I beg to move,

That the Finance (Northern Ireland) Order 1972 (S.I., 1972, No. 1100), dated 26th July, 1972, a copy of which was laid before this House on 28th July, be approved.

The House will be aware that parity in taxation is a major principle governing the relationship between the United Kingdom and the Northern Ireland Exchequers, and the main purpose of this order is to effect changes in Northern Ireland transferred taxes which have already been enacted for Great Britain in the Finance Act, 1972. These concern estate duty, stamp duty, motor vehicle licence duty, selective employment tax and general betting duties. As the House knows, these have already been considered in great detail during the passage of the Finance Act, 1972.

The most important of the parity changes were proposed in the White Paper "Northern Ireland: Financial Arrangements and Legislation", which was presented to Parliament on 5th June, 1972. Hon. Members will recall that there was a debate in which this matter was referred to in some detail by my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary on 12th June. I think that I can confine myself to going through the order. The parity changes provide, with estate duty, for an increase in the exemption limit for estate duty from £12,500 to £15,000 and for a new scale of rates. In addition, property left to a surviving spouse up to a sum of £15,000, to charities up to £50,000 and to certain bodies concerned with preservation of the national heritage, including the Ulster Museum and the Ulster Folk Museum, is to be left out of account for the purposes of estate duty. As in Great Britain, these changes take effect from 21st March.

Under stamp duty, there is provision to increase to £10,000 and £15,000 respectively the limits for exemption from transfer duty and the reduced rate of transfer duty on transfers of property other than stocks and shares. The provisions concerning motor vehicles are necessary because of the introduction of car tax and value added tax and to amend the provisions exempting from licence duty vehicles used by certain classes of disabled persons to take account of revised arrangements for grant aiding the provision of such vehicles. There is also the provision to increase from 8 hundredweight to 10 hundredweight the weight limit for exemption from duty of invalid carriages.

The abolition of selective employment tax in the Finance Act, 1972, applied to the whole of the United Kingdom but the provisions for refund of SET are contained in Northern Ireland legislation. We therefore need to provide separately in the order for winding up the system of refunds by setting time limits of three months and six months respectively for Northern Ireland employers to apply for registration and submit claims for refunds.

In Part VI the order provides for general betting duty on on-course bets to be reduced from 5 per cent. to 4 per cent. The only point I ought to mention to the House in relation to the changes arising out of the Finance Act, 1972, in which we follow wholly the British pattern on this occasion, is that the order contains in Article 17 provisions to allow, with effect from 31st July, for the range of selective employment tax refunds to be extended for employers in Northern Ireland. This relief was part of the package of measures to assist the Northern Ireland economy announced by my right hon. Friend on 27th July.

Apart from that, there are provisions for making minor amendments of Northern Ireland legislation on estate duty and stamp duty which have already been enacted for Great Britain in previous Finance Acts. There are also administrative provisions relating to the Civil Contingencies Fund and the Road Fund. If the House would like, I can deal with this in a little more detail. I have covered the matters dealt with by the British financial legislation and I am not sure that there is any need for me to spell out in any detail any other matters unless hon. Members would like me to do so.

Article 20 seeks to increase from £1 million to £10 million the amount by which the Northern Ireland Civil Contingencies Fund may be temporarily increased in an emergency. The existing limit on a temporary increase was fixed at £1 million in 1950, since when there has been a more than ten-fold increase in the Supply Estimates.

Apart from that, there is a special reason why, in present circumstances, we need the additional flexibility which would be afforded by power to increase the Civil Contingencies Fund. The difficult situation in Northern Ireland can impose large and unexpected increases in expenditure and further increases may arise from new policies which my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State may adopt. A concrete example of this problem about which the House would be anxious to have no difficulty is the Vote for compensation on which expenditure is running well ahead of the estimate, partly because of the recent increase in the total of damage and partly because of a deliberate policy of speeding up the payment of compensation wherever possible.

I hope that we shall be able to make the payment of compensation even faster because I have had many representations from hon. Members and others in Northern Ireland that it is essential. I am sure that the House would not want any legislative bar to stop us from doing that. That is why it has been thought right to propose in Article 20 that the figure of £10 million should be substituted for £1 million.

I have not taken up much time because this order follows what has happened in the rest of the United Kingdom and it has been debated at considerable length in the House during the discussions on the Finance Act. The House will appreciate that the question of finance legislation is urgent in Northern Ireland, just as it is in England. I therefore hope that the House, before it rises, will feel able to pass the order, which gives final approval to the financial measures proposed in Northern Ireland this summer but which need the approval of this House and another place.

I, too, wish to be brief, but there are a number of general points which should he aired, particularly as there is to be a great deal of discussion in the approaching weeks about the political future of Northern Ireland. While there is a great deal of discussion about the form of government in Northern Ireland, there seems to be little thought about the question of financing in Northern Ireland. I do not think that even some prominent politicians in the North of Ireland have looked very carefully at the figures, and it would therefore be as well if, however briefly, we aired the matter today.

The order is based on the Government of Ireland Act. The question of the share of the reserve taxes—income tax, corporation tax, purchase tax, and so on—is determined at Westminster. I presume that what we are talking about are the transferred taxes, those which were under the control of Stormont—betting duties, motor vehicle duties and some aspects of selective employment tax, although when I first looked at the figures I assumed that the question of selective employment tax would be dealt with at Westminster.

In dealing with the order which raises the revenue, we should look at the figures in Cmnd. 4998—"Northern Ireland Financial Arrangements and Legislation". This shows the very small amount of revenue with which we are concerned in this order. The total revenue in the Budget Estimate of 1972–73 is nearly £442 million. The figure under the transferred tax revenue is £37 million. Thus about £40 million is in effect the budget of Northern Ireland.

Mr. Craig, in the North of Ireland, talks about UDI for Northern Ireland. Perhaps it is possible, but there would have to be a fairy godmother somewhere before it could happen in view of the figures. If people, having taken account of the figures, want UDI, then so be it. But, in terms of the standard of living in the North of Ireland, there would be a very great change—

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that no large section of the community in Northern Ireland advocates UDI and that it is total balderdash in view of the figures? Northern Ireland can survive as an economic entity only as part and parcel of the United Kingdom.

I take the hon. Gentleman's point. He can be firm about the views of politicians in Northern Ireland in a way in which perhaps I cannot. I referred to the figures in order to show the weakness of the argument about UDI. One of the basic reasons why politicians in the South are not very eager to take over the North is that they have had 50 years of government and they understand the figures. There would be a real problem for anybody running the North, in view of the figures.

Perhaps the Minister would help us on one point. The estimate of transferred tax revenue in the order is £37 million. Underneath it refers to transferred non-tax revenue of £48 million. The fact that the non-tax revenue which is transferred is greater than the tax revenue needs explanation. I am sure that there is a simple answer to it but it has escaped me.

I turn to the question of procedure. We run into trouble every time we have an order arising out of the Northern Ireland (Temporary Provisions) Act of a few months ago. When one considers that we are to have a Northern Ireland budget debate in the space of 1½ hours on a Friday morning, it makes one think. It may be that by this time next year the constitutional proposals and the changes which we want to see made in the North will be in effect. On the other hand, it may not be, and it is on this that I should like to say a few words.

We are thinking in terms of having a Committee which will consider orders before they come to the Floor of the House—something like the debate we had last week, but not in the House.

I hesitate to interrupt the hon. Gentleman, but he said a moment ago that the debate could continue for 1½hours. In fact, it could go on until half-past five.

I was rather afraid of that, Mr. Speaker. I know that you must remind me of it, but I am sorry that you did.

I hope that if we are in a similar situation next year, discussions on Northern Ireland finance can be hooked on to the discussions on the Finance Bill. The debates on the Finance Bill in the House and in Committee upstairs attract Members who are expert and interested in financial affairs and it would be a good thing if the question of Northern Ireland finance could be dealt with by the Finance Bill procedure. It would not prevent Northern Ireland Members from contributing to the discussions. Indeed, all of us who have responsibility for Northern Ireland affairs would have to be involved. So I put the point to the Minister and I hope he thinks that it can be considered.

When one looks to the discussions of the next few weeks—I hope they will be quick—when the political discussions are taking place, having looked at some of the Stormont discussions—and the hon. Gentleman the Member for Antrim, North (Rev. Ian Paisley) is a Member of the Stormont Parliament and will have participated in debates there—I would ask this question. Was there enough detailed investigation in Stormont? When we have new procedures we ought to look at the procedures of the new constitution of the North to make sure that there is enough detailed investigation, and procedure for it.

It may be that to call this sum of money, in the context of £400 million, a Budget is a delusion of grandeur. It may be that while "Budget" is an appropriate expression in relation to this on one side of the water, it is not on the other, and if there is to be a Greater London Council approach it could well be that new procedures more appropriate to the needs of Northern Ireland finance need to be evolved.

There are one or two other general points. The Minister has inherited a Budget procedure from Stormont. I ask the Minister this, in the spirit of trying to see what we can do in the context of Northern Ireland in the new constitution. What was the purpose of the Northern Ireland Budget? Was it to talk in terms purely Gladstonian—to raise revenue and to make sure the revenue would be above expenditure and would break even, and that if there should be a surplus it should be small and only to take into account contingencies—a Budget which there has not been in this country since 1947 when the Keynesian analysis came into budgetary policy with an above the line surplus and that sort of thing, and we got involved in terms of inflation and deflation? Is this what was—and is —involved in the Budget of Northern Ireland?

That leads me to the next question. What is the function of the Joint Exchequer Board where the Northern Ireland Government are involved with the Treasury? I understand that it determines the amount of reserve revenue and that it looks at the cost of reserve services attributable to Northern Ireland, which, I presume, is deducted before payments are made, and it looks at the amount of the imperial contribution and other questions.

It is important that we get clear what the function of the Northern Ireland Budget is, given this small sum, because this is important for the weeks ahead. The Minister has explained and has therefore pre-empted detailed questions about estate duty, SET, betting duty and the abolition of the road fund. He has told us they are exactly the same as those at Westminster. It makes one wonder, when one has a separate Budget, because they are exactly the same thing, according to the Minister, and that reinforces the question I ask. What was the purpose of the Budget in Northern Ireland, if that is the case, except from the accountability point of view?

The Minister mentioned the Civil Contingencies Fund. He explained that it is out of this sum—and it is growing—that compensation is paid to people whose homes are bombed. I put a point of which one of my hon. Friends reminds me—about the Co-op in Belfast, which seems to be a favourite target, having been blown up, particularly with the bad bombing of a few months ago. I take it simply as an example; I am not picking it out as being different, for other people with other premises suffer in the same manner. The question is, are they to get compensation quickly enough to get on with rebuilding?

Would the Minister consider one other question put to me recently about these small sums of compensation which are paid to people? Sometimes, as a result of searches by troops, when they come in, doors are broken. I take that as an example of damage which may be done. People are, quite naturally, antagonised by this sort of thing. I think we would all be if the Salvation Army came into our homes, let alone any other, whatever its purpose might be. Is there not some way of speeding up payments so that people do not have to wait for months to get the smallest repairs done?

Surely this could be done with the normal Finance Bill procedure. There are many more questions about which Members, from Northern Ireland in particular, are concerned on the Civil Contingencies Fund side. I have raised only one or two detailed points. My general purpose is simply to raise the issue that in the weeks ahead—I hope no more than that—as the political parties and the Secretary of State and his Ministers are discussing the future of Northern Ireland they will be coming to on the financial side. The point is that if the political side is got wrong, that will be very bad; but if we get the right sort of constitution and the wrong financial backing, then, given the problems of Northern Ireland, that will be serious indeed, and I hope that the Minister can give us some general indications in that regard.

First of all I apologise to you, Mr. Speaker, and to the House and the Minister for having been a few minutes late this morning, and I apologise in advance should anything I shall say have already been covered by what has already been said.

At the outset let me welcome the contents of this order. Indeed, I go further and take this opportunity of expressing appreciation and gratitude for the very generous financial and economic assistance which has been given to Northern Ireland in recent weeks and months. With the economy as it is at the present time, this assistance is not only very urgently needed but most gratefully received and appreciated.

I would make one or two general comments on what the hon. Member for Leeds, South (Mr. Merlyn Rees) said, talking rather generally about this order, before I come down to details and specific points contained therein.

When one looks at the somewhat small section of the transferred taxes in relation to the total expenditure of Northern Ireland, one realises that it is a very small figure—the sum of £30 million-odd has been mentioned—but one finds that they are becoming more and more identical with similar taxation on this side of the Irish Sea and that we are in fact talking in the order in terms of legislation here and the Finance Bill passed by this House a few weeks ago.

I certainly welcome the opportunity which this order gives us to look, for the very first time, I think, at what would have been the Finance Bill at Stormont had there been a Northern Ireland Parliament in existence. Following the point made by the hon. Member for Leeds, South, I accept his argument that were it necessary next year—obviously I hope that it will not be—to have a Finance Bill and a Finance Bill vis-à-vis Stormont, one could consider the two together, because one sees from the order and the taxation changes contained in it that these provisions are almost identical to those which were included in the Finance Bill which this House has passed.

I think that there are, perhaps, two weaknesses in particular which this order reveals. First, if there are to be two or more regional assemblies in the United Kingdom, it is all-important that regional fiscal differentials be considered. I hold very strongly the view that any regional assembly, be it at Stormont or in Scotland, Wales or wherever, should be vested with some powers of fiscal differentiation where that would be appropriate, and it seems to be a little unfortunate, to say the least of it, to find oneself, as one does in the case of this order, in a situation where one is rubber stamping parallel or identical legislation. Worse still, had there been a Stormont, and had there, therefore, been a Northern Ireland Finance Bill as such, one would have seen Stormont spending its time enacting legislation which had already gone through this House. If one is to have a credible regional policy—and I for one have a passionate belief in it—there should be regional fiscal policies and differentials. That leads one to this thought: what about some form of regional taxation or, if necessary, negative regional taxation?

In this order one of the few differentials that existed has disappeared. It was normal practice in Stormont Finance Bills for changes in estate duty to come into effect from the date of the Stormont Budget, which is normally six to eight weeks subsequent to the Budget statement in this House. In the order the effective date for estate duty changes is the date of the Budget statement in the House and not the date of the presentation of the White Paper which was the Northern Ireland Budget this year. That change of date, which makes sense to me, further underscores the virtually identical nature of the Northern Ireland finances with those of the rest of the Kingdom.

Obviously, the increase in estate duty exemption level is welcome. According to the 1970–71 returns of estate duty, there were 7,290 estates in Northern Ireland under a net capital value of £15,000, which is the new exemption limit, and only 391 estates above the £15,000 figure. Therefore, the increase in the exemption to £15,000 will be very beneficial to farms and medium-sized family businesses in Northern Ireland. Anyone who is familiar with Northern Ireland will know the overwhelming extent to which farming and small family businesses dominate the economic life of the Province.

I notice that a substantial part of the order—Articles 6 to 12 inclusive—deals with the exemption from duty of

"Objects of national, scientific, historic or artistic interest."

I do not recall similar provisions being included in this year's Westminster Finance Bill. I wonder whether Northern Ireland is being streamlined into previous British enactments or whether I missed the provision in this year's Finance Bill.

I am glad that there has been no change in relation to gifts inter vivos in Northern Ireland. That is one differential between the rules of this country and Northern Ireland that I hope will not be tampered with. I also note that the Road Fund is being wound up. Why is that being done, particularly at this time?

I respectfully make certain suggestions on Schedule 1. It appears to have been drafted much too narrowly. The Schedule lists the recipient bodies which can receive gifts free from estate duty. Only two recipient bodies are specifically named, the Ulster Museum and the Ulster Folk Museum. The second of those is inaccurately described. I am under the impression that it has changed its title to the Ulster Folk and Transport Museum.

There follows a general description of recipient bodies exempt from estate duty categorised under three broad headings. I wonder whether three organisations which come immediately to mind are covered by these general labels and descriptions and, if not, why not? I am thinking of the Armagh Observatory, which I understand periodically receives gifts, the Scotch-Irish Trust of Ulster, which has undertaken the useful renovation of some historical cottages, particularly in the West of the Province, and the Linen Hall Library in Belfast, which has the best collection of Belfast material anywhere in the United Kingdom and has been the recipient of many gifts in wills over the years. I hope that those three organisations are included under the three general descriptive categories contained in the Schedule. I should think that the Linen Hall Library has as good a case for exemption as the Ulster Museum.

Article 12 deals with the reduction of stamp duty on conveyances and leases. This provision is very welcome, and I hope that it will provide a stimulus to the property market which, particularly in Belfast, has been going through a lean period in recent times. I know that some houses have sold well and quickly but, generally speaking, prices have been depressed and the market has been sluggish. I hope that this small incentive will produce a fillip to the market.

The order contains no reference to value added tax. Does this mean that Northern Ireland will automatically follow suit, or will there be regional variations as there were with selective employment tax and selective employment payments? One case which comes to mind is the repair and maintenance of property about which there has been some correspondence recently, and papers have been sent to the Northern Ireland Office on the subject. I share the view that, until the Rent Restriction Acts in Northern Ireland are brought into line with those in the rest of the Kingdom, value added tax should not be levied on the cost of repairs and maintenance of property.

Speaking purely for myself, because I think that some of my hon. Friends do not agree with me, I am not the slightest bit sorry to see under Article 16(5) the termination next year of selective employment payments. That was a blunt instrument by which to give assistance. While undoubtedly it has been beneficial to some firms, to others it has been a bonus which has cushioned them from facing the realities of commercial life. By all means let assistance be given to firms which may be in temporary difficulties and which have reasonable long-term viability prospects but, speaking as an accountant who has seen SEP being treated in certain accounts as a below-the-line bonus to profits, I cannot help feeling that the Northern Ireland Government of the day was being overgenerous. SET and SEP were twin non-senses, and I am glad to see that they are both returned to the limbo from which they emerged six or seven years ago. Permanent interment in a mausoleum of fiscal folly is the fate they deserve.

With those few remarks I welcome the order.

Today the House is considering something of vital importance to the well being of Northern Ireland, that is to say, the financial arrangements between this House and Northern Ireland. I hope the Minister when he replies will deal with the questions which have been put to him, especially those which have been put by the hon. Member for Leeds, South (Mr. Merlyn Rees).

I too want to record my appreciation of the generous financial aid that Her Majesty's Government have given to our stricken Province. It is sad to contemplate that the millions of £s which have been and will be poured into Northern Ireland are the result of the policy of devastation pursued by the IRA which hopes to bomb Northern Ireland out of the United Kingdom. However the IRA has not destroyed the spirit of the Ulster people and, thanks to the financial support of this House, it will not destroy the economic life of the community.

It must not be forgotten, however, that if the Westminster Government had distributed financial aid to Northern Ireland in those terrible years between the wars when the Province suffered more harshly than any other part of the United Kingdom from the depression, the slums which deface Northern Ireland today would not exist. It is worth repeating that in some areas Protestants and Roman Catholics alike have to live in housing which is a disgrace to our Province.

At that time, unfortunately, the Westminster Government did not pour money into the Province, and I feel that if in those years Ulster Unionist Members had fought more fiercely on behalf of the people of Northern Ireland we should not be in the terrible situation that we have to endure today.

Article 20 of the Finance order deals with the Civil Contingencies Fund. As the hon. Member for Leeds, South (Mr. Merlyn Rees) said, that is the fund out of which compensation is paid to people whose premises are bombed. I too ask my hon. Friend the Minister of State to speed up the system whereby payments are made for repairs. I know of many cases in Belfast where people have not been given money for repairs to their houses necessitated by bomb attacks some considerable time ago.

I feel that help should also be given to those who have been forced out of their homes. I know of a family in Alliance Avenue, Belfast, whose home was destroyed as a result of a car bomb. They went to the Northern Ireland Housing Executive. They were offered a house in Castlereagh. When they got to the house, they found it occupied by squatters. They went back to the housing executive where they were told that they could not be helped any more. That is a disgraceful state of affairs.

We have heard a great deal about the emigration of Roman Catholic families from the Lenadoon Estate in Belfast. The IRA claimed that it had to defend these people against the actions of the British Army. However, we all know that the British Army was there to defend all the people and to protect them from intimidation. That flight was stage managed. However, there was nothing stage-managed about the flight of Protestants who were intimidated in the same area. Some of them fled to my constituency.

I mention this because it is a very important matter affecting the housing executive. No publicity was given to their flight. They were intimidated out of their homes in the Suffolk area of Dunmurry. Their children were spat upon in the streets by Republican supporters, their wives were abused, and they had to leave to seek safety. When they told the Housing Executive about it the reply was that they could not be helped with new homes immediately.

I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Gentleman, but he is going rather wide of the order. This is purely a financial order. The hon. Gentleman must stick fairly strictly to the order.

On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. In the order there are references to the Civil Contingencies Fund from which, I understand, compensation is to be paid. I seek your ruling. Is not it in order for an hon. Member to discuss how this money should be spent when it is raised? I think that that is the kernel of the problem that my hon. Friend the Member for Down, North (Mr. Kilfedder) is discussing.

There is considerable force in what the hon. Member for Antrim, North (Rev. Ian Paisley) has just said. However I did not recognise that portion of the speech of the hon. Member for Down, North (Mr. Kilfedder) as being related to the point just raised by the hon. Member for Antrim, North.

It is my fault, Mr. Speaker. Unfortunately I have to preface my point by describing what has happened in order that I might discuss the possibility of compensation for these people. I hope that I might be allowed to continue for one minute more to elaborate the point, If I see signs that you are becoming irritable, I shall know that I have to stop.

I know that the hon. Member for Antrim, South (Mr. Molyneaux) agrees with what I am about to say. These people went to the housing executive. They were told that they could not be helped. On a Monday evening about three weeks ago they decided suddenly to leave their homes. The very next morning there were Republican supporters outside their homes brandishing rent books issued by the Northern Ireland Housing Executive's area manager of the estate, a Mr. Jarvis. How he issued those books I do not know. The Northern Ireland Housing Executive cannot have known that the occupiers of those houses intended to leave them that day. The new books could not have been issued legally. However, the people left their homes. Some had to leave their belongings behind. Will the Government help these people by giving them some compensation?

Is the hon. Gentleman saying that these houses had been rightfully allocated to those who brandished rent books?

That is a point that I hope my hon. Friend the Minister of State will pursue. However, in view of Mr. Speaker's intervention just now, I do not wish to pursue it too far. It is obvious that Mr. Jarvis could not have issued these books legally. What is more, one of the rent collectors, a Mrs. Maddon, went to one of these Protestant homes saying that she had been allocated it and that the Protestant family had to leave. I should like to know whether my hon. Friend the Minister of State condones a situation of that kind and, if so, whether he will compensate people for what they have lost.

This problem of compensation is vital, and I am sure that the Minister of State has taken it on board. However, I am equally sure that the hon. Member for Down, North (Mr. Kilfedder) is not trying to mislead the House by saying that there are fake applications and that intimidation is stage managed only on one side whereas on the other side people are genuinely intimidated. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman recognises that there are problems on both sides. I hope that he will acknowledge them.

I certainly agree that in one case in my constituency in an area which is not normally troubled a Roman Catholic family was intimidated out of their home. I publicly denounced that action at the time. But I am talking about the wholesale flight of Protestant tenants from the Twinbrook Estate in Suffolk.

Another important point concerns value added tax. This will cause additional hardship to farmers in Northern Ireland who spend considerable sums on the purchase of feeding-stuffs. However, they are not the only people who will suffer from the imposition of VAT. For example, in my constituency there is the world famous firm of horticulturists, seedsmen and nurserymen, Dicksons of Hawlmark, which has pointed out to me the grave difficulties which VAT will impose on the trade. I have had no satisfaction from the Treasury in response to the representations which I have made. I hope my hon. Friend will look into the difficulties which VAT will cause in Northern Ireland. Certainly there is a case, as my hon. Friend the Member for Belfast, South (Mr. Pounder) said, for making a distinction in the Province.

The debate on the order has ranged a bit wide. I am not sure that I am wholly competent to deal with all the points raised by hon. Members. Indeed, I shall have difficulty in answering some of them. However, I will examine all the points which have been raised. If I cannot answer them now, I will do my best to provide some form of answer to hon. Members at a later date.

First, I should like to deal with the points raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Down, North (Mr. Kilfedder) as they are fresh in my mind. I am sure we all agree about the need to speed up compensation. We are doing our utmost to speed up the payment of compensation to those who have lost or suffered damage to property because of bombings. I accept the point raised by the hon. Member for Antrim, North (Rev. Ian Paisley) about the need to try to help the small businesses which often receive appalling blows because of bombings.

I think it would be unwise of me to be drawn into the housing question this morning. The Civil Contingencies Fund does not deal with the points my hon. Friend has in mind. I will examine what my hon. Friend said, although I cannot make any comment about the matter today.

The value added tax is a reserved, not a transferred matter. Therefore, it is entirely for my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Indeed, it has already been debated considerably in this House. Naturally, I will draw my right hon. Friend's attention to the remarks which have been made by hon. Members in dealing with the effects of value added tax in Northern Ireland. Though I cannot say I necessarily agree with what has been said, I will ensure my right hon. Friend is made aware of the views expressed by hon. Members aboue value added tax.

My right hon. Friend and I are grateful for what hon. Members have said about the financial support which Northern Ireland has received and will continue to receive from Her Majesty's Government. We all know of the enormous problems which will have to be tackled by economic and financial measures, and I know that both sides are determined to go on helping as much as possible. It was gratifying to hear from hon. Members their appreciation and gratitude which I will draw to my right hon. Friend's attention.

The hon. Member for Antrim, North, referred to the Comptroller and Auditor General. This is an important matter which my right hon. Friend is presently examining to try to evolve a satisfactory procedure so that the accounts of the Northern Ireland Departments can continue to be properly scrutinised by the Comptroller and Auditor General and to ensure adequate public control over their functions. I take note of the importance of what the hon. Gentleman said in that regard. I hope it will be possible to devise a satisfactory way of dealing with this difficult matter in the present situation.

My hon. Friend the Member for Belfast, South (Mr. Pounder) and the hon. Member for Leeds, South (Mr. Merlyn Rees) raised the whole question of the financial arrangements between Northern Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom. I agree that this matter will have to be examined. Indeed, the whole struc- ture of the constitutional position in Northern Ireland is continually under scrutiny. I note the views expressed particularly by the hon. Member for Leeds, South on how we should deal with financial business in Northern Ireland in the event of the Northern Ireland (Temporary Provisions) Act being extended for a further year, should this House be prepared to grant such an extension I note what the hon. Gentleman said about the Budget and the financial effects and whether the matter could be dealt with in a United Kingdom Finance Bill. I am not sure whether that would meet with approval in all quarters in Northern Ireland, but it is a suggestion which is worth examining. It would enable Northern Ireland Members of Parliament to deal with the matter during the debates on the Finance Bill, and those who have a particular interest in financial matters in other parts of the United Kingdom would be able to scrutinise the effects in Northern Ireland as well.

My hon. Friend the Member for Belfast, South referred to estate duties. Estate duty provisions regarding objects of national, scientific, historic or artistic interest were dealt in a Great Britain Finance Act some years ago. This provision is designed for Northern Ireland to catch up on that aspect which had not previously been dealt with by Northern Ireland Finance Bills. The establishment of the Ulster Museum has focused more attention in Northern Ireland on objects of this kind, and it is right that there should be parity of estate duty treatment for those articles in future. The three bodies named for estate duty exemption were the obvious ones at the time. I will examine what my hon. Friend said about the Armagh Observatory and other bodies to see whether it will be possible to include them within the scope of some future Finance Bill or order to be put before the House.

My hon. Friend was right to raise the question of the abolition of the Road Fund. It is a slight anomaly that it still exists in Northern Ireland. With the reorganisation of local government, the Road Fund fulfils no useful purpose, because all the functions relating to roads are transferred to the central government structure. Therefore, there is no need for the Road Fund which, in the past, was used mainly for grant aiding local authority expenditure on roads. That will no longer be necessary. That is why the Road Fund has been abolished in the order.

The question of compensation for the Belfast Co-op has been raised by hon. Members. I understand that the Belfast Co-op has already received a substantial payment. I do not know whether there are any other claims outstanding. Naturally, we shall proceed as fast as possible with all claims.

The hon. Member for Leeds, South referred to the Joint Exchequer Board. I understand the Joint Exchequer Board determines the proper Northern Ireland share of reserve taxes which are mainly Inland Revenue and Customs and Excise taxes.

Regarding the functions of the Northern Ireland Budget, I cannot pretend to have studied all the Northern Ireland Budgets which have taken place in the last few years, but they presented the estimated receipts and expenditures of the Northern Ireland Exchequer. The Northern Ireland Parliament could announce changes in so far as they lay within its powers to do so. As the House knows, the Northern Ireland Parliament had certain duties in that regard because so many of the taxes were reserved rather than transferred matters.

I note what the hon. Gentleman said about the financial procedures and the need to look at them. I note, too, his wisewords about the importance of United Kingdom money to the whole future of Northern Ireland, and he was right to draw the attention of the House to the figure of £400 million in total, and the £37 million transferred revenue. The sum of £48 million in transferred revenue consists largely of receipts of interest on loans made to local authorities and similar bodies. That is largely the explanation of the transfer of the non-tax revenue.

I wonder whether I may put in the form of a question something which I ought to have raised earlier, because it fits in to this part of the Minister's reply. In looking through the order, and in trying to break down the moneys that are raised in Northern Ireland, and transferred revenues, the question that comes to mind relates to gun licences. Gun licensing is determined by the Northern Ireland Parliament, but perhaps I may put one suggestion to the hon. Gentleman. I do not, of course, expect a reply straight away, and perhaps it is even unfair to spring this question on him now. Nevertheless, whether the revenue is determined by the Northern Ireland Parliament or by the Imperial Parliament, would it not be a good idea to call in all licences, revoke them and issue fresh licences so that we know who legitimately has a gun? Doing that would clear the air and we should make certain why those who had gun licences had them. It would make clear those who had guns which were not licensed. I wonder whether the hon. Gentleman would at least consider that.

Naturally I shall consider anything which the hon. Gentleman suggests and discuss it with my right hon. Friend. The question having been sprung on me without notice, perhaps I may tell the House the position as I understand it. The charge for a firearm certificate is a matter for the Northern Ireland Government and Parliament. As I say, if I am wrong I shall get in touch with the hon. Gentleman and let him know the correct situation. I shall consider what he said about gun licences, but I think that it would be out of order to go into the merits of recalling gun licences and re-issuing them. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and, indeed, the Prime Minister, referred to this issue yesterday, and naturally what the hon. Gentleman said will be carefully noted.

In my speech I raised the question of compensation for the loss of private homes by working class people. My hon. Friend has not commented on that.

If I understood my hon. Friend aright, he was saying that there should be speedy compensation for small businesses in particular because these were often the ones which, in proportion, suffered the greatest loss as they had no great financial resources behind them. He was also saying that there should be speedy compensation for those whose houses were damaged by terrorist bombs or some other ghastly activity. I accept the importance of what my hon. Friend said. We are trying to do all that We can to speed up the grant of compensation, but I shall look into the question again. The payment of compensation is important, but there are difficulties, and we shall try to cut as much red tape as we can.

It is my understanding that it is possible to have four or five guns on one licence, provided they are of different calibres. May I ask the hon. Gentleman to take that fact into consideration when he discusses the matter with his right hon. Friend? If it is possible for that to be done, it means that if, say, 105,000 licences are issued, there could be between 500,000 or 600,000 guns in private hands.

I could not answer that question off the cuff, but I shall examine what the hon. Gentleman said and discover the correct position. I note in relation to today's debate that the hon. Gentleman is anxious to increase the amount of money available to the revenue by making each weapon subject to a licence which requires a fee. In view of his anxiety to protect the revenue, I shall examine what he said.

I hope that the House will feel able to pass this order which is of fundamental importance to Northern Ireland.

I beg to move,

That the Electoral Law (Northern Ireland) Order, 1972, a draft of which was laid before this House on 18th July, be approved.

On Monday we had a full and wide-ranging debate on the general subject of electoral law in Northern Ireland, and in those circumstances I am sure that hon. Members will not expect me to go again into detail on all the matters that were debated then. I think it is fair to say that Monday's debate showed that certain issues were non-controversial. One of these was the establishment of an independent centralised electoral office under a Chief Electoral Officer for Northern Ireland.

I accept, of course, that far more controversial and important is the proposal that the elections this year for Northern Ireland's restructured form of local government is to be conducted in accordance with the principle of proportional representation. Although there was not unanimity about this—there were the dissenting voices of my right hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Mr. Powell), the hon. Member for Clackmannan and East Stirlingshire (Mr. Douglas) and others—I think it is fair to say that the majority of the House was in favour of this experiment.

In view of the fact that my right hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South-West cast doubts on whether this procedure was to be for one occasion only, I must re-emphasise that that is the position. If the House accepts the order, the procedure to be adopted will be for this one occasion only. If Parliament wishes to go further in the future, that will be a matter for decision. The House may or may not wish to go further, but no one is pre-judging the issue today. The procedure in the order will be adopted this autumn only.

I should like to confine myself very briefly—I made far too long a speech on Monday, but it was not altogether my fault—to two important points raised by the hon. Member for Leeds, South (Mr. Merlyn Rees) and others. Most of the points raised were dealt with by my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State in winding up the debate. If any matters have not been dealt with at the conclusion of today's debate I shall get in touch with hon. Members about them.

The provisions contained in the order are extremely urgent. If the House accepts that there must be local elections in Northern Ireland, and if it accepts that they must be conducted on the basis of proportional representation—the single transferable vote, if I may refer to it as such in the absence of the hon. Member for Nottingham, West (Mr. English)—it must be plain at the start that we must provide as soon as possible and practicable the enabling legislative power to enable the elections to be held. The councils for which the elections are to be held have been established by the provisions of the Local Government Act (Northern Ireland) 1972 and were created as a major part of the previous Northern Ireland Government's planned reconstructed system of local government, which the majority of the House thought to be appropriate and suitable.

The timetable is extremely tight. These are exceptional circumstances. We live in exceptional times in Northern Ireland. I accept that there are legislative and other inconveniences because of the way that our business is being conducted at the moment, but I fear that these are inevitable under the wholly extraordinary circumstances which prevail in Northern Ireland.

I have carefully considered the views expressed during Monday's debate. The hon. Member for Leeds, South drew attention to the provisions in Article 4(12)(b) which deals with by-elections. This provision envisages that, to deal with the situation which may—and indeed probably will—arise after the new councils are elected and during their statutory period of office when a casual vacancy arises and a by-election is necessary, the Secretary of State will be empowered to provide by regulations that each candidate elected at this year's local election, as one of the members for a district electoral area, will be elected to a specific single ward which, with other single wards, has been grouped to form the electoral area.

The purpose of this administrative ward unit allocation to individual elected council members was that if an individual member ceased, through death, illness or for other electoral reasons, to be a member of his district council the resultant vacancy would be filled as for the ordinary type of single-member ward election procedure and system by holding an election for the one seat. Such an election would be based on the majority system vote as in the rest of the United Kingdom and not on the single transferable vote system.

rose—

Before I give way to the hon. Member perhaps he will let me finish outlining the position as the order is at present drafted. I am trying to say how I am taking account of the views expressed in Monday's debate.

The possibility of casual vacancies occurring amongst the elected councillors of any of the new district councils during their life period is a difficult problem which must be faced. There is no easy answer. The decision to conduct elections in accordance with the principles of the single transferable vote increases the complexity of such a problem and makes it essential and more difficult to find an acceptable and a practical solution for filling such casual vacancies. When there is a by-election and there is only a single member to be elected for an area the principles of proportional representation are not applicable and such an election can only really be held, with some difficulty, using the single majority vote system.

What about the next man on the list?

As the right hon. Gentleman says, we could take the next person down on the list, but this is open to serious objections also. It is a possibility—[Interruption.]—it is quite a common one, if I may be allowed to proceed amongst the general exchange of views now going on.

My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State thought it preferable, rather than adopt that procedure which would be open to considerable objections in Northern Ireland, that each member returned to a district council should be allocated a designated ward so that if a member should retire the by-election would be concerned with a casual local election contest for a single seat. That was the proposal as outlined in the draft order. It was hoped that newly-elected council members would be in a position to determine amicably amongst themselves the administrative designation of wards to each individual member for casual vacancy purposes.

If difficulty arose the Chief Electoral Officer for Northern Ireland would determine the poll in accordance with rules of such allocation as might be laid down for these particular procedures. Of course, there are a number of alternative solutions to what, we would all agree, is a difficult problem. As the right hon. Gentleman said there are a number of systems. The next person down the list could be elected but even if the retiring member had represented and had been elected by a minority interest, the resultant by-election held on the basis of the original multi-member electoral area would give the political party holding the majority of seats an additional seat. This happens in countries using the proportional representation methods, but it would be wholly unsatisfactory in Northern Irish conditions.

Equally it also could be submitted that where the members of an elected body have been elected for a particular electoral area and by a method of voting, then it is wrong to consider, during the life period of such a council, electing other members to fill casual vacancies. There might be a system where there were no by-elections at all.

Another suggested alternative might he that the unsuccessful candidates at the first election this year, should be graded, in descending order, on the basis of the total votes each had then received. Any casual vacancy arising would then be filled by electing the first such "reserve" candidates and so on down the list. Yet a further alternative could be to provide that the political party to which the retiring candidate belonged would have the right to nominate his successor to be elected to the council for that electoral area. Another possibility might be to provide internal by-elections held amongst the councillors themselves.

Some of the solutions are bad, some are good and some are in between. I am seeking only to show how difficult and complex the matter is. But as I sensed the mood of the House on Monday it was not happy with the proposals in the draft order. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State therefore considers that the method of filling casual vacancies requires further expert study in some considerable depth. It is a matter which he feels could be referred to the Electoral Advisory Commission on Northern Ireland electoral matters which is shortly to be established for their urgent consideration and recommendation. The Commission will comprise distinguished citizens of Northern Ireland and I will ensure that the chairman is asked to give this matter priority. Consequently I can give the House an undertaking that no action will now be taken to include any provisions on this subject in the rules for the conduct of these 1972 elections. The problem will be referred to the Advisory Commission and naturally my right hon. Friend will wish to consider carefully the points of view they express on this issue.

The other very important point raised by the hon. Member for Leeds, South related to the provisions of Article 4 as to the necessary proposed grouping of the new prescribed single ward unit into suitably sized district electoral areas in each district council. The hon. Member pointed out that no provison had been made to provide that the designating Regulations were to be subject to consideration and approval of Parliament. I well understand that point of view and would like to meet it as far as I can, bearing in mind both the urgency of the situation and the need to ensure that these first local elections are held before the end of this year, as they must be by statute. The House will realise that to enable these 1972 elections to be held it is essential that this grouping of wards into suitable proportional representation electoral areas should be proceeded with at the greatest possible speed.

The ward units, which in the envisaged grouping will form the proportional representation district electoral areas are the already approved wards which have been most carefully drawn by the independent Local Government Boundary Commissioner, after public provisional proposals as to their boundaries, public hearings, revision hearings to deal with and determine objectives to the original provisional proposals. These final proposals, approved by my right hon. Friend, have been laid before this Parliament. With few exceptions these final proposals have met with general approval from the public and the majority of all political opinion in Northern Ireland. I would emphasise that the proposed grouping of these wards into suitable and equitable district electoral areas for this 1972 election in no way whatsoever interferes with the boundaries of any designated ward or district boundary and I see no reason why such grouping should prove to be, in any way, contentious but in Northern Ireland one can never be sure.

In the debate it was mentioned that there might be the possibility of having a group including urban wards and rural wards. Under such an arrangement those members elected in urban wards would have a higher percentage of the vote than the rural members. Therefore, would it not be possible under the proportional representation system and also in the seven-ward constituency that the urban vote would be so heavy that there would be no one to represent the rural district? I pointed out in the debate that Rathlin Island was one such area in my constituency which should be considered alone as a separate ward with a very small population.

There are greater experts in this matter than I in the House. I would have thought that the whole arrangement of the single transferable vote provided that the proportion of members was right and that where the seven-member areas and seven districts were grouped together the single transferable vote system would achieve a situation in which the result suggested by the hon. Member would be very unlikely to happen.

I suppose the hon. Member is envisaging a situation in which two strands of political opinion would be equitably represented according to the single transferable vote pattern but a circumstance can be found in which nevertheless all the members for the area might come from the urban rather than the rural part, even though that might accurately reflect political representation in the electoral area as a whole. That is a possibility, but it emphasises what I said earlier that although there is no real reason why the grouping should be contentious, it may be. I shall say a word about that in a moment.

I draw the attention of the House to the procedural provisions of paragraphs 4, 5 and 6 of article 4. These already require the Chief Electoral Officer to publish his provisional proposals as to suggested grouping of wards. These proposals will be available publicly throughout Northern Ireland and a minimum period of at least 28 days will be allowed for persons who wish to submit thereon their observations, objections and counterproposals, all of which will be most carefully considered before any final recommendations are made and the grouped electoral areas are prescribed by my right hon. Friend by way of regulations.

In view of the opinions expressed by hon. Members in Monday's debate, I have arranged that when the Chief Electoral Officer makes his provisional grouping proposals, hon. Members will receive, for their information and consideration, a copy of these detailed proposals. This will then permit any comments by any hon. Member to be brought to the attention of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, who will consider them and bring them to the attention of the Chief Electoral Officer. Under paragraph 6 of Article 4, my right hon. Friend will ultimately prescribe the district electoral areas for each local government district when the final proposals are made. The views of hon. Members will be carefully considered.

I have noted the point about the siting of polling stations for election purposes. This is very important. A new comprehensive polling station scheme will be produced at an early date by the Chief Electoral Officer. It will be produced initially in provisional draft form so that it may be considered by all interested parties who may then, if necessary, make their views, observations and objections, etc, known to the Chief Electoral Officer. The Chief Electoral Officer designate, with whom I have discussed this matter, is fully aware of the many problems involved and the need to provide for adequate and suitably sited polling stations easily accessible, so far as is possible, to all sections of the public. He would be at this stage pleased to receive informed suggestions as to the siting of polling stations in any particular area.

The rules for the conduct of these 1972 local elections and the count will be prescribed by my right hon. Friend as soon as possible. These rules will be procedural in character and, I hope, will not be in any way contentious. However, hon. Members know that in a first election of this type counting procedures and methods to be used are of great importance. My right hon. Friend considers that the method of counting known as the "senatorial counting rules" is the fairest way to proceed. I can let hon. Members have detailed information about it, although we discussed it on Monday.

An election of this kind, and especially the efficient and speedy conduct of the count, can produce many administrative problems. Arrangements are being made for the holding of comprehensive staff training instructional courses for the staff who will be responsible to the Chief Electoral Officer for the organisation and conduct of the count.

Arrangements have also been made for the preparation and publication, again at an early date, of a re-arranged edition of the current 1972 Northern Ireland Electoral Register, on which these local elections will be conducted. This rearranged register will be published on a ward and district council basis and, I hope, will be helpful to the public and the candidates. Additionally, in view of the reorganised local government areas and the creation of district electoral areas, arrangements will be made for the issue to all registered electors of an electoral information card giving details of the person's registration, register number, ward, district council area and the polling station in the district electoral area in which the elector should cast his vote.

Very good.

It is also the intention as soon as possible to issue to every household in Northern Ireland a detailed and clear guide to the basic principle of PR and to follow that up with an intensive graphic public information educational campaign using the mass media.

In debate some hon. Members said that they would have preferred the life period of a council to remain, as existing, at three years rather than be extended to four years as now proposed. The four-year period was a recommendation made by the Macrory Committee on Local Government and I would draw the attention of the House to the fact that the provision of a four-year period is presently being considered in relation to local government in Great Britain.

This order is designed to meet the pressing needs of the present period of changes in Northern Ireland's affairs. It provides for some important measures including the provision experimentally for this 1972 election only of its conduct on a single transferable vote basis. I have done my best to meet as many of the points as I could that were raised in the debate on Monday. I hope that the House, having had that full debate, will now allow the order to go forward.

As the Minister said, we debated the order at some length on Monday. We have been able to ask for rather more time than the normal one and a half hours for debating an order and we have done so because of the PR form of the order, the single transferable vote. Perhaps in the absence of my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham, West (Mr. English) I may call it PR, although pedantically that is not correct. We agree with the principle of PR in this instance and with what the Government are doing, and of course it is not our intention to vote against the order this morning.

By the detailed way in which he has explained how he is to give information to the electorate of Northern Ireland, the Minister has clearly shown that he listened attentively to Monday's debate. He said that on the thorny question of byelections and the various methods to be used he intends to get the opinion of the Electoral Advisory Commission, and we are glad about that. Of course the elections are for this year and of course one hopes that there will not be too many byelections too soon. I assume—perhaps we may be told—that it would need only a simple amendment to the rules to be issued by the Chief Electoral Officer to bring in that scheme and that the process will not be long and involved.

There are a number of important matters in the order which I should have liked to mention, but I will not repeat what I said in our debate on Monday, and I should like to concentrate on article 4 and the procedure. The hon. Gentleman said that he would send details of the Chief Electoral Officer's proposals to hon. Members who were interested. He will recall that I asked for a Statutory Instrument under the affirmative or negative procedure on the ground that when one was arranging areas and methods of election, in Northern Ireland or anywhere else, it was important that the proposals should be debatable in the House of Commons. However, the Minister explained that at this first time round that would not be possible because of the time involved. I hope that he will bear in mind that the next time round, when we are making permanent arrangements—this order is just for the one election—we shall need to look far more carefully at a Statutory Instrument for making arrangements although I accept that we do not yet know how this system of election will work in the context of Northern Ireland.

I thought that the Minister entered into the spirit of our suggestions on Monday, but I am not happy about his sending proposals only to interested Members. I should like to make a counter proposal and first to explain it. A number of documents are laid before the House of Commons. A House of Commons Paper has printed on the front page the words "House of Commons Paper" and I gather that that is because it has to be provided by Statute. Other documents are presented by the Secretary of State concerned and they have a Command number. Whichever way is used, the paper is presented to the House of Commons as a whole, and that is to the advantage of all Members and not just small groups who may be interested.

The only difference from the Minister's point of view is that of expense. But there is another factor. A Command Paper is studied by the media and thus arouses interest among a wider community, but a document which is sent only to those who are interested does not command that wider audience.

There is also a matter of principle. Last year I was considering Government working in the public sector and I was reading reports about well-nigh every nationalised industry, public corporation and a wide variety of organisations of which then I knew nothing, or if I did, which I had not regarded as being part of the public sector, which is much larger than most people realise. I found that some had a Command number, some had a House of Commons Paper number and some were not laid before the House of Commons. No wonder it had not come my way, although we get the pink order form in the Vote Office and can see what is available. When an important document is given to a Secretary of State then, as a matter of principle, it should he laid before the House of Commons.

The order deals with elections in a part of the United Kingdom which is troubled, to put it euphemistically. We are concerned to try to achieve a democratic life in the face of bombing. Consequently we have this order, concentrate a lot of parliamentary time on it and consider proportional representation.

According to the Secretary of State, we shall be faced with a similar matter which the House will have to consider, namely a plebiscite. I shall not go into whether that is desirable. I am trying to concentrate on the method of dealing with it. I accept that a plebiscite will require a Westminster Act of Parliament. I was courteously informed by the Minister that a plebiscite is not a matter which is reserved to the Northern Ireland Parliament. Methods of elections are reserved for the Northern Ireland Parliament, but a plebiscite will require the consideration of this Parliament. When that question arises questions similar to those which arise from this order will have to be discussed, such as the location of polling booths, the grouping of areas, the problem of rural and urban areas, the percentage of the people voting in those areas, and the question which was raised by the hon. Member for Antrim, North (Rev. Ian Paisley) a short while ago.

It is vital that we put our minds to the questions which will arise. I have always argued that on a large-scale vote there can be only one question with a simple answer of "yes" or "no". But is that desirable? We shall have to look at the areas, at how the votes are to be collected and, in considering the plebiscite, how the votes are counted and the functions of the parties. If we are to consider a plebiscite, it is important to get the principle right in this order or in any Measure concerning the Northern Ireland Parliament whose powers have been taken over by this House. The Chief Electoral Officer is working to that end, and will be publishing his proposals. We are arguing that they should be laid on the Table as a Command Paper. If we get the principle right now, we shall get it right when we come to the wider issue of the plebiscite. We want to get the principle right now in dealing with the methods of election in the North of Ireland, and a document should be laid before the House of Commons which can be looked at and can be aired.

We have not had last Monday's HANSARD for reasons which everybody knows. Consequently I was not able to check—I do not think that the Under-Secretary of State dealt with this point—on the question of excess of votes and the method of counting them. It may well have been dealt with on Monday. It is true that something was said about the matter. As I say, I was hoping to read HANSARD but it has not been possible for me to do so. I hope that the Under-Secretary of State will tell us the Government's intentions on that matter.

The hon. Gentleman has dealt with the areas and byelections which will be looked at by the Commission. Ballot papers are vitally important, and I am astonished when I hear how other people vote in other parts of the world. There are vote machines in the United States to deal with long ballot papers, and one is on somebody or other's "ticket". We are not used to that. We are used to going to the booth with the name of one man or woman in mind and putting a cross against that name on the paper. The last Administration made a change in that ballot papers now include the name of the candidates political party. I hope that the Chief Electoral Officer will think carefully about the arrangements for ballot papers, and have them arranged horizontally under the names of the political parties.

I looked in the Library to see what I had said on Monday about ballot papers and my remarks look as though they were most rude to the Chief Electoral Officer. They certainly were not meant to be. When I made the aside that somebody from Her Majesty's Stationery Office would be able to look, it appears as though it was meant to be rude, but it was not.

We support the order and we hope that it will allow moderate parties to come to the fore in this year's local elections. It may not come to much the first time round, given the strong feelings which prevail in Northern Ireland, but eventually I hope that that will be the result. We support the order because ultimately we want to see a democratic society developing in Northern Ireland.

It was a fortunate coincidence that the general debate on electoral law took place last Monday after the Army had taken action by moving into the Bogside, the Creggan and other no-go areas. It looked as though a new phase was begin- ning in Ulster's history, when people might be able to lead an ordinary life, go about their business and hold elections without fear of intimidation.

In the midst of bombing, murders and other acts of Republican terrorism, which are wantonly waged against decent people in Northern Ireland, both Protestant and Catholic—and it is worth mentioning that such terrorism affects both sections of the community, it is salutary to remember that the present war of devastation developed from the so-called Civil Rights movement—

Order. This comment is getting rather beyond electoral law. The hon. Member must not stray too far from the order.

I sometimes err, but, subject to your ruling, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I think that I am entitled, when discussing electoral law, to deal with the background.

On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Surely it is right that the background to the holding of the proposed elections should be considered. When the hon. Member for Leeds. South (Mr. Merlyn Rees) introduced the matter of the plebiscite, of which there is no mention in the order, he did so because of the background of the situation in Northern Ireland.

That is all right. The hon. Gentleman seemed to be going into the history.

I call it background, but background and history are much the same. It is worth remembering that the present war of devastation developed from the so-called Civil Rights movement which demanded initially, "One man, one vote". We heard incessantly that once that reform had been granted, the people of Northern Ireland could live in peace with one another. I well remember—and still sadly reflect—that the excuse then for demonstration and violence and conflict with the police was the fact that local government elections were conducted on a restricted franchise which had long been abolished in the rest of the United Kingdom. From everywhere came the cry that the Ulster local government elections should be brought into line with the rest of the United Kingdom.

The Stormont Government introduced what was popularly known as "One man, one vote" and at the same time local government was reshaped, certain central services being transferred to central bodies. Those bodies would come under the supervision of Stormont. We are entitled to ask whether those radical reforms brought the clamour and the violence in Northern Ireland to an end. We known that they did not. Like some evil monster, the deliberately misnamed Civil Rights movement, made up of members of the IRA, Communists and anarchists, fed and grew on the news media, particularly on the biased BBC reporting of the Ulster situation. As soon as a lie could be fabricated or wild allegation made, it was broadcast.

So today, after hundreds of lives have been lost and people maimed, and millions of pounds worth of damage caused, Ulster is still being forced, without any reference to the electorate, to go through various contortions in an attempt to appease, without any realisation yet by the Government that appeasement only feeds the flames of terrorism and insurrection. Local government elections are being forced on Northern Ireland while Stormont, which was to be the hub of the new local government system, is suspended. Proportional representation is to be used for the local government elections, making Ulster different—and that is deeply regretted—from the rest of the United Kingdom. That was the complaint in the first place—that there was a difference in the franchise.

I have an open mind on proportional representation, but we ought to face the fact that there are minority problems in Britain, too, for instance, coloured people who should, perhaps, be entitled to the benefits of proportional representation. I wonder how many coloured people have been elected councillors in Britain. I believe there are few in relation to their number.

Would this Government and the Labour Party pledge themselves to introduce proportional representation in the rest of the United Kingdom?

Order. That is certainly out of order.

I accept that, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I urge the Government to delay the local government elections until after a decision has been made about Stormont. That Parliament has been suspended for a year and it is unlikely that it will be restored at the end of the year, if indeed we ever see the old Stormont Parliament return. It is ridiculous to go ahead with local government elections until a decision has been made about Stormont, and acted upon, because Stormont was meant to be the vital heart of the new local government structure.

It is to be regretted that it is not possible to move amendments to this order. All that we can do is to examine the provisions in detail, and even that does not give much satisfaction because all we have from my hon. Friend is a statement that what we say will be carefully considered. I listened to what he said about the filling of casual vacancies, and I welcome his statement that the Government are looking for a satisfactory method. I do not accept the view of the Leader of the Liberal Party who, much to my surprise, was here today, although very briefly. He said that casual vacancies should be filled by the next man down the list. That would produce an extraordinary situation because, moving it outside the context of Northern Ireland, if that is possible, if there were three Conservatives elected for three seats and the fourth man was a Labour candidate, it would be ridiculous, if when one of the Conservative members died, the next man down, a Socialist, should be put on to the council. This would be wrong, and I hope that my hon. Friend will come up with a more sensible suggestion.

The Secretary of State has chosen to experiment with proportional representation and it is right to display caution, because there are so many variations. The method proposed, the single transferable vote, is alleged to be mathematically more equitable. Every method of voting has its defects and disadvantages, and proportional representation is no different from existing methods in this respect. The single transferable vote system for electoral areas returning from four to eight members could hardly be bettered as a mathematically accurate system of representation. However, it has its dangers and it is no use trying to cover them up. It is far better to investigate them fully.

The most obvious danger is the loss of the close relationship between the councillor and the local elector. At present the councillor gets to know the people and the people know to whom to go for help and advice on local matters. The very fact that the Chief Electoral Officer selects the ward which the successful candidates are expected to represent means that there is no meaningful association between a councillor and a ward. Under the single-member system, people knew for whom they were voting and who their local councillors were likely to be. The people know the candidates in the ward and because of that a good candidate has a better chance of success in an election for that neighbourhood because electors can evaluate his worth. However in the multiple-member electoral area the same candidate would be virtually unknown in many of the wards. This means that a good local candidate could lose out to a candidate with a publicity machine or party organisation behind him.

The advocates of proportional representation allege that it favours the moderates as against the extremists. I have seen no evidence of this in the Republic of Eire. The system throws up able men such as Conor Cruise O'Brien and Garrett Fitzgerald. It also produces notorious anti-Semitics such as Steve Coughlin, a Labour Member of the Dublin Dail; and IRA apologists such as Doctor David Thornley. There are dangers in this system of proportional representation.

There are administrative difficulties as well. The plebiscite and local government elections will place a tremendous strain on local authority staff, who will have to be trained to carry out proportional representation elections. What arrangements have been made to train them? The Government would certainly need to start now on that job. Moreover, these radical changes are coming at the worst possible time, when the whole system of local government is being restructured. It would be unfortunate if the sheer volume and pressure of work on local authority staff resulted in the elections being a fiasco. This could come about if the staff were unable to cope with all the election complications as well as their other work. Perhaps my hon. Friend will say whether there have been consultations with the National Association of Local Government Officers about this matter.

Proportional representation on the single transferable vote system was introduced in the United States for the same reason as the Government are introducing it in Northern Ireland, namely, with the intention of giving greater representation to minority groups. But the experiment in the United States showed that proportional representation did not help the situation; in fact, it made it worse. It was introduced widely in the municipalities in the United States in the late 1930s, but it did not work. It produced a large number of racial and sectarian candidates who were elected to the local city councils. New York City abandoned the system of proportional representation, followed closely by Chicago and other cities throughout the United States.

Mayor Daley.

Yes, but I should be in trouble with you Mr. Speaker, if I were to talk about Mayor Daley.

The only American city which clings to the proportional representation system is Cincinnatti and four or five municipalities in Massachusetts.

That was the end of the great American experiment in proportional representation. It gave representation to the minorities but not to the minorities whom the liberal-minded people had hoped would be represented. It gave representation to racialists and extreme ethnic groups—we hear about the Poles, Czechs, Irish and Italians in various American cities—but it did not produce, unfortunately, a consensus of like-minded people across the racial divide. That is what worries me.

I fear that proportional representation will not help the Ulster situation, and that is unfortunate since we are all, even in the midst of the campaign of terror, looking forward to a happy future for Northern Ireland.

I do not propose to detain the House long because we have been over this ground previously, when I had the opportunity of making a contribution. However, I am interested in some of the matters mentioned by the Minister. I am sure that we are all delighted that he is to have a second look at the by-election procedure, but I do not think he took my point, and I wish to stress it because it is a constituency matter.

There is one island in Northern Ireland—Rathlin—which has people who have votes living on it. It is to the north of North Antrim. It is famous because it was there that the Scottish nationalist movement had its first impetus when King Robert the Bruce saw a spider and went back to Scotland to conquer the English invader and to declare Scotland to be a separate kingdom. I do not propose to discuss the merits or demerits of Scottish nationalism because I should be called to order if I did.

Under the ward system in the new Moyle local government district, Rathlin island was to be a separate ward. While the population of Rathlin island would not justify it, the special circumstances of the island fully justify it. If there were seven wards in the Moyle area, or even four or five, linked together, Rathlin island would come into one of the amalgamations. If a person stood for election in that area, what opportunity would the people in Rathlin have of electing a representative?

I always thought that the Liberal Party was the champion of proportional representation, but its members are conspicuous by their absence in these debates. The Leader of the Liberal Party stated, with pontifical power, that what we on this side of the House said was a lot of nonsense. I contend, and I defy anyone to refute it, that Rathlin island would have a fair chance of getting a representative on the council under the proposed system of proportional representation. Is the Minister prepared to make a distinction for Rathlin island and to allow its people, not to be in a group but to come within a separate ward? They are entitled to that as they are a special case.

The Minister made a very interesting point about by-elections. He said that the Chief Electoral Officer or the people responsible for the amalgamation of wards might decide which ward should be vacant in the event of the death of a councillor. When the councils are elected, why cannot their members make an agreement among themselves about which areas they should represent? Then when a death occurred there would he no trouble. This would get over the valid point made by the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Mr. Powell) when we last debated this matter and by myself—that there was a tendency to destroy the relationship between the electors and an individual under the proportional representation system.

Can the Minister give us more information about the Electoral Advisory Committee? How many members will be on it? Who will be the members? Will the local political parties in Northern Ireland have the opportunity of putting their point of view to the committee about the matters which it should discuss?

I am delighted that the poll card system is to be introduced. This will be a great advance in election procedure in Northern Ireland. On behalf of every member of the electorate, I welcome the fact that they are to receive an official card from the electoral officer in their district stating the date of the election, where they should vote and their number on the register. This will be a great help to people.

I wish to thank my hon. Friend the Minister of State for saying that he will reconsider the by-election procedures. As they stood, and as they came to light last Monday, they were the height of nonsense. I am glad that they are to be re-examined. I echo the sentiment of the hon. Member for Antrim, North (Rev. Ian Paisley) that the elected representatives should work out among themselves which ward they would be attached to. Councillors in the Belfast Corporation decide among themselves who will serve on which committee. I see no reason why a similar principle cannot be implemented in this case, without leaving it to the Chief Electoral Officer to decide.

I can understand the concern about and importance of the design of the ballot paper and putting down the names either alphabetically or grouped according to parties. One idea which I should like to mention is this—I do not know whether it makes sense, but I mention it for what it is worth. I understand that it is operated in elections in Cleveland, Ohio. In each ward the ballot paper is different. If we started with candidate A in one ward, we would start with the next candidate down in the next ward so that there would be no benefit in people having their names automatically in a high position on the ballot paper.

It is well known in this country that there is advantage if one's name is either top or bottom of the ballot paper and that if it is sandwiched in the middle one loses out. The system in that American city is that in each ward the paper alternates so that if there are 10 polling stations and 10 candidates everybody in the same ward at some stage will come to the top of the paper. This may be something which could be considered. I do not know. I throw the thought out for what it is worth.

I am grateful for the reception which this order has on the whole received in the House today, though I note the objections of my hon. Friend the Member for Down, North (Mr. Kilfedder) to the whole principle and idea of the single transferable vote.

I am a little confused about the situation about by-elections because both my hon. Friend the Member for Belfast, South (Mr. Pounder) and my hon. Friend the Member for Antrim, North (Rev. Ian Paisley) have suggested what I had thought was the original intention of the Government, that, if possible, the members themselves should amicably decide which part of the area they should represent, and that only if agreement could not be reached should the Chief Electoral Officer be called in to determine what would be the fairest solution.

Having been so severely criticised about this on Monday and having withdrawn it, I am in the difficulty of being pressed to introduce it again when I have withdrawn it under pressure from my hon. Friends. Nevertheless, it would be wise that this matter be considered by the Electoral Advisory Commission.

Invitations to this Commission are now going out. I think it will be a fairly small body, about 10 in number. I cannot now say who its members will be, because the invitations are now going out, but in due course I could be in touch with my hon. Friend about that matter.

I will, of course, also draw to the attention of the Chief Electoral Officer designate—although I need hardly do so because he will read the report of this debate—the concern expressed by my hon. Friends and by the hon. Member for Leeds, South (Mr. Merlyn Rees) about the arrangement of ballot papers—their design, and all those other matters. I cannot send every hon. Member a real ballot paper, because I do not know what the nominations will be, but if I can arrange such a thing I will send hon. Members a sample ballot paper, if the Chief Electoral Officer designate is able to arrange that. I have already discussed this matter with the Chief Electoral Officer designate. I have seen a sample paper for a fictitious election which might occur, but with a not very large number of candidates. I may be able to construct one with a larger number of candidates and in a larger area, and will show it to hon. Members who have expressed a particular interest in this matter.

My hon. Friend the Member for Down, North asked about training. Of course there will have to be extensive training of staff in this business. I agree with my hon. Friend that it is an important matter that they should be well trained in order to be able to conduct the count and the election efficiently.

As regards the question about Rathlin Island, I understand the point which my hon. Friend the Member for Antrim, North made about that. I am not sure whether I can meet him about it, but I will discuss the matter with the Chief Electoral Officer designate and draw his attention to my hon. Friend's point. When he sees the proposals he will be able to make what representations he sees fit at that time.

As to the other question raised by the hon. Gentleman the Member for Leeds, South, he was quite right in saying that it will be a quite simple counting under the rules required for by-elections if agreement can be reached. I hope that these can be determined and the rules made before the local elections themselves, because that would meet any difficulties which might occur shortly afterwards.

As to the question of counting, I said briefly that this would be under the senatorial counting scheme. I will briefly give an explanation, as the hon. Gentleman wished to know exactly how it would work. The senatorial counting scheme is probably the best way of dealing with the actual counting of the votes. The rules allow all of a candidate's votes to be transferred to the other candidates, and each vote then has a proportionate percentage vote value below the unit of one. This obviates the complaint arising in the standard rule count where the transferred votes are each worth one unit but only a proportion of the total votes are transferred and the numbers concerned in the actual transfer are simply chosen by the returning officer.

This may be a somewhat inexact explanation, and I am not sure that I have explained it as clearly as I should, but if the hon. Gentleman has any queries I can send him an extremely learned thesis on the matter which I have had some difficulty in understanding myself but which, I am sure, will be crystal clear to his sharp and intuitive mind.

As to the publishing of a Command Paper, I will look at this again. There are considerable difficulties. It would entail double printing, printing in London as well as Belfast, and that might cause some delay. I will undertake to make sure that hon. Members will have given to them the grouping proposals, so that they can make their representations. I will look at the matter again, but I cannot give any commitment because it has been considered before and it is a complicated matter and may be too difficult to achieve, but if it can be done I will try to see that it is done. It is difficult, but if I cannot meet them on that I will make sure hon. Members have at the earliest possible date copies of the proposals, and they will be able to make representations.

I think that this experiment will be extremely interesting and, indeed, an extremely important one. I hope that after the elections people will feel the experiment to have been a success, but no one can tell. It will be for the people of Northern Ireland to make the important decision which they will have to make at that particular time. None of us knows what the decision will be, but I think it is common ground in this House that they should be given such an opportunity to make a decision about local government elections in the not too distant future. I hope the experiment with PR, included as part of the order, will prove to be successful.

I commend it to the House, and I hope that, in view of the urgent need to pass this order, so that arrangements for local elections can be made, hon. Members will agree to pass it today.

The matter which I wish to raise this afternoon, that of the redundancies which are threatened at Messrs. Redpath Dorman Long Ltd. in my constituency, may seem a small matter, and compared to the massive redundancies which have been announced in the steel industry in Scotland, and the redundancies which have already taken place and are threatened in the North East and Tees-side, the spectacle of some 90 redundancies which are threatened in a part of the British Steel Corporation in South-East London may seem relatively unimportant. Yet I should like to make it clear that it has very wide implications both for London as a whole and for South-East London and the constituency of Greenwich, which I represent.

For the convenience of the Minister I will relate the story as it is known to me. Early last month the management of the Redpath Dorman Long East Greenwich works, which is a subsidiary of the British Steel Corporation, saw the shop stewards and sent a letter to all employees, a copy of which I have here. It says:

"Preliminary estimates indicate that total reduction in manning will be about 90 people of which between 60 and 70 will be in the works and between 20 and 30 staff. In addition, nine or 10 people will be invited to transfer to Scunthorpe."

This letter caused a widespread shock, perfectly naturally in the works itself, but also in the whole of the Greenwich area amongst people who have been concerned about the number of redundancies which have occurred in the area in the last few years.

Shortly after the redundancies were announced, the South-East London Industrial Consultative Group, of which I am a vice-chairman, received a deputation from the employees. As a result, the chairman and secretary of the group and I went to see the management and had a very useful discussion. We were informed that the redundancies were necessary because of the falling demand for the products of the company and of the Constructional Engineering Division of the British Steel Corporation.

Clearly, I am in no position to make an informed judgment on the management decisions which have been taken, but that is not to say that others are not making judgments about them, and a good deal of speculation is going on amongst the employees of the factory. There are suspicions within the firm that the redundancies are associated with the Government's decision to convert the Constructional Engineering Division into a separate company with the possibility of attracting private capital, and that the reason for restructuring the division is to make the undertaking sufficiently profitable to attract that capital.

My hon. Friend the Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Michael Foot), when he used to speak from the Opposition Front Bench on steel matters, warned the Government of this likely outcome when these proposals were announced by the Secretary of State in June, 1971. What is undeniable and what is spelt out in the Annual Report of the British Steel Corporation for 1971–72 is the consequence for this division of Government economic policy. I quote from page 30 of that report:

"By the end of the year the Division's structural steelwork order book had fallen to a level where there were problems in maintaining adequate loading on all the fabricating shops. Significant improvement depends on a return to a normal level of industrial investment in the United Kingdom and on the Division's success in capturing a share of the major new market for North Sea oil production platforms in the face of strong competition from the United States and from Europe. The division has the necessary skills and resources and is developing a facility at Methil in Fife for the construction of these platforms."

Ultimately the British Steel Corporation has stood to lose as a consequence of the Government's failure to expand employment and production. Inevitably, an industry that is involved in capital production is bound to suffer seriously. Negotiations are going on between management and men, and I am unqualified to comment on these. It would be improper for me to attempt to do so, except perhaps to say two things.

The first concerns the suddeness with which the redundancies were announced and the complete lack of consultation before they were announced. I have here a letter from someone employed in the factory, not a constituent of mine, which reads as follows:

"We feel very bitter about the way the management annouced the redundancies without any previous consultation with the unions. They must have planned it a long time ago. I feel especially grieved, as a member of the Labour Party, that this can happen in a nationalised industry. It seems to be a case of speculators investing. They simply inform the workers that they propose to close down half of the yard and lay off 50 per cent. of the labour force. This was completely unexpected as, although we have not been very busy, the management had indicated that there was plenty of work in hand."

It would have been wise to give plenty of advance warning and to make it perfectly clear from the start that the unions would be fully consulted about decisions that were being taken and about the way in which the redundancies were to be conducted.

My second point is that it appears to me as an outsider that during the negotiations the local management does not have authority to make anything but minimal concessions.

I turn to the question why these redundancies are so important for the district as a whole. Political and Economic Planning has recently published a report entitled "What happened to the workers in Woolwich?", which confirms the worst fears that I and other hon. Members representing Greenwich have had about the situation in the borough and in South-East London generally.

Before I refer to the report, I will repeat facts which have been known to us for some time. It has been estimated that in 1951 there were 55,000 jobs in manufacturing industry in the borough of Greenwich. By 1966 the number had decreased to 33,000. The estimate for 1970 is only 22,000. That is an alarming trend by any standards and, if it is allowed to continue at the present rate, I can see the possibility of there being no jobs in manufacturing industry in the borough of Greenwich by the late 1980s. I cannot believe that that is what this Government or any other Government want.

I am not suggesting that anyone in the borough regrets the regional policy of successive Governments which has benefited areas of heavy unemployment. But many people are beginning to feel that the somewhat blunt instrument that has been used in the past has not brought full benefit to the developing regions of the country and, at the same time, has done serious damage to areas such as South-East London, which are relatively badly affected as a consequence of regional policies. What many of us in South-East London are pleading for is a more sensitive and flexible regional policy which will take into account the special needs of our area.

It is also relevant to talk about the decline of jobs in constructional engineering in London as a whole and about the decline in the number of jobs in this firm. I understand that in the 1920s this works in East Greenwich employed 900 men. In 1945, because of changes in techniques and so on, the number had dropped to between 500 and 600 men. Now the number is about 300. The redundancies which are threatened will bring the number down even further so that there may be only about 200 people employed in the works. It is perfectly natural for the men employed in the factory to wonder where this process will end and to be deeply worried about the future of the works as a whole.

I know that there is the same trend in manufacturing industry generally, and the Government have already shown that they recognise this situation. On 1st August the Under-Secretary of State for Employment, in answer to a Question by my hon. Friend the Member for Wandsworth, Central (Mr. Thomas Cox), said,

"The hon. Gentleman can be assured that there is no complacency on our part as regards London or any other part of the country. Overall the situation in London is much better than in the rest of the country, although I admit that manufacturing employment in London is declining. However, opportunities in the service industries are increasing. Some workers are moving out of London. Industrial development certificates are not now required in the South East up to 10,000 sq. ft. Therefore, this should also be an encouragement. If the hon. Gentleman is patient he will find that the situation in London will go on improving, as it has been improving."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 1st August, 1972; Vol. 842, c. 335.]

I am afraid I am not quite so hopeful as the hon. Gentleman who gave that reply. The trends are there in the long term, but in the meantime some action should be taken to stem what looks like the development of a highly critical situation.

I referred earlier to the situation in the constructional engineering industry in London as a whole. I have a list of firms which were operating in the Greater London area in 1948. It contains 21 names of firms that were carrying out constructional engineering work in that area, and includes famous names such as Harland and Wolff, North Woolwich; Dorman Long and Company, Battersea; T. C. Jones, Acton, and so on. I am reliably informed that of those 21 firms only three are now operating in the Greater London area. It is true that there are opportunities for the development of service industries in London, but I should like to know when this trend which I have outlined will be halted. I am keen to see a continuing, expanding and successful manufacturing industry in London, and it is right that we should try to achieve some balance of employment. But if we allow the trend towards service industries to continue, we shall be in danger of throwing away valuable skills which the country possesses.

The PEP survey, which I have already mentioned, refers to redundancies which took place in the years 1968 to 1970 in a number of firms and the report clearly brings out the appalling amount of human misery which resulted from those redundancies. I do not in this debate wish to refer to the misery and unhappiness which has resulted from these redundancies. I wish to concentrate the Government's mind on the question of the skills which are being lost. What is clear from the report is that when people were made redundant from AEI (Woolwich) and other firms, they tended to take less skilled jobs than those which they previously occupied. The report must be studied carefully and acted upon if we are conscious of the need to retain the skills which we possess. There is traditionally an important and successful engineering industry in South-East London which, as the report makes clear, is in danger of disappearing.

Other points which emerge from the report relate to the relative immobility of labour in South-East London because of high transport costs and the difficulties people experience in moving to new homes to make it possible for them to take other jobs. A further point that emerges is that in my constituency and elsewhere in the borough there are highly skilled men whose jobs are specific to the firms in which they work. I recently spoke to the shop stewards in Redpath Dorman Long and asked whether there were any other jobs in the area of which they knew requiring the same kind of skills as those now possessed by the workers in that firm. Since Redpath Dorman Long is one of the last three firms in London undertaking a constructional engineering work, it was not surprising that the shop stewards said that they saw little or no prospect of being able to use those same skills in London again.

Is the Minister fully aware of the serious unemployment situation in Greenwich? I know that this situation comes as a surprise to many people, but I have figures which give grave cause for concern. I should like first to refer to the ratio of unemployed persons against vacancies. The figures I am using refer to June, 1972. For the United Kingdom the figure is 3·9 per cent.; for the South-East London industrial consultative group area, which covers most of South-East London, 4·6 per cent.; for the GLC as a whole, 1·67 per cent.; for Greenwich—and this relates to the Deptford and Woolwich exchanges—7·06 per cent. There is a serious pocket of unemployment against unfilled vacancies. Again we recognise that there has been a welcome improvement in the unemployment figures in the last few months—nothing like enough, but something for which to be grateful.

I also wish to refer to the percentages showing the decline in the gap between registered unemployed and vacancies from February, 1972 to June, 1972. For the United Kingdom the figure is 64 per cent.; for the South-East London area, 39 per cent.; the GLC area, 43 per cent.; and for the Greenwich area, 27 per cent. This shows that our area has benefited far less than has the GLC area as a whole, and that we certainly have benefited far less than the United Kingdom generally in terms of the improvement in employment which has taken place.

I do not want to detain the House for much longer and I am grateful to the Minister for having listened to me so far. There is, however, one other point I am bound to make. The shop stewards and the men to whom I have spoken are not asking for sympathy. They do not want it. They speak of the pride which they possess in the firm for which they work and in the work which they have done. I have a letter from the secretary of the shop stewards committee in which he says,

"The part played by the Redpath Greenwich works has been very significant indeed since the end of the first world war. Greenwich was in at the start of the Ford Dagenham complex and has been responsible for the erection of probably 80 per cent. of the Dagenham site which stands today."

Later he says,

"An interesting contract of a small nature but worth relating came about as the result of the fire which occurred in the Ilford shopping centre in the mid-1950s. A fairly large area was destroyed and the sites, when cleared, were of considerable value. Harrison Gibsons, the furniture dealers, decided to rebuild a new and larger reinforced concrete-framed structure while Moultons, a nearby soft goods retailers sold out to another combine who settled for rebuilding with a steel frame. Redpath, Greenwich, secured the Moultons contract. Work on both sites started at the same time and it was clear quite soon that there was a race in progress. Redpath won the race, hands down."

This is the kind of attitude one sees among these men. They are not seeking sympathy but they are proud of the skills they possess and they want this to be recognised outside. One of the disturbing features one finds in talking to men in the trade union branches and in the working men's clubs is the general air of depression in the area as a whole. They are wondering how long manufacturing industry can last in this part of London. I urge the Government to take the situation seriously if they take equally seriously the need to maintain the level of skill and achievement which has characterised British industry. I hope that they will see that urgent and reasonable efforts are made to retain the industry and skill of this working force in South-East London.

I warmly congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich (Mr. Guy Barnett) on his presentation of this urgent problem and wish to underline a number of his points.

I doubt whether there is a constituency anywhere in Britain which has suffered such a huge amount of redundancy as that suffered in my constituents over the period since 1951. Two of the greatest redundancies in Britain in this period have been the running-down of the Royal Arsenal, which many years ago gave jobs to more than 40,000 people but which when I became a Member of this House gave jobs to nearly 20,000 men and women, and the closing down of the AEI works, which employed 5,500 people. In addition, there have been many other smaller but extremely damaging redundancies. I endorse emphatically all that my hon. Friend said about the need to pay attention to this area as being one which is no longer as it used to be, a full employment area, but one where there are real problems of unemployment and wasted skills.

I do not oppose, any more than my hon. Friend does, the general principle of regional planning. In fact we were pioneer supporters of the policy. Nor do we stand in the way of technological change. I have never failed to make clear that as technology changes jobs are bound to change. What we are saying is that men in our area have been made redundant over the years, and they have not found new work. As a result their skills have been wasted unnecessarily. We urge the Government to pay very careful attention to this point.

My hon. Friend referred to the valuable and original study by Political and Economic Planning of the redundancy which followed the closing of the AEI works in my constituency. I hope that the Minister can show that he is familiar with this report. It is original, of national importance, and highlights the human problems and the economic waste involved in redundancy on this scale.

May I put this point to the Minister? Is he aware that the Government are not merely discriminating in favour of the development areas. We understand that. In the case of Greenwich they are discriminating against us in a very special way. They are discriminating against us because in the area we have the new town of Thamesmead building and, so far from applying to Thamesmead the employment policies that they apply to new towns in other parts of the country, they are applying to Thamesmead the same extremely restrictive IDC policy that they apply to the fully employed areas of the country. This is an anomaly. It is wrong. It should not be so.

In one sense we are fortunate in Greenwich. Thamesmead has fallen three years behind schedule. If this new town had kept up to schedule we should have had thousands and thousands of new people resident in Thamesmead for whom no employment was available. Our existing problems would have been greatly worsened had it not been for the many failings, most of them at County Hall, which have held back the proper and timely development of Thamesmead new town.

Therefore there is a special reason for the Minister to look at the unemployment position in my constituency. As my hon. Friend has explained so well, it is not only a crude unemployment problem. There is also the problem of the lack of unfilled vacancies and of ineffective retraining facilities. The queues for the Government training centres in the area are disgraceful. Recently I asked for details of all the waiting lists for Government training centres in the area. They were so long that it was a mockery for me to suggest to some of my young unemployed constituents that they should apply for retraining. There were one or two trades—I remember that hairdressing was one—where it was possible to get a course at a Government training centre within about two months. For the rest it was necessary to wait a year and more

I wish the Government to look carefully at three factors. The first is the need for better retraining facilities in the area. I know that a new training centre is coming. But it is a wider problem than that. The PEP report shows an understanding and knowledge that retraining facilities need improving. The arrangement for encouraging those who are redundant to retrain needs looking at again.

I ask the Government also to look at their employment policy as it relates to this area of London, bearing in mind that we have a new town building and that by the 1980s we shall have 45,000 new residents in Thamesmead.

I ask the Government also to look at their IDC policy for our region. I have no doubt that the Minister will say that the Government have not turned down applications for IDCs in the area for a long time. But that is not my complaint. I am not complaining that the Government turn down IDC applications when they are made. I am complaining that in their policy, their publicity and their regulations on this point they show such a restrictiveness and such a discouragement to industrialists wishing to set up works in my constituency that they do not even trouble to make applications for IDCs.

It is not altogether surprising. If I were a British industrialist, even more if I were someone from Dusseldorf or Toulon, considering bringing employment to the area I should take one look at the regulations and the official information leaflets issued by the hon. Gentleman's Department and decide that it was not for me, that I was not likely to get any encouragement, that I would not get an IDC, and that it was better not to go there.

The Minister will probably say that perhaps instead these people will go to the development areas. Let him show any evidence for that. I suspect strongly that a number of industrialists who would come to this area if the Government did not choke them off will not go to development areas and in fact will not invest in Britain at all. I am talking now especially of European and American investors.

These are matters which the Government should consider. Their failure to understand the problems in Woolwich is a scandal. They have not yet shown that they understand that there is a problem. I want the Minister to convince us that he understands the problem and that he is taking urgent action to get on top of it.

It may surprise the Minister that I intervene in a debate of this kind. Before doing so, perhaps I might congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich (Mr. Guy Barnett) on initiating it. He raised two points. The first was the general question of employment in the South-East area, and I understand and sympathise with the problems raised by him and by my hon. Friend the Member for Wolwich, East (Mr. Mayhew).

The second point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich touches on my own interest in the debate since in my constituency I have one of the plants of Redpath Brown, the firm responsible for my hon. Friend's decision to raise this matter.

I say to both my hon. Friends that I never thought that I should need to sympathise with the unemployment difficulties of two of my colleagues who represent constituencies in what we have always regarded as the prosperous South-East of England. Scotland has had this problem for a very long time. My constituency, along with other parts of Scotland, has one of the highest unemployment levels ever. The Minister will obviously draw his own conclusions why unemployment is now more troublesome in the South-East than in days gone by.

I want to mention two particular points about Redpath Brown which have been troubling me. The plant in my constituency is part of a wider steel making area producing both general and special steels. As my hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich said, for some years we have been concerned about the change in techniques in the constructional engineering industry. In days gone by, much of the product of Redpath Brown and similar companies was used in housing and allied types of development, but that is no longer so to the same extent. It means that there have been quite widespread closures, not only in Scotland, but elsewhere, and this has created a great deal of uncertainty.

I realise that Redpath Brown is part of the British Steel Corporation's wider interests, but I hope the Minister will at some stage take up the whole problem with his right hon. Friends the Minister for Housing and Construction and the Secretary of State for Scotland, make them aware that it is a serious matter for the constructional engineering industry, and see whether in the new techniques which are being advanced for the building of houses, factories, and so on, steel may have some place as in days gone by.

There has been a great deal of uncertainty in steel making and associated trades. There is the prospect of closure of the general steel division of the BSC in my constituency, which might amount to thousands of jobs being lost, and the fear that the same thing could happen in Redpath Brown.

Some weeks ago I was approached by representatives of both employees, on the shop floor and those concerned with administration regarding their whole future which seems to be in jeopardy because of the new financial arrangements which the Government have for the constructional engineering division of the British Steel Corporation. I was given assurances by Lord Melchett on pensions, but he said it was difficult to give any specific guarantees about future employment at Redpath Brown in view of fluctuations in trade.

This is a point of great concern. The area which I represent already has high unemployment and there is now the prospect of massive closures in the steel industry. Therefore, we should like to be assured that the constructional engineering division will be maintained, and if building techniques can be adapted to help the British Steel Corporation, we should be grateful.

I am grateful to the hon. Members for Greenwich (Mr. Guy Barnett), Woolwich, East (Mr. Mayhew) and Rutherglen (Mr. Gregor Mackenzie)—for his pleasant, but somewhat surprising, intervention—for participating in the debate.

This is an immensely important subject, and I congratulate the hon. Member for Greenwich on the way in which he has presented his case. From the start I should like to say that I am very much aware of the problems of South-East London and of the natural disquiet that is felt when there is a loss of employment. Although unemployment in the Greater London travel-to-work area can in no way be compared with other less fortunate parts of the country, as the hon. Member for Rutherglen will appreciate, I recognise that this does not lessen the social impact that job losses have on the individuals concerned. I respect the constituents of the hon. Member for Greenwich who said they did not want sympathy, which I understand, but it is right to say that my sympathies are wholly with those who suffer the consequences of events over which they have little or no control.

One of the main reasons for the number of closures, including that which we are debating today, has been the need for rationalisation of industry to improve its efficiency. This has affected South-East London particularly because of the nature of its traditional work. In some cases production has been transferred in this process to factories in the assisted areas or, indeed, in overspill towns. This has naturally been welcomed by my Department as according with its aims of providing employment for these priority areas. The House will know from earlier debates on regional matters that we have to take a wide view of issues as they affect the country as a whole but to pay particular regard to those areas with long-established problems.

I recognise that in raising the problem of redundancy at BSC's Greenwich works the hon. Gentleman feels that it is symptomatic of a problem that has been developing over a number of years. For many years there was a strong demand for labour throughout Greater London as a whole. The hon. Gentleman drew attention to the statistics. Perhaps I might bring him up to date. The hon. Gentleman referred to the figures for June, 1972. I have the July figures, which are a little more encouraging.

In South-East London the ratio of unemployed to unfilled vacancies was 3·8:1, in contrast with 4·6:1 in June. That 3·8:1 in July contrasted with 3·9:1 for Great Britain as a whole. Though I do not suggest that is the be all and end all, it is a slightly more encouraging trend from which some moderate comfort can be taken.

The Government understand the concern and anxiety aroused by the BSC's decision to make a number of people redundant at its Greenwich works. However, I must emphasise that such decisions on individual works are matters entirely for the Corporation to make, and the Government cannot intervene. Indeed, the Labour Government did not intervene. The British Steel Corporation cannot consider the prospects for a particular plant in isolation. This may give rise to decisions which local interests may question. Sometimes decisions which are difficult in one part of the country are necessary in the interests of the industry as a whole and may be responsible for conserving the employment pattern of people in more difficult parts of the Kingdom. The Corporation must look to its responsibilities for the industry as a whole in taking its decisions.

I was concerned by what the hon. Member for Greenwich said about consultations with the unions. I understand that these take place, and the general record of the BSC in the way it seeks to minimise suffering by consultation with employees and unions is admirable. However, what the hon. Gentleman said will be noted by the corporation, and I understand that discussions are going on with the union. I do not think that I should like to say any more, save to hope that they will prove to be fruitful.

The Government are not responsible for decisions on individual works, but they do not wish to evade their responsibility for assisting with the social consequences that may arise. The full range of facilities to help men made redundant will be made available, and I can tell the House that a job team from the Department has gone down to Greenwich today to discuss alternative work prospects with the 30 people who have been declared redundant.

The debate has ranged perhaps a little wider than just Greenwich, into South-East London as a whole, and the hon. Member for Woolwich, East in particular criticised the IDC policy. There was strong criticism when we came to office that the IDC policy was too rigid, but a number of things then with which I have been concerned have happened since to ease the situation.

The hon. Gentleman argued for a more relaxed IDC policy, but the policy is operated very much more flexibly than it was two years or even one year ago, and account is taken of local conditions in deciding an application. In the last two years there has been only one IDC refusal, and this hardly suggests an inflexible attitude on the part of my Department.

The hon. Gentleman suggested that the true situation is masked. He says that no account is taken of overseas firms, mobile industry, and so on, which are so petrified by the prospects of a fierce IDC policy that they do not pursue it and therefore do not try to go to other parts of the country. I do not have the exact figures, but if the hon. Gentleman puts down a Question I shall endeavour to answer it. I have, however, looked at the position myself, and I can tell him that as a result of the IDC policy a large number of firms have located themselves in assisted areas.

I should also remind hon. Members from the South East of the pressures that I have to resist and the accusations with which I have to deal from the hon. Member for Rutherglen, and perhaps the hon. Member for Fife, West (Mr. William Hamilton) and others, that we are too soft and wishy-washy on IDC policy. I have to maintain a balance.

May I ask the hon. Gentleman whether, since the relaxation of IDC policy to which he refers, he has altered the official information and publicity which his Department distributes to industrialists in such a way as to eradicate those phrases which would certainly put off any industrialist, be he British, European or American, from applying for an IDC in the first place?

Only a year ago I recall reading that "new development brought to the area would not be permitted if it led to undue demands for labour". Will the hon. Gentleman assure me either that that phrase no longer exists or, if it does, that he will instantly remove it?

The best way that I can answer that is by saying that, in response to requests from industry, in June of last year, I think it was, we published in our official journal, Trade and Industry, various criteria by which we approach IDCs in various parts of the country. It may be that that is what the hon. Gentleman is referring to. We shall see whether a revised form can be published indicating the changes which have taken place.

South-East London forms part of the GLC travel-to-work area, in which unemployment is at 1·7 per cent. This is considerably better than in most parts of the country, and a great deal better than in the assisted areas where not only is the percentage higher, but alternative job opportunities do not exist. Whatever we publish will have to take account of the different circumstances in different parts of the country. Nevertheless, as in March following our White Paper on regional policy, the raising of the IDC ceiling to 10,000 sq. ft. in the South-East will help industry to grow and develop.

What is significant in South-East London is the rise in unfilled vacancies, which in July stood at 3,057 compared with 1,812 in January of this year. Furthermore, unfilled vacancies for Greater London as a whole now total 46,186, which is a not-insignificant number and should provide considerable scope for those looking for jobs.

Parts of South-East London are being developed and the decline in manufacturing industry has been accompanied by an expansion of service industry. This is especially true of office employment in Lewisham and Bexley, and a further expansion of office, hotel and other service industry is expected from the development of the riverside area.

There have been complaints—and I think that we have heard some this afternoon—that the growth in service industry will not provide work for those, especially the older workers, who become redundant in manufacturing industry, and there are reports of skilled workers being forced into unskilled work. But in the Government's view this is not borne out by the experience of local employers, who say that they have difficulty in recruiting skilled men. The PEP survey, an interesting document to which reference has been made this afternoon, found that many redundant workers had skills which were specific to the place where they had worked and were in little demand elsewhere in an area where the nature of employment was changing.

But by the very nature of things, we cannot stand still in this respect. As the hon. Member for Woolwich, East recognised, change is taking place all the time. I take the point that more should be done to draw attention to this, and my colleagues in the Department will note what the hon. Member for Woolwich. East said, but the extensive expansion of training facilities will do a great deal to help workers, such as those we are discussng this afternoon, to learn new skills and to earn the consequent rewards that accompany them.

There are 300 additional places at Government training centres at Poplar, Waddon and Medway, all within easy travelling distance of Greenwich, which will become available to them this autumn and the spring of next year. The area will also benefit substantially from the expansion of training facilities in colleges of further education and employers' establishments. But, having said that, I believe that, consistent with the need to look at the training programme as a whole, the hon. Gentleman is right in stressing the need for greater training facilities as time goes on and as technological changes take place.

I propose to sum up on an optimistic note because it is important that people in the South East, as well as those in Rutherglen and elsewhere, should be optimistic. First, I stress that the IDC policy has been eased, though this is not always entirely recognised by potential developers in the area. This should help to remove one of the major criticisms and enable some useful limited expansion to take place. Where IDCs are required, control will be operated with flexibility. Job vacancies are arising not only in South-East London but in the Greater London area as a whole, and Government training facilities are also being expanded, if not necessarily as much as the hon. Member for Woolwich, East (Mr. Mayhew) would like. I am advised that the British Steel Corporation is considering alternative uses for the space vacated which we hope will provide new alternative jobs in the future.

Last but by no means least are the Government measures designed to improve, demand, investment and employment as a whole. I do not propose in this short debate to catalogue them all because it would take far too long. The Government's economic measures are of overwhelming importance to the general economic health of the country and, therefore, to South-East London. But in order for us to succeed we must ensure that the opportunities that are presented to us, not only on entry into the Common Market—which is of considerable significance to South-East London and which is only five months away—but also in other overseas markets and in the home markets are grasped quickly.

In their economic programme the Government have set the scene generally for expansion. I believe that South-East London has a most important role to play by reason of its location, history and the type of people who work there, and I believe that the area can look to a very hopeful and prosperous future.

I anticipated that the business put down for today might collapse before Four o'clock and I therefore sought an opportunity to raise with the Government questions which they wanted to put before the House but which they withdrew at the last moment because they saw that the business would not go through "on the nod". I refer specifically to the Motions on parliamentary expenses, Motions Nos. 7 and 8 appearing on the Order Paper dated 3rd August. I intend to say a brief word on Motion No. 6, which deals with the financing of foreign language courses which might be undertaken by a Member of Parliament.

That Motion is composed in the following terms, to be moved by the Leader of the House

"That, in the opinion of this House, provision should be made as from 1st April, 1972, for the reimbursement to any Member, within a maximum of £60, of two-thirds of the cost of a course of study which he has completed in a European Economic Community language."

In other words if an hon. Member chose to learn, French, German, Italian, Belgian or Dutch, or whatever, so long as it was an EEC language he would get £60 of the taxpayers' money as a contribution towards the cost. Some of us object to that. I want to learn Chinese but I will not get £60. Why should I not learn Chinese? If I do that is a matter for me and not for the taxpayer. If an hon. Member wants to learn German or French that is also a matter for him, not for the taxpayer. I objected to that in principle and put down an Amendment which sought to reduce £60 to £1, to provide that the payment should not relate exclusively to Common Market languages but should apply to any language, and that at the end of the year a list should be published of all hon. Members who had taken advantage of the scheme and the language they had learned.

It is interesting that in this morning's post I, and probably other hon. Members, received a document from Educational Productions and Systems Limited, of Nottinghamshire. I presume that this organisation thought that the Motion had already been passed. In the document they invite us to learn a foreign language. I need not go through the document which is principally devoted to French. I do not see why, if an hon. Member cannot speak French or German, the French or Germans should not learn to speak English. English is the international language so why not let M. Pompidou have a course in English rather than hon. Members having a course in French?

I ask the Government whether this is the end of the order or whether they intend to pursue it at some future occasion, on a Friday or at two or three in the morning when troublesome characters like myself have gone to bed. I was speaking to one of my hon. Friends about the principle underlying the Motion and he told me that he could not dance. Dancing is a very important social grace. An hon. Member often attends social functions where he is expected to dance with the mayor's wife and with every councillor's wife, and if he cannot dance he has to sit like a wallflower. Why should he not expect the taxpayer to pay him £60 a year to learn to dance, to do not only the old fashioned dance but the jive dancing that is done? Why should not the taxpayer pay for the development of an hon. Member's social graces. That is absurd and the Minister must know it, and I hope that he will see that the order is dropped because of the nonsense that it is.

Motion No. 7 is more important. It is in the name of the Leader of the House and says:

"That, in the opinion of this House, provision should be made as from 1st April, 1972, for the reimbursement of expenses incurred by Members in travelling outside their constituencies, both within the United Kingdom and overseas, for the purpose of informing themselves on subjects of relevance to their Parliamentary work."

I suppose that the Motion is in fulfilment of a recommendation in the Boyle Committee's Report. The report devoted quite a lot of time to the matter. Schedule E explains what happens in other countries when elected representatives travel in their own countries and overseas. The list runs from Belgium to New Zealand, but I will quote only one or two examples. In Belguim an MP is entitled to free travel first-class on Belgian railways, buses and trams and on Dover-Ostend ferries. In Denmark all MPs receive free air travel between home and Copenhagen and free travel within Denmark at all times.

I asked the Library for information about other countries and it produced a great deal of material including an article from the Congressional Quarterly Guide, an American publication for the Congress of 1971, on which the heading is "Travel abroad: junketing". It reveals what happens in America.

In its section on foreign travel the Boyle Committee devoted one paragraph to the suggestion that £20,000 a year should be devoted to subsidising travel overseas for hon. Members and £10,000 a year to subsidising travel within the United Kingdom. The Motion in the name of the Secretary of State did not put a ceiling of £20,000 on the amount. That figure may be in the Minister's brief and I am prepared to bet 100 to I that it is, but I have to go by the Motion, because nobody tells me anything and I have to assume that there is no ceiling.

I have to assume that there would be no method of control. I suggested a constructive Amendment to the original Motion proposing that a committee might be set up if such a scheme were to be operated. I propose that we should have a committee not of the hierarchies of the parties but of the elected back-bench Members, elected by their respective parties, and I think that that was a reasonable proposition.

Motion No. 8 took up that aspect of the matter. Clearly the Secretary of State had had second thoughts, and he proposed that there should be a committee consisting of

"Sir Henry Legge-Bourke, Mr. Robert Mellish, Mr. Douglas Houghton, Mr. Nigel Fisher, Mr. John Hall."

They were to be appointed to administer the reimbursement of expenses incurred by Members in travelling outside their constituencies both within the United Kingdom and overseas for the purpose of informing themselves of subjects of relevance to their parliamentary work.

I do not know how those names were selected. I was not asked to nominate anybody and as far as I know no member of the Parliamentary Labour Party was asked to make a nomination, nor, so far as I know, was any member of the Tory back benches, except, perhaps, those whose names appeared. There is nothing personal in this. I assure my right hon. Friends who are sitting on the Front Bench looking worried—

I am amused.

I am glad that my right hon. Friend is amused. I am grateful for any amusement that might be created about this matter in the House. It is not amusing outside. I do not think that the public outside finds it amusing. But be that as it may. I have no personal axe to grind. But this matter is extremely important and the appearance of a Motion of this kind is extremely ill-timed. It appeared on the assumption that it would go through without debate and the fact that the Government have removed it indicates that they do not want a debate.

indicated dissent.

I see no other reason for dropping it. If that were not the reason, I should like to know what was. I suggested certain Amendments. They are not on the Order Paper and the Parliamentary Secretary need not look for them, for when the Motions were withdrawn, my Amendments fell. However, I should like it to be on the record that I suggested that all those names should be eliminated and that we should have

"Mr. Speaker, the Official Solicitor, and Mr. Maudling".

If that were not acceptable, I suggested as an alternative that I should be in sole control of overseas jaunting by Members of Parliament. A further suggestion was that in view of the obvious sexual discrimination in the composition of the committee—all male—there should be added the names

"Miss Joan Lestor and Miss Janet Fookes".

Those were constructive alternative Amendments that might well have been adopted. However, in view of the Government's withdrawal of their Motion, those Amendments will not now appear. Is that withdrawal permanent—not only the language course proposal but that on foreign travel—or are the Motions merely postponed?

I have a little experience of foreign travel by hon. Members. I was Chairman of the Estimates Committee from 1964 to 1970. Select Committees in general eventually got a sum of money from the Treasury to enable them to travel overseas to see what was happening in their own subjects in other countries. We soon discovered, to my dismay but not to my surprise, that this was being abused, that sub-committees of Select Committees realised that if they got in first, if they had first bite at the cherry, their chance of as overseas tour would be better than that of a committee that delayed its application until six or nine months of the financial year had gone.

I will quote an instance which should be on the record so that the public may know what happened. A sub-committee of the Estimates Committee decided that it wanted to go abroad to see how housing finance was organised in other countries. In the course of evidence given to it by Professor Cullingworth and Professor Donaldson, the chairman asked whether those professors thought it profitable for the sub-committee to go abroad to see how other countries financed public sector housing. The answer was that some interesting experiments were going on in Sweden and Holland.

I was sitting in as an ex-officio member of the sub-committee, being Chairman of the Estimates Committee. I asked whether they knew what was happening in Japan. The two professors smiled and said that there might be interesting developments in Japan and that if the subcommittee wanted an adviser to go with it, they would be glad to oblige.

The sub-committee subsequently came to the full Estimates Committee and got approval to go to Sweden and Holland for a few days. It wanted to go for three or four days, but the whole Estimates Committee, contrary to my advice as chairman, said, "No, you cannot do the job in four days; you must make it a week". I had to go along to the liaison committee, the committee composed of the chairmen of all the Select Committees in the House, and argue the case as directed by the Estimates Committee. It agreed that the visit should take place, and it took place.

Then along came the chairman of the Science and Technology Committee. He said that lie wanted to take his committee to the Woomera rocket range in Australia. I contacted the Ministry of Defence and asked what there was to see in Woomera. They said, "A bloody great range of thousands of miles of desert with a few electrical sockets and plugs at one end to make the wretched things fly". That proposal was turned down by the liaison committee.

However, the chairman of the Science and Technology Committee was not to be deterred. He went back to his own sub-committee, returned to us, and said, "We have reconsidered the position and we still think that we should go to Woomera". I was the only person in the liaison committee who still voted against that proposal. The 1970 election then intervened and the chairmanship of the Select Committee on Science and Technology changed. The hon. Member for Abingdon (Mr. Neave) became the chairman, and the members of the Committee went to Woomera.

Last night I had a phone call from the chairman of the sub-committee of the Expenditure Committee. He told me that the sub-committee was currently in Sweden—Sweden seems to have a great attraction. I asked, "What is the subject which the sub-committee is investigating?" He replied, "Employment services." I asked, "What the devil has that got to do with Sweden?" He answered, "Sweden has some interesting developments going on in employment services."

Although we find difficulty in getting a quorum of three to examine witnesses—the Parliamentary Secretary knows how difficult it sometimes is to get a quorum of three or four in such a sub-committee—come a visit overseas and every Member is suddenly available. I am citing these facts from personal experience. Every member of the sub-committee was available to go to Sweden. Two of them came back half-way through this week, but the rest are still there. As there was insufficient money left in the kitty, they had to be at Gatwick Airport at 3.30 in the morning because that was the cheapest possible form of travel. However, they were determined to go, even if it meant getting to Gatwick at that time.

I shall quote another case. When I was chairman of the Estimates Committee there was a sub-committee investigating the financing of trunk roads. An hon. Member was put on that subcommittee within a few months of becoming a Member. During the first month of his being a member of the sub-committee he said, "We must go to California because there are important developments going on in trunk road financing in San Francisco and Los Angeles." The chairman of the subcommittee came to me, as chairman of the full committee, and asked for my opinion. I said, "You had better not bring that in front of the committee while I am the chairman." The idea was dropped. They never went to Califnoria.

I mention those cases because if the Government Motion, which has now been perhaps temporarily dropped, were to go through, I do not know how it would be administered. It is all very well for the names of the hon. Member for the Isle of Ely (Sir H. Legge-Bourke), my right hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey (Mr. Mellish) who is the Chief Whip of the Labour Party, and my right hon. Friend the Member for Sowerby (Mr. Houghton), who is Chairman of the Parliamentary Labour Party, the hon. Member for Surbiton (Mr. Nigel Fisher) and the hon. Member for Wycombe (Mr. John Hall) appearing in Motion No. 8, but I do not know how these people are to ensure that a visit is bona fide. I do not know how they will ensure that a Member is not furthering his business interests. There may be hon. Members who have shareholdings in South African gold mines and who might convince the committee that they want to go to South Africa to study the problem of apartheid. Who is to say what is the primary interest, apartheid, or the gold-mine shares and the gold-mine industry?

It is not right for the party hierarchies to get together and decide to establish this committee. I have great respect and affection for my right hon. Friends the Chief Whip and the chairman of the Parliamentary Labour Party, but if the 69 Labour hon. Members who voted in favour of entering Europe said to the committee, "We want to spend a month in Brussels to see how the Common Market works", I wonder whether my right hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey would be objective in assessing the merits of that claim? If there were a counterclaim by the hon. Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Michael Foot) and other hon. Members who are anti-Common Market, and the two claims came together in the same afternoon, I wonder which my right hon. Friend would choose. That is an interesting proposition.

My hon. Friend will understand that it was no desire on my part to be on the committee. I have more than enough work to do, and any extra chores thrown on my back are not welcome. However, in the interests of the House I agreed to accept a further responsibility. If it would get my hon. Friend out of any trouble, I should be willing not to be on such a committee. I should be glad if my hon. Friend would take my place.

I anticipated that offer, and that is why I had an Amendment down to delete my right hon. Friend's name. I knew that he was overworked. I am underworked. Therefore I propose that I should administer the whole scheme myself. I was being helpful and I hope my right hon. Friend appreciates that. His name is there and he obviously agreed that it should be there—maybe he did not. Maybe he was not consulted as one or two other hon. Members were not consulted until they saw their names on the Order Paper.

All I am saying is that it would be an impossible scheme to administer fairly. When I saw it I thought, "I'll start maping out my programme between now and 1975". Bernard Levin rang me up. I said, "I am interested in the geisha girls in Japan. Maybe if we could get some geisha girls here we could solve our prostitution problem. How are genuine Chinese restaurants run? I want to go to China to see how genuine ours are. I want to go to the United States to see how they deal with their race problem, I want to go to Brazil to see how they manage to produce better footballers than we do.

"I want to go to South Africa to see the apartheid thing operating. The Olympic Games will take place this year. I want to see how our British athletes fare. I believe that facilities for sport here are so inadequate that our athletes will be shown in a very bad light in Munich and I want to see what the reasons are. I want to see the World Cup to see how our footballers compete."

I have a whole itinerary mapped out. I am the blue-eyed boy of my right hon. Friend the Member for Sowerby and the Opposition Chief Whip. I am sure that they will give me consent to do these things.

To bring my hon. Friend back to this projected visit to Japan, I see in The Times yesterday Mr. Bernard Levin says:

"… Mr. Hamilton tells me that if the measure goes through he is himself going to swan off to Tokyo in order to investigate the geisha system at first hand, with a view to recommending its adoption in this country in the hope that it will reduce the incidence of prostitution. Nor, as far as I can see, would there be any way of stopping him from doing precisely that, at public expense."

Has my hon. Friend told Mr. Bernard Levin of his intention to go and has he borne in mind, when Mr. Bernard Levin says that there is nothing to stop him doing so, the nominations of those who would form this committee of scrutiny on these visits, of which my name is one? I can assure him that there is something to stop him and that is me.

My right hon. Friend is out of date. When I spoke to Mr. Bernard Levin there was no such Motion on the Paper. The only Motion was No. 7 in which there was no mention of a committee. All that it said was that hon. Members would be reimbursed for travel overseas for the purposes of informing themselves on subjects of relevance to their parliamentary work. I think it is relevant to my parliamentary work that I should try to stop prostitution in this country. If I could convince the Leader of the House that the introduction of geisha girls into this country would stop prostitution, it would be a worthwhile visit.

Does my hon. Friend realise that the weakness of his argument is that this was originally suggested by hon. Members on both sides of the House and taken up by the Boyle Committee as a reason for providing public funds so that hon. Members could go abroad? Is he aware—I am not suggesting that he would accept this—that the alternative is that someone might offer him his expenses if such a person happened to own businesses employing geisha girls in Japan which he might wish to extend to this country, and we all know that the Japanese have a notable ability as exporters? I hope that he realises that I agree with him about the committee, that it should not be a special committee, but a House of Commons Services Committee.

My hon. Friend should have come in earlier, because I touched on that point before he arrived. I said that this was based on a recommendation of the Boyle Committee and I quoted, not at such a considerable length as I might have done, from Schedule E where it indicated what travel was allowed to Members of Parliament in other countries. I suppose that one of the reasons for the original Motion was precisely that which my hon. Friend suggests, that if hon. Members are not to have these facilities available the temptation is for them to travel overseas by other and less reputable means. This temptation is open to Members and there is no doubt about it.

We had that experience with the Greek colonels. There is, unfortunately, no Member of the Liberal Party here, but I recall that some time ago the Greek colonels' rotten, corrupt, dictatorial regime invited three hon. Members of this House and their wives to swan off to Greece to have a look round. The hon. Member for Inverness (Mr. Russell Johnston) and his wife were two of the people who went. Subsequently the hon. Member wrote an article in The Guardian and said that this regime was OK. This is exactly what the Greek colonels wanted, that was why they paid the expenses. This is a more reprehensible way of foreign travel than the Government are suggesting. That is precisely the point my hon. Friend was making. Of course these temptations are placed before Members of Parliament continuously.

Since the article in The Times by Mr. Bernard Levin has been raised by my hon. Friend and by my right hon. Friend the Member for Sowerby (Mr. Houghton), may I ask my hon. Friend whether he does not regard this as an appropriate moment, before proceeding in whichever direction his argument takes him, to repudiate the sheer journalistic squalor of the article in which a journalist like Mr. Levin attacks Members of Parliament who may or may not wish to travel abroad on parliamentary duties, whereas Mr. Levin as an employee of newspapers for several years has gone swanning off? He went swanning off all round the world on a trip financed by the Daily Mail, he has just been swanning off to Miami Beach to report, allegedly, the Democratic Convention for The Times.

Would my hon. Friend not further agree, in the repudiation which I trust he will make of Bernard Levin, that Mr. Levin's account of the Democratic Convention was so inaccurate, as was demonstrated in subsequent correspondence in The Times, that if he as a journalist is saying that Members of Parliament must learn the facts not from their own trips but from journalistic reports, they cannot do so if journalists are to be so unreliable as Mr. Levin so continually is?

I am pretty sure that that intervention will be the subject matter of a subsequent article in The Times by Mr. Levin. He will no doubt defend himself. Of course journalists are subject to the same kind of corrupt practice as Members of Parliament, probably more so. I remember some years ago the Press criticising the subsidising of the Members' refreshment facilities in this House. It was subsequently discovered that the subsidy of the Press Gallery refreshment department was far heavier and the losses far greater than the rest. This is the price we pay for our freedom to say what we like. The Press says what it likes and we will say what we like, and my hon. Friend has said what he likes about Bernard Levin and no doubt Bernard Levin will say what he likes about my hon. Friend. We ought not to be too thin-skinned about this. If Bernard Levin wants to go off to Miami Beach it is his business, but it is our right and my right to say what we like about these proposals, and this is what I am doing.

I come now to a more serious point. I see my hon. Friend the Member for Salford, West (Mr. Orme) sitting in his place. I have a great affection and respect for him, although we differ on many important matters. I know that my hon. Friend is angry—and I hope that I am not saying anything which is unfair—that I am raising this subject in this way. He and other Members went to Northern Ireland and Southern Ireland with the agreement of the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland. They were told that they need not pay their bills. [Interruption.] I am not deliberately distorting. I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for Salford, West will correct me if I say anything wrong. I understand that there are bills outstanding in Northern Ireland which were to have been recouped after the Government's Motion had gone through, virtually on the nod. The proposal was to run from 1st April. In other words, there was an element of retrospection in it.

I ask the Minister how my hon. Friend and his colleagues who went to Ireland in good faith are to be recouped. Will it be done out of Government funds? Nobody could say that a visit to Northern Ireland was a jaunt at the moment. I would not go for a substantial fee, let alone just for my expenses. My hon. Friends went in the course of their parliamentary duties to see at first hand what was going on in Northern Ireland. It was right for them to go also to Southern Ireland to ascertain the views of the Southern Irish Government. We have an Amendment down to the proposals to the effect that there might be a case—certainly it would be a stronger case—for free travel in the United Kingdom rather than throughout the world. It is important that the Minister should deal with this point.

I want to make it clear that I am not angry. My parliamentary colleagues and myself went to Belfast and to Derry with the knowledge of the Secretary of State but not with the promise that the bills would be paid. However, it was possible, if the Boyle recommendations had been adopted by the House, that our expenses would be met. My parliamentary colleagues and I make no apology for having gone to Belfast and Derry. We were in considerable physical danger in the north. In fact, our car was hijacked. Nor is it a jaunt going to Dublin at the moment. We were made no promises about expenses. The fact that the Government are not proceeding with their proposal will have to be re-examined. My parliamentary colleagues and I will have to take responsibility for what has taken place.

My hon. Friend is very fair. I would not impugn his integrity or that of the Members who went with him. But they have a right to insist that the Government foot the bill, because they went to Ireland to do a service to this House and to this country, and they did it with the most honourable motives. I would not have wanted to join them. I am a bit of a coward. I would not put my life in jeopardy by going to Belfast or Dublin in present circumstances. I cast no aspersions on my hon. Friend or on any of his colleagues.

I turn to the other aspect, a related matter, of which I have given the Minister notice, namely, the Report of the Select Committee dealing with Members' interests which was published on 4th December, 1969. It has never been debated. However lukewarm and wishy-washy the recommendations, the 1970 election intervened before the Labour Government had time to implement them. There is no indication that the present Government will implement even the ineffectual recommendations of the Committee, but they might have allowed time for a debate on them. I take this opportunity of initiating a mini-debate on them and of making a major speech.

I took, and still take, the view that there should be a compulsory public register of the financial outside interests of all Members. I wish to quote from the Memorandum which I submitted to the Committee. First, I went through the historical background, saying:

"In a speech made at Liverpool, and reported in The Guardian on 25th March, 1963, Mr. Wilson",

then Leader of the Opposition,

"had said that 'in my view we shall have to introduce legislation requiring lobbies to register and to make a public disclosure of their interests and personnel'."

I went on to say at page 89 of the report:

"That several M.P.s receive payments either in cash or in kind from outside bodies is a well-known fact. Much information is known and recorded, for instance by Mr. Andrew Roth in his books on the Business Backgrounds of M.P.s."

I give Mr. Roth a free advertisement of his recent work entitled "Lords on the Boards". It is well worth while reading it. It shows how members of the other place have massive outside business interests. If one looks at the records concerning the Burmah Oil incident, which I quoted at length in the House some years ago, one finds that 38 Burmah Oil shareholders voted in the House of Lords to give £60 million of taxpayers' money to their own company because its oil installations in Burma had been blown up to prevent them from falling into Japanese hands during the war. In fact, one of them took his seat that day just to vote his own company £60 million of public money. Mr. Roth's book "Lords on the Boards" is compulsive reading for hon. Members and for the public.

In my Memorandum to the Committee I went on to say:

"Mr. Francis Noel-Baker"—

who used to be a Member of Parliament—

"writing in Parliamentary Affairs (the Journal of the Hansard Society, Vol. XV, 1961–62) on the problem of Business Affiliations of M.P.s referred to the inadequacy of Members' pay and conditions. He went on to say, 'The door in fact, is wide open for a new form of political corruption and there is an uneasy feeling in Parliament and outside that its extent could be much greater than the known or published facts reveal.'".

My own comment was:

"There is much truth in that assertion, as any reading of Mr. Roth's books will indicate."

I went on to quote various other authorities who said that some form of public register should be formulated.

When I gave that evidence in front of the Select Committee it was said, "Oh, it would be too difficult. Wives could hold shares. There could be nominee shareholders"—and the rest. Of course there are difficulties, but so there are with the tax laws. There are all kinds of ways of evading income tax, surtax, death duty; you name it, and it can be evaded. A constant battle goes on between the Treasury and the taxpayer and the accountants, how to get round the tax laws, but that is no reason why we should not have laws of taxation. I cannot believe that parliamentary draftsmen who can draft a short Bill taking us into such a complex organisation as the EEC cannot devise some method by which the public outside can be made aware of the business interests of Members of this House in outside bodies. It might not be watertight; I do not believe it could be; but that is no reason why we should not try.

Whether we are talking about Members' travel overseas financed by the Government or by foreign Governments or by firms, whether we are talking of Members' outside financial interests, it all boils down eventually to the personal integrity and judgment of the individual Member of Parliament, He, in the end, must decide what is right and what is wrong, what is defensible and what is indefensible, what he will be answerable for to his constituency party and to the public outside, but that is no reason why we should not try to produce a set of ground rules to which he could refer.

There is a good deal of cynicism outside this House about this House. I have said before and I repeat now—and it is no catch phrase—that I believe that this House as a legislature is probably the least corrupt of any in the world, but that is not to say that it is not corrupt, that is not to say that certain hon. Members—I believe a minority of Members—have yielded and are yielding to temptations which are continually put before us week after week. The same applies to local councillors. It spreads through. There is no reason why we should be complacent about it. All I want the Government to do is to have a very good and serious look at these things—in view of recent developments, even more so should they have a look at it. I am glad to have had this opportunity of raising the matter, a matter which the Government, I think, would have preferred not to have been raised.

First, I apologise to the hon. Member for Fife, West (Mr. William Hamilton) for having missed the first three minutes of his speech. I did not know he intended to raise this matter until I saw his name go up on the indicator today. Sometimes it happens that when the business of the House for the day is completed a little earlier than expected an hon. Member who has the good sense to anticipate that fact can grasp his opportunity to raise a matter on the Adjournment, which occurs sooner than was expected. I congratulate the hon. Member at least on exercising initiative on this occasion and taking his opportunity.

However, I must say that I should have like a little more notice of what he intended to say because he has drawn attention to the fact that I was one of the hon. Members who, had the House approved a Motion which contained my name, would have been responsible for administering the fund made available for Members' travel in the United Kingdom and overseas.

I must say that it was not a task which I relished. When I was first asked whether I would consider doing this, I naturally asked how much work it would entail, and I was told, "Very little", but the more I have contemplated it ever since that moment, the more convinced I have become that it would have been an increasingly exacting exercise. The exercise of one's judgment as between one hon. Member's claim and another would be very considerable indeed.

However amusing Mr. Bernard Levin may be on paper—and I hugely enjoy many of the articles he writes—I must confess that I do not think that he is much of a mathematician. If he had got down to the hard tack of dividing £10,000 equitably between 630 Members of Parliament he would have found that it works out at about £16 a head. For £20,000 it is about £32 per head. A sum of £32 does not go very far when one is travelling abroad, and £16 could not be regarded as a lavish additional allowance to enable hon. Members to travel around in this country in the course of their duties as they conceive them to be and to inform themselves on matters concerning or likely to concern the House. What would concern that committee would be to ensure that all hon. Members were being treated equally, and that no one was regarded as privileged in the allocation of the allowances.

It is worth reminding the hon. Member for Fife, West what the right hon. Member for Workington (Mr. Peart) said when the proposals of the Boyle Committee were first put before the House:

"The Government have responded to a strong expression of view by the Review Body by accepting the proposals, and I think that the House must accept them in toto."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 20th December, 1971; Vol. 828, C. 1143.]

It was on that assumption that the Government put down the Motions on the Order Paper to which exception has been taken by the hon. Member for West Ham, North (Mr. Arthur Lewis) and others. I am sorry that the hon. Member for West Ham, North is not here today because he is as ardent a protagonist of anti-privilege as is the hon. Member for Fife, West. They both resent what they regard as privilege which could be thought to be unfair. I respect them for holding that view, but I sometimes wonder what privileges they enjoy about which we do not know.

The hon. Member for Fife, West says that he wants all outside interests to be declared and that there is no way at the moment of doing this. Any constituency association is fully entitled to ask its Member what are his outside interests, and, presumably, the local Press and the national newspapers are entitled to publish his answers to such questions. The question arises whether a central register should be kept here of Members' outside interests, but this might have unfortunate results which the hon. Gentleman does not contemplate.

Once a central register is kept, any change in a hon. Member's outside interests would have to be recorded. This might conceivably have unfortunate effects, for example on investments. For an hon. Member to announce publicly that he had changed his investments might have highly undesirable effects.

I entirely agree that an hon. Member who is asked about his outside interests by his constituents should answer straightforwardly, and I would regret it if any hon. Member did not do so. But we must remember that we take pride in calling ourselves "honourable" Members. The basis on which the House has operated down the years, and on which I hope it will always operate, is the assumption that we are all "honourable" Members until it is proved otherwise. We take responsibility for what we say, knowing that we can be cross-questioned on it in the House, by our constituents, by newspaper men and by any other member of the public. Hon. Members know that when they speak in this House they must bear in mind this responsibility.

I turn to the main burden of the hon. Member's remarks. The question of travel allowances to hon. Members in pursuing what they believe to be a cause which will help them to be able to play their part here more effectively is not an easy one. We must recognise that both Front Benches agreed that the Boyle recommendations must be accepted in toto or not at all.

It is worth quoting these words from the Boyle Report:

"We have regarded this as placing on us an added responsibility to keep our recommendations for increases and improvements to the absolute minimum which we consider to be necessary. It is in our view of the highest importance that these recommendations, both as they affect salaries and allowances, should now be implemented as a whole and in full."

The Government accepted that, as did the Opposition Front Bench. It was on that assumption that the Motions were tabled, and not for some deceitful purpose such as was suggested yesterday in Mr. Bernard Levin's article. It was absolutely in accordance with the decision taken by the House following the recommendation of the Boyle Committee.

I come to the question of administration. The hon. Member for Fife, West asked how on earth those who were to serve on the proposed committee were selected. I cannot say what happened on the Opposition side of the House, but I can gladly tell him what happened on this side. As the House knows, I am chairman of a certain committee concerning the Conservative Party and I was asked whether I would consider this matter with my colleagues. I did so, and I consulted the executive committee, whose purpose is to look into this sort of matter when asked.

We put forward the names of certain hon. Members. One name we put forward was that of the hon. Member for Wycome (Mr. John Hall) who happens to be the Chairman of the Inter-Parliamentary Union and who undertakes an immense amount of work involving foreign travel. He has special knowledge of these matters and of the costs involved and knows the subjects which have to be discussed from time to time. Our other nominee is my hon. Friend the Member for Surbiton (Mr. Nigel Fisher), who is particularly interested in Commonwealth affairs and who travels a great deal at his own expense. He, too, has a personal and active knowledge of the likely costs arising from these journeys.

The hon. Member for Fife, West was somewhat naughty in seeking to paint an absurd picture of hon. Members going off to have a jolly good time, dancing with the mayor's wife, and so on. It was all very colourful and not quite as serious as I think it should have been—especially when we realise that this involves taxpayers' money. I realise that the hon. Gentleman is a great champion of ensuring that public money is properly spent, but on this occasion he has painted such an absurd picture that it should be dismissed as not worthy of the occasion.

I do not regard this proposal of the Boyle Committee as anything like its best proposal. I regard it either as much too small, or it is a question whether it ought to be there at all. I am sure that I speak for many of my colleagues when I say that I should not mind if the whole idea were dropped. The more that I look at it, the more complicated administratively I foresee it being.

However, I should not reject it for the reason advanced by the hon. Member for Fife, West. I should reject it because I believe it to be unworkable without being unfair to someone. I should hate to see its administration being unfair. Every hon. Member should be treated equally. However, if we set a limit of £16 for United Kingdom travel and £32 for overseas travel, it becomes ludicrous—

When the names of right hon. and hon. Members on this side of the House were first mooted for membership of the committee, it was my assumption that at our first meeting we should have to decide our terms of reference. It occurred to me, though this is the first time that I have said so publicly, that the smallness of the fund was such that we might have decided that it was not workable, anyway. However, the important feature of this fund was that whatever sums were granted to any hon. Member, full details would be published, and the whole world would know. In that, I include members of the Press. They would want to know about these matters, though they have probably left the Press Gallery by now since the more lurid part of this debate is over.

I am grateful for the right hon. Gentleman's intervention. I hope that he will not assume that, if this committee has to be set up and he and I find ourselves on it, what I have said today is my last word on the subject. Obviously, we should have to get down to working out the modus vivendi of the committee.

I say only that I foresaw deeper and deeper complications ahead of us. That is why I feel that the Government have been wise to withdraw this proposal. Many people will say, "This is one part of the Boyle Report which was a pity. Let us cancel the whole idea and not try again with it." I think that there would be strong support for that point of view from this side of the House.

This assumes, of course, that we are not prepared to say that Members of Parliament shall be provided with adequate allowances on the lines of those of most other Western States. If we do not take that view, we have to think in terms of much bigger sums. If we gave travel facilities in the United Kingdom alone comparable to those enjoyed by the members of legislatures in many advanced States in the world, we should find ourselves running into millions of £s rather than tens of thousands.

After many years of restraint, even taking into account some rise in the cost of living, we know that the fact that we have salaries which are not too much out of line with true costs has not been greeted with wild enthusiasm by the electorate. The country at large underestimates the hours of work put in by hon. Members in this House. The other day I was asked how many hours the parliamentary week involved. I was unable to get the figure below 65. Often it was well about 80 and sometimes above 100 hours a week. That is the sort of time for which a Member of Parliament is involved in work here, in his constituency and connected with work in both.

One piece of work in which hon. Members are involved concerns Select Committees on opposed Private Bills. I no longer do it to the extent that I used to. There is no extra pay for that. It is usually done in the mornings. The amount of work and background reading often is vast. Members of the Press do not take much notice of such committees. That may be because the matters dealt with are largely of local interest. However, it is very important to the localities and the people concerned. That work is part of the parliamentary life, and the country outside knows little of it.

The hon. Member for Fife, West picked upon one Select Committee of which I was a member. I refer to the Select Committee on Science and Technology. In the course of the Second Reading debate on the Bill dealing with our salaries, I referred to this matter. Apparently the hon. Member for Fife, West was opposed to our going to Woomera. Either the British space programme is important or it is not. If it is important, it is as well for Members of Parliament to be as fully informed as possible before starting to adjudicate on the future of that programme. We could not have produced the report that we in fact produced had we not gone to Woomera. As I said on that occasion, when the work of the Committee in Australia had finished two of us—my hon. Friend the Member for Epping (Mr. Tebbit) and I—volunteered to go back via Washington to meet some of the representatives of the country most involved in space in the Western world—the United States.

It might interest the House to he reminded of our itinerary. We left Heathrow for Sydney on a Sunday afternoon, going via Vienna, Cairo, Bahrain, Calcutta and Singapore, putting down only to refuel and go on. It is the wrong way to travel if one wishes comfort.

Within an hour of arriving in Sydney we were off in another aeroplane for Adelaide. Half an hour after arriving at Adelaide we were being interviewed by the Premier of South Australia. We then, at last, managed to get a wash and change for the first time in 36 hours. After a quick lunch we went to the Weapons Research Establishment at Salisbury. We went back to Adelaide. Next day we left at 6.30 in the morning for Woomera where we spent two days, travelling 100 miles up there in an aircraft built at least 14 years ago. Then we came back again to Adelaide, went up to Salisbury, spent a whole day there, back to Adelaide, and then over to Canberra. There we not only did work for the Select Committee on Science and Technology, but we met a number of the Clerks of the Parliament there and had an interesting conference. We went back to Sydney the following afternoon, and that was the official end of the Committee's work.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Epping and I had decided to go on to Washington and come back that way, we had to pay the extra fare, £13, out of our own pockets. If hon. Members wish to go round the world I advise them to take more than 14 days in which to do it. It took me three weeks to get over the visit.

The country does not appreciate that the burden of the work we do for this House is considerable. We are not overpaid for what we try to do. Some hon. Members do more than others. That will always be so. However, we are not overpaid as a Parliament. The proposed allowances were not excessive, but the difficulty of administration would be so great that it is better to drop the whole idea until we can think straight on the whole matter.

I think there are times when, because of events, we tend to make a meal out of something that need not be treated in that way.

Like the hon. Member for the Isle of Ely (Sir H. Legge-Bourke), I should like to apologise to my hon. Friend the Member for Fife, West (Mr. William Hamilton) for not being here at the beginning of his speech. However, my hon. Friend will realise that an Adjournment debate is technically one debate and one simply has to watch the board to see when a Member rises if a second Adjournment debate is to take place.

I think my hon. Friend also realises that he puts at least half the hon. Members present on this side of the House in a difficult position regarding the second part of his speech. I will not comment on it for a reason of which he is aware—namely, that we on this side have set up a committee of eight to consider Mem- bers' outside interests. Two of the members of that committee are my right hon. Friend the Member for Sowerby (Mr. Houghton) and myself. Therefore, it is almost impossible for us at this stage, before the committee has met and considered proposals on what it believes should be the situation, to comment on the matter.

Like my hon. Friend, when the Select Committe dealing with Members' Interests was sitting, I put before it a memorandum of evidence and raised the question of a register of Members. I also pointed out some of the difficulties.

My hon. Friend said that in the end it is a question of Members' individual integrity. My hon. Friend is right, but only in the sense that every job we do involves our own individual integrity, whether inside or outside this House. In that sense Members of Parliament are no different from other people, but there is a way in which they are different. My hon. Friend mentioned constituencies and parties. An individual Member's integrity is relevant to his job in the same way as the integrity of any other individual is to his job, but there are people outside the House who are interested in us because they elect us or because they vote for or against us at a General Election or at party meetings when they select candidates. I am sure it will be agreed that it is not only the individual Member's integrity that is involved. What is involved is a sufficient degree of publicity of a Member's actions to enable people outside to make a legitimate choice in deciding whether they wish him to be in the House. In that respect Members are different from many other people. That is as far as I wish to go on that issue.

I should like to take up the other point raised by my hon. Friend. The history of travelling expenses is interesting. I first heard of it from the former Member for Ormskirk, Sir Douglas Glover, who raised it in the House late one night. The hon. Gentleman was often here at all hours of the day or night, very much like the hon. Member for the Isle of Ely, who referred to the hours that Members work. The former Member for Ormskirk raised the question for the most legitimate of reasons. I subsequently learned that he was not the first person in the House to raise the matter, but he was the first in my recollection as a Member, and he raised it because he wanted to ensure that Members could go about their legitimate duties outside the House without having to be beholden to other people who might have interests—and who better to pay for such things than the country as a whole?

I said earlier that we sometimes make a meal out of something which need not be treated in that way. My father was a railway executive. When he died my mother, as his widow, had a free pass which would take her over any part of the railway system for which he had been an executive. There is nobody in the kingdom who works in industry in any capacity who, when he is sent on a job by the firm for which he works, is not paid for that purpose. There are many people who, like my mother as a widow, have a small fringe benefit of the kind that I have mentioned.

Is it being suggested that Members of Parliament should be worse off than every other person employed in the United Kingdom? When the former Member for Ormskirk raised the matter, I thought that it was an extremely sensible proposal, and when the Boyle Committee met I submitted a memorandum to it. That has not been published because, quite rightly, the committee did not publish any of its evidence. My memorandum included the suggestion that the idea put forward by the former Member for Ormskirk should be adopted and the committee accepted that.

The Government said that they were going to implement the entire Boyle Report. Like the hon. and gallant Member for the Isle of Ely, I am not sure that the way in which the Boyle Committee put the matter was the best way. I think that it would be simpler to say that we could use our railway warrants which are provided to take us from this place to our constituencies, or the car allowances which are paid to Members who drive cars for the same purpose for travel anywhere in the United Kingdom. That might be a better way of doing it. But the Boyle Committee made its proposal, it was an independent committee, and the Government have said that they intend to implement what the committee recommended.

At no time during any of the discussions do I recollect my hon. Friend the Member for Fife, West objecting to what was proposed. I do not recollect his objecting when the former Member for Ormskirk raised it. I do not recollect his objecting during the discussions on the Boyle Report. I do not recollect his objecting even when the Government put down their Motion for debate on the Floor of the House. On the first occasion that the Government Motion was put down and withdrawn my hon. Friend the Member for Fife, West was not there. My hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Ardwick (Mr. Kaufman) was present but my other hon. Friend did not seem to be concerned. He may have been concerned, but he did not say so. He has taken an interest in this issue only since more recent events on other issues. I accept that he is a master of the ability to influence public opinion, but on this sort of subject there should be a measure of consistency in view expressed on the Floor of the House. I have always been in favour of a reasonable travelling allowance for hon. Members.

I am concerned that the Government originally withdrew their resolutions in a fit of pique—and I describe it as such because I was present at the time. The Motion embodying the recommendation of the Boyle Committee dealing with travelling expenses was preceded by another Motion which the Boyle Committee had not recommended—that we should give £60 to every hon. Member who wished to attend an EEC language course. There was no requirement that the hon. Member should pass the course or qualify —only that he should attend. My hon. Friend for Ardwick and I objected to that. Some people believe we should not have done so. Since we opposed it, the Government withdrew the second resolution on travelling expenses to which we were not opposed. My hon. Friend the Member for West Ham, North (Mr. Arthur Lewis) opposed it at the time, but it could have gone through.

I entirely agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Fife, West that the method of implementing the Boyle Report is, to say the least, slightly strange in one small respect. I believe that we should have a travel fund and that the amount would have to be worked out.

Within the United Kingdom a fund would not be needed because the principles that apply for travel to constituencies could be extended. Obviously this is a difficult matter, but nevertheless there should be a means by which the community as a whole could pay for Members going abroad for what other hon. Members—not those making the trip—would describe as for legitimate parliamentary purposes.

If Members of Parliament go abroad they cannot even claim the cost of the visit for tax purposes if they are paying for it out of their own income. It is not merely a question of paying their own expenses. They are not even allowed to pay for it themselves and then charge an appropriate proportion to tax, as any business man could when travelling abroad for the purpose of his business. If an hon. Member wanted to go to Northern Ireland, Vietnam or anywhere else for parliamentary purposes, the cost of the trip could not be charged to tax, but a business man selling spanners could charge his expenses to tax.

The committee that decides upon the matter should be the broadest possible, and the defect of the particular committee proposed was that it was so small and restricted. I would rather see the Services Committee, which is ultimately responsible for the budget of the House, considering the matter rather than these hon. Members. That is a minor point. The major point is that if we do not provide Members of Parliament with legitimate means of doing the things they feel they must do in the course of their duties, then a minority, as my hon. Friend the Member for Fife, West said, might adopt illegitimate means of doing the same thing.

The House is in some difficulty this afternoon, because the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Fife, West (Mr. William Hamilton) related to Motions which were on the Order Paper for today, but which are not now on the Order Paper for today. The Government decided not to move those Motions today, to reconsider the matter and, if they thought fit, to bring them forward on a subsequent occasion. If they are brought forward on a subsequent occasion, the House will have an opportunity to debate them fully, perhaps in more satisfactory conditions than this afternoon; if they are not brought forward again there is nothing to debate and we are finished with them. So we are in the difficulty that we do not know whether we are debating something tangible. We are certainly debating, at any rate in part, something that is not before the House.

Nevertheless, with his usual ingenuity, my hon. Friend took the opportunity of the collapse of a certain part of the business on account of the withdrawal of these Motions to raise the same matters on the Adjournment—which shows what can be done in the House if one knows one's way about. One thing that will be very noticeable is how hard the House tries for virtue and what a painful way we choose to achieve it—self-examination, self-exposure, self-criticism.

When I was listening to the hon. Member for the Isle of Ely (Sir H. Legge-Bourke) defending, rightly, properly and moderately, the prestige, the zeal and the integrity of the House, I wondered how interested the Press was in what he was saying. It was very interested in what my hon. Friend the Member for Fife, West was saying. He was the man who was good for the headlines, not the hon. Gentleman.

Hear, hear.

That is the dilemma that always confronts the House when it begins to debate itself. We have to do it in public and we can be misrepresented. What is discussed here can be grievously distorted for the sake of Press advantage, or publicity, or political prejudice, or whatever it may be. That is sad, but we are a public body doing its work in public and we have to take the consequences.

Nevertheless, these conditions impose upon us all a full sense of responsibility for what we do and what we say, because we can seriously damage the institution of Parliament, unwittingly perhaps, and at this time, when our institutions are under such challenge, the object of much cynicism and derision, we must be careful that we do not damage the whole fabric of our democratic and parliamentary system. What will be put in its place if this Parliament goes, if this Parliament is regarded as something unworthy and corrupt, cynical in its approach to its duties, striving for its advantage, having private interests, going on bonanza trips all over the world, if this kind of legend is built up about the House, our reputation, our authority and our influence are bound to diminish.

I say to my hon. Friend that he does not choose his language carefully and moderately enough when he is dealing with these delicate matters. I shall not go into many of the topics that he raised. I have great respect for my hon. Friend. He has abundant courage. Sometimes hon. Members who are in a minority but who have courage nevertheless do a service to the public and to Parliament, and I do not deny that. But sometimes in the House we make possible unimpeded progress towards minority rule.

These are the occasions when any hon. Member, even though he represents no one but himself and has the full confidence of his constituents, can in certain circumstances hold up our proceedings here hour by hour throughout the day and night. This is a right that we give in our democratic parliamentary system to hon. Members to have their say without let or hindrance, and the House can scarcely bring proceedings to a close, even if it wants to if the hon. Member concerned is in order and availing himself properly of the time put at our disposal. But all this puts on hon. Members a very grave responsibility about what we do.

The two main issues that have been raised are travel allowances and Members' interests. The subject of Members' interests is by no means new. It has been debated in the past from time to time when disclosures have been made or information has come to light which disturbs the House, and the House then feels that it should examine once again this difficult matter. This occurred during the lifetime of the Labour Government, and a Select Committee was set up presided over by my right hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall (Mr. Strauss). It spent a considerable period in close examination of a complex problem, and it produced a report.

It is true that that report was never debated here. Probably it should have been debated but, unhappily, there are times when the House, roused to indignation or apprehension and in a mood or spirit of moral fervour, says that a Select Committee must be set up, that something must be done to inquire into whatever the subject may be, and that some remedy must be found, but by the time the Select Committee set up to deal with the matter produces its report the House has lost interest in the circumstance of its appointment, and we wait until the next incident occurs.

So it is that we are now all going to the Vote Office for our copies of the 1967 Select Committee's Report to see what was said about a problem which has recently been revived in the House. If we read that report—and I wonder how many hon. and right hon. Members read it then or have refreshed their memories about it since—we appreciate how difficult the problem is. None of us wants to hide matters which are of public interest, and probably many of us would go much further than would members of the public in the disclosure of our affairs in order that the public might see that we were neither corrupt, nor in the pay of other people, nor in circumstances and conditions which would unfit us to represent the public in this House of Commons.

For my own part, I would be prepared for anyone to see my income tax return at any time: they would then see how little I have made out of being in Parliament for the last 22 years. I know that the same applies to many other hon. Members. As I have said, I would be prepared to submit to a degree of inspection of my private affairs which I would not ask private citizens themselves to agree to, but the problem is: what is suitable and proper for disclosure?

I do not want to dwell on these matters, because I am a member of a committee of the Parliamentary Labour Party which has been appointed to take a party look at the subject in order to see whether we can come to any conclusions that we might on a subsequent occasion put before the House. Nevertheless, I need only, in a couple of sentences, ask whether one discloses shareholdings, control of private compies, substantial blocks of shares in public companies, fees paid by outside bodies. Should we know what the lawyers or the solicitors are earning? We know that certain hon. Members are journalists and we read what they have to say: it would be interesting to know how much they are paid for their work. Are we entitled to know? These are questions we should ask ourselves.

We know how much some people get paid.

Some hon. Members have fairly regular columns in local newspapers. Are they paid for those? Are they in any way beholden to the politics of the newspapers for which they write? All these are important and difficult questions.

I wish to say little more on this matter until the committee that has been appointed has had an opportunity of considering it further, but there is one thing that I can say without fear of contradiction; we all want to do what can properly and fairly be done to assure the public that we are the most incorrupt Parliament in the world. We wish to retain confidence in our capacity to represent the public and to do it without fear or favour, or undue personal interest.

The issue of travel is a new one. It came from the Boyle Committee. It is not without importance. I should mention that another of the dilemmas of those who serve the House is that we are extremely loth to propose anything for our own benefit. Many attempts have been made to deal with the problems of pay and conditions of hon. Members. Select Committees in all sorts of ways have tried to solve this difficult problem.

All that I want to say is that probably as a result of a small Bill that I introduced into the House some time ago our affairs were remitted to a review body for its advice on what should be done in terms of the pay and conditions of Members. That committee was presided over by Lord Boyle of Handsworth, who for many years was a Member of this House. He is now Vice-Chancellor of Leeds University. He was a much respected Member of this House in his time—a man of great public eminence, respected for his integrity, wisdom and judgment.

Lord Boyle was chairman of this committee, and he and the other distinguished members of it voluntarily undertook the task of deciding for us what we felt incapable of deciding for ourselves. Among the Members were Lord Beeching and Sir George Coldstream—a distinguished Permanent Secretary to Lord Chancellors. It was a committee of high quality.

The Government decided—rightly in my view—to accept without amendment the recommendations of the Boyle Committee on pay and conditions of Members of Parliament. That is the only way to do it. If a person puts out his washing because it is too dirty or too difficult for him to wash it himself, he must take it when it comes back from the laundry—and this came back from the laundry and the Government decided to accept it.

One of the recommendations of the committee related to travel within the United Kingdom and overseas. I am sure that this recommendation came from the committee because it received evidence showing, or sought from its own inquiries to find out, how well or ill informed Parliament is on matters which should be within the scope of its attention and expert knowledge. The committee made this modest recommendation —the subject of a Motion on the Order Paper that was withdrawn.

I see that in Mr. Bernard Levin's article in The Times on Thursday—and this is the mischief of the matter, if I may say so to my hon. Friend the Member for West Fife—he says:

"Now if you look at the small print in the Boyle Committee Report, a most significant fact emerges. The travelling expenses now incurred by Members of Parliament are, says the Report, generally not even deductible for tax'. That is a fair-sized cat to be let out of a bag only six words long, for if the Members' expenses are not deductible for tax it means that they cannot satisfy the Inland Revenue authorities that the travel is 'wholly and necessarily' for the purpose of their parliamentary work. It is therefore proposed by the Government and Opposition that Members of Parliament, alone among citizens shall not only be permitted to evade the provisions of the Income Tax Acts by paying no tax on the cost of their own private travel; they will actually get the lot back from the public purse."

That is a mischievous distortion of the tax position.

The difficulty about Members of Parliament and their tax expenses is well known.

The Inland Revenue naturally does not allow Members to choose which expenses they like to charge against their assessable income. The Inland Revenue wants to know, "Is this wholly, exclusively and necessarily incurred in the performance of your duties as a Member of Parliament?" It looks for some authority or sanction for the expenditure from such bodies as the House may direct—some authority that these matters are within the scope of legitimate parliamentary expenses. The fact that they are not admissible for tax purposes does not mean that they are not desirable expenses or expenses which will add to the value and knowledge of Members.

The Boyle Committee is trying to provide for expenditure in this direction which would be regarded as desirable when approved by a committee of the whole House. There would be no question of tax admissibility then, because the expenses would be paid out of the fund provided. There is nothing whatever in the point made by Bernard Levin in this context.

I hope that the House will permit me one personal reference. For many years I was the Front Bench spokesman on social security. I then went into the Government as a Cabinet Minister for two and a half years as the co-ordinating Minister for the whole of the social services. Not one penny of public money sent me anywhere in the world to look at the social services. I never had the opportunity of going, and I never asked for it. That is an indicaton of how austere we are in these matters. I am sure this applies to many of my hon. and right hon. Friends. The austerity that underlies all our activities here is unbelievable to members of legislative assemblies elsewhere.

My hon. Friend had a good deal of fun, and this is the danger, When we have fun in this House it can be construed in a way damagng to us all. It is difficult to be facetious in public because it is bound to be misunderstood. Some of the situations and applications for overseas travel which my hon. Friend mentioned are, as he knows, absolute fantasy. He is just enjoying himself. He knows that it was rubbish from beginning to end and yet it is seriously put to this House as a practical dilemma for the committee of which, were it to be appointed, I and my right hon. Friend the Opposition Chief Whip would be members. We would stop my hon. Friend going to Japan to look at the geisha girls, we would stop any hon. Member who wanted to see how our footballers played in the World Cup in Munich or Vienna, or wherever else they play.

No, Mr. Deputy Speaker. This is not a serious argument, this is not put forward with any sense of responsibility, and I must rebuke my hon. Friend, not because we do not all enjoy these contributions that he makes. Within our own circle we understand it and we understand him. But the Press men have gone. They went after my hon. Friend sat down. We shall see tomorrow what is made of this debate and how much improvement in the public mind comes out of a debate on one of the most difficult and delicate matters confronting parliamentarians.

Both Motions can and probably will come before the House in due course. I hope that I have said enough to warn all right hon. and hon. Members to be careful and not to damage Parliament unnecessarily and wantonly, because this institution is probably the one thing which stands between the public and anarchy. We have a grave responsibility to honour the traditions, rights and powers of Parliament handed down to us over hundreds of years. We must sustain it, foster its reputation and be worthy of it. We must not injure it unless it must be injured in the public interest.

This is the first day on which you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, have presided over the House since your appointment on Wednesday. I should like to congratulate you on behalf of the House.

It is a common occurrence for backbench Members to prepare long speeches and to sit through debates without being called and then to go away and persuade themselves that the speeches they did not make were the best. That has happened to me on five occasions this week. I have prepared five speeches to make from this Box but because of business changes I have not made any of them. They are the good ones which got away.

When the hon. Member for Fife, West (Mr. William Hamilton) speaks in the way in which he has spoken today—as a sort of Savanarola of the lowlands—he can, as the right hon. Member for Sowerby (Mr. Houghton) said, do a great deal of damage to the concept of parliamentary government in this country. The debate at times denegrated into a dog-eat-dog argument. I was surprised to hear the hon. Member for Manchester, Ardwick (Mr. Kaufman) attacking Mr. Bernard Levin. Both those gentlemen are my constituents, so I did not intervene because I would not want to jeopardise their potential support for me at the next election.

I should like to deal first with what the hon. Member for Fife, West said about the language Motion. It was debated late at night on 13th June for about two hours. It was debated thoroughly and there was a vote on it. But it could not be proceeded with because there were not 40 Members in the House. That was why it was tabled again for discussion today.

The hon. Member for Fife, West wanted to know why the Motion was confined to Common Market languages. It seems that he wants to learn Chinese—apparently on his way to Japan. During the debate on the Motion, my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House said:

"Most of us would agree that, in or out of the Common Market, the future of this country is probably more tied up with Europe than it was a few decades ago. That is probably inevitable. There are European institutions outside the Common Market. It helps hon. Members to do their duty to this House and, therefore, to the country if they are able to participate more freely in these institutions and to talk the languages of other members who join in them."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 14th June, 1972; Vol. 838, c. 1463.]

That is a sensible and practical approach. Certain hon. Members who will be participating more in European affairs in future felt that if they did not have the facility of tongue of one of the continental languages they should try to learn it. I should say that I would not have thought very much money would have been spent by the taxpayer on this, because the proposal was to pay only £60 or up to £60, but only if the course were completed. It is the experience, I understand, in language courses that courses are not often completed.

I turn now to the more substantive point concerning travel funds. As the House will be aware, the two Motions which were tabled but which have not been proceeded with today arose out of a Boyle recommendation, as the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Sowerby mentioned. It is the only outstanding recommendation of the Boyle Report. Both Front Benches have placed considerable emphasis in the past on accepting such reports in toto. If we ask a body like this to undertake a difficult and embarrassing task, or a task which we find embarrassing, we should accept its report in toto. The particular recommendation was in 42(b):

"An increasing number of Members incur expenses in travelling outside their constituencies, both within the United Kingdom and overseas, to inform themselves on subjects of relevance to their work. These are generally not even deductible for tax. We consider that such travel should be encouraged where it can be shown to be of assistance to Members in carrying out their duties effectively. We have in mind, for example, visits in connection with the sponsoring of a private Bill, to extend a Member's knowledge of an industry which is of special importance in his constituency, and, in the case of Opposition spokesmen, to examine matters of national interest in the sphere for which they are responsible."

I think this indicates that the sort of travel the Boyle Report had in mind was not the sort of jaunts the hon. Member for Fife, West was talking about. The object of that recommendation was not to give the luckiest people the jolliest time. It was to provide a facility which many hon. Member do not have but which would help them with their parliamentary work as Members of this legislative assembly.

I need not remind the House—indeed, my hon. Friend the Member for the Isle of Ely (Sir H. Legge-Bourke) did—that action has been taken on the rest of the Boyle Report, but I should like to emphasise at the outset that the Government regard this as very much a matter for the House, and one in which they would particularly seek to be guided by the general wishes of Members. This is not a matter for the Government, and the proposal does not emanate from the Government. It is a matter for the House. If the House wants these funds to be set up, set up they will be; if it does not, then nothing will happen.

I was asked whether the decision not to proceed with those Motions today meant that they were going to be dropped for good. That is not the position. They will stand on the Order Paper; they will come up if the House so wishes them to come up. They have been held over today because it became quite clear that there was considerable opposition from certain Members on both sides of the House to these proposals, some to the principle of these proposals, some to the details of these proposals. So it is the Government's intention to proceed with them only if it becomes clear that this is the wish of the House.

The effect of the first Motion, if it had been proceeded with, would have been to set up these two proposed travel funds.

There is one other aspect to the matter of the Motions not being proceeded with today and I think it ought to be made clear otherwise it might be said that the Government or the Opposition were running away from honourable debate. It is known that on the last two Fridays the debates here went on extremely late for a Friday; they were quite exceptionally lengthy. The staff of the House have been acutely embarrassed and, indeed, hurt, and it was felt that to have a third very long Friday in succession was really asking rather too much.

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for putting a bit of flesh on the bones of the reasons why we did not proceed with the Motions today.

The first Motion, if it had been proceeded with, would have been to set up two funds. They would have been financed out of public funds, and, as recommended in the Review Body's Report, these annual subscriptions from the Exchequer would have amounted in the first instance to £10,000 for travel within the United Kingdom and to £20,000 for overseas travel. These proposals were very modest. In comparison with what other legislative assemblies provide it is apparent that far from being over-generous we are being niggardly.

The hon. Member for Fife, West mentioned Belgium, but in France members of the legislative assembly have free travel and subsistence allowances for official journeys both inside and outside France, free first-class rail travel within France at all times, a limited number of tickets for sleepers on trains or air journeys between the capital and their constituencies and a pool of cars available, with chauffeurs, in the Paris area. I should like to hear the hon. Member for Fife, West wax eloquent on that if it were ever suggested. As he will know, junior Ministers in this country do not now have cars allocated to them.

In Germany all deputies receive automatically a travel allowance of £103 a month—£1,200 a year. In Italy Members of Parliament receive free rail travel and free travel on shipping lines subsidised by the State and on motorways administered by IRI. They also have a certain number of free flights between their constituencies and the capital if the distance is in excess of 500 kilometres, and so on.

I should like to dispel the impression, if there is such an impression, that the modest proposals of the noble Lord, Lord Boyle, are over-generous; they are not. Indeed, the modesty of the proposals might have created difficulties in administering the funds.

The second Motion that will not be proceeded with today would have set up an all-party committee of which my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Ely the right hon. Member for Bermondsey (Mr. Mellish) and the right hon. Member for Sowerby would have been members, together with two senior Members of the House, assisted by a Clerk of the House. It would have been entirely for the committee, within the terms of the Motion, to have decided how the annual amounts were allocated, whether hon. Members should apply before undertaking the journey or afterwards and whether the allowance would be for hotels as well as for travelling. The committee would have decided these things and reported all their decisions back to the House so that the House, the public and the Press would know exactly who was getting how much for what.

I notice that the hon. Member for Fife, West was prudent enough to suggest that he should be a member of the committee. I was not aware that Savonarola actually suggested that he should preside over the orgies in Florence. None the less, the hon. Gentleman had the prudence to put himself on the committee, and to suggest that an hon. Lady with whom from time to time he pairs should also be on the committee.

In view of the publicity which has been given to these travel allowances I make clear, as was made clear in an intervention by the hon. Member for Salford, West (Mr. Orme), that there could have been no question of the pre-allocation of funds for any visits which he or his colleagues may have undertaken to Ireland. The committee, if it had been set up, would have decided this. The committee would have received the application and considered whether it was within the criteria it would have laid down. There can be no question of money having been promised, and no question of the travelling expenses of those visits being paid out of public funds. The Government do not have a kitty for doling out money in this way. That is why the Boyle Committee recommended this system, with the establishment of funds.

I emphasise that the Government regard this as essentially a House matter. I do not wish to suggest that we as a parliamentary assembly need be in any way defensive about these proposals to assist hon. Members in their parliamentary duties. That is all I wish to say on the question of travel funds. I am sure that my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House and others will take note of what has been said today. We shall probably return to this matter later in the year. I should now like to turn—

Before the hon. Gentleman turns to another matter, will be make sure that when the House returns after the Recess the Motions to which reference has been made and which the Government are not abandoning will be put on for debate at a normal time, namely 3.30 after Questions? In this way a large number of hon. Members will be present so that we may have a proper impression of hon. Members' opinions, which has not been the case so far.

I cannot make those sorts of promises. As the hon. Member knows, it is a matter for my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House, but I shall draw the hon. Gentleman's remarks to his attention.

The five Members who have been nominated in one of the Motions have borne their potential, though at the moment virtually non-existent, duties very well. I can only say that those five hon. Members who are prepared to undertake the work will have to have broad backs and strong spirits.

I turn to the more substantive point about declaration of Members' interests following the report of the Select Committee in 1969, which has not been debated. I welcome the fact that the hon. Member for Fife. West has raised this matter. It is right that the House should concern itself with this topic. The public expect us as Members of Parliament so to conduct ourselves in our public and private lives that our conduct is above suspicion. The conduct of men and women in the public eye must not only be honourable but must be seen to be honourable.

The issue is not whether hon. Members should or should not have outside financial interests, but how those interests should be declared and made known to the world. I cannot agree with those who say—the argument has not been advanced today—that MPs should have no outside interests. One of the great strengths of this House is the wide variety of interests and backgrounds. It is a truly microcosm of the nation; our debates are enriched and enlivened by the experience and knowledge which hon. Members derive from their activities outside the House.

I wish to deal with three aspects of Members' financial interests, namely bribery, voting and declaration. The position on bribery has been clear for many years. As far back as 1695 there was a Resolution that condemned the offer and acceptance by MPs of bribes.

"The offer of money or other advantage to a Member of Parliament for the promoting of any matter whatsoever, pending or to be transacted in Parliament, is a high crime of misdemeanour."

The issue as regards voting is equally clear. No Member of Parliament with a direct pecuniary interest in a question is allowed to vote on it. This derived from a much-quoted and famous ruling by Mr. Speaker Abbott in 1811, who ruled that this interest must be

"a direct pecuniary interest and separately belonging to the person and not in common with the rest of His Majesty's subjects."

If such a matter arose and a Member decided to vote on it, his vote would be disqualified.

I should add that since that ruling there has only been one such disqualification, because it is a very narrow ruling. It occurred in 1892 when the votes of three Members were disallowed because they were shareholders in an East African company which was laying a railway line in East Africa to Lake Victoria.

In the 19th century the House seemed mainly to have been concerned with the question of voting rather than declaration. The emphasis of interest in this century, and particularly in the last few years, has shifted to declarations. The Select Committee was set tin to look into the whole area of Members' interest, but with a particular remit to examing the point of declaration. A practice has grown up—and I call it no more than a practice, because I can find no reference to it in Erskine May—that obliges a Member to declare any direct interest of a financial character before he takes part in a debate. The Committee referred to this as a convention; it is not enshrined in Standing Orders or in the Rules of the House.

Such a declaration is left to the discretion of each Member. As the House knows, it is a relatively frequent occurrence for a Member to start his speech by saying that he has a certain interest in a specific business or company. I remember Iain Macleod prefacing remarks of his when he was shadow Chancellor in general economic debates with the comment that he was a director of Lombard Bainking so that if any question came up about hire-purchase controls, which were of great concern to of Lombard Banking then the House should know that he was a director of that company, though his direct financial interest in the affairs of that company was of a miniscule nature. None the less, this is an excellent tradition.

The Committee examined something more than this. It considered carefully the publication of a register of the interest of members and making such a register mandatory—not obligatory like the Liberal proposal. It examined the whole range of types of register from the publication of individual Members' tax returns, as the right hon. Member for Sowerby suggested, to the partial disclosure of some interests. The Committee saw two main objections to the suggestion of a register, and it may be of interest if I spell those out, so that hon. Members are aware of them. I will give my views on them later.

The Committee's first objection was that it found it difficult to devise a register which reflected the fullness and extent of an individual Member's interests and was fair as between Members. If it must show consultancies, directorships and commissions, should not shareholdings be shown, or perhaps only significant shareholdings? But, then, what is a significant shareholding? In the case of a barrister, should he declare not only the total level of his fees but the specific amounts of some of the larger ones, together with his clients' names? Should an accountant not only declare his total fees, but the names of his major clients? Should journalistic earnings be shown, not just as one total but as separate totals from each newspaper and each television company? Should the ownership of land be included, or the ownership of important assets such as chattels or antiques? Should family holdings be shown? In some circumstances, would not it be more proper to show not assets but liabilities? It might be more significant if an hon. Member were substantially in debt, and possibly in debt to one person or group, than if he owned a modest holding of some Shell shares.

These are many of the questions that the Select Committee examine. It came to the conclusion that

"… such cumbrous inquisitorial machinery is likely to be evaded by the few Members it is designed to enmesh."

Is the hon. Gentleman aware that many hon. Members have certain reservations about that Select Committee's report? The hon. Gentleman said, and I agree, that it would be a pity if one excluded from the House all people with outside interests. But in that case the Select Committee could be said to be a Select Committee which excluded all Members of the House with no outside interests.

There were several comments upon the findings of the Committee and about its membership. I do not want to get involved in that today. I am dealing now with the general principles behind its report. As I have said, its first objection related to the sheer difficulty of what goes into the register and in what detail.

The second objection was that, although Members of Parliament are figures in the public eye, they also have private lives. It would be most invidious if it were decided that all their personal tax and financial matters were made common knowledge. Such a wide provision would deter many people on both sides wanting to enter or continue as Members of Parliament.

The Committee also examined at length the possibility of dealing specifically with public relations firms either by asking Members to register their connections with such firms, or by geting the firms to publish payments made to any Member of Parliament. These ideas came to grief on the difficulties of defining "public relatons" and the absence of a professional body which could cover the whole field.

Having rejected the idea of a register the Committee concluded that what was needed was a new code of conduct formally embodied in Resolutions of this House.

This code of conduct had only two points. The first was the formalisation of what is, in effect, a custom of the House, that when a Member rises to speak he should declare his interest; and that this practice should be extended to Question Time and to the times when Members write to their colleagues or to Ministers.

The second was that a Member should not "bring forward by speech or questions or advocate in this House or among his fellow Members any Bill, Motion, matter or cause for a fee, payment, retainer or reward, direct or indirect, which he has received, is receiving, or expects to receive."

This code of conduct raised considerable problems. It has been interpreted that any Member sponsored by a trade union would be debarred from participating in a debate on matters affecting his union or, indeed, on general union legislation. This is one of the difficulties in this matter. If we draw up a proposal which we think is watertight, it will specifically impose upon Mr. Speaker, or whoever is in the Chair, certain rules which he is bound to follow in preventing Members from speaking on certain subjects. Clearly this would have been a great inhibition upon the freedom of debate in the House.

I have gone over the report of the Select Committee in some detail, because I do not want hon. Members to have the impression that this matter has been lightly dealt with by the Government. It is an important matter, and I am glad that my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House said that he would be prepared to look at this question again.

Hon. Members must beware of thinking that there is a simple comprehensive and effective solution. I have always believed that frankness in these matters is the best course of action. I have always made my business interests known, as have many hon. Members on both sides of the House. However, I suspect that whatever rules may be devised, we must depend at the end of the road upon the good faith and integrity of individual Members, which is the point my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for the Isle of Ely so eloquently made.

I should like to take this opportunity to make clear to the House the position of Ministers. Strict rules are laid down about what Ministers may or may not do. I summarise them simply by saying that a Minister has to cease receiving any remuneration from any body, company or organisation. As the House knows, this is strictly observed. In my case, I immediately resigned all my business interests, directorships and consultancy arrangements. In addition, I had to resign the presidency of a semi-charitable housing association, although I had no financial interest in it or in any of the companies concerned with it. However, it was felt that as a Minister there could be a possible conflict of interest.

The hon. Member for Fife, West has urged us all to be frank. I should like to be frank about the motivation of some people in seeking information of this kind. To be brutally frank, some people are interested in this information out of sheer malicious curiosity. I have always been a little surprised that people seem to be so interested in other people's bank balances. After all, there is much more interesting information about people which, for example, "Who's Who" does not disclose. It is not the custom now to put down whether one is a Protestant, Catholic, Jew, atheist or humanist. Fifty years ago it would have been essential information. Personally, I should find that information infinitely more interesting than knowing what a man earns.

I think that a person's attitude to religious belief and wider metaphysical and philosophical problems of life is more likely to condition his attitude to the problems of today and the causes which he might advocate in this House than the money he has or the salary he earns. The sources of a person's belief and attitude are, I suspect, of more importance than the sources of his wealth.

Finally, I should like to express my profound personal conviction that Members of this Parliament are not in politics for money. I have met no Member of Parliament on either side who has joined this House in order to make money.

I know of several Members on both sides of the House who would be financially very much better off by not being Members. Money is not the spur. I find this one of the most attractive aspects of our political way of life. It is often in marked contrast to the way in which things are done in other countries, and I hope that this debate will not create the impression throughout the country that venality and corruption are characteristic of our public life. They most certainly are not.

I apologise to the House for not having been present when the debate started, but I am anxious to contribute to the discussion as it relates to travelling allowances.

I feel that the proposal to grant travelling allowances to Members is objectionable in principle in that it reflects a change which has been going on for some years in the status of Members. We have all been proud of the independence of Members in the past and perhaps we jealously preserved that independence more than we do nowadays, but the fact is that, with the increasing scope for drawing upon public funds for the purpose of doing our duty and the greater opportunities that we now have to seek information to do our jobs through and with the assistance of public funds, we are getting to the stage at which Members are rapidly becoming like paid civil servants.

The truth is that we are becoming like civil servants with sanctions due, not to the wisdom and the desirability or undesirability on that score of adopting a certain course, but to whether one is eligible for the financial provision to do what one wants to do. In principle it is desirable that all Members should be assisted to do their jobs properly, to have such assistance as they require for that purpose. That is why it is sometimes difficult to argue that we should not be remunerated to a greater extent than we are now. We all know that we are under-remunerated if one looks at it from that point of view.

That is why when Members' salaries were being discussed earlier this Session I was against the increase. It seemed to me that what was required was an increase not in salary but in the provision of additional secretarial, office and research facilities so that the functions of Members could be carried on properly without impinging upon the salary which should be paid only for personal needs.

Unfortunately, in recent years—and particularly in the last few years—there has been a subtle change in the status of Members because of the financial provisions of which we are able to take advantage from time to time. This subtle change in the status and independence of Members has been going on with the connivance of the Government and Opposition Front Benches. I believe that it is bad in principle, and that any move which may be made to assist us in doing our jobs properly should be specifically in a way which does not destroy our independence.

There are many odd characters in this House, and I say so without claiming to be one myself, but it would be a far poorer place if we did not have them. They are by nature non-conformists. They are by nature not the sort of people who wish to apply and be considered among others for an allocation of time or money to do certain things.

These people, who make up so much of the richness of our parliamentary lives, and contribute inestimably to parliamentary democracy, are those of whom we should be thinking when discussing what assistance we give to individual Members to do their jobs. It is they who will suffer most if there is any question of imposing regulations and restrictions on the availability of funds to assist Members.

As it is not possible to make travel allowances available to anybody who wishes, there must be some form of regulation, rationing or control of the amount used, and it seems to me that this cannot be realised without discrimination against such odd characters. That would be wholly objectionable, and for that reason I am strongly against the proposal.