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

I first had the privilege of introducing a Private Member's Bill in 1962. Happily, it was a successful enterprise, in a narrow but important field, which removed a disability in law which affected married women in Scotland. With some trepidation on this occasion I have set out, like many other Scots, on the high road to England, to introduce a Bill applying to the whole of the United Kingdom which improves the legal status of women.

I am grateful to hon. Members on both sides of the House who have put their names to the Bill: my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Mrs. Knight), the hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh, Leith (Mr. Ronald King Murray), the hon. Member for Inverness (Mr. Russell Johnston), and my hon. Friend the Member for Dorking (Sir G. Sinclair), to whom I am particularly grateful for supporting the Bill because he introduced a similar Bill about a year ago. I think he will agree that if his Bill had any imperfections they have probably been removed in this Bill, and that if any remain they can be overcome at a later stage.

The Title of the Bill may suggest a measure of technical law reform. The Bill reforms the law in important respects but I suggest that they are not purely technical. The main purpose is to remove another of the inequalities which have debased the legal status of women in this country for so long and to take another step towards putting them on an equal footing with men.

Domicile is a legal concept which defines the country to which, for many legal purposes, a person is considered to belong. I shall have to enlarge on this point to some extent. In case I get into deep waters on legal matters, which is highly likely, I am heartened by the lifesaving presence today of my right hon. and learned Friend the Lord Advocate. I am also grateful for the presence of the hon. and learned Member for Dulwich (Mr. S. C. Silkin), who I hope may feel disposed to give me some assistance.

The legal concept of domicile can be confusing to a layman like me. I dare to suggest that it is perhaps sometimes rather confusing to those who are more learned, because I heard this week of a legal tract published in America entitled "Death and taxes are certain: but what of domicile?"

Everyone in our law must have a domicile, and the domicile indicates the country in which they have their permanent home or which they regard as their permanent home despite the fact that for the time being they may be physically present in some other country. Any man who is adult and of sound mind has the domicile which follows from his particular circumstances and intentions. It may be his domicile of origin or a domicile of choice. However, a woman, when she marries, automatically, and without any possibility of exception, takes her husband's domicile and retains it until he dies or the marriage ends in divorce.

This whole idea of dependency strikes many people as archaic. It also produces the absurd position that where the parties have separated but are not divorced a woman's domicile may be determined by factors which have nothing to do with the course of her own life but depend solely on the course of her husband's life. For example, if he emigrates to Australia she acquires an Australian domicile although continuing to live in England. If he fails to settle down in Australia and moves to South Africa intending to settle there, her domicile becomes South Africa, and so on.

This is nonsensical and, worse, unjust. It has been suggested in the past that this absurdity could and should be removed by a specific exception for separated spouses. No doubt it could. But the Bill does more than that. It abolishes the rule of unity entirely and provides for a married woman's domicile to be ascertained on the same principles as any other individual's.

I suggest that it must surely be the right principle not to modify but to abolish the rule whereby a married woman's domicile slavishly—I use that word deliberately—follows her husband's. If domicile is a matter of any importance at all, as I believe it to be, a married woman's domicile should surely be determined by reference to her own acts and intentions just as a man's or an unmarried woman's are.

Domicile is important, first, because everyone must have one, and, secondly, because the country of domicile provides the personal law of all individuals, which means that it governs the validity of their marriages, their power to dispose of property by will, their liability to estate duty in some respects, the law of intestate succession, and other matters. It is also the main element in founding matrimonial jurisdiction.

On all these points it is surely right that a woman should be treated as a separate individual and should have her domicile ascertained according to her own circumstances. Of course, this does not mean that every married couple will immediately acquire separate domiciles. In the vast majority of cases where husband and wife are living together amicably, their domiciles will continue to be the same, but they will be the same because the facts make them so and not because the law dictates that they should be. With the increase in the number of international marriages, it may be that in a substantial number of cases they will be different, but I submit that there should be no difficulty about that. It should be no more difficult to ascertain the relevant factors in the case of a married woman than for anyone else. The fact that she is married to a man who is engaged on a particular career will, of course, be a relevant factor, but that is all. It will not provide an automatic answer.

That is the effect of Clause 1, subject to the proviso in subsection (2), which, in the interests of clarity and certainty, provides that the existing situation will not be upset at once in the case of existing marriages. It will be preserved for the time being subject to the fact that a wife, like her husband, will be able thereafter to acquire a domicile of her own if her acts and her own intentions justify it.

I turn to Clause 3, which reduces the age at which an independent domicile can first be acquired. Under English law 16 is the age at which capacity to marry is acquired. It seems wrong to me that a married person between the ages of 16 and 18 should remain dependent on his father's domicile until he attains the age of 18, which is the present law. Surely, if a person is considered fit to marry and set up his own home there can be little reason why he should remain dependent for his personal law upon his father. This clause will remove that anomaly, but by a wider provision which carries the process of thought to its logical conclusion.

Since 16 is the minimum age for marriage, I suggest that 16 is also the age at which capacity to acquire an independent domicile should be attained regardless of whether a person does, in fact, marry at that age or not. So the clause reduces the age generally to 16. But if a person marries below that age under some system of foreign law which permits earlier marriage it seems right to adopt the actual date of marriage in that special case. I ask the House to approve this clause, which applies to England and Wales and Northern Ireland only but not to Scotland, which, not unusually, is in some way in advance of its neighbours on this point and has no need of this provision.

Clause 4 relates to the independent domicile of minors, or "pupils", which is a Scottish term. By an equally arbitrary rule to that which requires unity of domicile between spouses, the domicile of a child is in general taken from his father's regardless of the circumstances of the case. The parents may be separated. The father may be thousands of miles away from the place where the mother and the child are living, but still the father's domicile applies to the child, subject to an exception of uncertain extent in Northern Ireland, which I do not want to go into today. This is an absurdity which should no longer persist, and Clause 4 removes it. Under this clause, where the spouses are separated and the child make his home with his mother but not with his father he will take his domicile from his mother, and will continue to do so until such time, if ever, as his father returns and makes a home for him. I suggest that this provision is sensible and fair.

Finally, on Part I of the Bill I should mention Clause 2, which I have left to the last because it is purely a consequential provision. It is necessary because the old law on recognition of foreign divorces, which grew up around the turn of the century, was necessarily based on the supposition that husband and wife had the same domicile. Now that we are changing that in Clause 1 we must provide for the continued application of the rules in the changed circumstances. That is what Clause 2 is designed to do.

I turn to Parts II, III and IV of the Bill. I hope the House agrees that I should take these together, because they make identical provision for England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland respectively. We come to one of the areas where domicile is of particular importance—the jurisdiction of the courts to entertain proceedings for divorce and the like. At one time considerable hardship was caused to wives because jurisdiction to grant a divorce was based solely on the domicile of the parties—that of the husband, in view of the unity rule. A wife could not take proceedings in any country other than that of her husband's domicile even though, for example, he had left her in the United Kingdom and emigrated to a distant country.

This hardship has been mitigated both at common law and by statute so as to allow a wife in these circumstances—that is, where the husband is domiciled outside the United Kingdom—to sue on the basis of her own residence in this country for three years or more, or on the basis of what her husband's domicile was when the matrimonial offence was committed.

This has eased the situation, but it is a long way from removing the discrimination between the sexes. As the law stands, if the husband is domiciled in the United Kingdom his wife can bring divorce proceedings only in the courts of the country in which he is domiciled. As the House knows, this subject has been reviewed recently by the two Law Commissions—in Scotland and in England and Wales—which had to mind the parallel subject of recognition of divorces, etc., in the international field. It is obviously desirable that so far as possible the jurisdictions which we exercise in the United Kingdom should be based on principles recognised in other countries. Only in this way can problems of limping marriages be reduced to the minimum.

In the result, both the Law Commissions have recommended that in the United Kingdom we should adopt the basis of the domicile or habitual residence of either party for one year. Hon. Members who have read the two Law Commissions' reports referred to in the Explanatory Memorandum to the Bill will have followed the reasoning which led the Commission to take one year's residence rather than, for example, two years or six months as the alternative to domicile. Of course, whether this is the right period—whether it should be longer or shorter—is a matter which we can consider in Committee if my Bill gets that far, as I hope it will.

At this stage all I ask the House to do is to agree with the Law Commissions that in principle the time has come to widen the jurisdiction of our courts so as to recognise the greater mobility of the population and to keep in line with principles internationally favoured on this point. The adoption of either party's domicile as the test is of course, one of the major results of Clause 1.

So much for the substantive Clauses 5 to 14 which introduce these principles. I must mention briefly Schedules 1, 3 and 5, which contain provisions of great detail, worked out after long discussion and anxious consideration between the two Law Commissions, as to how the problem of conflicting proceedings should be dealt with in the United Kingdom. Again, I suggest the details must be open for further study, but the principles which I ask the House to accept are quite simple.

First, the courts should always have a discretion to stay their proceedings if they think the matter can be more conveniently dealt with in other proceedings which are in progress elsewhere. That would apply to concurrent proceedings in any other country whether in the British Isles or not. Secondly, where such conflicts arise in the United Kingdom, a test is suggested for deciding whether the marriage belongs so much to one country of the United Kingdom that that country only should have jurisdiction and that proceedings in any other country of the United Kingdom must be stayed in favour of those which I describe as the "proper" country. It seems to me that those principles are right, and I hope that they will commend themselves to the House, subject to any points of detail, which may be raised.

For completeness, I should mention that the English and Scottish Law Commissions differed on one point—whether, in a case in which a compulsory stay of proceedings was appropriate, it should be up to the parties to apply for it or the court itself should be bound to impose it of its own accord. The Bill adopts the view favoured by the English Law Commission, that it should be for one of the parties to make an application. In principle, I believe this to be right; but I take it to be a Committee point, and I mention it here only for the sake of completeness.

That is all I need say, I think, about jurisdiction at this stage.

I come now to Part V, Miscellaneous and General. Clause 15 extends the Recognition of Divorces and Legal Separations Act 1971 to Northern Ireland, as has always been intended. This is not only desirable in itself but it will enable the United Kingdom to ratify the Hague Convention on recognition of foreign divorces and speed the day when the convention can be brought into force.

Clause 16 will put right a feature of our private international law which has attracted some attention since the Qureshi case: the fact that extra-judicial divorces may be validly carried out in the United Kingdom. In his judgment in that case, the learned judge said:

"I confess that I share the misgiving applied by Mr. Justice Lowe"—

in an Australian case—

"at the possible mischief that might accrue if the safeguards inherent in judicially pronounced divorce can be bypassed in this country. But courts of law have no means of judging the possible extent of any such mischief or the repercussions of attempting to deal with them by judicial law-making. The court already has adequate power to refuse to recognise the legal rule of the domicile where it would cause injustice in a particular case. It seems to me to be preferable for the courts to proceed generally on legal principle, and to leave any necessary modifications called for by public policy to other organs of the constitution."

This House is the appropriate organ, and I submit that the last possible justification for enabling people to bypass the courts in this country was removed last year when the Matrimonial Proceedings (Polygamous Marriages) Act became law. The courts of the United Kingdom are now open to the parties of marriage of any kind, monogamous or polygamous, who satisfy the normal bases of jurisdiction, and Clause 16 will ensure that divorces in this country are conducted only in the courts of law. This, apart from ensuring that the proceedings themselves satisfy our normal requirements of justice, will ensure that ancillary orders as to custody, maintenance and the like can be given. This is in the interests both of the parties and of the community in which they live.

Clause 17 contains the usual supplementary provisions and would bring the Bill into force on 1st January 1974. There is one slightly unusual supplementary provision, which preserves the special jurisdiction granted by an order under the Southern Rhodesia Act 1965 to persons domiciled or resident in Southern Rhodesia. This was a special provision introduced to avoid hardship to people caught up in that unhappy constitutional conflict, and it ought to be preserved so long as it is needed. If this subsection were not included, it might be treated as excluded by the new statement of matrimonial jurisdiction in Parts II, III and IV.

As I said at the outset, the Bill contains some technical matters in which it may, like most technical Bills, be capable of improvement as we make progress. But the principles are clear. I hope that my right hon. and learned Friend the Lord Advocate will be good enough to signify the Government's approval of the Bill, and, with all those hon. Members who have sponsored it, I ask the House to give the Bill a Second Reading.

The hors. Member for Perth and East Perthshire (Mr. MacArthur) is to be congratulated on his initiative in bringing in the Bill. As he rightly said, the subject with which it deals calls for clarification at the earliest opportunity. In a personal sense, I am particularly pleased that he has taken this initiative, since for at least two years I have been in touch with the Lord Chancellor on the matter to ask how soon we could expect legislation on these lines. I understand that when a private Member introduced a measure of this sort last year there were problems arising from differences between English and Scottish law, and I hope that they have now been resolved.

This is an appropriate moment at which to pay yet another tribute to the English Law Commission for all that it has done behind the scenes. We are greatly indebted to the Law Commission and, in particular, to its former chairman, now Lord Justice Scarman, for all that he and his colleagues have done.

The Bill will be welcomed as another addition to the considerable line of legislation in recent times which has recognised the modern view of the status of women in our society. Recently we had the Matrimonial Proceedings (Polygamous Marriages) Act, another measure to make easier the overseas enforcement of maintenance orders. We have had the measure introduced by the hon. Lady the Member for Plymouth, Devonport (Dame Joan Vickers) last year making new provision for affiliation orders and extending the period from one to three years in that respect.

My own Bill in 1969, the Matrimonial Property Bill, was probably the starting point for me to become involved and concerned in all these matters. Hon. Members who introduce Bills on this subject soon find themselves on the mailing list of a good many people, especially ladies, and I imagine that the hon. Gentleman himself anticipates that possibility with some pleasure. Finally only the other night, the House gave support to the Anti-Discrimination Bill introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Fife, West (Mr. William Hamilton).

I mention all that in passing because the Bill before us today fits in with the changes which have come about and which are yet to come as a result of modern thinking on these matters. In some ways, women are still regarded as chattels and dependants. The change which the Bill will bring about affects the right of a woman to be regarded as an individual and to have a domicile which may be independent of her husband's.

In these days of modern travel, when people go about the world much more quickly and when new ideas are developing on the relationship between the sexes and on marriage generally, problems are bound to arise from time to time, especially, as we know from a recent case, regarding children. I had a letter recently from an English woman married to a Canadian. She deplored the way in which problems of nationality arose, pointing out that her child would have to go through the non-British passport entrance when he came into this country. She greatly resented the fact that they had no right to choose their nationality in such circumstances. Problems of domicile, therefore, come very much into the picture.

The Bill will help also in some of the problems which arise in relation to marriage, separation and divorce. Those of us who are concerned with matters of desertion, separation and divorce know the problems which affect many thousands of women in this country. I speak here not only as chairman of the Equal Rights Group and of the Deserted Families Group in this place but as one who shares the concern which many hon. Members feel about the plight of all those who are pushed around in various situations in different parts of the world. Problems still confront them because English law reform has not caught up with the changes in modern living.

In the same connection, I refer to Clause 3, which looks anew at the age of capacity for marriage. It is right that we should make a change in the age limit for the acquisition of independent domicile, bringing it into line with the earlier age of adulthood and responsibility recently brought in by other legislation.

It is necessary to keep a constant eye on the need to bring our legislation into line with other changes which take place from time to time, and some of us had hoped that the Government of the day would have more courage and initiate legislation of this sort to keep matters in tune. Through the efforts of people such as the hon. Member for Perth and East Perthshire, however, we are able to make progress.

Although I may have been inclined to comment a little critically on some of the clauses, these are probably Committee points. The hon. Member has outlined the Bill substantially and to the satisfaction of the House, and I would not wish to detain the House any longer because I know hon. Members wish to get on. This is a measure which should have the support of the Government and which will commend itself to the House and be welcomed by the community generally.

The Bill can be described as one further step in the slow march of every woman towards obtaining equal rights with men in law. It is to be welcomed on that account and also because it implements certain recommendations made by the Cripps Report, upon which action was promised by the Conservatives before the last General Election. The Anti-Discrimination Bill which was before the House on Wednesday last did not attempt to deal with legal rights of this kind or with anomalies in law affecting the position of women.

The Bill seeks to remove certain anomalies relating to domicile of married women and infants and relating to jurisdiction in matrimonial proceedings which are not affected by other measures. The existing law, under which a woman automatically acquires on marriage the domicile of her husband, is a relic of the days when women were regarded as appendages of their husbands. It is absurd that the position should continue under which a woman cannot acquire a domicile of her own choice after marriage and under which her domicile automatically changes with her husband's even though the parties may be separated and even though she may not have seen him for as long as 20 years.

Domicile is most important because jurisdiction in divorce is largely grounded on domicile, apart from certain exceptions such as the case where a woman has been deserted by her husband or where he has been deported from Eng- land and his domicile before either desertion or deportation was English. She may then obtain a divorce in England when she has been ordinarily resident in England for more than three years before divorce proceedings are begun. But unless a woman can bring herself within one of the exceptions she is bound by her husband's domicile and she may be adversely affected by it in seeking a divorce.

If a woman has been living abroad with her husband and has a foreign domicile, and if he has treated her badly in such a way that by English law she would be able to obtain a divorce, she may find that she is unable to do so because her husband's domicile is a foreign one and she is not resident in England. It is to be generally welcomed that the domicile of a married woman is now to be determined in the same way as that of her husband, by her choice. Henceforth she will be able to acquire a domicile of choice. Domicile is very important because it affects not only a divorce but also such important matters as the distribution of movables on intestacy, testamental succession to movables and the capacity to make a will. It also applies to an infant's domicile.

I do not understand why the age of 16 has been settled upon as being that at which an infant may obtain an independent domicile. The age of majority is now 18 and I fail to see why there should be this exception to the general rule. I can understand that an infant should be able to obtain an independent domicile upon earlier marriage, but I suggest that the age of 18 should be retained in order to keep uniformity in these matters. However, I welcome the fact that an infant resident with its mother may be able to acquire the mother's domicile and will not be tied to the father's domicile.

In every way I congratulate the hon. Member for Perth and East Perthshire (Mr. MacArthur) in bringing this important matter before the House and also for the excellent way in which he proposed it.

It would be remiss of me not to congratulate the hon. Member for Perth and East Perthshire (Mr. MacArthur) on bringing in this measure. I believe that he was under some pressure, as were all Scottish Members in the ballot, to introduce another Bill on a related matter on the reform of the divorce law in Scotland in order to bring it into line with the English law. I seem to remember the hon. Member for Preston, North (Miss Holt) violently opposing such a Bill in Committee in the last Session on various grounds which I think, on consideration, she will probably regret.

I do not regret a word of what I said in that Committee. The grounds on which I opposed that Bill were totally different from those on which I support this Bill.

We are not debating that at the moment. I merely say that the hon. Member is a little inconsistent in these matters. However——

I deplore the personal charges in which the hon. Member for Fife, West (Mr. William Hamilton) seems to specialise. He is constantly making remarks which if made outside the House might even be defamatory.

The hon. Lady should not be so sensitive about these matters. On all-party measures hon. Members must seek their friends where they can find them. I do not want to antagonise the hon. Lady unduly. As the law stands, however, it makes nonsense of divorce. The Bill will be a contribution towards destroying the arguments advanced in that Committee stage last Session against bringing the Scottish divorce law into line with that in England.

As I am sure the hon. Member for Preston, North and others understand, the husband does not have to go to Australia or South Africa, as in the cases mentioned by the hon. Member for Perth and East Perthshire. He has only to cross the border into England. He has only to cross from Gretna to Carlisle and he then decides whether he will have a divorce under the English law.

Is that really so? Presumably the hon. Member is referring to a Scottish husband who will therefore be domiciled in Scotland. It is not as easy as that to change one's domicile.

The hon. Member must allow me to pursue the argument a little further. Under the new English law a divorce can be granted at the end of two years with the consent of both parties without a matrimonial offence being proved, and at the end of five years one of the parties can get a divorce without the consent of the other. If a Scotsman moves to Carlisle from Gretna he can ask his wife after two years for a divorce. If she will not give him one, he can say that he will stay in England for five years and then, whether she likes it or not, he will go to an English court and get a divorce.

rose——

Does the hon. Member agree that the situation he describes springs from the difference between the divorce law in Scotland and the divorce law in England? In the case that the hon. Member outlines, the husband would use whatever would be his domicile in Carlisle and one effect of my Bill is to give the wife an equivalent status to that which the husband currently enjoys.

That is why I approve of the Bill.

I believe that the hon. Member is rushing corners. It is not just a simple matter of a man moving from Gretna to Carlisle and then declaring that he had acquired an English domicile. It is a fairly difficult matter to get rid of one's domicile and to re-establish another. That is something which the hon. Member, in spite of all his wisdom, does not seem to have comprehended.

I should be glad if the legal advisers on both Front Benches would explain what the position is.

Is there not a very real difficulty to which my hon. Friend has drawn attention—that is, the uncertainty of domicile, a point which I am sure the hon. Member for Glasgow, Hillhead (Mr. Galbraith) will concede? The wife is placed in a position of complete uncertainty as to whether her husband remains domiciled in the particular circumstances in England or whether he is assuming another domicile in Scotland.

Precisely.

rose——

I will not give way, because I must get on with my speech.

I should like clarification of the question of the stage at which a Scotsman who goes to live in England is entitled to acquire domicile. If he stays 20 or 30 years, surely he must be able to acquire English domicile.

I do not think it would be appropriate for me to deal with that question now, but obviously it is a matter with which I shall deal when I address the House.

I am much obliged. I shall be very interested to hear what the right hon. and learned Gentleman says.

The point I am making is that what applies to the man does not apply to the woman. However long the woman stays in England, she will not be able to obtain a divorce so long as her husband stays in Scotland. Under the present law her domicile will be in Scotland, and the Scottish divorce law still contains the provisions of the matrimonial offence.

That is why I propose in two or three weeks' time to seek to bring the Scottish law into harmony with the English. I know that there are hon. Members, including the hon. Lady, who still oppose that, even though it makes sense and will make even more sense when the Bill before us is passed. One of the arguments against it will be destroyed if the Bill is passed, as I hope it will be.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Newark (Mr. Bishop) said, the Bill is part of the campaign to destroy the creation of man that a woman is the property of her husband. She is not. She is an individual in her own right. I should like to give what I can only call an obscene example perpetrated by a Government Department of the belief that a woman is the property of her husband. A woman wrote to me a few days ago about a form she received from the Inland Revenue asking her certain questions, such as how much she earned. The form was addressed to the woman, who was working in her own right, but at the top there was a note from the Inland Revenue saying "Before you answer these questions this form must be seen and signed by your husband as if it had been sent to him." Both the woman and her husband refused to sign it. She said that the form was addressed to her, that the questions applied to her and her earnings and that she was not prepared to do what was asked. Unless women take that stand and tell the Inland Revenue to go to blazes, to treat them as individuals, the situation will not improve.

Of course the hon. Lady was right to say that the Anti-Discrimination Bill did not do anything about such matters, nor could it. That is the responsibility of Government Departments, and so is the Bill.

I do not know whether the Bill is extremely well drafted. The draftsmanship is certainly very complicated. Clearly, the hon. Member for Perth and East Perthshire has rightly had the help of very good legal advisers, including the Law Commissions. I could not draft such a Bill, and I suspect that the hon. Gentleman could not. I am not drafting the Divorce Law Reform (Scotland) Bill; it is being drafted by other people more skilled in these matters than I am. The name of at least one of them appears on the back of the Bill we are now debating.

I very much welcome the Bill and hope that there will be no undue opposition to it. One or two cavemen on the Government benches will no doubt make hostile noises, but I hope that they will not thwart the declared intention of those who are sufficiently interested in the Bill to come here today to express their views on it.

I suppose that I should congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Perth and East Perthshire (Mr. MacArthur) on his good fortune in the ballot, although I cannot entirely congratulate him on his choice of subject. However, perhaps it is a wise choice politically, as anything that can be portrayed as removing the shackles from women is very popular these days and my hon. Friend's female vote in his constituency may well go up in consequence.

My hon. Friend may see the matter in that light, but it is a question not of politics but simply of justice and common sense.

If my hon. Friend chooses to change the adjective after the word "choice", I do not mind what adjective he uses. "Wise" might suit him better.

It is perhaps rather foolhardy of me even to venture to express doubts, for we know that in matters affecting personal freedom

"The female of the species is more deadly than the male."

We have had recent examples from the Public Gallery to prove that.

However, I hope it will become apparent that though my rôle may seem reactionary to some, perhaps even antifeminist, it is adopted to protect women in certain circumstances. Therefore, I hope that I shall not run the risk of losing the important female vote in my constituency.

I should perhaps also explain that although I am here alone I am not entirely a lone wolf and that there are several of my Scottish colleagues on both sides, whom the hon. Member for Fife, West (Mr. William Hamilton) could probably name, who are concerned about the possible Scottish repercussions of the Bill. But, Friday being Friday, with all the difficulties that arise on that day for people with distant events to attend, it was decided that I, perhaps having been inured to the hardship of Fridays by many hours spent on the Front Bench on Fridays, should act as spokesman to express our doubts. As I have been in bed with influenza for the past three days I only hope that I can discharge the function adequately and that my voice will see me through.

I have only three short points to make. First, I doubt the wisdom of having the change that the Bill would bring about. Marriage is supposed to be a coming together, a fusion, signified by the fact that a woman takes her husband's name. Perhaps husbands should take their wive's names. I do not think it matters very much which, but there should be unity. Everything we do to create a duality, as the Bill does, creates a climate which favours the break-up of marriages.

The break-up of marriages is already a serious social problem. Before very long it may become a financial problem too, bearing even more heavily on the Treasury, because very few men can support more than one family. Just as the two-or three-car family is now becoming common, it is not too fanciful to assume that with the growth of permissiveness the two-or three-marriage family will become common too, with all the burdens that that will involve for the Treasury.

Because it aids this divisive tendency, I regret the Bill. I fear that soon the sociologists who now stress all the problems associated with the uneasy marriage will be overwhelmed with the problems of dealing with the marital fluidity that they and the Bill are helping to create.

Is the hon. Gentleman saying that where a marriage has "irretrievably" broken down the obstacles in the way of the wife, but not of the husband, in putting it to an end should remain?

I am sure that the hon. and learned Member does not wish to tempt me to talk the Bill out, but if we are to start going into what is and what is not "irretrievable" I may do so. While there is life there is hope, and I do not think that anything is "irretrievable". The hon. Member shrugs his shoulders, but I do not accept the whole basis of the English divorce law. That is why I will not take up the hon. and learned Member on this issue, for we should be here till kingdom come and I do not think that would be fair to the Bill or to other hon. Members who may have other Bills to bring forward.

I know that the Bill has the support of the two Law Commissions and that those are bodies filled with members learned in the law. But their expertise lies in interpreting the law. Their views on interpretation are paramount, but in saying what the law ought to be their views carry no weight beyond that of any other body of eminent citizens. It is our duty here in Parliament to decide policies and if we allow others to make decisions for us by merely rubber stamping their views, we are failing in our duty.

This leads me to my second point concerning residence as giving grounds for jurisdiction. I am not certain that residence is a good ground—domicile, yes; nationality, yes; because there is a kind of permanent connection between a person and a country that gives rise to such relationships, but residence is an insubstantial connection and a period as short as a year's residence seems inadequate for settling such weighty matters of personal status.

I also feel—and I hope that my hon. Friend will forgive me for saying this—that this provision was drafted not by him but by the tourist association. We know what a reputation swinging Britain now has and how much hard currency Carnaby Street has gained. Perhaps, if the Bill goes through, before long we may find advertisements numbering among the delights of a short stop-over here the possibility of a quick permissive divorce.

More seriously, my right hon. and learned Friend the Lord Advocate—and I am glad to see that he is replying for the Government on a United Kingdom and not merely Scottish Bill, as befits his high office—will be aware that there have been rumblings in Scotland and that the Law Society there thinks that the minimum period should be at least two years' residence. Even two years is too short a period and still has a hint of the Las Vegas atmosphere about it. I think that there should be three years' residence as a ground for jurisdiction, which would place it on a much firmer and much more dignified foundation.

I come to my third point, which may be the most important. It is to what extent in legislating in a country such as ours, where there are two legal systems, is it right to pass a Bill which, while in perfect conformity with the law of one of the countries, provides an indirect means of undermining the law of the other, in this case, Scotland? I cannot believe that such a Bill and such a way of going about things can be right.

The trouble is caused by the fact that the divorce laws in the two countries are not the same. I do not think they ever have been the same. However, on the last occasion when residence—and it was three years' residence—was provided as a ground for jurisdiction, I think under the 1949 Act, there was a proviso that protected the position of either country by limiting jurisdiction to cases where the husband was not domiciled in some other part of the United Kingdom. This preserved the position of the Scottish law vis-à-vis the English law and the position of the English law vis-à-vis the Scottish law. I wonder why some such protection could not be afforded in this Bill.

I dare say that my hon. Friend will say that a year's residence in England—he almost said it in reply to an interjection—offers an unwilling Scottish wife a means of evading the stricter Scottish law in favour of the more permissive English law. He thinks that this is good because his whole attitude—I do not think I am misrepresenting him—is geared to making the dissolution of marriages easier.

No.

I thought that was what he was saying.

I agree that there are difficulties because of the differences of Scottish law and English law on divorce. My point was that at present a husband coming from Scotland to England, if able to establish domicile here, which may not be as difficult as my hon. Friend suggests, may then seek the jurisdiction of the English court and so obtain what my hon. Friend would call an English divorce. One effect of my Bill would be that a wife would no longer suffer any disadvantage in that respect. If there is an anomaly, she would at least get an equivalent share of it and of any unfairness that now springs from the difference in the laws.

I think that it is more difficult to establish domicile than my hon. Friend or the hon. Member for Fife, West appears to think. My hon. Friend's attitude is geared in the circumstances he has described to making dissolution easier, or at least putting the wife in the position which he thinks the husband has had, but which I think the husband does not have. My attitude is that it is only when there are certain obstacles in the way of dissolution that the parties to a marriage threatened with breakdown will exert themselves towards reconciliation. If everything is too easy, people do not try.

The sort of situation that I envisage and that causes my doubt about the Bill is somewhat different from that instanced by my hon. Friend. I hope that any feminists who are following the debate will note that I am actuated by a wish to help the wife, just as is my hon. Friend. But while he wishes to help her to break up a marriage, I wish to help her to preserve a marriage that is in difficulty. The hon. Member for Fife, West is shaking his head, but if he listens he will understand what I am getting at.

The situation that I envisage is that when a husband has deserted his wife for, say, a year, he then only has to move to England and stay there for a year to be able to avail himself of the laxer English law and to be able to ask his wife to agree to a divorce.

Two years.

Not two years. He will have already deserted his wife for one year and if he goes to England and spends a year there, that will be two years depending on one year's residence in England.

If he has to rely on Scottish law and the wife is compassionate and anxious for reconciliation, she may refuse divorce, hoping that with the passage of time and the claims of the children and so on, her husband will come to see the error of his ways and return to the marriage. But under English law she could not entertain such hopes to strengthen her resolve at a difficult time. She would know that at the end of five years, under Section 2(1)(e) of the Divorce Reform Act 1969, the husband could demand a divorce.

This has always struck me as a most curious feature of the English law. On this analogy and by the same logic, one could argue that the adulterous husband should have the right to say to his wife "I have just committed adultery and, although you are willing to overlook this conduct, I can now obtain a divorce on the ground of my own shortcoming". It is this very extraordinary attitude which is embodied in paragraph (e) of the English law which is absent from the Scottish law but which the residential provisions of the Bill will now make available to Scottish people who stay in England for a year. This is an indirect undermining of the Scottish position and I believe it to be bad.

Let us change the law by all means if that is what the people want. But as the hon. Member for Fife, West pointed out, the recent history of measures dealt with in this House seems to indicate that it is not what is wanted yet. If there is to be a change in the law of Scotland, let it be carried out openly and not, if my hon. Friend the Member for Perth and East Perthshire will forgive my saying so, in this rather indirect and hole-in-the-corner manner.

There are my three objections. The first is that a united domicile is probably better than a split one. I do not mind whether it is the husband's or wife's. A year's residence is a derisorily short period for deciding matters of such importance; and it is wrong to change the law of Scotland on such a vital matter in what is an indirect and devious manner.

A year or so ago my hon. Friend and I co-operated in certain amendments on another Bill which he was sponsoring. I hope that the same good fortune will attend this Bill and that he will be able to harken to the suggestions I have made and agree to some of the amendments which, if I am fortunate enough to be on the Committee, I would hope to move.

I do not wish to be drawn into a discussion on Scottish divorce law, about which I have a massive ignorance. Suffice it to say that I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for Fife, West (Mr. William Hamilton) will receive the support of the House for a Bill which he is shortly to introduce.

It seems that the Bill we are discussing is based upon justice and it is right that the law of Scotland should be brought into accordance with what is happening in England and Wales.

That may be a little controversial and I must not excite the hon. Member for Glasgow, Hillhead (Mr. Galbraith), about whose speech I want to make some observations. I confess that I saw very little sign in it of his being forced, kicking and screaming, into the twentieth century. He seemed to have a somewhat antediluvian approach to the whole concept of women in relation to marriage. He said that he was actuated by a wish to help the wife, and apparently he wants to do this by maintaining obstacles, however unjust or artificial, which prevent the most elementary justice being done to a wife who is placed in a position of acute difficulty.

The hon. Member spoke of principle and of the Law Commission interfering with matters of principle. I do not conceive of the drafting of the Bill in that way at all. More particularly, I found it difficult to understand the principle that he was elaborating when he went on to talk somewhat glibly and, with respect, not altogether relevantly about tourist associations, Las Vegas divorces, and the quick, permissive divorce. This is not spelled out in the Bill. I suggest he has confused principles with prejudice.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Perth and East Perthshire (Mr. MacArthur) upon introducing the Bill. It is appropriate that he should have done so in a week when we have had a most important debate on women's rights. I can see nothing hole-in-the-corner about this Bill. Quite rightly, the hon. Gentleman pointed to many anomalies which exist in our divorce law. It is absurd that a woman who acquires the domicile of her husband immediately upon marriage finds that she is bound to that domicile, subject to the qualifications already referred to, even if she is living apart from her husband under an agreement of separation, even if the husband has been guilty of some appalling misconduct, or even if the wife has obtained a judicial separation. She still, in such circumstances, cannot acquire a domicile of her own.

I would have thought that even the hon. Member for Hillhead would have felt that situation to be replete with injustice for a wife. He did not really deal with that sort of situation. He tended to generalise and did not add to a serious study of the Bill. It is true, as the hon. Member for Preston, North (Miss Holt) has pointed out, that some relief was given to wives initially by the Matrimonial Causes (War Marriages) Act 1944, which was designed to give relief to GI brides deserted in this country by their husbands. The concept was enlarged by the Matrimonial Causes Act 1965, Section 40(1)(b) of which provided for the three-year ordinary residence period.

The hon. Gentleman will notice that these Acts preserve the position vis-à-vis England and Scotland. It is because that proviso is not in the Bill that I object to it.

I thought that the hon. Gentleman's objections were wider than that narrow point. It would be unsafe for me to trespass into Scotland to discuss the differences between English and Scots law. I merely state, as a matter of principle, that I cannot see any real case for maintaining a variation of principle, even though perhaps the system of administering the law will have to remain different. I have been engaged in divorce practice for a considerable time. The three-year period of residence has been shown to be too long in many cases and has created considerable hardship.

For example, where a wife is separated from her husband and she does not know where he is and cannot obtain satisfactory grounds for establishing a case to enable her to obtain an order for substituted service on him, she can suffer a great deal of hardship. This has happened in a large number of cases. It is too easy for the ordinary period of residence to be broken by the wife's being compelled to go abroad for a considerable time to look after a relative, or to administer business affairs. She might be out of the country for a year or so. Then she would have to begin her period of residence again.

This can cause enormous injustice. She may be deprived of her rights within the three-year period if divorce is not recognised in the husband's country of domicile. That has nothing to do with her rights at all. I am pleased that the rights which were envisaged in the 1965 legislation are now to be extended both as to the parties and as to the period. It is now to be one year instead of three years, and it will apply equally to the husband.

I again differ from the hon. Member for Hillhead in believing that domicile creates difficulties. All too often, and in the main, ordinary residence for a reasonable period of time is a better basis for determining jurisdiction. I do not need to point out some of the difficulties in law which are evoked in determining whether a man is domiciled in one country or another. It certainly creates a position of uncertainty. I often find, for example, when completing an application for legal aid on behalf of a wife who is not able to establish a three-year period of residence that, quite rightly, the Law Society frequently raises questions about the husband's domicile, and in some cases it is very difficult to establish with any degree of certainty what the husband's domicile is. My hon. Friend the Member for Fife, West referred to just such a situation.

One other advantage that flows from the Bill is that it confers certain rights upon the husband—about which I am sure the hon. Member for Hillhead will be thrilled—because Section 40(1)(b) of the 1965 Act entitles a wife to institute divorce proceedings if she has been here for three years. The husband has no right to cross-relief as I understand the position as it was established in 1957 in Levett v. Levett and confirmed in Russell v. Russell. I cannot see any reason for the husband's rights to be limited in this way.

Perhaps it is again appropriate in this significant week that some of us should be holding aloft the flag of the husband, albeit in this somewhat limited way, but I wonder whether the Bill achieves complete parity on this matter. No doubt this is a subject to which the learned Lord Advocate can allude in his winding-up speech, although I must point out that I may be forced to miss it. If I am, I apologise, but there are circumstances which may compel me to leave the Chamber when the right hon. and learned Gentleman is speaking. I hope that, even if the situation cannot be answered now, complete parity in this aspect will be assured in the Committee stage.

I am also a little worried about Clause 16, which deals with non-judicial divorces. This flows from the decision in Qureshi v. Qureshi in 1972 where, as is said in the Explanatory Memorandum,

"a marriage between parties domiciled in Pakistan was held to have been dissolved by a pronouncement of talaq made in England."

I understand the need to bring certainty into the law, and I fully appreciate the reasons behind the drafting of the clause, but if it becomes law it is abundantly plain that it will have to be accompanied by a great deal of information being supplied to members of the Pakistani and other communities in this country which may not readily understand the significance of the clause.

It would be a dangerous and anomalous position if the practice of conferring some form of divorce within these communities were to continue, and, because of a lack of knowledge, people were to enter into bigamous associations in consequence. I do not know whether that is a real danger, but it appears to me that it is something worthy of consideration, and I hope that at some future stage the hon. Member for Perth and East Perthshire, perhaps having spoken to the relevant Government Departments, will be able to assure the House or the Committee that appropriate steps are being taken to safeguard against that danger. I do not object to the clause as it stands, but I feel that the points I have made ought to be given further consideration.

Having said that—this is really my only major criticism of it—I again congratulate the hon. Gentleman on having introduced the Bill. It will bring to the law a much-needed reform and elementary justice to wives who, in certain circumstances, are very badly treated.

I should like to welcome the Bill and at the same time congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Perth and East Perthshire (Mr. MacArthur) on putting this measure forward and explaining it to the House with great skill, patience and clarity.

This is one more measure designed to give legal recognition to the change of attitudes in Britain towards the rights of women, and here I tend to diverge from my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Hillhead (Mr. Galbraith). We are trying, by a number of measures passed by this House, to move away from the old arrangements by which women were regarded as the chattels of men and to treat them, as they are in our present thinking, as individuals and separate persons in their own right.

The Bill seeks to remove an important disability, something left over from the past discarded attitudes. It seeks to give women a choice of domicile in accordance with their own acts and intentions. I do not believe that the Bill will contribute towards permissiveness. What it does is to recognise that when there are strains in family relations women have rights equal to those of men in seeking redress under the law. This fits in aptly with the passage of the divorce law, and I believe that it is an overdue reform. It is wrong to seek, by the shackles of an outmoded form of domicile, to keep together partners who have decided that, because their marriage has irretrievably broken down, the best course is to part, whether they have decided that themselves or whether the matter has gone further and the courts have decided just that thing. It is wrong, by means of artificial and outmoded legal restraints, to stop a process that has now been recognised by the law.

The second feature which I welcome is the provision in Clause 4 that the child shall be allowed to take the domicile of the mother or the father, wherever the child is living.

There was a great and unresolved difficulty in the earlier Bill which I sought to introduce, that of concurrent jurisdiction both in Scotland and in England. The Law Commissioners both of Scotland and of England have spent much time and skill in trying to get round these difficulties. I believe that they have largely succeeded, but if there are some remaining I hope that they can be resolved in Committee.

I hope that the House will give the Bill a Second Reading.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Perth and East Perthshire (Mr. MacArthur) on his excellent Bill. I was a little surprised to hear the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Hillhead (Mr. Galbraith). He seems to think that Scottish people are more permissive than those in England and must be more protected. I do not think that will go down well with women in Scotland.

I must have made my speech very badly.

That was the impression given by my hon. Friend, but if he is contradicting me I am glad to hear it.

I should like to thank Lord Justice Scarman who has done so much, and given up so much of his time, to try to make us realise how people can become happier if some laws are changed. Only last year he came to a conference which I organised at Church House to help with matrimonial difficulties.

Speaking as chairman of the Status of Women Committee in this country I can assure the House that the two Bills that we have been anxious to get are those concerned with guardianship and domicile. I am sure that the 29 member women's organisations will be grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Perth and East Perthshire.

This Bill does not deal only with divorce. There are quite a lot of marriages which have broken down completely where the parties do not want divorce. A woman married to someone from the Republic of Ireland, for example, does not want divorce, because it is against her religion. But she is deemed to be domiciled in the Republic when she may not even have put a foot inside it. The Bill will help in that kind of situation. But I do not think that it will help make divorce easier.

The passage of this Bill and the one concerned with guardianship on to the statute book will obviate situations like the Desramault case. The wife in such a case would not have to seek custody of her child because she would be an equal guardian. What is more, she would not have to trail round the courts of Europe seeking a divorce. I hope very much that sad cases of that kind will be obviated.

The Bill is by no means new. I understand that in the United States these rights of domicile are already recognised. The Australian Matrimonial Causes Acts of 1959 and 1966 recognise them, as does the New Zealand Matrimonial Causes Act 1963. They are also covered in the Canadian Divorce Act of 1968 and, interestingly, in the Law of Domicile 1970 of Kenya. Apparently a number of other countries also recognise these rights. Furthermore, it is another step towards equality as it is outlined in Article 16(1) of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and it will conform with Article 3 of the 1968 Hague Convention on the Recognition of Divorces and Legal Separations. This is not a new step. We are simply catching up with countries which are more enlightened than we have been in the past. I hope that Scotland, which has always been a great coloniser and has done a great deal in the Commonwealth, will seize the chance to catch up with Australia, Canada and New Zealand.

The Bill will change the common law subjection of a wife to her husband which is rightly criticised as discriminating. At present in dissolving a marriage the advantage of unity can be achieved at the expense of the wife in certain cases.

Reference has been made to Clause 16 of the Bill. Having lived abroad in Malaysia and elsewhere I know how different the laws are there. It may be that in Committee we shall be able to ensure that women affected by these laws can be protected from the undoubted disadvantages of the simpler forms of divorce in those countries than exist in Great Britain.

For all these reasons I welcome this excellent Bill.

It may be appropriate if I intervene in the debate at this stage, first, to define the Government's attitude to the Bill and, secondly, following the very clear explanation of the effect of it which we have had from my hon. Friend the Member for Perth and East Perthshire (Mr. MacArthur), to give some of the background.

At the outset, I join with those hon. Members on both sides of the House who have congratulated my hon. Friend the Member for Perth and East Perthshire not only on introducing this measure but also on the lucid way in which he explained its provisions. We are dealing with a highly technical branch of the law, although the main purposes of the Bill can be, and have been, shortly and clearly stated.

I can say without hesitation that the Government welcome the initiative of my hon. Friend the Member for Perth and East Perthshire and support wholeheartedly the legislative proposals contained in the Bill. It was my hon. Friend the Member for Preston, North (Miss Holt) who pointed out that it implements an election undertaking given by the Conservative Party. In fact, it goes beyond the scope of that undertaking and, as has been said on more than one occasion today, it fits into the general pattern of legislation which this Parliament is enacting to improve the status of women generally.

For a very long time there has been strong criticism of the rule of unity of domicile as it affects a married woman because it attributes to her an inferiority of status which many people today regard as wholly inappropriate. That is not to say that the principle has not found support elsewhere, and my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Hill-head (Mr. Galbraith) is no doubt aware that as recently as 1956 the last Royal Commission on Marriage and Divorce supported the principle for, among other reasons, the reason which he gave, that the concept of marriage is unity, and the proposed abandonment of the dependent domicile of the wife was criticised by the Royal Commission on that ground.

Broadly speaking, there has been more criticism of this principle than support. The principle comes down to this. On marriage a woman takes the domicile of her husband, and it attaches to her during the subsistence of the marriage even if the parties should come to live apart or become judicially separated. The law in this respect reflects the notion that on marriage a woman's personality is in some way merged into that of her husband, and in this country as a consequence of that concept her personal law becomes the law of her husband's domicile whatever that may be at any time. I was interested to hear the remarks of my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Devonport (Dame Joan Vickers) on this point. It is a doctrine which finds no support today in the United States, and on the continent of Europe it has only limited support. As my hon. Friend pointed out, it is rejected in Australia, New Zealand and Kenya.

Part I of the Bill is concerned wholly with the notion of domicile. What I am about to say is well understood by lawyers in this House but others may not be so fully aware of the position. In most of the actions of our daily lives and for the formalities of the transactions in which we are involved we are governed by the law of the place where we happen to be. Obviously that is necessary. But every developed system of law recognises that in addition we carry with us a personal law the scope of which covers a wide range of family relationships and family property. It covers, for example, the validity of a marriage, the rights and obligations of husband and wife or parent and child, the effect of marriage on property rights of a husband and wife, divorce, wills, disposing of moveable property and the law of intestate succession as it relates to moveable property. Accordingly, what is our personal law is not merely an academic matter but one which affects us directly and materially, and any principle which qualifies a woman's independence here certainly qualifies her position in a very real way. There can be no question about that.

While the need for such a personal law is universally recognised, the test of personal law is by no means universal. For example, in some countries it is based on nationality, a concept which found growing favour in the last century and to which most European countries and Japan, for example, adhere. For our part—and for those jurisdictions based on the English common law tradition; the United States and the British Commonwealth—it has long been settled that these questions fall to be determined by the law of the domicile. If I may contrast these two criteria: nationality tends to yield a predictable but frequently inappropriate law in the case of a person whose connection with his nation State may be little more than purely technical. Domicile, on the other hand, tends to yield an appropriate but frequently less predictable law in the sense that domicile may not always be readily ascertained. Where, of course, different jurisdictions arise within the same nation State—as within the United Kingdom, for example—the test of nationality would be unworkable.

This brings me to pose a question which was raised by the hon. Member for Fife, West (Mr. William Hamilton), who has explained to me that he cannot be here to hear what I have to say on the matter. There have been many attempts by lawyers to give a brief and compendious definition, but they have never really been satisfactory. For example, there is a well-known definition by Lord Cranworth in 1858:

"By domicile we mean home, a permanent home, and if you do not understand your permanent home I am afraid that no illustrations drawn from foreign writers will very much help you to it."

Domicile clearly imports a legal relationship between a person and a place governed by a single system of law, but it is not easy to state succinctly the nature of that relationship. The central idea is, of course, that it is the place where a man has made his home, but it is not really possible to define domicile simply in terms of home

However, we can get on to firmer ground when we look at some of the basic rules. It is clearly recognised that everyone must have a domicile. By definition no one can have more than one domicile at a time. At first the law attributes to a child the domicile of origin, a derivative domicile. If it is a legitimate child it takes its father's domicile. If it is illegitimate, it takes its mother's domicile.

A foundling child takes the domicile of the place in which it is found. Until it is of an age to acquire a domicile of its own, its domicile changes with that of its parents, but on attaining the necessary status a person may bring about a change of his domicile by the acquisition of what is known as a domicile of choice. That is what introduced the discussion between my hon. Friend the Member for Hillhead and the hon. Member for Fife, West.

Even if a person acquires domicile of choice, the domicile of origin remains in the background, and it is revived in the absence of any other domicile. I shall illustrate that proposition by an example, and I shall take the example which my hon. Friend gave in the course of his opening remarks.

If a person whose domicile of origin is in England decides to leave England and to live, for example, in South Africa with the intention of remaining there, he can acquire a domicile of choice in South Africa when he arrives there. I have used the word "can" advisedly. The two requirements for the acquisition of a fresh domicile are both residence and intention. These two elements, factum et animus, must concur, and it is proof of the element of intention which gives rise to difficulty. Of course, the presumption in favour of domicile increases in strength with the length of the residence.

The hon. Member for Fife, West said that surely after 20 years something would happen. I should have thought that in the ordinary case it would happen well within that space of time. On the other hand, to live in a country for some oblique purpose, such as in the course of employment, would not result in the acquisition of domicile of choice. It can be acquired only by the fact of the residence of the person and intention to remain there.

Conversely, the abandonment of a domicile of choice equally depends on both factors concurring. In the instance which I have given, if a person leaves South Africa with the intention of never returning, he loses that domicile immediately he goes. Should he go to Australia with a similar intention to settle permanently, once again he can acquire another domicile of choice in Australia. However, if he has no such intention to live in Australia permanently or if he has such an intention, until he settles there his domicile of origin reasserts itself. The significance of that, as I have already indicated, is that his personal law is in the meantime governed according to the law of his original domicile.

There are two comments which I should like to make at this stage. They are relevant to some of the observations of my hon. Friend the Member for Hill-head. It is accepted today that it requires a stronger intention to establish the abandonment of a domicile of origin in favour of a fresh domicile than to establish a change from one domicile of choice to another. I think that that was the proposition to which my hon. Friend was referring when he said that a person with domicile of origin in Scotland would not too easily acquire a domicile of choice, for example, in England. There is force in that view.

Secondly, there is now authority for the view that a change of domicile from one country to another under the same sovereign—for example, from Scotland to England—is more easily proved than a change to a foreign country because it is less readily to be inferred that a man intends to settle permanently in a country where he will have the status of an alien than where he remains a national of the same State.

While it is true to say that a person who has a domicile of origin in Scotland would have to satisfy the court in England that he had acquired a domicile of choice, it would be more difficult for him to satisfy the court on that basis than if his domicile in Scotland had already been one of choice. It is equally true to say that if he is a British subject it would be more easy for the English court to draw an inference of acquisition of domicile of choice than it would be in any other circumstances.

I think that the right hon. and learned Gentleman will probably agree with me that the notion of domicile and what amounts to domicile is not necessarily exactly the same in different jurisdictions. Some countries have a different idea about this from others. The right hon. and learned Gentleman's experience of Scottish law is far wider than mine, which is virtually nil. Can he say whether the rules as to what domicile consists of are identical as between Scotland and England and Wales?

One could embark on a most interesting discussion of this kind of thing. The hon. and learned Gentleman was probably referring to the interpretation of "domicile" in a civilian system. Although Scotland is basically a civilian system, we have for two and a half centuries been under the influence of English common law traditions. I would go so far as to say that if there are differences in the concept of "domicile" in Scotland as against England and Wales, they are very marginal. But if the hon. and learned Gentleman is referring to the Roman concept of "domicile", that proceeded on a different basis.

This brings me back to the existing dependent domicile of a married woman. The whole of Part I of the Bill is concerned with that. I think that this is the really major change which the Bill seeks to effect. There are clearly, anomalies in the situation whereby a married woman must inevitably accept the domicile of her husband, regardless of all other circumstances. I want to quote from a judgment delivered by the Master of th Rolls, Lord Denning, in 1963, because his words sum the situation up very well. Many hon. Members have said the same thing in different ways today. Lord Denning said:

"The fundamental point from which it starts"—

the issue in the case—

"is the rule of law that on marriage a wife takes the domicile of her husband, and so long as the marriage continues she has, and can have, no domicile apart from his. Take the most striking case of all. Suppose a husband deserts his wife and goes to Australia, sets up there another home with another woman, intending to live there permanently. He clearly changes his own domicile. But his wife has never left her home here in England, and intends never to leave it. Yet in point of law, when her husband deserts her, she is still bound by his domicile. Her domicile is not in England where she lives, but in Australia, with all the serious legal consequences which follow from it, not only on her marriage but on her will and many other things. That is clearly the law of this country.— Now what is the reason for that rule, you may ask. It is the old notion"—

and this is where my hon. Friend the Member for Hillhead would say, "Hear, hear"—

"that in English law a husband and wife are one: and the husband is that one."

I would not say "Hear, hear", to that. I say that one is one.

My hon. Friend would be introducing enormous complications. It is not just a question of who takes whose name. It would be a complicated exercise.

Having referred to the changes which have been made over the years—for example, enabling a wife to sue her husband in tort, which she could not do before because she was as one with her husband—Lord Denning went on:

"The one relic which remains is the rule that a wife takes her husband's domicile; it is the last barbarous relic of a wife's servitude. Yet sitting in this court we must still observe it."

It is that last barbarous relic of a wife's dependence that Part I of the Bill seeks to remove, and I entirely endorse my hon. Friend's motives.

Could the right hon. and learned Gentleman help me about the purpose of the removal of the domicile of dependence and about the difficulty which, I apprehend, may arise in the case of the marriage coming to an end? In the case of the husband, the domicile of origin presumably will proceed notwithstanding the breakdown of the marriage. In the case of the wife, she has perhaps acquired her husband's domicile not by dependence but by other factors—such as going to live with him and other factors which may lead to an assumption that she has the same domicile. If husband and wife are to be in pari materia, would it not be desirable that the Bill should seek in some way to give some guidance as to how the intention of the wife with regard to her domicile or the requisition perhaps of her domicile of origin should be determined?

This is a rather important point because it is conceivable, for example, that a wife with a separate domicile of origin from that of her husband will choose, upon the breakdown of the marriage, to remain in her husband's country until her children are educated but then return to her own country. It might be difficult to establish in advance of that circumstance her ultimate intention in a way which would convince a court. It could have considerable impact upon her liability, for example, to pay English income tax.

I do not think that it would be possible in a public general statute to lay down guidelines as to how one ascertains a person's domicile. One of the major criticisms of the concept of domicile is the difficulty of ascertaining the domicile of any person at any particular time. In some cases, it is quite easy and in others difficult. The hon. Gentleman has put his finger on one of the repercussions of this Bill.

If we are taking away the dependent domicile of a wife, we have to look at her situation in isolation, if the question arises, and ascertain what her domicile is. She might, I imagine, in the ordinary way acquire her husband's domicile as a domicile of choice. If she were living in Scotland, for example, with her husband who was resident there, she might well in the ordinary way acquire a domicile of choice in that country. If she married her husband who was a domiciled Scotsman while she was living in England, she would retain her domicile of origin. The hon. Gentleman has raised an interesting point. But one can never lay down guidelines in statute on these matters but must apply the ordinary rules of law in ascertaining what a wife's domicile is under the Bill.

I pass on now to consider the other area of dependence in our existing law which will continue—the dependence of minor children. I have indicated how a child acquires a domicile of origin derived from the parent. In Scotland the position in law has always been that when a girl reaches the age of 12 and a boy reaches the age of 14, she or he ceases to be what we describe as a "pupil" with no legal capacity and becomes a minor with legal capacity. Among the capacities thus enjoyed is a capacity to acquire a domicile independent of that of the parents. Once again, of course, it would be a question of circumstances. A minor child in Scotland can acquire an independent domicile, and the derivative domicile drawn from the parent could fly off.

As I understand the position, under English law, on the other hand, the domicile has always been linked to the age of majority. My hon. Friend the Member for Preston, North expressed the view—and she is a barrister—that that provision should remain, although I think that the House may well be influenced by the argument put by my hon. Friend the Member for Perth and East Perthshire. If by law it is competent for someone to marry, it is difficult to say at the same time that he should remain incapable of obtaining an independent domicile until the age of 18. With marriages at 16 and majority now at 18 it is difficult to say that we should keep the capacity to acquire an independent domicile at 18. Again, this is the kind of matter which could be discussed at a later stage if a later stage is reached. For reasons of English law Clause 3 is necessary, and for the reasons I have explained it would not have to apply to Scotland.

Clause 4 introduces a substantial change because it embodies proposals which would remove many of the anomalies to which my hon. Friend the Member for Perth and East Perthshire referred in opening regarding the domicile of a child whose parents are separated. Incidentally, there is a decision in the law of Northern Ireland to the effect that where the mother has been granted custody of a child by the court he takes his domicile from her. That decisison in 1968 has not been followed in England, and there is contrary authority in Scotland. Clause 4, therefore, deals with this situation on a proper basis my making the factual situation the test rather than the existence of a court order. If a child has his home with his mother, he will take his domicile from her. This seems right. I might add that it goes some way towards the approach favoured in the Council of Europe, that the domicile of a child should be taken from the person, whether a parent or not, who has the power to determine the child's place of residence.

I leave the domicile provisions in Part I with the firm recomendation that they should be supported.

As my hon. Friend indicated in opening, Parts II, III and 1V really run together for England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, and relate to proposed changes in matrimonial jurisdiction.

I am quite sure that those who have read the reports of both Law Commissions will agree that their proposals, which are embodied in Parts II, III and IV, have been carefully and thoroughly thought out and fully argued. I should be the last person to suggest that because a recommendation comes from a Law Commission, let alone both Law Commissions, the House should rubber-stamp it. That would not do. However, I believe that these statutory bodies, which have rather wider statutory obligations imposed upon them than my hon. Friend the Member for Hillhead would suggest, ought at least to influence us considerably when they come forward with virtually unanimous recommendations in this sphere.

The Law Commissions reached the conclusion, I think rightly, that we cannot depart from domicile as one of the tests of jurisdiction in matrimonial causes, and they set out the reasons. But they came equally firmly to the conclusion that the traditional test of domicile by itself was not enough. In their view, in modern conditions a substantial period of residence ought to be treated as sufficient connection with a country for a proper exercise of matrimonial jurisdiction. As my hon. Friend the Member for Hillhead indicated, it is a question of judgment how long that connection should be before it is sufficiently close to justify the court's exercising jurisdiction on a person's matrimonial affairs. After all, the place of residence is the one most likely to be concerned with the welfare and maintenance of the family.

Having regard to these considerations and to the courts' pronouncing decrees which achieve international recognition—another important matter—the Law Commissions reached the conclusion that an alternative basis of jurisdiction to domicile should be the residence of either party for the period of one year.

Although that period has been criticised by my hon. Friend the Member for Hill-head today, I do not think that it has been criticised by other hon. Members. The Law Society of Scotland, by a relatively narrow majority of the committee which looked into the matter, recommended a two-year period. I think I am correct in saying that the Law Commission in England was satisfied that there was no substantial opposition to the proposal that it put forward, which 'equally was for a period of residence of one year. I think that this is the kind of matter that could be considered in Committee because, in the last resort, it is a matter of judgment, although the one year recommended by both Law Commisions finds favour in, for example, the Hague Convention and elsewhere. It is increasingly recognised throughout Western Europe as a basis of jurisdiction on which international recognition could proceed. For that reason, too, I think that the recommendation of both Law Commissions in this respect should carry great weight.

My hon. Friend the Member for Hill-head made what he described as three major criticisms. I think that I have already covered his first criticism; that the unity of domicile should be retained. I could not, and certainly the Government do not, subscribe to that view. My hon. Friend said that one year was too short. Again, as I have already indicated, that is a matter of judgment which could be considered at a later stage.

My hon. Friend went on to indicate that in his view the Bill was somehow or other a way round the substantive law of Scotland concerning divorce. I know what my hon. Friend was driving at there. I am sure that he would not knowingly accuse my hon. Friend the Member for Perth and East Perthshire of doing any such thing, and the Bill is not calculated to do that. However, my hon. Friend the Member for Hillhead is entitled to say that if the Bill goes through a Scottish husband could invoke the jurisdiction of the English court on the basis of his wife's domicile if she happens to be domiciled in England or Wales, on the basis of his own domicile should he acquire a domicile of choice there, which he can do already, or on the basis of residence. I have touched on the acquisition of domicile of choice and indicated that it may not be so difficult to transfer one's domicile from Scotland to England as my hon. Friend might suggest. In any event, as my hon. Friend the Member for Perth and East Perthshire said, the Bill seeks to put a wife in the same position as her husband.

I gather from the tone of his speech that my hon. Friend the Member for Hillhead accepts that what is good about the Bill is sufficient to allow it to have a Second Reading, and he expressed the hope that some of the defects, as he described them, might be put right at a later stage. I very much hope that that is the attitude he will adopt.

My hon. Friend the Member for Perth and East Perthshire indicated that there was an area of difference between the recommendations of the two Law Commissions on conflicts of jurisdiction. Last year my hon. Friend the Member for Dorking (Sir G. Sinclair) sought to promote a Bill on these lines. At that stage these differences were not resolved, and, clearly, in this sphere these differences must be resolved within the United Kingdom before changes of this kind can be made. I am happy to note that both Law Commissions have covered pretty well 99 per cent. of this area by agreement. However, one area of difference has been left on which they cannot agree.

I do not wish to pass any further comment on that area of difference at this stage, except that it is a matter on which there must be agreement. What is applied in one country within the United Kingdom must, clearly, be applied in another. I understand that the judges of the Family Division were reluctant to accept the principle of a mandatory stay of proceedings, but conceded, in the interests of agreement, that the Scottish proposal should be accepted. But they felt unable to go beyond that point and accede to the Scottish proposal that that mandatory stay of proceedings should arise ex proprio moatu if, in the view of the court, the circumstances justified it. They took the view, as is reported in the Report of the Law Commission, that they would exercise this stay of proceedings only on the application of one or other of the parties. The Scottish Law Commission feels strongly about this, but, as I say, this is a matter about which agreement has to be reached. In the circumstances, I think my hon. Friend was right in framing the Bill on this issue in the way that he has.

I have spoken rather longer than I had intended. My hon. Friend went through the clauses very carefully and explained them exceedingly well. I think I should confine myself to these general observations and the general background against which this legislation falls to be seen. I now simply commend to the House—

Before the Lord Advocate sits down, may I ask him to allude to the point that I raised concerning the effect of Russell v. Russell and Levett v. Levett? It may be—although I am not sure that it is—that Clause 5(5) is intended to deal with this aspect of the matter. Is that right? It may well be that, because the language of the subsection is somewhat complex, I have misunderstood it.

But there is one other matter on which I should like the right hon. and learned Gentleman to make some observations. It relates to paragraph 48 of the Law Commission's report, at page 18, in which the Commission deals specifically with this matter. It seeks to ensure that a husband would not be deprived of the right to cross-pray within the one year period. The report says:

"We therefore recommend that where the court has jurisdiction to entertain proceedings for divorce it should notwithstanding any change in the domicile or habitual residence of the parties after the institution of the proceedings have jurisdiction to entertain further proceedings (whether by way of further petition, cross-petition or prayer contained in an answer) for divorce … while the first proceedings are pending."

There is a footnote to which I would invite the right hon. and learned Gentleman's attention, No. 62, which states:

"There may be a few rare cases where a wife who could petition under section 40(1)(a) will be excluded from petitioning under our recommendations because she has no independent domicile in England and has not been habitually resident here for one year."

I do not see where that point is dealt with in the Bill. Would an amendment to encompass that situation have the Government's support?

I, being a Scots lawyer, have tended to work on the Scottish Law Commission's Report which makes a similar recommendation in recommendation 21, paragraph 118, on this question of cross-petitions. Certainly the provision in the Bill to which the hon. Gentleman referred is intended to cover that.

As to the rather refined point which the hon. Gentleman raises on the footnote on page 18 of the Law Commission's Report, I should not like to pronounce on that right away. Certainly this Bill seeks to implement the recommendations of the Law Commissions, and if that point in footnote 62 has not been picked up—I think it has—the necessary amendment will certainly be considered.

As I have said, I have spoken at rather greater length than I had intended. I should simply like once again to congratulate my hon. Friend on promoting the Bill and on the way in which he presented it, and invite the House to support it.

May I begin by congratulating the hon. Member for Perth and East Perthshire (Mr. MacArthur) not only on his good fortune in the ballot but, much more than that, on choosing this important subject and in explaining a complex Bill—one which, indeed, departs quite substantially from the model Bill prepared by the Law Commission for England and Wales—and explaining it with such very great clarity and care. It was very helpful indeed to the House.

Secondly, I echo what the hon. Lady the Member for Plymouth, Devonport (Dame Joan Vickers) said when she spoke about Lord Justice Scarman. I think it would be true to say that nobody since Alan Herbert has had so much influence on our family law—so much beneficial influence, I would say, although there may be some who would disagree—as Lord Justice Scarman. He certainly made a tremendous impact as the first Chairman of the Law Commission for England and Wales. Now he has gone to other fields, and I have no doubt that his impact there will be at least as great.

Thirdly, I should like to congratulate the Lord Advocate on explaining with such care the extremely complex and difficult notion of domicile. Indeed, I think it right to say that there is only one criticism that I would make of his speech, and that is that, having read the passage from the judgment of Lord Denning some 10 years ago, he deprived me of my own opening. None the less I think it is right to say that Lord Denning, whom perhaps I may describe as Master of the Rolls and of the felicitous phrase, put the matter extremely graphically when he spoke of the rule that a wife takes her husband's domicile as

"the last barbarous relic of a wife's servitude."

If that were wholly accurate, the hon. Member for Perth and East Perthshire would certainly be recorded in the annals of our history with Wilberforce and Parkhurst, but I cannot help feeling that perhaps not everybody would entirely agree that with this Bill the last relic of a wife's servitude is being removed in this country. Perhaps one should only say that Lord Denning, perhaps a little uncharacteristically, was indulging in hyperbole, or possibly one should call it judicial licence. None the less it is curious that although as long ago as 1948 the concept of unity of nationality was abrogated, a quarter of a century has had to pass before it became the hon. Gentleman's good fortune to pilot legislation to abolish the concept of unity of domicile. This seems particularly curious because, while most people have no say in their nationality, domicile is preeminently a matter of choice. But under the existing law the choice is that of the husband, not of the wife or of the minor children.

As the Report of the Law Commission for England and Wales points out in paragraph 13, a woman takes her husband's domicile on marriage and follows any changes which he makes in it during the marriage, even if she is no longer living with him and, indeed, has no idea where he is. This is all the more remarkable when nationality is of declining importance, whereas domicile governs not only important intimate relationships between man and wife but the many other matters of great practical significance which have been referred to in the debate.

Nationality is no longer the key to automatic entry into the United Kingdom. We now have the concept of patriality, and that in its turn was followed recently by the concept of belonging by administrative rule. But when dissolution of marriage or the consequences of marital disharmony are in issue, nationality, patriality and belonging —whatever that may mean—are no longer relevant matters. Domicile, as the law stands today, reigns supreme, or almost supreme, subject to the special relationship of the United States forces which led to the invention of the concept of ordinary residence for three years.

In that context I refer to the speech of the hon. Member for Glasgow, Hill-head (Mr. Galbraith), who holds strong views on the subject of divorce and the position of both parties to a marriage. It seemed to me that the hon. Gentleman's attack on the Bill was wrongly directed and that he was attacking the principles of English family law rather than what appears in the Bill. We have to accept that law as it is today, certainly for the purpose of the Bill, which, as I understand it, is to create equality of opportunity to use that law as between man and wife, an equality which does not exist today.

The Reports of the Law Commissions and the Bill attack what Lord Denning described as the last barbarous relic of a wife's servitude in three ways. First, a wife will be enabled to have a domicile separate from that of her husband, thus recognising the realities and discarding a technical rule which blatantly discriminates against the female sex. I have already given one example—the man has gone away, perhaps set up another home with another woman somewhere else in the world, yet the wife still has her domicile fixed or changing according to the husband's domicile, be it fixed or changing.

Second, the court will be given jurisdiction if either spouse is domiciled in some part of the United Kingdom. This also is a matter of importance and a considerable change from the existing rule which requires that jurisdiction shall depend upon the domicile of the husband.

Third, the residential exception to the rule of domicile to which I referred will be expanded so that the court has jurisdiction if either party at the date of the proceedings had been habitually resident in the United Kingdom for at least a year.

Those are considerable steps forward and it may seem almost churlish, therefore, to ask whether the Bill could possibly go a little further in some respects. However, I have one or two matters to put to the hon. Gentleman for his consideration in addition to those already raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney, Central (Mr. Clinton Davis) and other hon. Members.

I ask the House to consider, for example, the case of a wife domiciled and habitually resident abroad, perhaps in a country where jurisdiction is founded on the husband's domicile. The husband has disappeared. His last-known domicile was in the United Kingdom, or he had been habitually resident in the United Kingdom, for not less than one year. All one can say about him is that that was the fact when he was last heard of.

As I read it, Clause 5 would in such a case exclude the jurisdiction of the court. I wonder whether that was intended, and whether it would be right to include the jurisdiction, which, as the Clause is drafted, depends upon the matters which stand as at the date of the opening of proceedings. It seems to me that hardship could be caused if all the requirements of the clause are met save that the husband has disappeared for a period before proceedings are brought. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will consider that.

Clause 6 deals with maintenance applications, and in this respect the Law Commission for England and Wales proposed a third ground of jurisdiction in paragraph 68 of its report. It recommended that the residence of the respondent in England or Wales at the date of proceedings should be a third factor in founding jurisdiction. But the Bill, as I mentioned earlier, is in different terms from the model Bill prepared by the Law Commission for England and Wales and introduces in Clause 6(1)(c), which seeks to give effect to that proposal, the word "habitually".

It must be shown that the respondent is "habitually resident" on the date when proceedings for maintenance, or whatever it may be, are taken. In that case, in contradistinction from the other cases where habitual residence is referred to, no specific period is mentioned. There must be habitual residence on the relevant date. I do not altogether follow the point of changing the proposal of the Law Commission for England and Wales in that respect and it may be that in Committee we can look at the matter.

Thirdly, there is the very welcome provision in Clause 4 which relates to the domicile of minors aged 16, and I agree with the Lord Advocate that the question of whether 16 is the right age can probably be discussed in Committee.

I welcome the provisions of Clause 4 which enable the dependent domicile, as it is called, of the minor to follow that of his mother in certain specified cases. But it seems to me that the effect of the way in which that has been done is that the existing rule—that a minor takes his father's domicile—would continue to apply except in those specified exceptions. Therefore, if the parents are living apart and the minor is not living with either the father or the mother, and has not done so since the marriage broke up, which is a quite possible situation and might well happen in many cases, the question is why in that case the minor, whether male or female, should automatically take the domicile of the father rather than that of the mother. There we certainly have a movement towards the concept of sex equality but we certainly do not go all the way in the Bill.

I have one further point. I am sorry that these are necessarily points of detail but I raise them to enable the sponsor of the Bill to think about them before we reach the Committee stage, which I hope will not be too long. Paragraph 60 of the Report of the Law Commission for England and Wales deals with jurisdiction in nullity. It rejects the proposal made by a substantial number of people that in relation to nullity the place of celebration of marriage should determine the jurisdiction.

I would go further than that and ask the hon. Member for Perth and East Perthshire to consider whether it might not be reasonably argued that marriage in a particular country may—I do not say that in every case it will—and particularly perhaps in the case of those holding that country's nationality, presuppose an intention to be bound by that country's marriage laws. If that is right, might that not be recognised as providing alternative bases—I would not wish it in any way to abrogate the bases in the Bill—for the jurisdiction of the court? I put it broadly and I do not confine it to nullity on which I think the point was made probably on the basis of convenience rather than of principle.

I have already congratulated the hon. Member for Perth and East Perthshire and the Law Commissions which have done a great service in providing the material for the Bill. It is fortunate that the Law Commissions have differed only perhaps in a matter of detail which has been resolved in the Bill. That brings me, however, to a general matter which it is perhaps right to mention. One of the specific provisions of the Law Commissions Act 1965 was that the purpose of setting up the Commissions should be to try so far as possible to assimilate the laws of England, Wales and Scotland. I know that there are those who were not at the time particularly keen on the proposal, and possibly there are some today who are not particularly keen on it. But many people will recognise that it is ridiculous that by taking a train or aeroplane across the border it is possible to go into a part of the same country where different laws apply. That situation exists in whatever direction a person is travelling.

I wonder whether the time may not have arrived when we should be thinking in terms of one Law Commission comprising Englishmen, Welshmen and Scotsmen who would apply to the task given to the Law Commissions by the Act a unity of purpose which may not be easy as long as there are two separate Commissions. I do not expect that that matter will be decided during the debates on the Bill but I hope that it is one to which thought can be given.

Our family law is, I believe, both enlightened and at the same time protective to those who need protection. For my part, therefore, I do not complain that the Bill will open up the bounties of our family law to many more people than already enjoy them. The report of the English Commission uses the phrase "forum shopping" and says that it is something to be avoided. I agree that forum shopping is to be avoided in cases where the court cannot control the consequences of its orders. I for my part see no real objection, and it is for this reason that I would support the one year of habitual residence provided in the Bill, to forum shopping if the shopper obtains a just and enlightened system such as we can provide.

The Bill goes a long way in that direction, and I assure the hon. Member for Perth and East Perthshire that it certainly has my full support and, I hope, that of the House.

With the leave of the House, I should like to comment briefly on a number of points which have been raised. First, I thank right hon. and hon. Members who have given their generous support to the Bill and made kind remarks about it. I also thank my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Hill-head (Mr. Galbraith) for the courteous way in which he has expressed some opposition to the Bill. I hope I am right in discerning from the tone of his speech that although he has certain objections to the Bill he may not carry them to the point of active opposition. I am particularly grateful to him for calling attention to what he regards as fundamental points of concern about the Bill.

I am also particularly grateful to the hon. and learned Member for Dulwich (Mr. S. C. Silkin) for signifying the Opposition's approval of the Bill. He has raised at least two very interesting points. The first is what I can describe in shorthand as the case of the vanishing husband. I note what the hon. and learned Gentleman said and shall study the Bill in the hope that there may be a way to cover the point. At first sight, it seems that there may be a deficiency in the Bill in that regard.

The hon. and learned Gentleman also asked whether there might be an alternative basis for the jurisdiction of the court where a marriage in an overseas country might presuppose an intention to abide by the marriage laws of that country. That could perhaps present great difficulties. I should like to take advice on that point also. I hope that we can discuss it and other matters in Committee.

My hon. Friend the Member for Preston, North (Miss Holt) was good enough to welcome the Bill but had certain doubts about reducing from 18 to 16 the age for the capacity to establish an independent domicile. I appreciate my hon. Friend's concern. We can discuss the matter in Committee but I hope that we shall not change the age given in the Bill. Scotland would not be affected, because of the present state of the law there, but it seems to me reasonable that in England the age of capacity for establishment of independent domicile should be the age at which a child is legally allowed to get married. A person who gets married should be able to establish separate domicile.

The hon. Member for Hackney, Central (Mr. Clinton Davis) also raised a very interesting point that I should like to examine more closely, although I suspect that it may be covered by the Bill.

I return to my hon. Friend the Member for Hillhead, who told us that he was also speaking for others. I know that some of my hon. Friends and some Labour Members have certain doubts about the Bill. I think that the biggest doubt arises from the difference between Scottish and English divorce law. I see that my hon. Friend has very real concern, but I do not share his apprehensions that many difficulties are likely to result from my Bill. If there are difficulties, I think that they flow from the fact that the substantive law is different.

Certainly, it is true that a husband or wife would be able to move from Scotland to England and, after meeting the requirements of the Bill, seek the jurisdiction of the English court. But I repeat, as I tried to say in an intervention, that under existing law the husband can already seek the jurisdiction of the English court if he establishes domicile in England.

There may be some disagreement between my hon. Friend and me about the difficulty or ease with which that declaration of domicile can be obtained, but the position was explained very clearly and helpfully by my right hon. and learned Friend the Lord Advocate in what was an example to us all of how to describe a complicated legal matter in simple and clear terms.

The other point that my hon. Friend raised was another matter that we can consider in Committee. But it would be wrong of me to indicate that I should be able to accept willingly any amendment that would undermine the central purpose of Clause 5. However, we could certainly discuss the question of the period of residence, which is at present given as one year. I tend to favour one year, not only because it seems to be the majority view of those who are learned in these matters but because it is generally the period of residence specified in legislation in other countries and proposed by the Hague Convention.

I assure hon. Members that I shall do everything in my power to consider the points raised and seek guidance on them for a later stage. I shall be most grateful if the House will agree to give the Bill a Second Reading, even if it does not go quite so far as to remove the last relic of a barbarous age.

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

This is the first time in my 14 years in the House that I have been in the first 20 in the Ballot for Private Members' Bills. I suppose that it is like drawing a ticket in a political Grand National. There used to be a man at racecourses who said "I gotta horse". A Member who gets a place in the Ballot normally says "I gotta Bill", and then has thrust at him a large number of possibilities for legislation.

There are hurdles for my Bill to overcome, and Second Reading is the first. I hope that it will be possible to jump this hurdle at least, and perhaps go on to finish the course.

First, I should like to thank those who have acted as sponsors. A Bill on the same subject has been before the House in the past. The possibility of improving the licensing procedures and introducing regulations into the employment agency business has been considered over a number of years. I believe that legislation is now necessary.

I should particularly like to mention the hon. Member for Putney (Mr. Hugh Jenkins), because he sought to introduce a previous Bill on the subject. His work has not been lost, as I think he realises. On the contrary, although my Bill is shorter and less complex than his, it includes much of what he wanted.

My choice of employment agency legislation rests on two propositions. The first is that there is an urgent need for reform. As one who has used the agencies on occasions, I have at least a little experience of them. Those who have such experience know of the need for reform. The agencies are used very widely.

The second reason for my selecting this Bill is that I have always had an interest in labour and employment matters over the years and it has seemed to me that the employment services, both in the State and in the private sector, need the provision of the best available, and nothing else. My right hon. Friend is to reorganise the public sector. My hon. Friend the Member for Warwick and Leamington (Mr. Dudley Smith) is on the Front Bench today. Both he and I have been associated with these matters on the back benches in the past, and I am particularly glad that he is here to speak on this Bill, and I shall be interested to hear what he has to say.

If there is to be an improvement and reorganisation in the public sector, it would, clearly, be wrong to leave the private sector completely untouched. We already have the Trade Descriptions Act, which aims to assure the public of a fair deal in the purchase of goods, and there are other consumer protection measures in the process of going through the House. It would be wrong to leave the provision of a service as personal as employment to the methods of the get-in get-out on-the-make merchants who are prepared to play around with people's careers and the staffing of companies in the process.

Licensing and regulation are right, inevitable and needed now. I realise that there are those who want to disband private employment agencies altogether. If it is any comfort to them I will say that I took that view myself many years ago. Since then the industry itself has done its best to reform its own procedures. But it cannot control everybody coming into the business, and that is one of the reasons why we need the Bill. However, the industry has done its best, and the best of it is providing a good service.

Secondly, the business of employment agencies has grown tremendously in recent years, and it cannot be denied that it is now a major national business. If the private sector were destroyed altogether, there would be a massive gap in employment facilities that the public services could not fill. We have to recognise that employment agencies play a major part in placing people in commerce and industry, and we must seek to get the best out of them. I am sure that the right course is, therefore, to develop and improve the public service and to license and regulate the private sector nationally, realistically and firmly.

In the process of preparing the Bill I have consulted a wide range of interested parties. I have consulted the Federation of Personnel Services—that is, the agencies themselves—the Entertainment Agents Association, the London Boroughs Association and the TUC, which has views on the subject. I met a committee at Congress House and we did what we could to meet various views. I have also been in touch with the CBI and the County Councils Association.

It is common to all those bodies that they recognise the need for reform. My mail clearly indicates that some agencies need control, if not removal from the scene. Criticisms are often exaggerated, but they are not always without foundation. The relatively high fees are sometimes resented, and rightly so if the quality of service and the personnel offered do not come up to standard. On the other hand, if the services can be improved through licensing and regulation, the standards of employment agencies may be brought up to the best available and the charges would then be less subject to criticism, for people are prepared to pay a reasonable figure if they are given a good service.

It is a criticism that some agencies do not match the competence of the personnel sent to employers with the wages proposed for such personnel, and that criticism is not infrequent. The Bill does not deal with fees. but I hope that by dealing with quality is will remove criticism of charges.

One hears a number of other criticisms from time to time. One agency, not a member of the federation, recently put an advertisement in the newspapers to say "If you wish to beat the freeze, apply to us." That is the kind of thing that leads to the suggestion that some people will go to any ends to make money in this business.

Another criticism that one hears from time to time is that some agencies place people in jobs, but after a short time, when the time for the agency to claim the full fee is running out, the agency telephones to offer that person another job, and thus it starts the process of earning fees all over again. There are too many rumours about that to discount them altogether. The federation itself does not want that to happen, and I hope that the regulations under the Bill will prevent it.

The agencies have to recognise that if they get a Bill of this kind and there is full geographical licensing, if the Government lay down regulations, the agencies themselves will have to put more of their resources into providing trained staff within their own organisations, trained interviewers and so on. They have to ensure that the skills for which employers ask are matched by the training provided by those interviewing, so that an interviewer may tell an employer, "I am sending you an individual who has these qualifications, and I am certain that those qualifications are right".

That may be perfection, but the agencies have to seek to reach a situation where they can provide that service. That means spending more money on training and on research and perhaps a little less of proliferating branches for the sake of them, for the sake of opening new outlets. Let us have outlets that provide quality rather than too many that do not provide the standards that we ought to have.

There is a need to regulate and to licence over the whole country. The old Prices and Incomes Board carried out a survey on employment agencies. It did not come out in favour of doing away with them, although many people hoped and expected that it would. It made an expert survey and clearly indicated that the agencies were performing a useful service. It did not, on the other hand, say that they were perfect. One gets the clear impression from that report that the board felt there was a need for an improvement in standards.

The Select Committee on Expenditure has recently been engaged in investigating employment services. The report is not yet published, so I cannot comment on it. I can say that some of those representing the employment agencies who appeared before the Committee have made it clear that they do not object to the kind of proposals that we have here. My intention is to extend the present licensing system, which applies to London and some other areas, to the rest of the country. As a result of the Bill the present provisions will be replaced.

The Secretary of State for Employment will have the power to lay regulations under the negative resolution procedure, and the House will have the right to object and to vote against any regulation. It is my firm expectation that these regulations will be used to import quality and integrity of service by forbidding the kind of abuses about which we hear and by establishing a high quality of service. My right hon. Friend will need to make use of the tool that is being provided.

I turn now to the Bill. Clauses 1 to 4 deal with the licensing procedure. Because local authorities do this now, I felt it right to retain this licensing function with the district and county councils —the boroughs in London and the county councils outside. Those agents at present working will be able to continue, irrespective of whether they have licences at the moment, provided that they apply for a licence when the Bill becomes law. They will be able to continue in business until the licence for which they have applied is refused. They will be able to continue throughout the appeal procedure.

The licensing authority will require full information. It will extract a fee determined by the Secretary of State. Registration fees should be neither too high nor too low. This is a business which can well afford to pay. We want standards and people who can afford to pay the money that goes with them. My feeling is that there should be a first registration fee of £100 and a fee of £50 a year thereafter. This would be for every branch. Grounds for refusal to grant a licence are set out in Clause 2. This is quite separate from the impositions to be contained in the regulations laid by my right hon. Friend under Clause 5. Failure to conform with those can also result in a loss of licence.

Under Clause 2 the licence can be refused in the first place to anyone under 21 years of age. Some may ask "Why not 18, which is the normal age of majority now?" I took that point, but I believe that 21 is a fair age to be running a business. For someone to come out of the sixth form and begin to run a business, particularly a business of this kind, is a little much. We live in the days when young men get to the top quickly, but not that quickly.

A licence can be refused for any known misconduct, for the inadequacy of the premises and for any improper conduct. The refusal to grant a licence must be communicated within seven days. The period of the licence can extend from one to five years. It was suggested that it might be one year, but I believe that we should have flexibility here to cut down on bureaucracy. We operate a similar system with driving licences.

There are penalties laid down ranging from fines of £100 to £400 for failure to comply with the regulations and other matters set out in the Bill. The arrangements for the revocation of any licence are set out, with suitable safeguards concerning notice of appeal. Clause 3 deals with the revoking of licences, and it is widely drawn to cover failure in quality or suitability of staff as a ground for revocation. The clause is also sufficiently widely drawn to cover the Race Relations Act without having to make specific reference to it.

Appeals are dealt with under Clause 4 and are to the Secretary of State, who may appoint an independent person. I would be open to any proposals in Committee about the best kind of appeals procedure. Perhaps the procedure in the Bill is the best answer. There are points for and against it.

Clause 5 is the heart of the Bill. This is where the Minister comes in. He will have to determine the regulations. It has been said that these regulations will bite differently in different areas. These regulations will need to be realistic and firm. I hope that my hon. Friend can say something about this at some stage. We must have regulations to ensure quality. The protection of the interests of young people is also important, and we must ensure that the regulations cover this.

The Bill gives examples of what may be included in the regulations. It sets out record-keeping, advertising, provision of services offered and the safeguarding of client's money accounts, a matter which has rightly concerned the hon. Member for Putney, whom I mentioned before he entered the Chamber. I am glad to see him here. I hope I can accept that the Minister will lay realistic regulations. If he does not and this measure is passed, some Minister will do so at some time. It would be a nonsense to pass such a Bill without adequate regulations being made. It would become a slumbering elephant, all trunk and no movement. The TUC and others interested in the Bill and the code of conduct want to make sure that disciplines are uniform throughout the country. All that I can say to that is, so do I. That is why I have introduced the Bill. Its purpose is to establish a national pattern rather than one that bites in some places and not in others.

I should like in Committee to consider including a subsection to impose upon local authorities, which will police the measure when it becomes law, the obligation to report regularly to the Secretary of State. It is important that there should be close liaison between the Secretary of State, who will make the regulations and those who will have to see that they are carried out.

Clause 6 forbids the charging of employees either for putting them in touch with jobs or for providing them with lists of jobs. This is a safeguard against exploitation. I am sure it is generally accepted that the right to work should not be a matter of payment. There is not a deal of that going on now, but there is some, and the selling of lists will be prohibited by the Bill.

There are certain difficulties in the entertainment industry, and that is why the Bill allows flexibility to the Minister. I hope that he will be able to lay regulations to exempt the entertainment industry. Where artists are concerned with contracts, and where, as at present, an agent takes 10 per cent. of the contract as a fee, there is a need to recognise that situation. To change the whole system would cause complete turmoil in that industry. That is one exception which I hope will be accepted and which the Minister will have to spell out in due course.

There is one thing in the Bill which I think the hon. Member for Putney will feel is helpful to the entertainment industry, and that is the provision dealing with clients' money accounts. Some agents hold on to artists' money. That will not be permitted if the Bill becomes law.

Clause 8 gives licensing authorities the right of inspection. If there are regulations, and penalties for not carrying them out, there must be inspection. This will be carried out by the authorities in whichever way seems best to them. Some may use the police and some may use their own officials.

Clause 11 gives the Secretary of State power to lay the regulations referred to in Clause 5. Hon. Members may like to note that after representations made to me I have written into the clause the provision that before laying these regulations the Minister must consult such representative bodies as seem to him to be appropriate. As the Minister has to help the industry to make itself more efficient, I think that there should be discussions with all those who have been involved in this business over many years.

Clause 12 is the interpretation clause. It is self-explanatory, but it should be noted that it refers to both employment agencies and employment businesses. Employment agencies are those which provide staff which employers take into their offices permanently. Employment businesses are a new development in recent years, and are increasing. They are responsible for the employment of temporary staff who remain employed by the employment businesses themselves.

The Bill also deals with agencies that are responsible for providing au pair workers. These girls have come to this country from abroad in increasing num- bers in recent years, but the House should appreciate that in addition there are some who come to England from Scotland. The Bill has, therefore, had to be drawn to cover them too.

Some of the arrangements for au pair girls are sensible. If a girl wishes to live with a family who in return want some help from her, an arrangement is made whereby she receives a certain minimum income plus her keep. Most people involved in this kind of arrangement provide a good deal for the girls concerned. They allow them time off to do what many of them want to do when they come here from abroad; namely, to see the country and enjoy themselves. But there are some people who take advantage of these part-time workers, and it is necessary that provision should be made to regulate their activities.

Nurses and seamen are exempt from the Bill because they are covered by other Acts of Parliament. Excluded also are certain employment arrangements for Service and ex-Service men and women. A further exemption covers services provided by employers for workers within their own company structure. Apart from those exemptions, I think that the Bill covers most, if not all, workers who are not now covered by other Acts of Parliament.

The Bill deals with an area that has become of considerable importance in our national life. It is bound to grow and provide more and more opportunities for those who want to use them. It is, therefore, necessary that the standards of employment should be maintained. We are dealing with a matter that concerns particularly the working lives of young men and women.

Training, testing and fitting square pegs into square holes are important in both the public and the private service, and it is necessary that the standards in both sectors are of the highest. Without the Bill, the employment business will be good and it will be bad. There will be a mixture. We cannot afford to allow it to be bad. We should not tolerate it when we are dealing with working people.

I am afraid that my Bill does not apply to Members of Parliament. We are employed or unemployed according to what the electors think. The Bill does, however, deal with most other people.

I hope that the measure will be regarded as both reasonable and sensible. I have sought to take the voices and listen to what people have proposed. I have not accepted everything that has been put to me. Obviously, there has had to be compromise, but in so far as the Bill seeks to improve a field of activity which is now important to us I hope that the House will think it right to give it a Second Reading and allow it to go to Committee.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Rutland and Stamford (Mr. Kenneth Lewis) upon his success in drawing a good place in the ballot. That does not always necessarily mean that a Private Member's Bill receives a Second Reading. However, at least the hon. Gentleman has begun the Second Reading process. He is also to be congratulated on having selected this subject for his Bill.

It is an important subject. I wonder whether there is any other sphere of activity in which the need for adequate legislation has been recognised for so long when at the same time there has been a total absence of legislation. Over the period since the ILO Convention of 1949 successive Governments have indicated their intention to ratify the convention. A Labour Government did so in 1950 and a Conservative Government did the same in 1951.

The international convention provides for what are called fee-charging employment agencies to be abolished or regulated. There are those who believe that there is no requirement for the function of an agent between employer and employee. If one were operating in a vacuum or even in a society in which certain practices and customs were not fully developed, one would feel that there was a great deal to be said for the proposition that the relationship between employer and employee did not provide any satisfactory sphere for the operation of an agency other than one provided by the State. This view is taken in many parts of the world. In a number of Western European countries fee-charging agencies are illegal. The practice is illegal in France and Denmark, for example, where the view is taken that there is no need for any other person to interpose himself between employer and employee as agent for either.

One curious feature of employment agents which some people think makes their activities questionable, as distinct from those of other agents, is that according to the nature of the market sometimes they operate for employers and sometimes for employees, and sometimes they charge employers and sometimes employees. There is a shortage of office labour, for example. In this area fees are charged to employers. In the entertainment business, on the other hand, which originally attracted my own attention to the subject when I was assistant general secretary to British Actors Equity Association, there is a shortage of employment with too many people seeking it. In those circumstances agents charge employees for their services. This situation often gives rise to the accusation that the function of an agent is essentially parasitical—

Apart from the theatrical and entertainment professions, is there any sphere in which the person seeking employment has to pay a fee or commission? As I understand it, the overwhelming majority of agencies charge employers.

That is largely the case, though I think that there are one or two instances in which employees pay commission. It used to be the case in some forms of domestic service, for example. Whether this is still the case no doubt the Under-Secretary will be able to tell us. Probably he will also tell us that in addition to the world of entertainment there are one or two other spheres in which fees are paid by employees. However, I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Brixton (Mr. Lipton) that it is comparatively rare and that the three spheres in which the rôle of the employment agent comes to public notice most often are the entertatinment world, about which I shall comment in a moment, office employment, where the feeling rightly or wrongly, is that employers are sometimes exploited by the operation of agents, and what is often called "head-hunting" where rather top people are shunted from one part of the world to another to take jobs at very high salaries and where fees are taken by the agents who, incidentally, do not like to call themselves agents, though legally they are, and resent the idea of being regarded as anything other than specialist and high-powered persons placing equally high-powered persons into high-powered positions.

It was this last sphere of operations whose representatives succeeded in bringing about the failure of a Bill which I introduced and which came to no good, as I shall describe presently. I wish the hon. Member for Rutland and Stamford every success because his initiative provides an opportunity to rectify the fact that my own Bill did not reach fruition. It is a long-recognised need.

However, there are substantial differences between the Bill currently before us and my own Bill which got as far as Report stage before foundering. Externally this Bill bears a close resemblance to my own, though not to my own as it went into Committee but after it emerged from its Committee stage. It had a detailed Committee stage, and it was very different after it. The present Bill resembles my own Bill after its Committee stage rather than the form in which it went into the Committee stage. That fact probably reflects departmental thinking on the subject, and it is none the worse for that because the Department will have to administer any legislation, and I have no doubt that the shape of the present Bill is one to which no exception can be taken. However, there are important differences and perhaps I might refer to one or two of them.

Rather than go through the whole Bill, I plunge immediately into the main points which probably will present us with problems. The first was touched upon by the hon. Member for Rutland and Stamford. It concerns the regulation of fees. Probably the need for regulating fees is not so apparent elsewhere as it is in the world of entertainment, where it is abundantly apparent. As the Bill is drafted at present, it seems possible with minor alterations to provide for fee limitation regulations to be issued by the Secretary of State, even though there is a general prohibition. If that is not the case the matter must be looked at in Committee.

In Clause 5 there is a specific prohibition in the following terms:

"Provided that regulations under this section shall not make provision for regulating or restricting the charging of fees by persons carrying on such agencies and business."

Clause 6 provides a general prohibition on fee charging except in such cases as the Secretary of State may prescribe. Under Clause 6 the Secretary of State could, if he saw fit, prescribe a limitation of fees when fees are charged for the obtaining of employment. There is no doubt that in the entertainment world fees are charged for the obtaining of employment. They are also charged for the negotiation of the size of the remuneration. The bringing together of the actor and the manager is a part of the duty of an employment agency.

Some actors tell me that their agencies do not find them employment. They say that they discover their employment for themselves, that they tell the agent and the agent goes to the manager and fixes the fee for them. Thus, the mundane business of discussing remuneration is removed from the sensitivities of the actor. However, the actor obtains the employment himself by personal contact with the manager.

That situation sometimes occurs, but there is no doubt that it is recognised as a part of the duty of an agent in the entertainment world to try to obtain employment for his client. Of course, at times it is pretty difficult to do so. That is one of the reasons for payment of a fee. If the Bill as drafted does not, or would not, permit the regulation of fees under Clause 6, it will be necessary to make some alterations in Committee so as to permit that regulation in entertainment even if it were prohibited generally.

There are areas in the entertainment world where the pressures of unemployment, the number of unemployed persons and the pressure of persons seeking employment are so great and the number of opportunities for employment is so limited that the agent is in a peculiarly strong position if he is not one of the more reputable agents. Of course, there are many reputable agents. However, an agent in such a strong position can exploit the situation. Fees as high as 25 per cent. and more have been known to have been paid. There needs to be close regulation. Such regulation should include power for the Secretary of State to limit the fee charged. I shall be interested to hear what the Under-Secretary of State says about that matter.

It has always been my view, based upon experience, that if there is no central licensing that is almost as bad as no licensing. In the past an agent deprived of a licence by a properly functioning authority—and only about two authorities in the country ever functioned properly under the existing and rather nugatory legislation—in, for example, the old LCC area would move into Surrey where there were no licensing regulations. If an agent was based in Manchester he would move to Salford or from Salford, for example, to Cheshire. Therefore, an agent could move from an area where licensing was enforced to an area where licensing was non-existent. The licensing procedure was thus rendered almost inoperative.

I am in favour of a central licensing system. If there is not to be such a system and if licensing is to be carried out by local authorities, it is extremely important that the licensing process shall be obligatory. There should be general standards laid down in the regulations so that the authorities carry out their functions similarly in different parts of the country. If we adhere to the belief that the licensing authorities should be the local authorities, it seems that there must be obligatory licensing, the sort of licensing which an authority must carry out whether or not it wants to do so.

Further, the nature of the licensing, the duty of the authorities and the necessity of inspection by the authorities to ensure that the functions of the authority and the provisions of the authority are being carried out will have to be clearly laid down either in the Bill or by the regulations that the Secretary of State will issue under the Bill.

That is another area, together with limitation of fees, which it will be necessary to examine in Committee. The hon. Member for Rutland and Stamford said that if the quality of the work performed by the agent was regulated there was no necessity to regulate the fees charged. That is not a proposition which could be said to hold in the world of entertainment. There is no relationship in that world between the quality of the job done and the size of the fee charged. Indeed, the reverse is often the case. By and large the best work is done by the agents who charge the smallest fees. The agents who work in personal management, whose work consists of carrying out the contractual relationships of no more than a dozen or so of the leading actors, are necessary in the sort of world in which we now exist. Their work is not parasitical. In fact, it is a useful and necessary occupation.

The fees charged mean that the agents do quite nicely. Although their fee is a small percentage of the total, they operate in a sphere where the fees are large, and 10 per cent. of a large fee represents handsome remuneration. If I have suggested that the agent is an employer, that was a slip of the tongue. The legal situation is that the agent is the employee of the actor. In fact, the agents often joke about that and regard themselves as the employer of the actor. It was said by one agent that actors were people who took 90 per cent. of his fee.

In my original Bill I included a provision to prohibit a person from being both employer and agent. I should like to see in this Bill such a provision, or at least one to prohibit the charging of fees in circumstances where a person is both employer and agent. Although it is done less now than it used to be, it is not unusual in the entertainment world for the same person, under two different hats, to be both employer and agent. An actor goes to an office, gets a job and is then sent round to another office where he agrees to have 10 per cent. deducted from his salary as a charge, as it were, for being permitted to work. Of course, this could only happen where work was scarce, but it goes on. To write such a provision into the Bill would not interfere with its general operation because the sort of situation I have described does not happen in other sectors of employment.

Has the hon. Gentleman got much current evidence of this practice?

Not a great deal. I am not so closely in touch as I used to be on this subject, but I hope between now and the Committee stage to do research into the current situation. However, I am told that although it was very blatant at one time, it is now less so. I myself have seen in a single envelope both the employment contract and the agency fee demand—and this was from a well-known employer.

There is today a well-known West End employer of actors who also owns, in another name, an agency. To gain employment by this well-known manager, it is obligatory to go through his agency. Sometimes in such circumstances difficulties arise. For example, the actor may have a permanent agent of his own who will refuse to split the commission. Usually, where the employer has his own agency and the actor has his own personal agent, the two agents get together and take 5 per cent. each of the charge paid by the actor. That is not uncustomary. But if the actor's agent refuses to split the commission, it can have the effect of depriving the actor of that piece of employment. This was happening as late as a year ago, and I think it is still sufficient of a scandal to be prohibited specifically in the Bill or in the regulations which would be made under it.

In putting forward various thoughts and suggesting various improvements which might be made in it, I hope that I do not appear to be derogating from my general welcome to the Bill. I hope that the House will give it a Second Reading and that we shall have an opportunity in Committee to consider it in detail and decide whether some of the suggestions I have made could be included.

I was glad that the hon. Gentleman referred to the question of the client's money. I am not sure whether it is sufficient for the Secretary of State to have power to issue regulations on the question of safeguarding the client's money. Perhaps there should be a clause in the Bill laying down a provision similar to that which I understand applies in the legal profession, whereby a solicitor is compelled to have an entirely separate account for the client's money, which does not form part of his own money.

The trouble in this context is not that always the agent concerned is a crook—not at all. I give an example of a sector of employment where fees are low—crowd work. A little more than a year ago an agent supply extras for crowd work, employed mostly by the BBC, went bankrupt. He may have been a bad business man or whatever it was, but because there is no provision in the law for a separate client's money clause all the money involved, including that which he had kept for the actors, went into the general pool, as it were. The actors were thus entirely deprived of their fees, which totalled £20,000. They never saw their money.

Such people are not the sort who can afford to let sums like £6 or £8 go—the £20,000 was mainly made up of small fees like that. Such agents are vulnerable because they do not operate on very large margins. One could argue that they should not operate at all. They are saving money for the BBC and other organisations which should employ casting departments. But all the BBC, or whatever it is, does is to say to an agent "We want six crowd people for a programme. Find them for us." The agent does the work, sends along the people and is paid the fee. He thus saves the BBC and the television companies the necessity of having casting departments.

This sort of thing should not take place, but as it does take place we now have an opportunity in the Bill to provide against loss by clients by creating the legal necessity for their money to be put into separate clients' accounts. In this way, the money would be the client's own property and would not go into the pool in the event of the agent going bankrupt. I am sure that there is at least one more agent in this area who is going to go bankrupt within the next few weeks or months. It is a situation which Equity is following at the moment with considerable anxiety.

Can my hon. Friend tell us how long the delay is before someone who has acted in a crowd gets his money? He has said that the motley would be paid to the agent. Would the agent pay the person working in the crowd straight away, or would the actor have to wait a week or a month, for example?

A time lag usually shows that things are starting to go wrong. When actors have to wait for their money, one immediately knows that the money from one job is being used against another. It is a sign in advance that someone will be going bankrupt before long. Equity gets letters from actors saying "I have had to wait six weeks for my fee ', and when it does it is usually not because of sheer incompetence or carelessness by the agency, although there may be one or the other, but because the agent has obviously been using one fee to cover his administrative expenses and presumably his living expenses instead of putting the money into entirely separate accounts. I hope that the Bill will deal with this sort of consideration.

But does it not work the other way round as well? Does not the agent sometimes have to wait for the money from the BBC or other organisations? Is there not sometimes a time lag between the work done by the extra and payment by the BBC or whatever organisation is involved?

Indeed, yes. It is not always the case that the agent is to blame, but, whereas it is possible for the trade union to get at and put pressure upon a major employer to pay quickly, the situation of an agent is very different. As my hon. Friend indicates, some of the very large organisations are not always as quick in paying as they should be, but that is something we cannot deal with in the Bill.

I hope I have not taken up too much time in going through these matters, but I felt it might be right at this stage to give the hon. Gentleman and the Under-Secretary of State an indication of some of the things which we hope they will be good enough to look at in the later stages which I hope the Bill will go through.

There is the question of what I should call a central licensing authority or, if that cannot be, the general application of similar licensing conditions throughout the country. I think that that can be done only by central decision of some kind. The present anomaly in the law, which provides that moneys received by agencies belong to those agencies, should be changed to make it money in trust.

My hon. Friend will have noted that in Clause 5(1)(d) there is a specific provision for the Secretary of State to make an order which would require safeguards of the kind that he has mentioned regarding money deposited with agents. In view of my hon. Friend's knowledge of the practice in this sphere, may I ask him to indicate his view whether this safeguard would be offset by the other provisions in Clause 5 which would prevent the Secretary of State regulating the amount which might be chargeable by way of fees?

I do not think that that would be the trouble. The trouble, if we are to be effective, is keeping clients' money separate from the money of the agency. We need a powerful piece of legislation to make it effective. We need similar legislation to that which operates in the law under which solicitors are required to keep their clients' money separate, and, if they fail to do so, are subjected to considerable penalties. I am not clear whether those penalties are imposed by law or by internal organisations within the profession. We need something of that magnitude in this area. I question whether this should be done by regulation or by a clause in the Bill and, we hope, a section in the Act.

With those somewhat detailed remarks, I hope that I have indicated the kind of changes which I should like to see in the Bill. I welcome the Bill and again congratulate the hon. Member for Rutland and Stamford on having introduced it. I express the hope that the Bill will reach the statute book. If it does, the words "filling a long-felt want" will never have been used with greater reality.

Without in any way seeking to curtail the debate, it might be helpful if I were to indicate the Government's views about the Bill, as I have been invited to do.

Before doing so, I should like to take the opportunity of congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Rutland and Stamford (Mr. Kenneth Lewis) on his good fortune, rare for most of us, in securing a high place in the ballot for Private Members' Bills and to say how pleased I am to join in the debate.

I know of my hon. Friend's great interest in this subject. He has always been concerned with employment and industrial relations matters. He has felt for many years that legislation was needed in this sphere, and it is appropriate that he should be the vehicle for bringing the Bill before the House today.

As we have been reminded by the hon. Member for Putney (Mr. Hugh Jenkins), this is not the first time that this subject has been debated. He reminded us of his Bill, which was a casualty, as so many Private Members' Bills are, although it seemed to make rather more progress than many. That was in 1966. I do not recall it, because at that time I was having an enforced absence at the behest of the electorate. I am glad that it was only a temporary absence—and I read about the hon. Gentleman's Bill outside the House. I am glad to be here today to take part in the debate on this Bill.

In 1966 the then Minister of Labour estimated that there were more than 3,000 employment agencies in Britain. At a recent count there were more than 5,200 such agencies listed in the Yellow Pages of the Post Office Directory. I hope that no one will get up and ask why we do not have a better count. As things stand, it is not our responsibility to make a count of how many there are. That is the best estimate I am able to present today. If it was accepted in 1966 that there was a case for regularising the law relating to employment agencies, surely those figures show how much stronger that case is today.

The Government welcome and support the Bill. Before explaining our view, however, I want to stress the complexity of the subject with which we are dealing. It is too easy to forget that the Bill covers a much wider area than the secretarial agencies of central London. There are entertainment agencies, which we have heard about from the hon. Member for Putney, model agencies and agencies providing haulage drivers. All these come within the subject, as do management consultants. Whether they like it or not, they are in fact employment agencies.

Officials of my Department have been examining this complex area to see what would be required if new legislation to control private employment agencies were to be introduced. I am glad that the proposals now before us to a great extent meet those points which we have identified as being in need of attention.

First, there is a need to correct the rather ludicrous situation in which the geographical location of an agency governs whether it shall or shall not be licensed. Only some 50 local authority areas in the country are covered by licensing powers contained in local Acts.

Will the hon. Gentleman explain why so few local authorities take the trouble to acquire licensing powers in this sphere?

Offhand I cannot answer that question. I can, however, confirm that authorities vary. I think that those which have powers operate them with a certain degree of good sense and go into the subject in a serious way, but others do not and I do not know why they have not taken powers upon themselves. The Bill will make it obligatory for this to be a fairly universal power throughout the country.

It is not unknown in this situation for the unscrupulous to transfer their activities from areas in which they have been refused a licence to areas in which no licensing requirement exists. We welcome the proposal that all agencies, wherever they are established, should hold a current licence. This will put right the situation to which the hon. Member for Brixton (Mr. Lipton) rightly drew attention.

Secondly, the legislation in those areas where it applies is based on original provisions contained in the London County Council Act 1921. It does not require much imagination on the part of hon. Members to realise that many of those provisions are now out of date and that many of the present-day practices do not come within the scope of such legislation.

Emphasis in those days was on the prevention of immorality and fraud in the operation of employment agencies. In today's circumstances it is unusual for these to be much in evidence, although we cannot, of course, afford to ignore them completely. What is now required, in our opinion, is a set of rules for the conduct of businesses of this kind which would protect the interests of both their employee and their employer clients.

I do not wish to dwell here on matters which would be dealt with in regulations if the Bill reaches the Statute Book, but I should like to tell my hon. Friend, particularly in response to his comment on this point, that it would be our intention to use the regulation-making power to ensure that employment agency services were of a consistently high standard and that the genuine interests of those who used the services of agents were properly protected. In particularly, it is important that clients who are not in a position to protect themselves should be entitled to the knowledge that the agents with whom they are dealing are giving them a fair and honest deal. This is no more than be expected from any profession, and that, I believe, is what many in the industry regard themselves as being.

Last summer we had our moments of concern about young English women who were taking jobs in Spain. Certain allegations were made about the employment conditions which they encountered on arriving there. To the best of my knowledge, it has never been shown that there was anything improper either in the arrangements for sending these girls to Spain or in the nature of the employment which they undertook on arrival.

However, that affair left an unpleasant feeling that the rules for safeguarding the interests of such clients were by no means strict enough. I know that the Federation of Personnel Services has taken certain steps to ensure that in future its own membership conforms to an improved standard of practice in this respect. I would hope to see that standard accepted through out the employment industry.

As a further example, there is adequate reason for requiring agents who handle their clients' money to take proper steps to safeguard their funds, as we heard from the hon. Member for Putney. Such clients are entitled to know that the affairs of the agencies are being properly conducted, and I am pleased to note that the Secretary of State is to be given powers in this Bill to make regulations for this purpose. The hon. Gentleman implied that we have not got it quite right and that my hon. Friend's Bill may not achieve exactly what he would like to see achieved. In that case, we can discuss this important point in Committee, but the essence is there. The provision is in the Bill, and I hope and believe that in due course it will be effective.

I also welcome in this Bill the provision that employment agencies shall no longer be allowed to charge employee clients for the services which they provide for them. This is an important point. It is one which was raised by the hon. Member for Putney and, in an intervention, by the hon. Member for Brixton. They asked me what was the situation in connection with fees which were charged, and whether there were any examples. The practice is most commonly found in relation to the sending of workers overseas and to the finding of employment in Great Britain for people who normally reside overseas. I also understand that occasionally fees are charged to employees in the catering industry. Again, I think it is a matter which certainly needs regularising, and the Bill, in fact, does this.

In both cases the employees concerned finish up at the other side of the water to their money and they have no ready means of redress when things go wrong. We have received many complaints from the non-industrialised countries about this practice, and I sincerely hope the Bill will stamp out once for all this petty, pernicious practice.

The hon. Member for Putney also dealt with the question of limitation of fees. Regulations could be made to permit the charging of fees to employees in the entertainment industry under prescribed conditions, but my right hon. Friend and I would wish to discuss the details of this with the industry before making regulations. This is a point which has not been overlooked.

On the other hand, it is fair to say that my Department also receives complaints from employer clients about the services which they have received from agents. There is a general view that when an agency is being paid sums of the order of from £100 to £200 for securing the introduction of just one employee, employers are entitled to a somewhat higher standard of service than that which they have been receiving. I consider this to be a further matter which could be dealt with by a code of professional conduct to which I hope all sectors of the industry will subscribe.

There are, however, matters on which employers feel the need for protection against the activities of some employment agents. I refer particularly to the question of inducing employees to leave an employer with whom they have been previously placed. As this is a private matter between the agency and the employee, the employer rightly feels completely defenceless, knowing only that he has paid a fee for the introduction of that employee and that he is likely to have to pay a further fee if the employee leaves his employment.

This problem takes on a different aspect, however, with the general inducement of people to leave their employment by seeking new posts through an agency in return for which they will receive various rewards, including free holidays abroad. Movement of labour within the labour force for these reasons cannot be condoned. I do not think it is any advantage to the economic life of this country that labour turnover should be induced in this way. I want to see an end to such practices, as I am sure do the vast majority of hon. Members.

I should like to make one final reference to the quality of the service offered by agencies. This deals partly with one of the issues brought out by the hon. Member for Putney. We in my Department, as my hon. Friend the Member for Rutland and Stamford reminded us, are pressing ahead with a massive programme for modernising and developing the public employment service in Britain, but we do not seek to secure a monopoly of placing work. The labour market is complex and diverse and needs a variety of ways of bringing employers and workers together if it is to operate smoothly.

We believe that the public service has a distinctive and fundamental role to play, but we recognise that advertising, personal contact and private agencies each have a role to play as well. They fit into the spectrum, provided that they are conducted honourably and properly.

Just as the operation of some of the private agencies has acted as a spur in some measure to the development of the public service, so I am convinced that modernisation of the public service will encourage improvement in the services of private agencies, which will be greatly to the advantage of the public at large.

I am assuming that the hon. Gentleman has passed that part of his speech dealing with the charging of fees. I apologise for intervening if he intends to say something more about it, but will he give some indication of the kind of examples where the Secretary of State might wish to use the prohibitive power provided in Clause 6(1)?

That is an interesting point. If the hon. Gentleman will excuse me, I am not trying to dodge the issue but it is one to which I should like to give further thought before replying. Perhaps it is a useful point that we could discuss in Committee, when I hope the hon. Member will be prepared to raise it. The hon. Gentleman will appreciate that, although this is my hon. Friend's Bill, we obviously have a view on this and I should like to be able to put it forward in Committee.

I have so far dealt with, I suppose, about half the problem. The present legislation, where it exists, needs to be updated not only because the atmosphere in which the commercial agency has operated has changed over the years since the first legislation was passed but because agencies are now involved in placing people in situations other than those covered by straightforward contract of employment. For example, there has been an enormous increase in the number of young people seeking positions as an pairs, and there are a number of agencies specialising in this type of activity. I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth Devonport (Dame Joan Vickers) has a close interest in this.

It would seem to me indefensible that an employment agency should be required to take certain steps to protect the interests of its clients when sending them abroad or placing them in employment in this country if those agencies which specialised in au pairs were not required to conform to similar conditions. I am pleased to see that there is in the Bill an extension of the definition of "employment" so as to include that activity.

An even more obvious extension of the present legal definition of employment agency is required in connection with staff contracting. This practice is by no means a new phenomenon, but it is expanding not only in this country but in most industrial nations. In this kind of activity, the business makes a contract to supply to a borrower staff who are on the payroll of the business itself. Such businesses are, therefore, employers and not agencies in the usual meaning of the word, but their activity, particularly in secretarial work, is so closely related to the permanent placing activity, and is so often carried on from the same premises, that it would not be right, in my view, to provide for the proper control of the one without at the same time providing for the control of the other. The Government recognise the case which has been advanced by the Federation of Personnel Services and others that the business of staff contracting is not employment agency business, and I am pleased to note that my hon. Friend has made a specific reference in the Bill to employment agencies and employment businesses, providing two separate definitions of these activities. I am sure that they are needed.

It might be useful if I said a word about the position in Europe, since it bears directly on the position of the staff contractor. The general situation in the original six member countries of the Common Market is that agencies dealing with permanent placing of employees are prohibited, but businesses which deal with temporary hire are permitted, although in some cases they are subject to legislative control.

We have no intention of aligning ourselves completely with that position since we cannot accept that there is any virtue in the prohibition of employment agencies. There are many aspects of the employment market in which it would clearly be absurd for the State employment service to have a monopoly, and I understand that, to some extent, the national Governments in the EEC are beginning to relent and allow permanent placing agencies to operate in certain parts of the labour market.

My hon. Friend's Bill, therefore, will not bring us completely into line with the European countries, but it will establish in this country a licensing system for staff contracting which will be very similar to the arrangements being made in other countries. This will be welcomed, I know, by our new partners in Europe since it will remove any fear that after our accession to the Com- munity businesses which have been refused licences to operate in their home countries would find no obstruction to setting up business here.

The hon. Gentleman points out that the Bill would not enable the Government to ratify that part of the ILO Convention which provides for the abolition of agencies. However, after the passage of the Bill they would be able to ratify the part of the convention which provides for the regulation of agencies, would they not?

That is another matter for consideration. There is no intention to ratify at present, but, in view of what the hon. Gentleman says, I shall look into that aspect of it. As he knows, the main thinking behind that original proposal was the abolition of private employment agencies.

It is not true, as so many people seem to think, that there is any Community legislation on this subject which will apply to us as a result of our membership of the EEC. Such legislation as there is originates in the separate countries, not from Brussels. Therefore, if the House so wills and his Bill goes forward, my hon. Friend can be assured that it can be put on the statute book without in any way contravening any EEC legislation.

I come now to two other matters of detail which touch on Government policy, and I take, first, the choice of the local authority as licensing authority. It has long been part of our policy to devolve responsibility to the appropriate local authority wherever possible. In that sense not only is it possible but some local authorities, as we know, are already carrying out duties prescribed by the Bill and all of them perform similar duties under the Nurses Agencies Act. It therefore seems right for the licensing authority in this case to rest with the local authority. I know the argument for central control, but again this is a matter which can certainly be influenced very strongly by the suggestions made by the Secretary of State of the day. Here again we can take up in Committee the point raised by the hon. Member as to the degree of uniformity which should desirably be achieved by the various licensing authorities. I have noted the point about the lack of uniformity of enforcement and I am certain that we can give it further thought in Committee and perhaps find a form of words which will strengthen this aspect of the legislation.

I wish to turn briefly to the question of appeals. The Bill also includes provision for appeal to be made to the Secretary of State against the licensing authority's decision. That is a change from current practice, but it is in line with the Government's current views that the courts should deal with judicial and not administrative matters. The provision in the Bill, which again we can discuss in Committee if hon. Members are unhappy about it, takes cognisance of this view whilst retaining the independence of the arbitration provided for.

In the short time available to me, and I am conscious that other hon. Members wish to speak, I think I have said enough about why the Government welcome the introduction of the Bill. We regard it as a flexible measure, and it would certainly be our intention to discuss with the various interests all those complex matters contained in the regulations which would be made. I do not want the House to imagine that such regulations could he produced overnight. Extensive consultations would certainly be necessary. I hope that during the Committee stage, which I hope will take place, I shall be able to indicate more fully than I can today the scope of the regulations which could be made.

It remains for me only to congratulate my hon. Friend on his success in the ballot and commend the Bill to the House. It is not a massive piece of prospective legislation but none the less it is important, and it is a measure which can have a very definite bearing on the future good conduct of employment agencies in this country.

It may be helpful at this stage if I intervene to explain the view of the official Opposition. I join in the congratulations which have been very properly extended to the hon. Member for Rutland and Stamford (Mr. Kenneth Lewis) on his good fortune in being fortunate in the ballot to secure a high enough place to give his Bill a good chance of getting on to the statute book and also on his wisdom in choosing the measure that he has put before the House.

Inevitably I shall be echoing some of the remarks of my hon. Friend the Member for Putney (Mr. Hugh Jenkins), but if I do so it is to make it abundantly clear that it is the view not only of back benchers but also of the Front Bench that we support the Bill but that we have some of the reservations expressed by my hon. Friend. No doubt my hon. Friend will derive some satisfaction from seeing the Bill before the House after the persistent way in which he has pursued this issue over the years.

I welcome the remarks by the Under-Secretary and I shall mildly quarrel with him on one or two of them. Generally, however, I welcome the Government's support for the Bill. It is a rare occasion these days for all quarters of the House to seem to find themselves in harmony on something. We have some quibbles to which I shall refer briefly, but on the whole we welcome the Bill and we will support it. Of course, we should like to see it tightened up along the lines already suggested by my hon. Friends. The most important factor is the question referred to by the Under-Secretary about who should be the licensing authority and whether it should be the local authorities or otherwise.

The hon. Gentleman said that it had been the Government's policy to devolve responsibility to local authorities. I am not quite sure whether he meant that generally or simply in this matter. It is not quite true. For example, the Government are centralising car licensing arrangements, which seem analogous, at Swansea.

When my hon. Friend the Member for Putney presented his Bill the then Minister, the former right hon. Member for Southwark, Mr. Gunter, expressed the view of the Labour Government of the day, presumably with his Department behind him, that the employment agencies should be licensed by a central authority. He said:

"The licence should be issued by a central authority, and before a licence can be obtained the central authority should be satisfied about the activities of the employment agencies and it should have the power to require an agency to supply information about its activities".— [OFFICIAL REPORT, 24th June 1966; Vol. 730, c. 1160.]

I wonder what has influenced the Department to change its views over a relatively short time.

It is very strange and refreshing to hear the Opposition these days quoting the former right hon. Member for Southwark. Usually his views are derided when Conservative Members mention them. But I do not want to be politically controversial. The former Minister was fully entitled to his view. It is the view of the present Government that it is better to devolve responsibility where possible on to local authorities. That remains our view on the Bill.

There was a discussion about the matter, and I came to the conclusion that local authorities were adequate to deal with licensing, although I too at one stage thought that it should be centralised. In car licensing, a licence fee is collected and the police nationally see whether motorists have car licences. Here we are dealing with local businesses. The view I came to accept was that the local people knew more about them and could police them better than a central authority in London.

I am glad that the hon. Gentleman intervened to throw a little more light on the matter but I find it difficult to accept the logic of his argument. Many activities are administered at local level but according to standards determined by the national Government. The Government provide a common standard to ensure a uniform pattern of behaviour. I fear that one of the consequences of putting licensing in the hands of local authorities is that we shall have a patchwork effect, with greater vigilance and more rigorous application in some areas than in others.

Perhaps it was a good thing that the hon. Gentleman intervened, because he has diverted me from entering into what might have been a political quarrel with the Under-Secretary about the Government's devolution of power to local authorities. We can think of many areas in which power has been taken away from local authorities since the present Government took office. But I do not want to be too controversial on a matter about which I hope we shall all try to be as much in harmony as possible.

I must draw attention to one omission from the Bill concerning the practice of employment agencies in relation to young persons. I hope that in Committee the hon. Member for Rutland and Stamford will listen sympathetically to the plea that employment agencies should not be permitted to place in employment young persons under the age of 18. It is of the utmost importance that their placing in employment should be undertaken by people whose sole object is their wellbeing and who will give advice and guidance in the exclusive interests of young people. It should not be undertaken by someone motivated by pecuniary considerations, and I do not make any criticism of the agencies when I say that.

As someone who has been an employee particularly of a secretarial agency, may I ask the hon. Gentleman whether he is saying that a girl who leaves school at, say, 16 and who then does a year's secretarial training until she is 17 may not go to an agency to get a job?

I am saying that it would be preferable for the existing local authority and Department of Employment officers to have exclusive responsibility.

If a girl is old enough at 16 to get married, as she is, is she not old enough to decide whether to go to an agency for a job?

The hon. Gentleman is inviting me to discuss a controversial subject. It is my view, and I am sure the view of my hon. Friends, that the existing State and local authority agencies should be responsible for guiding young people into placings and careers up to the age of 18.

The hon. Member for Rutland and Stamford acknowledged Clause 5 as the key clause of the Bill. A small but important issue arises and I mention it now to give him warning of it. It concerns whether the Secretary of State's power to make regulations shall be mandatory or permissive—in other words, whether he will be obliged to make regulations. I do not deny the good intentions of the Secretary of State, but many people would be reassured if the Bill stipulated an obligation on the Secretary of State to make regulations.

The Under-Secretary of State referred to abuses. On the limited information available it seems that a prevalent malpractice is to induce young employees to switch jobs. I do not comment now, but I welcome what the hon. Gentleman says. I echo what was said by the Minister in the 1966 debate and welcome the proposal to have regulations to oblige the agencies to make returns to the Department or its subordinate offices about such things as the number and kind of placings that it has undertaken. This could be done through the new Office of Manpower Economics or the new department that it is proposed to create. This would strengthen the Government's surveillance over the work and functions of the agencies.

I hope that it will be explained why in Clause 6(1) there is a provision enabling the Secretary of State to provide exemptions in respect of receiving fees for placing persons in employment. We are entitled to know what kind of people the hon. Gentleman has in mind. I have thought about it. I can think of possible categories but I do not see why there should be this provision. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will convince me in Committee.

I turn to the terms of the ILO convention, a copy of which I have before me from the TUC. It seems that if the Bill is subsequently enacted it will give an opportunity for the Government to ratify the convention. The terms of the convention require Governments either to abolish fee-paying agencies within a limited period and to exercise interim control of them or to regulate them by way of annual licensing by the competent authority, the fees to be on a scale approved by that authority and recruitment and placing abroad to be permitted only by that authority.

Very largely the Bill meets the second of those alternatives. In that event, I do not see why the Government should not consider eventual ratification. I hope that the Minister will tell us what the position is. I am sure that both sides of the House would like us to move towards ratification of a treaty which was drafted in 1949. It is a source of embarrassment that we have failed to ratify so many of these treaties which have been in existence for so many years. The Minister will no doubt say that one reason for this is that, as distinct from some member countries, we like to make sure that our practice conforms sufficiently to the requirements of the treaty before we put our name to it. There are other countries which will put their names to treaties but one wonders whether they have any serious intention of observing them.

Another point about which I should like to question the hon. Member for Rutland and Stamford concerns the provision for different dates of commencement. That is a minor matter and the hon. Gentleman will no doubt be able to explain it in Committee.

My hon. Friend the Member for Putney referred to the situation where the agent is also the employer. The Under-Secretary went on, relevant to this point, to refer to girls going to work in Spain. To what extent will the provisions of the Bill regulate the position concerning an employer in this country who is acting as agent and bringing in girls from abroad to work here?

I have in mind the notorious example we had last month of the girls from the Philippine Islands who were employed in the most atrocious conditions, apparently, in Rochdale. I have a news cutting from the Sunday Times of 7th January describing some of the allegations. It was alleged that while some of the girls had been induced to apply by newspaper advertisements in their home country saying that they would earn wages of £35 a week. When they were employed they received a basic rate of only £13 for a 40-hour week. From that figure the company deducted £1·50 a week for reimbursement of the girls' air fare. That included interest on the money, and at the end of two years some of them were still in debt to the company. In addition, the company took a £1-a-week bend to guarantee that the girls stayed for their contracted two years. Those are some of the things that were alleged. I am sure that they scandalised the Minister as much as they did me.

But what was equally disturbing was the subsequent remark that a group of London clothing firms was pressing the Government to allow a further 200 girls to be brought in from the Philippines as machinists. It is that kind of thing, just as much as the girls going to Spain, over which there ought to be powers of surveillance and regulation.

I do not know whether the Bill would cover that kind of problem but it is something about which the House ought to be concerned. It was a disgraceful and scandalous matter but it was brought to light, and one hopes that there are no concealed instances of disgraceful behaviour towards and exploitation of young girls from other countries.

Having said that, and subject to the qualifications I have set out, I echo the welcome from this side of the House for the Bill. Its sponsor will have our support. We promise him a fair wind in Committee. I hope that he will be more successful than was my hon. Friend the Member for Putney and that he will get his Bill on to the Statute Book. Should that happen, I am sure that it will bring as much joy to the heart of my hon. Friend the Member for Putney as it will to the hon. Gentleman.

May I add my laurel wreath to those hanging around the neck of my hon. Friend the Member for Rutland and Stamford (Mr. Kenneth Lewis)? This is a sensible Bill, and it has a particular recommendation; namely, that it is simple to understand. I congratulate my hon. Friend on his economical and simple draftsmanship. The time has come for employment agencies to be provided with a code of practice and sensible regulations, and I am sure that the measure will be generally welcomed.

This is rather a kind of old students' day for those who have taken part in these discussions before. I think that the Bill introduced by the hon. Member for Putney (Mr. Hugh Jenkins) suffered from trying to be too wide. I am glad that the Putney umbrella has been furled and that we are comfortably underneath the Rutland parasol.

For my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Devonport (Dame Joan Vickers) today is the culmination of her efforts over a long period to cater for the employment and welfare of au pair girls, a matter in which she has been engaged in this House for almost as long as I have been an employer, and the high level of knowledge of the British constitution amongst the younger women on the island of Borholm is due to my own personal views in this House.

We should acknowledge that many of these regulations follow the pattern and model originated by the City of Westminster, and I am happy to think that my rates have helped to pay for the expertise that has enabled my hon. Friend to have practice and experience included in some parts of the Bill.

My constituency of Harrow, West probably contains more white-collar clerical and secretarial workers than any other in the country. It is because of that that I have taken an interest in the progress of previous Bills, and now in this one. It is pathetic to think that more people from Harrow have to go out of the borough to find jobs than from any other Greater London borough. Those seeking clerical and secretarial work have not gone to the Government's employment agencies for help, but perhaps the new look at employment agencies in which my right hon. Friend and the Department are now engaged will redress the imbalance. But I believe that the sharpened competition which they will receive by the existence of efficient employment agencies will improve their performance and make them deserve any success which I hope that they have.

I was glad that my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary referred to the position of the European countries and the fact that they seem to be relenting on the total banning of employment agents in their countries. I draw the attention of the hon. Member for Doncaster (Mr. Harold Walker) to the fact that even in Sweden, which is considered to be a social democratic paradise in most aspects of industrial relations where employment agencies do not exist, very few clerical and secretarial jobs are filled through the Government service. It is a strange and interesting parallel with this country. Either people apply direct for jobs or they put classified advertisements in newspapers.

This has a number of undesirable results which the abolition of employment agencies would have here. It results in additional cost to the would-be employee in putting an advertisement in a newspaper. We all know how it takes time for an advertisement to appear, and even when it does it is probably under "Cars for sale" instead of "Jobs required". It also means that an employer has to sift through pages of advertisements, and he may have to write tens, if not hundreds, of letters inviting people to interviews which are costly in their time and costly to the potential employer in terms of the expenses which he will have to pay. In Stockholm newspapers are filled with classified advertisements for secretarial and clerical jobs. Since London is about 12 times the size of Stockholm, I hate to think what the pages of theEvening News and the Evening Standard would be like if all jobs now dealt with through employment agencies were handled through the medium of classified advertisements.

A criticism often made by employers and the public in general about the services of employment agencies is that they tend to increase the rate of turnover of office staff. However, a recent interesting survey carried out in the GLC area shows that the average period during which staff remain in a job is 19 months, and that period has not changed appreciably in the past five years. Clearly, there is no sudden increase in turnover.

I wish to refer now to Report No. 89 of the National Board for Prices and Incomes. I do so with some horror. My right hon. and hon. Friends gave a dose of involuntary euthanasia to Mr. Aubrey Jones and the National Board for Prices and Incomes, and now we are giving the kiss of life not to one Aubrey Jones but to two. For all my respect for Mr. Aubrey Jones as a person, that is not a move of which I approve politically.

That report of the National Board for Prices and Incomes says:

"There is no evidence that the activities of employment agencies lead to staff changing jobs sooner than they would otherwise have done."

Another criticism which is made mostly by employers is that through the medium of employment agencies secretarial salaries are exaggerated and a leapfrogging process takes place. It is interesting to note that in the last 12 months the pay of clerical and secretarial workers has increased by the princely sum of 12 per cent. and that industrial wages increased by the truly regal figure of 15 per cent. That is something from which I gain no satisfaction. Secretarial wages have not increased the inflationary spiral as much as industrial wages.

I have one worry about the Bill which I hope may be covered by Clause 12(7)(i). There are certain organisations, which are not necessarily registered as charities, which at present concentrate on trying to find job and placings for the older person. In the uncertain position which an hon. Member holds, and having passed the Rubicon of 50, I am concerned that the work of these organisations shall not be curtailed in any way during the next year or two. I hope that such organisations may continue to receive fees and that they will not be proscribed.

I joint with other hon. Members in wishing the Bill good luck. I hope that the work of the employment ageny is enshrined in the establishment of the country. I hope that it will make a real effort to try to carry out a process of education amongst those who seek jobs, and help them to seek jobs which are not traditional in their area or for their family. I am thinking of people like miners who might have much better opportunities for a fuller and more enjoyable life in one of the service industries. I hope that the employment agencies will have the opportunity to carry out such a useful education purpose in the new role which they may achieve.

I am pleased to support the Bill because I supported the Bill of the hon. Member for Putney (Mr. Hugh Jenkins) and went through quite a lot of the Bill's struggles with him.

I am sorry that we have not ratified the ILO Convention. It is interesting, and perhaps we will bear this in mind, that no English-speaking country has ratified that convention. That is a pity.

I agree with the hon. Member for Putney that a centralised licensing system is desirable. If we do not have such a system we shall get many different standards. As the hon. Gentleman mentioned, it would be possible to move from one authority into the area of another authority which may have a completely different standard. There are at least seven different authorities that can give licences. I should prefer to see the system centralised so that there will be one standard for everybody. I am not usually interested in centralisation but in this case it is essential if each area is to be on the same basis.

We are apt to talk about the Bill as if it were something new. In fact, employment agencies have been going on since the Middle Ages. It is interesting to know that Nicholas Nickleby used an agency after he left Dotheboys Hall. I hope that he got a good job. We are trying to get a standard for agencies, and I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Rutland and Stamford (Mr. Kenneth Lewis) on the progress which he has made in getting au pair agencies within the Bill. As my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow, West (Mr. John Page) has said, I had extreme difficulties because the Government would not sign, and still have not signed the European au pair convention. But my right hon. Friend has already laid down regulations about the admission of au pairs into the country which I hope will prevent a repetition of the sort of situation which has arisen at Rochdale and elsewhere.

The Federation of Personal Services in 1963 established an institute of consultants for the training of those employed in the industry. Membership of the institute is granted only after an examination, and a diploma is awarded. Would my hon. Friend consider improving the Bill by enabling the Secretary of State to demand qualifications in those applying for licences? It is difficult to refuse a licence if a person has been carrying on an agency, but if there had to be certain qualifications it would give the Secretary of State much more control over the agencies.

My hon. Friend mentioned that these agencies have increased in number from 3,000 to 5,200, and a lot of them are being run by people who I do not believe should be in charge of agencies at all. recall the case of an agency run by a Pakistani. I am not "down" on Pakistanis but it happened that this agency was run by one. It was set up to bring in au pair girls. It might be too difficult to refuse such a man a licence, but it would be a lot easier to do so if there had to be qualifications.

Obviously, this point can be discussed in Committee, but I assure my hon. Friend that any agency established to import people from other countries—and this answers the point made by the hon. Member for Doncaster (Mr. Harold Walker)—would be subject to these regulations, I understand. Therefore, it would have to satisfy the criteria which the regulations of the Secretary of State laid down.

I thank my hon. Friend. But the necessity for qualifications is still very desirable.

Another example is provided by an agency in Glasgow which has a connection with an agency in New York, which sends the girls over here. Where is the control to be in such cases? I have taken this point up with the Department, and I think my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State knows about it. It is essential to know how such agencies are being run.

One of my reasons for supporting the Bill is that I think the Federation of Personal Services has done a great deal to raise standards and it needs support. The au pair agreement with Norway has been very successful. The federation started it and the agencies agreed that they would not employ Norwegian girls until they had signed a form of contract. This was very acceptable, but, unfortunately, the Labour Government asked the other members of the European Economic Community and other countries not to go in for these private agreements. If we cannot get the Government now to sign the au pair agreement, I hope that at least my right hon. Friends will allow the agencies to make individual agreements with individual countries in order to safeguard these girls—and I assure my hon. Friend that they do need safeguarding.

We need also to go outside Europe in this context because Japanese and Philippine girls are coming here in large numbers. Regrettably, many of them who come thinking that they are to be au pair girls find themselves simply employed as domestic servants. We must try to stop this practice, and I hope that we shall find a way of tying it up.

The agencies themselves have done a tremendous job in helping to find employment for the Ugandan Asians, and this should go to their credit. Furthermore, David Ennals, our former colleague in this House who has been so prominent in the Mind campaign, has found the agencies helpful in helping him to find jobs for people in this category.

I am very glad to note that in this debate no one has said anything about the agencies being unwilling to place coloured persons. I have made inquiries, and I understand that over the last three months at least 10 per cent. of the placings by the bigger agencies have been for coloured Africans.

Clause 2(5) provides for licences not exceeding five years: does that mean that these agencies will not be inspected each year, or how often is it intended that inspections will take place?

I can assure my hon. Friend that they will be inspected regularly every year.

I am very glad to hear that, but the Bill does not make it clear.

With regard to organisations to which the Bill does not apply, I understand the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow, West, and I should like provision to be made, and perhaps it can be made later, for them also to be inspected. Inspection will otherwise be difficult. Can we not find words suitable for this purpose? I am rather dubious about some of the organisations listed in the Bill, though not, of course, the organisation for nurses, which has been carrying on for some considerable time. If some of these organisations are not included there will be a loophole for the setting up of other organisations in the future.

I congratulate my hon. Friend, and wish his Bill well in Committee. All of us who have been interested in this matter for some time are grateful for the lead we have been given this afternoon by my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State, and we look forward to having further consultations in Committee.

I welcome the Bill introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Rutland and Stamford (Mr. Kenneth Lewis), who follows the distinguished line of other Members who have introduced Bills on a similar topic. I welcome it mainly because I have personal experience, both as an employee and as an employer, of staff from a sec- retarial agency. I have therefore seen both sides. I have been a temporary and I also got a permanent job from an agency.

It has been asked why so few local authorities have their own standards for agencies in their areas. The answer is that until the last few years there were relatively few agencies and only in few areas. In the last few years, however, this has been a heavy growth industry, with agencies starting up not only in towns but in small villages. They answer a need of both employees and employers, which has arisen because there has been a growth, for better or for worse, in office work. At the same time we have a much more mobile population: people move about and change their jobs much more often than they did not so long ago.

Again, we have a demand by women for part-time employment. Years ago women would not have gone out to work at all, and now they do not want a full-time job but seek part-time employment. These agencies fulfil a social need, and on that score alone I believe that they should be allowed to continue in business. Agencies can cut out a lot of work for an employer who wants an employee but has not the time to sort out and sift through potential employees.

Why does not the Bill apply to Northern Ireland? Why should there be a difference? There may be an answer to this. Perhaps my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary will tell us today or at some other time.

Another valid point which has been made concerns standards and whether they should be organised at national or local level. The Bill mentions a number of standards which a licensee must fulfil. It appears to me that these will be national standards which should be carried out by the local authorities. Local authorities are in a good position to carry out the law in this respect. Anyone falling below those standards will be known much sooner to the local councillors than to anybody miles away in London. Therefore, I am in favour of the local authorities being responsible for carrying out the law in this respect.

The Bill is eminently sensible, and that is more than can be said for many Bills which come before the House. I hope that it will become law quickly as it will enhance the position of both agencies and employees. That is very important in this day and age.

I am glad to have the opportunity, at the close of this almost unanimous debate in which so many hon. Members have given a welcome to the Bill, of congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Rutland and Stamford (Mr. Kenneth Lewis) on introducing it. I was pleased to hear the warm welcome given to it by my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State.

Before going any further, I should declare an interest. For a number of years I was employed by an employment agency—one of the better known firms in the field of management selection. I parted company with it after having been in this House for some time only because it was impossible for me to give the time which the work obviously required. I owe it a great deal of good will, and I should not like their interests to be damaged by the Bill. However, as I read it, the firm's interests would in no way be damaged as the Bill does not aim to curb the activities of respectable and responsible agencies but to make sure that firms active in this sphere do not fall below the standards which the public, including employers and employees, might wish.

Although this is generally an admirable Bill and I hope that it will secure a Second Reading, some points ought to be made. The Committee will have to turn its mind particularly to the wording so as to try to envisage all the possibilities which might arise. One difficulty is that there are many kinds of employment agents. My hon. Friend the Member for Keighley (Miss Joan Hall) mentioned secretarial agencies. Their work is of a somewhat different character from that of firms which attempt to give assistance to middle and senior management. In the latter area the State is a competitor, and I hope that it will become increasingly active and successful.

If the Bill is to be passed this Session at the same time as the Government are proceeding with plans for expanding their executive employment register, the rules should be absolutely specific. The discretion given to the Secretary of State should not be open to be exercised in a way which might arouse controversy or criticism. It is also particularly important, if local authorities are to exercise the discretion given to them, to have precise guidelines so that we do not get local variations. It would he an undesirable situation if firms should contemplate moving their headquarters from one area to another in order to find a district where the regulations are not likely to be applied too strictly.

Clause 5, which my hon. Friend said was the heart of the Bill, states in subsection (1)(c) that the Secretary of State may make regulations governing

"advertising by persons carrying on such agencies and businesses".

I doubt whether it is necessary to include such a provision. Is my hon. Friend thinking of misleading or indecent advertisements? In either case, I believe that the existing law is sufficient to protect the parties concerned. If, on the other hand, he is thinking of the activities of the firms that are generally known as head-hunters, it would be better to deal particularly with head-hunters and their activities. I suggest that the Committee might consider the proposition that headhunters should be required to notify employers before making a direct approach to candidates whom they have themselves helped to place with those employers within a measurable time—perhaps two or three years—beforehand. Otherwise agencies in this field might indeed lay themselves open to misunderstanding and criticism.

As to Clause 5(1)(d), I cannot understand what necessity there is for safeguarding clients' money. Any fraudulent activity on the part of these agencies is surely covered by existing legislation.

On Clause 6, which relates to the restriction on charging persons seeking employment, I understand what my hon. Friend has in mind, but I think that the clause needs to be extended so that its meaning is absolutely clear. There is a need for firms that can offer job advice. Very often those which are best able to advise people seeking employment are the people who are most active in this field. Candidate-pushing is very bad; but I think that this clause could be restrictive and could limit responsible activities which ought to be allowed to expand.

My final point concerns Clause 7. I do not think it is practicable to suggest that notices showing the fees charged should be published, because they cannot always be made specific or standard. In the type of work with which I was personally concerned, very often the fees have to be negotiated in the light of special circumstances.

Nevertheless, having said all that as briefly as I can, I give the warmest welcome to the Bill, which certainly deserves to complete its stages in the public interest.

I wish briefly to thank the House for the reception given to the Bill. It has been an interesting and pleasant debate. I thought that I had removed some road blocks in advance. I did not realise that I had gained so much unanimity on the Bill.

I hope that in Committee we shall have a realistic discussion on all those matters which have been raised by hon. Members. I shall be entirely flexible in my approach to any suggestions which may be made there. I hope we shall have a line-by-line look at the Bill and if any improvements are proposed, from whatever quarter, I shall gladly accept them.

I thank the House very much for the reception which has been given to this proposed legislation.

Object.

Friday, 6th April.

The hon. Member is entitled to speak till Four o'clock.

Clearly, my hon. Friend the Member for Norfolk, North (Mr. Ralph Howell) is not anxious to have only one minute on his Bill. I would have thought that was reasonable. Therefore, I want to ask you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, in order to waste time and to help my hon. Friend, whether, as we have not had any speech from my hon. Friend on his Bill, he can nominate another day as he has sought to do, since clearly there has been no discussion.

I appreciate very much the intention of the hon. Member in rising to speak after this most interesting debate. The fact is that there are certain rules of order in this House, and at the time when the hon. Member rose recently in order to make his two-or three-word contribution, he was unfortunately not quite in time. It is, however, fast approaching the time when it will be permissible for him to rise in his seat when the Bill's Title is called out, and he will then be able to nominate another day.

Object.

Object.

Object.

I am most grateful to my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for being present on the Front Bench. I wish to draw attention to a situation which, though superficially trivial, is, in fact, causing much anxiety and distress to many people in my constituency and elsewhere. The remedy calls for no legislation and the expenditure of but little money. I refer to the procedures which local councils follow when they let people know whether their houses have been affected by compulsory purchase orders. I wish to discuss how they do it, when they do it, and in what form they do it.

I am not for this purpose interested in the rights or wrongs of compulsory purchase orders which have been issued or which may be issued, although I must say that it is my belief that after a generation or so, when we look back on the destruction of many of our communities, we may well regard what has been done with the same sort of detestation as we now accord to some of the high rises in council estates. But, as I say, that is not the burden of my case today.

I have been in correspondence with the Department of the Environment and I understand that the Government's view is that they have

"a role to give authorities broad guidance on planning and other policies and to advise on the steps that may be taken to improve the operation of these policies."

I hope to convince my hon. Friend that there is a case here for some guidance and some improvement.

As I understand it, the only statutory duty which a local council has towards the owner-occupier of a house threatened by a compulsory purchase order is to advise him that such an order is being considered, but only when it goes to the Secretary of State for final judgment. In other words, apart from that, there is no time limit placed on when the advice should be given. Neither, I believe, is there any statutory obligation to advise tenants living in houses which may be affected by such orders.

My proposition is that all councils should go beyond the letter of the law, that they should go beyond the requirements which I have outlined, and take a great deal of care in advising people whose homes are threatened. I need not emphasise the great importance of a person's home, representing as it does probably the largest single item of family expenditure and an important factor in holding the family together.

I acknowledge that there are great differences between local authorities in the way in which they approach this problem. I am advised that, for instance, recently in Telford new town, where a compulsory purchase order was passed by the council, within a week every person affected was visited by a council representative who called at each house, answered questions, allayed anxieties and explained the matter. One person told me that he actually wrote to the council seeking information, and the next day he received a telephone call from a member of the council answering the queries in his letter.

On the other hand, I must regretfully speak of Lambeth Council, I say "regretfully" because it is a council which is excellent and thoughtful in so many ways, but in the case of compulsory purchase orders in my recent experience in my constituency it has been both thoughtless and callous in the way that it has approached the problem.

The subject is of special importance in Lambeth in 1973, because, if my figures are correct, over the last five years the average number of compulsory purchase orders has been between four and five each year affecting an average of about 24 or 25 acres each year. But I am advised that in 1973 39 different compulsory purchase orders are envisaged affecting more than 200 acres—a tenfold increase. Hence the increasing importance of the procedures that the council follows in telling people affected by the orders being immaculate.

I have two examples of recent cases. The first was in the Rectory Grove area. The order was passed by the council last August, but it was not until 11th January this year—a delay of six months—that a Section 170 form dropped through the letterbox of the people affected. The letter that accompanied the form was a cyclostyle letter starting off:

"The Council has passed a resolution to make a compulsory purchase order under Part V of the Housing Act for the acquisition of certain lands…".

That is not exactly the most sympathetic way of advising someone for the first time that his house will be threatened by a compulsory purchase order. In that period of six months there were paragraphs in the newspapers, rumours, extreme distress and anxiety for many people who, as it turned out, were not affected.

The second case concerns Ively Road and Wandsworth Road. The compulsory purchase order was passed through the council in October 1971, but it was not until five months later that a Section 170 form dropped through the letterboxes of those affected. It was not even accompanied by a letter. It simply had typed across the top—I have a sample here:

"London Borough of Lambeth (Wands-worth Road) Compulsory Purchase Order 1971".

That is the only information that this group of householders received that their homes were being threatened, although in the five months since the council meeting rumour had been rife.

A letter I received in October 1972 went as follows:

"Dear Sir, My wife and I are in our 81st year and in view of our failing health the prospect of being turned out of our home fills us with anxiety and distress."

The matter was taken up, there was a reference to it in the local Press, and I am glad to say that in January they received an assurance from the council that they would be allowed to spend the remainder of their years in their house.

The question arises why this couple were not told this information in October or before that in August when the compulsory purchase order was passed. The other question is how many more people are in similar circumstances but have not approached their Member of Parliament, still have not received any such assurance, and are suffering grave anxiety because of this matter.

Of course, Lambeth council must be aware of these difficulties. We might ask why it does not have at least a leaflet or booklet, as so many other councils have, to send to people threatened by compulsory purchase orders. The answer is that it has such a booklet. I have never seen it, and none of my con- stituents to whom I have talked has ever received or seen it. But it has been received by someone to whom I spoke the other day, who lives not in my constituency but in the constituency of the hon. Member for Brixton (Mr. Lipton), who I know is very interested in the matter. I welcome his presence this afternoon.

On 9th February the lady in question received such a booklet. It had a photostat plan at the back and it came with the form and a reply-paid envelope. It was excellent. The only slight flaw was that it referred to a compulsory purchase order approved by the council on 2nd February 1972, exactly a year and a week before she received the booklet. The booklet promised that someone would visit her shortly. Will she have to wait another year before that happens?

The fact that such a booklet exists in the borough and is not used is more of a condemnation than if the council had never thought of having such a thing.

Perhaps my hon. Friend the Minister might be persuaded to send a circular to councils suggesting various procedures which should be followed in such a situation. It is really a matter of the time scale involved. I do not see why people should have to suffer anxiety because they are not told for months and months. The burden of almost all the large number of the letters that I receive is not so much to ask why there should be a compulsory purchase order, although that is asked again and again, but to ask "How will it affect us? Can you tell us when it will happen? If it affects us, what are our rights? Shall we be re-housed?" All this information should be given as quickly as possible.

I should like humbly to suggest five points that councils should follow in such circumstances. First, when a compulsory purchase order is approved by a council it is public knowledge. Therefore, within a week every householder affected should receive the kind of booklet that the lady I have mentioned received a year late from Lambeth. It should contain a cyclostyled plan and so on. It should tell householders their rights and it should go to tenants as well as to owner-occupiers.

Secondly, those affected should receive a personal visit within four weeks at the latest. That should not be impossible.

Thirdly, if a number of residents require it, a public meeting should be arranged within, at most, two months of the council's approving the compulsory purchase order. In the case of the Rectory Grove development area the residents have been pressing for three or four months for a public meeting, but the council has not arranged it.

Fourthly, any changes in timetable should be notified to the people involved as soon as the change is made. We all know that there are such changes. People should be told when the public inquiry is to be held, when the matter goes to the Secretary of State and when work might start if the order is approved.

Fifthly, and perhaps most important, all inquiries from people affected by compulsory purchase orders should be dealt with in an informative, friendly and helpful way.

The hon. Member for Clapham (Mr. William Shelton) has raised a number of considerations that have long concerned me as Member for the adjoining constituency. More consideration should be given to the anxieties of tenants and owner-occupiers in areas to which a compulsory purchase order may be applied.

In one instance in particular, Landor Road, tenants have formed an association to protect their interests. The council decided upon a compulsory purchase order last October. For some reason that I do not know, information leaked out about the council's intentions before the council meeting occurred, and many people became anxious as a result. The council passed a resolution in favour of the compulsory purchase order last October, and ever since the tenants' association has been trying to arrange a public meeting to be addressed by an official representative of the council to explain exactly what has happened.

As a result of prolonged correspondence, I understand, the council has agreed to hold a public meeting in March. But there is a time lag between October, when the CPO was decided by the council, and the date when the council is to hold a meeting to inform the tenants of what is going on. That is a major problem. The anxieties of ordinary people ought not to be prolonged a minute longer than necessary. It is not only the immediate problem of a time lag, but the time lag between when the council passes the CPO and its holding of a public inquiry.

There are shortages all round. Lambeth Borough Council, for instance, has a shortage of staff in its housing department, although it is faced with a housing task among the most difficult of those of all the London boroughs. There is a time lag after a CPO has been passed and the results of the inquiry have been sent to the Minister, and between that and when the result is conveyed to the tenants. We should do all we can to minimise the anxieties of ordinary people, to tighten procedures and to let people know as soon as possible what effect the plans of a council will have on their future.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Clapham (Mr. William Shelton) for raising this subject today.

It is interesting that less than a month ago, in a debate on the effect of planning permissions on the individual, my right hon. Friend the Minister for Local Government and Development said that the aim of local authorities should be that

"opinion should be enabled to declare itself before any decision is taken on proposals of wide concern or substantial impact on the environment; and that this should be so whether the proposal is that of a Government Department, a local authority, statutory undertakers or a private developer."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 29th January 1973; Vol. 849, c. 1127.]

It is, I believe, helpful to have this statement of general principle before us as we turn to the points raised by my hon. Friend and the hon. Member for Brixton (Mr. Lipton). I congratulate my hon. Friend on extending the debate on public relations aspects of redevelopment into the area of compulsory purchase.

I should like to think aloud about some of the great practical difficulties faced by local authorities in this respect and to discuss some possible solutions. We must, I believe, start from a recognition that many areas of our older housing stock, built about 100 years ago, are now approaching the point at which a choice must be made between rehabilitation and redevelopment.

Indeed, in a circular last May the Secretary of State urged all housing authorities to join him in a drive to deal with all the remaining unfit or substandard houses in England within a decade. He pointed out that:

"As many authorities reach or approach the end of clearance programmes for houses now unfit, it becomes increasingly important for slum clearance and house improvement to be seen and considered together in combined strategies for the improvement of the existing housing stock as a whole, set against the needs and wishes of people in the districts concerned."

In deciding which approach to adopt, local authorities have been given every encouragement to rehabilitate their older housing stock, particularly by means of declaring general improvement areas, in districts not destined for early redevelopment or major structural change; where the houses are not yet at the end of their useful life; where there is scope for environmental improvement; and where residents and owners are likely to welcome and co-operate in a scheme of area improvement.

I know that Lambeth Council has shown a keen interest in improvement programmes and is very much alive to the consideration that, in general improvement areas, persuasion and voluntary action must be the guiding principles, comulsory purchase—whether to secure house improvement or the demolition of fit houses for environmental improvement—being viewed as a last resort.

Not all houses can be dealt with by means of improvement. And, for many people throughout the country, it so happens that compulsory purchase becomes necessary for one reason or another. This debate is essentially concerned partly with the way in which local authorities arrive at their housing policy decisions but mainly with how they then explain their decisions to the people most affected.

The hon. Member for Brixton (Mr. Lipton) asked for consideration of the feelings and anxieties of people affected by these orders. I agree entirely with the sentiments he expressed. One thinks of the old-age pensioner who has lived many years in the same house, perhaps from birth. Its threatened loss seems to such people the end of the world. Others, faced perhaps with difficult financial schooling and other choices, need to know with reasonable certainty whether to spend money in improving their present house or whether to cut their losses and move.

The young couple, purchasing their first house, must be able to rely on their solicitor's searches. Speaking from personal experience, I know that this type of situation poses real problems for solicitors too.

There are also communal concerns. The local conservation society may wish to save the buildings. The residents' association may be striving to keep the neighbourhood together. There may even be differing views among local councillors as to the appropriate action for the area.

Passionate arguments about rehabilitation versus redevelopment may continue until the public local inquiry into the compulsory purchase order. This may well add to the general uncertainty of the residents, but we must recognise that this is one of the prices which have to be paid for proceeding—rightly—on democratic principles in this very complex and highly personal area of social concern.

As I have already mentioned, housing authorities were asked in circular 50/72 to work to a 10-year strategy for their unfit and substandard housing stock. This suggests to me that any council needs a clear policy, known to all its officers and therefore reflected in all the council's dealings with the public, covering four situations: first, areas where no redevelopment is envisaged; secondly, areas destined for eventual redevelopment, but probably not within say 10 years; thirdly, areas programmed for redevelopment within say 10 years but where no statutory action has yet been started; and fourthly, areas already involved in statutory action.

The second and third of those situations are perhaps the most difficult since a council's plans for a particular area may undergo many changes over the years for political, financial, technical or social reasons.

Nevertheless the council will receive various inquiries, for example for improvement grants or from would-be purchasers. Unless its replies are both accurate and carefully qualified, it could become a fruitful source of misleading rumour. My hon. Friend referred to this as did the hon. Member for Brixton. I appreciate how misleading rumour can spread in heavily populated areas. There is no easy answer to this problem. But, for example, where a property may be affected by redevelopment within 15 years, could not the council qualify approval of an improvement grant to the effect that it has been made without prejudice to the council's future freedom of action, or some similar wording?

Alternatively, where an application is rejected because redevelopment is contemplated within 10 years, perhaps the applicant could be given an assurance that there are no proposals for action against his property within the next, say. five years or whatever period is reasonable.

Even when an area has been programmed for redevelopment it must be a matter of judgment whether the council makes any formal announcement and, if so, whether in general or specific terms.

Certainly it becomes important to consider how far the wishes of the people living in the area should be ascertained. Should not these wishes be taken fully into consideration before the council reaches any firm decisions?

As I said earlier, what is important is that the authority should make its policies clear to its own officers, because nothing can prevent residents in the area drawing their own conclusions from the terms in which council officials reply to inquiries from would-be purchasers and applicants for improvement grants, and nothing is more worrying than an apparent conflict between different parts of the same local authority.

I now come to those properties directly affected by statutory clearance procedures.

The redevelopment of older residential areas may be undertaken under planning powers or, particularly in London, under Part V of the Housing Act 1957. There may be a time lag, in some cases of six months or more, between the formal resolution and the actual making and submission of the order, owing to the difficulty, particularly in London, of identifying all the interests in the order land.

The statutory requirement to advertise the making of the order and to serve personal notices on owners, lessees and occupiers—other than tenants for a month or less—does not apply until the CPO is actually made.

Because of the inherent complexities of the procedures, delays between the date of the council resolution and that of the actual making of the CPO may not be the result of dilatoriness or inefficiency on the local authority's part. After all, the drafting and notification of a compulsory purchase order is governed by statutory rules properly laid down.

It is, clearly, essential that anyone with an interest in any part of the land comprised in the CPO must be given due notice of its making. Interests can be many and varied, particularly in a closely-developed urban area; boundaries between properties may be obscure. While some of these can be identified at the outset, others can be discovered only by way of formal inquiry appropriate after an order comes to be made. Naturally, interested parties do not have much incentive to deal promptly with such inquiries.

In some cases owners cannot be traced by the normal inquiry methods and a "dispensation" by the Secretary of State can be given to permit site notices to be used instead of formal personal notices; but this is not given lightly.

No CPO can be made until each and every interest has been identified. As I have said, statutory notices of the making of a compulsory purchase order are required to be served on owners, lessees and occupiers on a monthly tenancy or more. I have noted the comments that have been made about the method of giving such notices. I hope that councils will take account of my hon. Friend's reasonable comments, and I assure him that my Department will give serious consideration to his suggestions.

The Department has urged local authorities in Circular 91/72, first, to include in their statement of reasons for making the order other information which may be sought by persons affected—for example, their proposals for rehousing occupants displaced from the order land —and, secondly, not necessarily to await objections to the order but, wherever practicable, to serve the statement at the time of making the order on all persons having an interest in the land and also on short-term tenants.

Local authorities have also been asked to ensure that their case for slum clearance compulsory purchase orders is supported by evidence on the question whether demolition of all the buildings in the clearance area is the most satisfactory way of dealing with it, and on the need to acquire the order land.

The Government for their part have proposed a number of practical improvements for owners and residents affected by redevelopment in the Land Compensation Bill currently before the House. I should have liked to stress some of these, but in view of the time I had better pass on to the rest of my speech and the specific situation in Lambeth.

I gather from my hon. Friend that delays have occurred in Lambeth between the council's resolution to declare a clearance area, or to make a CPO, and the actual making and submission of the order. I have earlier outlined the problems facing authorities here, but I am led to believe that Lambeth is not unsuccessful in its attempt to satisfy most of my hon. Friend's requirements. Certainly, when a resolution has been adopted it is Lambeth's practice to make an an- nouncement in the local Press, and I had understood that it was sending a special booklet to all occupiers in the affected area.

The booklet, in simple language, describes why CPOs need to be made in Lambeth, details the procedure leading to confirmation and taking possession—the possibility of partial or complete rejection by the Secretary of State is not discounted—and explains the arrangements for rehousing and compensation entitlement.

I understand that Lambeth also arranges a public meeting in the area. I note the points made during the debate, and one recognises how important it is for the council to explain its redevelopment proposals and allow those against the scheme to voice their opposition. The council also urges any person with unresolved problems either to discuss these with a "visiting officer" of the housing department when he calls or to take them to the Housing Advice Centre at Brixton.