I am glad to have the opportunity of raising the subject of the North Thames Gas Board and its natural gas conversion programme. I am pleased to see my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State here, and perhaps I may take this opportunity of congratulating him on his recent marriage and hoping that this debate will not spoil his enjoyment of the Christmas Recess.

The position of the North Thames Gas Board and its conversion programme has come very much to a head in the last few days by virtue of the Evening Standard campaign, but we should not overlook the fact that, without publicity, a large number of Members of Parliament have been carrying on this campaign for many months, that excellent local newspapers, like the Hampstead and Highgate Express in my constituency, have been doing valuable work and, indeed, that consumer organisations such as the redoubtable National Consumer Protection Council have all been adding their voice to the growing army of complaints about the way in which the board has been operating.

When the board was ready to start its conversion programme it called a meeting of London Members of Parliament in order to explain its problems and its programme, and I should have thought that it had enough examples of the snags that could occur from other parts of the country where the blessings, dubious or otherwise, of conversion to natural gas had taken place to be able to avoid them.

I want to confine what I have to say today to the experiences, comments and complaints that I have had from my constituents in Hampstead, although I must say that many people have written to me from other parts of London and I have swollen the mailbags of my colleagues in other constituencies as a result.

I want to cite a few cases which have come to me and which I have tried to deal with in one way or another. There is a common thread running through, the ignoring of letters by the board, the inability of consumers to get through to the board by telephone, the appointments that have been made being broken time and again and the wrong equipment being brought when eventually a fitter has arrived. The common link is sheer inefficiency.

The first of the cases I want to quote is that of the Misses Dennehy, aged 80 and 70, who were without hot water or a gas fire after conversion on 18th October. They came to me on 15th November, and as a result I put their case to the Chairman of the North Thames Gas Board. Perhaps one of the significant facts in this case is that it was brought to my notice by someone who works for the citizens advice bureau and who had herself, as she says, telephoned and written to the gas office "all to no avail". I hope the Minister will note that more than one of the cases I shall quote this morning come from people who know their way around, who do not need to go to their Member of Parliament, but who find it so absolutely frustrating that they have no alternative.

The next case is that of Miss Cowen, whose equipment was converted on 15th November. The work took three days. During that period there was no heating, the grid to the boiler was not replaced and the pilot light went out repeatedly. A leak was reported on three occasions but no action was taken for 10 days. During this period of conversion, Miss Cowen had visits from 12 different teams of men, each with a different story; the last one managed to put the boiler out and then said that he did not know how to relight it. I ask the Minister to note that Miss Cowen certainly knows her way around, because she is training officer of the Greater London Citizens Advice Bureaux. So no one can say that she did not use the right machinery. She certainly understands the ways of officialdom.

Then there is the case of Mr. Davson. This is partially conversion and partially a new installation, but it is worth spending a little time reading it in full. On 31st July Mr. Davson had a White Rose cooker installed by the Finchley Road showroom and it worked perfectly so far as the burners and the grill were concerned. On 6th August Mrs. Davson tried to use the oven. When it was heated, the smell of metallic paint was so intense that it pervaded the whole flat and food cooked in the oven had to be thrown away. On 8th August she telephoned the area number of the gas board and on 11th August a fitter called to confirm the complaint, and they heard nothing more.

On their return from holiday they found that no card had been left to say that someone had called. On 1st September, via the area office, they contacted the Finchley Road showroom, where someone said "We only sell cookers." On 2nd September Mrs. Davson wrote to the showroom a letter urgently addressed to the manager, asking for the attention of either the board or, through the board, of the manufacturers. There was no reply and no acknowledgment, and on a later visit Mrs. Davson was told "We do not answer letters."

Later she telephoned the London office of the manufacturers, who rightly said that the responsibility was that of the board. Mr. Davson then telephoned the Gas Consultative Council. He was given a number to telephone and from that number was given another number and was then told that no help could be given but that a representative would call. No representative called. Three days later two fitters called. They thought that a new restrictor might help. They promised to come back in two days with the new restrictor but they were never seen again. I hope that they did not die on the way.

On 5th October Mrs. Davson wrote to the Gas Consultative Council and on 10th October two more fitters called. They thought that the cooker possibly needed a new burner as well as a new restrictor. They collected these and put them in and promised to telephone the next day to see what the result was. They did so, and Mrs. Davson said that the oven was no different. The fitters said that they would report accordingly. Mrs. Davson says that this was followed by silence.

On 24th and 25th October there was a visit from the conversion team. Mrs. Davson took the opportunity to discover the reaction of the conversion engineer. His reaction was immediate and unqualified: "You must get rid of that at once." At five o'clock on 24th October the service department was telephoned and someone there said that they were still waiting for a new burner, etc. They were told that a new burner had already been in for a fortnight and was useless. On 26th October the Davsons wrote again to the consultative council. On 3rd November Mr. Thomson of the sales inquiry office of the board telephoned, three months after the cooker had been sold, to inquire what was wrong with it and what kind of smell was caused. It was difficult to describe the smell over the telephone in ladylike language.

On 6th November a Mr. Bernard called. He said that the cooker must be changed and that Mrs. Davson could expect a telephone call in two days for an appointment. If no call came, he said, they should telephone. There was no call. On 11th November Mrs. Davson telephoned and was told that there was no one in the office. On 11th November the Daysons telephoned the consultative council again. On 15th and 16th November they telephoned the Kilburn office. It was always engaged. On 17th November they telephoned the chief office at Kensington and said that they had been three and a half months without a usable oven.

On the afternoon of the 17th two fitters arrived with another cooker. One of the back burners was out of line with the pilot and would not light, so they replaced it with one from the first cooker. The oven thermostat would not work and the fitters said that a new one would come in a few days and that in the meantime the oven could be used. Mrs. Davson lit the oven and found that it would stay alight for one minute; then it went out completely.

On 18th November Mr. Thomson of the board telephoned again to inquire about the cooker and was told that it would not stay alight. At this point Mrs. Davson discovered that in taking away the first cooker the fitters had also taken away the side mouldings and clips of the Movolock. On 20th November Mr. Bernard called and was told that the second cooker was useless and that they must have a third.

On 26th November Mr. Dayson wrote to Mr. Bernard asking him to have the side mouldings and clips to the Movolcck returned when the next cooker came. On 28th November Mrs. Davson telephoned the chief office at Kensington and said again that they had been without a usuable oven since the end of July. On 30th November they sent a telegram to the consultative council, and on 1st December—success. Mr. Bernard telephoned to ask whether they had yet received the cooker. He said that he had not received any of the letters.

On receipt of this saga of correspondence I wrote to the chairman of the board. Action was taken. I had a letter only this morning from Mr. Dayson, which said:

"I am writing to let you know that the Gas Board delivered us a new cooker which has proved very satisfactory. Thank you very much for the efforts that you are making on behalf of your constituents in this matter."

But why should Mr. Dayson be forced to go through three months of purgatory because of the inefficiency of the North Thames Gas Board and the so-called consultative council?

I come next to Alderman Mrs. Campbell, who is a member of Camden Borough Council, a political opponent of mine but a friend of many years standing. Her saga too needs to be given in some detail. She reported a leak on 12th July and again on 13th July. At 6.30 p.m. on the 13th the board sent someone to turn off the supply and promised that service would be restored at nine a.m. the next morning. Mrs. Campbell took time off from her work on the 14th. Nothing happened and at four o'clock in the afternoon she telephoned, to be told that it would actually be fixed.

It was not fixed. On 15th July, it still was not fixed, so Mrs. Campbell tele- phoned me. I tried to telephone. I hope that the Minister will note that this is another thread running through the correspondence. I telephoned on 19 separate occasions to the number of the North Thames Gas Board and got the engaged signal every time. I then spoke to the supervisor at the telephone exchange and when I told him the number he said "Oh, no, not that. That is the gas board and it is useless to try to get hold of them." After 19 unsuccessful calls, the twentieth was successful and a fitter arrived about an hour after I had got through to the office at Mrs. Campbell's home. End of saga?

But on 20th July there was another leak at Mrs. Campbell's home. The gas was turned off and the board promised that it would be restored at nine o'clock next morning. On 21st July, Mrs. Campbell took a day off again. At two o'clock the man came, looked at the problem, said that there might be some difficulty and went away again.

At 3.30 p.m. we spoke to the board and the board said that it did not think anyone could manage to come, but that if it was not able to fix this, the board would supply her with a Calor gas cooker. On Saturday the 22nd, still no one came. But after contacting the board she was told that probably no Calor gas could be supplied until at least Tuesday. Therefore, for the second weekend running, Mrs. Campbell was without means of cooking food or doing her washing or anything.

The major complaint here is the inability to get any satisfaction from anyone to whom one speaks at the North Thames Gas Board. So Mrs. Campbell had to go out, had to find meals and had to buy an electric grill and ring. I am glad that the board has compensated her for having to purchase those, but it is ironic that the board has paid Mrs. Campbell to install electricity at the expense of gas consumers.

Then there is the case of Mrs. Dunn. I apologise that this again is at length, but it is a significant case. Mrs. Dunn has been "converted" and her saga goes rather like this. It involved countless telephone calls to the Bittacy Hill conversion unit, which eventually informed her that it was not their job to connect the five new fires which she had been obliged to purchase as they could not convert the portable fires she had been using. Kilburn showroom, responsible for connecting the new fires, and the gas board's warehouse at Haggerston, responsible for delivering them, said that they were not quite sure what should happen. Mrs. Dunn had to wait at home day after day for fitters to call. During that time she had no heating or cooking facilities.

The last straw was reached when, after all the waiting, a gas fitter actually called, only to discover that the wrong fires had been delivered in error. He also said that all the fireplaces had to be blocked in with asbestos sheeting before the new fires could be fitted. Although a previous survey was made by a gas board representative, he had not made any arrangement for the asbestos to be delivered; only the wrong fires. However, when the mistake was discovered Mrs. Dunn went to the Kilburn showroom because, as she said,

"It was impossible to contact them by telephone."

Mrs. Dunn asked whether she could collect five new natural gas fires and the asbestos sheets, which she was prepared to take back with her by taxi. She was told that the fires were not kept on the premises at Kilburn and would have to be ordered from the warehouse at Haggerston. At this stage she contacted me. She mentioned to the gas board that she would be talking to me. She states:

"No sooner did I inform the gas board that the matter was being taken up by my MP. Mr. Finsberg, than the situation suddenly changed miraculously!"

The Kilburn showroom telephoned her the same afternoon—telephoned her—and said that if she could arrange transport for the fires from the gas board's warehouse at Haggerston she could have them immediately.

Mrs. Dunn tried to find a transport firm which would go there, but she could not. She eventually contacted a taxi driver, however, and he agreed to collect the fires from Haggerston and bring them to Hampstead. One can imagine her exasperation when, rushing home, she found neither taxi driver nor the fires. She telephoned the warehouse at Haggerston to find whether the taxi driver had been there. She was told that the paper work was not complete, so he could not take away the fires. When she protested about this red tape, both to Haggerston and Kilburn, she was told by Kilburn that the fires would be delivered the next morning without fail and that a fitter would call the following afternoon to connect them. They did not arrive the following morning. When she telephoned she was told that there was some misunderstanding and that the board thought she would be sending a taxi to collect them.

At this stage Mrs. Dunn gave up. Eventually the taxi driver came and the fitter came. The fitter worked particularly hard until after 9 p.m. in order to connect the fires. But why did Mrs. Dunn need to use my name to get any action?

Then I come to the case of a youth club in my constituency, the Young Adventurers, a club which cares for deprived and under-privileged boys and which numbers among its honorary members Her Royal Highness the Princess Anne, so it is not a fly-by-night club.

It is necessary again, perhaps, to listen for a moment to the club's saga. This starts on 5th September when the organiser of the club, a Mrs. Ward, visited the Kilburn showroom and asked for certain work to be carried out—a quarterly meter, a broken meter repair, piped gas and the removal of gas board locks on a couple of floors. On 6th September an estimator arrived and said that if a quarterly meter needed fitting the road outside might have to be dug up, and they agreed a standing charge.

On 26th September the fitter called to remove the broken meter, but did not fit a new meter. He turned off the gas supply at the mains. On the 8th a fitter came to install a quarterly meter but said that it was not necessary to dig up the road. He could not reconnect the gas because the broken meter had not been replaced. So there were no cooking or heating facilities for the boys there.

On 4th October the conversion unit arrived—rather like the United States Fifth Cavalry—to convert existing appliances, but could not test them as there was no gas supply. On 12th October a fitter called and removed the lock from one meter. He said that he would arrange for gas to be laid on and the meter connected.

On 14th October a new meter was left, but no connection. On 19th October Mrs. Ward telephoned the Kensington office to complain and asked again that action be taken. On 20th October a fitter called to connect the new meter and to turn on the gas. He found that one meter was ineffective and that all the gas was coming through meter No. 1. He advised Mrs. Ward that to make both meters operative would cost about £5, and he agreed that arrangements would be made to remove the locks from other meters so that they could be used. When money was being put into the new meter that night it was noted that it was fitted with a lock and could not be opened.

On 23rd October an estimate arrived for £5, which was paid. That night one of the boys decided to celebrate and had a bath. He lit up the Ascot, which exploded, blowing the appliance away from the wall. Mrs. Ward telephoned the emergency number but no one came. She reported this again the next day but no visit was made.

On 29th October two gas fires were donated to the Young Adventurers. Mrs. Ward telephoned the gas board about putting them in but was told that fires could not be fitted until converted. She telephoned the conversion unit and was told that fires could not be converted until they were fitted. I ask the House to note that.

On 30th October the fitter called to remove the remaining locks from the meters, but he was not authorised to remove the one from the ground floor meter which had been newly installed. On 8th November Mrs. Ward telephoned Kensington. A sympathetic person said that she would arrange for an official to call to sort everything out. An appointment was made for 15th November. Between 9th November and 11th November daily telephone calls regarding the Ascot were made, but there was no visit. Eventually, the club had to buy a second-hand appliance which cost £27 and a £20 fitting charge. On 15th November a gas board official called. He turned out to be an estimator who could not advise on any point except work needing to be done. He agreed that the board would convert and fit the two donated fires at a charge of £4·20 each. He could only promise to chase up work that was paid for and he agreed to arrange for the appliances to he tested. The estimate was received and paid for.

On 16th November one of the boys in a single room was taken ill. A club helper examined the gas fire, which was ineffective, and discovered that a conversion part had been fitted upside down. This was replaced in the correct position and now works.

The last of this saga is on 22nd November. The fitter called to unlock the gas board meter on the ground floor. Of the 15 keys on his ring, none fitted the meter. To be able to remove cash from the meter, the fitter disconnected the meter and forced it open. This was the new meter. He was then unable to reconnect the meter and turn off the gas supply at the mains.

That is the saga of the Young Adventurers. Here is an organisation which is doing magnificent work in the community and has already been forced to spend £50 of its hard-earned cash to buy equipment. I shall certainly be pressing the board for compensation in that case.

Then there is the case of Mr. Andrew Alexander, the parliamentary correspondent of the Daily Mail, who was warned that his appliances were to be converted on 21st July, and he received a note saying that there might be certain ventilation problems. He replied punctiliously on 27th July putting forward some queries. Answer came there none. He sent a reminder on 9th October. There was no reply. I say that not because it is a surprise but because one needs to keep on saying it in order that the House may realise that the gas board does not answer letters. On 28th November Mr. Alexander had another letter from the gas board, as if none had already been sent by him to the board, saying that conversion would take place. Mr. Alexander wrote back the following day saying "What about my queries?" Nothing happened except that the gas men came. On 4th December they arrived to carry out the conversion, and quite rightly Mr. Alexander refused to admit them. There is no need for any of this time-wasting to have happened if the board had answered letters.

The last case is perhaps one of the more humorous ones. It concerns a Mr. Lipton who wrote to me. I will read one paragraph of his letter:

"As a constituent of yours I cannot resist telling you that we believe we hold, if not a national record, at least high marks in having so far had nine visits from the gas board since last May in order to convert to natural gas our standard, modern stove of a popular make."

I must tell Mr. Lipton that I fear he does not hold anything like a record. Many people have had 20 or 30 calls.

"Recent visits have been under the supervision of Mr. Duggin, the Deputy Conversion Manager, who has been charming and helpful, if not entirely effective, throughout. In fact my last communication from Mr. Duggin was just over a month ago when he promised a tenth visit from the engineers in order to put right a fault that had meanwhile developed in the grill. The visit in fact never took place, and the grill has miraculously recovered its force so that we now no longer need to wait 15 minutes for the toast, and all is well, and the gas board have managed to avoid the ignominy of reaching a double figure. Funnily enough, visit number two was also about the grill which had not been converted along with the rest because, the engineer explained to us, he had thought it was electric."

An electric grill on a gas cooker! So much for Mr. Lipton.

Some excuses are being made that conversions are being done not by the gas board officials but by converting teams who are private contractors. This is correct, but it should be made perfectly plain that these teams are acting as agents of the board; they are clearly trained to the standard which the board requires and has laid down, and if the board is not satisfied it should not have appointed them or, indeed, should sack them.

If the board continues to employ them, as obviously it must because it cannot have enough men to do this work, the board must continue to take full responsibility and not try to shuffle off responsibility just because the conversion teams are not officials of the board.

May I make one thing clear. When one writes to Mr. Cooper, the Chairman of the North Thames Gas Board, action is taken. I should like to pay tribute to Mr. Cooper for his unfailing courtesy, his unflappability and his full acceptance of responsibility for the shambles into which the North Thames Gas Board has stumbled and staggered.

I may be told by my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State, although I hope not, that 90 per cent. of the customers whose equipment has been converted are satisfied. This is no answer and, having known my hon. Friend for many years, I am certain he will not try that one on. The large number of dissatisfied customers are the ones who matter.

The North Thames Consultative Council is a virtually useless body. In fact I had to complain to my hon. Friend that I was not getting reports back from the consultative council and, to use a colloquial term, he sent a rocket in their direction. This was followed by an apology from the council and it has been sending me reports. I thought everything was perfect so far as the consultative council was concerned until I received a letter signed by the chairman on 19th December, as follows:

"Dear Mr. Finsberg,

Owing to the recent pressures put upon us by a considerable increase in the volume of correspondence and telephone calls from gas consumers, there has inevitably been a backlog of work accumulated in this office. We have therefore had to give priority to consumers who were without either cooking, space heating or hot water supply."

That was sent by a man who claimed to be the Chairman of the North Thames Gas Consultative Council, who must have known for months what was happening. He had the effrontery to write to a Member of Parliament and say that his office, which is specifically set up to deal with consumer problems, cannot cope. I hope the Minister will note this, and in particular I hope that Lady McLeod, the new Chairman of the National Gas Consultative Council, will note it and will look at the eflectiveness of the North Thames Gas Consultative Council and its Chairman and consider whether major changes need to be made in that body.

A gas consumer, whether he has a conversion problem or a normal problem, ought to be able to make a telephone call and get service from the gas board. He has no alternative. It is, after all, a monopoly. If he fails to get service, he should be able to go to the properly authorised body, which is the gas consultative council with its district committees. But we know that these are not working. Therefore, people are going to the Evening Standard, their local papers, the national consumer protection body and their Members of Parliament, and this is not the right way of going about it. I hope the Minister will give particular attention to this aspect of the matter.

Where are we now? Conversion has been suspended, and I suggest as strongly as possible that it must not be permitted to resume until the board in London can guarantee to keep appointments which are made by card, letter, visit or telephone. It must also have a system of manning its telephones for 24 hours a day during the conversion period, not leaving people in the situation in which they are now left. Although the chairman of the board has extended the period when the offices are open until 7 p.m., he must go further and man them for 24 hours a day during the period of conversion and for six weeks thereafter, which is the period when the problems are most likely to arise.

More than that, we must have a means by which callers can identify the person to whom they have spoken so that the next time when they telephone they do not have to go through the same rigmarole. Every telephonist should have an NCR pad serially numbered so that she can tell the consumer his serial number and he is thereby able to quote the number when he next telephones. One copy of the NCR documentation should go into a separate file which should be looked at each day by a senior official of the board who should take immediate action if nothing is done within 24 hours. Nothing less will suffice to restore public confidence in the board—confidence which is absolutely shattered.

This is, after all, the capital city. The Minister should require the board and the consultative council to satisfy him that they can cope with the situation before subjecting any more Londoners to the misery, torment, frustration, expense, heartbreak and sheer hell which so many have experienced. I know my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary and I know his capabilities and his toughness. Although the House is not particularly full, I am sure that this plea will not fall on deaf ears. I speak for the tens of thousands of Londoners who have been converted to natural gas and the many more who still have to go through this torment. I hope that my hon. Friend can give us a satisfactory answer.

May I start, Mr. Deputy Speaker, by wishing you and my hon. Friend the Member for Hampstead (Mr. Geoffrey Finsberg) a Happy Christmas? I thank my hon. Friend for his kind felicitations.

Conversion and the management of the gas boards and gas industry of this country is a major matter. It is a problem of concern to the consumers who are not able to obtain the degree of efficient service which they have a right to expect. I do not seek to attempt to whitewash the problems existing within the North Thames Gas Board. I would make it plain that this general conversion to North Sea gas is bound to disturb relations and cause difficulties between the gas industry and its customers. It is not possible to go into millions of homes and carry out work on appliances which are in daily use without in some instances causing major inconvenience and in other cases considerable disturbance.

I must make it clear that, because of the sheer size of the programme, human mistakes and failures in communication are, I am sorry to say, bound to occur, however efficient we may be. It is not possible to exclude human or mechanical error, however carefully planned the operation may have been. This is not peculiar to conversion. In any large-scale activity involving manufacture and fitting of equipment there will be a proportion of cases where there are faults. What my right hon. Friend and I and the Minister for Industry have to assess is whether these errors, these failures, the disturbance and the disorganisation of equipment are appreciably larger than could be expected of a well-run organisation with vital and proper management leadership and control.

The present conversion operation is on a completely different scale from anything previously carried out by the industry. It involves converting over 30 million appliances belonging to more than 13 million customers. So far the industry has converted more than half its customers—7,500,000—and about 19 million appliances. Experience has been gained. The rate of call-back has fallen appreciably. This concerns the proportion of appliances being converted and requiring further attention to make them work satisfactorily. In the early stages of conversion the average call-back rate was over 25 per cent. For every 4 appliances converted I was subject to callback. That figure has now fallen to about 13 per cent., 1 in 7. This is not a 100 per cent. improvement, but very nearly so. Thus the great majority of conversions are carried out without giving rise to complaint.

Because of the sheer size of the operation, even a very small percentage of cases where there is failure or where things go wrong represents a large number of individuals. This is the real problem. Professor Morton carried out an inquiry two years ago into the safety of natural gas. During that time he examined the planning and the carrying out of the industry's conversion programme. After taking a great deal of evidence, which included evidence from the North Thames area, he concluded as an independent expert observer that the conversion operation had been carefully planned, well organised and competently executed. He considered that the number of defects in conversion had not been excessive in relation to the size of the operation and that the quality and training of the men employed was adequate to the task involved. Since Professor Morton reported, the average rate of call-hack has fallen from 20 per cent. to 13 per cent.

Let us examine the specific case of North Thames. Of all the 12 area boards the North Thames has the largest number of consumers, nearly 2 million. In area it is at the opposite end of the league, having by far the smallest area of all the boards. It pioneered conversion for the industry by carrying out a small pilot scheme in 1966 at Canvey, where the appliances of 7,000 consumers were converted to natural gas. They were the first customers in the country to take direct supplies of the new fuel.

The board's programme for its area began in 1968, and since then nearly 1,500,000 consumers and about 3,500,000 appliances have been changed to natural gas. This is over 70 per cent. of the total and is more than any other board. The current call-back rate in the North Thames area is slightly above the national average, at about 16 per cent. The conversion problems of the North Thames Board have to be seen against the general background of the programme as a whole. It is not my intention in any way to minimise the difficulties or hardship caused to consumers when things go wrong but it is right to make clear the nature of the problem facing North Thames just as it faces the other boards.

As in other board areas the great majority of conversions—five out of six—are carried out without causing complaint. This board has been using six conversion units converting at the combined rate of about 9,000 consumers per week. While the cases which go wrong represent only a small proportion of the whole, they represent a substantial number of individuals who have rightly complained. It is only fair to the board and those working on conversion to say that a faulty conversion is the exception rather than the rule—as it should be.

It is no consolation to those who are inconvenienced and may suffer hardship to know that most of their fellow consumers do not suffer such hardship. Sometimes that may even be a source of annoyance. These people are right to complain and to expect defects to be rectified speedily. Unfortunately, this is not always the result. I discussed this general problem of consumer services with the board chairman after my hon. Friend the Minister for Industry took up this problem long before any campaigns began. I paid a special visit to the centre at Southend last month. We fully accept that the service is by no means as good as it should be. The problems of this board are long standing. I was pleased to see tribute paid to the present chairman. He was appointed in 1970 and has had the task of carrying out a major reorganisation of the management structure within the board. This has been a more intractable problem than was expected, and there is a lot still to be done before the customers in the area receive the service which I consider they are entitled to expect.

The main measures being taken in the reorganisation to improve consumer service are the separation of consumer service from sales and the concentration of services at five new divisional centres so that geographically the board's area can be properly looked after. Three of them are now becoming operational, but the buildings for the remaining two are not expected to be ready and equipped before the latter part of 1973. I am sorry to say that one of them is in the northwestern division, in which my hon. Friend's constituency is situated. Billing is now dealt with in two new offices. It will eventually be concentrated under one roof with one managerial control.

A major reorganisation on this scale—the chairman, when he took over, decided, I believe rightly, that it was necessary to start with a major reorganisation of the board's structure—essential as it is to improving the area's efficiency, has inevitably had teething troubles, and the improvements flowing it from it will take time to be reflected in the service given to all customers.

Superimposed on the task of implementing the reorganisation, the board has had the largest conversion programme to carry out, with the problems and difficulties outlined by my hon. Friend. It would be wrong or false to suggest—and I must not give this impression—that there is a short cut to producing dramatic improvement by ministerial intervention by some deus ex machine by waving a magic wand from this Dispatch Box. That will not obtain the results to which my hon. Friend has referred.

Because of my special interest, I am concerned particularly about my hon. Friend's statements on the Consumer Council. It is the Government's intention—and this was part of my work when I served on the Select Committee on Nationalised Industries—to do what they can to strengthen the Consumer Council so that it can be the watchdog of the consumer. I know that the pressure which the Government have exercised and the publicity which they have given in order to strengthen such bodies have meant that consumers are increasingly turning to them as a way of dealing with their complaints. That is right and proper. They are the correct channels, rather than people going to Members of Parliament or citizens advice bureaux.

I must say in defence of the Consumer Council—and this does not apply only in the North Thames Gas Board's area—that, because of that pressure in the past 12 to 15 months, and particularly since the passing of the Gas Act, a flood of complaints and correspondence has been channelled to the Consumer Council. When I met jointly the chairmen of the electricity and gas undertakings in the last six weeks I stressed that if they needed extra staff to cope with the problems they should be provided and properly budgeted for. I give my hon. Friend the assurance that that applies to the area north of the Thames as much as it applies to anywhere else.

Does my hon. Friend agree that an efficient chairman, knowing what had happened elsewhere, would have taken precautions and augmented his staff before the trouble arose rather than said, long after it had started, "We cannot cope", virtually giving up the ghost?

If the basis of my hon. Friend's assumption is correct, yes, but I am not sure that it is, because the problem in that North Thames area is probably greater than it is elsewhere. The degree and rate of conversion have been greater there than elsewhere. The pressure of publicity has been accentuated since I became a Minister because I have been purposely putting pressure on this area. I do not think that anyone could have forecast that difficulty would have arisen to the degree that it has not only in the North Thames area but in other areas.

On 27th November 1 arranged with the Chairman of the North Thames Gas Board—this was not in answer to any Press publicity campaign or a request from my hon. Friend, and I say this only so that the House may realise that my Department is concerned and is watching the situation—that immediate measures should be taken to reduce inconvenience and to improve the quality of work both in conversions and in the general service to consumers in the North Thames Gas Board's area. I should like to outline the measures to the House.

Since 8th December all conversion work has stopped, and it will not be resumed probably until, at the earliest, 10th January. The pause is being, and will be, used to allow the board to concentrate on clearing outstanding complaints. A major effort is being made to clear outstanding correspondence. In the two billing centres the number of letters outstanding has been reduced by nearly two-thirds compared with the level earlier this year. Last year the North Thames Gas Board received over 500,000 letters about complaints, customers' problems, queries, inquiries, and so on. That is a massive volume of correspondence, and it helps to explain some of the problems of reorganisation with which the management has had to cope.

The average time between meter readings and the despatch of accounts—my hon. Friend did not go into this matter, but it is a problem and a number of complaints have been made about it—has already been more than halved. Specific action is being taken to reduce it further, and such action will continue. The average delay in dealing with maintenance requests has been cut by two-thirds, and there has been an improvement in the time taken to install new appliances.

In the north-west area a system of delivery and collection of material by appointment has been introduced, and first indications are that it is helping to speed the service. But in converting a new area problems arise when appointments are not kept within two or three hours. That immediately makes the situation worse because nobody likes not having appointments kept. However, I have been assured by the chairman that this system was introduced in order to give customers a better service. The board is persevering with it in order to get it right, and I am sure that that is the correct action. To help with the communications problem, additional staff have been brought in and arrangements made to keep exchanges open later.

I note the suggestion made about the 24-hour telephone contact. The chairman of the board is conscious of what has been said; I am sure he must be. However, it is right and proper to make it clear that the problems are those which are normally dealt with in business hours or just after business hours, and the 24-hour complaints structure may not be as essential as my hon. Friend is suggesting. However, a new complaints procedure has been introduced whereby any customer who has failed to get a proper response to a letter or telephone call will be able by contacting the showroom staff to ensure that his problem is brought to the immediate attention of the head of the department concerned. This is a managerial improvement which I felt essential to ensure that things were not just slipping by and that management would be in charge and know what was happening.

Lastly, to reduce the work load on board fitters the board has announced—again, I think there may be some complaint about this, but it is a matter proper for managerial judgment—that for the time being all appliances bought in North Thames showrooms will have to be fitted by outside contractors, Gorgi contractors. This is in order to ensure that the North Thames Gas Board can concentrate on ensuring that services are up to its own requirements and that conversion is fully carried out.

To sum up, the board has reviewed the rate of conversion, which has been running at 9,000 consumers a week. It has already reduced the total rate to 7,500 a week and will be reducing it to 6,000 in the new year, when the work starts again. This will reduce pressure on the customer services and ease the load on management in carrying out the task of reorganisation, and when, in the spring, the conversion of central London begins, the weekly conversion rate will be reduced still further. This will mean that the conversion of the whole area will not be completed till 1976, a year or so later than originally planned. This will involve an additional cost, since town gas will have to continue to be manufactured to supply those areas where a supply of natural gas will be delayed, but the board has taken the view that in the interests of the customer this extra cost is justified.

A month ago I had from the chairman assurance of improvements in billing, in letter reply, and on the conversion structure. He said to me, as I have outlined, that he would be bringing in these major improvements to be working within three months. This, indeed, is what I expect, and, knowing the man, I believe he will deliver.

The second Royal Commission report on Environmental Pollution said that our problem is

"how to strike a balance between the benefits of a rising standard of living and its costs in terms of deterioration of the physical environment and the quality of life."

This is a problem which no country has yet solved, but what is much more disturbing in our case is that there is a striking lack of evidence that the Government have seriously tried to solve this problem in a systematic manner. It is this lack, as I believe it to be, of a clear, coherent and comprehensive strategy on which I want to concentrate today.

Certainly there has been no lack of odd bursts of action. The discovery of children playing with cyanide drums on rubbish dumps panicked the Government into passing the Deposit of Poisonous Waste Act earlier this year; close planning and controls were imposed on the discharge from the potash refinery at Cleveland Potash Ltd.; a tightening was made in regulations governing the emission of grit and dust from furnaces; planning permission for the extension of the main runway at Leeds-Bradford Airport at Leadon was refused, partly because of noise considerations; the grant to the Council for Environmental Studies was increased to £200,000 a year although it is still utterly unequal to the task of generating a demonstrably effective and comprehensive anti-pollution technology; a gradual reduction in the permitted lead content of petrol by 1975 was announced; new restrictions on vehicle noise has been announced, though industrial noise is allowed; four working parties were set up in preparation for the Stockholm conference and their reports were published; and, most recently, the previous Secretary of State announced that he was planning bigger fines for firms which illegally dump industrial waste in rivers.

That, however, is as far as we have got. However desirable each of those elements may be in this unco-ordinated medley of measures, nobody, not even the Government's own supporters, could claim seriously that they all add up to a real policy.

A policy, I would submit, would require an appropriate administrative structure, a set of definite objectives and detailed targets, and, perhaps most important, the means of enforcement within specified deadlines. None of this exists except fragmentarily in particular areas of pollution such as I have mentioned.

Perhaps the most important requirement is a central executive agency with an appropriate overall range of responsibilities and the necessary working methods. At present we have only the Alkali Inspectorate, with public health and various other pollution inspectorates. Surely the recommendation of the Robens Report should be implemented so that they are amalgamated into some overall pollution control service.

However, the administrative structure is perhaps less important than the techniques of enforcement to be used by such an agency. It is a highly unsatisfactory position that the Alkali Inspectorate can at present insist that a firm must use "the best practicable means" of preventing the emission of smoke, dust and grit, yet the courts have ruled that "the best practicable means" must be interpreted to mean what is feasible bearing in mind the economic well-being of the firm concerned. The result is that a firm can far too easily argue that it just cannot afford a particular improvement which may be required. What is worse is that the Alkali Inspectorate has become infected by the courts' decision. The chief inspector notoriously champions co-operation with industry. That tends to mean in practice having at confidential meetings with industrial polluters and refusing to divulge information to the public which intimately experiences pollution from the factories.

The effect of this is revealed by the complacency instanced, for example, in the 104th annual report that dust emitted by cement works holds no obvious danger to health. It says:

"The only effect noticed is psychological, due to irritation caused by the deposit of dust on roofs, cars, furniture, washing and vegetation."

It is for this reason partly that we still have some of the foulest air in Europe.

The gross ineffectiveness of the inspectorate's methods is shown by the fact that last year, according to the 108th annual report, the Alkali Inspectorate made 237 fewer visits and carried out only three prosecutions. The chief inspector's argument in favour of his timidity is that a tough police approach would merely clutter up the courts with prosecutions. Certainly this tacitly acknowledges the present degree of failure in enforcement. As an argument it is surely invalidated by comparison with the approach to crimes against property, such as theft. Nobody would seriously argue that we should be more co-operative with thieves in order to reduce pressure on the courts. Yet surely the environment as a collective public property is infinitely more valuable and more irreplaceable than the private goods and possessions of any individual.

The chief inspector also argues that a co-operative approach with industry is anyway more effective. The fallacy of this is indicated by the remarkably poor record of the Alkali Inspectorate in ensuring that companies keep to deadlines with regard to new agreed standards. So bad has been this record that I am glad to say it actually earned a rebuke from the former Secretary of State whose view, reported in the Sunday Times of 18th June was:

"Present control is considered to rely too much on the co-operation of industry."

I agree with that but, unfortunately, the former Secretary of State did very little about it.

What the present Secretary of State should do is to follow the American example of requiring the placing of performance bonds by defaulters from which penalties can be levied if a factory fails to meet the pollution control schedule that has been set, over-runs it or fails to meet the requisite standards. Companies should no longer be permitted to plead poverty as a cause for inaction, as far too many still do, but rather the authority of the pollution control service should be vested in its power to impose pollution levies, which might be of two main kinds.

The first might be the power to raise the standards of the effluents and to impose levies on defaulters which could then be used to finance further research on pollution reduction. There is every justification for such a levy to make the polluter pay, since the work of Professor Barry Commoner in the United States has shown with devastating clarity how, across the whole industrial board, the newer industrial technologies have an intensive degrading impact on the environment and have forced out the older technologies which have a light effect on the environment. Detergents have replaced soaps, plastic has replaced paper production, trucks are driving out trains, nylon shirts are taking the place of pure cotton shirts, and so on. One could give many examples. In every case this is because the new technology is more profitable. It is more profitable because the users are not paying the full bills. The user is appropriating the air or landscape at nil cost, and this amounts in effect to a substantial public subsidy. There is every reason for recovering this in the form of a pollution levy.

A second power to levy firms should apply in cases where processes are used of such a kind that technology as yet offers no means to reduce that pollution—for example where firms are creating dereliction, where technology offers no opportunity for reclamation. The justification again is that such externalities of cost should clearly in the public interest be externalised. Such a tax would provide industry with a much more direct incentive itself to solve the problem.

The power of levy as such is clearly not enough, partly because the aim must obviously be prevention and not merely compensation after the event. An essential requirement for the more effective working of the pollution inspectorate, whatever ultimate structure is adopted, should be the freeing of relevant information from the unreasonable restrictions at present placed on it.

The Alkali Acts prevent the publicising of the processing and control plans that are submitted by firms to the inspectorate, but they say nothing about giving information on emissions. However, the Alkali Inspectorate has for its own reasons chosen to take advantage of the Official Secrets Act for this purpose. That is not merely anti-social but even illicit. Section 2 of the 1911 Act states:

"If any person having in his possession or control any … document, or information … which has been … obtained … or which has been entrusted in confidence to him … or which he has obtained owing to his position as a person who holds or has held office under His Majesty … communicates the … document or information to any person"—

This is the crucial part—

"other than a person to whom he is authorised to communicate it, or a person to whom it is in the interest of the State his duty to communicate it … shall be guilty of a misdemeanour."

In other words, only the unauthorised release of information by a Government employee is prohibited. Why should not the Alkali Inspectorate, or whatever substitute is put in its place, be directed to let the Public know about the emissions of the factory which are polluting the air where it is specifically requested by those persons in sufficient numbers? This is specifically called for by the second report of the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution, although the Government have not vet Pronounced on it. No doubt the Under-Secretary of State will comment on this.

A second area where a change in the ground rules is urgently required concerns the burden of proof. At present it is incumbent on the protector of the amenity to show evidence that a particular chemical or similar product will produce damage to the environment. The implication is that, normally, environmental damage must first take place before it is possible to control the source of pollution. That is surely highly undesirable. It should be replaced by another recommendation of the second report of the Royal Commission that an early warning system should be introduced for the possible impact on the environment of new chemicals or similar products both in their production and in their use, as has already happened with regard to drugs and pesticides.

There is plenty of evidence of officers dealing with river pollution complaining that new and more complicated chemicals are appearing every year in effluents. There is no fail-safe sufficiently satisfactory system for ensuring environmental safety.

Furthermore, one of the Government's working parties in its report "The Human Environment: The British View" took the attitude that a central problem was the identification of substances which might be dangerous if emitted into the environment or concentrated in animals. That is clearly crucial. The popular weed-killer 2,4,5-T is now known, after being used in Vietnam, in certain circumstances to have foetal deforming properties. The distribution of long-lived pollutants like the chlorinated hydrocarbons such as DDT and dialdrin is simply not known at present.

Although there have been protestations by the Government that they are in favour of setting up an early warning system to identify all these potentially dangerous substances coming into the environment, it has still not yet been done and it should be done immediately.

The third area in which action is long overdue concerns the level of penalties for pollution offences. These are often at such a derisory low level as to bring the law into disrepute. The maximum fine which may be imposed on a firm that ignores the consent standards under the Rivers (Prevention of Pollution) Act, 1970 is only £100. Without being an extremist, I think one could recommend that the level of penalties should be at least 10 times and in some cases as much as 100 times more if they are to be seriously effective.

This would have the advantage that not only would a works manager find it a much easier job to sell the need for pollution-control equipment to his head office, but it would also give much greater and more salutary publicity to firms that transgressed. Only really swingeing fines are likely to deter companies like the Lancashire Fuel Company depot in my constituency whose increased coal dust emissions have wretchedly polluted the neighbourhood but where the company has consistently dragged its feet about taking measures that would effectively put a stop to the nuisance. The Government, however, have only talked about imposing higher fines, and so far have not done this.

If these changes in procedure were implemented more decisive action could be taken by the anti-pollution authority in several directions. A target date should be imposed for removing most of the carbon monoxide from vehicle exhausts and achieving and enforcing lead-free petrol, which is particularly important when a number of recent studies have linked the greater degree of mental disturbance among children with vehicle pollution. I am aware that the Government have agreed on progressive reductions in the lead content of petrol to the level of 0·45 grammes per litre by 1975, but that is still higher than West Germany's present level of 0·4.

Other targets for action should include recapturing the tempo of the smoke-control programme. Some of the steam has gone out of it recently—if that is not the wrong phrase to use in this context. The Government should declare a definite deadline for a smokeless Britain by the late 1970s.

Another objective should be stricter control of the dumping of toxic wastes at sea, together with the ending of the discharge of untreated sewage offshore and in rivers. The third report of the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution urged that all industrial and sewage effluent discharges to tidal waters and estuaries should be brought under statutory control by mid-1974 at the latest, as well as discharges of sewage from vessels. But we have had no pronouncement or declaration of intent from the Government.

Yet another important area for the attention of the pollution control authority is the encouragement of municipal enterprise in recycling. This should be combined with considerable State aid for the development and protection of the recycling industry. For a start, there could be a cost-benefit study on the increased use of non-returnable bottles and excess packaging, which might lead to a policy of physical restrictions or a levy to recoup the costs of public disposal.

A further subject where the pollution control service should adopt an all-embracing purview is noise. The Government have laid down that the maximum permitted noise for cars shall he reduced to 80 decibels by next April and for heavy lorries to 89 decibels by April 1974. Those are tighter limits by four decibles and three decibels respectively. The reduction is not big. It is welcome, but the level which is permitted is still far too high. The ceilings are still well above those recommended by the Wilson Committee on noise.

More important is the anomalous omission of industrial noise from the scope of effective controls. This is perhaps the most damaging and sustained exposure to noise that people have to bear. Machine manufacturers should be required to manufacture equipment that conforms to standards.

Such omissions show that although some highly useful initiatives are undoubtedly being taken from time to time, they are gravely marred by the lack of a comprehensive strategy.

There are two other areas where an overall pollution control service with clear strategic responsibilities could make an important contribution in the long term. One is in securing a better preservation of scarce commodities by regular advice on a suitably scaled tax system that enhances the durability of goods. For example, a motor tax that was high in the first year of a car's life but reduced thereafter would encourage the motor industry to build longer-lasting cars. On the same principle the Government should be prepared at least to consider seriously a multi-tiered VAT on consumer durables related to the intended life span of the commodities.

We can make the same point on the international level by arguing for a mineral tax determined by the availability of any given mineral reserve. On that basis it could be imposed at a higher rate on copper, which is likely to be exhausted earlier rather than later. That is typical of the area where more could be done to seek international harmonisation through the Stockholm arrangements.

A further responsibility for the pollution control service should be long-term research. I do not think that the Centre for Environmental Studies is adequate. The authority should establish a unit to carry out long-term research and development, with international collaboration on the supply, processing and recycling of the fuel and mineral resources which will remain needed beyond the next one or two generations, when there is every expectation that the relative costs of the processes may be drastically changed.

I have raised many issues, but there has been one central theme. It is the need for a strategy, and what is clearly seen to be a strategy, rather than the present relatively unco-ordinated ad hoc series of initiatives, which are not necessarily geared to any single, coherent, central philosophy and which contain too many gaps. The proper administrative structure does not exist. The objectives are not laid down clearly enough, and too many of the targets are decidedly vague. Above all, the capacity for enforcement is riddled with holes and anachronisms.

Therefore, I hope very much that the Government will at last replace the present system of piecemeal efforts by a much more systematic approach in the spirit of the Labour Government's White Paper on the protection of the environment, and that we shall move from a more tactical response to emergencies towards the strategic planning so desperately needed.

As the hon. Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Meacher) said, he has ranged widely and has touched on many subjects. I shall try to do justice to his various points.

I must say at the outset that the hon. Gentleman's description of this country's environmental policy as being characterised by odd outbursts of action rather than a total approach is utterly at variance with the facts. I appreciate his sincerity and earnestness, but his speech reveals a maximum of concern and a minimum of homework. I regret very much that in rightly seeking to raise these matters of concern to his constituents and the whole country he apparently has not bothered to find out the facts before making his speech. I shall try to enlighten him.

The hon. Gentleman began by speaking of the need for a total administrative machinery for tackling the multifarious aspects of pollution. What does he suppose was in the mind of my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister when he set up the Department of the Environment, bringing together for the first time in any country all the necessary machinery to have a total approach? Is not he aware that the whole purpose of the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution is to give advice to the Government and the country about the pulling together of our total approach to environmental pollution?

The hon. Gentleman suggested that Britain has some of the foulest air in Europe. I should be the last person to be complacent about the fact that in some of our older industrial areas and isolated works some very bad air problems exist, but I know from the many international gatherings I have attended that this country's clean air policy is the envy of most of the industrialised world. Far from our air being the foulest in Europe, as the hon. Gentleman put it, it is on the evidence the cleanest of all the industrialised countries in Western Europe—and they know it.

In the same way the hon. Gentleman suggested that there is a fragmentary approach to clean water. However, he appears not to be aware of the important and considered statement of the Secretary of State of our total clean water strategy, whereby we expect to achieve by the early 1980s a massive cleaning up of our river systems which will be similar to that already achieved in the cleaning of the air.

The hon. Gentleman suggested that there is a casual and sporadic approach to the problems of waste disposal. But is he not aware that the House has recently agreed, in the reorganisation of local government, that waste disposal should be made the responsibility of the new and much more powerful county authorities? There will be placed upon them a statutory obligation to manage the disposal of waste in a more effective way than ever in the past. That was the purpose of putting the clause in the Bill.

I am Chairman, on behalf of my right hon. Friend, of the Noise Advisory Council, and I am the last person to be satisfied about noise levels. They are unsatisfactory, and we want to improve them. However, I ask the hon. Gentleman, before he comes to the House, to study the work and the reports of the Noise Advisory Council and the actions which the Government have taken as a result.

I now deal with some of the details of the hon. Gentleman's case. Is our air the foulest in Europe? Over four-fifths of the smoke in the air comes from domestic dwellings and not from industry. The hon. Gentleman will be glad to know that there are now more than 5·25 million premises which are covered by smoke control orders, and in the so-called black areas—namely, the large towns and conurbations with the worst air pollution problems—more than 60 per cent. of the premises are covered by such orders.

The hon. Gentleman suggests that there should be a national programme to achieve clean air and smokeless zones. I am pleased and proud, as Chairman of the Clean Air Council, to be able to tell him that, whereas we inherited a shortage of solid smokeless fuel when we came into office, we have resolved that problem and in July last year we advised every local authority to bring forward its smoke orders. There has been an excellent response, and 1972 is a record year for smoke control. By the end of November this year 66 per cent. more smoke control orders were received than in any previous 10 month period. I set up the northern panel of the Clean Air Council so that we might concentrate the effort in the worst areas—namely, the Northern Region. There is now a dramatic prospect of improvement in that black area.

The facts are the opposite of what the hon. Gentleman suggested. There is a national policy. Now that the smokeless fuel problem has been resolved, we expect, with the co-operation of local authorities, which is forthcoming, that no conurbation or urban area will continue to have large amounts of smoke from domestic fireplaces at the end of the decade. Clean air may well be achieved earlier in some places.

I recognise, as I come from an area close to Oldham, the hon. Gentleman's concern about industrial pollution. He is right to raise the matter on behalf of his constituents. But he will know that Oldham is one of the six towns which were chosen by the Secretary of State to have the special attention of one of the Ministers within the Department for the Environment, so that we can approach the environmental problem on a total basis, and pollution in particular.

I am aware of the particular problems of coal dust. However, I am bound to say that the hon. Gentleman was not only unfair and disparaging to the Alkali Inspectorate and its admirable chief-inspector, but he revealed a total lack of grasp of how the inspectorate works. There are now over 3,000 industrial premises which are registerable under the Alkali Acts. One of the first steps that we took in office was to bring under control a series of new works—namely, primary aluminium smelters, acrylates, di-isocyanates and mineral works and further operations of petroleum works. They were all brought under the inspectorate's control. To cope with the additional work my right hon. Friend strengthened the inspectorate by 25 to 30 per cent. He provided in addition mobile teams which may be moved as necessary to check up on particular dust emissions.

Let me illustrate some of the achievements of the inspectorate. Solid emissions from electrical works in 1958 were more than 1 million tons a year. That figure has been reduced to substantially less than 200,000 tons a year in spite of an increase of coal usage during the same period of 50 per cent. Cement works emissions in 1958 were about 200,000 tons. That has been reduced to approximately 30,000 tons a year, despite a great increase in cement manufacture. The sintering of iron ores has increased from approximately 8½ million tons in 1959 to 20 million tons in 1969. Production increased during that period almost threefold. But the emission of solid matter into the air fell from approximately 150,000 tons a year to below 40,000 tons. All these achievements have been won by the work of the Alkali Inspectorate by voluntarily collaborating with British industry. At the behest of the inspectorate British industry has spent approximately £400 million on air pollution controls over the last decade. Industry has co-operated as it does not wish to pollute the air unnecessarily.

I ask the hon. Gentleman to consider the fact that many countries impose absolute standards and often industries, for various reasons, either lack of will or lack of ability, do not meet those standards. Consequently, both sides hire lawyers, and there is endless litigation. However, we started earlier on industrial pollution control. We have developed a practice of collaboration between Government and industry which pays off. By applying the philosophy of "best practicable means" we have a dynamic policy. Technical innovation will continue, and "best practicable means" in 1975 will be much tougher than those of 1965. In other words, the concept of "best practicable means" is a dynamised one which gets tighter year by year as technical innovation is available. Frequently administrative standards applied by law are overtaken by technical innovation. "Best practicable means" can be a much tougher standard than anything that is imposed by statute.

The Minister has missed the point. Although he has indicated substantial improvements in the limitation of emissions into the air of polluting substances, the figures are still large. The issue is whether they would have been smaller if different methods had been used. International comparisons indicate that absolute standards could be upgraded as technology advances. That has happened in other countries.

The hon. Gentleman is misinformed. If he had been at the Stockholm Conference, and if he had attended many of the European meetings where the various industrialised nations compared their records and the methods of control that they impose, he would be under no illusion. The record is not so good in other countries as it is here. Moreover, the hon. Gentleman will know that the difficulty of constantly revising absolute standards is one of parliamentary time. He must recognise that there are many other matters with which this House has to deal besides the constant updating of absolute standards requiring a great deal of technical and scientific investigation, which by definition takes a very long time.

The hon. Gentleman spoke about motor vehicle exhausts. I want to tell him that since 1st January of this year new petrol engines have had to be equipped with a device for recycling the crank case gases, which has reduced hydrocarbon emissions from newly manufactured motor vehicles by 25 per cent.

The hon. Gentleman referred to the future limitations on the lead content of petrol. He suggested that the German standard was a higher one. It is. But what matters is compliance. While we expect to achieve a substantial reduction in the lead levels in petrol by the end of this Parliament, there are other methods that we are examining as well. Only the other day I had the opportunity to look at a device in which the silencer of a vehicle may be stuffed with what resembles a large Brillo pad which is capable of attracting to itself the grosser lead particles. It may be that there are other methods than simply reducing the amount of lead in petrol that will reduce the amount of lead emitted to the atmosphere, which is the important point.

I deal briefly, and inevitably inadequately, with some of the many other matters to which the hon. Gentleman referred. First, let me deal with his point about confidentiality. I am in entire agreement with him, and so is my right hon. and learned Friend, that there is a need for much more openness about what is emitted to the atmosphere or discharged to rivers. We can no longer accept that of industrial espionage can take place as a result of an industrial spy examining the effluents being discharged into a river or emitted to the air. That is why we have been in discussion with the CBI. We have reached agreement with the CBI in all but one or two details so that confidentiality will be ended in the future. But if there is to be a full disclosure of the details of emissions it will be necessary to give some consequential protection against frivolous common law injunctions which could bring an industry to a standstill because of a misapprehension by local zealots about what might be called the algebra—the highly complex technical data—which might be made public. But we are at one on this general proposition of confidentiality.

I might say in passing that confidentiality is not a matter of the Official Secrets Act. It happens to be written into the relevant portions of the Clean Air Acts, and it is our intention to amend those as appropriate when parliamentary time is available.

As for penalties, once again I am at one with the hon. Gentleman. We have been concious for some time that penalties for pollution offences no longer reflect either the potential gravity of the offences in question or the present value of money. Therefore, we have been reviewing a very large number of offences under different Acts for one purpose; namely, substantially to increase the penalties and to bring them into line with each other. This review is nearing completion, and my right hon. and learned Friend expects to announce his proposals before too long. They cover some 20 Acts, including Scottish ones, and they will take into account not only fines but, if necessary, the possibility of imprisonment. I expect these provisions will be included in legislation brought before the House during this Parliament.

Incidentally, if the hon. Gentleman believes that higher fines would affect materially the coal dust problem in his constituency, I shall be very pleased to discuss that item with him in more detail.

I deal now with water. I welcome and share the hon. Gentleman's concern about discharges to estuaries and to the sea. The recent report of the Royal Commission underlined the need to take action under present legislation and by voluntary effort to improve our more seriously polluted estuaries without waiting for new legislation. We agree wholeheartedly. We have taken two important steps in this direction. I have visited the river authorities of almost all the major polluted estuaries. As a result, cooperative action programmes for improvement are being, or have been, drawn up, in many cases setting up committees which bring together all the major dischargers to those estuaries—the industrialists, the local authorities controlling sewage works and the river authorities themselves.

The hon. Gentleman will know that we have indicated our wish that the Mersey should be made clean, though perhaps it cannot be made as clean as other rivers since it is a particularly difficult case. We have made clear our expectations that the Mersey can be cleaned up substantially by the early 1980s.

As I reported to the House on 5th.December, my right hon. and learned Friend accepts fully the majority of the recommendations and conclusions in the Royal Commission report. I ask the hon. Gentleman to study the very lengthy reply running to four or five columns of HANSARD, where we commented in detail on the Royal Commission's recommendations and were able not only to accept them but to put in motion a great deal of administrative action to implement them.

The hon. Gentleman spoke about dumping at sea. Here again I ask him to recognise that it was very largely as a result of this Government's initiative that the Oslo Convention to control the dumping of wastes in the North-East Atlantic was negotiated, agreed and signed by all the riparian nations of North-Western Europe. That is now part of the international law.

Following our efforts at Stockholm, this Government have been hosts at a conference at Lancaster House of all the major maritime countries. That was held only a couple of months ago, with more than 100 nations attending, to draw up a global convention extending this control on dumping to all the oceans of the world. Again this is not theory. It has been done. The convention is open for signature in London from 29th December. While it deals explicitly with dumping, it also recognises the need for international action to combat all other forms of marine pollution, including that from rivers—we in this country are cleaning our rivers and we want other countries to do the same—and from riparian communities; for example, sewerage outfalls from seaside towns, industrial emissions and similar discharges from old colleries of colliery waters and shale which may go into the sea as well. This Government take very seriously the undertakings which provide that all forms of marine pollution shall be brought under control.

The hon. Gentleman mentioned noise. This again is an intractable problem, and I have a great deal of sympathy with some of the hon. Gentleman's points. I should like to see us going faster than we have been in the recent past. However, I must ask the hon. Gentleman to recognise that new regulations have been made and put into effect in respect of motor cycles. What is more, we are taking action on a policy to develop a quiet heavy lorry which will be no noisier than the present sedan car, prototypes of which we hope to have running on our roads in two or three years.

Through the Noise Advisory Council we have brought forward proposals for a general duty to suppress noise at source in neighbourhoods where people live. We have additionally developed a policy for separating people from noise by better planning systems and by mitigating the noise nuisance of public works wherever they occur. This is the whole purpose of those parts of the Land Compensation Bill now being discussed in Standing Committee which will bring about a material improvement in the impact of noise on people. However, I am not complacent. I want to go much faster in this sphere.

Does the Government's policy include any action concerning industrial noise, which involves people in the worst hardship?

Yes, indeed. This is a matter, in the first instance, for my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Employment. However, one of the advantages of the Department of the Environment's co-ordinating responsibilities on pollution of all kinds across the whole area of Government is that it has the advantage of assessors from the Department of Employment, who attend all meetings of the Noise Advisory Council and have given some very useful advice about industrial noise. A number of actions in that sphere are being developed. As soon as we can make a comprehensive announcement about them, I will ensure that the hon. Gentleman is made aware of them. I hope he will not press me too far on that matter at the moment.

Our broad thoughts are to improve the use of ear defenders, to isolate noisier parts of machinery in insulated zones of factories, and to have particular regard to the effects on drivers of the cab noise of vehicles. Far too often we are worried about the impact of vehicle noise on the public, and quite rightly, but we tend to forget the impact of noise on the driver within the cab. The short answer is that we are making a good deal of progress in that sphere and hope to make announcements in the near future.

I must conclude with a few words about the international aspects to which the hon. Gentleman referred. I trust that he will have noticed that at the summit conference in Europe a target date was set for the development of a common environmental policy for the European Economic Community to be made by 31st July 1973. We hope to have agreed an action programme at Community level by that time. We have put in our own memorandum on the matter, suggesting areas for priority action. I shall see that the hon. Gentleman is sent a copy of the Government's memorandum to the European Economic Community. At Stockholm and, indeed, in our work with numerous countries our achievements in the environment are not looked upon, as he suggested, as a patchwork quilt of occasional outbursts. They are looked upon with envy by many nations. This does not mean that we are satisfied. It means that we are working very hard to try to achieve improvements wherever possible.

I welcome the fact that the hon. Gentleman has raised these matters today. I will, if I may, deluge him with a lot of technical information so that the next time he raises the question of pollution, as I hope he will, we may have, from the Opposition side of the Chamber, a somewhat more informed debate.

I have three reasons for raising this subject and am glad of the opportunity to do so. The first is to alert people to the widespread existence of the problem and its very complicated nature. The second is to raise the specific case of Graham Bagnall which has caused such public concern in Shropshire and, indeed, more widely. The third is to mention some of the difficulties of handling these questions and the exceptional difficulty of make inquiries into any errors, defects or mistakes.

The syndrome of battered babies seems to have aroused widespread interest only in recent years, though evidence of it was certainly known as long ago as 1946. Its nature was not properly realised until 1962 when Kemp, who is probably the leading world authority on the subject today, and his colleagues drew attention to the prevalence and gravity of the situation, and in 1969 the NSPCC published a report on 78 battered children. By accepted definition this applies to children under two years of age who are not only the most vulnerable but the most helpless and defenceless in the whole population.

A battered child is usually found as the result of attendance at a casualty department or hospital unit with unexplained injuries or with the finding of injuries incompatible with the story presented by the parents. Indeed the parents often appear to be astonished at the state of the child. A consultant paediatrician recently told me that a frequent feature of these parents is an apparent but obviously superficial charm.

It is important to realise that the social class or income group is not related to the occurrence of battering. Employment, housing, social circumstances, and the level of intelligence and educational standards are also virtually unrelated.

Who batters these children? The mother or the father? It seems to vary from series to series as to which has the higher incidence, though I think it could be said that it is generally thought to be more often the mother. Unfortunately, it is often impossible to tell.

Why do they do it? There is great controversy on that question. In a recent publication Caroline O'Kell of the NSPCC stated, I think accurately, that often the battering results from an

"unrealistic investment of affection in the child v,hich it cannot return"—

therefore, there is a certain frustration—

"and often the parents themselves were deprived of affection as children".

A large number of such parents came from disturbed backgrounds. Some 10 per cent. are either frankly psychotic or certainly grossly abnormal.

The overall incidence of this syndrome is not really known in this country although figures are being acquired. But extrapolating from American experience it seems likely that this is not a small problem. It is probably of the order of six per 1,000 live child births—in other words, about 3,000 babies a year. Of these 50 per cent. are physically battered and are often seen with multiple injuries. Some are not always immediately apparent. For example, the retinal changes in the eyes which may give away the diagnosis are not widely known, even amongst those who are fairly experienced in this sphere. The other 50 per cent. of the children are battered in the sense that they are deprived and neglected.

This syndrome is an example of the theory that the more one looks, the more one finds. It is absolutely vital that the index of suspicion should be high. People likely to come across such a case must always be alert and on the look-out, because in these cases early detection might indeed be life-saving.

Therefore, in this rather tragic picture we have a mixture of our old acquaintance that anybody dealing with social services would recognise of the deprived child cycle, about which my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State made such an impressive speech recently, the disturbed background of parents' lives, and often the situation known as mother's overload. But I cannot stress too much that it is the child who is defenceless, not the parents.

All too often those concerned lean over backwards to help the parents when their primary concern should and must always be the child. In dealing with this difficult and complicated problem we need a high index of suspicion, extremely alert social and medical workers and, above all, an over-riding need for the care of the child.

Follow-up in these cases—even suspected cases—is vital. The incidence of rebattering reported nationally is said to be as high as 60 per cent. with a mortality—and in this case we are talking about mortality not from disease, but from homicide—manslaughter or murder—of 10 per cent. and permanent damage in the sense of brain damage of about 15 per cent. This is a terrible picture and a frightful record but it can be reduced substantially by proper and careful assessment and follow-up.

This subject is enormously time-consuming. It involves social workers, doctors, health visitors, the police and other local authorities, but if one applies the follow-up with the care that is practised in some areas, such as almost daily visiting of the child if it is in its own home, weekly visits to the clinic and continual follow-up by doctor, by social worker and by health visitor, the incidence can be reduced.

I now turn to the case to which I wish to draw the attention of the House, namely, little Graham Bagnall. Unfortunately his life was all too short. He was born illegitimate on 20th May 1970. His mother married Benjamin Smith on 2nd January 1971. At that time Mr. Smith had 14 criminal convictions, mainly for dishonesty, but three of them were for offences involving violence. One was a particularly peculiar one, an important one in respect of this case. As a juvenile he was convicted for maliciously killing five pigs by some peculiar form of strangulation—surely a sign of a very disturbed background and a curious personality. He had spent two substantial periods in a mental hospital, the latter occasion as a result of a committal order in January 1968 following a conviction for house-breaking. He went absent without leave many times from the mental hospital before being discharged at the end of 1968.

There were three times, according to the prosecution barrister at Shrewsbury Crown Court, when Graham was suspected of being ill-treated by his mother or his stepfather, or both, in the year 1971. In February he was found to have a broken leg. In May he was seen by a doctor because of his stunted growth, his retardation and his generally deprived state, and he attributed it to neglect and malnutrition. In June he was admitted to Copsthorne hospital with injuries caused by blows or a blow.

He was fostered out with a Mr. and Mrs. Harris of Childs Ercall, near Market Drayton, on 20th August 1971, and by all reports this was the happiest period of his short life, because he began to behave like a normal child and not to shrink from contact with adults and hide in a corner for fear of being hit. The foster-parents were asked to return the boy to his mother and stepfather on 19th April 1972, and on 29th May Graham was killed.

It seems difficult for us to appreciate the position, but who was warned about this family and their child? How did it arise? Who followed it up? There were three admissions. Why were three admissions needed? I have made inquiries into this case and I have received some rather disturbing answers. I received a letter from the Director of Social Services of the Salop County Council in which he said:

"On 6th June Graham was admitted to hospital with injuries consistent with `battering' and on 13th August 1971 we received him into care.…It was not until 24th September that the Department received a copy of a letter from the medical authorities indicating that the injuries sustained by the child were incompatible with the history and that it was very difficult to prove how he sustained the injuries."

It does not seem a good form of follow-up to rely in part on copies of letters received six weeks later. There appears to be a lack of communication, or evidence of communication, between the medical and social authorities.

The director of social services writes further:

"Graham first came to the notice of the Department in March 1971 when an allegation was made by a member of the public that the child had bronchitis and that the mother would not seek treatment. The health visitor was asked to visit and we asked the NSPCC to investigate. From that time onwards the NSPCC inspector worked closely with the family and my department was kept closely informed of events."

The director says that his department was kept closely informed. I should hope that it was, but what did that mean? The director—any director—of social services, once alerted, should have left no stone unturned to try to prevent disaster —a pædiatrician should have been called in and social workers and the police informed, but I have it on authority that the police were not told anything about this case until the death of the child—but the director gives no evidence that he turned any stone in this case. It was merely that his department was kept informed.

He says that later the department managed to rehouse the family, but merely rehousing a family, changing a hut for a house or a tent for a caravan, is not a solution, and anybody with any knowledge of this syndrome and its difficulty would know that it was not enough. It suggests a certain failure to understand the nature of this problem.

The director writes further in this case

"In April 1972 the parents felt that they could resume the care of Graham, but because the NSPCC Inspector wanted more time—there was a possibility that they might change their minds—no action was taken to return Graham until the 19th April."

The inspector was not given very much time during that period in April. Did he agree with the eventual decision? Who took the decision? What doubts or views were expressed, and by whom? Who was informed and what on this occasion, knowing the previous history, was the follow-up?

The director writes further:

"There appeared"—

perhaps this is the crux of the case—

"to be insufficient evidence to take care proceedings once the return of the child was demanded by the parents."

With a background such as I have outlined for the stepfather and the mother it seems a curious thing to say that there was insufficient evidence.

I wrote to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State about this case, and perhaps I may quote from my own letter. I said:

"I am fully aware that it is easy with the advantage of hindsight to criticise the decision made by the Director of Social Services and his Department but I cannot believe that had I been presented with such a case history, I could ever have come to the conclusion that a chance should be taken with a child by returning him to such a family—especially in view of the stepfather's disturbing record."

I have gone further since then and taken advice from others who are deeply concerned with and greatly knowledgeable on this subject. Not one of them disagrees with my opinion that this was a bad decision on all grounds.

Finally, the director of social services says:

"The decision to return the child was made in the light of expectations of parental care which did not materialise."

Surely this is self-evident, because if he had returned the child expecting parental care not to materialise nobody would have criticised his decision or charged him with neglect. Anybody would have thought him insane.

He ends by saying, almost as though it were a justification for the decision:

"Graham's death in fact occurred as a result of a single savage attack on 28th May 1972."

Homicide usually is the result of a single savage attack.

It seemed to me from all this that all was not well in the social services department in Shropshire in dealing with this type of problem and this sort of matter. I happened to know that on the register in that area there were 34 other known cases, and if this was the way in which the department dealt with them it seemed that it needed more guidance and more advice. I was rather horrified by the complacency which seemed to exude from that quarter. Everybody makes mistakes, but those worthy of responsibility should not ooze complacency, but should admit some distress about the situation and learn from the results.

There was, of course, immediate and great public concern and a call for a public inquiry. The Salop County Council set up an internal inquiry. This was a difficult decision for the council, but in these circumstances I believe it to have been a wrong one. It should have included outsiders who were unconnected with the case or with the department and probably, best of all, unconnected with the area. It is indeed difficult to be judge, jury, defence and prosecution all in one, and especially in one's own cause. In all fairness, public anxiety will not be satisfied; for although justice may well be done, it will not have been seen to be done.

I know that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has circulated local authorities with a considerable amount of advice on this subject, not least notably a full memorandum in May of this year. I have so far heard nothing much about how this has been implemented by the social services department in Shropshire. I therefore ask my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary, whose interest in this matter I know, three questions. First, will he ensure that some sort of outsider, perhaps an experienced officer from his own Department or from the regional office of his Department is not only present but is allowed to ask questions at this inquiry and, if necessary, to make a separate report to the Secretary of State?

Secondly, will the Minister personally send for and look at all the papers in the case and also at the inquiry and its report? Thirdly, will he agree today that if, in his mind, after looking at these papers, there is any doubt at all about the quality and the nature of the social services, he will institute a full inquiry and survey of his own into this matter and the social services of the area?

These cases are shocking and disturbing and I know that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State himself is concerned, not only about this case, of which he is aware, but about many others, and that he is doing the best he can to alert all those concerned. If today, by raising the case of little Graham Bagnall, we can further alert those concerned who are likely to meet such cases, and if by a continuing process of education we can establish a better local liaison, better social services and a better organisation for dealing with such problems, tragic though this case is its occurrence may have helped others.

My hon. Friend the Member for the Wrekin (Dr. Trafford) has chosen a subject for this debate which concerns me and my right hon. Friend directly and greatly, and a subject which he, as a doctor, will recognise is of very special difficulty. He has presented this subject with a degree of concern and compassion that I hope I can match, but also with an expert and professional insight which it would be difficult for me to match. I hope that he will impart to me the necessary degree of indulgence in that dimension at least.

The battering of babies is a simply ghastly phenomenon. It understandably stirs up very deep emotions, immense public concern and often public anxiety and indignation. There also often follows, in the public dimension, an inclination to think in terms of drastic retributive punishment rather than the sort of treatment and care which is often the best way to approach those responsible for these appalling deeds.

There is also often a desire in the public mind for a witch hunt in the case of those who have responsibility for rehabilitation of the children or child concerned and of those who, from hindsight, seem to have made an error of judgment or simply a wrong decision. I can sympathise, as I am sure can my hon. Friend, with those often emotional reactions, although I cannot fully approve of some of the measures which the public would instinctively want to take. Clearly, investigation and prosecution have a very important part to play, but the matter cannot end with investigation and prosecution, however important they may be.

What the authorities have to do, and have a duty to do, is to provide an organisation as watertight as possible and a professional service of the highest quality actually to come to grips with the underlying realities of the problem, in all its psychological, its environmetal and perhaps, as my hon. Friend suggested, its pathological dimensions.

This is, alas, no new problem. I am afraid that, throughout history, children have been deprived, neglected, emotionally as well as physically, and even perse- cuted. It is not without irony to reflect, as we debate this matter under the very shadow of Christmas, that Christmas itself took place under the very shadow of the Massacre of the Innocents. It is only relatively recently, indeed, that society has come to recognise the needs of children and the duty to do something practical and constructive about these things.

My hon. Friend will know that the present pattern of service in this field consists, first, of statutory and voluntary bodies working within a local framework, whose task is to provide for the children's welfare, backed up by a framework of law which attempts to deter or to punish adults where an actual case of battering or maltreatment occurs.

Turning to the real character of the problem, the "battered baby syndrome", to give it its rather complicated technical, if quite common, title, is at once simply one facet of a wider problem of maltreatment which arises all too generally, and, fortunately, something which has some clear and characteristic features of its own which enable us to isolate it and to make, as it were, a self-contained appraisal of diagnosis and treatment.

Most people probably see this problem dramatically presented, for example on a television programme or in a newspaper report. The typical ingredients are usually the presence of a young child, generally under three, cared for by a potentially violent adult. The potentiality of that violence my hon. Friend described in his own speech. It conies all too dramatically to mind in the light of the background details that he grave. Usually, the child and an adult are living in adverse social circumstances. At a time of crisis, this combination of factors produces simply a damaging physical response against the child.

The child himself or herself is often unwanted and has failed to secure an adequate emotional relationship with the adult concerned. There is excessive crying, perhaps vomiting, a lack of response to the parents, a general lack of a rewarding relationship from the parent's point of view. All these are so often the characteristics of children who in the end get battered or otherwise maltreated. My hon. Friend will know of other significant pointers in this sort of situation.

Similarly, the parents have recognisable characteristics in this framework which trained social workers would be able to spot. Probably they are themselves the product of a disturbed childhood. As my hon. Friend made plain to us, they are not necessarily confined to one social class. They are often high IQ, intelligent people, but they are obviously possessed of some flaw of personality, temporary or permanent, which produces a deficiency of the normal parental feelings of loving emotion and outgoing goodwill towards the child, plus a tendency to give violent expression to tension where it becomes intolerable.

My hon. Friend used the striking phrase "the mother overload" in this context. Incidentally, it is not improper to reflect that when we isolate groups in society which are clearly reprehensible in what they do, it all comes close to home to normal adults. Any hon. Member who has tried to compose an important speech late at night with crying children around him or her will know how instinctual is the capacity to lash out and how very common is the power in all of us to do the dreadful deed which we are here putting under the microscope.

I have specified these particulars in some detail because I want to illustrate that there are readily discernible telltale marks in the situation which the skilled social worker can recognise. Thus it is possible to be preventive in this matter, to detect the risk situation before it detonates.

Doctors, health visitors and social workers whose task is to come into contact with a particular family should always be alert to the needs of families where the antecedents and ingredients for battering reside. My hon. Friend used the striking phrase "the index of suspicion". Very often the index is open and discernible. So prevention followed up by family support to keep this vital human unit intact if possible and functioning safely and happily as a family must be the most important aspect of managing the syndrome. But where a battering occurs —in the very nature of the syndrome, I am afraid that we have no national figures for its frequency—my hon. Friend will appreciate that many of his professional colleagues, confronted with the patho- logical condition, may be very reluctant to draw conclusions from what they are faced with, and will only be concerned, rightly in some ways, to get on with the cure. Against some lack of national figures, we have nevertheless to plan as best we can the organisation and management to deal with the problem.

Perhaps I could outline a little of what the Department of Health and Social Security has done about it. My hon. Friend referred to the 1969 NSPCC report emanating from the battered child research unit of the society, entitled "78 Battered Children: a Retrospective Study". I may add that the Department has certainly not been backward or negative concerning research. But the society's research unit publication was extremely valuable and important. It was clear from the society's study that there was still at that time a lack of awareness of the syndrome or a reluctance to become involved in it, and that recommendations on possible action which had been published by the British Paediatric Association three years earlier, in 1966, had not been fully effective.

So in February 1970 my Chief Medical Officer wrote to all medical officers of health and children's officers about this subject, jointly with the Home Office Children's Department, and the Department followed this up later in the year with a booklet "The Battered Baby", about which my hon. Friend will know. What we did, in effect, was to describe the medical picture and give advice on the general and individual management of the syndrome.

Recognising that the crux of the whole issue was co-ordination of information coupled with good communication, we gently pressed on the responsible authorities the idea of a team approach. Children's officers, now directors of social services, and medical officers of health were asked to consult together on the topic and to bring into the discussions all the others who were involved, for example, representatives of the local medical committee, paediatricians, consultants responsible for running accident and emergency departments, the police, and other local agencies such as the NSPCC. Such a group, having been brought together, forming a sort of policy action committee, should then get cracking on surveying and reviewing the features of the local situation. It would then decide what had to be done to be quite sure that timely help could be brought to the children specially exposed in this context, to others who may be at risk in the same family of siblings, and to the parents. We see this kind of policy action committee as having a permanent and continuing function in the context of the authorities directly responsible.

Moreover, we also saw value in a smaller committee, perhaps less of policy and more of action, to be established to keep under surveillance individual cases of battering or potential battering. The purpose of this smaller committee, perhaps a sort of regular case committee, was yet further to minimise the possibility of breakdowns in communication and to provide a yet more knowledgable group, yet more intimately involved, to ensure proper attention to the needs and the adequate follow-up of that attention for the exposed child or family.

Here co-ordinating conferences before discharge from care or hospital, or whatever the case might be, by these case committees bringing together all the appropriate agencies is seen in the Department to be a sine qua non of any action which they might regularly engage in as a case committee.

From reports to the Department from local authorities during 1971 and 1972—I am glad to say that almost all local authorities to which we wrote replied to us about this—we have been enabled to prepare an analysis of practice and problems, which has been widely distributed since the end of May this year in the memorandum to which my hon. Friend referred.

Without going into too much detail, I am glad to report that the organisation and management patterns established by most local authorities closely reflect the advice that the Department has given them. We enjoy good co-operation and good communications with the authorities grappling with this problem in the field. The Department's aim is to monitor the situation so as to be able to disseminate new ideas and standards of the most intelligent and good practice. We are also in touch with leading authorities in the medical profession and the social service professions, and we look forward to a developing partnership in this matter and the growing practice of cross-fertilisation of ideas.

However, a tidy and effective organisational framework is one thing; actually to make it work, to breathe a spirit of life into the dry bones, is a different question, and it must involve highly trained, highly motivated officers, using the very best professional practices and methods.

I have already touched on preventive work, and I return to that point, emphasising that the preventive approach is both the logical and the strategic point at which we should seek to bring our forces to bear upon the problem. We can look for greater and greater dividends in tackling the syndrome from a massive concentration on the preventive aspect. However, preventive work cannot be 100 per cent. perfect, so we shall continue to get the battered baby, and when these terribly maltreated children are healed mentally and physically the problem which has to be faced is what do we do with them. There will always be certain parents whose personalities are so permanently damaged that it would simply be irresponsible and completely inadvisable for the child concerned to be returned to the family. But in the main there is often hope, and it should be the aim of the agencies that a family should be brought together again.

Here the crucial decisions must rest unavoidably on the professional judgment of the highest possible quality exercised in the light of all details known of the circumstances of the case by the professional people to whom I have referred. Decisions as to whether or not the child should be returned home are very difficult to reach, and it depends on the most skilful diagnosis of the family situation. Restoration to the family is bound to depend in large measure on the ability of the parents to develop the nurturing relationship to the child, the amount of local authority support, perhaps the central Government support, which is available, and the degree to which environmental difficulties can be eliminated. Most authorities, in facing up to this difficult decision, have adopted a method of using the case committee procedure which I have already suggested. Only in this way can all the circumstances be fully known and evaluated, the best possible advice drawn on and the risk of human errors of judgment minimised.

I have dealt at some length with the general background to this problem, both to pinpoint the complexities and underline them, because my hon. Friend drew attention to them so graphically, and also to demonstrate the active involvement of my Department in this problem and the emphasis which it lays on prevention and solid team work.

I turn now to the particular case which my hon. Friend raised, I have made it clear that this is never an easy matter for the person or body responsible, and sometimes a decision, with the benefit of hindsight, turns out to be wrong in the field of restoration. It would be wrong of me to make any further comment on this individual case because the Shropshire County Council is carrying out its own internal inquiry. Indeed, at the invitation of the county council, one of my Department's own professional social work service officers from Birmingham is attending the meetings. The county council has said that it intends to submit any report to my Secretary of State for any comments he may wish to make in due course. This seems to me a very proper and desirable course of action and one which is most acceptable.

The answers to the questions about the case which my hon. Friend has put to me are these. First, there will be an audit, as he calls it, of the case in the form of the inquiry to which I have referred. Indeed, it has already started. Secondly, my Secretary of State has an observer—what my hon. Friend described as an outsider—at that inquiry. Thirdly, a report from this inquiry will be coming to my Secretary of State, and I undertake to study it personally. Fourthly, most certainly if we feel dissatisfied about the outcome—although I hope this is a hypothetical difficulty—we will certainly consider what further steps might be necessary.

Battered babies form a topic which deeply stirs our emotions. It is a subject which is generally treated with great concern and responsibility by all concerned —public authorities or private professional individuals. We are heavily involved in it in our capacity to give advice and to disseminate good practice from the centre to the periphical authori- ties which are also involved in other ways. We are looking at research projects which have been submitted by the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children for special units to be set up. Indeed, the society is experimenting with this idea itself. We are also considering an application from the Hospital for Sick Children, Great Ormond Street.

May I stress one point in general terms? When my hon. Friend is putting out all this advice and information, of which I thoroughly approve, will he stress that it is the child and the child's safety that matters far more than concern over the parents, who are much better able to defend themselves? The important question is the vulnerability and the defence of the child. I hope my hon. Friend will stress this in any circulars which he may put out.

Yes, I am grateful to my hon. Friend, with his wide and professional background, for stressing this aspect of the case, though in considering the welfare of a child one is by definition involved in considering the well-being of the total family. A child isolated from his family is a child already deprived.

We are also considering a recent report from the Battered Child Research Department of the NSPCC entitled "A Study of Suspected Child Abuse", which deals with the problem of registries or registers. We are conscious, too, of some anxiety in the country to be able to quantify the problem, but, as I have had to tell the House, it would not be practicable to call for any national statistics in this field. We are able to get into the homes of every general practitioner quite regularly, through "Health Trends", a quarterly review which we publish in my Department for the medical profession, in which as recently as November Professor Oppé, Professor of Paediatrics at St. Mary's Hospital, wrote about battered babies.

I have taken careful note of the professional comments that my hon. Friend made about practice in this field in the light of the circular that we have issued. We are far from complacent in my Department about this problem, and I am sure that my hon. Friend acknowledges that. But we are hopeful for the future. There will be no complete answer, of course, but I am sure the way ahead is by a continuing process of education of parents, the multi-professional teams involved, police, magistrates and the public, by looking for answers through steadily improving preventive social work with families at risk, and better local authority organisation for managing the problem. In all this we are receiving co-operation from those concerned with what everyone agrees is a dreadful problem, and I am encouraged by the amount of good progress that is made by many local authorities.

I conclude on a hopeful note. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Services has spoken recently, in what I believe was an epoch-making speech, about the cycle of deprivation. My hon. Friend, I am gratified to hear, actually referred to this in his speech. This is a cycle with which we are very deeply concerned in my Department. The thought and analysis which have gone into the preparation of the cycle of deprivation speech is almost without precedent in the records and performance of my own Department. My right hon. Friend has had a number of meetings—since he delivered the speech on 29th June, with many social workers and other bodies concerned with the whole complex of the cycle of deprivation, and he is developing a strategy for doing something positive about this problem based upon what he has gleaned from these consultations.

The battered child syndrome is the extreme example of transmitted social and psychological deprivation which fits in very much with the considerations which underlay my right hon. Friend's presentation of the cycle of deprivation. Through a developing strategy of research and services it is hoped that the children, above all, and their families will be helped.

On the face of it the subject of dormant funds held by the Supreme Court would not appear to be a very exciting one to raise just before Christmas. I hone to establish that the positive and constructive use of these funds can be of con- siderable value to the community and can, if approached positively, tax the ingenuity of the Government as to the way in which they should be used.

I am indebted to Alderman Sir Samuel Fisher of the London Borough of Camden who drew my attention to this somewhat perplexing matter. If the Government decide to do something positive about this, a considerable debt of gratitude will be owed to him. Dormant funds in court represent cash and securities under the control of the Supreme Court of England standing to the credit of accounts which have not been dealt with for upwards of 15 years. A fund is transferred to the dormant funds only if it is anticipated that there will be no further dealings with that fund. I understand that the vast majority of funds credited to this account comprise small amounts not exceeding £150.

What is of interest is the volume of these unclaimed sums and the use—or rather non-use—which is made of them. I sought to derive some information from the Attorney-General on 4th December about this and raised a number of Questions. I asked specifically what was the total amount of the dormant funds under the control of the Supreme Court and what was the total capital amount of dormant funds under the control of the court in each of the years from 1966 to 1972. A table was published in the OFFICIAL REPORT. It is less meaningful than the Football League tables. In one column we have the cash sterling for 1972 standing at £2,788,272.2p. We come to the next column "value not expressed" where the figure given is 1. That is extremely mysterious. I do not understand that, and perhaps the Solicitor-General will be able to explain this mysterious figure of 1 which has consistently appeared from 1966 onwards.

In the next column we have a list of securities expressed in sterling terms from 1966 to 1972. The present figure is in excess of £2 million. I am not sure whether this is intended to suggest that the current value of these dormant funds is close to £5 million or close to £3,500,000. What is plain from the figures is that the amount of dormant funds has increased fairly regularly each year from 1966 onwards, from at least £2,321,573 to £2,788,000. The fund is fairly substantial and I suspect that this is only partly represented by the way in which the income has been used to swell the capital sum. I may be wrong about this but the statistics are not very meaningful.

What use is made of the capital of these funds—remembering that they—or at least the vast majority—have been unclaimed for at least 15 years and that the Government say that there is little prospect, indeed none at all according to an answer I received from the Attorney-General, of any claims being made?' The answer is that no real use is made of them at all.

In Eire in 1966 a Bill was presented to the Parliament there called the Funds of Suitors Bill. It became law in 1966 and it deals with the equivalent of dormant funds. The Irish Government took powers to utilise a sum not exceeding £450,000 as the Minister for Finance required.

It also provided that not more than £415,000 was to be applied towards the rebuilding of the Abbey Theatre including the Peacock Theatre in Dublin or to enable the Exchequer to repay any grants which had already been made for that purpose. Similarly, it provided that £35,000 could be utilised towards the rebuilding of the Opera House in Cork. I am sure everyone will be delighted to know that they still sing in Cork. In addition, what is important is that the Act provides a complete indemnity from the Minister to meet any possible, although I stress most unlikely, deficiencies should there be any claims on the part of suitors. The Irish Government used these moneys well. They built the magnificent new Abbey Theatre. It is clear that that project would probably not have been undertaken if this legislation had not been enacted. I do not know what has happened about the Cork Opera House but I hope that it will soon rival Covent Garden or La Scala, Milan.

Why are the Government of this country—and not only the present Government but a succession of Governments—so coy, so unimaginative, about the use of our dormant funds? Sir Samuel Fisher raised this matter indirectly in correspondence with the Lord Chancellor. In his reply the Lord Chancellor raised a number of arguments. First he doubted whether a scheme similar to the one in Eire would commend itself to the suitors or to the public at large. He argued that the dormant funds were invested in the same way as other money in court so that if a fund was subsequently claimed the beneficiary was entitled to all the accrued interest. I stress that these are suitors who have not been identified, and who appear to be unidentifiable, certainly for a period in excess of 15 years.

This is emphasised by the figures for withdrawals from the dormant funds since 1966. These were referred to in answer to a Question I raised, again on 4th December. In 1966 withdrawals amounted to £1,599; in 1967 the figure was £413; in 1968, £3,882; 1969, £203; 1970, nil; 1971, nil; and 1972 £1,856. These are miniscule withdrawals compared with the value of the corpus whether it is £3.5 million or £5 million.

The second point raised by the Lord Chancellor was that the National Debt Commissioners applied dormant money for the benefit of suitors generally, particularly because the more cash they have in hand the higher the rates of interest they were able to pay. How does this benefit the suitors generally? Perhaps the Solicitor-General can explain. These suitors are unidentifiable. Should it not become necessary, if this was so, for the interest to be added to each account in the dormant fund? That is the only way in which these mysterious suitors could be directly assisted.

Thirdly, the noble Lord argued that it was wrong to use funds for extraneous purposes because the court is, in effect, in a position of trustee and he did not think it was right for the funds to be appropriated even if there would be no tangible loss caused to the beneficiaries. That argument is totally inconsistent with the reply of the Attorney-General when he said that the income was already surrendered to the Consolidated Fund and was therefore available for national purposes. If there is such a solemn trust as the noble Lord suggests, how comes it that the income is already used for unspecified national purposes by the Government? Some trust! Some trustee! What are the purposes for which the income is used through the Consolidated Fund? How do the suitors benefit from the use, or possibly misuse, of the income?

What of the public? This is another point which the Lord Chancellor raised in his reply. The Lord Chancellor said that such a constructive use or application of dormant funds as had occurred in Eire would not commend itself to the public. That is an extraordinary assumption. Did not the building of the Abbey Theatre commend itself to the Irish public? Has there been a whisper of criticism about it in Eire? How much more positive has been that line of thought than the sterile attitude adopted by the Lord Chancellor. Perhaps he has not considered the matter sufficiently deeply, but I cannot help thinking that he prefers to pay homage to the dead at the expense of the living. Ninety-nine per cent.-plus of the funds are well and truly dead, even if they are not yet officially interred. Should not dead funds be used for the purpose of the living, even if, like the Liberal Party, there are occasional flickerings of life from the less than 1 per cent. indicated in the Attorney-General's answer to my Question? But the Government could always indemnify against loss.

I do not suggest that it is necessary to use 100 per cent. of the corpus of the fund, but a very substantial proportion could be utilised for all sorts of worthwhile purposes. Possibilities for the constructive application of a substantial proportion of the dormant funds are legion. I was once told during a debate on housing that it was wrong to introduce politics into the House, but I propose to do so on this occasion. The dormant funds could be used by the Secretary of State for Education and Science to give a Christmas bonanza. They would enable her to give the "kids" back their free school milk, because if they amount to £3·5 million that is about what it would cost. Alternatively aid could be given for the thalidomide victims; or there would be no need to introduce the much resented museum charges. The funds could be used for all sorts of artistic and cultural purposes which are so much in demand but which are so often unsatisfied. Help could be given to orchestras, opera groups or to the Sadler's Wells Theatre, close to my constituency, which provides so much joy to Londoners, par- ticularly East Londoners, and which rightly complains that it is deprived of the funds which it needs to develop its artistic purposes.

If it was felt that there should be some connection between the use of the funds and the law, what about helping to establish more legal advice centres to enable the deprived and inarticulate to become aware of the remedies and redress of which many of them are unaware and to be represented before tribunals where at present effective representation is not available to them?

We could even offer the Norwich City Football Club, after its unfortunate mishap the other night, a new set of floodlights to burn through the fog which deprived the club of its victory against Chelsea.

All sorts of possibilities for the use of the funds are available to the Solicitor-General. I have never debated with the hon. and learned Gentleman in the House before and I therefore hope that this debate will provide him with an opportunity to show generosity. I have a very high regard for him and I hope that it will not be diminished by a sterile reply today. The Government have the opportunity to announce a policy which can give hope that the Government propose to think ambitiously and purposively about these matters.

Christmas is almost upon us, and I commend to the Solicitor-General the concluding passage of "A Christmas Carol':

"It was always said of him"—

that is, Scrooge—

"he knew how to keep Christmas well, if any man alive possessed the knowledge. May that be truly said of us, and all of us"—

including the Solicitor-General. There are many Tiny Tims. I hope that the hon. and learned Gentleman will indicate that he is prepared to reward some of them.

A debate on dormant funds should perhaps be taken rather later in the day than it has been today. It is said, only as a rumour, that the paving stones of the Royal Courts of Justice must frequently be relaid or levelled because of the actions of the spirits of dissatisfied litigants. I hope that this debate will not awake too many other dormant spirits which were quietly laid to rest many years ago.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Hackney, Central (Mr. Clinton Davis) on raising this topic which I do not think has been considered in the House before. Although it involves matters of importance as to what use could be made of this money—and I could readily advance some of my own hobby-horses—as an ex-recorder of Norwich I, too, like the hon. Member, would have liked the floodlighting at the city's football ground to be sufficiently effective to enable the club to establish its position, as I hope it will eventually.

The subject of dormant funds, which is the responsibility of the Accountant-General of the Supreme Court, is very much a curious sequence of history. The moneys in the dormant funds are sterling securities, foreign securities and, curiously enough, boxes and packages of unknown value. Sometimes the outer coverings of those packages break with the passage of time and their contents have to be put into tin boxes. But those who do that job are not allowed to investigate the contents of the packages.

The funds arise in a number of ways: sometimes by reason of a payment into court by order of the court as security for costs; payment into court by a defendant in satisfaction of the cause of action; sometimes as a result of company actions in which moneys are due to shareholders whose identity is unknown. Also, a life assurance company may pay into court moneys payable on a policy for which no sufficient discharge can otherwise be obtained. A trustee can pay money into court and there may be doubt about who is entitled to it, the beneficiary may be abroad or there may not be anybody who can give a good discharge.

The funds have been building up over the years. They were set out by my right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney-General in his answers to the Written Questions tabled by the hon. Gentleman at the beginning of the month. The hon. Member has asked me to deal specifically with the curious phrase "value not expressed" which recurs year after year. Apparently that is an Exchequer order made many years ago for the payment of £5 per annum. It is described as a life annuity and it has not been claimed since 1795. Perhaps in those days it was quite valuable.

There are many other circumstances in which moneys can be paid into the fund. Each division of the High Court keeps a record of the funds in the current suitors' account. The dividends paid on securities in a current suitor's account are credited to that suitor's account. If the fund exceeds £10, it must be placed on deposit. If it exceeds £50, it may be placed on deposit or placed to a short-term or long-term investment account if the court so directs.

These matters are covered by the Administration of Justice Act 1965. The interest paid on deposit is 3½ per cent. and on short-term investment 7½ per cent. The interest is credited to the suitors' accounts as a book entry, and the moneys are credited into a main cash account at the Bank of England in the name of the Accountant-General of the Supreme Court. A substantial sum, nearly £2 million, is kept in hand to meet the day-to-day requirements of payments out of court.

Of course, the Accountant-General does not deal only with dormant funds. The surplus is transferred to the National Debt Commissioners and is invested by them. That would be surplus over the interest to which the suitor himself is entitled. The moneys held by the commissioners are held as an aggregate fund and are not particularly identifiable. That fund is invested to provide interest on the short-term accounts and is largely invested in Government securities. Surplus income is credited to the suitors' accounts. The income derived from the aggregate fund is credited to the suitors' accounts in the amount due, and any surplus is paid into the Consolidated Fund. Equally any deficiency, if it should arise, would have to be made out of the Consolidated Fund.

Dormant funds arise in this way. When a suitor's account has not been dealt with for 15 years and no further dealings are anticipated it is transferred from suitors' accounts to the appropriate dormant fund. There are two dormant funds. The "A" fund contains accounts which are of a value of anything from 1p to £50. The "B" fund accounts for anything of larger value. Moneys held in dormant funds are treated as a surplus to day-to-day requirements and consequently remain in the control of the National Debt Commissioners. They are long-term investments which are purchased by the Accountant-General. The funds have been increasing over the years.

The income derived from these dormant funds is not credited to the dormant funds. If a successful claim is subsequently made the account is reconstituted and credits made for interest and dividends which may have accrued. In effect, therefore, the income derived from the capital of dormant funds is used for national purposes subject only to its being credited retrospectively to a successful claimant if somebody comes out of the dim past of history and if his successor in title or somebody else is entitled to that claim.

As one sees from the answers which my right hon. and learned Friend has given, it happens from time to time in respect of dormant accounts that an account is transferred on the order of the court to the books of the division which is dealing with the account and which made the original order. If it is a single account with only one interest, no order will be made unless a valid claim has been made, and the money is thereupon paid out of court. If it is a fund in which a number of people are concerned, or against which a number of claims may be made, it may be transferred to the appropriate division even for a single share to be paid out, and in this instance the remainder, after it has been paid out, will be kept on the books of the division of the Supreme Court as a suitor's account, and if no other claim is made after the following 15 years, back it goes into the capital of the dormant fund.

County courts have no dormant funds, and after 15 years these accounts in county courts are paid over to the Consolidated Fund through the Accountant-General and the National Debt Commissioners. The same principle follows if a successful claim is made.

The activities so far as the National Debt Commissioners are concerned are, of course, the responsibility of the Treasury, and let me say at once, although I hope to say it again at the end, that this is a matter in which the Treasury and my right hon. Friend the Chancellor have an interest.

Various questions have been raised by the hon. Member. Securities in rands, which is South African currency, are something over £200. A rand is about 50p in value. It fluctuates a bit in exchange value. The securities are listed at a nominal value. Their true value, unfortunately, is only about one-third of the amount listed. So the total funds involve something over £3 million.

As I have said, the commissioners like to keep some of this money liquid to meet withdrawals which occur from time to time and the balance is invested as I have said.

The object of the investments is to cover interest to be paid, whether below or above £50, because there is a duty to pay that back to the courts in order that claims can be met and there is an obligation to credit interest in respect of individual suitors as soon as any claim is made.

The position in regard to what has happened in Ireland is that it is absolutely right that there is power under the Funds of Suitors Act 1966 to pay out sums not exceeding £450,000 as the Minister might require, but the hon. Member will note that in Section 3 of that Act provision is made that if it happens that the funds of suitors are at any time reduced to a sum not sufficient to meet payments, the Minister there has to afford indemnities to suitors. They are advances out of the central fund or its growing produce of such sum as he may think necessary, but not exceeding £450,000.

So in case any substantial payment out of this fund had to be made to any one of the many competing claims it is necessary to keep in the fund the amount necessary to meet the sum to be paid. The balance would then fall to the Consolidated Fund.

The hon. and learned Gentleman would concede, I am sure, that this is a minuscule risk. Having regard to the statistical information available, should one pay undue attention to this minuscule risk when considering the possibilities of positively using this corpus?

I accept that that is a risk which is in reality not very likely to occur, but it is a risk which must be borne in mind and perhaps rather more by my right hon. and hon. Friends at the Treasury than by me, as to whether a claim upon the Consolidated Fund might arise to meet a sum which had been paid out.

I was also asked, and it was put in this way, about the benefit to the public. No doubt those who live in Dublin and in Cork benefit by an order of the Minister under the Act of 1966, but the philosophy which has been followed in the past and over many years, as the hon. Gentleman has pointed out, has been that this money has been held in trust for these people and if there is a surplus it has to be applied to the benefit of the public at large. I suppose there might be some difficulty here whether in fact a national theatre in London would be of benefit to the public at large.

It is certainly an attractive argument, but I would say to the hon. Member, having listened to him and his dealing with it with the care he did, that the Government will note and will consider what he has said to the House, although it appears that there are not many Members here to support him. I note that he raised this with his right hon. and learned Friend the Member for West Ham, South (Sir Elwyn Jones) who wrote the letter from which the hon. Member quoted. The present view is that dormant funds are all part of the suitors' funds held by the court as trustees for the suitors, and therefore it would be not right—I think one can say it thus—to raid these funds for capital purposes of another kind.

We should like to know rather more about the comparative background of the situation in Ireland and in particular the obligations, if any, of the Irish courts to pay not only interest but anything by way of capital which might arise on their suitors' accounts.

The hon. Gentleman mentioned the idea of a new theatre for London. No doubt he has seen the White Paper on Public Expenditure which was published on 19th December. If not, I refer him to pages 66 and 67 which set out in detail the Government's proposals for the arts over the next few years.

I am grateful that this topic has been raised, and I give an undertaking that the matter will be put fairly and squarely before the Treasury.

As the Irish precedent is obviously of considerable value, as the hon. and learned Gentleman has conceded, will he undertake to arrange for discussions to take place with those who were responsible for administering the dormant funds in Ireland so that he can obtain a clear idea of the thinking that lay behind all this? If he is prepared to undertake that research can he say when results are likely to be available?

I am not able to give an undertaking, but I will certainly draw attention to what has been said. Bearing in mind the background, I suspect that there is an historical connection and similarity between the fund in the Irish Republic and the fund here, because the similarities in the use of words and one's knowledge of the historical background make that very likely, but I do not know. That is something which could well be looked at when the matter is passed to the Treasury.

Before commencing the debate, I declare my interest. I am a senior partner of a long-established firm of estate agents—it was established in 1819. For that reason I have as good a right as any to bring this subject forward today.

We are all fully aware of the long history, which started as long ago as 1888. At that time a Bill was presented to provide for the registration of architects, engineers and surveyors. Estate agents were first named in a Bill to introduce registration in 1914, but the Bill lapsed at the end of the parliamentary Session. Another Bill was introduced on 16th February 1923—the Landed Property Practitioners (Registration) Bill. The Bill fell, but it resulted in the formation of the Incorporated Society of Auctioneers and Landed Property Agents. The next Bill was introduced in February 1928, and it nearly succeeded. It failed by 132 votes to 122 votes because it was opposed by the promoter of the 1923 Bill.

The incorporated society continued to keep up parliamentary pressure on this subject, and in 1934 there was appointed a Select Committee of the House of Lords under Lord Mersey. The Committee's recommendations included certification by a magistrate of the good character and financial adequacy of applicants for auctioneers' licences, and the keeping of a central registry.

The saga continues. On All Fools' Day in 1936 another Bill was introduced, the Auctioneers and House Agents (Protection of Public against Abuses) Bill, which failed. Then came the Second World War between 1939 and 1945. Immediately after the war, in 1947, the Irish Parliament passed the Irish Auctioneers and House Agents Act. By this time there were nine societies in the United Kingdom. In 1959 four of these societies stated that agreement had been reached between them on the provisions of a registration Bill. In 1962 my hon. Friend the Member for the Isle of Ely (Sir H. Legge-Bourke) presented the first of the new series of Estate Agents Bills. This time opposition came from the newly-formed National Association of Estate Agents, in defence, rightly, of the unattached agents. The Government remained neutral on the Bill and it again failed.

In June 1965 another Estate Agents Bill failed. By this time the nine societies had become 10, with the addition of the National Association of Estate Agents. The 10 societies supported the 1966 Estate Agents Bill, which was presented by my hon. Friend the Member for Northants, South (Mr. Arthur Jones). The Bill fell, although it received Government support, because of the calling of a General Election by the present Opposition. The 10 societies created a voluntary system of registration on 1st October 1967. The Estate Agents Council was incorporated but this, too, has since died.

Surely today must be the end of the road. All I am asking for is a fairly simplified form of licensing. Early-day motion No. 100, which is supported by over 30 hon. Members, reads as follows:

"That this House urges Her Majesty's Government to bring forward legislation to license all estate agents, appoint a registrar for the profession, protect deposits of client's moneys, and ensure a test of competency as part of their current proposals to protect the consumer."

It is hard to doubt the necessity for that motion.

To get back to the two Bills which nearly but did not quite succeed, on 22nd March 1963 and on 28th January 1966 my hon. Friends the Members for Isle of Ely and for Northants, South attempted to steer identically named Bills through the House. On Second Reading of the 1966 Bill my hon. Friend the Member for Northants, South said:

"The purpose of the Bill is to ensure that the competence and conduct of practising estate agents are of a standard sufficiently high for the protection of the public."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 28th January 1966; Vol. 723, c. 559.]

Having read the Bill, I realise that the coverage it gave was perhaps too cumbersome to comply with the then limited time processes of the House. All the provisions incorporated in the Bill, in a more simplified form, I shall try to persuade my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State to consider.

Clause 1 provided for the establishment of an estate agents council which would be required to secure adequate standards of competence and conduct among persons carrying on business as estate agents. I am sure that none of us would disagree with that.

Clause 5 dealt with those persons who would qualify for registration. If a person was not a member of an established body he was required to satisfy the council as to his good character and competence to enable him to engage in proper practice as an estate agent. I do not think anyone would disagree with that. The clause went on to provide that a person would be eligible for registration if he had a business on the date of the introduction of registration or during the preceding 12 months. That caused a little controversy at the time, but the provision could be altered by the registrar when appointed. One obviously cannot exclude those who are already in business at the time of the introduction of licensing procedures.

Clauses 12 and 13 dealt with the keeping of a separate account for clients' money and the interest thereon in certain circumstances. Clause 14 required the deposit of a guarantee bond to ensure proper conduct by agents. None of those provisions could be argued against. Such was the power of the debate that my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow, Central (Mr. Anthony Grant), who will be replying today, said:

"I support the Bill because I believe that it is in the very best interests of my clients and the public at large. It is against the background of the public interest and not just the interests of clients that the debate should flow. In the long run, in spite of what has been said by other Members, I believe that what is basically good for the public will be proved to he good for the profession,"

He then said—and I thought that his heart was very much in the right place:

"There are all too many tragic cases of people who have suffered at the hands of a minority of dishonest and irresponsible agents. In my own professional experience "—

My hon. Friend was then a practising solicitor—

"I have known many clients who have suffered greatly as a result of the actions of such a minority. It is fair to say that the vast majority of transactions have gone through with complete smoothness,…"

My hon. Friend then praised the vast majority of the estate agents. He said:

"When a dishonest agent emerges, it is not only the client or the members of the public who suffer. The professional estate agency business as a whole suffers "—

The then hon. Member for Bedfordshire, South said in that debate that already the professions were having to be licensed. The Professions Supplementary to Medicine Act 1960 had laid down that professions like physiotherapy and chiropody were to be registered. I am sure that that has been only for the best for the medical profession.

In replying to the debate the then Minister without Portfolio, Sir Eric Fletcher, said:

"Although it is a Private Member's Bill, I think it is fair to say, in answer to the point made by the hon. Member for Bedfordshire, South (Mr. Cole), that this is a subject in which the Government recognise that we have a responsibility to legislate. Indeed, if the Government were not already committed to a very large legislative programme, we ourselves might have wished to introduce a Bill on the subject. However, in the circumstances, we are only too glad to have the opportunity of facilitating this Bill and getting it into a form which, we hope, will be generally acceptable to the House."—[OFFICIAL- REPORT, 28th January, 1966; Vol. 723, c. 592, 627.]

I should not like my hon. Friend's reply today to be word for word from the Minister without Portfolio's brief in 1966.

Great hopes were put on the Estate Agents Council.

The Financial Times of 9th November 1968 said:

"No one knows how many estate agents there are in the country, hut some guess estimates go as high as 25,000. The law of averages dictates that there must be some sharks in this number, and it is a problem which reputable agents are now trying to solve.

The need for reform has led to the formation of the Estate Agents Council, which is backed by all of the professional bodies. Members must take out a guaranteed indemnity policy to protect the public from fraud or dishonesty, and must follow a rigid code of conduct."

I am sorry to say that within a short time there were divisions of opinion between the 10 societies, and the Estate Agents Council came to a very sticky end. Perhaps the profession was not ready for it, perhaps there was not enough Government support, or perhaps there has been too much bickering by the professional bodies.

Now I must utter a word of warning. We are to enter the EEC on 1st January, and I believe that we should harmonise this form of licensing with the countries of the Common Market. The situation there is most interesting. Most of them are seeking to have a system of licensing, though the systems are all slanted differently. In France and Belgium the importance of protecting clients' money is the major theme. Italy has a system of registration concerned principally with the ability to pass an oral examination and the provision of character references. There are no legal requirements for the protection of clients' money. West Germany, Luxembourg and the Netherlands are in much the same position as the United Kingdom as their professional organisations and national Parliaments are contemplating the introduction of legal requirements for the practice of estate agencies. The Republic of Ireland and Denmark, two of the smallest countries, already have licensing systems. Could not one of our first moves on entering the Common Market be to standardise the licensing of estate agency?

Many estimates have been made of the number of estate agencies that are practising. I am sure that, as my hon. Friend said in 1966, only a minuscule percentage ever flout the law. I believe there are about 40,000 individual members of the chartered surveyors' professional society. Nearly 50 per cent. are working for local or national government and, being qualified professionally, they do not have the same need for licensing as perhaps the smaller firms which do not have the necessary professional qualifications.

My hon. Friend will no doubt tell me that we must prove the need. Just a few small examples of what has happened will help to do that. An immigrant set himself up in South London as an agent and collected deposits from his compatriots abroad on a house that did not exist. Having collected £20,000 by post and other means, he disappeared. He was subsequently caught and is now serving four years' imprisonment. If he had been licensed he might have had a bond to protect his clients' money.

An agent in South London was holding a deposit for an applicant as stakeholder. The proposed purchase fell through and the applicant asked for the return of the deposit. It was not forth coming, even after considerable correspondence and promises, and the applicant was finally obliged to serve a writ on the agent for the return of the money. The client was finally reimbursed his money, together with the court fees, but he was obliged to pay his own solicitor's fees.

A Middlesex agent misappropriated money in his client's account over a period of years. He managed to cover his tracks for some time. When he was finally brought to account for several thousand pounds, he committed suicide.

The Government have a moral obligation not to make it easy for such people to flout the law. A weak person like that Middlesex agent should never be put in a position where he can thoroughly abuse the system and in the end take his own life.

What I am asking for is something quite simple; that all estate agencies be licensed. I have some guidelines for my hon. Friend. I suggest the following provisions. First, the definition of "estate agents" contained in the articles of association of the Estate Agents Council should apply. Secondly, after a date to be prescribed in the Act, no person, firm or company should be per- mitted to discharge the relevant functions unless he holds a licence to do so. Thirdly, licences should be granted by a registrar appointed by the Government for this purpose.

Fourthly, an applicant should be qualified to receive a licence if he has not been convicted of an offence involving fraud, dishonesty or breach of trust, and is not an undischarged bankrupt; if he produces evidence that he is a certified contributor to an accepted compensation fund or holds a guarantee bond effective in respect of deposits received in connection with his designated functions if he produces a certificate from a member of a recognised body of accountants stating that he operates clients' accounts or deposits in accordance with the regulations laid down in the Act, or if he offers proof as a new entrant that he has so instructed an accountant.

Fifthly, and this is most important, a licence could be cancelled at any time by the registrar if the licensee was convicted of any offence involving fraud, dishonesty or breach of trust, or if it came to the notice of the registrar that membership of a compensation fund had been withdrawn or lapsed so that the guarantee bond had been withdrawn or lapsed. Lastly, the Act should provide for a register of licensed estate agents always to be maintained.

If my hon. Friend will look carefully at these points, perhaps in conjunction with the Fair Trading Bill which is now in Committee, and bring forward some form of licensing, I am sure that the consumer will be protected; members of the profession will be grateful, because the onus and the smears fall on their shoulders; and the public will realise that the Government are taking steps which have long been needed.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Southampton, Test (Mr. S. James A. Hill) on raising this subject. I know of his great interest in trying to bring the realms of estate agency into some sort of legitimate organisation. The amount of research which he has undertaken shows that he means every word that he says.

I am not an expert practitioner in high quality verbiage, but I know that when a person sells a house and there is somebody buying the house, nine times out of ten the intermediary is an estate agent. It is essential, to ensure that there is protection for both seller and buyer, that there should be mandatory membership of an estate agents' organisation of some form.

The Under-Secretary of State has in the past persevered in a manner which only evokes my admiration. I remember his Private Member's Bill on clients' money accounts, and how hard he worked to get the Bill through the House. I served with him on the Estate Agents Bill during 1965. The Bill failed only because the then Government decided to go to the country. The most important stage of the Bill had been reached, namely, the question whether estate agents should be able to indulge in buying and selling property themselves. I well remember the work of the hon. Member for Harrow, Central (Mr. Anthony Grant) and the hon. Member for Northants, South (Mr. Arthur Jones) in trying to push the Bill through the House. As things have remained the same since 1888, it is about time it came to fruition.

There are now 10 organisations catering for estate agents, but there are thousands of estate agents outside any of the organisations. I had the privilege on 2nd November in this House of bringing up the case of one estate agency in my constituency, Redgwell and Harris, the senior partner of which was a Mr. William Harris. A fire had taken place in a building, and an old lady was to be dispossessed. I am glad to say that she was given a flat by the Wandsworth Council the next day. But one of the most important matters that arose from the investigation was that despite the fact that the firm had been in business for 40 years as estate agents, when a correspondent of that well-known paper, the Daily Express, visited the firm, it was established that it was not a member of any estate agents' organisation.

What does that mean? Those who are members of estate agents' organisations are bound by certain codes of ethics. But those who remain outside can practically do as they like. This means that they have an advantage over their fellow estate agents. The situation today is that anybody can go into this business; anybody can take a deposit, and can offer a house for sale. As the hon. Member for Southampton, Test said, a house can be offered to 10 different people and 10 different deposits can be taken. And anybody of that kind can do a bunk with money, as many have done in London in the past few years. The hon. Gentleman mentioned two examples which occurred in South London, the area from which I come.

It is about time that the Government found time—the last Government were just as lax as the present—to introduce legislation to make membership of an organisation mandatory.

Order. I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Gentleman, but I should have called attention earlier to the fact that we are on an Adjournment debate. I think that the hon. Gentleman knows that the necessity for legislation should not be the subject of an Adjournment debate. Having regard to what has already passed, perhaps the hon. Gentleman will help me by avoiding the word "legislation" as much as possible.

Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, for correcting me. I realise that you gave me some latitude, and I am grateful. However, the remarks of the hon. Member for Southampton, Test show that there is need for the Government at some time to consider the matter much further. I thank the hon. Member for raising the subject. I hope that the Government will be able to find time to look into the whole question of estate agency and make membership of an organisation mandatory.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Test (Mr. S. James A. Hill) for giving us the opportunity to discuss this important matter, and also for bringing to bear on the subject his considerable knowledge. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Battersea, South (Mr. Ernest G. Perry) for his contribution. The hon. Gentleman has taken a great interest in the matter.

I was fascinated by the reports of previous proceedings in the House. I listened with rapture to the speech made by the hon. Member for Harrow, Central (Mr. Anthony Grant) some time ago. However, a lot has changed since that time. The hon. Member for Harrow, Central has joined the Government and other circumstances have changed to some extent.

Proposals have been put forward for licensing estate agencies. In the last nine months or so there have been five distinct proposals of that kind, and I welcome the chance to make clear our position. Some of the representations which have been made to us have referred to the activities of mortgage brokers and property speculators, and there appears to be some confusion and overlap in the discussion of these activities and the operations of estate agents.

It can be agreed that estate agency is a distinct and separate function, and licensing to control estate agency and mortgage broking are separate matters. However, some of the abuses which occur in mortgage broking are often and mistakenly attributed to estate agents.

Before I turn to what is central to this debate, and by way of separating the issues, I should emphasise that the Government have undertaken to implement parts of the Crowther Committee's report as soon as possible. It is intended that this will include licensing provisions. We have yet to reach final decisions on the full details of the licensing scheme, but any such scheme covering the provision of consumer credit generally would be likely to include mortgage broking.

After that slight digression to clear the ground, I come now to the central theme of the debate, namely, whether there is a need to license or to control estate agency. I agree with my hon. Friend that the great majority of estate agents do an honest and conscientious job for their clients. Those who are members of the national societies work under codes of conduct which give the public a large measure of protection. Their bonding schemes ensure that deposits or other moneys lost through dishonesty or defalcation are reimbursed. If there is a need for statutory control probably it stems almost entirely from the activities of a few unscrupulous agents who are outside the schemes.

It may he of interest to look briefly at all the proposals on the subject which have been made to us relatively recently. The first of the proposals which we have received this year came to us from the Society for the Control and Registration of Estate Agents and Mortgage Brokers, whence the arresting acronym SCREAM. The society based its case for legislation on its belief that while most estate agents and mortgage brokers provide a good service, the activities of a minority call for proper safeguards against such abuses as fraud, misleading advice and exploitation.

In the case of estate agency the society therefore proposed the establishment of a statutory council with disciplinary powers on which estate agents would have a minority representation. The main intentions were that the council should establish a code of conduct for estate agents, set up an indemnity scheme to protect clients' deposits and conduct examinations covering a range of qualifications which would relate to the service offered.

These proposals were discussed with representatives of the society, including three hon. Members, at a meeting on 1st August. I understand that this was a useful and frank discussion at which the society amplified the case for its proposals.

However, we in the Department keep a close watch on the need to protect consumers and the public. I must tell the House that in the past two years or so very few complaints have been made directly to us, in distinct contrast to the number of complaints which arose prior to the speech made by the hon. Member for Harrow, Central in 1965. But it is a fact that there has been a very great diminution in the number of complaints made direct to us. The society agreed to see what additional information it could provide which would help support a case for legislation, if necessary.

Also, at the beginning of August, quite separate proposals were received from the National Association of Estate Agents. The national association, while accepting the necessity for statutory control, made it clear that its objective was to establish controls which would protect the clients of estate agents from loss through dishonesty and malpractice, and it saw no need for additional restrictions or requirements to acquire qualifications to discharge the essentially commercial function of buying and selling houses. The association therefore proposed that legislation should be confined to requiring estate agents to be licensed and bonded with provision for exclusion or revocation of licence for anyone convicted of an offence involving fraud, dishonesty or a breach of trust.

These proposals were discussed by representatives of the association with my officials at a meeting on 7th September. Here again it was felt necessary to make the point that although we were open to persuasion on the need for legislation the present position was that there was no strong evidence that legislation was necessary in the light of what appeared to be changed circumstances in recent years.

The association was disappointed that it was not getting legislation immediately and had to make out a further case, and it referred to the Bill introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Northants, South (Mr. Arthur Jones) which I like to think nearly reached the Statute Book in 1966.

I must emphasise that matters are very much better ordered than they were in 1966. We have all the main estate agents' societies operating bonding schemes for the protection of clients' money which we did not have in those days.

Does my hon. Friend agree that the only reason for his saying that things are far better today is that his Department does not get so many complaints? If he cared to call together a body of estate agents, he would find that there were just as many abuses. The point is that probably the only way that clients feel that they can get their money back is to go straight to court.

Certainly. As I shall emphasise, we have been having discussions and we are prepared to have further discussions with the estate agents' bodies about the attitude that we intend to take in this matter. I was emphasising one difference since those days. It is the fact that most of the main societies operate bonding schemes for the protection of clients' money, and a buyer who wants to be sure that his deposit is safe from loss through defalcation should pay it only through his solicitors or to an agent who is a member of one of these societies. Similarly a seller, who is prob- ably about to embark upon one of the biggest financial transactions of his life, should take the utmost care in appointing an agent. That there has been a distinct improvement in the situation is. I think, shown by a reduction in the number of cases of fraud and unethical practices coming to our notice.

At this meeting the association accepted that it was desirable to strengthen its case as much as possible and it undertook to see whether it could provide more evidence to support its proposals and particularly of the number of defalcations by estate agents both within the schemes operated by the national societies and outside them.

Comments on the proposals which had reached the Department were sought from four more of the national societies concerned with estate agency. The largest of these was the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors. It expressed the view that the primary aim of legislation or licensing should be to ensure the security of deposits paid to estate agents in connection with property sales or leases. For this purpose it recommended the adoption of a simple licensing scheme, which it suggested might be operated by local authorities. The right to practise estate agency would then be limited to those who could annually produce proof of bonding and satisfy the authority that they had not been convicted of any offence involving fraud, dishonesty or breach of trust and were not undischarged bankrupts.

The institution feels strongly that to go further than this in legislation might well be a disservice to the public. It takes the view that if legislation were to require all estate agents to demonstrate a standard of competence before being placed on the register, the standard could not be set very high. It fears that it might none the less be presented in a way which could mislead the public into thinking that every estate agent could also provide the specialised services of a chartered surveyor. This is a matter upon which I believe that we should reflect carefully.

The second largest body—the Incorporated Society of Valuers and Auctioneers—takes a rather different line. It considers that there is a need for a statutory body to control estate agency but standards of entry into the business should be maintained at the level of admission to membership of its society. This, at least in part, accords with the proposals made by SCREAM, but these two bodies part company over another of SCREAM's proposals, that the statutory body should establish an examining function. The incorporated society points to a similar proposal as the cause of failure of the Voluntary Estates Agents Registration Council which was set up in 1967 and unfortunately broke down the following year.

As the House will see, although there was strong pressure for legislation there was a wide divergency of views about the objectives that it should seek to achieve. Consultations between the RICS, the ISVA and the National Association of Estate Agents were held, and there were later discussions between those three bodies and my officials to define the extent of common ground in their proposals. These were the discussions referred to by my right hon. and learned Friend the Minister for Trade and Consumer Affairs in his Answer to my hon. Friend on 4th December, which appears at col. 289.

At that meeting it became clear that the only common ground between the societies was the acceptance of a need for compulsory bonding not linked to any system of licensing. From all the proposals, some of them quite elaborate, and I am sure put forward sincerely with the best intentions, the only proposal that estate agents generally accept is a basic form of insurance to protect clients against loss of moneys.

The Government's central concern is that the consumer—in this case all those who use estate agents' services—shall be safeguarded not only against loss of deposit, but against narrowing of the choice of agent.

I am glad that the hon. Gentleman has mentioned the consumer. In many instances, with an unregistered estate agent not belonging to one of the associations, the seller does not get the value of the property which he is selling. Sometimes the estate agent takes advantage of him. So it is not only the consumer but the seller who sometimes needs protection.

My reference to "consumer" was intended to apply to the buyer or the seller. I agree that both are equally important. In referring to the need not to narrow the choice of agent, I have in mind the report on estate agents which the Monopolies Commission published in 1969. One of the conclusions drawn by the commission was that any proposal that registration should become a statutory requirement should not lead to restraints on entry into the profession which could lead to a closed shop or damage free competition. We have to take this matter carefully into consideration.

Since then, of course, there has been an order which prohibits the charging of scale fees by agents. This came into effect in July this year. We would certainly wish to avoid, as I am sure would many estate agents, any restrictions which made it unnecessarily difficult to enter the business of estate agency or implied that the buying and selling of houses were other than strictly commercial operations. There are specialist functions in these transactions—surveying, providing mortgages, advising on law and conveyancing—but specialists are usually instructed to carry out these functions. The actual buying and selling, negotiation of price, and so on, are commercial operations in which it is to the consumer's advantage to have as free a choice of agent as possible.

Within these general limitations which I have outlined the Government are willing to consider the case for legislation provided it can be shown that it is necessary to protect the consumer. However, it is only fair to point out—I do not want to delude the House—that it is unlikely that in this Session we should be able to produce the legislation. Nevertheless we would welcome any further information that the national societies and SCREAM might be able to provide in response to our invitation. I shall be glad to have any information from hon. Members, particularly my hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Test and the hon. Member for Battersea. South, or any complaints from the public. When we have this information we will certainly consider it scrupulously and, if necessary, have further discussions with the bodies involved to see what can be worked out.

I have a great personal interest in this subject, as hon. Members know. I am anxious that the public should have confidence and feel that they are safeguarded in what undoubtedly for many people is the biggest financial event in their lives.

I hope that the fact that I cannot immediately promise legislation will not lead my hon. Friend to believe that the Government are not sympathetic to many of the ideas he has brought forward. I repeat the assurance given by other Ministers that we will consider carefully the possibility of legislation provided that we have clear evidence of the needs and interests of the consumer. I am grateful to my hon. Friend for drawing attention to this matter and to the hon. Member for Battersea, South for his contribution.

I am grateful to the Under-Secretary of State for the Environment for being here this afternoon and to the five back benchers who are present to listen to the debate. Looking at New Palace Yard, we realise that the Government are in a bit of hole. Therefore, it is not surprising that they should delegate the most amiable of their Under-Secretaries to deal with this subject.

I should like briefly to recapitulate the history of this enterprise. On 9th June last, there appeared on the Order Paper a non-committal motion headed "House of Commons (Services)", which read:

"That the Fourth Report from the Select Committee on House of Commons (Services) be now considered."

The then Leader of the House moved that motion at 3.55 p.m. on a Friday afternoon. In the course of the very few minutes during which he spoke, he did not mention New Palace Yard or the car park; he merely expressed the hope that the House would agree to what the Services Committee had recommended. He did not say what the Cornmittee had recommended.

But for my vigilance on that occasion, in being able to get in a minute or two before 4 o'clock, that motion might have gone through on the nod. Indeed, when this matter first came before the House in June 1971, it was slipped through in a most ambiguous and covered-up manner.

I was present on the occasion my hon. Friend has mentioned. If he had not caught Mr. Speaker's eye, I think that I should have managed to raise this matter. However, I think my hon. Friend is wrong about the date. My recollection is that this matter first came before the House on 30th July 1971 when we had the Sixth Report from the Services Committee. I understand, and have checked, that that was put on the Order Paper the night before. Therefore, hon. Members had precisely two hours on a Friday, if they were here at 9 a.m., to consider it. The only way of stopping it would have been to ask the then Leader of the House to withdraw it or to talk for six hours to talk it out. Was not this a disgraceful way of accepting the principle of the car park which we were told last month it was too late to overturn?

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. The Government have been guilty of sharp practice all the way through, and I am glad that he made the point about what happened in 1971.

The Government have persisted in their desire to sneak the thing through without any public discussion. As they could not get their way at five minutes to four o'clock on Friday 9th June, they had to bring the matter up again at eleven o'clock on 13th June. By that time, certain Members had become alerted to what was going on, and, as a result, the right hon. Member for Ashford (Mr. Deedes) was able to make a valuable contribution to the debate.

The other day the Minister for Housing and Construction kept repeating that the original estimate was £2·2 million. If the Under-Secretary of State refers to the Sixth Report of the Select Committee on House of Commons Services in 1971, he will see that the estimated cost then was about £1·3 million. When we come to the Fourth Report which was the subject of debate in June of this year, we find that the estimate was slightly under £2 million. When we come to the debate itself, we find that the then Leader of the House confessed that the estimate was £2·2 million. I find it difficult to believe that that estimate will not be exceeded. Does it take into account the fact that there was a strike? Will the strike have no effect at all on the ultimate cost of this venture? I should like the Under-Secretary of State to give the most explicit and definite assurances on that.

What it boils down to is that at a minimum cost of £2·2 million—which is almost certainly to be exceeded—about 280 cars will be accommodated in five tiers below New Palace Yard. In any event, the capital cost for every car space provided will amount to thousands of pounds. The Minister said the other day that it would be only about £4,500. My estimate, for what it is worth, is that it is likely to be £6,000, £7,000 or perhaps £8,000.

Some very interesting figures have been extorted—not without difficulty—from the Department. Reports appeared that there had been a subsidence at the north end of Westminster Hall, and as a result of questioning—one had to ask twice for this—it was admitted that there had been a subsidence of 4mm, but it was said that a vertical movement of anything up to 25mm was nothing to worry about because that would not affect the stability of the structure. If that is the kind of estimate on which the Government are basing the stability of the structure—that it can subside to the extent of 25mm without giving cause for concern—they are being very optimistic.

I now turn for a few moments to consider the stability of Big Ben. We have known for some time—long before these works were embarked upon—that Big Ben is tilting in, I think, a north-westerly direction to the extent of several inches. In conditions of great secrecy, work was carried out to reinforce the foundations of the Big Ben tower. As a result of a Question I put, the Minister admitted in the House on 13th December that it had been decided to stiffen four piers which support the clock tower because a survey in 1971—that is, at least a year ago—had shown that the plaster and brickwork of two of them was cracked. The Minister went on to say, in reassuring terms, that the condition was not alarming and that the work in hand was not connected with the underground car park.

That is as may be. I just wonder whether the strengthening of the piers would have been carried out if the car park had not begun to be excavated. I do not understand how it is that the work on these piers, which were discoverd to be defective in 1971, was not started until fairly recently. I should like the Minister to say when the work was put in hand and when the job of strengthening the foundations for Big Ben will be cornpleted.

The whole situation is most unsatisfactory. Naturally, anyone interested in the matter views with great suspicion the Government's constant desire to avoid discussing it, to sneak things through without the knowledge or approval of the House. It was only in the OFFICIAL REPORT of the second debate on 13th June that the heading was changed from House of Commons Services to New Palace Yard (Underground Car Park). That change would never have happened but for the objections that had been taken to the methods employed by the Government to secure the approval of the House for the various stages that they had to go through.

I hope that others who will take part in this brief debate will probe to a greater extent than I have been able to do what is going on. I want to know to what extent precautions have been taken to prevent the River Thames from percolating into the car park, and what is the condition of the catalpa trees on the north side of New Palace Yard, which the Government promised would be carefully preserved.

Whether the whole project is worth while is open to doubt. The right hon. Member for Ashford was dubious about the whole thing when we last discussed it. It is Government policy to dissuade private cars from coming into the centre of London. Here, we are spending a few million £s to enable cars to come into London. A car park of the kind contemplated will lead to cars going in and out, and thus adding to the congestion in Parliament Square. As a result of the car park, the Prime Minister may have to walk between the House and Downing Street many more times in future. I must warn the Under-Secretary that some of us will continue to watch with a very beady eye the further processes of this enterprise.

I am glad to be able to add a word to what the hon. Member for Brixton (Mr. Lipton) has said on this subject. I think that I am entitled to support him to a degree, without accepting everything that he has said, and without appearing wise after the event. As he was kind enough to observe, on the night of 13th June, when the decision was taken—at an hour that some hon. Members now regard as unreasonable—I was present, and I joined the hon. Member in questioning the wisdom of what we proposed to do.

I then drew what seemed to me an important distinction between a proposal of a Select Committee and a decision of this House. A Select Committee with stewardship of our services, which this Select Committee had, cannot be justly attacked for making a proposal such as this. The House, which is accountable for everyone else's affairs besides its own, has a duty to view such a proposition in good perspective. It is our failure to do that that troubles me most.

I am not perhaps as deeply concerned as I should be whether there is a subsidence of Big Ben or whether Westminster Hall is sinking. I am not even concerned about the escalating—if it is escalating—cost of the project. What bothers me is the principle involved, on which, I think, we have proved ourselves at a loss. We have lamentably failed to put this project in good perspective. In the context of present times, this project submitted from anyone else might well have been regarded as, if not a blunder, something to postpone. Financially it is not easily defended, and administratively it raises a number of questions for which there are not satisfactory answers.

I accept the usual argument about Members of Parliament having tools for the job; that goes without saying. I do not believe that we improve our performance by rejecting the various amenities which are offered for the work. But the car park seems a very major item in terms of tools for the job. How does one square the perfectly justifiable protest of the Prime Minister about the condition of traffic in central London with this plan to construct, in the heart of the busiest traffic area, a sort of privileged snuggery for 500 motor cars? The right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Grimond) asked this week whether this aspect of affairs had been considered. My right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State, whose Under-Secretary we are pleased to see present this afternoon, was at pains to explain a little earlier this week that attacks on his Department were out of place, and he said that his Department was acting on instructions of the House.

That is all right as far as it goes, but I doubt whether that argument would carry much conviction with the taxpayer. I doubt whether the taxpayer will see it in that light. Indeed, it illustrates the weakness of our position. The Under-Secretary will agree that, in respect of everyone else, such a proposition as this would have run the gauntlet of the Treasury and of possibly a Cabinet Sub-Committee. It would have been scrutinised by more than one corner of the responsible Department, and it would have run into our matchless machinery, unsurpassed anywhere in the world, for preventing people from building things.

In this instance, the proposition went through on the nod. There would have been no questions if one or two people had not raised their voices. In many people's minds, this must raise the question—if I may lapse from order briefly —" quis custodiet custodes?"—who is to look after the people who are supposed to be guarding public money? If we so misjudge a matter affecting our interests such as this car park, we cast doubts on our capacity to judge the needs of others and to control the financing of matters such as this.

This matter is now over the dam and we must suffer the consequences. My main reason for intervening in the debate is not to embarrass the Under-Secretary, the Government or anyone, but to ensure that this lesson now be taken to heart. We cannot again help ourselves in this fashion, not in 1972. The public will not readily comprehend an assembly which may, for instance, be widely critical—I am making no party point here—of something like the Civil List but passes this kind of proposition on the nod. The public will simply not understand that.

Before we come to the next proposal, which I suppose will be this folie degrandeur plan for the place over the road, we must ensure that any proposition we make for ourselves shall be subject to the checks and balances to which the propositions of others would be subject. I should like an assurance from the Under-Secretary not that that will happen—that would be an absurd assurance to ask of him—but that he will pass that on to other channels to ensure that in future in these matters we handle our affairs differently.

I intervene briefly in the debate because I do not think that the right hon. Member for Ashford (Mr. Deedes) has quite perceived the point I made in my intervention.

It was not true to say that the principle of this matter went through on the nod on 13th June. It was put to us on that day that the House had already decided in principle that it should be so. The report which we were then discussing was a matter of increased costs and some of the details. It is true, however, that the matter did go through on the nod on 30th July 1971, and I fear that the culpability lies with the then Leader of the House or the people who advised him.

In the debate on 13th June 1972, reported at columns 1412–3, I rehearsed those circumstances in detail, and they have not been denied. The business for the week commencing 30th July 1971 as announced on the previous Thursday did not include the matter of the car park, which was to be put there in principle. It was added to the Order Paper late at night on Thursday 29th July, and, therefore, it did not appear in print for hon. Members to see until the Friday morning at 9 o'clock. At 11 o'clock on that day it was on the Order Paper and the matter went through on the nod.

I believe that this House is responsible for checking the Executive, but it is also the moral duty of the Executive, whether the Government or the Leader of the House, to make it clear that matters should be placed before Members in plenty of time. It was not so on that occasion. It was a dreadful lapse, not on the part of the House but on the part of those who should have a much higher regard for those who work to uphold democracy.

There are those who believe that the secondary schools in inner London should be rebuilt and that money should be allocated over four years for this purpose, the cost being equivalent to the cost of this car park. In terms of balance of expenditure, hon. Members and citizens of London should bear that in mind.

I thank the hon. Member for Brixton (Mr. Lipton) for his kind personal remarks and would say how glad I am that he has chosen this subject for his Adjournment debate as it gives me the opportunity to inform the House of how the work is progressing.

I know, too, from Questions which the hon. Member and others have asked that there is a certain amount of anxiety over the effect of the workings on the stability of nearby buildings, particularly Westminster Hall and the Big Ben Clock Tower. I hope that what I have to say in amplification of answers already given on specific points will allay the fears which have been expressed on this score.

Finally, I should like to say a few words about the estimated cost of the project and to correct any impression which may be current that this has already been exceeded or that a substantial excess is likely to emerge before the end of the contract.

Before going on to deal with these matters, perhaps I should, however, say a word or two about the origin of this project and the position of the Government and, in particular, of my Department. As regards the latter point we do, of course, accept responsibility for the design of the car park, for its financing and for anything short of an act of God which occurs during its construction. But the decision to build the car park beneath New Palace Yard, its scale and, therefore, the general order of cost stem from recommendations of the Services Committee—I emphasise that the Services Committee has all-party representation, and its decisions, which are important, receive considerable publicity— going back to the Session 1967–68, which was endorsed by the House without a Division on this specific proposal in a debate which began at 3.55 p.m. on 9th June 1972, was continued at 11 p.m. on 13th June and ended at 12.34 on the morning of 14th June this year.

I think that if the hon. Gentleman looks at the report of that debate he will see that the Leader of the House said it was too late to deal with the matter of principle which had been dealt with in the previous year. It is all very well to say that we discussed it; we had then no power to reverse it.

With respect, the hon. Gentleman is misrepresenting the position of the Leader of the House. If any hon. Member thinks that the car park is in the wrong place or that its whole concept is too costly or out of tune with current environmental concepts, he should consider what he was doing when the decision to go ahead was made without a Division. I am not, of course, implying that the hon. Member for Brixton was not here to voice his misgivings. He was here in customary strong form, as was my right hon. Friend the Member for Ashford (Mr. Deedes). I have no doubt that they will admit in turn that they did not move to bring about a decision. In those circumstances all Members of the House must collectively accept responsibility for the decision that was made.

The hon. Gentleman should also remember that the Government, and to be fair, their predecessors, and my Department neither actively promoted nor opposed this proposal. They were carrying out the instructions of the Services Committee as subsequently endorsed by the House. I stress that in matters of this kind my Department acts entirely as the servant of the House.

Turning now to more specific points which have been raised, I would say that in spite of the difficulties which are inevitable in a new project of this nature, especially one which has to be carried out in a restricted space such as New Palace Yard, surrounded by historic buildings and crossed daily by large numbers of people, including Members of this House, the work is proceeding as quickly as could be expected. We have, of course, had a delay of some six-and-a-half weeks during the strike which it has proved impossible to make up, and this means that it will be the end of January 1973 before any car parking spaces are available on the surface of the Yard. But we still hope to have the car park ready for use early in 1974, compared with the original estimate of late 1973. In the meantime, I take this opportunity of thanking all Members for the forbearance they have shown in the face of all the inevitable inconvenience, dirt, noise and turmoil outside.

The hon. Member for Brixton expressed his fears about the possible effect of the underground workings on the important and historical buildings in the neighbourhood when he spoke in the debate on the Select Committee's Report. He has also proved himself to be a vigilant and assiduous guardian of the precincts whilst the work has actually been in progress. My right hon. Friend has, of course, already answered some of his questions in usual form. These answers showed that there had been a very slight degree of settlement at the north end of Westminster Hall and that so far the Clock Tower has not been affected. To complete the picture, I should now add that there has been a very slight settlement in the canteen under the Grand Committee Room, on the west side of Westminster Hall, but that thanks to our monitoring system, which consists of a daily survey check on control points throughout the adjacent buildings, this, too, has been arrested in good time and appropriate remedial action is in hand.

The hon. Member will no doubt wish me to amplify these answers. First, let me make it clear that what really matters is the rate of movement, not its extent. If modern survey techniques had been available we should have found that all these buildings had moved continuously over the last century and a half. Moreover, the fact that there has been some movement since this work began in no way invalidates the advice given by my predecessor that the diaphragm wall technique being used prevents dewatering of the adjacent areas and avoids subsidence, and that it is also relatively silent and vibrationless compared with piling.

Hon. Members will remember that this advice was incorporated in paragraph 8 of the Services Committee's 6th Report for the Session 1970–71. The point about the slight settlement which occurred early in October is that in an effort to speed construction the large cylinder borings were begun concurrently with the sinking of the diaphragm wall. It was the vibration from this which caused the settlement. The cylinder borings were, therefore, stopped until the outer wall was complete, and since then the settlement has been arrested.

We have no reason to believe that now the diaphragm wall has been completed the soil outside the "box" will be significantly affected by workings inside it. I hope that this reassures the hon. Member about the north facade of Westminster Hall. Similarly, as regards the subsidence beneath the Grand Committee Room on the Cromwell Green facade; this occurred as a result of the vibrations caused by pile driving for a related but secondary structure outside the diaphragm wall. This is a two-storey plant house incorporated into the design at a very late stage in the development, which houses mechanical and electrical equipment, pumping plant for removal of surface water and an emergency generator. The position is, therefore, that the slight movements which have occurred were monitored at an early stage and that immediate steps were taken to rectify the situation, and I am advised that there is no need for alarm. I can, however, also repeat the assurances which were given in the past that we shall continue to watch developments closely, and we shall, of course, keep the House informed as necessary.

Hon. Members will, I am sure, appreciate that the structure of the Palace of Westminster has to be kept under constant surveillance quite apart from anything which may arise from the building of the car park. This is inevitable on a site of this kind where none of the buildings is new. Cracks appear from time to time, and when this happens my Department takes appropriate remedial action. Normally this is a matter of day-to-day routine which attracts no publicity.

The Clock Tower is a case in point. All hon. Members may not know that this is equipped permanently with a plumb line which at once indicates any movement. There has for a long time been an inclination of some 9½ inches to the north-west. This may either be due to the Tower having been built slightly out of plumb or it may have settled soon after construction. Between 1960 and 1968 a maximum settlement of one- eighth of an inch was recorded. Since then there has been no further movement. We shall keep a particular watch whilst the remaining cylinders are being sunk during January.

However, as I said, the structure is inspected regularly, and during one such inspection late in 1971 it was found that two of the piers had cracks in their brickwork and in the surrounding plaster. There are four piers altogether supporting the Clock Tower, and, whilst this condition, which has been dealt with successfully elsewhere in the Palace, was not alarming, it was thought sensible, in view of the stresses borne by them, to reinforce all of them by a concrete girdle. This has been done and the work completed at a cost of some £2,500. It is a normal item of routine repair in buildings of this age, but it is understandable that the coincidence of timing should have led to speculation that it might be directly consequent on the car park work, which it is not.

The cost of each car parking place in the car park, which will accommodate 500 cars on five storeys, is £4,450.

Flood precautions for the Palace as a whole are also continually under review by my Department. The main safeguard is the raising of the Terrace wall. The car park will have its own anti-flooding devices when it is completed. Any flooding during construction would be dealt with by pumping and would not constitute any additional risk to the surrounding buildings.

The catalpa trees are being protected, and so far as we can see they have suffered no damage from the works. However, they have already exceeded their life span of 80–90 years, and young trees are being held in reserve for when the present specimens die.

Finally, there is the question of cost. The hon. Member for Brixton recently asked whether we could confirm a Press report that the cost had already risen by about 50 per cent. above the original estimate of £2·2 million. He was informed that this was not so. I do not know where this report originated. However, I can say that the report is without foundation so far as my Department is aware. The contract for the work is what is known as a "firm price" one. This does not mean that there can be no variations. If the client asks for something unusual or additional to be done which was not anticipated when the contract was signed there have to be adjustments. But the normal hazards are fully covered, and I am advised, for example, that anything arising from the strike during the summer would be a contractor's liability. While, therefore, we may have to pay for minor additional items which arise during the course of construction, we have at present no reason to expect the total to be more than marginally affected.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Ashford asked how it was possible to justify a snuggery for cars. The basic answer, which probably entered the minds of the members of the Services Committee, is that the hours of work for Members and officers in the Houses of Parliament are unusual. Some people would say that sometimes they were excessive. Members and officers regularly leave their work in the early hours of the morning after the public transport services have ceased. Therefore, there is a special need for Members and officers to have transport home.

To sum up, we share the concern of all other right hon. and hon. Members that these works, which were considered by the House as a whole to be essential, should not cause damage to the surrounding buildings. So far this is the case, and we shall take immediate action if we have any reason to believe it will change. Apart from the dislocation caused by the strike, the work is going ahead more or less at the rate expected and should be completed by the beginning of 1974; and the cost is still well in hand. We will gladly give the House further reports from time to time if they are needed. In the meantime, I hope that what I have said today will reassure both the hon. Member for Brixton and all other Members of the House.

I warmly welcome the chance of a short debate on the decision of the Home Office to send Mr. Anthony Ng, the son of a constituent of mine, Mrs. Evans, back to Malaya by 15th January 1973. Let me first thank my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for the courtesy and patience he has shown to me in interviews I have had with him in discussing this particularly unusual and heart-rending case. We have had two lengthy meetings. I am grateful to him and his officials for setting aside the time they did to hear me put the case of my constituent to them.

Briefly, the facts of the case are these. My constituent, Mrs. Evans, left Malaya in 1952 leaving her son Anthony with her parents. Mrs. Evans left Malaya with her husband who was serving with the British Army in that country. They hoped that in due course Anthony would be able to join them in England. On arrival in England not long after the end of 1952, Mr. Evans was demobilised from the Army. For various reasons Anthony was not able to join them early and he was, therefore, in the early years of his life, brought up in Malaya by Mrs. Evans's parents. It was not until December 1971, almost 20 years after Mrs. Evans left Malaya, that Anthony arrived in this country on a visitor's visa, initially for two months. I do not think there are many of us in this House or in this country who will not have seen our mothers for a period of 20 years. However, that is what happened, and the meeting of Anthony and his mother last December was the first they had had for 20 years.

The visa for two months I managed to get extended to six months, and it was then that Anthony applied and was enrolled at Dunstable College for Further Education for a course in the General Certificate of Education O-level. This was a different reason for his staying in his country, and there was a series of appeals that he be allowed to stay here as a student studying in this O-level course. The immigration appeals machinery was gone through. The final appeal that he be allowed to stay was dismissed on 31st October this year.

It was then that I was told by the Home Office that he had to leave the country by 15th January. I then saw my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary and appealed to him, and to my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary, that Anthony be allowed to stay in this country on humanitarian grounds. The first of these obviously is that here he is reunited with his mother and family and obviously, therefore, wishes to stay in this country, as they wish him to do. He is making good progress at the Dunstable College for Further Education and is now mid-way through his O-level course and is planning to take mathematics, English, geography and history next June. I asked my hon. Friend whether he would himself check Anthony's progress at the college to see whether he was making good progress, and I am grateful to my hon. Friend that he did this.

In a letter to me on 6th December this year my hon. Friend wrote:

"When you came to see me on 22nd November to discuss the case of Anthony I undertook to consider your suggestion that he might be allowed to stay here until the end of August next year in order to obtain some 'O' level passes before returning to Malaya. I said that it was most unlikely that I would feel able to alter my earlier decision, but in deference to your wishes I agreed to have inquiries made of the Dunstable College of Further Education about Anthony's progress. I have done this and the college gave him a good report."

I checked with the staff at the college this morning and they confirmed what is contained in my hon. Friend's letter to me, namely, that Anthony is making good progress. I feel that it would be educationally bad for him to have to leave this country when he is in the middle of this O-level course.

The humanitarian reasons are equally powerful. Mr. and Mrs. Evans are popular and respected in the village of Kensworth in my constituency. More than 1,000 people in that village have signed a petition asking that Anthony be allowed to stay. Yesterday, on my annual pre-Christmas visit to hospitals and old people's homes throughout my constituency, I met a number of people who had followed this case in the local newspaper and supported my plea that Anthony be allowed to remain. In addition, there are many people in Dunstable who know Anthony and who support my plea.

The local newspapers support my plea. In yesterday's edition of the Evening Post, which circulates in my constituency, the editorial column commented:

"It is almost on the eve of Christmas. Surely it cannot be too much to expect of the Home Secretary, who dressed up the other day for all to see as Father Christmas, that he show some of the compassion and generosity of the season."

Those words are widely supported and endorsed, not only in Kensworth but throughout my constituency.

Rules which allow a person who has not seen his mother for 20 years to visit her for a shortish time and then insist that he shall go all the way back to Malaya are not good rules and should be bent. I know that we have vigorously applied immigration controls and rules, but when rules are vigorously applied inevitably one comes up against hardship cases such as this. Mrs. Evans is now a British citizen—as British as any of us—and she has lived for 20 years in my constituency. Had she been British-born Anthony could have joined her as of right.

For years after Mr. and Mrs. Evans left Malaya in 1952 there was no control on Commonwealth immigration, and Anthony could have come here without difficulty. Mrs. Evans wishes her son to stay here for good. If that be unacceptable to the Home Office, I ask for a compromise: that at least he be allowed to stay here until his O-level course is completed. We know that he is making good progress.

I reiterate that Anthony is well cared for in the Evans home in Kensworth. He is making good progress at the Dunstable College of Further Education. He has a good attendance record, and it is vital that he should be allowed to stay in this country to complete his O-level course in June.

We are almost at the end of 1972 which, on immigration, has been a year of bending the rules. We bent the rules considerably for Uganda, and rightly so. I supported my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary and my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Mr. Lane), the Under-Secretary, in doing what they did for the Ugandan Asians. We were right to do it, given the unusual circumstances in that country.

We have a history of bending the immigration rules. Before the Second World War we allowed many political refugees, refugees from Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, into this country. Since the war we rightly bent the rules when there was the invasion of Hungary by Russia in 1956 and when there were the troubles in Czechoslovakia in 1948 and 1968. If there were any violent upheaval in Eastern Europe and people sought asylum in this country, I believe that we should bend the rules again.

Therefore I appeal to the Home Office to change the decision, on two grounds. The first is educational. Anthony is making good progress and there is every likelihood that he will pass his O-levels, which are vital to him. To be pulled away from a course in midstream is bad educationally.

Secondly, I appeal on humanitarian grounds. Reunited with his mother last December after 20 years, he obviously wishes, as she does, that he should he allowed to stay in this country. He is being well looked after in the village, and there is no reason why he should not be as useful a citizen of this country as anyone else if he is allowed to stay.

I very much hone that my hon. Friend will be able to change his decision that Anthony must leave the country by 15th January next year.

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Bedfordshire, South (Mr. Madel) for his great concern with the case and his strenuous efforts on behalf of his constituent, Mrs. Evans, Anthony's mother, always made in a reasonable way, as I would expect of him.

My hon. Friend has written to us frequently and has seen me several times, including the occasions when we had two rather long talks. He has argued most earnestly that Anthony should be allowed to stay in this country. I respect my hon. Friend's feelings and Mrs. Evans's fervent wish that her son should be allowed to stay here with her. I know too that, as my hon. Friend said again today, there is exceedingly strong feeling in the area where Mrs. Evans and her son live in favour of his being allowed to stay.

But it should be said in fairness—and it came to me afresh last evening when I looked through the five files in the Home Office about the case—how much care has been taken on our side in trying to deal with the matter over recent years. At a time like the present, when there has been some criticism of our immigration arrangements, I am glad of this opportunity to affirm again my absolute confidence in the officials who operate our system of control. I have in mind not only the Immigration and Nationality Department of the Home Office but members of the Immigration Service at the ports and the entry certificate officers at the various posts overseas. They have an extremely difficult task and in this case, as in countless other instances, they have shown the combination of firmness and humanity that the House would expect of them.

Before coming to the facts of the case and the arguments my hon. Friend has advanced, I should remind the House of the general immigration policy within which this and similar cases must be considered. A key point in my consideration of this case is that many others have a great deal in common with this one or are fairly similar. Many people throughout the Commonwealth and other parts of the world would like to make their homes in this country. We cannot accept that everyone wishing to come here to settle should be allowed to do so. That would put an impossible strain upon community relations in this country as we are already an overcrowded island.

Since 1962, when control over Commonwealth immigration was introduced, the Government have followed a policy of restricting immigration. It is the declared policy of this Government that there should be no more large-scale permanent immigration. That is the purpose of the Immigration Act 1971, which comes fully into force on 1st January, giving us still tighter powers of control. The Act requires us to lay down broad lines of policy indicating for what purposes and on what conditions those who seek to come here may do so.

I am sure the House will be with me when I say that that means that we must deal justly with every case to the utmost of our ability, much as we may be moved by the circumstances of any case. If we cannot say that one person may be allowed to stay here consistently with our treatment of others, it would be unfair that we should allow ourselves to make unjustifiable exceptions. In other words, a policy which tries to be firm and humane must also try to be fair and consistent.

Unfortunately it is true that some people who wish to come here will seek to gain entry under one head of our policy—under one of our immigration rules—and having gained entry will seek to remain here by developing a case which would not have been accepted had it been advanced from the outset as the case for admission. That is what has happened here, and I turn now to the facts of the case before us.

Anthony Ng was born in Malaysia. His mother was born in that country and his father was a Chinese merchant. His mother later married a British Serviceman, Mr. Evans, and she and her husband came to this country in 1952. Anthony Ng was left in Malaysia to be brought up by his maternal grandmother. I understand that he has uncles and aunts in the same area. He left school at the age of 13—that is, about 13 years ago—and went to work. So far as I know there is no evidence that Anthony's mother has supported him in Malaysia and they do not seem to have met since he was about five years old until he came here in December of last year at the age of 25.

In 1967, now more than five years ago, Mrs. Evans asked through my hon. Friend's predecessor about the possibility of her son being allowed to come here and work. She was told then that he would have to obtain an employment voucher for that purpose.

Anthony arrived here on 13th December last year and said that he had come only for a visit to his mother whom he had not seen for more than 20 years. He had only a single ticket but said that his mother and stepfather would pay for his return to Malaysia. He said also that he had been promised work on the farm of one of his uncles on his return to Malaysia after his holiday in this country. Mr. and Mrs. Evans were at the airport to meet him and they gave similar assurances. He was than admitted for two months.

Our immigration officers who saw him when he arrived had some hesitation about his intention of coming simply for a visit. But in the end they decided to give him the benefit of the doubt. The doubts felt at that time were very soon confirmed because only a week after his arrival Mrs. Evans asked whether it would be possible for him to remain here permanently and to take employment. So already the case had shifted from a mere visit to permanent settlement.

There were no grounds on which permanent settlement could be allowed. Anthony did not qualify to come here as a dependant of his mother. He was 25 years of age and had been working for several years on his own in Malaysia and his mother had not supported him during that time. We had to say according to our rules that he could not be allowed to stay permanently. But we were glad to let him stay for the full six months which we usually allow for a visit.

Anthony had a right of appeal against our decision not to allow him to stay permanently. He gave notice of appeal and, at about the same time, inquiries were made on his behalf through my hon. Friend, as he has confirmed, into the possibility of Anthony being allowed to remain here as a student. However, we could not be satisfied that a man of 26, who had arrived here claiming to be coming only for a visit, and who had undertaken no studies for about 13 years, could be regarded as a genuine student. That is very much the crux of the case.

It is significant that before last summer there had been no mention of the study idea at any time since the possibility of his coming to this country was first raised in 1967. We had to say that he could not remain in this country as a student. Both appeals were heard by an independent adjudicator on 22nd September of this year. Anthony advanced no argument in support of his application to settle here and the appeal against our refusal on that ground was dismisssed. Anthony argued that he should be allowed to remain as a student. I emphasise that the appeal system has been established to provide a way by which an immigrant can have his case heard before an independent person where all the arguments can be developed and set against the case of the Home Office.

At the time the appeal was heard. Anthony was pursuing a course of O- level studies at a college of further education. The adjudicator acknowledged that Anthony's proposal to study was a realistic one but he could not say that he was satisfied that Anthony's primary purpose for coming to or remaining in this country was to study. He thought it significant that Anthony had no clear idea about the further technical course which he proposed to take after completing the academic course for which he had so hastily enrolled. Although the adjudicator sympathised with Anthony and his mother in their efforts to secure a better future for him, he was left with the impression that the proposal to undertake studies was merely put forward so that Anthony could remain in this country for as long as possible.

The appeal against our decision not to allow him to remain here as a student was dismissed. Anthony then appealed to the Immigration Appeals Tribunal. The tribunal concluded, after taking all the evidence into consideration, that it could not accept that Anthony's application as a would-be student was genuine within the meaning of the immigration rules.

Since then, during the last few weeks my hon. Friend has seen me more than once. He has argued strongly that despite the decisions of the appeal authorities—and I will say a word in a moment about the involvement of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Home Department—Anthony should be allowed to stay here. However, no new considerations have come to light which were not known when the appeals were heard earlier this year. I realise that Anthony would sooner stay in this country than return to Malaysia, and I sympathise with Mrs. Evans in her strong desire to keep her son with her.

However, I explained to my hon. Friend that if I were to deal with this case fairly and consistently with other cases with which my officials and I had to deal, I could not find grounds on which I should be justified in treating it as an exceptional case and reversing the decision previously taken on appeal not only to the independent adjudicator but to the appeals tribunal. I told my hon. Friend that I had come to such a conclusion only after the most careful examination of every aspect of the case. I indicated that we must ask Anthony to leave the country by 15th January 1973.

My hon. Friend, even at the eleventh hour, has asked us to think again in view of the particular arguments that he has put forward—principally educational and humanitarian arguments. He gave details of the O-level course on which Anthony had already embarked and argued that it would be unfair that he should have to leave it in midstream.

When my hon. Friend put forward his compromise suggestion, as he fairly described it, of giving Anthony leave to study until effectively the end of the summer next year, August or September, so that he could complete his O-level studies, it was with a view to getting this further education behind him. However, we must ask ourselves realistically: is it certain that Anthony could achieve this even in the six months or so that remain, however well be applies himself? As my hon. Friend reminded the House, Anthony has had good reports so far from the college where he started this course. But we must bear in mind that for the last 13 years—indeed, since the age of 13—he has had virtually no education. Therefore, it is asking a lot to believe that he could achieve his 0-levels within the six or seven months remaining. If I am right in having these educational doubts, the same problem would still arise.

Aside from that, this is incidental to our basic decision whether the exceptional humanitarian grounds justify us in bending the rules to the extent that my hon. Friend has urged. He has put forward a very persuasive argument on humanitarian grounds. He has presented a picture of a mother and son reunited after more than 20 years. I fully accept the evidence of feeling in the locality, because my hon. Friend sent me a petition signed by neighbours who know the Evans family and have now got to know Anthony Ng during the months he has been there. But again I must remind my hon. Friend that we would be bending the rules to the extent of admitting a man now 26 years of age when, in all normal cases of this kind, we have to rest on the principle that someone who has been independent to that extent and reached that age can qualify to come here in the main only if he obtains an employment voucher. That is the present rule.

I must ask myself whether in that situation it would be right to bend the rules to that extent. I must also bear in mind that all the evidence since 1967, which I have tried to sketch to the House, amounts to an apparently determined attempt to get round our immigration rules. I must therefore conclude that it would not be right, despite my hon. Friend's appeal, to bend the rules to this extent.

This is an exceedingly difficult decision. We are dealing with a very poignant human situation and I dislike having to say "No". I discussed this matter with my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary during the week, and both he and I are fully agreed that we would not be justified in altering the decision that has been taken.

Would I be right in thinking that it is open to Anthony, when he is back in Malaysia, to reapply for a work voucher? I do not ask my hon. Friend necessarily to answer that question right now. Perhaps he could let me know in due course.

I am about to answer that point, because I know that it is very much in my hon. Friend's mind. I want to put the position as fairly as I can. In fairness to others whom we have had to refuse, we must aim for consistency. We cannot allow the immigration control to be flouted.

I remind the House that Anthony was originally admitted for two months. That period was extended to six months. In fact, because of his appeals and my right hon. Friend's perfectly fair representations, he has now been here for just over 12 months. I have considered my hon. Friend's representations further but regretfully have had to resist them. We had in mind asking Anthony to leave by the end of December but decided that we ought to extend the final date to 15th January 1973 so that he could spend Christmas and the New Year with Mr. and Mrs. Evans and their family. Having been over this case several times in recent weeks, I believe that Anthony has been fairly treated and he has fully exercised his rights of appeal.

I end, as my hon. Friend has asked, by reminding him that when Anthony Ng returns to Malaysia he can continue his O-level studies. I have confirmed only this morning that there is ample scope for him to do this in Malaysia. It will then be open to him to make a fresh application to come to this country in due course under whatever head he wishes, and I assure my hon. Friend that we will consider such an application very carefully if and when the times comes.

I am grateful for the chance to use the few remaining minutes of parliamentary time in 1972 to address an appeal to the Government and give the Minister an opportunity to assume the role of Father Christmas.

Few people, if any, familiar with Doncaster and its problems of traffic congestion would question the urgent need of an east-west bypass. Nor is there any doubt about the pressing and growing need for a motorway link between South Yorkshire and the Humber ports. The extension and completion of the M18 motorway would go a long way towards satisfying these needs, and they are objectives which I have pursued for several years.

It was in September 1970 that a scheme was published further to extend the motorway from its present terminal point at Wadworth, near Doncaster, to Hatfield, a distance of about 10½ miles. But there was no welcome from my constituents. Instead they reacted with shock and dismay when they saw the proposed route. To bypass the town had seemed obvious, logical and practical—to everyone but the Minister. He chose instead to run the motorway through the borough, within a mile of the geographical centre of the town, and separate the residential areas of Cantley and Bessacarr—containing more than one-fifth of the population—from the rest of the town.

Along the length of the motorway within the borough lie two nature reserves, two large schools and the playing fields of Cantley Park. All these will be severely affected. In addition, 19 modern homes, one built as recently as 1969, will be destroyed, up to 30 will have their gardens reduced—some very substantially—and many others will be left within a few yards of the motorway. Up to 300 homes will suffer a considerable increase in noise and substantial loss of amenity. Those are matters of fact, established at the public inquiry held last year after 7,500 objections were lodged against the scheme.

Arising out of the objections, the inquiry considered not only the published proposals but three other alternative routes, each of which would have had dramatically less impact on property and on the environment, and two of which would have avoided entirely the disastrous splitting of the town. During almost three weeks of sitting the inquiry received a mass of evidence overwhelmingly opposed to the Secretary of State's proposals and in favour of one or other of the alternatives. The inescapable conclusion on reading the inspector's report is that, while more than 7,500 people were prepared to put on record their objection to the Minister's proposal, only those professionally engaged on his behalf could find words in his favour.

Of the most favoured alternative route —that which the Minister knows as Route 2, which runs about 1½ miles to the east of his scheme—the inspector made an interesting comment. He said:

"The environmental advantage of this route lies, somewhat negatively in the fact that it would avoid most of the objections raised to the Minister's scheme."

Somewhat negatively? On the contrary, I should have thought that such a conclusion was the most powerful and compelling positive argument for its adoption.

Later in his report the inspector said:

"Accepting that the balance of environmental factors is clearly in favour of Route 2"—

the outer route—

"the question is whether or not the expenditure of £2 million or so, and the sacrifice of some traffic benefit could be justified to avoid the adverse effects on houses, schools, nature reserves and amenities of the draft scheme."

The traffic benefit to which he refers is hypothetical, unquantifiable and unsupported by any scientific evidence. Altogether, the Minister had a straight choice between an environmental disaster and one of three schemes which were much less damaging to property, amenity and environment, but more costly.

The additional construction costs of the alternatives range from £1 million extra at the lowest to £4 million at the highest. That was the top figure for the highest costs involved in a route which avoided the town entirely. But the Minister, just to save money, chose the course which cost less in cash terms but will cost more in terms of the environment.

The inspector knew what the reaction would be to his conclusions. He said:

"I must leave you in no doubt that if you as Secretary of State decide to confirm the draft scheme, you will do so in the face of local public opinion which was expressed in strong opposition to the scheme by the Doncaster Borough Council, the M18 Amenities Committee and the representative naturalist bodies. All of these want an 'outer' route 'which would be less damaging to the environment'."

But the Minister ignored those words of warning, and the reaction from my constituents was predictably bitter. The Doncaster Evening Post registered some local comments when the announcement was made—"shattered", appalled ", "It is a nightmare", "It is a tragedy", "The decision is disgraceful", "It will be murder". Mr. Geoffrey Payne greeted the decision with the words "utter disbelief". These are typical comments from the cutting that I have in my hand from the Doncaster Evening Post. Let me emphasise that I am not describing the kind of situation, with which the House is all too familiar, in which better and safer roads can be obtained only by an inevitable sacrifice of homes, amenity and environment. There is nothing inevitable and unavoidable in this problem at all. The Minister could have had his motorway without any of the consequences that I have described. But he chose to impose the sacrifices to save money—£2 million or £3 million. Those are substantial sums in themselves, but of no great consequence when matched with the vast sums involved in the project as a whole.

Unfortunately, the loss of happiness and of scientific, educational, amenity and environmental values cannot be assessed in commercial terms, so they are left out of the arithmetic—as is the divisive effect of the motorway on the borough.

The opposition to the scheme in my constituency is unaltered. What has changed, and what I hope provides real hope, is the Government's general policy and philosophy on new road construction. Recently the Government published the report of the Urban Motorways Committee, set up by the Labour Government in 1969. The recommendations of that committee were a significant switch of emphasis and attitude in road-making policy, and the Government's subsequent White Paper "Putting People First" welcomed the report and noted in particular the committee's proposal that, so far as reasonably practical, the environment should be preserved by the selection of the line and the design of the road.

The Government said that they believed this to be the right general policy. The answer, they said, must be to plan new developments so as to minimise the disturbance and disruption that they can cause. They went on to talk of achieving environmental improvements by diverting long-distance traffic and particularly heavy goods vehicles from a large number of those towns at present suffering severely from heavy traffic. I agree, but what criteria decided the Minister to exempt Doncaster from those considerations?

I have just drawn attention to the divisive effect of the Minister's scheme, separating one part of the town from the rest. The committee stressed the importance of avoiding this effect even where, as in this case, the road is to be aligned with a railway. They said that to compound an existing barrier by the addition of a road might be seriously disadvantageous.

The time restrictions of an Adjournment debate preclude me from pursuing all the contradictions between the Government's policy, as set out in the White Paper, and the proposals for the M18 in its line through Doncaster; but the one issue which I cannot ignore, and which is paramount in this case, is that of the costings. It is on this single criterion that the Government rejected the 7,500 objections, overrode the opposition of the elected representatives of the town and ignored the environmental and other disastrous consequences of their decision. As the Yorkshire Naturalists' Trust said in a letter which I have recently sent to the Minister, this motorway proposal is a classic example of cost versus conservation; and it is the costings which are thrown wide open to question.

To the original estimates must now be added sums to cover the wider compensation commitments, the additional powers of acquisition and the costs of sound insulation, remedial works and disturbance allowances. On top of this, there are question marks over the design costs. We know that the levels of the motorway have already been lowered from those originally declared. The Minister wrote to me on 20th December in terms which clearly implied the likelihood of further design changes. What extra costs will be involved in these that could not be taken into account at the public inquiry? What are the total additional costs to be added to the figures on which the decision was based? Few of these extra costs would have been incurred by an out-of-town route.

There are other arguments which ought not to be ignored but which I choose not to advance today; arguments about fog hazards, and the problems arising from access to the motorway, noise and pollution. But the Minister has chosen to make cost the crux of the issue, and, because it bears on cost, there is one other matter to which I must briefly refer, and that is the railway cutting through which the motorway will run for part of its length.

No doubt—and in spite of the Urban Motorways Committee report—the Minister will seek to use this fact to discount my argument about the severe severance effect of his proposals. But if the cutting can now be made available for the motorway, it could equally be made available for other purposes. Filled in with, perhaps, pit waste, it would be a great asset to this residential suburb. It should be costed as such, and its loss as such should be taken into account.

I am confident that if all the new additional cost factors had been known at the time of the inquiry this appalling decision would never have been taken. Indeed, it was the representative of the Secretary of State, counsel acting on his behalf, who said to the inquiry in his summing up that if there had been, at the time the proposed line was chosen, a means to compensate those persons and organisations injuriously affected by the scheme, it was unlikely that the inner route would have been selected because the difference in costs between that and the outer route would not have been a factor to consider.

The White Paper and the Bill now in Committee have provided those means of compensation, or will do so eventually, and they have provided the reason why the Minister should look again at this scheme.

I ask the Minister to revoke the order and to return to the drawing board to draft a scheme more consistent with the new aims of his Department. If he refuses, the M18 in Doncaster will not only lower the quality of life in my town but bring misery and unhappiness to many families, and it will be a contradiction and a mockery of the policy and the philosophy of the Minister's White Paper.

Having due regard to the fact that we are almost on the eve of Christmas and presuming, on this occasion at least, to speak on behalf of the whole House, in conclusion, may I extend to you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and to Mr. Speaker, to your colleagues, to the Clerks, to the Library staff, the police and all those who serve this House so very well throughout the year, a very warm Christmas greeting? May I also express best wishes for 1973 and hope that we do not add intolerably to the burdens which are thrown upon them?

May I be out of order and reciprocate that on behalf of all those mentioned?

May I briefly echo what has been said by my hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster (Mr. Harold Walker) with regard to yourself, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and to Mr. Speaker and the staff of the House?

I should like to press the Minister about one matter in connection with the M18. When the original proposals were published, the whole of the M18 between Wadworth and Hatfield in my constituency was to be treated as one section. I think that the Minister well realises that at my end of that section people want the construction of the motorway to take place as rapidly as possible. I am very much aware of the difficulties of my hon. Friend with regard to Doncaster. However, will the Minister confirm that from the point of view of contract and construction the two parts of this section of motorway north and south of Armthorpe will be treated as two separate sections?

I should like to thank the hon. Member for Doncaster (Mr. Harold Walker) and congratulate him on his good fortune on having been able to raise at the last sitting of 1972 a matter which I know he has been very concerned about for some time and which has worried his constituents.

The hon. Member has given a clear, forceful and fair account of the problems as he and his constituents see them. He has explained the disadvantages of the approved route, affecting two nature reserves and playing fields and passing through the Bessacarr residential area of Doncaster. The decision announced last March was not easy. We are fortunate in having this opportunity to review the considerations behind the decision on the route which was taken some nine months ago.

The location of a major new read, as the hon. Gentleman said, is of ever-growing importance to people far and near, and I hope that I shall be able to put the matter into better perspective for those who live near or are affected by the route through the outskirts of Doncaster.

This section of the M18 motorway extends for about 11 miles south and east of Doncaster to Hatfield, which I believe is in the constituency of the hon. Member for Goole (Dr. Marshall). There it joins the Thorne bypass section which is already open to traffic. Construction of the remaining section northwards from Thorne to East Cowick will be starting in the spring of next year.

The Doncaster section is one of the missing lengths of motorway leading to the industrial Midlands and Humberside. I welcome the final statement of the hon. Gentleman, if I did not go along completely with everything else he said, that he and his constituents and, indeed, everyone realise that there must be this strategic route to Humberside. Indeed, the route can draw a considerable amount of traffic away from Doncaster.

When the whole of the M18 motorway is complete it will be linked with the extension of the M62 as now planned by an interchange at East Cowick, and this will provide the long and urgently-awaited improvement of road communications to the port of Hull. All these schemes are part of the Government's plans for an improved strategic network to give better access to the major ports on the East Coast which will be so essential for our competitive success when we enter the European Economic Community within a few days' time.

The whole of the motorway network to Humberside is planned for completion during 1975 and, as hon. Members will know, only recently the Yorkshire and Humberside Economic Planning Council has again emphasised the urgent need for completion of these motorways. I am sure we all agree on that need.

From the Thorne area, just north of Doncaster, there is to be a new South Humberside motorway. We aim to have this complete to the Elsham interchange on the eastern side of Brigg, with a new principal road northwards to the new Humber bridge by the time the bridge is finished, as now expected, in 1976. The improvement of the existing A18 trunk road beyond the Elsham terminal is also being planned for as soon as possible after 1976 as far as the existing dual carriageways at Riby which lead into Grimsby. This improvement will also allow for a new link into Immingham.

In the Doncaster area the motorway will not only provide a bypass for a great deal of the long-distance traffic which now passes through the town but also give convenient links to the main industrial centres, including new developments which are planned. The motorway will give much-needed relief from the present burden of traffic in the central area of Doncaster and cater for the long-distance traffic which now goes through the village of Hatfield.

There were many thousands of objections to the motorway route where, for a short length, it is to pass through the Bessacarr residential area south of Doncaster, taking advantage of a railway line which can be closed and made available by British Rail. I am not going into the argument advanced by the hon. Gentleman about the cutting. The weight of objections was almost wholly in favour of an outer route through open country further to the south.

As the hon. Gentleman has said, this and other alternative routes were considered at the public inquiry in March 1971. It has always been accepted that simply on amenity and environmental considerations the advantage lay with another route. But the inner route, which has been preferred, has the advantage for traffic, both long-distance and local, and also, as judged so far, a substantial advantage on costs. The costs of construction as estimated in 1971, including land acquisition and compensation to British Rail for the rerouting of its freight services, were about £2 million less than the comparable cost of an outer route.

The hon. Gentleman says that these are inconsiderable sums that ought to be looked at in the totality of the motorway system. Unfortunately £2 million can often provide two, three or four bypasses in other parts of the country. I have in mind one which the hon. Member for Goole knows only too well. We are limited in the amount of money we can spend and we cannot dismiss the odd £2 million or £3 million. I would be delighted to spend that sum in the constituency of the hon. Member for Goole to help with the problems there.

This cost difference is being reviewed and I shall say more about it later. The route investigations include a special study by consultants of environment and amenity aspects. A great deal of evidence was given at the public inquiry, as the hon. Member has said. He has quoted from the report of the inspector. In that report the inspector concluded that the argument on these grounds did not justify rejection of the route of the proposed inner line and my right hon. Friend agrees with that conclusion, bearing in mind the considerable sum of £2 million.

The route involves the demolition of several houses. I am having the design of the motorway through the residential area re-examined very carefully in the light of the recent report of the Urban Motorways Committee and the Government White Paper "Development and Compensation—Putting People First." This is a new factor since the public inquiry and since the decision was taken by my right hon. Friend in March.

When the review is complete there will be an announcement about any modifications it may be proposed to make to the scheme. I would not like to venture what the conclusion will be but I will give the assurance today that if the route is maintained remedial measures, including sound insulation of houses, will be incorporated in the scheme to the fullest extent in the new policy, as and when approved by Parliament, which I hope will be within a few months' time.

When the motorway passes through the residential area the spread of noise will be significantly reduced because it will be mostly in a cutting rising to 28 ft. deep at Cantley Bridge. Property owners and tenants displaced or affected by the scheme will be eligible for compensation in accordance with the new Land Compensation Bill when this has been enacted.

At present Bessacarr is connected to the town only by Bawtry Road, the former Al trunk road route, and two footpaths to the north and south of this road. The Doncaster Corporation is planning two more connections later, needing bridges over the motorway, and the Department is ready to arrange their construction, on behalf of the corporation, when the motorway is being built.

I deeply regret that the motorway will increase noise levels for some of the houses in the area and also on the upper floors inside the Ellers High School. This can be offset by remedial measures. In the school double-glazing of some of the windows and mechanical—and largely noiseless—ventilation should bring this intrusion well within the recommended level. Experiments are taking place on the M6 near the Gravelly Hill interchange. I have seen these and the initial indications are encouraging. At the college of technology on the opposite side of the motorway no permanent structures will be affected, and I am confident that any serious problems can be resolved when the older buildings of the college are redeveloped, as is now being planned by the corporation.

The motorway will have some effect on two nature reserves but I am advised that this will not be significant. One reserve at Low Ellers is next to the main railway line from London to Edinburgh. The motorway will require six acres of this reserve and will separate a further five acres out of a total of 32 acres of marshland now surruonded by railway embankments.

The present character of that reserve derives from mining subsidence not many years ago and a remarkable reversion to fen characteristics that may have existed centuries before. It is not a designated nature reserve but is well managed by the Yorkshire Naturalists' Trust on lease from British Railways. All is not lost however. There has been a meeting with the trust and others to consider ways in which the regeneration and survival of the reserve can be assured.

The route also passes through the southern end of Sandall Beat Wood, a designated nature reserve owned and managed by the Doncaster County Borough Council and within walking distance for many people. This reserve extends to over 170 acres of which about seven acres will be required for the motorway and six acres will be severed. The severed area will remain as a screen between the motorway and the Cantley Park playing fields nearby. The reserve already suffers noise intrusion from the mineral railway line and the sidings for the large Markham Main colliery. The line severs the wood.

My right hon. and learned Friend and indeed other Ministers who are concerned with this scheme can understand the reasons which have prompted so many people living in the Bessacarr area and also the Doncaster Corporation to ask for the decision on the route to be reconsidered. We are willing to carry out a review in the context of the report of the Urban Motorways Committee and the new White Paper policy. The town clerk was so informed on 29th November.

As I have said, there will be an announcement of the conclusions as soon as the review is complete, which I expect will be in the New Year. I do not wish to raise the hon. Gentleman's hopes unduly, but I wish to reply in a constructive and Christmas spirit. If, as may be the case, the decision on the route stands, I hope that everyone will cooperate to the full so that speedy progress can be made with the preparations outstanding and we can get on with the building of this new section of motorway. It will bring great benefits, improved road communications, the removal of much traffic congestion and noise from the area, and not least from Doncaster itself. I hope that those people who suffer will obtain some personal benefit from the motorway and that the new compensation arrangements, when approved by Parliament, will give solace and a fair deal.

I should like to refer to the point raised by the hon. Member for Goole because it is germane to the debate. The statutory orders, including the compulsory purchase order, for the remaining processes will be divided into sets for Wadworth to Armthorpe and Armthorpe to Hatfield, the latter including the revised proposals for the new link from the West Moor interchange to the existing A18 trunk road at Edenbridge. I hope that we can make progress on both sets together, but if the statutory processes for Armthorpe to Hatfield are completed first we shall be able to get on with construction of the northern section of the motorway and afford the much-needed relief from the present traffic congestion in the village of Hatfield.

As I say, I do not wish unduly to raise the hopes of the hon. Member for Doncaster. It would be wrong for me to do so, and I do not wish to be misunderstood. However, I can give him the firm assurance that we shall consider this matter again in the light of the new reports. I shall be taking a close personal interest in it, and I hope that we shall be able to make an announcement early in the New Year. I shall ensure that the hon. Gentleman is told about it at the earliest opportunity.

I wish to associate myself with the hon. Gentleman's remarks in wishing a happy Christmas to you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, your staff and not least my silent colleagues on the Front Bench from the Whips Office, who are unsung heroes but an essential part in the running of the House. I should also like to wish a happy Hogmanay to your colleague in the Chair.