With permission, Mr. Speaker, I wish to make a statement.

A docks delegate conference of the Transport and General Workers' Union was held on 4th May. On 5th May the port employers were given one month's notice of a dispute.

The union claim is in three parts: first, that registered dockers should carry out the work of stuffing and stripping containers which is done outside ports at groupage depots; second, that paid holidays should be increased from three to four weeks; third, that fall-back pay —currently £20 per week—should be based on average earnings which are at present about £42 per week for registered dockers.

At a meeting of the industry's National Joint Council on Wednesday, 24th May, the port employers put forward new proposals which, I understand, relate to all three parts of the claim.

I met Mr. Jack Jones on 3rd May; since then I and my officials have had further discussions with him. We have also met the National Dock Labour Board, the CBI, all the employer interests involved and, at their request, the National Union of Railwaymen. The issues involved are very complex. They concern employers in other sectors of industry and workers other than dock workers—many of them also members of the Transport and General Workers Union.

I hope that when the National Joint Council meets next Tuesday, it will succeed in bringing its discussions to a point where the union's docks delegate conference can agree to withdraw the strike notice and the industry is thus given the time needed to examine the grave problems which underline this dispute. My Department will be ready to help in every possible way.

The Secretary of State has made a statement on a situation of great urgency. It is urgent not only because of the possibility of a very damaging strike but also because of the situation in which the dockers find themselves. It is a situation in which over one-third of the jobs in the industry have disappeared over some seven years, against a background of heavy general unemployment. In this situation the dockers feel that they are fighting for their right to work. Against that background, is the Secretary of State aware that we on this side of the House welcome the active and constructive way in which he has been tackling this problem in the last few weeks and will certainly support him in any further steps he can take?

I welcome the right hon. Gentleman's final remarks in which he said that the Department would be prepared to help further. Will he particularly bear in mind that these problems cannot necessarily all be solved between employers and unions and that there may be further steps needed from the Government? Will he especially consider the point, which has been put to him several times, that one of the things that may be needed is that the ports that are at present outside the dock labour scheme should be brought within its ambit, because there is evidence that trade is shifting to those ports and, therefore, this is causing extra unemployment in the established ports?

Finally, is it not clear that this difficult situation has been made more difficult in the last few weeks by the operation of the Industrial Relations Act? Is it not clear that the absurd antics that have taken place around the National Industrial Relations Court have not only been completely irrelevant to the solution of these complex and difficult problems but have made the task more difficult for those who have to try to find an answer to them?

No, I do not think that the operation of the Industrial Relations Act has in any way made the situation more difficult. As the right hon. Gentleman knows, the problem is twofold: one aspect is the situation in the docks, the other is the situation in the unions. It is a question of all of us co-operating. I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his support in helping the unions concerned to see that the time which could be devoted to a sensible and constructive attempt to resolve genuine problems in the docks is not wasted by industrial action on an occasion the immediate cause of which may be relatively trivial compared to the major problems, although being symptomatic of those major problems, but which has caused a good deal of quite understandable emotion on the part of dock workers.

The right hon. Gentleman is perfectly correct in suggesting that the problem is that of a rapid rundown of labour in the docks. This problem must be solved in a way which does not in any way make our ports generally less competitive. I am happy to say that that is the point of view of all concerned in the dispute.

Has the Minister heard the widespread opinion that the Government are not only speaking with two voices but that they have now apparently become multi-lingual? How does he reconcile the statement made to overseas bankers by the Chancellor of the Exchequer with the statement made by the Prime Minister calling on the trade unions for talks to set up some sort of conciliation agency?

Further, how does he reconcile all that with the situation at home where, on the one hand, he is saying to the railwaymen that they must disregard the advice given to them by their leaders that their shop stewards must not be listened to and that there is the voice of the rank and file ralwaymen, whilst on the other hand, he is perpetuating the idea within the Transport and General Workers' Union that the workers, particularly in the docks, must not now ignore the words of advice given by their leaders nationally?

A good deal of what the hon. Gentleman has said is entirely irrelevant to the docks dispute. If anyone was confused, I thought he sounded a little confused. The employers concerned, the union leaders and my Department are attempting to ensure that the union leadership and the employers can get together over a period, not long delayed but long enough, to reach some sort of indication of the lines on which these problems can be resolved. This co-operation is in an attempt to prevent our endeavours to make further progress being frustrated by industrial action.

I will, with permission, make a statement about the sale of Thomas Cook and Son Ltd.

The Transport Holding Company has completed its negotiations for the sale of Thomas Cook and Son Ltd. It has recommended that Cook's should be sold to the consortium of Midland Bank Ltd., Trust Houses Forte Ltd. and the Automobile Association Ltd. for £22·5 million.

The group satisfies the Government's main criteria of reputation, financial standing, experience in banking, travel and related fields. It intends to maintain and develop Cook's as a going concern. The group has willingly given the assurances required of it to safeguard the interests of the staff and has undertaken for a nominal consideration to indemnify the Transport Holding Company against any claims by staff for compensation under Section 2(4) of the Transport Holding Company Act, 1972.

I have therefore given my consent to the sale, final details of which were only settled yesterday afternoon.

Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that we on this side of the House have deplored throughout the Government's determination to press on with this doctrinaire, unnecessary and disruptive exercise at a time of great uncertainty in the travel trade business? Can he say how many concerns wished to purchase Thomas Cook & Sons, and if the consortium headed by B.O.A.C., B.E.A. and Barclays Bank was considered would it not have been desirable to have had a degree of public participation in this famous firm? Was the successful consortium required to give an undertaking that it would not dispose of any of the varied assets of Thomas Cook and that it will be left intact?

Whilst I am glad to note the assurances given regarding the safeguarding of the interests of the staff, may I ask whether anything has been done to impress upon the new owners the need to consult the employees' appropriate trade union, the Transport Salaried Staffs Association? Finally, could the right hon. Gentleman say what are the implications for Thomas Cook & Son's overseas staff?

I cannot say that the hon. Gentleman's various points have surprised me in the least. He has given me loud and frequent warning of them, particularly during the Committee stage. As to the point he makes about the consortium of which B.O.A.C. and B.E.A. were members, it was considered but that consortium was not the highest bidder. For the hon. Gentleman's information, it was the second highest bidder; the successful group made a considerably higher bid.

The whole of this negotiation was conducted by the Transport Holding Company advised by Schroder Wagg, and no one was treated in any way unfairly. I give the hon. Gentleman that absolute assurance.

As to retaining Thomas Cook in public ownership, this could be a very barren argument. I know that the hon. Gentleman finds it difficult to change his opinions in such matters, but I think that Thomas Cook has been condemned to the languor of public ownership for too long.

Is my right hon. Friend aware that there will be considerable relief that this decision has now been made, especially amongst the staff of Thomas Cook and Son? One would hope that the new consortium that is taking over will deal with the staff of this great company in the best way possible, ensuring them of a considerable future.

Secondly, there will be some interest in the fact that the Automobile Association is taking an interest in this company. The members of the Automobile Association will want assurances that it will not concentrate on travel at the expense of what it is really supposed to do, which is to look after its members, who have recently had their subscriptions increased.

Order. These are interesting observations, but the hon. Member is supposed to be asking a question.

I beg your pardon. Mr. Speaker.

Thirdly, in view of the fact that we have news this morning that American Express is taking a considerable interest which may eventually lead to the full takeover of a British travel organisation, would it not be an advantage if the Opposition allowed this new company to settle down and make progress since the competition internationally in this field is considerable and is growing?

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for the remarks with which he introduced his question. I am satisfied that the group intends to look after the best interests of the staff, and that it will be in close touch with the unions concerned.

With regard to the AA, it is entirely a matter for the AA to satisfy its own members as to the way in which it will perform its duties.

As to American Express, I do not think that that is a matter for me.

Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that his reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Leicester, North-East (Mr. Bradley) comes as no surprise? Although it may seem a small thing in the national economic setting, in the eyes of ordinary people it entirely fits in with their picture of the present Government as a greedy, grasping Government representing rich men. This smallish episode will be set against the two recent Budgets which have also followed that trend.

I hardly know how to comment upon the eloquence of the hon. Gentleman. I can only say that I hope he enjoys his holiday the better for having got rid of it.

Is the Minister aware of the commitment of a future Labour Government about non-payment of compensation? Has he informed the consortium involved and any interested parties about this commitment and its possible effect upon any price negotiations?

I do not doubt that the group concerned is just as aware as I am of the remote possibility of the kind of catastrophe which the hon. Gentleman has suggested.

I should like to raise two points of order with you, Mr. Speaker. The first relates to my attempt last night while you were in the Chair to raise the second point of order, to which I will come in a moment.

On the Order Paper yesterday there were two Motions in the names of the Government Whips relating to membership of two committees of the House. When the items came to be taken the Motions were not moved. I wish to raise a point of order concerning the propriety of the Motion dealing with membership of the Expenditure Committee, not the substance of it as it appeared on the Order Paper.

Last night I waited until what I conceived to be the right moment to do so namely when the Motion immediately before the one with which I was concerned had been disposed of. But the Government Whip immediately moved the Adjournment of the House, and so it seemed that in trying to raise my point of order I was doing so in the time allocated to the hon. Member who had the Adjournment debate, and you, Mr. Speaker, quite rightly preserved his rights by slapping me down, and I do not object to that.

I do not seek an answer to the matter but I ask you to consider whether something needs to be done about the difficulty experienced by an hon. Member who wishes to raise a point of order in these circumstances, when he must wait until a certain stage in order to raise it but as soon as that stage is reached it is past because the House has moved on to the Adjournment.

One way of dealing with it, I suggest, would be that the item on the Order Paper would be mentioned as it is sometimes in Committee. The Government would have to say "Not moved" and that would give an hon. Member who wanted to raise a point of order an opportunity of doing so.

My second point is not on the substance of the Motion which was on the Order Paper last night but on what I regard as a breach of the proprieties and courtesies of the House towards me. It was proposed in the Motion that I should be dismissed from a Committee of this House. I was not informed before the Motion was put on the Order Paper by whoever should have done so, nor I was informed after it had been put on the Order Paper of the means by which it was proposed that this action should he taken.

It could therefore quite well have happened that this went through the House without my knowing that it was going to happen or, at least, the manner in which it was going to happen. I direct at anyone who carries the responsibility for that the charge that this is a breach of the courtesies and proprieties of the House. I would ask you, Mr. Speaker, to lend your authority to that contention.

With regard to the first matter, the hon. Member is quite correct. I was curt with him last night because I wanted to protect the time of the hon. Member who had the Adjournment debate. I believe that the Chair must try very zealously to cherish that privilege when it is afforded to an hon. Member. I think that the first matter the hon. Member raised is perhaps a matter for consideration but I do not think it is a matter for me.

On the second point, I think it is much more a matter of convention or courtesy, and on one aspect of it I think that if the Government have decided not to move a particular Motion and the hon. Member is here he might be told beforehand if it is humanly possible to do so. I am obliged to the hon. Member.

If the British footwear industry was one which by lack of initiative, bad management, poor labour relations or a poor end-product was failing in its purpose to provide footwear I would not be supporting it this morning in my debate on its future. The simple facts are these. The industry is in general efficient and well-managed and it offers a wide range of footwear to the world in different styles and in different price ranges. It does not object to equitable competition. Like many other British industries, it welcomes fair competition. But to get the issues into perspective I shall quote a few detailed statistics and I express my appreciation of the assistance given to me by the British Footwear Manufacturers Association for supplying me so readily with many of the statistics.

In 1967 the industry produced 190·1 million pairs of shoes. Two years later it had reached a total of slightly over 200 million pairs. But by last year output had fallen to 192 million. In 1967 the industry was exporting 13·3 million pairs but we were importing 53·9 million pairs. We therefore had an adverse balance of slightly over 40 million pairs of shoes. Last year, in spite of strong competition from all over the world, we were able to increase our exports to a total of 20·4 million pairs of shoes, but imports increased also and they reached the level of 79·4 million pairs placing 59 million pairs of foreign shoes on the British market. In five years, therefore, shoe imports increased by 50 per cent. Sales on the domestic market expanded by only about 21 million pairs. This meant that imports accounted for 31·6 per cent. of the market, compared with less than 25 per cent. in 1967.

I now turn to the extremely critical situation which is revealed by production and import figures published by the Customs and Excise for the first quarter in 1972. If the trend that they reveal is allowed to continue the majority of British footwear manufacturers could be faced with bankruptcy. Their profit margins are already cut to the bone, and in the debate we had on the Rossendale footwear industry on 5th July, 1971, I said that the margin of profit on turnover was about 2 per cent. in that area and the returns on capital were between 7 and 7½ per cent. No firm could get fat on that.

I do not think it is out of order to refer to consumer protection as it applies to quality and suitability of certain types of footwear. British manufacturers have consistently maintained that it is essential for the public to be able to know the country of origin of shoes and other articles of footwear. Recent and exhaustive tests carried out by the Shoe and Allied Trades Research Association have indicated that large numbers of footwear samples coming into Britain are not up to standard, however attractive they may appear. The customer cannot determine the quality of footwear until it has been worn and tested for a certain period of time. The result is that a similar style of inferior quality can come on the market at either a substantially lower price or within an appreciably higher mark-up for the importer.

If we add to this the recent additions to the already extensive list of countries which are currently inundating—I did not say dumping—this country with footwear we find an increase in imports from 22,656,000 pairs valued at nearly £14½ million in 1971 to a total of over 29,603,000 valued at over £18½ million in the first three months of 1972. That means an increase of 31·8 per cent. in numbers in the 12-month period, and 29 per cent. by value, a fantastic figure. Imports into this country from Brazil have increased from 10,000 pairs in the period January-March, 1971, to 170,000 in the same period this year. Comparable figures are: Italy, from 3,706,000 to 4,748,000; Czechoslovakia, 379,000 to 615,000; and Spain, 722,000 to 985,000.

I could go on almost indefinitely. It is no help to any industry in this country that imports of that type should be perpetuated. I calculate that the output per person in the British industry, whether on production or staff, is about 2,000 pairs a year. If the ratio of imports in 1967 had been maintained through to 1971 and 1972, we should have been able to increase the number employed in the industry, if the same level of efficiency was maintained, by 13,000. Instead, I was told in a Written Answer on 4th May that there were 3,771 redundancies.

Along with the decline in numbers of people employed, there has been a decline to slightly over 500 in the number of firms manufacturing footwear or engaged in the industry. When I asked a Question about the issue of industrial development certificates to the industry I was told that over the period of five years only one firm in 13 had received an IDC. We do not know whether this was for expansion or whether it was for the replacement of old buildings.

What will be the future? All the best people these days use consultants. We heard about this in the debate on the steel industry on Tuesday. The footwear manufacturers brought in consultants to obtain an assessment of demand up to 1980. Their assessment is that the requirement for footwear in this country will increase by one-third in that period. Compared with 1971 production, this means that about 83 million more pairs of footwear will be bought by British people in this country over the next seven or eight years. That is a very tasty morsel for the importers, unless British firms are given the opportunity to compete on an equitable basis. We could say that we are giving away to other countries between 35,000 and 40,000 jobs which could well be used here, with a high degre of import-saving.

It is time we reviewed the masochistic policies the Government inherited from their predecessors. My right hon. Friend the Minister for Trade showed extreme courage in bringing in quotas and import tariffs for the textile industry. There is a great similarity between the textile industry's needs and those of the footwear industry. A precedent has been set. Let us see whether it can be followed.

I recently asked my right hon. Friend to tell me the countries from which we could obtain footwear in the United Kingdom. He replied:

"Footwear can be imported without restriction from all Commonwealth countries"—

I do not take issue with that—

"and also from all foreign countries except those comprising the Eastern Area. Imports from EFTA countries, the Irish Republic and developing countries benefiting from the United Kingdom's generalised system of tariff preferences are eligible for a nil rate of import duty…Imports from all other sources are dutiable at rates ranging from 4p to 20p per pair or 5 to 10 per cent. ad valorem. Our trade relations with most of these countries are subject to the provisions of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, the European Free Trade Area Convention and the Anglo-Irish Free Trade Association Agreement. Apart from detailed schedules for origin rules and duty rates in the Anglo-Irish Agreement, there are no specific references to footwear in these agreements."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 9th May, 1972; Vol. 836, c. 357.]

In other words, the industry in this country is open to competition irrespective of low wage rates elsewhere and the opportunity to obtain currency by subsidised exporting. That is the challenge which is being forced on the industry. I have already said that it welcomes fair competition, and it will continue to do so, but this cannot be considered as fair competition. It can be seen that I have gleaned from numerous Questions that we are just holding open house to all firms which wish to import by virtue of well-intentioned agreements and negotiations which we entered into over the years but which are now rebounding to our detriment.

I am not against helping the developing countries. I am all for it, but I fail to see why they should be helped at the expense of British employment and the British economy generally. My right hon. Friend's first step should be to advance to 31st December this year the UNCTAD agreement whereby footwear becomes exempted. Strong consideration should be given to a tariff, and a quota based upon 1967 figures should be applied.

It is not asking too much that the Government should provide the right climate for British footwear manufacturers to produce footwear on equal terms for British people. The Government should also provide the environment in which discerning footwear users in other parts of the world can take full advantage of the availability of good-quality British footwear at competitive prices.

Whilst I cannot completely support the hon. Member for Rossendale (Mr. Bray) in all that he said I can support his general case, and I congratulate him on having raised the difficulties of this very important industry. I share his concern for the future of the British footwear industry, an industry which is of great importance in the East Midlands.

I have sympathy with the hon. Member also because he comes from an area whence came an old friend of mine who was a shoe designer. He came to Leicester and became the General Secretary of the National Union of Boot and Shoe Operatives. As the hon. Gentleman very well knows, the footwear industry has a record of labour relations which is second to none. I do not think that there has been an official strike on the manufacturing side for well over 50 years. The man to whom I refer, and who died tragically in his early forties, was Richard Gregson, who came from the hon. Gentleman's constituency.

In reply to Questions put by the hon. Member a while ago, the Minister gave the information that in 1971 British footwear products enjoyed some 83 per cent. of our domestic retail trade. I find that a rather surprisingly high figure, though I am glad it is as high. Nevertheless, I find it very upsetting that Continental footwear, particularly French and Italian, commands such a large percentage of our domestic retail trad. I see that in 1971 the French and Italians together exported to this country no fewer than 13·6 million pairs of shoes, and that over the last five years their total export to the United Kingdom has been 45·6 million pairs.

I do not believe that the reason is that the Continental products are of better quality, though perhaps the British industry has been somewhat at fault, in slipping behind in design appeal, and in allowing, by lack of salesmanship and promotional activities, British women to believe that French and Italian footwear is superior in quality and fashion.

But I agree that the great threat to our own footwear industry comes from cheaper imported footwear, and it seems to me that the footwear manufacturers can blame for this state of affairs the main retailers. A very large percentage of footwear sold in our shops is sold through multiple shops. I should say that more than 80 per cent. of the footwear sold here is sold through the outlets of two huge combines. One is the British Shoe Corporation, moulded together by Sir Charles Clore, which in eludes Dolcis, Manfield, Freeman Hardy and Willis, and a number of other retail outlets. The other combine is that brought together by Sir Isaac Wolfson.

On our High Streets everywhere we find a number of names of footwear firms all of which are really one concern. The impression is given that there is a great deal of competition in the trade, whereas there is really very little competition. Again, because of the great number of firms operating the impression is given that there is great diversity of consumer choice, whereas there is very little such choice because in the main the products on sale in those shops are very similar. They may have a different presentation in one shop from another. or a different label, but they are largely the same product. Even in the private shops the goods are in many cases produced in the factories of the main multiples.

With an almost monopoly position on the retail side and the ownership of a percentage of the manufacturing side has come rationalisation of manufacturing and the closing of British footwear factories. The closing of the factories has come about because it is more profitable to sell in all those retail outlets cheaper foreign footwear than it is to employ British craftsmen to make better shoes. In these days of injection moulding much of the craftsmanship is disappearing, and this injection moulding process enables some of the countries to which the hon. Gentleman has referred to produce that cheaper kind of footwear without the need for the craftsmen whom we have had for so long.

I therefore feel that the squeeze on the manufacturers and the difficulties which the hon. Gentleman has outlined and stressed come largely from the monopoly multiples in the retail trade, which have almost a stranglehold on the manufacturing side. I hope that the hon. Gentleman, along with the representatives of the manufacturing side to whom he has referred, will look very closely at that position, and that the Minister will also be able to deal with what is virtually a monopoly situation.

I, too, congratulate the hon. Member for Rossendale (Mr. Bray) on raising this issue. In doing so, he has done a service not only to the footwear industry but, what is as equally important to me—and, I am sure, to him—to North-East Lancashire as a whole. Whilst Rossendale is perhaps the centre of the footwear industry in North-East Lancashire, it is by no means the only area which has many people working in that industry. Many of them work in my constituency, and also in the constituency of Burnley.

Whilst I do not wish to widen the debate, nor would I be permitted to do so, I may say that one of the problems in North-East Lancashire is that if an industry declines, if a factory closes, there is a marked tendency—and over the years the tendency has probably been more marked there than in any other region—for young people to leave the area and see work elsewhere, perhaps in the Midlands or in the South-East. As a result, North-East Lancashire has developed a distorted age structure. It has too high a proportion of old people, and a shortage of what I would call the people of working age. The obvious result is that the area tends to become debilitated.

As the Minister will know, I am due to meet him the week after next to dicuss the position of North-East Lancashire and, in particular, a factory closure in my area involving some 300 people. I certainly do not expect him to comment on that matter now, but one of the results of the decline of basic industries such as footwear and textiles upon which North-East Lancashire has depended for so long has been an extra need for help to bring in alternative industry.

One of the matters on which I would like to draw out the Minister, although I do not expect a definite answer now, is whether, because other areas in North-East Lancashire have now become intermediate areas, North-East Lancashire should not become a full development area. For a long time the reason why we have given intermediate area status was to attract new industries through special inducements. Now that the rest of Lancashire has been given intermediate status—I do not complain about that: I am not so parochial—the special reasons for coming to North-East Lancashire do not exist.

One of the problems that North-East Lancashire has to face is the challenge from the new central Lancashire town, which I am rather surprised to discover, contrary to what we have been told, is also to be given intermediate area status. We were always led to believe, even those of us who were not hostile to this new town, that the old areas were to have intermediate area status and special help which was not to be given to the new town because it would act as a magnet and draw away young people, further debilitating the old areas in Lancashire.

Returning to the main theme of the debate, the footwear industry, I was interested to hear the hon. Member refer to what he called a consumer protection issue. He was right to do so. While I welcome the modest measures in the new Trade Descriptions Act, of which I was a sponsor, I have always felt that the Act should have gone a little further. I would like to see it made obligatory for all goods which enter this country unmarked and which could lead people to believe they were made in Britain to have a special mark put upon them. In North-East Lancashire, and of course elsewhere, people believe that when a product has no mark on it it is made in this country. They also believe that when goods are made in this country they are of a higher quality. This is not always the case, but it is frequently and is certainly so in the footwear industry. If such an order were introduced it would assist people to know what they were buying.

I have always been anti-protectionist and would not argue a protectionist case here, but if the British footwear industry is to survive it must be guaranteed a fair share of the home market. As with the textile industry, so with the footwear industry; one of the reasons for its decline is that it has over the years lost more and more of the staple home market, which has led to the need for special assistance.

The whole House will be grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Rossendale (Mr. Bray) for raising this subject and for the constructive manner in which he has again initiated what has been a fairly wide-ranging debate on this important subject. He speaks with considerable authority on this subject and his constituents are very much concerned with the industry. I am likewise grateful to the hon. Member for Nottingham, North (Mr. Whitlock) and the hon. Member for Accrington (Mr. Arthur Davidson) for contributing to the debate.

May I say first to the hon. Member for Accrington, who rather widened the debate into general regional policy, that it would probably be inappropriate in this debate if I were to indulge in a long dissertation upon boundaries and the status of certain areas. I understand his point and I look forward to discussing the matter with him. We shall also be discussing this in the light of the Industry Bill now going through the House and the White Paper on regional policies. I am however grateful to the hon. Member for alerting us to the sort of points he will be making.

This is an important subject. As my hon. Friend has said, there are approximately 100,000 employed in it and in 1971 it had an output of £294 million. We should not overlook the substantial export element in the industry which in 1971 amounted to £36 million or about 12½ per cent. of output. There has been a fairly substantial rise recently in exports.

My hon. Friend touched upon some of the difficulties being encountered by the industry in the debate he raised before the Summer Adjournment in July last year, and again today he has drawn particular attention to the impact of our trading policy on the industry. The manufacture of boots and shoes has traditionally been an industry with relatively small firms. While there are some larger enterprises this is still the broad picture today. The industry is concentrated in a number of traditional areas and the constituencies of my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich, South (Dr. Stuttaford) and of my hon. Friend the Member for Rossendale are good examples. Hon. Members opposite will realise that it is very much a localised industry. In these areas it is a source of particular local pride as well as being a large employer of labour.

I endorse everything that has been said by the hon. Member for Nottingham, North about the excellent industrial relations that have prevailed for a long time in the industry. Would that others would emulate! This industry like other industries has seen changes in recent years. There have been changes in techniques. materials, working conditions and in the market and its demands. This has called for adjustments in traditional ideas of what to make and where to sell it.

In this industry as much as in any other, flexibility—I do not refer to the goods themselves—is needed above all in the mind of management at all levels. Change is a fact of industrial and commercial life and the greatest rewards always go to those who welcome what change has to offer. This means identifying the best market opportunities and specialising in meeting them. There is a marked trend in British shoe production towards higher quality. British craftsmanship married to modern techniques and good quality materials commands respect in the home and export markets. Above all, design must never stand still. This is most important because the product is more and more a fashion product. As my hon. Friend said, the market for footwear is highly competitive at home and abroad. There is no substitute for unremitting attention to the needs of the market and specialising in meeting them.

The hon. Member for Nottingham, North devoted his speech primarily to the question of multiple retailers or distributors who are concentrated in small or very large groups whereas the manufacturers are dispersed. The implication of his speech was that this caused competition difficulties and put burdens on the manufacturer and involved consequent difficulties for the consumer. I note what the hon. Gentleman said. Retailers are influential and they have perhaps rationalised faster than the manufacturers.

The problem is that the retail multiples, in taking over retail firms, also took over a fairly large portion of the manufacturing side, and it was on the manufacturing side that rationalisation had taken place and British footwear factories closed because cheap, foreign footwear was being sold in British shops.

I appreciate that. A certain degree of rationalisation must be expected in an industry whose history has been so diverse and diffuse. However, there is a greater variety of retail outlets —multiples, independents and mail order firms—than perhaps the hon. Gentleman suggests, which is in the interest of the consumer. The hon. Gentleman perhaps exaggerated a little about the damaging nature of monopolies. However, I understand his point and we shall certainly consider it. We have power to deal with excessive monopolies.

My hon. Friend the Member for Rossendale devoted his speech to our trading policies. Successive British Governments over many years, have pursued policies designed to expand world trade. It is of vital importance to the United Kingdom, with its high dependence on exports, that other countries' markets should be open to us. The hon. Member for Accrington indicated that he accepted this. These liberal trade policies have not been pursued without reasonable regard for the domestic industry, and they create opportunities for that industry to export.

There is a big opportunity coming up. Britain's entry into the European Economic Community next January will lead to the progressive dismantling of tariffs and should stimulate trade in both directions. It will soon give British footwear manufacturers entry on equal terms to a market of another 200 million people —or 400 million feet—which represents a lot of shoes.

Does my hon. Friend agree that the EEC countries have greater protection from UNCTAD and that we should come into line with them so that we may compete equally with them?

My hon. Friend has slightly anticipated what I was about to say. I shall come to that aspect of the matter in a moment.

The British footwear industry, with its long tradition of craftsmanship and quality and its experience of selling in overseas markets, is well placed to take advantage of this potential demand. Equally there are footwear industries in the Six—and my hon. Friend the Member for Rossendale cited some of them—which already have very good markets here and will be intent on expanding them.

My right hon. Friend the Minister for Trade was, I know, impressed when he met members of the British Footwear Manufacturers Federation during their export conference last December. It was an extremely interesting conference at which there were people from the Six concerned with the trade. They applied their minds particularly to the prospects and challenge of British entry into the EEC. I believe that the majority of the industry has taken the realistic attitude that, while there may be some initial problems of adjustment, there remain good long-term prospects, particularly for firms which respond positively and make the most of these new opportunities.

I should like to quote what Mr. Tusa, who was then the president of the British Footwear Manufacturers Federation, said at the conference when he referred to West German competition:

"West Germany will be a tough nut to crack but we have cracked much tougher nuts in the world, and I assure you we are going to do it when the time comes".

That shows the right spirit; it is the spirit in which the industry is approaching entry to the EEC.

I turn to the question of UNCTAD and the generalised system of preferences. I know that those in the footwear industry were apprehensive about the adoption of that system. I and my colleagues received a number of representations, and we understood that they were genuinely felt. There was a debate in the House on this matter as recently as 8th December to which my right hon. Friend the Minister for Trade replied. Perhaps I can usefully reiterate what we have said with regard to the safegards of our scheme.

The United Kingdom has given the developing countries an opportunity which they should use. But we have reserved the right to withdraw or modify these tariff preferences if we find that imports benefiting from them are causing or threatening to cause serious injury to a British industry producing like or directly competitive goods. I assure the House that we shall deal quickly and flexibly with requests from industry for safeguard action. We would not wait until a flood of imports had caused serious injury. We can and will act if the footwear or any other industry shows that serious injury is threatened. But we must have the evidence. Therefore, the industry should continue its close contact with my Department. I am sure that it will alert us as fully as possible to any dangers in that respect.

My hon. Friend referred to the question of advancing the date of the UNCTAD scheme. I am not sure that I fully understood his point but, if he wishes to know why we shall not adopt the EEC system of tariff quotas until early in 1974, I am advised that this is because we first require the necessary legal powers and administrative machinery. We decided that it would be better to arrange for these when we aligned with the EEC.

My hon. Friend also implied that damage was already being caused by unfair competition from imports. I must make clear that the fact that imports are cheap is not in itself a sufficient ground for complaint. I think the majority of consumers would share that view. But if there is firm evidence of unfair competition I shall be glad to examine it. As my hon. Friend will know, the Customs Duties (Dumping and Subsidies) Act, 1969, empowers my Department to take action against dumping if it is causing or threatening material injury to British producers and if it would be in the national interest to do so. As far as I am aware, no application has been made in the last two or three years for an anti-dumping order.

My hon. Friend the Member for Rossendale and the hon. Member for Accrington referred to the Trade Descriptions Act and the problems of marking. The old orders under the Merchandise Marks Act, 1926, lapsed because of a provision in the Trade Descriptions Act, 1968, that they should continue only for a further three years. They were regarded internationally as non-tariff barriers to trade, and their continuation would have been contrary to our support of GATT and EFTA recommendations that compulsory origin marking should be kept to a minimum. My Department has power to make new orders, but only in the interest of the consumer, not simply to protect the industry.

The Trade Descriptions Bill now before Parliament should go some way to meeting the industry's desire for origin marking since if a United Kingdom firm's name or mark is applied to imported goods it will have to be accompanied by a conspicuous indication of origin. Its basic purpose——

Is my hon. Friend aware that there are definite instances in this country where British footwear manufacturers put "British made" on their products and the retailers advised them that that was unacceptable?

I must confess I have not had before me specific examples of that. I shall be glad to look at them if they are brought to my attention.

The basic purpose of the Bill, as I was saying, is to ensure that the use of a United Kingdom name or mark in imported goods will not mislead the consumer into believing that the goods are of United Kingdom origin. Certainly any misleading use of a United Kingdom name or mark would be just as well countered by the use of the word "Imported" as by a precise indication of origin, and it cannot, therefore, be said that the purpose will be less fully served.

My hon. Friend also made reference to industrial development certificates and indicated that only one footwear manufacturer in 13 had been granted IDCs over the last five years. I think he probably had in mind the figures I gave him in an answer to a Question on 5th May. These showed that in that period industrial development certificates issued to footwear manufacturers for schemes of 10,000 sq. ft. and over totalled 42, and I take it that the point my hon. Friend was making was that he wished there had been more. I hope he was not implying by his one-in-13 formula that new building development in the footwear industry had been held back by the IDC policy.

I can give an assurance on that.

I am grateful, because I wanted to assure my hon. Friend that in the footwear industry the IDC policy operates on exactly the same terms as it does in any other industry. Perhaps my hon. Friend will look at the White Paper on our regional policy, which indicates not only a change in areas but, as the hon. Member for Accrington knows very well, also a liberalisation and relaxation of IDC policy.

Would my hon. Friend agree that there are many shoe factories not in development areas but in other areas which also need development, and that some of the factories may have to close because of foreign competition and cheap labour and that IDCs are being refused, so that it is not possible to offer alternative work to the men discharged from the shoe factories? Yesterday a manufacturer in Norfolk came to see me because he had been refused an IDC. Would my hon. Friend agree that this is quite wrong? If we are to close shoe factories because of foreign cheaper labour and foreign competition we must give alternative employment to our people.

Yes, although I think it would be dangerous if I got into a debate on regional policy in general. I have resisted the temptation to get into such a debate now. Nevertheless IDC policy has to be seen in relation to the broader industrial consequences to the country rather than in relation to just one particular industry. In order to sustain regional policy we need the stick as well as the carrot, and the stick is IDC policy. We have to have regard to the fact that there are many areas, I say with great respect to my hon. Friends, which have greater difficulties and more difficult levels of unemployment than his area. Therefore, it is naturally important that we should encourage through our IDC policy firms which wish to expand to expand in the first instance in development or assisted areas.

Having said that, I may add that I am sure my hon. Friend the Member for Rossendale will be very pleased to know that we find ourselves able, as he will know from the White Paper, to liberalise and relax our IDC policy, and this will be helpful for certain limited diversification in his area as in other areas as well. Certainly I do not believe that the footwear industry need feel that it is unduly impeded by reason of our IDC policy.

My hon. Friend also referred to the decline in employment opportunities in the industry and the lack of development generally. While I think I have made it clear that I do not entirely accept his diagnosis, the steps we have taken in international trade terms, as I think is clear to him—and I would like to emphasise to the House the Government's latest package of measures designed to stimulate industrial development and regeneration—should have a twofold effect on firms in the footwear industry. First of all, directly, there are the new incentives to investment in the form of tax allowances and regional development grants. Secondly, indirectly, the measures we have taken in recent months will be a boost to consumption generally and that in itself will, I believe, stimulate demand for footwear, and footwear of good quality, to which increasingly the industry must direct its mind.

I know that this industry has its problems and its worries. My hon. Friend and hon. Gentlemen opposite are prefectly right to draw attention to them. Equally the industry has great qualities and very great potential. I believe the industry is in good heart, as I know from what I saw of its conference last year, and I am confident that, with its traditions and high reputation and with the encouragement and help of our present policies, it will be able to face the challenges which lie ahead. I believe a successful future is well within its grasp.

This debate on the dispute which is taking place at Barrow-in-Furness between Vickers and the boilermakers may be overlapping a very important debate which is taking place in Barrow. I understand that currently the boilermakers are holding a mass meeting. While we may be separated from them by 300 geographical miles, I hope we shall be united with them in our concern that everything said at both these meetings will be towards seeking a constructive solution to the problem.

The difficulty which I face in seeking to present an account of the dispute between Vickers and the Amalgamated Society of Boilermakers, Shipwrights, Blacksmiths and Structural Workers which will be accepted as fair by the groups most intimately concerned is a measure of the low level of industrial relations which exists, and is a guide to the bitterness which this dispute has engendered.

On 31st December last year a wages agreement, which covered virtually all craftsmen working at Vickers, Barrow, was terminated. It was an agreement reached to operate over a period, and, therefore, its termination was properly anticipated. As was previously agreed, negotiations began in October, 1971, to seek agreement on wage rates to commence to operate from 1st January of this year. In the course of these negotiations the management made an offer to all the craft unions of an increase of £1·75 per week. Mr. Redshaw, the Chairman of Vickers Shipbuilding Group, stated that during December the firm was faced with a 21 per cent. increase in its wages bill as a result of a national agreement. It is the contention of the boilermakers, as expressed by Mr. Proudfoot, the district delegate of the Boilermakers' Society, that this agreement consolidated at £19 a time rate which had previously been £17·50, and in no way increased the weekly wage of any of the members of the Boilermakers' Society. He says that the only effect of this national agreement was on holiday credits and overtime premium.

The 1st January came and went without agreement being reached with any of the unions. In the first week of January the craft unions working at Vickers at Barrow decided to exercise the right not to work overtime until meaningful talks were held upon their wages claim. I understand that the management would contest the craftsmen's assertion that they have the right not to work overtime. The position was put to me by the Chairman of Vickers Shipbuilding Group that the craftsmen were bound by the terms of the previous wages agreement which made the payment of £2·50 dependent upon conditions, including their waiving their right not to work overtime.

On 11th February an agreement was reached with the majority of the Confederation unions. Two unions did not reach agreement—the Boilermakers' Society, representing boilermakers, shipwrights, blacksmiths and structural workers, and the ASTMS, representing the foremen at the works. The agreement was to pay the £1·75 per week retrospectively to 1st January. This was not regarded as a final settlement either by management or by unions. It was under stood that a substantial increase would be offered by the management in the near future, subject to conditions, mainly of productivity and flexibility. On the same day the district delegate of the Boilermakers' Society registered a failure to agree at works conference level with Vickers Shipbuilders and requested a local conference as the next step in procedure. Simultaneously, he requested a works conference at Vickers Engineering Works. So, although negotiations had proceeded from October it was not until February that the boilermakers abandoned the possibility of resolving the matter locally and resorted to the next stage of the procedure agreement.

On 14th February an internal memorandum was issued by Vickers senior management on industrial relations and administration, stating that the boilermakers had rejected the offer of £1·75 per week and that, on the basis that full co-operation was not being resumed, the bonus payment of £2·50 was to be withdrawn with effect from 13th February. I must make it absolutely clear that the Boilermakers' Society would object strongly to the terms of that internal memorandum and would not accept that full co-operation had been withdrawn, but I am trying to present the case so that it can be fairly seen that there were differences. I am not seeking to judge on those differences at this juncture.

By 17th February, Mr. Cooper, the Deputy Industrial Relations Director at the shipbuilding works, had replied to the boilermakers' request for a local conference but said that the procedure could not be implemented while the current ban on overtime remained effective. He then, on 17th February, informed the union officially of the withdrawal of the £2·50 payment as from the previous Sunday. The position was then that the firm had reduced the payment made to the boilermakers by £2·50 a week on the grounds that the boilermakers were not fully co-operating with the firm and that they were still bound by the conditions attached to the payment of £2·50. The contention of the boilermakers—and, I understand, the Barrow unions generally —would be that they would regard the terms to which they were bound by the £2·50 agreement as having in the main expired with the end of the general agreement on 31st December.

In the last two days the firm may have offered to pay that £2·50 retrospectively if there is a return to work. I hope, therefore, that this element of disagreement has been removed, but this remains to be confirmed.

On 24th February a meeting was held between the union and the engineering works management, and on 28th February there was a meeting between the union and the management of the shipyard at local conference level. The management was not prepared to increase the offer of £1·75, and a failure to agree was registered. The boilermakers then proceeded to the final stage in the procedure agreement.

At national conference they were represented by Mr. Dan McGarvey, who is known throughout the industry as an able negotiator. However, the outcome of the conference was a further failure to agree. The Boilermakers' Society members in Barrow then refused to do work other than their own on the grounds that management was not paying the £2·50 flexibility agreement money and that the management was not prepared to negotiate a reasonable settlement.

I am reluctant to talk about the terms of the withdrawal of the £2·50 because the management might be prepared to reach an agreement on this point and pay back the money. Speaking of the circumstances at the time as stated to me by the boilermakers there was full cooperation in the works between boilermakers and management because of a peculiar outside factor which had intervened; namely, the power cuts. In the week in which the £2·50 was withdrawn the works was able to operate only on three days. It might not, therefore, be surprising in these special conditions that there was full co-operation and at least a willingness to work overtime on the only three days on which an opportunity to do so presented itself.

However, I will not trust my own words to report to the House of Commons what happened as a result of that failure to agree in London. I trust rather the words of two of the principal representatives concerned.

On 28th March the management wrote to the Boilermakers' Society in the following terms, the letter having been signed by Mr. Gilchrist, Senior Manager, Industrial Relations and Administration, Barrow Shipbuilding Works, under the heading "Boilermakers' Work to Rule":

"We wish to refer to the work to rule which was reimposed by the members of the Boilermakers Society on Friday, 24th March. following the central conference in London on 23rd March.

"In our letter to you dated 16th March we pointed out that efforts had been made to find alternative employment for welders who refused to carry out self-service in the way of knobbing and pre-heating operations. This situation has steadily deteriorated since the reimposition. We must advise you therefore that if welders continue to refuse to carry out their own knobbing, we will have no alternative work on which to employ them.

"This position is being carefully watched. but we anticipate that from tomorrow onwards men will be sent home unless there is a change of attitude towards self-service, which we hope at this late hour will prevail. An opportunity was taken yesterday to advise the shop stewards of the position. They will also be kept informed when it is necessary for men to be sent home."

The district delegate of the Boilermakers' Society replied on 29th March in the following terms:

"In reply to your letters…in which you threaten to send home some of my welder members for refusing to do the caulkers' work of knobbing and pre-heating, this is a rather blatant attempt to coerce my members and if carried out would obviously provoke an already delicate situation, instead of attempting to resolve the matter round the negotiating table.

You must have expected some reaction after you had the criminal audacity to reduce my members' wages by knocking off the bonus payments and now because my welder members are carrying out their own work instead of the caulkers' work as well. you endeavour to use this flimsy excuse that there is no alternative work. There is no need for alternative work, let the caulkers do their own work in servicing the welder and there is nothing to stop the job proceeding.

If you carry out this threat you can only expect a further reaction from the men, and surely it is much better to meet round the conference table and settle our wage difference."

That was signed by Mr. Proudfoot, district delegate of the Boilermakers' Society.

In my opinion it was clear that any further action which would intensify the dispute would be like to spark to tinder. A foreman nevertheless instructed a welder to carry out this work which the boilermakers regard as caulkers' work, and the man was sent home.

On 11th April the shop stewards met the management and asked them to reconsider the position. The request of the stewards was refused on the ground that the management was not prepared to pay individuals if they were not prepared to do assigned work available. I choose my words carefully because I am apprehensive about the feelings which have been engendered by the action which has been taken. The management indicated that other men would be affected in the same way.

When the stewards reported what had happened to the men there was a walkout. The men were persuaded to return, but on their return they exercised a sit-in. It was hoped that even the reason could have prevailed and terms found in which work could have been restored to normal. However, the facts of the situation are that the men's time cards were withdrawn from the clocks by the management.

On 12th April a letter was sent by the Deputy Industrial Relations Director at the Barrow Shipbuilding Works to the Boilermakers' Society stating that the shop stewards had been informed on 11th April that no payment would be made to Boilermakers' Society members attending the works on the afternoon of 11th April, that pay would be deducted from 11 a.m. on that date, that any member entering the works without authority would be considered as a trespasser, and that management would accept no responsibility for any injury or illness arising from attendance at work. The management also in that letter alleged that there had been sabotage of equipment.

The boilermakers took the view that they had been locked out and decided to stay out until proper negotiations commenced. From then to the present day no member of the Boilermakers' Society has worked at Vickers, Barrow.

In two Questions which I tabled to the Minister of Defence in this House I referred to the lockout of boilermakers. The Minister objected to my use of the term, as did the Chairman of the Vickers Shipbuilding Group. I have placed on record the facts which led me to choose that term; namely, that the men's clocking in cards had been withdrawn, that their pay had been stopped, that men would be regarded as trespassers and that no insurance cover would be provided. If I could by taking back either that phrase or a thousand other words which I have spoken on this subject bring a settlement one minute nearer, I should gladly do so.

In the meantime the dispute between the foremen and the firm proceeded and on 10th April the foremen voted to support an immediate overtime ban and gave the company a month's notice of further industrial action. I am glad to say that before further action was finally decided upon the management agreed to meet the foremen as represented by ASTMNS in meaningful negotiations.

On 8th May, while the boilermakers were still out in dispute, the Vickers shipyard unions were offered by the management a sum of £5 a week under the terms of what has become known locally as the "Continental agreement". The agreement had two components: first, a £3·50 sum in terms of flexibility and productivity arrangements; and a sum of £1·50 contingent upon certain good timekeeping conditions. Until this moment no agreement has been reached on that matter with any of the yard unions.

On 16th May the management announced that it intended to shut the firm on 5th June. The day after that it was reported in the local Press that the Vickers Shipbuilding Group profits had increased by £400,000. Furthermore, Lord Robens in the company's annual report stated:

"Barrow Shipyard's continued success rests to a large extent on good sense and good will in industrial relations."

As if to underline the irony of the situation the May issue of Link, a publication produced by the Vickers Shipbuilding Group, contained an item on the back page under the heading "Do you communicate?" It began by saying

"There is so much emphasis in this en lightened age on efficient and effective communication that we thought we would produce a check list…".

The checks suggested were as follows:

"Do you make an effort to transmit your ideas to other people? Does the other person receive the message? Does the recipient understand the message?… If the recipent does understand the message, does he also make an effort to transmit his ideas back to you?… If he replies, do you receive a reply?…Assuming you have received a reply. do you understand it?"

The item ends:

"All six parts of the communication process outlined above must work perfectly before there is any communication at all. Well…do you communicate?"

In this instance, communications seem to be essential. The fact that that appeared in the Vickers' review in May must have been entirely coincidental. However, it is not without relevance to the situation.

Mr. Redshaw, the Chairman of Vickers Shipbuilding Group, stated that on 15th May there was a further increase in his wage bill resulting from the Confederation national agreement. However, the boilermakers say that this is entirely the consolidation of existing payments and in no way affects the rates of their members.

On 19th May it was announced locally in Barrow that 8,500 of the 13,000 work force of the shipyard were to be laid off on 5th June. This will result in an estimated minimum of £60,000 a week being paid out in unemployment benefit, and the Minister will appreciate the additional work involved for the local office of his Department in that.

On 22nd May the Vice-President of the Boilermakers' Society, Mr. John Dennett, and Mr. John Murray, an executive council member, travelled to Barrow for talks with union members and the management. It is, I hope, common ground between the two sides in the dispute that the failure to reach an agreement was in no way due to any lack of effort on the part of Mr. Dennett and Mr. Murray.

I hope that that will be accepted as a fair account of what has taken place in the dispute.

It has been contended that the boilermakers should be prepared to accept what other unions in the yard have accepted already and that they should rely upon the so-called continental agreement to lift their wages to a more acceptable level. They are opposed—as other unions are, though possibly less strenuously—to having such a high percentage of their wages dependent upon this interchangeability agreement. The Boilermakers' Society contends that it has a greater problem than other unions. This is one of the results of amalgamation. The pressures for amalgamation are considerable, but one of the results flowing from it is that people in many different trades come under one set of negotiations and under one group of representatives. In the case of the boilermakers the society's district delegate is representing men on basic wage scales ranging from £19 to £29 a week. It is not surprising that there are difficulties in maintaining a flexibility agreement over a range like that.

I am certain that in other areas of employment if highly trained and qualified men were asked to work flexibility arrangements they would look askance at the prospect of changing jobs even for limited periods. If, for example, a Q.C. were asked to allow a junior clerk in a solicitor's office to take over his job for a short period under a flexibility agreement he would look askance at the suggestion. If any Member of this House were wheeled into the operating theatre of a hospital to be told that the hospital was short of surgeons but that under a flexibility agreement a man who normally worked on boiler maintenance would be carrying out the operation that hon. Member would look askance at the suggestion.

There must be a limit to any flexibility agreement which affects working efficiency. That is not to deny, of course, that the unions also use the division of craft skills as a basis of negotiation for the wages and conditions of their members. But it must be realised that in shipyards and engineering works such as Vickers some very highly skilled and sophisticated work is done. I cannot envisage a general shipyard worker who is able to do every job in the yard. Therefore, there has to be sensible discussion about the limits of interchangeability.

It is also held by the Boilermakers' Society that even with the full benefits of the Continental agreement they will still not receive rates such as those being paid for less sophisticated work at Austin and Pickersgills, where some wages are as high as £42 a week.

Finally, to indicate the impact that this threatened closure will have on my constituents, I draw attention to the fact that in the Barrow travel-to-work area, which takes in Barrow, Dalton, Grange-over-Sands and Ulverston, there are about 41,000 registered employed persons. The immediate effect of the closure would be that 8,500 people would become unemployed—20 per cent. of the work force—at a stroke, to use an unfortunate phrase. That would increase quickly to 13,000 if the closure continued, and that number would represent 31 per cent. of the work force. Those percentages take account of the whole travel-towork area, but the Minister will appreciate that the majority of those who work at Vickers, Barrow, live in Barrow and, therefore, that the effect on Barrow will be proportionately greater.

It must be understood that any attempt to force groups of men in our work-oriented society to accept uniformity of conditions and rating is bound for a long time to be met with strong resistance. In industrial towns which are geographically isolated men are identified by their jobs. A man regards himself as a boilermaker, as a shipwright, as a blacksmith or as a draughtsman. If a man is asked what he is he does not say that he is a Catholic, a Protestant, a father or a football fan. He says that he is a shipwright or a joiner. This is a work-oriented society, and it is a problem of a work-oriented society with which we are dealing. I hope that there will be no criticism of those involved in this dispute on the ground that it is unreasonable to protect craft divisions in this era.

One of the great tragedies of the situation is that, despite the length of time that this dispute has taken to develop to its present tragic juncture, and despite the large amount of Government work involved at Vickers, Barrow, as yet there has been no recourse to the hon. Gentleman's Department by the parties concerned for conciliation. I believe that the reason for this is to be found in the atmosphere which has been created by the Industrial Relations Act. I know by talking to trade unionists concerned that they are reluctant even to begin considering using the facilities of the Ministry in an attempt to solve this dispute. They fear that it will lead them into the troubles that have beset other unions which have been taken to the National Industrial Relations Court.

Not unreasonably, my constituents expect the Government to show some concern about this dispute. They expect it because of the terrible social and economic consequences which it will have if it proceeds to the point of works closure. They expect it because they are all very conscious of the product of Vickers and of the fact that it is produced largely with the Government as a customer.

I very much hope that the Under-Secretary, in replying, will be able to reflect that concern which my constituents rightly expect and, in doing so, will be able to give some assurances that at least some of the facilities of his Department can be offered in such a way that no fears need be experienced by those to whom they are offered of detrimental effects on trade unionists concerned, and that, therefore, he may be able to play some part in bringing an end to the dispute.

I share the deep concern of the hon. Member for Barrow-in-Furness (Mr. Booth) about the possible consequences of this continuing dispute in his constituency. I know that there is great anxiety in the town of Barrow about the future and about the possible hardship which may have to be faced not only by the workers affected but by their families and, indeed, the whole of the local community.

I hope that the House will understand that I am in a difficult position, obviously, in replying to the debate. I do not want to say anything which might in any way prejudice the prospects of a settlement. But perhaps it would be helpful to the House if I gave an account of the events which have led to the present situation, as my Department understands them, despite the fact that the hon. Gentleman has covered much of the ground in a very competent way.

Vickers employs over 13,000 workers in Barrow, of whom over 5,000 are in the engineering division and over 8,000 in the ship-building division. The economy of the town, as many of us know, is largely dependent on the fortunes of the company. Vickers provides about 75 per cent. of the male jobs in manufacturing industry in the town.

The present dispute has its roots in claims for substantial increases in pay presented to the company towards the end of last year by several unions representing the employees at Barrow. A number of package deals on pay and productivity were concluded with the unions during 1969, and these were due to end on 31st December last year. With the approach of the terminal date of those agreements, claims for substantial increases in pay were made to the company in October. During negotiations an "across-the-board" offer to all unions was made of an increase of £1·75 a week, representing an average increase of about 6 per cent. An agreement giving a similar increase was at that time concluded with the technical and supervisory section of the Amalgamated Union of Engineering Workers representing draughtsmen employed at the shipyard and the engineering works. The company's offer did not prove acceptable to the manual workers' unions.

Last December the district committee of the Confederation of Shipbuilding and Engineering Unions considered the company's refusal to improve on its offer and called for the imposition of an overtime ban. The ban was introduced from 1st January and the unions declared their intention of continuing it until immediate and meaningful talks were agreed to by the company. Some 12,000 employees were involved.

Vickers had made it clear at the time that the offer could not be increased unless the unions were prepared to offer greater flexibility and that it was always ready to negotiate further on this basis. During January it wrote to the Confederation of Shipbuilding and Engineering Unions warning it that unless the overtime ban was lifted a £2·50 a week "co-operation bonus" which was paid in return for freedom from industrial disputes, as I understand it, would be withdrawn from the end of that month.

During the last week of January some of the unions involved notified the company of their acceptance of the offer and withdrew their ban on overtime, but on 4th February the National Society of Boilermakers rejected the company's offer.

Five days later—at a meeting of the Confederation of Shipbuilding and Engineering Unions—all unions with the exception of the National Society of Boilermakers reported their acceptance of the company's offer. However, the boilermakers made it plain that they were prepared to go it alone. At this stage the company informed the unions that continuation of industrial action could jeopardise the efficient operation of the yards and might lead to the closing down of production facilities.

The company then decided to withdraw the "co-operation bonus" in respect of those workers who were continuing to ban overtime—action which had begun a month earlier.

I will now turn to the events of 10th and 11th April when the dispute escalated sharply. One aspect of the general withdrawal of co-operation by the members of the Boilermakers' Society was their refusal to use certain technical processes. On 10th April the refusal by a welder to perform certain work led to his suspension. A "sit-in" during the afternoon of that day by members of the Boilermakers' Society in protest at the suspension was followed by a strike. The hon. Gentleman referred to it as a lock-out and I will not argue about that. But I understand that, certainly technically, this could be described as a strike. Anyway, it was followed by a strike by 1,200 members of the society from the following day, when the company informed them that they would be allowed to resume work only if prepared to work normally. The present stoppage has continued from that time.

On 5th May the company wrote to members of all manual unions giving details of its proposals for a new longterm package deal which had been evolved from a study of European shipyards. The package offered further very substantial increases in pay in return for agreement on certain conditions relating to flexibility and modernisation and, in addition, a bonus for good timekeeping.

The company's proposals for a longterm agreement have not so far found favour with the members of the Boilermakers' Society. As I understand it, the company's offer to the boilermakers at that time was that they should accept the present £1·75 wage increase which had been accepted by the other unions, return to normal working, and enter into negotiations on the long-term package.

On 16th May the company issued a warning to the Confederation of Shipbuilding and Engineering Unions that it would be forced to close the engineering works from 5th June unless normal working was resumed by that date.

Further discussions have taken place during this week between the company and the Boilermakers' Society. I understand that certain proposals were put to representatives of the society on Monday and that these have been clarified at a meeting between the company and the society as recently as yesterday afternoon. As the hon. Member said, a mass meeting of the union has been taking place this morning, but as yet I have had no report of its outcome.

My Department is closely following the course of the dispute and, as the hon. Member said, although there has been no request for assistance from either side, one of our officers has had the opportunity of informal discussion with both the company and the society in the course of the last few days. Although our conciliators usually become involved in a dispute in response to requests from one side or the other, they do not exclude the possibility of intervening on their own initiative when it seems this would be appropriate in the light of the circumstances and would also be acceptable to the parties.

I do not accept what the hon. Gentleman said about the Industrial Relations Act and the present atmosphere. But perhaps we should be getting a little wide of the mark if we embarked on a discussion of that at this stage. But I ask the hon. Gentleman to accept from me that there are still many instances of useful conciliation and help which my Department can extend and which have been accepted in the post-Industrial Relations Act period.

Having considered all the relevant aspects that have occurred, our officers have concluded that in the present circumstances of this dispute—I emphasise the present circumstances—it would not be helpful for them to try to intervene. One of the factors that they had in mind was the difference in approach between the various unions involved. In the light of the hon. Member's concern I have again considered carefully whether intervention on our part would be likely to be of help, but I have decided that it would not in the present circumstances

I should like to take the opportunity which has been usefully provided by the hon. Member for Barrow-in-Furness to say a few words about the future of industrial relations in the shipbuilding industry generally. The development of new techniques and methods of work is bringing about changes in many of the traditional craft skills. Apprenticeships now cover a wide range of skill. Some union amalgamations have enabled agreements to be reached which widen the range of jobs which can be undertaken by members. These and other factors have been laying the foundation for significant improvements in the methods of working in the industry.

We would now like to see a really determined effort by unions and management to move towards comprehensive negotiating machinery which would bring all the unions to the same negotiating table at company and yard level. Some progress, I agree, has been made in this direction, but it has not been enough. There are, of course, many problems, particularly as regards traditional practices, and I know that the reform of bargaining arrangements will not be an easy one. However, these are problems which I am certain must be faced and solved or much of what has been gained may well have been in vain. In the long term the continued pursuit of sectional interests by unions could seriously jeopardise the prospects of stability in the yards and affect the security of employment which we all want to see throughout the industry.

As my hon. Friend the Minister of State for Defence Procurement said in the House on 18th May, the Ministry of Defence is also very concerned about the current dispute at Vickers' Barrow Shipbuilding Works which we have been discussing today.

The reason for this, as I am sure right hon. and hon. Members will be aware, is that Vickers is responsible for a substantial part of the current naval programme, and the company occupies a key position in the naval construction field both now and in the future. It is wholly responsible for the very important nuclear submarine programme, and, indeed, four of these vessels are being built at the present time, as the hon. Gentleman knows.

The company is also providing the lead yard services for the type 42 Sea Dart destroyer, and I am sure that the House will recall that the first of these sophisticated news ships, HMS "Sheffield" was launched by Her Majesty the Queen last June from the Barrow Yard. The company is building a further one of these ships for the Royal Navy and two for the Argentine Navy; one at Barrow and the other in the Argentine. The company is also heavily involved with design work on the new through-deck cruiser for the Royal Navy.

Export work accounts for a good proportion of Vickers Shipbuilding work, and, in fact, in addition to the type 42 destroyers I have just mentioned, it is constructing a destroyer for Iran and two conventional submarines of the well -tried Oberon class for Brazil. The building of a commercial liner for an overseas customer is also being undertaken at Barrow.

The House will, I am sure, therefore, fully appreciate the reasons for the deep concern with which the Ministry of Defence views the current problems, and its anxiety is not only for its own contracts but for those overseas contracts for which it has a responsibility.

We all recognise that the unemployment rate in Barrow is higher than we would like it to be. Indeed, the hon. Member has been very assiduous in asking parliamentary Questions about it in months gone by. I am glad to say that the May rate for the Barrow travel-towork area, which includes the Dalton, Ulverston and Grange-Over-Sands employment exchange areas as well as Barrow itself, was 3·8 per cent., which is the same as the national average. In fact, the rate would have been lower than that for the country as a whole if the figures for the Barrow travel-to-work area had not included 200 workers who were temporarily stopped, largely because of the indirect effects of the industrial dispute that we have been discussing.

I recall the concern which was expressed by the hon. Member on behalf of his constituents when the Barrow Paper Mills announced its decision to close its factory in March. As soon as he heard of this redundancy, our area manager in Barrow took immediate steps to help the redundant workers, and I am pleased to be able to report that the majority of the 275 or so workers who lost their jobs appear to have found fresh employment reasonably quickly. Only a few of the older men are still on our registers, and we are continuing to do all we can to help them.

I recognise that, as the hon. Member pointed out, Barrow's remoteness from other large population centres is a very real problem, and no one would wish to underestimate it. However, being a development area, it is able to offer considerable inducements to industrial expansion, and we believe that the measures announced in the Budget have done much to improve those inducements.

As I am sure the hon. Member is aware, we are making available regional development grants, at the rate of 20 per cent. in development areas, towards capital expenditure on new buildings and adapting existing buildings and on new industrial plant and machinery. Since these grants will be disregarded for tax purposes, their value will be substantially enhanced. They will provide the assisted areas with a more clear-cut preference than any previous incentive and will be simpler, more easily understood and more certain in their application.

Let me say once again that I share the regret that even now, after a further offer by Vickers, it has not been possible to reach a settlement in this dispute. There is a serious threat to the employment of thousands of workers in this area. There may be grave consequences for the company and the community, not to mention important defence and export orders. I sincerely hope, even at this late stage, that there will be further reflection by those concerned, and I am glad that meetings are still taking place.

We at the Department of Employment will continue to keep a careful watch on developments, but my judgment remains that it would not be appropriate for my Department to intervene at the present time.

As I say, we shall continue to observe the situation with great care and any further information with which the hon. Member may wish to provide us will be readily accepted.

I thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, for the opportunity to raise this matter. The subject which I am raising is the need for publicity as a precaution against espionage. My hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary to the Civil Service Department and others will be justifiably surprised at my speaking on a subject of this kind. This is not, as many hon. Members know, my speciality. However, there seems to have been reluctance on the part of hon. Members over the past 10 years or so to talk about these things.

We all know about the reference to "Reds under the bed" and that sort of thing, but I am going to talk about a booklet entitled "Their Trade is Treachery" This is the booklet which I am holding in my hand. It was produced by a Government Department in 1961, I would like to congratulate the author on an excellent booklet, and I recommend anyone who can obtain the booklet to read it. It is fascinating and. indeed, it can be very useful.

Before I proceed, let me thank my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary for having been kind enough to come to answer this debate. I want him to be assured that anything I say will not be a reflection upon him. He has only recently been appointed to office and is certainly not responsible for any of the charges that I may make upon Ministers and Governments.

The booklet to which I have referred was brought to my notice by one of our former colleagues, Commander Anthony Courtney, who suffered very much by the activity of spies, so much so that he lost his seat in the House, some of us believe, as a direct result of their activity. I am indebted to Commander Courtney for giving me a copy of the booklet. I am not sure whether we are entitled to have it since it is not allowed to be published or freely circulated. Any rate, I have it and here it is.

My object today is to help, if possible, to sharpen our defences in the war for the survival of our democracy. The booklet exposes the methods and practices of enemy agents. It is an excellent educa- tion and all those who have the defence of democracy at heart should have the opportunity of reading it. But the strange thing is that they do not have this opportunity. I believe that it is absolutely essential to our defences to have some kind of education about the treachery of enemy spies.

I wish to quote from notes which Commander Courtney has given me. Both the present Government and the previous Government were both at fault in not allowing the book to become freely available, so this is not a party matter. The right hon. Member for Leeds, East (Mr. Healey), a former Shadow Foreign Secretary, said on 4th November, 1971. that

"the KGB is the biggest featherbedded industry in the world, that thousands of Soviet KGB men spend money painfully collected from Russian workers to have a wonderful time in foreign countries, largely collecting information which could be collected as easily and much faster by a girl with scissors and a pile of newspapers in Moscow."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 4th November, 1971 Vol. 825. c. 363.]

The right hon. Gentleman used the word "largely" and this will be appreciated by the traitors Maclean, Blake, Philby and others who are working for the Communists in Moscow to bring down democracies.

I quote this simply to show the kind of apathy which has existed not only in this House but throughout the country about our enemies. It is very strange that the public are not allowed to have this excellent and valuable booklet. There may be technical reasons or some strange reason why it has not been made available through Her Majesty's Stationery Office. That reason cannot be secrecy, because so many people have the book or are said to have it. But while it is not secret it is the kind of document which is not allowed to be freely quoted.

I have no hesitation about using privilege, if I am doing that, in this debate. As my hon. Friends know this is one of my failings because I have used it fairly freely on this kind of debate before. It is certainly within the knowledge of Governments that the booklet is not secret because someone has freely allowed copies of it to disappear from his stocks.

I will give a brief idea of the contents of the booklet. On the first page there is a quotation from the Prime Minister of 1962 when on 14th November he said:

"I feel it right to warn the House that hostile intrigue and espionage are being relentlessly maintained on a large scale."

On page 6 is described exactly what the books is about. It says:

"Spies are with us all the time. They are interested in everything, defence secrets, scientific secrets, political decisions, economic facts; even people's characters in order to recruit yet more spies. This booklet tells you about the great hostile spy machine that tries to suborn our citizens and turn them into traitors. It shows you how sometimes it succeeds and sometimes it fails"—

and we all know that to be a fact.

"This booklet tells you how to recognise at once certain espionage techniques and how to avoid pitfalls, which could lead to a national catastrophe or a personal disaster—or both."

We have only to turn our minds to the years since the booklet was published—indeed, to this present day—to know that that is true. There was the personal disaster of Commander Courtney and there are national catastrophes on our doorstep. Those against whom we seek to protect ourselves, against whom the booklet seeks to provide a safeguard for our people. protect themselves fully in every conceivable way against others.

I continue the quotation:

"Finally, if You are in possession of information useful to a spy—and that covers a field much wider than you could, perhaps. imagine—or if you are likely to be entrusted with such information, either now or even in the seemingly remote future, this booklet tells you how to foil the spy who will certainly be seeking it. He may be closer than you think."

I shall not quote further because this may be stretching my privilege further than even I would go. I suppose there must be a reason for the booklet not being freely available at the Stationery Office.

My mind goes back to a speech by my right hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Mr. Powell) about the enemy within. My right hon. Friend has talked about many things, some of which some of us agree with and some of which we do not agree with. There are many things which not all people in the House and throughout the country agree with, but one thing I certainly agree with is his speech about the enemy within. We know as a matter of fact that there have been spies in the service of the various Ministries. What we do not know is whether there are any influences there today. I do not suppose we still have spies within our service, but we wonder whether there are any of the liberalisers, apathetic people who feel that there is alarmist talk about spies, and whether any of those people have influence within our service and try to prevent the publication of such a book, which may give offence. When I use the phrase "such a book" I mean not exactly this document but perhaps something like it, something which is educationally effective as a defence of our democracy.

In 1965 the Government of the day refused even to place the book in our Library. In March this year I asked in a Question that it should be published and made available. I have documents in my possession which show that publication is quite possible even if the Government do not wish to undertake it themselves, if they think it would be expensive. An outside publisher is willing to take on the job. It could be done by someone who has the interests of the nation or democracy at heart, and for no other reason.

Great damage has been done to Britain by Communist activity, and any such defence as the book is the least we can provide to help preserve everything we are supposed to hold dear.

A clear case has been made out by the action of my right hon. Friend the Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary in deporting a hundred foreign Communists who were up to all sorts of activity in this country. I do not know—I suppose no one will know—the full details of those activities, but my right hon. Friend's action has made the case that I am not exaggerating in what I am saying. I received a shock answer to my Question. I fully expected, in view of my right hon. Friend's actions for our defence, to be told that the Government would certainly publish something—if not the book to which I have referred, then something like it. But my request was rejected. I could quite understand that if we did not have a Government elected to defend the nation first and foremost. I could understand if they were not a Government that were involved.

We all have our suspicions about certain people who work in the newspaper and television industry. I have made charges against the BBC. We could understand it if such people were responsible for hushing up this valuable information, but both Socialist and Conservative Governments are saying "No". There may well be a technical reason for non-publication, unknown to me, but that would not preclude some such educational literature being made available.

I referred earlier to the apathetic people and the liberalisers of this world, who used to get a good laugh out of the term "Reds under the bed". But British industry has been known to be sabotaged by Communist activity, as both the major political parties have declared. We have had student and strike riots or near-riots. More important still, there are the murders and tragedies—some would call the situation civil war—in Northern Ireland, and it has been stated in the past day or two that these have been openly inspired by Communist activity. One person is even reported to have said that foreign Communists are there. In view of all these matters, the laugh we had over "Reds under the bed" is no longer a laugh. It is a very serious and important matter.

Our nation must be known among the anarchist types in the world, the Communist nations, as an easy touch. That was why my right hon. Friend had to deport a hundred people for the defence of the country. Unless there can be a thorough investigation into this matter the question will arise: "Who will defend Britain?"

I have documentary evidence for all that I have said. I do not want to prolong my speech, or rather, as I said, I do not want to stretch my privilege.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Minister for coming today. I shall be interested in what he has to say. Whatever happens, I am sure we have not heard the last of this matter.

I had no intention of intervening in this or any other debate today but I was so intrigued by the title "The need for publicity as a precaution against espionage" that I could not forbear from attending.

I always thought that secrecy and not publicity was the best bar against espionage. I have listened with care, and I apprehend that the principal purpose of the debate is to achieve the dissemination of a booklet warning people of various methods used to obtain information. I have not read that booklet and I cannot comment upon it. But we live in an open society, and an open society has strengths and weaknesses.

The weakness from our security point of view is that it is fairly easy for foreign Powers to obtain information of virtually all kinds other than military about what goes on in such a society as ours. On the contrary, if we have a closed society, if we have censorship and if we have a lack of publicity we make it much more difficult for them, to obtain information but very frequently pay the penalty in the form of a limitation of individual liberty. One cannot know, for example, what is going on in the Caprivi Strip of South Africa, because it is barred to foreigners. One cannot know what is going on in large parts of the Soviet Union and China, because large parts are banned to foreigners and no doubt there will be careful control of Press reports about those areas.

I can readily see how much more difficult it is for the intelligence services of the Western Powers to obtain information about, for example, the Soviet Union or China when free travel over the entire surface of that area is not permitted, but there can be few activities, other than those of a strictly military nature, in this country or in any open society which are not known to foreign Powers.

If it is said that one can go a long way to prevent espionage by publishing a booklet on methods of obtaining information, one has to determine—and I say this partly facetiously—what there is left to know about what goes on in Britain. Certainly, and I speak as one who, as a barrister, has been involved in a very well-known spy trial—or, shall I say, since I was one of those defending the person, the trial of an alleged spy—the State of the Soviet Union has as part of its function, because all industries there are nationalised, the obtaining not only of military but of industrial information.

It would not occur, perhaps, to the State in Britain to take on the obligation of finding out for a private firm the trade secrets of its competitors in terms of articles for non-military use. On the other hand, as I say, in the Soviet Union, where industry is part of the State, there may well be a temptation to have a large apparatus designed to get not only military secrets but ordinary commercial secrets of no conceivable military application in order to further the efficiency of all types of industry there.

None the less people in Britain believe that we can stand up to commercial competition, and that it is not worth closing down our society, instituting censorship and having a heavy security check in all sorts of areas of marginal significance. When it comes to more acute areas one has to rely on security vetting and the common sense of the people involved in secret work. It is quite clear from a whole series of spy trials that certainly up to the early 'sixties pre-security vetting left a great deal to be desired—in fact, there were astonishing lapses—but there is no evidence that that situation still prevails, and we have to put our trust now not in booklets but in the British security services and the checks they make to see that persons working in security departments in sensitive areas do not have records which make them eligible for blackmail and are not open to bribery or corruption, with the same result.

To this extent I sympathise with the hon. Member. He is obviously very conscious that foreign Powers engage in espionage, as all Powers do. That is one of the facts of life we have to live with. But we think that a free society is worth preserving, and that is why I feel that all these matters have to be kept in perspective.

The bonus of secrecy that totalitarian States have is that the sins and vices of those States are not brought to the attention of people abroad. I am very much reminded of people going from this country to the Soviet Union in the days of Stalin, and then coming back and saying that it was utter rubbish about there being any labour camps or concentration camps, and the like, in the Soviet Union. The absence of independent information led them to accept the official view.

I find it curious that many of our young people today, who would once have been great supporters of a Russian-line Communist Party, now are Maoist. It seems to me that the reason for the switch is that sufficient information has now come from the Soviet Union to make it difficult for idealists to believe that ail is ideal there. On the other hand, so little information comes from Maoist China that some people can project all their dreams of a perfect world on to a State system of which we know nothing. I do not criticise Maoist China—for all I know it may be a wonderful system—but with our experience of the Soviet Union behind us I believe that anyone who comes to that conclusion with the present limited information is a rash man. I am a great believer in getting lots of information before coming to a conclusion.

I had the privilege many years ago of being sent by the British Army to learn Russian at Cambridge University, and eventually was an interpreter with the British Control Commission, still in the British Army, and working with the Soviet Mission in the British Zone in Germany at the end of the last war. On one occasion a Soviet officer who had had rather too much to drink indicated that, as it seemed to me, he was an agent. I was not clear whether he was an agent with the job of seeing what was going on in West Germany or an agent with the job of spying upon his colleagues in the Mission. In any event, it was commonly said that every Soviet Mission in the British Zone had one member of the security service attached to it. Whether or not the British intelligence services were complacent, nothing much was done.

This Soviet officer said to me "Your people must be desperate to know what is going on in the Soviet Union, because we do not let you know. Therefore, because you are spending so much time with Soviet personnel you must have been asked to listen to us and report back" —because information of use to a foreign Power is not just military information but information of all kinds, including information about social conditions and so on.

I felt full of chagrin about this. I said "There is no need to ask me, but I am afraid you are not quite right. I should have been asked to tell the British intelligence services what your views are on various topics, but the fact is that the British intelligence services have not seen fit to ask me to obtain this information."

It does not seem to me that in the upshot much harm has resulted from that complacency on the part of the British intelligence services. Whether they would take that line now, 25 years later, is a very different matter, because it may be that the British intelligence services themselves were a little shaken by some of the security revelations in the early 'fifties.

Nonetheless, whether or not this booklet is published, foreign Powers of all kinds will continue to have departments whose job it is to know what is going on in this country. As always, open societies like ours will remain at a disadvantage. The way we live is such that when people leave this country they do not breathe a sigh of relief. When one leaves a totalitarian State with lots of censorship and awareness about spies and so on, one breathes a sigh of relief as if one is coming into the fresh air as the plane speeds away from the territory of such a country. I would not like anything to occur in this country which would change the atmosphere here, subject, of course, to essential security needs.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Mr. Gurden), for raising this matter which is of great concern to us all. I can assure the House that the Government are well aware of their responsibility in these matters, and recent events demonstrate that they are constantly vigilant. From what my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary said on 18th October last year the House will already be aware of Her Majesty's Government's recent action to improve this country's security against hostile intelligence activities, and will have noted that this attracted considerable public attention. Such constant vigilance, I am convinced, is the key factor in this area, and my hon. Friend has rightly draw attention to this.

There are, of course, two groups of people to whom knowledge of espionage methods is especially important. Firstly, there are those who have access to Government secrets; that is, those in the public services, civil servants, including the Armed Forces, and those in industry employed on secret Government contracts. Secondly as a distinct group there are business men and others who visit Communist countries.

The importance of constant vigilance in the public services has, of course, long been recognised, and the Government are alert at all times to the need to protect their sensitive information against espionage. The Radcliffe Committee on security procedures in the public services was set up in 1961 because of the evidence that then existed on the threat to our interests from hostile intelligence services. The Committe recommended that a programme on security education for the public services generally should be drawn up. The Government accepted this recommendation, and there has been for the last 10 years an intensive programme and it is directed at the first group I have mentioned; that is, public servants and members of the Armed Forces and those people in industry working on Government secret contracts.

The programme includes courses arranged by Departments or by the security service designed to give those concerned an insight into the various threats to security; to persuade them of the reality of these threats; and to train them in the measures necessary to counter them. Training aids are used which illustrate various aspects of the threat and the appropriate counter-measures. These include the booklet that my hon. Friend has referred to entitled "Their Trade is Treachery". It is the practice to use examples from actual spy cases as the basis for the further education of those concerned with security.

I take the point of the hon. Member for Bradford, East (Mr. Edward Lyons) that one of the most important things to impress upon all Government servants is that the secret and confidential information that they have must be retained as secret and confidential. I think it was Carlyle who said:

"He that has a secret should not only hide it but hide that he has it to hide."

As far as the second group is concerned, although most of them are unlikely to have had access to Government secrets, they may well have information that would be of use to our competitors; that is business-men travelling to Communist countries. For these people there is a pamphlet of advice which is made available to those who require it entitled "Security advice about visits to Communist countries".

Perhaps I can now turn to the position of the general public, who will not possess Government secrets. It might be argued that there should be a general campaign similar to that against careless talk during the last war. Hon. Members may remember the advertising campaign "Careless talk costs lives". I think my hon. Friend would agree that the circumstances are rather different. In the particular circumstances of war time it was quite possible for apparently harmless information known to members of the public to be of value to the enemy particularly when small pieces of disjointed information were put together to provide a full picture. This is no longer the case.

Nevertheless, I would like to say that the Government welcome the publicity that is given in the Press, particularly the popular Press, to methods used by hostile agents and to the very full reporting of the proceedings in court in cases where there have been prosecutions for spying. No doubt hon. Members will recall the valuable publicity given to the Kroger case, with the details of how they carried out their work, their special wireless receivers, and other equipment. They will also recall the publicity given to the activities of Vassal and the master spy Lonsdale.

Apart from all this welcome publicity, I am sure hon. Members will agree that there is a much greater interest among the general public in espionage today and the methods used by spies. This is shown by the popularity of books, films and television series which concentrate on the work of spies. By way of the television screen the spy has come in from the cold into everyone's living room. Of course, I recognise that these contain elements of fantasy. But they encourage a lively public awareness of the threat posed by such activities.

My hon. Friend mentioned the question of whether it would be helpful to make more widely available the training booklet used in the public services "Their Trade is Treachery", to which I referred earlier. I must stress again that this document is essentially a training aid for official use, and is designed for those in the first group I mentioned who have access to Government secrets. It is, therefore, unsuitable for general publication, but I will look again at the question to see whether a rather more edited version could be prepared and circulated more widely. It may well be that the pamphlet I referred to earlier about security advice for visits might fill the bill. If my hon. Friend thinks that this could be undertaken by some private printer I am sure that he will be aware that the printer will have to take the most careful advice as to whether anything which appears in it is defamatory.

In conclusion, therefore, I would repeat that the Government are determined to see that vigilance is constantly maintained against whatever threat that is posed to this country by espionage. The Government are very well aware of the value of publicity in this connection. I am sure the procedures I have outlined ensure the continuing vigilance of the public services and of those outside it. Our watchword in this area is most certainly "Vigilance at all times in every way, and publicity at the right time in the right way."

I am grateful for this opportunity of drawing the attention of the House to a matter which has appeared in the news from time to time over the last few months, because this seems to be a suitable occasion for looking synoptically at some of the factors involved. The complaints probably began in our remand prisons because so much of the accommodation is simply out of date. We are still paying the penalty for long years of expecting law and order at "knock down" prices.

In 1959 the nation suddenly awoke to the fact that not a single security prison had been built in the last 50 years. and even in 1969, when the Home Office published the document "People in Prison", only five had been built in a total of 50 years. Most of the local prisons where remand prisoners are kept at the moment were designed in the middle of the 19th century by Jeremy Bentham. When he designed them they were no doubt thought to be a great and radical advance on previous penology, but he designed them so that those detained there could enjoy the benefits of solitary confinement, not that they should be crowded together three and sometimes four in a cell.

That brings me to the second major problem; namely, overcrowding and understaffing. At Question Time yesterday my hon. Friend the Member for Brixton (Mr. Lipton) pointed out that at the moment there are 684 people on remand in Brixton Prison in 476 cells. The Home Secretary very fairly agreed that this was a very serious problem. When prison staff are subjected to this kind of stress it is not surprising that on occasion they are tempted to ease it at the expense of the readiest victims. I should like to quote one or two examples from the Press over the last few months.

On 7th November last year the Sunday Times published an article about Holloway Prison, pointing out that the conditions there were more restrictive for remand prisoners than they were for convicted prisoners. According to the article, remand prisoners were locked in their cells at 4.30 in the afternoon and the cells were not unlocked again until next morning for any reason. People who wished to go to the lavatory had to use a slop bucket, even if they were sharing a cell with other people.

Another article in the Sunday Times on 28th February last year referred to a prisoner who was placed on remand in Leeds. When his wife, very shortly after he had been arrested and remanded, sought to visit him, she discovered that because convicted prisoners had visitors on Sundays it was not possible to arrange for remand prisoners to have their visitors on Sundays. So she had to go away. She was told by a quite helpful officer "I will tell him you called", but the message never reached him and he did not find out until long afterwards that she had been to see him.

When the prisoner sought some reading material, he was told that remand prisoners were not entitled to use the prison library, and his reading material while he was on remaind consisted of two dirty books and a history of the Communist Party which he obtained in exchange for two oranges. When he sought to relieve the sheer boredom by chalking a draughts-board on the table in his cell he was threatened with disciplinary action on the ground that that was an objectionable occupation.

On 11th May, 1971, The Guardian published an article by someone on remand who, having heard that remand prisoners were entitled to receive food from outside the prison, wished to relieve the tedium of prison food but was told that the prison staff were too busy and it was impossible to arrange for food to come in from outside. When he asked for some writing paper he was offered the prison notepaper. When he said that he preferred to write to his friends and acquaintances on something a little more noncommittal he was told that it was prison notepaper or nothing.

I make it clear that I do not blame the prison staff. We know that in far too many prisons the staff are working 60 to 70 hours a week. But what is happening would be bad enough if we were doing it to convicted criminals; it cannot be the most effective method of restoring a sense of dignity and responsibility. But the people to whom it is being done have not been convicted of any offence, and, let us face it, some of them have not committed any offence.

The very helpful document published by the Cobden Trust a short time ago pointed out that there were about 40,000 people a year in custody awaiting trial. About 10 per cent. of them are acquitted and more than 50 per cent. are not given custodial sentences. The figures have been brought more up to date recently by Radical Alternatives to Prison in relation to Holloway. We are told that 35 per cent. of receptions to Holloway are prisoners on remand awaiting trial and that nearly one-sixth of them are acquitted, so that we are entitled to believe that they have not committed any offence. About the same number are regarded by the court as so little deserving of blame that they are given absolute or conditional discharges; about one-third are placed on probation; about one-tenth are fined; and only about one-fifth are given custodial sentences.

The fact that many of our prisons are filled with people who should not be in prison adds to the problem of overcrowding. The prisoners who make the greatest demands on the time of prison staff are those in custody awaiting trial because much of the time of the prison staff is occupied in taking them to and from the courts.

Where should we look for the causes of the problem and where might we look for means of rectifying it? First, I should say in fairness that an increasing number of certain indictable offences are being detected. On 4th May in a Written Answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Blackley (Mr. Rose) it was pointed out in c. 203 of the OFFICIAL REPORT that there was an increase of 32 per cent. in committals to the London Crown Court Centre in the first quarter of this year as against committals to the corresponding courts in the first quarter of last year.

Therefore, we should perhaps begin by considering the methods of reducing the factors which lead to crime. We might think of larger and more effective police forces, better housing and more juvenile employment. Money spent on these factors would be money well invested.

Secondly, we must build more accommodation. In a Written Answer on 27th April the Home Secretary gave some very impressive figures about accommodation which is now being built. I do not complain about that. The Holloway campaign group of Radical Alternatives to Prison has produced some very telling and moving figures and has seized the opportunity to educate us as perhaps we have not been educated for a long time. However, I hope that it will forgive me if I say that I do not wholly agree with the final step in its argument, that there should not be a replacement prison. It may be a very long time before we achieve a society where we never have to send anyone to prison or even never send a woman to prison, and if people have to be in prison it is better that they should be in conditions likely to reform them rather than embitter them.

Thirdly, we must find means of reducing the number of remand prisoners. This probably means two things. First, we should reduce the delay in bringing committed cases to trial. It transpired from the Written Answer on 4th May that at the Middlesex Guildhall the average time between committal and trial for cases in custody was 14·8 weeks. That is a very disturbing figure, and, clearly, something must be done to reduce it.

I hasten to say that I would not argue that the figure must be reduced at all costs. One of the dangers of calling attention to a problem in the House is that sometimes the authorities become obsessively aware of it. I hope that nothing I say will lead the courts to refuse adjournments when clearly justice can be obtained only if there is an adjournment, or to insist that a case should proceed when the accused does not have the counsel of his or her choice. or in the absence of a necessary witness. There is no substitute for serious thinking, and we must perhaps have a little patience.

From the answer on 4th May it was clear that the Lord Chancellor was opening more courts in London. If we are prepared to invest a little more in more court accommodation and judicial salaries, that may be a substantial answer to the problem. Of course, when the new system in consequence of the implementation of the Beeching Report has finally settled down we may find that some of the rougher edges there, too, are eliminated.

Mr. Justice Hinchcliffe, in his address recently to the Justices Clerks' Society at York, pointed out that because sometimes cases were allocated to the wrong judges, a certain amount of judicial time was under-employed. But the greatest single contribution we can make to the solution of this problem must be to make sure that bail is given to people awaiting trial unless there really is very good reason for retaining them in custody.

I am aware that the Home Office has not overlooked this problem. Last year it suggested to magistrates' courts in London that where a problem arose over a psychiatric report this could very well be done at, for example, a prison like Holloway, on an out-patient basis. It was a little disappointing to find that in the first five months of that scheme the suggestion had been taken up only once

Partly the problem is that busy courts do not have opportunity of learning of the factors applicable in the cases with which they are dealing. Mrs. Susan Dell in her informative report, "Silent in Court" showed that so often women prisoners do not ask for bail because they do not know they can ask for it. In many cases they did not know what bail was. In many cases they left court without any clear idea of what the court had decided in relation to bail, and some of them were astonished to find, once outside the court, that they could not go home because they had been remanded in custody.

The need in many cases for legal advice, and legal representation in matters where the court is faced with a custodial decision, has been debated by us again and again over the last few weeks on the Criminal Justice Bill and the Legal Advice and Assistance Bill. I shall not repeat what has been said in those debates but I cannot refrain from looking at some of the very astonishing findings reported by Mr. Michael Zander in his article last year in The Criminal Law Review He discovered, that of the cases looked at, where the police opposed bail and where the applicant was legally represented the application succeeded in 37 per cent. of the cases but that where applicants were not legally represented only 20 per cent. of the applications were successful.

Perhaps what is even more startling was Mr. Zander's study of the proportion of cases in which the court was given either no information or only the minimum of information on matters clearly relevant to bail. On matters, for example, relating to an applicant's job, in 22 of the cases they were given little information; in 3 per cent. of the cases more than a little; and in 75 per cent. of the cases no information at all. On matters relating to family background little information was given in 17 per cent. of the cases; more than a little in 4 per cent.; and no information at all in 79 per cent. About home background little information was given in 23 per cent. of the cases; more than a little was given in 3 per cent.; and in 74 per cent. of the cases no information was given. On medical matters little information was given in 5 per cent. of the cases; more than a little in 2 per cent.; and no information in 93 per cent. of the cases.

Did my hon. and learned Friend also notice in that article in The Criminal Law Review that where a bail applicant went before a stipendiary and professional magistrate rather than lay magistrates, application for bail was successful in a far higher percentage of the cases? Are there any lessons to be drawn from this? May it not be that lay magistrates, because they are less experienced than professional magistrates, are a little more frightened of the police than the professional, more experienced, magistrates, and more anxious about refusing the police?

One hesitates to generalise too readily. I am becoming increasingly impressed by the quality on the whole of the lay magistracy, but I do not think I can resist my hon. Friend's conclusion. It probably is true that lay magistrates are reluctant to take the responsibility of disagreeing with the police in these matters. I think that part of the remedy lies in encouraging the police to be a little less cautious and in encouraging lay magistrates to apply their own minds to cases and to make their own decisions more readily.

Part of the answer may arise, too, from the suggestion which Mr. Zander made on 22nd April at a conference at the University of Birmingham on the future of magistrates' courts. He suggested that it might be possible to give more information if more of the applications were heard in camera.

Some of the reasons why courts are reluctant to grant bail, and, in fairness I must say, sometimes understandably reluctant, emerged from the comments by Professor Gibbens in the Annual Report for 1969–70 of the Howard League for Penal Reform. He pointed out that in many cases it is necessary to make some arrangements for medical reports and suggested that probably custodial remands could be avoided if there were more local doctors on the spot to examine prisoners and if there were arrangements for courses in forensic psychiatry.

Secondly, he pointed out that very often a court which might otherwise have been prepared to grant bail was told that an applicant had no accommodation. So one of the answers I think may be found in the provision of bail hostels, and I was delighted yesterday when the Home Secretary was able to announce that the first bail hostel was now in existence.

Thirdly, Professor Gibbens pointed to the fact that often bail was refused because there was not a surety and there was no person in a financial position to offer to be a surety. One wonders whether it is always essential that someone must be in a position actually to pledge money. Are we, perhaps, a little too inflexible in insisting that money should change hands if, in rare cases, the applicant subsequently fails to return.

I know that the Under-Secretary of State will tell us that we cannot draw any hard and fast conclusions about this till we have the Butterworth report. I cannot dissent from that, I suppose. I do not want to encourage the hon. Gentleman to give that kind of reply. I think that possibly, too, this House is reluctant to take a decision itself. It wants a Royal Commission or an interdepartmental committee or a Select Committee, and sometimes each in succession, rather than to reach a decision. However, I do not think that I can dissent from the suggestion which may be made that we should await Butterworth.

I do not think there is any single, simple, dramatic answer to this problem. Some of the answers were found in the 1967 Act, and there has been some reduction in the numbers since then. I was delighted yesterday when the Home Secretary told me in answer to a Question that the numbers in custody awaiting trial had fallen between April, 1971, and April,1972, from 3,007 to 2,781. Perhaps we are moving in the right direction, and the possibility is encouraging.

I think there are probably three general conclusions which we may draw without seeking to be dogmatic. The first is that expenditure on the prison service and on the law courts and on judicial salaries is not a politically popular venture, but the truth remains that if as a community we seek to run our system of justice on the cheap we shall find this to have been a very poor form of economy. Secondly, we should not appear to enjoy sending people to prison. Even in our courts where on the whole the benches are not subject to hysteria, I sometimes have the impression that they feel that a taste of prison may do somebody some good.

Obviously, we have to draw a proper balance between protecting the public and the freedom of the individual, but I cannot help feeling that ultimately the public are best protected by minimising the number of people with a grievance—people who, even though unconvicted, have brushed up against the criminal world and perhaps learned a few tricks which they may later attempt to put into execution.

Finally, because we have not yet caught up, it is inevitable that there should be an abrasive situation, and it might be worth a moment's thought and a moment's compassion to see how we can make it as tolerable as possible for all those concerned. One appreciates the pressures on prison staffs, but if they could just think what it entails for the people who are at the receiving end of the rules, sometimes a great deal of unnecessary grievance could be avoided.

It has been said that the test of any society is how it treats its criminals. Perhaps an even more searching test is how it treats those who are not criminals but merely under suspicion.

We are indebted to the hon. and learned Member for Rowley Regis and Tipton (Mr. Peter Archer) for raising this subject. It is a narrow one which concerns about 3,000 men and women on remand awaiting trial who are at the time wholly innocent persons. We are concerned with the treatment and accommodation of these persons who have been convicted of nothing. This is, therefore, not a debate on crime but a debate relating purely to those persons.

The first point that requires to be made is that this subject ought not to be anything to do with the Home Office, and my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State ought not to be the person to reply to the debate. The subject should properly he part of the Department of the Lord Chancellor, and the Attorney-General, on behalf of the Lord Chancellor's Department, should reply to the debate. The functions of the Home Office are too wide, and I have raised this question with the Prime Minister. It is quite unfair to ask the Under-Secretary of State to reply to the debate when those who are speaking in it are all lawyers with criminal experience, and they alone should consider it, for reasons which are not difficult to see.

The first consideration which a person on remand has in mind is to be able to seek proper advice to secure acquittal. That involves having legal advice first from a solicitor and thereafter, probably, from counsel. There are, broadly speaking, two classes of case. There are the cases which were with the assize courts and are now with the Crown courts; that is to say, cases at quarter sessions and assize as they were formerly known. Then there are the small cases in the petty sessional courts.

It is extremely difficult for both solicitors and counsel to find the time and opportunity to confer with their clients. In the London area the consultations take place at either Brixton or Wandsworth, each of which necessitates a half-day journey. Highly-paid solicitors and highly-paid counsel find it extremely difficult ever to find the time to visit Brixton and Wandsworth because they are not prepared to give half a day to it. The first practical point is for the Lord Chancellor and the courts to arrange adequate and proper facilities to enable solicitors and counsel to visit those who are awaiting trial on remand at a proper place, which means at a court or at some other centre, without the necessity of having to go long distances.

It is well known that the solicitors who principally practice in this field in London have to provide a special clerk to go to Brixton and Wandsworth to see their respective clients, because they are unable at the same time to conduct a practice and to see their clients. That is a purely practical matter.

I am sure my hon. Friend will agree that it is worth looking closely at whether the matters which arise between arrest and conviction should go to the Lord Chancellor's Department, which may have to be strengthened. As the hon. and learned Gentleman said, the Lord Chancellor is showing great concern at the adequacy of courts. The provision of courts is his function, but he should also be given the opportunity of dealing with the practical matters that arise between arrest and conviction.

The next point that arises concerns accommodation. At present, both in the provinces and in London, persons on remand cannot get proper exercise. That is not the fault of prison officers; there just is not the time and opportunity to see that they do. The accommodation required for persons on remand is not necessarily a prison. It should be possible to provide alternative accommodation, not of such a custodial nature, in which those who are on remand can have an eye kept upon them without the necessity for sending them to a high security gaol.

That may not be practical in every case. The high security risks will have to go to Pentonville, Wandsworth or elsewhere, but there are many persons on remand who do not need to be kept in such circumstances. I suggest that consideration should be given to other forms of accommodation, such as hostels, in which there might be warders or prison officers to secure that the persons on remand are looked after.

In most cases bail is not refused on the ground that the person is an escapee who will go overseas. It is usually refused on the ground that the person will interfere with witnesses and must, therefore, be kept away from them. The number who are refused bail on the ground that they are likely to escape and go overseas is probably not more than 10 to 15 per cent. of the refusals. The overwhelming number of refusals are on grounds of a different nature, not least of which is the proper ground that if a person is allowed to remain on bail for a period of nine months the pattern of crime in respect of which he is arrested might continue and he might, if left on bail, commit a great many more offences. That is particularly true where medical reports are involved.

The next question that arises on treatment is the matter of visits. There are many complaints by those on remand that there are inadequate and insufficient opportunities for visits by relatives and friends. It must be borne in mind that these people are unconvicted and, therefore, entitled to be treated as such and entitled to have visitors.

The difficulty that arises on treatment is that of ensuring that these people can lead a normal life. That means that their food should be better than it is necessarily for a convicted person. They have an opportunity to receive gifts and presents, which of course would not be allowed to a convicted person. We must see that they have the opportunity of receiving longer visits than convicted persons. who are properly kept to a tight minimum. We must see that their accommodation is more comfortable and better than that of convicted persons.

I do not know whether the Minister knows the answer to this, but I should like to know how many people on bail during remand have skipped. I believe that the figure is very low. How many have failed to comply with the terms of their bail on remand, particularly those on serious charges?

We have grown used to the belief that those who are on bail are convicts and that they should be treated as such, because a good many have previous convictions and, therefore, have an association with prison. That is wrong, and we must get out of it. In the end success depends upon the one issue of curtailing the period between arrest and trial. In previous days the period between arrest and trial never exceeded 12 to 14 weeks even in the heaviest periods.

In the case of a long conspiracy trial at the Central Criminal Court the time between arrest and trial is often nine months. and sometimes over 12 months. In the big, trial currently taking place at the Central Criminal Court the main defendants were arrested in October, 1970. That is an exceptional case involving a very long period between trial and arrest. It may be remembered that some years ago in the Bloom case there was a considerable delay before the case came on for hearing, but in the ordinary run of cases it is 12 months. This period of time must be cut.

I feel that applications for adjournments for the purpose of choosing counsel of one's choice is not nowadays a practical consideration. There are too many cases to allow people to choose their own counsel. Cases must be allowed to proceed as soon as possible.

rose——

I will give way to the hon. and learned Gentleman in a moment.

With additional courts and separate accommodation, and if the Lord Chancellor is given his head, there can be a real effort to cut delays. In this way in respect of long trials the period between arrest and trial could be cut to under six months. This would, of course, mean more judges. In the short cases there should be a clear directive that people on remand should be brought quickly to trial. The general rule should be that if somebody is in custody that case should be taken first.

I was not seeking to argue that the right to have counsel of one's choice should over-ride every other consideration. But would the hon. Gentleman not agree that this factor should be taken into consideration and that if in a long case a defendant requires an adjournment of one day it should be allowed?

This could be done where the time involved was only a day, and an adjournment is quite proper in a case in which a defendant has been represented for a long period by a particular counsel. However, I have known occasions when people have sought a month's adjournment in order to gain the services of a particular counsel. Such a course has caused delay and it is quite wrong that this should happen. It is of paramount importance that trials should be allowed to proceed quickly. After a period of 12 months or more has been allowed to elapse, I do not see how witnesses can be expected to remember details of telephone conversations or, say, to give a description of somebody they met in a public house. It is unfair to police officers, to witnesses, and certainly to defendants to leave until 12 or 18 months later the recollection of vital matters concerning the trial. This is why we must do everything we can to cut the period covering arrest, arraignment, trial and conviction.

Therefore, we must treat people before trial as innocent; we also must see that we have more accommodation and more judges and that we cut delays to the minimum. In conclusion, may I say that I should like to see a keen look taken at what are the proper functions of the Home Office and those of the Lord Chancellor's office in dealing with those whom we regard as innocent people. This is also connected with the way such people are treated, their food while in custody, and their ability to have an opportunity to take legal advice and other such matters.

The debate on this subject is welcome, and I am grateful for the way in which the hon. and learned Member for Rowley Regis and Tipton (Mr. Peter Archer) has introduced the matter. I am also grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for the Isle of Thanet (Mr. Rees-Davies) for his contribution to the debate. I hope I shall mention some of their points. I assure them that their speeches will be carefully studied by my colleagues in the Home Office, and I am sure, also by the Lord Chancellor.

Both hon. Members have raised a number of difficult questions which have been troubling my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary and my noble and learned Friend the Lord Chancellor since the Government took office. We inherited a serious situation and are doing all we can to improve it.

I remind the House of the harsh figures. Getting on for 50,000 people a year are now received into prison department establishments as untried prisoners, and there are likely to be 3,000 or so in custody at any one time. Numbers have increased by about 50 per cent. over the last ten years.

I need hardly make clear, but it is important that I should do so, that these are people who have not been convicted of the offence of which they have been accused, but the courts have nevertheless decided to commit them in custody —for example, to ensure that they attend the resumed hearing, to prevent the fabrication of evidence in collusion with witnesses, or for the protection of the public if further offences are likely to be committed. The prison department, therefore, has a duty to ensure the defendant's safe custody and his return to court and to see that there is no interference in the course of justice during the period before his trial takes place.

It follows that the defendant has to he kept in secure conditions and that all his actions—including his visits and his correspondence—need to be carefully supervised. It is not disputed that there are inevitable limitations on the freedom that such a person can be given and the facilities that he can be all6wed. This matter needs to be stressed before we consider how the present situation can be improved.

The source of our problems is the sheer number of people in custody while awaiting trial and the time they spend there. It has been acknowledged that the Home Secretary and the Lord Chancellor have put in hand a number of measures to reduce the length of time for which unconvicted prisoners have to be detained before their case comes to trial and also, where possible, to reduce the number of defendants for whom a committal in custody is needed.

The figures in regard to waiting time have been mentioned. The hon. and learned Member for Rowley Regis and Tipton mentioned figures in Middlesex, but the position is exceptionally bad in the London area. The latest figures for the early weeks of this year show that the average time of defendants awaiting trial outside the London area is seven and a half weeks. Nobody is satisfied with that figure but I mention it to put it in perspective.

Would my hon. Friend agree that one of the disturbing aspects of this matter is the fact that there are such wide variations with regard to the granting of bail between different magistrates' courts, and in particular between stipendiary courts and other courts? It is a matter which is causing grave concern to the profession.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich (Mr. Money) for emphasising that point. This is a most important matter to bear in mind in relation to bail.

The Courts Act has introduced sweeping reforms which are designed to speed up the flow of cases through the courts, and special attention has been paid to the problems in London. Fifteen new courts have been provided in the London area since the Government took office, and another 16 court rooms are to be brought into use by the end of this year. A decision to remand or commit in custody is essentially a matter of judicial judgment and it would not be right for my right hon. Friend to influence it in an individual case, but we may be able to help by providing facilities which the courts can use as an alternative. This point was stressed by my hon. Friend the Member for the Isle of Thanet.

One of these alternative facilities is an out-patient service for the preparation of medical reports to court. The first service of this kind was provided for women and girls at Holloway in August, 1971. Courts were invited to remand on hail. in suitable cases, women and girls on whom they required medical or psychiatric reports on condition that defendants would attend the out-patient clinic at the prison hospital at a time which would be arranged during the court hearing. The service is now available to all inner London courts, the City of London magistrates' courts, the Outer London magistrates' courts north of the Thames and the Crown court sitting in greater London. We plan to make a similar service available for men at Brixton early next month, and to follow it with services in other parts of the country later this 'ear —beginning with a service in South Lancashire based on Risley.

Was I not right in saying that the scheme in relation to Holloway had been used on only one occasion in the first five months? Is it now being used more regularly?

I cannot confirm whether there are more encouraging figures than that. I was about to come to other examples, and it is disappointing that a number of these schemes have not gone as well as we had hoped. But that should not deter us from trying.

A second scheme is the provision of bail hostels for men who may be remanded in custody because they have no permanent address. The Criminal Justice Bill provides for hostels of this kind to be financed from public funds, and we are at present considering possible areas in which hostels might be established by probation and after-care committees once the Bill has come into force. Also, with the help of a charitable fund the Salva- tion Army made available in November a wing of Booth House, in East London, for use as an experimental bail hostel for a period of three years. Over a period of time, this should make some contribution to easing pressure, especially in the London area.

A third scheme, which we hope to introduce soon, is for young persons under the age of 21 who may be committed in custody for a medical report on their fitness for detention centre training. Only a simple examination is needed, and it could often be made by a police surgeon at the court while the sitting is adjourned. Police surgeons are willing to provide this service, and a fee has been agreed with the British Medical Association.

We also hope to reduce the period which a person may spend in custody when he has been remanded for a medical or social inquiry report. At present the usual period is three wteks. A scheme intended to cut this down has had disappointing results, and we propose instead to encourage the courts, where possible, to adopt 14 days, not 21 days, as the normal period of a remand for a report. There should be no difficulty where medical reports alone are needed, but consultations with principal probation officers suggest that the capacity of the Probation and After-Care Service to achieve a similar reduction in the time needed for a social inquiry report will vary from area to area. The service would, however, like to help wherever it can, and we shall, therefore, ask courts to use the shorter period of remand in all cases where only a medical report is required, and to use it in cases where a social inquiry report is required if they have been informed by the local probation and after-care committee that probation resources are sufficient for the purpose.

Finally, among the steps being taken to tackle the present situation at its source there is the working party on bail. The hon. and learned Member for Rowley Regis and Tipton spent a considerable time talking about bail, as did my hon. Friend the Member for the Isle of Thanet. I cannot give my hon. Friend the answer to his question about the number of persons granted bail who then break it. If it is possible to give my hon. Friend meaningful figures, I shall do so as soon as possible.

The working party was set up last year to

"…review practice and procedure in magistrates' courts relating to the grant or refusal of bail and to make recommendations".

Its members include representatives of magistrates, justices' clerks and the police. As I have said, the decision whether to remand on bail or in custody is essentially a matter of judicial discretion but we think there is scope for the provision of practical advice to the courts on how to conduct more systematically what is, in effect, a difficult forecasting exercise. This bears on the point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich. This is an area where we hope the working party's examination of the subject will be of particular value.

The working party has already received both oral and written evidence, but it is too early to predict when it may report, as some evidence is still awaited. We would not, however, expect this to be a protracted inquiry and are anxious for it to proceed quickly. I shall draw the special attention of the working party to the various points which have been made in the debate.

Before I leave the subject of bail, I can assure the hon. and learned Member for Rowley Regis and Tipton that the Government accept absolutely that the number of accused persons detained before trial should be the minimum compatible with the interests of justice. I take some encouragement from the latest figures that I have seen which are that the proportion of defendants remanded in custody by magistrates' courts compared with the proportion granted bail fell from 34 per cent. in 1967 to 27 per cent. in 1970.

The hon. and learned Member also asked about the granting of bail to immigrants awaiting a decision on deportation. I have looked into this matter, which is an extremely complicated one, and, if necessary, I shall write to the hon. and learned Gentleman about it in the next few days.

I turn now to an aspect of the problem which is of most topical concern to the House the conditions under which unconvicted persons who have to be kept in custody are accommodated. Most of them are in local prisons in the centres of towns. These prisons can provide the necessary degree of security; they are generally nearer to the courts which they have to serve, though I take the point made about that by my hon. Friend the Member for the Isle of Thanet; they have access to specialised medical and other services; and they are reasonably convenient for visits by legal advisers, social workers and the prisoner's family and friends.

Regrettably, all local prisons are overcrowded, and their cramped conditions and old-fashioned design make it difficult to provide all the services and facilities which we should like. In consequence, far too many unconvicted prisoners have to spend far too long in their cells, and facilities for meals, visits and recreation are generally overstretched. We are rightly turning our attention to the conditions of prisoners, but, at the same time, we should acknowledge the very great strains and pressures on the prison staffs. I pay my tribute to the work that they are doing at a difficult time when so much public interest and publicity is turned on these establishments.

After considering the lessons learned from the experimental, purpose-built remand centre for men and women at Risley in Lancashire, we have decided to plan on the basis that unconvicted prisoners need to be accommodated in places with good communications and easy access to courts and specialist facilities of various kinds. The existing local prisons can best meet this requirement. Unconvicted adults will, therefore, continue to be accommodated in them, but overcrowding will be reduced, the accommodation is being refurbished and facilities generally will be improved. Local prisons have ample accommodation for the purpose, provided that we can build enough training prisons to take prisoners once they have been sentenced. The prison building programme, therefore, concentrates on new training prisons, which can be away from towns and for which planning clearance is, therefore, easier to obtain.

I remind the House that capital expenditure on prison building, which totalled just under £10 million in the 1971–72 financial year, will increase very considerably, reaching about £24 million in 1973–74 and £30 million by 1975–76. This is a threefold increase over a five-year period. Almost the whole of the increase will be devoted to providing new prison places.

At the same time as all this, we are pressing on with the programme which was started by the Conservative Government, some 10 years ago, of getting young people on remand out of prisons altogether. We now have 10 remand centres for young people in various parts of the country, most of them in modern purpose-built accommodation. They contain at present about 1,250 places for young men and about 130 for women and girls. More places are still needed, but the building programme includes another 1,150 or so places in remand centres for young men, including three completely new establishments at Glen Parva near Leicester, North Weald in Essex and Feltham in Middlesex; and, as the House knows, we are rebuilding Holloway for the women and girls. This building programme will take some time still to show results, but we are now making progress.

As another example, Latchmere House has been converted to a remand centre to relieve overcrowding at Ashford, and it provides quite good facilities, particularly for young people, including those aged 14 and under 17 who may be committed to prison department custody because they are too unruly to be committed to the care of the local authority, and for those young people who may, unfortunately, have to spend a considerable time in custody before their case comes to trial. Also, arrangements have been made to transfer or divert prisoners from Brixton to other prisons in the London area.

During recent months the prison department of the Home Office has been reviewing the conditions under which prisoners are held on remand. Some of the conclusions—that unconvicted prisoners should be allowed personal radios and battery shavers and that the number of open visits should be increased so far as is practicable at each establishment—were announced in reply to a Question by the hon. Member for Brixton (Mr. Lipton) on 16th May, and they are now being carried out.

I am glad to tell the House about some of the further improvements which my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary foreshadowed earlier this month. We should be able to make more generous arrangements for unconvicted prisoners to have food and drink sent in from outside prison. Again, we hope to allow them to keep more of their personal possessions, such as wallets, watches, rings and fountain pens, and we shall also allow them the use of their own writing paper, which was one of the points made by the hon. and learned Member. We shall try to make the procedure for reception into prison more civilised and more humane, for example, by providing better meals and, perhaps, by allowing access to telephones. We shall also improve the facilities for persons attending Crown courts, again by providing better meals and by allowing them to write letters from the court.

Meanwhile, at Brixton, where the problems of overcrowding have always been particularly acute, the period allowed for exercise has during the past few days been increased from one how to one and a half hours. More films are being provided to be shown in the evenings, and improvements are being made in the method of serving food and in the arrangements for washing and shaving.

Taken as a whole, all these changes. though individually small, should lead to a worthwhile improvement in conditions.

Again I thank the hon. and learned Member for Rowley Regis and Tipton for giving us the opportunity to consider this subject today. We are not complacent. We believe that we arc tackling the situation along the right lines, and we are determined to maintain the momentum of improvement.

I am grateful for the opportunity of speaking about the conservation of our ancient cities. I am grateful not only because I happen to represent one, being one of the two hon. Members for Norwich, but also because I do not think that this is a local problem, therefore. it is not local gratitude that I display, for this is a national problem.

Indeed, in Norwich we are probably rather more lucky than a great many other county boroughs in that we have had sympathetic consideration for conservation from different councils since the war. We have had excellent planning advice and we have had amenity societies which have been particularly vocal. Fortunately, their cries for help have normally been heard by those in command.

This is a national problem, and financial considerations alone make it certain that this must be considered at central Government level. When we consider that Bath, one historic city, takes in receipts from tourists about three times what the Government spend at present on conserving all ancient cities in this country, one realises how very low in the Government's order of priorities conservation still is.

The cost of our national heritage, our historic cities, must therefore be borne nationally because these cities are of national, if not international, interest. It puts a totally unfair burden on the local ratepayer to expect him to forgo his new dustbins or street lighting in order to have a mediaeval house preserved for the country or, perhaps, a Georgian assembly hall.

I had always assumed that the central Government were interested in this and that it was a priority consideration for the Department of the Environment, and I thought that they were reacting to the rightful demands of society. I was therefore surprised on 11 th May when I received a letter from the Department containing this rather disquieting statement:

"The Secretary of State has no programme for the preservation and improvement of ancient cities in the sense of a phased set of measures which he requires cities to take; nor is any series of discussions taking place with such cities with a view to supervising their work of preservation or guiding their steps."

The writer then goes on to explain his views in respect of the oversight of older buildings and their alteration and demolition, and the approval of schemes of conservation.

But that statement seems to be at variance with the views expressed by the Secretary of State in the foreword to this week's report of a group of experts, published under the title "How do you want to live?", which conclusively shows that people need to have a sense of identity with their surroundings and that they are acutely conscious of their urban environment, and that nothing but harm will follow if we expect the majority of our fellow people to suppress their individuality by living in a city looking as if it had been made out of a set of child's Leggo bricks. There is now a very definite public attitude to their own environment both urban and rural, and this public attitude will soon become a public demand for political action at the very highest level.

I have no doubt that in reply my hon. Friend will speak about a system of grading of buildings and will say that the system of grading buildings has saved many fine buildings. But it is no good grading a building if one takes that building in isolation. We need to preserve the atmosphere of cities, their nooks and crannies and individuality. It is no good preserving one Georgian house in isolation from its environment. Nothing can look more stupid, very often, than a bit of past history preserved in the middle of a roundabout, or something like that. It bears as much relation to conservation as a stuffed bird in a museum bears to natural history.

I pay credit to what the amenity societies have done. They have done much to emphasise the need for conservation. They have also harnessed public opinion and pointed out just what is needed in the way of environment.

What we need, too, is a system whereby a local community can seek some protection from the local planning department which is perhaps motivated by idleness, lack of interest or rate hunger. We must also see that local citizens can be protected from the profit-greedy developer. What is needed is a realisation that what goes up in an area is just as important as what comes down.

It is true that the Minister can call in any plan if public outcry is loud enough, but all too often the public outcry comes too late. Often the public have been taken by surprise and so the sole arbiter of the future of a district is sometimes only someone in the local planning authority.

If a developer wants a building and the local planning authority agrees, the neighbours of this new building have no appeal whatsoever. The Minister will, no doubt, tell me that he will always respond to an outcry from the local Press or the local amenity society. However, they have not got this right. They have no right to see him. They have to acquiesce silently in the destruction of the neighbourhood whether by demolition or by creation.

This will become increasingly important because as councils become bigger the contact with the environment may become less. The order of priorities may change. Norwich spends £100,000 a year on the preservation of ancient buildings. There is no saying that a new local authority will want to spend that sum of money or that it will all be spent in Norwich and not in the county. Surely in this instance the City of Norwich should have the right of appeal to the Minister.

Not always will the Minister see a local environment group or a local amenity society. It may be assumed that they have access to the Department through their Members of Parliament, but only last month there was an instance in my own constituency where the Minister clearly said that he thought that no useful purpose could be served by discussions with the local amenity society because this should he done at local level.

Once again we come back to the problem of finance and whether the problem of these cities is a national or local problem to be decided in a city hall.

There are one or two other specific points that I want to ask. First, in the discussions presided over by Lord Kennet 'he very definite suggestion was made that an historic towns corporation should be set up, a corporation which could oversee all those towns of historical interest and importance in the world of art and architecture. That suggestion seems to have been lost for ever. Certainly we have heard no more about it.

Secondly, the suggestion was made that grants must be much more freely available for the tidying up of areas. At present it is the easy way out for a local council to take a bulldozer and go right through a whole district, designate it as a slum and clear the lot, and then redevelopment grants are available. If a responsible attitude is taken and an effort is made not to destroy an area but to tidy it and introduce modern domestic architecture so that people will live again in the city centres, no grant is available.

I should particularly like to mention a part of Norwich known as Norwich over the River. It is a small area just to the north of the river which contains a multitude of fine buildings. It has been allowed to fall into decrepitude over the last 25 or 30 years. Grants are not available for much of this work, but they should be. There is in this area one house which I know my hon. Friend the Minister is aware of, a fine 17th century house designated as a grade 2 building. It was only on the provisional list, not on the statutory list. Before it could be transferred from one to the other, the Minister had been appealed to by those who wanted to demolish it, and the building has now come down.

This is not unique. There are other buildings like it, but slowly, little by little, we are whittling away our inheritance from the past. We must look at every building and certainly not rely upon mere phraseology to allow a building to be destroyed. This building was only on the provisional list because the customary time had not elapsed for it to go on the statutory list. It clearly says that when these lists were first drawn up the only reason that a building would not be transferred from one list to the other list after a lapse of time was an administrative one. In this case it was not an administrative reason but a planning reason. There was no reason whatever why the Minister should have allowed that building to be destroyed without further inquiry.

When we look at the graded buildings we must be immediately struck by the fact that it is not good enough just to grade them; some funds must be made available. At the moment no funds are necessarily made available because the building is newly scheduled. There are no funds to keep out the rain or trespassers. If money is spent in this way there is no way of reclaiming it. There is nothing to stop the dishonest or nearly dishonest developer buying a scheduled building at a "knock-down" price and then letting it slowly fall down. He is taking no positive action to destroy it, just letting nature and gravity do their work. At the end of the time he will come forward to the inquiry and say "It has cost far too much to save the building. It is a pure waste of funds." He may then get permission to pull it down when he himself has occasioned its destruction slowly and by stages. Some thought should be given to the preservation of a building once it has been scheduled.

We have to think in terms of tax incentives. It may well be that if one is fortunate or unfortunate enough to inherit or acquire an ancient building, additional expenditure will be needed. Perhaps this expenditure could in some way be eased by changes in tax legislation.

Let us think of the Common Market and what effect it will have on this country. Whether we like it or not, the Common Market will have some effect. It is certain that society will become more industrialised over the next 10 or 20 years. There will have to be some shift in preservation and conservation to fit in with what is happening on the Continent where they see conservation in terms of areas and not individual buildings. They realise that urban environment is where, regrettably, most people have to live and that they deserve a reasonable way of life as well as the rural people. We must, therefore, see that a strong and coherent policy is adopted to give these areas high priority. If we are to clear the remains of the Industrial Revolution and the squalor left behind, we must make sure that we do not clear away the examples of historic interest which still remain.

These problems of preservation will increase in the 1970s and 1980s. For the authorities to wash their hands of these problems at this time and say that they have no central policy and that the preservation of ancient cities is not their concern would be to abdicate their responsibility at a time when the potential threat is greatest. I cannot believe that the letter which I quoted was intended, and I hope to hear the true state of affairs today.

I am most grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich, South (Dr. Stuttaford) for raising this subject and making such a powerful plea. I endorse everything he has said. We ought, however, to pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment. His heart is certainly in the right place, and his policy for bypassing historic towns in the right one.

In referring to that letter, however, my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich, South, underlined the need for a co-ordinated policy. Unless we have a comprehensive strategy for urban development there will be very little left by the turn of the century in many of our historic towns apart from the individually distinctive buildings which we know are safeguarded but which in isolation, as my hon. Friend pointed out, do not breathe the atmosphere of the place.

There are many examples of terrible development. We can think of the City of London and of the way in which the surroundings of St. Paul's have been desecrated. We can think of the Ns ay in which Parliament Square at this moment is being threatened by unthinking people who do not consider the consequences of their actions. Very often it is lack of sensitivity and restraint and a thoughtless disregard, sometimes on the part of avaricious and philistine developers car of blinkered local authorities. But this is a national problem and my hon. Friend was right to emphasise that point.

My hon. Friend referred to the paradox that tourists are flocking in, bringing with them nearly £500 million a year, coming to see the glory of this country which is so often typified in our great ancient buildings and fine historic towns and cities. Yet so much is threatened at this time and we do not have a co-ordinated policy to deal with the situation. One might be forgiven for parodying Sir John Betjeman and saying:

"The old town's glossy face-life of 1963 Has left for contemplation not what there used to be."

How true that is in so many of our fine old towns and cities.

This is a question of prorities. We talk so glibly these days about the quality of life. What do we mean by it? Surely we ought to mean many things, and one of the things at the top of the list ought to be a proper concern for the preservation and enhancement of dignified, civilised urban surroundings. Yet what happens? Many hon. Members will recall the article on the City of Bath which appeared in The Times a few weeks ago which had that awful headline "Acres of Georgian rubble". My hon. Friend has referred to the fact that Bath receives from tourism, three times more than the Government are giving for the preservation of all historical buildings.

There has been recently the story of the rape of Wheathampstead, where a fine small complex of buildings was done away with before anyone could do anything about it. Our regulations need tightening up where this sort of thing is likely to happen, on a big scale as in Bath or a small scale as in Wheathampstead.

We have our priorities absolutely wrong when we spend about £1 million a year on historic buildings and yet cheerfully spend hundreds of millions of pounds on Concorde which, with its sonic boom, may bring greater problems for our towns and cities. That is not an argument against Concorde, which I am delighted that the Government are supporting.

On an Adjournment debate one must be careful about referring to legislation for fear of being ruled out of order. But I am disturbed by the fact that under the Local Government Bill the Government are considering transferring responsibility for historic buildings and conservation areas to district councils, taking it away from county councils which have accumulated expertise and wisdom in dealing with these matters.

What we really need—I say this with no disrespect to my hon. Friend the Minister for Local Government and Development—is one member of the Gov- ernment who will have a total responsibility for the national architectural heritage, someone whose only concern is to make sure that what we have inherited is properly maintained and that where development takes place it is in the spirit of the area. I took the liberty of writing to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State on this general subject a week or two ago. I pointed out that far too often, where there is conflict between the developer and the conservationist, the developer wins. What has been happening and is happening in Bath and other places underlines the urgent need for more stringent supervision of the plans of local authorities. It is not a question of making sure that the most important buildings are preserved intact, because that is relatively easy. It is a question of the preservation of whole areas of individually unremarkable buildings which collectively have an architectural harmony which should be valued and preserved. That is what gives most cause for concern.

I suggested to my right hon. Friend that we might consider nominating national towns in the same way as we have national parks. I do not want to pursue the analogy too far, but Bath, Winchester, Chester, Norwich and many others of our fine ancient cities are just as much part of England and part of the glory that we should preserve as the Peak District, Exmoor or other areas of great natural beauty.

Therefore, I very much hope we shall have a sympathetic and understanding reply from my hon. Friend, one which will indicate that the letter was sent out in a fit of absence of mind.

I, too, congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich, South (Dr. Stuttaford) on initiating this debate. Although I agree with him whole heartedly that we are talking about a national problem which should be dealt with on a national basis, as an East Anglian he will perhaps forgive me if I take three examples that are fairly close to us in our part of the world. It so happens that in today's edition of the East Anglian Daily Times there are three news stories dealing with three different facets of this question, which are interesting indications not only of what needs to be done but of what can and is being done in the circumstances.

The first story deals with the constituency of my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for the Environment, the hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Mr. Eldon Griffiths), where a conservation plan is now being put forward for the whole of the middle part of that most beautiful medieval borough. Most of the mediæval town, together with the historic approaches and abbey precincts, is to be included as a designated area. The proposals will serve to preserve one of the finest of all East Anglian towns. That is a good example of the kind of step my hon. Friend was concerned with. He will agree that in his own beautiful and historic city one of the happiest initiatives was what was done at Magdalen Street on the initiative of the Civic Trust. I hope the Government will give encouragement to such improvement schemes.

Although my hon. Friend is entirely right about the preservation of mediæval areas, I hope that thought will be given to the preservation of industrial archaeology as well. This is a matter about which some of us are very concerned.

The East Anglian Daily Times also refers to the improvements of a different type at Colchester, where the intention is to give a better view of the Roman walls of the borough. I hope that more thought can be given and more money made available for improvements of that kind. It is a matter which has always been given great attention in certain Continental cities for the benefit of visitors and the appearance of the townscape as a whole.

I should like to express the most heartfelt thanks to the Department of the Environment for what is announced as the lead story in the East Anglian Daily Times today, the long-awaited and entirely welcome news that the Department is to provide my constituency, a third historic and beautiful East Anglian town, with a bypass, which will take the horrors of too much traffic, and in particular. too much heavy transport, away from the town and safeguard the future of the borough in that way.

I end by quoting the words of the East Anglian Daily Times that:

"The old regimental tune of the Suffolk Regiment used to be 'Speed the Plough'. They must have known."

I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich, South (Dr. Stuttaford) for giving me an opportunity of reporting to the House the progress which the Government are making in the preservation of the historic towns. Two issues in this matter have been identified by my hon. Friend: first, whether this matter should be under the control of the central Government or local government; secondly, the question of central Government financial support for the local preservation of our historic treasures.

On the question of control, it is wrong to look at the strictly legal aspect and ignore the co-operation which takes place between central Government and local government. I will come back to that aspect in a moment. On the question of finance, it is wrong, too, to look only at the cash handed over by central Government by way of grants. In the maintenance of historic buildings that is only a very minute part of the story. Central Government rate support grant discharges about 60 per cent. of local expenditure, and the historic town is not restricted in any way in its expenditure on its historic buildings and the historic character of the town—indeed, it is ens couraged so to spend by the present Government. So our general system of local government finance results in a substantial contribution by the taxpayer to the ratepayer towards the preservation of the historic towns.

I say without fear of contradiction that the present Government are doing more for the preservation and conservation of our historic towns than has ever been done before: Government financial backing for 34 historic towns carrying out town schemes proposed by the historic buildings Councils; Government payment for bypass roads for 84 historic towns to keep the trunk road traffic out of the historic high street; doubling the Government grant to the historic buildings Councils; creating an entirely new conservation grant; adding 8,000 a year to the list of historic buildings to be protected. This is a formidable programme for the protection of our heritage and it is one that I am convinced the public want us to carry out.

One of the most satisfactory aspects is that as the Department of the Environment we carry out the programme as a complete plan. The construction of the roads, the traffic on the roads, the planning of town schemes, the listing of buildings and all the rest now come within the responsibilities of one Department. My hon. Friends the Members for Norwich, South, and for Cannock (Mr. Cormack) urged that this should be more a central Government responsibility, but I say at once that although we can and do make possible from my Department the comprehensive plan or overall scheme, the preservation of the historic town in all its facets, we rely upon local authorities for the administration, for the exercise of discretion locally and for the extent to which the opportunities which the Government offer are seized. Indeed, I was rather astonished when my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich, South, seemed to he asking me to say that the local authority of which he himself was a distinguished member for a considerable time was unfit to look after its own town——

I do not think I said anything of the sort. I said that funds were essential for any local authority to carry out this work and that if funds were not available nothing could be done. I made a point of saying that my own local authority was very much better than local authorities in a great many other places.

I am happy to leave the discretion for taking the opportunity given by the Government to a local authority such as Norwich and many others which have done splendid work in the preservation of their historic towns. It would be wholly contrary to the concept of local government as the present Government see it if there were to be direction by the central Government as suggested by both my hon. Friends in the preservation of those towns.

This really is the central issue. There are some local authorities such as Norwich and Winchester which are superb but there are many others which have seen their area devastated. Is there not a case for some stronger central Government participation to prevent this?

No. I take issue entirely with my hon. Friend on this. The local authorities are capable of doing this in their own towns. One point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich, South was that it is no good grading a building if it is taken in isolation, and I agree with him entirely. If the central Government are to have control over the welding of that into the whole historic town they have to take over much more than controlling historic buildings; they have to take over the housing, roads and schools of that town —everything. The task of preserving historic towns involves all local government functions and it is right that the local authority should be left to work of its own initiative in doing so. We look to local authorities to do this.

Will my hon. Friend ask his Department to look at one thing? As land agent to the Government it has considerable opportunities for patronage in the form of supplying Government offices. I would ask him to ask nis Department to look at some of the historic town houses in some of our boroughs and cities to see whether it could not take over more of those for its own purposes or for the provision of Government offices, as a preservation force.

That is a very constructive proposal and I assure my hon. Friend that I shall look at it. That does not alter the fact that we believe that local authorities can look after their own towns and look after the preservation of the history and the historic treasures in them. The constituency of my bon. Friend the Member for Norwich, South is a good example and it is certainly not the only example. It is one of the best examples of an authority acting with enthusiasm and competence in the conservation of its ancient city. It has seven conservation areas, 380 Grades 1 and 2 listed buildings and 250 Grade 3 listed buildings. In a week or two it will have a total of 800 to 900 Grades 1 and 2.

Would my hon. Friend agree therefore that it is a city which, above all else, should be bypassed so that the traffic is kept out of it?

Yes. I was coming on to deal with the bypass. My hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich mentioned this and I am glad that we have been able to come to a decision to build the Ipswich bypass.

The figures I have mentioned about listed buildings in Norwich are exceptionally high for any town. The Government and the council have shared the cost of restoration of several of those buildings. My hon. Friend picked out one occasion when the central Government disagreed with the local amenity societies on the preservation of two buildings. I think he was referring to Nos. 17 and 19 Golden Dog Lane. I can tell him that the central Government were brought into this at an early stage. It was not that anyone in local government overrode what was our view in the Department. Had these buildings not been provisionally listed but fully listed we should have still have come to the same decision to allow demolition. This is a difference of opinion between my Department and my hon. Friend on the value of those buildings.

If I may again use Norwich as an example, two very special things have occurred there recently. First, last month a town scheme was set up under which 130 buildings qualify for grant. Norwich will contribute £7,500 per annum for five years and the Government will contribute £7,500 per annum for five years. An owner who requires assistance will be able to get a grant for repairs to his historic building within that scheme if he pays half the cost. We want to see more of these town schemes, with a 50 per cent. subsidy for repairs to historic building, found pound for pound by the Government and local government.

The second special event in Norwich is the phenomenal scheme for 28 redundant medieval churches. The Norwich City Council is taking over the freehold of those 28 churches and is setting up a company to which it will lease the churches. The company will maintain the buildings and will ensure their use for appropriate purposes. This is a most imaginative and praiseworthy scheme, perhaps the most imaginative scheme of this sort undertaken by a local authority in the preservation of our architectural and historic treasures. When I say "the most imaginative" I am perhaps speaking too soon. Bath has been mentioned, and the tunnel at Bath is one of the most interesting schemes for preserving an historic town. Having mentioned by-passes, perhaps I should say in this case, "If you cannot bypass it, then underpass it".

Let me mention the road schemes in Bath to which we are committed and in the other three of the four towns which go with Bath—York, Chester and Chichester. These schemes will reduce the traffic in the towns and make pedestrianisation possible. The amount being spent in the schemes to which we are committed and which are being carried out in the four towns is around the £25 million to £30 million mark, of which £20 million to £25 million will come from the Government. That expenditure is being made in four historic towns in order to take the traffic, noise, vibration and congestion out of narrow streets which were never intended to take it. That is a really sound investment in the prevention of injury rather than pouring money into curing the damage caused by the traffic. Let us get the traffic out of the towns and preserve them in that way.

Those are measures to prevent the unintentional demolition of our historic towns and buildings. But we must also take precautions against intentional demolition. Here we have three lines of defence, or perhaps plans of attack. The first is the continual resurveying of the country and the consequent addition of buildings to the statutory list of protected buildings. Perhaps it is not generally recognised that we have 140,000 listed buildings, and it would be rather expensive if, as my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich, South wanted, we were to subsidise each of them. What would happen would be that we should not list so many buildings.

Those 140,000 buildings and others are surveyed at the rate of 16,000 a year. The result is a net addition to the list of listed buildings of 8,000 a year. An application for demolition of a listed building can be granted only after my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has been told about it and given the chance to stop it. So there is co-operation there between central and local government.

Secondly, by vigorous administration of the existing law—that is, that one cannot demolish a listed building without the consent of the local planning authority and the concurrence of the Secretary of State —we have halved the number of historic buildings lost each year. A few years ago the figure was 400 lost each year. Last year it was only 203. One may say that it is 203 too many, but when the list is being increased by 8,000 a year I think it is fairly good to keep demolitions down to a figure of 203, and, indeed, it is reducing each year.

Thirdly, in this battle against intentional demolition we shall shortly be putting more buildings in the same category as listed buildings in regard to the prevention of demolition. These are buildings which, in a conservation area, the local authority considers to be necessary for the character of that area. We therefore have quite an armoury for the prevention of demolition of historic buildings, and the weapons are partly in the hands of the local authorities and partly in the hands of central Government.

I do not believe that anything better could be done by some historic towns corporation. My hon. Friend referred to this as having been advocated by Lord Kennet. He was in error. The Preservation Policy Group led by Lord Kennet did not recommend an historic towns corporation. It discussed it and in its report came down against it.

I have mentioned the question of the intentional demolition of historic buildings. From what my hon. Friends the Members for Norwich, South and for Cannock said, I think they must have forgotten that there is power under the Town and Country Planning Acts for local authorities to acquire neglected listed buildings compulsorily. There is power to go in and take them, and if the object of the owner of a building is to get permission to develop and he lets his building become neglected with that intention, it can be acquired at minimum compensation without any compensation for the development value.

I believe it is of the utmost importance that the preservation of historic buildings should be firmly wrapped up with the preservation of the historic town and that it is the local planning authority which, as I have said, is concerned with housing, highways, schools, museums and the rest, which can make the total appraisal of the situation and take decisions with knowledge of all the factors. That is why I said that I think town schemes are valuable. The Historic Buildings Council has developed this concept of the town scheme, of picking out outstanding groups of property. Through this it is possible for central and local Government to help the repair of a building which, while not outstanding individually—not one historic building standing out such as my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich, South mentioned—in a group is of importance.

Joint grants are now given for this purpose over a period of years and an allocation is given to owners of historic buildings, particularly those in the core of an historic town. There are now 34 such schemes, including towns from Plymouth to Berwick-upon-Tweed, from King's Lynn to Totnes, from Winchester to Wisbech, and all this is to be supplemented shortly by a new conservation grant. This will be made to assist local authorities, voluntary bodies, and individual owners, if they so require, to preserve and enhance the character and appearance of a conservation area. The amounts of grant will, I admit, be fairly modest but their uses will be wideranging—environmental improvement, repairs, conversions, adaptations and so on. It is a pump-priming operation particularly aimed at getting a conservation scheme off the ground and regenerating an area which deserves a little more than preservation as a dusty museum piece.

Let me put on record once again the figures. We have 232 historic towns identified as such. We shall protect and enhance them. Of these, 84 were badly traffic-struck; 16 have already been relieved of trunk road through traffic and 68 will be similarly relieved by the early 1980s. We have 34 town schemes providing grants for tackling outstanding groups of buildings in historic towns. There are the grants for the maintenance of listed buildings to which we are adding and the grants for buildings in conservation areas. There are 140,000 listed buildings, and we are adding to them at the rate of 8,000 buildings a year.

This is neither the end nor even the climax of the story. I can add one matter which was overlooked by my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich, South when he spoke of tidying-up grants. We have Operation Eyesore which meets exactly the sort of case of which he was talking, where we are concerned not with bulldozing down a slum clearance area but with tidying up an area which is an eyesore.

We shall ensure an increasing investment in our heritage in this way, increasing not only in money value but in what is perhaps more important, the expertise of constructive conservation, with, I sincerely believe, increasing encouragement from the public.

I rise with some diffidence, as the disadvantage of having the last debate before the Whitsun Recess is that it seems that only the Minister and I stand between everybody and the Whitsun Recess. Nevertheless, I am grateful for the opportunity of ventilating in the House an issue which needs to be aired because of the considerable public disquiet which has been expressed in the Press and elsewhere about the role of special investigators employed by the Department of Health and Social Security.

Shortly after I was elected a Member of Parliament in 1970, one of the first constituency cases I had affected a young, somewhat inarticulate woman with three children. It was alleged that she was cohabiting and should therefore be denied supplementary benefit. There was not a total withdrawal of supplementary benefit, but it was reduced to £3 a week. The evidence appeared to be based largely on the usual inquiries that are under. taken by the special investigators—surveillance of the property, discussions with neighbours and the rest. She denied totally that she was cohabiting with the man concerned, and he supported that denial. There was, therefore, a complete conflict of evidence. She went to appeal and failed.

It seemed to me that this was not tilt, sort of woman who could have adequately probed and challenged the evidence of the special investigator. It may be—I cast no reflections on the tribunal concerned since I was not there and do not know—that the chairman of the tribunal might have made adequate inquiries and cross-examined the special investigator. Clearly, that is not always the case.

The feeling I had in this instance was that the woman felt at a disadvantage, appearing as she did unrepresented before that tribunal. She was expected to keep three children who were totally innocent victims—children of her previous marriage—and to pay a rent of £3, because it was assumed that the man with whom she was alleged to be cohabiting was offering her some financial help, which was denied by both parties. The man involved denied it because he said he could not afford to maintain that household as well as his own.

I am happy to say that after a considerable amount of pressure the Supplementary Benefits Commission increased the allowance to £9, but this happened only after a very great deal of pressure and with some reluctance on the part of the commission. It may be that I was particularly zealous at that time, and I can only hope that my zealousness in seeking after injustices has not diminished.

By this time the rent of this lady's GLC flat had fallen into arrears, and the GLC was not particularly helpful. The woman felt distinctly uncomfortable, living as she did in a block of flats in which her neighbours had been called on to give evidence—hearsay evidence—against her. She thought that she had been spied on, as a result of which for some time at least the children were denied certain basic essentials. It was a case that caused me to think hard about the whole concept lying behind the cohabitation rule. I understand that a real dilemma is posed in such cases. I recognise, as does the Minister—and certainly the Supplementary Benefits Commission recognises in its report—that there is something unpleasant about intimate inquiries being undertaken into the private lives of divorced women and deserted wives. On the other hand, one recognises the view that one must safeguard society against abuses of the Supplementary Benefits Scheme and of other aspects of the Welfare State and knows that women who are cohabitating can be supported by their lovers. Therefore, any abuse of the system means that the taxpayer is the "fall guy". Clearly, there is a conflict of views on this matter.

These questions were fully investigated as the Secretary of State told the House the other day, in the report of the Supplementary Benefits Commission. Although it is an excellent report, I am not totally satisfied that the questions posed have been satisfactorily resolved or that in most instances the proper criteria for measuring abuses have been applied.

Should there be a rule concerning cohabitation? At first sight there seems to be little justification for it because neither at Common Law nor by Statute has a man any legal obligation to maintain his mistress or her children, unless those children are also his own. It is only fairly recently that any reasonableness has been brought into the law in regard to affiliation proceedings to ensure that a father should maintain his illegitimate children on a reasonable basis. But it may be that one should consider changing the law in this regard and that a man should have a legal obligation to maintain the woman with whom he is cohabitating outside marriage. However, that is not an issue which falls to be discussed today. It is a much wider one.

Having said that, on balance, I have come to the conclusion that there is justification for the cohabitation rule. The main basis of the commission's conclusions, with which I agree, is that without it the unmarried couple who are cohabiting would be placed in a more favourable position than the married couple.

What it comes to always is a matter of balance. There is a need to ensure that the woman who has not established a stable relationship outside marriage, whatever may be the view of the special investigator or of the tribunal, should not be placed in real financial and social jeopardy. Yet we must not get to the situation where she is placed in a more favourable position than the married woman.

We have very real difficulties in practice. There is no difficulty where people are living together outside marriage having formed a stable family and financial relationship, and where they admit it. The difficulties arise where they do not admit it and where there is some doubt about the relationship that they have formed, where there are the serious disputes to which I referred earlier in the case affecting my constituent, and where there is a conflict of evidence as to the nature of the relationship—are they living together as man and wife, are they sharing the household expenses, are they living in and sharing the same accommodation, and are they sleeping together?

These are matters which were highlighted by the Supplementary Benefits Commission's report. It conceded that mistakes and abuses would arise. It said that it employed a large number of people, and we now know that it employs 286 investigators. Obviously, it would be unfair to expect a higher standard from those employees than we do from the police or anyone else in the public service. The commission conceded that errors and abuses arose, but not to the extent that critics of the scheme claimed. I believe that the truth lies somewhere between what the Supplementary Benefits Commission states and the views of the critics.

There has been a distinct advantage in probing the Department, both in Questions and, I hope, in this debate, in order to highlight abuses, but perhaps more importantly to intensify the safeguards which can be applied for the public, and constantly to ensure that there is an improvement of standards. It is one of the benefits of our parliamentary system that we are able to do that.

It is fair to say, as I am sure the Minister will, that abuses and errors arise only in a minority of cases of the work undertaken by his Department and by special investigators particularly. But what is not sufficiently understood and recognised in the commission's report is the untold harm, albeit in a minority of cases, that is done where errors and abuses arise in this very sensitive area. Real danger and damage can be caused to the families affected, who are often the most deprived families in our community.

I do not believe that the resentment and the consequences have been sufficiently appreciated. It follows, therefore, that there is a tremendously heavy burden on special investigators to carry out their inquiries carefully, reasonably and tactfully so as to minimise that resentment and the distress that these accusations necessarily cause. They must not be overzealous in their work. They must understand that inquiry of this sort must be undertaken delicately. They must not be over-zealous in prosecuting immorality. They must not adopt overbearing or intimidating postures.

I do not want it to be thought that I am claiming that the majority of special investigators do those things—they do not—but I am sure that there is a minority who do not apply the highest standards.

The Child Poverty Action Group has published a report which throws some doubt upon the efficacy of the work of some investigators. Perhaps I may say in parenthesis that it is a little unfair constantly to refer to them as snoopers. One passage in the report said that women who had been interviewed considered that some of the inquirers had been uncivil, insensitive, and some even obscene. Some of the evidence adduced —I do not suggest that it ought to be accepted in its entirety; it is subject to doubt, of course—must cause us concern and is worthy of further investigation.

This is the sort of inquiry which was alleged to have been made of one woman: "Well, have you not got a man lined up yet? Thought you would by now." A woman alleges that the investigator said: "Get your boy friend to look after you. You are not having your social security book back", and she went on to say that he "snatched my book off me and, after a few nasty remarks, he left. I was treated like dirt." One woman said that it was suggested that she become a prostitute, and so on.

I do not know how valuable or how true that sort of evidence is, but I do know from my own knowledge of complaints which come to me at my surgery, not so much about special investigators but about the usual day-to-day practice in offices of the Department, that people are often most disquieted about the treatment which they receive. Sometimes, I believe, the complainants are wrong. But they are not always wrong. It is, therefore, incumbent upon the Department to do its utmost to ensure that it maintains the highest administrative standards.

Not only have I noted what is said by the Child Poverty Action Group, but I have had similar cases put and similar anxieties expressed to me by colleagues. In addition, the National Council for Civil Liberties and Shelter have expressed doubts about the scheme itself.

There can be no doubt that the closest inquiry ought to be undertaken by the Department into these matters. There were criticisms in the report of the Child Poverty Action Group about the informality of the tribunals. As a lawyer, I do not like informal tribunals, because it is contrary to my training. I recognise that it is sometimes argued that a very formal tribunal is more intimidating than an informal tribunal, but I doubt that, and I think that informal tribunals may sometimes get into a hopeless mess. But whatever the situation, doubts have been expressed about it in this report.

I am also concerned about the admissibility in these matters of hearsay evidence. This is part of the argument about informality, I suppose, but the fact is that the rules against admissibility of hearsay evidence in court proceedings were introduced for a very good reason, namely, that such evidence could not be easily challenged by an accused person. In a sense, a person involved in proceedings before a tribunal of this kind is an accused person. There is no way of challenging hearsay evidence, particularly when it is based upon information supplied by neighbours, employers and so on. I am not at all satisfied that that is right or just. I believe there ought to be a stricter code of legal rules for these tribunals.

I also believe that the tribunals do not place sufficient emphasis on what they are supposed to—that is, the stable nature of the relationship between the man and woman concerned. Evidence in regard to this should be the paramount concern of the tribunals. I believe that they place too much emphasis on the sexual relationship.

I put some specific questions to the Minister which arise from what I have said. First, we must be satisfied as to the nature of the people who are recruited to do this work. I would think that in the main they are people who are qualified to do it, but the public are entitled to know about the selection procedure. What is the nature of their training? I am afraid that in this particular respect, the Supplementary Benefits Commission report was less than forthcoming. Why have the Government been so loth to publish the handbook which is given to special investigators and which the Daily Mail has now given partial publicity? In many respects that newspaper is to be congratulated on that. The handbook is known as the A-X code. Is it true that special investigators have been told in that code to seek information from neighbours, landlords and employers and to listen to gossip, as was reported in the Daily Mail? Would not publication help to eliminate the suspicions which no doubt the Department would consider have been evoked without justification? Are some of the inquiries of neighbours which are undertaken by special investigators justified to the full extent to which they are pursued? Is not this likely to encourage informers and to discourage what one seeks to achieve in a community such as a local authority estate—namely, good neighbourliness? Are not these matters which ought to be the concern of those carrying out these inquiries?

Similarly, too many landlords always think that there is never smoke without fire. A very great danger to the relationship between landlord and tenant can be created by probing of this kind, and sometimes, it must be remembered the allegations are not borne out.

Also, regarding inquiries made of employers, cannot suspicion imperil the employment prospects of the man or woman concerned?

My next question is why, before the tribunal proceedings, the burden of proof cannot be stricter than it is. Why should it be dealt with on a balance of probabilities—in other words, that it appears that the people are cohabiting? Why should not this allegation be proved beyond reasonable doubt? After all, in divorce cases where adultery is alleged the adultery must be proved beyond reasonable doubt. The Minister should indicate why the rules should not be stricter than they are.

Is the Minister satisfied that people are always made aware of their right to appeal? I understand that last year there were some 20,000 cases under appeal. If I am wrong, no doubt the Minister will correct me. In many of those cases, because these people are so deprived and inarticulate they need help in challenging the evidence with which they are confronted. Therefore, there is a real need for organisations like the Claimants Union, which sometimes carries out its work with moderation and is helpful, and, at other times, is not, I readily concede. However, something of this kind is needed to assist the people who challenge the evidence. It is true that they can bring along a friend to help present their case, but that assistance is not always readily available. There is no form of legal aid and, therefore, they cannot afford legal representation.

Is there not a strong case for women who are affected by these findings knowing the case against them and being able to retain the benefit until the case is proved against them? I had a letter concerning a lady—I shall not reveal her name—and it was said of her that she was not a very intelligent mother of two dependent children. She went to collect her weekly supplementary benefit on a Friday. The Post Office said that for reasons unknown to it her book had been stopped. By the time she had recovered from the shock, the local office of the Department of Health and Social Security was shut and she had to exist over the weekend with no money. She went to the office of the Department on the Monday morning, when her book was handed back with apologies. The officials thought she had got married and had therefore instructed the Post Office to stop payment. So a total injustice was done to this woman.

That is quite wrong. If we were to alter the rule this would be of considerable advantage because it would avoid that sort of situation. Should not tribunals exercise their power to reduce rather than withdraw benefit where a case is made out to a much greater extent than is done at present?

The next question is of paramount concern. Does the Minister consider that sufficient priority is attached to the needs of children? There has been some mitigation in the past two weeks or so because where there is hardship, as I understand the position, benefit can now be paid for four weeks even when a case is made out. But is not that rather trivial? Should not much more emphasis be placed on the innocent victims of the situation.

The Minister must justify the burden of establishing this vast bureaucracy. There has been a substantial increase in special investigators since 1964. There were 97 in 1964 and there are now 286. Is it all worth while, taking into account that they spend only one-third of their time on inquiries of this sort?

In answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Meacher), the Minister said that the annual average salary cost was £2,200 per investigator and that the Department was saving £8,000 per investigator as a result of that work. That does not take into account the overheads, the petty cash disbursements, the secretarial salaries, stationery, the overheads of the tribunals, rents and the rest of it. That seems to have been totally overlooked in that answer.

I express considerable doubt about the enocomic viability of the whole matter. I understand that it is not the sole issue. Difficulties exist and I have tried to point them out. However, I cannot help feeling that sometimes the priorities become somewhat distorted.

It is all too easy for the public to become very emotional and very angry about illicit sexual relationships and for a Government to respond to that sort of pressure. But why are the public not prepared to exercise more pressure about defaulting fathers and husbands? I am told that the Home Office does not even know what are the figures of orders in magistrates' courts in cases where there has been default. Why is so much more attention directed to resolved——

Why is so much more attention directed to resolving abuses of the Supplementary Benefits Scheme, than to the machinations of the wealthy and of big business to set up substantial means of avoiding, or perhaps I should say mitigating, their obligations to society in regard to tax and so on?

I think the priorities arc a little wrong. A great deal needs to be done, and I hope that the value of this debate will have been to ensure that some of the objectives I listed earlier might he more readily attained

As the hon. Member for Hackney, Central (Mr. Clinton Davis) has said, we have the last word before the recess. I am glad he has raised this subject in a quiet and responsible manner because it gives an opportunity to deal with some of the misleading publicity. particularly about cohabitation, which has appeared in recent weeks, and also some of the unfair attacks on the staff who diligently and tactfully in the vast majority of cases do the difficult and delicate job which Parliament has laid upon them.

I am glad, too, that the hon. Gentleman did not use some of the very emotive phrases which have been used in the Press in recent weeks because phrases such as "snoopers" may well cause unnecessary anxiety among women who are entitled to benefit and may deter them from applying for help. That is the last thing we wish in circumstances of this kind. Those who are entitled to help and who are caring for children without the support of a husband are entitled not only to our sympathy but also to the practical help which the Supplementary Benefits Commission is able to give.

In cohabitation cases the commission is not interested in people's sex lives or in making moral judgments since the law requires them to treat the married couple and the unmarried couple cohabiting as man and wife in precisely the same way. Its interest is purely factual. Does cohabitation exist? Is there a stable relationship? Are the couple, in effect, living as man and wife—because, if so, the woman and her children should not be supported by the taxpayer but by the man, if he is working, just as the working husband is expected to support his wife and children? Without the cohabitation rule the cohabiting couple would be more favourably treated than the man and wife, and that is why this rule has to be. I am very glad that on balance the hon. Gentleman supported it for that amongst other reasons. But there is a real dilemma, and I accept that, it exists dealing as we are in this very delicate area.

I will try to deal with some of the questions which the hon. Gentleman put to me. First, he asked who does the job of our special investigators. They are the people who investigate the more complex and time-consuming cases of suspected fraud which cannot be dealt with by staff in local offices without detriment to normal day-to-day work. They are attached to regional offices which control their work and direct them to different local offices as required. They have no special powers, for example of entry or search or anything else. They are ordinary executive officers of the Department who volunteer for this specialised work, stay on it for about five years, and are then assigned to other work. They are already experienced in supplementary benefit work before they become special investigators, and they work at first with an experienced special investigator before doing work on their own. They also attend a seminar before working on their own, in which the reasons for the scheme, the Judges' Rules and how they apply in such cases, and the way in which they should conduct themselves generally are put across to them.

The number of special investigators has been growing in recent years. They were first appointed by the National Assistance Board in 1954. when the number was 16. In 1964 the number was 97. On 1st April, 1970, the number was 270, and from 1st June. 1971, the number of posts was increased to 298. Thus it can be seen that the increase in authorised posts under the present Administration so far has been 28. Another 28 posts have been authorised from June of this year. This will bring the number to 326. The latest available figures of staff in post is 286, which means that there are 12 posts unfilled. The hon. Gentleman will see that the increases took place under both Administrations.

The work of the special investigators falls into three main categories of fraud on supplementary benefit—working while drawing benefit, which is the most numerous category; cohabitation: and fictitious desertion.

The analysis of work and amounts saved in 1971 is as follows. Of the cases investigated 38 per cent. were co- habitation, 9 per cent. were fictitious desertion, and 53 per cent. were working while drawing benefit. The gross saving in 1971 was just over £2 million, of which about £887,000 refers to cohabitation. These figures cannot take into account the deterrent effect which the work of the investigators might have on others.

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the figure of £887,000 is a gross figure and not a net saving?

Yes. I have given a gross figure of over £2 million for all the cases. The net figure, taking into account salaries and expenses, is rather over £1 million for the three categories.

The number of cases in 1971 can be analysed as follows. Of the total of 22,150 cases investigated 8,426 were cohabitation. In 3,787 the allowances were withdrawn or reduced. That figure represents 45 per cent. of the cases investigated. In other words, in 55 per cent. the allowances were not withdrawn or reduced. Those are the basic figures.

Suspicion of fraud will have arisen first in the course of normal checks in the processing and review of a claim, a home visit, information from another office, such as the employment exchange, or a letter, signed or anonymous, from a member of the public, which might be malicious or true. The case will be referred to the special investigator because the local office has not been able to resolve it satisfactorily. The typical cases are suspicion that a claimant or his wife are working for an unknown employer, that a husband who has allegedly deserted his wife is at home, or that a woman claimant is cohabiting with a man as his wife.

The hon. Member asked: why not publish these regulations so that everyone may know the instructions under which the special investigators work? As my right hon. Friend said on 9th May in answer to a Question by the hon. Gentleman, to expose the detailed methods used by the special investigators would make it easier for the comparatively small number of people who abuse the arrangement. It is for that reason that instructions to the staff in this field and in other fields are not made public.

But the hon. Gentleman will agree that the information that the Supplementary Benefits Commission has, particularly in recent years, made available to claimants and prospective claimants is much more valuable to those people than detailed and technical instructions to staff. The hon. Member referred to the publication from the commission on cohabitation and on how the cohabitation rule works. A number of other publications have come out in recent years, and there is also a general handbook which is made available to claimants and to those who are likely to be claimants to assist them, and I put it to the hon. Gentleman that making information available in this form is very much more valuable to claimants or prospective claimants than are very detailed technical instructions.

The hon. Member asked to what extent inquiries are made of neighbours, landlords, employers, and the like. It is true that in some of the more difficult cases where a suspicion cannot be resolved one way or the other it is necessary on occasion for discreet inquiries to be made in the neighbourhood in much the same way as the police might make inquiries where a breach of the law was suspected. But the special investigator must have two aims in mind; not to prejudice the suspected person by letting it be known that he or she is being investigated, nor, if it is thought that the person is committing fraud, to put him on guard and so enable him to evade detection.

But the distinction between the police inquiry and subsequent trial and this procedure is that at a trial the evidence has been adduced in its totality, whereas with this procedure hearsay evidence is introduced which cannot be challenged.

I take that point, but let me deal with the hon. Gentleman's questions in the order in which he asked them. On this point, special investigators have no authority to question children, and if the hon. Member or anyone else has evidence that this has happened I shall be glad' to look at the case.

If the inquiries I have briefly described cannot prove fraud or provide a firm base for altering entitlement, if they do not carry the matter further, that is the end of it. If they confirm suspicion, the investigation will be continued. It is sometimes alleged that at this point, or even before it, the allowance will be withdrawn. That is not so, or certainly should not be so. The special investigator, having established the facts, confronts the claimant with them and scrupulously follows the Judge's Rules in administering the appropriate cautions at the proper time. The allowance is not withdrawn until the special investigator has concluded that cohabitation is established.

A point that particularly concerned the hon. Gentleman related to the proceedings in the appeal tribunals, and the like. There is a big distinction here, as I am sure he will know better than I do, between the proceedings taken against a person for, say, fraud, which would take place in a court of law in the normal way, and the withdrawal of a benefit to which a person would appear after investigation not to be entitled. In the case of proceedings for fraud, it is entirely right and proper, if the Department feels that it is appropriate, that the case should be proceeded with in the normal way, where the normal rules of evidence, and the like, apply. Here we are dealing with something rather different. It is important that every claimant should know of her right of appeal and be encouraged to use it if she feels that the commission's decision is unfair. But it would not be right, I submit, to go on paying full benefit until the appeal is heard. The commission's officers have to make a judgment based on the facts of the case as to whether the couple are cohabiting. They do not do so without carefully considering all the evidence but once they have concluded that there is cohabitation the allowance in payment has to be withdrawn since on the face of it the woman is no longer entitled to it.

To continue full benefit pending an appeal would be to encourage an appeal in every case however obvious it might be that the couple were cohabiting because it would enable them to obtain a few more weeks of benefit. If the appeal were decided in the commission's favour it would be impractical to recover those weeks of benefit but if the benefit is stopped and the appeal goes in favour of the claimant arrears can always be paid.

To avoid hardship, and this was a point raised by the hon. Gentleman, the commission has recently decided that when the woman has children who are not those of the man, benefit will if necessary continue to be paid at a modified rate for the children's requirements for a period of four weeks to ease the adjustment whereby the man takes responsibility for the whole family. This applies whether or not a claimant appeals.

I agree with the hon. Gentleman that there are bound to be difficult cases of judgment and dilemmas in administering delicate rules applying to personal situations of this kind. I am not for one moment claiming that in every single case the right balance is struck between doing our utmost to help those who are in need and are entitled to benefit on the one hand and, at the same time, safeguarding the interests of the taxpayer on the other. Equally we have to be very careful that we do not get into a position where a man and woman cohabiting as man and wife are to be more favourably treated than a husband and wife. I am sure this is something which would not be acceptable to the country as a whole.

I am sure that this debate introduced so moderately by the hon. Gentleman will assist in bringing the real facts of the situation and the dilemmas of the situation to the public as a whole. There is no doubt that ventilations of this kind assist the commission and the officers who do this particularly delicate work, especially when as on this occasion the debate has been conducted in such a fair and responsible manner by the hon. Gentleman.