee of the London Borough of Ealing resuscitated this matter and granted permission for the construction of warehouses on the land I have described. The decision was a majority decision—by no means unanimous.

With the construction of warehouses and an estate road there will be heavy traffic, noise, vibration and all the disturbances which are associated with heavy and light industry. This is a most glaring example of lack of intelligent and sensible planning, insensitive to the feelings of local people.

The triangle of land is owned by British Railways. When the local residents, particularly those of Conway Crescent and Bennetts Avenue, voiced their protests, they were told by the Council, whose leader has informed me personally, that because of the threat by British Railways to use this triangle of land as a ballast depôt the Council had no option but to go for the lesser evil and to give permission for the construction of three warehouses.

In consequence, I contacted the Chairman of British Railways, Mr. Todd, and to my amazement I was informed by him that British Railways know nothing about any intention to build a ballast depôt on this triangle of land. This is a serious matter. Those who made that proposition about British Railways' probable intentions probably did so in good faith; but, as British Railways had not entertained this idea, I submit that planning permission was granted under the excuse of a threat which did not exist. If for no other reason than this, the whole business must be investigated thoroughly. British Railways are irritated and annoyed.

I pay tribute to Mr. Todd and his colleagues, who have examined this matter in great depth. I have seen them in their Paddington offices. They have been to the House to discuss the matter with me. They have examined all their records to ensure that what they have told me is the truth so far as they can ascertain it. They still maintain that they have not made any assertion or threat that the land would be used by them as a ballast depôt.

If there were no intention to use the land as a ballast depôt, there must be an investigation, because it was this imaginary threat which had some influence with the planning committee. If the planning committee were persuaded, on a wrong basis, to grant permission because it would be the lesser of two evils, the machinery of government and administration will be grievously stained.

This little oasis of land lies in the heart of a considerable industrial area. Within half a mile of this little residential oasis there are factories and light engineering companies making products ranging from sewing silks, heating appliances, cardboard tubes, babies baths, bottles, wallpaper, bookbinders, foodstuffs, cigarette packaging, thermos flasks, drugs, medicines, metal containers and paints. In addition to all these, within half a mile of this area there are great firms which are household names, such as Hoover, Glaxo, Lyons, Sandersons, and Rockware Glass —all within a stone's throw of this little area. Surely, therefore, this area of Greenford in Middlesex is making an excellent contribution industrially to the requirements of the nation. This further invasion by industry, with all its pollution threats, is unnecessary.

In addition to all these industries within half a mile of Bennetts Avenue and Conway Crescent, running within a few hundred yards of these quiet little streets are Great Western Avenue and Green-ford Road, and there is enough nuisance and interruption from these two great roads. They are important roads and there is a constant flow of traffic. Around the area of Conway Crescent and Bennetts Avenue are over 100 firms, large and small. It is remarkable that this small residential area is in the middle of all this industry, which has grown up around it, and maintains a residential aura. Less than 30 or 40 years ago that part of Greenford was almost rural. This large growth of industry has occurred in the past three or four decades. There has been enough industrial expansion in this area and the time has come to say, "Stop—no more."

I declare an interest, because the folk of Bennetts Avenue and Conway Crescent are not only my constituents but are almost my neighbours. I live only a few hundred yards from them. The street in which I live is not so grievously affected. But if these warehouses were constructed, that would mean all the ugly things which I have mentioned and which we have to put up with in our industrial areas—such as heavy transport, noise, pollution and so on—being increased unnecessarily.

As Greenford has made more than its contribution industrially, we ought to preserve this little oasis of land. It is remarkable how much wild life can be be seen in this tiny area around those residential streets.

I ask the Minister to conduct an inquiry regarding the issue, a propos British Railways and the Council, and to give back to the folk of Bennetts Avenue and Conway Crescent the peace of mind which they have lost since last November because of this threat hanging over them.

I had no hesitation in seeking an Adjournment debate on this matter. I appreciate that in the context of our national affairs, this issue may seem small and, to some, even insignificant. I assure the House that, in the eyes of the ordinary people of Bennetts Avenue and Conway Crescent, it is a veritable sword of Damocles that hangs like an evil threat invading their homes and their peace of mind.

I bring the matter to the House because Parliamentary democracy is essentially Government by discussion. Parliament is not above the battle. It is the most formidable weapon which ordinary people have in their struggle to defend their hearth and home from threats such as this regarding this planning permission. People will have no use for an institution like this House which claims supreme power but does not use it.

I ask the Minister, therefore, to use his powers to direct Ealing Council to make an Order revoking this planning permission, and thus to remove a menace which is already blighting the lives of my constituents who live in Bennetts Avenue and Conway Crescent.

4.20 p.m.

I want first to pay tribute to the eloquent and passionate advocacy of the hon. Member for Ealing, North (Mr. Molloy) on what is essentially a local matter concerned with the problems arising from the planning permission granted in respect of Bennetts Avenue and Conway Crescent.

The House will want to know that the planning permission was granted in November, 1970, and is an outline permission for the erection of three warehouses on the site.

I had some difficulty in following the hon. Gentleman's argument in that there is an apparent conflict between his first description of "an oasis of peace and quiet" and what he said later about the long list of firms within a stone's throw of the site. He said that there are over a hundred in the area, and he referred to a number of household names. It is quite true that there are these very impressive firms immediately adjoining the site in some cases. It is also true that the site is triangular. In fact, it is surrounded on its three sides by railway lines and is completely cut off by them. As one of the necessities of developing the site, it is essential to provide access by means of a tunnel under one of the railway lines. At the moment, of course, there is no development on the site.

The hon. Gentleman spoke of the purpose of this House and referred to "government by discussion". One point that he will appreciate is that in this case the local council has far exceeded its statutory obligations by discussing with local residents its plans and going as far as could reasonably be expected to have a degree of public participation in its discussions. I do not suggest that everyone is happy about the decision, but there is no question of local people not being fully aware of the implications of the decision. In fact, they have been consulted by the local authority, which certainly deserves our gratitude for that. Furthermore, local councillors visited the site before a decision was made. Every attempt has been made locally to ventilate the issues involved.

The hon. Gentleman is saying that the statutory drill required of the council has been gone through, the usual forms were sent out and the objections of residents were sought. However, I asked the leader of the council to meet representatives of these people who, after all, do not receive forms every five minutes asking for their objections to intricate planning issues. I wanted him to talk to them in the earthy language of ordinary people and to discuss with them what they considered to be the threat to their homes. Regrettably, this was not done.

The hon. Gentleman must give more credit to the council than that. It went further than it is compelled to do statutorily in consulting local people. Whether or not the hon. Gentleman's request was granted, there is no doubt that the council went a considerable distance, following the advice of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, to see that consultations took place.

It is also true that, in granting permission, the council bore in mind the representations made to it. It laid down as a condition that certain screening by way of tree planting should be done to give some protection to people living in the neighbouring residential areas.

It is also important to remember that this is not a new subject. On the develop- ment plan it is scheduled as being, "for the purposes of the railway". Obviously nobody could have considered that the railway would use the land for building more railway lines. It would be difficult to have more railway lines in this area. So, "for the purposes of the railway" must be for the ancillary purposes of the railway, which must include the possibility of some building for some kind of industrial or quasi-industrial activity. In these circumstances, the council did not consider that the planning permission requested was a substantial departure from the development plan.

This is not the first time that this matter has been the subject of local discussion and controversy. There was an application for development of this land in 1965 which was referred to the then Minister of Housing for his consideration to decide whether to call it in as a matter of substantial departure. The then Minister of Housing decided that this was essentially a local matter and he did not want to call it in. It is reasonable, therefore, that the local authority should have in mind that a Minister has considered the matter from a national point of view and has decided that development, broadly on the lines we are talking about today, in no way infringed the development plan and was not a matter for the national Government to consider.

That is why, when the second application took place in 1967, the matter was not referred to the Minister as being a substantial departure. Again, we have an application, and it is the view of the Secretary of State that the position is still as it was in 1965 and in 1967.

With respect, the 1964 application was rejected by the council itself. The planning permissions which we are now discussing are not precisely the same. As I have said, they died because of a variety of reasons. Therefore, that was a satisfactory answer for my constituents. However, it has been resuscitated in another, not identical, form, although it is just as much a threat.

I accept that no successive planning permission is on all fours with previous applications. Times and needs change. However, there is no difference in principle between the planning permission which we are considering for the warehouses and the outline applications which were made in 1965 and in 1967. The same kind of issues were at stake. The issues of principle were, in our view, sufficiently discharged in 1965 not to require any resurrection at this moment.

The hon. Member for Ealing, North mentioned the involvement of senior officials of British Railways and the apparent interpretation of certain information presented by the hon. Gentleman whether British Railways had or had not made suggestions how they would use the land. The council will presumably read and take note of what the hon. Gentleman has said today. I think that this is essentially a matter for the council at this stage. It would not be right that the Secretary of State should become involved in the way suggested by the hon. Gentleman.

We believe that no issue of principle has been raised which has not been adequately considered in the past. This is a matter for local planning authorities to make up their minds about. The Department is determined not to infringe local decisions where it can be avoided. We do not agree that there is any justification in this case for intervention by the Secretary of State.

I am not at all satisfied with what the hon. Gentleman has said.

Order. The hon. Gentleman needs leave to speak again.

I beg your pardon, Mr. Speaker. I beg leave of the House to speak again.

As I said, I am not at all satisfied with what the hon. Gentleman has said. This is all nice and correct in a statutory manner, but ordinary people sincerely believe that if a wrong has been done they can have confidence in this House of Commons—that means in Her Majesty's Ministers—to make an investigation into what has occurred.

This is an extremely serious issue. British Rail takes grave exception to the London Borough of Ealing having used its good name to threaten some of my constituents. The council said that because British Rail might use the land, they had to agree and give consent to the alteration. The Minister says that one of the antagonists, the Borough of Ealing, shall be the referee. This is absurd. The Secretary of State should have an investigation. The planning committee was divided, and one of the deciding factors could have been the thought that this was the lesser of two evils. British Rail says that no such situation ever existed.

The hon. Gentleman said that he has in his possession certain facts which are relevant. These will now be fully available to those councillors who he says were misled, and it will be for them to decide what action to take.

I am asking the Secretary of State to tell the council to examine it again, in case they are shy. If he will not use his powers to revoke the whole thing, he should give the council this instruction to hold full investigations.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at twenty-eight minutes to Five o'clock.

Volume 815: debated on Friday 23 April 1971

House Of Commons

Prayers

Bills Presented

Pool Competitions Bill

Education (Milk) Bill

Orders Of The Day

Administration Of Estates Bill

Clause 10

Retainer, Preference And The Payment Of Debts By Personal Representatives

Welsh National Opera Company Bill

Tobacco (Health Hazards) Bill

New Clause 3

Regulation Of Labelling And Advertisement Of Cigarettes

Cab Bill

Head Teachers (Terms Of Employment) Bill

Dangerous Litter Bill

Owner-Occupation (Help For Private Landlords' Tenants To Purchase) (No 2) Bill

Betting, Gaming And Lotteries (Amendment) Bill Lords

Transport (London) Amendment Bill

Protection Of Human Rights Bill

Small Claims Courts Bill

Welsh Water Corporation Bill

Attachment Of Earnings (No 2) Bill

Rentcharge Abolition Bill

Medical Inspection (Evidence Of Drug Taking) (School Pupils) Bill

Mineworkers' Protection Bill

Cruelty To Animals Act 1876 (Amendment) Bill

Urban And Rural Environment Bill

Television Licensing (Elderly Persons) Bill

Closing Of Prisons Bill

Protection Of Pension Rights Bill

Criminal Justice (Amendment) Bill

Public Health Act (Amendment) Bill

Employed Persons (Safety) Bill

Travel Agents And Tour And Charter Operators Regis- Tration Bill

Finance Of Council House Building Bill

Hare Coursing (Abolition) Bill

Charitable Causes (Medical Research And Disabled Persons) Bill

Sale Of Tickets (Offences) Bill

Planning Applications (Perivale)