On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. We were assured yesterday by the Leader of the House that the Government amendments to the Lords amendment to the Local Government (Scotland) Bill would be printed last night and would be available to the House today. I now understand from the Vote Office that they are not available and that they will not be available until tomorrow. That means that on Monday we shall be dealing with 194 amendments to the Bill coming from the Lords without any knowledge of or very little time to appreciate the Government's attitude to these important amendments. We shall be dealing with an important Bill affecting the whole life of local government in Scotland.

I doubt whether in the history of the House there has ever been such an example of utter Government incompetence as in the handling of this affair. How are hon. Members expected to do their duty by their constituents and by local government in Scotland with this kind of affair going on?

I do not know what the Leader of the House can tell us about business on Monday. It may be inevitable that the business continues. However, I hope that we shall have every opportunity to have manuscript amendments, or whatever the case may be. I hope that the Leader of the House will assure us that the Government's attitude will be one of sympathy towards hon. Members who have disagreements with the Lords amendments, and that they will not rest on technicalities.

Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. If in any way I gave wrong information to the House yesterday afternoon, I apologise to the House for doing so. My understanding at that time was that the Lords amendments had been received or were about to be received from the other place and would be printed, and would be on the Order Paper this morning.

Further, I understood yesterday that the Government were tabling their amendments to the Lords amendments and that those would be given to the Public Bill Office last night in time for putting on the Order Paper this morning. I understand that the House authorities, for quite proper reasons preferred that the Government amendments to the Lords amendments should be printed in an orderly fashion for the convenience of Members. Therefore, such printing was not carried out in time for them to be put on the Order Paper last night.

The Government amendments to the Lords amendments are now available in the Public Bill Office and will be available in the Vote Office by a quarter past eleven this morning. They are, of course, in time for further amendments to be tabled by hon. Members in all parts of the House during the course of the day. Those amendments will appear on Monday's Order Paper as starred amendments and, in the circumstances I should have thought they would be called. I am sure that that is more satisfactory than for the House to have to deal with manuscript amendments.

As soon as I heard last night that it was likely that the Government amendments to the Lords amendments would not be printed, I gave instructions that as many members of the Opposition as possible, especially Opposition Front Bench spokesmen, should have the Govment amendments to the Lords amendments. I understand that they were given advance copies of them last night. This may have been a slightly irregular procedure. However, we are in difficulty over the timing of the Bill, and I hope that the House will accept that we have done all that we can to make the necessary arrangements.

I repeat that the Government amendments will be available in the Vote Office within a few minutes. They are at present in the Public Bill Office. I understand also that those in the Public Bill Office have done their best to contact as many Scottish Members as possible during the course of the morning.

With that explanation and with my apologies if in any way unwittingly I misled the House yesterday, I hope that the House will agree to this procedure.

The situation remains a very difficult one and, not having seen the Government amendments, it is not easy for me to comment. As I understand it, we may not be following the usual straightforward procedure of agreeing or disagreeing with the Lords amendments but some other complicated procedure, which I understand has been used rarely, of both disagreeing and agreeing with certain parts of the Lords amendments. Despite the right hon. Gentleman's assurance that the material will be available shortly, I hope that manuscript amendments will not be disallowed.

Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. I do not know your position in ruling on this matter. It must be very difficult. But, speaking as a back bench hon. Member, I find it unspeakably unforgiveable for any Minister or Leader of the House to hand Government amendments to Lords amendments to specific Members of the Opposition before making them available to all hon. Members. To do so is to degrade our parliamentary system of Government. I hope that in some small degree you will be able to safeguard the position of this House.

The Leader of the House is so incompetent and so uninterested in the way in which the business of this House is conducted that he violates all the codes of good conduct by an unspeakable act of this kind, choosing certain individuals to whom to hand the Government's amendments to Lords amendments.

In view of the serious nature of these amendments to the Local Government (Scotland) Bill and in view of the hotchpotch nature of the Bill and the fact that it has not been through the proper channels of consideration, I ask that the whole matter be sent back to the Scottish Grand Committee for further consideration. The Bill is not suitable to the requirements of Scotland. It is badly thought out. It is one of the most stupid Bills ever to be introduced by any Government. The matter should go back for further consideration. I ask you, Mr. Speaker, to do all that lies in your power to see that the interests of hon. Members are safeguarded, and to do whatever you can to persuade the Government to postpone the discussion of these matters, and to allow the Scottish Grand Committee to have another look at the Bill.

I can help the House only in a very limited way. I have no doubt that the Leader of the House has heard the comments of the hon. Member for West Stirlingshire (Mr. Baxter) and I do not think it is for me to add to them. As for manuscript amendments, of course I will bear in mind this morning's discussion when we come to consider these matters on Monday.

On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. The progress of this Bill has been such that hon. Members who are trying to watch carefully the Government's latest moves are having to follow it minute by minute. It is not always possible for hon. Members to be doing that all the time. Some Scottish Members are concerned about important matters which they wish to see amended in the Bill, and they may not all be aware of the latest developments just announced by the Leader of the House. I hope that you will take that into account when deciding whether to accept manuscript amendments.

Certainly.

On a point of order, Mr. Mallalieu. The relevant background to my point of order is that yesterday, following discussions and a decision taken through the usual channels, both sensibly and understandably, there was no Second Reading debate on this Bill. It was allowed to go through its Second Reading on the nod and the broader debate which normally would have occurred on Second Reading did not take place.

From the list of selected amendments, which I saw for the first time only a few minutes ago, I notice that Amendments Nos. 1 and 12 have not been selected.

I say at the outset that I respect and accept the Chair's decision on these matters. However, perhaps I might bring to your attention one relevant point to your selection of amendments. The reason why Amendments Nos. 1 and 12 are not selected is that the view has been taken that they are outside the scope of the Money Resolution. However, I suggest that that is not the case. Amend- ment No. 1 seeks to leave out Clause 1 (1)( a ) which says has attained pensionable age not later than the end of the relevant week … The intention of the amendment is that categories of pensioners who nevertheless are under the age at which retirement pension becomes payable—60 in the case of women and 65 in the case of men—should be entitled to the £10 Christmas bonus.

As I read the money resolution, it contains no specific limitation on the payment of the £10 bonus to retirement pensioners. Paragraph (1)( a ) says that payment shall be made out of moneys provided by Parliament of ( a ) any sums payable by the Secretary of State under the provisions of that Act relating to pensioners …. It does not say "retirement pensioners". In support of my general thesis I refer you, Mr. Mallalieu, to legislation which was passed in the present Session of Parliament, the National Insurance and Supplementary Benefit Act 1973, where the term "pensioner" is used in a much wider sense than that of retirement pensioners.

For example, in Schedule 1 there is a reference to the invalidity pension. In later schedules concerning industrial injuries the term "pension" is used on a number of occasions. Therefore, I submit that as the money resolution is drafted it does not automatically exclude consideration of amendments regarding payments of the £10 bonus to those receiving pensions under the national insurance system, even though those pensions are not retirement pensions.

I hope that the Chair will feel able to reconsider its present exclusion of Amendments Nos. 1 and 12 so that the House may be given the opportunity of considering the elderly widows, the long-term sick and disabled, the unemployed and those receiving attendance allowances—a million people, in all, who are greatly deserving of the consideration of this House. To that end, Mr. Mallalieu, I believe that you should reconsider the decision to exclude Amendments Nos. 1 and 12 this morning.

I understand entirely the point that the hon. Member makes so clearly. However, I cannot alter my opinion on the non-selection of those amendments because they are outside the scope of the Bill. But, if the hon. Member wishes, he would receive considerable sympathy if he discussed the subject on the Question, "That the clause stand part of the Bill", or even on Third Reading. He would then be able to raise the matters covered by the amendments.

If it were your final decision, Mr. Mallalieu, that these matters could be raised only on the Question, That the clause stand part, that would be helpful to those of us in the Opposition who want to consider them. But it is clearly better that we should be able to discuss the subject on an amendment, if it were possible, to attempt to get the £10 bonus for these very deserving categories. You have said, Mr. Mallalieu, first, that you have not ruled that my submission on the money resolution is inaccurate, and, secondly, you have said that these amendments are outside the scope of the Bill.

With great respect, the Bill is drafted in almost identical terms to the £10 bonus Bill which went through the House at the end of 1972. Amendments on those lines were accepted then as being in order. Therefore, the only grounds on which these amendments could be ruled out of order would be on the basis of the money resolution. On the evidence I have given, these amendments are manifestly not outside the terms of the money resolution.

Whether or not the hon. Member is right, these amendments are outside the scope of the money resolution, which is not drafted in the same terms as the previous one to which the hon. Member referred.

May I support my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham (Mr. O'Malley) in pressing this matter? As he said, last year we were able not only to discuss these, to us, intolerable exclusions from the scope of the bonus scheme, but to vote on them. When we did that, the Under-Secretary of State, who is here today, in reply to our request that other categories, such as widows, invalidity pensioners under the retirement age and so on, should be included, he accepted that his Bill was "rough and ready" and said that that was the price we had to pay to get the Bill into operation before Christmas.

This year the Government have allowed themselves plenty of time to draft a Bill which includes all those categories. That being so, it is abusing the rights of the House to refuse us the chance to move an amendment and to press the hon. Gentleman on his own argument of last year.

Again, I understand entirely what the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mrs. Castle) is saying. but I must hold to my decision because this time the money resolution is more tightly drafted. That makes all the difference.

Further to the point of order, Mr. Mallalieu. When one million poor people are involved we are entitled to press the matter. I accept the argument that we must be ruled by the terms of the money resolution. We know that Governments draft money resolutions as tightly as possible to reduce the scope of embarrassing amendments, and I have no doubt that the Government have attempted to do that here. But I am putting my case on the basis of the money resolution.

I have submitted that the term "pensioner" used in the money resolution does not refer to retirement pensioners and, in the technical use of the word "pensioner" within the national insurance system, it does not mean automatically "retirement pensioner". If my interpretation of the money resolution is wrong may we be told why? On what grounds is it argued and has it been decided that the amendments are outside the scope of the money resolution?

Having put that case, I hope that we may have from the Chair the detailed grounds on which that decision was taken. At best it is arguable; at worst, with great respect to the Chair, it is a wrong decision.

The hon. Member always puts his points courteously. But I must adhere to my decision. I am not entitled to alter the rules. The hon. Member and his friends will have plenty of chance to discuss the matter fully, as I indicated previously.

It is important for future argument of this kind to have the point explained. Is the Chair saying that a person in receipt of an invalidity pension—and the case that I wish to raise does not relate to a retirement pensioner—or a women in receipt of a widow's pension—which is another case that I wish to raise—is not a pensioner? If so, are not the statutes misleading in their terminology?

The right hon. Lady is attempting to entice me along a path that I must not follow. I have made my ruling. I must not go into the details of the matter.

Further to that point of order, Mr. Mallalieu. We accept the Chair's ruling—it is the only way that this House can work. But we are unhappy about it. The million people who cannot now be the subject of an amendment to give them the Christmas bonus—the widows, the disabled and the sick—should be aware that as a result of the legal trickery of the Government we cannot discuss the possibility of their having the £10 bonus, and that we cannot change the Bill. It is disgraceful.

Scandalous.

I beg to move Amendment No. 2, in page 1, line 6, leave out 'the end of the relevant week' and insert: '25th December 1973'.

With this Amendment we are to take the following amendments:

No. 3, in page 1, line 10, leave out 'that' and insert 'the relevant'.

No. 4, in page 1, line 12, leave out 'a day in that week' and insert:

'any day between 26th November 1973, and 25th December 1973, inclusive'.

The payments of £10 to pensioners and their spouses as authorised in the Bill are popularly known as "Christmas bonuses". Indeed, when similar payments were made last year the recipients, many of whom expressed gratitude, were under the impression that they were getting Christmas presents from the Government. When the Prime Minister in his Lancaster House statement two weeks ago said that the Government would be making the payments again this year, he referred to Christmas as being the suitable time for such payments.

11.30 a.m.

Yet the astonishing thing is that in the Bill there is no mention of Christmas or of Christmas Day. If the Bill goes through unamended many people who will be of pensionable age by or on Christmas Day will not receive the so-called bonus. That is what happened to many such pensioners last year. I know of one man in my constituency who reached the age of 65 on 15th December 1972, but, because of the wording of the Act which was passed by this House at the end of that year, he was unable to claim the £10 bonus.

Last year it turned out that all who reached pensionable age after 10th December, even though they reached pensionable age before Christmas Day, did not receive the bonus. For all such people this was a bitter disappointment. It was a Christmas bonus which they were suddenly denied.

That will happen again this year unless the Bill is amended. The intention of the amendment is that all pensioners who reach pensionable age up to and including Christmas Day this year should receive the bonus. If the Bill is unamended, no pensioner who reaches pensionable age from 1st December onwards will receive the bonus. That means that the period in which disappointment will arise this year will be extended by a week compared with last year. Therefore, there will be many more people bitterly disappointed.

It may be said that we must draw the line somewhere. However, if we are to call this allowance a Christmas bonus I suggest that the line should be drawn at Christmas Day. That is precisely what the amendments seek to achieve.

The Government may plead that administrative difficulties are involved. I accept that greater care will be needed to exercise this provision if it is incorporated in the Bill. However, I see no reason why new pensioners who come on to pension between 1st and 25th December should not receive the bonus at the same time as they make their first pension drawing.

This is a simple amendment. I hope that the Government will sec it as an attempt to avoid the bitter disappointment suffered by many pensioners last year who found that, although they were pensioners before Christmas, they were nevertheless denied the so-called Christmas bonus.

I do not want to spend a lot of time on the first amendment because it seems a most worthy suggestion which should commend itself even to this Government.

Last year large numbers of people felt a genuine sense of grievance that they were excluded from this allowance because of the type of benefit they were drawing on their age. I echo the words of my hon. Friend the Member for Goole (Dr. Marshall) and beg the Government to remove this minor anomaly and to include in the provision of this Christmas bonus the small number of people who become pensioners before 25th December. By accepting the amendment the Government will show that they are at least prepared to pay some tribute to the time of the year which is traditionally called the period of goodwill.

I support what has been said by my hon. Friends the Members for Goole (Dr. Marshall) and Rhondda, West (Mr. Alec Jones).

Last year many hon. Members were approached by pensioners who could not understand the Press notices. Included in my mail were copies of certain news-powers in which the Department had placed advertisements relating to the £10 Christmas bonus. The notice was ambiguous. I found that pensioners' complaints were quite justified. It was a mistake to publish the notice as it was worded.

I had the task of taking up with the Department the problems of people who were excluded from receiving the £10 bonus merely because they reached pensionable age a day or two after the line had been drawn. My hon. Friend the Member for Goole has made it a simple matter for the Government to make Christmas Day the deadline for receiving the £10 bonus. It would simplify the issue for all pensioners. There would be no mistakes on this occasion if the Government were to accept the amendment. I make a special appeal to the Under-Secretary, whom I know has Teat sympathy for the pensioners, to accept the amendment. If he does, I assure him that his Department will not have one-tenth of the trouble that it had last year.

We are indebted to my hon. Friend the Member for Goole (Dr. Marshall) for tabling the amendment. It seeks to put right an anomaly which appeared last time when a number of old-age pensioners did not get the Christmas bonus because, although they were 65 before 25th December—the relevant date was operative before that—they did not qualify.

Over the years some of us have said that pensioners should not need bonuses at Christmas or any other time, because the pension should be adequate for their needs. Indeed, we believe that the pension should now be £10 for a single person and £16 for a married couple.

During the past year or two my opinion has changed. I think that the bonus has come to stay. I believe that, whichever party is in power, when Christmas comes the bonus will be there, whatever the amount It has come to stay. If so—I have a feeling that it is—we should be fair in our dealings with retirement pensioners. Anybody who in the relevant year attains the age of 65 before and including 25th December should be allowed to draw the bonus.

Lastly, if the Minister has the figures, or if his Department can get them out, I should like to know what would be the extra cost this year of bringing in those retirement pensioners who reach pensionable age between the relevant date and the date suggested in the amendment.

I am grateful to the hon. Member for Goole (Dr. Marshall), as I am sure is the Committee, for the spirit in which he moved the amendment. I am grateful to him, too, for conceding that a line has to be drawn somewhere, and therefore the argument is whore it should be drawn.

Perhaps I may first answer one or two of the detailed points that have been raised before dealing with the main principles of the issue here.

My reply to the hon. Member for Pontefract (Mr. Harper) is that I do not have a calculation of the extra cost that would be involved. But it would be very small, because the number of pensioners who come to pension age or become eligible for a pension for one reason or another between the relevant week and 25th December is small, and therefore cost is not a consideration which comes into the argument.

The hon. Member for St. Helens (Mr. Spriggs) said that there was ambiguity in the notices issued last year, particularly those in the Press. I am glad to tell him that we have learned from experience. We recognise that there was ambiguity. The Bill now before the Committee is drafted differently from last year's measure in order to try to avoid those ambiguities, and we shall try to ensure in the various notices which go out that the matter is clear cut.

There is no need for any pensioner to make a special application. The vast bulk of the operation will be done automatically. In most cases it will be done through the Post Office, with the pensioner presenting his book at the counter. Where the pension is paid by a different method, different arrangements will operate, but there will be no need for any pensioner to take the initiative himself unless he finds, by about the middle of December, that he has not received a payment when he thinks that he is entitled to one. If that position does arise, I hope that the pensioner concerned will go to the social security office so that the matter can be followed up.

I now come to the main points made by the hon. Member for Gole. It may be that if one is paying what is popularly regarded as a Christmas bonus those eligible up to Christmas Day should come into the arrangements, but perhaps I can explain to the Committee why the Government have not proposed that and also the difficulties which would follow were we to do so.

The hon. Member for Goole linked his proposition to the statement of my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister. In introducing this proposal, my right hon.

Friend said that it was an essential part of stage 3. He said that pensioners represented one of the groups to which the Government wished to give special consideration under stage 3. That was the first group he mentioned, and we are therefore anxious that the payment should be made to pensioners as near as possible to the beginning of stage 3.

Although this arrangement is being carried out for the second year running, it is still a massive operation to pay to about 8 million pensioners the bonus of £10 for a single person and £20 for a married couple where both are over pension age. To ensure that the Post Office. which will do the bulk of the work for us, is able to do the job as quickly as possible after the start of stage 3, there must be clear-cut conditions in which the arrangement can be applied.

The most straight forward situation is when a pension order book is presented at the Post Office, and that is why we have laid down these clear-cut arrangements. We have taken one week, in this case some time before Christmas, so that, we hope, all the payments can he completed well before Christmas, which is what happened last year. These arrangements will ensure that the payments are paid in the early part of stage 3 and, in all cases we hope, well before Christmas.

Were one to do as the hon. Gentleman suggests and pay the bonus to all who reach pensionable age before Christmas, a separate operation would be required because, as the Committee will understand, people who do not have a birthday until Christmas Day will not have a pension order book until then, and in a number of cases they will not receive their books until after Christmas. I think that the hon. Gentleman accepts that. Christmas Day is an artificial and inappropriate time to take because it would mean that the payment in the cases to which I have just referred would not be made until after Christmas. Indeed, it could not be made until the new year.

11.45 a.m.

The hon. Gentleman is right when he says that pensioners who reach retirement age on Christmas Day will not have a pension book until then, but would it not be just as appropriate if birth certificates were shown at a post office counter to prove that the person concerned would reach retirement age on a certain date? That would make the £10 bonus possible and provide a real Christmas bonus for all pensioners.

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, because he is giving me my point. The difficulty is that many old people do not have their birth certificates. We know from our experience in getting people on to the pension roll that many of them do not have them. They have lost their certificates. They are no longer in the old bible on the mantlepiece or by the bedside. In many cases, when we begin the process of finding out the eligibility of old people for pension we find—and this is why we start the process four months before the pension date—that we have to go to Somerset House to verify the records. The hon. Gentleman has pinpointed the difficulties which would arise from accepting the amendment. Old people who were lucky enough and had their birth certificates would be able to get the bonus, but what about the others who did not have theirs?

That reinforces the point that I am putting to the Committee. This is a major operation, involving 8 million pensioners being paid a total of £80 million, and it is therefore necessary to select one week and to have clear-cut conditions in order to ensure that the payments are made, as was my right hon. Friend's intention, in the early part of stage 3. If we are to ensure that the payments are made well before Christmas, it is essential to have the arrange-set out in the Bill.

I understand the point that has been made by those who have spoken in the debate hut, with regret, I submit that the proposal in the Bill is the only acceptable way in which the bonus can be paid.

I am grateful to the Under-Secretary of State for the reasonable and moderate way in which he has, unfortunately, turned down the reasonable and moderate request of my hon. Friend the Member for Goole (Dr. Marshall). I am glad that the Minister made nothing of the difference in cost, because neither side of the Committee can calculate it exactly, but we are, nevertheless, talking about a small amount.

What we are talking about is a fund of good will, as my hon. Friend said, and I thought that the Under-Secretary of State had great sympathy with the point. If I understand the Minister aright, he is saying that if it could be done easily he would be glad to do it, that it would not cost a lot of money, but that it would cause difficulties, and he told us what they were.

The Committee will readily appreciate that this is, as it were, my maiden speech on a Pensions Bill, although I have been shadowing this Department for nearly a year. Naturally, as one always does, I looked at the precedents. I found that last year my right hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn (Mrs. Castle), who is now entering the Chamber, persuaded the Government to do a splendid U-turn on the question of the earnings rule. I saw that the date was 20th December. Nearer than that to Christmas Parliament does not get—or very seldom. Therefore, I am fortified by the thought that we may, perhaps, persuade the Under-Secretary to change his mind again, especially if we put on enough pressure. It is not a question of cost. It is simply a question of mechanics.

In his arguments the Under-Secretary says—I understand this and sympathise with him—that he wants the payments to be made as early as possible in phase 3. That is understood. We are all agreed. There is no reason why that should not be done. As the Under-Secretary said, it will be an automatic procedure. No one, up to now, would have to claim. The result of the amendment would be, for this machinery to operate, to go ahead with those who are entitled at a relevant week, to put in that relevant week, but to bring in an amending Bill—as the Government did last year—when my right hon. Friend twisted the Government's tail so successfully—a little later and nearer the date, which would enable pensioners who reach pensionable age by 25th December this year to make a claim.

This would not mean that those pensioners who could get their £10 earlier would be deprived of that early £10. It would merely mean that a number of other pensioners, but not a great number, would have a right to claim. When their pension book was given to them, which would be possibly early in the New Year, I cannot believe that they would then say, "We are the subject of a great injustice. We have been given £10 that we did not expect to receive." It would be a simple, mechanical gesture.

I should like the Under-Secretary to have another look at the matter on the basis that it would not stop the automatic early payment now but that there would be an additional payment for those who reach pensionable age before Christmas Day this year.

I had forgotten that the right hon. Member for Deptford (Mr. John Silkin) was making his maiden speech on this subject from the Opposition side of the House. I congratulate him on that. He seems to have been shadowing this subject for so long that I had forgotten.

I understand the right hon. Gentleman's point but, with respect, he is attaching too much importance in this operation to Christmas Day as such. He conceded the point which I made earlier, that this operation is attached to stage 3. It is the intention that pensioners should receive, as it were, their part of stage 3 as early as possible after the beginning of stage 3. So that is the date which is of most significance.

The right hon. Gentleman will accept that the further one goes away from stage 3, the more one gets an artificial line. If it is to be Christmas Day, why not New Year's Day? Why not next Easter? Once one departs from the beginning of stage 3, one can easily get into an artificial position which would be difficult to sustain. For those reasons, therefore, I cannot concede the point.

The right hon. Gentleman said that he had looked up the precedents and that we did move on those who, but for the operation of the earnings rule, last year would have been qualified, and we moved on that after representations had been made. But here again, we moved on a group of people who would have been eligible in that week. We did not move the period of time. We brought in people whose eligibility would have existed that week had they actually been receiving a pension. So in that respect the second operation which we under- took last year was different from the present operation.

Therefore, I must say with regret to the right hon. Gentleman that the situation was different last year and that there are very good reasons for tying this operation to the early part of stage 3. As the right hon. Gentleman has conceded, it is the main start point of the whole operation.

I should like to comment on some of the Under-Secretary's remarks. First, he has emphasised the nature of the operation involved in making these bonus payments. I do not doubt that a lot of extra work is entailed, for civil servants and for sub-postmasters and sub-postmistresses. The Under-Secretary has emphasised that if the amendments were accepted this would entail a second operation. Again, I accept that. But the Under-Secretary also said that the amount of extra money involved would not be very great. The number of extra pensioners involved, likewise, cannot be all that great. This means that the second operation cannot be all that great.

Considering the trouble which could ensue for sub-postmasters and sub-postmistresses if the amendments are not carried and disappointed pensioners go to their post offices and become involved in arguments in post offices about the fact that they have been denied the so-called Christmas bonus, the sub-postmasters and sub-postmistresses would probably welcome the opportunity of doing the small amount of work involved in the second operation rather than being put in a completely indefensible position of denying what the pensioner thinks is his right—the Christmas bonus.

There is nothing more annoying in politics than for discrimination to be caused between people who appear to be in the same category but some of whom are denied the rights enjoyed by the others. The present Government have caused a number of difficulties in this respect, difficulties which they have refused to do anything about. If the Government persist in opposing the amendments and refusing to consider the situation further between now and Christmas, they will again be creating a sense of injustice among a large number of people.

The Under-Secretary has also said that it is desirable that these bonus payments should be made as close to the beginning of stage 3 as is possible. I agree with that. The effect of these amendments would not delay any payments to anyone. I am not suggesting that those who would receive their bonus during the relevant week should receive it later. I accept that. I am simply suggesting that other people should be entitled to the bonus as they reach pensionable age during December. There is no question of delaying payments away from the beginning of stage 3. In any case, stage 3 goes on for a year, not lust a few days after 7th November. This means that any relevance that this has to stage 3 should cover people who reach pensionable age throughout the year of stage 3.

The other disturbing feature about the Under-Secretary's remarks has been the way in which he has admitted that this operation is geared more to the introduction of stage 3 on 7th November than it is to the incidence of Christmas. If that is so, and if the Government will not allow pensioners whose birthdays fall up to and including Christmas Day to have this bonus, let us have no more talk about the "Christmas" nature of the bonus. Let us forget it has any relevance to Christmas. If the Government persist in this line let them be regarded more as Scrooge than as Father Christmas.

Amendment negatived.

Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

12 noon

May I take this opportunity of thanking the Under-Secretary for his kindly words, during discussion of the earlier amendment, about my new position regarding this Bill. I said that I had been engaged, inevitably, in looking up precedents and seeing what happened previously. This is a reasonable thing to do, and the most extraordinary thing I find is that there is a precedent. A year ago the Under-Secretary was busy telling us that this was a once-and-for-all gesture, and that the 10 bonus would never recur. Perhaps there was then a larger number of his hon. Friends present than there are today, but most of them were saying that this bonus must not occur again.

I take the view of my hon. Friend the Member for Pontefract (Mr. Harper) that, whatever hon. Gentlemen on the Government side may say, it looks as though this bonus will become part of our national life, but a year ago it was said by the Under-Secretary that it would not be repeated. Why, therefore, was this payment—which a year ago was a once-and-for-all which, we were told, was never going to be repeated—being proposed again? It is a fair question. It has received a fair answer, as I well recall, because in the Second Reading debate a year ago the Secretary of State said, in relation to the £10 bonus, that no one had suffered more from inflation than pensioners.

He said that it was for that reason that the Government had decided to make a once-and-for-all payment. Therefore, we know that it was because of inflation—and it must have been galloping inflation—that a £10 bonus was to be made at that time to retirement pensioners.

The Committee will recall that we were told there would be no repetition of inflation. Thus, from the Government's view, the repetition now of the £10 bonus is an admission by them that they have failed, despite the measures of phases 1 and 2, to keep inflation under control. The Government accept, as the Secretary of State said a year ago, that inflation must hit pensioners. The £10 bonus is meant to assist pensioners in some way to deal with the damaging effects of the Government's inflation. If this is the reason—and it can be the only reason—why is the bonus this year only £10, because that figure has inflated considerably during the last 12 months? I am astonished that the Government are so unrealistic about this. If they really think that £10 today has the value of £10 a year ago they should go and see some old-age pensioners who may be able to tell them what has happened.

Pensioners' living standards are now going down and down in comparison with the rest of the community. This even-handed policy—if I may so describe it—is meant to keep pensioners and the low-paid in the first rank of those who are to be assisted in the present economic situation. I pointed out in a debate earlier this year that when Lloyd George introduced the first retirement pension it was 5s. a week, and the average manual wage was 25s., so the pension was 20 per cent. of the average manual wage. In November 1969—the last year of the Labour Government—the pension, as a percentage of the average manual wage, had slipped from 20 to 19.7. Looking back I think it should have been much more. In October last year, under the present Government, the percentage had slipped to 18.6, where it remains today. Therefore, in relation to the rest of the community, the retirement pensioner is becoming worse off each year, and worse off under this Government.

I have heard many speeches from hon. Members on the Government side in which the apparently magical figure of a 55 per cent. increase in retirement pensions since the Government came into office has been used. Analysing this reinforces my thorough dislike of percentages, for 55 per cent. represents an average increase, since November 1969, of 69p a week. That is what this great achievement represents.

Anyone who claims that the cost of living for the average pensioner has not risen by more than 69p a week should speak to pensioners, for he will find that it has. Retirement pensioners are worse off now than when the Government came into office. If this is so, bearing in mind that the £10 bonus last year was said to be a once-and-for-all payment, why are we having it again this year?

When people feel that they have cheated the rest of the community they occasionally send what is known as conscience money to the Chancellor of the Exchequer. In my view we have here a very good example of the Government's conscience money to the retirement pensioners. The real answer to this is a proper pension on which people can live.

It is very pleasant to get £10, or whatever the proper figure should be, to represent the increase between last year and this year, as a Christmas present, or as a Christmas donation, as the Foreign Secretary would say. But the real problem is to have a pension on which people can live.

The Opposition have, I believe, just about got this right. We propose that in the future there should be a pension of £10 for a single person as a first stage and £16 for a married couple. Such a pension would obviate the need of a repetition of the once-and-for-all £10 bonus. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Pontefract that the Government are trying to get some support from retirement pensioners on the grounds that they are doing something—and they are trying to get this support at the lowest possible rate, if they can.

But compassion does not come on the cheap. What we ought to be doing at this moment is considering a viable pension for the old people. While, inevitably, we must accept the Clause so that they get the £10—for otherwise they would get nothing—the truth is that we are not serving the old people in the way they should be served.

I want to refer back to the point of order we put earlier, Captain Elliot, not in any way to criticise the decision of the Chair, but certainly to criticise the manoeuvring of the Government. My right hon. Friend the Member for Deptford (Mr. John Silkin) has just said—and I agree—that this £10 bonus is no susbtitute for an adequate pension for all and that it is a gesture of conscience money by the Government to some of the poorest people in our community. But I think the Government's uneasy conscience has been operating through the money resolution.

One can readily visualise the Under-Secretary of State, remembering our debates last year, saying, "We must not let them have the opportunity of pointing to the inadequacy of our Christmas bonus scheme this time, so we will draft the money resolution in such a way that they cannot press to the vote the case of other people who are not even going to get the £10 bonus." That has been the deliberate intention of the Government because they know how much anger was aroused in this House and in the country by the selectivity in their Christmas generosity.

I admit that in this Bill the Government have not repeated two mistakes of last year—one of them over the earnings rule. They have learnt their lesson there. They have also rectified the position with regard to pensioners in the Channel Islands, the Isle of Man and Gibraltar, on which I sent dozens of letters to the Secretary of State. I am glad they have had an effect. They came pouring in.

But the major exclusion of the Bill still remains—the exclusion of all those who, whether they be on pension or other benefits, are under the retirement ages of 60 and 65. I warn the hon. Gentleman that despite his maneouvrings over the money resolution letters of anger and protest will come pouring in.

They have already started.

Yes, they have. Last year, when we debated this matter, I received over 400 letters from excluded categories. For example, one was from a man who was himself retired. He got the £10 but then discovered that he was not allowed £10 for his wife because she was under 60. The letters came in from bewildered pensioners. They said, in effect, "If I have retired, we have both retired; we are both dependent on a retired person's income. Why, then, does not my wife get the £10 as other retired women pensioners do?" I tell them that one of the reasons is that the Government have always encouraged the attitude that women should be classed as dependants for insurance purposes and that this was just one of the kickbacks of that attitude. But on the actual financial situation of such families the Government were deliberately impoverishing a retirement pensioner with a dependant wife who happened to be under 60.

12.15 p.m.

There were other equally unreasonable cases—among them the chronically sick on low incomes and the invalidity pensioners who have not reached retirement age. I had one case brought to my attention last year when a disabled man wrote to me—I raised it in the House at the time—explaining that he was an invalidity pensioner of 64 but that his wife was over 65. He asked why he could not get the £10 bonus. Letters said, "Poverty is not less hard to bear because you are under retirement age. If you are crippled or incapacitated or unemployed or the wife of a retirement pensioner you still need to eat and keep warm." The elderly widows in their late fifties wrote to us—and let us remember that half of them are so poor that they have to rely on supplementary benefit. They are one of the poorest categories in the community. But they are deliberately denied by the Government a little flicker of happiness at Christmas time, just that little margin to get a Christmas dinner which will not be a pound of sausages or a small tin of stewed steak. Then there are the unemployed—we can think of all these categories.

The fact is that this Christmas bonus, welcome as it is bound to be to those on low incomes who receive it, is designed to deal not only with the scandal of the pensioner on the cheap but the scandal of our national poverty on the cheap and to separate the poor sheep from the poor goats.

When we raised this matter last year, on 20th November, it was very much a question of last thoughts by the Government—that in the intolerable inflation from which the poor were suffering they could not face leaving them unhelped at Christmas time. This at the time, was made the excuse by the Government for not widening the categories. When we pressed him the hon. Gentleman said: … I ask the House to recognise that this operation is being carried out in record time … This is to some extent, of course, rough and ready. That is the price we have to pay … to get this payment into operation before Christmas."—[OFFICAL REPORT, 20th November 1972; Vol. 846, c. 1028.] That excuse is not valid this year. Not only is this not 20th November but 19th October; the letters have already come pouring in from excluded categories. They began weeks ago, when the rumour went round that the cost of living was in such a runaway situation again that the Government would be forced to do something. The letters have come from people who lost out last year and they say, "Please see that we do not lose out this time." The Government have had representations made to them and today we have the quite callously deliberate decision by the Government to leave these people out.

Of course, the bonus is not the really appropriate answer. Of course, as my right hon. Friend said, what we need to do is to get pensions and other benefits—this is the Opposition's policy and it is an inclusive one—lifted immediately to the more tolerable level of £10 for a single person and £16 for a couple, and then to link them to increases in national average earnings, so that all pensioners, widows on widows' pensions, the chronically sick and the invalidity pensioners, those on attendance allowances and the unemployed, shall be kept automatically in a proper relationship with the rising wages and salaries paid to the other sections of the community. Of course, that is the answer, and of course this £10 will not rectify the basic problems of keeping fed and warm, which these people on pensions and benefits face.

I want to ask the Under-Secretary of State whether he can tell us, for example, the exact number of heating allowances that are in payment at the present time. That is a point which we made to him in last year's debate. We said that the £10 was no substitute for the payment of a proper heating allowance all through the winter months to cold and hungry pensioners. I have tried to get the latest figures from his Department via the research section of the Library, and I have been told that the latest figures it could get were for November 1972, when 193,000 heating allowances were in payment, the overwhelming majority of them being only 30p a week. The Government boast that they have increased the heating allowance for certain categories to 90p. How many are getting 90p to pay for their fuel, gas and electricity? The answer is 6,000, out of our millions of pensioners and others on poverty benefits. So we say that this is another Government gimmick. It should not be allowed to salve their consciences, and it will not satisfy the legitimate demands of the poor of this country.

Clause 1 deliberately omits from coverage large categories of people in considerable need of receiving the benefit of this £10 bonus. But not only does the Clause deny these people this benefit; the very way in which the Bill has been drafted denies this House the opportunity of pressing for each individual category, so that we can at least focus attention on the need of the disabled, the widows and many other groups of people. What it clearly shows to back benchers on this side is that we should never allow a Bill of this nature to go through its Second Reading with- out any major debate. By limiting the benefit of the £10 to those of pensionable age, the Clause by definition, excludes millions of people who are in equal need or, in some cases, in greater need than many of our old-age pensioners. My right hon. Friend has referred to the widows but there are also the disabled people, the long-term sick and even the long-term unemployed, all of whom have been described by Members on both sides in recent months. We have all paid lip service to the needs of these groups, and this was an opportunity for the Government to do something about that need.

The Tory Party used to say that they were seeking to concentrate help on those in greatest need. This Bill has not sought to identify those in greatest need, and the Clause specifically excludes people who are in considerable need. The Under-Secretary of State himself told us last year that we were trying to pay out the £10 very quickly on that occasion, and that it was necessary to concentrate on those who most needed payment and on those categories which could be easily recognised. As Members on this side have already said, we have at least an extra month of parliamentary time on this occasion and the Government have had a whole 12 months to think about the matter and to assess the genuine needs of the different groups in this country, in order to bring about some amelioration of the conditions of disablement, long-term sickness and long-term unemployment.

The long-term unemployed are again excluded. They are people who have been unemployed for more than 312 days, who are now no longer entitled to receive unemployment benefit and who are forced to exist on some means-tested supplementary benefit. Many of these people exist in the older industrial areas, and many of them are ex-miners who have given years of service to the community. Similarly, many of the long-term sick who are denied the benefit of this £10 are greatly in need and, often enough, their sickness has been caused by years of work in unpleasant and unhealthy surroundings. Are these people not in need? Of course they are. The Government suggest that by this Bill they are attempting to deal with need, but in fact they are shying away from the real problems of need in this country.

We have many times been told by the Government that they are greatly concerned with the problems of disability, and the Under-Secretary knows the many long discussions on this matter that we have had in Committee and on the Floor of the House. I am sure that the vast majority of disabled people in this country whose need is desperate must be absolutely ashamed to think that they live in a society which is now denying them this £10 bonus which they so urgently need at Christmas time.

The omission of the disabled, the widows, the long-term sick and others who are in need shows how phoney this £10 is. As the Under-Secretary himself indicated this morning, this £10 is really a bribe to the community to make it easier for the Government to sell the unwanted, unjust and unworkable stage 3 of their prices and incomes policy. This is just a sop to the Government's conscience, as one realises when one recalls the poverty which still exists not only among the old people but among the sick, the injured, the unemployed and the disabled. Each one on this side of the Committee will say that we shall support the £10 because it is better than nothing, but that is a pretty miserable reason for having to accept this type of limitation on the categories of people who will receive it.

I dislike intensely the thinking behind this type of bonus. We ought not to be talking of throwing an odd £10 like a bone to a dog. What we ought to be talking about is providing old-age pensioners with pensions adequate to live on in comfort and in dignity. Of course no one denies that the £10 will add a little comfort, but it will do nothing towards adding to the dignity which is essential if we are to call ourselves a civilised society. Neither the present provisions nor the provisions in the new Social Security Act are ever likely to provide the old-age pensioners of this country with adequate resources to live on in comfort and in dignity, and this Government will have to make frequent use of these occasional payments. They are quite right in moving away from the idea that this is a Christmas bonus, and if they continue with their present policies they will find an urgent need for making these payments quite frequently in future. Therefore it would have been wise and prudent for the Government to have included in this Bill provision for a series of payments whenever circumstances require them.

The Secretary of State told us last year that that was to be a special once-for-all payment. It was to be once-for-all for a number of reasons one of which, given in the debate on the 20th November 1972, was that it would not be needed in the future because the pension review which took place in the spring of this year, as a result of which there was an increase, … would enable pensioners to share in the increased prosperity in the country."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 20th November 1972; Vol. 846, c. 971.] If the pensioners are genuinely sharing in any increased prosperity in the country, why is it necessary to introduce this £10 bonus at this time?

We are back in exactly the same position that we were in last year. No wonder the benches opposite have been almost completely bare throughout this debate. Last year hon. Members opposite rose. one after another, and used words like: I hope that this Bill will not become a precedent", as the hon. Member for Chelsea (Mr. Worsley) said. The hon. Member for Wells (Mr. Boscawen) said: The payment this year is a special case and it is an emergency measure but I would greatly mistrust it if it were repeated year after year." —[OFFICIAL REPORT. 20th November 1972; Vol. 846, cc. 983 and 1003.] Our complaint about this £10 is that it is inadequate to provide for the degree of poverty which exists among old people and the disabled. If the present Government continue their present policies and fail to take a firmer grip on the retail prices which old-age pensioners and other groups in need have to pay, this £10 will have to be paid at regular intervals. The pensioners know, even if the Prime Minister does not know, that they and other groups who are excluded from the provisions of the Bill cannot depend upon their weekly benefits to provide them with a moderately comfortable life.

12.30 p.m.

Like every hon. Member, I welcome the £10 bonus that is going to be paid, but it is certainly crumbs of comfort which are being offered by the Government. What deeply concerns me, as I am sure it concerns others, is the lack of interest in this debate on the part not only of Government supporters but, indeed, those "people of concern namely the Liberal Party, who are not even here today. Adequate notice has been given of this debate, and I only hope that the people who are turning to that party will note their lack of concern when they have an opportunity of stating their points of view in this House and cannot even be bothered to come here

In discussing this £10 bonus, in view of all the publications which have recently been available to hon. Members especially from organisations such as that for which I have a great admiration, namely Age Concern—it seems that this bonus will bring very little help to pensioners. All one has to do is to speak to pensioners in one's own constituency to discover that this £10 will be spent on paying off their electricity, gas or television bills, or perhaps paying for their television licences. On the key issue with which many pensioners are now concerned, namely, the lack of an adequate and nourishing diet, this money will not be of any great help to them.

I represent a constituency which has a large percentage of retired people. Pensioners have a perfect right to expect, whatever Government may be in power, to be able to afford to spend money not necessarily on luxuries but on the kind of things which bring them some degree of pleasure. I am sure that my right hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn (Mrs. Castle) will agree when I say that irrespective of the age of a woman, she likes to have a pound or two in her purse so that she can buy a hat or a coat or go to the hairdresser, or have money to give to her grandchildren when they visit her. Why should not a man, when he has retired, have the right to go to a pub and have a drink or spend a few shillings a week on the football pools if that brings him some pleasure? The existing pension does not give them an opportunity to do these things.

The Minister and, indeed, his right hon. Friend the Prime Minister in Blackpool last week, referred to the 55 per cent. increase in pensions, but this is regarded with utter contempt by pensioners. I am sure the Under-Secretary has many pensioners in his constituency. I should like to know what their comments would be to him if he had the audacity to say to them "We have given you a 55 per cent. increase in pensions." In the House yesterday we were told by the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food that food prices during the period that the present Government have been in office have increased by 37.3 per cent.

My hon. Friend will perhaps have seen that the Pensioners Voice, the official newspaper of the National Federation of Old Age Pensioners' Associations, has dealt more than adequately with the Government's claim about a 55 per cent. increase in benefits. Indeed, the Under-Secretary specifically referred in one speech to the fact that the national federation had complained how badly they had been treated by the present Government.

One only has to take into account the number of pensioners who come to lobby Members, irrespective of their party, to appreciate the relevance of what my hon. Friend says. Consider the answer given yesterday, in which we were told of a 33.7 per cent. increase in food prices. The value of the pound has fallen by 25p during that time. This strengthens the point made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Deptford (Mr. John Silkin) who asked "What is £10 really worth this year?". If the Government had any concern to see that the bonus retained its value, I believe that the sum available to pensioners this year would be £12. Indeed if it is to be meaningful, it should be £15.

The view of my party is that pensions should be increased to £10 for single persons and £16 for married couples, as a matter of priority. I question whether even that is sufficient. Many of my right hon and hon. Friends, including my right hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn and my hon. Friend the Member for Southall (Mr. Bidwell), have repeatedly argued that until we have in this country a system whereby pensions are tied to the average national weekly income, there will be no lasting benefit for pensioners. I only hope the Government will give their attention to this matter.

During the last few weeks we have heard each of the three political parties claiming their great concern for the pensioners. I have no doubt of my party's concern, and I am sure that the Minister of Pensions in the next Labour Government will be fully aware that if pensions are not made a priority there will be absolute uproar from back bench Members of my party. This is a commitment to which we are pledged and on which I have made promises to my constituents, and I shall see that it is indeed a priority.

What concerns me is the lack of willingness by the present Government to get to grips with the situation and ensure that pensioners have enough to live on, especially as all parties have agreed on this. It is time that the Government made their position perfectly clear to the country. At Blackpool last week the Chancellor referred to the "wicked" Labour proposals for taxation. I do not deny the rightness of increasing taxation in this country if it means that pensioners and others, including the permanently sick and disabled groups, not forgetting those who look after dependent relatives receive adequate benefits.

If ever there were a group of people who should be included among the recipients of this £10 it is those who look after dependent relatives. I believe that about 300,000 fathers and/or mothers are looked after by their sons or daughters. Almost invariably, it is the daughter who looks after the dependent relative. If these people were not prepared to do that, even if there were hospital beds available it would cost about £40 a week to keep one of those dependent relatives in hospital. Yet here we are arguing about a once-and-for-all payment of £10 to these people. Many of them will not receive the bonus because they are below pensionable age, and that is an absolute scandal, just as it is utterly scandalous that the disabled will not receive it.

I do not attempt to suggest that only Labour Members are concerned about the disabled. To their credit, the same can be said for many Conservatives, who are most active in trying to make life for the disabled more pleasant. I wish they were here today, attempting to get the Minister to change his mind.

We are always told that the Government would like to help but that the money was not available. That is utter rubbish. In the next few days we shall be discussing the Channel tunnel, which, if the scheme is approved, will cost hundreds of millions of pounds. It might be argued that it is for the economic good of the country to have the tunnel. I shall not argue about that now, but if we can afford to spend hundreds of millions of pounds on the Channel tunnel and on Maplin—whenever it gets off the ground and construction starts—surely we can give a £10 bonus to the people who have been excluded.

The Government will be giving the retirement pensioners only £80 million by way of the bonus. I do not have the figures. but if we were to include all the other groups that Members have been campaigning for this morning I doubt if it would add more than another £20 million to £25 million. Are we really telling the disabled, the permanently sick and the other categories that we cannot afford to give them the bonus, but that in a few days' time we shall be approving the expenditure of hundreds of millions of pounds? It is when we discuss projects such as these that the electorate feel such contempt for politicians and demand that we get our priorities right.

I only hope that the Minister will say, even at this late hour, that the Government have made a mistake, that there are those in even greater need than the pensioners and that they will be included. Even if these other categories do not get the money in time for Christmas, even if it takes a few weeks longer, I shall still welcome his decision. I hope he has the courage to say that is what he is prepared to do.

Most if not all of us agree with the Christmas bonus and we appreciate that lines of demarcation have to be drawn. We know there will always be anomalies in any bonus however it is arranged. My right hon. Friend the Member for Deptford (Mr. John Silkin), speaking to an earlier amendment, said that when Lloyd George introduced the pension it amounted to five shillings a week compared to the standard income of the country of about 25 shillings. In other words, it was then 20 per cent. of the average wage and he explained that that percentage has now fallen.

I remember when I first went to work in the late 1920s the pension was 10 shillings. I remember the spectacle of people in every industry having to drag themselves to work beyond the age of 70 in order to eke out a living because 10 shillings was not sufficient to keep a man and his wife. We all know, and none better than the Minister, that most of our old-age pensioners have to rely on supplementary benefits now. When the Minister replied to the amendment moved by my hon. Friend the Member for Goole (Dr. Marshall), he referred to the arrangements under phase 3 and at that point I thought his argument distinctly weak. Surely the Department can do better than that.

12.45 p.m.

If he had stopped speaking when he reached the point about old-age pensioners having difficulties because they do not have an order book and about the anomalies of the birth certificate and how these can get lost by old people, he would have made more sense. The Minister referred to what the old-age pensioners will get out of phase 3. I can assure him they will not get very much. As my hon. Friend the Member for Goole pointed out, some of them will be harshly treated. My hon. Friend described how people, although not having an order book or a birth certificate, could nevertheless get the bonus after Christmas. We all agree with the Christmas bonus and it will be an annual feature under all future Governments. There are old-age pensioners in the higher income bracket who do not need the bonus but who will get it. For them it will simply go into the coffers.

While we think of the old-age pensioners, however, we must remember that there are a lot of other categories, some of whom are the subject of a later amendment, who are as badly off as the old-age pensioners. The book in my house which is well thumbed and most read is not, I have to admit, the Bible. It is the book which is sent out about every two years by the Department of Health and Social Security. My right hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn (Mrs. Castle) said earlier that letters were already pouring in and that constituents were coming to the surgeries, some of them angry, but most of them bewildered not knowing what this it all about.

Perhaps I can best explain by citing the case which has come to my notice concerning a gentleman on invalidity pension. I live in an industrial area. Like most industrial areas it has its share of people drawing the invalidity pension as early as 55 or before and who draw it for the rest of their lives. The man to whom I refer is about 62. He draws the same rates as an old-age pensioner with supplementary benefit which covers his rent and a little bit extra. He asks, "What about me? I get nothing." My right hon. Friend mentioned the case of widows in certain circumstances not being able to draw the £10 bonus. These anomalies could be ironed out with a little good will by the Government. The bonus could be paid to these people in the way suggested or in some other way devised by the Department.

In view of everything that has been said, the bonus, acceptable and welcome as it is, could be given to other categories who are as deserving as the pensioners. I hope that the Minister will consider what I have said and give us something we can take back to our constituents.

Any alleviation of the old-age pensioners' position is most welcome, but there are some matters which I must put to the Minister. First, will he tell us when the relevant week will be? Will he give us a firm date? There is a feeling among many old-age pensioners that those who come into the entitlement of an old-age pension before Christmas should be considered under the Bill.

I have a pathetic letter from one of my constituents. He states that he will become of pensionable age on 21st December. He has been informed that he will not come under the entitlement. He says that his wife and himself are living in a house which is under a demolition order. His house is cold and damp and he says that the bonus would have been useful in that he could have bought extra coal for Christmas.

The House should be cognisant of such matters. I agree with the hon. Member for Pontefract (Mr. Harper) that there are other categories which could now be considered—for example, widow's pensions, especially the pensions of war widows. It is to be regretted that they are not to be considered. While I welcome any alleviation of the old-age pensioners' lot, I should have liked to see a more substantial sum coming to those needy people.

As a result of the procedural trickery which the Government have employed in putting the Bill before the House, we have been denied the right to put forward amendments which, if carried, would have resulted in the £10 bonus being available to 1 million poor people who are completely forgotten in the Bill.

Let me make it plain that the Labour Party believes, in the current background of grossly inadequate social security benefits and of unprecedented levels of inflation fostered by the policies of the Government, that the £10 bonus should be paid not only to our citizens who are over pensionable age—that is women over 60 years and men over 65 years—but to the long-term sick, disabled and unemployed and widows and widowed mothers who are dependent on social security payments, and who are excluded. Such groups are amongst the poorest sections of the community. They form part of the forgotten million. There is nothing for them in the Bill or in phase 3 of the Government's counter-inflation policy. The categories which I have mentioned are the worst hit casualties of phase 3, the basic principle of which is to give most to those who need less.

Let us consider how a widowed mother dependent on supplementary benefit and an invalidity pensioner is entitled to regard the current proposals. We have the chairman of a meat company which has doubled its profits at a time when people on national insurance benefit find it increasingly difficult to buy meat because of soaring meat prices. The chairman of that company can receive under the Government's counter-inflation policy an increase of over £16,000 a year. We are told that that is because there has been an increase in productivity in the group concerned. We must consider how to advise trade union members to obtain that kind of increase. The chairman I have mentioned is at the top of the pyramid. He is a good example—but a disgraceful example—of the top of the pyramid.

Next, we must consider those who are in employment and who are earning over £5,000 a year. Over the last three years there have been tax handouts to that section of the community amounting to over £400 million. In phase 3, based on the total national resources avail- able or likely to be available for individuals within the community, that group is entitled to an extra £220 million a year. That is an entitlement of £7 a week for those earning over £5,000 a year.

As the pyramid broadens, the amount decreases. The lower paid in British industry are entitled, if they can get it—which means if there is a trade union organisation which can fight for them—to a £2.25 a week increase in their income during phase 3.

Retirement pensioners are almost at the bottom of the huge pyramid. The eight million retirement pensioners are to receive £80 million as opposed to £220 million, plus all the tax handouts, which half a million people with £5,000 a year can receive. Their benefit is 20p a week.

For the chairman of the meat company there is £16,000 a year. For those earning £5,000 a year there is £7 a week. For the lower paid, if they can get it, there is £2.25 a week. For retirement pensioners there is, in the form of a Christmas bonus, 20p a week. For the forgotten million, including widows, widowed mothers and the long-term sick, disabled and unemployed, there is nothing in phase 3.

The Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Security said last year that the reasons for those sections being excluded were two-fold. The first reason was that the Government wanted to do a speedy emergency job last year. That does not apply this year. We are considering the matter much earlier this year. Secondly, the hon. Gentleman said that the scheme should be limited to readily definable groups.

If administrative convenience is to be balanced against equity and morality, such convenience should always be thrown out of the window. However, by an amendment, the Opposition were giving the hon. Gentleman additional and readily definable groups within the national insurance and the social security system.

Last year the hon. Gentleman suggested that it would be wrong to make the £10 bonus available to those who had been dependent on social security payments for only a brief period. The Opposition have met his point. We have made readily definable all the long-term recipients who are heavily and generally exclusively dependent on social security benefit—namely, pensioners and disabled men or women, including those so badly disabled that they are receiving attendance allowance. If those people are under 60, and although they shop in the same market and although they need the same housing, heating and food as those over 60, their incomes are similar to those of retirement pensioners. It is a matter of deliberate Government policy that they are to be excluded from receiving this year's Christmas bonus.

The Under-Secretary of State has long experience in these matters. He knows that if we are to attempt to identify specific areas of poverty there are no greater concentrations of poverty than amongst, widows, widowed mothers, the long-term sick, the long-term disabled and the long-term unemployed. Yet there is nothing for them in the Bill. What is more, we are even denied the right to move an amendment in an attempt to make these payments.

1.0 p.m.

I hope that the Under-Secretary will have a better reply to make on the subject than he had last year. His only case then was based on the need to put the payments into operation as soon as possible. Let me remind the hon. Gentleman of the document recently published by Age Concern entitled "Shopping for Food". It is based on a survey which was conducted in July of this year. It shows that pensioners are eating less food than they were a year ago, and that they have great difficulty in replacing household goods, in buying meat and in shopping if they happen to be disabled. All those factors apply to the other categories which I have been discussing—the million forgotten poor.

I hope that the Under-Secretary will not attempt to give us an administrative answer. I hope that he will meet squarely the clear needs of the categories of people who are excluded in order to see to it that they, too, receive the same £10 Christmas bonus as those over the ages of 60 and 65. On all the evidence their need is just as great, and they should have the money put into their hands this Christmas.

I am grateful to the Committee for the support that has been given to the Bill, especially to the £10 payment. I do not complain that the Opposition urge the Government to do more. All Oppositions do that, and it is right that they should. I complain about the fact that in the criticisms which have been made there has been virtually no recognition of the substantial improvement in pensions and other benefits which came into operation only three weeks ago. I also complain about the fact that in suggesting improvements here and there the Opposition have made no attempt to cost them or to say who is to pay.

If the hon. Gentleman wishes me to cost them I will do that here and now. I am talking about a million forgotten people. It means an extra £10 million. That is a drop in the ocean compared with the hand-outs to surtax payers and others at the top of the pyramid which I described who are getting everything from this Government.

The hon. Member for Rotherham (Mr. O'Malley) is being grossly unfair. The so-called forgotten million people are getting substantially more help from this Government than they did when he was responsible.

That is not true.

A number of groups—the disabled and the younger widows, for example—got no special help when he was responsible. It was this Government who introduced that help, and we are now improving the new benefits that they are getting on an annual basis.

Against that background I deal with the specific question put to me about the arrangements, those who will benefit, and the time when the payments are due to come into operation.

As I said in an earlier debate, this Bill stems from the announcement made by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister that as part of stage 3 special consideration would be given to certain groups of people, one of which was the pensioners. As a result, about 8 million pensioners will benefit, to the tune of a total of £80 million. The £10 will be non-taxable and non-means tested. Therefore all will benefit to the full amount. It covers not only people living in their own homes but also those living in old people's homes and hospitals provided that they have an entitlement to a qualifying benefit.

The vast majority will get the payment at the Post Office when they cash their pensions for the week beginning 26th November. That answers the point put to me by the hon. Member for Antrim, North (Rev. Ian Paisley). He will notice that the conditions for eligibility appear in Clause 1. Broadly speaking, they are that people shall have reached the relevant age—65 for men and 60 for women—that they are ordinarily resident in the country, and that they are entitled to a payment of a qualifying benefit on one day in the week concerned. The hon. Gentleman will also notice that the relevant week is defined in page 3, line 10 of the Bill as the week beginning 26th November 1973. The vast majority will get the payment during that week. Others—those who are paid on a monthly basis and possibly some who are paid by Giro cheque—will receive their payment usually by post and, we hope, well before Christmas. Those are the essential qualifying conditions.

The Bill must be seen as a sequel to the substantial increase in the benefits which came into operation only three weeks ago at the beginning of October. The increase of £1.60 for a married couple and £1 for a single person is the biggest increase ever in any period of one year. It amounts to an increase of nearly 15 per cent., whereas, according to the latest figures, which are for August, the cost of living has increased by only 6.8 per cent. In other words, the increase in pensions which has just come into operation not only fulfils the Government's firm commitment to ensure each year that the purchasing power of the pension is maintained but has increased the real value of the pension. That is well illustrated by the figures which I have just given. As a result of this month's improvement there is now an extra £570 million being paid in a full year to people on pensions and other social security benefits. That is the essential background to the Bill, and it is only right that I should emphasise it.

Many speeches today have made pleas to include in the £10 payment other groups of people who are excluded. Perhaps I might make two points. The first is that a payment of this kind is a major operation and one has to find a dividing line which will be equitable and practicable. In our judgment, as this is geared to pensioners, the normal pension age with a qualifying benefit is the most acceptable and the most equitable line to draw. It is for that reason that the line has been drawn at the normal pension age.

In view of what the hon. Gentleman is saying. how can he justify the exclusion of people who are now in receipt of the constant attendance allowance? Surely this will present no great problems.

I quite understand the pleas being made on behalf of other groups of people who are below the retirement age. But here again the Bill, which is intended specifically for those over retirement age, must not be looked at in isolation. One has also to look at what the Government have been doing for those groups who are excluded from the Bill. I should like to remind the Committee of what has been done for the various groups that have been mentioned.

First, I will deal with widows. In most cases they are entitled to the long-term increase in benefit. They were given an increase in benefit higher than that for the short-term beneficiaries—and there are special preferential arrangements, quite rightly, within the National Insurance scheme for widows, particularly those with dependent children. These preferences have been maintained. Further, widows between the ages of 40 and 50, who were hitherto excluded from benefit, were included within the scheme a few years ago by this Government. So there has been direct action to improve the lot of and to give more help to widows than was available hitherto.

I am listening carefully to the hon. Gentleman. I have here the National Insurance and Supplementary Benefit Act, as it now is, which we discussed a little while ago. The widowed mother's allowance is £7.75, which is identical to the widow's pension of £7.75. Even worse, when unemployed people have once been out of earnings-related benefit their increase has been not more, but less, than the pensioners receive. They get £7.35, which is a 60p increase rather than £1. Will the hon. Gentleman fit that into the context of his remarks.

My point is that widows on long-term benefit—in other words, those who are most in need of help and support from the scheme—have had the higher rate of increase along with retirement pensioners.

£7.75.

They have had the higher rate of increase.

I am not trying to be difficult. The hon. Gentleman is proving a case which does not need proving. I think we are really agreed on this matter. For example, a widow receiving either the widowed mother's allowance or the widow's pension gets £7.75. She is getting the same as a retirement pensioner. Therefore, she needs the £10 Christmas bonus in the same way.

Looking at what has been done to help widows, one finds that not only are those on the long-term rate of benefit put in a preferential position over and above those on short-term benefit, which applied to the increase in benefit which came into operation at the beginning of October, but new benefits have been introduced to help widows who hitherto had no benefit at all. Therefore, it is not fair for hon. Gentlemen to look at the Bill in isolation, completely ignoring what has been done for widows in previous Bills introduced by this Government.

The chronic sick have been mentioned. Of course, we all recognise the difficulties that they face. But, again, the Government have responded. There is the new invalidity allowance and the invalidity pension within the National Insurance Scheme. The Committee will know that from the beginning of this month the chronic sick who were entitled to the invalidity allowance have had that allowance increased by no less than 40 per cent. This was a deliberate response by the Government to the needs of the chronic sick because we recognised that additional help was required for them.

The disabled have also been mentioned. Again, it is only fair that the Committee should recognise the substantial advance that has been made in recent times through the attendance allow- ance. About 112,000 people are now getting the attendance allowance. One has only to look back to December 1971, when no help was available for them. We estimate that over £30 million a year is now being paid out for the attendance allowance. We hope it will not be long before it amounts to £70 million a year. Here is a situation that has been transformed—not before time—in a comparatively short period since December 1971, from no money being paid out for the attendance allowance to a figure that before long will approach £70 million a year.

When these criticisms are made, the Committee should recognise the substantial advances that have been made in recent years in improving the lot of those groups of people who have been mentioned in the debate.

The Opposition, in making their criticisms, said that the level of pension should be £10 for a single person and £16 for a married couple. I make no complaint about being urged to do more for pensioners, but I do complain that not one word has been said about the costs involved. Therefore, I must remind the Committee of what the cost of those proposals would be.

An extra £1,400 million would be required, which would mean an extra 51p on the contributions made by people earning £36 a week and an extra 85p on the contributions made by those earning £54 a week. The Opposition would gain more credit if, when they talked about these increases in benefits, they would in the same breath and sentence say how much more would be added to the contributions that working people have to make.

1.15 p.m.

The hon. Gentleman might get away with that outside the House, but certainly not inside it. He knows that on a succession of Bills, from the major Social Security Acts down to every up-rating Bill we have had, when we have discussed the £10 and £16 pensions we have openly and with full publicity outlined the costs of such levels of pensions. We have also explained how the money would be found for the increases. The hon. Gentleman knows that there are a number of different ways of financing pensions at that, or, indeed, any other level. One way, about which I have spoken in the House on more than one occasion, is to increase the Treasury contribution. Surely, in periods when the Treasury has been able to make massive hands-outs of hundreds of millions of pounds to the wealthier sections of the community there could instead have been that transference of resources towards the retirement pensioners. We have put forward our proposals. costed them and argued the methods of financing them not on one but on every Bill that has come before the House in the last 18 months.

When the hon. Gentleman came forward with the proposal for a substantial increase in the pension this morning, he did not mention the increased cost, or how it should be met. It is grossly irresponsible and misleading to dangle these carrots before the pensioners without in the same breath saying what the cost would be or how it would be met by the working taxpaying population.

The right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mrs. Castle) asked about the heating allowance. The heating allowance is available, over and above the various benefits within the Supplementary Benefits Scheme, to those who have special needs for extra heating on medical grounds or the inadequacy of the houses in which they live. Here again, an improvement was made in the arrangements which came into operation at the beginning of this month.

There has been an increase in the number of people qualifying for the heating allowances. The figure for November 1972—the latest available—was 232,000 allowances, compared with 194,000 in November 1971. As a result of the new arrangements which came into operation this month, we expect about an extra 400,000 beneficiaries.

Why must my hon. Friend stick rigidly to the date of 26th November? Why cannot it be brought up to 25th December? He should bear in mind that there are hardship cases in the country. His use of the expression concerning carrots was very unfortunate. The people concerned are very needy, as my hon. Friend appreciates. It is not a dangling of carrots to try to get them something that will help them through the cold of this winter.

My hon. Friend cannot have been here during the earlier debate when we discussed why the week beginning 26th November was selected. I should bore the Committee if I went over the argument again, but the hon. Gentleman may wish to read the report of the debate in HANSARD.

The intention of the clause is to carry out the commitment announced by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister to give special consideration under stage 3 to the pensioners. Hence the £10 for a single person and £20 for a married couple where both are over pension age. It will benefit about 8 million pensioners at a cost of £80 million. That is over and above the substantial improvements in the pensions and the other benefits which came into operation only three weeks ago as a result of the annual review of benefits which now takes place.

Of course the Government are not satisfied; of course we want to do more: of course we recognise that there are still areas of need which must be met. But I am entitled to tell the Committee that the clause is another concrete example of the progress which has been made and which we are determined to continue.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 1 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

I beg to move Amendment No. 9, in page 3, leave out line 8 and insert: '( a ) in the case of a man in receipt of an invalidity pension, the age of 60; ( b ) in the case of any other man, the age of 65;'. The effect of the amendment would be to include within the scope of what I will now call the November bonus all the men in receipt of invalidity pension between the ages of 60 and 65 who are not now included. I shall not rehearse all the arguments which have already been advanced about the need to extend the scope of the bonus in that way. I know that there are two of my constituents who come within that category.

Two factors lead such people to think that they have a right to the bonus. First, they regard themselves as retirement pensioners, because they look forward to no future opportunities of work. Secondly, they are by and large on the same rates of pension as retirement pensioners.

I know that there is the invalidity supplement. but for those who have come on to invalidity pension over the age of 60 that supplement is very small. The people involved feel that because their normal rate of benefit is very nearly equal to the rate of benefit for retirement pensioners they should be eligible for the special bonus.

The Under-Secretary has been unable to accede to our requests—requests which are being made to all of us by people of all political persuasions and none—that widows, the long-term sick and the disabled, amongst other categories, should be entitled to receive the £10 Christmas bonus. That proposition has been steadfastly rejected by the Government.

My hon. Friend the Member for Goole (Dr. Marshall) has moved a much narrower amendment. I have particular sympathy with his amendment, because in the area from which I come, and where I was born, the number of invalidity pensioners, men over 60 who have worked in the mining industry and heavy industry all their lives, is high. The Under-Secretary has rejected the broader proposals, but the narrower proposal advanced by my hon. Friend is one on which he could be helpful.

I hope that elderly people who will probably not work again, and who are retirement pensioners in all but name and the fact of being of legal pensionable age, will be allowed to receive the Christmas bonus. They do not form an enormous group, but they are a con- centration of a type of deprivation similar to that experienced by retirement pensioners.

I hope that the hon. Gentleman will concede something this morning. So far we have had nothing from him. He knows that if Governments want to get their legislation through it helps if they give Oppositions something. That greases the wheels a little when discussions take place on other Bills. I am sure that there will be other Bills next Session from the hon. Gentleman's Department. Perhaps I may twist the hon. Gentleman's arm and say that if he wants reasonable co-operation in discussions on future legislation I hope that he will give us something this morning.

I am asking for nothing unusual. I believe that for the invalidity pensioners covered by the amendment I am entitled to use any weapon available to me, and I make no apologies for using it.

The hon. Member for Rotherham (Mr. O'Malley) used his mildest and most persuasive manlier, but with dark threats in the background. I have the impression that it was the mildest part of what he said that I was expected to take most seriously.

I appreciate what he said, and understand the argument advanced by his hon. Friend the Member for Goole (Dr. Marshall). We have gone over many of the arguments in earlier debates.

The moment one departs from the clear and well understood line of the age of 65 for a man and 60 for a woman one gets the kind of invidious comparisons that come about if one singles out this group of people, deserving as they are, and says that although they are under the age of 65 or 60 they should benefit.

Some of these people benefit from the 40 per cent. increase in the invalidity allowance which was introduced at the beginning of this month, in addition to the invalidity pension which they receive, and if one were to distinguish this group, then, understandably, widows, perhaps struggling to bring up families on their own, would say that if the Government are prepared to let in these people, who may be on a higher level of benefit, why should they not be included? Therefore, much as I understand the point made by the hon. Gentleman, it is impossible to depart from the clear dividing line of retirement age without introducing all sorts of inequities into the arrangements—something which I am sure the hon. Gentleman would not wish to do in practice.

Amendment negatived.

1.30 p.m.

I beg to move Amendment No. 10, in page 4, line 37, leave out paragraph ( a ).

This is an exploratory amendment. In subsection (i)( d ) "qualifying benefit" is defined as "a war disablement pension". There was no such provision in last year's measure.

The words which I am proposing to delete from subsection (6) deal with the war disablement pension. I do not know what those words are doing there. It reads as though those people receiving such a pension—even those over the age of 65—will not be entitled to the bonus. I do not believe that that could sensibly or possibly be the case. This is no doubt some erudite, exotic piece of draftsmanship, and I should be grateful if the hon. Gentleman would tell the Committee why this group is included this year when it was excluded from last year's legislation, and what is the difference between last year's Act and the Bill.

I sympathise with and understand the hon. Gentleman's bewilderment. The Bill represents an improvement and a refinement of last year's arrangements, and perhaps I may briefly explain what it does, and how.

The majority of war disabled pensioners will be entitled to the special lump-sum payment by virtue of also receiving another qualifying benefit—retirement pension or supplementary pension. War disablement pension is included in the list of qualifying benefits this year to cater for those few war pensioners who do not have any other qualifying benefit and who were not covered in the 1972 Act. It is felt that these few should be put on the same footing as retirement pensioners, and that explains why the war disablement pensioner is in the list this year but was not there last year.

Between the ages of 65 and 70–60 and 65 for a woman—a person must retire in order to draw his retirement pension. After the age of 70—or 65 for a woman— a person is automatically entitled to a retirement pension, whether or not he is retire from full-time work, by virtue of the 1965 National Insurance Act.

There is no such condition for a war disablement pensioner but it is considered desirable that war disablement pensioners should be treated in the same was as retirement pensioners for the purpose of this lump-sum payment. Subsection (6) ensures precisely that. Paragraph ( a ) secures that a war disablement pensioner aged over 70–65 for a woman—can qualify by means of his war disablement pension whether or not he has retired. and paragraph ( b ) ensures that if aged between 65 and 70–60 and 65 for a woman—he must be retired in order to qualify. In other words, this is an entirely beneficial provision, and I hope that I have been able to explain the reason for the rather obscure wording.

I am grateful to the Minister for that explanation, and I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Amendment proposed: No. 11, in page 5, line 8. at end add: '(8) Notwithstanding the provisions of sections 1( i ) and 2( i ) above, entitlement to sums payable under these sections shall only apply, in the cases in which benefits or pensions arise from unemployment or inability to follow employment, in the case of an employed man or woman, where such benefits or pensions have been in payment for a period not shorter titan 168 days'.—[ Mr. O'Malley. ]

Amendment negatived.

Clause 2 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clauses 3 and 4 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

When the £10 Christmas bonus was paid under last year's legislation, all the money came from the Consolidated Fund. The Secretary of State explained that that was preferable to imposing a further burden on contributors to the National Insurance system. A different decision has been taken this year. It has now been decided that the bulk of the money shall come from contributions, and those sums are set out in the clause.

Perhaps the Minister can tell the Committee what the CBIs reaction was to these proposals. The Opposition have no objection to industry and commerce making contributions of this kind, but, in the light of the apparent poor relations between the CBI and the Government, and the strain and tension that seems to exist in some quarters, perhaps the hon. Gentleman will tell us his side of the story of any discussions which have taken place with the CBI on the proposal to increase employers' contributions.

Self-employed persons are to be charged an extra 6p, which is more than Is. in old money, while non-employed persons are to be charged an extra 4p. Non-employed persons are, in large measure, people of limited income. They are people who try to maintain their contribution record for the purpose of earning a retirement pension. Both in the House and in Committee upstairs we have on many occasions discussed the problem of the single woman who gives up her job to look after aged relatives and attempts to maintain a contribution record. We are all in favour of the Christmas bonus being paid, but to ask non-employed persons, which include people with restricted incomes, to pay this extra sum seems on the face of it to be rather surprising.

If I were asked whether an employee earning one and a half times or twice the national average earnings could better afford to pay 4p in order to provide the £10 bonus than a non-employed person—if that were the choice, and I am putting forward the argument on the basis that that is the choice, but it is not necessarily so—I should hesitate before saying that the non-employed person should provide the extra 4p unless the Minister has statistics to show that the non-employed form a different section of the community from that which I believe them to form. I believe that section to include a very large number of people with limited incomes, and often tiny incomes.

I turn next to self-employed persons. During the proceedings on the Social Security Act 1973 we had an interesting discussion on the problems of self-employed persons. In the blue books one sees that there are very large numbers of self-employed persons whose disposable incomes are small and, in some cases, even tiny. One is bound to ask whether this provision will hit, for example, the lady who runs a corner ship open to all the competition from supermarkets, and so on, and whether it is right that these categories should be asked to make this kind of contribution.

I can only conclude that the Government have decided to levy these contributions on non-employed and self-employed persons without throughly considering the income levels of many people who will be expected to pay them. One effect of it could be, in some households on a very tight budget, that whereas some people would have been able to continue paying their non-employed contributions in order to maintain a contribution record, this kind of increase is precisely the thing that could tip the balance towards stopping such payments.

Therefore, I hope that the Under-Secretary will explain why the Government have included these categories for this payment. Secondly, if the hon. Gentleman believes that there is anything in the propositions that I have advanced, I hope that he will be prepared to look at them again before the Bill goes to another place.

As the hon. Gentleman said, what is now being done in raising contributions to meet this payment is the normal practice. As he knows, it is the normal practice when benefits rise in any form for contributions to be increased also. That is the broad explanation for the Clause.

I should like to take this opportunity of giving the Committee a little information. Payments falling on the National Insurance Fund will be financed by the higher flat rate contributions from employers, employees and the non-employed, which are set out in the Clause, payable, we propose, from 21st January 1974, which is the earliest date by which the necessary administrative arrangements can be made. The increase in the contributions will yield about £14 million in the current financial year and about £90 million in a full year. The extra Exchequer supplement automatically payable into the National Insurance Fund in respect of this increase in flat-rate contributions will amount to about £4 million in 1973–74 and would be about £23 million in a full year. The yield of the higher contributions and Exchequer supplement will approximately equal the special payments out of the fund by next autumn, but the levels will be reviewed at the next annual review of benefits.

What we have done with regard to the self-employed and the non-employed is broadly to maintain the ratios. As the hon. Gentleman said, all the increase for the employee is put on to the employer. This is a move to the contribution arrangements which are due to come into operation under the Social Security Act 1973. But we felt that under the existing arrangements it would be wrong to depart from the pattern under those arrangements whereby the self-employed and the non-employed should themselves bear a modest share of the increase in the cost of these benefits.

There are special arrangements to exempt those who are unable to pay, and it is possible for the people concerned to have exemption for a certain period without that eventually prejudicing their qualification for the long-term benefits.

1.45 p.m.

I understand what the hon. Gentleman said. I should merely like to ask him one question. Before the Bill goes to another place will he look at the question of the level of contributions by non-employed persons particularly, and by self-employed persons. I understand the hon. Gentleman's position. I am not asking for a commitment. but I should be grateful if before the Bill goes to another place, he would consider the representations which I have made.

I gladly respond to what the hon. Gentleman said, but it must be without commitment. It seems entirely right under the contribution system, which is very soon to be replaced by a new contribution system, that we should not depart from the traditional pattern. That is why the self-employed and the non-employed have been included and, I believe, should be included.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 5 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Will the Under-Secretary say something about the clause so that all hon. Members can understand what it means?

I will gladly do that. I am sorry that it has not been possible in the time available to have the full report from the Industrial Injuries Advisory Council made available and placed before the House. But the House has had an answer to a Question which appeared in HANSARD for yesterday.

Broadly, the position is that the Advisory Council, which has been studying particularly the medical aspects, came to the conclusion that there was no longer a medical case for accepting that pneumoconiosis necessarily led to disablement and, therefore, to a disablement benefit being available. That was the medical evidence which the committee has made available. It will be made available to the House next week.

Under the present practice, pneumoconiosis cases receive disablement benefit which always takes the form of a weekly pension. Because of the difficulty of making precise measures of disablement caused by the disease, assessments are made in 10 per cent. steps. This means in practice that a minimum pension for pneumoconiosis cases, payable for assessments of 1 per cent. to 10 per cent., is £1.28 a week. Were the medical recommendations of the advisory council to be followed, as they probably would be, by the doctors who make the assessments, the prospects are that some people who are now drawing a disablement pension would cease to be entitled to it and that some people who would have been entitled in the future would not be entitled under the new arrangements.

In spite of the medical evidence which has been put forward—we are very grateful to the advisory council for its work—we felt that it would be wrong, for social and other reasons, to withdraw benefit that was being paid at present for a distressing disease of this kind.

The essence of the clause, therefore—we have taken the first opportunity available—is to maintain current practice. The clause has been made necessary because of the medical evidence which is coming forward in the advisory council's report.

The Government have shown more sense than the majority of the members of the Industrial Injuries Advisory Council. We regard it as entirely right and sensible that this clause should be included in the Bill even though the purpose of the Bill is not generally to deal with pneumoconiosis matters.

There are two other points I wish to make. First, this debate is based, as it has to be based, on a Written Answer, dated 18th October, in reply to a Question by the hon. Member for Reading (Dr. Vaughan). Reading is not in the centre of any British coalfield which I know. Secondly, this was obviously a planted Question. Even worse, it was a planted Question asking about information on a report which is not published and so is not available. I would have liked to have that report. It would have been proper for the report to be available to hon. Members to enable them to consider this clause today.

There is something odd about a situation in which we have to reply on information given in a planted Written Question which asked the Secretary of State for Social Services whether he was in a position to make a statement on the report of the Industrial Injuries Advisory Council about pneumoconiosis and byssinosis. The Secretary of State in his reply said: Arrangements have been made for the report to be published as a command paper on Tuesday next. We are faced with an odd and unsatisfactory situation and, therefore, I am unable to comment in detail on that report and its implications, as they affect Clause 6, or general legislation which deals with pneumoconiosis.

However, on the basis of the parliamentary Question it should be said that if this is all that the Advisory Council can come up with after several years, it will do nothing to alleviate the deep dismay and deep dissatisfaction which exists in the coalfields of this country about the present arrangements for dealing with the victims of pneumoconiosis. As I understand the Written Question, the significant point is that no changes are to be made in the present provisions for taking into account disablement due to other respiratory conditions found in the presence of pneumoconiosis in assessing the extent of disablement due to the disease.

That may satisfy some of the medical profession. But I say to the hon. Gentleman and those senior members of the medical profession who apparently give advice to the Industrial Injuries Advisory Council, or are members of it, that their views about pneumoconiosis are not shared by many general practitioners and chest consultants working in hospitals in the mining areas.

I welcome the modest proposals in Clause 6, which merely keep the situation as it is and prevent the medical profession from doing harm to the claims of sufferers from pneumoconiosis. But that is not enough. We are still operating on systems of paying compensation in pneumoconiosis cases which have not been examined or changed in major detail for years. I hope, therefore, that with this clause the hon. Gentleman will not regard the matter as being closed, but that an examination is made of the entire Workmen's Compensation Acts, not only regarding the level of benefit payable, but also taking all those who are not at present in any categories under the general umbrella of the industrial injuries system.

Consideration should also be given to the Pneumoconiosis and Miscellaneous Diseases Scheme to look at the level of benefits payable to widows. Diagnosis of pneumoconiosis should also be examined, with a view to a better understanding being reached on definitions, so that a payment can be made in respect of dust retention and chronic bronchitis and all forms of emphysema which are so often accompanied, and made worse by. the pneumoconiosis condition.

I thank the Government for this clause. They have been sensible and speedy in this matter, but I understand that they have received representations from the National Union of Mineworkers. I thank the Government for taking this action, but it is not enough. The time has come when this nation must look completely afresh at this disability and the sufferings of men caused by pneumoconiosis as a result of working in mines, to ensure that there is better, more adequate provision than at present. These men are dissatisfied—they have a right to be—at the benefits available and at the way in which these benefits are decided and administered at present.

The hon. Gentleman has been very unfair to the Advisory Council, the members of which are all dedicated experts who spent a long time considering a very difficult matter. One of their tasks is to give their medical judgment on these matters. It is the job of Parliament to decide to what extent this should be overborne by social and other considerations, including historic considerations. Surely it is right that the Government, having made a judgment on this, should come forward straight away with the clause, otherwise medical judgments would be made on the basis of the Advisory Council Report, so that some people would have been deprived of benefit to which they are now entitled. That is why the Government acted as early as possible. I am glad that the hon. Gentleman has supported us on this.

I am sorry that it has not been possible for the whole report to be made available earlier. These are difficult matters which take time. I fully appreciate that the hon. Gentleman and the Committee will wish to consider the report fully when it is published next week.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 6 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clauses 7–9 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Schedule agreed to.

Bill reported, without amendment.

Motion made, and Question proposed, That the Bill be now read the Third time.

2.0 p.m.

I want to add my voice to those criticising the failure to extend the £10 Christmas allowance to disabled people and to supplementary benefit pensioners. I do not believe that any Government can sustain a situation in which they give a £10 bonus to one section of the community—the pensioners—but deny it to severely disabled people and supplementary benefit pensioners.

I know that the Government's position is that they are giving the £10 to those most in need, and I welcome the sum as far as it goes. Of course it is grossly inadequate, but the failure to give it also to severely disabled people means that the Government are discriminating against some people who may, indeed, be worse off than many pensioners.

The Government may argue that it is difficult to categorise disabled people because there are so many of them. Indeed, there are three million people in the country with some degree of disablement. Of this number, 1,100,000 are severely or very severely disabled. Such people should have the £10 and there is not justification for excluding them.

If the Government refuse to give them the £10, however, let them consider another category—disabled people in invalidity benefit, so that people so disabled that for six months they have been unable to work and are badly in need get the £10. If the Government are establishing an order of priorities they surely cannot say, "We are taking one section of those most in need and giving the money to them while disregarding another section." They must be fair to all those in great need.

The second category consists of those in receipt of supplementary benefit. Some of these people are far worse off than some old-age pensioners. That cannot be gainsaid, although also it cannot be denied that there are some very poor pensioners. So the Government must, in justice, extend the £10 bonus to the very severely disabled people and to people in receipt of supplementary benefit. I hope that the Under-Secretary of State will look at the matter again, if not now then in time for Christmas.

2.3 p.m.

I am glad to be able to tell the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, South (Mr. Ashley) that persons over the age of 65 for a man and 60 for a woman who are in receipt of a supplementary pension are indeed eligible—they are within the scope of the Bill. I am glad to be able to reassure him on that point. They are mentioned in Clause 2 as one of the categories included. On that point I am able to concede to him 100 per cent.

We have debated the question of the disabled earlier in the Bill and I have explained the help which the Government have been able to provide through the attendance allowance and other payments for this very deserving section of the community. Of course we wish to do more and intend to do so in the future.

The Government are grateful to the House for the speedy passage of the Bill. I know that both sides are anxious that the work should go forward quickly so that these benefits can be paid at the earliest possible moment.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read the Third time and passed.

I beg to move, That this House takes note of the Erroll Report on Liquor Licensing Laws (Command Paper No. 5154). This is a welcome opportunity to debate the report of the Erroll Committee and it follows the debate in another place earlier this year. This is an important report and it recommends changes in our licensing law which could have far-reaching social implications. It is also a comprehensive report. I shall try to cover as much ground as I reasonably can in the time but I do not want to speak for too long because we are short of time and I know that a number of hon. Members want to speak.

I also hope that the House will excuse me if I have to leave a little before the end of the debate in order to fulfil longstanding engagements in Yorkshire, but my hon. and learned Friend the Minister of State will be back in the Chamber shortly and he will listen to the rest of the debate and, if time allows, make a short speech at the end.

First, I express the warm thanks of the Government to Lord Erroll and the members of his committee for the speed and thoroughness with which they did their work. Whether or not we agree with all their recommendations, the report clearly shows a complete grasp of the complexities of the licensing law and it is of great use to everyone concerned, inside or outside the House. We can also congratulate them on having produced a unanimous report. Liquor licensing is a subject which arouses strong emotions and on which widely divergent views are held. A fine judgment was required by the committee in weighing the arguments and coming to conclusions. I am sure that the House is extremely grateful to the committee.

I remind the House of the origin of the work. This was in the report of the Monopolies Commission in 1969 which recommended that the liquor licensing law should be substantially relaxed so as to allow any retailer to sell liquor whose character and premises satisfied certain standards. The Monopolies Commission was concerned to remedy certain economic effects of the tied house system which it found to be against the public interest. But the recommendation had obvious social implications which the commission could not consider, and it was to look at these social implications and to review the whole range of licensing law in England and Wales that the then Home Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for Barnet (Mr. Maudling), set up the Erroll Committee with very wide terms of reference. It started work in April 1971 and its report was published early in December 1972.

On publication, my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary made it clear that before reaching any decision on the recommendations he proposed to assess public reaction and obtain the views of interested organisations, such as the licensed trade, the local authorities, the brewers, and the clubs. This process of consultation and listening continues, and the debate today is part of it. As we see it, the House of Commons, has a vital role to play in reflecting public opinion on this question and in helping it to crystallise.

The Erroll Committee found that in many respects the law needs changing. and we agree. It proposed a comprehensive package of changes. Many of its proposals have aroused little or no controversy and the Government are disposed to accept them, as I shall explain. Others, we know, are much more controversial, particularly the proposals for lowering the minimum age and for making opening hours more flexible. These proposals try to take account of the changes in our social life and our leisure habits and of the wider horizons which people have from travelling abroad. But they have aroused deep feelings, particularly in people who fear that they would lead to more drunkenness and, what is worse, more alcoholism, and one must take full account of those feelings.

Our aim must be to promote changes in the licensing system, if they are needed because of changes in the social habits of the community, which will give people more freedom and more choice, provided we can be reasonably sure that any changes in the availability of alcohol will not encourage abuse by those who cannot drink alcohol only in moderation. That is our general aim, and I want to add three principles which the committee said it had tried to reflect in its proposals—that the law should be simple, that it should be consistent, and that, above all, it should be acceptable to the public at large. We share those aims. We do not intend to deal piecemeal with the Erroll recommendations. Before deciding what changes to propose to Parliament we shall want to be sure that they will command the maximum public support.

I shall come back a little later to the area of controversy but I want to touch briefly on the important but less controversial changes which the Committee proposed. First of all, there is the new licensing system. The committee looked carefully at the existing system under which a liquor licence is granted to an individual in respect of particular premises. Whether the application is in respect of an on-licence or an off-licence, the justices take into account the applicant's fitness to hold a licence and, at the same time, the suitability of the premises. Thus two quite unrelated sets of features are considered together. Accordingly, the committee proposed a new procedure with two separate licences. Anyone operating the premises would hold a personal licence, on the basis of his personal fitness to operate any licensed premises. A licence would also be issued in respect of the premises only, certifying their suitability as licensed premises. I emphasise to the House that the two licences would be entirely separate. The holder of the personal licence could, for the three years of its validity, use it to operate licensed premises anywhere in England and Wales, subject only to conditions about the type of premises he could operate.

The premises licence would be granted after consideration of all relevant factors including structure, suitability for the neighbourhoor, nuisance and amenity disturbance. No premises licence would be issued unless the local authority had given tile premises a certificate of suitability. This would relate to matters more properly the concern of the local authority than of the justices, including planning, food hygiene, public safety and fire precautions, sanitation and building regulations. We believe that local authorities would welcome the transfer of this function to them, and that it would be seen to place the responsibility in the right hands. There would be only one type of premises licence, but justices would be able to attach conditions to the licence; for example, in the case of off-licence shops. These basic proposals for a new licensing, system appear well considered and they have been widely welcomed. The balance seems to the Government to be heavily in favour of their adoption.

Next, there is the question who should be the licensing authority. There has also been a sympathetic reception for the committee's recommendation that liquor licensing should continue to be the responsibility of licensing justices, with their close contact with the problems of drunkenness and law and order. The local authority associations have not pressed their original view that licensing should be in the hands of the local authority, but now that the issue of a separate premises licence has been proposed there is some feeling that this should lie entirely with the local authority.

To keep my speech as short as possible, I want to tell the House of our provisional conclusions about three other matters which are non-controversial, without giving our reasons for them. We are also inclined to agree with three other recommendations: first, the ending of the compensation system—and we shall be having consultations about that; secondly, the winding-up of the licensing planning committees and the licensed premises committees, to whom I want to pay tribute this afternoon; and, thirdly, the demise of the arrangements for licences in suspense and the special provisions relating to seamen's, police and prison canteens.

I want to turn next to the main area of controversy. I ask the House to remember that all of these reforms which are largely uncontroversial would produce an enormous simplification of the law, which on these matters occupies over fifty sections of the Licensing Act 1964. Let us therefore not think of the Erroll Report as being essentially controversial. In fact, in the public debate upon it so far, attention has concentrated on four main issues; the question of need, the question of opening hours, the minimum age for drinking in bars and the concept of family cafes serving drinks, and the recommendations about clubs. These are matters of great importance, and ones which may well attract most attention from those taking part in this debate. I will deal briefly with each in turn.

The question of need was one which the committee—rightly, I am sure—regarded as among the most important matters it had to consider. It proposed that licensing justices should no longer have power to limit the numbers of licensed premises in their area on the grounds that the needs of the locality were adequately met. And I do not think it altogether surprising that this proposal has failed to find favour among many in the licensed trade and in church and temperance movements.

The committee based its proposal broadly on three arguments: first, that the report of the Monopolies Commission had shown that the present law had the effect of limiting competition and discouraging potential entrants to the trade. thus militating against the consumer's interests; secondly, that the considerable differences of approach among justices in applying the "need" criterion had resulted in an unacceptable degree of uncertainty in the administration of the law; and, thirdly, that it was not part of the licensing justices' function to assess whether there is a market demand for any proposed new facilities; the legitimate purposes of licensing control could be achieved by giving the justices powers to insist on proper standards for licensed premises and to determine the fitness and competence of the applicant.

We agree that it is not the function of the licensing law to protect existing licence-holders from competition.

The brewers and other organisations representing the licensed trade have argued, as they did in evidence to the committee, that abandoning the concept of need will lead to a proliferation of outlets and to a decline in the standards of premises. Church and temperance organisations—and some medical bodies—have represented that an increase in outlets would increase alcohol consumption markedly. I do not think that this would necessarily follow in all areas, but it is an argument to which Members will wish to give careful consideration.

On the question of how effective is the "need" criterion now, the committee has argued strongly that the difference of approach among justices in applying the criterion makes it a haphazard system of control—indeed, in respect of off-licences, an almost non-existent control. We are disposed to agree with the committee that its proposals for strict control over the standards of the premises and the fitness of the licensee are preferable. At all events we must weigh the dangers that might flow from increasing the number of outlets against the conclusion of the Monopolies Commission that only so could the disadvantages of the tied house system be offset.

Secondly, among the controversial issues, on opening hours the committee recommended that the general permitted hours of opening should be 10 a.m. till midnight.

Not surprisingly, this proposal has been broadly welcomed by the brewing, hotel and catering industries, but it has been strongly opposed by church and temperance organisations, by important sections of the medical profession, and by most private individuals who have written to us to express views. It probably fair to say that this correspondence does not necessarily represent a true sample of public opinion. On the whole, people who strongly oppose any proposed change are more likely to express their views than those who accept or welcome the change. The results of polls taken shortly after publication of the report showed a divided public opinion. In fact. it was an even balance.

The main objections to longer hours of opening are that they would lead to a substantial increase in the consumption of alcohol, to problems of continuous drinking, and to a marked growth in the number of alcoholics. There are also substantial objections on grounds of road safety, public order and nuisance—in particular, noise. There is seen to be a real risk of a significant increase in offences of drunken driving and in the numbers of road accidents both in the early evening rush hour and late at night, and we must look at this in the context of the current 20 per cent. annual increase in offences of drunken driving. There were 56,000 of these offences last year.

The Erroll Committee proposed certain safeguards on opening hours, of which I remind the House. The committee said that in the interests of public order, health, safety or amenity, licensing justices should be able to require a break of up to two hours between 7 p.m., or to fix closing time at any hour between 10 p.m. and midnight. In this way the committee proposed flexibility in the public interest. It also proposed flexibility in the commercial sense and said that a licensee should be allowed to open and close when he liked, within the permitted hours, in response to demand. The committee thought that the law should provide that nothing in any tenancy agreement should even indirectly affect the licensee's right in this matter. We must remember that even now the opening hours are only permitted hours during which the licensee is not obliged by law to remain open. The interests of licensees are extremely important here, and they would like statutory maximum daily hours. This is certainly, as we see it, a possible solution.

I turn now to the third big area of controversy—the recommendations dealing with young people and children. The committee's proposals that in certain circumstances children under 14 should be allowed access to licensed premises and that the minimum drinking age should be reduced from 18 to 17 have also aroused widespread controversy. So far as children are concerned the objections are based on the assumption that allowing children into public houses would subject them to dangerous influences. But in considering these proposals too, the House should look at the safeguards which the committee proposes. Before children could be admitted to a bar, the licensee would have to apply to the licensing justices for a certificate that the public interest did not require the exclusion of children from that part of the premises. The justices would have absolute discretion to grant a certificate or not, and they could attach conditions. They would be able to suspend or revoke the certificates on any complaint.

It is clear, too, that the types of bar to which children might be allowed access would not be ordinary public bars, and still less bars of the "spit and sawdust" sort, but separate rooms where children could sit with their parents at tables and be served with refreshments and nonalcoholic drinks. Conditions could, and I think would, be imposed that children should be accompanied by an adult and should not stay beyond a certain hour.

These safeguards seem to us substantial ones, and I think that this recommendation certainly warrants closer and more sympathetic attention than it has had from some quarters so far.

The question of the reduction in the minimum drinking age is an extremely difficult problem. We all know that there are very many young people of 17 who are in regular employment, who are responsible people, with a responsible attitude, and it is difficult to say to them, "You are old enough to get married and to drive a car, but not to go into a public house and buy a drink". I suspect that this is what the Erroll Committee had in mind.

Nevertheless, one of the main arguments advanced against lowering the age to 17 is that it would not ease the problems for the police and licensees in enforcing the law on under-age drinking but would merely transfer the problem to a still younger age group. It would also mean that teenagers would be exposed to the influence of drink at the same time as they can first obtain a driving licence, and while they may be still at school. Certainly the present high accident rate among 17-year olds seems to suggest that the combination of inexperience in driving and unfamiliarity with the effects of alcohol could indeed be lethal.

It is also argued that there is very little public support for reducing the minimum age. An opinion poll which was published soon after the committee reported showed 65 per cent. as thinking a reduction in the age limit to 17 a bad idea, and only 28 per cent. as supporting it.

Finally, in this area of controversy we should note that the Clayson Committee, which has recently reviewed the Scottish licensing law, did not consider a reduction in the present age limit of 18 was justified.

I now turn to the question of registered clubs, which is the fourth issue which has aroused very sharp controversy. The Erroll Committee considered that its proposals for a new licensing system, greater flexibility in hours, and changes relating to young people, would remove any practical differences between licensed premises and clubs. It felt that a separate registration procedure for members' clubs would serve no practical purpose, and proposed one form of licence for any premises used for the supply of drink. The committee also recommended that the police should have a general right of entry to all licensed premises, including clubs.

These proposals have been warmly welcomed by church and temperance organisations, by the police and by certain local authority interests; but—and I think this is something the committee expected—the reaction from the club movement has been one of complete opposition.

The committee tried to make it clear that its proposals were not intended as an attack on the status and privileges of members' clubs generally, nor intended to deprive them of their ability to function in the interests of their members. The committee's view was that a club's status is determined basically by its own internal organisation and constitution, which would not be affected by assimilation into the ordinary licensing system. I recognise, however, that the contrary view is strongly held by the club movement, and I fully appreciate its concern over this.

I think the committee felt that the application to registered clubs of its pro- posals on hours of drinking and young people would not greatly affect the present situation. Certainly the degree of flexibility the committee proposed on permitted hours would go far beyond the concessions which clubs now enjoy.

As regards children, the only change would be the need for a justices' certificate before those under 14 were allowed access to parts of clubs used mainly for drinking. It has been argued that this would make it more difficult for clubs to cater for the family. But the committee considered that any place used principally for drinking should be vetted by some outside authority before children are admitted.

The committee's proposal on police rights of entry has provoked a strong reaction, and we must try to weigh the clubs' concern for their privacy and their argument that effective safeguards against abuse already exist against the committee's views that present trends in the club movement towards providing drink and entertainment to large numbers of members and guests are likely to lead to a situation in which tighter control is required.

I now turn to a major criticism of the Erroll Committee's Report, which has come from many health interests, which is that it does not give enough attention to the implications of the licensing law for the nation's health. Traditionally the licensing law has always been very much concerned with the social consequences of the use and abuse of alcohol. It may be said that the law was concerned to protect society against itself. But society changes, and attitudes change; drinking is in a sense more respectable than it used to be, and I think it is true to say that society nowadays is less concerned than society 100 years ago with alcohol as a general social evil.

But with this change has come, or should be coming, an increasing concern with the spectre of alcoholism as a particular and individual social danger. We live in an alcohol-using society, and while most people can drink in moderation we know that there is a minority who drink excessively, often with disastrous results for their lives, their families and their health. It is with this minority, and the danger of their number increasing, that society must be concerned, and with whose protection against themselves the licensing law must be concerned.

There are estimated to be between 200,000 and 400,000 alcoholics in England and Wales—people whose dependence on alcohol is such that it significantly affects their bodily or mental health or their ability to work. There are also an uncertain number of "problem drinkers" who are in serious risk of developing into alcoholics. This proportion of alcoholics is low compared with that in many other countries, but it is increasing. And it is increasing in parallel with the total national consumption of alcohol.

Our consumption has certainly risen. Spirits are up by 26 per cent. in the last five years, and by 10 per cent. in the last year alone. At the same time both the death rate from diseases associated with alcohol and the number of offences involving drinking have gone up. Though there are difficulties about building conclusions on statistical relationships of that kind, it does seem that such factors as the availability of drink, the price of drink, and general drinking habits and customs, have a direct influence on the number of people who drink excessively and who gradually slide into alcoholism.

Indeed, some people, including my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Services, are apprehensive that some current trends in attitudes and drinking habits may be leading to a steeper increase in alcoholism. The Central Health Services Council, prime source of advice to the Secretary of State for Social Services on all health matters, is anxious about the possible effect of the Erroll recommendations; the Standing Medical Advisory Committee considers that those recommendations which increase the ease of access to alcohol must be expected to have an adverse effect on the health of the public, especially its younger members. Indeed, it is a particularly disturbing recent trend that the number of young alcoholics—sometimes only in their early twenties—is growing, and that "problem drinking" among the young is on the increase.

In health education particularly we must be concerned as much with prevention as with treatment, and in this context the Erroll Committee emphasised the importance of health education. A good deal is being done in health education in schools, and certainly many teachers are worried about the extent of drinking by young people—not only by 16- and 15-year olds, but by 14- and even 13-year olds. Yet it would be unrealistic to expect health education to achieve changes in young people's social behaviour in the face of all the other influences at work in society as a whole.

Undoubtedly adolescents are subject to enormous social pressures, which encourage them to start drinking earlier than before. In this context a significant point made by the Erroll Committee was that television advertising appeared dangerously attractive to the young. Since then the Independent Broadcasting Authority has assured my right hon. Friend the Minister of Posts and Telecommunications that it agrees that liquor advertising should not be particularly directed at young people, nor imply that drinking is a prerequisite of social success and acceptability. My right hon. Friend does not think any directive is necessary at this stage, but the question will be kept under review.

It is against the background of this growing concern about alcoholism that the Erroll recommendations must be considered. In some ways the report has acted as a catalyst. Certainly it has served to focus attention even more on this concern. As Members of Parliament we cannot ignore this concern, however much as individuals we may want to reform and liberalise the law, or however much we may want to broaden the base of the retail liquor trade so as to reduce monopoly control. Against the advantages that may accrue from changes in the law we have to try to measure the Possible ill-effects of these changes, both in terms of personal suffering and in terms of the resources required for prevention and treatment of alcoholism.

At the end of the day Parliament will have to decide, as it has always done, where to draw the line, how far it is safe to go, and which recommendations to accept and reject. These will be major social decisions, and we shall want to be sure that what we are doing is right, and based on the best information available. We may want to introduce changes gradually, or even to experiment on a local basis. In either case we shall want to be able to monitor the results so that the effects can be measured. This indeed was one of the committee's recommendations and we are in course of consulting on this point.

When the time comes a heavy responsibility will fall on Parliament. Until then the debate must continue, both inside and outside this House. The Government will listen with the greatest interest to the views which hon. and right hon. Members will be expressing in the course of today's regrettably short debate. And in due course we shall bring forward proposals for those changes which we believe to be in the general public interest and generally aceptable to public opinion.

2.37 p.m.

The Opposition, too, regard the debate as being an opportunity to sound opinion and would not wish at this stage to take a concluding view about controversial recommendations of the Erroll Committee. Having said that, I am bound to say that my personal view is much more hostile than the opinion which has just been expressed by the Minister. I was a little surprised at the kind of reception he gave to the major recommendations.

Since Erroll reported, the response to the recommendations from organisations which do not have an interest to disclose has been virtually completely hostile. Although the public in public opinion polls have not been so universally hostile—indeed on some of the recommendations there is a much greater degree of balance of opinion than is expressed by the organisations—on no single issue, save perhaps the access of young children with their parents to public houses, has there been a majority of a public opinion poll in favour of the recommendations.

Therefore, it struck me as a little surprising that the Parliamentary Secretary should have gone as far as he did to accept what was said by Erroll. I am not surprised that Erroll came to the views reached. The committee in its report took leave to congratulate itself that it was unanimous in contradiction to previous experience of Royal Commissions and committees on the subject. It would have been a little unusual had the members not been unanimous. No interests opposed to the widespread sale of alcohol were represented on the committee, whereas on previous committees they had been. If the committee members had been alcoholics they might well have produced quite a different report because at least they would have understood fully the nature of alcohol as a social evil in our society. Because most of them are perfectly ordinary respectable social drinkers, they take the view, which seems to animate the mind of the Under-Secretary of State, that there is no social evil in the widespread use of alcohol, and, as with the cursory nod at the end of the hon. Gentleman's speech to the question of the alcoholic, that we should take a more liberalising view of the present restrictions.

I start from a different point of view. Alcohol is a drug. It is a drug which in its effects on the individual is not as serious as the narcotic drug such as heroin and LSD but it is considerably more serious in its effects than cannabis. There is no firm evidence yet of any cannabis addiction but there is considerable evidence of addiction to alcohol. The hon. Gentleman pointed out that even on the present statistics, which everyone knows are woefully an underestimate, there are in Britain 200,000 to 400,000 alcoholics. As with the Erroll Committee, the hon. Gentleman had to concede that the relationship between wider drinking patterns and the increase in alcoholism is clearly made out by the evidence.

In those circumstances we must ask the question—"if we had not had thousands of years of history of addiction or pleasure from alcohol, would we now, if it were a completely new drug which was being put on the market, approach the subject in the same casual air as that in which we have approached it so far in this debate". Would we say, we who have quite rightly refused to legalise cannabis, if alcohol were a new drug, that we would be prepared to make it available on anything like the scale that it is now available? The answer is clearly "No". As Erroll said, the reason we take our present view is that the pattern of social drinking is now so widespread that public opinion would not accept another view.

We accept that position, but it behoves us, when we consider any kind of recommendation for the wider availability of alcohol, to approach it with a good deal of care. There would be no reason for any kind of restrictive licensing law if it were not accepted that in some measure alcohol is a social evil. The real dispute is how widespread a social evil it is and how effective is the licensing law in curtailing that evil. On that point the committee said that there was not sufficient evidence in the research available for it to be sure. I accept that, but it seems that the right answer to the conundrum is put by the critique of the report prepared by the Addiction Research Unit of the Institute of Psychiatry of the University of London, which has only just become available.

I recommend that the Home Office consider that report before it goes any further towards the implementation of the proposals. I can shorten my speech a good deal because that report reflects my views very considerably. There are differences which I would take with the critique, but on the whole it approaches the matter from the right point of view and reaches the right conclusions. I need read only one paragraph to illustrate the point. Paragraph 19 of the report states: It is only in the penultimate paragraph of the chapter that any mention is made of the health question. The report continues: The Christian Economic and Social Research Foundation has attempted to demonstrate some relationship between the end of Resale Price Maintenance and the increase in the number of supermarket off-licences and in statistics of drunkenness. We have also heard it suggested from the Temperance Organisations that off-licences provide an unnecessary temptation to shoppers. We find ourselves unable to accept either of these arguments. The report continues: There is no presentation of an argument against the CESRF or Temperance positions, or even the hint of what criteria were used to reach these arguments. The report continues: This is an area in which research is notably lacking and we do not feel it may be said with any certainty that increases in consumption among particular groups are due to increases in outlets rather than to more fundamental social factors. If evidence is lacking then upon what grounds are the CESRF and Temperance Organisation arguments rejected? In such circumstances surely the only possible position is one of agnosticism rather than selective rejection of argument. That is my view. Until we are sure where there may be considerable serious effect upon our social pattern and upon the incidence of alcoholism, we should not go any further with the liberalising of the licensing laws. I ask that research should be done before and not after any changes.

I shall deal with the rest of the matters in the same order as the Under-Secretary of State. First, there are the technical matters. I accept that the proposed system of licensing seems to add to the clarity and simplification of the administration. I should not have any objection in principle, although we shall have to look at the matter in detail in the course of any future legislation, if all that remained of the Erroll recommendations was that degree of clarification and simplification. It would not then require any kind of urgent legislation. It could be done in a normal review of the licensing legislation, whenever that proved to be convenient.

On the major controversial matters, the argument about need seems to be the most important part of the recommendations. It is one which perhaps has been overlooked in the public discussion about the matter. The committee suggests that the 1961 Act was merely tinkering with the problem and had little effect upon the pattern of drinking. I do not know from where it received that judgment. It did not come from a close understanding of what has happened since 1961.

The major point in the 1961 legislation, from my experience of having to appear in such matters on occasions, was the matter which is now in Patterson's review of the legislation, namely: At the same time the unfettered discretion of justice to refuse new licences or ordinary removal was modified by giving the applicant a right of appeal against refusal. There were numerous other procedural amendments, but that was the most important. It meant that objectors could go to the quarter sessions and, whereas the licensing justices with their close knowledge of what was going on in their locality took a fairly restrictive view, the quarter sessions completely abandoned any kind of restrictive view.

In the passage which is quoted from one judge at a court of quarter sessions, there is indicated his attitude, which is the attitude which has been reflected by the Minister, namely, the attitude which grew amongst quarter sessions, with the result that for practical purposes the question of need which is present now in the licensing law was not abandoned but considerably relaxed.

The result has been that it is very difficult now to show any kind of cause against the provision of a new licence. The fact that fewer new licences have been issued since the 1960s is not because of the change in the law. It is because there has been a change in the pattern of the brewers in the outlets that they provide. They now provide fewer outlets, with bigger facilities, with a considerably greater cost involved. Therefore they do not need to have as many licensed outlets as once they did.

But to say that the 1961 Act had no effect is completely wrong. The fact that the number of offences of drunkenness, the incidence of drinking and the quantities consumed have all increased is partly due to that change in the law and partly due to the changes made in the provision of restaurant licences and supper licences. All that has led to a different climate which has had its effect. For that reason I should be very sceptical about any abolition of the justices' discretion in relation to need until we are more sure of the effect upon the social pattern of drinking.

In relation to hours, again I have made my position clear. It is an attractive argument that the outlets should be open at the times when the licensees feel that the public require them to be open. That would seem to meet everyone's desire. But the truth is that, as the committee pointed out in its report, although there has been a widening of hours in recent years with some degree of latitude about opening and closing, whenever that has been done the pattern in the whole of one licensing area has been that the outlets were open for all the time. The licensed vituallers are opposed to 14 hours' provision of drinking if that is to be continuous. What is said against that is that it will not be continuous and that the licensee will make up his mind how he can do that against the pressures which in the past have dictated that the maximum hours for opening were the minimum hours.

The committee suggests that there should be some protection for the tenant licensee against his landlord, the brewer in a tied house, which would require some amendment of the Landlord and Tenant Act. Then the committee says that that could not apply to managed houses where there is an employer-employee relationship and where a change in the Industrial Relations Act would be required. I do not know what kind of change would give the employee-manager any kind of protection. But I ask my hon. Friend the Member for Rugby (Mr. William Price), who represents the interests of the licensed victuallers in this House, to consider that matter.

If anyone is able to provide a piece of plant as expensive as a modern public house and is allowed to open it for 14 hours a day, he will want to open it for that time because the marginal cost of additional staff for the extra hours will be nothing like the cost of closing it for that period, given the opportunity to make further sales. But since the tenant licensee would not want to do that, the trend towards managed houses would continue with greater acceleration. The tendency in new houses especially would be that brewers would put in managers on shift systems so as to cover the whole 14 hours.

To talk as if we are not extending the period and to suggest even that the same hours or even fewer hours will provide the period wanted by the public seems to be living in cloud cuckoo land. In fact there would be wider hours, and we do not know what that would mean in terms of the effect on the increase in alcoholism. We do not know what it would mean in terms of its effect on road safety, especially in the afternoon peak hours, when we know that there is a statistical relationship between the closing hours of public houses on Friday and Saturday nights and the number of road deaths. If we add afternoon drinking in the present obligatory two-hour period, is not it possible that we shall have an increase in the number of road deaths in the peak hours of road traffic, which are between four o'clock and six o'clock in the evening? We simply do not know. Until we know, I do not believe that we should take the risk of going further.

I find the access of children much more difficult. Undoubtedly there is a strong case for saying that where a family is going out together it is to the advantage of all that they should be allowed to go into the public house as a family unit. But there are difficulties about creating an atmosphere in which children grow up in an environment which helps them at any rate to begin to take alcohol when they grow to teen age. I am not happy about that. If it can be done in a way which clearly demarcates the division between the public house section and the cafe section of the premises, I can see little objection. If there is a family room set aside for the provision of light refreshments and drink for the family, I am in favour of it. But I cannot believe that there is a great demand for children to be taken into public bars. That, too, requires some sampling of what the public feel.

The position is now clear about registered clubs. The biggest growth in the country in the provision of new outlets is in registered clubs. Certainly that is the case in my own part of the country. If we do not have some kind of control by the licensing justices over the provision of registered clubs it will be extremely difficult to control any wider use of alcohol. I am prepared to consider that matter, but I do not form any decided view on it.

In the end I return to the point with which I started. The Under-Secretary made it plain that we face an increase in the deleterious effects of alcohol. For the reasons he gave, we should not be prepared to take the risk of much wider drinking patterns than we have now. Unless we are sure, as a result of careful research, that there is no link between longer hours, the wider provision of outlets and the uncontrolled use of off-licences and the social-evil effects that follow from alcohol, I shall be prepared to take only a careful view of the recommendations of the report.

rose —

Order. I am sure the House will not mind my saying that six hon. Members wish to speak in the debate, and the only chance of that happening is that each speech should be limited to 10 minutes.

3.0 p.m.

Without purposely being rude to the two Front Bench speakers, may I say that although I quite understand that my hon. Friend the Minister is almost bound to do justice by the enormous report we are discussing as well as he can, I find it hard to believe that the pomposity should extend to their taking just three minutes short of an hour between them, when we are limited to a total of less than two hours' debate.

With the utmost deference to you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I feel that your remarks might have been noted by both Front Bench speakers, although I understand the difficulty in which my hon. Friend is placed. The rest of us are also in a difficult position. My hon. Friend the Member for Essex, South-East (Sir Bernard Braine) represents certain important interests, just as important from his point of view as the interests represented by the hon. Member for Rugby (Mr. William Price), and my hon Friend the Member for Isle of Thanet (Mr. Rees-Davies) represents other interests, no doubt just as important as the other two. I represent no interest, except that of someone who feels strongly about the drink trade in general.

I have tried to read the 514 pages that the debate is about—324 in the Erroll Report and 190 in the other report—to achieve a grounding to take part in the debate. It is now impossible for anyone other than the Front Bench speakers to speak for more than five or 10 minutes. Therefore, I cannot talk about the Erroll Report in detail, and shall confine myself to the one point that I want to make.

What worries me about the Erroll Report is the enormous amount that it contains, the great number of recommendations and the large amount of legislation that is suggested, some of it admittedly to get rid of old legislation, but much of it suggesting new legislation.

Towards the end of the report we read that the matter is only half done, because the committee wants all sorts of extra research to be carried out before anything is done. When shall we come to an end of the interminable talk about what will happen to the industry?

One thing we know about the industry is that it has gone sour on us in the biggest way. It has become a fiddle of the money boys who have no connection with the customer. The connection with the customer used to be the landlord, but he is being made a manager by all the greedy brewers and is no longer the contact with the general public. He does what he is damn well told to do or is thrown out.

That is the basis of the enormous drink industry, in which hardly a person in the country does not have an interest, even if it is an interest of hate. [ Interruption. ] I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Essex, South-East has connections that do not like the industry.

I do not agree with the hon. Member for York (Mr. Alexander W. Lyon), who thinks that drink is worse than cannabis on the whole. Even so, he, too, accepted the industry.

What I want to do is to get off all the guff and start from square one, which was suggested fairly strongly by the Monopolies Commission Report, although less strongly by the Erroll Report. The suggestion was that no brewer should be allowed to own any public house. I shall stick at that point, although there are a number of things I should like to say in that connection. I know that many licensed victuallers would be very worried at such a suggestion. Nevertheless, if we started from square one and then discussed all the other matters which would need to be done we would get somewhere. We might even get a reasonably free industry.

What horrifies me is what has happened in my constituency and has no doubt taken place in other constituencies. One licensee, whose mother had been the licensee after his father died—and his father in turn having been the licensee before him—the licence having been held by that family for about 49 years, was chucked out at the beginning of this year. He was not thrown out on the spot. He was given compensation. But it so far broke his spirit and heart—he was about 45 years old—that he was dead within six months. I could mention others who have been in similar situations. Fortunately, none of them has been mortally wounded by the injustice. However, people who were doing their jobs have been summarily dismissed by the money bags in the centre of London. That is where the drinks industry of this country is being run from.

The brewers do not give a damn about the customer. The little brewers who used to exist sold off their breweries. There were eight or ten breweries in my area when I first went there. When asked what they were going to do six, seven or eight years ago when the selling started in a big way—when Colonel Whitbread with his almighty umbrella started going round and promising to look after everyone—one said, "In order to stop being taken over we are going under the Whitbread umbrella." I said then that if they did that, within two years they would be sold up. I was wrong. They were sold up within 18 months.

The pass has been sold. The brewers today are not the old types of brewer who had some interest in local areas and customers, and knew what the situation was. Now they are faceless men who are interested basically in the spondulicks that comes from being the owners of an enormous empire of breweries.

I should like to see this whole matter done from the start. We can argue about the detail as much as we like and have great debates in which Front Bench Members can get down to it and talk about it for a couple of hours each. I am not concerned with the detail. My concern is with the principle, and the start of that principle, since this is the great take-over age, should be that brewers should not be allowed to own public houses.

3.8 p.m.

I have just listened to the most astonishing attack upon brewers that I have ever heard in my life. I should dearly like to follow in detail the remarks of the hon. Member for Yarmouth (Mr. Fell). I agree with most of what he said. No doubt he will get a telegram from the Brewers Society on Monday morning inviting him to lunch. I should like to go, but I am no longer included in its invitations.

I must declare an interest. I work for two organisations representing 50,000 publicans—and that is a lot of beer. I do not get beer in lieu I receive financial rewards. It is right that I should tell the House that. I do not feel that I can do their case justice in the 10 minutes available to me, but I will take no longer. However, it is regrettable that the Government should treat two years of hard work by a major committee in such a shabby way today.

Most licensees were apprehensive about the Erroll Committee. Much of that fear stemmed from the fact that the then Home Secretary, when he established it, described the licensing laws as archaic. I believe that the right hon. Member for Barnet (Mr. Maudling) was wrong, and his statement was all the more curious because this House had undertaken a major review of licensing reform only a few years earlier. I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman was misinformed. He clearly believed that there was a wide public demand for some form of continental drinking, with tarted up coffee houses serving beer and spirits 24 hours a day to anyone, of almost any age, who went in.

That is not the case. I am certain that the vast majority of people are satisfied with the present system. What they might ask for if given the opportunity to do so is a little more flexibility in the licensing laws, particularly at weekends. The only real demand that I have come across for extended hours, day and night, is from my old colleagues in the National Union of Journalists. The right hon. Member for Barnet, who seemed determined to introduce a massive change, left the Home Office, and a new situation arose. I do not believe that the present Ministers are enthusiastic about changes, and I am certain that we are today attending a funeral service.

I should like to deal with many points arising out of the report, but I must restrict myself to two, both of which are important to publicans—children in pubs, and drinking hours.

Licensees do not want children in public bars and nor—in my view—do the customers. There are many reasons for that attitude, and they are self-evident to us all. I hope that the House will have nothing to do with any such proposal, but a situation can arise, particularly at holiday resorts, when it is safer and more convenient for parents to take their children into a pub rather than, as some unfortunately do, leave them in the street or paddling in the water.

What we are suggesting—and my hon. Friend the Member for York (Mr. Alexander W. Lyon) touched on this—is that where there is sufficient demand a publican should be permitted to turn part of his premises into a family unit and allow children in there if accompanied by their parents. I am sure that such a compromise would commend itself to the House and to people who, like myself, prefer not to see children in public houses. I hope that the House will consider that simple proposition.

I now turn to the crux of the argument about licensing hours. Should we give people complete freedom? Should we have strict hours, or should we seek a reasonable compromise? There are a number of myths about drinking hours. It is surprising how many Members of Parliament believe that publicans are in favour of round-the-clock drinking, on the ground that they will make a ready fortune. I know that that is not the case.

Apart from the economics of the thing, there are the most powerful arguments—social, industrial and domestic—to show that those who want no restrictions of any kind are wrong. Some of those who shout the loudest in the House and outside are those who use the pubs the least.

Erroll recommends drinking at any time between 10 a.m. and midnight, at the discretion of the licensee, and we believe that qualification to be important. The real problem with the present system is that all pubs tend to be treated alike. They are virtually forced to open, if not by the justices then by the brewers, at ridiculous hours when there is no demand. Staff have to be paid, overheads have to be met, but there are no customers.

Licensees did not ask for 14 hours' drinking a day. They recommended 9½ hours, at their discretion. The 14 hour proposal is unnecessary and unwanted. It will cause far more problems than it will solve. But what is important is that Lord Erroll has said that each pub has an individuality of its own. Circumstances differ from area to area. A house in Blackpool cannot be treated on the same basis as one in Barnsley.

Let the pubs make their own arrangements within strict limits laid down by Parliament. Let them run their businesses as they think fit. Let them answer to their customers, rather than to a law which did not make sense in the first place. There would not be much argument in the House about that.

The real bone of contention is the terminal hour. I cannot understand how anyone could fail to get all the alcohol he could possibly need by midnight. Both Front Bench spokesmen missed one point about alcoholism. Alcoholism does not have much to do with licensing hours, one way or another. It does not matter whether pubs are open longer or shut sooner. There are so many outlets, and alcohol is so readily available, that the alcoholic, basically, is a desperately lonely person who gets drunk every afternoon at home. That is the problem. Neither the brewers nor any of us, at any time, if we can help it, have any time for the alcoholic. That is a major problem, and it was missed by both Front Bench spokesmen.

The demand for continental drinking hours has come mainly from the tourist industry. It is not entirely logical. On the one hand, that industry argues that the British pub is a great tourist attraction and a wonderful thing. So it is. On the other hand, the industry wants to change the character of the British pub for the benefit of the people who flock here to use it. It is untrue to say that people are deterred from visiting Britain because they cannot drink at all hours of the day and night. Americans wandering around the Rhondda Valley knocking on pub doors at 3 a.m. are few and far between. I have established, through Questions, that during the five-year period for which I asked for information, not one tourist complained to the relevant Government Department. So that argument is a non-starter.

My interest in the terminal hour is mainly social. The licensee and his family are entitled to a night's sleep. Wives are entitled to get their men home at a reasonable hour and in reasonable condition. Most important of all, people living near pubs and clubs are entitled to peace and quiet. That is a major problem. For the first 24 years of my life I lived next door to a public house. I know how difficult that can be. People, including myself, do not leave pubs quietly. It is no joke for the elderly, for those with young children and those on early shifts to be woken up at 2 a.m. to the strains of "Now is the hour" wafting up their drainpipe.

There are many reasons for imposing a sane and sober closing time. Industrial absenteeism is one reason that we ought not to overlook. I want to deal with the effect of round-the-clock drinking, assuming that we were daft enough to introduce it, on prices. The myth to which I have referred—that longer hours will produce a greater turnover which would more than compensate for the necessary additional staff, heating, lighting and other overheads—is a nonsense. What would happen is that we would merely change drinking habits. People would visit pubs later in the evening. They would not drink any more merely because they had extended opportunities. Most people in Britain live on strict budgets. This partly meets the point to which my hon. Friend the Member for York asked me to direct my attention. People will not suddenly spend more money on beer because drinking hours are longer. They do not have the money. The average working man knows the amount of money that he has available to spend on his beer, cigarettes and football. He determines his budget very carefully. If he stays out drinking until 3 a.m., he knows that he will not be going out for the rest of the week, because he will have no money.

Therefore, a licensee would be faced with greatly extended hours, with all the expense involved, without any real expectation of an increased trade. Many would be forced out of business, and thousands of uneconomic pubs would go to the wall. Publicans are already working incredibly long hours, seven days a week. If anyone wants proof of that it can be found in the report of the National Board for Prices and Incomes on the problems of the trade. It was estimated in that report that the average tenant worked for 85 hours a week and his wife for 69 hours. I ask the House to consider whether it would be right to place any additional burden on these people. They would not be able to stand it. The alternative would be double staffs, which would mean 5p a pint on the beer for that item alone.

This debate has a great significance for the 50,000 publicans in Britain. We are not only arguing about their business. We are also concerned, in the vast majority of cases, with their homes. The hon. Member for Yarmouth mentioned that publicans were being kicked out of their pubs, but we must remember that these were their homes as well. This is, perhaps, the most evil aspect of the whole business of the transfer to managers in public houses. Landlords are of the general opinion that the Erroll Report is fair and objective. I can say on their behalf that they were grateful for the detailed attention which the committee gave to all the views expressed to it by my side of the licensed trade.

I doubt whether all of this will be acted upon, but it has been a worthwhile exercise in an area which is never less than delicate. From the point of view of the licensed trade the main virtue lies in the recognition of the right of a publican to run his house as he sees fit.

The committee also recognised its responsibility to the public—not only to the husband, the late night drinker but to his wife and children, as well as his employer and people living near public houses. It has produced a report which has created the minimum controversy with the maximum of good will. With certain reservation it is a good and sensible document but, ironically, no one will worry too much if we finally bury it today.

3.23 p.m.

Like the hon. Member for Rugby (Mr. William Price), I must declare an interest. Since the beginning of this year I have been chairman of the National Council on Alcoholism. I hasten to add that this is a purely honorary appointment.

I was greatly encouraged by the speech made by my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary and also much enjoyed the speech of the hon. Member for York (Mr. Alexander W. Lyon). I agree with both of them that it would be utterly wrong—and I take it to be the sense of the debate—for Parliament to discuss changes in our licensing laws without carefully weighing the growing problem of alcoholism in our society. In criticising, any relaxation of the licensing laws must in the long run lead to an increase in the consumption of alcohol; after all, that is the object. Any change in the law which would permit children to be taken into public houses, whatever safeguards may be ultimately laid down—as- suming that the Government were ever foolish enough to permit this—must increase familiarisation of the young with drinking habits. In the long run, that, too, would lead to an increase in the consumption of alcohol. That may not be the object but it would assuredly follow.

I agree that we cannot be certain what precise influence relaxations in the licensing laws would have on rates of alcoholism in our society. The Erroll Committee considered the matter but concluded that decisive evidence on the point was lacking. The report recognises—I do not see how it could do otherwise in the face of accumulated evidence—that alcoholism is a disease which causes immense social harm and misery, and great economic damage. But the committee was very vague as to its extent, and so was my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary. The committee accepted an estimate supplied from the Office of Health Economics in 1970 that there were between 200,000 and 400,000 alcoholics in this country, representing perhaps 1 per cent. of the population of England and Wales. That is a very wide variation. It conceded that there might be more and it agreed that the availability of liquor …is a factor in the genesis of alcoholic dependence… Nevertheless, when all the argument was done, the committee came down firmly on the side of providing consider. ably more opportunity for drinking. However, there are authorities such as Ledermann in France and Schmidt in Canada, who suggest that rates of alcoholism in society are related to rates of consumption generally.

Yet our own official statistics should give us cause to reflect and to proceed with the utmost caution. For example, during the last decade we have seen a sharp rise in drunkenness, particularly among young people. In the 1950s offences of drunkenness among those under the age of 18 would have been fewer than 1,000; in 1972, the last year for which I have statistics, there were 3,605 offences in this age group out of the total of 90,198.

Moreover, there are alarming trends which we in the National Council of Alcoholism cannot fail to observe. The Bristol Council's last report, for 1972–73, said that while it was not its policy to comment on the use of alcohol except when a dependency or addiction is involved it felt …however we would be failing in our duty if we did not bring to the community's attention the immediate dangers to which young people are exposed in respect of alcohol. In the past 10 years no social problem can have received more publicity than the use of drugs by the young. The dramatic increase in the use of alcohol by teenagers over the past few years has been completely ignored. These comments are not restricted to teenagers. Teachers have been constantly seeking our help and advice in the past year in respect of excessive drinking and drunkenness among 11 and 12 year olds. That is a serious warning. Dr. Max Glatt, one of the world's greatest authorities on alcoholism and drug dependence, believes that today's statistics are a clear indication of the extent of the alcoholism problem we shall have to face in 10 years' time.

Even the Erroll Committee thought it right to draw attention to the fact that the number of alcoholism admissions to hospital and addiction units in England and Wales was running at the rate of about 8,000 a year. However, it was drawing upon statistics for the year 1968. Those figures are now very much out of date. In fact, there was a rise from over 8,000 in 1964 to 13,250 in 1971—an increase of 53 per cent. Moreover, it is our experience in the National Council on Alcoholism that about one-third of the cases now coming to us are of people under the age of 35.

The truth is that the Erroll Committee underestimated the size of the problem. I do not blame it—the nation as a whole has tended to ignore the problem. The reason is plain. So many people enjoy drinking—as I do myself—as part of one's daily life that they find it easy to ignore those who abuse, in public or in private, what to them is a normal and pleasant activity, and are reluctant to accept that alcohol is a drug, as the hon. Member for York reminded us, and that too great a dependence on any drug can gravely injure health.

In discussing the size of the problem I shall not bandy figures about, because I do not really know what the figures are. All I can say is that the National Council on Alcoholism firmly believes that we are dealing today with only the tip of an enormous iceberg and that alcoholism has become a serious, growing and immensely costly problem, which we neglect at our peril. I am glad that the Government recognise that this is so. My hon. Friend's speech in this connection was most helpful and for this reason I thought that the note of caution sounded by the hon. Member for York was most timely.

I want to pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Services for the help he has been giving the national council to set up regional information and advisory centres and for the growing encouragement he is giving to all those agencies engaged in treating and rehabilitating alcoholics. The national council now has nine information centres and we hope to double the figure in the next year or two. But we remain desperately short of funds.

Whatever Parliament decides about the reform of the licensing law, I hope that it will bear in mind the growing problem of alcoholic dependence and the need to check its spread. I cannot see how the proposals of the Erroll Committee help in any respect in that immense task.

To me, the conclusion is inescapable. If there is any relaxation of the licensing laws this must lead to more alcohol being consumed, with more revenue flowing, as a consequence, into the coffers of the Government and more profit accruing to the brewers. If, therefore, we are to consider ourselves a responsible and caring society, more money will have to be found by the Government, by local authorities and by the manufacturers of alcoholic drinks to help those organisations in the country which are doing their best by spreading information, by the provision of treatment and by counselling and advice to educate the general public, particularly the young, about the dangers of abuse of alcohol leading to dependence.

3.31. p.m.

I hope that if I inadvertently transgress the time limit which you have so wisely suggested, Mr. Deputy Speaker, you will not hesitate to call me to order. I represent no one but myself. My only connection with the liquor trade is that I happen to know some members of the South London Licensed Victuallers Protection Association, many of whose members carry out their business in my constituency and in adjoining constituencies. What they are most concerned about is the extent to which the licensees are being driven out of the public house trade and replaced by managers.

In 1969, the Monopolies Commission published its report on the supply of beer. On numerous occasions since then I have tried to find out from the Government what they are proposing to do about what I consider to be one of the important recommendations of this commission, which is contained in summary form in paragraph 415. That states: We conclude that the conditions which we have found to prevail … operate and may be expected to operate against the public interest since the restrictions on competition involved in the tied house system operated by the brewer suppliers concerned are detrimental to efficiency in brewing, wholesaling and retailing, to the interests of independent suppliers (including potential new entrants), and to the interests of consumers. The Government took no action at all on the recommendations in that report. They sheltered behind the old-fashioned pretext of saying, "The whole thing has to be looked at and we are going to set up a departmental committee on liquor licensing, to be known as the Erroll Committee." The only consolation that I derive from this report is that the Government will do nothing at all about it for many years to come.

One of the extraordinary paragraphs in this report shows how fundamental Issues are deliberately evaded. On the subject of the tied house and tenants and managers, the Erroll Committee state on page 260 of their report: It is our view, however, that the extent to which conversions to management threaten tenants' security is a matter for discussion solely between the brewing industry and the licensed trade. Thus the Erroll Committee slid out of the whole problem with those words. It went on to say, in regard to the tied house system, that it must now be for the Government to assess the position in the light of the Monopolies Commission's analysis of the Erroll Report. This is a marvellous example of how to pass the buck, and nothing will be done about it. The Erroll Committee seemed to labour under the delusion that the security of tenants is a matter for discussion solely between the brewing industry and the licensed trade.

Let us see to what extent there is real freedom to discuss important nego- tiations. I have details here of three cases provided by the South London Licensed Victuallers Protection Association. They are very concerned about the astronomical rent increases which the brewers propose to implement at the conclusion of the Government's freeze. They say: In view of the Government's intention to fight inflation perhaps you would draw their attention to this matter. The percentage of Increase varies from 140 per cent. to 750 per cent. I will give three examples of these increases. In one case the present rent is £480, the proposed new rent is £1,050, an increase of 200 per cent. In another case the present rent is £722, the proposed new rent £2,600, an increase of over 350 per cent. In the last example the present rent is £546, the proposed new rent £4,160, an increase of 750 per cent.

What do the Government intend to do about this? Do they intend to curtail these large increases to a more respectable margin? Are they going to restrict the increases to the extent to which they want to restrict wages in industry?

These are very important matters to the licensed trade, and I welcome this opportunity of bringing these facts to the attention of the Government because these are the things which are worrying the ordinary licensee. In view of the takeover bids and the financial manipulations to which the hon. Member for Yarmouth (Mr. Fell) referred, I think that the old traditional public house is doomed, but let us try to do something for the licensees in the mean time.

3.37 p.m.

I will speak at considerable speed in order to compress what I have to say. First, I am very saddened by this debate and by the long obstruction this morning before it began, by three hours of business which could have been done in three quarters of an hour, with the result that there is a complete lack of opportunity to cover this subject this afternoon.

I was depressed by the speech, which fortunately represented only his own view, of the hon. Member for York (Mr. Alexander W. Lyon). It reminded me of Mr. Hudson in the days of the old Temperance Society. I was even more perplexed and confused by my hon.

Friend the Member for Essex, South-East (Sir Bernard Braine) on alcoholism. Alcoholism is not really part of this debate. I have put forward recommendations to the Home Office and to the Department of Health and Social Security on how this problem should be dealt with by providing proper treatment for those who suffer from that medical condition. It has nothing to do with this debate. It was merely a method adopted by the hon. Gentleman for putting forward views which he could have expressed on another occasion.

It is my intention to reconcile the position of the publican and the citizen, the difficulties of those in the licensed trade, by slightly amending certain terms of the report of the Erroll Committee. I was the only Member of the House of Commons to give evidence before the Committee. I gave evidence for an hour and a half. I submitted 31 recommendations; the Committee adopted 20. The members of the committee said they were glad that I had turned up and they cross-examined me at length.

I claim to have a certain expertise in every aspect of these laws by virtue of my own practice over many years and because I was instrumental in the drafting of the Acts since 1961. The licensing laws should concern itself with three main groups—first, the character and conduct of the licence holder. History from 1495 to 1965 shows that to be necessary. I am happy to see that it is being kept that way and that it is justices of the peace who will be responsible for maintaining it that way.

The second vital need is for the preservation of public order on premises. That is where the publican and the citizen must be given a fair opportunity. At present the publican is not getting a fair chance, and the Government can take action now.

I shall outline a brief charter for the publican. First the Government must increase penalties for disorderly behaviour in pubs. They must prosecute promptly for assault those people who engage in disorderly behaviour. Thirdly, they must provide heavier penalties, and through the Lord Chancellor invite magistrates to use them, for those who carry offensive weapons in public houses. Fourthly, they must increase the fines for vandalism and secure that compensation is given for damage created in public houses. Sixthly, I should like to see an absolute right by way of injunction for a publican to refuse entry to people who have been a continuous nuisance in the past.

That is the first course of action to help publicans and to see that there is public order on the premises. I hope that these matters will be carefully noted.

The next step is control over the structure of licensed premises. Today such premises are purpose built and the purpose is to take down old buildings, renew licences and put up greatly improved premises. I shall quote from my own recommendation to the committee, which went as follows: That the planning and all matters appertaining to the design and suitability both of the site and of the design of such buildings are properly a matter for planning control. These functions should be performed by the local planning authorities. These functions should also include improvements relating to amenity, food, hygiene, public health and the safety of the premises including fire precautions. It is therefore right that we should split these responsibilities.

The justices of the peace should deal with suitability of the building, the licence and so on, attaching any conditions as they think fit. Preservation of public order should, again, be carried out by the local justices with their position very much strengthened. Control over the structure of licensed premises should fall to the local authority. I leave the whole subject of public order and how these provisions originally arose to turn to the system.

In 1961 we introduced entirely new laws relating to restaurants and residential licences. Of course these must now be given absolute freedom. The public want it and, speaking as I do for the English Tourist Board, the British Hotel and Tourist Association, the BHRA and all the rest—and I was for three years chairman of the all-party committee on tourism in the House of Commons—I say unequivocally that there is a universal demand in the tourist industry that we give greater flexibility and freedom. They do not want to offend and upset the most important part of their team, the publicans and those actually engaged in trade.

I will pass over the history of hours from the earliest days. In 1787 the first control was introduced to attack vice and immorality. I arrive at the recommendations which I put up which will answer this whole problem for the licensed victuallers, for Erroll and others. I thought at the time that I had managed to persuade the members of the Erroll Committee on this point. They were a very widely drawn crowd, including professors, priests and so on. Looking at the list, it is wrong to suggest that they were narrowly drawn. They were widely drawn because the civil servants in the Home Office insisted they should be. Erroll wanted a team of about five and I urged my right hon. Friend the Member for Barnet (Mr. Maudling) in October 1970 to get on with it and to have no more than five in the hope that we could have this law last year. We are not even to have it this year.

We wanted five to seven members on the committee and then to bring their proposals to the House for critcism. The Home Office civil servants who took God knows how long before allowing the committee to be set up in March 1971 insisted on the widest possible representation and as a result there were 20 members.

We come to the important question raised by the hon. Member for Rugby (Mr. William Price) and others representing the interests of the licensed victuallers. He rightly said that the licensed victuallers will not tolerate 14 hours. They are absolutely right. The recommendation I put forward to the Erroll Committee and which I believe will be acceptable to the House as a whole was: The permitted hours should be not more than 9½ in any one period of 24 hours, and should be not more than 9 hours upon a Sunday and the minimum hours should be not less than 6 hours daily between the stated opening and closing hours. The publican must chose his own hours. The only people opposed to that are the police and that is because they believe that that arrangement would be difficult to supervise. Let the publican chose his own hours, but within a reasonable umbrella so that there does not have to be agreement between the Brewers Society and all the tenants in order to give each tenant complete protection.

I agree with the hon. Member for York that that would not control the managers. I want to prevent the gradual takeover of licensees to the point where all pubs are under managerial control. The most effective way is to make it not worth while to increase the number of houses under managerial control. The very largest houses will always be under management rather than under an individual licensee, but if we want to protect the character of the pub, and therefore the character and the conduct of the licensee, the best way is to ensure that there is control of the number of hours.

The licensees are willing to accept nine and a half hours and were so willing as long ago as 1962 when I first discussed this matter with the then chairman of the Brewers Society. They are still willing to do so.

indicated assent.

The hon. Member nods agreement.

They also accept nine hours on a Sunday. Obviously, it is best for them to chose their own hours, because they can then chose the pattern that best fits their neighbourhood. There may be the odd instance when a pub on one side of the street choses to open and close one hour before a pub on the other side of the street, but that is best left to the licensing justices to iron out, and they are good at that type of thing.

The justices will ensure that there is a reasonable pattern of hours throughout a neighbourhood, but the broad general choice should be left to the licensees. In that way they would avoid the 14 hours that Lord Erroll and his committee laid down. I appreciate his reasons for laying down 14 hours—Lord Erroll wanted width and felt that the licensees would be able to chose their own hours within that time, and he felt that the publican would be able to resist the pressure of the brewer and other outside interests. I do not accept that he could resist that pressure, and so we have to build in protection in another way.

How are the licensing justices to exercise control over what the hon. Gentleman wants to be the free choice of the licensee but not of the manager?

Because of the speed at which I was speaking, I did not say that I accepted the protection contained in the Erroll Report, which says that there should be exemption for any two hours, that is to say, that between ten o'clock in the morning and midnight should be a period over which the licensing justices would have control to the extent of being able to say that a pub could not be open for two hours, perhaps because a building site was nearby, perhaps because of a local synagogue, perhaps because of a local sporting event. In that way the licensing justices would be able to use this regulator while leaving maximum discretion to the licensee.

Those are some of the matters with which I had wished to deal this afternoon. I have shown how to resolve some of the difficulties that have arisen. We could resolve the problem of reasonably protecting the interests of the licensee and the whole of the trade. We could extend opening hours, which is what the country generally wants, and we could give, particularly to dance halls and restaurants and the rest of that aspect of the trade, the freedom needed to expand their businesses, and we should be able to give the country the opportunity to come into line with Europe. It was the intention of the Conservative Party in 1970 to introduce a Bill of that nature. It is singularly unfortunate—

Order. May I remind the hon. and learned Gentleman what I said earlier in the debate about the length of speeches.

May I point out, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that it is not ten to four. There have been six speeches and there is still one to go, for which there will be 10 minutes.

The hon. Member has spoken for 13 minutes. There is only just time for one more speech, leaving nothing for the Minister.

I understood that the Minister was not going to reply. When I spoke to my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State, I understood that he was to open for half an hour and that it was intended that the debate should continue without a further Front Bench speech.

Five seconds, possibly.

I shall be only 30 seconds at the most. If we retain the judicial system for the conduct and character of premises and if responsibility for structure goes to the local authority, we shall have a position in which alcoholism can be dealt with properly by medical agencies. We can achieve what is necessary at an early stage to introduce a suitable Bill instead of a Bill on a subject such as firearms, which could be thoroughly unpopular in the country.

3.52 p.m.

I am grateful, Mr. Deputy Speaker. for your calling "Time, gentlemen, please". I have a family interest in the licensed trade and a constituency interest because of the clubs in the area that I represent.

I first refer to the unique nature of the drinking rules within public houses. I recognise that that subject has been dealt with by other hon. Members and that there is no need to add to their remarks. Public houses have a social place within the structure of our society. Because of my asociation with licensees, I shall refer particularly to the difficulties that are placed in the way of those employed in the licensed trade and the effects on registered member clubs throughout the country.

We rely very much on those who serve in public houses. I am reminded from my own family connections of earlier unlimited licensing hours. My mother-in-law used to work up to 12 o'clock at night before the premises were closed. She would then have to scrub and clean the place, and the premises would be open again at 6 o'clock the next morning. Heaven forbid that we ever return to those sorts of hours in the licensed trade.

Even now the licensed trade is working longer hours than any other section of the community. It is rather strange that we should find the Erroll Committee suggesting longer hours. The suggestion is that shift work could be employed. We must remember that there is a responsibility on managers for stock and stock shortages. They bear entire responsibility for stock.

It is a vulnerable trade. It is difficult to move into a shift system within the licensed trade. I cannot see such a move happening when there are incurred the increased costs to which the hon. Member for Rugby (Mr. William Price) referred. Staff represents another difficulty. It is getting more and more difficult to recruit into the trade the necessary staff to serve. I should not like to say what difficulty there will be if extra hours are introduced.

I accept that there is a need for flexibility. I accept whatever has been said about that. However, it is a great pity that we are moving away from the tendency for private ownership of public houses. The public house trade is a unique and individual trade.

Another matter which is worrying licensees and which has not been mentioned today is the difficulty that faces a licensee when he must judge the age of a person drinking within his public house. The onus is completely on him. It should not be. The law should be changed in that respect, and it should be changed possibly before anything that we are now talking about in Erroll. Loosely associated with this subject is the committee's suggestion about allowing children into licensed houses. I am afraid that I could not support it.

I come now to the question of clubs. I deal first with the proprietors' clubs, which are owned by individuals. Here we require even tighter controls than the Erroll Committee suggests, because this is an area which is open to a great deal of abuse.

I then refer to membership clubs, which are run by their own members. These are the ones that really concern me. They are know as registered clubs. The Under-Secretary referred to their being vetted for children's use. However, I remind my hon. Friend that they are vetted before they become registered, and in my view that should be sufficient to carry them through on the question of considering them as ideal places in which to carry out a service to families.

There are many different types of members' club. There are working mens' clubs, golf clubs, political clubs and ex-Service men's clubs. They do a tremendous service to the community. They are run by dedicated officers, the majority of whom are completely voluntary and give a great deal of time to the community. My own club, the Kingstanding Ex-Service Social Club, is a tremendous success story. It serves the area extremely well and performs a great social service. Recently, it urged me to see the general secretary of the Clubs and Institutes Union, which has 4 million members. I saw him, and I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary for meeting him at the Home Office and hearing his representations about the fears of clubs in this country.

One matter that concerns members' clubs is the proposed changeover to two licences involving the licensing of both the premises and of the person. Any change of the secretary or the steward holding a licence will be extremely difficult if the committee's proposal is adopted.

Another matter concerning club members in my area is the proposed right of police entry. They feel that it would not be an improvement. A great deal of control is exercised over individuals by the very fact of club membership.

Young people are definitely catered for in our clubs under their present system of management since they are democratically controlled by families who are members of them.

It must be obvious that all that we have heard about the hours of drinking in public houses applies equally to our clubs. I do not want to see us move away from the old pub and club system, going over, instead, to a continental type of cafe or drinking den.

3.58 p.m.

Unfortunately, the debate has had to be very short. That was not the Government's fault. It had been thought that it would begin a good deal earlier. However, I assure all those hon. Members who have spoken that I have taken full account of what they have said.

I say to the hon. Member for Rugby (Mr. William Price) that we have not been at a funeral today. I prefer to look upon this as part of the process of consultation to assist the Government in drawing up legislation to make our licensing laws more appropriate to modern means and conditions.

Our aim must be to achieve flexibility and freedom of choice so as to be of advantage to customers and the country as a whole, while avoiding running the risk of the greater use of alcohol or of putting a greater burden on the shoulders of licensees. That is how we shall approach this extremely useful report and what has been an interesting and valuable debate.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved, That this House takes note of the Erroll Report on Liquor Licensing Laws (Command Paper No. 5154).

The Minister will be aware that I do not raise the problems of North-East Lancashire in any party political sense. I have raised them and initiated debates under successive Governments—

It being Four o'clock, the Motion for the Adjournment of the House lapsed, without Question put.

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

I raise the matter again because the problems that have haunted North-East Lancashire ever since the Industrial Revolution remain with the area. I do not wish to indulge in overemotional or exaggerated language, because it is counter-productive. I do not want to do anything that would give those whom we would welcome in the area—new industry and those providing a diversification of industry in particular—the impression that it is bleak, grey and depressing. It is none of those things. But it would be foolish and equally counter-productive to pretend that it does not have basic, inherent problems.

The two most glaring problems which face North-East Lancashire, and which have faced it for many years, are migration away from the area and obsolescence. I hope that in any discussion about aid for the area, or for any region, those two criteria will be acknowledged far more than unemployment as being among the main reasons for distributing aid.

Having located the two areas of most concern, I should like to bring them up to date in the light of the reports I have read in the Press—I know nothing more about them—about the possible aid from European funds to be given to the older industrial regions in the European Economic Community. I do not want to debate the rights or wrongs of European policy. I should be ruled out of order if I did. But I should like to know what the criteria will be for the distribution of those funds. The Minister may well not be able to give me the answer today.

I give the Minister advance warning that North-East Lancashire will expect to be given high priority on the basis agreed for the distribution of the funds. The area would want that basis to reflect the high degree of migration and the whole problem of urban renewal. These should be the two main criteria deciding the amount of funds distributed under the grant.

I mentioned that migration was a serious and continuing problem in North-East Lancashire. I wonder whether the Minister has seen the latest census figures. I am no statistician, and I have not read them in detail, but the summary indicates that the problem in the area is serious. The up-to-date figures confirm that migration and loss of population, and therefore an imbalance in the age of population, still constitute a serious problem in North-East Lancashire as opposed to other parts of Lancashire.

I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman has seen the report of the study group on Oldham, one of several study groups set up by the Government. It is a very good and very full report. The problems of Oldham are very similar to those of any town in North-East Lancashire, as the report points out. They are certainly the problems of Accrington, Burnley, Blackburn, Nelson and Colne and the rest.

I admit that this and other Governments have directed grant aid to help with urban renewal. However, there is a need not only to continue this aid but to increase it in varying ways. Unless there is a massive public investment programme in the towns in North-East Lancashire the problem will continue year in, year out, and the full economic potential of the region will not be achieved.

Another problem of vital concern to North-East Lancashire is that of communication. The Minister will be aware that I shall be referring to the construction of the Calder Valley fast route—the M65. We had an assurance from the Prime Minister and the then Secretary of State for the Environment, now the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, that the whole of this motorway, which is essential for the economic, industrial and commercial health of the area, would be commenced in 1974 and completed in 1977–78.

The proposals have now been somewhat watered down in the sense that the length of the motorway from the east of Burnley to Colne is now to be a two, not a three-lane route as we had hoped. This has been accepted with some reluctance by the local authorities. If they had not accepted it, there might have been a substantial delay. I should like an assurance that there will be no delay either directly or indirectly to the start of the fast route and that we can expect a physical start to be made on the Burnley-Colne section certainly in late 1974 or—I shall be generous—early 1975.

The North-East Lancashire Development Committee, the local authorities, and general opinion in the region attach great importance to an early start being made on the connection from the Eden-field by-pass to the Calder Valley fast route through Accrington and east of Accrington because, on the completion of the Bury easterly by-pass, this will give the North-East Lancashire area a further direct connection with the M62 and, thereby, the national network.

I should also like some early indication on the part of the Government that they will agree to an extension of the M65 forward across into Yorkshire to meet the proposed Airedale motorway, thereby giving North-East Lancashire a much needed direct route to the eastern seaports.

The Minister will know that many hon. Members on both sides of the House representing North-East Lancashire had strong objections to the construction of the Central Lancashire new town. It was approved by the previous Government and the go ahead was given by this Government, but certain assurances were given. We were assured that we would be provided with a motorway, intermediate area status, and grant aid for urban renewal. I should like to be assured that nothing will be done to ensure that the Central Lancashire new town is given preference over the older areas of North-East Lancashire. This would certainly happen if there were a delay on the construction of the motorway or if, as has happened, the extension of intermediate area status included the new town. We were very disappointed about that.

We in North-East Lancashire are disappointed, too, because an assurance has been given that the Central Lancashire new town will be eligible for some of the civil servants who are to be dispersed from London under the proposals of the Hardman Committee, whereas it had appeared that that was not to happen. I am aware, of course, that the Government's plans are not final, that there have been discussions between the Minister for the Civil Service, his officials and those in North-East Lancashire, and that the situation is fluid and in the end we may be lucky and get some of these people. We regard it as necessary to get these jobs in our area if school-leavers are to remain there and if there is to be a diversification of job opportunities.

I mentioned communications and dealt with road travel. Perhaps I may now deal with the appalling rail services in the North-East Lancashire area. The rail service from Preston to London is excellent—the inter-City service is one of which the country can be proud—and it now takes only about three hours to get from London to Preston.

But once one gets to Preston, one runs into difficulties. It takes almost as long to travel the 20 miles from Preston to Accrington as it does to travel from London to Preston, which is absurd. The services are dreary and depressing. I am not blaming the local management, which is aware of the problems, but it seems almost as though people are being encouraged not to travel by rail. The last trains are ridiculously early in the evening. The same sort of problem arises over travel between North-East Lancashire and Manchester.

The Town Clerk of Accrington, Mr. Nigel MacGregor, soon to be clerk of the new district authority, is well aware of the problems and has asked me to raise them in the House, which I have now done, and I pay tribute to Mr. Bryan Whittle, the Town Clerk of Burnley and Honorary Secretary of the North-East Lancashire Development Committee, for the help that he has given in highlighting some of the problems which he considers to be of particular concern in the area.

I appreciate the Minister's having come here to reply to the debate, but I hope that he will not resort to the usual refuge of saying that the unemployment figures are low in North-East Lancashire. We know that already. They are invariably low, and one reason is the drift of young people from the area. I hope that the debate has highlighted the difficulties and that the Minister will pass on to his colleagues what I have said about the twin problems of migration and obsolescence.

There is an ageing population in Accrington, and, because of the imbalance, problems have arisen during the last two or three months because of the closure of one post office and the threatened closure of a sub-post office. Such action is particularly damaging in an area with a high proportion of old people. Being a hilly area, the amenities are less attractive than they might otherwise be.

I do not want to go on and on. I could refer to other amenities which have gradually disappeared. I could refer in greater detail to the closure of the parcels depot. All in all, the problem of migration is perhaps the most serious, and in assessing what aid should be given to a region that aspect of the matter should be given top priority. If it were, I am sure that North-East Lanca- shire would be given the maximum amount of aid.

4.15 p.m.

I am sure that the House is grateful to the hon. Member for Accrington (Mr. Arthur Davidson) for setting out so reasonably and yet so clearly the comprehensive picture of the problems as he sees them affecting the area which he represents. I certainly acknowledge to him that he has done this no matter what position in the House he has happened to occupy, whether on the Government or Opposition benches. He is right in acknowledging the fact that this is shared by colleagues of his in the area from both sides of the House. It is certainly not a picture of which the Government are unaware.

The hon. Member has produced quite a list of problems. I shall try to answer as many of the points as possible. Post office closures are, perhaps, problems which I shall have to leave to be dealt with in correspondence by someone else. I am immensely grateful to him for not inviting me to debate in 15 minutes the merits of our membership of the European Economic Community.

We are aware of the problems. The unacceptable rate of outward migration undoubtedly tends to drain the community of many of its most enterprising members. In a large degree it no doubt reflects the lack of opportunities in the service sector. It is a little difficult to be conclusive from the available figures. I have looked at the preliminary results of the census. The 1966–71 returns show a drop in net outward migration. Just what the reasons for that may be it is too early to tell. In 1961–66 the net loss was about 7,000. In 1966–71 it looks like being less. It would be interesting to have these figures studied to see what we can learn from them. But I am not able to give firm conclusions.

I recognise also that the 19th century heritage of housing and industrial stock represents considerable disadvantages, though there are some notable improvements which can be pointed to. The lack of an adequate variety of employment opportunities is an important factor.

I shall turn shortly to the points that the hon. Member has raised. I should like, first, to try to dispel any impression which the debate might create inadvertently that the picture in North-East Lancashire is one of unrelieved gloom. I am sure that the hon. Member would not wish that impression to go out from the debate. Labour relations in the area are good. There is a skilled labour force. Community pride is strong. Unemployment throughout the area is low. I am not making a point of that but it is a fact. In many places unemployment is below the national and regional averages. The latest figures that I have seen, for September 1973, show 1.7 per cent. of the insured population being registered as unemployed, of whom one-third, in Accrington, were over 55 years old. That is out of a total of about 500 registered unemployed. Registered vacancies in North-East Lancashire have trebled in the past year and are now at a high figure of 4,700. of which 2,600 are male jobs.

There is also ample evidence that the measures of the Industry Act coupled with our policy of stimulating national growth have had a beneficial effect on North-East Lancashire. Since March 1972 industrial development certificates for 3.8 million square feet for projects expected to provide 4,300 jobs have been granted, and offers have been made and applications are under consideration for selective financial assistance for projects involving nearly 3,000 jobs. There is, of course, some overlap between the two categories, but even so it is clear that projects involving between 3,000 and 5,000 jobs are likely to go ahead in North-East Lancashire. The three DTI advance factories in the area, at Haslingden, Nelson and Burnley, have all been taken up, and with their products, vehicle clutches, cigarette filters and book binding, will provide useful diversification of the industrial pattern. There is also some evidence that office developments have been going ahead in the area, particularly in Burnley and Blackburn. New office developments will be eligible for our new office incentives which provide up to £800 per job moved to the assisted areas up to a maximum of 50 per cent. of the employment in the project, and up to three years rent free or equivalent assistance for building in intermediate areas.

These welcome developments suggest that North-East Lancashire has not suffered from the extension of intermediate area status to the whole of the North-West Region.

I should not like it to be thought that the area is missing out on new technology. I know that the Lucas Aerospace factory at Burnley, for instance—in which the hon. Member for Burnley (Mr. Dan Jones) takes a lively interest—has a workforce of about 2,400 people, 60 per cent. of whom are working on sub-contract work for Rolls-Royce on the RB211 engine, and significant research and development work is carried out there with support from Government funds.

Perhaps anticipating next year's developments, when the boundaries between Yorkshire and Lancashire suffer some radical alteration, bringing Barnoldswick into Lancashire—no doubt a matter of intense local feeling—it is fair to remind the House that at Barnoldswick, the Rolls-Royce factory has a labour force of 2,500, again working on the advanced engines one of whose initials gives honour to the town and where, incidentally, the Whittle engine was developed in a former weaving shed. So that town is ahead in the diversification stakes.

The Department of the Environment also recognises the problems of the area. As an intermediate area, it gets 75 per cent. grant for derelict land clearance and the higher rate for housing improvement. Good progress has been made with the clearance and replacement of the worst slums and local authorities in the area have shown real initiative in improving older housing.

There have been attractive developments of central and shopping areas, not only in the large towns of Burnley and Blackburn but also in the smaller towns of Accrington and Nelson. The area has also been a major beneficiary of Operation Eyesore, as I know from having seen a recent report by a team who visited there and who were most surprised to see how clean and attractive the area is. So that is the background, although the hon. Member's points are not unfair.

The proposals for the EEC Regional Development Fund and the criteria for its application have recently been put forward by the Commission for consideration by the Council of Ministers. North-East Lancashire was listed among the places which will be eligible for assistance, but we do not yet know—in other words, it has not yet been decided—how the funds will be spent or administered. However, I note and will pass on the hon. Gentleman's remarks about the criteria of migration and obsolescence and his emphasis on the priority which he believes should be accorded to the area. With national regional aids, the intermediate areas have been classified as "central areas" under Article 154 of the Treaty of Rome, but this will not affect the assistance for those areas which is at present available.

The hon. Member also mentioned the Calder Valley highway. We are aware of the importance of this scheme for North-East Lancashire. I can stress that it is not affected by the postponements announced recently, which applied only to the period 1974–75, whereas, under the statutory procedures which are now the next stage for this project, the earliest that the road could be started is early 1975 and the probable starting date is much more likely to be 1975–76. But the hon. Member will know—because he has had a copy of the letter—that my right hon. Friend the Minister for Transport Industries has written to hon. Members representing the area, promising to take special account of the probable contribution of this road to the development of North-East Lancashire as a whole. My right hon. Friend will undoubtedly note what has been said again today on this subject. I know that he is being pressed on it by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. Waddington) and others.

As for the Central Lancashire new town, if I may use this phrase, it has not yet got off the ground—in other words, one could say that the footings have not even been laid—so it is impossible to be sure of its effects on North-East Lancashire. We are still considering the master plan and have only reached the stage of acquiring land for housing, but we have no reason to think that North-East Lancashire will suffer from the new town; there are indications that any effects there will be beneficial.

The distances involved between the hon. Member's area and that in which the new town is to be developed are not so great as to rule out commuting. Although there may be jobs on offer 10 or 20 miles from the homes of his constituents, it does not necessarily follow that they will not be as able to compete for those jobs as anyone else. It could be argued that, being on the spot, they will be able to be first in when the jobs come up.

There could also be spin-off benefits in the form of additional sub-contracting work for North-East Lancashire firms and from the general stimulus given to places adjoining. But the development plans for the new town are flexible and we shall certainly keep North-East Lancashire's needs in mind in proceeding with it.

The hon. Gentleman referred to the Hardman Report. In the debate earlier this week, the hon. Member for Burnley and others expressed their views forcibly, and there is no doubt about the concern felt about the need to increase employment opportunities in that area. But the Hardman proposals are still under consideration, just as we are giving careful consideration to the representations which have been and are being made. My hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary to the Civil Service Department has been seeing deputations, including one from North-East Lancashire, and he is well aware of all the considerations involved.

But it is right to remind the hon. Gentleman that the Hardman recommendations were based on the need for dispersal to a small number of large places so as to maintain efficiency. This is a reasonable criterion. But if there should be dispersal of jobs—this brings me back to the point I made earlier—to the central Lancashire new town, this should not rule out the possibility of some of the new jobs going to people in Accrington and elsewhere who are looking for office work.

The hon. Gentleman complained about rail services. I cannot say that I have ever travelled by rail to Preston. It seems to be a pilgrimage one makes north by road, and I must confess that, generally, having reached Preston, I turn left towards Blackpool rather than right to what I am persuaded may be more attractive places. If we should have cause to go north next year, I hope that the hon. Gentleman will offer to show me his constituency. I would like to see it for myself. I do not believe that it is as remote as sometimes we are led to believe.

I shall be delighted to take the hon. Gentleman round—as long as we go by car and not by train.

I suggest that we might make the journey by road. It might be too soon for the new road to be open, but we can see the route on the map.

I recognise the importance of communications. The hon. Gentleman did not mention air communications and he should not rule them out. I believe that there is scope for the development of a regional network of services to areas like his, which many visitors to this country refuse to believe exist because they seem to be so many hours away in travelling time.

I must not anticipate later debates, but I must stress that what I have said about regional networks does not mean that I am endorsing the idea of a regional dispersal of international air traffic. I think I might carry the hon. Gentleman with me if I say that I doubt whether visitors to this country could be persuaded to accept Liverpool Town Hall as a sub- stitute for Buckingham Palace in their photographs. I am sure, also, that the complaints we already get about the growing noise nuisance at Manchester as the number of movements grows would greatly increase if there were evidence that Manchester was likely to become a contender for the Maplin stakes.

I am conscious of not having covered everything raised by the hon. Gentleman in his very agreeable speech in the depth it deserves. But I give him a firm undertaking that all the points he has raised and which I have not fully answered will be carefully considered by my right hon. and hon. Friends, both in my Department and in the others with an interest in and a responsibility for the economic progress of North-East Lancashire. I hope that by the time I take up his offer of a conducted tour we shall see some real results.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at twenty-nine minutes past Four o'clock.